# A bizarrely random death… **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 19, 2025, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195 "2025-04-19T00:08:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/41 "2025-04-19T15:11:58Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > As an aside…[men are four times more likely than women to be struck by lightning.](https://www.cdc.gov/lightning/data-research/index.html) > > I’ll leave it to the readers to guess why. “Here. Hold my beer. Watch this!!” ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/42 "2025-04-19T15:17:48Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > “Here. Hold my beer. Watch this!!” I have no data to support this but I honestly think this is mostly the reason. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/43 "2025-04-19T15:21:52Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > “Here. Hold my beer. Watch this!!” > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I have no data to support this but I honestly think this is mostly the reason. Historically, outside jobs have employed many more men than women. Think farmers, construction workers, electrical company workers, etc. I think that’s just as a likely reason as idiocy. From the CDC website I linked above: > Work-related activities contribute to about 18% of total lightning fatalities, with farmers and ranchers at highest risk. Most work-related lightning strikes are among males. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/44 "2025-04-19T15:27:33Z")
I am sure that is a part of it but the math doesn’t add up. 18% is roughly 1/5. The data says 4/5 of men are struck by lightning compared to women (four time more likely). If something has a 1/5 probability (20% chance), then “four times more likely” would be 4/5 (80% chance). I’m with @Bullitt on this one. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/45 "2025-04-19T15:34:26Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > a woman was driving there and the storm blew down a large tree branch that fell on her car. It killed her instantly. > > Talk about random. And bizarre. > > It’s stories like this and others shared here (@ **enipla** , wow! Glad you survived that one!) that help to make us more aware of potential hazards. You can’t live your life in fear, at least I don’t want to, but increasing awareness will help you avoid potentially fatal situations. I fail to understand how that story teaches me to avoid potentially fatal situations. Presumably, she was driving down the road for a reason. A random tire/falling branch/falling dog (!!)/lightning strike isn’t something anyone can avoid. I mean, that’s … kinda the point of this thread, no? ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/46 "2025-04-19T15:37:14Z")
Men are also far more likely to be out on a boat fishing, or playing golf or soccer, or other outdoor activities.. If you want to say that not heeding weather warnings or not coming in out of the rain is a stupid thing to do, I’m with you. But I don’t think a whole lot of lightning-struck men _intentionally_ did something to try to defy the odds, which is what I think of when I hear ‘Hold my beer.’ YMMV, of course. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/47 "2025-04-19T15:52:00Z")
The first person from my Gymnasium (a kind of high school, has nothing to do with a gym) graduation class who died had a quite bizarre death. He was a member of a choir or an orchestra, I don’t remember which, and they had had a concert from which they returned home in a bus. The bus driver let out this guy and some others in the central place of his home village, and he had some few hundreds meters to walk to his house left. Now he and the other musicians had had a few beers after the concert, as musicians are wont to do, so on his walk home nature called, and he headed for a garden below street level to which a rudimentary staircase, consisting of cobblestones placed in the soil, was leading, to do his business behind a tree in the garden, but stumbled and fell to the ground, hitting his head and cracking his skull on one of those cobblestones. The police and forensics later reconstructed these circumstances from evidence like that his fly had been already opened, his bladder was full and that he would not have had any other reason to walk into that garden. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.winston_oboogie/32/2945_2.png) [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Winston_OBoogie)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/48 "2025-04-19T16:16:53Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > As an aside…[men are four times more likely than women to be struck by lightning.](https://www.cdc.gov/lightning/data-research/index.html) > > I’ll leave it to the readers to guess why. More men golf? ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/49 "2025-04-19T16:18:06Z")
> [@Dr.Winston\_OBoogie](#): > > More men golf? Men averagely stand a few inches higher and are easier targets for lightning strikes? ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/50 "2025-04-19T16:22:16Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > Men are also far more likely to be out on a boat fishing, or playing golf or soccer, or other outdoor activities.. According to the “Deadly Dozen” from the National Lightning Safety Council, here are the activities taking place for about half the lightning fatalities. A few of these look much more male-specific (golfing is about 75% male, roofing is probably 97% male, fishing about 2/3 male), some less so. [PowerPoint Presentation](http://lightningsafetycouncil.org/Graphics/Deadly-Dozen.pdf) I’d blame differences in alcohol usage as well. Alcohol-attributable fractions in ERs seem to run about 2:1 male. So, some alcohol, some outdoorsiness, some braggadocio, and Ben Franklin’s your uncle. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/51 "2025-04-19T16:53:31Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > The gap shows that it’s a crevice through which a child would fall from the bridge to the rocks below, or to the bay waters below depending on where you were on the bridge. Nowadays railing must pass the [4 inch sphere rule](https://www.trex.com/deck-ideas/deck-railing-height-requirements/): > The IRC mandates a 4-inch sphere should not be able to fit between any two components of the railing assembly, whether it be below the bottom rail and decking, between a post and baluster, or between two balusters. And [4 inch diameter spheres](https://inspectoroutlet.com/products/stairway-inspection-spheres) are available for purchase by inspectors. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/52 "2025-04-19T16:59:29Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > Eric Clapton’s little boy, Conor Clapton. Another bizarre one.) On the contrary, children fall to their deaths out of windows quite often. Parents wrongly assume screens are sufficient to keep them safe, if screens are even present. Newer building codes now prevent this, but old buildings are everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/53 "2025-04-19T17:05:19Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > A truly bizarre and random tragedy. So sad for the guy and his family and friends. I remember hearing of a nearly identical accident happening here in L.A. Can’t remember how long ago, but a while. One that stuck in my memory is a guy in a VW bug who lost control of his car on a freeway offramp or interchange and went airborne. He almost made it to another road/ramp but didn’t have enough speed or something and hit an embankment instead. I really empathized with him. “I’m gonna make it! I’m gonna make it! Oh, shit.” > [@Bullitt](#): > > Okay, if you want to take your life that’s sad and I’m very sorry for you, but jeez don’t take someone else (am innocent victim) with you. A friend of mine had taken her kids and a bunch of their friends to the beach, and on their way home some guy tried to jump in front of her van trying to kill himself. She was able to safely swerve, but he tried _again._ She was as much angry as she was traumatized. A van full of little kids and that’s who he wants to witness his bloody death??? ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/54 "2025-04-19T17:06:19Z")
An architect I worked with a few times was killed by a random piece of masonry that fell from a building as she was walking on an NYC sidewalk. Gift link > **[Woman Killed by Falling Debris Near Times Square (Published 2019)](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/17/nyregion/woman-killed-times-square.html?unlocked_article_code=1.A08.0Jpq.Ax-X1KnnTtFm&smid=url-share)** > > She was struck as she was walking near the corner of Seventh Avenue and 49th Street in Midtown Manhattan, officials said. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/55 "2025-04-19T18:17:44Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Stay away from > > [Rooms containing rusty chains](https://officerofthewatch.com/2013/04/26/fatal-accident-during-inspection-of-chain-locker/) > [**Manure pits**](https://www.livescience.com/brothers-die-manure-pit-fumes-toxic.html) I have a visceral understanding of the danger of manure pits. So, I’m about seven years old, a suburban/city kid and my mom has just married my new stepdad, who works on the family farm out in the Central Valley of California (the “Big Valley”), which includes a dairy. The first time we visited the dairy, I met my new cousins, including a boy who was about a year younger than me. We’re playing and running around behind the barn and dairy and my new cousin takes off and runs the long way around a big fenced off corral that has no animals, no plants, just a flat brown surface. I figure that I can catch up with him easily if I climb the fence, run across the corral and intercept him. Now, there are two things dairies produce in massive quantities (and can store and sell). Yes, this flat brown surface was about a 4 foot deep pool of semi-liquid manure! Fortunately, my cousin had the sense to run and get my stepdad and I had the sense to spread my arms out on the dry crust of the pool and not struggle too much, so I got pulled out with not much more consequence than getting hosed off. (and I was lucky it wasn’t an enclosed pit, just an area that had been dug out right next to the milking barn that they hosed all the manure into and sold when they had enough, so no accumulated gases) ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/56 "2025-04-19T21:23:23Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Across the entire USA tree branches big enough to kill somebody fall by the hundreds every day. Fortunately there are a lot more trees without people standing / driving under them than with. So most branches crash harmlessly to the ground. One took out my shed late last year. It was a branch from a heritage oak, at least a foot and a half across and too heavy for three people to lift off of what was left of the roof. It happened in the middle of the night, so there was no one in the shed. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/57 "2025-04-19T21:36:11Z")
I was walking in a forest with my dad, and he casually tugged on a vine that was hanging from a tree branch. About 2 seconds later a big (maybe 4” diameter x 4’ long) branch came crashing down and missed him by a couple of feet. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/58 "2025-04-19T21:37:29Z")
I used to go walking in a nature park in suburban St. Louis. Some manicured lawn, picnic, & playground areas, and some wild old-growth forest areas and re-overgrown new growth former farmland. Call it slightly tamed nature with a couple of natural streams running through. Very pretty. Great place to spend a morning walking among the ~50 foot wild trees. The St. Louis area was/is prone to both ice storms in winter and severe to tornadic thunderstorms in summer. Lotta trees take a lotta abuse. After a local news story about somebody getting whacked by a falling tree branch in their backyard, the next time we went for our nature walk I took especial care to look up into the trees. There was an amazing amount of broken deadfall hung up in the upper branches. Seemed like nearly every tree out there had a big hunk of doom snagged in its branches. None of which arid suburbanite me had ever considered a threat. Once there was a loud CRACK and a loud crashing noise 50 feet behind us. The 6" x 20’ branch freshly across the trail may not have been fatal had we been under it, but it woulda been life-altering. I spent a lot more time scanning the canopy overhead and less looking down for snakes forever after that. Yikes! Danger is everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/59 "2025-04-19T22:01:41Z")
Last year my brother in law was killed when a guy, jumping off a bridge, landed on my sisters car. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2025, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195/60 "2025-04-19T22:36:05Z")
Teenager is asphyxiated when car seat flips over and traps him. > **[Kyle Plush died in his minivan 3 years ago. What to know about the Ohio...](https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2021/05/19/ohio-teen-kyle-plush-died-three-years-ago-what-we-know/5171492001/)** > > Police and 911 center workers failed to rescue Kyle Plush who died after becoming trapped in his car. Here's what we know, three years later. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-bizarrely-random-death/1017195.md?page=4)