[defcon65]

I'm a little late to this thread but couldn't resist a similar, but more scary story:
I worked in a small art foundry about 15 years ago. We had an electric forklift with a bad accelerator/rheostat thing that had a tendancy to slip or stick and lurch/takeoff with little warning. It was really a frightening thing and an accident waiting to happen. Well, it did. One day while moving pallet racks, another worker dismounted the lift with the wheels cocked slightly right and a 10' rack resting on the forks. It lurched forward and took off across the shop floor towards the showroom. No one knew what to do, we just froze and stared in disbelief. Enroute, one end of the rack knocked over a 100 lb full oxy cylinder - you know those protective collars that screw over the valve? Didn't have one. Tank fell over against a concrete step, shearing off the valve. Now we had a rocket flying across the floor in the opposite direction of a runaway forklift. We knew what to do then, and ran like hell. The tank punched clean through a steel door on the office, demolished a desk, file cabinet and water cooler, then punched through the exterior wall of the foundry and skidded around in the street to the amazement of an Amish family, in buggy, on their way to the livestock sale barn. OK, back to the forklift, which by this time had taken out the entire dividing wall between the shop and showroom, demolishing an Anderson french door and knocking over a fridge. It kept going through the seating area and display tables, knocking over most of the inventory before wedging itself against a concrete foundation wall and the side of a very large, tall compressed airtank, which began to wobble. The wheels were still spinning and heavy smoke was pouring out of the accelerator control - great! Nothing like a fire in an oxygen-enriched environment! By this time, we were all ready for a pants-rinsing when the lift just died, stopped working. One of the sculptors grabbed a fire extinguisher and hosed down the smoking lift. Amazingly, no one was injured, nothing caught fire, no one else's property got damaged and the Amish family's assessment of how foolish we English really were didn't change a bit. We ditched the electric lift for a propane-powered, repaired the damage and made damn sure those tank collars were always installed. It was the god-damndest thing I ever saw and frightening as hell. It was over in like, ten seconds.