When a Washington state-based company ran into a serious freight problem on the other side of the country, they turned to Up! Up! Lifting — a crane truck service in the Asheville, North Carolina area — to step in and sort it out on the ground.
The company was Overdose Kits, a distributor specializing in naloxone — the medication used to reverse opioid overdoses. Their product line includes naloxone kits, cases, duty belt pouches, wall-mounted cabinets, and vending machines, supplied to public health campaigns, law enforcement, fire departments, schools, and nonprofits across the country. The shipment in question was a 500-pound naloxone vending machine headed for the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department in Rutherfordton, NC — equipment that exists for one reason: to give community members fast access to life-saving medication in a public safety emergency.
Somewhere in transit, things went wrong.
The Problem: A Crated Vending Machine, on Its Side
By the time the vending machine arrived at a staging warehouse in the Rutherfordton area, it was clear the shipment had taken a hard hit. The machine — still in its crate — had been dropped at some point during transit. One of its wheels was broken off, and the unit was laying on its side, unable to be uprighted by hand given its 500-pound weight and awkward crated form.
Overdose Kits needed boots on the ground: someone with the right equipment to upright the machine, assess the damage, and see the job through to final installation. They found Up! Up! Lifting.
The Scope: Freight Recovery, Inspection, and Conditional Delivery
The engagement had several moving parts:
1. Upright the machine using the crane truck’s articulated knuckleboom crane. 2. Replace the broken wheel, then uncrate the machine. 3. Inspect and document any damage with photographs for the client. 4. Plug in and test functionality — if the machine was still operational, it could proceed to delivery. 5. If approved, load, transport, and install the vending machine at the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department.
This is the kind of multi-phase, problem-solving engagement that Up! Up! Lifting equipped with a crane truck is uniquely suited for — not just lifting and moving, but serving as the operational anchor for a freight recovery situation far from the shipper’s home base.
The Day: Early Start out of Black Mountain
We departed Black Mountain at 6:30 AM for an early arrival in Rutherfordton. Our first stop was the staging warehouse where the downed vending machine was being held. The site allowed us to back our 2003 International 4300 truck — a 16-foot flatbed with a HIAB articulated knuckleboom crane — directly into the warehouse, giving us a controlled environment to work in.
With the articulated crane extended and positioned over the crated machine, we rigged a sling around it and carefully uprighted the unit. Once it was back on its feet with the broken wheel replaced, we got to work removing the crate, capturing photographs of visible damage for Overdose Kits and their customer.
The machine was then plugged in and tested. It was functional. After a video conference call between Overdose Kits and the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department to review the findings and discuss use case details, the machine was greenlit for final delivery.
Loading, Transport, and a Few Surprises on Arrival
With the machine approved, we used the knuckleboom crane to lift it onto our flatbed and secured it for the short haul to the Sheriff’s Department. Upon arrival, the first obstacle presented itself: the entry door was too narrow to roll the machine through. Up! Up! Lifting came prepared with the tools for the job and worked with the Sheriff’s Department staff to remove the door from its frame, creating the clearance needed to bring the machine inside.
Once the machine was rolled into position, a second issue surfaced — one that had actually come up during the conference call between Overdose Kits and their customer. Some of the naloxone boxes intended for the machine were too large for its default tray configuration. With phone guidance from the Overdose Kits team in Washington, our crew removed one of the internal trays and redistributed the remaining trays to accommodate the larger box size — carefully detaching and reconnecting the wiring harness for each one.
When we left, the machine was in place, configured, and ready for use.
Beyond the Lift: What This Job Actually Required
Most people think of a crane truck in the context of lifting and transport. But this engagement is a good example of what it sometimes means to be the local representative for a client who is thousands of miles away and can’t physically be there.
Without a capable, problem-solving crew on the ground in Rutherfordton, the outcome for Overdose Kits would have looked very different. A 500-pound machine on its side in a warehouse — with a damaged wheel, an unknown functional status, a narrow doorway, and a tray configuration that didn’t match the product being loaded — is a lot of problems to solve from across the country. The alternative would have been disposing of the machine or shipping it back to Washington and starting over with a replacement.
Instead, the machine was uprighted, repaired, tested, documented, delivered, installed, reconfigured, and ready for the Sheriff’s Department to stock and put into service.
About Up! Up! Lifting
Up! Up! Lifting takes pride in its work and in supporting clients beyond the lift itself. When additional obstacles arise, we rise to the occasion and help overcome them whenever and wherever we can. It’s part of what it means to show up prepared — and to stay engaged until the job is actually done.
We’re based in Black Mountain, NC, in the Asheville area, and regularly travel to job sites across Western North Carolina and beyond — including Rutherford County, Cleveland County, Burke County, and communities east toward Charlotte and the Piedmont. Our service area also extends into neighboring South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia.
If you have a freight delivery, equipment placement, or lifting challenge that requires articulated crane truck capabilities, we’d welcome the conversation.
Contact us at upuplifting.com/contact or call (828) 357-7553 to get a quote.
