You hear about people that hit “gushers” back in the day. Do we not hear about them now or is it no longer a thing that happens?
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Gushers, aka [blowouts](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowout_(well_drilling)), are very dangerous. They can throw the drilling rods out of the well with tremendous force, and all it takes is a spark to turn a gusher into a fireball. They’re also an environmental disaster and a waste of valuable oil. So modern wells have a variety of mechanisms to prevent them.
A modern oil well is usually filled with drilling fluid, a muddy mix of water and clay minerals. Blowouts can happen when oil and gas enter the well: since they’re lighter than the drilling fluid they lower the pressure (a ”kick”), allowing more oil and gas to enter. If the pressure gets low enough that the gas can form bubbles, then you’re in real trouble.
So modern oil wells’ first line of defense is to carefully monitor the drilling fluid, and add dense material like clay to it to make sure it’s always heavy enough to hold back the oil and gas.
But if something goes wrong, the [blowout preventer](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowout_preventer) kicks in. Its job is to stop gushers. It usually has a ring seal that can grab onto the drill rod and seal the well until workers can regain control by the methods above, but if that doesn’t work it also has hydraulic ram valves that can seal the well completely, even shearing through the drill rod if necessary.
So yeah, the days of the gusher are over thanks to technological advances. They only happen today when multiple failsafes fail, and when that happens it’s considered a [major disaster](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon).
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