(Video) Alabamian narrowly escapes death while toppling giant smokestack

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November 24, 2015

(Video above: The historic Avondale Mills smokestack comes down)

Words like “trust me,” “light this fuse,” and “watch this” are typically indicators that it might be worth turning on a camera just in case something goes wrong, but a guy in an excavator trying to knock down a smokestack that’s, like, 160 feet tall is also a pretty good reason to pull out the drone camera and take to the skies for some footage.

That was the thought process behind Sky Bama’s latest video, which shows Pell City’s ultimately successful — albeit unorthodox — effort to topple the historic Avondale Mills smokestack, which weighed 2.6 million pounds and is believed to date back to the late 1800s.

After two TNT blasts and lot of prodding with heavy equipment, the smokestack was toppled. Unfortunately it fell right on top of the Komatsu excavator and the man inside.

A few tense moments ended after the brave soul emerged from the rubble and waved to the crowd, thus avoiding a sure spot in next year’s Darwin Awards.

Check it out in the video above.