Full story? Sure.
I live in MN, and twe got a nice amount of snow recently. One evening, I was out clearing the sidewalk in front of my house with the snowblower. The sidewalk just happens to be ~1.5x the width of my snowblower, so I had to clear it with two passes. Since it was dark out, I had my light in my jacket pocket just in case. Somehow, during the first pass, the light fell out of my pocket and onto the sidewalk without me noticing. When I went through with the second pass, I heard a few "clunks" and saw a small cylindrical object fly out towards the middle of the street. At the time, I didn't think much of it. I was used to hearing those "clunks" when the snowblower picks up small rocks and tree branches. I thought what flew out of the snowblower's chute was a tree branch, so I kept going. That night, I finished clearing the snow and went home.
The next evening, I had to leave the house to run an errand. I did my usual EDC pat-down and realized that I was missing my light. I looked all over for it. It wasn't in my jacket. It wasn't on the charger. It wasn't in my EDC drawer. It wasn't even in my kitchen's "random crap" drawer. Then...oh no...I realized what I did. I knew exactly where it landed, so I ran out the door, ran down the street...and my heart sank. There it is...beat up, left in the snow for an entire day, and probably been run over a couple dozen times.
I took it home, dried it off, and tried to assess the damage. Amazingly, the head/lens and the LED assembly suffered little to no damage, but the tailcap would not unscrew. There were dents everywhere, and the battery tube and tailcap were no longer round - almost a bean shape. I used large pliers to forcibly unscrew the tailcap, and I saw that the battery was pinned in the tube by the dents on the tube. The plastic battery housing was also cracked, and I feared for the worst - a lithium leak. So that night, I just let it sit to dry.
Next day, a bit of light hammering was used to remove the battery. Thankfully, it's just the plastic housing that cracked, not the innards. The battery was deemed good. Now I just have to worry about potential damage to the tailcap circuit board. This was about when I got really pessimistic and made this thread.
Later, with more careful hammering and squeezing in a vise, I was able to get the tube and tailcap round enough so that they'll screw together (with the help of pliers) and make it possible for the battery to be installed. So then I put everything back together and threw it on the charger, and I took a sigh of relief as the charging light came on. I watched the charger for ~5 minutes to make sure nothing short circuits and catches fire. So far so good, and this gave me some hope. I came back in about a half hour to check on it. I took it off the charger, said my prayers, and clicked the tailcap. Oh my gosh, I almost forgot how bright this thing can be. I cycled though every mode it has, and it performed like nothing was wrong. I was a very happy camper.
Now, the light is back in my EDC, and I can't believe it survived a trip through a snowblower, a night in a Minnesota winter, and multiple cars running over it.
So yeah, Streamlight Strion, quality stuff
