Saturday, November 25th, 2023, at 4:18 p.m., we received a request for an offroad recovery in Wildomar OHV, California (California 4×4 rescue), where Jerry Maldonado submitted the following information: “I have a 1992 Jeep Wrangler the right rear axle shaft broke and cannot move, or the shaft will fall off. Located 1/2 mile from the staging area. / I’m with the vehicle“.
We contacted Jerry, and after verifying his location and getting an initial photo, we started looking for local volunteers. At the time, we either needed a flat trailer or somebody to drag him off the trail.
After a few minutes, we had Andy Johnson asking us to share with SoCal Facebook group, where they have thousands of volunteers. We did, and Andy approved the post immediately. Thanks, Andy.
By 7:00 p.m., we have a local volunteer, Christopher Hargrove, offering to help with this the following morning. He contacted Jerry and offered help. The following morning, we contacted Jerry to follow up, but he decided to try to self-recover the vehicle using a technique you can see in the photo below.
This allowed Jerry to crawl out of the trail slowly without letting his axle move out. I believe this idea came from one of the members of the SoCal group who saw our post and commented on the solution.
Thanks to everybody who helped, offered help, or even suggested an idea. All helped with this offroad recovery in Wildomar OHV, California.
If you like to receive a text message when we get a request near you, create your account here: offroadportal.org/signup