Ha, you usually never see this, but they still do it in a few Asian countries. Most of the time, you just let the bar go, and the judges know to duck and cover if it looks like a dangerous loss. I once saw a picture series of a Ken Patera loss in the old metal plate era of 400lbs + where the bar almost went into the crowd.
You'll also see the spotted Olympic lifts at a lot of smaller high schools and colleges. The worst I saw was a 3 position spot on the Clean and Jerk. You had the 2 side spotters, but then you had a middle that would run in, and help them lower a missed clean or jerk from the middle of the bar. Really strange to watch.
