When One Door Opens.....

Over a year ago when we were cruising down the road in the Florida panhandle, my door mysteriously flew open. We were going about 60mph at the time. I was trying hard to get Gary's attention, but it was several miles before he noticed the problem. As a lot of you probably know, the entry doors on a lot of the Serro Scotty trailers are known as suicide doors. The way they are hinged, the wind catches them and whips them into the side of the trailer if they happen to open while moving. That's exactly what happened to my door, and to say it hurt when it happened is an understatement. As badly as I was hurting at the time, I think Gary was hurting almost as much. He was sick when he realized what had happened and saw the damage to me, his best camping buddy. He straightened out the bent up door as much as he could so that it would close and lock. Although my wounds from way back then are still clearly evident, at least the pain was over and done with at the time. Gary has tweaked on my door ever since, but it's never been anywhere near as good as it used to be. These pictures don't show the extent of the damage, but they will give you an idea. When the door opened, the wind caught it and slammed it into various parts of me. You can see the impression of the door knob in my sheet metal. The door itself has various dents from hitting my water inlet and outlet connections. The door lock is pushed into the door, and the area all around it is bent. The impact broke the weld at the top of my door frame, and pulled the screws completely out of the wood they were attached to. The sheet metal is bowed out over the door frame, and even the eyebrow over the door is loose because the screws that attach it no longer have anything to hold onto. My sheet metal has a small tear in it near the top edge of the frame as well. Because of the frame being askew, there's a wide gap visible when the door is closed. Gary promised me that he would fix this mess this summer. He just hasn't had time since all of this happened. The plan at the moment (it's subject to change), is to remove my door and frame, repair everything that's damaged, and build me an all new door. He tells me I'm going to have a deadbolt installed in my new door, and that will serve as an added safety feature so that this kind of thing will never happen again. I'm also supposed to get a porthole window instead of the old rectangular window one I have now. I LOVE porthole windows! My screen door will need modification too so that the deadbolt can be locked from the inside. I have no clue as to how to do any of this, but I'm sure that Gary does. He's always managed to fix me up with whatever I've needed. Work begins on my new door tomorrow. Gary wants to build a temporary door out of scrap wood first, just to make sure that everything will fit the way he wants it to. Once he works out the bugs, he will build a permanent door out of new rot-resistant wood. I am REALLY excited about this, and cannot wait until I'm back to the way I was before the accident, and possibly even better. I'll keep you posted on the progress.