“It was somehow even worse.”
When “so fresh and so clean” goes wrong, it goes very wrong. Just ask a young woman who recently found out exactly what happens at the carwash.
Late one evening, Carlee Crabtree (@carleecrabtree) and her mother pulled into the car wash for a little refresh. In the TikTok, which has been viewed over 8 million times, the interior of the car wash is visible. It’s pretty unremarkable, except for one thing: there’s a large bag of garbage sitting directly in the vehicle’s path.
As Crabtree’s mother keeps filming, she can be heard laughing and encouraging her daughter to “hurry up,” and move the bag out of the way. In order to move the bag, though, Crabtree has to run inside and back out of the car wash before the system activates.
Wearing a comfy, oversized sweater, and soft loungy pants, Crabtree races into the empty car wash. She shuffles the bag (presumably full of things like empty soda cans and destroyed summer flip flops) to the side of the room, then turns and heads back towards the door.
She’s racing against time, though not that urgently, and her mother says, “Poor baby, she’s afraid it’s gonna spray her.”
But in a stunning plot twist, Crabtree doesn’t make it out in time. She’s locked in: just her and the water jets. As the on-screen caption says, “You can’t make ts up.”
The internet was so stunned that even verified detergent brand Gain (@ilovegain) weighed in, “I thought it was gonna be bad and it was somehow even worse,” the brand wrote.
Other people noticed a cinematic connection, “This is how final destination usually starts btw,” said Uhp.
Though the comment is joking, some say being trapped in a car wash is a legit danger. “As someone that worked at auto bell and knows story’s [sic] of people dying in a car wash that’s terrifying,” wrote Peyton Mitchell.
But as serious a warning as that is, perhaps the cleanest comment, with over 44,000 likes, goes to GingerBeardMan (@iamthegingerbeardman) “Car wash [thumbs down emoji] Carley wash [thumbs up emoji].”
Without a doubt, the big question is what to do if you somehow get trapped inside a car wash. The internet has a few stories of folks getting stuck in the car wash inside their car, and the consensus is to stay calm, and honk for help.
But that’s not the final destination scenario everyone’s imagining right now. One Redditor on Explain It Like I’m Five said ever since he saw Stu and Charlies on Rugrats go into a car wash and come out the other side “squeaky clean,” he’s wondered what would happen to a person.
Commenters suggested that damages could range from minor to major, with the biggest risks potentially being the hot wax and hot driers, all of which are calibrated to metal, not flesh.
The biggest danger in the car wash is the vehicle itself. However, an overlooked danger might be the different chemicals used to clean a vehicle. These can cause skin or eye irritation.
Then there’s the machines themselves. They are not calibrated for humans. Add in electricity and water, and it’s an environment ripe for accidents.
In a follow up video, Crabtree explains what happened after her mother stopped filming. She made it out without getting her forehead waxed.
Though the door “fully closes,” she says, and she freaked out, she explains that she was able to get her left hand under the door. Initially she tried and failed to lift it. She kept at it and was finally able to push the door back up.
“All I could think about was if the waters turn on and they came at me, I was gonna get cut in half,” she explains. “Like literally Final Destination cut in half.”
Motor1 reached out to Crabtree via TikTok direct message and with a comment on her video. We will update this if she responds.
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motor1.com?
– The Motor1.com Team