History has its fair share of truly bizarre deaths, and these include people passing away from accidents that could’ve been easily avoided.
The lawyer who proved his case
A good lawyer should always be on their client’s side, but Clement Vallandigham took things a little too far. In June 1871, the Ohio lawyer was defending a man accused of murder. Vallandigham was determined to prove that his client was innocent.
The lawyer believed that the victim had accidentally shot himself instead of being murdered, so Vallandigham decided to demonstrate that idea. He used an unloaded gun to do so. Except, it wasn’t actually unloaded, and he accidentally shot himself in the abdomen. Vallandigham died roughly 12 hours later. His client was acquitted, so maybe his trick worked.
The general who dismissed the danger
Union General John Sedgwick decided he’d make fun of his soldiers during the American Civil War. It cost him his life. Yes, on May 9, 1864, Sedgwick’s soldiers had ducked because Confederate sharpshooters were firing at them.
But Sedgwick thought the whole thing was ridiculous, and he actually joked that the enemy couldn’t hit an elephant from that far. He stood up, and a bullet struck him just below his left eye. Sedgwick died instantly, so he never knew the mistake he’d made.
The parachute over Niagara Falls
Just the idea of riding a Jet Ski over Niagara Falls is dangerous enough. But Robert Overacker planned to do that on October 1, 1995, with the added risk of relying on a parachute to survive the landing. His goal was to raise awareness about homelessness.
The 39-year-old rode toward the Canadian Horseshoe Falls and relied on a rocket-assisted system to help him. Unfortunately, the parachute failed to deploy properly. It went as badly as it sounds. Overacker went straight over the 170-foot waterfall and into the water below. Rescuers did manage to recover him, but it was too late. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
The flying Ford Pinto
Henry Smolinski had a question that he wanted to know the answer to. He was curious about what happens when you combine a Ford Pinto with parts from a Cessna airplane. Turns out, the answer is a flying car that doesn’t quite work, as he found out on September 11, 1973.
He’d spent a few years developing the vehicle, which he called the Mizar. But during a test flight near Oxnard, California, the aircraft’s structure failed, leading to it crashing. Both Smolinski and his business partner, Harold Blake, were killed in the crash, and to nobody’s surprise, the Mizar never reached production.
The experimental submarine
Stockton Rush had some big plans in mind for underwater tourism, and one of them involved taking paying customers down to the <itanic<wreck. To do so, he had his company, OceanGate, develop an experimental submersible called the <itanTitan>imploded during the descent and killed everyone inside. Later, investigators concluded that the accident was preventable.
The invention that caught its creator
During the 1860s, William Bullock helped to completely change newspaper printing. He had no idea his own invention would kill him. He was working on one of his rotary printing presses in April 1867 when he noticed there was a problem. The moving drive belt wasn’t working properly.
You’d think he would just stop the machinery to figure it out, but no. Bullock decided to kick the belt back into position and ended up trapping his leg inside. Gangrene later developed in the leg, too. While doctors did try to amputate the injured limb, Bullock died during surgery on April 12, 1867. Yes, he died from a kick.
The rocket without a working parachute
You’ve got to have a lot of confidence to build a homemade rocket and launch yourself into the sky. ‘Mad Mike’ Hughes certainly had a lot of that. He was a 64-year-old daredevil who managed to survive a separate rocket launch in 2018, and two years later, he wanted to try again.
This time, his goal was to reach 5,000 feet. On February 22, 2020, he tried to do that, but his parachute broke away from the rocket, and his backup parachutes failed to deploy, too. Hughes had no way to slow his descent. He crashed into the desert and died shortly after.
The Fourth of July party trick
Fourth of July fireworks are supposed to go into the sky. That’s not what happened during a party in Calais, Maine, on July 4, 2015, however. 22-year-old Devon Staples decided to place a fireworks mortar tube on his head because he believed it was a dud. It wasn’t.
The firework suddenly went off and caused him to suffer a fatal head injury, killing him instantly. His death became the first fireworks fatality in the state since the legalization of consumer fireworks in 2012.
The contest with a python as the prize
Most people wouldn’t consider a free python as a prize, but Edward Archbold certainly did. He tried his hardest to win one. Archbold took part in a cockroach-eating competition at Ben Siegel Reptiles in Deerfield Beach, Florida, in October 2012, and it involved eating dozens of insects.
He actually won the contest after eating so many cockroaches and worms. Then tragedy struck. Archbold began vomiting and collapsed outside the store before being rushed to hospital. He was pronounced dead. According to an autopsy, he’d choked and inhaled his stomach contents, all for a snake.
The escape that went between the cars
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Bryan Feeley was involved in an escape from the police on September 30, 2010, and it soon turned deadly. But not for the reasons you might expect. Officers approached the 20-year-old at a Manhattan subway station because they believed he’d committed a robbery at knifepoint in Tribeca.
Feeley then tried to run away. His escape plan, however, was pretty flawed, as he jumped onto a moving E train on the subway. Feeley tried to jump onto the moving train through the gap between two subway cars, and ended up falling onto the tracks. A train struck him, and he died at a nearby hospital.
The swimming warning nobody could miss
Take the story of Tommie Woodward as a lesson to follow warning signs. He visited Burkart’s Marina in Orange, Texas, on July 3, 2015, and saw plenty of signs warning about alligators. People nearby warned him about a large alligator they’d seen in the water, too. He didn’t care.
No, Woodward decided that he knew better than them and jumped into the bayou anyway. It didn’t take long for an alligator to attack him and drag him underwater. Police recovered his body hours later, with the incident becoming the first recorded fatal alligator attack in Texas.
The burglar stuck in the chimney
Santa Claus makes climbing down chimneys look rather easy. As for climbing out, well, that’s a different matter. Cody Caldwell figured that out the hard way when he tried to enter a home in Huron, California, on November 28, 2015. He was trying to rob the house and crawled in through the chimney.
But he ended up getting stuck. The homeowner had no idea anyone was up there, so they lit the fireplace without thinking much about it. Then they heard the screaming. Firefighters did manage to dismantle part of the chimney, yet Caldwell had already died from his burns and smoke inhalation.
The lava lamp on the stove
It’s not exactly clear why Phillip Quinn decided to put a lava lamp on his stove on November 28, 2004. Perhaps he wanted to heat it faster so that the bubbles would move more quickly. Whatever the reason, it’s pretty clear that things didn’t go how he planned.
The glass exploded and sent fragments flying around the room. One of these pieces actually went straight into his heart and killed him. Sadly, his body lay there for a while, and he was found hours later by his parents.
The shortcut into a wood chipper
Never mess with a wood chipper. That sounds like it should be obvious, but it seems that Martimiano Morales Carreon wasn’t aware of it. He was clearing brush near an avocado grove in Fallbrook, California, on December 14, 2010, with his son.
As Carreon fed branches into a commercial wood chipper, he decided there was a quicker way to do it. He’d use his foot to push the material farther inside. Carreon unfortunately lost his balance and got pulled into the equipment. His son did turn off the chipper, but by that point, there wasn’t much to do for Carreon, and paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
15 most bizarre deaths in history
Death itself can be pretty strange, but some people’s last moments involved circumstances so specific and strange that they almost don’t seem believable.
