Trucking Hell

In Northamptonshire, Sean's tasked with recovering a 17-tonne telehandler that's tumbled off a narrow gravel track and ended upside down at the bottom of a ditch. With fellow op Steve's help, he uses a strop around a tree trunk and a second around the telehandler to haul it back upright. Once re-rigged, some careful choreography with his remote control eventually eases it back onto solid ground. But their plan is only half complete. They still need to get it to the end of the dirt track, but soon discover that a major oil leak has left it without steering which works off the hydraulics. Can they quickly find a solution to complete this complex recovery?

Just south of Loughborough, Kevin McCluskey has to rescue a fully-laden delivery truck that has been left dead in the water after the driver and his mate attempted to pass through a flooded section of B-road. Kev's strategy is to attach j-hooks to the truck's axle and haul it free of the floodwater with his winch cable. Kev braves the icy water to attach the j-hooks but with the underside completely submerged, it's a fiddly business. Getting rigged is one thing, but steering the truck onto the back of his low loader without it taking a tumble will be a true test of Kevin's skills.

And on the outskirts of Newcastle, Mouse is called to recover a broken-down bus. Engine failure has left the double decker marooned on a busy T-junction, severely restricting the flow of traffic. A rear end lift and shift is impossible, so Mouse needs to position himself at the front of the bus. But with Newcastle's motorists turning up the heat, he will need to work quickly if he wants an easy end to his week!

In a remote area of Northumberland, a 44-tonne articulated lorry has attempted to drive up a hill, hit sheet ice, slid back down out of control and jackknifed, leaving it wedged across both sides of the road. Alpha's Kevin and Ian have been called to the scene in a specialist six-wheel drive truck to try and cope with the frozen ground and treacherous conditions. As a nerve-wracking nighttime rescue attempt begins, Kevin knows that one false move could see the lorry slide back down the hill again, with its immense weight potentially pulling his own vehicle with it.

Bohdan is on high alert in Hertfordshire for a dicey job on an exit of the A1 Motorway after a lorry gets stranded on the slip road. What he hopes will be a straightforward lift and shift turns into a nightmare, trying to remove the half shaft beside traffic filtering off the motorway. Bohdan must use every trick up his sleeve and all the tools in his arsenal to stand any chance of overcoming a half shaft horror show.

On a country lane near Coventry, recovery op Buzz fears the worst after a 26-tonne lorry gets caught in a ditch having had to swerve to avoid a collision. It's rush hour and the route is a well used cut through, but the only way to get the lorry out will be to shut the road. With a tailback growing, Buzz wants a quick escape for the truck, but it is more stuck than he thought. He must keep adapting to find the best pull set up, but any adjustments eat up the minutes as motorists grow increasingly impatient.

On the busy A42, at rush hour a car transporter goes up in smoke. Fire has quickly spread from the tractor unit to the trailer, dangerously igniting the hybrid vehicles it was carrying. It's critical that the burnt-out cars are removed and tested by the fire crew to check if they are still at risk, because damaged EV lithium-ion batteries can quickly get hot and reignite. Both carriageways are closed to keep the public safe as Steve Kelly from Crouch coordinates the mammoth clear up with a five-person team. The cars need to be craned carefully off the unstable wreckage, tested by the fire crew, and if they are too hot, they need to be cooled off in the latest bit of recovery kit - the EV cool tub.

In the south, teamwork also makes the dream work for Lantern when Daniel and Sean find themselves on a job off the beaten track. An A-class Mercedes missed the turning on a roundabout and took a nosedive down a steep bank colliding into woods. The ‘Lantern Horticultural team' get busy with their chainsaws and axes to clear a pathway before they can winch out the casualty. But first, they need to get a handle on their gardening tools.

Called out from home on the night shift, Dave from Alpha is sent to a job in the dark. A single decker bus has somehow managed to lodge itself in the mud on a mini roundabout outside a shopping centre in Middlesborough. What should be a ‘mini' problem becomes a big headache as Dave struggles to find something strong enough to attach his chains to. He needs his wits about him to extract the bus as it's firmly stuck between a curb, a deep hole, and a turning.

In Northumberland bad weather causes an emergency on the A1 involving an 18-ton truck. Plus, a tricky recovery on the 17th fairway of a golf course when a beer truck grinds to a halt.