Here in the US we have laws governed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) which are meant to protect workers from unsafe conditions. But apparently OSHA is on holiday right now. Meanwhile the rest of the world needs to be adopting some safety standards too, or they are going to be ending up headlining the Darwin Awards.
Take this photo for example: “Let me just drive this forklift off the dock… while carrying a bomb!”
Just imagine what this little Asian guy looks like when he takes off his shirt! He must be built like a mini Schwarzenegger.
Do you think his last words were, “Let me just get this last weld on the gas tank…”
Let me get this straight. He’s going to paint the entire side of a building with a brush, by hand, on ladders lashed together 4 stories high?
Note: Bare feet on aluminum ladder sitting in pool of water with electrical cord dangling above. Nice.
Let’s assume that’s all styrofoam strapped to the bicycle. What happens if a strong wind blows?
Ok. 10 feet away is what looks like a 4″ pipe that goes up well beyond the roof. Why not just climb it?
What the hell is he pointing at, and where does he think he’s going?
Now what? The second forklift driver isn’t even at the controls!
Do you think the rich guy that hired them to trim the hedges is fully insured?
These guys don’t look like they work for the electric company to me.
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LOL I have no idea where you found these pictures but I haven’t seen one of them (which is rare being the internet geek I am). They are truly amazing, and perfectly demonstrate the stupidity which occupies so many of us in this day and age.
Haha that is hilarious. I, like Luke, am surprised that I haven’t seen any of these before. I especially laugh aloud when I saw the pictures (and comments) for the wall painting, the ladder in the pool, and the styrofoam. Thanks for that fun find!
The fact that I see so many of those ladder-stacking photos around the web has me wondering if I’m missing an insider’s expert knowledge or something. I don’t see anything stable about that lol.
And as far as the mechanic under the car.. OUCH.. I couldn’t even imagine the pain of literally getting folder in half.. to death.
Most of them must be in countries that have Universal Health Care. :-)
I’m glad you guys enjoyed these. It took me an entire day to find them all…
John
haha great pics, the second one is my favorite, at least they are wearing helmets hehehehe and the guy next to mini arnold has his hands folded, its kind of like he’s saying that “it’s your turn today to lift the ladder buddy” hehehe
Living here in the Philippines gives you these kinds of photo ops almost daily…
My girlfriend sent our maintenance boy up in a coconut tree the other day to get a coconut(which she could have bought on the market for 25 Cents) without any safety measures at all. Needless to say I had a small fit and tried to explain to them what would actually happen if he nose dived off the tree…
We just moved to a new house and when the electrician came out a couple of days ago to change most of the outlets from 110 Volts to 220 Volts he did so without cutting the power in the house and of course he shocked himself at least once *BZZZT*
Public utility vehicle conducters often hangs on the backside of the vehicle, only wearing slippers(flip flops) hanging on to dear life so they wont take up that 10 Cent space in the actual vehicle.
Our old house was 20 miles out of town and the only way to get Internet was to raise a 120 foot mast with an antenna on it. This mast was just made up from 8 or 9 lengths of single tube about 3-4 inches wide, and the guy raising the mast was climbing up and down it attaching wires and connecting the pieces without any safety harness or anything.
I cant even count the amount of times I see a single piece of bamboo being used to climb a wall for painting or construction work.
The list is endless here… And needless to say it never gets boring living here.
Kim:)
Kim,
I swear one of these days I’m coming for a visit. :-)
John
Guest room is ready for you :)
It really never gets boring here, just about every day something happens where you just burst out “That didnt just happen”
We also have a rule here among the Expats, we are only allowed one “WHY” question a day, any more and we would go nuts.
Example:
I wanted to buy a digital camera, the little waterproof Olympus 720, the price here in the mall was P25,000 which at the time was close to $500.
I told the staff there I wanted a demonstration in a dark area to see how focus performed in dim lights, I knew the parking basement area would be suitable for this, but I was not allowed to bring the camera down there, I tried the following:
1) What if the manager and security guard goes with me, they could take a couple of shots with the camera, after that we could go back up and see the results.
2) Here is P25,000, I will leave that here in the store while I go downstairs for 5 minutes and take a couple of shots. If I am happy with what I see I keep the camera and they keep the money.
Neither solution worked, if I left the deposit, they could not let the camera leave the store without a reciept, and a receipt meant I already bought the camera and would not be able to return it.
Store manager could not even help out bending the rules just a little and walk the 5 minute walk with me to make sure the camera was indeed what I needed. I ended up walking out of the store with my P25,000 in my pocket and no camera. I just was not prepared to chance if the camera would perform under the conditions I would mainly use it.
Let me know when you arrive :-)
Kim:)
Crazy pictures, John! I’ve seen a couple of them, but they still shock me! The second one is my favorite, too! I’m trying to picture how they got into that situation! (The chicken or the egg?) ;) Did the guy climb on the ladder and then the other guy lifted it? Or did ‘Arnold’ lift the ladder, and then the other guy climbed aboard? I just bet that part of it was funny!!
Wow, Kim – you do have plenty of crazy stories! (Almost sounds like you’re talking about my in-laws! Haha!)
I wonder, John – how I could make money from your blog – because, I spend so much time here every day! LOL! I didn’t even let myself pop in at all yesterday, so I could get some work done! ;)
Awesome collection … I broke my neck as a kid pulling a stunt like one of these – yes, it really does happen lol. Extra kudos for spending the time to gather all of these up!
Pseudo lashing two ladders together with duct tape is an incredibly foolish idea. Standing two ladders on top of each other is down right suicidal. You can get away with pushing the envelope for a long time, but eventually somethings going to give way that you were counting on not too, and you’re going to end up falling, getting squashed, or worse.
6 years of living in the Philippines gives you a lot of good stories to tell around the dinner table, or even better with the friends sharing a few cases of beer.
One time my friend and I were sitting in a small bar, we drink 2 different types of beer, I drink SML and my buddy drinks SMB but most of the time the waitress forgets who drink what and end up giving me my buddys beer and vice versa. This is of course easily fixed by swapping the beers in front of us, but that night we decided to have a little fun with the waitress to help her remember for the next visit.
So when I got my beer I said: “Excuse me miss, I do not drink SMB, I ordered an SML”
She said sorry, took the bottle back and just as she was about to go back to the bar to change it, my buddy said: “Excuse me miss, I do not drink SML, I ordered an SMB”
She made excuses to him as well, turned around with both bottles and went back up to the bar to change the drinks to our proper drinks.
You can probably imagine how hard we were laughing when we heard the bartender start a hysterical laugh…
Kim:)
How can you not have seen any of these pics before? Most of them have been around a long time.
I liked the last one, a ladder in a backhoe, that my actually be safer than a ladder on dirt or a flat surface thanks to the curvature of the bucket.
I did like the ingenuity of a lift truck lifting a lift truck. I wish I’d a thought of that when I needed a little extra vertical down at the ole factory. :D
I’m actually working on a project similar to this one. I bring a camera with me everyday and I have snapped a few funny photos already. :)
Sounds like a court case to me.
Kim:)
someone find the names of the guys in the pictures and send them to the darwin awards they have got to come up as winners sometime
These are pretty funny. Though the forklift/bomb one isn’t real. He had to have driven through the wall. (look at how it’s lined up)
Asked my manager if we could do the tandem forklift thing. He said no. Drat.
Look closer. That dark spot behind the forklift on the left side of the picture is this little invention called a door. It is a remarkable device that allows people to walk through walls.
hehehe, yeah pretty obvious he came out through the door :)
Kim:)
The right side of the forklift is on the left side of the door. the left side of the forklift would have had to go through the brick wall to get where it was. Now if the right side of that lift were next to that gray object with the green hat on it, I’ll believe it went through that “invention”. Besides… if you look just above the forklift, you can see a closed door. Now look inside the forklift, you should be able to see the door, you can’t, just a wall. It’s been photoshoped. Looking at the wall through the forklift should be lighter like that door, not darker like the rest of the wall. Also, the bomb is seriously off balance to where the forks would be carrying it. It would have tipped over long before it got to the door. Speaking of forks, where are they. For the size of the that lift, you should see them bent on the other side of the bomb.
these guys must all work for wastemanagment
It could be a window. Take a closer look what is that line going down the center of the “door.” It looks like a window with the shutters closed. And as for the forks not being visible. What about the dust in front of the bomb. If a fork lift hits like that the forks won’t necessarily bend but they WILL dig into the concrete and depending on how hard and the angle they hit at some of it will be tossed forward. You also said it would have had to go through the wall to get that spot which would be true if it was going straight toward the camera and not at an angle to the camera. You are right about the bomb being off balance so that maybe was added.
Note the guy on the ladder in the pool. No shoes, metal ladder, in pool soaking wet but he still has the keen sense to wear his eye protection. Its a start at least.
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