Lists of unusual deaths | ||
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Antiquity | ||
Middle Ages | Renaissance | Early modern period |
19th century | 20th century | 21st century |
Animal deaths |
This list of unusual deaths includes unique or extremely rare circumstances of death recorded throughout the 21st century, noted as being unusual by multiple sources.
Name of person | Image | Date of death | Details |
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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. [1] [2] [3] | |
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. [4] [5] | |
Michael Colombini | 29 July 2001 | The six-year-old died during an MRI scan at the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York, after an oxygen tank was magnetically pulled into the machine and fractured his skull. [6] [7] | |
Brittanie Cecil | 18 March 2002 | 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. [8] | |
Roger Wallace | 18 May 2002 | The 60-year-old auto parts salesman was flying his 5-foot (1.5 m) 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. [9] [10] [ better source needed ] | |
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. [11] [12] | |
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. [13] [14] | |
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. [15] [16] | |
Brian Wells | 28 August 2003 | 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. [17] | |
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. [18] [19] | |
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 (19 km) 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. [20] [21] | |
Kenneth Pinyan | 2 July 2005 | 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. [22] [23] | |
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. [24] [25] | |
Steve Irwin | 4 September 2006 | The 44-year-old Australian wildlife expert and television personality was pierced in the chest by a short-tail stingray's barb while filming in shallow water in the Great Barrier Reef. [26] [27] [28] | |
Alexander Litvinenko | 23 November 2006 | 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. [29] [30] [31] One of just a handful of recorded deaths attributed specifically to polonium exposure, [32] Litvinenko was the first-known fatality from malicious polonium poisoning, [33] and remains the only confirmed such case as of 2024. [34] | |
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. [35] [36] [37] | |
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. [38] [39] [40] | |
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. [41] [42] [43] | |
Judy Kay Zagorski | 20 March 2008 | The 57-year-old from Pigeon, Michigan, died of blunt force craniocerebral trauma when a 75-pound (34 kg) spotted eagle ray leaped out of the water and knocked her over off the coast of Marathon Key, Florida. The ray also died. [44] [45] | |
Adelir Antônio de Carli | 21 April 2008 | 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. [46] [47] | |
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. [48] [49] | |
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. [50] | |
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. [51] [52] | |
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. [53] [54] | |
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. [55] [56] | |
Mark Fidrych | 13 April 2009 | The 54-year-old former Major League Baseball pitcher of the Detroit Tigers died while working underneath his dump truck. His clothes became entangled with the power take-off drive shaft, suffocating him. [57] [58] | |
David Carradine | 3 June 2009 | The 72-year-old American actor was found dead in a closet at the Nai Lert Park Hotel in Bangkok. Carradine's neck and genitals were bound and connected by a cord. His death was ruled a case of autoerotic asphyxiation rather than suicide. [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] | |
Taylor Mitchell | 28 October 2009 | The 19-year-old Canadian folk singer was killed by a pair of coyotes while hiking in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, in the only known fatal coyote attack on an adult. [64] [65] [66] |
Name of person | Image | Date of death | Details |
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Muraka Jenny Vearncombe | 3 March 2010 | 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. [67] [68] | |
Gareth Williams | 16 August 2010 | 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. [69] The inquest found his death was likely criminal, although a Metropolitan Police investigation later found that it was likely an accident. [70] | |
The 20 passengers and crew of a plane crash | 25 August 2010 | 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. [71] The crocodile survived the crash, but was promptly killed by a blow from a machete. [72] | |
Mike Edwards | 3 September 2010 | 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. [73] [74] | |
Jimi Heselden | 26 September 2010 | The 62-year-old owner of Segway Inc. died after apparently riding a Segway Personal Transport System off a cliff in Thorp Arch, England. [75] [76] [77] 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. [78] [ failed verification ] | |
Jose Luis Ochoa | 30 January 2011 | The 35-year-old died after being stabbed in the leg at an illegal cockfight in Tulare County, California, by a bird with a knife-like spur strapped to its leg. [79] [80] | |
Xavier Tondo | 23 May 2011 | 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. [81] [82] | |
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 (440 lb) 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. [83] [84] | |
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. [85] [86] | |
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. [87] [88] | |
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. [89] [90] | |
Kendrick Johnson | 10 January 2013 | 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. [91] [92] [93] [94] 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. [95] 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. [96] [97] | |
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. [98] [99] | |
Elisa Lam | February 2013 | 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. [100] [101] | |
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. [102] [103] | |
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. [104] [105] | |
Noah Barthe, Connor Barthe | 5 August 2013 | 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 (9.8 ft) 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. [106] [107] | |
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. [108] [109] | |
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. [110] [111] [112] | |
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. [113] [114] | |
Christophe de Margerie | 20 October 2014 | 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. [115] [116] | |
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 (0.45 kg) tape measure which plummeted 50 stories, or approximately 500 feet (150 m), when it ricocheted off a piece of metal 10 feet (3 m) 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 9:52 a.m. Hard hats were mandatory at the site, and it is unclear why Anderson was not wearing one when he was killed. [117] [118] | |
Phillip Hughes | 27 November 2014 | The 25-year-old Australian Test and ODI cricketer was killed by a bouncer striking his neck during a cricket match, causing a vertebral artery dissection. [119] [120] | |
Joshua Harrison-Jones | 7 January 2015 | The 16-year-old from Stretford, Greater Manchester, died when his neck became trapped between his exercise bench and a onesie he was using as a resistance band. [121] [122] [123] | |
Maxee | 28 February 2015 | 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. [124] [125] [126] | |
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. [127] [128] | |
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. [129] [130] | |
Chelsea Ake-Salvacion | 19 October 2015 | The 24-year-old beauty salon employee in Henderson, Nevada, was suffocated while using a cryotherapy machine set to the wrong level, which eliminated the oxygen in the chamber. [131] [132] | |
Tom Wilson | 9 December 2015 | 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. [133] [134] [135] | |
Ravi Subramanian | 16 December 2015 | The Air India technician was sucked into an aircraft's jet engine. [136] [137] | |
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 (60 cm) 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". [138] [139] [ verification needed ] [140] [141] [ 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. [142] [143] | |
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. [144] Wind speeds at the time reached 20–25 miles per hour (32–40 km/h). [145] | |
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. [146] [147] [148] | |
Anton Yelchin | 19 June 2016 | 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. [63] [149] [150] 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. [151] | |
John William Ashe | 22 June 2016 | The 61-year-old Antiguan diplomat and politician, a former President of the United Nations General Assembly who was awaiting trial on bribery charges, died when a barbell fell on his neck at his home in Dobbs Ferry, New York, causing traumatic asphyxia and laryngeal fractures. [152] [153] | |
Kristopher Moules and Timothy Gilliam Jr. | 18 July 2016 | 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. [154] [155] | |
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. [156] [157] | |
Caleb Schwab | 7 August 2016 | The 10-year-old was decapitated when he was ejected from his raft on Verrückt, a 168-foot-tall (51 m) water slide at Schlitterbahn Kansas City. [158] [159] | |
Julio Macías González | 26 August 2016 | The 17-year-old from Mexico City died from a cerebrovascular accident caused by embolus formed on a neck hickey. [160] [161] | |
Ten people | 21 November 2016 | A powerful southerly change in Melbourne, Australia, resulted in the death of 10 asthmatic people who died from respiratory failure. [162] This was due to a stark 60-kilometre-per-hour (37 mph) wind that distributed ryegrass pollen into the moist air, rupturing them into very fine specks small enough to enter people's lungs. [163] | |
Kyle Thomson | 26 December 2016 | The 22-year-old Iowa State University student was bench-pressing about 315 pounds (143 kg) at a gym in Ankeny, Iowa, when the barbell slipped from his hands, crushing his neck. Thomson had spotters for the lift. [164] [165] [166] | |
Akbar Salubiro | March 2017 | 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. [167] | |
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. [168] [169] [170] | |
Robert Dreyer | 10 May 2017 | The Melbourne, Florida resident drowned on his 89th birthday in Viera after he crashed his 2016 Mercedes-Benz C300 into a fire hydrant and was then swallowed by the sinkhole created by the broken water line which had fed the hydrant. [171] [172] | |
Debra Bedard | 2 June 2017 | The 58-year-old died after falling from a golf cart onto shards of wine glasses that had broken in her hands in Calaveras County, California. [173] [174] | |
Rebecca Burger | 18 June 2017 | The 33-year-old French fitness blogger and model died after a whipped-cream charger exploded and struck her in the chest. The injury caused her to go into cardiac arrest as a result of commotio cordis. [175] [176] | |
Karanbir Cheema | 9 July 2017 | 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. [177] [178] | |
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. [179] [180] | |
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. [181] [182] | |
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 (4.4 imp gal; 5.3 US gal) bucket of water, tripped, and fell in a kneeling position. He was epileptic. [183] [184] | |
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. [185] [186] | |
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. [187] [188] | |
Elaine Herzberg | 18 March 2018 | 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. [189] [190] | |
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. [191] [192] | |
Jennifer Riordan | 17 April 2018 | The 43-year-old bank executive and businesswoman aboard Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 died after debris from an engine failure destroyed a window near her seat and she was partially blown out through it. [193] [194] | |
Hildegard Whiting | 27 July 2018 | 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. [195] [196] | |
Richard Russell | 10 August 2018 | The 29-year-old stole a Bombardier Q400 owned by Horizon Air and operating for Alaska Airlines from Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. After an unauthorized takeoff, he flew the plane for just over an hour and performed aerial maneuvers including a barrel roll before intentionally crashing on Ketron Island, Washington, killing himself. No one else was injured. [197] [198] [199] | |
Sam Ballard | 2 November 2018 | The 29-year-old from Sydney, Australia, died from angiostrongyliasis after eating a garden slug as a dare eight years earlier. [200] [201] | |
Unknown man | January 2019 | A 54-year-old construction worker from Massachusetts died after eating a bag and a half of black liquorice every day for a few weeks, which caused such low potassium levels in his body that his heart stopped. [202] [203] | |
Salvatore Disi | 10 January 2019 | The 62-year-old was decapitated while using a power cart to jump start a helicopter in Hernando County, Florida. Its unexpected up-and-down motion caused the rotor blades to strike him. [204] [205] | |
Margaret Maurer | 5 March 2019 | The 21-year-old Tulane University fourth-year student from Forest Lake, Minnesota, died at a highway rest stop in Mississippi when she was struck by a pair of tires that came loose from a passing tractor-trailer. [206] [207] | |
Julian Nott | 26 March 2019 | 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. [208] [209] | |
Patrick McGuire | April 2019 | The 67-year-old American tourist died from positional asphyxia in Scotland when a 72-kilogram (159 lb) 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. [210] [211] | |
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. [212] [213] Hickey received a set of false teeth following a previous event. [214] | |
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. [215] [216] | |
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. [217] [218] | |
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. [219] [220] | |
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. [221] [222] |
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. [223] [224] | |
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. [225] [226] | |
Amy Carlson | April 2021 | 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. [227] [228] [229] | |
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. [230] [231] | |
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. [232] [233] | |
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. [234] [235] [ verification needed ] [236] | |
Anne Heche | 11 August 2022 | 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. [63] [237] [238] [239] [240] | |
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. [241] [242] [243] | |
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. [244] [245] | |
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. [246] [247] | |
Justyn Vicky | 17 July 2023 | On July 15, 2023, the 33-year-old Indonesian bodybuilder and influencer was squatting over 180 kilograms (400 lb) 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. [248] [249] [250] | |
Adam Johnson | 28 October 2023 | 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. [251] [252] | |
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 (6.1 m), killing Shah and leaving Datla in critical condition. [253] [254] Datla died of his injuries six months later. [255] | |
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. [256] [257] | |
Johnnie Turner | 22 October 2024 | 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. [258] [259] |
This is a summary of notable incidents that have taken place at various United Parks & Resorts-owned amusement parks, water parks or theme parks. This list is not intended to be a comprehensive list of every such event, but only those that have a significant impact on the parks or park operations, or are otherwise significantly newsworthy.
The following article is a summary of notable incidents at the amusement parks and water parks that are operated by Six Flags Entertainment Corporation. In some cases, these incidents occurred while the park was under different management or ownership, such as legacy Cedar Fair parks.
Harambe was a western lowland gorilla who lived at the Cincinnati Zoo. On May 28, 2016, a three-year-old boy visiting the zoo climbed under a fence into an outdoor gorilla enclosure where he was grabbed and violently dragged and thrown by Harambe. Fearing for the boy's life, a zoo worker shot and killed Harambe. The incident was recorded on video and received broad international coverage and commentary, including controversy over the choice to use lethal force. A number of primatologists and conservationists wrote later that the zoo had no other choice under the circumstances, and that it highlighted the danger of zoo animals near humans and the need for better standards of care.
This is a summary of notable incidents that have taken place at various European amusement parks, water parks, or theme parks. This list is not intended to be a comprehensive list of every such event, but only those that have a significant impact on the parks or park owners, or are otherwise significantly newsworthy.
Travis was a male chimpanzee who was raised by and lived with Sandra Herold in Stamford, Connecticut. On February 16, 2009, he attacked and mauled Herold's friend, Charla Nash, blinding her, severing several body parts, and lacerating her face, before he was shot and killed by responding Officer Frank Chiafari.
The history of violence against LGBTQ people in the United States is made up of assaults on gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals, legal responses to such violence, and hate crime statistics in the United States of America. The people who are the targets of such violence are believed to violate heteronormative standards and they are also believed to contravene perceived protocols of gender and sexual roles. People who are perceived to be LGBTQ may also be targeted for violence. Violence can also occur between couples who are of the same sex, with statistics showing that violence among female same-sex couples is more common than it is among couples of the opposite sex, but male same-sex violence is less common.
Managing director Guenter Stampf said the documentary would "come to terms with an unusual criminal case".
"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.
A man who was visiting his mother's house to attend his father's funeral was killed in a bizarre kitchen accident this week.
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.
...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.
...the expressions on their faces were more stunned than sad, as if her friends and family still couldn't believe that a freak accident had taken her from them.
"This was just the freakiest of freak accidents that could possibly happen," Knebel said.
Jane McDonald was visiting a friend at a house in Airdrie in Lanarkshire when the freak accident occurred on Tuesday night.
The freak accident happened at the Church of Scotland manse of the Rev Sharon Colvin in Dunrobin Road, Airdrie, Lanarkshire, on Tuesday.
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.
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.
The doctor killed by an elevator at the hospital where he worked had alcohol in his system when the freak accident happened, a county report said.
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.
Alcohol (ethanol) can be absorbed through the skin, but intoxication caused by skin absorption is rare, especially in adults.
Unfortunately, a 45-year-old woman in Taiwan died due to an unusual effort to ward off the virus.
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.
"Zoo" is the controversial film that tells the story of the events surrounding Pinyan's bizarre death.
A 12-year-old Texas boy died in western Kentucky in a bizarre accident with a golf club.
He was a 12-year-old budding superstar athlete in Frisco when he died in a bizarre, befuddling golf club accident in 2005.
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.
"Stingrays are normally very calm — if they don't want you to be near them, they'll swim away," Lyons told hosts Jessica Rowe and Ita Buttrose.
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.
Following the public hearing we the primary clinicians and toxicology experts involved in the care of Mr Litvinenko in 2006 are now free of any restrictions to describe the clinical aspects of this highly unusual case.
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.
...Litvinenko had been poisoned by polonium-210, a radioactive material that had never before been dreamed of as a murder weapon.
Alexander Litvinenko's case is at this time the only documented case related to acute radiation syndrome following upon ²¹⁰Po malicious administration.
...she lost her life in much more bizarre circumstances than the retail madness we witnessed in late November.
Water intoxication, also known as hyponatremia, is extremely rare and only usually affects endurance athletes, such as long distance runners.
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.
"I've seen a lot of accidents but never anything like this," said Oakland police Lt. Fausto Melara.
While all traffic fatalities are tragedies to be grieved over, some happen in far more unusual fashion than others.
Suicide experts told The Gold Coast Bulletin that such machines were not unheard of, but were very rare.
Exit International director and euthanasia crusader Philip Nitschke described the suicide as 'very unusual'.
"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".]
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".
"It's just as freakish of an accident as I have heard," said Jorge Pino of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
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...]
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.]
"I've never, ever heard of a helicopter falling out of the sky," said Isaac Hockley, a close friend.
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.
"In the 15 years I have been sitting as a deputy coroner, this is the most bizarre case I can recall," Mr Burge said.
Judge Carroll Moran described it as "a very unusual case" and said sentencing would take place on December 14th.
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.
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.
"It's a tragic freak accident," Salas told the Press-Telegram.
...the inconceivable accident that took Diana Durre's life happened on Friday, April 3, 2009, in North Platte, Nebraska.
Fidrych died at the age of 54, as a result of a freak accident on his farm in Northborough, Mass.
Tragically, in 2009, at age 54, Fidrych's life ended, fittingly enough, in a very bizarre way.
The death of David Carradine, while bizarre, may actually shed some light on a dangerous practice engaged in by preteen and teenaged kids.
"David Carradine's death was an unusual one," said Nanthana Sirisap, head of the autopsy division at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn Hospital that examined the actor's body.
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.
But his resurgence was cut short following a tragic death under unusual circumstances...
Bob Bancroft, a retired biologist with the Department of Natural Resources, said this kind of attack is extremely rare...
Taylor Mitchell's death was very rare, and unlike anything most people here have ever seen.
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.
What might appear to be a freak accident may well be a preventable incident...
Police refused to categorise the death as a murder, despite the bizarre circumstances, and say he may have died innocently.
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.
A lone survivor apparently relayed the bizarre tale to investigators.
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.
Mike Edwards had an interesting life to go along with his unusual death.
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.
Providing an example of cosmic irony for textbooks forevermore, the owner of the Segway company died in a strange Segway-related accident yesterday.
The incident, described as a freak accident in the media, was not being treated as suspicious.
"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.
"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.
Xavier Tondo died on Monday morning after suffering a freak accident at home in Granada.
The talented Catalan cyclist Xavi Tondo was killed in a freak domestic accident just when, at 32, he had started getting the recognition he deserved.
Two people were killed Monday after a freak series of collisions...
Two Canadians died instantly in a freak accident...
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.
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.
...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.
...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.
The death of an elite 24-year-old hockey player in Perth has been described as a freak accident.
The WA hockey community is in shock today following the tragic death of 24-year-old Lizzie Watkins in a freak accident during the match late yesterday.
But the bizarre circumstances didn't sit right with the family, even though they're not sure what happened to their son.
The parents of a Georgia teenager who died in unusual and suspicious circumstances held an emotional press conference Thursday on what would have been their son's eighteenth birthday.
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.
Local and state authorities had ruled the teenager's death Jan. 10, 2013, was a freak accident.
"This is a very unusual accident. But still an accident?" [reporter Tony] Thomas wondered.
Investigators say that a dog appears to be to blame in the death of a Florida man in a bizarre accident in the man's driveway.
Even then, it wasn't until the unusual circumstances of her death by drowning were revealed that media interest in Lam's case surged.
The case of Elisa Lam was bizarre enough.
The character of the wound was totally shocking," said the village doctor Leonty Sulim. "We had never run into anything like this before.
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.
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.]
Police in Caratinga, Minas Gerais state, have launched an inquiry into the bizarre death.
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.
This is, like, a one-in-a-million-shot deal that this would actually happen, and it did. It did. Unfortunately, it did.
The unusual way the victim died attracted national attention.
...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...]
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]
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...]
Loved ones of dad-to-be Grant Adams have told of their heartache after he was killed in a freak sunbed accident.
The family of a teenager who died after a freak accident, when he fell onto a sunbed, have allowed his organs to be donated for transplant.
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.
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.
NSW assistant coach Geoff Lawson said the incident was the most confronting thing he had seen on a cricket field..."But I've never seen in all my days in the game a consequence like this where somebody's life may be in jeopardy."
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.
A teenage boy has died after being strangled by his onesie in a freak accident.
Charmayne "Maxee" Maxwell of R&B group Brownstone has died following a freak accident.
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.
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."
While there have been incidents between humans and swordfish in the past, Dr. Rossiter says an incident like this one is rare. "This is very, very unusual," he said.
This type of incident, as far as we know, is unprecedented.
Authorities believe it was a freak accident that killed Ake-Salvacion in seconds, News3LV reports.
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."
A hockey player died in a "freak accident" playing the sport he loved, his distraught parents revealed.
The sport's national body, England Hockey... said: "Incidents such as this one are almost unprecedented in hockey..."
A young man who died in a "freak" hockey accident is still saving lives after his organs were used for vital operations.
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.
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.
The news reported by Indian newspapers and picked up by many outlets around the world was startling...
The bizarre death of a singer in Indonesia became international headlines in recent days.
"Do singers often get killed by snakes?" I ask. "This is the first time I have ever heard of it," he replies.
...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.
According to Tom Gill, Captain of the Virginia Beach Lifesaving Service, this is the first time he has ever heard of someone being killed by an umbrella in the Resort City. Gill... considers Belk's death, a freak accident.
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.
In Florida, alligators may be a common sight, but attacks are rare.
Wiley said it's very rare for people to be attacked by alligators.
Actor Anton Yelchin, 27, who played Chekov in recent "Star Trek" movies, was killed in a freak accident early Sunday morning, police told CNN.
A former United Nations big who was awaiting trial on fraud charges died in a freak weightlifting accident, officials said.
Ashe died a pauper in 2016 in a freak accident at home, after being indicted by the US government and living under house arrest in Westchester County, New York.
"It's a sad and tragic matter, a freak accident, that we will learn from, and a matter that will help us get better," said Pedri.
County officials, state police, and a special engineering firm are investigating what went wrong. They are calling it a freak accident.
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.
It is unclear what prompted the elephant to throw the stone, which experts said was unusual behaviour.
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."
"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.
Emergency operations manager at Ambulance Victoria, Michael Stephenson, told the court that before the incident thunderstorm asthma was "not a term I had ever heard of, not a term I'd heard anyone in the organisation use ever."
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.
It was just a freak accident.
One of his former coaches is calling it a "freak accident."
A freak weightlifting accident killed a 22-year-old Pleasant Hill man one year ago Tuesday...
Reports of humans being killed by pythons are extremely rare.
On April 14, Charles Holt was killed in a freak accident at the Sun Dial restaurant.
Witness accounts are emerging of the scene that erupted when a 5-year-old Charlotte boy died after a freak accident inside an Atlanta rotating restaurant.
"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.
"I haven't seen anything like this before," a police spokesperson told the station.
A freak accident involving a golf cart and wine glasses in a private California orchard on Friday left a 58-year-old woman dead.
Co-workers of Debra Bedard of San Jose, Calif., expressed condolences after she died in a freak golf cart accident in an olive orchard Friday night.
The freak accident and resulting injury caused Burger to go into cardiac arrest, according to the French newspaper 20 Minutes.
The bizarre tragedy happened at Plas Talgarth holiday complex at Pennal, Machynlleth.
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).]
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).]
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.
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."
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.
Jennifer Riordan, a banking executive with Wells Fargo, suffered fatal injuries as a result of the bizarre incident on Southwest flight 1380.
A week after a freak engine explosion on a Southwest Airlines flight caused the death of mum-of-two Jennifer Riordan, her devastated husband has spoken about his heartbreak.
In a bizarre incident linked to dry ice, one woman died and another is in critical condition in Washington state, authorities said.
A Washington woman died and another is in serious condition after a freak accident caused by dry ice inside a new car.
The story was as bizarre as it was tragic...
[T]he event was "very unusual... It's not like we get this every day."
It was one of the strangest, scariest, most bizarre events of 2018...
The strange and sad case occurred because, along with the slug, Ballard had swallowed a parasite called Angiostrongylus cantonensis...
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".
The death was clearly an extreme case.
Doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital said the unusual case highlighted the risk of consuming too much glycyrrhizic acid, which is found in black licorice.
A gruesome freak accident took place Thursday afternoon at the Brooksville Tampa Bay Regional Airport.
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.
Members of the national ballooning community reacted with shock and sadness Thursday on news of the death of famed British balloon innovator Julian Nott, 74, who was mortally injured in an unusual accident following the successful landing of his experimental gas balloon near Warner Springs on Sunday.
This incident was an isolated one, devastating and a great shock for the family. The circumstances here are unusual and extremely rare.
Patrick McGuire was on a short break from Wisconsin with his wife, Anna, and two friends in the Highlands when the bizarre accident happened.
Dr Patrick Waugh, the pathologist who performed Mr Hickey's post-mortem, said the case was very rare.
Patrick Waugh, a pathologist who performed a post-mortem exam on Hickey, said the man's case was extremely rare, adding that Hickey's symptoms are normally seen in individuals who have inhaled smoke in house fires.
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.
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.
Steve Garlick, the chairman of the deer management committee at the Australian Deer Association, said it was very unusual for a deer to kill a person.
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.
In a freak accident, a teenager was crushed to death after being pulled into a meat grinder at a sausage-making factory.
Yulia was reaching inside the family car when the freak accident happened in Belarus.
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.
"This case could not have been predicted. It was so unusual and so unfortunate," [the coroner] remarked.
Det var en fullstendig bisarr ulykke, sier hun.["It was a completely bizarre accident," [Mora] says.]
Carlson's death and apparent mummification brought a fittingly strange end to her unexpected arc as a religious leader.
I've seen mummified bodies before. That's not unusual," Saguache County Sheriff Dan Warwick told The Gazette. "It was the way they kept the body that was unusual.
What began as a wellness check on a member of a religious group in Colorado turned into a bizarre horror story...
As of now, a number of questions regarding the bizarre and tragic incident remain unanswered.
From the department of you-can't-make-this-stuff-up comes this: a dead body was recently discovered inside a dinosaur sculpture in Spain.
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.]
A bizarre turn of events has led to the death of a 30-year-old man in Brazil.
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.
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.
But Heche's case was particularly unusual, with the date of death dependent on competing definitions of what it means to be dead.
The bizarre series of events that led to her death began earlier on that morning.
The man killed in a freak hunting accident in Kansas over the weekend is being remembered for his extraordinary personality.
A UK man accidentally fatally stabbed himself while trying to separate two frozen burgers with a knife, in a freak accident that initially puzzled police, a court heard.
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.
Surfing pro Mikala Jones died in a freak surfing accident Sunday morning.
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.
A popular fitness influencer died in a freak accident at a Bali gym.
The Panthers said on Sunday they were 'devastated' Johnson had died following a 'freak accident'.
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?
Private firm Vistex CEO Sanjay Singh dies in freak accident during the company's silver jubilee celebrations at Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad.
The news reports described the incident as a "freak accident."
"Giulia was surfing in remote Indonesia and suffered a freak accident," [colleague and friend James Colston] wrote in his announcement.
He died from injuries sustained from a freak accident on September 15.
Senator Johnnie Turner of Kentucky has died following a "hard-fought battle" after he was injured in a freak accident several weeks ago...