Wednesday 3 September 2008

Lazy Day

we had a lazy day yesterday, Tony called round for a tea and a chat Booie called in later to pick him up, I decided to read a few things on line and came across this, I know death and taxes are the only sure things in life, but to jump out of an airplane remembering you camera and not your parachute? Some people have had such bizarre deaths there’s a danger you could die laughing just reading about them. A new book has rounded up hilarious true stories of people kicking the bucket in truly crazy fashion. In 1001 Ridiculous Ways To Die by David Southwell and Matt Adams you’ll find tales such as the skydiver who forgot his parachute, the undertaker squashed by coffins, the man killed by his own radio-controlled plane – and much more. Here are a few of funny fatalities from the book. Buried ... nut a nice way to go Oh, nuts! Willie Murphy was more than a bit shell-shocked when an avalanche of peanuts buried him at a processing plant in Georgia, USA, in 1993. He never made it out alive. Oh, chute! Experienced skydiver Ivan McGuire went plane crazy one day in 1988 when he decided to film his 3,000m jump above North Carolina – he remembered his camera but forgot his parachute! Water way to go Things didn’t go swimmingly at all for a 59-year-old Californian when he sat on a pool’s badly covered drain. With a sucking power of 300lbs per square inch, he never really stood a chance. He died when his small intestine was sucked clean out. Bird brain Chicken thief Henri M’Bongo was forced by an angry mob in Cameroon to eat what he’d stolen - he choked to death on feathers and bone in the 1998 incident. Casket case French undertaker Marc Bourjade suffered a crushing blow when a pile of coffins at his workshop fell on top of him in 1982. Fittingly, he was buried in one of the coffins that killed him. Hot debate How far would you go to prove a point? Michael Toye from Hampshire had a burning desire to prove to a pal that white spirit is flammable – so he dowsed himself in the stuff and set fire to it. He died from serious burns six days later, in April 2007. Heads! A Ghanaian goalkeeper was killed instantly during a cup match when the goal’s crossbar fell on his head. Accusations of witchcraft were leveled at the opposition. Rough and tumble A fatal spin was the end result for Ray Washbrook when he climbed into an industrial tumble drier to remove some trapped linen in 1996. He was spun round for 20 minutes at 110 centigrade. Goodnight... forever Death by tampons sounds unlikely, but it happened to chronic snorer Mark Gleeson in 1996. The Hampshire man tried to cure his problem by shoving two of the female hygiene products up his nose. He suffocated as he slept. Plane silly A head-on collision with his own radio-controlled plane was what killed Roger Wallace from Arizona in 2001. He lost sight of the 3kg machine in the sun and it crashed into his head at 40mph. Food for thought The Belgian air force killed three men in Sudan when they dropped a crate of food on top of them. The pilots were taking part in a humanitarian relief effort and the idea was actually to save the Sudanese from starving. Drop dead ... eagle Where eagles dare Beware clumsy eagles if you ever go to Iran. Two car passengers died there when an eagle soaring overhead accidentally dropped a cobra into their vehicle. It bit them straightaway, killing them both. Fangs a lot! Off the rails After a row with his girlfriend, a 20-year-old man from Edinburgh hanged himself at Western Hailes railway station – on the ‘way out’ sign. Crashing blow There can be few unluckier people than the lone 18-year-old occupant of a farm in Belgium who was killed by an unmanned Russian MiG fighter jet! The pilot had ejected in Poland, but the aircraft flew 560 miles on auto-pilot until it ran out of fuel and crashed into the poor teenager’s home. Die laughing There’s laughing so much it hurts – but this was a much more serious matter! Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old from King’s Lynn, guffawed so hard at an episode of hit BBC comedy show The Goodies in 1975 that he died of a heart failure. The sketch that led to his untimely death involved Tim Brooke-Taylor dressed as a Scotsman using a set of bagpipes and deploying the Scottish martial art of ‘Hoots-Toots-ochaye’ in a fight. His widow wrote to the stars of the show to thank them for making her husband’s last minutes of life so happy.

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