“I remember turning to him [the driver], his first name started with W, and I was filling up the CAT truck with unleaded, and I remember looking at him, and I was like, ‘hey, W, that’s diesel, man,’ and the panic on his face,” Gage remembered of the incident. “He said every cuss word.”
“We had to get an Indian tow truck and Obama was supposed to go live, man, in like four hours to this major event,” he continued.
Gage explained that the Secret Service’s Transportation Section has an entire staff of highly trained mechanics with certifications straight from General Motors. However, he added that, while a contingent of them will travel where ever the presidential motorcade goes, they rarely get called upon to do anything.
“The look on these guys’ faces,” he said. “We were like, ‘listen, man, we filled this thing up with like five or six gallons of diesel,’ and they were just like so excited.”
“These mechanics, unbelievable, in like four hours took this whole engine apart, drained all the fuel, cleaned the fuel pump,” Gage continued. “Brand new fuel pump, brand new fuel filter, got this thing up and running, it was amazing … in the heat of Mumbai, India.”