When I was a young guy, I worked night shift at Vulcan Material on Indian Trail Rd.
I did belt maintenance on the conveyor belt that left the primary rock crusher on the way to the secondary rock crusher. It was a pretty easy job, I rarely had to do anything other than to make sure the belt kept running properly, hosing down all the dust and grime out of the tunnel every couple of hours and a little bit of spot welding here and there or replacing a guide wheel or two, nothing big. I spent most of my time sitting in my little lean-to with a stove to keep me warm and being paid for reading Doctor Who and Star Trek novels.
One evening they had spent a couple of hours crushing rock at the primary, but the belt had been down so they couldn't send it up to the secondary crusher. So this stack of crushed rock, mostly about the size of a human head or smaller, has backed up to a couple of stories tall. When the belt starts running and we begin to send rock up to the secondary crusher.
There's this kind of trap door that the rock gets funneled through to get to the belt. It's opened and gravity does the rest and anything left laying off to the side is bulldozed in. Only after getting a huge pile of rock the size of a small building the rocks kinda make an anthill like formation. The rock that's off to the side reaches a point where it just won't fall through that much, much smaller hole. At that point, you take a backhoe and use the boom and digger to knock the rock down into the hole until it is more manageable for the bulldozer.
Now some moron has the idea that he can just use the bulldozer for the whole process. He starts driving the bulldozer up the side of crushed rock and any idiot could tell you there'd be a problem with that. Well, I guess not any idiot can because he did...
As the bulldozer reached the height were it could tip rock into the gap it completely loses traction because, you know, it weighs over 10000 freaking lbs and begins sliding down the crush rock hill. As it hits the ground it tips backwards over the ledge leading down to the tunnel were my lean-to was sitting. It gets super-dark as suddenly the over head lights are blocked and I hear the huge 'whoooomp' as it hits the roof. Dust begins to kick up from everywhere and the I-beam holding the roof begins to bend and the sudden realization of what had happened sent me flying down the tunnel to the area where I wash out all of the crap that's kicked up by the crusher.
As I'm running, behind me the bulldozer hits the working belt sending all sorts of debris everywhere. My right arm is hit hard by a framing piece that keeps the guiding wheels next to the belt and that throws me into the left wall of the tunnel, but I keep moving; now feeling my way down the tunnel because I literally cannot see an inch in front of my face. I make it out the back end of the tunnel and sit down on the ground stunned and shaking.
Eventually, I become aware of people calling my name. Everyone thought that I was caught under the remnants of my lean-to. I yell that I'm okay and work my way back through the tunnel to see what damage was wrought. It wasn't pretty the belt was severed and the conveyor completely crushed. My lean-to was non-existent and even the stove was pushed into the concrete corner of the area where it once rested. The idiot on the bulldozer was alright, mainly just stunned, though it could've been his default level of consciousness and I made it out with scrapes all over my hands, a scratch on my face and what would become a huge bruise right arm and part of my back. All-in-all quite lucky.
I gave my two week notice the following day.
Mike-1, Bulldozer-0
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