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March
 Nathan di
Nascimento was fishing in the Maguari river 30 miles (48km) south of the remote Amazon city of Belem in Brazil. During a lengthy
yawn, a 6in (15cm)-long fish leapt out of the water and lodged itself in his throat. He was dead on arrival in hospital. Guardian - 26 Mar 1997
April
A
German couple in their 50s took their old car to a scrapyard. They parked, completed the
paperwork, but got back in the car to shelter from a sudden squall of rain. "The driver of the
crane was told to process their car", said a police investigator. "He did so without realising
that the couple were sitting inside again." The car was grabbed by the crane's steel claws and
dropped in the crusher, which normally reduces cars to a small cube. It was stopped when the
crane driver heard the woman's screams, but it was too late to save her husband. The crane
driver was hospitalised for shock, but was expected to be charged with "negligent
manslaughter". Daily Mail - 14 April 1997
June
Armando Merola, 51, died on 25 February after falling into an 8ft (2.4m) high mincing machine
he was cleaning at the Beni Foods factory in Tongwell near Milton Keynes. "The paddles inside
were jammed by his body. He was still alive," said another worker. Another worker switched off
the power, but the machine started again, crushing Merola. Newport &
Olney Citizen - 26 June 1997
July
Sixty years ago, six-year-old Rolande Geneve planted an oak in her garden in Isere, France. On
3 July it fell over and killer her. The Mirror - 4 July 1997
August
Stefan Rosengren, 29, a travel writer, leapt to his death from the Clifton Suspension Bridge in
Bristol after getting depressed about the miserable summer. He had returned home in May after
four years in South-eat Asia. "The rain in June got to him," his brother Gudmend, told the
inquest in Bristol. Daily Telegraph - 6 August 1997
A
retired miner who never had an accident underground died when a load of coal buried him in his
own backyard in the former mining village of Nelson in Glamorgan. Tom Gray, 86, was getting
fuel from his bunker when a wall collapsed. The Mirror - 8 August
1997
Bhupendra Paudal from Kanyam in Nepal, who claimed that he had been given heavenly powers by
the god Shiva, killed his wife in front of his family because she was not as beautiful as the
goddess Parvati, consort of Shiva. He reasoned that this sacrifice would help his wife to
become as beautiful as Parvati. Ghatana Ra Bichar (Nepal), 13 August
1997
Every day, Mohammad Saeed Shafiq, 40, visited the grave of his parents in Cairo, where he would
cry for hours non-stop. Finally, he cried himself to death at their grave, according to
Al-Akhbar, the government daily. [AFP] - 21 August 1997
A woman driver in Denver, Colorado, choked to death when she swallowed her lipstick. Poice say
she was doing her make-up when she braked suddenly. Daily Record - 22
August 1997
Mark Anthony, 28, a life assurance consultant, went to see Lee Hurst's show at the Up the
Creek! comedy club in Greenwich, London. Ten minutes after the show, he laughed so hard that he
choked to death. South London Press - 27 August 1997
Stag party friends were curious when a stripper failed to jump out of a huge cake in Consenza,
Italy. then they found her dead inside it. Gina Lalapola, 23, had suffocated after waiting for
an hour inside the sealed cake. Daily Record - 30 August 1997
September
Thierry Sigaud, 31, shot and killed his mother on 6 September after she gave him a haircut he
did not like, in preparation for a local carnival in Nevers, France. His father tried to
intervene and was also shot dead. Hong Kong Standard - 9 September
1997
Detective-Sergeant Daniel Edwards, 40, was found on 30 August trapped between a tree and his
patrol car on a road between Muizenberg and Fish Hoek near Cape Town in South Africa. Captain
Jacques Wiese said it appeared Sgt. Edwards parked his vehicle on a slope when he went to
relieve himself. The vehicle then rolled down the embankment and crushed him. The Citizen (South Africa) - 1 September 1997
Lionel Buckley, 86, was hurled from an air bed in the burns unit of Manchester's Whitington
Hospital when an electric pump blew up and was found dead on the other side of the room. Air
beds are used to protect burn victims from contact with the bed sheets. The Mirror - 10 September 1997
Solicitor Linda Harvey, 44, leapt to her death from a third-storey bedroom window in Hastings
after an aircraft flight from Paris left her with a constant ringing in her ears, which she was
told was incurable. She suffered Tinnitus when cabin pressure suddenly dropped, causing damage
to her inner ear. She was flying home from Bordeaux where she had just undergone a successful
operation to cure deafness in one ear. Daily Telegraph - 11 September
1997
Gary Harmon, 47, died on 10 September 1997, after a nine-day-stay in St Joseph Mercy-Oakland
Hospital in Pontiac, Michiganm where he was being treated for asthma and emphysema. He
complained about something being stuck in his throat which he couldn't cough up. He was rushed
back into hospital but died two hours later, having choked on a latex surgical glove. Salt Lake (UT) Tribune - 15 September 1997
Prospero Capellar Barrios, 46, a Venezuelan ice cream seller, was killed on 16 September when a
castiron lamp post crashed down on the spot where he had worked for more than 14 years. Thieves
had removed the lamps post's retaining screws. Barrios died of head wounds in the colonial
centre of Caracas before medical help could arrive. Reuters - 18
September 1997
Frank Nelson, 26, died almost instantly on 22 September when he fell into a vat mixing polymers
at a Nalley Valley plastics factory near Tacoma, Washington. He was pouring colouring into the
cylindrical 3x5ft (91x152cm) vat when he fell in and was sliced by revolving blades. News Tribune (WA) - 23 September 1997.
Andrew Thornton, 37, received a fatal shock as he turned on the shower at his home in Banvury,
Oxfordshire, last July. A small screw used to tighten a loose floorboard on the landing outside
the bathroom had penetrated wiring for the shower and caused a short-circuit. Daily Telegraph - 25 September 1997
October
Christopher Sean Payne, 34, and an un-named women of 25 drank 11 bottles of beer on 11 October
1996 and then went on a sexual romp in the sea near Darwin in Australia. They had intercourse
in "a number of postitions" before the woman went underwater to perform fellatio. Payne became
excited, put his hands on her head and kept her submerged.
Micheal Carey, prosecuting at Payne's trial in the Northern Territories Supreme Court a
year later, said Payne told police that when the woman stopped sucking, he wondered what was
going on, so he let her up. She had not tried to get up and wasn't kicking or splashing. When
he realised she was dead, he "freaked out", dressed and drove away. He was arrested two days
later and during his year in prison had constant nightmares and was treated 12 times for
outbreaks of boils. Payne's counsel pointed out that the woman might have passed out from
drink: she had consumed six times the legal driving limit. Sydney Daily
Telegraph - 3 October 1997
A serb man was bitten to death by a badger that he was hunting when the animal ripped out a
piece of flesh from his thigh and severed a vein. Dragan Ckonjevic died within minutes from
loss of blood. [AFP] - 11 October 1997
Anton Grudsch was so upset when councillors were ordered to bring their own lavatory paper to
mettings in Kalofer, Bulgaria, that he went home fro his shotgun and shot dead mayor Simeon
Krasnich. The People - 12 October 1997
Maxine Ann Keggerreis, 79, died in Allegan, Michigan, while trying to exercise her dog and mow
the lawn at the same time. She drowned in a pond after becoming entangled in the dog chain
attached to her riding mower. She apparently tried to back up when the chain and mower snagged,
and fell into the water with the dog, which also drowned. [UPI] - 15
October 1997
Two brothers were told by community elders in Delhi to hold their breath underwater as a way of
settling a family argument - the one who lasted longer would win. Both drowned. Daily Mail - 22 October 1997
Children's entertainer Marlon Pistol was killed when a 20ft (6m) balloon elephant used in his
act inflated in the back of his car on a California highway. The People
- 26 October 1997
November
Carol Williams, 54, of Townhill, Swansea, suffocated when she fell facedown into her dog's bowl
and the bowl's rim pressed against her neck. The inquest heard that she was three times over
the drink-drive limit. Daily Telegraph; Express - 1 November
1997
Seyyed Hashem Ahmad, 43, an Egyptian house painter, pushed a 65-year-old woman, Ensaf Mohmamad
[sic] Selim, to her death from the roof of a three-storey building in Suez following a dispute
over who should be allowed to hang out their washing first. Halifax
Evening Courier - 4 November 1997
A
Russian hunter and a bear are thought to have killed each other in a struggle in Siberia.
Searchers trying to find Yuri Smakotin discovered his body next to the carcass of a shot brown
bear about 60 miles (97km) from the village of Kukan in the Far Eastern Khabarovsk region.
Associated Press - 7 November 1997
Six
elephants were killed by one lightning bolt as they huddled togther sheltering fro a storm in
the Kruger National Park in South Africa. "It was a particularly heavy storm. We don't usually
get that kind of lightning," said a park spokesman. Daily Telegrpah - 7
November 1997
A
Romanian woman, Florica Ifrimie, hanged herself before her wedding because she could not agree
with her bridegroom over the menu for the wedding feast. National
(Romania) - 14 November 1997
Siek Phan, 62, a Vietnamese women from the Cambodian province of Kompong Speu, was cutting
firewood when her husband, Nou Meas, 65, sneaked up and tickled her. She instinctively threw
her axe, killing him instantly. When she turned round she found she had nearly decapitated him.
"I hate being tickled," she told the authorities. Associated Press - 17
November 1997
December
The chief accountant from the failed Japanese brokerage Yamaichi Securities Co worked without a
break for 14 days from a week before the crash (Japan's largest post-war failure) and did not
leave the office during that period. The 38-year-old man finally went home in Tokyo on 27
November and was found dead in bed the next morning. Verdict: fatigue. Reuters - 3 December 1997
Church choirgirl Chantelle Bleau, 16, died after sniffing gas lighter fuel at a friend's house.
She had a leading role in a play called Deadly Deals, which was touring schools in
Bradford, West Yorkshire, warning pupils of the dangers of drugs. Daily
Telegraph - 6 December 1997
Ouma (or Anna) Hendriks, 63, was attacked by an enraged ostrich on a farm in Joostenbergvlakte,
about 25 mile (40km) outside Cape Town. Her husband Abraham, 65, watched helplessly as she was
kicked and stomped on for about an hour. He managed to flag down help after the ostrich left,
and the couple were taken to hospital, where Mrs Hendricks died four days later. The attack
occured when the couple, who lived on an adjacent farm, walked through an ostrich herd on the
Lekkerwater farm on their way to visit friends on 22 December. Associated Press - 29 December 1997
James Shivers, 60, from St Louis, Missouri, fired at his 26-year-old son Tony with a pistol for
standing in front of the television during a Holiday Bowl football game between the University
of Missouri and Colorado State. He missed; the son grabbed the pistol and began beating his
father until the gun broke apart. The elder Shivers then got a shotgun from a cupboard and
fired twice into his son, killing him. Reuters - 30 December
1997
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Strange Deaths of 1997.