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Strange Deaths

Man bottles out

Possibly not worth posting in its won thread but it is bottle-related (sort of) - it looks like the man killed himself by shoving his head in a bottling machine:

Machine operator killed

By Jerry Botial

Publish Date: [Friday, October 10, 2003]


A machine operator of a packaging firm was killed when his head was crushed in between the gears of a bottle-molding machine early yesterday morning in Valenzuela City.

Superintendent Jose Marcelo, city police chief, identified the victim as Richard Santillan, 25, a trimmer employed by the Par Excellence Packaging Corp. on 18 Malinis street, Elbica Compound, Lawang Bato, Valenzuela and residing at 92 Don Manuel Street, Balintawak, Quezon City.

Records showed the incident, which authorities referred to as an "industrial accident,"occurred at around 1:10 a.m. yesterday. Company officials, who requested anonymity, told The STAR that Santillan had just finished taking a break when the accident happened.

For some unexplained reasons, the officials said, Santillan went to the "double station" machine and opened it. Officials said only authorized technicians from the firm’s engineering department are allowed to tinker with the machine. But the victim, although only two months with the company, knew fully well he was not supposed to touch it, much less open it, still did it.

"Hindi na siya nakasigaw. It was over in seconds," the official said.

Scene of the Crime Operations (SOCO) medico-legal officer Senior Inspector Mon Porciuncula said Santillan’s skull was crushed in between the gears of the bottle-molding machine. He said as the cranial bones collapsed, his brain was flushed out from his head.

Officials quoted co-workers of the victim that he has been showing signs of depression and was unusually quiet days before the incident.

http://www.philstar.com/philstar/showarticle.asp?article=140745
 
Slow down

I'm not sure how strange this is but stupid certainly fits the bill (although it isn't clear why he was hanging out of the window):

Posted on Sat, Oct. 11, 2003

Man dies in freak accident

By Toni Heinzl
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

FORT WORTH - A father of six was killed in a freak accident early Saturday when his head struck a speed-limit sign as he leaned out the passenger-side window of a friend's swerving pickup, the driver said.

The police accident report had not been completed Saturday afternoon, but an investigator with the Tarrant County Medical Examiner said that Shawn Garrison, 26, died from blunt trauma suffered when his head hit a "fixed object."


Traffic investigators determined that Garrison was in the passenger seat and stuck his head outside the window and struck an object, said Lt. Jesse Hernandez, a police spokesman.


The pickup's driver, Kenneth Turnbull, joined more than three dozen friends, relatives and neighbors outside Garrison's home in the 4300 block of Panola Avenue on Saturday afternoon to remember a man described as someone who would give his last shirt to help others.


Turnbull said he was driving his Ford F-150 truck about 12:30 a.m. near the intersection of Rosedale Street and Miller Avenue, about six blocks from Garrison's home, with Garrison leaning out the passenger window, when a white Trans Am cut in front of them.


"I had to swerve, I jumped the curb, and he struck the speed-limit sign," said Turnbull, a longtime friend of the victim. "He didn't die immediately. He was bleeding real bad."


Turnbull drove to Garrison's home to call 911. Garrison was pronounced dead there at 1:02 a.m.


"I don't know what to think, really," Turnbull said somberly.


Those who knew Garrison said the tragic accident came on the heels of what had been the proudest and happiest times of his life this summer, when he wed Jo Anna Garrison and surprised her with a dream honeymoon.


Garrison, a house painter, had saved money for more than a year so he could take his wife on a vacation of deep-sea fishing and snorkling in Kauai, Hawaii, said his brother-in-law, Steven Mizar.


Honeymoon photos show the couple happy and relaxing on a fishing yacht.


The couple, who had been together for 12 years, have six children, five boys and a girl, ages 2 to 10, Mizar said.


"He would give you the shirt off his back," Mizar said, recalling times when Garrison made trips to a nearby McDonald's to buy food for neighbors' children.


"Everybody on this street - black, white, Hispanic - was family to him," Mizar said.


Garrison enjoyed camping and fishing, "any lake between Possum Kingdom Lake and the Gulf Coast," Mizar said.


Iretha Barefield, one of the victim's many friends, sat on the hood of a car as she remembered Garrison.


"He and his wife have always been there for me. He was really sweat and helpful with anything," she said.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/local/6991992.htm

Nice typo at the end too ;)

Emps
 
The Washing Machine Death is a UL. Try Snopes. I'm too lazy to look it up myself.
 
Lawnmower death

You have to feel sorry for the poor lad:

Boy riding lawnmower accidentally hits, kills 17-month old sister

The Associated Press

CROYDON, Pa. - An 8-year-old boy got on a riding lawnmower left running by his father and accidentally struck and killed his 17-month-old sister, authorities said.

The father left the mower running while he went to put a gas can on a trailer shortly after noon on Sunday, Bristol Township police said. The father turned around to see his son riding toward the girl, but couldn't stop the mower before it hit her. Police have not released the names of the family.

The father immediately pulled the mower off the girl and called 911. She suffered severe cuts to her head and face and was flown to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where she was pronounced dead at 12:40 p.m., police said.

Police ruled the death an accident.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/103-10132003-177059.html

The news paper site was awfully slow when I accessed it.
 
A shitty way to go

Sewage spill kills Kitchener driver, 38


PHILIP MASCOLL
STAFF REPORTER

A driver less than two weeks on the job hauling Toronto's sewage to Michigan dumpsites was killed when his 70,000-pound (32-tonne) load spilled on him as he was emptying the massive truck into a landfill trench, police say.

Jovan Sarovic, 38, of Kitchener, was knocked into the trench early yesterday by the tailgate of the truck in which he had transported biosolids produced by Toronto's Ashbridges Bay sewage treatment plant.

The contents of the truck then poured out on him, said Detective Michael Czinski, an investigator for the Sumpter Township Police Department.

Czinski said the tailgate knocked the truck driver, who was standing behind the truck, into a pit at the Carleton Farms Landfill southwest of Detroit.

He was found after colleagues, who noticed he was missing, raised an alarm.

The investigation was continuing, Czinski said.

The victim worked for LDM Transport, an Ontario firm that is a subcontractor for Terratec, the company that has the contract to remove sewage sludge from Ashbridges Bay, said Tom Thoren, vice-president of communications for American Water, the New Jersey-based company that owns Terratec.

Thoren said he did not have all the information on the driver and the incident. However, he understood Sarovic was a new employee of the subcontractors. "Under two weeks with the company and could be it was only his second day on the job," Thoren said.

A final report was expected tomorrow, Thoren said.

Preliminary reports were that the tailgate of the truck flew open with such force that it knocked him into the trench and the load then came down on him.

Thoren said the sludge is the "claylike," 30 per cent solid matter left after sewage had been treated at the Ashbridges Bay plant.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...652&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968705899037
 
Oct. 21, 2003. 11:07 AM


NY teen killed while 'surfing' subway train



NEW YORK (AP) — A 14-year-old boy who was "surfing" on the roof of a subway train was killed when his head struck an overhead beam and he fell to the tracks.

Eric Alvarez of Harlem was found dead on the tracks between two stations in lower Manhattan at about 4:45 p.m. Monday, said Det. Carolyn Chew.

While Alvarez was riding home from school, his friends dared him to climb to the top of the train, a practice known as "subway surfing," said Marisa Balde, a spokesperson for New York City Transit.

He apparently had climbed the rear of a car and had reached the top when his head struck a steel beam in the ceiling of the subway tunnel, Balde said.

Another train ran over the tracks where Alvarez had fallen. Initially, it appeared that the second train killed him, but investigations showed that he probably died of head injuries and the impact of his fall, Balde said.

Alvarez was described as a computer whiz.

He "was extremely smart, too smart for that happened to him," an aunt, Haydee Alvarez, told the New York Post.

http://www.thestar.ca/NASApp/cs/Con...867&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968705899037

It might go in Dumb Criminals but he was too smart ;)

Emps
 
A bloody tale of dark barrooms, group sex and human dismembe

Dancer owns up in grisly killings

She gets 10 years for role in 3 deaths


Tuesday October 21, 2003


By Stephanie Doster
East Jefferson bureau

A bloody tale of dark barrooms, group sex and human dismemberment ended Monday when Patricia Biehn, an exotic dancer who already admitted her involvement in one murder, pleaded guilty to helping her boyfriend dispose of two other bodies.

Her plea came less than three weeks after her boyfriend, Charles Atwood, admitted killing three women in the winter of 2001-02 and brought an end to a case so gory that even seasoned detectives were stunned by what took place in the couple's Metairie apartment.

Atwood, 41, was sentenced Oct. 2 by Judge Ross LaDart of 24th District Court to three consecutive life terms in prison, after prosecutors waived the death penalty. Biehn, 33, pleaded guilty last year to being an accessory in one murder and was sentenced by LaDart to five years in prison.

On Monday, in contrast with the sallow-faced blonde captured in her arrest mugshot, Biehn returned to court as a brunette in makeup and dark lipstick. Shackled at the ankles and waist to another inmate from the parish jail, she sat in the jury box and looked to LaDart and her attorney as she succinctly answered the judge's questions about her culpability and her understanding of the proceedings. Only once did she glance away, resting her head on the chair back and gazing silently at the ceiling when prosecutor Walter Amstutz recounted how she helped detectives piece together the serial killings.

LaDart handed her two more five-year sentences, to run concurrent with each other but consecutive to the earlier prison term, for a total of 10 years.


First incident

At their apartment complex at 6826 Veterans Memorial Blvd., Biehn had impressed neighbors as an animal lover who often walked her dog but who sometimes seemed disheveled, perhaps physically abused. Co-workers at a Metairie lounge where she worked as an exotic dancer remember her as fickle, disappearing for weeks at a time. Neighbors and former co-workers describe Atwood, a print shop worker and former gasoline station attendant, as a weird but reliable loner who drank Diet Cokes and could be rude to some customers while eyeing attractive women who came into the station.

Their first victim, Susan Keller, 45, was a housekeeper and bartender.

Atwood and Biehn picked her up at the Cajun Pub at 3835 Tulane Ave. in New Orleans on Dec. 19, 2001, and persuaded her to go to their apartment for group sex in exchange for money, Amstutz said. There, Atwood strangled her with a stick and a shirt, lined the bathtub with a tarpaulin and laid her in it, Amstutz said. During a hearing last year in which she pleaded guilty to being an accessory in Keller's death, Biehn painted a gruesome picture of the scene.

"He made me sit on the edge of the tub and face the wall, and he cut her head off," she testified.

Atwood then mutilated Keller's face and dismembered and bathed the rest of her body to wash away evidence, Amstutz said. Fans of forensic crime shows, the couple wrapped Keller's head in a plastic bag and dumped it in the swamp near St. Rose, and scattered other body parts in a landfill on Almonaster Avenue in New Orleans and in the lagoon at Lafreniere Park.

On Christmas Eve, someone at the landfill stumbled upon a human torso with no heart, broken ribs and a broken right arm. "Whoever did this was really angry at this person," Orleans Coroner Frank Minyard said.

For several weeks, the remains went unidentified.


Two more victims

Atwood and Biehn struck again Jan. 25.

Biehn persuaded Dixie Esaki, 35, a former lover of hers who also worked as an exotic dancer, and Anjanette Penzica , 27, who had convictions for prostitution, to come home with her and Atwood for a sex party, Amstutz said. Atwood has told investigators that he met Esaki at the Artist Cafe at 608 Iberville St. in the French Quarter, where Biehn worked as a dancer under the stage name Crystal, then rendezvoused with her, Penzica and Biehn at Hoggs Bar, 135 Chartres St. in the Quarter.

At the Metairie apartment, while Biehn and Esaki bathed together, Atwood turned up the music in another room, bashed Penzica on the head and strangled her, Amstutz said. When the two women exited the bathroom, Esaki realized what had happened.

That's when a recording device somehow was activated, capturing Biehn talking on the phone while Esaki pleaded in the background.

"At some point the murder is starting to take place on the phone," Amstutz said.

Atwood hit Esaki on the head and strangled her. Both victims' fingers were cut off, presumably to hinder identification through fingerprints. Their bodies, bound with duct tape, were later found in garbage bags on the Interstate 510 Service Road near Lake Forest Boulevard in New Orleans. Atwood and Biehn had dumped them there on the way to Biloxi, Miss., where Atwood drilled as a Navy Seabee, Amstutz said.

Neighbors said Esaki was a trusting person who had traveled to Japan and had at one time been married to a Japanese man.

"She had a pure heart, and she had decent morals," said a woman who works at a business near Esaki's former home. "What happened to her shouldn't have happened to a dog."


Coming clean

Detectives got a break in the murders when Esaki's boyfriend reported her missing. They determined she had been headed to an apartment on Veterans, and soon a passer-by found her wireless phone near Atwood and Biehn's complex.

In a stroke of luck for investigators, Atwood and Biehn returned from Biloxi just as police descended on their apartment. Atwood said Esaki and Penzica had been at the apartment but left by bus, Amstutz said. But Biehn, telling investigators she needed a cigarette, went outside and began relating the gruesome tale.

"She came clean with everything," Amstutz said. "She wouldn't stop talking."

Col. Walter Gorman of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office testified last year that in his 34 years in law enforcement no suspect had relayed to him "the butchering I heard in this particular account."

Biehn led police to an eastern New Orleans storm drain, where they found 20 severed fingers belonging to Esaki and Penzica. She told them about Keller's murder, then took them to a swamp near the Interstate 310 interchange at Airline Drive, where they recovered the woman's head. She directed them to a lagoon in Lafreniere Park, where divers recovered machetes, knives and a bayonet used to dismember Keller's body.

"The fact of the matter is she was able to corroborate everything she said," Amstutz said.

Atwood soon admitted killing Esaki and Penzica, whom he called Little Bit. But he said he feared they were going to "roll," or rob, him.

Amstutz doesn't buy it.

"What do I think the reason he did it is?" Amstutz said. "He liked it."

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/eastjefferson/index.ssf?/base/news-1/106671638571400.xml
 
A bizarre accident with a model helicopter killed a Houston man Sunday afternoon. The victim was watching the radio-controlled aircraft at Tom Bass Park in southwest Harris County, when it went out of control and struck him in the throat.
Khou.com
 
Can't find this on the 'net yet but it's in my local Guardian today, November 6th.

'A Crewe man predicted his own death with a card trick before accidentally taking his own life by drinking a bottle of whisky, an inquest heard.'

Mr Grycewicz, 32, a heavy drinker, 'told his mother he was going to die and proved it by splitting a pack of cards with his half black and his mother's all red. He said it was destiny and performed it again'.

He apparently foresaw his own death in three weeks' time. The actual timespan is not given in the report.

The verdict was accidental death as there was no evidence of any intent to suicide.


Allow me to say-
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(edited for spelling)
 
Not a strange death..but almost..

03:34 PM CST on Tuesday, November 11, 2003

From 11 News Staff Reports

HOUSTON -- A woman aboard a Continental Airlines flight into Houston was arrested after the airline says she tried to get off the plane while it was still in the air.

Continental says that shortly before the flight from Atlanta was expected at Bush Intercontinental airport Tuesday afternoon something made the woman believe it was time to get off.

So she went to the front door and tried to open it. The woman didn't speak any English and was escorted back to her seat.

Houston police took her into custody for a mental evaluation as soon as the express plane landed...


Careful miss...the first step is a bit of a drop..
 
Workers Killed by Manhole Sewer Gases
NOVEMBER 11, 2003 - Tragedy struck a work crew in Edinburg, early Tuesday morning. Two men died, trapped in a live sewer well. A third victim, is fighting for his life.

Edinburg lawmen were forced to shut down traffic on Schunior and M Street, after the three men were overwhelmed by toxic fumes in the sewer.

"It means that there's raw sewage, not treated that is coming in from people's homes and businesses, " said Edinburg Fire Chief, Shawn Snider. "That's what they were in."

It was a deadly domino effect. Police say Javier Cruz climbed in to begin cleaning out the sewer pipes. Minutes later, police say Cruz then passed out from the deadly fumes. A second man jumped in to help, but met the same fate. Both men died, in the sewage pipe--overwhelmed by the poisonous gas.

Edinburg firefighters say it was a lethal mixture of hydrogen sulfide and methane that overpowered the workers. Now safety procedures are being called into question.

Fire Chief Snider ran the rescue that eventually turned into a recovery operation. He says one thing was glaringly obvious when the bodies were pulled out of the man-hole, "there were no breathing devices or respirator protectors being used."

Snider went on say, "there were also no safety lines being used for retrieval of these individuals."

Police agree that the work crew seemed to ignore obvious hazards. Air quality reportedly wasn't checked in the manhole. And as Snider mentioned, no life-lines were available, to pull the men out. Police Chief Quirino Munoz says that will lie at the heart of this investigation.

"We understand that there were certain basic training and equipment that's required. Of course it'll be part of the investigation."

OSHA has already been notified about the fatal encounter.

The deceased victims are identified as 22-year-old Javier Cruz and 24-year-old Francisco Hernandez, both of Edinburg. The third victim is Robert Dose, of San Antonio. He is said to be in critical but stable condition.

Action-4 News has learned that the crew's immediate supervisor, Beverly Borroum is being questioned in connection with the case. Criminal negligence charges have not been ruled out.
Also strange are the typically 'Scottish' names of these workers...
 
Man dies from pet emissions

What a smell!

AMSTERDAM — Police suspect that a man found dead in his home Wednesday was poisoned by ammonia gas from the excrement of his pet parrots and ferrets who had been badly cared for.

The man reported feeling unwell early in the morning in his house in the town of Tegelen in North Limburg.

An ambulance reached his home by 7am, but he was already dead. A post mortem is to be carried out on his body to confirm the cause of death, newspaper De Telegraaf reported.

A spokesman for the emergency services said it appeared the victim had not cared for his parrots and ferrets well and ambulance workers were struck by a "penetrating odour" when they entered the house.

It is suspected that the animals' excrement was allowed to accumulate in the building over a long period of time and that it began releasing toxic amounts of ammonia.

Normally, police seal of a property where a person has died in suspicious circumstances, but in this case the windows and doors were opened to clear the ammonia vapours. Locals reported the parrots' screeching was heard all around the town.
 
The parrots are probably screeching to get out of there. How awful. It's just sad all the way 'round.
 
Bump! (Smelly parrots death moved to this thread.)
 
Walled in body an accident?

DJ's mummified body found behind wall in club
Winnipeg mystery


Chris Wattie
National Post


Some time in the early hours of a cold October day last year, a young disc jockey stumbled into a Winnipeg cabaret and disappeared.

This week, police found the mummified body of Eduardo Sanchez entombed behind a wall in the basement of the popular nightclub, 14 months after he was last seen alive.

While the case is reminiscent of an Edgar Allan Poe story, police say there was no foul play in the 21-year-old's death, just the lingering question of what exactly he was doing behind the wall where he became trapped and died.

"The cause of death was determined to be positional asphyxiation," said Constable Bob Johnson, a Winnipeg police spokesman.

"We don't know for what reason he went between these two walls, but some time while he was in there he either fell, [or] passed out -- we don't necessarily know the circumstances -- but he got himself positioned in a place where he was unable to breathe properly due to the restrictions on his chest.

"It wouldn't have taken a long time ... He probably would've been dead within minutes."

Police were called back to the nightclub -- the last place Mr. Sanchez was seen alive -- when neighbours complained about a foul odour coming from the Village Cabaret.

If not for a recent citywide ban on smoking in bars, investigators said, they might never have found the body.

Neighbours of the club, in a trendy downtown Winnipeg neighbourhood, said they noticed the foul smell more than a year ago, but put it down to spilled beer and stale cigarette smoke.

"Sometimes it reeked of sewage when you came in in the morning," Kerrie Drine, a business owner in a neighbouring building, told The Winnipeg Free Press. "We had to light incense to get rid of it."

But when the municipal smoking ban came into effect in September, the smell persisted and someone eventually notified police. "They took the whole wall down," Const. Johnson said.

Using a special camera borrowed from a local duct cleaning company, police found the body wedged into a narrow space between a stone foundation wall and a newer wall.

The camera was snaked into the claustrophobic gap between the old wall and the newer one, which police said was built several years ago. Officers soon spotted the badly decomposed body of Mr. Sanchez.

"It was pretty close to mummification; it was certainly in the early stages of it," Const. Johnson said.

He said Mr. Sanchez had entered the gap between the walls from an opening at one end and had managed to wriggle through almost its entire 23-metre length, through a gap ranging from 20 to 60 centimetres wide.

"In some places there was enough room to move around, in others it was a very tight fit."

Mr. Sanchez, also known as DJ Phonosys and Grandmasta Sanchez, was last seen by friends in the early morning hours of Oct. 12, 2002. He made an withdrawal from his bank account at 12:48 a.m. from a bank machine in the front entrance of the nightclub. Just before 3 a.m., he spoke with three friends not far from the club and was last seen walking back toward the building.

Family, friends and police searched the Winnipeg area for weeks after his disappearance, but found nothing.

Abbey Sanchez broke down in tears while reading a statement on Thursday about the discovery of her brother, which she called "our family's worst nightmare."

"This news definitely is not what we had anticipated," she said.

Const. Johnson said there is some evidence Mr. Sanchez had been drinking on the night of his disappearance and tests are being conducted to attempt to determine whether alcohol was a factor in his death.

"But the body had degraded so much that the quality of the samples was very, very poor. We may not get anything at all."

He said the question of why Mr. Sanchez crawled behind the wall will probably never be answered. "People will, I think for years, be asking the question: What the heck was he doing in there?" Const. Johnson said.

"And we just don't have a good answer to that, to be honest. We don't know why he was there ... and likely will never know."

He said police considered the possibility that he was looking to retrieve something left or somehow dropped there earlier, but they found nothing behind the wall other than Mr. Sanchez's body.

http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?id=F1C05C5E-B682-412A-B6E2-2957AC603B16

It just sounds awfully fishy to me.

Emps
 
S.I. WORKER DECAPITATED IN 'RESCUE'

By JAMIE SCHRAM and LORENA MONGELLI
-------------------------------------------------------------------


December 16, 2003 -- A construction worker was decapitated and another hurt yesterday in a freak accident on Staten Island.
Two employees of Formica Construction were digging a ditch in the street to install a sewer for 17 townhouses being built at Taylor Street and Degroot Place in Port Richmond, officials said.

Suddenly, dirt and cement collapsed, burying the men under the debris.

One man was buried up to his waist. The other, a 39-year-old man, whose name was withheld, was completely buried

He was decapitated when the workers tried to rescue him with a tractor.

"No doubt the fellow using it had good intentions, but there were extremely tragic results," said fire battalion Chief Daniel O'Gara.

Stefan Konowalskyj, 40, who lives nearby, was returning home from some errands when the workers realized what had happened.

"I saw these guys running around frantically screaming, 'The other guy is dead! The other guy is dead! His head is off,' " Konowalskyj said.

"There was a lot of commotion. There was also one guy down there trying to pull the other guy out . There were about a half a dozen workers standing around, not knowing what to do."

Rescuers arrived and pulled out the injured worker, 66, who was in stable condition at St. Vincent's Hospital.

The Department of Transportation issued two citations for inadequate protection procedures because the crew had not put up a retaining wall in the trench, a department spokesman said.

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/13593.htm

Its not fully clear how his head came off. Ahhhhhhhhh more info:

Backhoe beheads worker

By TONY SCLAFANI and ALICE McQUILLAN
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Firefighters at scene where construction worker was decapitated.

A construction worker was decapitated yesterday when panicked colleagues used a backhoe to try to dig him and another man out of a collapsed trench on Staten Island.

The construction workers jumped into action without waiting for firefighters or cops to arrive, officials said.

"They struck him with the backhoe, and that's what severed his head," said FDNY Battalion Chief Daniel O'Gara.

The tragedy unfolded around 3 p.m. when a poorly supported ditch 16 feet deep caved in, trapping the men, authorities said.

"The whole situation was very dangerous," said witness Stefan Konowalskyj. Some workers "were yelling, 'Don't go in! Don't go in! It's too dangerous.'"

A 39-year-old Staten Island man, whose name was not immediately released, was decapitated by the backhoe.

His co-worker who was buried up to the waist was saved when Firefighters Gary Persch, Jimmy McHale, Chris Geissler and an unidentified civilian dug him out with their bare hands and shovels.

The rescued 66-year-old worker was treated for minor injuries at St. Vincent's Medical Center on Staten Island.

About 75 firefighters from three boroughs converged on the cave-in, at the intersection of Taylor St. and Degroot Place, in Port Richmond. They used ropes to lower themselves into the trench, taking about two hours to shore up the walls of the 35-foot-long, 10-foot-wide ditch and remove the victim's body.

The city Buildings Department said the trench collapsed because it was not properly supported. "After 5 feet, you are required to install sheeting and shoring to brace the hole, and that was not there," said Ilyse Fink, a Buildings Department spokeswoman.

She said the Formica Construction Co. had a permit to dig the trench, linking a row of homes to sewer connections.

Officials at the Staten Island-based construction company could not be reached last night. Founded in 1948, Formica Construction has built more than 2,000 homes on Staten Island's North Shore.

The city's Transportation Department ordered workers to fill in the trench and opened an investigation into Formica's permit. Investigators from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration were at the construction site yesterday.

Originally published on December 16, 2003

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/146468p-129312c.html

Oh I see he was buried in the trench and when they tried to dig him out......

A Worker Is Killed in a Trench Collapse
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and OREN YANIV

Published: December 16, 2003



Staten Island (NYC) construction worker was accidentally decapitated in a Staten Island sewer tunnel yesterday when co-workers tried to dig him out of the collapsed trench with a backhoe, Fire Department spokesmen said.

The worker and a colleague had been digging a sewer pipe tunnel at Taylor Street and DeGroot Place in West Brighton. But the trench collapsed, possibly because the walls had not been reinforced, and the workers were trapped, Police and Fire Department spokesmen said.

The worker who died, a 39-year-old man, was face down in the collapsed trench but close to the surface, a Fire Department official at the scene said. The other worker was pulled out by firefighters and suffered only minor injuries.

Immediately after the collapse, construction workers tried to dig out the buried men with a backhoe, which sliced the 39-year-old man's head from his body, said a Fire Department official and a witness.

It was not clear last night if the worker, who was not identified by the police, was already dead when his co-workers tried to dig him out.

"It happened so quickly," said Battalion Chief Daniel O'Gara, adding that the man using the backhoe "had the best of intentions but with tragic results."

The other worker was only partly buried, officials said.

Trucks at the site bore the emblem of a Staten Island company called Formica Construction. Phone calls to its various numbers went unanswered last night.

The tunnel connected a row of new houses to the main sewer line, said Ilyse Fink, a spokeswoman for the Department of Buildings. James Leonard, a Fire Department official, said the trench had been dug too deep, causing the collapse.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/16/n...00&en=bc94aa5e1b8d217e&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

Emps
 
Warning: Fat chicks in party hats danger

Crushed toddler dies

Tumbling partygoer says she's 'very sorry'

By RALPH R. ORTEGA
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

A toddler lost her fight for life after a heavyset neighbor fell backward on top of the child during a Christmas party in Washington Heights.
"I'm very sorry about what happened," said Novella Williams, who crushed the 21-month-old girl in the accident, according to cops.

India (Nini) Bryan died at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center on Sunday night after suffering internal bleeding and brain trauma.

The dancing tyke had been the life of a tenants association party inside a vacant apartment at her W. 160th St. building the night before.

The festivities were winding down with a slow song by R. Kelly when Nini had fallen behind Williams.

"When I bent down to pick up the baby, I fell," said Williams, 46, who lives across from the child's fifth-floor apartment.

Someone yelled, "Watch out!" as her 190-pound, 5-foot-6 frame tumbled back. "Oh my God!" Williams recalled crying out. She disputed that she landed on the girl, and was unsure how the child was hurt.

"I have seven grandchildren of my own. I would never hurt anyone's child. I love kids," said Williams, a data entry clerk.

The child's mom, Laquisha Bryan, 19, had prayed for a miracle at her daughter's bedside in the intensive care unit. A medical examiner's autopsy is scheduled for today.

Williams, who wasn't facing charges, mourned the loss.

"I'm crying. I'm hurting," she said. "I don't know what to do."

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/146478p-129306c.html
 
A terrible accident but, in America, a lawsuit waiting to happen. Horrific for the childs parents but It must be terrible too for Ms. Williams - the feeling of guilt!
 
Hugo Cornwall said:
Maybe i'm just not in the mood, but that is just so tragic...

It is tragic. All loss of life is and this seems to avoidable (if thats quite the right word).

Emps
 
What an awful, horrible, tragic event.

The sort of story that probably persuaded C. Fort of the malignity of the Cosmic Joker. :(
 
A tragic thing. Something similar very nearly happend to me a few years ago.

I was coming down the stairs in my local burger king when an unrestrained toddler darted out in front of me and I tripped over her.

I'm not small now but I was huge then. Fortunately I learned fallin technique when I was a kid and I had some control over the way I fell.

If I'd fallen naturally I would have landed flat on my face right on top of the child. Instead I managed to twist in the air and landed on my side, badly bruising my ribs and injuring my elbow.

The Child's mother was nowhere to be seen. Which was lucky for her.

And can we change the name of this thread. Fat women seem to be the last minority it's ok to discriminate against but we're Forteans and we should know better.

Cujo
 
Cujo said:
And can we change the name of this thread. Fat women seem to be the last minority it's ok to discriminate against but we're Forteans and we should know better.

I was alluding to this site:

http://www.fatchicksinpartyhats.com

but either way it is in poor taste - feel free to get the mods to change the name and/or merge it with the Strange Deaths (and if they do that they can just remove the name altogether).

Emps
 
I really do not like this story.

Regardless of the title, which should probably be changed, it sounds like the sort of thing that people circulate because it's "funny". (I'm not accusing you, Emperor, it's just that I know people who would laugh at this. Arseholes.)

Others would see it as evidence that there is something wrong with Americans, particularly fat women. They would see the tragedy of the whole incident that the woman was so overweight, and blame her for what is essentially a tragic accident.

I hope that there is no legal action taken at all over this, but I expect the lawyers are already ringing people up to try for an angle.
 
Emperor said:
I was alluding to this site:

http://www.fatchicksinpartyhats.com

but either way it is in poor taste - feel free to get the mods to change the name and/or merge it with the Strange Deaths (and if they do that they can just remove the name altogether).

Emps

I'm aware of the website. I just didn't think it was relevent.
 
anome said:
Regardless of the title, which should probably be changed, it sounds like the sort of thing that people circulate because it's "funny". (I'm not accusing you, Emperor, it's just that I know people who would laugh at this. Arseholes.)

I have to admit to angling more for the darker/freak accident aspects of this - the title was unfortunate I was struggling for a title on that one.

Emps
 
Stormkhan said:
Horrific for the childs parents but It must be terrible too for Ms. Williams

I'm sure the baby didn't find it much of a treat either.
 
A friend squashed her kitten that way, and she was not fat. Do be caureful.
 
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