Post by Muramasa on Jun 8, 2009 2:37:06 GMT -8
Wiki List of Unusual Deaths
Fun to read if you're bored and feeling morbid. Here are some of the ones I thought were especially gnarly or darkly humorous.
270 BC: Philitas of Cos, Greek intellectual, is said by Athenaeus of Naucratis to have studied false arguments and erroneous word-usage so intensely that he wasted away and starved to death. Alan Cameron speculates that Philitas died from a wasting disease which his contemporaries joked was caused by his pedantry. (This would probably be the way I meet my end.)
1410: Martin I of Aragon died from a lethal combination of indigestion and uncontrollable laughing.
1814: London Beer Flood, 9 people were killed when 323,000 imperial gallons (1 468 000 L) of beer in the Meux and Company Brewery burst out of their vats and gushed into the streets.
1959: In the Dyatlov Pass incident, Nine ski hikers in the Ural Mountains abandoned their camp in the middle of the night in apparent terror, some clad only in their underwear despite sub-zero weather. Six of the hikers died of hypothermia and three by unexplained fatal injuries. Though the corpses showed no signs of struggle, one victim had a fatal skull fracture, two had major chest fractures (comparable in force to a car accident), and one was missing her tongue. The victims' clothing also contained high levels of radiation. Soviet investigators determined only that "a compelling unknown force" had caused the deaths, barring entry to the area for years thereafter.
1986: Over 1,700 people were killed almost instantly near Lake Nyos in Cameroon when a mass of approximately 100 million cubic metres of carbon dioxide that had collected at the bottom of the lake due to seepage from geothermal sources was suddenly released on August 21, 1986. The gas cloud immediately settled (carbon dioxide is heavier than air) and covered an area of up to 12 miles (20 km) from the lake, killing all oxygen-breathing life almost instantly - although the nearby vegetation, which consumes carbon dioxide and releases oxygen, flourished afterwards.
1998: Every player on the visiting soccer team at a game in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was struck by a fork bolt of lightning, killing them all instantly.
2009: Sergey Tuganov, a 28-year-old Russian, bet two women that he could continuously have sex with them both for twelve hours. Several minutes after winning the $4,300 bet, he suffered a heart attack and died. It is believed that the heart attack was the result of Tuganov ingesting an entire bottle of Viagra just after he accepted the bet. (2 women, 12 hours of sex, and 4 grand. Not a bad way to go.)
2009: Martin Cassidy, a 44-year-old stand-up comedian from Blackburn, England, died from asphyxia caused by breathing in large quantities of laughing gas while watching pornography on his laptop computer, according to a coroner. The coroner ruled a case of "Death by misadventure".
2009: Yitzhak Gebru, a 17-year-old student in Louisville, Kentucky died after attempting to travel back in time. It is believed that Yitzhak was under some sort of 'higher' influence when he attempted to phase out of space time. The only thing that remained of him was his log book and a thin layer of grime near the floor. (What?)
Fun to read if you're bored and feeling morbid. Here are some of the ones I thought were especially gnarly or darkly humorous.
270 BC: Philitas of Cos, Greek intellectual, is said by Athenaeus of Naucratis to have studied false arguments and erroneous word-usage so intensely that he wasted away and starved to death. Alan Cameron speculates that Philitas died from a wasting disease which his contemporaries joked was caused by his pedantry. (This would probably be the way I meet my end.)
1410: Martin I of Aragon died from a lethal combination of indigestion and uncontrollable laughing.
1814: London Beer Flood, 9 people were killed when 323,000 imperial gallons (1 468 000 L) of beer in the Meux and Company Brewery burst out of their vats and gushed into the streets.
1959: In the Dyatlov Pass incident, Nine ski hikers in the Ural Mountains abandoned their camp in the middle of the night in apparent terror, some clad only in their underwear despite sub-zero weather. Six of the hikers died of hypothermia and three by unexplained fatal injuries. Though the corpses showed no signs of struggle, one victim had a fatal skull fracture, two had major chest fractures (comparable in force to a car accident), and one was missing her tongue. The victims' clothing also contained high levels of radiation. Soviet investigators determined only that "a compelling unknown force" had caused the deaths, barring entry to the area for years thereafter.
1986: Over 1,700 people were killed almost instantly near Lake Nyos in Cameroon when a mass of approximately 100 million cubic metres of carbon dioxide that had collected at the bottom of the lake due to seepage from geothermal sources was suddenly released on August 21, 1986. The gas cloud immediately settled (carbon dioxide is heavier than air) and covered an area of up to 12 miles (20 km) from the lake, killing all oxygen-breathing life almost instantly - although the nearby vegetation, which consumes carbon dioxide and releases oxygen, flourished afterwards.
1998: Every player on the visiting soccer team at a game in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was struck by a fork bolt of lightning, killing them all instantly.
2009: Sergey Tuganov, a 28-year-old Russian, bet two women that he could continuously have sex with them both for twelve hours. Several minutes after winning the $4,300 bet, he suffered a heart attack and died. It is believed that the heart attack was the result of Tuganov ingesting an entire bottle of Viagra just after he accepted the bet. (2 women, 12 hours of sex, and 4 grand. Not a bad way to go.)
2009: Martin Cassidy, a 44-year-old stand-up comedian from Blackburn, England, died from asphyxia caused by breathing in large quantities of laughing gas while watching pornography on his laptop computer, according to a coroner. The coroner ruled a case of "Death by misadventure".
2009: Yitzhak Gebru, a 17-year-old student in Louisville, Kentucky died after attempting to travel back in time. It is believed that Yitzhak was under some sort of 'higher' influence when he attempted to phase out of space time. The only thing that remained of him was his log book and a thin layer of grime near the floor. (What?)
