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The American teenager who worked as an office boy at an insurance company at the Metropolitan Life Building in New York City, was fleeing six young women stenographers at his workplace intent on giving him kisses for his 15th birthday while carrying a metal ink eraser in his breast pocket. As the women moved in for their kisses, he fell forward, and the eraser's point pierced his heart, killing him.[1][2][failed verification]
Unknown female
19 August 1920
A 12-year-old girl from Blackburn, Lancashire, England, died from ulceration of air passages after swallowing sodium silicate jelly inside a golf ball.[3]
The 32-year-old physician in Armidale, Australia, was shocked to death in his bed by an excessive quantity of electrical power from a medical device. Barnet had picked up a telephone beside his bed to answer a call at the moment the device's current came on.[5]
Clarence Stagemyer
29 September 1943
The 32-year-old was watching a Cleveland Indians-Washington Senators doubleheader in Griffith Stadium when an errant throw by Senators' third baseman Sherry Robertson struck him in the forehead. Despite appearing uninjured afterwards, he heeded the Senators' team physician's entreaties to go to the hospital, where he died the next day of a fractured skull. Stagemyer was the first fan in Major League Baseball history killed by a ball leaving the field, and the only such fatality to date to have been struck by a thrown ball.[6]: 161
The 27-year-old American musician died after choking on his own vomit while intoxicated with barbiturates. Hendrix's September 21 autopsy, citing "insufficient evidence of the circumstances", declared an open verdict. Hendrix's partner, Monika Dannemann, later revealed that Hendrix had taken nine of her prescribed Vesparax sleeping tablets, 18 times the recommended dosage.[8][verification needed]
The 2-week-old infant riding in the backseat of a car was killed by an injured cow's hoof in a collision between the car and the cow on California State Route 1 in Lompoc, California. The family from Santa Maria was driving under the speed limit but could not avoid the cow. The cow flew towards the windshield and rolled towards the top of the car. The cow's hoof destroyed the roof of the car and struck the child in the head. The infant was taken to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead four hours later from internal injuries. His parents suffered minor injuries and were released a short time later.[9][failed verification][10][failed verification]
John Anderson and Albert Schaaf
25 September 2003
Anderson, a 56-year-old lawyer from Florida, and Schaaf, a 56-year-old pilot from California, were aboard a Grumman Albatross seaplane flown by former British Airways captain John Russell, when the plane experienced an engine failure and crashed into a commercial beehive in St. Lucie County, Florida. Although they survived the crash with injuries, the plane was immediately swarmed by a large cloud of bees that stung the men repeatedly, adding to their injuries and driving back rescuers. Schaaf died at the scene and Anderson died in the hospital the following day.[11][failed verification][12][failed verification][13]
David Phyall
5 July 2008
The 50-year-old last resident in a block of flats due to be demolished in Bishopstoke, near Southampton, England, decapitated himself with a chainsaw to highlight the injustice of being forced to move out of it.[14]
Vladimir Likhonos
5 December 2009
The 25-year-old student of Kyiv Polytechnic Institute from Konotop was killed when his chewing gum exploded. He had a habit of dipping his chewing gum in citric acid to increase the gum's sour taste. On his work table police found about 100 grams (3.5 oz) of unidentified explosive powder which he used for chemistry studies at home. It resembled citric acid, and it is thought that he confused the two, having accidentally coated his gum in the explosive powder before chewing it. The explosive was found to be four times stronger than TNT, and the explosion was possibly triggered either by reacting with Likhonos's saliva, or the pressure exerted by him chewing on the gum and explosive powder.[15][failed verification][16][failed verification][17][18][failed verification][19][failed verification]
A 26-year-old male employee at the Wonton Food Company in Stafford, Texas died from multiple blunt trauma injuries after he accidentally fell inside a fortune cookie dough-mixing machine. Authorities from the Harris County Institute of Forensic Science later confirmed that his death was ruled as an accident.[20][21]
Vera Hilda Williams
28 October 2014
Vera Williams, 77, swallowed a sharp piece of toast that tore into her esophagus, and had been to the hospital three times since 10 October, but was discharged. On 24 October she attended the Emergency Department, after vomiting a blood clot, which was eventually revealed to have been caused by a ruptured aorta. Williams' death, on 28 October, at Glan Clwyd Hospital, was estimated to be have been a "three in a million" chance.[22][unreliable source?][23][failed verification]
Linda Goldbloom
29 August 2018
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.[24]
Unknown boy
12 September 2019
The boy from Gashamo, Ethiopia, was attacked by an immature martial eagle, which also attacked two other children, and died from his injuries shortly afterwards. The eagle was also killed by a local teenager, who beat the bird to death with a cane. It is unknown whether or not the attack was an attempt at predation.[25][verification needed]
A high school student in Washington was killed by a portable soccer goal while playing around it when an exposed metal tip entered his eye cavity when he fell down on it.[26][failed verification]
Brandon Patty
1 June 2023
The 26-year-old man was killed at a Gastonia, North Carolinagroup home after being struck in the head during a dispute by a toilet lid held by a 57-year-old man who lived in the same home. He was pronounced dead on-scene. Authorities later charged the 57-year-old with first-degree murder in connection with Patty's death.[27][failed verification][28][failed verification]
The 81-year-old Japanese man died after the blade of a wind turbine broke away and fell to the ground. He was found unconscious with head injuries. The link between the blade and his death is under investigation.[31][failed verification][32][failed verification]
^Barbier, Laetitia (2013-02-18). "Morbid Monday: Kissed to Death". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 2022-04-03. His gravestone, erected in the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, is a monument to bizarre death, with a story so unusual that it needed to be carved in stone for posterity.
^Weeks, David; Gorman, Robert (2015). "15: Fans". Death at the Ballpark: More Than 2,000 Game-Related Fatalities of Players, Other Personnel and Spectators in Amateur and Professional Baseball, 1862–2014 (2nd ed.). McFarland. ISBN978-0-7864-7932-0. Retrieved 30 September 2022.
^[hhttps://www.orlandosentinel.com/2000/01/03/infant-in-car-apparently-killed-by-a-cows-hoof-2/ "INFANT IN CAR APPARENTLY KILLED BY A COW'S HOOF"]. The Orlando Sentinel. 2000-01-03. Retrieved 2021-08-05.
^Iqbal, Aisha (2013-06-08) [Originally published 1 October 2003]. "PILOT ESCAPES HORROR CRASH AFTER PLANE HITS BEEHIVES". Local News. BerkshireLive. Retrieved 2025-01-17. In the bizarre accident, the restored Grummam [sic] Albatross plane crashed into a row of Australian pine trees in St Lucie County, ending up on top of more than one hundred commercial beehives.
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