This is a list of unusual deaths. This list only includes unique or extremely rare circumstances of death recorded throughout history, noted as being unusual by multiple sources. Note: some of the deaths are mythological or are considered to be unsubstantiated by contemporary researchers. Oxford Dictionaries defines the word "unusual" as "not habitually or commonly occurring or done" and "remarkable or interesting because different from or better than others."[1]
c. 620 BC: Draco, Athenian law-maker, was smothered to death by gifts of cloaks and hats showered upon him by appreciative citizens at a theatre on Aegina.[3][4]
564 BC: Arrhichion of Phigalia, Greek pankratiast, caused his own death during the Olympic finals. Held by his unidentified opponent in a stranglehold and unable to free himself, Arrichion's trainer shouted "What a fine funeral if you do not submit at Olympia!" Arrichion then kicked his opponent with his right foot while casting his body to the left, causing his opponent so much pain that he made the sign of defeat to the umpires, while at the same time breaking Arrichion's own neck as the other fighter was still strangleholding him. Since the opponent had conceded defeat, Arrichion was proclaimed victor posthumously.[5][6]
455 BC: Aeschylus, the great Athenian author of tragedies. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed by a tortoise dropped by an eagle that had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell of the reptile. Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avert a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object.[7][8][9]
270 BC: Philitas of Cos, Greek intellectual, is said by Athenaeus to have studied arguments and erroneous word usage so intensely that he wasted away and starved to death.[12] British classicist Alan Cameron speculates that Philitas died from a wasting disease which his contemporaries joked was caused by his pedantry.[13]
206 BC: One ancient account of the death of Chrysippus, the 3rd century BC GreekStoic philosopher, tells that he died of laughter after he saw a donkey eating his figs; he told a slave to give the donkey neat wine to drink to wash them down with, and then, '...having laughed too much, he died' (Diogenes Laertius 7.185).[17][18]
258 AD: The deaconSaint Lawrence was roasted alive on a giant grill during the persecution of Valerian.[19][20]Prudentius tells that he joked with his tormentors, "Turn me over — I'm done on this side".[21] He is now the patron saint of cooks and firefighters.[22]
The stoic Chrysippus who is said to have died of laughter when a donkey ate his figs.
Greek intellectual Philitas of Cos, said to have studied arguments and erroneous word usage so intensely that he wasted away and starved to death.[12]
1327: Edward II of England, after being deposed and imprisoned by his wifeIsabella and her lover Roger Mortimer, was rumoured to have been murdered by having a horn pushed into his anus through which a red-hot iron was inserted, burning out his internal organs without marking his body.[23][24] However there is no real academic consensus on the manner of Edward II's death and it has been plausibly argued that the story is propaganda.[25]
1567: Hans Steininger, the burgomaster of Braunau (then Bavaria, now Austria), died when he broke his neck by tripping over his own beard.[26] The beard, which was 4.5 feet (1.4 m) long at the time, was usually kept rolled up in a leather pouch.[27]
1771: Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden, died of digestion problems on 12 February 1771 after having consumed a meal of lobster, caviar, sauerkraut, smoked herring and champagne, topped off with 14 servings of his favourite dessert: semla served in a bowl of hot milk.[33] He is thus remembered by Swedish schoolchildren as "the king who ate himself to death."[34]
1871: Clement Vallandigham, a lawyer and Ohio, U.S., politician defending a man on a charge of murder, accidentally shot himself demonstrating how the victim might have shot himself while in the process of drawing a weapon when standing from a kneeling position. Though the defendant, Thomas McGehan, was ultimately cleared, Vallandigham died from his wound.[37][38]
Isadora Duncan, dancer, died when her long scarf caught on the wheel of a car, breaking her neck.
1926: Phillip McClean, 16, from Queensland, Australia, became the only person documented to have been killed by a cassowary. After encountering the bird on their family property near Mossman in April,[41] McClean and his brother decided to kill it with clubs. When McClean struck the bird, it knocked him down, then kicked him in the neck, opening a 1.25 cm (0.5 in) long cut in one of his main blood vessels. Though the boy managed to get back on his feet and run away, he collapsed a short while later and died from the hemorrhage.[42]
1926: Harry Houdini, the famous American escape artist, was punched in the stomach by an amateur boxer. Though Houdini had performed this stunt before, he was not prepared for the punch and complications from this injury may have caused him to die days later, on 31 October 1926. It was later determined that Houdini died of a ruptured appendix,[43] though it is contested as to whether or not the punches actually caused the appendicitis.[44][45]
1927: Isadora Duncan, dancer, died of a broken neck when her long scarf caught on the wheel of a car in which she was a passenger.[46]
1958: Gareth Jones, actor, collapsed and died between scenes of a live television play, Underground, at the studios of Associated British Corporation in Manchester, England. Director Ted Kotcheff continued the play to its conclusion, improvising around Jones's absence. Coincidentally, Jones's character was to have a heart-attack, which is what Jones suffered and died of.[47][48]
1961: U.S. Army Specialists John A. Byrnes and Richard Leroy McKinley and Navy Electrician's Mate Richard C. Legg were killed by a water hammer explosion during maintenance on the SL-1 nuclear reactor in Idaho.[49][50][51][52][53]
1966: Skydiver Nick Piantanida died from the effects of uncontrolled decompression four months after an attempt to break the world record for the highest parachute jump. During his third attempt, his face mask came loose (or he possibly opened it by mistake), causing loss of air pressure and irreversible brain damage.[54][55]
1974: Basil Brown, a 48-year-old health food advocate from Croydon, England, drank himself to death by consuming 10 gallons (37.85 litres) of carrot juice in ten days, causing him to overdose on vitamin A and suffer severe liver damage.[57][58]
1977: Tom Pryce, a Welsh Formula 1 driver, was killed when struck on the head by a fire extinguisher when his car hit and killed a marshal at 170 mph who was running across the Kyalami race track to extinguish a burning car.[59][60][61][62]
1978: Kurt Gödel, the Austrian/American logician and mathematician, died of starvation when his wife was hospitalized. Gödel suffered from extreme paranoia and refused to eat food prepared by anyone else.[63]
1979: Robert Williams, a worker at a Ford Motor Co. plant, was the first known human to be killed by a robot,[64] after the arm of a one-ton factory robot hit him in the head.[65]
1979: John Bowen, a 20-year-old from Nashua, New Hampshire, U.S., was attending a New York Jets football game at Shea Stadium on 9 December. During a half-time show event featuring custom-made remote control flying machines, a 40-pound model plane shaped like a lawnmower accidentally dove into the stands, striking Bowen and another spectator, causing severe head injuries. Bowen died in the hospital four days later.[66][67]
1981: David Allen Kirwan, a 24-year-old, died from third-degree burns after attempting to rescue a friend's dog from the 200 °F (93 °C) water in Celestine Pool, a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park on 20 July 1981.[68][69]
1981: Boris Sagal, a film director, died while shooting the TV miniseries World War III when he walked into the tail rotor blade of a helicopter and was nearly decapitated.[70][71]
1982: David Grundman was killed near Lake Pleasant, Arizona, U.S., while shooting at cacti with his shotgun. After he fired several shots at a 26 ft (8 m) tall Saguaro Cactus from extremely close range, a 4 ft (1.2 m) limb of the cactus detached and fell on him, crushing him.[71][72][73]
1993: Garry Hoy, a 38-year-old lawyer in Toronto, Canada, fell to his death on 9 July 1993, after he threw himself against a window on the 24th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Centre in an attempt to prove to a group of visitors that the glass was "unbreakable," a demonstration he had done many times before. The glass did not break, but popped out of the window frame, causing Hoy to plummet 24 stories to his death.[76][77]
1997: Karen Wetterhahn, a professor of chemistry at Dartmouth College, died of mercury poisoning ten months after a few drops of dimethylmercury landed on her protective gloves. Although Wetterhahn had been following the required procedures for handling the chemical, it still permeated her gloves and skin within seconds. As a result of her death, regulations were altered.[78][79]
1999: Jon Desborough, a physical education teacher at Liverpool College, died when he slipped and fell onto the blunt end of a javelin he was retrieving. The javelin passed through his eye socket and into his brain, causing severe brain damage and putting him into a coma. He died a month later.[80][81]
2001: Diana Dick, a retired Oxford University teacher was killed by a domestic house cat. The cat scratched her leg, opening a varicose vein, and she bled to death. [82]
2007: Humberto Hernandez, a 24-year-old Oakland, California, U.S., resident, was killed after being struck in the face by an airborne fire hydrant while walking. A passing car had struck the fire hydrant and the water pressure shot the hydrant at Hernandez with enough force to kill him.[85][86][87]
2008: David Phyall, 50, the last resident in a block of flats due to be demolished in Bishopstoke, near Southampton, Hampshire, England, decapitated himself with a chainsaw to highlight the injustice of being forced to move out.[88][89]
2009: Taylor Mitchell, a Canadian folk singer, was attacked and killed by three coyotes, the only recorded adult person to have been killed by this species.[90][91]
2010: Mike Edwards, British founding member and cellist for the band ELO, died when a large round bale of hay rolled down a hill and smashed his van while he was out driving.[45][92][93]
2011: Jose Luis Ochoa, 35, died after being stabbed in the leg at an illegal cockfight in Tulare County, California U.S., by one of the birds that had a knife attached to its limb.[94][95]
2012: Edward Archbold, 32, a man of West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., died after winning a cockroach eating contest. The cause of death was determined to be accidental choking due to "arthropod body parts."[96][97]
2013: Takuya Nagaya, 23, from Japan, started to slither on the floor and talk about becoming a snake. His mother took this to mean that he had been possessed by a snake demon and called for her husband, 53-year-old Katsumi Nagaya, who spent the next two days physically beating his son in an attempt to exorcise the demon. This killed Takuya.[98]
2013: An unnamed Belarusian fisherman, 60, was killed by a beaver while attempting to grab the animal to have his picture taken with it. The beaver bit the man, severing a large artery in his leg.[99][100][101]
2013: João Maria de Souza, 45, of Caratinga, Brazil, was killed while asleep, by a cow that fell through the roof of his house onto his bed.[102]
2013: Kendrick Johnson, 17, of Lowndes High School, Georgia, was discovered trapped upside down in a rolled up gym mat in his high school gymnasium. Police had originally ruled that the cause of Johnson's death was accidental positional asphyxiation after he climbed in to retrieve a shoe and became trapped. The case has since been reopened and investigated as a possible homicide.[103][104][105][106]
2014: Oscar Otero Aguilar, 21, of Mexico City, Mexico, accidentally shot himself in the head while posing for a “selfie” with a loaded gun.[107]
2014: Peng Fan, a chef in Foshan, Southern China, was bitten by a cobra's severed head, which he had cut off 20 minutes prior. Fan had set the head aside while using the body to prepare a soup.[108] According to investigating police, the case was "highly unusual". The chef might have had a severe reaction to the bite.[109]
^Ursula Hoff (1938). "Meditation in Solitude". Journal of the Warburg Institute (The Warburg Institute) 1 (44): 292–294. doi:10.2307/749994. JSTOR749994
^Suidas. "Δράκων", Suda On Line, Adler number delta, 1495.
^Bruce Felton, Mark Fowler (1985). "Most Unusual Death". Felton & Fowler's Best, Worst, and Most Unusual. Random House. p. 161. ISBN9780517462973
^Brett Matlock, Jesse Matlock (2011). "The Salt Lake Loonie". University of Regina Press. p. 81
^EN Gardiner (1906). "The Journal of Hellenic Studies". Nature124 (3117): 121. Bibcode:1929Natur.124..121. doi:10.1038/124121a0. "Fatal accidents did occur as in the case of Arrhichion, but they were very rare..."
^J. C. McKeown (2013), A Cabinet of Greek Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the Cradle of Western Civilization, Oxford University Press, p. 136, ISBN9780199982103, "The unusual nature of Aeschylus's death..."
^La tortue d'Eschyle et autres morts stupides de l'Histoire, Editions Les Arènes, 2012, ISBN9782352042211
^Jamie Frater (2010). "10 truly bizarre deaths". Listverse.Com's Ultimate Book of Bizarre Lists. Ulysses Press. pp. 12–14. ISBN9781569758175
^J. C. McKeown (2013). A Cabinet of Greek Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the Cradle of Western Civilization. Oxford University Press. p. 102. ISBN9780199982127. "Ctesias, the Greek physician to Artaxerxes, the king of Persia, gives an appallingly detailed description of the execution inflicted on a soldier named Mithridates, who was misguided enough to claim the credit for killing the king's brother, Cyrus..."
^Laertius, Diogenes (1964-5). Lives, Teachings and Sayings of the Eminent Philosophers, with an English translation by R.D. Hicks. Cambridge, Mass/London: Harvard UP/W. Heinemann Ltd.Check date values in: |date= (help)
^Riginos, Alice Swift (1976). Platonica. Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition. p. 195. ISBN90 04 04565 1.
^Christensen, Liana (2011). Deadly Beautiful: Vanishing Killers of the Animal Kingdom. Wollombi, NSW: Exisle Publishing. p. 272. ISBN9781921497223.
^Kofron, Christopher P., Chapman, Angela. (2006) "Causes of mortality to the endangered Southern Cassowary Casuarius casuariusjohnsonii in Queensland, Australia." Pacific Conservation Biology vol. 12: 175–179
^Ryan, Craig (2003). Magnificent Failure: Free Fall from the Edge of Space. Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Press. ISBN978-1-58834-141-9. OCLC51059086.
^Cynthia Ceilán (2007), Thinning the Herd: Tales of the Weirdly Departed, Globe Pequot, p. 185, ISBN9781599216911
^James Roberts (4 March 2012), The tragedy of Tom Pryce, Wales' Formula One hero, BBC Wales, "one of the most bizarre, tragic accidents in the sport's history"
^Strange Deaths: More Than 375 Freakish Fatalites, 2000, ISBN0760719470
^Toates, Frederick; Olga Coschug Toates (2002). Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: Practical Tried-and-Tested Strategies to Overcome OCD. Class Publishing, 221. ISBN 978-1-85959-069-0.
^Robot firm liable in death, Tim Kiska, The Oregonian, 11 August 1983.
^Giertsen JC, Sandstad E, Morild I, Bang G, Bjersand AJ, Eidsvik S (June 1988). "An explosive decompression accident". American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology9 (2): 94–101. doi:10.1097/00000433-198806000-00002. PMID3381801.
^Lomax, Sophie (Monday 30 July 10.28 EDT). "Retired teacher bleeds to death from cat scratch". theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media. Retrieved 30 September 2014. "A retired Oxford University tutor bled to death after her Persian cat scratched a varicose vein on her leg. Diana Dick died on Saturday after her carer was unable to staunch a cut caused by the animal. Paramedics answering a call from the widow's carer found Mrs Dick, a former language teacher, collapsed over her living room table. The carer had reportedly tried to stem the flow of blood earlier in the day after Mrs Dick's cat, Frangipani, scratched a vein. Neighbours said the carer had attempted to resuscitate Mrs Dick, 60, who lived alone in in Botley, Oxford."Check date values in: |date= (help)
