IndustrialMany people aren't aware those big garage doors they have on loading bays and such are held up by a spring. This is what happens when that spring fails.

submitted by ElonMuskOfficial from (gfycat.com)

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[–]Oneda 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I guess in this situation, even a hardhat wouldn't have saved the poor guy.

[–]ElonMuskOfficial[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's probably well over a hundred pounds coming down in an instant right on top of his neck. You can see how heavy the door is without the assistance of the spring. The other guy couldn't even lift it over his head. At least I can only imagine that it was pretty much instant.

[–]HopeThatHalps 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I'm not faimilar with the mechanicals of those doors, so I'm wondering how likely this is to happen. With all the loading and unloading that happens all around the planet, you'd think simple mechanical failure would result in lots of people getting crushed as they load and unload trucks.

[–]BombTheFuckers 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Springs are scary. There are few things I will absolutely not work on. Springs are very high up on that list.

Fuck springs.

[–]HopeThatHalps 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Can you possibly stand out of the way, or are they liable to fly in any direction?

[–]ElonMuskOfficial[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I think it's more that when they fail, they release all of their energy very rapidly. A large torsion spring could have hundreds or thousands of pounds of torque stored up and it all goes off like a gunshot. If you happen to be standing near it, you could catch some gnarly shrapnel going bullet speeds or if the device holding the spring in place (and therefore build tension) fails, you could have anything attached to the spring suddenly spinning at lethal speeds.

[–]anescient 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's a mechanical bomb.

[–]ElonMuskOfficial[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I remembered this from an old reddit post. A guy in the comments who claimed to be a technician for these kinds of doors said these springs fail after about 100,000 cycles. My guess is that these doors usually probably fail in some other way before this and the hardware gets replaced or the doors are supposed to be scheduled for regular maintenance and inspections. Plus, it just adds another layer of coincidence for someone to be standing directly under it when it fails.

[–]unclickedlink 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

always read on reddit how dangerous they can be, now i can see.