A recent YouTube clip shared on WWE’s YouTube page has me speculating about what the human body can really do. Wrestling has its levels of reality and drama, so when I saw their video of Braun Strowman flipping an ambulance…only one question came to mind.
Is that even humanly possible? Maybe, if gravity didn’t exist.
Obviously, I know the clip isn’t real. If you watch the left side of the screen as Strowman begins to flip the ambulance, then you’ll notice the whole left portion is off camera. My guess, is there’s a cable or some other unseen force really lifting the car, or the ambulance itself is a mock model version.
The average ambulance weighs anywhere from 10,000-14,000 lbs, which is already an unrealistic amount for one person to flip by themselves. Not to mention, these cars are designed to avoid easily flipping when going at high speeds.
To gain a better idea of what’s humanly possible, I reached out to Michael Gill, a retired 105kg professional strongman athlete, coach, and author, who’s had to flip cars before in competition.
Gill’s video below features him flipping a car in competition, and he states, “A bar is usually mounted to the frame under the door for the athlete to get a grip on. This makes the job much easier.”
With experience flipping cars, Gill made comments on the WWE’s video saying, “There is no way a human could flip an ambulance. The amount of force necessary could be calculated by a physicist, but it would be crazy.”
Also, as pointed out earlier, Gill talks about the design of an ambulance and how it’s made to avoid rolling, “Given the fact that most of them are also designed to not flip on their side during high speed driving would also make it a more daunting task.”
Formal car flips haven’t made there way into strongman competitions for quite sometime. Gill says, “There was a World’s Strongest Man where I believe they had to do three.” The below video is from the 1989 World’s Strongest Man competition that Gill referenced above. Athletes had to race head-to-head and flip three consecutive cars.
The announcer points out that the cars in the World’s Strongest Man video weigh around 700kg (1,540 lbs). Gill mentions, “I don’t think a record for a car flip currently exists and I haven’t seen it in a contest since I did it a decade ago.”
If the world’s strongest athletes had a hard time flipping a 1,540 lb car, then a wrestler flipping a 10,000 lb ambulance is absolutely ridiculous.
Feature image screenshot from WWE YouTube channel.
