Mechanic Reacts to Dangerous OSHA Nightmares

We asked real mechanics to break down some of the worst garage safety violations we could find on the internet.

Huge thanks to our experts for sharing their expertise:

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[LunchboxNinja]

As an actual safety / OSHA guy here.... I really tried listing the OSHA violations in this video. I had to stop somewhere around 100 and I wasn't even halfway through lol.

[rlarocque]

🎶"Come with me...and you'll be...in a world of OSHA violations..."🎶

[DeepJJ]

For all the times we may or may not follow OSHA standards, always remember those rules are there for a reason. As once stated from my quality assurance instructor, “every OSHA regulation is written in blood.”

[Felipera_]

I Love Junior's assessments:
- no glasses
- no gloves
- no proper footwear
- putting your damn hand inside a moving machine 😂

[thomasmiddlebrooke]

In the second fire, with the vehicle on the lift, the gas tank ended up melting open and leaking. This is why the fire got worse. FireDept Chronicles did a video on this case a while back.

[bringonthedead]

My dad was a mechanic and a machinist his entire life. Since I was a very young kid, he always repeated the same saying over and over: "Machines don't forgive". Thanks, pops! Still got all my fingers 😅

[johnberry]

As a firefighter/ paramedic I want to ask you to thank everyone in those clips. It proves my profession will always be needed.

As a DIY “ mechanic type person “ I can neither confirm nor deny I may have taken part in things close to every clip.

[JReybabay]

This whole show could easily just be Sandro and Angelina just doing this everyday and i would literally watch every single day if you uploaded daily

[ronmani]

I have a HEALTHY respect for coil springs... was working on my 64 ford, used a spring compressor to remove the springs. they were cheap ones designed for clamping on to either side of the spring. as I was removing one, the compressors both slid over to one side of the spring... I took it out VERY carefully and placed it on the ground near me, the 1/2" drive ratchet still on one of the compressor ends. I was watching it and there was a blur and boing noise and now im looking at the full spring, compressors on the ground under it and no ratchet.... 4 or 5 seconds later i heard a metallic "ping" down the street, go to see and its my ratchet around 200ft away from the house.

[soffes]

I like how Sandro always mentions the boys 😂

[UnnamedSeeker]

Fun fact about the log engine hoist. During WWII Russian T-34 and some other tanks included a similar method as one of factory approved field repair technique, including official ways to brace log on certain parts of the vehicle.

[joeedgar]

On the OSHA dream clip, that ladder needs to be stored while folded and leaning against a wall and secured with some kinda of fastening, usually a chain of some kind. I don’t remember which chapter of OSHA guidelines it’s from but my instructor drilled Ladder safety into us a lot because of how often we would use it while running cables and other things in overhead wire ways.

[Voltikz]

I'd love to see this again but with someone from OSHA so we can know exactly what would be a violation. Could also be a good learning time to make everyone safer

[someoneelse]

That Dyno clip is seriously horrifying. A stark reminder that machines do not differentiate between metal and flesh.

[nocount]

I remember FDC's video on the second clip. That's pretty much a worst-case scenario for a vehicle fire, as they're virtually impossible to extinguish since the fire is feeding from two sources.

[TheColosiss]

My high-school had many custom tools meant for compressed springs. My town is rural so the things in the shop were a bit different. Some of the senior welders were tested by building new tools for the Auto shop. They were tested like you wouldn't believe. If the tool was found wanting, the welder passed and was asked to make another tool for the school. The coolest I saw was a modified compressor designed to alleviate weight on broken leaf springs from multiple points so that they could be replaced with little effort. The tool fit a plethora of vehicles and was tested on a few different platforms that had severely bent springs. It was a very simple tool, very efficient, and saved the shop countless hours working on lifted beasts.

The kid that made it was a year older than me and was a literal genius. He got a perfect score on his ACT tests and built a program to backdoor any program on school computers. His program was so good that the shop teachers used it to for YouTube or music. The kid was *WAAAAY* smarter than me. He was also a very kind person. He was given a special award for his contributions to the school. *GENIUS*

[phillipfeital]

Sandro always gives the best responses. You guys need to get him more on the channel

[nevarius]

Always a good day when the boys (and Angelina) get together.

[VB-bklh]

I spent over 25 years working in a shop. Years ago there was no OSHA anywhere unless someone died or lost a limb. Shop floors were covered in 6" of oil and gas soaked speedy dry, safety glasses were only required when using a torch or grinder, and even then, the only issue was that they considered it your fault if you got something in your eye when not wearing them.
The biggest risk however was usually the guy working next to you. They would hire anyone, and put the new guys between two older guys with more experience. We always thought it was so they could learn but looking back it was more likely to have to more experienced techs close by in case the new guy did something stupid. Over the years I watched guys set cars on fire, set the shop floor on fire, explode tires, set lifts down on toolboxes or open drawers, dump cars off lifts, and even run cars in the walls or tool boxes. The number one fail was likely guys running over lift arms and blowing tires. Second was guys dumping front wheel drive cars off lifts by removing the rear tires because they failed to account for the front heavy vehicle when they pulled onto the lift.
The worst fail I saw was a guy who drove a car off a raised four post drive non lift. He had the rear wheels lifted off the ramps with the car running at about 50 mph trying to find a vibration. The safety levers on the air jack was tied off. He stepped back, somehow caught and broke the yellow spiral hose that supplied air to the jack holding the spinning tires off the ramps.
The car dropped onto the ramp, shot forward jumping off the ramp and falling across a 4ft mid wall that separated the two lanes of the shop. The car landed nose down atop another techs $25k SnapOn tool box. The car actually wasn't damaged that bad, it tore up the exhaust, lower valance panel, front bumper cover, and bottom of one fender. The tool box was destroyed, the lift was damaged slightly but the big damage was to the floor, as the car went off the front, it caught the tire stops, which in turn bent all four posts forward ripping the rear posts out of the concrete. The entire lift had to replaced, the floor had to be cut and repaired, and afterwards they redesigned the mid wall or divider with a heavy steel barrier that could catch a car.
They did not fire the tech. However, a few weeks later he destroyed two cars, he set one on fire in the parking lot while 'checking for spark'. He pulled a plug wire, stuck a spark tester on one wire and failed to notice that the under hood insulation was soaked with gas and oil. It burst into flames and burned beyond repair in the lot. That same day, he was running a car through the automatic car wash and for whatever reason tried to get out of the car midway through. The mechanism caught the door, (and him), and folded it forward on a brand new truck.
(The shop had a built in automated car wash and it was policy to wash ever vehicle that came in for any repair). A few days after that he filled both tanks on a brand new diesel truck with gasoline, then proceeded to take it for a test drive to get his lunch. It was on a Friday, the truck got delivered that evening with two full tanks of gas. The customer realized it but not till they got home nearly 70 miles away. They towed the truck back and realized what had happened the following Monday. That was his last day. That place is long gone, it closed up over 25 years ago now. I had later heard that the same guy was working at a local diner and was somehow the cause of it burning to the ground not long after he was fired from the shop where I worked.

[dbrock]

As mentioned in another comment, FireDept Chronicles did a video on the fire and said that the guy did the best he could but there were actually two bases for the fire due to the leak and he couldn't deal with both.