100 TRUE STORIES OF UNUSUAL DEATHS E-Book

John Mac

• Herausgeber: Studio Minuit
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 216

Beschreibung

Can you die impaled by a straw, killed by a slug, crushed by a cow that fell from the sky, poisoned by a carrot, or choke on a laugh? NO? Well yes, it is possible... Unfortunately. You will discover the 100 most absurd and tragic, sometimes funny, ways to die, which will make you feel cold and smile at the same time. Each one is a reminder of the unbearable fragility of existence and the need to avoid risky behaviour.

Leseprobe

Studio Minuit presents :

100 TRUE STORIES

from

UNUSUAL DEATHS

Can you die impaled by a straw, killed by a slug, crushed by a cow that fell from the sky, poisoned by a carrot, or choke on a laugh? NO? Well yes, it is possible... Unfortunately. You will discover the 100 most absurd and tragic, sometimes funny, ways to die, which will make you feel cold and smile at the same time. Each one is a reminder of the unbearable fragility of existence and the need to avoid risky behaviour.

Unusual deaths - True stories is also a Studio Minuit podcast.

See our other productions:

Crimes - True Stories

Spies - True Stories

Sherlock Holmes - The Investigations

Murders in France - True stories

www.studiominuit.com / [email protected]

A Home-made smoothie

Elena Struthers-Gardner was a 60-year-old retired woman living in Broadstone, England. Elena had an unusual job, especially for a woman: she was a jockey.

For years, she risked her life on thoroughbreds galloping at over 35 mph. It’s a high-risk job... Some jockeys die in training or during races, victims of fatal falls, during a jump or unintentional tramplings by an adversary’s horse.

Elena Struthers-Gardner, Lena to her friends, had survived decades of risk and is now enjoying a well-deserved retirement.

At the moment she was sitting quietly at home, making herself a cold drink. Being environmentally conscious, she had chosen a reusable metal straw rather than a disposable plastic one. But once she had her drink in her hand, Lena slipped, lost her balance, and fell face-first onto the floor, right into the straw that impaled her eye. The straw entered her left eye socket and pierced her brain.

Mandy, her wife of four years, said she did not hear the fall. She found Lena lying on her stomach, making "unusual gurgling noises".

Her death led the coroner warning against using metal straws with a lid that held them in place.

The Dish of the day

Is it possible to be killed by an animal that has been dead for at least 20 minutes? In theory, no, there’s no way that could happen. A snake that has been decapitated for a good 20 minutes can theoretically do no more harm. However, it happened to Peng Fan, the chef of a small, well-known Asian restaurant.

Peng Fan was preparing a dish of the day based on the Indochinese spitting cobra, a delicacy that is very popular in Asia. The snake is found in Southeast Asian countries, including Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam. Adults can be up to 63 inches long. They are found in plains, hills, forests and jungle. They feed mainly on rodents, toads and other snakes. Mainly nocturnal, the spitting cobra is more likely to flee when disturbed during the day.

Why is it called the spitting cobra? Well, it has the unpleasant habit of spitting its venom into the eyes of its victim. The victim may be temporarily or permanently blinded. Its bite is fatal, causing paralysis of the muscles of the respiratory system and death by asphyxiation.

Peng Fan, our cook, cut off the head of the snake and set it aside on his worktop. He spent about twenty minutes preparing his soup and cutting up the body of the snake. The snake was now simmering in a large pot filled with herbs and small vegetables. A delicious soup.

But, when Peng decided to throw away what was left of the cobra, the severed head bit him, injecting him with its fast-acting venom.

The restaurant’s customers heard screams coming from the kitchen, and unfortunately, help arrived too late to save the cook.

A reptile can retain reflex functions for up to an hour after being decapitated. Good to know, just in case!

A dangerous recipe

Rebecca Burger was a 33-year-old French model and fitness fan with almost 200,000 followers on her Instagram account.

It sounds so absurd, so out of place. Whipped cream is a delicious, common dessert and quite harmless, if not abused. Well, that’s what killed Rebecca Burger!

On Saturday 18 June 2017, Rebecca decided to make herself a whipped cream dessert. But the gas cap in her whipped cream siphon exploded and hit her in the chest. The freak accident and the resulting injuries caused her to go into cardiac arrest.

When the firemen arrived on the scene, they attempted a heart massage and managed to revive her. Taken to hospital, she remained unconscious and died the next day.

News of the tragic incident spread when the model’s family posted an image of the whipped cream canister on her Instagram account, with the caption, "This is the whipped cream siphon that exploded and caused Rebecca’s death."

These accidents can occur because of the pressurization of the containers. This whipped cream dispenser contains nitrous oxide chargers to pressurize the container that allow it to spray whipped cream. Under pressure, the gas can explode and cause serious injuries: broken teeth, loss of an eye, coma, fractured face and chest... The cardiac arrest, which led to Rebecca Burger’s death, is often mistaken for a heart attack. "Heart attacks are caused by a blockage that prevents the flow of blood to the heart. Heart muscle tissue dies from a lack of blood supply. In contrast, in cardiac arrest, the heart suddenly stops working. This can happen as a result of a severe blow to the chest. It is usually associated with the sudden impact of an object on the chest wall that happens to coincide with a specific part of the electrical cycle of the heart, which produces cardiac arrhythmias. When this happens, the heart stops pumping blood and its electrical activity eventually stops too."

A word of advice: beware of common kitchen objects, they can be among the most dangerous. And never forget that every year, preventable injury-related deaths at home are the cause of around 156,300 deaths in the US.

The cow that fell from the sky

A man falls asleep in the evening next to his wife. And he will never wake up, because of a cow falling on him!

Just how much does the average cow weigh: about 3300 pounds. Multiply this by the speed of the falling object to get the force of impact. Deadly.

It happened to 45-year-old Joao Maria de Souza. He was in bed with his wife, Leni, when the animal fell through the ceiling of their home in Caratinga, in south-east Brazil. The cow had escaped during the night from a nearby farm and climbed onto the roof of the house, which was set against a small hill. The corrugated iron roof immediately gave way and the one-and-a-half ton cow fell 7.5 feet onto Mr de Souza’s side of the bed, leaving him no chance. He died of internal bleeding.

The latest news suggests that both his wife and the cow escaped unharmed from the incident. Mr de Souza’s brother-in-law, Carlos Correa, told a Brazilian newspaper: "Being crushed in bed by a cow is the last way you would expect to leave this earth. But if it’s God’s will... I think it wasn’t the cow that killed our Joao, it was the unacceptable time he spent in the emergency room waiting to be taken care of." His mother, Maria de Souza, told Brazilian TV channel SuperCanal: "I didn’t raise my son for him to be killed by a cow falling from the sky!"

The police in Caratinga, Minas Gerais, launched an investigation into the strange death. The prosecutor is considering whether to prosecute the owner of the cow for manslaughter if he is found guilty of negligence in the supervision of his cow.

A word of advice: beware of certain seemingly harmless animals, they can be surprisingly dangerous. And don’t forget to take a look up at the sky from time to time, you never know.

The birthday, the beach and the flying parasol

Is a woman in danger when she is sitting quietly on the sand of a large, peaceful beach by the Atlantic Ocean? In theory, no, nothing untoward should happen.

What could be the risk of being on a nearly deserted beach in June, surrounded by your best friends? Well, something very bad happened to 55-year-old Lottie Michelle Belk. Lottie had decided to celebrate her birthday on the beach with a small group of friends on a quiet Saturday in June. But bad luck, the wind was blowing quite hard that day, around 19mph. The wind lifted an umbrella and it blew over Lottie, impaling her in the heart.

Police in Virginia Beach, Virginia, USA, responded at the beach at 33rd Street shortly after 5pm after receiving calls about a woman in cardiac arrest. It was Lottie. Medics arrived and transported her to a local hospital, but she died from her injury. The investigation revealed that a parasol stuck in the sand on the beach was lifted by a strong gust and then slid across the sand. Police said the umbrella stabbed Ms Belk in the chest. The chief medical examiner, Donna Price, said Belk’s cause of death was blunt force trauma to the chest. He also said the death was accidental. The Virginia Beach Police Department’s homicide unit has nevertheless launched a routine investigation into the incident. According to Tom Gill, captain of the Virginia Beach Rescue Department, this is the first time he has heard of someone being killed by a beach umbrella in the beach town. Gill said he had heard of people being injured by a detached umbrella, but considers Belk’s death a freak accident. Gill says it is important to readjust and check the anchoring of your parasol in strong gusts. If the winds seem too strong, Gill suggests simply taking the parasol down. According to Rob Lindaur, owner of a beachwear shop, the parasol should always be placed facing the wind. Whether you’re just taking a walk in the water or on the beach, Lindaur advises that you never take your eyes off your parasol!

A word of advice: when you’re on the beach, don’t just think about the shark that might come and bite your leg off while you’re swimming. Don’t forget to look around, you never know where danger may lie…

The brilliant writer and the little bottle cap

What could possibly go wrong for a man who has just put two drops of saline solution in his eyes before going to bed? Quietly lying down in a luxury suite of a major Manhattan hotel. In theory, everything should be fine. But, as you know, things don’t always go according to plan. Sometimes it seems so absurd, so out of place. This was a famous writer, a successful playwright, Tennessee Williams, the author of A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Pulitzer Prize winner for A Streetcar Named Desire. Well, the worst thing happened to Tennessee, aged 71, on the evening of 22 February 1983, in a beautiful suite at the Hotel Elysee on 54th Street in Manhattan, in the heart of New York.

Not knowing where to put the cap of his eye-drop bottle, he put it between his teeth, just long enough to put the drops in his eyes. He leaned his head back, mouth open, cap between his teeth, hands busy with the dropper. A false move? A hiccup? A sneeze? Tennessee Williams swallowed the bottle cap, and choked to death. His body was found the next morning by his secretary, John Uecker, who shared the two room suite with the playwright. Mr Uecker said he heard a noise in Mr Williams’ room at about 11pm on Thursday night, but did not investigate. At about 10.45am the next morning, Mr Uecker entered the room and found Mr Williams lying dead beside his bed. Dr Gross, the chief medical examiner for New York City, who performed the autopsy, confirmed that Mr Williams had died late on Thursday evening, suffocated by a plastic cap of the type used on nasal spray or eye solution bottles. Doctors said normal nerve reflexes in the back of the throat would normally force a choking person to eject any object caught in the opening of the larynx, called the glottis. Dr Gross said that a number of reasons may have weakened the ejection response, for example when a person is under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Dr Gross said that there was no suspicion of foul play and that deaths of this type are usually classified as accidental. At his best, Williams was a master of dramatic moments and created lost and tortured characters, struggling for dignity and hope in a world that often denied both. Obsessed with illness, failure and death, he constantly thought his heart would stop beating. He had suffered from many ailments, including cataracts, arthritis and heart disease. "I have had every disorder known to man," he once said.

A word of advice: even when you’re doing rather harmless things in your daily life, be careful. For example, don’t forget to put down the cap of your pen or the lid of a beer bottle, on a table, you never know what might happen.

The hunter gatherer versus the python

What could possibly go wrong for Akbar, a 25-year-old Indonesian man, who went into the forest with a machete and a basket to harvest the fruit of the palm oil tree in his part of Indonesia? A green forest, quiet and almost no one on the horizon. In theory, nothing. But as you know, nothing ever goes quite according to plan.

When his uncle came to visit him the next day on Sulawesi Island, he found the house empty and locked. His wife had left for her parents’ home in another province, and none of his friends and neighbours had seen Akbar since the previous day. Akbar’s uncle gathered some villagers to go looking for him.

A few hours later, the search team found scattered palm oil fruits, a picking tool and a boot. Then, a few steps further, they spotted a 13 feet long reticulated python, engorged, bloated and unable to move after an obviously pantagruelic meal. In the wild, pythons are known to eat monkeys, pigs and other mammals. Reticulated pythons cling to their prey with dozens of sharp, curved teeth, then squeeze it to death before swallowing it whole. They are widespread in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia. This constrictor snake, one of the largest snakes in the world, averages between 15 and 30 feet in length and weighs between 200 and 300 lbs. In exceptional cases, it can reach 32 feet, as in the case of a female killed by natives in Sulawesi, Indonesia, in 1912 and measured by an engineer. In addition, a 29 feet long female, which died in 1963 at the Highland Park Zoo in Pennsylvania, had reached a maximum weight of 320 lbs. It is a massive species like all pythons, but despite its weight, it remains more slender than other constrictors, notably the great anaconda.

Akhbar, as you might expect, had just been swallowed whole by this huge python, which was in the process of digesting him. "When his stomach was cut, we first saw his boot and feet near the snake’s neck,"his uncle told the local newspaper." It looks like he was attacked from behind, as we found a wound on his back." A six-minute video on the website of the publication Tribun Timur shows villagers cutting up the python’s carcass to reveal the legs and torso of the dead victim, Akbar. This was the world’s first fully confirmed case of a snake swallowing an adult human whole, and it was Akbar Salubiro. A sad end.

Friendly advice: when you go for a walk in the forest, be careful. For example, don’t forget to look behind you from time to time, you never know what may lie there...

The factory, the flying plate and the pensioner

What could possibly happen to a man who had just retired, at the age of 59, in the Tarragona region of Spain, and who was sitting quietly at home reading the newspaper? He was in his home in a residential area of Torreforta, a small town in southern Spain. What was the probability that a one-ton iron plate would fly through the town, and through his window?

It all started with a serious accident at the IQXE petrochemical plant, which resulted in two deaths and eight injuries on site. The company produces ethylene oxide and glycols, and manufactures chemical derivatives. In short, all this seemed a long way away from Sergio who lives about 2 miles from the plant.

On Tuesday 15 January 2020, at 6:35pm, in the industrial area of the municipality of La Canonja, an explosion took place. A one-tonne sheet metal plate - 6.5 feet long and 3 feet wide - flew across the two miles separating it from Sergio’s house, entering through the third floor window of number 7 of a residential block in Plaza García Lorca. Immediately, the plate knocked out the floor and ceiling of the house below, where Sergio was staying. He, a father of two, was home alone when the roof fell on his head. His wife was out for a walk with one of her granddaughters. When she returned, she was stunned, as were her neighbors, who saw part of her building collapsed, and her husband, lying on the floor of her house, dead. No one would have imagined that a slab that size could travel 2 miles, but it did and ended the life of 59-year-old Sergio. Sergio was known in Torreforta because he had run a fruit shop for years. In early retirement, he had closed his shop to devote himself entirely to his family. Whenever he could, he helped his brothers. Two of them were also fruit merchants. One with his own food business in town; the other with his own shop in the local market. In early retirement, Sergio devoted himself to caring for his two children and to family life. What he never imagined - nor did anyone else - was that a bloody metal plate -"a fireball", according to his neighbors - would fly from the factory to his house."It is an implausible case"- especially as he is the only deceased person who did not work at the factory -, acknowledged Pau Ricomà, the mayor of Tarragona.

A word of advice: when you are at home, even if everything seems rather quiet, be careful. For example, don’t forget to look out of the window from time to time, to check if there is a petrochemical plant nearby, an explosion can happen at any moment.

The dancer and her scarf

What could possibly go wrong for a star who goes for a drive around the backroads of Nice at the end of summer? Isadora Duncan was a dancer in perfect physical condition, she was beautiful, rich and famous. The roads at that time, in 1927, were very light and the weather was mild, sunny, and beautiful. How likely was it that Isadora would be strangled to death during this ride in her luxury convertible? In theory, it couldn’t happen. But hey.

It all happened on 14 September 1927. On the day she died, Isadora Duncan was a passenger in a brand new convertible sports car she was learning to drive. As she leaned back in her seat to enjoy the sea breeze, her long red scarf wrapped around the axle, tightening around her neck and dragging her out of the car and onto the cobbled street. She was strangled to death on the spot.

But let’s back up a bit: Isadora Duncan was born in 1877 in San Francisco and moved to Europe to become a dancer. She always loved to dance - as a teenager she worked as a dance teacher at her mother’s music school - but Isadora was not a classically trained ballerina.

Without classical training, she was not destined to become a prima ballerina. Instead, she was bohemian, free-spirited and her dances were improvisational and emotional; they were choreographed, she said, "to rediscover the beautiful rhythmic movements of the human body". In contrast to the short tutus and stiff shoes worn by ballet dancers at the opera, Isadora usually danced barefoot, wrapped in flowing gowns and scarves. Female audiences, in particular, loved her: at a time when classical ballet was falling out of favor in many "sophisticated" circles, Isadora’s performances celebrated independence and self-expression. She also led a bohemian and eccentric life backstage: she was a feminist, a proponent of free love and a communist. Her private life was tragic, especially when it came to cars: in 1913, her two young children drowned when the car they were in plunged off a bridge into the Seine in Paris, and Isadora herself was seriously injured in car accidents in 1913 and 1924. The 1927 accident with her scarf was fatal.

A word of advice: when you are in a car, even if everything seems rather calm, be careful, don’t forget that more than 32,000 people are killed and 2 million are injured each year from motor vehicle crashes in the US.

The health enthusiast and a vitamin overdose

How likely is it that carrot juice could kill a man in the prime of his life with no allergies? Well, it happened to Basil Brown, a 48-year-old healthy eating advocate from Croydon, England, who died of liver damage after consuming too much carrot juice, which turned his skin bright yellow and poisoned his liver. In theory, this can’t happen, juice is meant to be good for your health, right? But, as you know, things don’t always go according to plan.

It all started with a passion for good, healthy food, fresh produce and freshly squeezed juice. Basil Brown, a 48-year-old Englishman, probably had what is called orthorexia (from the Greek orthos, ‘correct’, and orexis, ‘appetite’). This is a set of eating practices, characterized by an obsessive desire to eat healthy food and a systematic rejection of foods perceived as unhealthy, including processed foods, fast food and junk food. But in trying to eat too well, Basil went to the opposite extreme of eating too much healthy food. In 10 days he ended up drinking about 8 gallons of carrot juice, which is about 70 million units of vitamin A! This meant that Basil took 10,000 times the recommended daily allowance of vitamin A in just 10 days. Carrot juice is extremely rich in vitamin A and contains large amounts of other nutrients, such as vitamin K and potassium. But if you ingest too much, your liver will be poisoned. That’s what happened to Basil. Dr David Haler, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, said the effect of the huge intake of vitamin A from carrots and multivitamin tablets was indistinguishable from alcohol poisoning. It produces the same result, he said, namely cirrhosis of the liver.

A word of advice: when you’re desperate to eat healthily, don’t be obsessive about it, be careful, don’t forget that your internal organs then have to process all that food. For example, don’t forget to eat a varied diet, and think of poor Basil Brown.

The comedy fan and his favorite show

What could be the worst thing that could happen to a 50 year old man living a neat little life, in good physical shape and looking forward to his favorite comedy program on television? How likely was it that a man’s favorite sitcom could kill him in his prime? Well, it happened on 24 March 1975 to Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer in Norfolk, England. He was watching one of his favorite TV shows, the comedy programme The Goodies, and literally died laughing after 25 minutes of intense fun. How could this happen? It should be fine, it’s just a laugh. But, as you know, things don’t always go as planned.

It all started on March 24, 1975, when 50-year-old bricklayer Alex Mitchell, of King’s Lynn in Norfolk, England, started laughing during one of his favorite TV shows, the comedy programme The Goodies. The sketch that triggered Mitchell’s fatal glee was of a kilted Scotsman approaching a vicious black pudding with his bagpipes, intending to attack it. Mitchell could not stop laughing and, after twenty-five minutes of uproar, gave one last "huge belly laugh, collapsed on the sofa and died", said his widow, who witnessed his death. Although Mitchell succumbed to heart failure, what killed him was not a classic heart attack, but rather the result of an unusual hereditary heart rhythm disorder that regularly takes the lives of even seemingly robust people in their 20s. Mitchell had Long QT Syndrome, a condition in which the heart is prone to long pauses between beats, especially after moments of excitement or exertion. After such an incident, the heart starts up again after a few beats, but in some cases, like this one, the person is not so lucky. Apparently, this also happened to a Burmese king, Nandabayin, in 1599, when an Italian merchant passing through his kingdom told him that Venice was a free state without a king. It sounded so funny and unbelievable that the king laughed and could not stop. He died of it, after a long laugh followed by a heart attack.

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