Chris i thought this would be the place to post this if this is not the right forum put it where you think it needs to go.

I traveled to el dorado, kansas from hammond, louisiana to film the govenor's one shot turkey hunt. I made it all the way to kansas and almost back but right out of jackson,mississippi. My camera gear was sucked out of the back of the truck and onto i-55 south, both of my cameras were struck by cars and 18 wheelers. everything totally destroyed. my cameras and equipment were inside of there cases(kata, porta brace) which were inside 42 gallon rubermaid containers tied down. The hwy patrolman said a suction was created between the two 18 wheelers we where trying to pass. I called my insurance agent he told me it was covered under my homeowners personal property clause which covered up to 100,000 dollars. Thats great only have 1000.00 dollar deductible but lost 31000.00 dollars in equipment, so no biggie

Well my policy covered $250.00 of it.so please schedule your equipment under your home owner policy or carry a seprate policy for your equipment.

I hope this helps somebody, to not make the mistake i made.


torrey c. harris
1-225-315-6677

How did it get sucked out the back? Were you driving a pickup without the rear gate closed?

It seems like the better lesson would be learning to better secure equipment while driving instead of buying insurance...

i know this ? would come.

The pickup gate was closed and the rubbermaid container were ratcht strapped down. The suction liftedthe containers airbourne, i don't know how to explain it but we looked back and they were lefting up like a magican does that lavting thing with somebody, all of this in like slow motion and then they went flipping end over end

Torrey Harris
1-225-315-6677

I'm sorry to hear that, sounds like a freak accident. What cameras were they?

Cameras, like children and dogs, should never ride in the back of pickup trucks.
Hope eveyone out there can learn from this. Sucks pretty bad that you lost your gear, regardless of what the insurance covered.

Well my policy covered $250.00 of it.so please schedule your equipment under your home owner policy or carry a seprate policy for your equipment.

Do you mean that your policy covered everything except $250 of it? or that it covered only $250 of it?

I would be interested to hear that too... wow, I am currently waiting for my new cam to arrive too and your story made me shiver!

Have you already replaced it all?

I hope you didn't lose all the footage of that stuff you filmed in Kansas. Was that with the camera equipment? Or did you have the tapes stored elsewhere?

sorry for the delay in response

Sony dsr 390 with canon 18x1 if lens
sennheiser mkh 416 p48 with rycote mount and windmuff(2)
lectrosonics 200 series uhf wireless system(2)
Canon xl-1s with manual lens
sennheiser wireless system
gitzo carbon tripod system (2)

chargers and battries cases and other stuff

insurance only covered 250.00 dollars of equipment

footage was in front seat with me , i was looking at it on a portable mini dv walkman at the time