This list of unusual deaths includes unique or extremely rare circumstances of death recorded throughout history, noted as being unusual by multiple sources.
The death of Aeschylus, killed by a tortoise dropped onto his head by an eagle, illustrated in the 15th-century Florentine Picture-Chronicle by Baccio Baldini[1]
Frederick Barbarossa's strange drowning gave rise to legends that he was still alive
Franz Reichelt, known as the "Flying Tailor", prior to his death testing an early wingsuit
Antiquity
Many of these stories are likely to be apocryphal.
According to Judges 4–5, the commander of the Canaanite army for King Jabin of Hazor was killed in his sleep when the Kenite woman Jael stabbed him in the temple with a tent peg.[2][3]
The king of Shechem and son of Gideon was killed in the city of Thebez by a woman who threw a millstone on his head which crushed his skull or mortally wounded him.[3][4]
The Athenian lawmaker was reportedly smothered to death by gifts of cloaks and hats showered upon him by appreciative citizens at a theatre in Aegina, Greece.[5][6][7]
The Chinese ruler was warned by a shaman that he would not live to see the new wheat harvest, to which he responded by executing the shaman. However, when the duke was about to eat the wheat, he felt the need to visit the bathroom, where he fell through the hole and drowned.[6][8]
The Greek pankratiast caused his own death during the Olympic finals. Held by his unidentified opponent in a stranglehold and unable to free himself, Arrhichion kicked his opponent, causing him so much pain from a foot/ankle injury that the opponent made the sign of defeat to the umpires, but at the same time Arrhichion suffered a fatally broken neck. Since the opponent had conceded defeat, Arrhichion was proclaimed the victor posthumously.[9][10]
The Olympic champion wrestler's hands reportedly became trapped when he tried to split a tree apart; he was then devoured by wolves (or, in later versions, lions).[13][14][15]
The poet, known for works in celebration of wine, choked to death on a grape stone according to Pliny the Elder. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica suggests that "the story has an air of mythical adaptation to the poet's habits".[13][14][16]:104
According to one account given by Diogenes Laertius, the Greek philosopher was said to have been devoured by dogs after smearing himself with cow manure in an attempt to cure his dropsy.[14][17]
According to Valerius Maximus, the eldest of the three great Athenian tragedians was killed by a tortoise dropped by an eagle that had mistaken his bald head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell of the reptile. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avert a prophecy that he would be killed that day "by the fall of a house".[13][16]:104[18][19][20][21][22]
According to Diogenes Laertius, the Pre-Socratic philosopher from Sicily, who, in one of his surviving poems, declared himself to have become a "divine being... no longer mortal",[23] tried to prove he was an immortal god by leaping into Mount Etna, an active volcano.[24][25] The Roman poet Horace also alludes to this legend.[26]
The Thessalian pankratiast, and victor in the 93rd Olympiad (408 BC), was in a cave with friends when the roof began to crumble. Believing his immense strength could prevent the cave-in, he tried to support the roof with his shoulders as the rocks crashed down around him, but was crushed to death.[13][14]
A number of "remarkable" legends concerning the death of another of the three great Athenian tragedians are recorded in the late antique Life of Sophocles. According to one legend, he choked to death on an unripe grape.[20] Another says that he died of joy after hearing that his last play had been successful.[13][20] A third account reports that he died of suffocation, after reading aloud a lengthy monologue from the end of his play Antigone, without pausing to take a breath for punctuation.[20]
Mithridates
401BC
The Persian soldier who embarrassed his king, Artaxerxes II, by boasting of killing his rival, Cyrus the Younger (who was the brother of Artaxerxes II), was executed by scaphism. The king's physician, Ctesias, reported that Mithridates survived the insect torture for 17 days.[28][29]
According to Diogenes Laertius, Anaxarchus gained the enmity of the tyrannical ruler of Cyprus, Nicocreon, for an inappropriate joke he made about tyrants at a banquet in 331 BC. When Anaxarchus visited Cyprus, Nicocreon ordered him to be pounded to death in a mortar. During the torture Anaxarchus said to Nicocreon, "Just pound the bag of Anaxarchus, you do not pound Anaxarchus." Nicocreon then threatened to cut his tongue out; Anaxarchus bit it off and spat it at the ruler's face.[30][31]
The king and member of the Qin dynasty reportedly challenged his friend Meng Yue to a lifting contest. When Wu tried to lift a giant bronze pot believed to have been cast for Yu the Great, it crushed his leg, inflicting fatal injuries. Meng Yue and his family were sentenced to death.[6][8]
During the Battle of Argos, Pyrrhus was fighting a Macedonian soldier in the street when the elderly mother of the soldier dropped a roof tile onto Pyrrhus' head, breaking his spine and rendering him paralyzed. According to a soldier named Zopyrus, they then proceeded to decapitate the king.[33][34][35]
The Greek philosopher from Citium, Cyprus, tripped and fell as he was leaving the school, breaking his toe. Striking the ground with his fist, he quoted the line from the Niobe, "I come, I come, why dost thou call for me?" He died on the spot through holding his breath.[36][37]
One ancient account of the death of the third-century BC GreekStoic philosopher tells that he died laughing at his own joke[40] after he saw a donkey eating his figs; he told a slave to give the donkey neat wine to drink with which to wash them down, and then, "...having laughed too much, he died" (Diogenes Laërtius 7.185).[22][21][41][note 1]
After his former comrade-in-arms Gaius Marius took control of Rome and had him prosecuted for a capital offence, the Roman Republic consul shut himself inside his house, which was heated to a high temperature and daubed with lime, thus suffocating himself.[13][43]
Although there exist several accounts of how the 39-year-old last queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom died, the most widespread one is that she killed herself with an asp (a viper), alongside two of her handmaidens.[6][44]
According to Suetonius, the eldest son of the future Roman emperorClaudius died while playing with a pear. Having tossed the pear high in the air, he caught it in his mouth when it came back, but he choked on it, dying of asphyxia.[14][45]
The pious schoolteacher was sentenced to death by Julian the Apostate and was handed over to his pupils to carry out the deed, which they did by binding him to a stake and stabbing him with their pens.[49][50]
According to popular legend, the Chinese poet got drunk while riding his boat along the Yangtze River and tried to hug the moon's reflection. He then fell off and drowned.[53][54]
The king of West Francia died aged around 18 at Saint-Denis. Whilst mounting his horse to pursue a girl who was running to seek refuge in her father's house, he hit his head on the lintel of a low door and fell, fracturing his skull.[55][56]
The Byzantine emperor's belt was entangled between antlers of a deer during a hunt and the animal subsequently dragged him for 16 miles (26km) through the woods. Because of this accident, Basil contracted fever and he died shortly afterwards.[57][58]
The second Earl of Orkney strapped the head of his defeated foe Máel Brigte to his horse's saddle. Brigte's teeth rubbed against Sigurd's leg as he rode, causing a fatal infection, according to the Old Norse Heimskringla and Orkneyinga sagas.[22][52][58]
The French prince who co-ruled with Louis VI died while riding through Paris when his horse tripped over a black pig that was running out of a dung heap.[14][22][58]
According to Henry of Huntington, while visiting relatives, the English king ate too many lampreys against his physician's advice, causing a pain in his gut which led to his death.[22][61][63][64]
While Henry VI, the King of Germany, was holding an informal assembly at the Petersburg Citadel in Erfurt, the combined weight of the assembled nobles caused the wooden second story floor of the building to collapse. Most of the nobles fell through into the latrinecesspit below the ground floor, where about 60 of them drowned in liquid excrement.[58][67]
The English king was rumoured to have been murdered after being deposed and imprisoned by his wifeIsabella and her lover Roger Mortimer, by having a horn pushed into his anus through which a red-hot iron was inserted, burning out his internal organs without marking his body.[52][61][71][verification needed][72] However, there is no real academic consensus on the manner of Edward II's death, and it has been plausibly argued that the story is propaganda.[72][73][74]
The contemporary chronicler Froissart relates that the king of Navarre, known as "Charles the Bad", suffering from illness in old age, was ordered by his physician to be tightly sewn into a linen sheet soaked in distilled spirits. The highly flammable sheet accidentally caught fire, and he later died of his injuries.[14][75][76]
The Aragonese king died from a combination of indigestion and uncontrollable laughing. According to legend, Martin was suffering from indigestion, caused by eating an entire goose, when his favorite jester, Borra, entered the king's bedroom. When Martin asked Borra where he had been, the jester replied with: "Out of the next vineyard, where I saw a young deer hanging by his tail from a tree, as if someone had so punished him for stealing figs." This joke caused the king to die from laughter.[52][58][unreliable source?]
The 1st Duke of Clarence was allegedly executed by drowning in a barrel of Malmsey wine, apparently his own choice once he accepted he was to be killed.[22][58][77][verification needed]
The influential Italian author and libertine is said to have died of suffocation from laughing too much at an obscene joke during a meal in Venice. Another version states that he fell from a chair from too much laughter, fracturing his skull.[82][verification needed][83]
On 30 June 1559, a tournament was held near Place des Vosges to celebrate the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis with the French king's longtime enemies, the Habsburgs of Austria, and to celebrate the marriage of his daughter Elisabeth of Valois to King Philip II of Spain. During a jousting match, Henry, wearing the colors of his mistress Diane de Poitiers,[84] was wounded in the eye by a fragment of the splintered lance of Gabriel Montgomery, captain of the King's Scottish Guard.[85] Despite the efforts of royal surgeons Ambroise Paré and Andreas Vesalius, the court doctors ultimately "advocated a wait-and-see strategy";[86] as a result, the king's untreated eye and brain damage led to his death by sepsis ten days later.[87] His death played a significant role in the decline of jousting as a sport, particularly in France.[88]
The 28-year-old wife of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester was found dead by a staircase with two wounds on her head and a broken neck. Theories suggest she threw herself down the stairs.[89][90]
Hans Staininger
28 September 1567
The burgomaster of Braunau am Inn (then Bavaria, now Austria), died when he broke his neck by tripping over his own beard.[91][92] The beard, which was 4.5 feet (1.4m) long at the time, was usually kept rolled up in a leather pouch.[93]
The Venetian Captain-General of Famagusta in Cyprus, was gruesomely killed after the Ottomans took over the city. He was dragged around the walls with sacks of earth and stone on his back; next, he was tied to a chair and hoisted to the yardarm of the Turkish flagship, where he was exposed to the taunts of the sailors. Finally, he was taken to his place of execution in the main square, tied naked to a column, and flayed alive.[94] Bragadin's skin was stuffed with straw and sewn, reinvested with his military insignia, and exhibited riding an ox in a mocking procession along the streets of Famagusta. The macabre trophy was hoisted upon the masthead pennant of the personal galley of the Ottoman commander, Amir al-bahr Mustafa Pasha, to be taken to Constantinople as a gift for SultanSelim II. Bragadin's skin was stolen in 1580 by a Venetian seaman and brought back to Venice, where it was received as a returning hero.[95]
In Oxford, England, at least 300 people, including Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer Sir Robert Bell and Serjeant Nicholas Barham, died in the aftermath of the trial of Rowland Jenkes, a Catholic bookseller convicted of distributing pamphlets defaming Queen Elizabeth I, at the assize at Oxford. The dead reportedly included no women or children.[14][96]
The 44-year-old queen of Scotland was told that she was to be executed for plotting the assassination of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. However, when the executioner, only known as Bull, prepared to chop off her head with an axe, the first blow did not kill Mary. It only hit her head. The second blow severed her neck, but the tendon was still left. The executioner later pulled off Mary's head only to reveal that her hair was a wig.[52][97]
The Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University and Dean of Ely was known for his frequent religious conversions to match the established faith of the time in England. He reportedly died due to having heard the jester of Queen Elizabeth I make a joke about his uncertain spiritual state, referring to him as "one that is neither heaven nor earth, but hangs betwixt both".[14][98]
The astronomer contracted a bladder or kidney ailment after attending a banquet in Prague and died eleven days later. According to Johannes Kepler's first-hand account, Brahe had refused to leave the banquet to relieve himself, because it would have been a breach of etiquette.[64][99][100] After he had returned home, he was no longer able to urinate, except eventually in very small quantities and with excruciating pain.[64][101] Though initially ascribed to a kidney stone, and later still to potential mercury poisoning, modern analyses indicate Brahe's death resulted from a fatal case of uremia caused by an inflamed prostate.[102][103]
The English philosopher and statesman died of pneumonia after stuffing a chicken carcass with snow to learn whether it could preserve meat.[64][83][unreliable source?]
The Swiss political leader was assassinated by a person dressed in a bear costume wielding an axe. Legend states that the axe was the same one that Jenatsch had once used to kill a rival.[72][104]
The majordomo of Prince Louis II de Bourbon-Condè was responsible for a banquet for 2,000 people hosted in honour of King Louis XIV at the Château de Chantilly, where he died. According to a letter by Madame de Sévigné, Vatel was so distraught about the lateness of the seafood delivery and about other mishaps, that he committed suicide with his sword, and his body was discovered when someone came to tell him of the arrival of the fish.[21][109]
The French playwright suffered a pulmonary hemorrhage caused by tuberculosis while playing the part of a hypochondriac in his own play Le malade imaginaire. He disguised his convulsion as part of his performance and finished out the show, which ends with his character dead in a chair. After the show, he was carried in the chair to his house, where he died.[83][110][111]
The French composer died of a gangrenousabscess after accidentally piercing his foot with a staff while he was vigorously conducting a Te Deum. It was customary at that time to conduct by banging a staff on the floor. He refused to have his leg amputated so he could still dance.[112][113]
The king of England was riding his horse when it stumbled on a molehill. William fell and broke his collarbone, then contracted pneumonia and died several days later. After he died, Jacobites were said to have toasted in the mole's honour, calling it "the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat".[61][114]
The 33-year-old barmaid at the White Lion Inn was mauled to death by a tiger in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. She was the first person to be killed by a tiger in British history.[115][116][117]
The 94-year-old British lighthouse keeper died several days after fighting a fire at Rudyerd's Tower, during which molten lead from the roof fell down his throat. His autopsy revealed that "the diaphragmatic upper mouth of the stomach greatly inflamed and ulcerated, and the tuncia in the lower part of the stomach burnt; and from the great cavity of it took out a great piece of lead ... which weighed exactly seven ounces, five drachms and eighteen grains". The piece of lead is currently in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland.[121][122][123]
The English carpenter and wheelwright was the first human known to have died in an accident with a submarine. Day submerged himself in Plymouth Sound in a wooden diving chamber attached to a sloop named the Maria and never resurfaced.[124][125]
While in London, the 31-year-old Czech violinist visited a prostitute named Susannah Hill and requested his neck be tied with a noose around a door knob. He died after the sexual intercourse of erotic asphyxiation.[126][127]
The North Carolina lawyer and former colonel was sleeping on a porch in Anson County while wearing a red cap. Spencer's bobbling head drew the attention of a turkey, which viewed Spencer as another turkey and fatally wounded the 59-year-old with its talons.[128][129][note 2]
19th century
Name of person
Image
Date of death
Details
Thomas Millwood
3 January 1804
The 32-year-old plasterer was shot and killed by excise officer Francis Smith, who mistook him for the Hammersmith ghost due to his white uniform. Smith was later sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to one year's imprisonment with hard labor, and he received a full pardon later in the year.[21][130]
At Meux & Co's Horse Shoe Brewery, a 22-foot-tall (6.7 m) wooden vat of fermenting porter burst, causing chain reactions and destroying several large beer barrels. The beer subsequently flooded the nearby slum and killed eight people. Several people also subsequently died from alcohol poisoning as a result of vaporized liquor.[131][132][133]
The 9th President of the United States died a month after his inauguration from an illness (possibly pneumonia or enteric fever) that developed after he stood in the rain to deliver his 2-hour-long inaugural address, the longest by any U.S. President. Medical treatments Harrison received in the last week of his life included opium, castor oil and leeches. Harrison remains the U.S. President to have served the shortest term in office and was the first President to die in office.[64][134]
In Bradford, England, a batch of sweets accidentally poisoned with arsenic trioxide were sold by William Hardaker, colloquially referred to as "Humbug Billy". Around five boxes of sweets were delivered and sold. Around 20 people died and 200 people suffered from the effects of the poison.[139][140]
The American politician and lawyer, who was defending a man accused of murder, accidentally shot himself while demonstrating how the victim might have done so. His client was acquitted.[22][149][150]
James "Jim" Cullen
6 November 1873
The 25-year-old Irish man became the only man ever lynched in Mapleton, Maine,[151][verification needed] after he committed a robbery and beat two deputy sheriffs to death with an axe.[152]
Unknown man
1875
A factory worker in Manchester found a mouse on her table and screamed. A man rushed over to her and tried to shoo it away, but it tried to hide in his clothes, and when he gasped in surprise the mouse dove into his mouth and he swallowed it. The mouse tore and bit the man's throat and chest, and he later died "in horrible agony".[148][153]
At The Liberties, Dublin, Ireland (then part of the United Kingdom), a fire broke out at Laurence Malone's bonded storehouse on the corner of Ardee Street, where 5,000 hogsheads (262,500 imperial gallons or 1,193,000 litres or 315,200 US gallons) of whiskey were being stored. The heat caused the barrels in the storehouse to explode, sending a stream of whiskey flowing through the doors and windows of the burning building. The burning whiskey then flowed along the streets where it quickly demolished a row of small houses. Despite the damage from the fire, all of the resulting 13 fatalities were caused by alcohol poisoning after drinking the undiluted flooded whiskey.[154][155]
A British servant of one Mr. Birchall was instructed by his master to retrieve a four-chambered pistol.[159] Hague did so, but while examining the gun he shot himself in the jaw, which caused instant death. He was discovered by another servant, who also shot herself demonstrating how Hague died.[160][failed verification]
The lamplighter in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, had attached a 10-pound (4.5kg) rock to his alarm clock, which would crash to the floor and awaken him. On Christmas Eve, he rearranged his furniture for a party, but forgot to change his room back afterwards. When the alarm mechanism went off the next morning, the rock fell on his head and killed him.[148][163][164]
George Murichson
13 May 1886
The 8-year-old boy from Aroostook County, Maine, died from a hemorrhage after having a live snake pulled out of his mouth. The snake was speculated to have gone down his throat after he had "gone to sleep in some field".[165][166][167]
Unknown Iraqi male
22 August 1888
At around 8:30pm, a shower of meteorites fell "like rain" on a village in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq (then part of the Ottoman Empire). One man was paralyzed and another died. His death is considered the only credible case of death-by-meteorite.[168][169][170]
Isaack Rabbanovitch
August 1891
A bear walked into the barkeep's inn in Vilna, Russia (now part of Lithuania) and picked up a keg of vodka. When he tried to take it back, he was hugged to death by the intoxicated bear along with his two sons and daughter. Villagers shot and killed the bear.[148][171]
Unknown sailor
1892
A sailor in Bermuda was arguing with other sailors, but the argument turned into a fight and the sailor was pushed into the water. A marine began undressing for a rescue attempt, but an officer ordered him to stop because there was a boat nearby that had ladies on it. As the sailor continued struggling in the water, five men volunteered to save him, but he had already drowned.[148][172]
Mary Agnes Lapish
April 1893
The Australian woman stumbled into a barbed-wire fence, possibly while intoxicated, and was strangled by her fur collar.[173][174]
The former United States Congressman from Alabama disappears from the historical record after his 1895 imprisonment for pension fraud in Albany, New York. He was reportedly killed by an unknown animal while coal mining near Denver, Colorado, c.1916, but there is little or no historical evidence for this.[175][176]
The 44-year-old, the first recorded case of a pedestrian killed in a collision with a motor car in Great Britain,[177] was struck on the grounds of the Crystal Palace in London, by a car belonging to the Anglo-French Motor Carriage Company while giving demonstration rides.[178]
Stabbed with a thin file by Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni while strolling through Geneva with her lady-in-waiting Irma Sztáray. The wound pierced her pericardium and a lung. Her extremely tight corset held the wound closed, so she did not realize what had happened (believing a passerby had struck her), and walked on for some time before collapsing.[182][verification needed][183][verification needed]
The 34-year-old American physician was convinced that mosquitoes were carriers for yellow fever. He allowed himself to be bitten by multiple mosquitoes and died days later from the disease.[12][186][verification needed]
During the 1900 Big Game between the California Golden Bears and the Stanford CardinalAmerican football teams, a large crowd of people who did not want to pay the $1 (equivalent to $37in 2023) admission fee gathered upon the roof of a glass blowing factory to watch for free. The roof then collapsed, severing fuel pipes and causing at least 100 people to fall four stories to the factory floor. 60 to 100 more people fell directly on top of a furnace, the surface temperature of which was estimated to be around 500°F (260°C). 23 people were killed, and over 100 more were injured. The disaster remains the deadliest accident at a sporting event in U.S. history.[187][188][189]
James Doyle Jr.
30 January 1901
The lineworker in Smartsville, California, was killed by an electric shock through a telephone receiver after a broken power line came in contact with the telephone wire.[190][191]
R. Stanton Walker
25 October 1902
The 20-year-old was watching an amateur baseball game in Morristown, Ohio when a foul ball struck him in the hand, driving a knife he was passing to one of his friends into his chest. His friends asked if he was hurt and he said "not much", but the wound soon began to bleed heavily and he died within minutes.[192][193]
The 35-year-old American baseball player for the Phillies died after being removed from a train due to drunken horseplay, falling off International Bridge, and going over Niagara Falls. Sam Kingston, a local night watchman, was the last to see him alive, reportedly scuffling with him. Kingston's account of the incident was spotty and inconsistent; it is unclear whether Delahanty was intentionally pushed, accidentally fell, or decided to jump.[194][195][verification needed]
Mary Ellen Rumble
19 December 1905
The daughter of a farmer in Watervale near Murrumburrah in New South Wales was killed when one of a group of horses attempting to escape from a paddock knocked her down, causing her neck to snap.[196][197]
Archibald Anderson
4 March 1907
The 19-year-old was bathing in the Yarra River when a tooth plate fell out and got lodged in his throat, choking him to death.[198][199]
The Chief of the German Imperial Military Cabinet suffered a heart attack and died aged 56 after giving a ballet performance to Kaiser Wilhelm Il and other members of a hunting party staying at Donaueschingen Palace. Shortly after ending his recital with a bow, he collapsed and was pronounced dead at the scene.[200][201] The circumstances of his death were covered up by military officials so as not to further inflame public outrage over the Eulenburg affair, a government scandal dealing with accusations of homosexual behavior against members of the Kaiser's cabinet and entourage.[202]
George Spencer Millet
15 February 1909
The American teenager who worked as an office boy at an insurance company at the Metropolitan Life Building in New York City, was fleeing six young women stenographers at his workplace intent on giving him kisses for his 15th birthday while carrying a metal ink eraser in his breast pocket. As the women moved in for their kisses, he fell forward, and the eraser's point pierced his heart, killing him.[203][204][failed verification]
The 52-year-old widow in Bentleigh, Victoria, who had been suffering from "fits of melancholia", began convulsing after rubbing powder on her teeth and asking her two children to take some medicine, which they did not do. She was believed to have taken strychnine.[207][208]
The 33-year-old tailor and inventor leaped from the Eiffel Tower and fell to his death wearing a parachute made from cloth, his own invention. He was asked by friends and authorities to use a dummy for the feat, but declined, saying "I intend to prove the worth of my invention".[209][210][211]
On 4 June 1913, the 40-year-old suffragette from London was mortally injured at the Epsom Derby when she ran onto the racetrack wearing a suffragette flag and was run over by Anmer, George V's horse, which jockey Herbert Jones was riding.[212][213] She suffered a fractured skull, a concussion, and internal injuries and died in the Epsom Cottage Hospital 4 days later.[214]
The 47-year-old Russian mystic died of three gunshot wounds, one of which was a close-range shot to his forehead. Little is certain about his death beyond this, and the circumstances of his death have been the subject of considerable speculation.[52][215][pageneeded] According to his murderer himself, Prince Felix Yusupov, Grigori Rasputin consumed tea, cakes, and wine which had been laced with cyanide but he did not appear to be affected by it. He was then shot once in the chest and believed to be dead but, after a while, he leapt up and attacked Yusupov, who freed himself and fled. Rasputin followed and made it into the courtyard before being shot again, and collapsing into a snowbank. The conspirators then wrapped his body and dropped it into the Malaya Nevka River.[52][64][72][216]
The 61-year-old author and music critic was sailing in Great South Bay, New York, when he noticed a low-flying seaplane heading toward him. Kobbé attempted to get into the water, but the plane crashed into the mast of Kobbé's boat, splitting his head open.[83][217]
The 27-year-old Greek king died of sepsis after being bitten by a palace steward's pet Barbary macaque in his garden, while trying to break up a fight between his German shepherd and another monkey.[52][223]
In an attempt to ascertain the existence of an afterlife, the 48-year-old spiritualist committed suicide by sealing his Detroit apartment, blowing out the pilot of his heater, and turning on the gas, dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. In the week following his death, two fellow spiritualists claimed to have communicated with his ghost.[224][225]
The woman from Glen Innes, New South Wales, was found drowned in a cask of water. It was surmised that she was leaning over the cask when she suddenly fainted and fell into it.[227][228]
The 22-year-old jockey from Elmont, New York, died of a heart attack mid-race and collapsed on the horse, which nonetheless crossed the finish line first, still carrying his body.[229][230][231]
While the 24-year-old American film actress was on location in San Antonio, Texas filming the American Civil War drama The Warrens of Virginia, a lit match was carelessly tossed by a crew member, which ignited the hoop skirts and ruffles of her Civil War costume. Co-star Wilfred Lytell and a chauffeur were able to extinguish the flames and rush her to a hospital, where she died the following day from her injuries.[232][233]
Mr. and Mrs. Earl J. Dunn
13 July 1924
While attempting to turn around at Grand View in Yellowstone National Park, the Dunns somehow backed their car over a cliff, despite a tree barrier that would normally have made this impossible. The vehicle fell 800 feet (240m) and then rolled another 200 feet (61m).[234][235][236]
The 16-year-old and his brother were clubbing a cassowary on the family property in Mossman, Queensland, when it knocked him down, kicked him in the neck, and opened a large cut, leading to death from loss of blood.[240][verification needed][241][242]
The American stunt performer died after a botched amputation of the infected leg which he had broken after slipping on an orange peel. He had gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel 15 years earlier.[243][244]
The 52-year-old Hungarian-American escape artist, illusionist, and stunt performer reportedly died from a punch from college student J. Gordon Whitehead, which gave him "peritonitis, caused by a ruptured appendix."[64][245] However, other stories claim he was murdered. Who or what killed Houdini is still under speculation.[245]
Dr. J. S. F. Barnet
29 August 1927
The 32-year-old physician in Armidale, Australia, was shocked to death in his bed by an excessive quantity of electrical power from a medical device. Barnet had picked up a telephone beside his bed to answer a call at the moment the device's current came on.[246]
The 50-year-old American dancer broke her neck in Nice, France, when her long scarf became entangled in the open-spoked wheel and rear axle of the Amilcar CGSS automobile in which she was riding.[247][248][249]
The 51-year-old financier and third-richest man in the world at the time died whilst flying from England to Belgium on his private Fokker F.VII airplane. It is believed he fell out of the aircraft and into the water where he died.[250][251]
William Kogut
20 October 1930
The 26-year-old convicted murderer, a death row inmate at San Quentin in California, reportedly committed suicide using a pipe bomb he made with playing cards and a hollow steel leg from his cot.[252][253][note 3]
The 63-year-old British novelist was dining in Paris with his partner, Dorothy Cheston Bennett. He drank two glasses of tap water during the meal, scoffing at Dorothy's claims that the water in Paris was not properly treated to be safe to drink. Within two days, he contracted typhoid fever and died two months later.[254][255][256][pageneeded][verification needed]
James Leo McDermott
26 August 1931
After the 40-year-old deputy sheriff stepped out of his car at an oil station, the vehicle began to roll forwards, and he attempted to hop onto the car's running board to stop it. It carried him forward and slammed him into a hook used to hold air and water hoses, which impaled him just below the heart.[257][258][259]
The 51-year-old American socialite and industrialist died after drinking excessive quantities of Radithor, a patent medicine that contained 2 microcuries of radium. He drank a total of around 1400 doses, which concentrated in his bones, continually irradiating him. By 1931, his bones were reportedly disintegrating and his jaw had been removed; he died the next year.[260][261][262]
Five people, called the "Murder Trust," planned to kill Malloy for life insurance. Over the course of two months, they added antifreeze, turpentine, horse liniment, and finally rat poison in his alcohol, but Malloy drank it with no problems whatsoever. They then tried feeding him wood alcohol, expired oysters, and then a sandwich made of expired sardines and shrapnel, none of which had the desired effect. The group then tried to freeze him to death, and when that failed they ran him over twice with a taxi, from which Malloy recovered. Finally, they connected a hose to a coal gas jet and placed it in his mouth, which caused his death from carbon monoxide poisoning. Malloy was given nicknames such as "Mike the Durable", "Iron Mike", and "The Irish Rasputin".[263][264][pageneeded][265]
Susan Grace Kelly
16 January 1935
The 80-year-old woman in Armidale, New South Wales, was sitting with her daughter when she fell back dead after hearing a loud clap of thunder. Her last words were, "That was very close."[266][267]
Catherine Steyer
20 January 1937
The 33-year-old hatcheck girl was accidentally electrocuted by a homemade booby trap, consisting of powered wires hidden within drapes, that her fiance had installed after her apartment was broken into a few months prior. Falling onto one wire, with another dangling above her arm, she completed the circuit each time the dangling wire touched her; she died slowly from the repeating doses of electricity.[268][269]
During a carbuncle removal operation, an electric cautery ignited gases from the patient's lungs. This caused an explosion which killed Taylor and injured two nurses.[272][273]
The 42-year-old aviator and aircraft designer was attempting to light a firework in Hythe, Kent, when a passerby enquired what he was doing; he replied that he was an IRA man planning to blow up the town hall. The passerby knocked down Comper, who hit his head on the curb.[274][275]
The 44-year-old governor of Italian Libya was flying his personal Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 when the Libyan airfield at Tobruk was attacked by a squad of British planes. He was killed by friendly fire from Italian anti-aircraft batteries on the ground.[276][277]
The friend of Errol Flynn was working as an extra on the film They Died with Their Boots On, starring Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Budlong insisted on using a real saber rather than a prop one. While filming a cavalry charge, Budlong's horse was frightened by the sounds of simulated explosions and threw Budlong, causing him to impale himself with the sword.[21][281][282]
The 27-year-old member of the 64th Bombardment Squadron was taking off for a night mission in New Guinea when he struck something with his bomber, referred to in reports as a "brush kangaroo" or "baby kangaroo" and later found to be a wallaby. The bomber crashed on takeoff, which detonated its load of bombs, killing McCullar and the rest of the bomber's crew.[285][286]
Clarence Stagemyer
29 September 1943
The 32-year-old was watching a Cleveland Indians-Washington Senators doubleheader in Griffith Stadium when an errant throw by Senators' third baseman Sherry Robertson struck him in the forehead. Despite appearing uninjured afterwards, he heeded the Senators' team physician's entreaties to go to the hospital, where he died the next day of a fractured skull. Stagemyer was the first fan in Major League Baseball history killed by a ball leaving the field, and the only such fatality to date to have been struck by a thrown ball.[287]
The 35-year-old Canadian physicist and Manhattan Project scientist died as the result of an accident while performing an experiment called "tickling the dragon's tail" with a plutonium core which came to be known as the "demon core". His screwdriver slipped, exposing him to a fatal dose of radiation. Slotin died 9 days later; the other people in the room observing the experiment survived.[290][291]
The 42-year-old author of Goodnight Moon was hospitalized for an ovarian cyst. To prove how healthy she was after treatment, she kicked her foot in the air, dislodging a blood clot in her leg. The blood clot quickly travelled to her brain, and she died in emergency surgery.[83][298]
The 33-year-old British actor died of a heart attack between scenes of a live television play, Underground on the ITV network. Other members of the cast improvised lines, such as, "I'm sure if So‑and‑so were here he would say...", to compensate for his absence. Coincidentally, his character was scripted to die of a heart attack in a later scene of the play.[299][300]
John A. Byrnes, Richard Leroy McKinley, and Richard C. Legg
3 January 1961
During the testing of an experimental nuclear reactor design, in Arco, Idaho, two soldiers and a sailor were killed, but their deaths were not due to radiation poisoning. While trying to bring the reactor online, Byrnes, an army specialist, was supposed to pull a control rod partway out by hand, but he pulled the rod further than intended. The reactor instantly went prompt critical, which flash-boiled the water around the reactor. The force of the steam expanding lifted the entire reactor into the air about 2.77 metres (9ft 1in), in what has been described as a water hammer-like effect. Many components were thrown out of the top, one of which impaled Legg, a navy electrician's mate, lifted him from a catwalk, and penetrated the ceiling, leaving him dangling. While the reactor was airborne the radioactive steam escaped, spraying the room. The steam was so hot that Byrnes instantly died of severe thermal burns. McKinley suffered a head wound, from which he died later that day. The steam left the bodies of all three men radioactive, so they were buried in lead-lined coffins. The three remain the only human beings killed by a reactor explosion in the United States.[304][305][306][307]
The 34-year-old U.S. Navy flight surgeon drowned at the end of the record-setting Strato-Lab V balloon flight when he slipped from the rescue sling during recovery operations in the Gulf of Mexico and his pressure suit filled with water.[308][309]
The 34-year-old American actress and Playboy model died when the driver of her 1966 Buick Electra 225 crashed into a tractor which had abruptly stopped. Her lover and the driver also died, but her children, including Mariska Hargitay, who was 3 years old at the time, survived. Many people speculated that the accident was the result of a Satanic curse.[315][316]
The 59-year-old Prime Minister of Australia disappeared, presumed drowned, while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea, Victoria.[317][318][319][320] He was "simply one of the number of ordinary Australians who drown each year through poor judgment or bad luck";[321] his drowning has been described as "not unusual",[322] and as "an ordinary death, a shockingly banal one that still befalls dozens every summer."[318] Holt's disappearance gave rise to a variety of unfounded conspiracy theories.[318]
The 62-year-old American actor and politician was found dead kneeling naked in his bathtub with a noose wrapped around his neck, a dirty hypodermic needle in each arm, a scarf over his eyes, a ball in his mouth secured to his head with wire, his wrists in handcuffs, and leather belts and thongs around his torso, one of them tied to a rope around Dekker's ankles. There were vulgar phrases and drawings in lipstick all over his body. His death was ruled an accidental case of erotic asphyxiation.[323][324]
1970s
Name of person
Image
Date of death
Details
Alan Fish
20 May 1970
The 14-year-old was struck in the head by a Manny Mota foul ball on 16 May while watching the Los Angeles Dodgers play against the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium, and was knocked unconscious for a minute. He appeared to recover and the Dodger Stadium infirmary gave him an ice pack, two aspirin and released him to watch the rest of the game, during which he behaved normally. The Giants ended up winning the game 5–4. Afterwards, he began shaking and crying uncontrollably during the bus ride to his nearby home; when he arrived, his parents sought medical attention but had to go to three hospitals, despite his worsening condition, before they found one that would accept him early the next morning. His condition required neurosurgery, but continued to worsen, and after a seizure led to apparent brain death, he was taken off life support two days later; the autopsy showed that part of his fractured skull had become lodged in his brain, causing an intracerebral hemorrhage. He was the first fan in Major League Baseball history to die of injuries caused by a foul ball.[325]
The Soviet cosmonauts died when their Soyuz 11 spacecraft depressurized during preparations for re-entry. They are the only reported human deaths outside the Earth's atmosphere.[326][327]
The 18-year-old hostess for the America Sings attraction at Disneyland mysteriously died after being crushed between two walls around 11:00p.m. It is speculated that she either fell backwards or tried to jump from one stage to another.[328][329]
The 29-year-old American news anchor from Hudson, Ohio, killed herself on live television at the start of Suncoast Digest, a local newscast for WXLT-TV in Sarasota, Florida, after reading some of the area's breaking news headlines. Chubbuck was the first person to commit suicide on live television.[330][331]
Alex Mitchell
24 March 1975
After watching the "Kung Fu Kapers" episode of The Goodies, the resident of King's Lynn, Norfolk, England, laughed continuously for 25 minutes and then fell dead on his sofa from heart failure due to what doctors discovered years later, via his granddaughter, was a genetic condition called Long QT syndrome.[332][333]
The 27-year-old American-Canadian film actor, known for playing the lead role in the 1970 film Zabriskie Point, died while in prison for bank robbery when a barbell fell on his neck while he was weightlifting.[334][335]
The 71-year-old logician and mathematician developed an obsessive fear of being poisoned and refused to eat food prepared by anyone but his wife. When she became ill and was hospitalized, he starved to death.[341][342] At the time of his death, he only weighed around 65 pounds (29kg).[343][failed verification]
The Bulgarian dissident writer was poisoned on a London street via a micro-engineered pellet containing ricin, fired into his leg from an umbrella wielded by an assassin associated with the Bulgarian Secret Service. At the time, this secret police force was affiliated with the KGB. Markov died four days later in hospital. No one was ever charged with the assassination.[72][344]
The resident of Caxias do Sul, Brazil, was walking upstairs carrying a Pyrex glass when she tripped, broke it, and fell on the shards, cutting an artery in her neck. She died on her way to the hospital.[347][348]
The 9-week-old from Australia was dragged off and killed by a wild dingo during a family camping trip to Uluru in the Northern Territory. This was the first recorded instance of a dingo killing a human. Azaria's parents, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, received intense media speculation due to the perceived implausibility of a dingo attack; in a highly-publicized trial, Lindy was convicted of murder and Michael named as an accessory. Their convictions were later overturned after Azaria's matinee jacket was discovered in an area with many dingo lairs nearby.[349][350][351]
John Bjornstad, Forrest Cole, and Nick Mullon
19 March 1981, 1 April 1981, and 11 April 1995
At Kennedy Space Center in Florida, five workers suffered anoxia due to pure nitrogen atmosphere in the aft engine compartment of Space Shuttle Columbia during a countdown demonstration test for the STS-1 mission. 51-year-old John Bjornstad died at the scene; 50-year-old Forrest Cole went into a coma and died two weeks later, and Nick Mullon died 14 years later from complications of injuries sustained.[352][353][354]
The 24-year-old tourist from La Cañada Flintridge, California, jumped into the alkaline (pH 9) and scalding (202°F (94°C)) Celestine Pool at Yellowstone National Park to save his friend's dog. The dog died within moments and its body dissolved in the hot spring. Kirwan, blinded and burned over his entire body, was airlifted to Salt Lake City and died the next day.[358][359]
The 63-year-old American actor slipped on a rug in his apartment while intoxicated, gashed his head open on a bedside table and bled to death without calling for help. His body was discovered four days later.[360][361]
During the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie, the 53-year-old Morrow, seven-year-old Le, and six-year-old Chen were performing a scene in which their characters are pursued by a helicopter. Heat from special-effects explosions caused the helicopter to fall on them.[362][failed verification] Morrow and Le were decapitated and Chen was crushed.[361][363][364]
The 61-year-old tennis linesman died after a ball served by player Stefan Edberg at the US Open struck him in the groin and he fell out of his chair, striking his head on the hardcourt surface.[365][366][367]
Truls Hellevik
5 November 1983
The 34-year-old Norwegian diver was explosively dismembered in a diving bell accident on the North SeaByford Dolphindrilling rig. Three other divers, 35-year-old Edwin Arthur Coward, 38-year-old Roy P. Lucas and 29-year-old Bjørn Giæver Bergersen, and 32-year-old dive tender William Crammond, were also killed. Crammond opened the clamp before Hellevik could close the chamber door. The nine-atmosphereair pressureexplosively decompressed, instantly forcing Hellevik's body through a 60-centimetre-diameter (24in) opening, fragmenting it into numerous pieces. The other tender, Martin Saunders, was severely injured.[368][verification needed][369]
The bouncer at the Condor Club in San Francisco died while engaging in sexual intercourse with his girlfriend, Theresa Hill, on a grand piano that was lowered from the ceiling by a hydraulic motor. He accidentally activated the lifting mechanism which pinned him against the ceiling leading to his suffocation. Hill survived the accident.[370][371]
The 17-year-old, from Piscataway, New Jersey, was electrocuted during a thunderstorm when a lightning strike caused an electrical surge to shoot through the wire of a telephone the boy was holding and enter his left ear, causing his heart to stop beating.[374][375]
At Lake Nyos, northwestern Cameroon, a limnic eruption of unknown cause released about 100,000–300,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the lake's bed. The gas cloud initially rose at nearly 100 kilometres per hour (62mph; 28m/s) and then, being heavier than air, descended onto nearby villages, suffocating people and livestock within 25 kilometres (16mi) of the lake, resulting in the death of 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock.[376][377][verification needed][378]
A poodle named Cachy, in Caballito, Buenos Aires, fell 13 floors and hit 75-year-old Marta Espina, killing both instantly. In the course of events, 46-year-old Edith Solá came to see the incident and was fatally hit by a bus. An unidentified man who witnessed her death had a heart attack and also died on his way to the hospital.[385][386]
1990s
Name of person
Image
Date of death
Details
Daniel John O'Brien
14 January 1990
The 31-year-old tourist committed suicide by jumping into one of the engines of a British AirwaysBoeing 747 at Piarco International Airport, Trinidad.[387] He is said to have scaled an airport wall in the nude, stolen a vehicle from four security guards, and smeared himself with grease before hurling himself into one of the plane's engines.[388]
Greg Austin Gingrich
28 November 1992
While the 38-year-old was vacationing at the Grand Canyon in Coconino County, Arizona, with his teenaged daughter, he began to play-act losing his balance to frighten her. His daughter, unimpressed with his antics, walked on. Gingrich, however, missed his footing and fell approximately 400 feet (120m) into the canyon to his death.[389][390]
The 38-year-old lawyer from Toronto fell from the 24th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Centre while demonstrating that its windows were "unbreakable". He threw himself against one, which, true to his assertion, did not break, but instead popped out of its frame.[394][395]
The 31-year-old died from kidney failure related to her cervical cancer at the emergency room of Riverside General Hospital in Riverside, California. While treating her, several of the hospital staff became ill, suffering from loss of consciousness, shortness of breath, and muscle spasms. Shortly before dying, she was allegedly covered with an oily sheen, which smelled of fruit and garlic.[396][397][398]
The 53-year-old American actor was punched in the head during an altercation with two men outside a Winchell's Donuts store in South Pasadena, California. A friend found Nance on the bathroom floor of his apartment the following morning, having died from a subdural hematoma.[361][399]
The 48-year-old chemistry professor at Dartmouth College died ten months after a few drops of dimethylmercury (an organomercury compound and one of the strongest-known neurotoxins) landed on her protective gloves. Although she had been following the required procedures, it permeated the gloves and her skin within seconds.[400][401][402]
Jonathan Capewell
29 July 1998
The 16-year-old from Oldham, England, died from a heart attack brought on by the buildup of butane and propane in his blood after excessive use of deodorant sprays. He was reported to have been obsessed with personal hygiene.[93][403][404]
John Lewis
12 April 1999
The 64-year-old businessman from Minsterworth, England, attempted to light a bonfire with gasoline, but inadvertently set his clothes on fire. He then ran to the River Severn, jumped in, and eventually drowned. His body was not found until 30 April 1999.[405][406]
The 35-year-old electronic musician, better known as Kemistry, was a front-seat passenger in a car travelling on the M3 motorway in Hampshire, behind a van which dislodged a cat's eye in the road. The metal body flew through the windscreen hitting Olusanya in the face, killing her instantly.[407][408][409]
The 34-year-old professional wrestler fell to his death during the Over the Edge pay-per-view event. He was supposed to be lowered into the ring from the rafters as part of his Blue Blazer persona's entrance, but the equipment lowering him into the ring malfunctioned, causing him to fall 78 feet (24m) and land chest-first on the top rope. The impact severed his aorta, causing death within minutes.[410][411]
Jon Desborough
10 June 1999
The 41-year-old geography and physical education teacher died due to a chest infection a month after being impaled in the eye with the blunt end of a javelin during an athletics session at the Liverpool College in Mossley Hill, Liverpool. It is believed that he had lost his footing while retrieving the javelin. He remained in a coma until his death.[412][413]
21st century
2000s
Name of person
Image
Date of death
Details
Bernd Brandes
9 March 2001
The 43-year-old engineer was voluntarily slaughtered and eaten by Armin Meiwes following an appointment via internet. At Brandes' request, Meiwes first amputated Brandes' penis and they unsuccessfully tried to eat it. Meiwes taped the entire amputation, killing, conserving, and eating Brandes' meat. Meiwes was eventually arrested and sentenced to life in prison.[414][415][416]
Unknown male
27 April 2001
An unnamed Canadian man was visiting his mother's house in order to attend his father's funeral when, whilst cleaning the kitchen, he tripped over the open dishwasher door and was impaled on knives sticking up out of the cutlery tray, the wounds eventually proving fatal.[417][418]
The 13-year-old died from her injuries at an NHL game after a deflected puck struck her in the left temple. She was the first and only fan fatality in the league's history.[421]
Roger Wallace
18 May 2002
The 60-year-old auto parts salesman was flying his 5-foot (1.5m) wingspan remote-control plane in Tucson, Arizona, when he lost sight of it in the bright sun. It struck him in the chest, killing him.[422][423][bettersourceneeded]
Jane McDonald
27 May 2003
While visiting a friend, the 31-year-old slipped and fell onto an open dishwasher, landing on an upright knife. She was taken to a hospital, where she died of her injuries.[424][425]
Rebecca Longhoffer
16 August 2003
The 39-year-old tourist, a mother of four, was electrocuted while crossing Las Vegas Boulevard when she stepped on a cast iron plate that covered electrical wiring and was hidden by a deep rain puddle.[426][427]
Hitoshi Nikaidoh
16 August 2003
The 35-year-old surgical resident from Houston, Texas, was killed after his head was trapped in elevator doors at the hospital where he worked. He was partially decapitated as the elevator ascended, and he also sustained injuries to his ribs and spine.[428][429]
The 46-year-old pizza delivery man from Erie, Pennsylvania, was killed after a collar bomb around his neck exploded as part of a bank robbery scheme.[430]
Unknown female
2004
A 45-year-old woman in Taiwan bathed in 40.5% ethanol in an attempt to protect herself from SARS during the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. She laid down in the fluid at 11. p.m. and was found dead at 11 a.m. by her family the next day. Her BAC was 1.35% and she most likely absorbed the alcohol through the skin.[431][432]
Francis Daniel Brohm
2 September 2004
The 23-year-old was hanging out the passenger window of 21-year-old John Hutcherson's car when Hutcherson drove off the road and sideswiped a telephone pole support wire, decapitating him. Hutcherson continued the final 12 miles (19km) to his Atlanta home, parked in the driveway, and went to bed. A neighbor found Brohm's headless body in the truck the next morning.[433][434]
The 45-year-old Boeing engineer from Seattle, nicknamed Mr. Hands, died from acute peritonitis after having his colon perforated while being anally penetrated by a horse.[435][436]
Chandler Hugh Jackson
6 July 2005
The 12-year-old was playing at the Dogwood Hill golf club in Cunningham, Kentucky, when he fell on his 9-iron club while retrieving an out of bounds ball. The club broke, with a piece of the shaft piercing his aorta through his chest.[437][438]
The 44-year-old, a naturalised British citizen, former Russian FSB officer, and defector, was assassinated by poisoning with polonium-210, which caused acute and irreversible radiation sickness.[72][441][442] One of just a handful of recorded deaths attributed specifically to polonium exposure,[443] Litvinenko was the first-known fatality from malicious polonium poisoning,[444] and remains the only confirmed such case as of 2024.[445]
Jennifer Strange
12 January 2007
The 28-year-old mother was participating in a contest sponsored by Sacramento-based radio station KDND, called "Hold Your Wee For A Wii", in which contestants had to drink excessive amounts of water without going to the bathroom. She vomited during the contest and returned home with a headache, later dying of water intoxication.[446][447][448]
Humberto Hernandez
21 June 2007
The 24-year-old Oakland, California, resident was struck in the back of the head by an airborne fire hydrant when a passing car struck it, and the water pressure shot it at him with great force.[449][450][451]
Francis Pete Tovey
18 March 2008
The 81-year-old built a device that consisted of a jigsaw power tool attached to a .22 semi-automatic handgun containing four bullets. He then activated it, which fired multiple shots at his head, killing himself. Tovey built the device after downloading suicide plans on the Internet. Tovey, who originated from England and was living in Burleigh Heads, Australia at the time, left a note stating that he was struggling after pressure from relatives to move from his £450,000 home to a retirement home.[452][453][454]
The 41-year-old Brazilian Catholic priest and sky diver undertook a cluster balloon flight to raise funds for charity. During the flight, contact was lost and de Carli disappeared. The lower part of his body was found floating in the sea eleven weeks later on 4 July.[457][458]
Isaiah Otieno
13 May 2008
The student from Cranbrook, British Columbia, was struck and killed by a helicopter that plunged into a residential street he was walking in. The pilot and two other passengers of the helicopter were also instantly killed.[459][460]
David Phyall
5 July 2008
The 50-year-old last resident in a block of flats due to be demolished in Bishopstoke, near Southampton, England, decapitated himself with a chainsaw to highlight the injustice of being forced to move out of it.[461]
Unknown female
7 October 2008
A 43-year-old Irish woman died of an allergic reaction after having sex with a German Shepherd. Its owner, Seán McDonnell, and the woman met in an Internet chat room for bestiality. McDonnell was prosecuted and added to a sex offender list. The dog was later destroyed.[462][463]
Jeff Twaddle
27 March 2009
The 54-year-old charter boat deckhand from Huntington Beach, California, choked to death on a bait fish he had placed in his mouth to amuse a group of elementary school students on a fishing trip off Long Beach.[464][465]
Diane Durre
3 April 2009
The 49-year-old was killed in North Platte, Nebraska, by a falling Taco Bell sign. The sign was knocked over by high winds, and landed on a pickup truck, killing her and injuring her husband, Mark.[466][467]
The 42-year-old was struck in the head by a piece of a metal pipe flung by a tractor-pulled lawnmower as she walked to work in Townsville, Australia.[477][478]
The 31-year-old Welsh mathematician and GCHQ analyst was found dead and naked in a bag that had been padlocked from the outside, in the bath of his home in Central London.[479] The inquest found his death was likely criminal, although a Metropolitan Police investigation later found that it was likely an accident.[480]
20 passengers and crew of a Let L-410 Turbolet were killed in a crash resulting from an escaped crocodile in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. According to the sole survivor of the crash, the animal was smuggled aboard by a passenger but escaped mid-flight. Panicked passengers surged forward, unbalancing the plane and causing a loss of control.[481] The crocodile survived the crash, but was promptly killed by a blow from a machete.[482]
The 62-year-old cellist and founding member of the band Electric Light Orchestra died when a large, round bale of hay rolled down a hill and collided with the van he was driving.[483][484]
The 62-year-old owner of Segway Inc. died after apparently riding a Segway Personal Transport System off a cliff in Thorp Arch, England.[485][486][487] The coroner came to the conclusion that Heselden had likely fallen from the cliff with the Segway after "getting into difficulty" reversing to allow a man walking his dog to pass him.[488][failed verification]
The 32-year-old Spanish road racing cyclist was crushed to death between a garage door and his car as he prepared to leave his home in the Province of Granada, Spain, for a training ride in preparation for the 2011 Tour de France.[491][492]
Unknown man and woman
6 June 2011
Two unnamed people were killed in an accident on a rural Quebec road when a "flying bear" collided with their SUV. The 200-kilogram (440lb)black bear was sent airborne by a car in front of the SUV after it had stepped into the path of traffic on Highway 148. The bear passed through the windshield, hitting the driver and the passenger sitting behind her before passing through the rear window. The driver's boyfriend was in the front passenger seat and received injuries to his upper body which were described as "not life-threatening". The bear also died.[493][494]
Erica Marshall
10 February 2012
The 28-year-old British veterinarian in Ocala, Florida, died when the horse she was treating in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber kicked the wall, releasing a spark from its horseshoe, causing a fire and explosion. The horse was also killed and another worker was seriously injured.[495][496]
Anthony Hensley
14 April 2012
The 37-year-old was killed by a swan while kayaking across a pond at a residential complex in Des Plaines, Illinois. After getting too close to the bird's nest, the swan attacked him, threw him out of the kayak and prevented him from surfacing; he ultimately drowned.[497][498]
Elizabeth Watkins
6 May 2012
The 24-year-old Australian field hockey player died in Perth after a deflected ball struck her on the head.[499][500]
The 17-year-old was discovered trapped upside down in a rolled-up gym mat in his high school gymnasium. Police originally concluded he had climbed in it to retrieve a shoe and became trapped, but the case was later reopened as a possible homicide.[501][502][503][504] The homicide case was dismissed, and Kendrick's parents were accused of fabricating evidence. In 2014, they were sentenced to pay more than US$292,000 in legal fees.[505] The case was again reopened in 2021, but closed again in January 2022, with the Lowndes County Sheriff finding his death to be an accident when re-reviewing some 17 boxes of evidence and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's findings.[506][507]
James Campbell
14 January 2013
The 68-year-old man from Cantonment, Florida had left his 1995 Chevrolet Van to open a gate from his driveway when his dog stepped on the van's gas pedal and ran him over.[508][509]
The 21-year-old from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, was missing for several weeks before being found dead in a large water tank on the roof of the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, after guests complained about low pressure and foul smell of the water.[510][511]
Unknown Belarusian man
2013
An unnamed 60-year-old Belarusian fisherman bled to death after being bitten by a beaver which he had tried to grab in order to have his picture taken with it.[512][513]
João Maria de Souza
2013
The 45-year-old was crushed in his bed by a cow falling through the roof of his home in Caratinga, Minas Gerais, Brazil. It had climbed on top of the house from a steep hillside behind it. Both the cow and his wife (who was in the bed next to him) were unharmed.[514][515]
The brothers, aged 4 and 6, respectively, were killed by an African rock python during a sleepover at their friend's apartment in New Brunswick, Canada. The snake had escaped from its inadequate enclosure and moved through ducts that were easily accessible to the reptile, where the snake then fell through the ceiling where the boys slept 3 metres (9.8ft) away. Though the snake suffocated them, it did not attempt to eat them. However, an African rock python would not constrict unless it planned on eating; therefore, it is likely that the owners of the python also failed to feed their pet. The python was euthanized.[516][517]
Denver Lee St. Clair
21 December 2013
The 58-year-old was asphyxiated by an "atomic wedgie" administered by his stepson during a fight in Oklahoma. After he had been knocked unconscious, the elastic band from his torn underwear was pulled over his head and stretched around his neck, strangling him. The stepson was sentenced to 30 years in prison.[518][519]
J.R.N.
18 January 2014
A 52-year-old Brazilian man, identified only as J.R.N., attempted to commit bestiality with a sow in Tapurah, Mato Grosso, but was attacked by the animals and wounded in the genitals. He died from cardiac arrest. His arms and face were also mutilated by the animals. Initially police believed that the man had been murdered and disposed of at the farm, but this was disproven as numerous pieces of evidence showed that the man had drunk alcohol, used a condom and had been wearing only underwear. The man had worked at the farm for two years.[520][521][522]
Grant Adams
9 June 2014
The 17-year-old had just woken up when he tripped on a wire and fell into a free-standing tanning bed in his bedroom on the morning of June 8, 2014. One of the glass tubes of the bed broke, piercing Grant's neck in two places. He was airlifted from his house in South Shields to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, where he died the next day.[523][524]
The French oil executive was killed when his corporate jet collided during take-off with an airport snowplow reportedly driven by a drunk driver in Moscow.[525][526]
Gary Anderson
3 November 2014
The 58-year-old from Somerdale, New Jersey, was delivering drywall to a construction site and leaned his head into the car of a co-worker while having a conversation. As he pulled his head out, a worker accidentally dropped a 1-pound (0.45kg)tape measure which plummeted 50 stories, or approximately 500 feet (150m), when it ricocheted off a piece of metal 10 feet (3m) off the ground and smashed into Anderson's head. He was rushed to Jersey City Medical Center where he suffered cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at 9:52a.m. Hard hats were mandatory at the site, and it is unclear why Anderson was not wearing one when he was killed.[527][528]
The member of American R&B group Brownstone died after falling backward while holding a wine glass. During the fall, the glass shattered on the ground behind her head, and the shards pierced her neck, causing profuse bleeding.[534][535][536]
Stephen Woytack
30 March 2015
The 74-year-old was decorating his family's grave plot at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Throop, Pennsylvania, for Easter with his wife when the tombstone of his mother-in-law toppled over, pinning him underneath and crushing him to death. The stone had supposedly been dislodged when the previously frozen ground was thawed by the early spring temperatures. Woytack was buried in a plot directly in front of the tombstone that killed him.[537][538]
Randy Llanes
29 May 2015
The 47-year-old fisherman from Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, was killed by a swordfish. He had harpooned the fish and jumped into the water to retrieve it, but the swordfish impaled him in the chest.[539][540]
The 22-year-old British field hockey player died after being struck in the head with a stick during a practice match in Loughton, Essex, and suffering a cerebral haemorrhage.[543][544][545]
Ravi Subramanian
16 December 2015
The Air India technician was sucked into an aircraft's jet engine.[546][547]
V. Kamaraj
2016
The 40-year-old Indian bus driver was claimed by local newspapers to have been killed by a meteorite which left a two-foot (60cm) crater, although officials from NASA oppose that view, saying that the most likely explanation was a land-based explosion. According to a preliminary report by the National College Instrumentation Facility (NCIF) in Trichy, a scanning electron microscope (SEM) study on the evidence of the samples retrieved from the campus in Vellore, from where the blast occurred, showed the "presence of carbonaceous chondrites".[548][549][verification needed][550][551][verification needed]
Irma Bule
4 April 2016
The 29-year-old Indonesian dangdut singer who performed with live snakes died during a concert after being bitten by a king cobra and refusing treatment.[552][553]
Lottie Michelle Belk
6 June 2016
The 55-year-old was fatally stabbed in the chest by a beach umbrella blown by a strong wind in Virginia Beach, Virginia.[554] Wind speeds at the time reached 20–25 miles per hour (32–40km/h).[555]
Lane Graves
14 June 2016
The 2-year-old boy from Nebraska was on vacation and playing on the beach at Seven Seas Lagoon around 9 p.m. at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, just outside of Orlando, Florida. While he was playing, an alligator approached and dragged him under the water. Graves's body was found nearby the next day, intact and apparently drowned.[556][557][558]
The 27-year-old American actor, known for portraying Pavel Chekov in the Star Trek reboot movie series, was found pinned between his car and a brick wall. His driveway was on an incline and his car was found running and in neutral.[361][559][560] The manufacturer had recalled the car make in April 2016, for concerns about its gearshift design that could cause rollaway incidents, but the software patch to repair the vehicles did not reach dealers until the week of Yelchin's death.[561]
Moules, a 25-year-old correctional officer, and Gilliam, a 27-year-old out-of-county inmate being housed at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, fell to their deaths after an altercation between them caused them to slam into the exterior of the fifth-floor elevator doors. Despite the elevator having its up-to-date working credentials, the door popped open on impact, causing the men to fall five flights down the shaft to their deaths. The county declared Moules' death a homicide and declared Gilliam's an accident.[564][565]
Unknown girl
26 July 2016
A 7-year-old girl died after being struck by a stone thrown by an elephant from its enclosure at the zoo in Rabat, Morocco.[566][567]
A powerful southerly change in Melbourne, Australia, resulted in the death of 10 asthmatic people who died from respiratory failure.[572] This was due to a stark 60-kilometre-per-hour (37mph) wind that distributed ryegrasspollen into the moist air, rupturing them into very fine specks small enough to enter people's lungs.[573]
The 25-year-old was killed and swallowed by a reticulated python in West Sulawesi, Indonesia, in the first fully confirmed case of a snake swallowing an adult human.[577]
Charlie Holt
14 April 2017
The 5-year-old was killed at the Sun Dial, a rotating restaurant at the top of Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, when his head was caught in a small space between the rotating and non-rotating sections.[578][579][580]
The 13-year-old from London, England, died in the hospital days after having a severe allergic reaction to a piece of cheese thrown at him by a classmate. Cheema was severely allergic to wheat, gluten, all dairy products, eggs and all nuts.[587][588]
Jasmine Beever
7 September 2017
The 16-year-old from Skegness, England, died of peritonitis brought about by Rapunzel syndrome. She had a long-time habit of chewing and swallowing her own hair (trichophagia) which formed a hairball in her stomach, leading to an infection in her abdomen damaging her vital organs.[589][590]
Elizabeth Isherwood
September 2017
The 60-year-old from Wolverhampton, England, walked naked into an airing cupboard at the villa at Pennal she was renting and shut the door. When she tried to leave, part of the door handle broke off in her hand. She dug into the wall in an attempt to escape, but struck and burst a pipe, which sprayed water into the cupboard and caused her eventual death by hypothermia. She was found several days later.[591][592]
Raildo Matias Santos
22 October 2017
The 49-year-old drowned in a bucket of water in Jaguaquara, Brazil. Santos, who was intoxicated, attempted to fetch a 20-litre (4.4impgal; 5.3USgal) bucket of water, tripped, and fell in a kneeling position. He was epileptic.[593][594]
Hidr Korkmaz
12 November 2017
The 42-year-old Turkish-Dutch drug dealer and informant died when he threw his fishhook into an electrical cable while fishing somewhere in Eastern Europe. Though he was a witness in the case against Dutch criminal Willem Holleeder, he was not considered a crucial asset by authorities, who treated his death as an accident.[595][596]
Ateef Rafiq
16 March 2018
The 24-year-old died from cardiac arrest in a movie theater in Birmingham, England, while looking for his dropped mobile phone. His head became wedged under the electronic footrest of a seat.[597][598]
The 49-year-old from Tempe, Arizona, died after being hit by a self-driving car operated by Uber, as she crossed the road, in what was reported to be the first death of a pedestrian struck by a self-driving car on public roads. In response to the fatal accident, Uber suspended self-driving car tests in all U.S. cities.[599][600]
Kyle Plush
10 April 2018
The 16-year-old died from asphyxia after becoming trapped in his Honda Odyssey, which was in his school's parking lot in Cincinnati, Ohio. Attempting to reach his tennis equipment, he leaned over the third row of seats into the trunk. When the seats "squashed his chest", he became pinned and later died. During the incident, he called 9–1–1 twice, by using his smartphone's voice assistant. Responding to the calls, the police were not able to find him; he was eventually discovered dead in the vehicle by his father about six hours later.[601][602]
The 77-year-old died of asphyxiation from the carbon dioxide vapors produced by four dry ice coolers in a Dippin' Dots delivery car. The deliveryman's wife had borrowed the car to take Whiting home.[605][606]
The 79-year-old died four days after being hit by a foul ball at Dodger Stadium. Her death, the second such fatality in Major League Baseball history, was the first in nearly 50 years.[610]
The 74-year-old British-American balloonist was mortally injured after landing safely near Warner Springs, California, at the end of a test flight of an experimental high-altitude balloon. After Nott and his passenger reentered the balloon's gondola, it rolled down a steep ravine.[619][620]
Patrick McGuire
April 2019
The 67-year-old American tourist died from positional asphyxia in Scotland when a 72-kilogram (159lb) metal garden bench he was sitting on toppled backwards, pinning him against a wall which had knocked him unconscious. It was later found that such benches had a risk of sinking into the grass and there were no appropriate checks to provide a stable hard surface for the benches.[621][622]
Darren Hickey
5 April 2019
The 51-year-old wedding planner from Horwich, England, died after eating a scalding-hot fishcake at a wedding. The cake had burned his throat, restricting his ability to breathe. The pathologist who performed the autopsy called the case "extremely rare" and likened it to those of victims who have inhaled smoke during house fires.[623][624] Hickey received a set of false teeth following a previous event.[625]
Marvin Hajos
12 April 2019
The 75-year-old exotic animal collector living at a farm near Alachua, Florida, was attacked and killed by his recently purchased pet cassowary. The large bird repeatedly kicked the man, which punctured his skin and severed the brachial artery in his arm. Hajos was declared dead by the time paramedics arrived at the scene, and the cassowary was auctioned off to a different owner.[626][627]
Paul McDonald
17 April 2019
The 47-year-old was attacked and killed by a pet deer, said to be an elk, on his property in north-east Victoria, Australia.[628][629]
Joemar Jungco
22 June 2019
The 18-year-old worker at a meat processing facility in Iloilo City, Philippines, died after half his body from the head down to the waist was pulled into a meat grinder.[630][631]
Yulia Sharko
8 September 2019
The 21-year-old from Žabinka, Belarus, was celebrating her birthday with friends when she tried to pull her two-year-old daughter out through the window of her car. Her daughter activated the window control button, closing the window and strangling Sharko.[632][633]
2020s
Name of person
Image
Date of death
Details
Christian Bolok
26 October 2020
The 38-year-old lieutenant, who was the police chief of San Jose, Northern Samar, Philippines, died during a raid to shut down a cockfight, which the government had banned due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was trying to grab a cockfighting rooster when the razor-sharp metal blade attached to the rooster's leg to kill its opponent cut a gaping hole in his leg and sliced his femoral artery, causing him to bleed to death.[634][635]
Luke Ramone Harper
2 April 2021
The 8-year-old from Ringsend, Dublin, died after inhaling helium from a balloon that he placed over his head. The balloon had been bought for his birthday a week prior.[636][637]
The corpse of the 45-year-old leader of Love Has Won was discovered by police on 28 April 2021, with estimates placing her death c. 16 April 2021. Her remains were mummified and wrapped in a sleeping bag, decorated with Christmas lights; her eyes were missing, and her eye sockets had been decorated with glitter. An autopsy determined that she died of alcohol abuse, anorexia, and chronic colloidal silver ingestion.[638][639][640]
Unknown man
May 2021
The body of a 39-year-old man was found wedged inside the hind leg of a papier-mâché statue of a stegosaurus in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Catalonia, Spain. Initial police reports did not suspect foul play. A police representative hypothesised that the individual may have crawled inside headfirst to retrieve a lost mobile phone before his leg became stuck, trapping him inside. Firefighters had to cut the statue apart to extract the body; police observers believed that he may have been trapped in there for "a couple of days". Local media claimed that the family of the victim had reported him missing only hours prior to the discovery. The body was discovered when a man and his son noticed an unusual smell from the statue, and saw the body through a crack in the statue.[641][642]
Unknown man
30 October 2021
A 30-year-old man was fishing with two friends at a lake in Brasilândia de Minas, Brazil, when the group was attacked by bees. He and his friends jumped into the lake to escape the bees, but the man drowned and was partially eaten by piranhas; his friends survived.[643][644]
Teddy Balkind
6 January 2022
The 16-year-old high school student for St. Luke's School, Connecticut, died after suffering an injury to his neck during a junior varsity ice hockey game. He died after he fell during a game and was accidentally hit by another player, who was unable to stop in time. The other player's skate blade cut Balkind's neck, and he died following an emergency operation.[645][646][verification needed][647]
On August 5, 2022, while driving in Mar Vista, Los Angeles, the 53-year-old American actress crashed her Mini Cooper three times in close succession. The car crashed into a wall in an apartment complex parking area and into a Jaguar before embedding itself in a two-story house, which caught fire, trapping Heche in her burning car for 45 minutes. After being rescued, Heche sat up on her stretcher and struggled with firefighters, but then lost consciousness. Heche was declared brain dead on August 11 but was kept on life support until August 14 to preserve her organs for donation.[361][648][649][650][651]
Joseph Smith
21 January 2023
The 30-year-old man was shot and killed by his dog after the animal stepped on a loaded rifle in the back seat of his pickup truck, causing the gun to fire through the front passenger seat and hit him in the back. The driver of the truck, who was sitting next to Smith at the time of the accident, was unharmed.[652][653][654]
Barry Griffiths
June 2023
The 57-year-old Welsh man, who had suffered a stroke that reduced the mobility of one of his arms, accidentally stabbed himself in the stomach while attempting to separate frozen burgers with a knife. Atherosclerosis was also a contributing factor in Griffiths' death. Police did not discover Griffiths' body in his apartment until over a week after he died.[655][656]
Mikala Jones
9 July 2023
The 44-year-old was killed in a surfing accident in North Sipora, Indonesia, after the fin of his surfboard severed his femoral artery.[657][658]
On July 15, 2023, the 33-year-old Indonesian bodybuilder and influencer was squatting over 180 kilograms (400lb) at a Bali gym, assisted by a spotter, when the weight snapped his head forward, breaking his neck. Vicky died in the hospital 2 days later.[659][660][661]
The 29-year-old member of the Nottingham Panthers professional ice hockey team in England died after his neck was cut by a skate during a game between the Panthers and the Sheffield Steelers.[662][663]
Sanjay Shah and Raju Datla
20 January 2024
The 55-year-old CEO of Vistex was celebrating his company's 25th anniversary at a movie studio stage in India. As part of the celebration, Shah and company president Raju Datla were being lowered from the ceiling to the stage in a cage or basket, when a cable broke and both men fell 20 feet (6.1m), killing Shah and leaving Datla in critical condition.[664][665] Datla died of his injuries six months later.[666]
Giulia Manfrini
21 October 2024
The 36-year-old Italian surfer died while surfing near the coast of West Sumatra, Indonesia, after a swordfish pierced her chest.[667][668]
The 76-year-old member of the Kentucky Senate died of injuries sustained in an accident on September 15, 2024, when he drove a riding mower into an empty swimming pool.[669][670]
Animal deaths
This section is for the deaths of animals, for whom there are several sources mentioning the deaths as unusual.
Name of animal
Image
Date of death
Details
Jocko the monkey
July 1880
The performance monkey from Goldsboro, North Carolina, was found dead after he hanged himself with a makeshift noose made with clothesline. It is believed that Jocko did it as an experiment after watching public hangings with his owner Rockwell Syrock.[671][672][673]
The elephant was executed by poisoning, electrocution, and strangulation. A 74-second film of the electrocution was recorded and preserved, possibly the first death captured on film.[676][677]
During a Major League Baseball Yankees-Blue Jays game at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium, Yankees right fielder Dave Winfield threw a warm-up ball which hit a seagull, killing it. After the game, Toronto police charged Winfield with causing "unnecessary suffering of an animal". The charges were dropped the following day.[680][681]
A 175-kilogram (386lb)American black bear died in Georgia in 1985 after overdosing on cocaine. The cocaine had been dumped from an airplane piloted by Andrew C. Thornton II, a former narcotics officer turned convicted drug smuggler.[682] It inspired the 2023 film Cocaine Bear.[683]
During the opening ceremony of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, hundreds of live doves were released as a symbol of world peace. Many of the doves landed on the Olympic cauldron just prior to it being lit. When the cauldron was lit, over a dozen of the doves resting on the rim of the cauldron and flying directly above it were burned alive by the Olympic flame. The death of the birds marked the last time that live doves were used.[686][687]
Goose
27 March 1999
On the inaugural ride of the Apollo's Chariot rollercoaster at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, male model Fabio was struck in the face by a goose during the first drop. The goose was killed, while Fabio's nose was bloodied and required stitches.[688][689][690]
Dove
24 March 2001
During a Major League Baseball spring training game, pitcher Randy Johnson threw a fastball just as a bird flew through the pitch's path, killing it instantly.[691][692][unreliable source?][693]
Alan the dachshund
14 January 2013
Tatler magazine's "office dog" saw a man approaching the revolving doors of Vogue House and walked after the man. As Alan tried to rush through the revolving doors, his neck got caught in it, also getting the worker stuck in the door. Two fire engines rushed to the scene, where they freed the man, but could not free Alan, who died at the scene.[694][695]
↑ Valerius Maximus tells the same story about the death of the Athenian poet and playwright Philemon (d. c. 262 BC).[13]
↑ This source incorrectly gives Spencer's age at death as 60.
↑ Snopes rates this account of Kogut's death as a "Legend".[253]
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↑ Halpern, Baruch (October 1983). "The Resourceful Israelite Historian: The Song of Deborah and Israelite Historiography". Harvard Theological Review. 76 (4): 379–401. doi:10.1017/S0017816000014115. JSTOR1509543. The bizarre killing in 4:21 is actually (perhaps only) explicable on the supposition that the historian misunderstood 5:26 to refer to two different hands and two different instruments.
↑ Irwin, Brian P. (2012). "Not Just Any King: Abimelech, the Northern Monarchy, and the Final Form of Judges". Journal of Biblical Literature. 131 (3): 443–454. doi:10.2307/23488248. hdl:1807/77554. JSTOR23488248. An additional connection between the Abimelech narrative and the early northern monarchy may be present also in the story of Abimelech's unusual and violent death in Thebez.
↑ Matlock, Brett; Matlock, Jesse (2011). The Salt Lake Loonie. Illustrated by Dwight Allott. University of Regina Press. p.81. ISBN978-0-88977-239-7. In one bizarre Olympic competition, a dead athlete named Arrhichion was actually declared the winner.
↑ Maximus, Valerius (1678) [c.30 AD]. "Book VI, Chapter III; Of Severity". Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium Libri IX. Translated by Speed, Samuel. London. Retrieved 26 September 2024– via Attalus.org. But the severity of Cambyses was more extraordinary, who caused the skin of a certain corrupt judge to be flayed from his body, and nailed upon the seat, where he commanded the man's son to take his place. However by this savage and unusual punishment of a judge, he – a king and a barbarian – ensured that no judge in future could be corrupted.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Maximus, Valerius (1678) [c.30 AD]. "Book IX, Chapter XII; Of Unusual Deaths". Factorum et Dictorum Memorabilium Libri IX. Translated by Speed, Samuel. London. Retrieved 5 September 2024– via Attalus.org. But not to digress any further, let us mention those who have perished by unusual deaths.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Wanley, Nathaniel; Johnston, William (1806). "Chapter XXVIII: Of the different and unusual Ways by which some Men have come to their Deaths §7". The Wonders of the Little World; Or, A General History of Man: Displaying the Various Faculties, Capacities, Powers and Defects of the Human Body and Mind, in Many Thousand Most Interesting Relations of Persons Remarkable for Bodily Perfections or Defects; Collected from the Writings of the Most Approved Historians, Philosophers, and Physicians, of All Ages and Countries – Book I: Which treats of the Perfections, Powers, Capacities, Defects, Imperfections, and Deformities of the Body of Man. Vol.1 (A newed.). London. pp.110–117. ASINB001F3H1XA. LCCN07003035. OCLC847968918. OL7188480M. Retrieved 23 July 2024– via Internet Archive.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Marvin, Frederic Rowland (1900). The Last Words (Real and Traditional) of Distinguished Men and Women. Troy, New York: C. A. Brewster & Co. Retrieved 5 January 2022– via Google Books. To some of the most distinguished of our race death has come in the strangest possible way, and so grotesquely as to subtract greatly from the dignity of the sorrow it must certainly have occasioned.
↑ La tortue d'Eschyle et autres morts stupides de l'Histoire[Aeschylus' tortoise and other stupid deaths in history] (in French). Editions Les Arènes. 2012. ISBN978-2352042211.
↑ Baldi, Dino (2010). Morti favolose degli antichi[Fabulous deaths of the ancients] (in Italian). Macerata: Quodlibet. p.50. ISBN978-8874623372.
↑ Cartwright, Mark (15 March 2016). "Pyrrhus". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 18 October 2024. ...Pyrrhus was killed in a bizarre incident in the city of Argos...
↑ Levene, D.S., ed. (2024). Livy: the Fragments and Periochae. Vol.II. Oxford University Press. p.300. ISBN978-0-19-287123-7. Retrieved 27 September 2024– via Google Books. It is not implausible in itself—when an enemy army was inside a city or close to the walls, it was not uncommon for women to participate in the city's defense by hurling down roof tiles or other missiles—but this is an unique instance of its bringing down an enemy commander.
↑ Laertius, Diogenes (1965). Lives, Teachings and Sayings of the Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Hicks, R.D. Cambridge, Massachusetts/London: Harvard University Press/W. Heinemann Ltd.
↑ Diodorus Siculus. "Book 37". Bibliotheca historica. Retrieved 5 September 2024– via Attalus.org. He killed himself in a strange and unusual way; for he shut himself up in a newly plastered house, and caused a fire to be kindled, by the smoke of which, and the moist vapours from the lime, he was there stifled to death.
↑ Tronson, Adrian (1998). "Vergil, the Augustans, and the Invention of Cleopatra's Suicide—One Asp or Two?". Vergilius. 44: 31–50. JSTOR41587181. For other testimony to the bizarre practice of seeking death by snake-bite, see the sources cited in note 17 above.
↑ Elliott, J.K., ed. (1996). The Apocryphal Jesus: Legends of the Early Church. New York: Oxford University Press. p.118. ISBN978-0-19-826384-5. Retrieved 27 September 2024– via Internet Archive. The inverse crucifixion is an unusual feature, but the preceding speech by the apostle is typical.
↑ Tompkins, Ian (3 July 1994). "Review of: Roberts, Prudentius' Peristephanon". Bryn Mawr Classical Review. Retrieved 28 September 2024. The most common methods of execution in the Peristephanon are with the sword or by burning, although a number, such as Quirinus who is drowned and Cassian who is stabbed by his pupils' pens, undergo more unusual fates.
↑ Lenski, Noel (2014). Failure of Empire. University of California Press. p.142.
↑ Simon, Ed (25 April 2017). "There's Nothing in the World Smaller Than the Universe". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 29 September 2024. Because the likelihood of Li Bai dying from simple infirmity in 762 isn't as strange and beautiful as the traditional story of his demise—that he drowned in the Yangtze River while drunkenly trying to embrace the moon's reflection—the apocryphal tale is to be preferred.
↑ Ha, Jin (23 January 2019). "The Poet with Many Names—and Many Deaths". The Paris Review. Retrieved 28 September 2024. But the third version of his death is far more fantastic: in this version, he drowns while drunkenly chasing the moon's reflection on a river, jumping from a boat to catch the ever-shifting orb.
↑ Edward Dutton, Paul (2004). Carolingian Civilization: A Reader (2nded.). University of Toronto Press. p.516. ISBN978-1-55111-492-7. Louis the Stammerer died in 879 and his son Louis III, under unusual circumstances, in 882.
↑ Treadgold, Warren (1997). A History of the Byzantine State and Society. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. p.461. ISBN0-8047-2630-2. According to the official story, he was injured by a giant stag while hunting with Leo's friend Zaützes and some other dignitaries. Yet the details given were highly improbable, and the dying emperor claimed an attempt had been made on his life.
↑ Cavendish, Richard (May 2013). "Death of Archbishop Hatto". History Today. Vol.63, no.5. Retrieved 29 September 2024. Hatto died two years later, aged about 63, and improbable stories began to spread about his death... The weirdest tale was that he was overwhelmed and eaten alive by an army of mice, which he deserved because of his cruel treatment of the poor during a famine.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Paoletti, Gabe (31 July 2019) [Originally published 13 November 2017]. Kuroski, John (ed.). "The Strange Deaths Of 16 Historic And Famous Figures". All That's Interesting. Retrieved 8 August 2024. Many of history's most important figures have suffered strange deaths that do not seem to befit their noble legacy.
↑ Cartwright, Mark (29 January 2018). "John II Komnenos". World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved 3 October 2024. John's reign ended in a freak accident while the emperor was out hunting; falling on a poisoned arrow or perhaps contracting septicemia from the wound.
↑ Magdalino, Paul (2002). The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 1143–1180 (illustrateded.). Cambridge University Press. p.41. ISBN978-0-521-52653-1– via Google Books. [John's] unexpected death early in 1143 thus averted a decisive confrontation between Byzantium and the crusader states. But it did not mark an immediate change either in the confidence or in the orientation of imperial policy. Indeed, its unusual circumstances brought to the throne the very member of the imperial family around whom this policy had been built.
↑ "Curio #1: The Erfurter Latrinensturz". The Fortweekly. April 2018. Archived from the original on 3 September 2019. Retrieved 6 February 2023. The Erfurter Latrinensturz was a bizarre tragedy that occurred in the city of Erfurt in the year 1184...
↑ Dean, Kristie (4 April 2015). "Mayhem, Treachery and Death: Gruffudd ap Llywelyn". Retrieved 13 November 2024. Some moments in history seem too unbelievable to be true. The story of the life and death of Gruffudd ap Llywelyn is one such story.
↑ von Kotzebue, August (1805). "Kotzebue's Travels". In Bernard & Sultzer (ed.). A Collection of Modern and Contemporary Voyages & Travels. Vol.1. London: Richard Phillips. p.27 – via Google Books. That statue of Peter of Navarre reminds us of the singular death of his father, Charles II, denominated the Wicked.
↑ Thompson, C. J. S. (2004) [1928]. Mysteries of History with Accounts of Some Remarkable Characters and Charlatans. Kila, Montana: Kessinger Publishing. pp.31 ff.
↑ Waller, John C. (September 2008). "In a spin: the mysterious dancing epidemic of 1518". Endeavour. 32 (3): 117–121. doi:10.1016/j.endeavour.2008.05.001. PMID18602695. In 1518, one of the strangest epidemics in recorded history struck the city of Strasbourg.
↑ Clementz, Élisabeth (2016). "Waller (John), Les danseurs fous de Strasbourg. Une épidémie de transe collective en 1518"[Waller (John), The Mad Dancers of Strasbourg. An Epidemic of Mass Trance in 1518]. Revue d'Alsace (in French). 142 (142): 451–453. doi:10.4000/alsace.2457. Ce sont les «Annales de Brant», la chronique de Hieronymus Gebwiller et la réponse du Magistrat de Strasbourg à l'évêque, qui lui demandait des informations sur cette inhabituelle maladie...[These are the "Annales de Brant", the chronicle of Hieronymus Gebwiller and the response of the Magistrate of Strasbourg to the bishop, who asked him for information on this unusual disease...]
↑ Wallace, Naomi (23 October 2022). "Tudor True Crime: The Bizarre Death of Amy Dudley". Retrospect Journal. Edinburgh University. Retrieved 7 September 2024. Though precisely why or by who remains unclear, I struggle to see how, given the strangeness of the circumstances, many historians are so quick to rule out murder.
↑ "Prost, Herr Steininger: Bierkrug des Stadthauptmanns wieder in Braunau"[Cheers, Mr. Steininger: The city captain's beer mug back in Braunau]. Oberösterreichische Nachrichten (in German). 20 May 2019. Retrieved 6 October 2024. "...Es dürfte sich aber bei all diesen seltsamen Erzählungen mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit um Volkssagen handeln", resümieren Manfred und Tamara Rachbauer.["...But all these strange tales are most likely folk tales," Manfred and Tamara Rachbauer conclude.]
↑ Webster, John (1677). The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft. London: J.M. p.245 – via Project Gutenberg. It fortuned that a Manuscript fell into my hands, collected by an ancient Gentleman of York, who was a great observer and gatherer of strange things and facts, who lived about the time of this accident happening at Oxford, wherein it is related thus...
↑ Leggett, George. "The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots". The Past Today. The Bristorian. Retrieved 21 August 2024. The execution in itself was an unusual one...
↑ Kinnersley, Thomas (1823). A Selection of Sepulchral Curiosities, with a Biographical Sketch on Human Longevity. New York: T. Kinnersley. p.214 – via Google Books. Fuller, the historian, tells an extraordinary story relating to Doctor Perne's death, which he attributes to the mortification he received from a jest passed upon him by the Queen's fool.
↑ Tierney, John (29 November 2010). "Murder! Intrigue! Astronomers?". Findings. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 19 December 2013. Retrieved 30 November 2010. At the time of Tycho's death, in 1601, the blame fell on his failure to relieve himself while drinking profusely at the banquet, supposedly injuring his bladder and making him unable to urinate.
↑ Irving, David (1861). Caryle, John Aitken (ed.). The History of Scottish Poetry. Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas. p.539 – via Internet Archive. Sir Thomas Urquhart, another poet, is said to have expired in a paroxysm of laughter, on hearing of the restoration of Charles the Second; a statement which is rendered sufficiently probable by the record of similar cases, and by the eccentric character of the individual.
↑ Abad, Reynald (2002). "Aux origines du suicide de Vatel: les difficultés de l'approvisionnement en marée au temps de Louis XIV"[At the origins of Vatel's suicide: the difficulties of tidal supply at the time of Louis XIV]. Dix-Septième Siècle (in French). 217 (4): 631–641. doi:10.3917/dss.024.0631. Alors que le côté spectaculaire du geste de Vatel le transformait, à partir du XIXe siècle, en une sorte de fait d'arme de l'histoire culinaire de la France, son côté disproportionné en faisait parallèlement un objet d'étonnement et même de mystère.[While the spectacular side of Vatel's gesture transformed it, from the 19th century onwards, into a sort of feat of arms in the culinary history of France, its disproportionate side at the same time made it an object of astonishment and even mystery.]
↑ Evans, Mary (18 January 2001). "Mysterious Molière". The Economist. Retrieved 7 October 2024. Among the considerable number of men dedicated to the task of keeping Louis XIV entertained, several met bizarre ends... Nothing, however, quite equals the death of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, the self-styled sieur de Molière...
↑ Schonberg, Harold C. (13 September 1970). "Then There Was Lully, Put a Baton in His Foot". The New York Times. p.23. Retrieved 7 October 2024. Oddball deaths? Perhaps the only really freakish one concerning a composer involved Jean‐Baptiste Lully, the favorite of the Sun King.
↑ Lekkas, Demetrios E. (Spring 2019). "The true "punching bag" behind Molière's The Middle-Class Nobleman". Epistēmēs Metron Logos (2): 11–39. doi:10.12681/eml.20569– via EJournals. ...I do wonder whether this is in reference to the ultimately fatal bâton / baston, that is the long conducting stick of the orchestra director, which, in the dominant current version regarding historical fact, would ultimately, years later, turn out to be responsible for Lully's death, in a notorious tragic freak accident...
↑ Beckford, Martin (24 September 2007). "BBC reveals Britain's most unusual epitaphs". The Telegraph. Retrieved 5 October 2024. Almost as strange as Mrs Johnston's gravestone is the story of Hannah Twynnoy, whom [sic] historians believe was probably the first person in Britain to be killed by a tiger.
↑ "Hannah Twynnoy". Athelstan Museum Malmesbury. Retrieved 19 October 2024. Three centuries have passed since the shocking death of a young woman in Malmesbury, yet Hannah Twynnoy is remembered here in Malmesbury each day.
↑ Castelow, Ellen (27 December 2014). "Frederick Prince of Wales". Historic UK. Retrieved 19 October 2024. But the strangest death must be that of Frederick, Prince of Wales who died, some sources claim, after being hit with a cricket-ball.
↑ Gupton, Nancy (12 June 2017). "Benjamin Franklin and the Kite Experiment". The Franklin Institute. Retrieved 8 October 2024. ...Baltic physicist Georg Wilhelm Richmann attempted a similar trial but was killed when he was struck by ball lightning (a rare weather phenomenon).
↑ "Barbarous experiments at Plymouth". The Zoist. 11. H. Baillière: 248. 1854 – via Google Books. The reality of this assertion seemed, however, then incredible to Dr. Spry, who could scarcely suppose it possible that any human being could exist after receiving melted lead into the stomach...
↑ Bell, Rachael (26 January 2006). "Internet Assisted Suicide: The Story of Sharon Lopatka". Crime Library. Archived from the original on 26 January 2006. Retrieved 29 August 2024. Knud R. Joergensen wrote in 1995 about the 1791 case of composer Franz Kotzwara who enlisted the help of a London prostitute, Susannah Hill, to assist him with his bizarre wish... It was the first documented case of death by sexual strangulation.
↑ Copeland, J. Isaac; Cashion, Jerry C. (January 2023) [Originally published 1994]. "Spencer, Samuel". NCpedia. Retrieved 10 August 2024. Spencer's death came as the result of an unusual accident.
↑ Mikkelson, Barbara; Mikkelson, David (17 January 2007) [Originally published 31 August 2002]. "Did a Beer Flood Kill 9 People?". Fact Check. Snopes. Retrieved 7 August 2024. The ongoing spate of Internet reports of unusual deaths, both real and fictional, might lead some to believe extraordinary modes of demise are a recent phenomenon. Nothing could be further from the truth — the Grim Reaper has always found incredible methods of ending human life.
↑ Johnson, Ben. "The London Beer Flood of 1814". Historic UK. Retrieved 12 August 2024. A bizarre industrial accident resulted in the release of a beer tsunami onto the streets around Tottenham Court Road... This unique disaster was responsible for the gradual phasing out of wooden fermentation casks to be replaced by lined concrete vats.
↑ Mütter EDU Staff (20 January 2017). "What Killed William Henry Harrison?". Education Blog. College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Retrieved 12 August 2024. Since today is inauguration day, allow me to shed light on what has to be one of the most unusual inauguration stories: the death of William Henry Harrison.
1 2 "Dead President: Zachary Taylor and His Calamitous Chow Down". The Skeleton Key Chronicles. 18 February 2020. Retrieved 12 August 2024. We all learn about assassinations of presidents in history class but I was looking for something a bit more unusual, and I found it – the death of Zachary Taylor.
1 2 Savey, Edward (6 July 2021). "US President Zachary Taylor". ConstitutionUS.com. Retrieved 12 August 2024. Then you have those remembered for their short stay in the White House and unusual cause of death. The 12th president, Zachary Taylor, belongs to the latter category.
↑ Henley, Nicole (11 March 2020). "This Might Be the Strangest Death in All of History". Retrieved 13 September 2024. However it transpired, it goes without saying that this death has arguably gone down as one of, if not the most, unusual reported manners in which someone rode the pale horse.
↑ Jaffe, Chris (14 October 2012). "150th anniversary: Jim Creighton's fatal swing". The Hardball Times. Retrieved 22 September 2024. But no single event is stranger to us or better demonstrated how very different the game was in its early years than what happened 150 years ago today.
↑ "Extraordinary Case". Liverpool Daily Post. 3 November 1869. The Times gives the particulars of a death which took place a few days ago from a singular cause at Grayton-le-Marsh [sic]... "The occurrence of a similar case to the above is either so rare or so seldom detected, that several medical men of large experience never remember ever having heard of one like it.", cited in "11 unusual tales of terror from historical newspapers". Blog. The British Newspaper Archive. 27 October 2014. Retrieved 5 October 2024.
↑ "Fatal Accident to Mr. Vallandigham". Western Reserve Chronicle. 21 June 1871. p.2. Archived from the original on 3 November 2013. Retrieved 21 February 2022– via The American Civil War @ 150. Here is a newspaper account of the unusual death of Clement Vallandigham, a leader of the Copperhead Democrats during the Civil War.
↑ York, Dena Lynn Winslow (1 June 2001). "They Lynched Jim Cullen": Story and Myth on the Northern Maine Frontier. Maine History Journal.
↑ Dan_nehs (20 November 2020). "A Lynching in Maine: What Happened to James Cullen". Crime and Scandal. New England Historical Society. Retrieved 30 October 2024. A lynching in Maine is an unusual thing. Throughout New England, lynching was extremely rare.
↑ Hyland, Adam (18 June 2020). "The Great Whiskey Fire". Firecall official magazine of Dublin Fire, Ambulance, and Emergency Services. There were 13 deaths, but not one of them was caused by fire itself," Las says. "They were all to do with the madness that took hold. Some of the stories were very sad, but some of them were also bizarre.
↑ "A Strange Suicide". Crawfordsville Star. 15 June 1876. Page 1, column 3. Retrieved 24 September 2024– via Google Newspapers.
↑ "The Guillotine". The Knoxville Journal. 22 June 1876. Page 3, column 3. Retrieved 24 September 2024– via Chronicling America. The situation, as they found it, was bad enough, but the appliances which had been used to produce death were most wonderful, and will stand in the history of suicides without a parallel.
↑ "The Aroostook Snake Story". Portland Daily Press. Portland, Maine. 13 May 1886. Page 1, column 9. Retrieved 10 August 2024– via Newspapers.com. A short time ago the strange story of a snake being pulled out of the mouth of a boy who lived near Grand Falls, in Aroostook county, was telegraphed the papers. Since then the case, which is believed to be unparalleled, has attracted the attention of physicans, and the story is fully confirmed.
↑ Atkinson, Nancy (29 April 2020). "Terrible Luck. The Only Person Ever Killed by a Meteorite – Back in 1888". Universe Today. Retrieved 1 October 2024. One astronomer put the odds of death by space rock at 1 in 700,000 in a lifetime, while others say it's more like 1 in 1,600,000. Computing the probability for such an untimely death is difficult because this type of event is so rare.
↑ "Delicacy and Drowning". Western Daily Press. 9 June 1892. p.7. Retrieved 25 September 2024– via British Newspaper Archive. The Hampshire Telegraph, in its 'Naval Section', relates the following curious story from Bermuda.
↑ McFarlane, Andrew (17 August 2010). "How the UK's first fatal car accident unfolded". BBC News. Retrieved 27 August 2013. Melvyn Harrison, of historical group the Crystal Palace Foundation, says people would have been simply bemused at the sight of these "horseless carriages". "It was such a rare animal to be on the roads and, for her to be killed, people would have thought the story was made up," he says.
↑ Vojir, Vladimir (1999–2000). "The Flight of Andrée's Balloon Eagle 5". Mysteries of the Arctic. www.vova.cz. Translated by Kriz, Pavel. Retrieved 22 September 2024. Here they perished one by one after an almost three month long exhausting march under strange and never clarified circumstances...[self-published source]
↑ De Burgh, Edward Morgan Alborough (1899). Elizabeth, empress of Austria: a memoir. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. p.310.
↑ Matray, Maria; Krüger, Answald (1998). L'attentato. La morte dell'Imperatrice Elisabetta e il delitto dell'anarchico Lucheni[The attack. The death of Empress Elisabeth and the crime of the anarchist Lucheni] (in Italian). Trieste: Mgs Press. ISBN978-8886424561.
↑ Klasky, Arthur L. (2006). "Re: "Arsenic Exposure and Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review of the Epidemiologic Evidence"". American Journal of Epidemiology. 164 (2): 194–195. doi:10.1093/aje/kwj197. PMID16769749. Unusual in arsenic poisoning, but especially prominent in this epidemic, were cardiovascular aspects.
↑ "The Glass Works Disaster". The San Francisco Call. 1 December 1900. Page 6, column 1. Retrieved 9 October 2024– via Chronicling America. Hardly does any great national festival pass without leaving a record of disaster and death... It it true they seldom occur upon a scale of such magnitude or under circumstances so direful as that which fell upon the spectators of the football match from the roof of the glass works...
↑ Scott, Sam (1 November 2015). "The Big Game Disaster of 1900". Features. Stanford Magazine. Archived from the original on 25 February 2022. Retrieved 16 July 2024. Jim Rutter, '86, Stanford's volunteer sports archivist... heard of the 1900 disaster only a few years ago, doubting at first something so incredible could be true.
↑ Keats, Patrick (March 1990). "Hall of Famer Ed Delahanty: A Source for Malamud's The Natural". American Literature. 62 (1): 102–104. doi:10.2307/2926786. JSTOR2926786. This is the story of the bizarre death of 1903 of Hall of Famer Ed Delahanty.
↑ Sowell, Mike (1992). July 2, 1903: The Mysterious Death of Hall-Of-Famer Big Ed Delahanty. Macmillian. ISBN978-0-02-612415-7. But there were more questions about Delahanty's bizarre and gruesome fate than there were answers.[pageneeded]
↑ "GIRL'S STRANGE DEATH". The Argus. Melbourne. 20 December 1905. Page 8, column 4. Retrieved 24 August 2024– via Trove. SYDNEY, Tuesday.—Mary Ellen Rumble, the daughter of a farmer at Watervale, in the Murrumburrah district, was killed in a peculiar manner to-day.
↑ Barbier, Laetitia (18 February 2013). "Morbid Monday: Kissed to Death". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 3 April 2022. His gravestone, erected in the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, is a monument to bizarre death, with a story so unusual that it needed to be carved in stone for posterity.
↑ "Le Saut dans la mort"[The Leap into Death]. Le Figaro (in French). pp.3–10. 5 February 1912 – via Wikisource. Animé de la foi prodigieuse des inventeurs, François Reichelt, que tous les malheureux essais de son appareil avec des mannequins auraient dû mettre à l'abri d'une aussi folle audace, osa — calme et souriant — faire cette chose inouïe: sauter de 60 mètres de haut, dans le vide...[Driven by the prodigious faith of inventors, François Reichelt, whom all the unfortunate tests of his device with dummies should have protected from such crazy audacity, dared – calm and smiling – to do this unheard-of thing: to jump from a height of 60 meters, into the void...]
↑ "A Fatal Parachute Experiment"(PDF). Scientific American. 24 February 1912. Page 178, column 2. Retrieved 10 October 2020– via Internet Archive. It seems incredible that any man should venture on such a hazardous attempt and repeat it on so large a scale after failure.
↑ Girona, Ramon; Quintana, Àngel (2013). "Constructed news: events and rituals of political life". Barcelona, Research, Art, Creation. 2 (1): 81–99. doi:10.4471/brac.2014.03. Retrieved 18 October 2024. When in 1912 Franz Reichelt invited the cameras of the main newsreel companies to gather under the Eiffel Tower to witness how his batwing-inspired costumes would allow him to descend comfortably to earth with no risk, what motivated the companies was attraction... In this case, attraction to the unusual is accommodated as news...
↑ "International Woman's Day and the Suffragettes". Victoria Business Improvement District. 26 February 2018. Retrieved 10 October 2024. Whether it was or was not intentional – a debate that will never reach an end, however her return ticket and future holiday plans would point to it being a freak accident – Davison being trampled by the King's horse at the Epsom Derby whilst wearing a suffragette-coloured scarf brought attention to the cause...
↑ Smith, Douglas (2016). Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. pp.590–592. ISBN978-0-374-71123-8. Retrieved 16 July 2024– via Google Books. Even people who know almost nothing about the man have heard of how he died, and his bizarre end has long since become part of global popular culture.
↑ Greenwood, Veronique (17 August 2016). "The killer flood made of molasses". BBC News. Retrieved 11 October 2024. BBC Future looks at a design defect that created a bizarre – and deadly – flood.
↑ Burke, Edmund (1921). The Annual Register. Vol.162. London: Rivington & Co. ISBN978-1142328900. The King's death took place under the most tragic and unusual circumstances.
↑ Gullickson, Joel (4 September 2015). "A Ghost Story From Detroit's Past You've Probably Never Heard". Daily Detroit. Retrieved 13 October 2024. ...Bradford's legacy is nothing more than a bizarre and somewhat tragic story that has faded into the abyss of time.
↑ Vitelli, Romeo (27 September 2013). "The Bradford Experiment". Swift. James Randi Educational Foundation. Retrieved 13 October 2024. Though the circumstances of Bradford's suicide seemed mundane enough to the police investigators, his reason for committing suicide was, well, out of this world.
↑ "PECULIAR DEATH". Moree Gwydir Examiner and General Advertiser. New South Wales. 30 November 1922. Page 4, column 4. Retrieved 11 October 2024– via Trove. A remarkable fatality occurred at Glen Elgin, near Glen Innes, on Saturday morning when Mrs. W. C. Eckersley, a well-known and respected resident of the district, was drowned.
↑ Paulus, Daniel (29 November 2023). "100 Years Ago, Texas Saw One of the Most Tragic Filming Accidents". KLAQ. Retrieved 18 October 2024. We know many movies were filmed in Texas, but you don't hear too many stories of accidents or deaths occurring while filming a movie. But that wasn't the case 100 years ago on November 29th, 1923 where one woman would be the victim of the craziest and saddest filming accidents in cinema history.
↑ "Two Plunge to Death When Car Backs Down Precipice of Canyon". The Livingston Enterprise. 15 July 1924. p.1. Retrieved 19 August 2024– via Newspapers.com. The first and only fatal mishap ever recorded from Yellowstone Canyon, occurred Sunday afternoon at 3:30 o'clock, when a Ford coupe in some mysterious manner evidently got out of control of the driver and backed between trees that normally would afford protection...
↑ "REMARKABLE SUICIDE STORY". Diss Express. 1 August 1924. p.7. Retrieved 13 October 2024– via British Newspaper Archive. The extraordinary suggestion that he had cut his throat whilst asleep was made at an inquest at Bangor on Thornton Jones, a solicitor.
↑ Kofron, Christopher P.; Chapman, Angela (2006). "Causes of mortality to the endangered Southern Cassowary Casuarius casuarius johnsonii in Queensland, Australia". Pacific Conservation Biology. 12 (3): 175–179. doi:10.1071/PC060175.
↑ Borrell, Brendan (October 2008). "Invasion of the Cassowaries". Science. Smithsonian. Vol.37, no.2. Retrieved 18 October 2024. The last person known to have been killed by a cassowary was 16-year-old Phillip McLean, whose throat was punctured on his Queensland ranch in 1926.
↑ Evon, Dan (2 October 2021). "Did Bobby Leach Survive Niagara Falls, Only To Die After Slipping on Orange Peel?". Snopes. Retrieved 13 October 2024. An image supposedly showing stunt performer Bobby Leach sitting on a purpose-built barrel next to Niagara Falls is frequently circulated on social media along with a seemingly ironic story about his death.
↑ "DOCTOR'S DEATH. Collapsed in Bed. WHILE TAKING ELECTRICAL TREATMENT". The Sydney Morning Herald. 30 August 1927. Page 12, column 5. Retrieved 17 November 2024– via Trove. Dr. J. S. F. Barnet died in strange circumstances at his home in Barney-street to-day, apparently as the result of receiving an excessive charge of energy from an electrical therapeutic apparatus.
↑ Thorpe, Vanessa (18 August 2002). "Rare sketches reveal forgotten steps that made Isadora Duncan famous". The Observer. Retrieved 14 October 2024. Autograph material of Isadora Duncan is extremely rare on the market," explained Westwood-Brookes. "And she has always remained one of the great legends of early twentieth-century dance, fuelled by the bizarre way in which she was killed.
↑ Brown, Ismene (6 March 2009). "Isadora Duncan, Sublime or Ridiculous?". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 7 October 2014. Retrieved 7 January 2021. Isadora Duncan's bizarre death was a brutal end to a controversial life.
1 2 Snopes Staff; Mikkelson, Barbara (28 September 2000). "Death by Playing Cards". Fact Check. Snopes. Retrieved 7 August 2024. As unlikely as this must sound, playing cards have reportedly been used as an instrument of death.
↑ "Water Hose Hook Causes Man's Death". Santa Cruz Evening News. AP. 27 August 1931. Page 2, column 4 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection. A freak accident was blamed today for the death of J. L. McDermott, 40, deputy sheriff.
↑ "Freak Accident Causes Death". Imperial Valley Press. El Centro, California. United Press. 27 August 1931. Page 3, column 2. Retrieved 24 August 2024– via Chronicling America. Deputy Sherriff J. L. McDermott died early today from injuries received in a freak accident in which he was impaled upon a hook holding a water hose.
↑ Morrow, K. John (June 2005). "Book Review: Inside the FDA". BioPharm International. 18 (6). His bizarre death was the result of his addiction to a quack cure, radium-laced water.
↑ "GIRL ELECTROCUTED BY BURGLAR TRAP MADE BY FIANCE". The Cedar Rapids Gazette. 24 January 1937. Page 1, column 3. Retrieved 2 October 2024– via Newspapers.com. Her fiance, George Anton, 33, also of Brooklyn, owner of a radio store, who with Joseph Freitag, grocer living in Miss Styer's three-story red brick four-family house, discovered the body, explained the bizarre mystery to puzzled police.
↑ "Farmer, 77, Dragged to Death by Horses". The Washington Times. INS. 28 May 1937. Page 16, column 7. Retrieved 15 October 2024– via Chronicling America. Clark County authorities today investigated the weird death of Fred Clapp, 77-year-old farmer, while being dragged by his team of horses.
↑ "Freak Gas Explosion Fatal to Patient". The Washington Times. 2 June 1937. Page 1, column 5. Retrieved 15 October 2024– via Chronicling America. What is believed to be one of the most unusual deaths in medical history occurred here yesterday when anesthetic gasses in the lungs of a Johns Hopkin Hospital patient exploded, killing the sick person instantly.
↑ Darnall, Marcy B. (17 June 1937). "Sidelights". The Key West Citizen. Page 2, column 2. Retrieved 22 August 2024– via Chronicling America. An unusual death was that of Benjamin Taslor of Maryland, reported by Dr. Winford Smith of Johns Hopkins.
↑ O'Hehir, Andrew (1 October 2009). "Critic's Picks: The tragic twilight of Leon Trotsky". Salon.com. Retrieved 17 October 2024. No matter what your political orientation, if you believe – or ever did believe – in the potential betterment of humanity, then you've got something to learn from the strange and tragic story of Leon Trotsky.
↑ Cox, Kellie (17 October 2013). "Stunts Gone Wrong". Critic's Corner. The Spectator. Retrieved 18 October 2024. In a bizarre and morbid twist of fate, an extra named Jack Budlong was impaled by his own sword during the film's cavalry charge scene—the charge also took the lives of two other stuntmen.
↑ "They Died with Their Boots On (1942)". Articles. Turner Classic Movies. Archived from the original on 27 June 2017. Retrieved 8 September 2024. Three men were killed during the filming... The third, actor Jack Budlong, insisted on using a real saber to lead a cavalry charge under artillery fire. When an explosive charge sent him flying off his horse, he landed on his sword, impaling himself. No stranger to freak accidents himself, director Raoul Walsh had lost an eye in a car accident while shooting In Old Arizona in 1929.
↑ "Rolf Mützelburg". The Men. uboat.net. Guðmundur Helgason. Retrieved 6 November 2024. Kptlt. Rolf Mützelburg died on 11 September 1942 in a freak accident.
↑ Sparrow, E. J. On Our Doorstep(PDF). p.39. Retrieved 6 November 2024– via Mersea Museum. Mützelburg himself had died in a freak accident a few months earlier.
↑ "Kangaroo Victim". Dickenson County Herald. Clintwood, Virginia. 6 May 1943. Page 7, column 3. Retrieved 28 August 2024– via Chronicling America. Maj. Kenneth McCullar, 27, above, of Courtland, Miss., outstanding master of heavy bombardment tactics, was killed in a freak accident.
↑ Dykstra, Peter (1 March 2021). "Science's fallen hero". The Daily Climate. Retrieved 17 October 2024. In the cruelest of ironies, Midgley's final invention directly caused his demise.
↑ Gómez-Laberge, Camille (25 January 2020). "About Me". Retrieved 6 September 2024. ...it was Slotin's bizarre death that woke me to physics... Slotin tragically died from radiation poisoning one week after his incident in 1946 at the age of 35.[self-published source]
↑ Ridge, Francis (2010). "Part 2 – 1: March 2006: The Re-Investigation Begins". The Mantell Incident: Anatomy of a Re-Investigation. With Jean Waskiewicz and Dan Wilson. National Investigations Committee On Aerial Phenomena. Retrieved 11 October 2024. For over 58 years the case had been written about in about every book and mentioned on numerous TV shows, and had finally been written off as a mistaken balloon, with the pilot killed in either a freak accident or misgauging his ability to fly at certain altitudes without oxygen.
↑ Collantine, Keith (19 June 2010). "F1 Fanatic round-up: 19/6/2010". RaceFans. Collantine Media Ltd. Retrieved 25 September 2024. Stacey, a popular driver who had graduated to F1 with Lotus from club racing, was killed in a freak accident on the Burnenville right-hander, part of the old Spa track.[self-published source]
↑ Fearnley, Paul (4 March 2021) [Originally published 2 April 2018]. "Jim Clark the Junior". F1. Motor Sport. Retrieved 25 September 2024. Not only had he swerved around the "rag doll" that was the mortally injured Chris Barstow but also team-mate Stacey had been killed in a freak accident.
↑ Stacy, Susan M. (2000). "The SL-1 Reactor"(PDF). Proving the Principle: A History of The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, 1949–1999. U.S. Department of Energy, Idaho Operations Office. pp.138–149. ISBN0-16-059185-6. Archived from the original(PDF) on 7 August 2011. Retrieved 30 October 2024. The accident was unprecedented.
↑ "Freak Accident Kills Navy 'Sub-Astronaut' Falls From Rescuing Sling". Daily Herald-Telephone. UPI. 5 May 1961. Page 21, columns 1–3. Retrieved 2 September 2024– via Newspapers.com. A freak accident took the life of a Navy officer Thursday minutes after he and another "sub-Astronaut" returned from a record flight more than 21 miles into the atmosphere aboard a 411-foot balloon.
↑ Herman, Jan K. (September–October 1998). "Strato-Lab High 5: Triumph and Tragedy". Feature. Navy Medicine. Vol.89, no.5. U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. pp.6–11. Retrieved 2 September 2024– via Internet Archive. However, in an instant, the triumph of that mission would turn to tragedy as one of the crewmembers drowned in a freak accident during recovery.
↑ Hines, William (30 June 1966). "Public Relations and XB70". Oakland Tribune. Page 24, column 1. Retrieved 22 October 2024– via California Digital Newspaper Collection. The reason for XB70's final mission was unusual, perhaps, but not unique.
↑ Demerly, Tom (27 October 2014). "Crash of The Valkyrie". In History. The Tactical Air Network – Global Military Aviation. Retrieved 8 September 2024. One of the most bizarre accidents in aviation history was happening, an accident so remarkable it compares to the crash of the Hindenburg in 1937, the collision of two 747 Jumbo Jets on the island of Tenerife in 1977 and the crash of the Concorde in Paris in 2000.
↑ Langewiesche, William (9 April 2013). "Felix Baumgartner's Story: Who Is the Man Who Pierced the Sky?". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 30 October 2024. It is a reaction to the parade of schemers and oddballs who have long approached the company for help in breaking Kittinger's record. The most troublesome proved to be a charismatic but ill-disciplined jumper named Nick Piantanida...
↑ Betancourt, Mark (15 August 2016). "The Truck Driver Who Jumped From the Edge of Space". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 30 October 2024. It's easy to dismiss Nick Piantanida's story when you first hear it... It sounds inherently crackpot, like something from the Darwin Awards.
↑ Lloyd, Sophie (6 June 2018). "The Devil Made Her Do It: Who Was the Real Jayne Mansfield?". Culture, Film + TV. Untitled. Retrieved 5 September 2024. In the freak accident, the couple's Buick smashed into the back of a truck, hidden by a cloud of insecticide dust that seeped out from the trailer it was hauling.
1 2 3 Hocking, Jenny (16 December 2017). "Harold Holt: the legacy is evident, 50 years after his disappearance". Australian politics. The Guardian. Retrieved 3 September 2024. It was an ordinary death, a shockingly banal one that still befalls dozens every summer. That it happened to a prime minister, swimming alone in dangerous conditions without bodyguards, made it extraordinary.
↑ "Harold Holt". Australia's prime ministers. National Archives of Australia. Retrieved 3 September 2024. The third Prime Minister to die in office, Harold Holt is widely remembered for the unusual circumstances of his death while swimming off the Victorian coast in December 1967.
↑ Platt, Steve (2 February 2006). Duin, Nancy (ed.). "Space disasters and near misses". Channel 4. Archived from the original on 4 October 2008. Retrieved 20 October 2024. Indeed, in the whole history of space flight, there has only been one fatal accident in space itself: that resulting in the deaths of the three Soyuz 11 cosmonauts in June 1971.
↑ Parks, Jake (25 September 2023). "How many astronauts have died in space?". Astronomy. Retrieved 23 October 2024. However, of the roughly 550 people who have so far ventured into space, only three have actually died there.
↑ "Girl Employe Killed at Disneyland". The Los Angeles Times. 10 July 1974. Page 42, columns 4-6. Retrieved 22 October 2024– via Newspapers.com. Miss Stone, of 1633 Avalon St., Santa Ana, was the first employe to be killed in an accident at Disneyland during its 19-year history.
↑ Gass, Zach (3 June 2023). "TikTok Captures Death of Disneyland Cast Member". Disneyland Resort. Inside the Magic. JAK Schmidt, Inc. Retrieved 11 August 2024. What happened to Deborah Stone was a freak accident, but it's a cold reminder that not even a name as big as Disney is immune from disaster.
↑ Kormann, Carolyn (18 October 2016). "A Shocking Suicide, A Long-Lost Friend, and a Movie Trailer". Cultural Comment. The New Yorker. Retrieved 21 August 2024. Shilowich first ran across Chubbuck's story six years ago, in the middle of the night, while he was failing to write another screenplay about an unusual death.
↑ Mikkelson, Barbara (3 January 2004). "Have People Died Laughing?". Snopes. Retrieved 23 October 2024. While Mitchell had expired from heart failure, what felled him was not a classic heart attack, but rather the result of an unusual inheritable heart rhythm disorder...
↑ O'Brian, Dave (6 November 1975). "The Sorry Life & Death of Mark Frechette". Rolling Stone. No.199. p.32. Archived from the original on 5 January 2023. Retrieved 15 November 2024– via trussel.com. He was the apparent victim of a bizarre accident in a recreation room at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Norfolk...
↑ Devlin, Keith (26 April 2001). "Lost innocence". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 October 2024. ...[Gödel] developed a paranoia that he was being poisoned and, as a result, starving himself to death (an altogether odd end for one of the greatest logicians the world has ever known).
↑ Rózsa, Lajos; Nixdorff, Kathryn (2006). "Biological Weapons in Non-Soviet Warsaw Pact Countries". In Wheelis, Mark; Rózsa, Lajos; Dando, Malcolm (eds.). Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons since 1945. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. pp.165–168. ISBN0-674-01699-8. Retrieved 21 October 2024– via Google Books. One of the most dramatic incidents involving the reported use of a biological weapon, which occurred in 1978 and can only be described as bizarre, was the Markov case.
↑ Kiska, Tim (11 August 1983). "Robot firm liable in death". The Oregonian.
↑ "Mulher cai sobre caco de prato e morre"[Woman falls on broken plate and dies]. O Pioneiro (in Portuguese). 6 August 1980. p.25 – via Hemeroteca Digital Brasileira. A mulher Lourdes Maria da Silva, residente na Rua Tronca 1148, residência de um seu irmão, morreu de forma inacreditável no fim de semana.[The woman Lourdes Maria da Silva, resident at Rua Tronca 1148, the residence of her brother, died in an unbelievable way over the weekend.]
↑ "Aumenta número de mortes violentas"[Number of violent deaths increases]. Jornal de Caxias (in Portuguese). 9 August 1980. p.41. Retrieved 23 October 2024– via Hemeroteca Digital Brasileira. O trânsito matou quatro pessoas, ocorreram dois homicídios e uma morte estranha.[Traffic killed four people, there were two homicides and one strange death.]
↑ "Dingo blamed over missing baby". The Canberra Times. 19 August 1980. Page 7, columns 2-3. Retrieved 23 October 2024– via Trove. A spokesman for the Melbourne zoo said yesterday no one at the zoo had ever heard of a dingo killing a human before.
↑ Vanovac, Neda; Damjanovic, Dijana (31 December 2016). "NT release Cabinet documents on Azaria Chamberlain case". ABC News. Retrieved 23 October 2024. It seems fitting, for such an historic and unusual case, that the NT Government had to create legislation to allow it to hold the Commission of Inquiry into the conviction of the Chamberlains...
↑ "One Dead In Shuttle Accident". The Spartanburg Herald. AP. 20 March 1981. Page 1, columns 2–4. Retrieved 31 August 2024– via Google News. It was the first launch pad fatality since a Jan 27, 1967 flash fire killed three Apollo 1 astronauts during a pre-launch test.
↑ "Katey Sagal's Peg Bundy a (Low) Class Act". News. Chicago Tribune. 7 May 1989. Retrieved 30 October 2024. Her father, Boris Sagal, was a prominent television director who died in 1981 in a freak accident when a helicopter blade hit his head during shooting of the mini-series "World War III."
↑ "Katey Sagal". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 30 October 2024. ...Sagal suffered further personal tragedy when her father was killed in a freak accident on the set of "World War III" (NBC, 1982), getting nearly decapitated after walking into the tail rotor blade of a helicopter.
↑ Mikkelson, David (8 January 2022) [Originally published 23 July 2001]. "Man Burns to Death Rescuing Dog from Hot Springs". Fact Check. Snopes. Retrieved 7 August 2024. Twenty-two scalding deaths have been recorded in connection with Yellowstone's hot springs since 1870, all of them known or believed to have involved people who inadvertently fell into the springs through accident or carelessness—save one.
↑ "Actor Vic Morrow, who died in a movie location..."United Press International. 5 August 1982. Retrieved 24 October 2024. In a hand-printed will that contained numerous spelling errors, Morrow—who died July 23 in the freak accident—named three people as beneficiaries.
↑ Plasse, Marcel (3 May 1995). "'O Corvo' transforma morte de ator em clipe"['The Crow' turns actor's death into a video]. Folha de S.Paulo (in Portuguese). Em Hollywood, apenas John Landis teve experiência semelhante -com Vic Morrow, morto num acidente bizarro no cenário de "No Limite da Realidade" (1983).[In Hollywood, only John Landis has had a similar experience -with Vic Morrow, killed in a bizarre accident on the set of "Twilight Zone" (1983).]
↑ "Tennis serve kills official". The Afro American. UPI. 24 September 1983. Page 9, columns 3–4. Retrieved 15 August 2024– via Google News. Dick Wertheim, 61, of Lexington, Mass., had been "unresponsive" since the freak accident Sept. 10, said Flushing Hospital and medical Center spokesman Donald Rodda.
↑ Pellissier, Hank (14 August 2010). "Condor Club | North Beach, San Francisco". Local Intelligence. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 18 January 2018. Retrieved 17 February 2022. The rising piano at the Condor Club played a crucial role in a bizarre death in 1983 and also gave a cocktail its name.
↑ "Actor Hexum dies from gunshot injuries". The Salina Journal. AP. 20 October 1984. Retrieved 24 October 2024– via Newspapers.com. The body of actor Jon-Erik Hexum, who shot himself in a freak accident on the set of the television series "Cover Up", was taken Friday to an San Francisco hospital so his vital organs could be removed for donation, officials said.
↑ Roberts, Jerry (2012). The Hollywood Scandal Almanac: Twelve Months of Sinister, Salacious and Senseless History!. Arcadia Publishing. p.149. ISBN978-1614237860.
↑ Llorente, Elizabeth (11 September 1985). "Teen-Ager's Sudden Death Bewilders Forensic Experts". The New York Times. Page 2, columns 1-3. Retrieved 24 October 2024. It's a bizarre case," said Dr. Marius Lombardi, a forensic investigator with the Medical Examiner's office in Newark, which also handles Union County cases. "We've never seen anything like this.
↑ "Lightning in Telephone Lines Caused Jersey Youth's Death". The New York Times. 16 February 1986. Page 52, columns 3-4. Retrieved 24 October 2024. Officials of New Jersey Bell Telephone Company said telephone-related accidents are not rare, but such fatal accidents are very unusual.
↑ Mikkelson, Barbara (17 February 2004). "Carbon Dioxide Deaths". Fact Check. Snopes. Retrieved 7 August 2024. Persons not employed in the coal mining trade are unlikely to encounter deadly masses of carbon dioxide, yet such clouds have been known to form in the open air and at a cost dear in human life.
↑ Krisciunas, Kevin (27 June 2012). "Strange Cases from the Files of Astronomical Sociology". Texas A&M University. Retrieved 4 January 2022. Most importantly, it does not help our present reputation that some very unusual stories are associated with astronomers of the past... In the strange death and near-death department... Marc Aaronson (1950–1987) was crushed to death in the dome of the 4-m telescope at Kitt Peak.
↑ "Aint No Way to Go: Food for Thought". www.aintnowaytogo.com. Retrieved 12 December 2019. A prisoner who died when he choked on a Bible shoved down his throat baffled a medical specialist who at first suspected murder because he couldn't believe someone could do that to themselves.
↑ Witkin, Richard (30 April 1988). "Bomb Discounted as Cause Of Hawaii Plane Explosion". The New York Times. Page 7, columns 1-3. Retrieved 1 November 2024. I think this is a very unusual circumstance that is not related to any other accidents we have had.
↑ "Créase o no: hace 30 años un perrito mató a tres personas al caer desde el piso 13"[Believe it or not: 30 years ago a puppy killed three people when it fell from the 13th floor]. Diario de Cuya (in Spanish). 23 October 2018. Retrieved 24 October 2024. Hace tres décadas atrás, un insólito y trágico suceso tuvo lugar en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires.[Three decades ago, an unusual and tragic event took place in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.]
↑ "American Killed When He Jumps Into Jet's Engine". Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. 17 January 1990. Archived from the original on 27 August 2022. Airports Authority chief Winston Suite said the bizarre death Sunday night was an apparent suicide.
↑ Ghiglieri, Michael P.; Myers, Thomas M. (2001). Over the Edge: Death in Grand Canyon (reviseded.). Puma Press. p.16. ISBN978-0-9700973-1-6. Alcohol and the world's most frightening drop-off is a lethal combination whose tragic outcome few of us find surprising. Far more shocking, however, is this sort of outcome stemming from a practical joke.
↑ "The Reliable Source". The Washington Post. 1 April 1993. Archived from the original on 14 September 2016. Retrieved 19 August 2016. Hollywood was aghast yesterday over the sudden and bizarre death of 27-year-old actor Brandon Lee, who was filming in Wilmington, N.C.
↑ Robey, Tim (30 October 2015). "Brandon Lee and the 'curse' of The Crow". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 19 August 2016. The accident that had just occurred may be the unluckiest in the history of Hollywood production... It was also among the eeriest and most tragic in a whole set of other ways.
↑ Snopes Staff (2 November 2000). "Did a Man Die Demonstrating a Window's Strength?". Fact Check. Snopes. Retrieved 7 August 2024. It isn't often we have occasion to employ the term "accidental self-defenestration" in an article, but that phrase certainly applies to the case of Garry Hoy...
↑ Moodley-Judhoo, Udesha (16 June 2023). "Lawyer tries to prove his case and falls out of skyscraper". East Coast Radio. Retrieved 28 October 2024. Freak accidents are named as such due to the nature of their occurrence. But this story really takes a toll when it comes to setting a precedent.
↑ Boodman, Sandra G. (12 September 1994). "WAS IT A CASE OF MASS HYSTERIA OR POISONING BY A TOXIC CHEMICAL?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 28 October 2024. "The whole thing sounds strange to me," says Brian S. Schwartz, a clinical toxicologist who teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
↑ Gorman, Tom (4 November 1994). "Lab Suggests Mystery Fumes Answer". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 28 October 2024. The mystery fumes that felled emergency room attendants as they treated a dying cancer patient in February were most likely the result of a bizarre chain of chemical reactions in the patient's blood that produced a potentially lethal gas, officials announced Thursday.
↑ Stone, Richard (April 1995). "Analysis of a Toxic Death". Discover. Archived from the original on 29 April 2018. Retrieved 23 October 2024. That surreal night would throw Riverside General Hospital into newspapers and tv news broadcasts for weeks...
↑ Endicott, Karen (April 1998). "The Trembling Edge of Science". Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. Archived from the original on 14 November 2011. Retrieved 23 October 2024– via Iaomt.org. The accident seemed so improbable as to be impossible.
↑ "Excessive deodorant spray kills teen". Cape Cod Times. Associated Press. 10 October 1998. Retrieved 28 October 2024. Sue Rogers of the British Aerosol Manufacturing Association said she had never heard of a similar incident. "It is extraordinarily unusual and terribly tragic," she said.
↑ "Deodorant obsession killed boy". Health. BBC News. 29 October 1998. Archived from the original on 18 January 2018. Retrieved 23 October 2024. Jonathan's death is believed to be the first by accidental inhalation in the country.
↑ "Police find body of mower man". UK: News In Brief. BBC News. 30 April 1999. Retrieved 30 August 2024. After the bizarre accident police found scorched items of clothing in the garden.
↑ "Freak accident kills gardener". UK. BBC News. 16 June 1999. Retrieved 30 August 2024. A businessman drowned in a river after a freak gardening accident, an inquest has heard.
↑ "DJ killed by flying motorway Cat's-eye". Southern Daily Echo. 11 November 1999. Retrieved 13 February 2024. Recording a verdict of accidental death, [the coroner] said: "The chance of a Cat's-eye being thrown in the air must have been minute in the extreme. It was a tragic accident."
↑ Verma, Rahul (12 April 2014). "DJ History: Kemistry". Features. Mixmag. Retrieved 23 October 2024. It's 15 years ago to the day that drum 'n' bass DJ Kemistry died in a freak accident.
↑ Harrison, Angus (11 May 2016). "Looking Back on the Life of Drum and Bass Pioneer DJ Kemistry". Music. Vice. Retrieved 23 October 2024. It is one of the only times an incident of this nature has ever been recorded, and is the only time it has resulted in a fatality.
↑ Greene, Dan (23 May 2019). "The Owen Hart Tragedy Was the Moment We Came to See Wrestlers as Human". Wrestling. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved 7 September 2024. Yet the combination of Hart's status, the unusual nature of his death, and wrestling's white-hot popularity at perhaps the peak of its late-90s boom produced a wholly distinct context for the proceedings.
↑ Breslin, Maria (11 June 1999). "Teacher hit by javelin dies". News. The Independent. Retrieved 10 September 2024. A teacher injured by a javelin in a freak accident at a leading independent school died in hospital yesterday.
↑ "Cannibal signs over media rights". BBC News. 3 September 2004. Retrieved 20 September 2024. Managing director Guenter Stampf said the documentary would "come to terms with an unusual criminal case".
↑ "German Cannibal Back on Trial". Deutsche Welle. 12 January 2006. Retrieved 12 January 2023. "This unprecedented act in German legal history should be judged as killing on demand," defense attorney Joachim Bremer said, a crime that is punishable by a maximum five years in prison.
↑ "Odd kitchen accident results in man's death". The Globe and Mail. 27 April 2001. Retrieved 9 August 2024. A man who was visiting his mother's house to attend his father's funeral was killed in a bizarre kitchen accident this week.
↑ Mikkelson, Barbara (4 February 2003). "Child Falls on Knife in Dishwasher". Fact Check. Snopes. Retrieved 9 August 2024. Although deaths in this manner are rare, there have been others. In 2001 a Vancouver man who collapsed from an undisclosed illness fell on sharp objects housed in an open dishwasher at his mother's home and expired of his wounds.
↑ Chen, David W. (1 August 2001). "Small Town Reels From Boy's M.R.I. Death". The New York Times. ...Michael was mourned at a funeral here in his hometown, less than 48 hours after he died from injuries caused by a freakish accident at Westchester Medical Center.
↑ Scott, Kirsty (28 May 2003). "Dishwasher fall kills woman". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 August 2024. Jane McDonald was visiting a friend at a house in Airdrie in Lanarkshire when the freak accident occurred on Tuesday night.
↑ "Minister's shock at freak tragedy". BBC News. 29 May 2003. Retrieved 20 September 2024. The freak accident happened at the Church of Scotland manse of the Rev Sharon Colvin in Dunrobin Road, Airdrie, Lanarkshire, on Tuesday.
↑ Manning, Mary; Koch, Ed (18 August 2003). "Tourist's death on Strip worries county". Las Vegas Sun. Retrieved 7 August 2024. Rebecca Longhoffer, a 39-year-old tourist from Louisville, Ky., was electrocuted in what authorities are calling a freak accident about 9:30 p.m. Saturday at Las Vegas Boulevard South near Spring Mountain Road.
↑ Kaplan, Dina (18 August 2003). "Louisville Woman Killed in Freak Las Vegas Accident". WAVE. Retrieved 7 August 2024. A Louisville family is mourning a mother of four, 39-year-old Becky Longhoffer, who died in a freak accident in Las Vegas over the weekend.
↑ Mikkelson, Barbara (13 September 2003). "Was a Houston Doctor Decapitated by a Malfunctioning Elevator?". Fact Check. Snopes. Retrieved 7 August 2024. The accident itself is hard to imagine: the ill-fated physician was trapped between the doors of the cable-propelled elevator, then decapitated as the carriage ascended.
↑ "Family of decapitated passenger pleads mercy for driver". AccessWDUN. AP. 2 September 2004. The family of a man decapitated in a bizarre car accident is pleading with authorities to free his best friend, who was behind the wheel and apparently didn't notice that his passenger had been beheaded.
↑ Lewis, Gerrick (1 April 2007). "Movie tracks man's mysterious death". The Lantern. Retrieved 21 September 2024. "Zoo" is the controversial film that tells the story of the events surrounding Pinyan's bizarre death.
↑ "Stingray deaths rare and agonizing". WORLD. CNN. Reuters. 4 September 2006. Archived from the original on 21 September 2006. Retrieved 7 September 2024. Injuries caused by stingrays are relatively common but fatalities are extremely rare, with experts saying there are only one or two known cases in recorded Australian history.
↑ Watson, Richard (28 July 2015). "Litvinenko: A deadly trail of polonium". BBC News. Retrieved 23 October 2024. This was a hideous attack on a British citizen and one that obviously he had no chance of surviving," says [blood consultant Prof Amid] Nathwani. "I've been a consultant for over 20 years and I've never seen anything like this and I hope I never do again.
↑ Poort, David (6 November 2013). "Polonium: a silent killer". Investigative. Al Jazeera News. Retrieved 23 October 2024. It has been used to kill a Russian former secret agent in a London hotel bar and is believed to have caused the death of several scientists, but despite the media attention it has drawn in recent years, only a few people have died from polonium poisoning.
↑ Boggan, Steve (4 June 2007). "Who else was poisoned by polonium?". Russia. The Guardian. Retrieved 23 October 2024. ...Litvinenko had been poisoned by polonium-210, a radioactive material that had never before been dreamed of as a murder weapon.
↑ Blass, Evan (14 January 2007). "Woman dies trying to win a Wii". Engadget. Retrieved 21 September 2024. ...she lost her life in much more bizarre circumstances than the retail madness we witnessed in late November.
↑ "Water overdose kills woman in Wii challenge". The Guardian. 15 January 2007. Retrieved 21 September 2024. Water intoxication, also known as hyponatremia, is extremely rare and only usually affects endurance athletes, such as long distance runners.
↑ Harris, Harry (23 June 2007). "Flying fire hydrant kills man". Oakland Tribune. Archived from the original on 9 July 2015. Retrieved 17 August 2021. Motorcycle Officer Eddie Bermudez, who is investigating the death, said Friday it was "a million-to-one chance" that something like this could happen to someone.
↑ "Flying fire hydrant kills Calif. man". USA Today. 23 June 2007. Archived from the original on 19 August 2011. Retrieved 17 August 2021. "I've seen a lot of accidents but never anything like this," said Oakland police Lt. Fausto Melara.
↑ Mikkelson, Barbara (7 August 2011) [Originally published 27 June 2007]. "Fire Hydrant Death". Fact Check. Snopes. Retrieved 7 August 2024. While all traffic fatalities are tragedies to be grieved over, some happen in far more unusual fashion than others.
↑ Wilson, Tony (19 March 2008). "Man shot by killer robot". Gold Coast Bulletin. Archived from the original on 17 January 2013. Retrieved 2 September 2024. Suicide experts told The Gold Coast Bulletin that such machines were not unheard of, but were very rare.
↑ Wilson, Tony (20 March 2008). "Carpenter heard shots from suicide machine". Gold Coast Bulletin. Archived from the original on 13 October 2011. Retrieved 23 October 2024. Exit International director and euthanasia crusader Philip Nitschke described the suicide as 'very unusual'.
↑ Vitola, Giovana (24 March 2008). "Homem se suicida com ajuda de robô na Austrália"[Man commits suicide with help from robot in Australia]. BBC Brasil (in Portuguese). Retrieved 2 September 2024. "Ele estava estendido no chão da garagem", disse aos jornais locais o carpinteiro, que descreveu a cena como "bizarra".["He was lying on the garage floor", the carpenter told local newspapers, describing the scene as "bizarre".]
↑ "Leaping ray kills Florida boater". BBC News. 21 March 2008. Archived from the original on 25 March 2008. The force of the blow knocked the 57-year-old over and her head struck the deck of the vessel, in what officials called a "bizarre incident".
↑ "Blunt force trauma killed woman struck by ray". CNN. 21 March 2008. Archived from the original on 7 January 2016. "It's just as freakish of an accident as I have heard," said Jorge Pino of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
↑ "Bombeiros dizem ser cada vez mais difícil encontrar padre"[Firefighters say it is increasingly difficult to find a priest]. Extra (in Portuguese). Reuters. 23 April 2008. Retrieved 22 September 2024. O padre de Carli partiu em seu vôo incomum na manhã de domingo...[The priest de Carli left on his unusual flight on Sunday morning...]
↑ "#TBT: Há 15 anos, o "padre do balão" desaparecia nos ares"[#TBT: 15 years ago, the "balloon priest" disappeared into thin air]. DOL – Diário Online (in Portuguese). 27 April 2023. Retrieved 22 September 2024. Um voo incomum marcou a memória dos brasileiros. Há 15 anos, a decisão de um religioso resultou em uma das histórias mais marcantes – e absurdas – do país.[An unusual flight marked the memory of Brazilians. 15 years ago, a religious man's decision resulted in one of the most remarkable – and absurd – stories in the country.]
↑ "Memorial held for Kenyan killed in helicopter crash". CBC News. CP. 22 May 2008. Retrieved 22 September 2024. There was a sad fusion of African hymns and hip-hop salutes as family and friends bid farewell to the son of a Kenyan cabinet minister killed last week in a bizarre helicopter crash in southeastern B.C.
↑ Halfpenny, Martin (19 November 2008). "Chainsaw death was 'carefully thought through suicide'". Home News. The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 30 December 2008. Retrieved 23 October 2024. "In the 15 years I have been sitting as a deputy coroner, this is the most bizarre case I can recall," Mr Burge said.
↑ Hayes, Kathryn (14 December 2012). "Suspended sentence in bestiality case". The Irish Times. Retrieved 22 September 2024. Notwithstanding the "unusual circumstances" of that case, Judge Moran said he felt it right to extend his condolences to the family and friends of the deceased woman, some of whom were present in court today.
↑ Daniels, Serena Maria (1 April 2009). "O.C. man chokes to death on bait fish as kids watch". Orange County Register. Retrieved 19 September 2024. A Huntington Beach man is dead in what authorities are calling a "freak accident" after he choked on a piece of bait fish in front of a boat full of school children in Long Beach.
↑ "The Death of David Carradine and The Choking Game". The Legal Examiner Affiliate Network. 10 June 2009. Retrieved 1 November 2024. The death of David Carradine, while bizarre, may actually shed some light on a dangerous practice engaged in by preteen and teenaged kids.
↑ "Bizarre details emerge in Carradine hanging". News. Press-Telegram. Associated Press. 1 September 2017 [Originally published June 5, 2009]. Retrieved 1 November 2024. Dr. Nanthana Sirisap, director of Chulalongkorn Hospital's Autopsy Center, told reporters that the autopsy was conducted because of the "unusual circumstances surrounding Carradine's death," but did not elaborate.
↑ "David Carradine". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 1 November 2024. But his resurgence was cut short following a tragic death under unusual circumstances...
↑ "Coyotes kill Toronto singer in Cape Breton". CBC News. 29 October 2009. Archived from the original on 18 August 2016. Retrieved 22 August 2016. Bob Bancroft, a retired biologist with the Department of Natural Resources, said this kind of attack is extremely rare...
↑ "When coyotes attack". Explore. 22 February 2010. Archived from the original on 11 August 2016. Retrieved 22 August 2016. As headline writers across the continent tried to marry some unfamiliar words—fatal, coyote, mauling—most people who spend time outdoors found it hard to believe that coyotes had actually killed a human.
↑ Priestly, Kevin (28 March 2013). "Office of the State Coroner Findings of Inquest"(PDF). QLD Courts. Retrieved 25 October 2024. What might appear to be a freak accident may well be a preventable incident...
↑ "Spy last seen alive eight days before body was found in bag". The Guardian. Press Association. 28 August 2010. Retrieved 26 October 2024. Police refused to categorise the death as a murder, despite the bizarre circumstances, and say he may have died innocently.
↑ Satter, Raphael (13 November 2013). "Gareth Williams, British Spy, Likely Died in Bag By Accident, opposite of what the coroner had stated". Huffington Post. AP. Archived from the original on 13 November 2013. A spy whose naked, decomposing body was found inside a padlocked gym bag at his apartment likely died in an accident with no one else involved, British police said Wednesday — a tentative conclusion that is unlikely to calm conspiracy theories around the bizarre case.
↑ "Crocodile blamed for Congo air crash". NBC News. 21 October 2010. Retrieved 22 October 2010. The plane was on a routine domestic flight from the capital of Kinshasa to a regional airport in Bandundu when the bizarre tale unfolded on Aug. 25.
↑ Whitaker, Sterling (2 November 2012). "Mike Edwards – Killed by a Hay Bale". Ultimate Classic Rock. Archived from the original on 4 August 2017. Mike Edwards had an interesting life to go along with his unusual death.
↑ Wainwright, Martin (27 September 2010). "Segway boss Jimi Heselden dies in scooter cliff fall". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 September 2024. The flamboyant former miner at the head of the Segway scooter company has died in a freak accident by sliding on one of the miniature two-wheelers off a cliff.
↑ LaCapria, Kim (27 September 2010). "Owner of Segway pilots Segway off cliff, dies". The Inquisitr News. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Providing an example of cosmic irony for textbooks forevermore, the owner of the Segway company died in a strange Segway-related accident yesterday.
↑ "Millionaire Segway owner dies in cliff fall". Reuters. 28 September 2010. Retrieved 17 September 2024. The incident, described as a freak accident in the media, was not being treated as suspicious.
↑ Peralta, Eyder (7 February 2011). "Weird News: California Man Fatally Stabbed By Rooster: The Two-Way". NPR. Archived from the original on 28 September 2013. Retrieved 26 September 2013. "I have never seen this type of incident," said Sgt. Martin King, a 24-year veteran who noted the major arteries that could have been severed.
↑ "Man stabbed to death by cockfighting bird". BBC News. 8 February 2011. Archived from the original on 16 March 2011. Retrieved 19 March 2011. "I have never seen this type of incident," Sgt Martin King, who had worked in the sheriff's department for more than two decades, told the Bakersfield Californian on Sunday, when the incident happened.
↑ McKnight, Zoe (7 June 2011). "Flying bear kills two in SUV". Canada. Toronto Star. Retrieved 24 October 2024. Two people were killed Monday after a freak series of collisions...
↑ "Equine expert killed as horse shoe sparks explosion heard 30 miles away". The Daily Telegraph. 13 February 2012. Archived from the original on 13 May 2014. An equine expert, Erica Marshall, was killed when a horse she was treating in an oxygen chamber became spooked and kicked out, sparking a freak explosion which could be heard 30 miles away.
↑ Hiers, Fred (8 January 2016). "Mending Fences rehab center to open soon". The Gainesville Sun. Retrieved 1 November 2024. An employee and a horse died on the grounds in a freak accident in 2012, back when the facility was a high-end rehabilitation operation for injured horses.
↑ "Who, What, Why: How dangerous are swans?". BBC News. 17 April 2012. Retrieved 5 November 2021. ...such incidents are very rare, says John Huston of the Abbotsbury Swannery in Dorset, where there are 1,000 swans but no recorded attacks on humans in the colony's 600-year history.
↑ Delgado, Jennifer; Ruzich, Joseph (17 April 2012). "Man caring for swans drowns after one attacks him near Chicago". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 5 November 2021. ...Doug Stotz, a senior conservation ecologist with the Field Museum... said he has heard tales of people being attacked or injured from swans but has never heard of someone dying after a bad encounter.
↑ Zdanowicz, Christina (10 May 2013). "Family demands answers in Kendrick Johnson's death". CNN. Archived from the original on 17 May 2014. Retrieved 25 October 2024. But the bizarre circumstances didn't sit right with the family, even though they're not sure what happened to their son.
↑ Gutierrez, Gabe; Black, Jeff (31 October 2013). "Feds to investigate mysterious death of Georgia teen Kendrick Johnson". U.S. News. NBC News. Archived from the original on 17 May 2014. Retrieved 25 October 2024. Federal investigators will probe the strange death of Georgia teen Kendrick Johnson, whose body was found rolled up in a gym mat at his high school in January, they announced Thursday.
↑ Mikkelson, David (14 August 2016). "The Strange Death of Elisa Lam". Fact Check. Snopes. Retrieved 7 August 2024. Even then, it wasn't until the unusual circumstances of her death by drowning were revealed that media interest in Lam's case surged.
↑ "Beaver kills man in Belarus". The Guardian. Associated Press. 29 May 2013. Archived from the original on 11 September 2013. Retrieved 15 September 2024. The character of the wound was totally shocking," said the village doctor Leonty Sulim. "We had never run into anything like this before.
↑ Jones, Simon (31 May 2013). "Beavers are born to bite wood, not people". New Scientist. Archived from the original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved 22 January 2014. The headline "beaver kills man" is not one you will see very often. It appeared recently after a wild beaver attacked and killed an angler in Belarus – an event that is both tragic and highly unusual.
↑ Martins, Tabata; Mendes, Rosildo (12 July 2013). "Vaca cai de telhado e mata homem em Caratinga"[Cow falls from roof and kills man in Caratinga]. Hoje em Dia (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 15 September 2024. Um homem de 45 anos morreu de uma forma inusitada em Caratinga, no Vale do Rio Doce.[A 45-year-old man died in an unusual way in Caratinga, in the Rio Doce Valley.]
↑ "Python's strangling of 2 boys in Canada investigated". CBS News. 6 August 2013. Archived from the original on 9 August 2013. Snake expert John Kendrick, a manager at the Reptile Store in Hamilton, Ontario... called the strangling deaths "very unusual" but said African rock pythons tend to be a little more high-strung.
↑ "Python enclosure in N.B. boys' deaths had 'flaw'". CBC News. 14 August 2013. Archived from the original on 29 August 2013. This is, like, a one-in-a-million-shot deal that this would actually happen, and it did. It did. Unfortunately, it did.
↑ "Homem suspeito de Zoofilia é encontrado morto dentro de chiqueiro de fazenda em Tapurah"[Man suspected of Zoophilia is found dead inside a farm sty in Tapurah.]. Show de Notícias (in Portuguese). 20 January 2014. Retrieved 25 October 2024. ...J.R.N., de 52 anos, foi encontrado pelo proprietário da fazenda, que resolveu levar outro funcionário até a propriedade e ao chegar no local deparou com a cena inusitada, o funcionário estava sem vida e completamente nu...[...J.R.N., 52 years old, was found by the owner of the farm, who decided to take another employee and when he arrived at the place he came across the unusual scene, the employee was lifeless and completely naked...]
↑ "Porcos matam tarado que estuprava leitoa"[Pigs kill pervert who raped piglet]. Real Deodorense (in Portuguese). 21 January 2014. Bizarro. Polícia Civil informou que vítima estava embriagada; homem era caseiro do local[Bizarre. Civil Police reported that the victim was drunk; man was housekeeper of the place]
↑ "Homem morre ao tentar praticar zoofilia com uma porca no Mato Grosso"[Man dies trying to practice zoophilia with a sow in Mato Grosso]. AgoraRN (in Portuguese). 21 May 2017. Retrieved 25 October 2024. Um caso extremamente bizarro e com final trágico foi registrado na cidade de Sorriso-MT...[An extremely bizarre case with a tragic end was recorded in the city of Sorriso-MT...]
↑ Hamid, Hassan A. Hafidh; Haylins, Jerry; Griffin, James; Fantini, Alvino-Mario; MacNeill, Maureen; Laury, Scott, eds. (October 2014). "Christophe de Margerie (1951–2014)"(PDF). OPEC Bulletin. Vol.45, no.8. p.3. Retrieved 25 October 2024. The tragic loss of Christophe de Margerie... in a freak accident in the Russian Federation in October will continue to reverberate within international energy circles and beyond for a long time to come.
↑ Santora, Marc (4 November 2014). "Falling Tape Measure Kills Man at Jersey City Construction Site". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 July 2024. The three elements converged on Monday morning in a freakish accident, when a 58-year-old man died in Jersey City after being struck in the head by the tape measure after it fell some 400 feet.
↑ Staff reporters (27 November 2014). "Phillip Hughes dead: Australian cricketer dies after bouncer at SCG". Cricket. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 25 October 2024. Cricket Australia boss James Sutherland delivered a statement after Clarke. "This freak accident is now real life tragedy ... Our grief runs deep and the impact of Phillip's loss is enormous.
↑ Guardian music (2 March 2015). "Brownstone's Charmayne Maxwell dies, aged 46". Music. The Guardian. Retrieved 16 September 2024. Charmayne "Maxee" Maxwell of R&B group Brownstone has died following a freak accident.
↑ Vincent, Peter (3 March 2015). "Charmayne Maxwell, Brownstone, death: More details emerge". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 16 September 2024. Further details have emerged about the freak accident that caused the death of R&B singer Charmayne Maxwell, 46, at her Los Angeles home last Friday.
↑ Lange, Stacy (30 March 2015). "Man Killed by Falling Headstone While Decorating Family Grave". WNEP-TV. Retrieved 10 June 2022. Bishop Joseph Bambera of the Diocese of Scranton released this statement: "It is unimaginable to think that a visit of a faithful couple to the grave of loved ones in anticipation of the celebration of Easter could have ended in such a tragic manner."
↑ Coughlin, Sara (26 October 2015). "Chelsea Ake-Salvacion Death Cryotherapy Chamber Spa". Refinery29. Archived from the original on 5 December 2017. Ake-Salvacion's autopsy has yet to be completed, and the coroner who examined her body is (quite accurately) calling her death a "freak accident."
↑ Lakshmi, Rama (16 December 2015). "A ground crew member is sucked into the aircraft engine at Mumbai airport". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 10 August 2016. Retrieved 9 September 2024. In a bizarre accident, a ground crew member with India's state-owned airlines Air India died after he was sucked into the engine of a parked plane at Mumbai airport late Wednesday.
↑ Marszal, Andrew (8 February 2016). "Indian bus driver 'killed by meteorite strike'". India. The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 26 April 2018. Retrieved 25 October 2024. That is the only explanation authorities have for the bizarre demise of the 40-year-old... leaving authorities with no option but to declare the most unusual of deaths.
↑ Hauser, Christine (9 February 2016). "That Wasn't a Meteorite That Killed a Man in India, NASA Says". Asia Pacific. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 March 2018. Retrieved 25 October 2024. The news reported by Indian newspapers and picked up by many outlets around the world was startling...
↑ Keller, Cathryne (10 June 2016). "This Woman Was Killed by a Beach Umbrella". Women's Health. Retrieved 16 September 2024. ...today we're sad to share another freak accident from the shoreline: Fifty-five-year-old Lottie Michelle Belk died on Thursday after being struck by a stray umbrella at Virginia Beach.
↑ "Body of 2-year-old boy snatched by alligator recovered, sheriff confirms". Fox News. 15 June 2016. Retrieved 25 October 2024. Demings said there had been no other recent reports of similar alligator attacks on the lake. "Disney has operated here now for 45 years and they've never had this type of thing happen here before," he said.
↑ Visser, Steve and Hassan, Carma (19 June 2016). "'Star Trek' actor Anton Yelchin dies in freak car accident". CNN. Retrieved 26 October 2024. Actor Anton Yelchin, 27, who played Chekov in recent "Star Trek" movies, was killed in a freak accident early Sunday morning, police told CNN.
↑ "Girl dies after elephant throws stone in Morocco zoo". Africa. BBC News. 28 July 2016. Retrieved 1 February 2022. The zoo statement said the enclosure met international standards and said "this kind of accident is rare, unpredictable and unusual"... Phyllis Lee, scientific director of the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, says that targeted throwing of stones and branches by elephants is very unusual.
↑ Chan, Melissa (29 August 2016). "17-Year-Old Dies After Hickey From Girlfriend Causes Stroke". World. Time. Retrieved 1 September 2024. This is at least the second reported incident of a hickey causing a stroke. A hickey had caused a 44-year-old New Zealand woman to have a non-fatal stroke... Researchers at the time called the medical condition "a rare phenomenon."
↑ Bowerman, Mary (31 August 2016). "Can a hickey actually result in death? We asked a doctor". USA TODAY. Retrieved 3 November 2021. "It's possible this could happen, but it's very rare, and parents should be reassured it's not something that happens in a routine way," [physician Robert Glatter] said.
↑ Davey, Melissa (9 November 2018). "Thunderstorm asthma deaths: ambulance dispatch 'unlikely' factor – coroner". Health. The Guardian. Retrieved 1 February 2022. The scale of the event "can be fairly described as unprecedented globally, both in terms of demands on first-line responders and the public health system, and in the nature and extent of the impact on individuals", [Coroner Paresa Spanos] said, although thunderstorm asthma was a known phenomenon among public health researchers and doctors.
↑ NBC News (31 December 2016) [Originally published December 29, 2016]. "Iowa State weightlifter dies in gym accident". WTHR. Retrieved 24 October 2024. One of his former coaches is calling it a "freak accident."
↑ Johnson, Alex (11 May 2017). "Florida Man Crashes Into Fire Hydrant and Drowns on 89th Birthday". NBC News. Retrieved 1 February 2022. "This is probably the first time I've heard of something like this happen, where somebody hits a fire hydrant and drowns," said Lt. Channing Taylor, commander of the Highway Patrol's Brevard County office.
↑ "Homem embriagado morre afogado em balde de água no Entroncamento de Jaguaquara"[Drunk man dies drowned in water bucket at Entroncamento de Jaguaquara]. Itiruçu Online (in Portuguese). 22 October 2017. Retrieved 14 September 2024. Raildo Matias Santos, de 49 anos, morreu de forma inusitada no Entroncamento de Jaguaquara neste domingo (22).[Raildo Matias Santos, 49, died in an unusual way at Entroncamento de Jaguaquara this Sunday (22).]
↑ "Homem embriagado morre afogado em balde de água no Entroncamento de Jaguaquara"[Drunk man dies drowned in water bucket at Entroncamento de Jaguaquara]. MídiaBahia (in Portuguese). 22 October 2017. Retrieved 14 September 2024. Um homem identificado por Raildo Matias Santos, de 49 anos, "Bigode" morreu de forma inusitada no Entroncamento de Jaguaquara neste domingo (22).[A man identified as Raildo Matias Santos, 49, "Bigode" died in an unusual way at Entroncamento de Jaguaquara this Sunday (22).]
↑ "Man who died after getting trapped in cinema seat named as Ateef Rafiq". Movies. The Guardian. 21 March 2018. Archived from the original on 20 March 2018. Retrieved 1 February 2022. Sources quoted in the Birmingham Mail described how the "freak" accident happened after Rafiq bent down to retrieve a phone, dropped between Gold Class seats, at the end of a movie.
↑ Sanchez, Gabrielle (20 July 2021). "Vue Cinemas theater chain fined $1M for recliner chair death of patron in 2018". The AV Club. Retrieved 17 September 2024. It turns out the motor in the seat had blown a fuse, in a bizarre sequence of events that lead up to what Judge Heidi Kubik described as "an accident that never should have happened."
↑ Hutton, Alice (11 April 2021). "Kyle Plush: $6million settlement for family of Ohio teen who was crushed to death in 2018". The Independent. Retrieved 16 September 2024. Kyle Plush, 16, used voice activation to twice call 911 in April 2018 after a freak accident in the minivan he drove to school in Cincinnati left him squashed behind a passenger seat in the parking lot of his high school.
↑ Emerson, Sarah (5 November 2018). "Why an Australian Man Died 8 Years After Eating a Slug". Vice. Retrieved 1 February 2022. The strange and tragic death of a 29-year-old Australian man last week has underscored the seriousness of a rare parasitic infection called "rat lungworm disease".
↑ Cramer, Maria (26 September 2020). "A Man Died After Eating a Bag of Black Licorice Every Day". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 November 2024. Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital said the unusual case highlighted the risk of consuming too much glycyrrhizic acid, which is found in black licorice.
↑ Price, Victoria (11 January 2019). "Florida man decapitated by helicopter". KSNV. Retrieved 17 September 2024. A gruesome freak accident took place Thursday afternoon at the Brooksville Tampa Bay Regional Airport.
↑ Maruf, Sitara (29 March 2019). "Scientist and Aviator Julian Nott Dies After a Bizarre Accident". LTA – Science & Flight Magazine. Retrieved 24 October 2024. Nott passed away peacefully in a hospital, on Tuesday, after suffering serious injuries in what seems to be a bizarre capsule accident after a successful balloon flight and landing.
↑ "Highland hotel guest died after being trapped by bench". BBC News. 22 March 2023. Retrieved 17 September 2024. This incident was an isolated one, devastating and a great shock for the family. The circumstances here are unusual and extremely rare.
↑ Epstein, Kayla (15 April 2019). "Florida man killed by cassowary he kept on his farm". North America. The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 24 October 2024. There have been a handful of frightful encounters with the birds, mostly in Australia, though the last known death happened in 1926, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
↑ Rosen, Eve. "Autopsy reveals man's wounds after deadly bird attack". Orlando Sentinel. Retrieved 24 October 2024. The Florida man killed in a bizarre attack earlier this year by a cassowary, one of the world's deadliest birds, suffered deep puncture wounds and slashing cuts from the animal's sharp talons that severed a major artery in his arm, according to a newly released autopsy.
↑ Fowler, Michael; Mannix, Liam; and Eddie, Rachel (17 April 2019). "Father dead, mother fights for life after pet deer attack near Wangaratta". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 24 October 2024. Mr Howlett said that deer can become a danger to humans in domesticated scenarios. "It's not an everyday occurrence, but it's not unheard of for deer to kill people in that situation," he said.
↑ Gutierrez, Jason (29 October 2020). "Rooster Kills Police Officer in Covid-19 Lockdown Raid". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 September 2024. He was wounded in his femoral artery on the left leg and lost a lot of blood," Colonel Apud continued. "Within minutes, he died. It was a freak accident.
↑ Lea, Mathilde (5 June 2022). "Bursdagsballongen ble åtteåringens død"[The birthday balloon was the eight-year-old's death]. Dagbladet (in Norwegian). Retrieved 14 September 2024. Det var en fullstendig bisarr ulykke, sier hun.["It was a completely bizarre accident," [Mora] says.]
↑ Romão, Raianne (1 November 2021). "Para fugir de abelhas, homem pula em lago, se afoga e é atacado por piranhas"[To escape bees, man jumps into lake, drowns and is attacked by piranhas]. Jornal do Commercio[pt] (in Brazilian Portuguese). Retrieved 14 September 2024. Um ataque nada comum aconteceu a um grupo de amigos em Brasilândia, município que fica a cerca de 500km de Belo Horizonte, em Minas Gerais.[An unusual attack happened to a group of friends in Brasilândia, a city located about 500km from Belo Horizonte, in Minas Gerais.]
↑ "Actress Anne Heche Dies From Injuries Suffered in Mar Vista Crash into Home". News. The San Fernando Valley Sun. CNS. 12 August 2022. Retrieved 2 November 2024. One week after a bizarre crash into a Mar Vista home, Anne Heche was declared dead at Grossman Burn Center at West Hills Hospital and Medical Center, the family announced today, although the actress was kept on life support so her organs could be harvested for donation.
↑ Johnson, Kelli (14 August 2022). "Anne Heche dead at 53 after crashing into Mar Vista home". Entertainment. KTTV. Retrieved 2 November 2024. A week after a bizarre and horrific crash in Los Angeles' Mar Vista neighborhood, Daytime Emmy Award-winning actress and mother of two Anne Heche has passed away at the age of 53.
↑ Farhi, Paul (16 August 2022). "Why the media declared Anne Heche dead twice". Media. The Washington Post. Retrieved 2 November 2024. But Heche's case was particularly unusual, with the date of death dependent on competing definitions of what it means to be dead.
↑ Vacchiano, Andrea (22 September 2024). "Man dies in freak accident involving frozen hamburgers: 'Difficult to hear'". World. Fox News. Retrieved 22 September 2024. During Monday's hearing, coroner Patricia Morgan said Griffiths had reduced mobility in one of his arms after a stroke, which likely led to the freak accident.
↑ "Man Dies in Freak Mishap at Bali Gym". Bali Discovery. 18 July 2023. Retrieved 18 September 2024. A freak gym accident in Bali has claimed the life of a popular bodybuilder and personal trainer working in Denpasar, Bali, Justyn Vicky, aged 33.
↑ Warmington, Joe (31 October 2023). "Cops to take time probing Adam Johnson's skate-blade death". Toronto & GTA. Toronto Sun. Retrieved 9 September 2024. Hockey player Adam Johnson's life may have been taken from him in a flash, but the probe into his strange skate-blade death is going to take a lot longer... Was this bizarre incident a freak accident?
↑ "Lages-Neuigfeiten"[Location News]. Der Deutsche Correspondent (in German). 6 July 1880. p.1. Retrieved 23 September 2024– via Chronicling America. Goldsboro, N.C., war soeben der Schauplatz eines Selbstmordes, der wohl einzig in seiner Art dasteht, da das Opfer eine Affe gewesen ist.[Goldsboro, N.C., was just the scene of a suicide that seems to be the only one of its kind in that the victim was a monkey.]
↑ "Suicide of a Monkey". Washington Evening Star. 8 July 1880. p.3. Retrieved 23 September 2024– via Chronicling America. At Goldsboro, N.C., occurred one of the most novel suicides of the century, the victim being a monkey owned by Mr. Rockwell Syrock.
↑ "American League: Winfield hits bat and bird in Yank win". Sports. The Robesonian. AP. 5 August 1983. p.1B. Retrieved 22 October 2024– via Google Books. The New York Yankees, who seem to get involved in one bizarre incident after another these days, had one for the books - and for the birds - Thursday night.
↑ "Winfield's return is picture perfect". The StarPhoenix. CP. 3 February 1984. p.C2. Retrieved 23 September 2024– via Google Books. The bizarre incident occurred between innings of a Toronto Blue Jays-Yankees American League baseball game at Exhibition Stadium in early August.
↑ "What's the real 'Cocaine Bear' story?". WAGA-TV. 2 December 2022. Retrieved 3 December 2022. You may have seen the over-the-top trailer for the upcoming 2023 thriller, "Cocaine Bear," based on the bizarre true story of a North Georgia bear that consumed a stash of cocaine.
↑ "Johansson atropela e mata um veado na pista"[Johansson runs over and kills a deer on the track]. Jornal dos Sports (in Brazilian Portuguese). 15 August 1987. Page 6, column 6. Retrieved 14 September 2024. ...o acontecimento que mais chamou a atenção dos espectadores do primeiro treino oficial para o Grande Prèmio da Austria foi o talvez mais inesperado acidente já registrado na história da Fórmula-1.[...the event that most caught the attention of spectators at the first official practice session for the Austrian Grand Prix was perhaps the most unexpected accident ever recorded in the history of Formula 1.]
↑ Brown, Maury (24 March 2018). "17 Years Ago: Randy Johnson Makes Bird Explode In Spring Training Game". Forbes. Archived from the original on 24 March 2018. Retrieved 27 February 2022. It wasn't on purpose; it would have been impossible to do. The timing was too perfect, and in the end, well... shocking, tragic, crazy... you pick the superlative, history was made.
↑ Silverman, Rosa (31 October 2013). "Tatler introduces its latest canine recruit, Geoffrey". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2 November 2024. The Conde Nast magazine welcomes on board a new dog following the death of 'Tatler Alan' in a freak accident
Weeks, David; Gorman, Robert (2015). "15: Fans". Death at the Ballpark: More Than 2,000 Game-Related Fatalities of Players, Other Personnel and Spectators in Amateur and Professional Baseball, 1862–2014 (2nded.). McFarland. ISBN9780786479320. Retrieved 30 September 2022.
Wellman, Kathleen (2013). Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France. Yale University Press.
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The death of Aeschylus, killed by a tortoise dropped onto his head by an eagle, illustrated in the 15th-century Florentine Picture-Chronicle by Baccio Baldini [1]
Frederick Barbarossa's strange drowning gave rise to legends that he was still alive
Franz Reichelt, known as the "Flying Tailor", prior to his death testing an early wingsuit
