We’re only human, and we all make mistakes. Thankfully, not all mistakes are immediately fatal. Just ask this Chevy Colorado driver, who had a fail while off-roading in the Colorado River.

The video shows the driver just going around some shallow water. He’s taking it nice and easy, but he picks a bad line and SMACK! hits the transmission pan on a rock.

Right before tragedy was about to strike…

Is it good luck because the pan didn’t tear open? Or bad luck because it hit the rock in the first place? We’ll let you decide.

In any case, the driver does the smart and responsible thing by getting the truck home and inspecting the damage. He showcases the shifter’s difficulty in going into Park, and then gives us the inside look at the transmission pan.

The owner shows how hard it is to get the shifter into Park. He applies a good amount of force before it clunks into place; obviously, something’s wrong.

Sure enough, we see the pan practically caved in. The bottom and sides are all pinching inwards, and it’s almost a miracle that this pan didn’t get hole-punched in the river. If it had, he would have had a bad time trying to get out (not to mention polluting the river with transmission fluid). He also explains that his difficulty shifting came from the shifting linkage rubbing against the pan.

So it looks like all’s well that ends well. The driver learned his lesson on picking a good line and watching where he’s going, and we learned just how much abuse the stock transmission pan can endure.