We all die. It’s a fact. Most people die, excuse my crudeness, in boring ways. The number one killer in North America is heart disease at a whopping 28.5 percent. Closely behind is cancer at 22.8 and stroke is a distant third at 6.7 percent. Basically, the top 15 leading causes of death contain 11 that are related to disease. The other 4 are not health-related. We have homicide at a lowly 0.7, suicide at 1.3, accidents at 4.1, and finally the “other” category at 17.4 percent.
What is this ‘other’ cause of death? I think I may have found out. How would you like to live your life and randomly die by some ridiculous way? On the other hand, dying of a disease is sad/boring/lame/not interesting and it’s something you can’t control. Let me show you some examples of preposterous ways of kicking the bucket, or more specifically, tripping over the bucket and dying.
She was no Houdini.
This woman from New York, Carol Gotbaum, died trying to escape from police. No, she didn’t get shot down in a desperate escape. No, she didn’t careen off the highway on a high speed chase. She died by strangling herself trying to escape out of handcuffs.
The worst kind of afterglow.
In 2007, an unlucky cab driver found two bodies. One of a man and another of a woman, both attire-less and dead at a base a 50 story building in Columbia, South Carolina. Apparently the authorities found their clothing and identification at the top of the building. They died while having sex
This?
Or this? You choose.
The girl on the right chose the latter.
The girl on the right, Jennifer Strange, died of water intoxication during a “Hold Your Wee for a Wii” contest in Sacramento, California. Can we say that the Wii is boring after 20 minutes and is only fun when you’re drunk. Oh…one more thing, she came in second. If you’re going to die for a Wii, you better well come in first place.
Every nerd’s worst nightmare.
A 28-year-old Korean named Lee Seung Seop, (p.s. I am so ashamed. Way to represent my race, man), died in an Internet cafe after playing 50 straight hours of Star Craft.
Bears are not your friend, they will eat your face.
You might have heard this guy, Timothy Treadwell, the subject of that documentary, ‘Grizzly Man.’ He lived with Grizzly bears in Alaska for 13 summers and one day, he was half-eaten by one while another ate his girlfriend. I used to live in Alaska, bears will eat you and they don’t want to be your friend. Period.
Note to self: Don’t use a real bomb when threatening yourself.
Brian Wells, rigged himself with a bomb around his neck and proceeded to rob a bank. This pizza deliveryman hatched the grandest of schemes that would make a heist in Ocean’s 11 seem tame. He would tell people that someone told him to rob a bank or the bomb around his neck would go off if he didn’t. Well, Brian forgot that he inadvertently made a real bomb and it went off. Thanks Brian, you still make people smile, four years later.
Would you hurl yourself at a window 24 stories high? I think not.
Canadian attorney Garry Hoy in Toronto wanted to show a group of potential lawyers how unbreakable the windows of the Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower were by hurling himself at them. After two demonstrations and 24 stories later, Mr. Hoy met the ground.
Deadly? Yes.
Scarves + Dancers + Cars = Death
Isadora Duncan is a legendary dancer, but in 1927, she got herself into an ultimate fight against a car wheel. While riding in an automobile in Nice, France, her long silk scarf got caught in the wheel and dragged her until she died before the driver realized she had fallen off. Moral of the story? Don’t wear fashionable silk scarves in an open top car.
Not wearing coats in cold weather is still cool right?
My dad is actually a descendant from ninth president of the United States, William Henry Harrison. The lame thing about him is that he died one month into his term. The even lamer thing about his death is that he died because he didn’t wear a coat during in inageral speach. He died a month later of pneumonia.
The Instrument of Death.
This guy was defeated by the weakest of man-made objects.
You would think because of the picture I showed of nose spray that this guy must have bit the bullet in a very cool way. Not at all. While using his nose spray in his New York Hotel room in 1983, the nose spray lid fell down his throat and he choked to death, alone. You live your life and it culminates to a battle with a piece of plastic. Sad.
Well, I hope this post was informative, educational and entertaining. Whether your cause of death is caused by holding in your pee in a ludicrous contest or succumbing to the wills of a bottle lid, I trust that you will take a moment to see how death is eminent. I’m not trying to be morbid or morose in any way, I just want to point out that there is a 17.1 percent chance of dying in the ‘other’ category, which can make you famous posthumously. I mean really, why not go out with a bang like this guy…
When you’re 73, you have nothing to lose. Right?
Karl Wallenda, the patriarch of the circus act, ‘the Flying Wallendas’ was trying to maintain his balance on a high wire at the ripe age of 73 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This video snapshot was the last recording Karl would ever be on. Instead of living out his golden years in a retirement home to eventually succumb to the 50 percent chance of dying from either a stroke or heart attack, Karl went the brave, more infamous 17.1 percent ‘other’ death category. Way to be Karl. You are remembered.
Rhyme Culture 
