Terrifying, Gory Workplace Safety PSA Horror-Video

This is not a parody of a workplace safety video. This is an actual workplace safety video. Will You Be Here Tomorrow? (Thanks, John Walsh!)

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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8O

I… I… I’m too terrified to even MOVE!!!
danimagoo

About 12 years ago, an employee at the company I worked for really was crushed and killed by a forklift. Luckily I didn’t see it, but it was a pretty traumatic experience for the whole company. Forklifts scare the crap out of me.

I’ve seen a lot of safety videos over the years, none quite as gory as this one. None of the work, because all of them just come across as funny. And for some reason, the gorier they are, the funnier they are.
Anonymous

I am now traumatized beyond all reason. I think I need a margarita chaser, in addition to a unicorn chaser. I didn’t even get past the finger thing…
Anonymous

i’m pretty sure the guy with 30 yrs of industrial experience is actually an orangutan. but i totally almost lost my hand operating a lathe while wearing gloves, shear ass clenching terror
Gilbert Wham

Is the soundtrack supposed to be weird minimalist death ambient, or is my PC garbooned? All I hear is faint static. I want Troy McLure telling me to Be Careful, dammit!
Anonymous

I’m sorry, I laughed when the gas tank flew into the office. Do I still have my job?
Anonymous

latent_ravening_ferocity, that was genius.

J Walter Weatherman should do an ‘accidents around the home’ series including, but not confined to,”Why you should never try to teach your son a lesson”, “Why you should never leave the door open with the air conditioning on” and, my favourite, “Why you should always leave a note”.
Daemon

In ages past (that is to say, highschool), I was almost disembowled by a bandsaw that had the blade’s weld snap. I treat anything that can kill me with great respect.
Anonymous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMiGNS5L9kk
Gilbert Wham

Actually, I quite like the static. Like an unreleased Bad Sector track.
Metostopholes

Man, I thought the guy at then end was safe… Only the RED barrels are supposed to explode, right?

Also, #58 “Shake Hands With Danger” is a personal classic. I cut the song out of it, and it gives me a kick every time it comes up on shuffle on the iPod. :)
karl_jones

I was shocked by this public service announcement â€”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noFCekWiUGE

It’s a thirty second plea for workplace safety, culminating in the narratorâ€™s horrific workplace accident.

I donâ€™t even work in a kitchen, but this PSA makes me want to be more careful all the time, everywhere.
Lord Runcible

Early Peter Jackson, maybe?
gobo

It was awesome enough when the guy’s arm started rotating around the lathe like a pinwheel, but when the gas canister took off like a rocket, flew across the factory floor, smashed through the boss’s window into his face, and exploded, setting his corpse on fire… that’s when I knew that the guys who made this video were having a ball.
Ske

Hmm…I wonder how they made it safe for the one armed guy to calibrate the lathe wearing gloves to perform that act for the video? The lathe looked real…
Anonymous

The Workplace Safety Australia ad sets are something else:

http://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/WorkSafe/SiteTools/About+WorkSafe/Campaigns/?pagedesign=WS_TV_youngworkers

and here’s something different, but very effective:
http://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/WorkSafe/SiteTools/About+WorkSafe/Campaigns/?pagedesign=WS_TV_valuingsafety

-Anonymort
Ratdog

I just saw this on Killscreen TV. this is why I will never work in a factory. I found the gas can shooting through the air towards the office especially realistic.

And why was that guy so pissed off with not being able to work overtime?
Ratdog

They should do a parody of this, where people ‘don’t pay attention’ in a supermarket. Maybe a guy’s foot being crushed by a can of peas. Or a guy loosing his finger while trying to find a bag of lettuce that isn’t rotten.
latent_ravening_ferocity

J. Walter Weatherman presents:

“And that’s why you don’t wear gloves while operating a lathe.”
jokel

@ #23 RATDOG:
A lot of workers are paid by the hour, so overtime can be a real boon in terms of extra income (not least because overtime pay often is more). So, being told: “No more overtime” means less money in your pocket at the end of the month.
t3hmadhatter

Final Destination 4 anyone?
mypalmike

I think this was the prequel to the Evil Dead series.
Falcon_Seven

I had to watch it twice because I was laughing too hard the first time. The dummy falling off the ladder and getting impaled. The rocket-propelled gas cylinder. The best is the guy with the ‘flame wrench’ cutting the top off the barrel; here’s the KABOOM!
thequickbrownfox

Yeah, I was reminded of Devo film clips as well and thats because of the influence the work of Bruce Conner had on Devo.

He made the clip for their (1978?) single “Mongoloid” http://www.truveo.com/Devo-Mongoloid/id/3302506922

Conner was the originator of the “found footage” film technique and used fragments from safety/scientific/sci-fi reels to make films.
jowlsey

That video looked like it was made by the guys at Tromaville. I think I might just need to watch the Toxic Avenger again this weekend.
Anonymous

Reminds me a lot of the Drivers Ed movies we had to watch in high school in the 60s — when they weren’t actually taking us to crash sites.
doubleoverhead

I didn’t find the video funny at all having worked at hard hat jobs where accidents were all too common.
For example, spent two summers working at a chemical refinery near NYC. It was later declared a Superfund site.
It was a very dangerous place to work, one month after leaving for school a worker was killed by an overflowing vat of acid. While I was there I saw other summer workers burn by hydrochloric acid, hurt by partially falling through a rotting roof, etc…
I myself got gassed by ammonia while painting on scaffold, I to make my way down blinded and choking. ugh, lucky I didn’t break my neck.
Heard lots of awful stories from the the perm workers.
Machinery is very unforgiving. These things happen more often than most people realize. What do you expect when our media obsesses over pirates, celebrities, sports and pays little or no attention to worker safety. Imagine what its like overseas where most manufactoring is done now and there is little or no worker safety laws or regulations.
Video makes me thankful I have a office job.
bigchefjc

Thanks for all of the extra vids, just brightened my Saturday morning!
lol @ rocket tank shooting through the boss’ window. Priceless!
angryhippo

#73: You’re right, there is nothing dangerous to be had on a sound stage!

ps. watch out for those hanging 5k lights…
Anonymous

I’ve worked in many industrial environments (warehouses/manufacturing/construction) and have witnessed many accidents. While unintentionally funny, this video isn’t too far off the mark. The average ‘small’ forklift is around 10,000 pounds, and the tires on them don’t really afford much grip.

A friend of mine wasn’t really watching where he was going, and went over an empty loading dock – he wasn’t seriously injured, but only due to insane reflexes.

Another accident I saw involved a carpenter using a pneumatic nailer put a 4″ spike through his ring and pinky fingers ( and that gave me the heebyjeebies – I’m a musician, and losing the use of my fingers scares the s*** out of me)

It all just comes down to paying attention and using common sense. Well, common sense not being all that common, anyways…
nutbastard

ive got quite the iron stomach but some of those were beyond what i was expecting.

in other words, this is the best safety video ever.
nehpetsE

Practice workplace safety, kids. Cause even if it happens to the other guy, accidents are bummer to watch!
The Life Of Bryan

I work at an industrial safety school, and we have some pretty decent non-cheesy, non-campy safety videos. Weâ€™ve also got some genuine snuff films that we save for the more intense, weeklong classes. But weâ€™ve got nothing even remotely like thisâ€¦ well, at least not till I get to work on Tuesday morning!
Anonymous

I’ve seen, and experienced, a couple of industrial accidents(*). The ones in the video is not unlikely nor over the top. I wish they showed videos like these in Sweden (where I work). It’s usually the unexperienced (not necesseraly young workers, but people with little previous factory experience or, even more so, those who have been unemployed, on maternity leave, sick or working for the union for some time, come back and think they “still got it”) that has accidents like this. I’ve actually seen even more complicated accidents then that one with the gas tube (the domino effect ought to be outlawed ;-). The ones that took me most by surprise was two where people put their hands into obviously dangerous machines without any real reason (their brains just malfunctioned for a millisecond, they didn’t even work at the machines, just passing by (possibly thinking “I won’t put my hands into the machine”)) and one where a soccer player jumped up into the air and headed a big iron shackle cracking his scull (miraculously his brain was undamaged). (I’ve also seen soccer players kicking things they shouldn’t and breasting things that advance against them at hight speed. I avoid working with soccer players, it seem to imprint bad reflexes.)

(*) I worked at Swedens most accident proned factory for five years, but the worst accidents I have seen has been at other workplaces.
Teej

When will this be out on Blu-Ray?

My Dad is in it.
Ratdog

@26 Jokel

I think I subconsciously knew the answer, and I would throw a huge tantrum like that too, but, in retrospect, it isn’t worth it to get angry when the outcome is a few missing fingers.

And he could find a second job instead of working overtime at a place where there are final destination like accidents.
Anonymous

It doesn’t “all come down to paying attention and common sense”. It is about working in a safe environment. There’s no excuse for a workplace being unsafe but there are plenty of reasons, and usually it comes down to employers cutting corners. This is why we need strong regulations on workplace safety. No one should have to die at work.

Workers Memorial Day is April 28 http://www.hazards.org/wmd/. It’s a day to commemorate those who died at work as well as those injured and made unwell. I work in occupational health and safety and every year I meet the families of people who were killed doing their jobs. Their sense of loss and betrayal is profound and keeps me inspired to try to make things safer for others.

As for the videos, regulators around the world produce stuff like this periodically. Research suggests they don’t actually do anything to make things safer. They’re great for the shock value and maybe for promoting discussions like this, but don’t change the on-the-ground conditions that are the number one reason for industrial incidents. That’s what strong regulation is for.
Felton

I didn’t know Lucio Fulci directed a workplace safety video.
edinblack

…and it’s been taken down.
“This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by ERI Safety Videos.”
halfvenus

I love this far too much for my own good. Though it did bring my household accident back in blade-spinning glory.

Chopping nuts with a hand-held Braun mixer/chopper. Stuck my finger in it and somehow turned it back on while my finger was in there.

No drugs or EtOH involved. Just not paying attention. Finger well-slice and broken.
Rob Beschizza

(Comment test.)
Praline

I’m partial to the ring-finger removal, because I just about managed it myself a few years ago. Ouch. I was oddly surprised by how well-attached to my hand my finger actually is.

Fun fact: Neil Armstrong made it to the moon and back without a scratch. But on his earth ranch a few years later, he jumped off a tractor and pulled off his finger.

There’s a saying in there somewhere….

(Armstrong, who of course had the Right Stuff, drove himself to the hospital and had the finger re-attached.)
Brainspore

@ #5 posted by erissian:

First, why do all safety videos look like they were made in 1982? Is there a rule I don’t know about?

Maybe businesses just didn’t find them cost-effective to produce after Reagan gutted OSHA in the early 80s.
Pasketti

About 15 years ago, they showed us an office safety video called “Thrill Seekers”.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3607537523109200691

I’d forgotten the deadpan delivery, but remembered the unintentional hilarity.
Anonymous

mmmm, nightmare fodder for weeks, & i’ve never even worked with any of these machines…i am surprised this kind of excessively gory video doesn’t lead to more people quitting their jobs. i mean there has to be some sort of a balance between ‘cautionary tale’ & ‘pants-soiling terror inducer.’

#19, that ad almost gave me a heart attack the first time i saw it almost a year ago…not even so much the shot of the boiled face but the SCREAMING. still creeps me out. that whole series is pretty bad.
ameta4

I’m never going to work again.
Antinous / Moderator

Great date movie.
alisong76

And he could find a second job instead of working overtime at a place where there are final destination like accidents.

I don’t know how it works in other countries, but if you try that in Australia, they tax you to DEATH on your second job. Sure, you can try and get it back in your tax “return”, but they’ve still had the pleasure of using your money for a year. That’ll teach you to try and make ends meet in the most beaureaucratic, red tape choked, over governed, over-regulated and over-taxed country in the world.
InsertFingerHere

I guess this is like snuff porn for those whack jobs that go into factories and blow everyone away.

“Ted at the lathe.. ya.. uunngg.. bleed you mofo… Larry in his office all day, thinking he’s king shit.. how does that canister taste ? Boyeahhhh…”

jizzed .. in.. my pants.
el_rey_misterioso

I found this video jarring and effective. Having worked a few warehouse jobs, I can see all of these things happening (and in fact, I’m sure all of the content is inspired by real events). Terrible and sad. I hope the video has saved some hardship.
mst3kzz

This one is more campy than gory, but still worth a laugh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4svAoq1usM
JJT

I could not stop laughing at this. Too funny for a rainy Saturday.
napstimpy

Man, when this video was produced in 1998, that Boss TR505 drum machine on the soundtrack was already a dozen years old. Quality!
Editz

Think this guy watched the Klaus video?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ezI_LLOTVw
danielpj

Haha wow! how much do you want to bet that whatever company makes their employees watch this has a great safety record?
alowishus

So rad.
Ratdog

All Joking aside, I think this would remind people to be careful. Even if they thought it was useless and over the top gore, they would certainly remember never to use gloves around a lathe.
Takuan

listen to the little voices.
Xenu

Dario Argento’s WORKPLACE SAFETY
Anonymous

I worked in an automotive machine shop for several years. Ugly things can happen and they happen quick. You have to be careful with machinery, but if you are truly afraid of the equipment, you should not be using it. Now, this of course, looked like an Indie Final Destination filmed in a factory. A truly gruesome collection of really horrible stuff.
David Carroll

I was trying to track down the director/producer of this. In 1998 Tarantino and Bay seemed to free, but Cameron was already more gainfully employed. Of course hoping that any of them or their ilk did this would be a little too much to ask for.

However, I may have discovered where you can get your very own copy for a mere $229 (VHS) P.S. At that price they actually have the gaul to charge an extra $10 for a DVD version that costs less to make and ship than VHS.

http://www.stsosha.com/products/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=822

P.S.S. My CAPTCHA is “less ANGLO”.. Isn’t that a little racist?
pewma

I will not be cleaning the meat slicer at work tonight!
Anonymous

JOWSLEY: My thoughts exactly, Tromaville all the way!
megavark

Nice bonus cameo by Doctor Zaius at 4:00
Tony Moore

…because i needed more reasons to never go back to having a “real” job.

i’m going to make a safety video like this for artists. eyes poked out from spoons left in coffee, fingers degloved by pencil sharpeners, guts squeezed out through the mouth like toothpaste from a tube by tumbling stacks of hardback books.

It’s a dangerous world i live in, and i need to let others know where they should keep a careful eye.

-T
Brett Burton

Thank you thank you thank you! I’ve been trying to find this video again since I first saw it about two years ago. I had pretty much given up. Awesome!
ShastaMcNasty

@52, I hope the upcharge for the DVD was marked with an asterix.
Takuan

does this count?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/5114656/Forget-chicks-this-Easter-the-hamsters-are-taking-over.html
Anonymous

Unicorn chaser PLEASE!!!!
PeaceNerd

No unicorn can ever make this right.
Fooksie

NOT MY FINGER…..AAAAHHHHHH!
Thanks for posting this!
Anonymous

Canadian workplace saftey PSAs are trauma-inducing. I particularly resent them because I’m an office worker, and thus once you get past the “Do not lick power outlets, do not stand on wheely chairs, do not drink whiteout” level of common sense, there’s not much you can do to kill yourself in my day job.
Anonymous

Seriously, accidents happen quickly and unexpectedly. I was one of two people working in a textile research lab when my co-worker got his arm pulled into a machine. There were two 10-inch diameter stainless steel rollers separated by about 1/2 inch. They were subject to high temperatures and would develop surface rust, requiring periodic cleaning. Instead of cleaning some on a still roller, bumping the machine forward a little, then cleaning more, Mr. Clever was letting it run at a slow speed so that all he had to do was move the Scotch Brite pad from side to side and let the motion of the roller do all of the work. A moment of inattention and his fingers were caught between the two counter-rotating rollers designed to pull cloth into the machine. With the slow speed of the rollers, it was a slow-motion pulling of his arm into the machine, crushing it as it went. Since this was a research lab, standard safety guidelines weren’t followed: there were no kill switches on the machine. I had to run all the way to the other end and open a panel to get to a power switch to turn it off, by which time he was up to his shoulder. Neither were there quick-releases on the rollers, so I had to use a wrench to remove one end so that we could get his arm out. You really wouldn’t have wanted to hear the screams. Incredibly, miraculously, none of his bones were broken, but there was horrible soft-tissue damage inside from the crushing. His arm looked like a fleshy bag of blood. If I hadn’t stopped it when I did, it would have been ripped off of his body.

The company, of course, would do ANYTHING to avoid a “down-time accident”. They had him wheeled back in before the end of the day so that it wouldn’t have to be reported as a serious accident. Then, he was brought in every day and sat in a chair doing nothing for many weeks afterwards. And, of course, the machine sprouted kill switches like mushrooms in a cow pasture the next day.

I am now a college science professor. We show these sort of horrifyingly over-the-top safety videos to our students. These include lovely scenes such as a student jabbing a broken glass tube completely through their hand of blinding themselves with acid. I may have to surreptitiously substitute the above-linked “Staplerfahrer Klaus – Der erste Arbeitstag” (“Forklift driver Klaus – the first day on the job”) for the normal video! That would be hysterical 8-)
erissian

First, why do all safety videos look like they were made in 1982? Is there a rule I don’t know about?

Second, I wonder if safety videos are a rite of passage for people who do horror special effects.
phoenix21

AAAAAHHH! AAAHHH! AAAHHH!

No, I won’t be here tomorrow, I’m too frakking scared to work here!
Anonymous

anyone seen the canadaian PSAs for workplaces safety! they are nasty and on television!

http://www.youtube.com/results?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&search_type=search_videos&search_query=preventit.ca&search_sort=relevance&search_category=0&page=

its like they let david cronenburg make thier safety vids!
Anonymous

What about “Shake Hands With Danger”? Safety film about dangers associated with earthmoving equipment operation, showing many great simulated accidents on construction sites. CONTENT ADVISORY: May be frightening and surprising to some viewers, and contains great country-style song by a Johnny Cash-soundalike.

http://www.archive.org/details/ShakeHan1970
PeaceNerd

Just another day down at the mannequin factory.
Anonymous

“First, why do all safety videos look like they were made in 1982? Is there a rule I don’t know about?”

All safety video directors know that 1982 was a particulary scary year, visually.
Anonymous

I’m pretty sure that music in the intro is from Predator, which seems strangely appropriate.
Erisis

I… am… horrified…
I like to think that i have a high tolerance for weirdness and gore, but Holy Sweet Christ!!!
I couldn’t even make it more than halfway through! This thing will stay with me for the rest of my Freakin’ Life!!!
I was starting to get discouraged about not finding any acting work lately. But now, no matter what, i am totally inspired to NEVER GET INTO ANY LINE OF WORK THAT INVOLVES ANYTHING MORE DANGEROUS THAN AN IRATE DIRECTOR!!!!!
RainyRat

Reminds me a lot of “Stapelfahrer Klaus” – see it at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8390228957398477090 if you’re interested, non-sqeamish and, ideally, a German speaker.

Unrelated – is anyone else getting errors when they try to edit their profile, or preview their posts?
chrisrosa

Oh man…that reminds me of that German forklift safety video, Staplerfahrer Klaus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lm4Q4vWy_ck
Anonymous

As someone living in China, the Youtube ban has sucked the fun out of a lot of websites, I’ll just have to use my vivid imagination on this one..

Thank goodness for the occasional vimeo link.
alisong76

Sorry, I’m laughing almost too hard too type. I don’t think that was quite the effect they were aiming for!
Spod Slugman

Yep, we’re shown videos like this every month at work. The gore and nastiness make them hard to ignore. And real industrial accidents are rarely neat and tidy.
steve

Some of the comments seem, I don’t know, classist or something. Millions or real people do jobs like the ones in the video, and I’m sure every scene was inspired by a real incident. People doing dangerous jobs safely is what keeps us all clothed, fed, and entertained.

My attitude about this might be colored by the fact that I watched it in between operating a forklift, so maybe the film was unusually sobering for me. On the other hand, across the parking lot from here is a welding supply company, and I’ve seen gas cylinders fall off their loading dock w/o any resulting drama, so the gas cylinder scene didn’t do much for me.
Jake Bullet

Fantastic!

I love the forklift one. Not only does the guy drive off the edge of the loading dock – and get bent backward in the process, the forklift then rolls to its side and crushes his foot.

As if it weren’t bad enough to have your back broken by the initial crash, they have to show him getting his foot mangled as well!
AsteriskCGY

Reminds me of a couple Canadian PSA’s I saw a few years back. With like zombies. It was about there were no such thing as accidents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnzJih046Jw&feature=related