On this very night 10 years ago I saw the worst accident I ever seen. There was this sound, like a garbage truck dropped off the Empire State Building!

i once picked a game up from a guy in conneticut, (i forget his pinside username) he was going around the house on a knee scooter because he was moving a game on one of those pinball carts that jack up with a hydro, and a bolt or a piston or something snapped and sent the game flying and landed on his foot breaking it.

About 8 years ago, when I first got into this community, I was going to get a TFTC from @jk2171. I am driving from Dayton, OH to Chicago, IL in an Enterprise cargo van because at the time I didn't have a "dedicated pin hauler". As I am approaching Indianapolis, jk calls me and tells me there is a DM that he wanted and was ready for me to use my TFTC money to pay for and bring it to him, and then I'd just pick up TFTC. Figured sure, why not. Was completely new to Pinside - and it's not who you are but who you know - so thought this would be a good way to start networking and get my foot in the door.

Get off the interstate at this exit that has one of those "Love"-sized gas stations with a Dennys attached, and I think one or two mom and pop stores on the other side of the road. Travel a good 10 miles and start making turns onto backroads with homes scattered - ok, so far so good. The roads become much longer with each turn until I am out in BFE, and I mean like dirt-road, no street-lights in the woods BFE. I had my Remington 1911 with me, but as a 45 ACP, I had 7+1, so figured if things went bad, I'd surely run out of shots and no one would hear me or the gunshots.

Finally, pull up to an established motorhome. This isn't an RV with one of those flimsy front doors as thick as cardboard, this is a double-wide, huge-ass mobile home with a sliding back door and all. Honestly, I sometimes wonder if it was just a very old single story home with a perfectly flat roof, but I digress. I notice there is an actual creek with a decent stream of water in the back, possibly deep enough with a strong enough current for an easy kayak trip. I thought: "Great, if I run out of bullets and die, my body will have the pleasure of being sent downstream closer to Dayton."

Guy living there comes out - super cool dude - and we go into his place. Sure enough, DM and a Taxi are right next to each other! So I'm giving the DM a look - all of like 2 months in the hobby - so I almost don't know WTF I am looking for, but I'm trying to be cool and look for the simple stuff - inlane wear, cliffys, credit dot, etc. My 2-month experienced self thought it looked good, called JK, told him about it, and he told me to go ahead and make the deal. I handed him the money, and asked him where his dolly was.

"Dolly? I don't have one. You got one?"

My heart sank right there. I knew just a regular pinball machine was 250 lbs or so, but this was a DM, and we have no way to wheel this monster to the van.

*Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrack, BOOM!* - Lightning hit nearby....... *Rain begins to fall*

And now we have a rainstorm.

So we wait a good 20 mins, and this storm is not letting up, and this is a torrential downfall - like - Biblical stuff here. I ask him if he has any tarps - sure enough he does! All right, lets get this thing ready, we're going out there. So we tarp this thing up the best we can with ratcheting straps to hold everything in place, and to do this we had the game on top of two saw-horses, so now the game is perfectly horizontal at about waist height. We wait another 10 mins or so, it's not letting up. I'm probably at least 2.5 hours behind my intended timeframe to be in Chicago.

The only way to get this monster out is through the back sliding door. Ok, cool. After that, we have to turn 90 degrees to the right and head about 15 feet before we reach the stairs, which will require another 90 degree turn to begin traversing down them. There are about five of them. After that, it's a clear shot to the cargo van. We got the plan ready; time to nut up or shut up.

We open the patio door, and the rain is just pelting us for even existing, much the less moving a 325+ lbs pinball machine. Now, we are on his wood deck, and the wood is soaked, so you can feel your feet slip around if you go too quickly, so we take our time almost coordinating each foot step we take together. We get to the stairs, and I can feel my arms getting light, but JK is depending on me to bring this monster to him, and I am not going to let him down!! As we traverse down the stairs, his roof ends just halfway over the stairs, so all the roof rain water is coming down on us and the DM. I this point, I just am hoping that the tarps hold the water out, and remember to load TFTC in the van first before he plugs that DM into the wall and flips the switch.

As we approach the van with the doors already open, the guy's yard has become this horrific mix of dirt, mud, broken grass, and rainwater - the storm has made the ground some sort of soup, and it is causing our shoes to sink with each step -making this Herculean task even more difficult. We press on, but I am losing all feeling in my arms at this point and only have maybe another 10 seconds left before I won't be able to hold on. We get to the van, and the doors swing out in opposite directions, so there is really no where for my partner to go. He has to work himself around the pin to the side in order to get his end of the game into the van. He does just this and you feel DM rest on the van, but it is just BARELY on there - maybe 0.25" of the game is resting in the van, the rest of it I am still supporting. My feet are sinking into the mud, my arms are going limp, I can feel the very tips of my fingers holding onto for dear life, and I tell him "I can't hold any longer, it's going to fall into the mud!!"

This guy goes underneath the game into the mud on his hands and knees and pushes up with his back, giving me the crucial pivot point I need. At which, I immediately get my full hands and half my arms underneath the game and move that monster with everything I got across him and into the van. We slam the doors shut, completely and totally drenched, and go back inside and enjoy a drink for a job well done. After that, the rain stopped.

After another 15 mins or so, I thank him for helping me, and I get back into the van. Looking like I just walk through an automatic car wash, I go into Dennys and get a well-deserved meal, thinking to myself "Bring a dolly next time. Holy crap."

I got to Chicago at around 8pm. Between loading up TFTC, getting DM down to his basement - which had nearly a 90 degree turn and I think we put a small hole in his wall getting it down there - and playing some pinball together, I left at 11pm. I got home around 5am. I originally left Dayton around 9am.

Pic of TFTC in the van once I got home (remember, I was brand new at moving games back then). I paid $1600.

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No injuries to speak of, but it was close on 2 occasions:

Story 1:
I’ve told this one before, but when I bought my first pin I knew absolutely nothing about them. I figured the legs came off because I could see the bolts but never knew the head folded down. At the bottom of my stairs I have a landing big enough for a machine upright and a dolly, a half wall that runs up the stairs and a 90 degree turn. We had to pick the machine up with the head still up and try to fit it over the half wall but under the ceiling. At one point I thought we were going to have to break the machine apart at the bottom of the stairs. Days later I figured out the head folded down and I felt like an idiot.

Story 2: This one could have been serious.
Picked up a new to me machine and had it standing straight up ready for assembly. The entire family was excited and my wife asked what she could do to help. My 3 and 5 year olds were looking at the machine waiting patiently. I told my wife she could cut the plastic wrap off of the machine and I’ll start getting the legs on. What a brain fart! She cut the plastic and the head folded down to the ground. It landed within inches of my 3 year old. From that day on I make my kids sit on the couch until the entire machine is put together. Also miraculously zero damage done to the machine.

A friend has two or three game parties a year. I've met a lot of nice guys at those parties, including a slender retiree who would do playfield swaps for you for a fee. The news at one of the parties was that he had had a heart attack and died while carrying someone else's pin into his house for a paid playfield swap. At my advanced age I sure don't need the same thing to happen to me.

Besides my pins, I have two linked Cruis'n Exoticas in my basement. To get each one down there I had to take them apart as much as possible, which included removing the seat assembly, control panel, CRT tube, back panel and the marquee. That still left a very heavy and bulky cabinet that due to its odd shape had to be hooked through the doorway, turned 90-degrees to the right, then carried down a flight of stairs. There was only room for two people to do this - one in front and one in back. Each cabinet was scary going down those stairs. And then I had to reassemble them. I don't see them ever going back up those stairs.

Seventeen pins (so far) have also made the trip down those stairs. Most carried by me and a buddy using a borrowed two-wheel hand cart, including Stern Mustang Premium NIB in 2014. My buddy wasn't available when I got Elvira's House of Horrors LE last year, so a coworker helped me for the first time. I am five years older than the last time, and I'm not getting stronger with age. I found myself on the bottom with the coworker (we'll call him Kevin) on top holding the handle on the hand cart. We went down stair by stair with Kevin rolling the wheels over the edge and me trying to lower it gently to the next step. It seemed a lot harder than ever before when we finally got to the basement level. That's when I found out that Kevin had been rolling it off each step and letting it free-fall for me to catch, instead of pulling up on the handle and helping ease it down (which my buddy had always done before).

+1 but replace fiancee with wife and add many more pins.
Steve

That's a hell of a trip! The dude getting into
quadruped to save the day is awesome.

guess it was appropriately named.

I pricked my finger once or twice.

See posts #9 and #14. Knew both parties quite well. Poor guy.

At a show a few years ago, a guy was taking down a Gottlieb "Solar City" and he started taking the body out with a hand truck like that one. I turned away for a second, then heard a loud thud. He was a rather small guy, and all I saw was the game on the floor, but he was apparently underneath it! Within a second or two, several people converged and lifted it off of him. That handle part must have whacked him right on the sternum, but he seemed more embarrassed than injured. He told me later that he had a couple too many pops, and should not have tried to move a game in his condition.

Better to prick your finger rather than.....

and it looked something like this...

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i suppose this is mainly situation we all have

same here, about age (lol), stairs, back pain, and being under...
when moving big pins in 1 piece, you better not think what could happend if the guy above let it go, and than the weight is pushing you backward in the stairs... if you fall on your back and pin did came right at your chin, good luck !

and than let's be honest, realistic, and not stupid : my last 2 pins did remain at the floor in the garage, it was 2 dead horses (when in 1 piece), DI & RFM

That was me

Worst I've had was a brittle 906 lamp crumble apart in my hand while shopping out a Striker Xtreme. I believe it was the one behind the white oval insert on the backboard of the playfield with GOAL written on it. The plastic was melted so the bulb was likely locked on at some point or on for a VERY long time. Took a few minutes for the ER nurses to dig all the glass out of two of my fingers.

Ironically several years later that same game tipped over during transport. Nothing bad happened to anyone or the game, just a little black paint missing off the back. Of all the games I've moved over the last 21 years that's the only machine I've had happen to me.

No deaths or injuries, but an semi-amusing tale nonetheless. First pin I ever bought was a pretty nice BTTF. Of course, if I would have known anything about great playing games I would have never bought this one (but it looked nifty). The guy I bought it from was very cool, helped me get it packed right and loaded into my truck. Got home and called a buddy to help me get this down the stairs. We each take a side (instead of an end) and maneuver the pin thru the front door, made a slight jog and came to a long set of steep carpeted stairs. My buddy was out of gas at this point and groaned that we had to set the machine down and rest--now! So we set it down at the top of the stairs and straightened up to take a breather. As soon as we let go the machine tilted over and went racing down the stairs head first--picking up speed as it went. I figured it would take the whole wall down once it hit, but noticed I had fortuitously left the downstairs door wide open (which I never do). Much to our amazement, the BTTF zipped down the stairs well above the posted speed limit and blew right thru the door opening, just barely touching one of the jambs enough to slow it down and stopped about 3/4 of the way through. Since the opening was only about a 1/2" bigger than the width of the machine, I was very impressed. Other than a shed small splinter of wood and a little paint transfer, BTTF was none the worse for wear.

Although I've been tempted to try this maneuver again, I've always used the outside route since the lucky slide.