STRANGE DEATHS
UNUSUAL WAYS OF SHUFFLING OFF THIS MORTAL COIL
Four members of the same family drowned at Pambar Dam in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu on 6 October after slipping into the water while trying to take a selfie. Newlywed bride V Nivedha, 20, died alongside family members Sneha, 22, Kanniga, 20, and Santosh, 14, who was the first to slip into the water. Her husband, G Perumalsamy, 25, survived and managed to save his 15-year-old sister Yuvarani.
Some 259 people worldwide died while taking selfies from October 2011 to November 2017, according to a study published in India’s Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care in 2018. They found that the most selfie deaths occurred in India, followed by Russia, the US and Pakistan. Most of the victims – around 72 per cent – were men and under the age of 30. India accounted for more than half the global total, with 159 reported selfie deaths since 2011. [CNN] 9 Oct 2019.
A woman was killed on 29 September when the portable lavatory she was sitting on at a building site in Florida exploded. Investigators in decontamination suits waded through the debris to locate the woman’s charred remains. Sun, 30 Sept 2019.
A would-be thief aged 37 killed himself with a homemade bomb as he tried to hack an ATM in the Russian city of Cherepovets, north of Moscow. The blast, caught on CCTV, was so strong that it blew a metal door 35ft (12m) towards the road. Images of the damage show the casing used to protect ATM users from the elements completely blown off its hinges and the metal panelling outside warped from the blast. Detectives were searching for an accomplice who escaped. No money was missing from the cash machine. dailymail.co.uk, 9 Oct 2019.
A 25-year-old man who died from a gunshot wound outside a branch of Lloyd’s Bank in Sydenham, southeast London, on 8 September apparently shot himself by accident. “He came to shoot someone else,” said an onlooker, “but he ended up shooting himself. The bullet bounced off a car window. You can see on the window where the bullet bounced off. After it happened, the boy he came to shoot stood there filming him.” D.Star, 9 Sept; D.Mail, 10 Sept 2019.
The Unite union demanded an urgent health probe into the massive Crossrail project after three workers died in their sleep. The deaths – in June and on 28 and 30 September – involved contractors working deep underground at Bond Street station in central London. All three were thought to be the result of heart attacks. D.Mirror, 5 Oct 2019.
William Blunsdon killed his 77-yearold grandmother with a bayonet after believing she had been replaced by a witch. Dorothy Bowyer was stabbed to death at her home in the Peak District village of Buxworth in Derbyshire on 14 February. The family’s ex-mountain rescue dog was also killed. Blunsdon had lived at the address for about 18 months. D.Telegraph, 6 Aug 2019.
Sixteen people were sentenced to death on 24 October for burning alive a Bangladeshi teenager who refused to withdraw sexual assault charges again the principal of her rural Islamic seminary. Nusrat Jahan Rafi was doused in kerosene and set on fire last April. D.Telegraph, 25 Oct 2019.
A British fisherman became the first person in more than 80 years to die from a sea snake bite in Australia. Harry Evens, 23, from Pool in Dorset, was bitten by the
3ft (90cm) creature as he inspected a net while working on a trawler in October 2018. He initially suffered no ill effects before “rapidly deteriorating” and falling unconscious. Metro, Sun, 2 Oct 2019.
A Franco-Canadian man died after being attacked by a grizzly bear (Ursus arctos ssp) on 15 August. Julien Gauthier, a 44-year-old musician, was travelling along the Mackenzie River in the Northwest Territories, a largely isolated area accessible only by sea or air, with the aim of recording sounds of nature for a musical project. Camille Toscani, a biologist who had been travelling with him and raised the alert, said he had been dragged away by the bear in the middle of the night. Unprovoked grizzly bear attacks are very rare. Last year, Gauthier spent five months recording sounds in the Kerguelen Islands in Antarctica, and the result of that trip was a piece called Symphonie australe (Southern Symphony), which was broadcast on French radio. BBC News, 21 Aug 2019.