I found a use for the emergency hatch...

This is a bit embarrassing and a bit funny... tonight I had to crawl into our HiLo to take some measurements. Battery is out and I didn't want to raise it - so I crawled in with a flashlight as I often do.

Well... this time the door shut behind me and I realized as I went to leave that if the door is shut and the camper is down you can't really open it.

So I sat there for a bit and contemplated my options. As it was dinner I was expecting wife to nag me to stop what I was doing and come back inside... nope... not tonight. I could kick the door open. Something else to fix... then it occurred to me that the emergency hatch was there... onto the snowy roof like Santa!

DOH.

I too had this happen in our 95, the wind blew the door shut, but for me the battery was in and I could raise the top to get out. Neither one of our trailers has an escape hatch in the roof. The escapes are in the side windows which are not accessible when the top is down, so no battery and you are trapped. Ever since, I make sure the door is latched open before going inside.

That is a FUNNY story! I have no "roof exit" in our 17ft trailer either. I'll certainly remember this and latch the door whenever I do the "down dog" crawl into mine, which I've done before (even though the batteries are in working order).

- Jack

Holy cow! they need to paint a warning about this, on the side of these campers IMHO, I woudn't have thought twice about letting the door shut, my 5th wheel door is hard to shut, when folded and when not really, you have to "open" the latch slightly, lol. And nobody would hear me scream where I park the camper, so they'd not likely find me until they had the "sale" of all my stuff, you know?

One thing I thought of while typing though, if you click the dead bolt lock (on my door it is the little red thingy beside the handle and is easy to flip) to its "lock" position--> while door is open, "the DOOR CANNOT SHUT" and yeah, ask my how many minutes it took me to figure that out, from the inside, late one night, totally in the DARK!!! while trying to not wake everyone...

Locked in the trailer

Always take your cell phone with you and hope it is charged up and you can get a signal and someone is at your house to rescue you. I don't thinki my door locks when in the down position.

sam said:

Always take your cell phone with you and hope it is charged up and you can get a signal and someone is at your house to rescue you. I don't thinki my door locks when in the down position.

Click to expand...

Yep I always carry my cell phone when working on a vehicle. A buddy of mine had his full size Blazer fall off the jack stands and brake rotor onto his hand. He was out in his driveway in the country with only his underwear and cowboy boots on, and it was starting to storm. ( Must have been a funny site). He didn't have his phone and after a while was able to jack it back up and escape with only stitches(he was lucky). I always think about that when I'm working alone now.

Glad you got out OK.