If you go off-roading enough, you will get stuck. It’s like playing football; if you play football, you’re going to get hit. There’s no shame in getting stuck on a gnarly trail; it is all a part of the fun. You drive your Jeep in, get bogged down, and either winch yourself out or call a buddy to come snatch you out. In fact, there is a whole industry of off-road recovery services that exist just for this eventuality. They are meant to help, but in the case of this Toyota Tacoma, they did quite the opposite. 

Technically, they got the Toyota Tacoma out…

Typically, when a truck gets stuck, the goal is to pull it out and keep it on all four of its tires. In this particular case, This Toyota Tacoma got pulled out but sliding on its roof. 

According to The Drive, somewhere along the Cleghorn off-road trail near San Bernardino, California, this Toyota Tacoma lost brakes and rolled over off the trail. Although the truck was already flipped when the recovery crew came to help, for some reason, they decided to drag it out on its roof as opposed to trying to flip it back over and tow it out the proper way. 

No one should have to watch their truck get dragged around like this

The video description on YouTube says that the Tacoma was likely already totaled before it got rubbed raw by the recovery crew. Even if that’s true, from the first snatch to the last, every second of the video is a nonstop, wrinkled-up face cringefest. The bodywork is constantly dragged and crunching with every lurch of the diesel recovery truck. 

As The Drive points out, it is not clear if the Tacoma owner is in the video, but the mood is clearly somber. While the Toyota is getting dragged through the dirt, no one is talking; all you can hear is the strain of the diesel recovery truck and the crunching of the Tacoma’s bodywork getting shredded by the rutted-out trail. If I were the owner, there’s no way I would stick around to watch this carnage. 

Something about all this feels unnecessary 

Off-road recovery can be really tricky and perilous. Admittedly, I am way more versed in getting trucks stuck than figuring out how to snatch them out, but this all feels wrong. Some of these recovery teams are insanely precise and meticulous about getting 4x4s out of pickles without so much as a scratch. There is something about this one that just feels like there was little to no effort to think it through and try to help the Tacoma leave in one piece. 

The Drive spoke with Jorgie Maldonado of Jalados 4×4, who was aware of the Tacoma “recovery,” Like us, he is unsure whether or not this was the best way to get the truck out. Maldonado said,  “I saw that on the forums [but] I never saw how the truck was positioned… If you look at the video, it’s pretty hard to get on the side to try to get it on four wheels.”

Although watching this video elicits the “Oh, come on!” feeling, the truth is, without being there, it is tough to judge the method of recovery. This is a difficult job and requires a lot of knowledge and experience to do well, and it’s possible that this was the best way to go. However, watching the video and hearing the crunching certainly doesn’t feel right.