Got lucky that time

I nearly squished my brother yesterday.

In retrospect, the risk was obvious and easily mitigated.

We were taking a dryer out of my parent's basement. One of my nieces had need of it and mom and dad now have a laundry upstairs.

The original plan was to use an appliance dolly to hump it up the stairs.

Unfortunately, the dryer plus the dolly did not fit at the landing at the bottom of the stairs.

A decision was made to deviate from the original plan. The risks were not reassessed.

Youngest brother volunteered for the bottom. I took the top.

Three-quarters of the way up the stairs my sweaty fingers started to slip.

I mentioned the fact that we needed to speed up before I lost my grip completely.

THEN....the top panel of the dryer, which is clipped into place...popped off.

My sweaty fingers had drifted up the unit until I was both pressing in, and lifting up on the top panel.

Heroic, youngest brother arrested the downward motion in three steps distance. The issue was exacerbated by the fact that I had removed one hand rail for clearance. It could have been a very bad outcome for youngest brother, but we got lucky.

Next time...reassess before taking off. It would have been twenty seconds work to use one of the ratchet straps to create a strap-handle for me to grip, one that would be resistant to sweat-induced slippage and one that would not disassemble at the worst possible time.