My terrible experience began on April 4th 2005. My fiancé (who by the way was 4 months pregnant during all this) and I had decided to move from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Birmingham Alabama. We decided to rent a U-haul trailer to move our things.

The truck that we had, a 2001 Ford Ranger pickup had a class 1 hitch (200 tongue weight, 2000 towing weight.) U-hauls website stated that I could tow a 5x8 foot trailer safely. I reserved the trailer several weeks in advance. But the max weight of the 5x8 trailer is 1800 pounds. I was afraid that I would be really pushing it if I got this one. It was right on the border of what the truck could handle. So the day of the move I change the order and got the smaller 4X8 even though it meant that we were going to have to leave some of our belongings behind.

I arrived at a Corporate U-Haul dealer on the afternoon of Monday the 4th of April. I again tried to go the safe route and went to a U-Haul corporate location rather than a fly by night franchise. Before I went to the dealer I called to ask about having a wiring harness installed on my truck, so the lights on the trailer would work. They told me that it would cost $25 and to bring my truck over. When I arrived they surprised me by telling me that not only was there no one to connect the wiring harness, but also it would be $50. They told me that there was another location in town that I could go to. They then suggested that I go ahead and rent the trailer and take it to the other location to have the lights hooked up. I looked at the clerk and asked, "So you want me to drive across down in rush hour with a trailer with no brake lights?" He just sort of looked at me with a strange look on his face until he realized what he was asking..

I finally bought UHaul's Tap-A-Lite and hooked up the lights myself. When I got done another worker brought the trailer over to my truck and started to mount it on my hitch. He stopped all of the sudden and told me that I needed a different ball size to hook up the trailer. He said that I had a 1&7/8? ball and the hitch required a 2? ball. I explained to him what I had read on the company website and that it stated that I could use a 1&7/8? ball. He finally looked down at the tongue of the trailer and read the label that explained the different ball sizes that could be used.

Finally after and hour and a half we were on our way home. Ten minutes after leaving the dealership the turn signal on the trailer stopped working. I was able to stop at an auto parts store and repair the wiring and again we were off. We loaded the trailer and got up early the next morning. We placed our two cats in kennels in the back of the truck and both our dogs in another. We stopped in Clovis New Mexico to pickup some items that belonged to us before leaving the state, only to find that we couldn't take everything we wanted because we had gotten the smaller trailer. In fact some of the things we left behind simply because we were afraid of overloading such a small trailer. We arrived in Lubbock on the afternoon of the 5th and Dallas on the afternoon of the 6th. We took our time making it across Texas because of all the bad weather.

On the morning of the 7th we headed out of Dallas and arrived in Shreveport, Louisiana around 2 in the afternoon. At about 2:30 p.m. is when all hell broke loose. While on I-20 near exit 17 I heard a loud bang behind me. I looked in the rear view mirror and noticed the trailer was leaning to the right side. It was swaying back and forth and a causing the truck to shake violently. I was already in the left hand lane, so I just let off the gas in an effort to slow down as I started to drift to the left. The next thing I knew the truck suddenly was facing 90 degrees to the right and we were going across three lanes of traffic. Just when I thought we were about to hit the wall we swung back to the left 180 degrees, and then the truck started rolling, passenger side first.


When I woke up everything was confusing and I was disoriented. I was upside down. I heard my fiancé? calling out to me, and all I could tell her was that I was hurt. She had already crawled out of the truck but I was trapped inside. There was no way for her to get me out, she undid my seatbelt and tried to get me free, but just couldn't. Finally people that stopped to help were able to pull me out of the passenger side window.

The next thing I remembered was that people were all around; my black lab puppy was licking my face and wouldn't leave me alone. Finally the Police and Fire Department arrived. The Police took our statement. We were both placed on back boards and take to the hospital. I was told they would look for our animals, only the lab puppy had seemed to have made it. There was no sign of the other animals.

The hospital did a cat scan on me and an ultrasound on my fiancé. She checkout just fine but they told me I had a concussion. They treated a nasty scrape on the top of my head where glass was imbedded into the skin. Before I go any further I have to thank with all of my heart the ER staff of St. Mary Shumpert Hospital. They treated us wonderfully. The hospital staff got us a free taxi and a cheap hotel room in an effort to help us.

Once we arrived at the motel I called U-Haul to report the accident. They asked me a ton of question about what happened, but not once did they offer an apology or ask if we were ok. When I explained that we were stuck in a motel until my in-laws arrived from Delaware and our funds were limited, U-Haul refused to help. They went on to say that they couldn't even file the accident report because they had no record of my rental, and needed my rental agreement number on the receipt. I explained that the receipt and paperwork on the rental was in the truck, with the trailer and that everything was in impound. I further explained that I wouldn't be able to get there until the following Monday.

On Saturday the 9th of April my in-laws arrived. I had never met them before, so it was a little strange meeting them for the first time, especially when under these circumstances. I couldn't have like a pair of people more. They took my fiancé and I and got us some clothes and got us checked in to a decent hotel. (We had been staying in a crap hotel, and wearing the same clothes for 3 days.) They welcomed me into the family as well as anyone ever could, but back to my story.

On the way in they told us they saw a dead cat on the interstate. My father in-law and I went out the next day and confirmed it was my fiancés cat.



Because it was a Saturday, we were unable to do anything in preparation of retrieving our things or dealing with U-Haul. They wouldn't do anything until I had the rental number, and that was in the truck which was in impound along with the trailer and everything we had owned.

Finally Monday arrived and we set out to get the trailers swapped out and get the hell out of Louisiana. We went to the Police station and retrieved our firearms. We then headed to the pound to check on my puppy. We then went to impound yard to retrieve the rental agreement and take a look at the truck and trailer. When we arrived I was shocked by what we saw. It was the first time I was able to see the damage. The roof of the truck was caved in; it was amazing that I had survived. My head rest was now out the back window above the roof.


The most amazing part was when we found that the trailer was missing its right tire. I found it a few minutes later in the bed of the pickup. Apparently it was found by the tow truck company at the time of the wreck and placed there. It appeared that the axle just snapped at the hub.

We took as many pictures as we could and then called U-Haul. I went ahead and answered all of their repetitive questions. Finally I asked about getting a replacement trailer. The woman on the other line told me that all she does is take the reports and I would have to call another department to arrange another trailer. I called the number she gave me only to get the run around again. First they weren't going to give me another trailer. Then they were but wanted me to pay for it. Then they didn't want me to pay for it but wanted me to pay the towing and impound bill on the old trailer. Finally the decided to give me the trailer that I asked for. The kicker was that they said I had to go to a location to pickup the trailer 30 miles away, even though there was a location 5 minutes away that had the size we wanted. We drove to the location the told us we ?Had? to go to. Yet when we arrived were told to go back to the location that we had requested in the first place. We proceeded to try to pickup the trailer only to get asked for a cash deposit for it. After about 30 minutes of explaining that I wasn't going to give them any money they agreed to give me the trailer. They only problem was they didn't have anyone that knew how to hook up the mess of wires on the trailer to my Father in-law's truck. Finally we were able to get everything hooked up but had to get an even bigger trailer than we needed. We drove to the impound to get our stuff. It took us about an hour to unload and load the new trailer. Almost everything that could be broken inside the trailer was. My computer, my laptop, our TV, VCR, anything electronic was destroyed even though I had carefully packed the trailer.

After we got everything loaded and took a last look at everything we headed to the hotel. The next morning we picked up our dog from the pound and continued on the Birmingham. We finally arrived in Birmingham exactly one week after we left Albuquerque.

A few days after we arrived in Birmingham I had to return to the ER. I had continued (and still do) have headaches, nausea, etc. The doctors did another cat scan and told me that I have post concussion syndrome. My memory doesn't work like it used to and my fiancé constantly complains that I forget things. Looking back I think that if it wasn't for the love of our friends and family and the love of God that we would have never survived.

A week after getting to Birmingham I received a phone call from the animal shelter in Shreveport. They had found our other dog the Friday before. She had been hiding under a house near the interstate where the wreck had occurred. My fiancé went the next day with my boss to get her. She didn't have any injuries and is doing fine, just like my other dog. We still are awaiting word about our other cat "Mason" and can only hope that the cat that died met his fate quickly.

I contacted witnesses (I purposely have not posted thier written statements on the web for legal reasons) and got the same story from both people. Everything looked fine until the wheel flew off the trailer! Then the wreck happened...

I received a call from the adjuster for Uhaul. He state that their "impartial expert witness" inspected the trailer and found that the reason for the accident was the hitch that was on our truck They claim that the hitch failed causing the truck to fish tail, which then caused stress on the hub and caused it to snap. I tried to tell the adjuster that this was contrary to what the witness statements from the accident said...but he wouldn't listen...
-Updated 2/18/2008-
Kim and I were married in July of 2005. Our daughter Aris was born in October of 2005. Healthy and well, she is doing great. My memory is pretty much back to normal but my back still bothers me. My doctor tells me that my back will never be the same and I will have trouble with it the rest of my life. We still haven't found an attorney that will take the case. I'm starting to believe that if you have enough money you can screw over whom ever you want and get away with it. Uhaul has never offered any type of compensation and are now billing me over $1600 for the trailer that was destroyed in the wreck.

I thought this bill was rather nice of them.