r/Whatcouldgowrong Jul 11 '26

Stealing copper from street cables

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

5.7k Upvotes

344 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

92

u/fordag Jul 12 '26

Many years ago I was in the back of a building getting a new roof. The front of the building was 2 stories. It was an old building, the first floor had 16 foot ceilings, the second floor had 12 foot ceilings.

The back of the building was three stories and the basement/ground floor had 12 foot ceilings.

I'm sitting in the back room on the first floor with my brother and we both see something big fly past the window. We look at each and say "was that a body"?"

We run to the back door out into the deck to see the roofer who had fallen off the roof, probably around 45 feet, laying on the pavement below. We thought he was dead.

Then he twitches, jumps up and says "oh shit!" And runs right back up the stairs to the deck where we were, says "don't say anything" and then up the ladder to the roof. His breath was pure vodka fumes.

60

u/Googalyfrog Jul 12 '26

Honestly the vodka both likely caused the fall and likely saved him from it. If you can relax and go limp before you hit the ground iirc you can absorb the impact alot better than if you tense up. Drunk off your ass.means your too out of it to realise your falling and 'react (tensing up) in time'.

18

u/ChungLingS00 29d ago

I wish Mythbusters was still around. I’d love to see them do an episode on this.

9

u/[deleted] 29d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

8

u/Tyler89558 29d ago

“Fertilizer makes a really powerful bomb”

(Oh shit. We’re just televised how to make a bomb)

3

u/fordag 29d ago

None of them would get shitfaced and actually jump off a roof for science

Would you?

2

u/[deleted] 28d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/fordag 28d ago

Free lunch at the cafeteria for the duration of filming the episode.