29 DEATH by Whirlpool - Jacob Cockle, USA

Jacob Cockle seen wearing a horse mask as he moves around the whirlpool. (Video snapshot)

Daredevil photographer, Jacob Cockle, 28, often tempted fate in the waters and uploaded extreme footages to his video-sharing sites, where his efforts racked up millions of views, but his luck ran out on May 28, 2013.

As a friend looked on, he was dragged under by a whirlpool in Carnsew Pool in the estuary of the River Hayle in Cornwall – while wearing a plastic horse head mask. He used the mask as a comedy prop to include in his footage.

24 DEATH by Flying Fire Extinguisher During Race - Tom Pryce, SOUTH AFRICA

Pryce is the only Welsh driver to have won a Formula One race and is also the only Welshman to lead a Formula One World Championship Grand Prix: two laps of the 1975 British Grand Prix.

Wales has never had the pleasure of a Grand Prix success story – unlike the other British nations. England can boast a record eight world champions, including the last two; Scotland has two in triple-champion Jackie Stewart and the brilliant Jim Clark; whilst Northern Ireland can lay claim to two championship runners-up in Eddie Irvine and John Watson. Wales has produced just three Formula One drivers, none of whom managed a race win. However one of them was a brilliantly talented racer, and would surely have gone on to great success had his life not been cut tragically short at the South African Grand Prix of 1977.

Tom Pryce

That man was Tom Pryce born on 11 June 1949 in Ruthin, Denbighshire, to Jack and Gwyneth Pryce. Jack had served in the Royal Air Force as a tail-gunner on a Lancaster bomber before joining the local police force. Gwyneth was a district nurse. Pryce’s older brother, David, died at the age of three leaving Tom an only child for much of the time he was growing up, although his parents did foster a young girl called Sandra for a while. Pryce, known to his friends as Mald, attended Nantglyn Catholic Primary School, Denbighshire. The family later moved to Towyn, Denbighire, due to Jack’s job.

Pryce took an interest in cars while driving a baker’s van at the age of 10, before informing his parents that he wanted to be a racing driver. During an interview with Alan Henry in 1975, he stated that he had wanted to become a pilot, but thought he was not intelligent enough. Like many future Formula One drivers, Pryce had a childhood racing hero. In his case it was Lotus’s Scottish driver Jim Clark. Pryce’s mother recalled that he was very upset when Clark died at the Hockenheimring in April 1968. His father noted that “he was very upset when Jochen Rindt was killed, too”. After he left school at 16, in typical pragmatic Welsh fashion, Pryce’s mother insisted that he take an apprenticeship as a tractor mechanic at Llandrillo Technical College, giving him “something to fall back on”, as she put it, if his career as a racing driver was unsuccessful.

In 1975 Pryce married Fenella, more commonly known as Nella, whom he met at a disco in Otford, Kent in 1973. Following the death of her husband, Nella went on to run an antiques store in Fulham, London with Janet Brise, the widow of Tony Brise, who died in a plane crash in 1975 with fellow racing driver, Graham Hill and later moved to France.

8 Skydiver Uses His Body As a HUMAN SHIELD to Save Another's Life

The father of an Australian woman has described the final act of a heroic young skydiving instructor, who calmly told his daughter their plane would crash and embraced her to protect her from the impact.

The instructor and five other people died when their plane hit a power pole and nosedived into a tree soon after take-off from an airport near St Louis, in the US state of Missouri, on Saturday.

Investigators believe the plane had engine failure. A witness reported seeing its right engine in flames moments after take-off.

Two people, including Australian tourist Kimberley Dear, 21, were seriously injured and remain in a US hospital.

Her father, Bill, of Sydenham in Melbourne’s north-west, spoke to the media at the time and explained the final moments of the life of the brave skydiving instructor.

“He’s a hero. There’s no other way I can describe it,” Mr Dear told the Nine Network’s Today show. “It was utterly amazing.

“When he realised the plane was actually going to crash, he grabbed Kimberley and he calmly talked to her and he told her that the plane was going to crash.

“[He] told her what to expect and what to do and kept her calm and focused her attention on him and what he was saying rather than what was happening around her.

“Kim was going to do a tandem jump with Robert so that she had the harness for the tandem jump on as Robert did as well, so Robert actually clipped the harness together and, as the plane was coming down, he put his arms around her and pulled her close.

Kim Dear with her father William at her overseas send-off, and the wreck of the plane after it nosedived into a suburban backyard. Photo: Supplied/AP | Source

Her father, Bill, of Sydenham in Melbourne's north-west, today said the final moments of the life of skydiving instructor Robert Cook, 22, had been truly heroic.

"He's a hero. There's no other way I can describe it," Mr Dear told the Nine Network's Today show, from his daughter's bedside. "It was utterly amazing.
"When he realised the plane was actually going to crash, he grabbed Kimberley and he calmly talked to her and he told her that the plane was going to crash.

"[He] told her what to expect and what to do and kept her calm and focused her attention on him and what he was saying rather than what was happening around her.

"Kim was going to do a tandem jump with Robert so that she had the harness for the tandem jump on as Robert did as well, so Robert actually clipped the harness together and, as the plane was coming down, he put his arms around her and pulled her close.

The de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 100 N203E
after crashing on July 29, 2006. (NTSB) | Source

"As he pulled her close, her head rested on his shoulders. He put his head against hers to stop it flopping around.

"He said to her: 'As the plane is about to hit the ground, make sure you're on top of me so that I'll take the force of the impact.'

"The plane actually hit, they believe, a power pole or a power line and it went into a vertical situation, and she became a little bit disoriented, but she felt Robert actually twist his body around until Kim was on top of him and when the plane hit the ground.

"He took the full force of the impact."

Kimberley suffered pressured vertebrae, severe muscle tears around her spine, a broken pelvis and collar bone, many cuts and abrasions, concussion and severe bruising, her father said.

Her sister, Tracey Dear, speaking in Melbourne, said Mr Cook must have known he was giving his life for Kimberley's as the plane plunged to earth.

"There's nothing ... I can't even put it into words but the only thing I can think of is saying thank you so much," she said.

"I can't believe that in this world when so many people are so jaded that there are people out there like that.

"He met Kimberley, as far as I know, that day. I would do that for her but I can't believe that a stranger who just met her would knowingly give up his life for her.

"I just want his family to know we appreciate that from the bottom of our heart."

Source

2 DEATH by Severed Snake Head - Chef Peng Fan, CHINA

At least he died doing what he loved doing.

Video snapshot of Indochinese spitting cobra

Chef Peng Fan from Foshan, Guangdong province, southern China, was busy preparing a rare delicacy soup dish made from Indo-chinese spitting cobra (also called the Thai spitting cobra) when the snake bit his hand - 20 minutes after he decapitated it.

Bite symptoms include pain, swelling and necrosis around the wound. The bite of this snake is potentially lethal to an adult human and deaths are usually due to paralysis and consequent asphyxiation.

It was when Chef Fan was about to toss the cobra's severed head into the bin that it bit him, injecting him with the neurotoxic venom.

The snake was being diced up to be made into snake soup, which is a delicacy in Guangdong and a much sought after dish in the province’s high-end restaurants.

Restaurant guest Lin Sun, 44, who was in the restaurant with his wife Su at the time said: ‘We were in the restaurant having a meal for my wife’s birthday when suddenly there was a lot of commotion.

‘We did not know what was happening but could hear screams coming from the kitchen.

‘There were calls for a doctor in the restaurant but unfortunately by the time medical assistance arrived the man had already died.

‘After we heard that we did not continue with our meal.’

Video snapshot of snake head still biting after it’s been severed

According to police, Peng died before he could be given life saving anti-venom in hospital.

‘It is a highly unusual case but it appears to be just an accident. The man had a very severe reaction to the bite, said a police spokesman.

‘There was nothing that could be done to save the man. Only the anti-venom could have helped but this was not given in time.

‘He prepared the snake himself and was just unlucky. It was just a tragic accident.’

Video snapshot of a venomous snake’s head that is about to be cut off.

Enjoying snake meats of all sorts in local culinary dishes is nothing new for the residents of the Guangdong province.

For many centuries it has been commonly served up in a soup, and is also taken as part of Chinese medicine, for it is believed that snake meat can cure ailments.
A sort of ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ concept – the more poisonous the delicacy, the more beneficial it is to the body.

One local said: ‘Snake meat is really good for us. It is not so easy to get and is expensive but it has spectacular health benefits.’

‘I have never heard any cases of a dead snake killing anyone, especially not in the kitchen.’



Did You Know…

• Spitting cobras are able to spit immediately after hatching!
• The Indochinese spitting cobra is nocturnal and aggressive at night, but during the day, it is timid and quickly runs away.
• All reptiles can function for up to an hour after losing body parts, or even their entire body, according to snake expert Yang Hong-chang – who has spent 40 years studying cobras. ‘It means snakes have the capability of biting and injecting venom even after the head has been severed.’

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2 DEATH By Laughter - Alex Mitchell, UK

Video Snapshot of the actual comedy skit

This post tells the story of a 50-year-old bricklayer from Norfolk, England named Alex Mitchell who died in probably one of the best ways one could possibly die from if one were given the choice - too much laughter.

On 24 March 1975, Alex was watching one of his favorite television comedy shows known as The Goodies. This particular episode involved a kilted Scotsman's flailing away with his bagpipe at a vicious black pudding intent upon attacking him. Mitchell was unable to stop laughing, and after twenty-five minutes of uproar gave one last "tremendous belly laugh, slumped on the settee, and died," said his widow, who witnessed his passing.

While Mitchell had expired from heart failure, what felled him was not a classic heart attack, but rather the result of an unusual inheritable heart rhythm disorder that routinely takes the lives of even apparently robust 20-somethings. Mitchell had Long QT syndrome, an affliction in which the heart is prone to experiencing long pauses between heart beats, especially after instances of excitement or exertion. After such an incident, the heart resets itself after a few beats, but in some cases (such as this) the person is not so fortunate.

The Video

Historical deaths attributed to laughter

• Zeuxis, a 5th-century BC Greek painter, is said to have died laughing at the humorous way he painted the goddess Aphrodite – after the old woman who commissioned it insisted on modeling for the portrait.
• One ancient account of the death of Chrysippus, the 3rd century BC Greek Stoic philosopher, tells that he died of laughter after he saw a donkey eating his figs; he told a slave to give the donkey neat wine to drink to wash them down with, and then, '...having laughed too much, he died' (Diogenes Laertius 7.185).
• In 1410, King Martin of Aragon died from a combination of indigestion and uncontrollable laughter.
• In 1556, Pietro Aretino "is said to have died of suffocation from laughing too much".
• In 1660, Thomas Urquhart, the Scottish aristocrat, polymath and first translator of François Rabelais's writings into English, is said to have died laughing upon hearing that Charles II had taken the throne.
• In 1893, Farmer Wesley Parsons laughed to death over a joke told in Laurel, Indiana. He laughed for nearly an hour. He then perished two hours after the incident.
• On 24 March 1975, Alex Mitchell, from King's Lynn, England, died laughing while watching the "Kung Fu Kapers" episode of The Goodies, featuring a kilt-clad Scotsman with his bagpipes battling a master of the Lancastrian martial art "Eckythump", who was armed with a black pudding. After 25 minutes of continuous laughter, Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and died from heart failure. His widow later sent The Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell's final moments of life so pleasant. Diagnosis of his granddaughter in 2012 of having the inheritable long QT syndrome (a heart rhythm abnormality) suggests that Mitchell may have died of a cardiac arrest caused by long QT syndrome.
• In 1989, Ole Bentzen, a Danish audiologist, died laughing while watching A Fish Called Wanda. His heart was estimated to have beaten at between 250 and 500 beats per minute, before he succumbed to cardiac arrest.
• In 2003, Damnoen Saen-um, a Thai ice cream salesman, is reported to have died while laughing in his sleep at the age of 52. His wife was unable to wake him, and he stopped breathing after two minutes of continuous laughter. He is believed to have died of either heart failure or asphyxiation

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37 DEATH By Lightning Kills An Entire Soccer Team - Democratic Republic of Congo, AFRICA

A common incident by Mother Nature back in 1998 turned a common soccer game into a not-so-common disaster and freak of nature when all 11 members of a soccer team died when the ground they were playing on was struck by lightning killing all 11 team members yet unharming any members of the opposing side.

Even after 16 years later, it is still talked about. Talks of sorcery and witchcraft is always accompanied with the story as they are often blamed throughout west and central Africa to explain natural phenomenons and illnesses.

As the Story Goes...
It was your average soccer game on a cloudy afternoon (as can be seen in the video below), between the home team, Bena Tshadi and visiting team, Basanga, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The two sides were drawing 1-1 in the match in eastern Kasai Province when the lightning struck. Shortly after, members of the home team started falling to the turf one by one, leaving the other team unscathed by this catastrophe. 11 young people aged between 20 and 35 years eventually died and 30 other people received burns.

Kinshasa daily newspaper L'Avenir, (Kinshasa is the capital and the largest city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo), said local opinion - known to believe in charms and spells - was divided over whether someone had cursed the team.

It is said, sorcery and witchcraft is often used in the region in an attempt to influence soccer games.
The suspicion that the black arts might be involved arose firstly because the opposing team emerged unharmed and then again because the score at the time was a delicately balanced one all.

“The exact nature of the lightning has divided the population in this region which is known for its use of fetishes in football,” the newspaper commented.

Witchcraft is often blamed for adverse natural phenomena throughout western and central Africa. It is relatively frequent for football teams to hire witchdoctors to place hexes on their opponents.

Although this story is claimed to be true, at the time of the disaster, much of the detail about the match remained obscured as the Congo – officially known as the Democratic Republic of Congo – remained stricken by civil war between the government of Laurent Kabila and rebel forces, backed by neighbouring Rwanda, in the east of the country.

Unless proved otherwise, this story is considered another True Stories of Strange Deaths file, and is therefore added to the site.

Incidentally...
A similar incident was reported that weekend when a premier league soccer match in Johannesburg was brought to an abrupt end when lightning struck the ground.

Half the players from both teams - the Jomo Cosmos and the Moroka Swallows - dropped to the turf.

Several writhed on the grass holding their ears and their eyes. Spectators and coaching staff ran onto the pitch to help. Fortunately no-one was killed.

So Why Did Members of One Team Die and Not the Other? 
As quoted from a source:

This definitely happened. It was featured on the Urban Legends TV series and was confirmed as true. It was because one team had steel cleats and the others had plastic cleats. -amnation.com/

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