'Looked Down for a Sec:' North Carolina Woman Goes to Mechanic. They Don’t Check Inside Before Lifting Her Car

For one North Carolina woman, a recent Superman moment wasn’t particularly super. In a TikTok video watched over 2 million times, you can hear smooth jazz with the lyrics, “I can feel it in the air” playing. Meanwhile, a series of photos scroll by.

The first image is captioned: “Yooo. I came in for a tire and oil change. Looked down for one sec and now I’m in the air. Did they forget I was in the car?” It doesn’t take long to realize the photographer who took these is not grounded. She’s looking down at the ground, as the mechanics clearly do not notice their elevated customer.

Crystal (@crystalmcclain3) says she took her car in for an oil change. She was distracted looking for her wallet in the car, and the technicians were obviously looking elsewhere. Someone pressed a button and up she went.

By the time she found her wallet, she’d also found herself with a bird’s eye view of the entire garage.

“And I’m scared of heights!” she adds in the caption.

Up, Up, and Away

Viewers’ reactions varied from the sage to the silly.

“Not you being in air jail,” quipped @sincerelyjuliaxoxo. 

While @ciciam4 offered judicious advice, “I would have fallen out and called my lawyer.”

For another viewer, the scene brought back the memory of a time her car needed to be towed and the tow-truck operator wouldn’t let her ride in the cab with him. So she sat in the driver’s seat of her incapacitated vehicle. “Apparently this isn’t illegal btw,” observed @EmmaA, complete with a picture. (It is illegal in most states to ride in a vehicle that’s being towed.)

Several people were simply secondhand embarrassed for Crystal, “At this point I’d duck down bc I’d be so embarrassed, lol,” says @4TuneWlkr. 

Is It Dangerous to Lift a Car With Someone Inside?

When using an auto lift it’s “all about the center of gravity,” cautions the Automotive Lift Institute. In other words, stability is everything.

Having a person shifting around inside a car that’s at the top of a lift is a recipe for catastrophic failure. Because there are multiple moving parts, under pressure and balanced (even if properly secured), there’s always the danger of a wobble turning into a crash landing.

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Auto lifts are inherently dangerous, especially when used improperly. Stories abound of cars that’ve fallen, slipped, or tipped due to poor balance, with serious consequences. Because ultimately you’re trying to lift something heavy and unwieldy using precision and hydraulics. And sometimes problems are compounded because of an unpredictable center of mass.

Though most lift accidents are due to human error, poorly maintained equipment can fail in many awful and spectacular ways: including cars that’ve been almost literally ripped in half.

What If It Happens to You?

Chances are, you’ll never find yourself suspended midair and staring out your car window. But if you do, standard safety protocols apply: stay calm, stay still, get someone’s attention, and get down to solid ground as soon as possible.

Update Oct. 22: Via TikTok direct message, Crystal told Motor1, "When they got me down, they started speaking Spanish [...] and I couldn't understand what they said. They then apologized to me and went about their day."

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