It was a strange year for weather and perhaps an even stranger one for dying, here are some of the weirdest deaths of 2011:
Planking is a trending internet craze where people take photos of themselves in Superman-like poses, lying flat on surfaces like railings, rooftops and police cars. A 20 year old Australian man recently fell to his death from an apartment balcony while planking.
Stabbed to death at a cockfight – Jose Luis Ochoa was attending an illegal cockfight in Tulare County, California when he was stabbed in the leg by a cock that had a knife attached to one of its limbs. Ochoa was taken to the hospital where he was declared dead. He was reportedly a regular participant at organized cockfights and had previously been fined for owning or training animals for fighting.
Fell from a balcony while planking – Acton Beale, a 20 year old Australian, fell from the balcony of an apartment in Brisbane while trying to plank on the railing. Planking is a trending internet craze where people take photos of themselves in Superman-like poses, lying flat on some surface, with arms at their side. Plankers then post the photos to social media websites like facebook and YouTube. Just weeks before, in Brisbane, another 20 year old was arrested for planking on the roof of a police car. Other plankers have been photographed lying on railroad tracks, in the middle of the road, and in trees.
Other Great Reads: The world’s dumbest deaths, now on TV
Suffocating in a recycling bin – A 62 year-old Toledo, Ohio woman died from asphyxiation after falling head first into a recycling bin. She was discovered by her husband, upside down in the 65-gallon plastic bin, wearing pajamas. It is thought that she either lost her balance and fell off a porch into the bin or fell in while trying to retrieve an object. She died from positional asphyxia, which means because of the way she was stuck she couldn’t breathe, the county coroner explained.
Mixed martial artist crushed to death by falling cow – A 23 year-old man known as McCrazy died from a heart attack after being crushed by a cow carcass at a slaughterhouse just outside Glasgow, Scotland. The man was a member of a group called the Dinky Ninjas Fight Team and was known as a prankster. Upon hearing the news, most of his friends assumed it was a joke. It is thought that the carcass, which weighed about a ton, fell off a conveyor belt hook and landed on him. He was a blue belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu and was also trained as a Thai boxer.
Other Great Reads: Dealing with grief after an accidental death
Elite German handball referee twins die in car crash on way to game – Bernd and Reiner Methe got married on the same day, lived in homes just 50 yards away from one another, both once worked for a Mercedes-Benz dealership and in 1987, took up handball refereeing together. By 1993 they were refereeing for the Handball-Bundesliga, the best professional handball league in Germany. Their highest profile match was the 2010 European Men’s Handball Championship, in which Croatia played France. On November 11, 2011 they were on their way to a Bundesliga match between HBW Balingen-Weilstetten and SC Magdeburg, when their Mercedez-Benz E Class, a car they had gotten just one day before, collided with a furniture truck, killing them both. Together they had refereed nearly 700 Bundesliga matches. The game they were on their way to was canceled.
Suffocating in a clothes drying rack – A 38 year-old man from Bradford, England was hanging his clothes out to dry on a plastic clothes drying rack when he tripped over a stool, fell backwards into the rack and suffocated to death. His neck and chest became stuck between the rungs as the rack collapsed under his weight. He struggled to free himself but this further compressed the rack and only made the situation worst. The clothes on the rack were wet, which would have put even more weight on his neck, explained a detective who surveyed the scene. “I have never come across a case like this,” the coroner who handled the incident explained, adding that the chances of such an accident were less than that of being struck by lightning, or a meteorite.
Couple killed by a horny black bear that catapulted through their windshield – A man from Quebec and a woman from Ontario were killed when a 440 pound black bear smashed through their windshield on a highway in rural Quebec. The bear was struck by a separate car, catapulted into the air, and landed on their windshield, which it crushed. It then swept through the car and exited through the back window, dead from its injuries. A local hunting guide instructed drivers to be careful during mating season. “What happens,” he said, “is these guys are roaming a little bit out of their territory, looking for sows in heat.”
