Date: 05-27-1998
Location: Outside of Bungalow Coffee Co, Las Vegas, NV
Dating couple Jeff Stewart and Jessica Baron were making their way to Las Vegas to tie the knot. With Jeff filming and playfully annoying Jessica, the two were having the time of their lives. But as the two clowned around at the rest stop, their day of fun came to a sudden and splitting halt when they heard screaming. The screaming was coming from behind a semi truck that had just pulled to a hault. The two rush over to the scene, and discovered something that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.
A man has been run over and cut in half by the 18-wheeler semi-truck. The poor man was still alive, albeit a little half offed. Frank Soriani had been under his Ford 5-350 repairing a briken muffler. As he came out from underneath the truck half of his body was on the street. An 18-wheeler came down the road with Soriani in his blind spot. The truck cut right down the waistline of Frank. Paramedics are dispatched and arrive within minutes. With Frank still kicking, more or less, paramedics take one half into the ambiance but leave the other due to a lack of room. The other half of Soriani was picked up but in a twist of fate, each half was accidentally sent to a different hospital. Doctors spent several hours trying to save Soriani's life but he finally expired. An incredible 3 and a half hours after the accident occurred.
Way To Die #208: Semi-cide
On September 10th, 1945, Lloyd Olson chopped off the head of the chicken for that night's dinner. To his surprise, the chicken remained alive for 18 more months. Lloyd had cut of the head, but much of the brainstem remained intact. Mike the headless chicken was fed grain and water through an eye dropper.
Date: 07-07-2003
Location: Site for City Center, Moore, OK
Meet Milos Dudak, a Czechslovakian immigrant, felt like a very lucky man. Brand new to this country with a wife and baby to support, his construction job was his lifeline. He is instructed to get in a large hole and dig deeper. He complied, Milos was a model employee, if there was ever one.
Tim McNamara, on the other hand, was a model for disaster. More often than not, he would be nursing a major hangover. Today, he took the wheel of his dump truck flat-out drunk. Sometimes, bad things happen to good people. As Tim backed up his truck filled with 3 tons of sand, Milos had no idea that crushing blow fate was about to deal him.
Within seconds, Milos disappeared under 3 tons of sand. His co-workers rushed to his rescue and quickly uncovered his head, allowing him to breathe. They thought they had saved him.
Unable to take a breath, Milos was dying of something called crush asphyxia, a medical term to describe the constriction of the lungs by compressing the torso. If the men would have dug faster or if Tim would have been more considerate, maybe Milos would still be here...but he's not. Who's going to call his wife?
Way To Die #422: Constriction Accident
Date: 08-12-2000
Location: The badlands, Deadwood, SD
What do you get when you mix a couple of good ol boys, a couple of beers, and a small arsenal of that good old Second Amendment? The perfect American dream. The two drunkards stumbling out of a beaten up truck are brothers, Bobby Joe, and Darryl. The two set up targets in the field in front of them and went open season. After capping the asses of their targets, Bobby Joe brings other targets to replace. While switching the targets out, Darryl decides to scare the shit out of Bobby Joe by firing his gun at him. After a few misses and a cuss, Bobby Joe falls to the ground and dies.
Death by a gunshot wound?
Not quite, a death like this strikes before you can even notice. As Bobby Joe fell, he had the absolute nerve to fall right on top of a rattlesnake. She wasn't happy about it. The snake bit Bobby Joe in the chest and released enough venom to double over 5 of him. It was very quick. the snake bit very close to his heart. Rattlesnake venom can cause major damage throughout the body, destroying tissue and organs. And disrupts blood clotting. Severe envenomation combined with delayed or ineffective treatment can lead to loss of a limb and, ultimately, death.
As Bobby Joe lies dead, Darryl decides to crack another one open. In honor of his fallen comrade, who was...snaked out.
Way To Die #92: Fanged Banged
Technically, rattlesnakes are not poisonous, they are venomous. Delivering their toxin directly into the bloodstream. A poison is ingested. You could actually drink a vile of rattlesnake venom and feel no ill effects.
Date: 9-21-1998
Location: Outside of Club Expo, Brooklyn, NY
Two women walk out of a bar, the perfect setup for a punchline. This punchline might leave some shocked and others buzzed.
The girl in red is Lori Pathouson. After a string of bad relationships, Lori is ready to square off men altogether. She's decided to satisfy a bisexual curiosity that has consumed her since junior high. If it wasn't for the 4-inch stilettos that had been pinching her feet since the evening began, tonight might have been a good enough first for Lori. Instead, it would be her last. The two women laugh as Lori takes her heels off. Walking barefoot on the city streets is already a hoot and a holler for death. Lori walks right over a used needle, close.
But he might have a different idea.
Before crossing the street, Lori steps into a shallow puddle next to a traffic pole. She doesn't see the exposed wires at the bottom of the pole. She doesn't know that they were feeding 30,000 volts of raw currents into the water.
Lori is about to learn a scientific truth the hard way. Wet skin has 10 times the conductivity of dry. By placing her hand on the metal pole, Lori becomes a human circuit her heart shorts out and her brain short circuits. She falls on the ground, people walk around her believing she is just drunk.
Poor Lori, stuck out on the first date? Tough luck, kid.
Way To Die #832: Lesbocution
Date: 10-21-2008
Location: Paris, France
A team of paramedics in hazmat suits carry a body bag out of an apartment.
Meet Mark Vogal, or what's left of him. As paramedics carry his decomposed body out of his suburban Paris home, it's important not to feel pity for his lost soul. This death should be filed under "What In God's Name Was He Thinking?".
Mr. Vogal was a classic recluse, preferring the creepy and the crawly over his fellow man. Mark made a migger living dealing snakes, lizards and insects on a shady black market for exotic pets. These creatures were his consick companions, several were deadly and not to be take lightly.
But it was his fascination for the smallest of his friends that led to his ultimate demise. Mark so loved his black widow spider he gave it a name, Elvira. And he longed to get closer to his tiny femme fatale. Snake handlers are often bit so many times, they built up an immunity. Mark thought he could do the same thing, so one fateful day, he lowered his arm into Elvira's home and took her best shot.
Within an hour of been bit, Mark began experiencing all the symptoms associated with a black widow bite, starting with severe stomach pains. His body was now in a free fall of failing health. Any logical person would rush straight to the ER.
Mark foolishly chose to ride out his condition. His reward: a fatal heart attack. In his delirium, he released his gruesome menagerie of pets. It would be two weeks before his rotting stench brought the French police to his door. In a stroke of irony, Mark ensured the survival of his pets while engineering his own death.
The snakes, bugs and lizards were kept alive by feeding on their master's lifeless flesh.
As soon as he subjected himself to the black widow's deadly toxin, like the hourglass imprinted on it's underbelly, Mark's time began running out, with death the only outcome.
Way To Die #125: Love Bugged
5,000 Americans are treated annually for spider bites. On average, 2 people die each year from the bite of a black widow. The world's most dangerous creature: The mosquito. Responsible for 2 million deaths per year worldwide.
Date: 12-21-2009
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Hector Madeira is here to repair an industrial-sized clothes dryer at one of the largest hospitals in the Los Angeles area. Following safety procedures, Hector had his partner, Brent kill the breaker before climbing inside the giant dryer. What he didn't realize was that Brent accidentally cut off the power to the wrong machine. The unit Hector was now inside of was still hot. While working the dryer's cycle begins. The door closed tight with the hatch sealing the deal. Hector was trapped. He knew he had only a few seconds before the dryer would start its cycle. He pounds on the door and yells, hoping and praying for his soul to be saved.
*Beep*
The cycle begins as the dryer moves from right under Hector's feet, knocking him down. Spinning wildly and hitting temperatures well over 200 degrees, poor Hector was being shaken and baked to death. Six long minutes later, Brent finally returned but it was too late. Hector had died from Hyperthermia and multiple skull and neck fractures.
An unusual fate, but not unheard of. As many as 20 other parish in a similar manner. Often times teenagers looking for a thrill ride, but finding themselves trapped in a machine set on 'tumble die'.
Way To Die #640: Tumble Die
Date: 02-11-1990
Location: Daytona Speedway, Daytona Beach, FL
Paramedic Mike Staley was chosen to be stationed at the Daytona Speedway to save the life of racers. After a racer loses control over his vehicle it crashes into Staley, sending him flying through the air with the car nearly running him over after hitting the ground. Paramedics had to fly him to a nearby hospital in hope that he wouldn't die from his injuries before he hits the hospital. Doctors described his broken body as a "bag of grape nuts". Surgeons had to literally put him back together and who'd thought, Staley was still alive and serious injuries were prevented.
Who lives and who dies? Someone else might not have survived such a violent impact. It was the worst day of paramedic Mike Staley's life and the luckiest.
Death: Death is the permanent, irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain a living organism.
In other words, you are done. But you're not dead yet so enjoy another day on this planet...keyword though is yet.