List of unusual deaths

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by adding missing items with reliable sources.

This list of unusual deaths includes unique or extremely rare circumstances of death recorded throughout history, noted as being unusual by multiple sources.

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  The death of Aeschylus, killed by a tortoise dropped onto his head by an eagle, illustrated in the 15th-century Florentine Picture-Chronicle by Baccio Baldini
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  Frederick Barbarossa's strange drowning gave rise to legends that he was still alive
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  Franz Reichelt, known as the "Flying Tailor", prior to his death testing an early wingsuit

Antiquity

Many of these stories are likely to be apocryphal.

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
Sisera		1200 or 1235 BC	According to Judges 4–5, the commander of the Canaanite army for King Jabin of Hazor was killed in his sleep when the Kenite woman Jael stabbed him in the temple with a tent peg.
Abimelech Ben Gideon		1126 BC	The king of Shechem and son of Gideon was killed in the city of Thebez by a woman who threw a millstone on his head which crushed his skull or mortally wounded him.
Draco of Athens		c. 620 BC	The Athenian lawmaker was reportedly smothered to death by gifts of cloaks and hats showered upon him by appreciative citizens at a theatre in Aegina, Greece.
Duke Jing of Jin		581 BC	The Chinese ruler was warned by a shaman that he would not live to see the new wheat harvest, to which he responded by executing the shaman. However, when the duke was about to eat the wheat, he felt the need to visit the bathroom, where he fell through the hole and drowned.
Arrhichion of Phigalia		564 BC	The Greek pankratiast caused his own death during the Olympic finals. Held by his unidentified opponent in a stranglehold and unable to free himself, Arrhichion kicked his opponent, causing him so much pain from a foot/ankle injury that the opponent made the sign of defeat to the umpires, but at the same time Arrhichion suffered a fatally broken neck. Since the opponent had conceded defeat, Arrhichion was proclaimed the victor posthumously.
Sisamnes		525 BC	The corrupt Persian judge was killed and flayed alive by Cambyses II for accepting a bribe.
Milo of Croton		6th century BC	The Olympic champion wrestler's hands reportedly became trapped when he tried to split a tree apart; he was then devoured by wolves (or, in later versions, lions).
Zeuxis		5th century BC	The Greek painter died of laughter while painting an elderly woman.
Anacreon		c. 485 BC	The poet, known for works in celebration of wine, choked to death on a grape stone according to Pliny the Elder. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica suggests that "the story has an air of mythical adaptation to the poet's habits".
Heraclitus of Ephesus		c. 475 BC	According to one account given by Diogenes Laertius, the Greek philosopher was said to have been devoured by dogs after smearing himself with cow manure in an attempt to cure his dropsy.
Aeschylus		c. 455 BC	According to Valerius Maximus, the eldest of the three great Athenian tragedians was killed by a tortoise dropped by an eagle that had mistaken his bald head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell of the reptile. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avert a prophecy that he would be killed that day "by the fall of a house".
Empedocles of Akragas		c. 430 BC	According to Diogenes Laertius, the Pre-Socratic philosopher from Sicily, who, in one of his surviving poems, declared himself to have become a "divine being... no longer mortal", tried to prove he was an immortal god by leaping into Mount Etna, an active volcano. The Roman poet Horace also alludes to this legend.
Sogdianus		423 BC	The ruler of the Achaemenid Empire was captured by his half-brother Ochus, who had him executed by being suffocated by ash.
Polydamas of Skotoussa		5th century BC	The Thessalian pankratiast, and victor in the 93rd Olympiad (408 BC), was in a cave with friends when the roof began to crumble. Believing his immense strength could prevent the cave-in, he tried to support the roof with his shoulders as the rocks crashed down around him, but was crushed to death.
Sophocles		c. 406 BC	A number of "remarkable" legends concerning the death of another of the three great Athenian tragedians are recorded in the late antique Life of Sophocles. According to one legend, he choked to death on an unripe grape. Another says that he died of joy after hearing that his last play had been successful. A third account reports that he died of suffocation, after reading aloud a lengthy monologue from the end of his play Antigone, without pausing to take a breath for punctuation.
Mithridates		401 BC	The Persian soldier who embarrassed his king, Artaxerxes II, by boasting of killing his rival, Cyrus the Younger (who was the brother of Artaxerxes II), was executed by scaphism. The king's physician, Ctesias, reported that Mithridates survived the insect torture for 17 days.
Anaxarchus		320 BC	According to Diogenes Laertius, Anaxarchus gained the enmity of the tyrannical ruler of Cyprus, Nicocreon, for an inappropriate joke he made about tyrants at a banquet in 331 BC. When Anaxarchus visited Cyprus, Nicocreon ordered him to be pounded to death in a mortar. During the torture Anaxarchus said to Nicocreon, "Just pound the bag of Anaxarchus, you do not pound Anaxarchus." Nicocreon then threatened to cut his tongue out; Anaxarchus bit it off and spat it at the ruler's face.
Antiphanes		c. 310 BC	According to the Suda, the renowned comic poet of the Middle Attic comedy died after being struck by a pear.
King Wu of Qin		307 BC	The king and member of the Qin dynasty reportedly challenged his friend Meng Yue to a lifting contest. When Wu tried to lift a giant bronze pot believed to have been cast for Yu the Great, it crushed his leg, inflicting fatal injuries. Meng Yue and his family were sentenced to death.
Agathocles of Syracuse		289 BC	The Greek tyrant of Syracuse was murdered with a poisoned toothpick.
Pyrrhus of Epirus		272 BC	During the Battle of Argos, Pyrrhus was fighting a Macedonian soldier in the street when the elderly mother of the soldier dropped a roof tile onto Pyrrhus' head, breaking his spine and rendering him paralyzed. According to a soldier named Zopyrus, they then proceeded to decapitate the king.
Zeno of Citium		c. 262 BC	The Greek philosopher from Citium, Cyprus, tripped and fell as he was leaving the school, breaking his toe. Striking the ground with his fist, he quoted the line from the Niobe, "I come, I come, why dost thou call for me?" He died on the spot through holding his breath.
Qin Shi Huang		August 210 BC	The first emperor of China, whose artifacts and treasures include the Terracotta Army, died after ingesting several pills of mercury, in the belief that it would grant him immortality.
Chrysippus of Soli		c. 206 BC	One ancient account of the death of the third-century BC Greek Stoic philosopher tells that he died laughing at his own joke after he saw a donkey eating his figs; he told a slave to give the donkey neat wine to drink with which to wash them down, and then, "...having laughed too much, he died" (Diogenes Laërtius 7.185).
Eleazar Avaran		c. 163 BC	The brother of Judas Maccabeus; according to 1 Maccabees 6:46, during the Battle of Beth Zechariah, Eleazar spied an armored war elephant which he believed to be carrying the Seleucid emperor Antiochus V Eupator. After thrusting his spear in battle into its belly, it collapsed and fell on top of Eleazar, killing him instantly.
Quintus Lutatius Catulus		87 BC	After his former comrade-in-arms Gaius Marius took control of Rome and had him prosecuted for a capital offence, the Roman Republic consul shut himself inside his house, which was heated to a high temperature and daubed with lime, thus suffocating himself.
Cleopatra, Iras, and Charmion		August 30 BC	Although there exist several accounts of how the 39-year-old last queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom died, the most widespread one is that she killed herself with an asp (a viper), alongside two of her handmaidens.
Tiberius Claudius Drusus		c. 20 AD	According to Suetonius, the eldest son of the future Roman emperor Claudius died while playing with a pear. Having tossed the pear high in the air, he caught it in his mouth when it came back, but he choked on it, dying of asphyxia.
Saint Peter		64–68 AD	When Nero ordered his execution, the apostle of Jesus requested to be crucified upside down, as he considered himself unworthy to die in the same way Jesus had.
Cassian of Imola		13 August 363	The pious schoolteacher was sentenced to death by Julian the Apostate and was handed over to his pupils to carry out the deed, which they did by binding him to a stake and stabbing him with their pens.
Valentinian I		17 November 375	The Roman emperor suffered a stroke which was provoked by yelling at foreign envoys in anger.
Attila		c. 453	Attila the Hun reportedly died on his wedding night by choking on his own blood, which flowed into his mouth from a nosebleed.

Middle Ages

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
Li Bai		762	According to popular legend, the Chinese poet got drunk while riding his boat along the Yangtze River and tried to hug the moon's reflection. He then fell off and drowned.
Louis III of France		5 August 882	The king of West Francia died aged around 18 at Saint-Denis. Whilst mounting his horse to pursue a girl who was running to seek refuge in her father's house, he hit his head on the lintel of a low door and fell, fracturing his skull.
Basil I		29 August 886	The Byzantine emperor's belt was entangled between antlers of a deer during a hunt and the animal subsequently dragged him for 16 miles (26 km) through the woods. Because of this accident, Basil contracted fever and he died shortly afterwards.
Sigurd the Mighty		892	The second Earl of Orkney strapped the head of his defeated foe Máel Brigte to his horse's saddle. Brigte's teeth rubbed against Sigurd's leg as he rode, causing a fatal infection, according to the Old Norse Heimskringla and Orkneyinga sagas.
Hatto II		18 January 970	The archbishop of Mainz is claimed in legend to have been punished for his cruelty to the poor by being eaten alive by rodents.
Edmund Ironside		30 November 1016	According to Henry of Huntington, the English king was stabbed whilst on a toilet by an assassin hiding underneath.
Béla I of Hungary		11 September 1063	After the Holy Roman Empire decided to launch a military expedition against Hungary to restore his nephew Solomon to the throne, the Hungarian king was seriously injured when "his throne broke beneath him" in his manor at Dömös, later succumbing at a creek near Nagykanizsa.
Crown Prince Philip of France		13 October 1131	The French prince who co-ruled with Louis VI died while riding through Paris when his horse tripped over a black pig that was running out of a dung heap.
Henry I of England		1 December 1135	According to Henry of Huntington, while visiting relatives, the English king ate too many lampreys against his physician's advice, causing a pain in his gut which led to his death.
John II Komnenos		1 April 1143	The Byzantine Emperor cut himself with a poisoned arrow during a boar hunt, subsequently dying from sepsis.
Pope Adrian IV		1 September 1159	The only Englishman to serve as Pope reportedly died after choking on a fly while drinking spring water.
Victims of the Erfurt latrine disaster		26 July 1184	While Henry VI, the King of Germany, was holding an informal assembly at the Petersburg Citadel in Erfurt, the combined weight of the assembled nobles caused the wooden second story floor of the building to collapse. Most of the nobles fell through into the latrine cesspit below the ground floor, where about 60 of them drowned in liquid excrement.
Frederick Barbarossa		10 June 1190	While leading the German army on the Third Crusade, the Holy Roman Emperor unexpectedly drowned while bathing in the Saleph.
Al-Musta'sim		20 February 1258	The last Abbasid Caliph of Baghdad, was executed by his Mongol captors by being rolled up in a rug and then trampled by horses.
Edward II of England		21 September 1327	The English king was rumoured to have been murdered after being deposed and imprisoned by his wife Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer, by having a horn pushed into his anus through which a red-hot iron was inserted, burning out his internal organs without marking his body. However, there is no real academic consensus on the manner of Edward II's death, and it has been plausibly argued that the story is propaganda.
Charles II of Navarre		1 January 1387	The contemporary chronicler Froissart relates that the king of Navarre, known as "Charles the Bad", suffering from illness in old age, was ordered by his physician to be tightly sewn into a linen sheet soaked in distilled spirits. The highly flammable sheet accidentally caught fire, and he later died of his injuries.
Martin of Aragon		31 May 1410	The Aragonese king died from a combination of indigestion and uncontrollable laughing. According to legend, Martin was suffering from indigestion, caused by eating an entire goose, when his favorite jester, Borra, entered the king's bedroom. When Martin asked Borra where he had been, the jester replied with: "Out of the next vineyard, where I saw a young deer hanging by his tail from a tree, as if someone had so punished him for stealing figs." This joke caused the king to die from laughter.

Renaissance

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence		18 February 1478	The 1st Duke of Clarence was allegedly executed by drowning in a barrel of Malmsey wine, apparently his own choice once he accepted he was to be killed.
Charles VIII of France		7 April 1498	The French king died as a result of striking his head on the lintel of a door while on his way to watch a game of real tennis.
Victims of the 1518 dancing plague		July 1518	Several people died of either heart attacks, strokes or exhaustion during a dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg, Alsace (Holy Roman Empire).
Pietro Aretino		21 October 1556	The influential Italian author and libertine is said to have died of suffocation from laughing too much at an obscene joke during a meal in Venice. Another version states that he fell from a chair from too much laughter, fracturing his skull.
Henry II of France		10 July 1559	On 30 June 1559, a tournament was held near Place des Vosges to celebrate the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis with the French king's longtime enemies, the Habsburgs of Austria, and to celebrate the marriage of his daughter Elisabeth of Valois to King Philip II of Spain. During a jousting match, Henry, wearing the colors of his mistress Diane de Poitiers, was wounded in the eye by a fragment of the splintered lance of Gabriel Montgomery, captain of the King's Scottish Guard. Despite the efforts of royal surgeons Ambroise Paré and Andreas Vesalius, the court doctors ultimately "advocated a wait-and-see strategy"; as a result, the king's untreated eye and brain damage led to his death by sepsis ten days later. His death played a significant role in the decline of jousting as a sport, particularly in France.
Amy Robsart		8 September 1560	The 28-year-old wife of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester was found dead by a staircase with two wounds on her head and a broken neck. Theories suggest she threw herself down the stairs.
Hans Staininger		28 September 1567	The burgomaster of Braunau am Inn (then Bavaria, now Austria), died when he broke his neck by tripping over his own beard. The beard, which was 4.5 feet (1.4 m) long at the time, was usually kept rolled up in a leather pouch.
Marco Antonio Bragadin		17 August 1571	The Venetian Captain-General of Famagusta in Cyprus, was gruesomely killed after the Ottomans took over the city. He was dragged around the walls with sacks of earth and stone on his back; next, he was tied to a chair and hoisted to the yardarm of the Turkish flagship, where he was exposed to the taunts of the sailors. Finally, he was taken to his place of execution in the main square, tied naked to a column, and flayed alive. Bragadin's skin was stuffed with straw and sewn, reinvested with his military insignia, and exhibited riding an ox in a mocking procession along the streets of Famagusta. The macabre trophy was hoisted upon the masthead pennant of the personal galley of the Ottoman commander, Amir al-bahr Mustafa Pasha, to be taken to Constantinople as a gift for Sultan Selim II. Bragadin's skin was stolen in 1580 by a Venetian seaman and brought back to Venice, where it was received as a returning hero.
Victims of the Black Assize of Oxford 1577		July 1577	In Oxford, England, at least 300 people, including Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer Sir Robert Bell and Serjeant Nicholas Barham, died in the aftermath of the trial of Rowland Jenkes, a Catholic bookseller convicted of distributing pamphlets defaming Queen Elizabeth I, at the assize at Oxford. The dead reportedly included no women or children.
Mary, Queen of Scots		8 February 1587	The 44-year-old queen of Scotland was told that she was to be executed for plotting the assassination of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. However, when the executioner, only known as Bull, prepared to chop off her head with an axe, the first blow did not kill Mary. It only hit her head. The second blow severed her neck, but the tendon was still left. The executioner later pulled off Mary's head only to reveal that her hair was a wig.
Andrew Perne		26 April 1589	The Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University and Dean of Ely was known for his frequent religious conversions to match the established faith of the time in England. He reportedly died due to having heard the jester of Queen Elizabeth I make a joke about his uncertain spiritual state, referring to him as "one that is neither heaven nor earth, but hangs betwixt both".
Tycho Brahe		24 October 1601	The astronomer contracted a bladder or kidney ailment after attending a banquet in Prague and died eleven days later. According to Johannes Kepler's first-hand account, Brahe had refused to leave the banquet to relieve himself, because it would have been a breach of etiquette. After he had returned home, he was no longer able to urinate, except eventually in very small quantities and with excruciating pain. Though initially ascribed to a kidney stone, and later still to potential mercury poisoning, modern analyses indicate Brahe's death resulted from a fatal case of uremia caused by an inflamed prostate.

Early modern period

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
Sir Francis Bacon		9 April 1626	The English philosopher and statesman died of pneumonia after stuffing a chicken carcass with snow to learn whether it could preserve meat.
Jörg Jenatsch		24 January 1639	The Swiss political leader was assassinated by a person dressed in a bear costume wielding an axe. Legend states that the axe was the same one that Jenatsch had once used to kill a rival.
Sir Arthur Aston		September 1649	During the Siege of Drogheda, the Cavalier commander from Reading, England, was beaten to death by Oliver Cromwell's army with his own wooden leg because they suspected gold coins were concealed inside.
Thomas Urquhart		1660	The Scottish aristocrat, polymath, and first translator of François Rabelais's writings into English is said to have died laughing upon hearing that Charles II had taken the throne.
François Vatel		24 April 1671	The majordomo of Prince Louis II de Bourbon-Condè was responsible for a banquet for 2,000 people hosted in honour of King Louis XIV at the Château de Chantilly, where he died. According to a letter by Madame de Sévigné, Vatel was so distraught about the lateness of the seafood delivery and about other mishaps, that he committed suicide with his sword, and his body was discovered when someone came to tell him of the arrival of the fish.
Molière		17 February 1673	The French playwright suffered a pulmonary hemorrhage caused by tuberculosis while playing the part of a hypochondriac in his own play Le malade imaginaire. He disguised his convulsion as part of his performance and finished out the show, which ends with his character dead in a chair. After the show, he was carried in the chair to his house, where he died.
Jean-Baptiste Lully		22 March 1687	The French composer died of a gangrenous abscess after accidentally piercing his foot with a staff while he was vigorously conducting a Te Deum. It was customary at that time to conduct by banging a staff on the floor. He refused to have his leg amputated so he could still dance.
William III of England		8 March 1702	The king of England was riding his horse when it stumbled on a molehill. William fell and broke his collarbone, then contracted pneumonia and died several days later. After he died, Jacobites were said to have toasted in the mole's honour, calling it "the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat".
Hannah Twynnoy		23 October 1703	The 33-year-old barmaid at the White Lion Inn was mauled to death by a tiger in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. She was the first person to be killed by a tiger in British history.
Frederick, Prince of Wales		31 March 1751	The son of George II of Great Britain and father of George III died of a pulmonary embolism, but was commonly claimed to have been killed by being struck by a cricket ball.
Professor Georg Wilhelm Richmann		6 August 1753	The Russian physicist was killed when a globe of ball lightning which he created in his laboratory struck him in the forehead.
Henry Hall		8 December 1755	The 94-year-old British lighthouse keeper died several days after fighting a fire at Rudyerd's Tower, during which molten lead from the roof fell down his throat. His autopsy revealed that "the diaphragmatic upper mouth of the stomach greatly inflamed and ulcerated, and the tuncia in the lower part of the stomach burnt; and from the great cavity of it took out a great piece of lead ... which weighed exactly seven ounces, five drachms and eighteen grains". The piece of lead is currently in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland.
John Day		20 June 1774	The English carpenter and wheelwright was the first human known to have died in an accident with a submarine. Day submerged himself in Plymouth Sound in a wooden diving chamber attached to a sloop named the Maria and never resurfaced.
Frantisek Kotzwara		2 September 1791	While in London, the 31-year-old Czech violinist visited a prostitute named Susannah Hill and requested his neck be tied with a noose around a door knob. He died after the sexual intercourse of erotic asphyxiation.
Samuel Spencer		20 March 1793	The North Carolina lawyer and former colonel was sleeping on a porch in Anson County while wearing a red cap. Spencer's bobbling head drew the attention of a turkey, which viewed Spencer as another turkey and fatally wounded the 59-year-old with its talons.

19th century

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
Thomas Millwood		3 January 1804	The 32-year-old plasterer was shot and killed by excise officer Francis Smith, who mistook him for the Hammersmith ghost due to his white uniform. Smith was later sentenced to death, but his sentence was commuted to one year's imprisonment with hard labor, and he received a full pardon later in the year.
Victims of the London Beer Flood		17 October 1814	At Meux & Co's Horse Shoe Brewery, a 22-foot-tall (6.7 m) wooden vat of fermenting porter burst, causing chain reactions and destroying several large beer barrels. The beer subsequently flooded the nearby slum and killed eight people. Several people also subsequently died from alcohol poisoning as a result of vaporized liquor.
William Henry Harrison		4 April 1841	The 9th President of the United States died a month after his inauguration from an illness (possibly pneumonia or enteric fever) that developed after he stood in the rain to deliver his 2-hour-long inaugural address, the longest by any U.S. President. Medical treatments Harrison received in the last week of his life included opium, castor oil and leeches. Harrison remains the U.S. President to have served the shortest term in office and was the first President to die in office.
Zachary Taylor		9 July 1850	The 12th President of the United States died of diarrhea and dysentry 5 days after consuming raw cherries and iced milk at a 4th of July event at the site of the Washington Monument. Persistent speculation that Taylor was poisoned would lead to the exhumation of some of his remains in 1991, but scientific testing found no evidence of poison.
William Snyder		11 January 1854	The 13-year-old died in San Francisco, California, reportedly after a circus clown named Manuel Rays swung him around by his heels.
Victims of the 1858 Bradford sweets poisoning		1858	In Bradford, England, a batch of sweets accidentally poisoned with arsenic trioxide were sold by William Hardaker, colloquially referred to as "Humbug Billy". Around five boxes of sweets were delivered and sold. Around 20 people died and 200 people suffered from the effects of the poison.
Jim Creighton		18 October 1862	The 21-year-old American baseball player from Manhattan died from abdominal pain, possibly caused by pitching or swinging at the ball, which likely gave him a ruptured bladder or a ruptured hernia.
Julius Peter Garesché		31 December 1862	The Cuban-born professional soldier was killed on the first day of the Battle of Stones River when a cannon ball decapitated him.
Archduchess Mathilda of Austria		6 June 1867	The daughter of Archduke Albrecht, Duke of Teschen set her dress on fire while trying to hide a cigarette from her father, who had forbidden her to smoke.
Unknown woman		1869	A woman in Gayton le Marsh, Lincolnshire, England, became severely ill and later died after consuming her own hair for 12 years.
Clement Vallandigham		17 June 1871	The American politician and lawyer, who was defending a man accused of murder, accidentally shot himself while demonstrating how the victim might have done so. His client was acquitted.
James "Jim" Cullen		6 November 1873	The 25-year-old Irish man became the only man ever lynched in Mapleton, Maine, after he committed a robbery and beat two deputy sheriffs to death with an axe.
Unknown man		1875	A factory worker in Manchester found a mouse on her table and screamed. A man rushed over to her and tried to shoo it away, but it tried to hide in his clothes, and when he gasped in surprise the mouse dove into his mouth and he swallowed it. The mouse tore and bit the man's throat and chest, and he later died "in horrible agony".
Victims of the Dublin Whiskey Fire		18 June 1875	At The Liberties, Dublin, Ireland (then part of the United Kingdom), a fire broke out at Laurence Malone's bonded storehouse on the corner of Ardee Street, where 5,000 hogsheads (262,500 imperial gallons or 1,193,000 litres or 315,200 US gallons) of whiskey were being stored. The heat caused the barrels in the storehouse to explode, sending a stream of whiskey flowing through the doors and windows of the burning building. The burning whiskey then flowed along the streets where it quickly demolished a row of small houses. Despite the damage from the fire, all of the resulting 13 fatalities were caused by alcohol poisoning after drinking the undiluted flooded whiskey.
James A. Moon		10 June 1876	The 37-year-old blacksmith, self-proclaimed inventor, and American Civil War veteran killed himself with a makeshift guillotine.
Hague and another female servant		October 1881	A British servant of one Mr. Birchall was instructed by his master to retrieve a four-chambered pistol. Hague did so, but while examining the gun he shot himself in the jaw, which caused instant death. He was discovered by another servant, who also shot herself demonstrating how Hague died.
Sir William Payne-Gallwey, 2nd Baronet		19 December 1881	The former British MP died after sustaining severe internal injuries when he fell on a turnip while hunting.
Samuel Wardell		31 December 1885	The lamplighter in Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York, had attached a 10-pound (4.5 kg) rock to his alarm clock, which would crash to the floor and awaken him. On Christmas Eve, he rearranged his furniture for a party, but forgot to change his room back afterwards. When the alarm mechanism went off the next morning, the rock fell on his head and killed him.
George Murichson		13 May 1886	The 8-year-old boy from Aroostook County, Maine, died from a hemorrhage after having a live snake pulled out of his mouth. The snake was speculated to have gone down his throat after he had "gone to sleep in some field".
Unknown Iraqi male		22 August 1888	At around 8:30 pm, a shower of meteorites fell "like rain" on a village in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq (then part of the Ottoman Empire). One man was paralyzed and another died. His death is considered the only credible case of death-by-meteorite.
Isaack Rabbanovitch		August 1891	A bear walked into the barkeep's inn in Vilna, Russia (now part of Lithuania) and picked up a keg of vodka. When he tried to take it back, he was hugged to death by the intoxicated bear along with his two sons and daughter. Villagers shot and killed the bear.
Unknown sailor		1892	A sailor in Bermuda was arguing with other sailors, but the argument turned into a fight and the sailor was pushed into the water. A marine began undressing for a rescue attempt, but an officer ordered him to stop because there was a boat nearby that had ladies on it. As the sailor continued struggling in the water, five men volunteered to save him, but he had already drowned.
Mary Agnes Lapish		April 1893	The Australian woman stumbled into a barbed-wire fence, possibly while intoxicated, and was strangled by her fur collar.
Jeremiah Haralson		1895	The former United States Congressman from Alabama disappears from the historical record after his 1895 imprisonment for pension fraud in Albany, New York. He was reportedly killed by an unknown animal while coal mining near Denver, Colorado, c. 1916, but there is little or no historical evidence for this.
Bridget Driscoll		17 August 1896	The 44-year-old, the first recorded case of a pedestrian killed in a collision with a motor car in Great Britain, was struck on the grounds of the Crystal Palace in London, by a car belonging to the Anglo-French Motor Carriage Company while giving demonstration rides.
Salomon August Andrée, Knut Frænkel, and Nils Strindberg		October 1897	The group of men died of exhaustion on the island Kvitøya after trying to reach the North Pole by hot air balloon.
Empress Elisabeth of Austria		10 September 1898	Stabbed with a thin file by Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni while strolling through Geneva with her lady-in-waiting Irma Sztáray. The wound pierced her pericardium and a lung. Her extremely tight corset held the wound closed, so she did not realize what had happened (believing a passerby had struck her), and walked on for some time before collapsing.

20th century

1900–1959

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
Victims of the 1900 English beer poisoning		1900	In the English Midlands and North West England, over 6,000 were poisoned and 70 people died after drinking beer which used non-purified sulphuric acid laced with arsenic as an ingredient. Most survivors were paralyzed.
Jesse William Lazear		25 September 1900	The 34-year-old American physician was convinced that mosquitoes were carriers for yellow fever. He allowed himself to be bitten by multiple mosquitoes and died days later from the disease.
Victims of the Thanksgiving Day Disaster		29 November 1900	During the 1900 Big Game between the California Golden Bears and the Stanford Cardinal American football teams, a large crowd of people who did not want to pay the $1 (equivalent to $37 in 2023) admission fee gathered upon the roof of a glass blowing factory to watch for free. The roof then collapsed, severing fuel pipes and causing at least 100 people to fall four stories to the factory floor. 60 to 100 more people fell directly on top of a furnace, the surface temperature of which was estimated to be around 500 °F (260 °C). 23 people were killed, and over 100 more were injured. The disaster remains the deadliest accident at a sporting event in U.S. history.
James Doyle Jr.		30 January 1901	The lineworker in Smartsville, California, was killed by an electric shock through a telephone receiver after a broken power line came in contact with the telephone wire.
R. Stanton Walker		25 October 1902	The 20-year-old was watching an amateur baseball game in Morristown, Ohio when a foul ball struck him in the hand, driving a knife he was passing to one of his friends into his chest. His friends asked if he was hurt and he said "not much", but the wound soon began to bleed heavily and he died within minutes.
Ed Delahanty		2 July 1903	The 35-year-old American baseball player for the Phillies died after being removed from a train due to drunken horseplay, falling off International Bridge, and going over Niagara Falls. Sam Kingston, a local night watchman, was the last to see him alive, reportedly scuffling with him. Kingston's account of the incident was spotty and inconsistent; it is unclear whether Delahanty was intentionally pushed, accidentally fell, or decided to jump.
Mary Ellen Rumble		19 December 1905	The daughter of a farmer in Watervale near Murrumburrah in New South Wales was killed when one of a group of horses attempting to escape from a paddock knocked her down, causing her neck to snap.
Archibald Anderson		4 March 1907	The 19-year-old was bathing in the Yarra River when a tooth plate fell out and got lodged in his throat, choking him to death.
Henrietta Sewell		7 November 1908	The 73-year-old woman was tripped by two dogs who were chasing each other, causing her to hit her head. Sewell died from a concussion and shock from the incident.
Dietrich von Hülsen-Haeseler		14 November 1908	The Chief of the German Imperial Military Cabinet suffered a heart attack and died aged 56 after giving a ballet performance to Kaiser Wilhelm Il and other members of a hunting party staying at Donaueschingen Palace. Shortly after ending his recital with a bow, he collapsed and was pronounced dead at the scene. The circumstances of his death were covered up by military officials so as not to further inflame public outrage over the Eulenburg affair, a government scandal dealing with accusations of homosexual behavior against members of the Kaiser's cabinet and entourage.
George Spencer Millet		15 February 1909	The American teenager who worked as an office boy at an insurance company at the Metropolitan Life Building in New York City, was fleeing six young women stenographers at his workplace intent on giving him kisses for his 15th birthday while carrying a metal ink eraser in his breast pocket. As the women moved in for their kisses, he fell forward, and the eraser's point pierced his heart, killing him.
Doc Powers		26 April 1909	The 38-year-old American Major League Baseball player ran into a wall while chasing a foul ball during a Boston Red Sox-Philadelphia Athletics game at Philadelphia's Shibe Park, on 12 April 1909. He died from internal injuries and gangrene two weeks later.
Ada Gregory		3 June 1910	The 52-year-old widow in Bentleigh, Victoria, who had been suffering from "fits of melancholia", began convulsing after rubbing powder on her teeth and asking her two children to take some medicine, which they did not do. She was believed to have taken strychnine.
Franz Reichelt		4 February 1912	The 33-year-old tailor and inventor leaped from the Eiffel Tower and fell to his death wearing a parachute made from cloth, his own invention. He was asked by friends and authorities to use a dummy for the feat, but declined, saying "I intend to prove the worth of my invention".
Emily Davison		8 June 1913	On 4 June 1913, the 40-year-old suffragette from London was mortally injured at the Epsom Derby when she ran onto the racetrack wearing a suffragette flag and was run over by Anmer, George V's horse, which jockey Herbert Jones was riding. She suffered a fractured skull, a concussion, and internal injuries and died in the Epsom Cottage Hospital 4 days later.
Grigori Rasputin		30 December [O.S. 17 December] 1916	The 47-year-old Russian mystic died of three gunshot wounds, one of which was a close-range shot to his forehead. Little is certain about his death beyond this, and the circumstances of his death have been the subject of considerable speculation. According to his murderer himself, Prince Felix Yusupov, Grigori Rasputin consumed tea, cakes, and wine which had been laced with cyanide but he did not appear to be affected by it. He was then shot once in the chest and believed to be dead but, after a while, he leapt up and attacked Yusupov, who freed himself and fled. Rasputin followed and made it into the courtyard before being shot again, and collapsing into a snowbank. The conspirators then wrapped his body and dropped it into the Malaya Nevka River.
Gustav Kobbé		27 July 1918	The 61-year-old author and music critic was sailing in Great South Bay, New York, when he noticed a low-flying seaplane heading toward him. Kobbé attempted to get into the water, but the plane crashed into the mast of Kobbé's boat, splitting his head open.
Victims of the Great Molasses Flood		15 January 1919	21 people were killed and 150 injured after a large tank of molasses burst in Boston's North End.
Ray Chapman		17 August 1920	On 16 August 1920, while he was up to bat, the 29-year-old Cleveland Indians baseball player was struck in the head by a pitch thrown by the New York Yankees' Carl Mays and died 12 hours later.
Dan Andersson		16 September 1920	The 32-year-old Swedish poet died from hydrogen cyanide left in his Hotel Hellman room by a lice, flea, and bed bug extermination.
Alexander of Greece		25 October 1920	The 27-year-old Greek king died of sepsis after being bitten by a palace steward's pet Barbary macaque in his garden, while trying to break up a fight between his German shepherd and another monkey.
Thomas Lynn Bradford		5 February 1921	In an attempt to ascertain the existence of an afterlife, the 48-year-old spiritualist committed suicide by sealing his Detroit apartment, blowing out the pilot of his heater, and turning on the gas, dying of carbon monoxide poisoning. In the week following his death, two fellow spiritualists claimed to have communicated with his ghost.
Michael F. Farley		8 October 1921	The 58-year-old U.S. Representative and Gore–McLemore resolution supporter died of anthrax he contracted from his shaving brush.
Mrs. W. C. Eckersley		25 November 1922	The woman from Glen Innes, New South Wales, was found drowned in a cask of water. It was surmised that she was leaning over the cask when she suddenly fainted and fell into it.
Frank Hayes		4 June 1923	The 22-year-old jockey from Elmont, New York, died of a heart attack mid-race and collapsed on the horse, which nonetheless crossed the finish line first, still carrying his body.
Martha Mansfield		30 November 1923	While the 24-year-old American film actress was on location in San Antonio, Texas filming the American Civil War drama The Warrens of Virginia, a lit match was carelessly tossed by a crew member, which ignited the hoop skirts and ruffles of her Civil War costume. Co-star Wilfred Lytell and a chauffeur were able to extinguish the flames and rush her to a hospital, where she died the following day from her injuries.
Mr. and Mrs. Earl J. Dunn		13 July 1924	While attempting to turn around at Grand View in Yellowstone National Park, the Dunns somehow backed their car over a cliff, despite a tree barrier that would normally have made this impossible. The vehicle fell 800 feet (240 m) and then rolled another 200 feet (61 m).
Thornton Jones		1 August 1924	The lawyer from Bangor, Gwynedd, Wales, slit his own throat while he was having a nightmare. An inquest at Bangor delivered a verdict of "suicide while temporarily insane".
Phillip McClean		April 1926	The 16-year-old and his brother were clubbing a cassowary on the family property in Mossman, Queensland, when it knocked him down, kicked him in the neck, and opened a large cut, leading to death from loss of blood.
Bobby Leach		26 April 1926	The American stunt performer died after a botched amputation of the infected leg which he had broken after slipping on an orange peel. He had gone over Niagara Falls in a barrel 15 years earlier.
Harry Houdini		31 October 1926	The 52-year-old Hungarian-American escape artist, illusionist, and stunt performer reportedly died from a punch from college student J. Gordon Whitehead, which gave him "peritonitis, caused by a ruptured appendix." However, other stories claim he was murdered. Who or what killed Houdini is still under speculation.
Isadora Duncan		14 September 1927	The 50-year-old American dancer broke her neck in Nice, France, when her long scarf became entangled in the open-spoked wheel and rear axle of the Amilcar CGSS automobile in which she was riding.
Alfred Loewenstein		4 July 1928	The 51-year-old financier and third-richest man in the world at the time died whilst flying from England to Belgium on his private Fokker F.VII airplane. It is believed he fell out of the aircraft and into the water where he died.
Elizabeth Agnes Fletcher		January 1930	Acdording to Dr. E. C. Hall, the 23-year-old girl died from having "a change of posture" causing a heart attack.
William Kogut		20 October 1930	The 26-year-old convicted murderer, a death row inmate at San Quentin in California, reportedly committed suicide using a pipe bomb he made with playing cards and a hollow steel leg from his cot.
Arnold Bennett		27 March 1931	The 63-year-old British novelist was dining in Paris with his partner, Dorothy Cheston Bennett. He drank two glasses of tap water during the meal, scoffing at Dorothy's claims that the water in Paris was not properly treated to be safe to drink. Within two days, he contracted typhoid fever and died two months later.
James Leo McDermott		26 August 1931	After the 40-year-old deputy sheriff stepped out of his car at an oil station, the vehicle began to roll forwards, and he attempted to hop onto the car's running board to stop it. It carried him forward and slammed him into a hook used to hold air and water hoses, which impaled him just below the heart.
Eben Byers		31 March 1932	The 51-year-old American socialite and industrialist died after drinking excessive quantities of Radithor, a patent medicine that contained 2 microcuries of radium. He drank a total of around 1400 doses, which concentrated in his bones, continually irradiating him. By 1931, his bones were reportedly disintegrating and his jaw had been removed; he died the next year.
Michael Malloy		22 February 1933	Five people, called the "Murder Trust," planned to kill Malloy for life insurance. Over the course of two months, they added antifreeze, turpentine, horse liniment, and finally rat poison in his alcohol, but Malloy drank it with no problems whatsoever. They then tried feeding him wood alcohol, expired oysters, and then a sandwich made of expired sardines and shrapnel, none of which had the desired effect. The group then tried to freeze him to death, and when that failed they ran him over twice with a taxi, from which Malloy recovered. Finally, they connected a hose to a coal gas jet and placed it in his mouth, which caused his death from carbon monoxide poisoning. Malloy was given nicknames such as "Mike the Durable", "Iron Mike", and "The Irish Rasputin".
Susan Grace Kelly		16 January 1935	The 80-year-old woman in Armidale, New South Wales, was sitting with her daughter when she fell back dead after hearing a loud clap of thunder. Her last words were, "That was very close."
Catherine Steyer		20 January 1937	The 33-year-old hatcheck girl was accidentally electrocuted by a homemade booby trap, consisting of powered wires hidden within drapes, that her fiance had installed after her apartment was broken into a few months prior. Falling onto one wire, with another dangling above her arm, she completed the circuit each time the dangling wire touched her; she died slowly from the repeating doses of electricity.
Fred Clapp		28 May 1937	A 77-year-old farmer from Clark County, South Dakota, died after being dragged by a bundle of horses while being tied to the harness.
Benjamin Taylor		2 June 1937	During a carbuncle removal operation, an electric cautery ignited gases from the patient's lungs. This caused an explosion which killed Taylor and injured two nurses.
Nicholas Comper		17 June 1939	The 42-year-old aviator and aircraft designer was attempting to light a firework in Hythe, Kent, when a passerby enquired what he was doing; he replied that he was an IRA man planning to blow up the town hall. The passerby knocked down Comper, who hit his head on the curb.
Italo Balbo		28 June 1940	The 44-year-old governor of Italian Libya was flying his personal Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 when the Libyan airfield at Tobruk was attacked by a squad of British planes. He was killed by friendly fire from Italian anti-aircraft batteries on the ground.
Leon Trotsky		21 August 1940	The 60-year-old Russian socialist and revolutionary was murdered in his villa in Mexico by Spanish-born NKVD agent Ramón Mercader with an ice axe.
Sherwood Anderson		8 March 1941	The 64-year-old American writer died of peritonitis after accidentally swallowing a toothpick.
Jack Budlong		5 August 1941	The friend of Errol Flynn was working as an extra on the film They Died with Their Boots On, starring Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. Budlong insisted on using a real saber rather than a prop one. While filming a cavalry charge, Budlong's horse was frightened by the sounds of simulated explosions and threw Budlong, causing him to impale himself with the sword.
Rolf Mützelburg		11 September 1942	The 29-year-old commander of German submarine U-203 died during a World War II patrol southwest of the Azores when he dove from the sub's conning tower to swim in the ocean. The boat lurched suddenly, and Mützelburg's head and shoulder struck the sub.
Maj. Kenneth D. McCullar		12 April 1943	The 27-year-old member of the 64th Bombardment Squadron was taking off for a night mission in New Guinea when he struck something with his bomber, referred to in reports as a "brush kangaroo" or "baby kangaroo" and later found to be a wallaby. The bomber crashed on takeoff, which detonated its load of bombs, killing McCullar and the rest of the bomber's crew.
Clarence Stagemyer		29 September 1943	The 32-year-old was watching a Cleveland Indians-Washington Senators doubleheader in Griffith Stadium when an errant throw by Senators' third baseman Sherry Robertson struck him in the forehead. Despite appearing uninjured afterwards, he heeded the Senators' team physician's entreaties to go to the hospital, where he died the next day of a fractured skull. Stagemyer was the first fan in Major League Baseball history killed by a ball leaving the field, and the only such fatality to date to have been struck by a thrown ball.
Thomas Midgley Jr.		2 November 1944	In 1940, the 51-year-old contracted polio, which left him severely disabled, leading him to devise an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys to lift himself out of bed. In 1944, he became entangled in the device and died of strangulation.
Louis Slotin		30 May 1946	The 35-year-old Canadian physicist and Manhattan Project scientist died as the result of an accident while performing an experiment called "tickling the dragon's tail" with a plutonium core which came to be known as the "demon core". His screwdriver slipped, exposing him to a fatal dose of radiation. Slotin died 9 days later; the other people in the room observing the experiment survived.
Thomas Mantell		7 January 1948	The 25-year-old P-51 Mustang fighter pilot crashed while in pursuit of an unidentified flying object near Franklin, Kentucky, thus becoming the first person known to have died as a result of a UFO sighting. Officially, the object remains unidentified, though the most likely explanation is that it was a U.S. Navy Skyhook balloon.
Mary Reeser		2 July 1951	The 67-year-old woman was found by the police in her St. Petersburg, Florida, home almost totally cremated where she sat, while her apartment was relatively damage-free. Some speculate that she spontaneously combusted.
Margaret Wise Brown		13 November 1952	The 42-year-old author of Goodnight Moon was hospitalized for an ovarian cyst. To prove how healthy she was after treatment, she kicked her foot in the air, dislodging a blood clot in her leg. The blood clot quickly travelled to her brain, and she died in emergency surgery.
Gareth Jones		30 November 1958	The 33-year-old British actor died of a heart attack between scenes of a live television play, Underground on the ITV network. Other members of the cast improvised lines, such as, "I'm sure if So‑and‑so were here he would say...", to compensate for his absence. Coincidentally, his character was scripted to die of a heart attack in a later scene of the play.

1960s

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
Alan Stacey		19 June 1960	The 26-year-old British racing driver died in a crash during the 1960 Belgian Grand Prix when a bird struck him in the face. 22-year-old British driver Chris Bristow was killed during the same race.
John A. Byrnes, Richard Leroy McKinley, and Richard C. Legg		3 January 1961	During the testing of an experimental nuclear reactor design, in Arco, Idaho, two soldiers and a sailor were killed, but their deaths were not due to radiation poisoning. While trying to bring the reactor online, Byrnes, an army specialist, was supposed to pull a control rod partway out by hand, but he pulled the rod further than intended. The reactor instantly went prompt critical, which flash-boiled the water around the reactor. The force of the steam expanding lifted the entire reactor into the air about 2.77 metres (9 ft 1 in), in what has been described as a water hammer-like effect. Many components were thrown out of the top, one of which impaled Legg, a navy electrician's mate, lifted him from a catwalk, and penetrated the ceiling, leaving him dangling. While the reactor was airborne the radioactive steam escaped, spraying the room. The steam was so hot that Byrnes instantly died of severe thermal burns. McKinley suffered a head wound, from which he died later that day. The steam left the bodies of all three men radioactive, so they were buried in lead-lined coffins. The three remain the only human beings killed by a reactor explosion in the United States.
Victor Prather		4 May 1961	The 34-year-old U.S. Navy flight surgeon drowned at the end of the record-setting Strato-Lab V balloon flight when he slipped from the rescue sling during recovery operations in the Gulf of Mexico and his pressure suit filled with water.
Joseph A. Walker and Carl Cross		8 June 1966	Astronaut and NASA test pilot Walker, flying a Lockheed F-104N Starfighter, and North American Aviation test pilot Cross, co-piloting a North American XB-70 Valkyrie bomber, were killed in a mid-air collision during a publicity photo shoot of multiple aircraft with General Electric engines flying in formation near Edwards Air Force Base. With the Valkyrie in a spin, pilot Alvin S. White ejected and survived, but centrifugal force prevented Cross' ejection seat from retracting into the escape capsule.
Nick Piantanida		29 August 1966	The 34-year-old skydiver died four months after an attempt to break the record for the highest parachute jump near Joe Foss Field, Sioux Falls, South Dakota; his suit had depressurized, causing brain damage from lack of oxygen.
Jayne Mansfield		29 June 1967	The 34-year-old American actress and Playboy model died when the driver of her 1966 Buick Electra 225 crashed into a tractor which had abruptly stopped. Her lover and the driver also died, but her children, including Mariska Hargitay, who was 3 years old at the time, survived. Many people speculated that the accident was the result of a Satanic curse.
Harold Holt		17 December 1967	The 59-year-old Prime Minister of Australia disappeared, presumed drowned, while swimming at Cheviot Beach near Portsea, Victoria. He was "simply one of the number of ordinary Australians who drown each year through poor judgment or bad luck"; his drowning has been described as "not unusual", and as "an ordinary death, a shockingly banal one that still befalls dozens every summer." Holt's disappearance gave rise to a variety of unfounded conspiracy theories.
Albert Dekker		5 May 1968	The 62-year-old American actor and politician was found dead kneeling naked in his bathtub with a noose wrapped around his neck, a dirty hypodermic needle in each arm, a scarf over his eyes, a ball in his mouth secured to his head with wire, his wrists in handcuffs, and leather belts and thongs around his torso, one of them tied to a rope around Dekker's ankles. There were vulgar phrases and drawings in lipstick all over his body. His death was ruled an accidental case of erotic asphyxiation.

1970s

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
Alan Fish		20 May 1970	The 14-year-old was struck in the head by a Manny Mota foul ball on 16 May while watching the Los Angeles Dodgers play against the San Francisco Giants at Dodger Stadium, and was knocked unconscious for a minute. He appeared to recover and the Dodger Stadium infirmary gave him an ice pack, two aspirin and released him to watch the rest of the game, during which he behaved normally. The Giants ended up winning the game 5–4. Afterwards, he began shaking and crying uncontrollably during the bus ride to his nearby home; when he arrived, his parents sought medical attention but had to go to three hospitals, despite his worsening condition, before they found one that would accept him early the next morning. His condition required neurosurgery, but continued to worsen, and after a seizure led to apparent brain death, he was taken off life support two days later; the autopsy showed that part of his fractured skull had become lodged in his brain, causing an intracerebral hemorrhage. He was the first fan in Major League Baseball history to die of injuries caused by a foul ball.
Georgy Dobrovolsky, Vladislav Volkov, and Viktor Patsayev		29 June 1971	The Soviet cosmonauts died when their Soyuz 11 spacecraft depressurized during preparations for re-entry. They are the only reported human deaths outside the Earth's atmosphere.
Deborah Gail Stone		8 July 1974	The 18-year-old hostess for the America Sings attraction at Disneyland mysteriously died after being crushed between two walls around 11:00 p.m. It is speculated that she either fell backwards or tried to jump from one stage to another.
Christine Chubbuck		15 July 1974	The 29-year-old American news anchor from Hudson, Ohio, killed herself on live television at the start of Suncoast Digest, a local newscast for WXLT-TV in Sarasota, Florida, after reading some of the area's breaking news headlines. Chubbuck was the first person to commit suicide on live television.
Alex Mitchell		24 March 1975	After watching the "Kung Fu Kapers" episode of The Goodies, the resident of King's Lynn, Norfolk, England, laughed continuously for 25 minutes and then fell dead on his sofa from heart failure due to what doctors discovered years later, via his granddaughter, was a genetic condition called Long QT syndrome.
Luciano Re Cecconi		18 January 1977	The 28-year-old professional footballer for S.S. Lazio and the Italy national football team, was shot while pretending to rob a jeweller as a practical joke.
Tom Pryce and Frederick Jansen van Vuuren		5 March 1977	Pryce, a driver in the 1977 South African Grand Prix, struck and killed Van Vuuren at 170 miles per hour (270 km/h) as Van Vuuren ran across the Kyalami racetrack to extinguish a burning car. The fire extinguisher which Van Vuuren was carrying struck Pryce's head and killed him. Renzo Zorzi, the driver of the burning car, was uninjured.
Kurt Gödel		14 January 1978	The 71-year-old logician and mathematician developed an obsessive fear of being poisoned and refused to eat food prepared by anyone but his wife. When she became ill and was hospitalized, he starved to death. At the time of his death, he only weighed around 65 pounds (29 kg).
Georgi Markov		11 September 1978	The Bulgarian dissident writer was poisoned on a London street via a micro-engineered pellet containing ricin, fired into his leg from an umbrella wielded by an assassin associated with the Bulgarian Secret Service. At the time, this secret police force was affiliated with the KGB. Markov died four days later in hospital. No one was ever charged with the assassination.
Robert Williams		25 January 1979	The Ford plant worker became the first person known to be killed by a robot when a factory robot's arm struck him in the head.

1980s

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
Lourdes Maria da Silva		3 August 1980	The resident of Caxias do Sul, Brazil, was walking upstairs carrying a Pyrex glass when she tripped, broke it, and fell on the shards, cutting an artery in her neck. She died on her way to the hospital.
Azaria Chamberlain		17 August 1980	The 9-week-old from Australia was dragged off and killed by a wild dingo during a family camping trip to Uluru in the Northern Territory. This was the first recorded instance of a dingo killing a human. Azaria's parents, Lindy and Michael Chamberlain, received intense media speculation due to the perceived implausibility of a dingo attack; in a highly-publicized trial, Lindy was convicted of murder and Michael named as an accessory. Their convictions were later overturned after Azaria's matinee jacket was discovered in an area with many dingo lairs nearby.
John Bjornstad, Forrest Cole, and Nick Mullon		19 March 1981, 1 April 1981, and 11 April 1995	At Kennedy Space Center in Florida, five workers suffered anoxia due to pure nitrogen atmosphere in the aft engine compartment of Space Shuttle Columbia during a countdown demonstration test for the STS-1 mission. 51-year-old John Bjornstad died at the scene; 50-year-old Forrest Cole went into a coma and died two weeks later, and Nick Mullon died 14 years later from complications of injuries sustained.
Boris Sagal		22 May 1981	The 57-year-old Ukrainian-American film director died while shooting the TV miniseries World War III in Portland, Oregon, after he walked into the tail rotor blades of a helicopter and was partially decapitated.
David Alan Kirwan		21 July 1981	The 24-year-old tourist from La Cañada Flintridge, California, jumped into the alkaline (pH 9) and scalding (202 °F (94 °C)) Celestine Pool at Yellowstone National Park to save his friend's dog. The dog died within moments and its body dissolved in the hot spring. Kirwan, blinded and burned over his entire body, was airlifted to Salt Lake City and died the next day.
William Holden		12 November 1981	The 63-year-old American actor slipped on a rug in his apartment while intoxicated, gashed his head open on a bedside table and bled to death without calling for help. His body was discovered four days later.
Vic Morrow, Myca Dinh Le and Renee Shin-Yi Chen		23 July 1982	During the filming of Twilight Zone: The Movie, the 53-year-old Morrow, seven-year-old Le, and six-year-old Chen were performing a scene in which their characters are pursued by a helicopter. Heat from special-effects explosions caused the helicopter to fall on them. Morrow and Le were decapitated and Chen was crushed.
Dick Wertheim		15 September 1983	The 61-year-old tennis linesman died after a ball served by player Stefan Edberg at the US Open struck him in the groin and he fell out of his chair, striking his head on the hardcourt surface.
Truls Hellevik		5 November 1983	The 34-year-old Norwegian diver was explosively dismembered in a diving bell accident on the North Sea Byford Dolphin drilling rig. Three other divers, 35-year-old Edwin Arthur Coward, 38-year-old Roy P. Lucas and 29-year-old Bjørn Giæver Bergersen, and 32-year-old dive tender William Crammond, were also killed. Crammond opened the clamp before Hellevik could close the chamber door. The nine-atmosphere air pressure explosively decompressed, instantly forcing Hellevik's body through a 60-centimetre-diameter (24 in) opening, fragmenting it into numerous pieces. The other tender, Martin Saunders, was severely injured.
Jimmy Ferrozzo		November 1983	The bouncer at the Condor Club in San Francisco died while engaging in sexual intercourse with his girlfriend, Theresa Hill, on a grand piano that was lowered from the ceiling by a hydraulic motor. He accidentally activated the lifting mechanism which pinned him against the ceiling leading to his suffocation. Hill survived the accident.
Jon-Erik Hexum		18 October 1984	The 26-year-old American actor died after playing a simulated Russian roulette with a .44 Magnum pistol loaded with blanks. They contained paper wadding and when he pulled the trigger against his temple, the wadding was propelled with a force that broke his skull, causing massive brain bleeding.
Jason Findley		21 May 1985	The 17-year-old, from Piscataway, New Jersey, was electrocuted during a thunderstorm when a lightning strike caused an electrical surge to shoot through the wire of a telephone the boy was holding and enter his left ear, causing his heart to stop beating.
Victims of the Lake Nyos disaster		21 August 1986	At Lake Nyos, northwestern Cameroon, a limnic eruption of unknown cause released about 100,000–300,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the lake's bed. The gas cloud initially rose at nearly 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph; 28 m/s) and then, being heavier than air, descended onto nearby villages, suffocating people and livestock within 25 kilometres (16 mi) of the lake, resulting in the death of 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock.
Marc Aaronson		30 April 1987	The 36-year-old astronomer was crushed to death by a hatch and a revolving telescope dome at Kitt Peak National Observatory.
Franco Brun		9 June 1987	The 22-year-old inmate at the Metro Toronto East Detention Centre in Canada died trying to swallow a pocket-size Bible.
Clarabelle Lansing		28 April 1988	On Aloha Airlines Flight 243 from Hilo to Honolulu, Hawaii, the 58-year-old flight attendant was blown out of the Boeing 737-209 30,000 feet (9,100 m) above the Pacific Ocean when the plane experienced explosive decompression due to metal fatigue.
3 people and Cachy the poodle		21 October 1988	A poodle named Cachy, in Caballito, Buenos Aires, fell 13 floors and hit 75-year-old Marta Espina, killing both instantly. In the course of events, 46-year-old Edith Solá came to see the incident and was fatally hit by a bus. An unidentified man who witnessed her death had a heart attack and also died on his way to the hospital.

1990s

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
Daniel John O'Brien		14 January 1990	The 31-year-old tourist committed suicide by jumping into one of the engines of a British Airways Boeing 747 at Piarco International Airport, Trinidad. He is said to have scaled an airport wall in the nude, stolen a vehicle from four security guards, and smeared himself with grease before hurling himself into one of the plane's engines.
Greg Austin Gingrich		28 November 1992	While the 38-year-old was vacationing at the Grand Canyon in Coconino County, Arizona, with his teenaged daughter, he began to play-act losing his balance to frighten her. His daughter, unimpressed with his antics, walked on. Gingrich, however, missed his footing and fell approximately 400 feet (120 m) into the canyon to his death.
Brandon Lee		31 March 1993	The 28-year-old film actor, martial artist, and son of Bruce Lee was killed by a squib loaded prop gun while filming The Crow.
Garry Hoy		9 July 1993	The 38-year-old lawyer from Toronto fell from the 24th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Centre while demonstrating that its windows were "unbreakable". He threw himself against one, which, true to his assertion, did not break, but instead popped out of its frame.
Gloria Ramirez		19 February 1994	The 31-year-old died from kidney failure related to her cervical cancer at the emergency room of Riverside General Hospital in Riverside, California. While treating her, several of the hospital staff became ill, suffering from loss of consciousness, shortness of breath, and muscle spasms. Shortly before dying, she was allegedly covered with an oily sheen, which smelled of fruit and garlic.
Jack Nance		30 December 1996	The 53-year-old American actor was punched in the head during an altercation with two men outside a Winchell's Donuts store in South Pasadena, California. A friend found Nance on the bathroom floor of his apartment the following morning, having died from a subdural hematoma.
Karen Wetterhahn		8 June 1997	The 48-year-old chemistry professor at Dartmouth College died ten months after a few drops of dimethylmercury (an organomercury compound and one of the strongest-known neurotoxins) landed on her protective gloves. Although she had been following the required procedures, it permeated the gloves and her skin within seconds.
Jonathan Capewell		29 July 1998	The 16-year-old from Oldham, England, died from a heart attack brought on by the buildup of butane and propane in his blood after excessive use of deodorant sprays. He was reported to have been obsessed with personal hygiene.
John Lewis		12 April 1999	The 64-year-old businessman from Minsterworth, England, attempted to light a bonfire with gasoline, but inadvertently set his clothes on fire. He then ran to the River Severn, jumped in, and eventually drowned. His body was not found until 30 April 1999.
Valerie Olusanya		25 April 1999	The 35-year-old electronic musician, better known as Kemistry, was a front-seat passenger in a car travelling on the M3 motorway in Hampshire, behind a van which dislodged a cat's eye in the road. The metal body flew through the windscreen hitting Olusanya in the face, killing her instantly.
Owen Hart		23 May 1999	The 34-year-old professional wrestler fell to his death during the Over the Edge pay-per-view event. He was supposed to be lowered into the ring from the rafters as part of his Blue Blazer persona's entrance, but the equipment lowering him into the ring malfunctioned, causing him to fall 78 feet (24 m) and land chest-first on the top rope. The impact severed his aorta, causing death within minutes.
Jon Desborough		10 June 1999	The 41-year-old geography and physical education teacher died due to a chest infection a month after being impaled in the eye with the blunt end of a javelin during an athletics session at the Liverpool College in Mossley Hill, Liverpool. It is believed that he had lost his footing while retrieving the javelin. He remained in a coma until his death.

21st century

2000s

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
Bernd Brandes		9 March 2001	The 43-year-old engineer was voluntarily slaughtered and eaten by Armin Meiwes following an appointment via internet. At Brandes' request, Meiwes first amputated Brandes' penis and they unsuccessfully tried to eat it. Meiwes taped the entire amputation, killing, conserving, and eating Brandes' meat. Meiwes was eventually arrested and sentenced to life in prison.
Unknown male		27 April 2001	An unnamed Canadian man was visiting his mother's house in order to attend his father's funeral when, whilst cleaning the kitchen, he tripped over the open dishwasher door and was impaled on knives sticking up out of the cutlery tray, the wounds eventually proving fatal.
Michael Colombini		29 July 2001	The six-year-old died during an MRI scan at the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, New York, after an oxygen tank was magnetically pulled into the machine and fractured his skull.
Brittanie Cecil		18 March 2002	The 13-year-old died from her injuries at an NHL game after a deflected puck struck her in the left temple. She was the first and only fan fatality in the league's history.
Roger Wallace		18 May 2002	The 60-year-old auto parts salesman was flying his 5-foot (1.5 m) wingspan remote-control plane in Tucson, Arizona, when he lost sight of it in the bright sun. It struck him in the chest, killing him.
Jane McDonald		27 May 2003	While visiting a friend, the 31-year-old slipped and fell onto an open dishwasher, landing on an upright knife. She was taken to a hospital, where she died of her injuries.
Rebecca Longhoffer		16 August 2003	The 39-year-old tourist, a mother of four, was electrocuted while crossing Las Vegas Boulevard when she stepped on a cast iron plate that covered electrical wiring and was hidden by a deep rain puddle.
Hitoshi Nikaidoh		16 August 2003	The 35-year-old surgical resident from Houston, Texas, was killed after his head was trapped in elevator doors at the hospital where he worked. He was partially decapitated as the elevator ascended, and he also sustained injuries to his ribs and spine.
Brian Wells		28 August 2003	The 46-year-old pizza delivery man from Erie, Pennsylvania, was killed after a collar bomb around his neck exploded as part of a bank robbery scheme.
Unknown female		2004	A 45-year-old woman in Taiwan bathed in 40.5% ethanol in an attempt to protect herself from SARS during the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. She laid down in the fluid at 11. p.m. and was found dead at 11 a.m. by her family the next day. Her BAC was 1.35% and she most likely absorbed the alcohol through the skin.
Francis Daniel Brohm		2 September 2004	The 23-year-old was hanging out the passenger window of 21-year-old John Hutcherson's car when Hutcherson drove off the road and sideswiped a telephone pole support wire, decapitating him. Hutcherson continued the final 12 miles (19 km) to his Atlanta home, parked in the driveway, and went to bed. A neighbor found Brohm's headless body in the truck the next morning.
Kenneth Pinyan		2 July 2005	The 45-year-old Boeing engineer from Seattle, nicknamed Mr. Hands, died from acute peritonitis after having his colon perforated while being anally penetrated by a horse.
Chandler Hugh Jackson		6 July 2005	The 12-year-old was playing at the Dogwood Hill golf club in Cunningham, Kentucky, when he fell on his 9-iron club while retrieving an out of bounds ball. The club broke, with a piece of the shaft piercing his aorta through his chest.
Steve Irwin		4 September 2006	The 44-year-old Australian wildlife expert and television personality was pierced in the chest by a short-tail stingray's barb while filming in shallow water in the Great Barrier Reef.
Alexander Litvinenko		23 November 2006	The 44-year-old, a naturalised British citizen, former Russian FSB officer, and defector, was assassinated by poisoning with polonium-210, which caused acute and irreversible radiation sickness. One of just a handful of recorded deaths attributed specifically to polonium exposure, Litvinenko was the first-known fatality from malicious polonium poisoning, and remains the only confirmed such case as of 2024.
Jennifer Strange		12 January 2007	The 28-year-old mother was participating in a contest sponsored by Sacramento-based radio station KDND, called "Hold Your Wee For A Wii", in which contestants had to drink excessive amounts of water without going to the bathroom. She vomited during the contest and returned home with a headache, later dying of water intoxication.
Humberto Hernandez		21 June 2007	The 24-year-old Oakland, California, resident was struck in the back of the head by an airborne fire hydrant when a passing car struck it, and the water pressure shot it at him with great force.
Francis Pete Tovey		18 March 2008	The 81-year-old built a device that consisted of a jigsaw power tool attached to a .22 semi-automatic handgun containing four bullets. He then activated it, which fired multiple shots at his head, killing himself. Tovey built the device after downloading suicide plans on the Internet. Tovey, who originated from England and was living in Burleigh Heads, Australia at the time, left a note stating that he was struggling after pressure from relatives to move from his £450,000 home to a retirement home.
Judy Kay Zagorski		20 March 2008	The 57-year-old from Pigeon, Michigan, died of blunt force craniocerebral trauma when a 75-pound (34 kg) spotted eagle ray leaped out of the water and knocked her over off the coast of Marathon Key, Florida. The ray also died.
Adelir Antônio de Carli		21 April 2008	The 41-year-old Brazilian Catholic priest and sky diver undertook a cluster balloon flight to raise funds for charity. During the flight, contact was lost and de Carli disappeared. The lower part of his body was found floating in the sea eleven weeks later on 4 July.
Isaiah Otieno		13 May 2008	The student from Cranbrook, British Columbia, was struck and killed by a helicopter that plunged into a residential street he was walking in. The pilot and two other passengers of the helicopter were also instantly killed.
David Phyall		5 July 2008	The 50-year-old last resident in a block of flats due to be demolished in Bishopstoke, near Southampton, England, decapitated himself with a chainsaw to highlight the injustice of being forced to move out of it.
Unknown female		7 October 2008	A 43-year-old Irish woman died of an allergic reaction after having sex with a German Shepherd. Its owner, Seán McDonnell, and the woman met in an Internet chat room for bestiality. McDonnell was prosecuted and added to a sex offender list. The dog was later destroyed.
Jeff Twaddle		27 March 2009	The 54-year-old charter boat deckhand from Huntington Beach, California, choked to death on a bait fish he had placed in his mouth to amuse a group of elementary school students on a fishing trip off Long Beach.
Diane Durre		3 April 2009	The 49-year-old was killed in North Platte, Nebraska, by a falling Taco Bell sign. The sign was knocked over by high winds, and landed on a pickup truck, killing her and injuring her husband, Mark.
Mark Fidrych		13 April 2009	The 54-year-old former Major League Baseball pitcher of the Detroit Tigers died while working underneath his dump truck. His clothes became entangled with the power take-off drive shaft, suffocating him.
David Carradine		3 June 2009	The 72-year-old American actor was found dead in a closet at the Nai Lert Park Hotel in Bangkok. Carradine's neck and genitals were bound and connected by a cord. His death was ruled a case of autoerotic asphyxiation rather than suicide.
Taylor Mitchell		28 October 2009	The 19-year-old Canadian folk singer was killed by a pair of coyotes while hiking in Cape Breton Highlands National Park, in the only known fatal coyote attack on an adult.

2010s

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
Muraka Jenny Vearncombe		3 March 2010	The 42-year-old was struck in the head by a piece of a metal pipe flung by a tractor-pulled lawnmower as she walked to work in Townsville, Australia.
Gareth Williams		16 August 2010	The 31-year-old Welsh mathematician and GCHQ analyst was found dead and naked in a bag that had been padlocked from the outside, in the bath of his home in Central London. The inquest found his death was likely criminal, although a Metropolitan Police investigation later found that it was likely an accident.
The 20 passengers and crew of a plane crash		25 August 2010	20 passengers and crew of a Let L-410 Turbolet were killed in a crash resulting from an escaped crocodile in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. According to the sole survivor of the crash, the animal was smuggled aboard by a passenger but escaped mid-flight. Panicked passengers surged forward, unbalancing the plane and causing a loss of control. The crocodile survived the crash, but was promptly killed by a blow from a machete.
Mike Edwards		3 September 2010	The 62-year-old cellist and founding member of the band Electric Light Orchestra died when a large, round bale of hay rolled down a hill and collided with the van he was driving.
Jimi Heselden		26 September 2010	The 62-year-old owner of Segway Inc. died after apparently riding a Segway Personal Transport System off a cliff in Thorp Arch, England. The coroner came to the conclusion that Heselden had likely fallen from the cliff with the Segway after "getting into difficulty" reversing to allow a man walking his dog to pass him.
Jose Luis Ochoa		30 January 2011	The 35-year-old died after being stabbed in the leg at an illegal cockfight in Tulare County, California, by a bird with a knife-like spur strapped to its leg.
Xavier Tondo		23 May 2011	The 32-year-old Spanish road racing cyclist was crushed to death between a garage door and his car as he prepared to leave his home in the Province of Granada, Spain, for a training ride in preparation for the 2011 Tour de France.
Unknown man and woman		6 June 2011	Two unnamed people were killed in an accident on a rural Quebec road when a "flying bear" collided with their SUV. The 200-kilogram (440 lb) black bear was sent airborne by a car in front of the SUV after it had stepped into the path of traffic on Highway 148. The bear passed through the windshield, hitting the driver and the passenger sitting behind her before passing through the rear window. The driver's boyfriend was in the front passenger seat and received injuries to his upper body which were described as "not life-threatening". The bear also died.
Erica Marshall		10 February 2012	The 28-year-old British veterinarian in Ocala, Florida, died when the horse she was treating in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber kicked the wall, releasing a spark from its horseshoe, causing a fire and explosion. The horse was also killed and another worker was seriously injured.
Anthony Hensley		14 April 2012	The 37-year-old was killed by a swan while kayaking across a pond at a residential complex in Des Plaines, Illinois. After getting too close to the bird's nest, the swan attacked him, threw him out of the kayak and prevented him from surfacing; he ultimately drowned.
Elizabeth Watkins		6 May 2012	The 24-year-old Australian field hockey player died in Perth after a deflected ball struck her on the head.
Kendrick Johnson		10 January 2013	The 17-year-old was discovered trapped upside down in a rolled-up gym mat in his high school gymnasium. Police originally concluded he had climbed in it to retrieve a shoe and became trapped, but the case was later reopened as a possible homicide. The homicide case was dismissed, and Kendrick's parents were accused of fabricating evidence. In 2014, they were sentenced to pay more than US$292,000 in legal fees. The case was again reopened in 2021, but closed again in January 2022, with the Lowndes County Sheriff finding his death to be an accident when re-reviewing some 17 boxes of evidence and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's findings.
James Campbell		14 January 2013	The 68-year-old man from Cantonment, Florida had left his 1995 Chevrolet Van to open a gate from his driveway when his dog stepped on the van's gas pedal and ran him over.
Elisa Lam		February 2013	The 21-year-old from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, was missing for several weeks before being found dead in a large water tank on the roof of the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, after guests complained about low pressure and foul smell of the water.
Unknown Belarusian man		2013	An unnamed 60-year-old Belarusian fisherman bled to death after being bitten by a beaver which he had tried to grab in order to have his picture taken with it.
João Maria de Souza		2013	The 45-year-old was crushed in his bed by a cow falling through the roof of his home in Caratinga, Minas Gerais, Brazil. It had climbed on top of the house from a steep hillside behind it. Both the cow and his wife (who was in the bed next to him) were unharmed.
Noah Barthe, Connor Barthe		5 August 2013	The brothers, aged 4 and 6, respectively, were killed by an African rock python during a sleepover at their friend's apartment in New Brunswick, Canada. The snake had escaped from its inadequate enclosure and moved through ducts that were easily accessible to the reptile, where the snake then fell through the ceiling where the boys slept 3 metres (9.8 ft) away. Though the snake suffocated them, it did not attempt to eat them. However, an African rock python would not constrict unless it planned on eating; therefore, it is likely that the owners of the python also failed to feed their pet. The python was euthanized.
Denver Lee St. Clair		21 December 2013	The 58-year-old was asphyxiated by an "atomic wedgie" administered by his stepson during a fight in Oklahoma. After he had been knocked unconscious, the elastic band from his torn underwear was pulled over his head and stretched around his neck, strangling him. The stepson was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
J.R.N.		18 January 2014	A 52-year-old Brazilian man, identified only as J.R.N., attempted to commit bestiality with a sow in Tapurah, Mato Grosso, but was attacked by the animals and wounded in the genitals. He died from cardiac arrest. His arms and face were also mutilated by the animals. Initially police believed that the man had been murdered and disposed of at the farm, but this was disproven as numerous pieces of evidence showed that the man had drunk alcohol, used a condom and had been wearing only underwear. The man had worked at the farm for two years.
Grant Adams		9 June 2014	The 17-year-old had just woken up when he tripped on a wire and fell into a free-standing tanning bed in his bedroom on the morning of June 8, 2014. One of the glass tubes of the bed broke, piercing Grant's neck in two places. He was airlifted from his house in South Shields to the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, where he died the next day.
Christophe de Margerie		20 October 2014	The French oil executive was killed when his corporate jet collided during take-off with an airport snowplow reportedly driven by a drunk driver in Moscow.
Gary Anderson		3 November 2014	The 58-year-old from Somerdale, New Jersey, was delivering drywall to a construction site and leaned his head into the car of a co-worker while having a conversation. As he pulled his head out, a worker accidentally dropped a 1-pound (0.45 kg) tape measure which plummeted 50 stories, or approximately 500 feet (150 m), when it ricocheted off a piece of metal 10 feet (3 m) off the ground and smashed into Anderson's head. He was rushed to Jersey City Medical Center where he suffered cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at 9:52 a.m. Hard hats were mandatory at the site, and it is unclear why Anderson was not wearing one when he was killed.
Phillip Hughes		27 November 2014	The 25-year-old Australian Test and ODI cricketer was killed by a bouncer striking his neck during a cricket match, causing a vertebral artery dissection.
Joshua Harrison-Jones		7 January 2015	The 16-year-old from Stretford, Greater Manchester, died when his neck became trapped between his exercise bench and a onesie he was using as a resistance band.
Maxee		28 February 2015	The member of American R&B group Brownstone died after falling backward while holding a wine glass. During the fall, the glass shattered on the ground behind her head, and the shards pierced her neck, causing profuse bleeding.
Stephen Woytack		30 March 2015	The 74-year-old was decorating his family's grave plot at St. Joseph's Cemetery in Throop, Pennsylvania, for Easter with his wife when the tombstone of his mother-in-law toppled over, pinning him underneath and crushing him to death. The stone had supposedly been dislodged when the previously frozen ground was thawed by the early spring temperatures. Woytack was buried in a plot directly in front of the tombstone that killed him.
Randy Llanes		29 May 2015	The 47-year-old fisherman from Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, was killed by a swordfish. He had harpooned the fish and jumped into the water to retrieve it, but the swordfish impaled him in the chest.
Chelsea Ake-Salvacion		19 October 2015	The 24-year-old beauty salon employee in Henderson, Nevada, was suffocated while using a cryotherapy machine set to the wrong level, which eliminated the oxygen in the chamber.
Tom Wilson		9 December 2015	The 22-year-old British field hockey player died after being struck in the head with a stick during a practice match in Loughton, Essex, and suffering a cerebral haemorrhage.
Ravi Subramanian		16 December 2015	The Air India technician was sucked into an aircraft's jet engine.
V. Kamaraj		2016	The 40-year-old Indian bus driver was claimed by local newspapers to have been killed by a meteorite which left a two-foot (60 cm) crater, although officials from NASA oppose that view, saying that the most likely explanation was a land-based explosion. According to a preliminary report by the National College Instrumentation Facility (NCIF) in Trichy, a scanning electron microscope (SEM) study on the evidence of the samples retrieved from the campus in Vellore, from where the blast occurred, showed the "presence of carbonaceous chondrites".
Irma Bule		4 April 2016	The 29-year-old Indonesian dangdut singer who performed with live snakes died during a concert after being bitten by a king cobra and refusing treatment.
Lottie Michelle Belk		6 June 2016	The 55-year-old was fatally stabbed in the chest by a beach umbrella blown by a strong wind in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Wind speeds at the time reached 20–25 miles per hour (32–40 km/h).
Lane Graves		14 June 2016	The 2-year-old boy from Nebraska was on vacation and playing on the beach at Seven Seas Lagoon around 9 p.m. at Disney's Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, just outside of Orlando, Florida. While he was playing, an alligator approached and dragged him under the water. Graves's body was found nearby the next day, intact and apparently drowned.
Anton Yelchin		19 June 2016	The 27-year-old American actor, known for portraying Pavel Chekov in the Star Trek reboot movie series, was found pinned between his car and a brick wall. His driveway was on an incline and his car was found running and in neutral. The manufacturer had recalled the car make in April 2016, for concerns about its gearshift design that could cause rollaway incidents, but the software patch to repair the vehicles did not reach dealers until the week of Yelchin's death.
John William Ashe		22 June 2016	The 61-year-old Antiguan diplomat and politician, a former President of the United Nations General Assembly who was awaiting trial on bribery charges, died when a barbell fell on his neck at his home in Dobbs Ferry, New York, causing traumatic asphyxia and laryngeal fractures.
Kristopher Moules and Timothy Gilliam Jr.		18 July 2016	Moules, a 25-year-old correctional officer, and Gilliam, a 27-year-old out-of-county inmate being housed at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, fell to their deaths after an altercation between them caused them to slam into the exterior of the fifth-floor elevator doors. Despite the elevator having its up-to-date working credentials, the door popped open on impact, causing the men to fall five flights down the shaft to their deaths. The county declared Moules' death a homicide and declared Gilliam's an accident.
Unknown girl		26 July 2016	A 7-year-old girl died after being struck by a stone thrown by an elephant from its enclosure at the zoo in Rabat, Morocco.
Caleb Schwab		7 August 2016	The 10-year-old was decapitated when he was ejected from his raft on Verrückt, a 168-foot-tall (51 m) water slide at Schlitterbahn Kansas City.
Julio Macías González		26 August 2016	The 17-year-old from Mexico City died from a cerebrovascular accident caused by embolus formed on a neck hickey.
Ten people		21 November 2016	A powerful southerly change in Melbourne, Australia, resulted in the death of 10 asthmatic people who died from respiratory failure. This was due to a stark 60-kilometre-per-hour (37 mph) wind that distributed ryegrass pollen into the moist air, rupturing them into very fine specks small enough to enter people's lungs.
Kyle Thomson		26 December 2016	The 22-year-old Iowa State University student was bench-pressing about 315 pounds (143 kg) at a gym in Ankeny, Iowa, when the barbell slipped from his hands, crushing his neck. Thomson had spotters for the lift.
Akbar Salubiro		March 2017	The 25-year-old was killed and swallowed by a reticulated python in West Sulawesi, Indonesia, in the first fully confirmed case of a snake swallowing an adult human.
Charlie Holt		14 April 2017	The 5-year-old was killed at the Sun Dial, a rotating restaurant at the top of Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, when his head was caught in a small space between the rotating and non-rotating sections.
Robert Dreyer		10 May 2017	The Florida resident drowned on his 89th birthday after he crashed his car into a fire hydrant and was then swallowed by the sinkhole created by the broken water line which had fed the hydrant.
Debra Bedard		2 June 2017	The 58-year-old died after falling from a golf cart onto shards of wine glasses that had broken in her hands in Calaveras County, California.
Rebecca Burger		18 June 2017	The 33-year-old French fitness blogger and model died after a whipped-cream charger exploded and struck her in the chest. The injury caused her to go into cardiac arrest as a result of commotio cordis.
Karanbir Cheema		9 July 2017	The 13-year-old from London, England, died in the hospital days after having a severe allergic reaction to a piece of cheese thrown at him by a classmate. Cheema was severely allergic to wheat, gluten, all dairy products, eggs and all nuts.
Elizabeth Isherwood		September 2017	The 60-year-old from Wolverhampton, England, walked naked into an airing cupboard at the villa at Pennal she was renting and shut the door. When she tried to leave, part of the door handle broke off in her hand. She dug into the wall in an attempt to escape, but struck and burst a pipe, which sprayed water into the cupboard and caused her eventual death by hypothermia. She was found several days later.
Raildo Matias Santos		22 October 2017	The 49-year-old drowned in a bucket of water in Jaguaquara, Brazil. Santos, who was intoxicated, attempted to fetch a 20-litre (4.4 imp gal; 5.3 US gal) bucket of water, tripped, and fell in a kneeling position. He was epileptic.
Hidr Korkmaz		12 November 2017	The 42-year-old Turkish-Dutch drug dealer and informant died when he threw his fishhook into an electrical cable while fishing somewhere in Eastern Europe. Though he was a witness in the case against Dutch criminal Willem Holleeder, he was not considered a crucial asset by authorities, who treated his death as an accident.
Ateef Rafiq		16 March 2018	The 24-year-old died from cardiac arrest in a movie theater in Birmingham, England, while looking for his dropped mobile phone. His head became wedged under the electronic footrest of a seat.
Elaine Herzberg		18 March 2018	The 49-year-old from Tempe, Arizona, died after being hit by a self-driving car operated by Uber, as she crossed the road, in what was reported to be the first death of a pedestrian struck by a self-driving car on public roads. In response to the fatal accident, Uber suspended self-driving car tests in all U.S. cities.
Kyle Plush		10 April 2018	The 16-year-old died from asphyxia after becoming trapped in his Honda Odyssey, which was in his school's parking lot in Cincinnati, Ohio. Attempting to reach his tennis equipment, he leaned over the third row of seats into the trunk. When the seats "squashed his chest", he became pinned and later died. During the incident, he called 9–1–1 twice, by using his smartphone's voice assistant. Responding to the calls, the police were not able to find him; he was eventually discovered dead in the vehicle by his father about six hours later.
Jennifer Riordan		17 April 2018	The 43-year-old bank executive and businesswoman aboard Southwest Airlines Flight 1380 died after debris from an engine failure destroyed a window near her seat and she was partially blown out through it.
Hildegard Whiting		27 July 2018	The 77-year-old died of asphyxiation from the carbon dioxide vapors produced by four dry ice coolers in a Dippin' Dots delivery car. The deliveryman's wife had borrowed the car to take Whiting home.
Richard Russell		10 August 2018	The 29-year-old stole a Bombardier Q400 owned by Horizon Air and operating for Alaska Airlines from Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. After an unauthorized takeoff, he flew the plane for just over an hour and performed aerial maneuvers including a barrel roll before intentionally crashing on Ketron Island, Washington, killing himself. No one else was injured.
Linda Goldbloom		29 August 2018	The 79-year-old died four days after being hit by a foul ball at Dodger Stadium. Her death, the second such fatality in Major League Baseball history, was the first in nearly 50 years.
Sam Ballard		2 November 2018	The 29-year-old from Sydney, Australia, died from angiostrongyliasis after eating a garden slug as a dare eight years earlier.
Unknown man		January 2019	A 54-year-old construction worker from Massachusetts died after eating a bag and a half of black liquorice every day for a few weeks, which caused such low potassium levels in his body that his heart stopped.
Salvatore Disi		10 January 2019	The 62-year-old was decapitated while using a power cart to jump start a helicopter in Hernando County, Florida. Its unexpected up-and-down motion caused the rotor blades to strike him.
Margaret Maurer		5 March 2019	The 21-year-old Tulane University fourth-year student from Forest Lake, Minnesota, died at a highway rest stop in Mississippi when she was struck by a pair of tires that came loose from a passing tractor-trailer.
Julian Nott		26 March 2019	The 74-year-old British-American balloonist was mortally injured after landing safely near Warner Springs, California, at the end of a test flight of an experimental high-altitude balloon. After Nott and his passenger reentered the balloon's gondola, it rolled down a steep ravine.
Patrick McGuire		April 2019	The 67-year-old American tourist died from positional asphyxia in Scotland when a 72-kilogram (159 lb) metal garden bench he was sitting on toppled backwards, pinning him against a wall which had knocked him unconscious. It was later found that such benches had a risk of sinking into the grass and there were no appropriate checks to provide a stable hard surface for the benches.
Darren Hickey		5 April 2019	The 51-year-old wedding planner from Horwich, England, died after eating a scalding-hot fishcake at a wedding. The cake had burned his throat, restricting his ability to breathe. The pathologist who performed the autopsy called the case "extremely rare" and likened it to those of victims who have inhaled smoke during house fires. Hickey received a set of false teeth following a previous event.
Marvin Hajos		12 April 2019	The 75-year-old exotic animal collector living at a farm near Alachua, Florida, was attacked and killed by his recently purchased pet cassowary. The large bird repeatedly kicked the man, which punctured his skin and severed the brachial artery in his arm. Hajos was declared dead by the time paramedics arrived at the scene, and the cassowary was auctioned off to a different owner.
Paul McDonald		17 April 2019	The 47-year-old was attacked and killed by a pet deer, said to be an elk, on his property in north-east Victoria, Australia.
Joemar Jungco		22 June 2019	The 18-year-old worker at a meat processing facility in Iloilo City, Philippines, died after half his body from the head down to the waist was pulled into a meat grinder.
Yulia Sharko		8 September 2019	The 21-year-old from Žabinka, Belarus, was celebrating her birthday with friends when she tried to pull her two-year-old daughter out through the window of her car. Her daughter activated the window control button, closing the window and strangling Sharko.

2020s

Name of person	Image	Date of death	Details
Christian Bolok		26 October 2020	The 38-year-old lieutenant, who was the police chief of San Jose, Northern Samar, Philippines, died during a raid to shut down a cockfight, which the government had banned due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was trying to grab a cockfighting rooster when the razor-sharp metal blade attached to the rooster's leg to kill its opponent cut a gaping hole in his leg and sliced his femoral artery, causing him to bleed to death.
Luke Ramone Harper		2 April 2021	The 8-year-old from Ringsend, Dublin, died after inhaling helium from a balloon that he placed over his head. The balloon had been bought for his birthday a week prior.
Amy Carlson		April 2021	The corpse of the 45-year-old leader of Love Has Won was discovered by police on 28 April 2021, with estimates placing her death c. 16 April 2021. Her remains were mummified and wrapped in a sleeping bag, decorated with Christmas lights; her eyes were missing, and her eye sockets had been decorated with glitter. An autopsy determined that she died of alcohol abuse, anorexia, and chronic colloidal silver ingestion.
Unknown man		May 2021	The body of a 39-year-old man was found wedged inside the hind leg of a papier-mâché statue of a stegosaurus in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Catalonia, Spain. Initial police reports did not suspect foul play. A police representative hypothesised that the individual may have crawled inside headfirst to retrieve a lost mobile phone before his leg became stuck, trapping him inside. Firefighters had to cut the statue apart to extract the body; police observers believed that he may have been trapped in there for "a couple of days". Local media claimed that the family of the victim had reported him missing only hours prior to the discovery. The body was discovered when a man and his son noticed an unusual smell from the statue, and saw the body through a crack in the statue.
Unknown man		30 October 2021	A 30-year-old man was fishing with two friends at a lake in Brasilândia de Minas, Brazil, when the group was attacked by bees. He and his friends jumped into the lake to escape the bees, but the man drowned and was partially eaten by piranhas; his friends survived.
Teddy Balkind		6 January 2022	The 16-year-old high school student for St. Luke's School, Connecticut, died after suffering an injury to his neck during a junior varsity ice hockey game. He died after he fell during a game and was accidentally hit by another player, who was unable to stop in time. The other player's skate blade cut Balkind's neck, and he died following an emergency operation.
Anne Heche		11 August 2022	On August 5, 2022, while driving in Mar Vista, Los Angeles, the 53-year-old American actress crashed her Mini Cooper three times in close succession. The car crashed into a wall in an apartment complex parking area and into a Jaguar before embedding itself in a two-story house, which caught fire, trapping Heche in her burning car for 45 minutes. After being rescued, Heche sat up on her stretcher and struggled with firefighters, but then lost consciousness. Heche was declared brain dead on August 11 but was kept on life support until August 14 to preserve her organs for donation.
Joseph Smith		21 January 2023	The 30-year-old man was shot and killed by his dog after the animal stepped on a loaded rifle in the back seat of his pickup truck, causing the gun to fire through the front passenger seat and hit him in the back. The driver of the truck, who was sitting next to Smith at the time of the accident, was unharmed.
Barry Griffiths		June 2023	The 57-year-old Welsh man, who had suffered a stroke that reduced the mobility of one of his arms, accidentally stabbed himself in the stomach while attempting to separate frozen burgers with a knife. Atherosclerosis was also a contributing factor in Griffiths' death. Police did not discover Griffiths' body in his apartment until over a week after he died.
Mikala Jones		9 July 2023	The 44-year-old was killed in a surfing accident in North Sipora, Indonesia, after the fin of his surfboard severed his femoral artery.
Justyn Vicky		17 July 2023	On July 15, 2023, the 33-year-old Indonesian bodybuilder and influencer was squatting over 180 kilograms (400 lb) at a Bali gym, assisted by a spotter, when the weight snapped his head forward, breaking his neck. Vicky died in the hospital 2 days later.
Adam Johnson		28 October 2023	The 29-year-old member of the Nottingham Panthers professional ice hockey team in England died after his neck was cut by a skate during a game between the Panthers and the Sheffield Steelers.
Sanjay Shah and Raju Datla		20 January 2024	The 55-year-old CEO of Vistex was celebrating his company's 25th anniversary at a movie studio stage in India. As part of the celebration, Shah and company president Raju Datla were being lowered from the ceiling to the stage in a cage or basket, when a cable broke and both men fell 20 feet (6.1 m), killing Shah and leaving Datla in critical condition. Datla died of his injuries six months later.
Giulia Manfrini		21 October 2024	The 36-year-old Italian surfer died while surfing near the coast of West Sumatra, Indonesia, after a swordfish pierced her chest.
Johnnie Turner		22 October 2024	The 76-year-old member of the Kentucky Senate died of injuries sustained in an accident on September 15, 2024, when he drove a riding mower into an empty swimming pool.

Animal deaths

This section is for the deaths of animals, for whom there are several sources mentioning the deaths as unusual.

Name of animal	Image	Date of death	Details
Jocko the monkey		July 1880	The performance monkey from Goldsboro, North Carolina, was found dead after he hanged himself with a makeshift noose made with clothesline. It is believed that Jocko did it as an experiment after watching public hangings with his owner Rockwell Syrock.
Jumbo the elephant		15 September 1885	The celebrity elephant was hit by a train in St. Thomas, Ontario. He died shortly thereafter.
Topsy the elephant		4 January 1903	The elephant was executed by poisoning, electrocution, and strangulation. A 74-second film of the electrocution was recorded and preserved, possibly the first death captured on film.
Mary the elephant		13 September 1916	The day after the five-ton cow elephant killed a trainer for the Sparks World Famous Shows circus in Sullivan County, Tennessee, she was hanged by the neck from a railcar-mounted industrial crane.
Seagull		4 August 1983	During a Major League Baseball Yankees-Blue Jays game at Toronto's Exhibition Stadium, Yankees right fielder Dave Winfield threw a warm-up ball which hit a seagull, killing it. After the game, Toronto police charged Winfield with causing "unnecessary suffering of an animal". The charges were dropped the following day.
Cocaine Bear		1985	A 175-kilogram (386 lb) American black bear died in Georgia in 1985 after overdosing on cocaine. The cocaine had been dumped from an airplane piloted by Andrew C. Thornton II, a former narcotics officer turned convicted drug smuggler. It inspired the 2023 film Cocaine Bear.
Deer		14 August 1987	During practice for the 1987 Austrian Grand Prix, Stefan Johansson hit a roe deer with his McLaren MP4/3 after it wandered onto the circuit. It was struck by Johansson traveling at close to 140 mph (230 km/h), killing it instantly. Johansson survived.
Olympic doves		17 September 1988	During the opening ceremony of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, hundreds of live doves were released as a symbol of world peace. Many of the doves landed on the Olympic cauldron just prior to it being lit. When the cauldron was lit, over a dozen of the doves resting on the rim of the cauldron and flying directly above it were burned alive by the Olympic flame. The death of the birds marked the last time that live doves were used.
Goose		27 March 1999	On the inaugural ride of the Apollo's Chariot rollercoaster at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, male model Fabio was struck in the face by a goose during the first drop. The goose was killed, while Fabio's nose was bloodied and required stitches.
Dove		24 March 2001	During a Major League Baseball spring training game, pitcher Randy Johnson threw a fastball just as a bird flew through the pitch's path, killing it instantly.
Alan the dachshund		14 January 2013	Tatler magazine's "office dog" saw a man approaching the revolving doors of Vogue House and walked after the man. As Alan tried to rush through the revolving doors, his neck got caught in it, also getting the worker stuck in the door. Two fire engines rushed to the scene, where they freed the man, but could not free Alan, who died at the scene.
Kabibe the gorilla		7 November 2014	The 15-month-old western lowland gorilla was accidentally crushed by a hydraulic door in her enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo.

See also

• Autoerotic fatality
• Darwin Awards
• Death by coconut
• Death from laughter
• Execution by elephant
• Spontaneous human combustion
• 1000 Ways to Die
• Stupid Deaths, a recurring segment in the television adaptation of Horrible Histories
• Death during consensual sex

Lists

• List of association footballers who died while playing
• List of causes of death by rate
• List of racing cyclists and pacemakers with a cycling-related death
• List of entertainers who died during a performance
• List of inventors killed by their own invention
• List of last words
• Lists of people by cause of death
• List of people who died on the toilet
• List of people executed for witchcraft
• Lists of people who disappeared
• List of political self-immolations
• List of premature obituaries
• List of selfie-related injuries and deaths
• Toilet-related injuries and deaths
• List of deaths due to injuries sustained in boxing
• United States amusement park accidents
• Wheel-well stowaway § List of wheel-well stowaways

Works cited

• Barber, Richard; Barker, Juliet (1989). Tournaments: Jousts, Chivalry and Pageants in the Middle Ages. Boydell. pp. 134, 139. ISBN 978-0-85115-470-1.
• Baumgartner, Frederic J (1988). Henry II, King of France, 1547–1559. Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822307952.
•  Laërtius, Diogenes (1925). "The Stoics: Zeno" . Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Vol. 2:7. Translated by Hicks, Robert Drew (Two volume ed.). Loeb Classical Library. § 1–160.
• Weeks, David; Gorman, Robert (2015). "15: Fans". Death at the Ballpark: More Than 2,000 Game-Related Fatalities of Players, Other Personnel and Spectators in Amateur and Professional Baseball, 1862–2014 (2nd ed.). McFarland. ISBN 9780786479320. Retrieved 30 September 2022.
• Wellman, Kathleen (2013). Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France. Yale University Press.

Further reading

• Bellamy, John G (2008). Strange Inhuman Deaths. History Press. ISBN 978-0-7509-3864-8.
• Daws, Nick (2005). Daft Deaths and Famous Last Words. Lagoon Books. ISBN 978-1-9047-9715-9.
• Dreher, Dale (12 March 2012). Death by Misadventure: 210 Dumb Ways to Die. ASIN B007JYWNV4.
• Dunning, John (February 1997). Strange Deaths. True Crime. ISBN 978-185958498-9.
• Powell, Michael (2008). Curious Events in History. Sterling Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4027-6307-6.
• Sieveking, Paul; Simmons, Ian; Stevenson, Val (2000). Strange Deaths: More Than 375 Freakish Fatalities. New York: Barnes & Noble Books. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-7607-1947-3. Retrieved 4 January 2022 – via Google Books.
• Sieveking, Paul (1998). The Fortean Times Book of More Strange Deaths. John Brown. ISBN 978-1-902212-02-9.
• Sieveking, Paul (2011). The Fortean Times Book of Strange Deaths. Russell Blackman. ISBN 978-1-907779-97-8.
• Southwell, David; Twist, Sean (2007). Mysterious Deaths and Disappearances. The Rosen Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-4042-1081-3.
• Winterbotham, Russell R. (1929). Curious and Unusual Deaths. Girard, KS: Haldeman-Julius.

External links

• "Curious and Unusual Deaths Pictures". Discovery Channel. Discovery Communications. Archived from the original on 16 September 2013. Retrieved 7 August 2024.
• "Freakish Fatalities Articles". Snopes. Retrieved 7 August 2024.