Do you know anyone who died of a freak accident/rather stupid accident?

We had a friend who was an architectural historian. She was taking photos of a building, oblivious to a beeping truck backing up into her. The end.

My father worked with a man who was an avid fisherman. He went out for the start of trout season on the American River in Northern California. He kept being told, “the water’s too high and too fast, it’s dangerous.”

He went anyway, cast his line a couple times, snagged it, and while trying to free his line lost his balance, his waders filled with water, swept down stream, never found his body.

The 19-year old son of my lawnmowing team was epileptic and should not have been driving. Because his father was a former state trooper and was able to pull some strings, the boy had a driver’s license. On Christmas eve, several years ago, after dark, he was in the car, behind the wheel, alone…and had a seizure; the car hit some black ice and slid off an embankment. The poor kid was killed instantly.

Several years ago here in town they were constructing multistory Hilton project when a worker was killed on the job. A crane was lifting a load of reinforcing steel bars up to one of the floors when the load slipped. He either walked under the load or the crane had swung it over his head. Either way, he was beneath the falling load and was impaled to the ground by multiple reinforcing bars dropped several stories before the majority of the bundle fell on him killing him instantly.
One of the details I remember was how the local news, both paper and television, stressed repeatedly that he had been wearing his hard hat.

I had a friend and co-worker in Phoenix who lived in an apartment complex only a few doors away. One morning we went out jogging, though not together, as had been our daily custom, because we were at odds at work that week).

I left for the office before he did, and he never showed up. We tried reaching him at home and then learned that he had gone for a quick swim, probably dived into the pool, and probably died as soon as he hit the water from a ruptured brain aneurism.

That was over 30 years ago, yet the memory still makes me sad—especially since I’ve never forgotten that I could have made the effort to patch things up with him that morning if I hadn’t been so stubborn.

During the flood of 2006 two roads flooded out and were cut at night, a county road and an interstate. Three guys drove in, none walked out.

We used to live in the southern Indiana hill country. When rain storms came, rivers often washed over the tops of bridges. A young woman was out on a date and when he brought her home the creek in front of her house was flooded. She insisted on getting out and wading over the bridge. As I understand it, she was not completely sure where the bridge was, and fell off it, and was dragged downstream to her death.

Four days before my high school graduation, the Senior Class President, whose Dad was a Pan Am pilot, was taking flying lessons from the head instructor for Pan Am. About fifty feet off the ground landing at Tracy CA in a small Cessna 172, the instructor had a heart attack and slumped over the wheel, causing the plane to flip over, and go upside down into a walnut orchard.

This one wasn’t fatal, but it was stupid. Some guy wanted to power his skateboard with a rocket, so he made one out of a canister and fueled it with some kind of mix of fuel, and then strapped it to his back. A friend ignited it and off he went. He just forgot the heat is going to expand out the back of the rocket. Literally burned the crap out of his ass.

Following until something comes to me…

This one was stupid and fatal. Three friends were out in a canoe, drinking and fishing. All were non swimmers and there wasn’t a flotation device of any kind in the boat. One bet the other he couldn’t stand in the canoe. He tried. And went over the side of the canoe. He didn’t stay afloat.

Someone who was fatally crushed between two cars. Both cars were parked, hers on an incline. Her car started to roll and was headed toward the other vehicle. In the panic of the moment, she jumped behind her car and tried to stop it from damaging another person’s property. Of course, she couldn’t.

She had a millisecond to do something, so she acted on emotions rather than reason. The other car would have had minimal, easy-fixed body damage.

A freak fatal accident in the news:Molly Glynn killed by tree.

@zenvelo Not really a GA because that sucked. Shit like that happens if you don’t check conditions first before venturing out.

Anyone who was killed because some idiot was texting and driving.

@Adirondackwannabe They said it was unexpected. Don’t know about you, but in Kansas we can get hit with freak storms out of nowhere. No warning.

I was in a tornado once. I called my husband, who was about 75 miles away on an overnight business trip, freaking out. He kept trying to tell me nothing was happening here at home because there was nothing on the Weather Channel. I was about ready to kill him! I hung up on him. The house was shaking, the power was out, I was scared shitless. It went on for about 15 minutes. About 10 minutes after it all passed, everything was calm again, power back on, Rick called me back and yelled “The Weather Channel is saying multiple tornadoes in Winfield!”
I screamed “NO SHIT!” and hung up on him again.

Then the tornado sirens went off.

We had a hail storm once, a pretty bad one. Didn’t get any warning, no watches, nothing until it had done passed.

@Dutchess_III I have NOAA on my favorites bar. They miss very little.

It’s like running a red light, @Adirondackwannabe. When you run a red light you usually don’t realize that you ran it. You don’t know what they miss unless you experience it. And I, for one, don’t check the weather every time I venture outside.

But sometimes I do. Labor Day we were visiting my daughter who lives in a small town about 15 miles away. Bad shit was moving in. We were glued to the TV, debating whether to make a run for home or not. We had stuff coming in from the west and from the south. When storms collide that’s tornado fixins. And there was actually a tornado that afternoon, east of us. But no watches, no warnings were in effect.
We started to make a run for it, down that clear corridor toward Winfield, ...turned a corner a few blocks from my daughter’s house, saw the clouds we were getting ready to head into, and I said, “GO BACK!” so we did. We went back and drank beer and sat under the covered patio and watched all hell break loose. Was fun.

@Dutchess_III The beer would be fun, the rest, not so sure. I’m not sure if it’s my upbringing or my meteorologist college roommate but I’m always aware of the weather.

We are too. We’ve just learned to trust our gut instincts over any weather forecast.

There was a guy in Big Bend many years ago, who decided to backpack into the Chisos with some cold weather and snow predicted. He was a northern gentleman who was very familiar with winter camping and expected no problems even with the bad weather. When he didn’t come back the next day his wife told the rangers. They knew what campsite he should be in and sent a couple up to look for him. They found his tent, all secured, dry and obviously having weathered the storm with no problems. They also found his backpack, stove, coat and shirt, so they looked around and presently found him lying face down a short distance from his tent. Evidently that morning, he got up, went to answer the call of nature and was struck by lightning killing him instantly and fusing the change in his pockets into one big molten mass.

I knew a girl who was killed by a javelin at a high school track meet. The javelin area was in the middle of the track and she was cutting across to get to an event. Tragic.

^^^^ Lord.

@kruger_d Jesus effing Christ, that’s horrible. So you mean to say. . .oh God, it went through her? Like she was actually impaled?

Yes, I also read this happened to an official at an event in Germany.