Morbid as it may seem but eventually all of us will come to pass yet there are some who did go the unique or bizarre way. These are just some of these unique or extremely rare circumstances of death recorded throughout history and noted as being unusual by multiple sources.
Ancient Times
According to Judges 4–5, the commander of the Canaanite army for King Jabin of Hazor was killed in his sleep when the Kenite woman Jael stabbed him in the temple with a tent peg.
Date of Death: 1200 or 1235 BC
The king of Shechem and son of Gideon was killed in the city of Thebez by a woman who threw a millstone on his head which crushed his skull or mortally wounded him.
Date of Death: 1126 BC
The Chinese ruler was warned by a shaman that he would not live to see or eat the new wheat harvest, to which he responded by executing the shaman on the day of the harvest. However, when the duke was about to eat the wheat, he felt the need to visit the bathroom, where he fell through the hole and drowned.
Date of Death: 581 BC
The corrupt Persian judge was killed and flayed alive by Cambyses II for accepting a bribe.
Date of Death: 525 BC
The ruler of the Achaemenid Empire was captured by his half-brother Ochus, who had him executed by being suffocated by ash.
Date of Death: 423 BC
The Thessalian pankratiast, who won in the 93rd Olympiad (408 BC), was in a cave with friends when the roof began to crumble. Believing his immense strength could prevent the cave-in, he tried to support the roof with his shoulders as the rocks crashed down around him but was crushed to death.
Date of Death: 5th century BC
According to Diogenes Laertius, Anaxarchus gained the enmity of the tyrannical ruler of Cyprus, Nicocreon, for an inappropriate joke he made about tyrants at a banquet in 331 BC. When Anaxarchus visited Cyprus, Nicocreon ordered him to be pounded to death in a mortar. During the torture, Anaxarchus said to Nicocreon, "Just pound the bag of Anaxarchus, you do not pound Anaxarchus." Nicocreon then threatened to cut his tongue out; Anaxarchus bit it off and spat it at the ruler's face.
Date of Death: 320 BC
King Wu of Qin
The king and member of the Qin dynasty reportedly challenged his friend Meng Yue to a lifting contest. When Wu tried to lift a giant bronze pot believed to have been cast for Yu the Great, it crushed his leg, inflicting fatal injuries. Meng Yue and his family were sentenced to death.
Date of Death: 307 BC
During the Battle of Argos, Pyrrhus was fighting a Macedonian soldier in the street when the elderly mother of the soldier dropped a roof tile onto Pyrrhus' head, breaking his spine and rendering him paralyzed. According to a soldier named Zopyrus, they then proceeded to decapitate the king.
Date of Death: 272 BC
Quintus Lutatius Catulus
After his former comrade-in-arms Gaius Marius took control of Rome and had him prosecuted for a capital offense, the Roman Republic consul shut himself inside his house, which was heated to a high temperature and daubed with lime, thus suffocating himself.
Date of Death: 87 BC
Although there exist several accounts of how the 39-year-old last queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom died, the most widespread one is that she killed herself with an asp (a viper), alongside two of her handmaidens.
Date of Death: August 30 BC
When Nero ordered his execution, the apostle of Jesus requested to be crucified upside down, as he considered himself unworthy to die in the same way Jesus had.
Date of Death: 64 - 68 AD
The pious schoolteacher was sentenced to death by Julian the Apostate and was handed over to his pupils to carry out the deed, which they did by binding him to a stake and stabbing him with their pens.
Date of Death: August 13, 363 AD
Attila
Attila the Hun reportedly died on his wedding night by choking on his own blood, which flowed into his mouth from a nosebleed.
Date of Death: circa 453 AD
Middle Ages
Li Bai
According to popular legend, the Chinese poet got drunk while riding his boat along the Yangtze River and tried to hug the moon's reflection. He then fell off and drowned.
Date of Death: 762 AD
Hatto II
The archbishop of Mainz is claimed in legend to have been punished for his cruelty to the poor by being eaten alive by rodents.
Date of Death: January 18, 970 AD
Pope Adrian IV
The only Englishman to serve as Pope reportedly died after choking on a fly while drinking spring water.
Date of Death: September 1, 1159
Frederick Barbarossa
While leading the German army on the Third Crusade, the Holy Roman Emperor unexpectedly drowned while bathing in the Saleph.
Date of Death: June 10, 1190
Renaissance
Amy Robsart
The 28-year-old wife of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester was found dead by a staircase with two wounds on her head and a broken neck. Theories suggest she threw herself down the stairs.
Date of Death: September 8, 1560
Victims of the Black Assize of Oxford 1577
In Oxford, England, at least 300 people, including Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer Sir Robert Bell and Serjeant Nicholas Barham, died in the aftermath of the trial of Rowland Jenkes, a Catholic bookseller convicted of distributing pamphlets defaming Queen Elizabeth I, at the assize at Oxford. The dead reportedly included no women or children.
Date of Death: July 1577
Mary, Queen of Scots
The 44-year-old queen of Scotland was told that she was to be executed for plotting the assassination of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. However, when the executioner, only known as Bull, prepared to chop off her head with an axe, the first blow did not kill Mary. It only hit her head. The second blow severed her neck, but the tendon was still left. The executioner later pulled off Mary's head only to reveal that her hair was a wig.
Date of Death: February 8, 1587
Andrew Perne
The Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University and Dean of Ely was known for his frequent religious conversions to match the established faith of the time in England. He reportedly died due to having heard the jester of Queen Elizabeth I make a joke about his uncertain spiritual state, referring to him as "one that is neither heaven nor earth, but hangs betwixt both".
Date of Death: April 26, 1589
Early Modern Period
Sir Francis Bacon
The English philosopher and statesman died of pneumonia after stuffing a chicken carcass with snow to learn whether it could preserve meat.
Date of Death: April 9, 1626
Jörg Jenatsch
The Swiss political leader was assassinated by a person dressed in a bear costume wielding an axe. Legend states that the axe was the same one that Jenatsch had once used to kill a rival.
Date of Death: January 24, 1639
Sir Arthur Aston
During the Siege of Drogheda, the Cavalier commander from Reading, England, was beaten to death by Oliver Cromwell's army with his own wooden leg because they suspected gold coins were concealed inside. It is widely believed that the Parliamentarian soldiers killed Aston by bashing his brains out with his own wooden leg, which they believed concealed gold coins.
Date of Death: September 1649
William III of England
The king of England was riding his horse when it stumbled on a molehill. William fell and broke his collarbone, then contracted pneumonia and died several days later. After he died, Jacobites were said to have toasted in the mole's honor, calling it "the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat".
Date of Death: March 8, 1702
Hannah Twynnoy
The 33-year-old barmaid at the White Lion Inn was mauled to death by a tiger in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. She was the first person to be killed by a tiger in British history.
Date of Death: October 23, 1703
Frederick, Prince of Wales
The son of George II of Great Britain and father of George III died of a pulmonary embolism but was commonly claimed to have been killed by being struck by a cricket ball.
Date of Death: March 31, 1751
Professor Georg Wilhelm Richmann
The Russian physicist was killed when a globe of ball lightning which he created in his laboratory struck him in the forehead.
Date of Death: August 6, 1753
John Day
The English carpenter and wheelwright was the first human known to have died in an accident with a submarine. Day submerged himself in Plymouth Sound in a wooden diving chamber attached to a sloop named the Maria and never resurfaced.
Date of Death: June 20, 1774
Frantisek Kotzwara
While in London, the 31-year-old Czech violinist visited a prostitute named Susannah Hill and requested his neck be tied with a noose around a door knob. He died after the sexual intercourse of erotic asphyxiation.
Date of Death: September 2, 1791
Samuel Spencer
The North Carolina lawyer and former colonel was sleeping on a porch in Anson County while wearing a red cap. Spencer's bobbling head drew the attention of a turkey, which viewed Spencer as another turkey and fatally wounded the 59-year-old with its talons.
Date of Death: March 20, 1793
19th Century
Thomas Millwood
The 32-year-old plasterer was shot and killed by excise officer Francis Smith, who mistook him for the Hammersmith ghost due to his white uniform. Smith was later sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to one year's imprisonment with hard labor, and he received a full pardon later in the year.
Date of Death: January 3, 1804
Victims of the London Beer Flood
At Meux & Co's Horse Shoe Brewery, a 22-foot-tall (6.7 m) wooden vat of fermenting porter burst, causing chain reactions and destroying several large beer barrels. The beer subsequently flooded the nearby slum and killed eight people. Several people also subsequently died from alcohol poisoning as a result of vaporized liquor.
Date of Death: October 17, 1814
William Henry Harrison
The 9th President of the United States died a month after his inauguration from an illness (possibly pneumonia or enteric fever) that developed after he stood in the rain to deliver his 2-hour-long inaugural address, the longest by any U.S. President. Medical treatments Harrison received in the last week of his life included opium, castor oil, and leeches. Harrison remains the U.S. President to have served the shortest term in office and was the first President to die in office.
Date of Death: April 4, 1841
Zachary Taylor
The 12th President of the United States died of diarrhea and dysentery 5 days after consuming raw cherries and iced milk at a 4th of July event at the site of the Washington Monument. Persistent speculation that Taylor was poisoned would lead to the exhumation of some of his remains in 1991, but scientific testing found no evidence of poison.
Date of Death: July 9, 1850
Victims of the 1858 Bradford Sweets Poisoning
In Bradford, England, a batch of sweets accidentally poisoned with arsenic trioxide was sold by William Hardaker, colloquially referred to as "Humbug Billy". Around five boxes of sweets were delivered and sold. Around 20 people died and 200 people suffered from the effects of the poison.
Date of Death: 1858
Jim Creighton
The 21-year-old American baseball player from Manhattan died from abdominal pain, possibly caused by pitching or swinging at the ball, which likely gave him a ruptured bladder or a ruptured hernia.
Date of Death: October 18, 1862
Julius Peter Garesché
The Cuban-born professional soldier was killed on the first day of the Battle of Stones River when a cannonball decapitated him.
Date of Death: December 31, 1862
Unknown Woman
A woman in Gayton le Marsh, Lincolnshire, England, became severely ill and later died after consuming her own hair for 12 years.
Date of Death: 1869
James "Jim" Cullen
The 25-year-old Irish man became the only man ever lynched in Mapleton, Maine, after he committed a robbery and beat two deputy sheriffs to death with an axe.
Date of Death: November 6, 1873
Unknown Man
A factory worker in Manchester found a mouse on her table and screamed. A man rushed over to her and tried to shoo it away, but it tried to hide in his clothes, and when he gasped in surprise the mouse dove into his mouth and he swallowed it. The mouse tore and bit the man's throat and chest, and he later died "in horrible agony".
Date of Death: 1875
Victims of the Dublin Whiskey Fire
At The Liberties, Dublin, Ireland (then part of the United Kingdom), a fire broke out at Laurence Malone's bonded storehouse on the corner of Ardee Street, where 5,000 hogsheads (262,500 imperial gallons or 1,193,000 liters or 315,200 US gallons) of whiskey were being stored. The heat caused the barrels in the storehouse to explode, sending a stream of whiskey flowing through the doors and windows of the burning building. The burning whiskey then flowed along the streets where it quickly demolished a row of small houses. Despite the damage from the fire, all of the resulting 13 fatalities were caused by alcohol poisoning after drinking the undiluted flooded whiskey.
Date of Death: June 18, 1875
James A. Moon
The 37-year-old blacksmith, self-proclaimed inventor, and American Civil War veteran killed himself with a makeshift guillotine.
Date of Death: June 10, 1876
Hague and Another Female Servant
A British servant of one Mr. Birchall was instructed by his master to retrieve a four-chambered pistol. Hague did so, but while examining the gun he shot himself in the jaw, which caused instant death. He was discovered by another servant, who also shot herself demonstrating how Hague died.
October 1881
Samuel Wardell
The lamplighter in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, had attached a 10-pound (4.5 kg) rock to his alarm clock, which would crash to the floor and awaken him. On New Year's Eve, he rearranged his furniture for a party but forgot to change his room back afterward. When the alarm mechanism went off the next morning, the rock fell on his head and killed him.
Date of Death: December 31, 1885
George Murichson
The 8-year-old boy from Aroostook County, Maine, died from a hemorrhage after having a live snake pulled out of his mouth. The snake was speculated to have gone down his throat after he had "gone to sleep in some field".
Date of Death: May 13, 1886
Isaack Rabbanovitch
A bear walked into the barkeep's inn in Vilna, Russia (now part of Lithuania) and picked up a keg of vodka. When he tried to take it back, he was hugged to death by the intoxicated bear along with his two sons and daughter. Villagers shot and killed the bear.
Date of Death: August 1891
Unknown Sailor
A sailor in Bermuda was arguing with other sailors, but the argument turned into a fight and the sailor was pushed into the water. A marine began undressing for a rescue attempt, but an officer ordered him to stop because there was a boat nearby that had ladies on it. As the sailor continued struggling in the water, five men volunteered to save him, but he had already drowned.
Date of Death: 1892
Mary Agnes Lapish
The Australian woman stumbled into a barbed-wire fence, possibly while intoxicated, and was strangled by her fur collar.
Date of Death: April 1893
Jeremiah Haralson
The former United States Congressman from Alabama disappears from the historical record after his 1895 imprisonment for pension fraud in Albany, New York. He was reportedly killed by an unknown animal while coal mining near Denver, Colorado, c. 1916, but there is little or no historical evidence for this.
Date of Death: 1895
Salomon August Andrée, Knut Frænkel, and Nils Strindberg
The group of men died of exhaustion on the island Kvitøya after trying to reach the North Pole by hot air balloon.
Date of Death: October 1897
20th Century
1900 - 1959
Victims of the 1900 English Beer Poisoning
In the English Midlands and North West England, over 6,000 were poisoned and 70 people died after drinking beer that used non-purified sulphuric acid laced with arsenic as an ingredient. Most survivors were paralyzed.
Date of Death: 1900
Jesse William Lazear
The 34-year-old American physician was convinced that mosquitoes were carriers for yellow fever. He allowed himself to be bitten by multiple mosquitoes and died days later from the disease.
Date of Death: September 25, 1900
James Doyle Jr.
The lineworker in Smartsville, California, was killed by an electric shock through a telephone receiver after a broken power line came in contact with the telephone wire.
Date of Death: January 30, 1901
Ed Delahanty
The 35-year-old American baseball player for the Phillies died after being removed from a train due to drunken horseplay, falling off the International Bridge, and going over Niagara Falls. Sam Kingston, a local night watchman, was the last to see him alive, reportedly scuffling with him. Kingston's account of the incident was spotty and inconsistent; it is unclear whether Delahanty was intentionally pushed, accidentally fell, or decided to jump.
Date of Death: July 2, 1903
Mary Ellen Rumble
The daughter of a farmer in Watervale near Murrumburrah in New South Wales was killed when one of a group of horses attempting to escape from a paddock knocked her down, causing her neck to snap.
Date of Death: December 19, 1905
Archibald Anderson
The 19-year-old was bathing in the Yarra River when a tooth plate fell out and got lodged in his throat, choking him to death.
Date of Death: March 4, 1907
Henrietta Sewell
The 73-year-old woman was tripped by two dogs who were chasing each other, causing her to hit her head. Sewell died from a concussion and shock from the incident.
Date of Death: November 7, 1908
Ada Gregory
The 52-year-old widow in Bentleigh, Victoria, who had been suffering from "fits of melancholia", began convulsing after rubbing powder on her teeth and asking her two children to take some medicine, which they did not do. She was believed to have taken strychnine.
Date of Death: June 3, 2010
Emily Davison
On 4 June 1913, the 40-year-old suffragette from London was mortally injured at the Epsom Derby when she ran onto the racetrack wearing a suffragette flag and was run over by Anmer, George V's horse, which jockey Herbert Jones was riding. She suffered a fractured skull, a concussion, and internal injuries and died in the Epsom Cottage Hospital 4 days later.
Date of Death: June 8, 1913
Gustav Kobbé
The 61-year-old author and music critic was sailing in Great South Bay, New York when he noticed a low-flying seaplane heading toward him. Kobbé attempted to get into the water, but the plane crashed into the mast of Kobbé's boat, splitting his head open.
Date of Death: July 27, 1918
Victims of the Great Molasses Flood
21 people were killed and 150 injured after a large tank of molasses burst in Boston's North End.
Date of Death: January 15, 1919
Dan Andersson
The 32-year-old Swedish poet died from hydrogen cyanide left in his Hotel Hellman room by a lice, flea, and bed bug extermination.
Date of Death: September 16, 1920
Michael F. Farley
The 58-year-old U.S. Representative and Gore–McLemore resolution supporter died of anthrax he contracted from his shaving brush.
Date of Death: October 8, 1921
Mrs. W.C. Eckersley
The woman from Glen Innes, New South Wales, was found drowned in a cask of water. It was surmised that she was leaning over the cask when she suddenly fainted and fell into it.
Date of Death: November 25, 1922
Mr. and Mrs. Earl J. Dunn
While attempting to turn around at Grand View in Yellowstone National Park, the Dunns somehow backed their car over a cliff, despite a tree barrier that would normally have made this impossible. The vehicle fell 800 feet (240 m) and then rolled another 200 feet (61 m).
Date of Death: July 13, 1924
Harry Houdini
The 52-year-old Hungarian-American escape artist, illusionist, and stunt performer reportedly died from a punch from college student J. Gordon Whitehead, which gave him "peritonitis, caused by a ruptured appendix." However, other stories claim he was murdered. Who or what killed Houdini is still under speculation.
Date of Death: October 31, 1926
Alfred Loewenstein
The 51-year-old financier and third-richest man in the world at the time died whilst flying from England to Belgium on his private Fokker F.VII airplane. It is believed he fell out of the aircraft and into the water where he died.
Date of Death: July 4, 1928
William Kogut
The 26-year-old convicted murderer, a death row inmate at San Quentin in California, reportedly committed suicide using a pipe bomb he made with playing cards and a hollow steel leg from his cot.
Date of Death: October 20, 1930
James Leo McDermott
After the 40-year-old deputy sheriff stepped out of his car at an oil station, the vehicle began to roll forward, and he attempted to hop onto the car's running board to stop it. It carried him forward and slammed him into a hook used to hold air and water hoses, which impaled him just below the heart.
Date of Death: August 26, 1931
Michael Malloy
Five people, called the "Murder Trust," planned to kill Malloy for life insurance. Over the course of two months, they added antifreeze, turpentine, horse liniment, and finally rat poison in his alcohol, but Malloy drank it with no problems whatsoever. They then tried feeding him wood alcohol, expired oysters, and then a sandwich made of expired sardines and shrapnel, none of which had the desired effect. The group then tried to freeze him to death, and when that failed they ran him over twice with a taxi, from which Malloy recovered. Finally, they connected a hose to a coal gas jet and placed it in his mouth, which caused his death from carbon monoxide poisoning. Malloy was given nicknames such as "Mike the Durable", "Iron Mike", and "The Irish Rasputin".
Date of Death: February 22, 1933
Susan Grace Kelly
The 80-year-old woman in Armidale, New South Wales, was sitting with her daughter when she fell back dead after hearing a loud clap of thunder. Her last words were, "That was very close."
Date of Death: January 16, 1935
Catherine Steyer
The 33-year-old hatcheck girl was accidentally electrocuted by a homemade booby trap, consisting of powered wires hidden within drapes, that her fiance had installed after her apartment was broken into a few months prior. Falling onto one wire, with another dangling above her arm, she completed the circuit each time the dangling wire touched her; she died slowly from the repeating doses of electricity
Date of Death: January 20, 1937
Fred Clapp
A 77-year-old farmer from Clark County, South Dakota, died after being dragged by a bundle of horses while being tied to the harness.
Date of Death: May 28, 1937
Benjamin Taylor
During a carbuncle removal operation, an electric cautery ignited gases from the patient's lungs. This caused an explosion which killed Taylor and injured two nurses.
Date of Death: June 2, 1937
Italo Balbo
The 44-year-old governor of Italian Libya was flying his personal Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 when the Libyan airfield at Tobruk was attacked by a squad of British planes. He was killed by friendly fire from Italian anti-aircraft batteries on the ground.
Date of Death: June 28, 1940
Leon Trotsky
The 60-year-old Russian socialist and revolutionary was murdered in his villa in Mexico by Spanish-born NKVD agent Ramón Mercader with an ice axe.
Date: August 21, 1940
Jack Budlong
The friend of Errol Flynn was working as an extra on the film They Died with Their Boots On, starring Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Budlong insisted on using a real saber rather than a prop one. While filming a cavalry charge, Budlong's horse was frightened by the sounds of simulated explosions and threw Budlong, causing him to impale himself with the sword.
Date of Death: August 5, 1941
Maj. Kenneth D. McCullar
The 27-year-old member of the 64th Bombardment Squadron was taking off for a night mission in New Guinea when he struck something with his bomber, referred to in reports as a "brush kangaroo" or "baby kangaroo" and later found to be a wallaby. The bomber crashed on takeoff, which detonated its load of bombs, killing McCullar and the rest of the bomber's crew.
Date of Death: April 12, 1943
The hands of Louis Slotin, shortly after admission to the Los Alamos hospital.
Source: Los Alamos National Laboratory, via the New York Public Library
(Paul Mullin papers on the Louis Slotin Sonata).
Louis Slotin
The 35-year-old Canadian physicist and Manhattan Project scientist died as the result of an accident while performing an experiment called "tickling the dragon's tail" with a plutonium core which came to be known as the "demon core". His screwdriver slipped, exposing him to a fatal dose of radiation. Slotin died 9 days later; the other people in the room observing the experiment survived.
Date of Death: May 30, 1946
1960s
Alan Stacey
The 26-year-old British racing driver died in a crash during the 1960 Belgian Grand Prix when a bird struck him in the face. 22-year-old British driver Chris Bristow was killed during the same race.
Date of Death: June 19, 1960
Victor Prather
The 34-year-old U.S. Navy flight surgeon drowned at the end of the record-setting Strato-Lab V balloon flight when he slipped from the rescue sling during recovery operations in the Gulf of Mexico and his pressure suit filled with water.
Date of Death: May 4, 1961
Joseph A. Walker and Carl Cross
Astronaut and NASA test pilot Walker, flying a Lockheed F-104N Starfighter, and North American Aviation test pilot Cross, co-piloting a North American XB-70 Valkyrie bomber, were killed in a mid-air collision during a publicity photo shoot of multiple aircraft with General Electric engines flying in formation near Edwards Air Force Base. With the Valkyrie in a spin, pilot Alvin S. White ejected and survived, but centrifugal force prevented Cross' ejection seat from retracting into the escape capsule.
Date of Death: June 8, 1966
Jayne Mansfield
The 34-year-old American actress and Playboy model died when the driver of her 1966 Buick Electra 225 crashed into a tractor that had abruptly stopped. Her lover and the driver also died, but her children, including Mariska Hargitay, who was 3 years old at the time, survived. Many people speculated that the accident was the result of a Satanic curse.
Date of Death: June 29, 1967
Harold Holt
The 59-year-old Prime Minister of Australia disappeared, presumed drowned, while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea, Victoria. He was "simply one of the number of ordinary Australians who drown each year through poor judgment or bad luck" his drowning has been described as "not unusual", and as "an ordinary death, a shockingly banal one that still befalls dozens every summer." Holt's disappearance gave rise to a variety of unfounded conspiracy theories.
Date of Death: December 17, 1967
Albert Dekker
The 62-year-old American actor and politician was found dead kneeling naked in his bathtub with a noose wrapped around his neck, a dirty hypodermic needle in each arm, a scarf over his eyes, a ball in his mouth secured to his head with wire, his wrists in handcuffs, and leather belts and thongs around his torso, one of them tied to a rope around Dekker's ankles. There were vulgar phrases and drawings in lipstick all over his body. His death was ruled an accidental case of erotic asphyxiation.
Date of Death: May 5, 1968
1970s
Deborah Gail Stone
The 18-year-old hostess for the America Sings attraction at Disneyland mysteriously died after being crushed between two walls around 11:00 p.m. It is speculated that she either fell backwards or tried to jump from one stage to another.
Date of Death: July 8, 1974
Christine Chubbuck
The 29-year-old American news anchor from Hudson, Ohio, killed herself on live television at the start of Suncoast Digest, a local newscast for WXLT-TV in Sarasota, Florida, after reading some of the area's breaking news headlines. Chubbuck was the first person to commit suicide on live television.
Date of Death: July 15, 1974
1980s
Azaria Chamberlain
The 9-week-old from Australia was dragged off and killed by a wild dingo during a family camping trip to Uluru in the Northern Territory. This was the first recorded instance of a dingo killing a human. Azaria's parents, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, received intense media speculation due to the perceived implausibility of a dingo attack; in a highly publicized trial, Lindy was convicted of murder and Michael was named as an accessory. Their convictions were later overturned after Azaria's matinee jacket was discovered in an area with many dingo lairs nearby.
Date of Death: August 17, 1980
John Bjornstad, Forrest Cole, and Nick Mullon
At Kennedy Space Center in Florida, five workers suffered anoxia due to pure nitrogen atmosphere in the aft engine compartment of Space Shuttle Columbia during a countdown demonstration test for the STS-1 mission. 51-year-old John Bjornstad died at the scene; 50-year-old Forrest Cole went into a coma and died two weeks later, and Nick Mullon died 14 years later from complications of injuries sustained.
Date of Death: March 19, April 1, 1981 and April 11, 1995
David Alan Kirwan
The 24-year-old tourist from La Cañada Flintridge, California, jumped into the alkaline (pH 9) and scalding (202 °F (94 °C)) Celestine Pool at Yellowstone National Park to save his friend's dog. The dog died within moments and its body dissolved in the hot spring. Kirwan, blinded and burned over his entire body, was airlifted to Salt Lake City and died the next day.
Date of Death: July 21, 1981
Jason Findley
The 17-year-old, from Piscataway, New Jersey, was electrocuted during a thunderstorm when a lightning strike caused an electrical surge to shoot through the wire of a telephone the boy was holding and enter his left ear, causing his heart to stop beating.
Date of Death: May 21, 1985
Victims of the Lake Nyos Disaster
At Lake Nyos, northwestern Cameroon, a limnic eruption of unknown cause released about 100,000–300,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the lake's bed. The gas cloud initially rose at nearly 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph; 28 m/s) and then, being heavier than air, descended onto nearby villages, suffocating people and livestock within 25 kilometres (16 mi) of the lake, resulting in the death of 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock.
Date of Death: August 21, 1986
1990sJon Desborough
The 41-year-old geography and physical education teacher died due to a chest infection a month after being impaled in the eye with the blunt end of a javelin during an athletics session at the Liverpool College in Mossley Hill, Liverpool. It is believed that he had lost his footing while retrieving the javelin. He remained in a coma until his death.
Date of Death: June 10, 1999
21st Century
2000
Unknown Male
An unnamed Canadian man was visiting his mother's house in order to attend his father's funeral when, whilst cleaning the kitchen, he tripped over the open dishwasher door and was impaled on knives sticking up out of the cutlery tray, the wounds eventually proving fatal.
Date of Death: April 27, 2001
Jane McDonald
While visiting a friend, the 31-year-old slipped and fell onto an open dishwasher, landing on an upright knife. She was taken to a hospital, where she died of her injuries.
Date of Death: May 27, 2003
Rebecca Longhoffer
The 39-year-old tourist, a mother of four, was electrocuted while crossing Las Vegas Boulevard when she stepped on a cast iron plate that covered electrical wiring and was hidden by a deep rain puddle.
Date of Death: August 16, 2003
Chandler Hugh Jackson
The 12-year-old was playing at the Dogwood Hill golf club in Cunningham, Kentucky when he fell on his 9-iron club while retrieving an out-of-bounds ball. The club broke, with a piece of the shaft piercing his aorta through his chest.
Date of Death: July 6, 2005
Jennifer Strange
The 28-year-old mother was participating in a contest sponsored by Sacramento-based radio station KDND, called "Hold Your Wee For A Wii", in which contestants had to drink excessive amounts of water without going to the bathroom. She vomited during the contest and returned home with a headache, later dying of water intoxication.
Date of Death: January 12, 2007
Jeff Twaddle
The 54-year-old charter boat deckhand from Huntington Beach, California, choked to death on a bait fish he had placed in his mouth to amuse a group of elementary school students on a fishing trip off Long Beach.
Date of Death: March 27, 2009
2010s
Xavier Tondo
The 32-year-old Spanish road racing cyclist was crushed to death between a garage door and his car as he prepared to leave his home in the Province of Granada, Spain, for a training ride in preparation for the 2011 Tour de France.
Date of Death: May 23, 2011
Elizabeth Watkins
The 24-year-old Australian field hockey player died in Perth after a deflected ball struck her on the head.
Date of Death: May 6, 2012
Roman Pirozek Jr.
The 19-year-old model airplane enthusiast was partially decapitated by the blade of his radio-controlled helicopter while performing aerobatic maneuvers in Calvert Vaux Park in Brooklyn, New York.
Date of Death: September 5, 2013
Grant Adams
The 17-year-old had just woken up when he tripped on a wire and fell into a free-standing tanning bed in his bedroom on the morning of June 8, 2014. One of the glass tubes of the bed broke, piercing Grant's neck in two places. He was airlifted from his house in South Shields to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, where he died the next day.
Date of Death: June 9, 2014
Joshua Harrison-Jones
The 16-year-old from Stretford, Greater Manchester, died when his neck became trapped between his exercise bench and a onesie he was using as a resistance band.
Date of Death: January 7, 2015
Tom Wilson
The 22-year-old British field hockey player died after being struck in the head with a stick during a practice match in Loughton, Essex, and suffering a cerebral hemorrhage.
Date of Death: December 9, 2015
John William Ashe
The 61-year-old Antiguan diplomat and politician, a former President of the United Nations General Assembly who was awaiting trial on bribery charges, died when a barbell fell on his neck at his home in Dobbs Ferry, New York, causing traumatic asphyxia and laryngeal fractures.
Date of Death: June 22, 2016
Kyle Thomson
The 22-year-old Iowa State University student was bench-pressing about 315 pounds (143 kg) at a gym in Ankeny, Iowa, when the barbell slipped from his hands, crushing his neck. Thomson had spotters for the lift.
Date of Death: December 26, 2016
Karanbir Cheema
The 13-year-old from London, England, died in the hospital days after having a severe allergic reaction to a piece of cheese thrown at him by a classmate. Cheema was severely allergic to wheat, gluten, all dairy products, eggs, and all nuts.
Date of Death: July 9, 2017
Jennifer Riordan
The 43-year-old bank executive and businesswoman aboard Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 died after debris from an engine failure destroyed a window near her seat and she was partially blown out through it.
Date of Death: April 17, 2018
Hildegard Whiting
The 77-year-old died of asphyxiation from the carbon dioxide vapors produced by four dry ice coolers in a Dippin' Dots delivery car. The deliveryman's wife had borrowed the car to take Whiting home.
Date of Death: July 27, 2018
Richard Russell
The 29-year-old stole a Bombardier Q400 owned by Horizon Air and operating for Alaska Airlines from Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. After an unauthorized takeoff, he flew the plane for just over an hour and performed aerial maneuvers including a barrel roll before intentionally crashing on Ketron Island, Washington, killing himself. No one else was injured.
Date of Death: August 10, 2018
Linda Goldbloom
The 79-year-old died four days after being hit by a foul ball at Dodger Stadium. Her death, the second such fatality in Major League Baseball history, was the first in nearly 50 years.
Date of Death: August 29, 2018
Sam Ballard
The 29-year-old from Sydney, Australia, died from angiostrongyliasis after eating a garden slug as a dare eight years earlier.
Date of Death: November 2, 2018
Unknown Man
A 54-year-old construction worker from Massachusetts died after eating a bag and a half of black licorice every day for a few weeks, which caused such low potassium levels in his body that his heart stopped.
Date of Death: January 2019
Salvatore Disi
The 62-year-old was decapitated while using a power cart to jump-start a helicopter in Hernando County, Florida. Its unexpected up-and-down motion caused the rotor blades to strike him.
Date of Death: January 10, 2019
Margaret Maurer
The 21-year-old Tulane University fourth-year student from Forest Lake, Minnesota, died at a highway rest stop in Mississippi when she was struck by a pair of tires that came loose from a passing tractor-trailer.
Date of Death: March 5, 2019
Julian Nott
The 74-year-old British-American balloonist was mortally injured after landing safely near Warner Springs, California, at the end of a test flight of an experimental high-altitude balloon. After Nott and his passenger reentered the balloon's gondola, it rolled down a steep ravine.
Date of Death: March 26, 2019
Patrick McGuire
The 67-year-old American tourist died from positional asphyxia in Scotland when a 72-kilogram (159 lb) metal garden bench he was sitting on toppled backward, pinning him against a wall that had knocked him unconscious. It was later found that such benches had a risk of sinking into the grass and there were no appropriate checks to provide a stable hard surface for the benches.
Date of Death: April 2019
Darren Hickey
The 51-year-old wedding planner from Horwich, England, died after eating a scalding-hot fishcake at a wedding. The cake had burned his throat, restricting his ability to breathe. The pathologist who performed the autopsy called the case "extremely rare" and likened it to those of victims who have inhaled smoke during house fires. Hickey received a set of false teeth following a previous event.
Date of Death: April 5, 2019
Paul McDonald
The 47-year-old was attacked and killed by a pet deer, said to be an elk, on his property in north-east Victoria, Australia.
Date of Death: April 17, 2019
Joemar Jungco
The 18-year-old worker at a meat processing facility in Iloilo City, Philippines, died after half his body from the head down to the waist was pulled into a meat grinder.
Date of Death: June 22, 2019
Yulia Sharko
The 21-year-old from Žabinka, Belarus, was celebrating her birthday with friends when she tried to pull her two-year-old daughter out through the window of her car. Her daughter activated the window control button, closing the window and strangling Sharko.
Date of Death: September 8, 2019
2020s
Amy Carlson
The corpse of the 45-year-old leader of Love Has Won was discovered by police on 28 April 2021, with estimates placing her death c. 16 April 2021. Her remains were mummified and wrapped in a sleeping bag, decorated with Christmas lights; her eyes were missing, and her eye sockets had been decorated with glitter. An autopsy determined that she died of alcohol abuse, anorexia, and chronic colloidal silver ingestion.
Date of Death: April 2, 2021
Barry Griffiths
The 57-year-old Welsh man, who had suffered a stroke that reduced the mobility of one of his arms, accidentally stabbed himself in the stomach while attempting to separate frozen burgers with a knife. Atherosclerosis was also a contributing factor in Griffiths' death. Police did not discover Griffiths' body in his apartment until over a week after he died.
Date of Death: June 2023
Justyn Vicky
On July 15, 2023, the 33-year-old Indonesian bodybuilder and influencer was squatting over 180 kilograms (400 lb) at a Bali gym, assisted by a spotter, when the weight snapped his head forward, breaking his neck. Vicky died in the hospital 2 days later.
Date of Death: July 17, 2024
Giulia Manfrini
The 36-year-old Italian surfer died while surfing near the coast of West Sumatra, Indonesia, after a swordfish pierced her chest.
Date of Death: October 21, 2024
Johnnie Turner
The 76-year-old member of the Kentucky Senate died of injuries sustained in an accident on September 15, 2024, when he drove a riding mower into an empty swimming pool.
Date of Death: October 22, 2024
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