Jump to content

List of unusual deaths

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mrtk1 (talk | contribs) at 18:55, 6 January 2011 (Undid revision 406323834 by Verkhovensky (talk)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

This article provides a list of unusual deaths – unique, or extremely rare circumstances recorded throughout history. The list also includes less rare, but still unusual, deaths of prominent people.

Antiquity

Note: Many of these stories are likely to be apocryphal
  • c. 620 BC: Draco, Athenian law-maker, was smothered to death by gifts of cloaks showered upon him by appreciative citizens at a theatre on Aegina.[1]
  • 6th century BC: Legend says Greek wrestler Milo of Croton came upon a tree-trunk split with wedges. Testing his strength, he tried to rend it with his bare hands. The wedges fell, trapping his hands in the tree making him unable to defend himself from attacking wolves, which devoured him.[2]
  • 272 BC: According to Plutarch, Pyrrhus of Epirus, conqueror and the source of the term pyrrhic victory, died while fighting an urban battle in Argos when an old woman threw a roof tile at him, stunning him and allowing an Argive soldier to kill him.[4]
  • 53 BC: The Roman general and consul Marcus Licinius Crassus was reported as having been put to death by the Parthians after losing the battle of Carrhae, by being forced to drink a goblet of molten gold, symbolic of his great wealth. A much more likely scenario is that in which, following his death, the Parthian executioner(s) poured said 'molten gold' into his mouth as a message/symbol representing the perils of his 'great thirst for wealth.'[9]
  • 4 BC: Herod the Great reportedly suffered from fever, intense rashes, colon pains, foot drop, inflammation of the abdomen, a putrefaction of his genitals that produced worms, convulsions, and difficulty breathing before he finally expired.[10] However, gruesome deaths have often been attributed by various authors to disliked rulers, including several Roman emperors (for example, Galerius).
  • c. 98: Saint Antipas, Bishop of Pergamum, was roasted to death in a brazen bull during the persecutions of Emperor Domitian. Saint Eustace, as well as his wife and children, supposedly suffered a similar fate under Hadrian. According to legend, the creator of the brazen bull, Perillos of Athens, was the first to be put into the brazen bull when he presented his invention to Phalaris, Tyrant of Agrigentum, but he was taken out before he died to be thrown from a hill where he met his ultimate demise.[13]
  • 260: Roman emperor Valerian, after being defeated in battle and captured by the Persians, was supposedly used as a footstool by the King Shapur I. After a long period of punishment and humiliation, Shapur is said to have had the emperor skinned alive and his skin stuffed with straw or dung and preserved as a trophy.[15] However, this story is generally considered to be unreliable, as it was likely motivated by the author's will to establish that the persecutors of the Christians as having died fitting deaths;[16] and by other Near East Roman authors' desire to establish the Persians as barbarians.[17]
  • 415: Hypatia of Alexandria, Greek mathematician and pagan philosopher, was murdered by a Christian mob by having her skin ripped off with sharp sea-shells; what remained of her was burned. (Various types of shells have been named: clams, oysters, abalones, etc. Other sources claim tiles or pottery-shards were used.)[18]

Middle Ages

  • 9th century: Prince Popiel of Goplans or Polans tribe was eaten alive by mice in a tower in Kruszwica. A similar tale is the Mouse Tower of Archbishop Hatto II of Mainz. This curse was a consequence of his lack of hospitability or obeying traditions.
  • 892: Sigurd the Mighty of Orkney strapped the head of his defeated foe, Máel Brigte, to his horse's saddle. The teeth of this head grazed against his leg as he rode, causing an infection that killed him.
  • 1219: According to legend, Inalchuk, the Muslim governor of the Central Asian town of Otrar, was captured and killed by the invading Mongols, who poured molten silver in his eyes, ears, and throat.[20]

Renaissance

  • 1514: György Dózsa, Székely man-at-arms and peasants' revolt leader in Hungary, was condemned to sit on a red-hot iron throne with a red-hot iron crown on his head and a red-hot sceptre in his hand (mocking at his ambition to be king), by Hungarian landed nobility in Transylvania. While Dózsa was still alive, he was set upon and his partially roasted body was eaten by six of his fellow rebels, who had been starved for a week beforehand.[25]
  • 1556: Humayun, a Mughal emperor, was descending from the roof of his library after observing Venus, when he heard the adhan, or call to prayer. Humayun's practice was to bow his knee when he heard the azaan, and when he did his foot caught the folds of his garment, causing him to fall down several flights. He died three days later of the injuries.[26]
  • 1601: Tycho Brahe, Danish astronomer, according to legend, died of complications resulting from a strained bladder at a banquet. It would have been extremely bad etiquette to leave the table before the meal was finished, so he stayed until he became fatally ill. This version of events has since been brought into question as other causes of death (murder by Johannes Kepler, suicide, and mercury poisoning among others) have come to the fore.[27]
  • 1667: James Betts died from reported asphixiation after being accidentally sealed in a cupboard by Elizabeth Spencer, daughter of John Spencer. Betts, a fellow commoner at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, had been pursuing the only woman in the college, Elizabeth Spencer, the Master's daughter. One day, Elizabeth's father surprised them and she hid him in the cupboard. She did not return for some time and when the cupboard was opened his corpse was discovered. Elizabeth later committed suicide.[31][32][33]
  • 1671: François Vatel, chef to Louis XIV, committed suicide because his seafood order was late and he could not stand the shame of a postponed meal. His body was discovered by an aide, sent to tell him of the arrival of the fish. The authenticity of this story is questionable.[34]
  • 1673: Molière, the French actor and playwright, died after being seized by a violent coughing fit, while playing the title role in his play Le Malade imaginaire (The Hypochondriac).[35]
  • 1687: Jean-Baptiste Lully, composer, died of a gangrenous abscess after piercing his foot with a staff while he was vigorously conducting a Te Deum, as it was customary at that time to conduct by banging a staff on the floor. The performance was to celebrate the king's recovery from an illness.[36]

18th century

  • 1751: Julien Offray de La Mettrie, a major materialist and sensualist philosopher and author of L'Homme machine, died of overeating at a feast given in his honor. His philosophical adversaries suggested that by doing so, he had contradicted his theoretical doctrine with the effect of his practical actions.[37]
  • 1771: Adolf Frederick, king of Sweden, died of digestion problems on 12 February 1771 after having consumed a meal consisting of lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring and champagne, topped off with 14 servings of his favourite dessert: semla served in a bowl of hot milk.[39] He is thus remembered by Swedish schoolchildren as "the king who ate himself to death."[40]
  • 1794: John Kendrick, an American sea captain and explorer, was killed in the Hawaiian Islands when a British ship mistakenly used a loaded cannon to fire a salute to Kendrick's vessel.[41]

Modern Age

19th century

  • 1814: London Beer Flood, 9 people were killed when 323,000 imperial gallons (1,468,000L) of beer in the Meux and Company Brewery burst out of their vats and gushed into the streets.
  • 1871: Clement Vallandigham, U.S. Congressman and political opponent of Abraham Lincoln, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound suffered in court while representing the defendant in a murder case. Demonstrating how the murder victim could have inadvertently shot himself, the gun, which Vallandigham believed to be unloaded, discharged and mortally wounded him. The defendant was acquitted.

20th century

  • 1912: Franz Reichelt, tailor, fell to his death off the first deck of the Eiffel Tower while testing his invention, the coat parachute. It was his first ever attempt with the parachute and he had told the authorities in advance he would test it first with a dummy.[45]
  • 1916: Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic, was reportedly poisoned while dining with a political enemy, shot in the head, shot three more times, bludgeoned, and then thrown into a frozen river after being castrated. When his body washed ashore, an autopsy showed the cause of death to be hypothermia. However, there is now some doubt about the credibility of this account. Another account said that he was poisoned, shot, and stabbed, at which time he got up and ran off – and was later found to have drowned in a frozen river.[46]
  • 1919: In the Boston Molasses Disaster, 21 people were killed and 150 were injured when a tank containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal (8,700,000 L) of molasses exploded, sending a wave travelling at approximately 35 mph (56 km/h) through part of Boston, Massachusetts, United States.[48][49]
  • 1920 Ray "Chappie" Chapman, shortstop for the Cleveland Indians baseball team, was killed when a submarine ball thrown by Carl Mays hit him in the temple. He took two steps after being given a walk, collapsed, and died the next day.
  • 1920: Dan Andersson, a Swedish author, died of cyanide poisoning while staying at Hotel Hellman in Stockholm, because the hotel staff had failed to clear the room after using hydrogen cyanide against bedbugs.
  • 1920, 25 October: Alexander I King of the Hellenes, was taking a walk in the Royal Gardens, when his dog was attacked by a monkey. The King attempted to defend his dog, receiving bites from both the monkey and its mate.[50] The animals were diseased, inducing infection which led to sepsis. He died three weeks later. His death resulted in the reinstatement of his deposed father Constantine I.
  • 1923: Martha Mansfield, an American film actress, died after sustaining severe burns on the set of the film The Warrens of Virginia after a smoker's match, tossed by a cast member, ignited her Civil War costume of hoopskirts and ruffles.[51]
  • 1925: Zishe (Siegmund) Breitbart, a circus strongman and Jewish folklore hero, died as a result of a demonstration in which he drove a spike through five one-inch (2.54 cm) thick oak boards using only his bare hands. He accidentally pierced his knee and the rusted spike caused an infection which led to fatal blood poisoning. He was the subject of the Werner Herzog film, Invincible.[54]
  • 1926: Harry Houdini, a famous American escape artist, was punched in the stomach by an amateur boxer who had heard that Houdini could withstand any blow to his body above his waist, excluding his head. Though this had been done with Houdini's permission, complications from this injury caused him to die days later, on October 31, 1926. It was later determined that Houdini died of a ruptured appendix.[55]
  • 1927: J.G. Parry-Thomas, a Welsh racing driver, was decapitated by his car's drive chain which, under stress, snapped and whipped into the cockpit. He was attempting to break his own land speed record which he had set the previous year. Despite being killed in the attempt, he succeeded in setting a new record of 171 mph (275 km/h).[56]
  • 1927: Isadora Duncan, dancer, died of a broken neck when one of the long scarves she was known for wearing caught on the wheel of a car in which she was a passenger.[57]
  • 1928: Alexander Bogdanov, a Russian physician, died following one of his experiments, in which the blood of a student suffering from malaria and tuberculosis, L. I. Koldomasov, was given to him in a transfusion.[58]
  • 1930: William Kogut, an inmate on death row at San Quentin, committed suicide with a pipe bomb created from several packs of playing cards and the hollow leg from his cot, which he heated with a kerosene heater. At the time, the ink in red playing cards contained nitrocellulose, which is flammable and when wet can create an explosive mixture.[59][60]
  • 1933: Michael Malloy, a homeless man, was murdered by gassing after surviving multiple poisonings, intentional exposure, and being struck by a car. Malloy was murdered by five men in a plot to collect on life insurance policies they had purchased.[62]
  • 1935: Baseball player Len Koenecke was bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher by the crew of an aircraft he had chartered, after provoking a fight with the pilot while the plane was in the air.[63]
  • 1939: Finnish actress Sirkka Sari died when she fell down a chimney. She was at a cast party celebrating the completion of a movie, her third and last. She mistook a chimney for a balcony and fell into a heating boiler, dying instantly.[64][65]
  • 1944: 74 men died when the US Submarine USS Tang accidentally torpedoed itself whilst on a combat patrol off the coast of Taiwan.[69]
  • 1944: Inventor and chemist Thomas Midgley, Jr. accidentally strangled himself with the cord of a pulley-operated mechanical bed of his own design.[70]
  • 1946: Louis Slotin, chemist and physicist, died of radiation poisoning after being exposed to lethal amounts of ionizing radiation from the same core that killed Harry K. Daghlian, Jr.. He allowed the core to become fully shielded by a spherical beryllium reflector when the screwdriver he was using to separate the two halves of the shield slipped, causing the core to go critical. The sphere of plutonium was thereafter nicknamed the Demon core.[72]
  • 1947: The Collyer Brothers, extreme cases of compulsive hoarders, were found dead in their home in New York. The younger brother, Langley, died by falling victim to a booby trap he had set up, causing a mountain of objects, books, and newspapers to fall on him crushing him to death. His blind and paralyzed brother, Homer, who had depended on Langley for care, died of starvation some days later.[73]
  • 1959: In the Dyatlov Pass incident, nine ski hikers in the Ural Mountains abandoned their camp in the middle of the night, some clad only in their underwear despite sub-zero weather. Six died of hypothermia and three by unexplained injuries. The corpses showed no signs of struggle, but one had a fatal skull fracture, two had major chest fractures, and one was missing her tongue. Tests showed that all of the hikers had been exposed to large amounts of radiation. Soviet investigators determined only that "a compelling unknown force" had caused the deaths, barring entry to the area for years.[76]
  • 1960: In the Nedelin disaster, over 100 Soviet rocket technicians and officials died when a switch was turned on unintentionally igniting the rocket. The dead included Red Army Marshal Nedelin who was seated in a deck chair just 40 meters away overseeing launch preparations. The events were filmed by automatic cameras.[77]
  • 1961: Valentin Bondarenko, a Soviet cosmonaut trainee, died from shock after suffering third-degree burns over much of his body due to a flash fire in the pure oxygen environment of a training simulator. This incident was not revealed outside of the Soviet Union until the 1980s.[79]
  • 1966: Worth Bingham, son of Barry Bingham, Sr., died when a surfboard, lying atop the back of his convertible, hit a parked car, swung around, and broke his neck.[81]
  • 1966: Skydiver Nick Piantanida died from the effects of uncontrolled decompression four months after an attempt to break the world record for the highest parachute jump. During his third attempt, his face mask came loose (or he possibly opened it by mistake), causing loss of air pressure and irreversible brain damage.[82][83]
  • 1967: Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee, NASA astronauts, died when a flash fire began in their pure oxygen environment during a training exercise inside the unlaunched Apollo 1 spacecraft. The spacecraft's escape hatch could not be opened during the fire because it was designed to seal shut under pressure.[84]
  • 1967: Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov became the first person to die during a space mission after the parachute of his capsule failed to deploy following re-entry.[85]
  • 1971: Jerome Irving Rodale, an American pioneer of organic farming, died of a heart attack while being interviewed on The Dick Cavett Show. According to urban legend, when he appeared to fall asleep, Cavett quipped "Are we boring you, Mr. Rodale?".[87] Cavett says this is incorrect; the initial response was fellow guest Pete Hamill saying in a low voice to Cavett, "This looks bad."[88] The show was never broadcast.
  • 1974: Christine Chubbuck, an American television news reporter, committed suicide during a live broadcast on July 15. At 9:38 am, 8 minutes into her talk show, on WXLT-TV in Sarasota, Florida, she drew out a revolver and shot herself in the head.[92]
  • 1975: Bandō Mitsugorō VIII, a Japanese kabuki actor, died of severe poisoning when he ate four fugu livers (also known as pufferfish). The liver is considered one of the most poisonous parts of the fish, but Mitsugorō claimed to be immune to the poison. The fugu chef felt he could not refuse Mitsugorō and lost his license as a result.[94]
  • 1977: Tom Pryce, a Formula One driver at the 1977 South African Grand Prix was killed when he was struck in the face by a track marshal's fire extinguisher. The marshal, Frederik Jansen van Vuuren, was running across the track to attend to Pryce's team-mate's burning car when he was struck, and killed instantly, by Pryce's car.[96]
  • 1978: Janet Parker, a British medical photographer, died of smallpox in 1978, ten months after the disease was eradicated in the wild, when a researcher at the laboratory Parker worked at accidentally released some virus into the air of the building. She is believed to be the last smallpox fatality in history.[97]
  • 1978: Kurt Gödel, the Austrian/American mathematician, died of starvation when his wife was hospitalized. Gödel suffered from extreme paranoia and refused to eat food prepared by anyone else. He was 65 pounds (approx. 30 kg) when he died. His death certificate reported that he died of "malnutrition and inanition caused by personality disturbance" in Princeton Hospital on January 14, 1978.[98]
  • 1979: Robert Williams, a worker at a Ford Motor Co. plant, was the first known human to be killed by a robot,[99] after the arm of a one-ton factory robot hit him in the head.[100]
  • 1979: John Bowen, a 20-year-old of Nashua, New Hampshire was attending a halftime show at a New York Jets football game at Shea Stadium on December 9, 1979. During an event which featured custom-made remote control flying machines, a 40-pound model plane shaped like a lawnmower accidentally dived into the stands, striking Bowen and another spectator and causing severe head injuries. While the other spectator survived, Bowen died in hospital four days later.[101][102]
  • 1981: David Allen Kirwan a 24-year-old, died after attempting to rescue a friend's dog from the 200°F (93°C) water in Celestine Pool, a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park on July 20, 1981. Kirwan suffered third-degree burns over 100% of his body and died the next morning at a Salt Lake City hospital. Kirwan is the only known case of someone dying after deliberately jumping into one of the park's hot springs.[104][105]
  • 1981: American photographer Carl McCunn paid a bush pilot to drop him at a remote lake near the Coleen River in Alaska in March to photograph wildlife, but failed to confirm arrangements for the pilot to pick him up again in August. Rather than starve, McCunn shot himself in the head. His body was found in February 1982.[106]
  • 1981: Jeff Dailey, a 19-year-old gamer, became the first known person to die while playing video games. After achieving a score of 16,660 in the arcade game Berzerk, he succumbed to a massive heart attack. A year later, an 18-year-old gamer died after achieving high scores in the same game.[108]
  • 1981: Kenji Urada, a Japanese factory worker, was killed by a malfunctioning robot he was working on at a Kawasaki plant in Japan. The robot's arm pushed him into a grinding machine, killing him.[100]
  • 1981: Paul Gauci, a 41-year-old Maltese man, died after welding a butterfly bomb to a metal pipe and using it as a mallet, thinking it was a harmless can.[109]
  • 1982: David Grundman was killed near Lake Pleasant, Arizona while shooting at cacti with his shotgun. After firing several shots at a 26 ft (8m) tall Saguaro Cactus from extremely close range, a 4 ft limb of the cactus that was weakened by the gunfire detached and fell on him, crushing him.[111][112]
  • 1983: Four divers and a tender were killed on the Byford Dolphin semi-submersible, when a decompression chamber explosively decompressed from 9 atm to 1 atm in a fraction of a second. The diver nearest the chamber opening literally exploded just before his remains were ejected through a 24 in (60 cm) opening. The other divers' remains showed signs of boiled blood, unusually strong rigor mortis, large amounts of gas in the blood vessels, and scattered hemorrhages in the soft tissues.[113]
  • 1983: Sergei Chalibashvili, a professional diver, died after a diving accident during the 1983 Summer Universiade in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. When he attempted a three-and-a-half reverse somersault in the tuck position from the ten meter platform, he smashed his head on the platform and was knocked unconscious. He died after being in a coma for a week.[114]
  • 1983: American author Tennessee Williams died when he choked on an eyedrop bottle cap in his room at the Hotel Elysee in New York. He would routinely place the cap in his mouth, lean back, and place his eyedrops in each eye. Williams' lack of gag response may have been due to the effects of drugs and alcohol abuse, and it is highly likely that Williams was high when the cap ended up in his throat as drugs and alcohol were found in his room and inside his body. There is speculation that he committed suicide or was murdered (even his brother Walter Dakin alleged this), but nothing has been conclusively proven.[115]
  • 1983: Jimmy Lee Gray, a man executed in Mississippi's gas chamber, died bashing his head against a metal pole behind the chair that he was strapped into. The poisonous gas had failed to kill him but left him in agony and gasping for eight minutes. It was later determined that the executioner was drunk.[116]
  • 1984:Tommy Cooper, British slapstick comedian, died of a heart attack while performing during a live TV broadcast at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. Initially the audience, thinking it was part of the act, continued to laugh as he lay collapsed on the stage. He was then pulled from sight as attempts were made to revive him off stage.[117]
  • 1984: Jon-Erik Hexum, an American television actor, died after he shot himself in the head with a prop gun during a break in filming, playing Russian Roulette using a revolver loaded with a single blank cartridge.[118]
  • 1986: Over 1,700 were killed after a limnic eruption from Lake Nyos in Cameroon, released approximately 100 million cubic meters of carbon dioxide that quickly descended the lake and killed oxygen dependent life within 15-mile (25 kilometer) radius, including three villages. The same phenomenon is also blamed on the deaths of 37 near Lake Monoun in 1984.[119]
  • 1987: Budd Dwyer, the State Treasurer of Pennsylvania, committed suicide during a televised press conference in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Facing a potential 55-year jail sentence for alleged involvement in a conspiracy, Dwyer shot himself in the mouth with a revolver.[120]
  • 1987: Franco Brun, a 22-year-old prisoner at Toronto East Detention Centre, in Toronto, Ontario, died after attempting to swallow and choking on a 6.35 cm. (2.5 inches) by 10 cm. (4 inches) by 1.27 centimetres (half an inch) Gideon's Bible. Brun reportedly had mental deficiencies and as such, the coroner did not label his death as suicide, believing that "the swallowing of the Bible to him was some form of symbolism or allegory as though he was trying to purge himself of the devil by consuming religion". He was only serving a 15-day sentence.[121]
  • 1991: Edward Juchniewicz, a 76-year-old man, was killed when the ambulance stretcher he was strapped to rolled down a grade and overturned. The ambulance attendants, while speaking to a doctor's staff, had left the stretcher unattended. Juchniewicz suffered a head injury and died a short time later.[123]
  • 1991: Renowned French volcanologists Maurice Krafft and his wife Katia died instantly along with 41 journalists when they were caught in an enormous pyroclastic flow, which took an unexpected path during an eruption of Japanese volcano Mount Unzen. Ironically during his last interview on the day before his death, when asked about the dangers of Volcanology Maurice replied "I am never afraid because I have seen so much eruptions in 23 years that, uh... even if I die tomorrow I don't care".
  • 1993: Actor Brandon Lee, son of Bruce Lee, was shot and killed by a prop gun during the making of the movie The Crow. The accident happened after a mistake in prop handling procedures. In a prior scene a revolver was fired using a cartridge with only a primer and a bullet, but the primer provided enough force to push the round out of the cartridge into the barrel of the revolver, where it stuck. As the malfunction, called a squib load, went unnoticed by the crew, the gun was then reused to shoot the movie death scene of Brandon Lee. This time it was reloaded with a blank cartridge that contained propellant and a primer. When actor Michael Massee used the gun, the squib load was fired into Lee.[124]
  • 1993: Garry Hoy, a 38-year-old lawyer and a senior partner at the Holden Day Wilson Law firm in Toronto, Canada, fell to his death on July 9, 1993, after he threw himself against a window on the 24th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Centre in an attempt to prove to a group of visiting law students that the glass was "unbreakable." His first attempt failed to damage the glass at all. On his second attempt the glass still didn't break, but popped out of the window frame, and he fell over 300 feet to his death.[125][126]
  • 1993: Michael A. Shingledecker Jr. was killed almost instantly when he and a friend were struck by a pickup truck while lying flat on the yellow dividing line of a two-lane highway in Polk, Pennsylvania. They were copying a daredevil stunt from the movie The Program. Marco Birkhimer died of a similar accident while performing the same stunt in Route 206 of Bordentown, New Jersey.[127]
  • 1994: Gloria Ramirez was admitted to Riverside General Hospital, in Riverside, California, for complications of advanced cervical cancer. Before she died, her caregivers claimed that Ramirez's body mysteriously emitted toxic fumes that made several emergency room workers very ill. She was dubbed the "toxic lady" by the media.[128]
  • 1995: A 39-year-old man committed suicide in Canberra, Australia by shooting himself three times with a pump action shotgun. The first shot passed through his chest and went out the other side. He reloaded and shot away his throat and part of his jaw. Breathing through the wound in his throat, he again reloaded, held the gun against his chest with his hands and operated the trigger with his toes. This shot entered the thoracic cavity and demolished the heart, killing him.[129]
  • 1996: Sharon Lopatka, an Internet entrepreneur from Maryland, allegedly solicited a man via the Internet to torture and kill her for the purpose of sexual gratification. Her killer, Robert Fredrick Glass, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the homicide.[citation needed]
  • 1998: Tom and Eileen Lonergan were stranded while scuba diving with a group of divers off Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The group's boat accidentally abandoned them owing to an incorrect head count taken by the dive boat crew. Their bodies were never recovered. The incident inspired the film Open Water and an episode of 20/20.[130]
  • 1999: Owen Hart, a Canadian-born professional wrestler for WWF, died during a pay-per-view event when performing a stunt. It was planned to have Owen come down from the rafters of the Kemper Arena on a safety harness tied to a rope to make his ring entrance. The safety latch was released and Owen dropped 78 feet (24 m), bouncing chest-first off the top rope resulting in a severed aorta, which caused his lungs to fill with blood.[132]
  • 1999: Professional golfer Payne Stewart and five others died when the airplane they were on lost cabin pressure in-flight, leading to fatal hypoxia. The aircraft continued on auto-pilot for several hours, carrying the deceased passengers several hundred miles off course before running out of fuel and crashing in South Dakota.[133]

21st century

  • 2000: Airline passenger Jonathan Burton stormed the cockpit door of a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Salt Lake City. The 19-year-old was knocked over and pinned by eight other passengers with such force that he died of asphyxiation.[134]
  • 2001: Bernd-Jürgen Brandes, from Germany, was voluntarily stabbed repeatedly and then partly eaten by Armin Meiwes (who was later called the Cannibal of Rotenburg). Brandes had answered an internet advertisement by Meiwes looking for someone for this purpose. Brandes explicitly stated in his will that he wished to be killed and eaten.[135] This inspired the Rammstein Song "Mein Teil" ("My (private) part") and the IT Crowd episode "Moss and the German" and also the 2006 German movie "Cannibal".
  • 2001: Gregory Biggs, a homeless American man in Fort Worth, Texas, was struck by a car being driven by Chante Jawan Mallard, who had been drinking and taking drugs that night. Biggs' torso became lodged in Mallard's windshield with severe but not immediately fatal injuries. Mallard drove home and left the car in her garage with Biggs still lodged in her car's windshield. She repeatedly visited Biggs and even apologized for hitting him. Biggs died of his injuries several hours later.[136] Chante Mallard was tried and convicted for murder in this case and received a 50-year prison sentence. The film Stuck, an episode of "CSI", and an episode of Drawn Together are loosely based on this unusual death.[137]
  • 2001: Michael Colombini, a 6-year-old American boy from Croton-on-Hudson, New York, was struck and killed, at Westchester Regional Medical Center, by a 6.5-pound metal oxygen tank when it was pulled into the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine while he underwent a test. He began to experience breathing difficulties while in the MRI and when an anesthesiologist brought a portable oxygen canister into the magnetic field, it was pulled from his hands and struck the boy in the head.[138][139]
  • 2002: Kenneth Farr, a 37-year-old man from Penarth, Wales, was partially decapitated when an unsecured safety barrier in a supermarket carpark was blown through the windshield of his car by a sudden gust of wind.[141]
  • 2003: Brian Douglas Wells, an American pizza delivery man in Erie, Pennsylvania, was killed by a time bomb that was fastened around his neck. He was apprehended by the police after robbing a bank, and claimed he had been forced to do it by three people who had put the bomb around his neck and would kill him if he refused. The bomb later exploded, killing him. In 2007, police alleged Wells was involved in the robbery plot along with two other conspirators.[142]
  • 2003: Dr. Hitoshi Christopher Nikaidoh, a surgeon, was decapitated as he stepped on to an elevator at Christus St. Joseph Hospital in Houston, Texas, USA on August 16, 2003. According to a witness inside the elevator, the elevator doors closed as Nikaidoh entered, trapping his head inside the elevator with the remainder of his body still outside. His body was later found at the bottom of the elevator shaft while the upper portion of his head, severed just above the lower jaw, was found in the elevator. A subsequent investigation revealed that improper electrical wiring installed by a maintenance company several days earlier had effectively bypassed all of the elevator's safeguards, and thus enabled it to move under any circumstances.[143][144][145][146]
  • 2003: Timothy Treadwell, an American environmentalist who had lived in the wilderness among bears for thirteen summers in a remote region in Alaska, and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were killed and partially consumed by a bear. An audio recording of their deaths was captured on a video camera which had been turned on at the beginning of the incident. Werner Herzog's documentary film, Grizzly Man, discusses Treadwell and his death.[147]
  • 2004: Phillip Quinn, a 24-year-old American from Kent, Washington was killed during an attempt to heat up a lava lamp bulb on his kitchen stove while observing it from a few feet away. The heat built up pressure in the bulb until it exploded, spraying shards of glass. One pierced his heart, killing him.[148] The circumstances of his death were later investigated in a 2006 episode of the popular science television series MythBusters.[149]
  • 2004: Ronald McClagish, from England, died after being trapped inside a cupboard for a week. A wardrobe in the bedroom outside had fallen over, trapping him inside. In an effort to free himself, McClagish accidentally wrenched a water pipe from the wall and the water gushing from the pipe eventually caused his death from bronchitis. His body was not discovered until two weeks later.[150]
  • 2004: An unidentified Taiwanese woman died of alcohol intoxication after immersion for 12 hours in a bathtub filled with 40% ethanol. Her blood alcohol content was 1.35%. It was believed that she immersed herself as a response to the ongoing SARS epidemic.[151]
  • 2005: Lee Seung Seop, a 28-year-old South Korean, collapsed of fatigue and died after playing the videogame StarCraft online for almost 50 consecutive hours in an Internet cafe.[153]
  • 2006: Erika Tomanu, a seven-year-old girl in Saitama, Japan, died when she was sucked 10 metres down the intake pipe of a current pool at a water park. The grille that was meant to cover the inlet came off, yet lifeguards at the pool at the time deemed it safe after issuing a verbal warning to swimmers. It took rescuers more than six hours to remove Tomanu by digging through concrete to access the pipe.[154]
  • 2007: Humberto Hernandez, a 24-year-old Oakland, California resident, was killed from being struck in the face by an airborne fire hydrant while walking on a sidewalk; a passing car blew a tire and swerved onto the sidewalk, striking the fire hydrant. The force of the water pressure shot the 200-pound hydrant at Hernandez with enough force to kill him.[158][159][160]
  • 2007: Kevin Whitrick, a 42-year-old British man, committed suicide by hanging himself live on a webcam during an Internet chat session.[161]
  • 2007: Surinder Singh Bajwa, the Deputy Mayor of Delhi, India, was warding off several Rhesus Macaque monkeys at his home and fell from a first-floor balcony, suffering serious head injuries. He later died from his injuries.[162]
  • 2008: Abigail Taylor, a 6-year-old American girl, died nine months after several of her internal organs were partially sucked out of her lower body while she sat on an excessively powerful swimming pool drain. After several months, surgeons replaced her intestines and pancreas with donor organs. She later succumbed to a rare transplant-related cancer.[163]
    • 1000 Ways to Die also based a scene on Abigail Taylor's death in the episode "The End is Weird".
  • 2008: Gerald Mellin, a U.K. businessman, committed suicide by tying one end of a rope around his neck and the other to a tree. He then went into his Aston Martin DB7 and drove down a main road in Swansea until the rope decapitated him. He supposedly did this as an act of revenge against his ex-wife for leaving him.[164]
  • 2008: James Mason, 73, of Chardon, Ohio, died of heart failure after his wife exercised him to death in a public swimming pool. Christine Newton-John, 41, was seen on video tape pulling Mason around the pool and preventing him from getting out of the water 43 times.[166]
  • 2008: Adelir Antonio, 51, a Brazilian Catholic priest, died in an attempt to set a world record for clustered balloon flight in April 2008. He was blown toward open sea and when he phoned for help, rescuers were unable to determine his location since he did not know how to use his GPS.[168]
  • 2008: Nordin Montong, 32, a janitor at the Singapore Zoo, committed suicide by entering an enclosure containing white tigers and provoking them with brooms and a pail. Three of the tigers pounced on him, dragging him by the neck to the back of their enclosure. He was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene.[169]
  • 2009: Jonathan Campos, an American sailor charged with murder, killed himself in his Camp Pendleton, San Diego, California, cell by stuffing toilet paper in his mouth until he asphyxiated.[170]
  • 2009: Diana Durre, of Chambers, Nebraska, died after a 75-foot (23 m) tall Taco Bell sign fell on top of the truck cab she was in. Strong winds caused the pole to break at a welded joint about 15 feet (4.5 m) above the ground.[171]
  • 2009: Sergey Tuganov, a 28-year-old Russian, bet two women that he could continuously have sex with them both for twelve hours. Several minutes after winning the $4,300 bet, he suffered a heart attack and died, apparently due to having ingested an entire bottle of Viagra just after accepting the bet.[172]
  • 2009: Vladimir Likhonos, a Ukrainian student, died after accidentally dipping a piece of homemade chewing gum into explosives he was using on another project. He mistook the jar of explosive for citric acid, which was also on his desk. The gum exploded, blowing off his jaw and most of the lower part of his face.[176]
  • 2009: Kim Sa-rang, a 3-month-old Korean girl, died from malnutrition after both her parents spent hours each day in an internet cafe raising a virtual child on an online game, Prius Online.[177]
  • 2010: Jenny Mitchell, a 19-year-old English hairdresser, was killed when her car exploded after fumes, caused by chemicals mixing with hydrogen peroxide leaking from a bottle of hair bleach, ignited as she lit a cigarette.[178]
  • 2010: Vladimir Ladyzhensky, a competitor from Russia, died in The World Sauna Championships in Finland, after he had spent 6 minutes in a sauna that had been heated up to 110C (230F). The other finalist, a 5-time champion Timo Kaukonen, was taken to the hospital after suffering from serious burns on his body.[179] Because of this incident, no further World Sauna Championships will be held.
  • 2010: Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, a physician (internist) from Bakersfield, California, was found dead in her boyfriend's chimney. She had been trying to break in through the chimney and died of asphyxiation.[180] The body was found after a house sitter noticed an odor and fluids coming from the chimney.[181]
  • 2010: Mike Edwards, 62, a musician, and a founding member of rock group Electric Light Orchestra was killed instantly when a 600 kg (1,300 lb) bale of hay rolled down a hill and landed on his passing van in Devon, southwest England.[182]
  • 2010: Jimi Heselden, owner of the Segway motorized scooter company, was killed when he accidentally drove off a cliff on a Segway at his estate and drowned in the River Wharfe.[183]
  • 2010: Robert Gary Jones, 38, was jogging and listening to his iPod when he was hit from behind and killed by a small plane making an emergency landing on a South Carolina beach.[185]
  • 2010: Michelle Ferrari-Gegerson, 37, a South Florida doctor, was accidentally strangled by an electronic neck massager on Christmas Eve. It is believed her necklace became caught in the massager and it quickly tightened around her neck. [187]
  • 2010: Thomas Elmer and James Bibby, 27 & 25, both died after being dragged into the machinery of a huge silo at an industrial factory on the Knowsley Industrial Park, Merseyside,UK.
  • 2010: Simone Black, 42, a charity worker from Brighton UK, killed herself on Christmas day as Facebook users mocked a suicide note she left on the social networking website. So-called Facebook ‘friends’ of Simone Back responded with cruel messages after she posted a message that read: ‘Took all my pills be dead soon so bye bye every one.’
  • 2011: Ajani Brown, 5, from Jamaica , was crushed to death by a remote-controlled gate at a car wash in Oak River Village in the resort town.’

See also

References

  1. ^ Suidas. "Δράκων", Suda On Line, Adler number delta, 1495.
  2. ^ Spivey, Nigel Jonathan (2004). The Ancient Olympics. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 65–66, 100–101. ISBN 0-19-280433-2. Retrieved 2009-03-01.
  3. ^ "Plutarch, Life of Artaxerxes".
  4. ^ Thornton, W. (1968). Allusions in Ulysses. University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill. p. 29. ISBN 0807840890. OCLC 185879476 27859245. {{cite book}}: Check |oclc= value (help)
  5. ^ Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, 9.401e.
  6. ^ Alan Cameron (1991). "How thin was Philitas?". The Classical Quarterly. 41 (2): 534–8. doi:10.1017/S0009838800004717. {{cite journal}}: C1 control character in |pages= at position 5 (help)
  7. ^ Donaldson, John William and Müller, Karl Otfried. A History of the Literature of Ancient Greece. London: John W. Parker and Son, 1858, p. 27.
  8. ^ Scullard, H.H The Elephant in the Greek and Roman World Thames and Hudson. 1974 pg 186
  9. ^ Cassius Dio 40.27
  10. ^ Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, Book 17, Chapter 6
  11. ^ "Peter, St." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005
  12. ^ "Catholic Encyclopedia on St. Peter".
  13. ^ "Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia, WA". Home.iprimus.com.au. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  14. ^ Pliny the Elder, "Nat. History, vii 7".
  15. ^ Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum, v; Wickert, L., "Licinius (Egnatius) 84" in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie 13.1 (1926), 488–495; Parker, H., A History of the Roman World A.D. 138 to 337 (London, 1958), 170. From [1].
  16. ^ Meijer, Fik (2004). Emperors don't die in bed. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-31202-7. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  17. ^ Isaacs, Benjamin (1996). The Near East under Roman Rule. Boston: Brill Academic Publishers. p. 440. ISBN 90-04-09989-1. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  18. ^ "Hypatia biography". History.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  19. ^ "The pre-historic visitors", BBC, 18 September 2007
  20. ^ John Man (2007). Genghis Khan: Life, Death, and Resurrection. Macmillan. p. 163. ISBN 0312366248.
  21. ^ "The Mamluks", Jame Waterson, History Today, March, 2006
  22. ^ Schama, Simon (2000). A History of Great Britain: 3000BC-AD1603. London: BBC Worldwide. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) p.220
  23. ^ "Patronage and Piety – Montserrat and the Royal House of Medieval Catalonia-Aragon", Paul N. Morris, Mirator Lokakuu, October, 2000
  24. ^ Thompson, C. J. S. Mysteries of History with Accounts of Some Remarkable Characters and Charlatans, pp. 31 ff. Kila, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2004.
  25. ^ György Dózsa, Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911
  26. ^ Gulbadan Begum, The History of Humayun (Humayun-nama). Trans. & ed. Annette Beveridge, Royal Asiatic Soc. (London) 1902 (ISBN 81-215-1006-6) Internet Archive. page 55.
  27. ^ "Brahe, Tycho (1546–1601) – from Eric Weisstein's World of Scientific Biography". Scienceworld.wolfram.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  28. ^ David Plant (2008-06-11). "British Civil War site". British-civil-wars.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  29. ^ Brown, Huntington (1968). Rabelais in English Literature. Routledge. p. 126. ISBN 0-714-620-513.
  30. ^ The History of Scottish Poetry. Edmonston & Douglas. 1861. p. 539.
  31. ^ Rackham, Oliver (2002). Treasures of Silver at Corpus Christi College. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052181880X.
  32. ^ "Corpus Christi Website -Corpus Ghost". Corpus Christi College.
  33. ^ Guiley, Rosemary Ellen (2000). The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits (2nd ed.). Checkmark books. ISBN 978-0816040865.
  34. ^ Bartelby, but it states the authenticity is doubtful.
  35. ^ "Moliere,: The Imaginary Invalid", NYU Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database, 23 October 2003
  36. ^ Biography of Jean-Baptiste Lully, Vanderbilt University
  37. ^ Julien Offray de La Mettrie Biography Encyclopedia of World Biography
  38. ^ Benjamin Franklin and Lightning Rods Physics Today, January 2006
  39. ^ The lowdown on Sweden's best buns The Local, February 2007
  40. ^ Semlor are Swedish treat for Lent Sandy Mickelson, The Messenger, 27 February 2008
  41. ^ [2] "John Kendrick", Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
  42. ^ "Huskisson, William", International Centre for Digital Content, 17 January 2003
  43. ^ University of Maryland: The source is uncertain if the bull fell in before or after him.
  44. ^ "VASSAR COLLEGE.; Sudden Death of Matthew Vassar, Founder of the Institution, While Reading the Annual Address.", The New York Times, 24 June 1868
  45. ^ Bellows, Alan (2006-01-04). "The Intrepid, Ill-Fated Parachutist". Damn Interesting. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  46. ^ "Murder of Rasputin". History1900s.about.com. 2010-12-07. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  47. ^ "Hydroplane Kills Kobbe in his Boat; Naval Pilot Unaware He Had Struck Art Critic's Craft." New York Times. 28 July 1918. p. 1. Retrieved 30 January 2008.
  48. ^ Puleo, Stephen (2004). Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919. Boston, Massachusetts: Beacon Press. ISBN 0-8070-5021-0.
  49. ^ The Great Molasses Flood at Snopes.com.
  50. ^ John Van der Kiste, Kings of the Hellenes (Alan Sutton Publishing, Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, 1994) ISBN 0-7509-0525-5 p. 119
  51. ^ Martha Mansfield at IMDb
  52. ^ "The Life of Lord Carnarvon". Touregypt.net. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  53. ^ "Carnarvon Is Dead Of An Insect's Bite At Pharaoh's Tomb. Blood Poisoning and Ensuing Pneumonia Conquer Tut-ankh-Amen Discoverer in Egypt". New York Times. April 5, 1923. Retrieved 2008-08-12. The Earl of Carnarvon died peacefully at 2 o'clock this morning. He was conscious almost to the end. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  54. ^ "Siegmund Breitbart". Sandowplus.co.uk. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  55. ^ "Harry Houdini – Biography". Appleton History. Retrieved August 4, 2009.
  56. ^ Reynolds, Barbara. Dorothy L. Sayers: her life and soul, p. 162. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.
  57. ^ Setzer, Dawn. "UCLA newsroom". Newsroom.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  58. ^ Bogdanov, Alexander (tr. & ed. Douglas W. Huestis). The Struggle for Viability: Collectivism Through Blood Exchange, p. 7. Tinicum, Pennsylvania: Xlibris Corporation, 2002.
  59. ^ Death by Playing Cards – Solitaire at Snopes.com.
  60. ^ The ingenious suicide of William Kogut at SciencePunk.com, September 10, 2007.
  61. ^ "North Side: People: Eben M. Byers". Clpgh.org. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  62. ^ Read, Simon (2005). The Bizarre Killing of Michael Malloy. Penguin Book Group. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  63. ^ TheDeadballEra.com :: LEN KOENECKE'S OBIT[dead link]
  64. ^ http://koti.mbnet.fi/basil/nest/allmovies.txt
  65. ^ “”. "YouTube – Sirkka Sarin kuolema". Youtube.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11. {{cite web}}: |author= has numeric name (help)
  66. ^ Virginia Tech article
  67. ^ "HMS Trinidad (46) – Light cruiser of the Fiji class".
  68. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A662230
  69. ^ Richard O'Kane, Clear the Bridge, 1989, Presidio Press, p. 443.
  70. ^ Bryson, Bill. A Short History of Nearly Everything. (2003) Broadway Books, USA. ISBN 0-385-66004-9
  71. ^ "Harry K. Daghlian – 1 of 1". Mphpa.org. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  72. ^ "hhs55.com". hhs55.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  73. ^ "Biography of Hermits of Harlem Homer and Langley Collyer –". Trivia-library.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  74. ^ "Sweet Tornado: Margo Jones and the American Theater". Margojones.org. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  75. ^ Gareth Jones at IMDb
  76. ^ Mysterious Deaths of 9 Skiers Still Unresolved Svetlana Osadchuk (February 19, 2008). St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved 2010-02-09.
  77. ^ "Nedelin disaster". Russianspaceweb.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  78. ^ Assassin's Apologies, Time magazine, 14 November 1960.
  79. ^ Oberg, James, Uncovering Soviet Disasters, Chapter 10: Dead Cosmonauts, pp 156–176, Random house, New York, 1988. Retrieved 8 January 2008.
  80. ^ "Thich Quang Duc@Everything2.com". Everything2.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  81. ^ McFadden, Robert D. (4 April 2006). "Barry Bingham Jr., Louisville Publisher, Is Dead at 72". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-11.
  82. ^ Ryan, Craig (2003). Magnificent Failure: Free Fall from the Edge of Space. Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Press. ISBN 9781588341419. OCLC 51059086.
  83. ^ Dive Hard, The Globe and Mail, May 25, 2008
  84. ^ "Astronaut Bio: Virgil I. Grissom". Jsc.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  85. ^ Tony Long. "24 April 1967: Last Day in the Life of Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov". Wired.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  86. ^ Ross, Christopher (2006). Mishima's Sword: In Search of a Samurai Legend. London: Harper Perennial. pp. 234–238.
  87. ^ http://www.snopes.com/horrors/freakish/onstage.htm
  88. ^ "Reprint of NYT article by Cavett". Donkeyod.wordpress.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  89. ^ Gordon Polatnick. "Electrocuted Page in Fuller Up, Dead Musician Directory". Elvispelvis.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  90. ^ "Unusual death". Star-News. 1974-02-20. p. 28. Retrieved 2010-06-12. {{cite news}}: Text "location:Wilmington, NC" ignored (help)
  91. ^ Staub, Jack E. (2005). "74. Yellowstone Carrot: Daucus carota savicus". Alluring Lettuces: And Other Seductive Vegetables for Your Garden. Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith. p. 230. ISBN 1-42360-829-1. OCLC 435711200. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  92. ^ Dietz, Jon. "On-Air Shot Kills TV Personality", Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 16 July 1974.
  93. ^ Koenig, David. "Why we'll never forget the tragedy of 30 years ago today". MousePlanet. Retrieved 2007-07-24.
  94. ^ "Bandô Mitsugorô Viii". Kabuki21.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  95. ^ Gordon Polatnick. "Electrocuted Page in Fuller Up, Dead Musician Directory". Elvispelvis.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  96. ^ Tremayne, David (2006) [2006]. "Chapter 19 – A Moment Of Desperate Sadness". The Lost Generation. Haynes Publishing. ISBN 1-84425-205-1. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |chapterurl=, |origdate=, and |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  97. ^ Twenty five years on: Smallpox revisited Queen Mary, University of London[dead link]
  98. ^ Toates, Frederick; Olga Coschug Toates (2002). Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Practical Tried-and-Tested Strategies to Overcome OCD. Class Publishing, 221. ISBN 978-1859590690.
  99. ^ Robot firm liable in death, Tim Kiska, The Oregonian, 11 August 1983.
  100. ^ a b Kiska, Tim (1983-08-11). "Death on the job: Jury awards $10 million to heirs of man killed by robot at auto plant". Philadelphia Inquirer. pp. A10. Retrieved 2007-09-11. Cite error: The named reference "a" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  101. ^ Flying Lawnmower Death – Grim Reaper at snopes.com. (contains additional references).
  102. ^ It was a grand stage for excitement by Joe Gergen, Hartford Courant, September 28, 2008.
  103. ^ [3][dead link]
  104. ^ Hot Springs Death – Help Springs Eternal at Snopes.com
  105. ^ Lee Whittlesey, Death in Yellowstone: Accidents and Foolhardiness in the First National Park. Boulder, Colo. : Roberts Rinehart Publishers, ©1995.
  106. ^ "LEFT IN WILDS, MAN PENNED DYING RECORD". New York Times. December 19, 1982. Retrieved 2008-11-23.
  107. ^ Kennedy, Shawn G. (1981-05-24). "Boris Sagal, 58, Movie Director, Dies After A Helicopter Accident". The New York Times. Retrieved 2010-05-11.
  108. ^ "berzerk, video game at arcade-history". Arcade-history.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  109. ^ Boy finds lethal WWII bomb in Qormi valley, Times of Malta, October 29, 2009.
  110. ^ "The Twilight Zone Tragedy – Crime Library on truTV.com". Crimelibrary.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  111. ^ Cactus Courageous – Death by Saguaro at Snopes.com.
  112. ^ When Cactus and Civilization collide – Trifling with Saguaros can be Hazardous to one's Health by Dave Walker, Phoenix New Times News, March 3, 1993 (retrieved on May 19, 2009).
  113. ^ Giertsen, J.C. et al., "An Explosive Decompression Accident", The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology, 9(2):91–101, 1988.
  114. ^ "Milestones: Jul. 25, 1983". Time. 1983-07-25. Retrieved 2010-05-11.
  115. ^ "Search Results".
  116. ^ "Might we make executions more civilized, please?" from CBC News
  117. ^ "The death Tommy Cooper". Youtube.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  118. ^ "Wounding Of Actor On Coast Is Laid To Russian Roulette". The New York Times. 1984-10-18.
  119. ^ BBC contributors (1986-08-21). "21 August: 1986: Hundreds gassed in Cameroon lake disaster". BBC. Retrieved May 20, 2009. {{cite news}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  120. ^ Stevens, William K. (January 23, 1987). "OFFICIAL CALLS IN PRESS AND KILLS HIMSELF". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-09-11.
  121. ^ "Food for thought". Aint No Way To Go. 1987-09-01. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  122. ^ "NTSB Factual Report (PDF)". Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  123. ^ The Runaway Gurney at Snopes.com.
  124. ^ "Brandon Lee's Death in 'The Crow'". snopes.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  125. ^ Window Test Death – Through a Glass, Quickly at Snopes.com
  126. ^ Goodman and Carr falls prey to rivals by Jacquie McNish, The Globe and Mail, March 15, 2007.
  127. ^ "Not Like the Movie: A Dare Leads to Death". The New York Times. 1993-10-19. Retrieved 2010-05-11.
  128. ^ Stone, Richard (1995-04-01). "Analysis of a Toxic Death | Cancer". DISCOVER Magazine. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  129. ^ Herdson PB (2000). "Shotgun suicide with a difference". Med J Aust. 173 (11–12): 604–5. PMID 11379504.
  130. ^ "A mystery resurfaces", The Age, 7 August 2004
  131. ^ "Lightning kills football team". BBC News. 1998-10-28. Retrieved 2010-05-11.
  132. ^ "Owen Hart Biography –". Biography.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  133. ^ AirSafe.com, LLC. "Payne Stewart Plane Crash Information". Airsafe.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  134. ^ Janofsky, Michael (2000-09-23). "Janofsky, Michael. "Neighbors' Gentler View of Man Killed on Plane", ''The New York Times'', 23 September 2000". New York Times. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  135. ^ "German cannibal guilty of murder", BBC News, 9 May 2006
  136. ^ Woman faced murder trial after leaving accident victim in her car, CourtTV.com, 6 January 2005.
  137. ^ Moore, Roger (2008-07-13). "'Stuck' is an attempt at getting cheap laughs". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved 2008-12-27.
  138. ^ "Hospital Details Failures Leading To MRI Fatality". Nytimes.com. 2001-08-22. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  139. ^ MRI Newsletter: Four Years After The Tragedy.
  140. ^ "Girl dies after getting hit by puck at NHL game", ESPN.com, 20 May 2002
  141. ^ "Asda admits guilt over car park death", Wales online, 21 Jan 2008
  142. ^ "Pizza Deliveryman Who Robbed Bank Had Neck Measured for Bomb Collar". Fox News. Associated Press. 2007-07-19. Retrieved 2108-09-30. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  143. ^ Click2Houston. Doctor Decapitated In Elevator Accident 18 August 2003
  144. ^ Elevator Decapitation – Lift and Separate at Snopes.com.
  145. ^ Catching Elevators by Wendy Grossman, Houston Press, October 9, 2003.
  146. ^ Doctor decapitated by malfunctioning elevator at hospital by Peggy O'Hare, Jo Ann Zuniga, Stephanie Weintraub, Houston Chronicle, Section A, Page 1, 4 STAR Edition, August 17, 2003.
  147. ^ Medred, Craig.Wildlife author killed, eaten by bears he loved. Anchorage Daily News. 8 October 2003. Retrieved 4 September 2006.
  148. ^ Lava Lamp Death at Snopes.com.
  149. ^ Mythbusters, season 4, episode 60: Earthquake Machine
  150. ^ Call For New Cupboard Death Probe from BBC News
  151. ^ [4] Wu, Guo, Lin. 2005. Forensic Science International 149:287.
  152. ^ "Trespassing charged in horse-sex case" The Seattle Times
  153. ^ "Korean drops dead after 50-hour gaming marathon", Times Online, 10 August 2005
  154. ^ "Girl sucked into intake at city-run pool". Japantimes.co.jp. 2006-08-05. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  155. ^ CNN Reports: 'Crocodile Hunter' dead, September 4, 2006
  156. ^ "Woman dies after being in water-drinking contest", The Los Angeles Times, 14 January 2007
  157. ^ "Woman's Death After Water-Drinking Contest Investigated" KNBC.com, 16 January 2007
  158. ^ Fire Hydrant Death – Fire Plugged at Snopes.com.
  159. ^ Oakland Man Killed By Airborne Fire Hydrant, CBS5.com, June 22, 2007.
  160. ^ Flying fire hydrant kills Calif. man, Associated Press (reprinted in USAToday), June 23, 2007.
  161. ^ Bale, Joanna (2007-03-24). "Get on with it, said net audience as man hanged himself on webcam". Times Online. London: Times Newspapers Ltd. Retrieved 2007-05-27.
  162. ^ "Bajwa succumbs to injuries". Expressindia.com. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  163. ^ Girl, 6, Dies From Swimming Pool Injury USA Today, 21 March 2008
  164. ^ Businessman uses Aston Martin to decapitate himselfMail Online, 8 August 2008
  165. ^ Halfpenny, Martin (19 November 2008). "Chainsaw death was 'carefully thought through suicide'". London: The Independent. Retrieved 2008-11-22.
  166. ^ Wife guilty of exercising husband to death, Toronto Star, 14 February 2009
  167. ^ Helicopter crash in Cranbrook, B.C. kills four including pedestrian, The Western Star, May 14, 2008
  168. ^ [5], Darwin Awards, 2008
  169. ^ Malaysian worker dies after being attacked by white tigers at zoo, Channel NewsAsia, 13 November 2008
  170. ^ "Sailor charged with murder commits suicide". MSNBC. 2009-01-08. Retrieved 2010-12-11.
  171. ^ [6], North Platte Bulletin, 4 April 2009
  172. ^ [7], Mosnews, March 10, 2009
  173. ^ Lysiak, Matthew; Gendar, Alison (April 17, 2009). "9-year-old Damori Miles dies in jump off Brooklyn apartment, may have been imitating video game". NY Daily News. Retrieved September 4, 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  174. ^ "Coyotes kill Toronto singer in Cape Breton". CBC.ca. 2009-10-28. Retrieved 2009-10-29.
  175. ^ A History of Urban Coyote Problems, Robert M. Tim & Rex O. Baker, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, 2007
  176. ^ "Exploding bubble gum kills student". London: The Independent. 2009-12-10. Retrieved 22 March 2010.
  177. ^ Salmon, Andrew (2009-05-28). "Jail for couple whose baby died while they raised online child". Seoul: CNN. Retrieved 9 June 2010.
  178. ^ Morris, Steven (2010-03-25). "Peroxide leak suspected in hairdresser's car blast death". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-05-11.
  179. ^ Finalist dies in World Sauna Championships, ABC News, Australia, August 8, 2010
  180. ^ "L.A. Now". The Los Angeles Times. 2010-08-31.
  181. ^ "Cops: Calif doctor gets stuck in chimney, dies". Associate Press. August 31, 2010. Retrieved 1 September 2010.
  182. ^ Rock star crushed by haybale, MSN News, United States, September 3, 2010
  183. ^ Sheridan, Michael; Siemaszko, Corky (2010-09-27). "Segway company owner James 'Jimi' Heselden dies in England after riding a Segway off cliff". Daily News. New York.
  184. ^ Hartenstein, Meena (2010-10-17). "Hiker gored to death by angry mountain goat: Robert Boardman, 63, was attacked while eating lunch". Daily News. New York.
  185. ^ "Plane kills Carolina beach jogger". CBC News. South Carolina. March 16, 2010.
  186. ^ "Delvonte Tisdale, Teen Found Dead Near Boston, Likely Fell From Plane's Wheel Well".
  187. ^ "Electronic neck massager strangles doctor".
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_unusual_deaths&oldid=406327000"