26 Knife Accident During Car Crash
In 2022, a 28-year-old San Diego man died in a single-vehicle car accident when the knife he was using to mix protein powder while driving was propelled into his neck by the force of the deployed airbag.
27. Gouverneur Morris, the man who physically wrote the U.S. Constitution, died from an infection caused by using a piece of whale baleen as a catheter in an attempt to clear a urinary tract blockage.
28. In Australia, five children tragically died in 2021 when a bouncy castle was lifted into the air by strong gusts of wind.
29. In Romania, a man and a woman died from carbon monoxide poisoning while having sex in a car parked in a garage with the engine running. They were posthumously awarded the 1999 Darwin Award.
30. Russian writer Nikolai Gogol slowly died of self-starvation after refusing all food. His doctors attempted brutal treatments, including force-feeding him bouillon, pouring hot water on his head, applying leeches to his nose, and using a soap suppository-all to no avail.
31 Rocket Strike Causes Cremation Explosion
A Chinese man was initially believed to have died from a lightning strike, but his body exploded during cremation. Investigators discovered a piece of metal in his remains, revealing that a weather rocket-designed to break up hail-had failed to explode and instead crashed through his roof, striking him like a bullet and causing his death.
32. In 2021, a man in Spain died inside the leg of a papier-mâché Stegosaurus. Authorities believe he climbed into the statue to retrieve his phone, got stuck, and died in there. Days later, a father and son noticed a foul odor coming from the statue and discovered the body.
33. Texas A&M University once held an annual bonfire tradition. However, in 1999, tragedy struck when the Aggie Bonfire collapsed during construction, killing 12 students. The incident led to multiple lawsuits and the eventual cancellation of the tradition, as the university could not afford the projected $2 million annual insurance costs.
34. London’s smallest statue, depicting two mice fighting over a piece of cheese, might commemorate two construction workers who died in the 1860s. Legend suggests they fell from a building after fighting over a sandwich.
35. In 1995, seven children died in a tragic bus crash in Fox River, Illinois. A substitute driver mistakenly stopped the bus with its rear still on train tracks. Despite the children’s desperate pleas to move, the confused driver remained stationary, and an oncoming train struck the bus at 60 mph.
36 Hide-and-Seek Accident Kills Star
In 1946, Primula Niven, the wife of Hollywood actor David Niven, died in a tragic accident during a game of hide-and-seek at Tyrone Power’s Hollywood mansion.
37. Renowned composer Jean-Baptiste Lully died in 1687 from a gangrene he got after accidentally striking his own foot with a conducting staff.
38. In the 1930s, a Church of England clergyman known as “The Prostitutes’ Padre” died tragically while reenacting the biblical tale of Daniel in the lion’s den. He accidentally stepped on the tail of a lion named Freddie, resulting in a fatal mauling.
39. Around 2,600 years ago in China, a prophet predicted that an ill king would not survive to eat the next harvest. When he was later presented with the new harvest and ready to eat it, he remembered the prediction and killed the seer, felt a stomachache before eating, went to the latrine, fell in, and died.
40. During the Erfurt latrine disaster of 1184, a party of nobles gathered in a room within the Church of St. Peter in Erfurt, right above the latrine pit of the monks. Due to the weight of the party, the floor of the room collapsed, and up to 100 nobles died plummeting into the fecal pool, which had not been emptied for some time.
41 Rooster Accidentally Kills Officer
In the Philippines, a 38-year-old police lieutenant of San Jose, Northern Samar, died during a raid to shut down an illegal cockfight amid the COVID-19 pandemic. While attempting to seize a rooster, the razor-sharp blade attached to its leg sliced his femoral artery, causing him to bleed to death.
42. One of the rare instances of a fatal cassowary attack involved an American man who had kept the notoriously aggressive bird as a pet in Australia.
43. In 2019, a 51-year-old wedding planner in England tragically died after eating a scalding-hot fishcake at a wedding. The severe burns to his throat left him unable to breathe, and the cause of death was ruled as asphyxiation. The coroner compared the damage to smoke inhalation from house fires.
44. During the infamous “Tour de Nesle Affair,” two knights and brothers were discovered having affairs with the Queens of France. Their brutal punishment included being beaten, skinned alive, emasculated, doused in boiling lead sulfite, decapitated, dragged through the streets, and left to decay on the gallows for weeks.
45. In Massachusetts, a construction worker died after consuming excessive amounts of black licorice over an extended period. Licorice contains a chemical that can inhibit a kidney enzyme, leading to a dangerous loss of potassium via urine. The resulting imbalance caused his heart to stop.
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
46 Man Trapped Under Cinema Seat
Ateef Rafiq, a 24-year-old man, died of cardiac arrest in 2018 at a movie theater in Birmingham, England. While searching for his dropped phone, his head became trapped under the electronic footrest of a reclining seat, leading to his tragic death.
47. In 1799, George Washington developed a sore throat after exposure to cold weather. Following medical advice of the time, he was heavily bled-losing nearly 40% of his blood within 12 hours. The excessive blood loss contributed to his death from a throat infection.
48. A 30-year-old woman in New Zealand died in 2013 from cardiac arrhythmia, which was linked to her habit of drinking up to 2.6 gallons (10 liters) of Coca-Cola daily.
49. French mathematician Évariste Galois, who solved a 350-year-old mathematical problem while still a teenager, died at just 20 years old. His death resulted from wounds sustained in a mysterious duel, the reasons for which remain unclear.
50. Near the site of the Trinity atomic test, a girls’ dance camp unknowingly played in the falling white ash. Tragically, 10 of the 12 girls died before reaching the age of 40, likely due to radiation exposure.
RE: Fact #25 (Bridge Collapse Claims Dozens) – England in 1845 was pretty crazy.
Was this what the world was like before the internet?
Four geese pulling on a clown.
I’m really into stories like that. My top picks are the lion on the Wall of Death, or the two steam trains crashing head-on on purpose.
Honestly, I’d totally watch that, even if I was on a shaky bridge.
My first thought was, “That’s so 1840s!” But honestly, even now, I’d totally watch a clown get pulled around in a tub by geese.
RE: Fact #23 (Spam Message Detonates Bomber) – In Soviet Russia, spam gets rid of you.
You got it!
Seriously? That joke actually worked? Wow.
RE: Fact #13 (Drinking Contest Turns Deadly) – This is exactly the kind of thing I’d love to see as a high-quality TV series. Imagine a Boardwalk Empire style show about Alexander the Great’s life, season after season. Wow.
There is the “the great” tv series about his son and the future Catherine the great.
RE: Fact #39 (Prophecy Fulfilled by Latrine Death) – A slave hauled his dead body out of the loon at noon. Earlier, he’d dreamt of carrying his master to heaven. So, they buried the slave with the king. Talk about a bad dream.
Buried him alive? Seriously? That’s crazy!
Unless he was castrated
RE: Fact #41 (Rooster Accidentally Kills Officer) – Seriously, a party over a huge pile of crap, held up by flimsy wood? That’s insane! It’s like something straight out of a cartoon.
It wasn’t a party, more like a royal showdown to settle a beef. The place was crammed, not exactly built for a crowd, but hey, if you’re a bigwig or someone important locally, you’re not gonna miss seeing the king – future emperor, even!
And if I remember right, the cesspit wasn’t directly below them; they were a floor higher.
RE: Fact #10 (Cult Leader’s Mummified Demise) – She said she had cancer, but it was probably the colloidal silver (that she drank for health) and anorexia that killed her. They found her – super skinny, purple, eyes gone, and all wrapped up in a sleeping bag with Christmas lights on it.
RE: Fact #16 (Color Powder Party Disaster) – Two guys killed themselves after the event—one was the dad of a kid who’d been burned, and the other wanted to donate his skin to the victims before he died.
Did they get the skin?
Yeah, it’s true, he did. His skin apparently helped five people. We don’t know all the details, but he got his wish, sadly. Even though it’s awful he died, he still made a difference.
RE: Fact #38 (Clergyman Mauled by Lion) – He kinda looks like Hugh Laurie—perfect casting, right?
RE: Fact #23 (Spam Message Detonates Bomber) – It’s not hard to write a quick program to check the number, but they probably weren’t worried about spam calls.
What code? Probably just hooked the detonator right to the phone’s vibrate thingy – easiest way to do it.
This is how they made those Nokia bombs in Iraq – straight from the vibration motor.
RE: Fact #31 (Rocket Strike Causes Cremation Explosion) – So, why’d they think lightning got him? Seems like he died at home, wouldn’t there be tons of evidence of a lightning strike? Plus, didn’t they see any blood from the wound?
Wang Diange was at a wake at home when a boom blew half his roof off, killing him. Since it was stormy, his family and the cops figured lightning did it.
So they just made something up and decided he was dead, so what’s the point?
Whoa, he got blown up at a wake? And then *again* at his cremation?!
Life in rural China is really rough; it’s like a third-world country. Lots of young people head to the cities to try and make something of themselves, while those who stay behind live simple farming lives.
RE: Fact #37 (Jean-Baptiste Lully ) – Some composers died in really weird ways. Like Charles Valentin Alkan, who wrote crazy-hard piano pieces—he got squashed! People first thought a bookshelf fell on him, but a letter showed it was actually a coat rack. And then there’s Anton Webern, the serialist composer. He was shot by a US soldier in Austria because he was outside after curfew, smoking a cigar.
I’ll throw in a couple more – Bach and Handel, same killer.
RE: Fact #50 (Dance Camp’s Atomic Fallout Tragedy) – My uncle was with the Army troops sent to Ground Zero after one of those tests. He died of leukemia at 50, and the Army said it wasn’t their fault.
I’m not real clear on the tests, but did the army just decide to experiment on its own soldiers? That’s awful, I’m so sorry about your uncle.
My grandpa was at Bikini Atoll during the bomb tests. He got brain cancer in the 80s. Later, there was a compensation program, but you needed all sorts of military paperwork. My mom gave everything to my brother, a Navy guy, to keep safe. His house burned down, and poof—gone.
RE: Fact #50 (Dance Camp’s Atomic Fallout Tragedy) – I think there was a small town in New Mexico, maybe 80 miles from the testing site. When the bomb exploded, the people there saw it and thought the world was ending.
There’s still a town dealing with the fallout.
The downwinders are a really important group to learn about when considering the effects.
The Navajo Nation and Gallup are still hurting because of that huge radioactive spill—the third biggest ever.
And the US government made Navajos mine uranium without warning them about the dangers.
They kinda were
The world ended, and they probably didn’t even care.
My great-grandpa was a barber near Alamogordo when they tested the bombs. He said it was like dawn, then the brightest white light imaginable. Crazy thing is, he lived to be almost 90, but died of lung cancer—never smoked a day in his life, but got it all secondhand from cutting the soldiers’ hair.
Getting cancer in your 90s seems to happen regardless of how healthy you’ve lived. It’s just bad luck sometimes, after so many years, things can go wrong. I’ve seen it happen to people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s—no bad habits, just age. That sucks. Cancer is awful.
RE: Fact #14 (Elephant Attack and Funeral Tragedy) – Why would that elephant target her alone?
The article mentions some whispers that she might have been with a bunch of poachers who killed the baby elephant. Apparently, it walked a hundred miles to get revenge.
The article says people online guessed she was in some poaching group. That’s about the worst kind of reporting I’ve ever seen in a newspaper.
And it’d go another hundred. Just to be that angry elephant that sent that dead grandma flying.
RE: Fact #20 (Woman Dies Twice at Funeral) – That second funeral was probably wild.
RE: Fact #48 (Excessive Soda Consumption Death) – Her teeth were without enamel, probably from all that Coke she drank.
Her mother-in-law said that if she ran out, she’d get really shaky and irritable, basically have a total meltdown. Ms. Harris drank Coke all day, every day, and lost her teeth because of it.
She’d get the jitters, be all grumpy and irritable, basically. Probably caffeine withdrawal. That stuff’s brutal once you hit a gram a day. I even thought about kicking the bucket when I quit.
Man, my teeth aren’t the best, but I can’t believe someone would say *all* my teeth need pulling out because of my cola habit.
It sounds like they’re really lacking some key nutrients.
RE: Fact #32 (Man Dies Inside Dinosaur Statue) – There is a wiki list of seriously bizarre deaths. Some of those people were just incredibly unlucky—not like they were asking for it or anything. Imagine: going fishing, getting attacked by bees, jumping in a lake to get away, and then drowning and getting eaten by piranhas!
Or the guy who got a killer atomic wedgie.
Haha, I just put that one up too. Sixty-year-old guy got an atomic wedgie from his stepson! And that other guy? Died from his dad headbutting him for *days* because he wouldn’t stop acting up. Seriously, what the heck?!
RE: Fact #11 (Hair-Eating Syndrome Turns Fatal) – Gross, picture a giant hairball stuck in your gut. That’s gotta hurt and not move easily.
It just sits there, getting bigger and bigger until it’s so huge that anything the cat eats comes right back up. Like, if it drinks a whole litre of water, it throws up a whole litre. I worked in an operating theatre once, and we had to take out one of these from a kid. It took a bunch of the strongest nurses and doctors working together to pull it out! The thing was as thick and long as my forearm.
Wow, I wonder how long that’s been brewing in that kid. Crazy!
RE: Fact #32 (Man Dies Inside Dinosaur Statue) – There was guy in Brazil was fishing with buddies when they got attacked by a swarm of bees. They jumped in a lake to get away, but he drowned and some piranhas got to him. His friends made it out okay.
Anyone ever think bees and piranhas teaming up to wipe us out would be on their end-of-the-world bingo card?
He got eaten by piranhas after he drowned.
Seriously, piranhas aren’t as scary as people think. That guy probably drowned first; the piranhas just cleaned up afterward.
The whole “killer piranha” thing started when Theodore Roosevelt was in Brazil. The locals rigged a show for him—they kept a bunch of piranhas hungry, then threw a cow in with them so Roosevelt could watch the frenzy.
Basically, unless you’re dealing with a whole bunch of starved piranhas, you’ve got nothing to worry about beyond a few nips.
Good point. It’s a shame what happened, but the piranhas aren’t really at fault.
RE: Fact #43 (Fishcake Burns Cause Fatal Asphyxiation) – Sounds like the hospital messed up; they sent him home with painkillers, and he suffocated from the swelling back at his place.
English hospitals are in a really bad way right now. Funding per person is the lowest it’s ever been, and the government’s just not investing enough in healthcare – it’s shameful.
Is it because the population’s growing but the money’s staying the same, or have they actually cut funding?
It’s a deliberate plan. The idea is to let the system weaken, then use the bad results to push for complete privatization.
My dad went home with vertigo pills three times before a doctor finally ran a test and discovered he’d had a stroke. Early diagnosis would have really helped. Don’t try to self-diagnose – if something feels seriously wrong, push for tests or get another opinion.
My uncle died of cancer. They could have treated it if they’d found it sooner. He was at the hospital, should’ve had a scan, but they put it off. By the time they noticed, it was too late – he only had a month, and passed away a week after that.
The pathologist who examined Hickey said it was a super rare case. Hickey’s symptoms usually only show up in people who’ve breathed in smoke from house fires. He said the guy could seem fine, chatting away, then suddenly the swelling would start. The pathologist didn’t find anything wrong with the hospital’s care. It’s crazy hard to believe, but this type of injury is extremely unusual—there’s no way the doctor could have predicted it.
RE: Fact #47 (Washington’s Death from Excessive Bleeding) – Doctors said a sore throat was what did it.
I was chatting with a friend the other day, and we were talking about how crazy being a doctor back then must have been. Like, someone’s coughing? “Let’s just remove a lung!” Oh, they died? “Guess that was God’s plan.”
He probably died from epiglottitis or maybe a peritonsillar abscess—both can kill you if you don’t get help. That sore throat was likely the culprit, and bloodletting definitely didn’t make things better.
Epiglottitis is super rare these days, mostly because we have a vaccine for the bacteria that causes it.
Back in Washington’s time, a peritonsillar abscess could easily kill you. Nowadays, we can treat the strep infection that usually causes them with antibiotics.
It’s not about him losing almost half his blood.
People think the Four Humours theory stuck around for a shorter time than it actually did. Medicine really started to advance in the 1800s.
RE: Fact #7 (Opium Enema Irony Death) – He was so high on opium, he forgot to eat or drink.
Clean living, yeah.
RE: Fact #21 (Epoxy Resin Contraception Tragedy) – Yeah, I know people say pullout’s risky, but it seemed like his best bet given the situation.
He got lucky, then kicked the bucket.
Man, I’m so envious of how peacefully he died.
RE: Fact #15 (Radioactive Capsule Causes Deaths) – This reminds me of a crazy story: A container of Caesium-137 went missing from a sand quarry, wound up in an apartment building’s wall, and several people who lived there died because of it.
A bunch of cobalt-60 wound up in a junkyard. Foundries melted it down with other stuff, making around 6,000 tons of contaminated rebar. They found out about it when a truckload accidentally drove into Los Alamos National Lab and triggered the radiation alarms.
RE: Fact #35 (Bus Stopped on Train Tracks) – Yeah, I recall that. So sad.
As a kid, I really wanted to drive a school bus, just like my Aunt Linda. She’d even let me hang out at the bus depot sometimes when I missed school, treating me to super-hot chocolate. But then I saw this wall of crazy, wrecked school bus pictures – seriously messed me up! No more bus driver dreams after that. Those pictures still pop into my head now and then.
Yeah, me too. After that crash, bus drivers started stopping before the tracks and opening the doors to listen for trains.
I recall a couple of kids who thought it’d be funny to make train noises. The driver wasn’t amused and took them straight back to school to see the principal. I think they got a week’s suspension from the bus.
Edit: Oops, my bad. I talked to my brother about this after reading some responses. The stops at the crossings were already happening, but opening the doors was new after our school’s incident. I learned that our *original* bus driver never stopped at crossings, which is why he was fired a week after the accident—someone reported him. The driver who turned the bus around was the new guy.
I was a kid in the early 80s, and people always held the door open at every crosswalk.
So THAT’S how they do it!
Bus drivers had to stop and open their doors way back when – there’s even a cartoon about it.
RE: Fact #6 (Lighthouse Collapse Claims Builder) – So, in June 1697, Britain and France were fighting, right? A warship was guarding the workers on the reef, but the Plymouth commissioner, this guy St Lo, pulled it away to join the navy—no replacement. A French privateer wrecked the work and even kidnapped Winstanley! But King Louis XIV let him go, saying something like, “We’re at war with England, not with people.” Winstanley went back, they finished building, and the first Eddystone Lighthouse was done by November 1698.
Seriously, what’s the point of capturing some random lighthouse keeper? Did they think he knew top-secret lighthouse-building techniques? It’s like, “Hey Captain! We nabbed this guy building a lighthouse all by himself – no guards! Let’s grill him about lighthouse secrets!”
It’s probably a ransom.
Privateers are like pirates, but they’re officially sanctioned by the king – they get to keep some of the treasure in exchange for their service.
Building lighthouses is a big deal, it takes a lot of money and skill. Lighthouse builders are either rich, or someone rich values them. If I snatch him, maybe I can get a payoff. Cha-ching.
Show us the body cam footage already!
RE: Fact #30 (Writer Dies by Starvation) – “This guy’s refusing to eat – what’s the plan?” “Ever try shoving a bar of soap up his butt?”
Huh, that’s strange. It worked on those women last month.
How’d you know it worked?
They haven’t been back, so it probably did.
RE: Fact #14 (Elephant Attack and Funeral Tragedy) – They totally hated her.
Stampy’s out for revenge!
RE: Fact #21 (Epoxy Resin Contraception Tragedy) – That’s awful! Epoxy in both your houses!
🙌
Two guys, really desperate, wanted a cheap penis plug. The epoxy resin made it messy.
RE: Fact #29 (Couple Dies During Car Sex) – That article’s crazy! Check this out: A 35-year-old guy died in Malawi back in 2020 after having sex with a prostitute. The police and a doctor said he died from too many orgasms, which burst blood vessels in his brain. They let the sex worker go because they said she didn’t do anything wrong.
My friend was married for ages, things were great between them, and she actually enjoyed their spontaneous nighttime sex. Then, one time, he had a heart attack right after—during, you know. They never talked about it.
My friend’s dad, man, he died peeing in a shopping mall bathroom. Just stood there, dead, for two hours. Brutal way to go, if you ask me.
Is this an ad for Malawian sex workers?
RE: Fact #11 (Hair-Eating Syndrome Turns Fatal) – That hairball thing? It’s called a bezoar, but unlike the goat kind, it won’t fix most poisons.
The Sandman intro mentions it – definitely in the comics, I’m not sure about the show though. Crazy what you pick up from pop culture!
RE: Fact #15 (Radioactive Capsule Causes Deaths) – Our local vet clinic had an old, busted X-ray machine they couldn’t get rid of ages ago. They just left it outside, and poof—it disappeared. I figured something like that would happen sooner or later.
RE: Fact #13 (Drinking Contest Turns Deadly) – That funeral was intense! Wow.
RE: Fact #2 (Deadlift Champion’s Tragic Death) – He had a congenital heart defect.
Deadlifting can be rough on your heart, apparently. A Yale study found that intense weightlifting can be dangerous for some people, even deadly. They’ve seen a bunch of cases where people, often younger and healthy, tore their aorta after heavy lifting. A lot of these folks had an enlarged aorta they didn’t know about. The study suggests the pressure from heavy lifting caused the tear. So, if you’re planning on lifting really heavy weights, maybe get checked out first.
Man, heavy lifting really takes a toll on you, not just deadlifts.
RE: Fact #7 (Opium Enema Irony Death) – Whoa, I didn’t expect that ending!
He had a thing for opium, shooting it up his butt. That makes his other opinions pretty weird, huh?
I’ve met some people who are super picky about their food—always talking about healthy eating—but they’re totally fine with using recreational drugs.
He didn’t either!
Maybe he saw it going in because it was an enema.
RE: Fact #6 (Lighthouse Collapse Claims Builder) – The trouble is, we always name these storms afterward. Wouldn’t it be better to call “The Great Storm of 1703” way back in 1690s and give folks a heads-up?
I’ve been jokingly calling his lighthouse “The Lighthouse that kills Winstantley Instantly,” and now I feel kinda bad he doesn’t know. Maybe it would’ve changed how he did things.
Ha, I was calling Eddystone Rocks, where the lighthouse sits, “Winstantly’s Future Tomb.”
Guess nobody ever told him, huh?
RE: Fact #29 (Couple Dies During Car Sex) – That’s a pretty messed up way to go.
RE: Fact #37 (Jean-Baptiste Lully ) – That’s a bummer of a story. In 1687, Jean-Baptiste Lully, while conducting a Te Deum, accidentally whacked himself in the foot with his baton. The injury got really bad, but he wouldn’t let them amputate his leg—said he’d rather die than not be able to dance anymore. The infection spread, and he died a couple of months later. Later on, he was even called the “Prince of French musicians”! There’s a bit in the movie *Le Roi Danse* that shows how he died.
RE: Fact #42 (Fatal Pet Cassowary Attack) – Florida man, or just plain clueless about keeping a half-dinosaur as a pet?
A 75-year-old Florida man who raised a cassowary got killed by it in April 2019. He apparently fell, and the bird attacked him.
He had a real-life Jurassic Park going on.
RE: Fact #22 (Jousting Accident Kills King) – It’s kinda like why dueling died out. Too many young officers were getting killed over stupid arguments, and nobody wants their kids to die, so it just stopped being a thing.
Pistols got a lot better at hitting their target once they started using rifled barrels and shaped bullets. Before that, with those old flintlocks and round balls, you couldn’t hit the side of a barn.
Governments tried to ban it, but it just died out on its own. People finally realized it was silly to die for “honor”.
It’s good to see people ditching that toxic macho nonsense.
RE: Fact #5 (Jaws Actor’s Sudden Passing) – Imagine just dropping dead one day, out of the blue.
Facing death anyway, a quick, painless end sounds pretty good compared to other options.
RE: Fact #26 (Knife Accident During Car Crash) – That’s a weird circular thing. If he hadn’t been messing around with that protein powder and a knife, he wouldn’t have crashed, but then again, he wouldn’t have been in the car in the first place.
RE: Fact #5 (Jaws Actor’s Sudden Passing) – Seriously, I had no idea Quint was only in his forties! He totally nailed that ancient sailor vibe. Amazing acting.
He passed away just three years after the film was released.
That’s a bummer.
RE: Fact #19 (President’s Fatal Cherry Overdose) – Not iced milk? They didn’t pasteurize milk back in 1850.
And the water? Ugh, the water was terrible back then.
Seriously, the bad water at the White House might have made four presidents sick.
RE: Fact #49 (Mathematician Killed in Duel) – He turned 20, and that’s reason enough, really.
RE: Fact #19 (President’s Fatal Cherry Overdose) – The problem wasn’t so much *what* he ate, but *where* he ate it – a city picnic with exposed sewage. Milk and cherries are fine, but not with a side of poop.
RE: Fact #19 (President’s Fatal Cherry Overdose) – Skip the extra click – cholera morbus was just a catch-all term for stomach problems back then. Nobody knows for sure what killed him.
We’d just say it’s a nasty stomach bug now. Probably not the cherries though.
Ever eaten a ton of cherries? They’ll really mess you up, it’s like eating a whole bunch of prunes. Been there, done that, way too many times.
We’re calling it “cholera morbin time”.
It’s unclear, but DC’s water had tons of poop in it back then. That probably killed Harrison, too. They didn’t really know about all the germs in water back then, but drinking water full of poop couldn’t have been healthy.
RE: Fact #20 (Woman Dies Twice at Funeral) – I’m curious if they had to issue a new death certificate for her.
Imagine her headstone: Jane Doe, August 17, 1962 – September 19, 2011; September 22, 2011 – September 22, 2011. It’d make people think, huh?
RE: Fact #33 (Bonfire Collapse Kills Students) – Man, this’ll probably get buried, but my buddy Chad Powell from high school was one of the victims. He was such an awesome guy—church friend, valedictorian, super smart and ambitious, and just a really kind, fun person. He had his whole life ahead of him.
Hearing the news in college really hit me hard. I still think about him and his family every year, especially around bonfire time, and whereever the story pops up.
I always like to share his story when it comes up because he deserves to be remembered. Crazy to think it’s been that long ago.
Sending love to his family and friends.
I knew Chris Breen. He graduated in ’97 and died in the collapse. We worked together one summer, but I knew him for a few years before that. I feel the same way you do—he was a great guy, and I mention him so people remember him.
RE: Fact #26 (Knife Accident During Car Crash) – So many bizarre choices led to that awful conclusion. And to top it off, he even borrowed his friend’s toe knife!
Toe knife? Whoa.
That’s why I only eat cereal in the car.
RE: Fact #16 (Color Powder Party Disaster) – Forty seconds? That’s a long time to be on fire.
Burning to death takes way longer than you’d think—around 45 minutes on average, regardless of how long the fire itself lasts. That’s terrifying, huh?
I saw the video. It was straight out of Dante’s Inferno, like, actual hell.
If you don’t want to see it:
At first, nothing much. Just techno music and flashing lights. People dancing, having fun. Then you hear the whoosh of those air cannons shooting out colored powder. Bright colors, pretty cool.
Then, fire starts on the left, and boom, the whole dance floor’s on fire.
Blurry orange figures heading for the exits. Everything’s burning. You can’t even see a background, it’s just fire. The air itself is on fire. Engulfed doesn’t even begin to cover it; they’re drowning in flames. Weirdly, they’re not running around frantically, just walking quickly toward the exits, like they’re in a hurry, not being burned alive. The cameraman’s totally freaked out—he doesn’t speak English, but he keeps saying “Whoa,” so you get the idea. The music’s still playing, almost drowned out by screams.
RE: Fact #3 (Death by Excessive Laughter) – Michael Palin Centre for Stammering is actually a real thing, helping people in the UK.
Scatman John’s famous song “Scatman” was actually about his stutter. It’s pretty weird, but lots of people find they can’t stutter when they sing.
RE: Fact #35 (Bus Stopped on Train Tracks) – I remember this one time, my bus driver backed right onto the train tracks after picking me and my mom up – it was crazy! No lights, no signs, and the driver couldn’t even see if a train was coming because of all the plants. My mom even used old railroad ties to block the road, but the driver had us kids move them so she could back up! She didn’t drive that route again after my mom called the school.
Seriously? She was backing onto the tracks to turn around? That’s crazy!
So, my street was a dead end, right? Train tracks ran along it, and there was this little bit of pavement where a house used to be, across the tracks. My bus driver would go just past the pavement and back up onto it to turn around, because there was no other way out. It’s a one-lane gravel road. The next bus driver just used our driveway to turn around.
RE: Fact #18 (Flat-Earther Dies Testing Theory) – He died doing his thing, even though he clearly didn’t know much science.
Seriously, I can’t wrap my head around flat-earthers. Check out the Netflix doc “Behind the Curve”—they totally disprove themselves, and still believe they’re right!
RE: Fact #30 (Writer Dies by Starvation) – The story goes that he met some whacko priest who convinced him he was a terrible sinner, so he burned his masterpiece and starved himself to try and atone. But some think he actually had pancreatic cancer. It’s tricky, though, because he was a total nervous wreck his whole life—hard to say what was real and what was all in his head. He might even have been a bit crazy, too.
Maybe he wasn’t psychotic, maybe he was. But seriously, have you *read* his stories? Psychotic is a massive understatement.
RE: Fact #4 (Firework Stunt Turns Fatal) – He wasn’t rushed to the hospital.
Man, that must have been intense.
Man, imagine finding your brother like that – totally gone, blown to smithereens. Brutal.
A friend of mine lost her brother to suicide—it was rough on her.
That poor mom says he claimed it was a dud, but he lit it, so he probably wasn’t being truthful.
Nah, probably didn’t go off right away ’cause it was loaded upside down. He figured it was a dud, moved it, boom.
RE: Fact #40 (Nobles Die in Latrine Collapse) – That church probably stunk.
RE: Fact #40 (Nobles Die in Latrine Collapse) – God works in strange ways.
Sometimes using the bathroom.
RE: Fact #35 (Bus Stopped on Train Tracks) – I drove a bus there about five years ago. They showed us a film – this woman pulls up, car’s blocking her, she can’t go anywhere. They basically said, “You’re on a bus, move the cars. Don’t stop near the tracks, period. It’s the company’s problem if there’s damage. You’re driving kids!” I’ll never forget them telling us to just shove other cars aside.
Tons of videos show people blocking train tracks with their cars—because another car’s in the way, or something equally dumb. It’s either panic, plain stupidity, or who knows what, but some drivers are seriously clueless around trains.
So the article says she was at the traffic lights, and nobody was in front of her. The road was too short for a bus to squeeze in between the crossing and the train tracks.
Bus training’s a wild ride. The instructor, this guy with a thick Southern accent, was explaining stopping distances. He showed us pictures of dogs – one far away, one super close. For the first one, he was all, “Yeah, you can stop for that dog.” But the second? He leaned in, real serious, and said, “You’re gonna hit that dog.” I always joke that my CDL is basically a license to run over dogs.
Moose, elk, and people are the only things I’d swerve for. Everything else? It’s getting hit. That possum might mess up your radiator, but that tree won’t care if it ends your day.
RE: Fact #18 (Flat-Earther Dies Testing Theory) – He aimed for 5000 feet, and dropped $18,000 on it? Seriously, aren’t there things that go way higher for practically nothing?
You can’t really control that stuff. Maybe they’re using trick lenses or showing you a fake version on super-high-def screens.
Crazy, right? No flat-earthers seem to own planes or hot air balloons.
RE: Fact #8 (Fatal Beach Sand Collapses) – My friend’s little brother died this way in their backyard when we were in middle school. Brutal.
Yikes, imagine your kid digging a huge hole in the yard, and then—bam!—it becomes their grave. I’d be outta there, far, far away.
RE: Fact #15 (Radioactive Capsule Causes Deaths) – In one such similar incident it ate a huge hole in some dude’s leg and butt in Peru – he kept it in his pocket all day! He ended up losing his leg and died after a brutal year and a half of treatments. It’s crazy they lost one in Australia after all that. Good thing they found it, but that shouldn’t have happened.
So, what caused the Australian one? We don’t have any nuclear stuff here, right?
They were moving it from a Perth mine, and the container came loose – it just bounced out! They found it.
Wow, I didn’t know they’d found it! I saw the BBC story about them losing, but never followed up. Good thing it was found.
They didn’t just lose it, they didn’t even notice for weeks! People and animals could have been killed.
Back in 1987, Brazil had a really bad accident, the Goiania Incident. People broke open a capsule and passed the pieces around. Four people died because of the radiation, and 46 others got sick from it.
RE: Fact #28 (Wind Lifts and Kills Children) – Six kids died. It was a terrible tragedy that should never have happened. I remember that day, I just cried and cried when I heard the news. End-of-school celebrations should be happy, especially so close to Christmas – it’s heartbreaking for those families. Just awful.
RE: Fact #1 (Fatal Spaghetti and Bacteria) – This Belgian guy got sick after eating some pasta. It tasted weird, but he figured it was just the new tomato sauce he added. He went to play sports afterward, but ended up back home 30 minutes later with a killer headache, stomach ache, and throwing up. He was up all night being sick, then his parents found him dead the next morning because he didn’t wake up for school. Tests showed the pasta had tons of bad bacteria, but the sauce was fine. He was a healthy 20-year-old, so it wasn’t your typical food poisoning.
He was sick as a dog for hours and had to run to the bathroom a couple of times — and his parents didn’t know something was wrong?
Wouldn’t throwing up and having the runs for hours leave a ton of clues?
I’ll try it, even if it looks kinda blah. But if it tastes off, it’s going straight in the trash.
Trust your gut; if something feels wrong, it probably is.
When in doubt, chuck it.
Lots of our relatives kicked the bucket before we all learned not to eat rotten food. And this guy just ignores all that?
RE: Fact #12 (Tunnel Secret Ends in Tragedy) – Beckwitt went to great lengths to keep the project under wraps. He even tricked Khafra into thinking they were in Virginia, not Maryland, by making him wear special glasses before a long drive.
Khafra had his phone down there, but Beckwitt faked its location to make it seem like they were in Virginia.
Khafra spent days at a time in the tunnels, eating, sleeping, and, well, you get the picture, all in that space. The tunnels weren’t exactly rough; they had lights, air, and heat.
The entrance was a hole in the basement floor leading to a shaft, then tunnels stretching about 200 feet.
The tunnel slave was another tech guy, a young 21-year-old working on an app for the older, richer tech bro. The older guy offered him extra cash to dig a tunnel. The younger guy, being 21, said yes. He was Black, and his dad called the older guy a racist. The tunnel digger thought the older guy was brilliant, but his notes show he was paranoid about a North Korean nuclear attack. The tunnels even had power outlets and charging stations – the digger used his phone, slept there between work, and kept developing his app. The older guy also lowered down food and stuff. Yeah, they were both into crypto.
The fire started because of a faulty outlet in the basement.
So, they only got caught because of the death. Makes you wonder how many other rich tech bros have secret tunnels nobody knows about. And, wow, digging a tunnel under your house is apparently pretty cheap. This guy wasn’t even super-rich, and it only cost him less than $200,000.
RE: Fact #10 (Cult Leader’s Mummified Demise) – When the police got there, they found Carlson’s body all dried up; it looked like she’d been dead for ages. She was in a sleeping bag, all decked out with Christmas lights, glitter on her face, and her eyes were gone – like some kind of weird shrine. Seven people from the group got charged with messing with a dead body and also child abuse because there were kids in the house. A photo from a while back shows Carlson looking super skinny and sick; her hair was falling out, and her skin was all purplish. She only weighed 75 pounds when she died.
So, the dad had no idea they’d brought her body home. When he found out, he wanted to get his kids out of there right away, but the cult wouldn’t let them go. He had to snatch his kids and run – straight to the cops.
That mom torched their house, and he rescued the kids.
That getaway must have been terrifying. Picture this: he suddenly realizes everyone he knows, his whole crew, is crazy, and his kids might be in real trouble. Whoa.
RE: Fact #12 (Tunnel Secret Ends in Tragedy) – My buddy’s known this guy since he was a kid. From what I heard, Daniel was seriously messed up. Him and his parents were super private, and, get this, he filmed himself torturing animals with a blowtorch. He seemed like the type who could’ve become a mass shooter, except he had money and a good education.
Burning those animals sure makes it look like someone wanted things to get worse, right? I mean, were they really *that* sure about the faulty wiring story? It’s practically impossible to prove they meant to do it, but still… you gotta wonder.
RE: Fact #3 (Death by Excessive Laughter) – Hands down, the funniest movie ever where someone gets squashed by a steamroller.
Ken’s coming to get me! How are you gonna catch me, Ken?
Who set up Roger Rabbit?
Austin Powers?
RE: Fact #1 (Fatal Spaghetti and Bacteria) – Ever been to a buffet? They’re always stirring the food, especially the rice. It’s a health thing—keeps the bacteria from multiplying too fast.
So, is that to keep the temperature even?
Right, and to keep food from hanging out in the danger zone for ages.
My grandpa always warned me against feeding cooked rice or noodles to chickens—it’ll kill ’em.
RE: Fact #14 (Elephant Attack and Funeral Tragedy) – An elephant with a killer memory!
RE: Fact #9 (Toxic Pufferfish Proves Deadly) – Getting drunk to impress friends? Sadly, that’s a really common way to die.
RE: Fact #3 (Death by Excessive Laughter) – We saw it with friends when it first came out, and one of them was pregnant. She laughed so hard and for so long that she went into labor six weeks early – her baby came the next morning!
Yeah, I get it. I still scream “assHOLEEE” when I’m behind the wheel. And I’m always apologizing like that guy John Cleese hanging out the window.
I kinda hoped they named the baby Wanda.
It was a boy.
RE: Fact #11 (Hair-Eating Syndrome Turns Fatal) – So pica.
RE: Fact #36 (Hide-and-Seek Accident Kills Star) – It was charades. She opened a cellar door and tumbled down the stairs.
So, this report says that, for some reason. Everyone else says it was sardines—like, hide-and-seek, but different. Oleg Cassini, who was there, said something like this:
“After dinner, things quieted down, and someone suggested we play sardines—it’s hide-and-seek in the dark. We were just messing around, maybe getting a little handsy… Anyway, I heard a thump, but didn’t think much of it,” Oleg recalled, “until I started looking around and heard groaning. I found a door, opened it, and nearly fell! It was a lower level, kind of like a garage, cement floor, but that first step was a doozy—much bigger than I expected. The groaning was louder now, and sounded bad. I couldn’t find a light, so I called for Tyrone. He came right away, and there was Primula Niven, sprawled out at the bottom of the stairs. She looked pretty out of it.”
RE: Fact #30 (Writer Dies by Starvation) – Dead Souls, his most famous book, goes on and on about food. Seriously, it’s become a meme how much food is in it.
RE: Fact #42 (Fatal Pet Cassowary Attack) – Cassowaries aren’t big fans of people – they’re known for being aggressive and dangerous to both humans and animals. They can jump high and deliver powerful kicks with their sharp claws. But don’t worry too much, deadly attacks are pretty uncommon; only two human deaths have been recorded since 1900. A study looked at 221 attacks, 150 on people. Most of these (75%) involved birds that had been fed by humans. Usually (71%), the cassowary chased or charged; they kicked in about 15% of the attacks. Most attacks (73%) were about food – either the bird was expecting food or trying to snatch it. A smaller number were about defending their food, themselves, or their young. Only one of those 150 attacks resulted in a human death.
For ages, there were these things called Terror Birds— *Phorushacidae* is their fancy name. They were like giant ostriches or cassowaries, only way bigger, faster, and tougher.
Even today, ostriches and cassowaries are seriously powerful birds. Don’t underestimate their kicks; they really pack a wallop!
RE: Fact #26 (Knife Accident During Car Crash) – Seriously, who uses a knife to mix protein powder?
The bottles even have a shaker!
Just give it a good shake, it’ll mix perfectly.
RE: Fact #18 (Flat-Earther Dies Testing Theory) – After he died, his publicist said he wasn’t actually a flat-earther; it was just a fundraising gimmick. He was a thrill-seeker who dreamed of flying his own rocket. o7
I read about this guy a year back. Turns out he wasn’t actually a flat-Earther; he just used those folks to fuel his need for thrills.
I bet that’s most flat-earthers. A few actually believe it, but most are just in it for the attention or laughs.
RE: Fact #2 (Deadlift Champion’s Tragic Death) – Crazy but only 3 winners have died in 47 years! That’s amazing considering how tough it is on the body. Don Reinhoudt was 78 when he passed in 2023, and Geoff Capes just died at 75.
Probably only people with the right genes can handle that kind of training, and those same genes might be what it takes to win.
They say everyone’s equal, right? But look at me, look at Samoa Joe – that’s clearly not true! Normally, wrestling’s a 50/50 shot. But I’m a genetic freak, so your odds of beating me are, at best, 25%. Add Kurt Angle? Your chances plummet. In that three-way match, you’ve got a 33 1/3% chance, but I’ve got a whopping 66 2/3% because Angle knows he can’t beat me, he won’t even try!
So, Joe, you start with your 33 1/3%, subtract my 25%, and you’re left with an 8 1/3% chance of winning. But I’ve got a 75% chance one-on-one, plus my 66 2/3% from the three-way…that’s a 141 2/3% chance of victory for me! The math is undeniable, Joe – you’re facing disaster.
RE: Fact #8 (Fatal Beach Sand Collapses) – Only 15 people died from shark attacks in Australia during that time – wow!
Turns out, fewer people try digging holes in sharks than you might think.
Rookie mistake, beach sand versus an Aussie shark!
RE: Fact #12 (Tunnel Secret Ends in Tragedy) – I’m bursting with questions!
RE: Fact #50 (Dance Camp’s Atomic Fallout Tragedy) – A woman on a farm went blind in one eye – permanently blind – from looking right at a bomb blast. A doorframe saved her other eye. The scientists didn’t bother telling anyone, not even the locals, they were going to set off a bomb, or to get people out of the way.
I’ll skip looking at the eclipse tomorrow. Jeez!
Scientists or the government/military – who was it, really?
RE: Fact #49 (Mathematician Killed in Duel) – Galois theory, a whole branch of math, is actually named after him—it’s all tied to his solution of that problem.
This guy’s the reason modern digital communication works.
So, for those who aren’t familiar with it, Galois theory isn’t some weird, little part of abstract algebra—it’s actually one of the main things that holds it all together.
RE: Fact #45 (Black Licorice Causes Heart Failure) – I’m weird, I guess. I actually like black licorice, black jelly beans, anchovies, squid, blue cheese, Brussels sprouts, cilantro, raw oysters, and pineapple on pizza—though not all together.
And I’ve even tried SPAM lately.
RE: Fact #40 (Nobles Die in Latrine Collapse) – The king was there, but barely made it out alive.
RE: Fact #22 (Jousting Accident Kills King) – A helmet visor’s pretty narrow, but splinters can still get through. Most knights lift their chin at the very last second—they can’t see their opponent, but their eyes are safe.
RE: Fact #24 (Death After Record-Breaking Meal) – She weighed 84 pounds and ate 19 pounds of food—that’s over 22% of her body weight!
Based on their low weight and how much they eat, it sounds like they might have a binge eating problem. That’s really tough.
She scarfed it down sometime between midnight and 4 a.m. She wasn’t feeling good.
Her food choices sounded terrible—two pounds of carrots and a pound of liver? Seriously? If I’m ever on my deathbed, I’m going out with five large pizzas.
RE: Fact #33 (Bonfire Collapse Kills Students) – They still have the bonfire every year, just not through the university.
RE: Fact #7 (Opium Enema Irony Death) – I’ll never touch the stuff!
If he’s still kicking, he’s still a real mess.