Strange deaths of 2003.

 

blue skullA rooster, about to be set loose for a cock-fighting bout in Zamboanga in the Philippines, attacked its handler with the razor-sharp steel spikes strapped to its legs. The spikes cut the man's thigh and groin, causing him to bleed profusely in front of shocked spectators. He died on the way to hospital. Associated Press - 15 January 2003

 

blue skullTwo Caucasian men in their thirties dropped from the undercarriage of an Air France Boeing 777 as it approached Pudong International airport in Shanghai on 24 January after a flight from Paris . One of the men smashed through the roof of a house, leaving a large gash in the roof. The men, who showed signs of frostbite, had probably frozen to death in the wheel wells of the aircraft during the 11-hour journey, dropping from the sky when the landing gear was deployed. Neither carried identification. Stowaways falling from aircraft wheel wells are usually escaping from developing countries and trying to reach the west. New York Times, 25 Jan 2003.

 

blue skullA man's body was recovered from a tree last January, a year after it was first spotted by a passer-by who decided not to report it because he was wanted by the police. The body was partially hidden by leaves 40ft (12m) up the tree in Olympia , Washington state. When the passer-by returned to the area, he saw that the body was still there and called police. One detective was a tree-trimmer in his spare time and used his equipment to cut away the branches and lower the body. "right now, we just don't know a whole lot," said Thurston deputy coroner Terry Harper. "we just know it was a heck of a time getting him down."Ananova, 30 Jan 2003.

 

blue skullA Finnish restaurant employee was driving home at 4am on 11 February when he noticed that his car was rather sluggish. After a few hundred yards he stopped to investigate and found a dead man under the car. According to the police, the deceased, aged about 30, was lying under the car before it was driven off. The vehicle bore no trace of a collision. Nya Aland (Finland) - 12 February 2003.

 

blue skullKieran Duggal, 53, lent forward to unlock his front door with a key tied round his neck. He slipped and became tangled, accidentally throttling himself. Jobless Mr Duggal was found dead outside his home in Balham, southwest London . D.Express, 19 February 2003

 

blue skullSheila Creighton, 61, of Liversedge, Yorkshire , died from Tetanus after falling over in her garden and cutting her face on a bush. Doctors failed to recognise the disease because it is now so rare. Sun, 28 February 2003

 

blue skullA man walking his dog was run down and killed by his own car on 23 march. His Nissan Primara hurtled down Portsdown Hill, near Portsmouth , and hit him after he had left it in a car park. Police believe the handbrake had slipped. "it appears as if he tried to stop the car by standing in front of it," said a spokesman. D.Mirror, 24 March 2003

 

blue skullA 64-year-old electrician from Berlin died in his new home in Malaga, Spain, while wired up to a home-made gadget. He told friends that his "orgasmatron" - named after a sex-machine in Woody Allen's film Sleeper - was better than a woman and a lot cheaper. It had a vibrating mat, massage pads and electrodes to attach to his manhood. "Unfortunately there seems to have been a power surge while he was watching a film called Hot Vixen Nuns," said a police spokesman. "And the flat was damp." The cause of death was electrocution. Glasgow Herald - 28 March 2003.

 

blue skullLeslie Cheung Kwok-wing, 46, the pop singer and actor famous for playing a gay opera singer who commits suicide in the oscar-nominated film Farewell My Concubine, died after leaping from the 24th floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong on 31 March. A note on his body said he was plagued by "emotional problems". Melbourne Age, 03 April 2003

 

blue skullKimberley Mason, 20, was a passenger in a car driving down Frederick Street in Detroit at 2am on 18 April when a bullet crashed through the roof and hit her in the head. She died later in hospital. "It appears that it was a bullet coming down from the sky after having been fired in the air," said homicide inspector Craig Schwart. Detroit Free News, 19 April 2003.

 

blue skullVictor Leslie, 57, former European president of computer games maker Sega, cheated on his diet and paid with his life. The 18 stone (114kg) businessman died after being stung on his tongue by a wasp as he sneaked a spoonful of ice cream at a family barbecue at his home in St Lawrence, Isle of Wight , on 8 September 2002. His tongue instantly swelled up and he collapsed beside his swimming pool. He died of asphyxia, despite taking an antihistamine to counteract the sting. Metro, D.Telegraph, D.Mail, 25 April 2003

 

blue skullTran Guoc Du, 23, teacher in the southern Vietnamese province of Binh Thuan , died instantly on 1 May when his karaoke microphone short-circuited while he was singing in his home. Sydney Daily Telegraph, 02 May 2003

 

blue skullNurse Elaine Silcocks, 40, of Keelby, Humberside, died on 22 february and a post mortem revealed the cause was septic shock, directly linked with a double wound on her thigh. She had gone to bed early on St Valentine's day, complaining of pain in her left elbow and saying that she could not get warm. She was up every half-hour to be sick. In the morning, her elbow was swollen, and her husband noticed two small puncture marks about a centimetre apart on her right thigh, and jokingly asked her if she had been bitten by a vampire. She said they were old and didn't know what they were. Her GPP thought they might have been an insect bite, although this was never proved. All possibilities linked with her work were ruled out. Coroner Stewart Atkinson said: "I suppose we will never know what caused the wound, because not even Elaine knew." Grimsby Telegraph, 24 May 2003

 

blue skullIndian twin sisters born in Nagda village in Madhya Pradesh 114 years ago both died on 29 May 2003 and were subsequently cremated side by side. Kali Bi Sheikh and Batul Bi Sheikh were born to Umdabai and Sultan in the village of Siya . They were married into two different families from Nagda on the same day and turned widows simultaneously. After their husbands died, they lived together. They had about 125 grandchildren and great grandchildren between them. Kali Bi fell ill and died while being taken to hospital. At roughly the same time, Batul Bi, who was sleeping at home, also breathed her last. Sify.com, Ananova, 1 June 2003.

 

blue skullAn unnamed man found a decomposing body occupying his bed when he returned home to Norwich after visiting relatives for several days. The man lived alone and was not expecting anyone to be in his flat. There was no sign of a forced entry. The body was so decomposed that the police were unable to identify it. Ananova, 5 June 2003.

 

blue skullWillie Wagner, nine, was walking across the town street bridge in Columbus , Ohio , on 22 may when he touched a lamp-post and was electrocuted. More than two weeks later, city officials were still unable to say what had happened. No current had been detected on the lamppost or chain-link fence close by. All wires and fuses associated with the lamp were inspected and found to be working and properly insulated. Excavations to examine the two electric transmission lines beneath the concrete sidewalk revealed no defects that would allow moisture inside. Biomedical analysts were trying to determine precisely where the electricity entered and exited the boy's body. [AP], 12 June 2003

 

blue skullA college student survived A lightning strike while mountain climbing, but was killed in a second strike. Ryan Sayers, 20, of Colorado Springs , Colorado , and his German girlfriend Katrin Birmann, 24, were climbing a cliff on Steeple Peak , central Wyoming , on 16 June 2003 when lightning hit them 1,500ft (469m) from the summit. Removing their equipment, they decided to sit out the storm, but about an hour later they were hit by a second lightning strike, and Sayers fell about 300ft (90m) into a ravine. Birmann, who suffered minor burns, found her boyfriend dead when she rappelled down to him. A rescue team recovered the body the next day. An examination determined he died from the lightning strikes, not the fall. Associated Press, 20 June 2003.

 

blue skullA man aged about 50 was found dead in his seat at a cinema in New Delhi on 24 June after the late-night screening of Bollywood's latest horror film, Bhoot ('ghost'), which the director had warned could pose a health risk to those of a nervous disposition. It is a thriller about a possessed housewife, set in a high-rise Mumbai ( Bombay ) apartment. The dead man, discovered by the cinema's cleaning staff, had no identification papers or external injuries. "no one has come forward to claim the body," said a police official. "maybe he got frightened, I don't know."Reuters, 25 June 2003.

 

blue skullA 27-year-old Thai man with a prosthetic leg was electrocuted when he urinated near a power pole on the side of a highway in Bangkok . The victim's father told police they had stopped their car near a tollbooth during a rainstorm on 3 July, after nature called. It was thought that the victim had urinated on a flooded ground line, with his prosthetic leg acting as a strong conductor. Queensland Times, 5 July 2003.

 

blue skullJim Jivram, 48, of Surbiton, Surrey, died of septicemia in hospital seven years after being stung by a scorpion while on holiday in Spain . “He was in severe pain for a long time,” said a work colleague. “He took three or four doses of antibiotics, but never finished the courses.” Sun, 13 Aug 2003.

 

blue skullAmusement park operator Doug Mckay, 40, was spraying lubricant on the tracks of the Super Loop 2, a roller coaster-type ride at the Island County Fair on Whidbey Island , Washington State, on 16 August when his long hair got caught on a car full of fairgoers. McKay, co-owner of Paradise Amusements, based in Post Falls, Idaho, was pulled between 25ft and 40ft (7.6m and 12m) into the air and scalped before falling, back-first, onto a fence. He died later in hospital. Associated Press, 17 Aug 2003.

 

blue skullBaba Jallow, 28, accused of stealing a man's penis through sorcery, was beaten to death on 9 October by about 10 people in the town of Serekunda in the Gambia, nine miles (14km) from the capital Banjul. Reuters, 12 0ct 2003.

 

blue skullAlasdair Porter, 38, a company director, became the first kite surfer to be killed in Britain when a gust of wind swept him 50ft (15m) along Calshot beach, near Southampton , in August 2003 and hurled him head first into a sea wall at incredible speed”. D.Teleqraph, 17 Oct 2003.

 

blue skullEleven people died and thousands were hospitalized with breathing difficulties after a swarm of grasshoppers invaded central Sudan . Health authorities in Wad Medani, 110 miles (177km) southeast of Khartoum , said an epidemic of lung eczema has afflicted 1,685 people since 22 October. Local resident Joseph Mogum said the grasshoppers gave off a strong smell. Los Angeles Times, 2 Nov 2003.

 

blue skullA factory owner with money troubles climbed on the roof of his building in central Thailand to raise a flag believed to ward off bad luck — then slipped and fell to his death. Boonchai Lotharakphong, 43, whose factory made sportswear for Nike, died when he slipped off the roof in Lopburi province, 70 miles (113km) north of Bangkok . He had been sold the flag by a Chinese fortune teller. Associated Press, 15 Nov 2003.

 

blue skullFlatulent parrots killed an animal lover who collapsed and died in Tegelen, Holland . The unnamed victim, whose double-glazed house reeked of expelled wind from dozens of pet birds, had called an ambulance, saying he felt ill — but died before paramedics arrived. The police blamed a combination of the birds' farts and ammonia from their droppings. Sun, 21 Nov 2003.

 

blue skullMavril Jones choked to death on carbon monoxide fumes from her coal fire in February 2003 after a jackdaw built a 3ft (90cm) deep nest in her chimney. The 85-year-old widow, from Pontlliw, Swansea , South Wales , had put wire over the chimney, but it had either blown away or been removed by the birds. She was found in her front room with her devoted Jack Russell dog, which survived, alongside her. Daily Express, Sun, 22 Nov 2003.

 

 

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