Patent ID: 8257008

Claim:
A method of retrieving a spilled article, the method comprising the steps of: (i) providing a vehicle that has forks and a driving deck from which an operator drives the vehicle from one location in a warehouse to another location in the warehouse; (ii) providing a removable platform that has: (a) a separate operating deck that has a service side, two closed sides, and an egress side, each of the four sides being perpendicular to its neighboring sides; (b) a first extendable platform section that is hinged to the service side of the operating deck and has a distal end; and (c) a second extendable platform section that is hinged to the distal end of the first platform section and can be aligned with the first platform section to create an extended platform that extends outwardly from the service side of the operating deck; (iii) making a loader by removably positioning the platform on the forks of the order selector so that the egress side faces the order selector; (iv) driving the loader from its original location to a new location in the warehouse; (v) having the operator step over the egress side of the operating deck directly from the driving deck onto the operating deck without stepping onto the floor of the warehouse; (vi) raising the operating deck; (vii) extending the extended platform from the service side into a location near the spilled article; and (viii) having the operator move over the service side of the operating deck onto the extended platform and retrieving the spilled article while standing on the extended platform.