STRANGE DEATHS

UNUSUAL WAYS OF SHUFFLING OFF THIS MORTAL COIL

The body of a 61-yearold man was found in the ceiling of a hospital in Stellenbosch, Cape Town, two weeks after he had an operation at the facility. The man had been admitted on 5 October and underwent abdominal surgery, but disappeared after a nurse, who had been attending to him, left to fetch clean linen. A search party was unable to find him. “Sadly, the patient’s body was discovered 13 days later in an isolated area in the ceiling, which is difficult to reach,” said provincial health department spokesperson Mark van der Heever. “There is currently construction work being carried out at the hospital which also contributed to the difficulty of the search. The circumstances relating to how the patient got access to the ceiling are currently being investigated.” FT founder editor Bob Rickard speculates that it could have been “a horrible way to end an outof-body experience, suddenly materialising inside the ceiling.” News24 (South Africa), 23 Oct 2017. The identity of a man found dead in a field near Canterbury, Kent, on 3 February 2017 will probably remain a mystery after a coroner closed the case. Police had sent DNA samples to countries across Europe but drew a blank. Dental records could not be used, as he had no teeth. Next to his shirtless body was a wine decanter, glasses, mobile phone, Oyster card, wedding catalogue (containing the name ‘Mandy Martin’), black suitcase and a book on clinical theology. Thee were no signs of injury. Coroner Ian Gollop ruled he had died of heart disease. “This is clearly a man who didn’t want to be found and was living at the edge of existence,” he said. D.Mail, Metro, D.Mirror, 14 Nov 2017. Toxicology tests suggest a German former nurse murdered at least 100 people at two hospitals where he worked. Detectives believe Niels Hoegel, who is already serving a life sentence for two murders, systematically administered fatal doses of heart medication to people in his care, hoping to impress colleagues by resuscitating them; but many died. Hoegel is now said to have killed 38 patients in Oldenburg and 62 in Delmenhorst, both in northern Germany, between 1999 and 2005, making him one of Germany’s worst post-war serial killers. Investigators say he may have killed more, but potential victims have been cremated. Hoegel was caught when a nurse saw that a patient previously stable had developed an irregular heartbeat. Metro, 29 Aug + 10 Nov; BBC News, 9 Nov 2017. A woman killed by a hit-and-run driver in the village of Lindenhurst in New York State is the third member of her family to be killed by a car in the past two years. Pauline Aluska, 54, was found dead near where her brother John, 61, was killed in September 2015, also in a hit-and-run. Their sister-in-law Diane died in May 2017 when a car hit her moments after she pushed her daughter out of the way. [AP] 16 Aug 2017. An American man was charged with murder after claiming he awoke from a dream in the early hours of 1 September to find his wife stabbed in bed beside him. Matthew Phelps, 28, phoned emergency services in Raleigh, North Carolina, appearing to blame his actions on a strong dose of cough medicine he had taken before going to bed. In a transcript of the 911 call, he tells the operator: “I had a dream and then I turned on the lights and she’s dead on the floor… there’s blood all over me, and there’s a bloody knife on the bed… I can’t believe I did this. I can’t believe I did this.” Lauren Ashley-Nicole Phelps, 29, was alive when police arrived, but died in hospital from her injuries. Queensland Times, 6 Sept 2017. A disabled man drowned when a large wave swept him into the sea as he tried to scatter the ashes of his sister Michelle, 44, at her favourite beauty spot. Shane Galliers, 51, was on rocks at Trebarwith Strand, Cornwall, when a “surge” of water dragged him down in “treacherous conditions”, the Truro inquest was told. Mr Galliers, a grandfather from Lifton, Devon, had left a large family gathering in January 2015 when the accident happened. His body was never found. BBC News, 31 Oct; Metro, 1 Nov 2017. Keelan MacKnight, 15, of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, collapsed in goal when a football hit him in the chest during a kickabout in July 2017. He was airlifted to hospital, but died the next day. The teenager, who was fit and healthy, was hit in the “tiny fraction of a second” when his heart was vulnerable as part of its normal cycle. It caused a concussion of the heart, a rare medical phenomenon upsetting its rhythm. Sun, 29 Nov 2017.