I had a mate on a drilling rig that the driller made a slight cockup with his mud weights.
This led to a 800m string of drill pipe getting blown out the drill hole and the BOP didn't fire. It went straight up through the Derrek.
Then another one that was stall testing a tunnelling unit gear box when the wrong end of it became untethered and the whole bloody engine started rotating. He only managed to stop it by taking an axe to the fuel line which was of fire hose diameter.
To be honest I think all of us survived our 20's more by luck than skill or common sense.