# Deaths that suck **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 10, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006 "2008-01-10T17:37:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/1 "2008-01-10T17:37:30Z")
Today in Detroit area , a tanker truck lost control, for apparently no reason. The first guess is the driver had a heart attack. He crashed into a rail and the tank fell over the edge dropping about 30 feet and setting a house on fire. These people were just getting up to go to work and school. I do not know if anyone died yet, but the house is in flames. That reminded me of when a few years ago a person jumped out of a downtown Detroit building committing suicide. He landed on a woman walking into work and killed her. That sucked. When flight 255 crashed at Metro airport a few years ago ,.it wiped out a family that was loaded up driving to Florida for vacation. All they did was drive the Eway and got wiped out. Any other strange deaths you are familiar with? ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/2 "2008-01-10T17:40:43Z")
A combination of a controlled burn, fog, and drivers who don’t know when to slow down when OMG! visibility drops to _zero_ led to this [godawful mess](http://www.wftv.com/news/15021160/detail.html) yesterday. Be sure to look at the slideshow. It’s is unreal. We had a guy at work stuck in it for five hours, before giving up and going home. Four people died, and there’s a huge hole in the middle of the interstate from where the diesel burned. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/3 "2008-01-10T17:41:37Z")
I’ve always thought that [the Boston Molasses Disaster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boston_Molasses_Disaster) was a bitterly ironic way to perish. Sailboat ---
**Author:** ![Lamar\_Mundane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lamar\_Mundane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamar_Mundane)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/4 "2008-01-10T17:48:53Z")
On New Years Eve in Denver, some drunk started firing off shots at midnight, and one of them went through a house wall, through a woman’s head as she was sitting in a chair, and into her neice’s side. The woman died instantly and the girl, 14, died in the hospital. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/5 "2008-01-10T18:03:42Z")
Many years ago in Seattle a man drove through a guardrail at a parking garage (third or fourth level) and his car landed on a car in the street below. Both drivers died. In another Washington State town, a logging truck lost part of its load, which fell on top of a car parked on the street, killing a father and son. Here in Iowa a car drove off an overpass and landed on another car, killing four women. All those gaps in traffic, and it has to land on a car? ---
**Author:** ![Wargamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Wargamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wargamer)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/6 "2008-01-10T19:01:59Z")
About ten years ago here in Greensboro, NC, a woman was driving home with her family from a 4th of July picnic, and a random shot fired from half a mile away entered her car through an open window and killed her. What a random way of dying. ---
**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/7 "2008-01-10T19:13:10Z")
We had a parking-garage death in Lexington, Ky., about a year ago. A car pushed the concrete side-wall out, and the slab fell to the street below, where it landed on and killed a young pregnant woman walking to work. It was very early, maybe around 6:30 am, and she was going in early to accumulate enough comp. hours to take off for her upcoming maternity leave. Very sad; she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. ---
**Author:** ![TroubleAgain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e480ec/32.png) [@TroubleAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroubleAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/8 "2008-01-10T19:16:37Z")
[QUOTE=ivylass] A combination of a controlled burn, fog, and drivers who don’t know when to slow down when OMG! visibility drops to _zero_ led to this [godawful mess](http://www.wftv.com/news/15021160/detail.html) yesterday. Be sure to look at the slideshow. It’s is unreal. We had a guy at work stuck in it for five hours, before giving up and going home. Four people died, and there’s a huge hole in the middle of the interstate from where the diesel burned. [/QUOTE] Which is impacting a lot of people’s ability to get to work. I’ve got one working at our Orlando office because it was too dangerous on 27 this morning too–fog, and accidents–and more than just I-4 is closed. ---
**Author:** ![rostfrei](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7bcc69/32.png) [@rostfrei](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rostfrei)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/9 "2008-01-10T19:19:51Z")
[QUOTE=AuntiePam] Many years ago in Seattle a man drove through a guardrail at a parking garage (third or fourth level) and his car landed on a car in the street below. Both drivers died. In another Washington State town, a logging truck lost part of its load, which fell on top of a car parked on the street, killing a father and son. Here in Iowa a car drove off an overpass and landed on another car, killing four women. All those gaps in traffic, and it has to land on a car? [/QUOTE] Similar thing happened in Virginia Beach about 5 years ago. A group of 4 older ladies were on vacation and had parked on the 4th floor of a parking garage. When they left, the driver put the car put the car in drive instead of reverse. The car did a swan dive to the sidewalk below, killing all four ladies. Another horrible death. A friend of a friend went to Mexico for vacation with a group of friends. They rented a house. One of the guys liked to wake up early and go swimming. Well, one morning they found him dead in the swimming pool. Apparently, he had hit his head while diving in and broke his neck and drowned. Can you imagine the horror that he must’ve felt, knowing he was going to drown but not being able to move? ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/10 "2008-01-10T19:43:00Z")
[QUOTE=TroubleAgain] Which is impacting a lot of people’s ability to get to work. I’ve got one working at our Orlando office because it was too dangerous on 27 this morning too–fog, and accidents–and more than just I-4 is closed. [/QUOTE] Yep. They’re telling people to take 50…I noticed on my way home the traffic was much heavier on that stretch. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/11 "2008-01-10T19:48:16Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax] That reminded me of when a few years ago a person jumped out of a downtown Detroit building committing suicide. He landed on a woman walking into work and killed her. That sucked. [/QUOTE] [A similar case, in Israel (2004)](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=292318) ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/12 "2008-01-10T19:50:09Z")
A lot of innocent peo[ple are killed by drunk drivers, and that does indeed suck. But you know what would really suck? If it was a drunken Shriner in one of those little clown cars! ---
**Author:** ![JohnM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/848f3c/32.png) [@JohnM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnM)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/13 "2008-01-10T19:55:14Z")
[QUOTE=Sailboat] I’ve always thought that [the Boston Molasses Disaster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boston_Molasses_Disaster) was a bitterly ironic way to perish. Sailboat [/QUOTE] Shouldn’t that be _sweetly_ ironic? Sorry. My favorite recent can’t-help-but-laugh death was the billionaire roofing-magnate who died - falling through his roof. See the [MSNBC](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22360485/) story here. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/14 "2008-01-10T19:55:28Z")
A while back a deer was hit on one side of the highway. It was flung into the air and came down on the windshield of a car on the other side of the highway. It killed the driver, and the rest of the occupants of the car, his wife and two young kids, were hurt. I can’t imagine how those little kids would deal with watching Daddy die like that. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/15 "2008-01-10T19:59:27Z")
Or you could be driving uinder a bridge and [a train could fall on your car](http://www.thestar.com/Unassigned/article/202496). (Actually, it was a shipping container that fell off a derailed train on the bridge above.) This happened a few years ago in Whitby, Ontario, where Garden Street meets the CP track. When I was in high school, I used to cross there often on the way to school, before they built the bridge, when it was a dangerous level crossing. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21825_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/16 "2008-01-10T20:01:19Z")
Air Florida Flt 90 hitting the 14th St bridge in DC crushing several cars before plunging into the Potomac. I was at the far end of the bridge when it happened, but if I’d left work just a few minutes later… Horrible end for the passengers and the occupants of the vehicles who were stuck on the bridge in that snowstorm. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/17 "2008-01-10T20:04:57Z")
I’m still fighting back tears from reading today’s news about that toddler that starved to death because his mother died around Christmas and no one apparently checked on them. He was only 18 months old. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/18 "2008-01-10T20:19:38Z")
Gosh, where to begin? One of my favorite things to do in Maui was to take a sunset sail on the Hyatt Regency’s beautiful catamaran, the Kiele V. I have dozens of pictures of us and our friends on this trampoline of the catamaran, laughing and smiling. Last year, the Kiele V was on another cruise when its mast snapped and whacked a poor man on his head, killing him. His wife and children were seated nearby. The sail landed in the water and began dragging the catamaran down. Luckily other sailors in the area came to the rescue and no one else lost their life. But, still, that poor chap was on a beautiful sail with his family and then…he’s gone. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/19 "2008-01-10T20:25:22Z")
It’s been a bad week for gasoline tankers! In addition to the accidents in Florida and Detroit, a tanker overturned in Minneapolis yesterday morning, spilling gasoline into the storm sewers. In the end, life’s a deli, and we’re just waiting for the guy behind the counter to call our number. ---
**Author:** ![Hippy\_Hollow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hippy_hollow/32/4841_2.png) [@Hippy\_Hollow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hippy_Hollow)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/20 "2008-01-10T21:12:06Z")
This is the most depressing thread ever. Makes me want to hide in a corner and never go outside again! [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006.md?page=2)