How far would you go to get something for free? A Florida reptile store held a contest where entrants had to eat roaches and worms. The champion bug-gobbler would receive a free–totally free–pet python. Remarkably, more than one person entered this contest. Tragically, the winner, a 32-year old man, vomited and collapsed after the contest, later dying in an area hospital. [More]
tragic
After 2 Fatal Megabus Accidents In A Week, Illinois Governor Wishes Feds Cared
By 8.10.12
Megabus is not having a very good week. The company settled a wrongful death lawsuit, agreeing to pay $5.1 million to the family of a man hit and killed by a Megabus in a downtown Chicago crosswalk in 2010. The day before the settlement was announced, another Megabus hit and killed another elderly pedestrian in a crosswalk just a few blocks away from where the 2010 accident occurred. Last week, a bus leaving Chicago hit an overpass, killing one passenger and injuring dozens more. Oh, and a Charlotte-bound bus caught fire in Georgia this week, too. The National Transportation Safety Board declined to investigate this week’s incidents, and Governor Pat Quinn isn’t happy about that. [More]
Key Finally Decides Not To Make Family Pay Dead Student's College Loans
By 4.27.12
When a person dies and their estate is settled, any remaining debt dies with them, including student loans. But there’s an exception: if a parent or other responsible grown-up co-signs a loan and the borrower dies a tragic young death, that co-signer is on the hook for the entire amount of the loan. That’s how co-signing works, after all. But after a Rutgers student died in 2006 after two years in a coma, most of his lenders (credit cards and student loans) deferred, then forgave his debts. Key Bank was the holdout, since the student’s father had co-signed his college loans at Key. Since 2006, the family has paid $20,000 of the $50,000 balance. It took an awful lot of negative publicity, but Key says that they will forgive the debt, and might not even put future families in the same terrible situation. [More]
Toys 'R' Us Must Pay $20.6 Million In 2006 Pool Slide Death
By 10.20.11
We enjoy mocking Banzai and their tendency to put wildly inaccurate photographs of their products on the boxes. But another wild inaccuracy led to tragedy in Massachusetts in 2006, when a 29-year-old mother went headfirst down an inflatable waterslide that collapsed. She broke her neck and later died as a result of the injuries. The jury deliberated for less than an hour before awarding her survivors $20.6 million–and they weren’t even allowed to hear about the other person allegedly paralyzed by a similar injury while using the same product. [More]
Man Dies From Pulmonary Embolism After Spending Hours Playing Xbox
By 8.1.11
If you’ve been sitting in the same position for hours at your computer, stand up now and stretch or do some jumping jacks: A 20-year-old man addicted to gaming has unfortunately been killed by that same dedication to Xbox, falling victim to a pulmonary embolism after sitting for hours playing online games. [More]
Wells Fargo Forecloses On, Auctions Off House With Dead Owner Inside
By 7.28.11
Last year, Wells Fargo foreclosed on and auctioned off a modest townhouse on Cape Canaveral in Florida. The owner hadn’t made any mortgage payments or used any electricity in over a year, and neighbors didn’t recall seeing her. Her possessions and car were still in the house. Did she walk away from her mortgage and leave town entirely? Not quite. The house’s new owner found something Wells Fargo’s inspectors and property managers had missed when they inventoried the contents of the house and garage: the homeowner’s mummified remains in the front passenger seat of her car. Her cause of death remains unknown. [More]
Keep Your Dogs Away From Gum With Xylitol So Their Organs Don't Bleed
By 7.6.11
Icebreakers gum may be a great way to “break the ice,” but you wouldn’t want to use them to help your dog freshen his breath. Many pet owners aren’t aware that the artificial sweetener inside it and many other products, Xylitol, can be acutely toxic to dogs if the canines eat it. KCBS has the tragic story of one corgi who suffered acute liver failure after he got into a bag of Icebreakers. [More]
Woman Killed Trying To Save Car From Repo Man
By 3.2.11
A California woman was crushed to death yesterday by her own car while trying to save it from repossession. Authorities still aren’t quite sure how the accident happened, but the 41-year-old was standing between her car and the tow truck, and was somehow pulled under her vehicle and dragged 40 feet. She died of internal bleeding later that night at a local hospital. [More]
Hairless Kitten Freezes To Death After Trip In Delta Cargo Hold
By 1.27.11
Snickers, an eleven-week-old hairless kitten, flew from from a breeder in Utah to her new home in Connecticut in the supposedly climate-controlled cargo hold of a Delta Airlines plane. Her new family paid the airline $70 extra so she would be removed immediately. Instead, she sat under the plane for about 50 minutes, on a 10 degree Fahrenheit evening. When she finally met her family, she showed symptoms of severe hypothermia. They tried to warm her up and rushed to a vet, but it was too late. [More]
Body Found Outside Boston May Have Fallen From Plane
By 11.23.10
Reuters says police are investigating the possibility that the body of a 16-year-old North Carolina high school student fell from a plane approaching Logan Airport. So far, they have been unable to explain why the boy, who ran away from home, would have been found dead in Milton, MA. [More]
20 People Die In Plane Crash Caused By Loose Crocodile
By 10.22.10
An August plane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo was blamed on a balance in the small aircraft. But what caused that loss of balance? According to the flight’s only survivor, the passengers were running away from a stowaway on the flight: a live crocodile. [More]
Lost Megabus Driver Crashes Into Bridge While Checking GPS; Four Passengers Killed
By 9.16.10
Very early Saturday morning, a double-decker Megabus lost on its way to the bus station crashed into a low railroad overpass (pictured) outside of Syracuse, NY. Four passengers were killed, and twenty people injured, including the driver. Now, the public has learned that the driver was looking at his personal GPS unit at the time of the accident–which Megabus drivers are not permitted to use while driving for work. [More]
Suicides At Foxconn Prompt Cartoons, Raises, No-Suicide Pledge
By 5.28.10
Is Foxconn, the huge electronics company that manufactures for global brands such as HP, Dell, and Apple (yes, they make the iPad and iPhone) a towering fortress of secrecy where employees cower in fear, ten people to a dorm room, or a normal manufacturing outfit that has had a weird cluster of employee suicides recently? [More]
Murder Suicide At Downtown Chicago Old Navy
By 5.7.10
The Chicago Tribune reports that a man walked into the Old Navy store at State and Washington in Chicago’s Loop and shot his girlfriend before turning the gun on himself, sending panicked shoppers flooding out of the store. [More]
Man Dies In Freak Gas Pump Fire Caused By Static Electricity
By 3.10.10
A Pennsylvania man died last Friday in a freak fire at a gas station. Authorities say that the fire was sparked by static electricity on the man’s body, and he died of inhalation of superheated gases. While this type of fire is very rare and fatalities even rarer, they do happen. To prevent them, you should do something terribly mundane: do not ever get back in your car while fueling, and make sure to touch a metal surface before fueling. [More]
Does Convincing McDonald's To Make Chicken Selects For Breakfast Prove You Were Sober?
By 11.20.09
This summer a woman in an SUV drove almost two miles down the wrong way of an expressway before killing eight people in a horrible crash. The autopsy suggests she was drunk and high at the time, but her family says that isn’t possible and to prove it, they say she was sober enough to convince McDonald’s to make her son an order of Chicken Selects in the morning, right before the accident.
Somewhere, Out There, A Piece Of Demi Moore's Hip Is Looking For Its Home
By 11.18.09
Since you all were so fond of the photoshop horror that was that one Ralph Lauren ad, we bring you the latest tragedy from BoingBoing. Demi Moore is on the cover of W this month. Well, most of her is.
Blair Recalls More Flammable Clothing After Yet Another Fire
By 10.23.09
“Consumers Urged to Stop Use of Flammable Wearing Apparel,” says the warning on the Consumer Product Safety Commission Web site. You would think so, wouldn’t you? But Blair, the catalog where your grandmother probably gets all of her clothes, has expanded their recall of chenille sleepwear after nine deaths and another reported chenille fire.
