Stuntman Training #3 - Creative Uses for Living Room Furniture

I mentioned briefly in previous posts that I used to work with a Halloween Haunted Hayride. So many great (or terrible, depends on how you look at it) things happened during these hayrides that I will never run out of posts to write concerning them. Before I tell this story, let me explain how this hayride works.

Let me 'splain.
No, there is too much.
Let me sum up.

Every year, the local Jaycees host a Haunted Hayride for the public. It is a huge money maker for the yearly Jaycees budget. They pull hay wagons through the woods and actors are set up in various scenes throughout the trail to scare the people who paid money to have their dates jump into their arms or see their children cry. It is great fun. However, the real fun was had by the volunteer actors out in the woods.

The Jaycees organize this event by getting local farmers to provide and drive tractors with wagons to pull people. They man a concession stand and sell tickets. They have guys working security to make sure no one wanders into the woods during this time and they have people monitoring the crowd. These tasks use up all of their manpower, so the scary scenes in the woods are provided by locals who volunteer to participate. About 150 people are in the various scenes scattered throughout the trail.

The locals volunteering to build and maintain a scene are not caring benefactors wanting to give back to the community. They are almost always local 15 to 25 year olds who see this as an opportunity to hang out in the woods dressed in crazy costumes, drink insane amounts of alcohol and act like idiots.

The volunteers are assigned their area and given access to it a week before the hayride. That time is used to build their scene, dig fire pits or do whatever needs to be done to have it completed before the following weekend. I have had a scene with my brothers or friends four different years. It was during one of these weekends that I wrote about setting my brother on fire for the amazement of the customers. However, this story does not involve me.

This was just too much fun.

My youngest brother, Trevor, had a scene with his friends on this particular year. After a weekend of debauchery, extreme drunkenness, running naked through the woods and hitting on girls in neighboring scenes, it was now Sunday and time to clean up their area.

After filling in their fire pit, collecting all the empty beer cans and loading everything into their vehicles, they were left with the old couch they had dragged out there. It had worked great for their scene, but no one wanted it now. It was old and moldy, but they couldn't leave it there. However, the vehicles were full, there was no place to put it and no one wanted to come back once they left.

Pay attention, kids!

Still being legally inebriated after the weekend events, they hatched a plan. They strapped a chain around the ends of the couch and decided to drag it out.

Illinois state law prohibits open alcohol containers inside a moving vehicle, so my brother and his friend Chet decided to ride on the couch, which would allow them to continue to drink. We will overlook the fact that they were all underage and the legality of dragging a couch down the road behind a truck. Give them a break, they had been drinking for three whole days.

Maneuvering out of the wooded area proved to be a challenge, but they eventually reached the road. Once on the road, the coach moved rather smoothly. Since the couch was positioned backwards, Trevor and Chet enjoyed the looks they were getting from passing motorists as they continued down the road unaware that the driver was experimenting with how fast the couch could go before there would be a problem.

Trevor first became aware of their high rate of speed when one of the legs came loose as the truck approached 30 mph. Once the leg came off, sparks started flying from the corner. Trevor and Chet turned around to yell to the driver to slow down. He was either unable to hear them or refused to respond, but he continued to accelerate.  They began to yell louder when they saw the railroad tracks quickly approaching.

Most couches are not equipped
with seat belts

Seconds after the truck passed over the tracks, the back of the couch caught the first track. The road had been smooth up to this point, but this small gap caused the couch to flip.

Trevor and Chet were launched into the air as the tumbling couch came apart beneath them. The fold-out bed inside was exposed and Trevor landed on the springs with a shower of sparks. Chet landed on the road and skidded off into a ditch.

Trevor, knowing that he was moving too fast to escape without injury held on to the quickly disintegrating bed frame while blinded by the sparks flying everywhere. This wild ride continued until the drunken driver attempted a sharp curve causing the coach to swing wide, hit the ditch and break loose from the chain. The final resting place was a mess of wires, springs and shredded upholstery with Trevor entangled in it all.

Once the dust cleared and Trevor was removed from the mess, it was discovered that he only had minor scrapes and bruises, but he was pretty shaken up. Once they found Chet, they drank a beer to celebrate what had just been survived.

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For other failed stuntman stories, check out the following links:
Don't Try This at Home
This Is Why My Body Is Falling Apart Today
Stuntman Training #1
Stuntman Training #2 - Playing with Fire