Transporting my new plasma TV flat on its back?

For anyone unsure about placing a plasma on its side. I just picked up a plasma TV and mentioned to the salesperson that due to the size of the screen that I would need to lay it flat to get it in my car and get it home. He said it would be fine, in fact he said that they are shipped to the store horizontally. All four of the sales people agreed and said it is an old wife's tale that plasmas can't be placed or transported on their sides. The only caution was not to power it up for two hours after standing it back up. WRONG!! The screen has about 6 or 7 long cracks on the internals glass. TV ruined.

To add my 2 bits to this subject:

I didn't know if I could do it, or if it would work, but I took a chance and went VERY carefully in all steps.
I own an old Toyota Matrix hatchback; I knew that it was wide enough and deep enough to hold the plasma TV in it's box, lying down, but I couldn't fit the thing standing up (30-35" vertical). I understood that I should not really transport the TV lying down, but I considered the possibility of doing so with the TV held at an angle of about 30-50 degrees, and that was what I tried to do as a plan. In the end, it worked out nicely.

With the help of my son, we moved it from store to vehicle; I supported the TV beneath to hold it up some at the angle range which I mentioned, all very carefully.
I had to drive less than 3 miles from store to home and went as carefully as possible, up a big hill and down a big hill in the trip.
Lastly, we got it out and into the house very carefully; de-boxed it set it up and tested it with local over the air digital TV antenna and scanning.
The end result was that the TV made the trip just fine and worked just fine as an end result.

My point in all of this is that it IS possible to transport one of these things (and 51" isn't that small) on an angle for a short trip and it survived the ordeal with flying colors (pretty much literally).
I think the key to all of this is just to be careful with the whole process so that the screen doesn't break.

Good luck to any others in the future with their TV moves.

hi all i am new to this forum community