Twelve minutes into the match, the 2,000-foot-long braided nylon rope snapped, recoiling several thousand pounds of stored energy. “It sounded like someone pulled the string on a party cracker,” recalled 14-year-old participant Shannon Meloy. “I smelled something burning and I thought it was the rope...but it was hands. I looked down and saw...blood.” In the ensuing chaos, nearly 200 students lay wounded -- five with severed fingertips, and one missing a thumb. Hundreds more faced second-degree burns. “It was just a game,” another student told the Gadsden Times a day later. “We just wanted to see how many could do it.”

The rope, provided by Pennsylvania Power and Light Co., had been intended for use in heavy construction, and was rated to withstand 13,000 pounds of stress.

http://priceonomics.com/a-history-of-tug-of-war-fatalities/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2886351&forum_id=2#27940464)

One end of the rope whipped back, instantly killing a 9-year-old boy on impact. In the aftermath, 102 others were severely injured; another boy passed away as a result of being crushed when everyone fell.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2886351&forum_id=2#27940544)

It was one of many incidents in the decade. In 2007, two 17-year-old boys participating in a tug of war game at a Colorado homecoming looped the rope around their hands and suffered amputations. “Hearing it was pretty gross,” a student at the scene later told NBC. “There was like a lot of people screaming and just all blood flying everywhere and just people running out of the room." Signs were later posted at the Christian high school that read, “Their hands are in His hands.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2886351&forum_id=2#28142510)