MythBusters was one of the defining shows of early 21st-century television, and its stars are proud of the show's safety record. But that's not to say that it was completely accident-free or that no eyebrows were harmed. Here are the biggest accidents and injuries on MythBusters.
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00:00Mythbusters was one of the defining shows of early 21st-century television, and its
00:04stars are proud of the show's safety record.
00:06But that's not to say that it was completely accident-free, or that no eyebrows were harmed.
00:11Here are the biggest accidents and injuries on Mythbusters.
00:14Anyone who has watched Mythbusters knows that the setup for each experiment includes plenty
00:18of safety precautions to protect the cast and crew and innocent bystanders.
00:23It may not look like it, but we're professionals.
00:25Do us a favor.
00:27Don't try this at home!
00:29Whoa!
00:30But one day, the unthinkable happened.
00:32In 2011, the Mythbusters build team were testing whether a stone cannonball could be fired
00:36with the same force as a metal one.
00:38To examine this myth, the team headed out to the Alameda County Bomb Range and brought
00:42along a self-made cannon that they had used in prior episodes.
00:45To start the test, they loaded in a metal cannonball, lit the fuse, and boom!
00:49A puff of smoke.
00:50But where was the cannonball?
00:52As the Mythbusters would later discover, it had apparently bounced off the ground and
00:56was sent flying into a residential neighborhood 700 yards outside the range.
01:00And when we realized that that had happened, we called off the experiment immediately to
01:04help out any way we could.
01:06From there, the cannonball followed a hectic trajectory.
01:09According to the Los Angeles Times, it smashed a 10-inch hole through one house, bounced
01:13off the roof of another, and ultimately came to a stop after hitting a parked minivan.
01:17The Mythbusters have described this incident as their worst day ever.
01:21And rightly so.
01:22I think we all have the same worst possible day ever, and it's going to be cannonball.
01:26Thankfully, no one was hurt.
01:28But regardless, the network promised to pay for any damages, and Adam and Jamie personally
01:32met with the affected families to express their sympathy.
01:35The Mythbusters also made sure to be even more safe with their projectiles in future
01:38seasons.
01:40The cannonball incident aside, the biggest accidents on Mythbusters almost always happen
01:43to the Mythbusters themselves.
01:45In the 2008 season, Grant, Carey, and Torrey decided to test whether a cloud of sawdust
01:49that was lit on fire would produce a huge fireball, as a recent viral video had shown.
01:54To examine this, the build team built a cannon that shot sawdust into the air, which was
01:58immediately lit with a flare.
02:00To their surprise, the resulting fireball resembled the one in the viral video almost
02:03exactly.
02:04But the curious team decided to take things up a notch and build an even bigger cannon.
02:08This time, they built it with a highly flammable powdered coffee creamer.
02:12During the cannon fire, the massive cloud of creamer ignited a second later, with the
02:16build team standing just a few yards away.
02:18Carey detailed the incident, saying,
02:20"...and then the wind changed and it started coming at us.
02:23I had so much fear in my heart I just started running."
02:25Thankfully, it stopped its explosion a few feet away from the group, leaving them all
02:29completely unscathed.
02:31In the 2015 season of Mythbusters, Adam and Jamie investigated an urban legend which said
02:35that a rock caught in a lawnmower could be propelled with enough force to kill a person.
02:39So they started by removing the safety features from some commercial lawnmowers and running
02:43them over a makeshift rocky lawn.
02:45They found that the mowers were capable of launching rocks with enough force to lodge
02:49in styrofoam.
02:50Additional lab tests confirmed that the flying rocks had similar or even more energy than
02:54a gun-fired bullet.
02:56This alone was enough to declare the myth confirmed, but Jamie wasn't satisfied.
03:00He had so much fun testing the myth that he decided to construct a massive, high-powered
03:03lawnmower from hell.
03:05But the dastardly device turned out to be even more destructive than Jamie had intended.
03:10When the giant mower hit a bump, the axle broke, sending the rapidly-spinning 50-pound
03:13blade flying out of the front of the machine.
03:16Even with no injuries, the Mythbusters decided that the machine was too dangerous for further
03:20use, and Jamie had to abandon his pet project.
03:22Well, you know, I intended to go over the top with my lawnmower from hell, and I guess
03:30I did.
03:32In one of Mythbusters' very first episodes, Adam and Jamie investigate whether using a
03:35cell phone at a gas station can lead to an explosion.
03:38Explaining this myth required the duo to build a gasoline-filled glass chamber, which
03:42they would then attempt to ignite with a phone.
03:44The episode featured many mini-explosions, as the Mythbusters tried to figure out the
03:48proper concentration of gasoline to test the myth.
03:50But for one of these explosions, Adam was standing just a little too close.
03:54I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, am I missing an eyebrow?
04:00Adam had a moment of panic when he thought his hair was gone, but he was lucky.
04:03The blast only singed off part of his eyebrow.
04:05The most unfortunate part of the incident was that Adam had a date the following day,
04:09but hopefully his companion was impressed by his dedication to science.
04:14According to Jamie, some of the worst injuries to occur in Mythbusters were broken fingers.
04:18Ironically, broken while handling safety equipment.
04:21Those heavy glass panels that we put up are kind of bad to put your fingers in between
04:24if you're not careful.
04:26One notable injury of this type occurred to Adam while filming an episode for the 2014
04:30season.
04:31The Mythbusters were testing whether an exploding water heater could potentially put out a nearby
04:35fire.
04:36While assembling the blast shields to house the explosion, Adam got his hand stuck between
04:40two of the heavy panes and apparently broke the base of his index finger.
04:44According to Adam, he had already forgotten about the injury by the time the episode aired
04:47a few months later, that is, until his mother called to ask him if he was all right.
04:51Luckily for the worried mom, Adam's hand was already fine by then.
04:55Is it possible that the Confederate States of America could have built a two-stage rocket
04:59during the Civil War and launched it from Richmond to Washington, D.C.?
05:03Adam and Jamie dedicated a whole episode of the 2005 season to investigating this unusual
05:07myth.
05:08In less than two days, the Mythbusters were able to construct an entire rocket using technologies
05:12that would have been available to Civil War-era engineers.
05:15There was one major mishap along the way.
05:18Adam and Jamie were pretty confident that they had built a working rocket, so they decided
05:22to perform an indoor ignition test.
05:24They put the rocket in a big metal shipping container and rigged it so that it could be
05:27ignited from outside the lab.
05:29When Adam pulled the switch, they heard a massive boom, and smoke immediately began
05:32pouring from the workshop.
05:34Things were looking much worse on the inside, with huge clouds of smoke and numerous small
05:38fires filling the lab.
05:39One camera and a few pieces of lab equipment were completely melted by the blaze that the
05:43rocket had produced.
05:45After the workshop was restored, the Mythbusters took the rocket outside, where it only traveled
05:49a meager 500 yards.
05:51The myth was declared busted.
05:54According to Adam, the scariest experience he had on Mythbusters was the 2010 episode
05:58where he escaped from a submerged car.
06:00The concept is already terrifying enough, but it's even worse when things don't go as
06:04planned.
06:05The Mythbusters had already attempted a series of sinking car escapes in the 2007 season,
06:09but decided to make the scenario even more realistic in 2010 by flipping the car upside
06:14down as it fell into a lake, with Adam and a safety diver inside.
06:17The experiment started off fine, but as the unbalanced car filled up with water, it actually
06:21flipped right-side up, and then upside down again.
06:25Even worse, once water had completely filled the car, it was a murky brown and burned his
06:29eyes.
06:30Adam found that he was completely unable to escape under these conditions, so he tapped
06:33out, asking the safety diver to pass him the oxygen tank regulator so he could breathe.
06:38But like the car itself, the regulator was upside down, and Adam learned this terrifying
06:42lesson.
06:43An upside-down regulator will give you air, but it also gives you a lot of water.
06:47Now disoriented and choking down water, Adam boldly reminded himself to keep a level head.
06:52He was soon able to open the car door and escape.
06:55The first myth that the Mythbusters ever tested was whether a car affixed with rocket motors
06:59could go flying off a ramp at a speed around 300 miles per hour.
07:02In the initial 2003 trial, the Mythbusters found that a rocket-boosted car did travel
07:07significantly faster than normal, but nowhere near 300 miles an hour, nor was it capable
07:11of becoming airborne.
07:13Unsatisfied, Jamie and Adam returned to this rocket car experiment in a 2007 episode.
07:18This time, they decided that mounting the rocket tubes inside the trunk of the car would
07:21allow the system to be more stable, and spent a good portion of this episode rigging a Chevy
07:25Impala with this new configuration.
07:27They also built a massive ramp that ideally would allow the car to take flight.
07:31When it was time for the test, Jamie and Adam watched from the sidelines.
07:34It's heading towards the ramp!
07:37Or not.
07:44While not one of the most dangerous accidents, this was certainly one of the most disappointing.
07:48But in a 10th anniversary episode, all five Mythbusters joined forces to revisit the rocket
07:52car legend one final time.
07:54Anti-climactically, the myth was busted.
07:57The car smashed into the ground after only a few seconds of flight.
08:01Besides Adam, the Build team's Tori Bileci seemed to suffer the majority of the show's
08:04injuries.
08:05Tori's worst injury probably came in the 2010 season, during an episode where the Build
08:09team was investigating whether a person could hold onto a ledge indefinitely.
08:13To test this myth, the Mythbusters went to the top of an abandoned building, where they
08:16would wear a harness and take turns dangling from the roof.
08:19Tori went first, and was able to hold on with his bare hands for almost a full minute before
08:23letting go.
08:24Unfortunately for Tori, his fall wasn't clean.
08:27As he descended, his shin smashed against an open window frame of the concrete frame
08:31below.
08:32When Tori was released from the harness, there was a big gash on his left leg that was bleeding
08:36substantially.
08:37But Tori the Daredevil kept a positive attitude, telling his companions,
08:40I think you should be glad that I was a guinea pig.
08:42Oh, I'm-
08:44In another episode, Carey and Tori went to a goat farm to find out if goats could really
08:48be startled into fainting or falling over.
08:50That day, however, the first to fall over wasn't a goat, but Tori himself.
08:54While he was holding a handful of goat feed, one curious goat jumped up and kicked Tori
08:58in the groin.
08:59Whether it was accidental or intentional may never be known for sure, as the goat has declined
09:03to comment.
09:04Surprisingly, that wasn't the only low blow that Tori received during his time on the
09:08show.
09:09In another episode, he and Grant created a model of Ben Franklin's famous kite.
09:12But the small kite began to whip around uncontrollably before the rogue device collided with Tori's
09:17crotch.
09:18No wonder Tori once said,
09:19If I had a nickel for every time I got hit in the groin on this show, I could retire.
09:22I hope I could still have kids.
09:24In the 2014 season, the MythBusters tested whether Hollywood car stunts were realistic.
09:30They busted the notion that it's difficult to push your opponent off the road during
09:33a car chase, finding it to be quite easy.
09:35Likewise, they busted the possibility of one speeding car driving up another like a ramp.
09:39For the final myth, the MythBusters tested whether a novice driver could tip his car
09:43sideways and drive around on two wheels.
09:45Adam and Jamie constructed a half-ramp that they would drive up with the left side of
09:49a car, elevating it onto its two right tires.
09:52But after hours of attempting to use the ramp, they found themselves completely unable to
09:55control a half-elevated car, or even to keep it on its right wheels for more than a few
09:59seconds.
10:00When they called in a veteran driver for guidance, their attempts improved somewhat… until
10:04they didn't.
10:05In one particularly bold test, Adam was able to drive the half-elevated car for almost
10:0910 seconds.
10:10I personally think it would be great to roll it, but they tell me that's bad.
10:14But then he tilted it too far and quickly lost control.
10:17The car flipped completely on its side and then onto its back, skidding for several yards
10:21before grinding to a halt.
10:23It was an intense-looking crash, the windows shattered, spraying the upside-down men with
10:27glass.
10:28Thankfully, both Adam and the expert driver were okay, even though neither had a helmet.
10:32Bruce Smith, too, was declared busted.
10:34In 2009, two years before the cannonball fiasco, the Build team decided to test a particularly
10:39silly myth.
10:40Can a person literally have their socks knocked off by an impact?
10:44They started the test by putting socks on the show's famous test dummy Buster and hitting
10:47him with a massive pendulum.
10:49His socks remained on his feet, so it was time to go bigger.
10:52The Build team acquired 500 pounds of ANFO, an ammonium nitrate-based explosive, and brought
10:57it to a quarry outside the town of Esparto, California.
11:00They placed sock-wearing mannequins at various distances from the blast point and prepared
11:04to examine the results.
11:05But the outcome of the test was overshadowed by the sheer size of the blast.
11:09The massive explosion sent shockwaves through the town of Esparto, shattering several windows.
11:14According to KCRA-TV, one woman was even knocked off her couch by the powerful blast.
11:19Luckily, no one got seriously hurt, besides the MythBusters' reputation, that is.
11:24Esparto residents criticized the show for not warning them about the explosion in advance,
11:28and MythBusters had to pay for several window replacements.
11:31A later episode revealed that the MythBusters never returned to the Esparto quarry after
11:35that.
11:36It's probably for the best.