Death by Misadventure: 210 Dumb Ways to Die (6 page)

125. Didn't See,
Fargo.
An unnamed Florida landscaper was pulled into a wood chipper
after trying to clear a jam with his hands. The man's
co workers only noticed something wrong when they heard the
wood chipper stop. His remains were found among the chopped palm
fronds.
Tallahassee Democrat, May 31,
1997

126. Blundy's Blunder.
David Blundy, 44, an English reporter was covering the guerilla
warfare in El Salvador. When he arrived to cover a particular
skirmish he was shot and killed by government troops. Blundy
unfortunately was wearing a dark blue shirt very similar to those
worn by the rebel troops. In describing Blundy's cause of death as
"misadventure," the coroner commented, "This is the most clear
example of someone in the course of duty entering a course of
conduct which is dangerous."
UK Press
Gazzette, July 9, 1990

127. Modern Problems?
Vivian Philcox, a London cabaret dancer during the early 1930's,
overdosed on "slimming" pills. She was apparently unhappy with the
progress she was making so she increased the dosage against her
doctor's advice. Vivian took at least 17 of the pills during the
last two days of her life. The coroner commented, "Modern feminine
fashions demand a slim figure and many women will do almost
anything to attain that object and so gratify their
vanity."
Times of London, March 19,
1934; reprinted March 19, 1992

128. Squeeze Play.
Pamela Orsi, 27, was killed trying to break up a fight between
Alice and Cha Cha. Her peacekeeping instincts lead to tragedy in
this case because the combatants were female Asian elephants. The
young zookeeper became caught between the two enormous pachyderms
and died from fatal head injuries. Orsi's death was the first
animal related death in the history of the San Diego Wild Animal
Park.
Los Angeles Times, March 15,
1991

129. Roulette Payoff.
The widow of security guard, Bruce Money, sued for worker's
compensation benefits after her 34 year old husband shot
and killed himself playing Russian roulette at work in August 1989.
The widow argued that Money's death happened at work and that his
employer knew that Money liked to play Russian roulette. A
Pennsylvania appeal court overruled a lower court's decision to
award benefits, and stated that Russian roulette is not "a normal
incident of employment."
Philadelphia
Daily News, Thursday, April 10, 1997

130. Counting Accident.
Junior Zookeeper, Robin Silverman, 24, was mauled to death in 1985
by two young Siberian tigers at the Bronx Zoo. Silverman's parents
sued the architects and builders of the lion enclosure. The
companies were cleared of blame by a jury, which heard that it was
standard procedure to make sure all the lions are in their shelter
before entering the enclosure. One of the defending lawyer's
explained, "She didn't do it that day. She went into the exhibit
without counting the tigers. Our defense was that the system is
simple and foolproof."
Newsday, April
8, 1995

131. Judas Priest!
British actor, Antony Wheeler, 26, hung himself accidentally on
stage in front of an audience of 600 at a hotel in Northern Greece.
Wheeler was playing the part of Judas in the musical,
Jesus Christ Superstar.
The part required him to fake his own hanging at the end of
one act and free himself when the stage went dark. The audience and
actors were horrified to find Wheeler's body hanging from the
scaffolding as the next act opened.
Reuters, August 18, 1997

132. Gilligan.
An unnamed mate of a fishing boat went missing during a marlin
fishing tournament near Morehead City, North Carolina. He was
assisting in releasing a 400 pound specimen when the fish made
a run for it. The mate's leg somehow got entangled in the fishing
line and he was yanked into the ocean. The body of the married
expectant father had not been recovered at the time of original
publication.
Richmond
Times Dispatch, July 3, 1994

133. Cowskinning Blues.
George Streat, 60, an employee at Stockton slaughterhouse, was
apparently killed by simply working too close to the hide-stripping
machine. Streat was decapitated by the cutting action of the
powerful machine's chains. Traumatized co workers were sent
home early.
Sacramento Bee, June 24,
1993

134. From Dust to Sawdust.
John Farren, 35, was killed trying to make ends meet while on
strike from his job with the local telephone company. A friend gave
him work sweeping up sawdust at a lumber company in Manchester, New
Hampshire. On his first day at the job, Farren somehow wedged
himself headfirst in a sawdust chute. Farren choked to death by the
time rescuers dismantled the chute to free
him.
Boston Globe, October 13,
1989

135. Down the Drain.
Oren Levy, a 22 year old Israeli sewer cleaner, refused
to wear a gas mask even after three members of his family choked to
death on noxious sewer fumes. Within one year of the accident that
claimed the lives of Levy's father and two brothers, Levy succumbed
to toxic fumes in the same sewer. "He wanted the work of this
father to go on," his mother mourned, "that all of the empire which
he built up for 30 years wouldn't
collapse."
Reuters, August 14,
1997

136. The Pause that Kills.
Denwood Shell, a sergeant in the National Guard died while
attending a training exercise in Turkey. During exercises troops
must adhere to "noise and light discipline" during the night. A
spokesperson explained that no light or noise is allowed, "If you
have to get up in the middle of the night, you do it with as much
stealth as a human can muster." Shell apparently tripped in the
darkness and impaled himself on a tent peg, tearing his intestines.
Despite surgery, Shell died within a few days of the
accident.
Washington Post, October 11,
1989

Planes, Trains &
Automobiles

137. Didn't See It Coming.
Hector Perez of the Bronx was killed by the 5:15 subway train. The
44 year old commuter died trying to retrieve his
eyeglasses after they had fallen onto the
tracks.
New York Times, March 31,
1996

138. Wile Erick Coyote.
The body of Erick Banks, 20, was discovered on top of a railcar in
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Police said that Banks was hitching a ride
when the train must have "encountered some obstruction" that caused
Banks' fatal injuries. Beep! Beep!
Halifax Chronicle Herald, July 26, 1994

139. Chicken à la King.
Early one Sunday morning, four Edmonton area residents raced to
their deaths in a pickup truck. The group was playing chicken with
a train, trying to beat the locomotive to the next level crossing.
Tracy Littlechild, 28, owned the pickup truck, but the police could
not be sure who was actually driving. By the time the mile long
train came to a full stop one half mile after impact, the pickup
was completely destroyed.
Western
Report, April 13, 1992

140. Corolla Crushes Californian.
A 63 year old woman was crushed to death by her own car
in her own driveway. Apparently, Barbara Levens of Thousand Oaks,
California, did not properly set her parking brake before she
walked to her mailbox at the end of the driveway. The Deputy
Sheriff who discovered the body said, "It looked like she was
trying to get out of the way or to stop the car from rolling, and
she couldn't."
Los Angeles Times,
August 2, 1996

141. Human Speed Bump.
Retired hardware salesman, William Kay, 73, ran himself over with
his car, 10 times. Kay had stopped his car at a newspaper box in
his retirement village. Kay left the car running and failed to
shift the transmission firmly into "park". After Kay got out, the
car slipped into reverse and ran him over. Because the wheels were
turned tightly left, the car continued reversing in a tight circle,
running over Kay 9 or 10 more times. One horrified witness was
injured trying to pull the keys from the ignition. The car
eventually came to a stop against a tree.
Miami Herald, June 24, 1987

142. Spinster Wipeout.
Seventy-year-old Norma Cooper missed her freeway cut-off, so she
stopped and reversed across four lanes of rush hour traffic.
Several cars narrowly missed rear-ending Cooper until she crossed
in front of an unlucky transport driver. Police congratulated the
trucker who swerved against the guardrail and managed not to
involve any other vehicles. Cooper’s car was crushed and she died
at the scene.
Toronto Star, April 12,
1997

143. Mind the Gap.
Much of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system operates on
elevated tracks. A fact well known to 3 year employee Gerald
Albury. At one station the 48 year old train operator
inexplicably exited out the wrong side of the train, plummeting 30
feet to the parking lot below. Albury became the first BART
operator in 21 years to die on the job.
San Jose Mercury News, October 6, 1993

144. Assisted Matricide.
An unidentified 28-year-old Wichita woman was run over by her
10-year-old son. The boy wanted his mother to move her car so he
and his friend could play basketball in the driveway. Against the
child’s protestations, the mother insisted that the boy operate the
vehicle with her directing from behind. The woman stumbled while
walking backwards causing the boy to panic and hit the gas instead
of the brake pedal. The car came to a stop only when it hit the
front of the family’s house.
Toronto
Star, May 25, 1997

145. Up, Up and Away.
Keith Hirsch, 37, was killed trying to hang on to his business.
Three years earlier the laid off aerospace engineer mortgaged his
house to buy a $300,000 blimp which cost $1000 a day to operate and
$37,000 a year to insure. Hirsch and a crewmember were having
difficulty landing the craft and at one point both were outside the
blimp trying to secure the craft to the ground. The airship got
loose, lifting the two into the air. The crewmember let go early
and was not injured. Hirsch hung on and was carried 200 feet aloft
before losing his grip and falling in front of his family and crew.
The unpiloted craft wreaked havoc with San Francisco air traffic
for several hours before it was guided safely to the ground by the
down draft from a helicopter. An official of the Federal Aviation
Administration commented, “I have never heard of anything like
this.”
San Jose Mercury News, February
27, 1995

146. Death on the Rails.
The body of a 65 to 70-year-old man was found when a coal train
dumped its 110-ton load of Montana coal in Brainerd, Minnesota. The
drifter’s effects included several hundred dollars in cash, but no
identification. Cause of death was listed as a “crushed
aorta”.
Saint Paul Pioneer Press,
August 11, 1993

147. Stream of Conductivity.
A former medical examiner of New York City used to tell colleagues
about an apparent subway suicide in which the body was badly
mangled. Witnesses saw the young man suddenly fall forward onto the
tracks before an approaching train. The Irish-Catholic parents of
the deceased young man could not accept that their son had killed
himself. Upon re-examination, the coroners found burn marks on the
man’s penis, right thumb and index finger. They concluded that the
young man was urinating on the subway tracks from the platform when
his stream reached the electrified third-rail. Urine contains many
salts and therefore conducts electricity better than water. The
electricity may have killed the young man before he was hit by the
train.
Dead Men Do Tell Tales,
1994

148. Escalator to Heaven.
Darryl Jackson, 37, of Washington D.C. was strangled when his coat
and T-shirt got stuck in a subway escalator. There was nothing
mechanically wrong with the escalator. An official explained, "It's
pretty difficult actually to get a coat ... especially on the upper
part of your body, caught in the steps... without you either
physically lying on the escalator or sitting down on the
escalator."
Associated Press, March
12, 1997

149. Self Defeating Argument.
Fay Greene, 14, did not want to visit family friends and let her
mother know it. Fay continued the dispute with her mother while
they motored to their destination in the English countryside. The
disagreement was settled when Fay left the family van while the
vehicle was still moving at the posted speed. The teenager died
within minutes from massive head injuries.
Times of London, April 15, 1995

150. Hoosier Shenanigans.
James McIntosh, 20, made good on a dare to touch a train passing
through Mishawaka, Indiana. However, McIntosh was so focussed on
touching the eastbound train that he did not notice the
115 car westbound train approaching on the very same tracks on
which he was standing. The engineer derailed some of the cars while
braking in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid killing
McIntosh.
Chicago Tribune, November
12, 1993

151. Flying Frigid Air.
Terrence Reynolds, 34, a Toledo housing contractor died after
stowing away on an airplane. Instead of continuing on a planned
Bahama vacation, Reynolds climbed into the landing gear compartment
of a plane bound for Germany. Despite the fact that he was wearing
a down filled parka and thermal underwear, authorities believe
Reynolds froze to death. The temperature at 33,000 feet is well
below freezing. Reynolds' body was found on the tarmac a few
minutes after the plane landed in Frankfurt. Although Reynolds was
recently divorced and was awaiting sentencing for passing bad
cheques, his family did not think Reynolds was suicidal and was
surprised by the bizarre accident. According to his brother,
Reynolds, "always talked about wanting to see
Europe."
Associated Press, January 9,
1986