|
|
February
Jackie D. Johnson, 19, was killed in his mobile home at Adams Branch, near Elkhorn City,
Kentucky, on 23 February. A 10-foot-square, 30-ton boulder fell about 500 feet from a cliff and
crashed through the roof onto the sofa where he was sitting. Virgil Ramey, his grandfather, who
was sitting beside him, escaoed with a broken shoulder. Virgil's wife, Lucille, had just got up
to let her little dog in, and was uninjured. Associated Press - 25
February 1993
March
Auxiliary nurse Dinah Rea, 58, of Belfast, was found standing doubled over, propped against her
washing machine with her head touching the floor and her arms passed backwards between her
legs. She was dead. She had four times the legal drink drive level of alchohol in her blood.
The weight of her trunk on her head prevented or interferred with her breathing, causing her
death. Belfast Telegraph - 4 March 1993
A Paralysed female patient was being pushed on a trolley into a lift in Kasr el-Eini hospital
in Egypt. Before the entire trolley was in, the lift descended. The woman was cut in half.
Egyptian Gazette - 5 March 1993
Cabbie Alla Dalhanna's habit of chewing his sunglasses had fatal consequences. His car was
rammed by another in El-Alamain, Egypt, and he choked to death. Sunday
Mail - 28 March 1993
April
Willie Murphy, 61, an employee of the Golden Peanut Company in Donalsonville, Georgia, was
killed when he was crushed under an avalanche of Peanuts. USA Today - 5
April 1993
On 24 April, Kwarme Shariff, seven, was playing with his twin brother Kwasi outside their
apartment block in North Brunswick, New Jersey. He stuck his foot in a small hole and the
ground gave way swallowing him up. People tried to pull him out, but each time he slipped from
their grasp and slid deeper into soft mud. A hundred rescuers worked for over seven hours to
dig him out, but he was dead on arrival at hospital. Tree stumps buried by builders, rotted by
unusually heavy spring rains and the township's "traditionally high water table" probably
contributed to the ground's collapse. New York times - 25 April;
Associated Press - 26 April; USA Today - 28 April
May
Cecile Le Doc, described as "a docile woman", beat her husband to death with their 18lb turtle,
Henri, after a row which woke the occupants of their entire block of flats in Nice, France.
The People - 30 May 1993
June
Stubborn Armando Pinelli, 70, won his argument with another man over who should sit in the only
chair in the shade of a palm tree in Foggia, Italy - then died when it fell on him. The Sun - 18 June 1993
Mrs Elizabeth Hall, 52, of Newport in Gwent, walking her powerful cross-bred Collie, died when
it chased another dog and ran her into a children's slide in Abergavenny, rupturing her liver.
Dailt Telegraph; Today - 26 June 1993
The body of Sir Roy Watts, chariman of Thames Water, was found floating face down in the waters
of the Thames 50 yards down river from Westminter Brdge on 4 May 1993. Police estimated that he
had been in the river for about a week. An inquest returned an open verdict. Daily Telegraph - 30 June 1993
July
A bungee jumper plunged to his death in Colorado because the cord attaching him to a ballon was
70 feet too long, investigators said. [AFP] - 2 July 1993
A 23-year-old sweet factory worker in Marseilles, France, was crushed to death when a bin
filled with 5,000 pounds of marshmellows fell on him. Daily Record - 15
July 1993
In July, Stephen Cawthorne, 43, a former district engineer from York, died from head injuries
when his Yamaha 600cc motorcycle was jumped on by an emu in a narrow cutting near Mount
Surprise, Queensland. A week earlier, on 16 July, motorcyclist Kelly Cordry, 39, was killed
when a 40 pound black dog fell on him from a railway bridge in Commerce City, Colorado. The
motorcyle slammed into the crach barrier and Cordry was thrown into the path of oncoming
traffic. Denver Post - 17 July; Sunday Express - 25 July; Reuters - 26 July 1993
Nanette Meech, 76, of Sante Fe, was canoeing down the Brule River in Winsconsin with her
daughter Laurie on 15 July, when a 40ft poplar tree, about 18in diameter, that had been gnawed
by a beaver, crashed down on her head with fatal consequences. Denver
Post - 17 July 1993
Tanya Green, 22, of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, died after having sex with her boyfriend, a week
after giving birth to a healthy baby. The post mortem showed that air had been forced into her
bloodstream because blood vessels had not closed again after the birth. Sussex Evening Argos - 21 July 1993
In Commerce City, a suburb of Denver, Derek Romero, 15, was found crushed to death on a bedroom
floor with thr family's 11.5ft pet Burmese python, Sally, coiled next to him. The snake, which
belonged to the victim's elder brother, was quite agitated and hissed at police. It had been in
the house for eight years, and had no history of attacking people. Since Sally had been fed a
rabbit about five days earlier, it was unlikely that she was seeking prey. The family's theory
was that Romero forgot to wash his hands after playing with a pet rabbit - a definate no-no,
since snakes hunt by smell. [Rueters] - 21 July; Rocky Mountain News
- 23 July 1993
August
Former coal merchant Alan Bowmer, 45, from Belpar in Derbyshire, took a short-cut to the pub
through a cemetery in June 1993. He was last seen leaning on a tombstone. The next morning he
was found pinned under the massive granite slab. The post-mortem revealed that he suffered a
gradual death from asphyxia. Today; Daily Mirror - 4 August
1993
A 1920s Rolls-Royce used for weddings broke down in Stockport, Greater Manchester. As chauffeur
Frank Jackson, 70, was working beneath the bonnet, another car rammed into the Roller and
Frank's head was impaled on the Silver Lady statuette, killing him. The car was made before
Rolls-Royce made the Silver Lady mascots spring-loaded, to flip backwards on impact. Daily Star - 11 August 1993
Holidaymaker Adelaide Magnasco, 80, pulled down the cupboard bed from the wall pf her chalet in
Aosta, Italy, got in - and died when it suddenly snapped closed again. The Sun - 23 August 1993
Two butchers dragged campaigning vegetarian Geetaben Rachiya, 33, from a motorised trishaw in
the western Indian city of Ambavati and hacked her to death with meat cleavers, blaming her
campaign against mutton for a fall in business. Canberra Times - 30
August 1993
October
A lot of women numbering either 23, 35 or 49, jumped from a stationary women-only commuter
train in Bombay which they believed to be on fire after being hit by lightning. They were then
mown down and killed in semi-darkness by another train. [AP, R, AFP] -
14 October 1993
|
|
Strange Deaths of 1993.