Darwin Awards
 

This is just too damned funny to not post!




(8 May 2008, California) 24-year-old Mike, an operator for a gravel
company, did not intend to perform a death-defyiing stunt with a 40-ton
construction machine. He was only trying to free a bulldozer stuck atop
a 50-foot high pile of dirt that it had been pushing. At the bottom of
the dirt pile, beyond the edge of the property, was a 35-foot drop down
to the next property. A five-foot dirt berm protected the edge so trucks
would not accidentally drive off the cliff.
Despite several better options, Mike decided to pull the stuck machine
backwards with an old front-end Caterpillar loader. Driving up a dirt
ramp at a 40-degree angle is nerve-racking enough without doing so
knowing that your vehicle's brakes are inoperable. To compound the risk,
Mike decided to load the Caterpillar's bucket with dirt to give the
vehicle more weight.

[[Darwin asks, why are its brakes inoperable? is that normal on this
type of vehicle, or is it broken?]]

At the top of the pile of dirt, Mike did as he was trained. He took off
his seatbelt, took his foot off the throttle, and hit the button to
engage the parking brake--forgetting that it did not work. In fact, on
CAT loaders, setting the parking brake automatically puts the
transmission in neutral. He began to exit the loader, which was rolling
backwards. When Mike noticed, he jumped back into the cab and hit the
brake pedal but... nothing happened. The loader continued downhill.

At 25 mph, the five-foot barrier did little to slow 40 tons of rolling
steel and dirt, but it did give the loader a good launching height. In a
stunt that would make Evil Knievel sweat, the machine careened up the
berm and launched into the air, clearing the cliff and landing on the
adjacent property 35 feet below and 50 feet away.

Mike was thrown through the rear windshield and onto the engine
compartment. Miraculously, the loader landed on all four tires, and Mike
was able to walk away with just a few cuts and bruises. Looking back at
the incident, Mike laughs and says he proved that 'a CAT always lands on
all fours.'