If there was an award for “WTF was that guy thinking?” Michael Mooney of Calhoun, Georgia, would certainly be a top contender. In June 2011, Mooney, who goes by the somewhat misleading name of “The Great Moodini,” was performing a stunt in front of a crowd at the Atlanta Motor Speedway. The stunt involved Mooney trying to escape from shackles while blindfolded, which seems complicated enough, right? However, since this was a big gig at the Speedway, Mooney wanted to make it more exciting, so he chained his wrist shackles to the back of a Camaro that would take off after a three second countdown. Mooney, who apparently didn’t understand how time and speed work, also didn’t think he needed a head start, so the car took off at the same time as he started to try to pick the locks on his shackles.
Predictably, everything went horribly wrong less than two seconds after the stunt started. Mooney was forced to do a cartwheel, flipping on to his head, before landing hard on the ground. He lost consciousness and when he woke up, he said everything hurt and he was crying. He ended up breaking his wrists, some fingers, and his clavicle.
Mooney was taken to the hospital, and frankly was lucky to have survived both death and paralysis. He vowed to return to stunts, but didn’t explain why he would even consider it. We’re guessing, at the time, his head injury and some strong pain medication were doing a lot of the talking for him