Ron Pratt is a good Christian man. He’s also a proud American, endowed with many of his homeland’s finer virtues: courteous and deferential, thoughtful of others, hard-working, with a won’t-be-beaten, get-it-done attitude.
His trade is towing and recovery, on the highway and elsewhere. And prime among the machinery he uses is a monster truck called the Rotator (Tator for short, natch).
This state-of-the-art, 73,000-pound behemoth has a huge extending boom with multiple cables, hooks and clinches, compartments brimful of chains, shackles, straps, blocks, all sorts of other heavy-duty equipment, and a digital control system enabling full remote control.
All of which is needed, as Ron has to deal with all kinds of vehicular dramas: tractor-trailers that have jackknifed, overturned or are teetering precariously; cars way off the hardtop and down in a ditch; agricultural equipment marooned far into the woods, beached loads weighing sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds, you get the picture . . .
Called out day or night in all weathers, he’s often working in dangerous conditions. So safety awareness and precautions are a big part of the job.
And to film all this? Well, when out of the Tator he uses a headcam. This way you get an up-close view of his on-site interactions with state troopers, fire crews and other emergency services, and you see exactly how he goes about evaluating the situation, gets his crew organized and briefed, sorts out comms, and sets about the business of rescue.
But for all the gee-whizz machinery, this is a job that still involves a great deal of manual (“of their hands”!) labour, and Ron’s mike picks up every grunt of exertion, every laboured breath.
Ok yes, occasionally when he’s checking many directions quickly the headcam can make you a bit dizzy, but the overall effect is to put you right there as order is slowly restored to chaos.
Techniques vary according to the task: sometimes it might be a straight pull, but for others multiple cables are woven together into a complex cat’s cradle of physics and geometry. (Ships’ crews from the bygone days of rope and sail would certainly recognize—and applaud—his skills . . . )
All in all, it’s a fascinating insight into a world we never normally see. And into a good man doing a difficult—sometimes emotionally draining—job.
For although this is never shown, these accidents sometimes result in serious injuries or worse.
Which lends extra impact to Ron’s words early on in each video as he heads out to the scene: “as always, we ask for prayers, good thoughts, well-wishes for all involved . . . ”
Here’s the short introduction to his channel:
The videos are sometimes quite long, reflecting the complexity of the job and the challenging conditions. I’ve chosen a shorter one for here—a relatively simple [!] night-time recovery of a car that’s left the highway and is [! again] in a tree.
But you’ll get some idea at least of the Tator’s huge range and abilities, plus some of the ready-for-anything gear inside the truck’s many compartments.
And of course, Ron’s supreme mastery of his métier . . .