STRANGE DEATHS
UNUSUAL WAYS OF SHUFFLING OFF THIS MORTAL COIL
A desperate driver called 999 with his car stuck in cruise control at 110mph (177km/h), and minutes later died as he slammed into a lorry. Causal Gandhi, 32, began accelerating out of control on the M40 through Buckinghamshire in his white Skoda Octavia at around 3am on 2 February. His eight-minute emergency call ended as he hit the 18-ton flatbed truck parked in a lay-by near Junction 1 at Denham, reaching a speed of 119mph (192km/h) just before impact, which was so great he was decapitated. The truck driver, who was asleep in a bunk, was thrown forward but survived.
The faults described by Mr Gandhi, of Harrow, north-west London, meant that the Skoda must have suffered a simultaneous electronic and mechanical failure, but data analysis from the airbag systems failed to provide evidence of this. “There is no indication that there was any error or problem with any of the electronic systems in the five seconds leading up to the collision,” said a vehicle data examiner for Skoda maker Volkswagen. However, the coroner at the inquest in Beaconsfield ruled out any suggestion that Mr Gandhi, the director of Rehncy Shaheen Chartered Accountants in Greenford, west London, had committed suicide. A work colleague and family friend had told police: “He was on top of the world and had everything to live for.” Metro, D.Telegraph, D.Mail, 25 Nov 2016.
A 60-year-old British man died on 18 November while scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia two days after two French tourists died within minutes of each other while snorkelling, prompting speculation that the fatalities were caused by Irukandji jellyfish, a transparent type of box jellyfish less than half an inch (13mm) in diameter found off northern Australia. Most victims are unaware of being stung and can go into cardiac arrest within half an hour.
The unnamed Briton had been diving off a boat during a holiday with his wife and was found on the seabed 49ft (15m) down, with his regulator out of his mouth. He could not be revived. The incident occurred at Agincourt Reef off Port Douglas, Queensland, about 100 miles (160km) north of Michaelmas Cay, where Jacques Goron, 76, and Danielle Franck, 74, died on 16 November. Both had medical conditions, but Dr Ross Walker, a cardiologist, said he thought they had been killed by Irukandji jellyfish. “It’s highly unlikely two people are going to die within minutes of each other just because they’re got underlying medical conditions,” he said. Peter Fenner, an expert on jellyfish, agreed the French couple might have been stung. In 2002, British tourist Richard Jordan, 58, from Driffield, East Yorkshire, is believed to have been the first person to die from an irukandji sting. D.Telegraph, D.Mail, 19 Nov 2016.
A truck driver opened his trailer in Kent to find a dead stowaway crushed by Christmas catalogues, despite French authorities having searched the vehicle and given it the all-clear, The unidentified Afro-Caribbean man, possibly in his late 30s, was discovered with his legs protruding beneath the piles of overturned catalogues at the Airport Service Station at Sellindge, near Ashford, on 18 October 2016. A post-mortem exam found the man’s death was due to “traumatic compressive asphyxia”. D.Telegraph, 6 Jan 2017.
A woman died after she fell into a tank of molten chocolate at the Russian confectionary factory where he worked. Svetlana Roslina, 24, dropped her mobile phone into the vat and fell in trying to retrieve it. “She was minced, only her legs were left,” said a worker at the SergievPosad plant in Fedortsovo, near Moscow. Another claimed she was dragged in while emptying a sack of ingredients into the mix. The victim and husband Vladimir had two children aged under five. Metro, 15 Dec 2016.
An eight-year-old boy died in Lynn, Arkansas, on 10 December while attending a birthday party at a church. He was playing in a cemetery behind the church when a large tombstone, dated 1906 and shaped like a tree stump, fell on him. He was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead. Region 8 News, 11 Dec 2016.
A middle-aged dog walker was killed on 14 January at Thorpeness on the Suffolk coast when a 40ft (12m) cliff that had been weakened by recent storms fell on top of him. More than 60 people joined a rescue operation, all to no avail. Sunday Telegraph, 15 Jan 2017.
On 16 January, a utility worker in Key Largo, Florida, noticed that a section of a paved street was not settling properly. He removed a manhole cover and descended into the 15ft (4.6m)-deep drainage hole to investigate. When he fell silent, a fellow utility worker sensed he was trapped and climbed down to rescue him. When he too stopped responding, a third worker climbed down. All three men died, overcome by poisonous fumes. They were identified as Elway Gray, 34, Louis O’Keefe, 49, and Robert Wilson, 24. They were responding to neighbours’ complaints of sewage backup in the area. Firefighter Leonardo Moreno, who attempted to save them, also became unconscious within seconds and was flown to hospital where he was in critical condition the next day. The hole, just wide enough to fit a body, was filled with hydrogen sulphide and methane created from years of rotting vegetation. None of the four men wore masks or carried air tanks. Moreno descended without his air tank because he couldn’t fit through the hole with it; luckily, a colleague was able to wear his gear and pull Moreno out. Washington Post, 18 Jan 2017.
A traffic warden issued a parking ticket for a lorry illegally parked outside Farm Foods in Bolton, Greater Manchester, failing to notice that Nicholas Allcock, 52, lay dead at the wheel. Contractor NSL issued the ticket in March 2016 on behalf of Bolton Council. FT has often noted parking tickets being issued to vehicles containing dead drivers [e.g. FT48:23, 59:13, 71:14, 176:28], but this is the first we’ve heard about for some time. Sun, 3 Aug 2016.