# 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:** 2
**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, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/21 "2008-01-10T21:19:06Z")
[QUOTE=BwanaBob] 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. [/QUOTE] That’s horrible. Where was the father? ---
**Author:** ![jk1245](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/49beb7/32.png) [@jk1245](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jk1245)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/22 "2008-01-10T21:24:20Z")
I recall reading a story about two scuba divers that drowned while ice diving. Can you imagine looking at your air gauge and seeing that it’s time to head to the surface, only to realize you can’t find the hole you cut to get in? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/23 "2008-01-10T21:25:56Z")
Our town had an adult son shoot his two parents to death. Not too unusual, but the corker is that both his parents were psychiatrists. And jumping out of the burning World Trade Towers to your death is very very sucky. ---
**Author:** ![samm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/858c86/32.png) [@samm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samm)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/24 "2008-01-10T21:27:28Z")
I always think of the story of the man who died because he lost his balance when his pants were around his ankles and he toppled out of an open window. I always take my horse breeches off by pushing them down around my knees and then standing on one leg and trying to yank the other leg out, one at a time. I have toppled over onto my bed many times doing this and so I have a lot of sympathy for someone who died this way! ---
**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, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/25 "2008-01-10T21:45:04Z")
[QUOTE=jk1245] I recall reading a story about two scuba divers that drowned while ice diving. Can you imagine looking at your air gauge and seeing that it’s time to head to the surface, only to realize you can’t find the hole you cut to get in? :eek: [/QUOTE] I remember hearing about someone who went scuba diving and discovered an underwater cave. They went in and swam around, not realizing that their fins were kicking up silt from the cave floor behin them, causing the visibility to be zero. They became disoriented and couldn’t find their way out of the cave… Also, I was in Las Vegas a few years ago when I heard on the local news about a tourist who was walking down the street barefoot. She stepped on some sort of grate on the sidewalk and was electrocuted due to some freak wiring issue or something like that. I can’t remember the logistics, but she died. ---
**Author:** ![EmAnJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@EmAnJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmAnJ)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/26 "2008-01-10T21:49:13Z")
Just before Christmas a cement truck driver ran a red light and struck a minivan with mom, dad and three kids in it. The driver of the cement truck refused to take a breathalyzer, so the investigation is ongoing (he was not granted bail, thank goodness). The cement truck driver didn’t even hit the brakes, dragging the minivan about 400 meters down the road. My husband’s fire hall responded to it. They didn’t realize their were kids inside until they took off the roof and saw what Derek wouldn’t even describe to me. The worst part is that mom survived and was conscious, knew what happened, saw her mangled husband and kids, and later died in the hospital. I think maybe it’s a good thing she ended up dying. ---
**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, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/27 "2008-01-10T22:00:44Z")
Just remembered another one, from last July, happened just a few miles outside of town. A semi collided with another semi that was pulling out of a gravel pit driveway. One of the semis rolled over into the ditch. The driver was still alive but unable to get himself out of the cab. Sparks from something started a grass fire, which ignited some spilled gasoline, and the driver died in the fire. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/28 "2008-01-10T22:03:44Z")
I recall one. A horse had escaped from a local livery stable and a young man who felt the need for speed, struck the horse, killing both. The only reason the fire engine went (as opposed to just an ambulance) is because when the horse landed in the passenger compartment, the car was mangled enough that the first cop on the scene thought the driver was still alive and would need to be extricated. He obivously wasn’t alive, but in a final act of defiance, the horse loosed his bowels onto the drivers chest and face. Being winter, the cop thought the driver was still breathing, not realizing that the horse poop was still warm and giving off steam. Hitting a horse with your car and having that horse suffocate you to death with pounds and pounds o’poop is a truly sucky way to die ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/29 "2008-01-10T22:12:47Z")
On Koh Phi Phi in Thailand, an Italian tourist was caught by the tsunami, but managed to get to safety without much injury. He, and all the other survivors spent the following night in the jungle on a hilltop, and during the night he sat on a snake, which bit him and killed him. (Not verified.) ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/30 "2008-01-10T22:13:03Z")
[QUOTE=FairyChatMom] 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. [/QUOTE] Wow! I remember that crash very well. I had no idea you expierenced it first hand. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/31 "2008-01-10T22:30:25Z")
I remember this one from the past year: A 41-year-old Sheboygan man drowned in a storm sewer June 6 while attempting to retrieve a dropped cell phone in the 3200 block of North 12th Street, police said. Brett R. Gunn was kneeling over the sewer in front of his home when he apparently lost his balance and became wedged in the opening upside down, his head and shoulders submerged in 12 inches of water. He was unconscious by the time firefighters were able to pull him out and was pronounced dead an hour later at an area hospital. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/32 "2008-01-10T22:59:16Z")
Not a really peculiar way to die, but… On Good Friday some years ago, a man killed himself by jumping off the top of the Omni Hotel in downtown Austin. Anyone who knows downtown well knows the building right next door: St. David’s Episcopal Church. The man chose to leap during the service itself. I arrived on the scene after the cleanup, but apparently someone informed the rector – he’d been performing the service – who immediately dashed out in the rather dramatic red and black Good Friday vestments to give the poor fellow his last rites. It blocked downtown traffic, naturally, and must have been an astonishing scene. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2008, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/33 "2008-01-10T23:11:52Z")
Years ago, the Washington Post report a driver was killed after striking a sofa that fell off a truck onto the beltway. They mentioned it was third death that year caused by furniture on the road. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2008, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/34 "2008-01-11T00:31:35Z")
My husband’s mother died in a car accident. It was late winter, his dad was driving, mother in the passenger seat, and my husband was in the back (he wasn’t yet 4 years old). Another car skidded on some black ice while coming down the hill, and slammed into the passenger side of the car. Hubby’s mother died in the hospital some time later. She bled internally, from injuries due to her seatbelt restraining her. She was about 6 months pregnant at the time (the baby died too). My FIL suffered a broken leg and nose. My husband suffered a broken wrist. Another story, similar cause. A family; mom, dad, two boys and a girl, were driving somewhere around Christmas time a few years back. A driver coming the other way lost control of his vehicle coming around a curve (just going a little too fast for the conditions). The driver of that car broke a leg. The family? The mom died and _all three_ children were paralyzed from the waist down. The father had minor injuries. But how the _hell_ do you cope with losing your wife and suddenly having three children with severe disabilities?!?! ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2008, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/35 "2008-01-11T01:13:21Z")
[The horrible death of Russell Phillips](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExPOQNT5UUo&NR=1) From [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Phillips): > [@](#): > > Phillips was in 10th place when he was hit by the car of Steven Howard, who steered high to avoid a two-car spinout. Howard’s car forced Phillips’ car onto it’s right side, then smashed it roof-first into the retaining wall. Until 1996, NASCAR cars were not yet required to be equipped with the “Earnhardt bar”, a roof-support bar running down the middle of the windshield, designed to prevent fatal roof collapse in roof-first accidents. [1] Resultantly, the existing roll bars failed to protect the roof; both the roll bars and the roof itself were sheared completely off the car, exposing the interior of the driver compartment and grinding it against the wall and fence. When the vehicle came back down onto the track on its wheels, there was a massive “gaping hole” where the top of the car was supposed to be. > > Phillips, whose upper body was ground against the track’s steel catch fence and a caution light fixture at high speed, was both partially dismembered and decapitated, in what a photographer on-scene described as “as gruesome a wreck as I can ever recall”.[2] In video of the accident, the first rescuer on scene could be seen running to the car, then immediately turning away from the wreck after seeing Phillips’ body and realizing the hopelessness of any attempt at resuscitation. The track was littered with car debris, blood, and numerous pieces of Phillips’ body, necessitating a complete and lengthy race stoppage (red flag) while track officials wearing surgical gloves placed white sheets over various body parts in the vicinity of the crash. The driver’s head (still wearing his helmet) was found at the entrance of the pit road, and one of his hands was found suspended in the retaining fence. At least it was quick, unlike in the case of [Roger Williamson](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqv68DkPi60). And the most horrible thing I have ever seen is the accident that killed [Tom Pryce and course marshal Jansen Van Vuuren](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL9FFGhGcrA). Auto racing is positively ghoulish when it all goes wrong. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2008, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/36 "2008-01-11T01:59:37Z")
You’ve probably all heard the tall tale about a lawyer who, demostrating the strength of the floor-to-ceiling window in his high rise office, runs into it, pops it out, and plunges screaming to his death. Well, it actually happened in Toronto: > **[Death of Garry Hoy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Hoy)** > > Garry Hoy (January 28, 1954 – July 9, 1993) was a Canadian lawyer who died when he fell from the 24th floor of his office building at the Toronto-Dominion Centre in Toronto, Ontario. In an attempt to prove to a group of prospective articling students that the building's glass windows were unbreakable, he threw himself against the glass. The glass did not break when he hit it, but the window frame gave way and Hoy fell to his death. Garry Hoy was a corporate and securities law specialist for t... ---
**Author:** ![Scubaqueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c0e974/32.png) [@Scubaqueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scubaqueen)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2008, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/37 "2008-01-11T02:47:12Z")
[QUOTE=jk1245] I recall reading a story about two scuba divers that drowned while ice diving. Can you imagine looking at your air gauge and seeing that it’s time to head to the surface, only to realize you can’t find the hole you cut to get in? :eek: [/QUOTE] first rule of diving (or oughta be): if you aren’t a seriously-experienced diver, you don’t dive with something over your head. if anything goes south you have at least a straight shot to the surface and a chance of surviving even if you get bent. ever read about the guy in national geographic that does all that cave diving? alone? in hundreds of feet of water? did i mention he does this all by his lonesome? the very thought makes my palms sweat. i’m SO a wuss. i want nice, blue, warm, OPEN water all around me when i strap on that tank for a stroll. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2008, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/38 "2008-01-11T03:04:28Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] You’ve probably all heard the tall tale about a lawyer who, demostrating the strength of the floor-to-ceiling window in his high rise office, runs into it, pops it out, and plunges screaming to his death. Well, it actually happened in Toronto: > **[Death of Garry Hoy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Hoy)** > > Garry Hoy (January 28, 1954 – July 9, 1993) was a Canadian lawyer who died when he fell from the 24th floor of his office building at the Toronto-Dominion Centre in Toronto, Ontario. In an attempt to prove to a group of prospective articling students that the building's glass windows were unbreakable—a stunt he had performed without incident many times before—he threw his body against the glass. True to Hoy's assertion, the window did not break; instead, the entire window yielded whole this ti... [/QUOTE] From the Wiki link > [@](#): > > Managing partner Peter Lauwers described him as “one of the best and the brightest.” I don’t think that word means what you think it means. ---
**Author:** ![kaiwik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaiwik/32/3978_2.png) [@kaiwik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaiwik)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2008, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/39 "2008-01-11T03:35:59Z")
This is the tragedy my community is dealing with right now. I really don’t have any words, it’s too raw. ---
**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:** [January 11, 2008, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006/40 "2008-01-11T03:49:52Z")
[QUOTE=rostfrei] I remember hearing about someone who went scuba diving and discovered an underwater cave. They went in and swam around, not realizing that their fins were kicking up silt from the cave floor behin them, causing the visibility to be zero. They became disoriented and couldn’t find their way out of the cave… Also, I was in Las Vegas a few years ago when I heard on the local news about a tourist who was walking down the street barefoot. She stepped on some sort of grate on the sidewalk and was electrocuted due to some freak wiring issue or something like that. I can’t remember the logistics, but she died. [/QUOTE] I was in Las Vegas that day. There was a torrential rainstorm and it flooded the strip. A woman stepped on a traffic light junction box that was full of water (and poorly insulated), and was killed. I remembered reading about it the next morning. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/deaths-that-suck/433006.md?page=3)