History Main / GroundByGears

Often goes hand in hand with a ConveyorBeltOfDoom. Places where this can happen are often guilty of NoOSHACompliance. Surprisingly has nothing to do with ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar''. Often involves a GoryDiscretionShot. Not to be confused with [[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy what grinds your gears]]. Compare with WoodChipperOfDoom, DeadlyRotaryFan and FoldSpindleMutilation.

This is often a DeathTrope, so '''all spoilers are unmarked.'''

* ''Literature/''TheJonah'': Drugs runner [[spoiler: Andy Trewick]], for stealing his employer's merchandise, is fed into a mill’s funnel-shaped pulverizer.

* In ''Film/Terminator2'', during a battle in the steel mill, the [=T-800=] gets its arm caught between a large gear and the track it's on, crushing and pinning it. Not having the strength or leverage to reverse the gear's direction, he is forced to [[AnArmAndALeg tear the damaged arm off]] his body to get free.

* ''ComicBook/IdeesNoires'' has a new kind of SiegeEngine: a giant gear that pulps the heads of the soldiers looking over the battlements.

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* One of Count Cagliostro's mooks is crushed by the workings during the famous ClockTower climax of ''Anime/TheCastleOfCagliostro'', though a GoryDiscretionShot hides the gruesome details from the audience. An unusual variant happens to the Count himself when he's caught in between the gigantic hour and minute hands of the clock face itself as the special mechanism causes them to both rapidly converge on 12.

* ''{{ComicBook/Lanfeust}}'': When Hebus the troll runs into a castle gate, he starts beating on it, to no effect. A guard leaning back against the windlass smugly tells his friend that it's Armalian steel and the troll won't get through it. Hebus, having reached the same conclusion, grabs the gate and pushes it up, the guard getting crushed by the gears he was leaning on.

* The second [[Characters/WhoFramedRogerRabbit Roger Rabbit]] short cartoon is ''Roller Coaster Rabbit'', which sees a desperate Roger attempt to save Baby Herman from harm at a carnival. When Baby Herman clambers aboard a Ferris wheel, Roger tries to snag him from the car, but his feet become enmeshed in the wheel's many exposed drive gears. ToonPhysics make this mightily painful for Roger, but neither injurious nor fatal; even his outfit emerges intact.

* One of Count Cagliostro's mooks is crushed by the workings during the famous ClockTower climax of ''Anime/TheCastleOfCagliostro'', though each time a GoryDiscretionShot hides the gruesome details from the audience. An unusual variant happens to the Count himself when he's caught in between the gigantic hour and minute hands of the clock face itself as the special mechanism causes them to both rapidly converge on 12.

* In the ERI Safety PSA ''[[https://youtu.be/0GXcbReCYwM?t=1m51s Think About This]]'', this happens to a worker when a colleague unwittingly turns on a large grinder/mixer while he's servicing it.

* In the [[AnimatedMusicVideo BGA (background art)]] for LeaF's 2018 song MARENOL, this is one of many ways in which the protagonist does in her dreams.

Often goes hand in hand with a ConveyorBeltOfDoom. Places where this can happen are often guilty of NoOSHACompliance. Surprisingly has nothing to do with ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar''. Often involves a GoryDiscretionShot. Not to be confused with [[WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy what grinds your gears]]. Compare with DeadlyRotaryFan and FoldSpindleMutilation.

* ''Literature/TheExecutioner''. In #57 "Flesh Wounds", terrorist leader Dante gets his sleeve caught in the gears underneath the rotating stage of a music concert. Bolan points out that in a few seconds it'll be his hand, but Dante chooses to be DefientToTheEnd rather than talk, so Bolan gives him a MercyKill.

In the ERI Safety PSA ''[[https://youtu.be/0GXcbReCYwM?t=1m51s Think About This]]'', this happens to a worker when a colleague unwittingly turns on a large grinder/mixer while he's servicing it.

* The "Campus Commandos" episode of ''WesternAnimation/MegaMan'' involves Dr. Wily attempting to kill Mega Man, Roll and Rush by tying them to the gears of the campus clock tower.

* ''Literature/JPBeaumont'': In ''Taking the Fifth'', one of the victims is drugged, bound, and placed under a rotating stage, where he gets caught in the mechanism and crushed to death.

* In Disney's ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatMouseDetective'', Basil flips TheVillain's cape into some bevel gears while the two were fighting inside Big Ben. Basil then rushes to rescue the HeartwarmingOrphan, who is poised to be crushed by much larger gears meshing, leaving TheVillain to tear off his cape to free himself.

* TheVillain from [[Creator/HannaBarbera Hanna Barbera]]'s cartoon series ''WesternAnimation/JosieAndThePussycats'' episode "Never Mind A Mastermind" seeks to eliminate the meddlesome Alexander, Melody, and Alexandra by letting a cogged rack act as a ConveyorBeltODoom, taking the three toward the point where it meshes with a large drive gear. The TeamPet saves them from being meshed to mush, however.