Taking troubles in tow, ‘dead or alive’
Dee Duncan has been “playing tow truck,” as he puts it, for over 34 years in the Auburn area. As co-owner of Mid-Sierra Towing with his wife Vivian, Duncan has seen just about everything in his years of making towing calls.
“We’re the knights in shining armor when we show up on the scene,” Duncan said. “Maybe it’s keys locked in the car, babies locked in the car. Or, back when I started before the jaw-of-life tool was available, we’d wrench doors off cars, pull steering wheels aside to remove injured or deceased passengers from wrecked cars – we were the extraction team.
“We’re on the scene with the fire department, law enforcement, and medical personnel, working together helping people who are having a really bad day. I’ve held heads and hands. I’ve put kids in my truck because their parents were being put in a patrol car, I’ve put kids in my truck to shelter them from the fatality of their of parents dead in the car. It’s just amazing what as tow truck guys we see.”
Duncan was raised in Auburn, and his family roots go way back, his grandmother Stella Bowman was born in 1886 in Deadwood Calif., outside of Foresthill, now not much more than a historical marker and a rest stop on the Western States Trail. His father, Roy Duncan, logged for Auburn Lumber and was in construction working on local development projects with Auburn business icon Wendell Robie. Duncan worked with his father on many of those projects before finding his niche in the towing business.
Taking a night job with Hall’s Towing just out of high school Duncan worked construction during the day and started learning the ins and outs of the towing business at night. Duncan worked for Hall’s Towing for 18 years before starting his own tow business, Mid-Sierra Towing with his wife Vivian in 1991 with one tow truck and big dreams. Working during the days towing cars, and early mornings delivering morning paper routes and filling newspaper boxes from Auburn to Baxter, Duncan’s days started at 2 a.m. to make ends meet.
“I was delivering Investors Daily, Auburn Journal, Wall Street Journal, Sacramento Bee, Sacramento Union, all of them,” Duncan said. “If I had an early morning tow I’d stop my paper route, go do the tow and then finish my routes.”
Mid-Sierra has grown to include 56 pieces of equipment from large tow rigs for towing semi-trucks to excavators for off-road vehicle extraction and everything in between, 12 employees including office workers, tow truck drivers and mechanics.
“We never see anybody on good terms, it’s always going to cost them money, people are worried about fixing their car,” Duncan said. “My saying I’ve said for 34 years is, ‘no matter what, if it’s dead or alive it’s coming with me.’ We don’t care if its upside down, backwards, down in the ditch, in the canal, in the river. We don’t care because people have called you to solve their problem and you go out there and rescue them. Cars, trucks, tractors, animals, even a helicopter, I’ve towed almost everything.”
Mid-Sierra Towing contracts towing and repair service with PG&E, Placer County, AT&T, Auburn Disposal Service, and also handles police rotation calls with the CHP, Auburn Police Department and Placer County Sheriff’s Department along with regular towing calls and roadside repair of cars, trucks and big rigs.
“It’s busy when it rains for a week,” he said. “Or if it snows down to Auburn, it’s out of control.”
Written by: Michael Kirby (Gold Country Media)