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Strange Deaths

Yup; as you'll know, railway culture is all about dealing with danger.

One of my managers used to remind us about a group of three track workers, all known to him, strolling across tracks for lunch who were too busy chatting to notice the approaching train.

They were all killed on the spot. Just for a minute's inattention. :(
Yes, I'm not sure whether this is familiarity breeding contempt or a kind of bravado. If you know your job is extremely dangerous then maybe there's a tendency to try to 'style it out' to reduce your own fear, somehow?
 
Yes, I'm not sure whether this is familiarity breeding contempt or a kind of bravado. If you know your job is extremely dangerous then maybe there's a tendency to try to 'style it out' to reduce your own fear, somehow?
The example of the three track workers was about 'familiarity breeding contempt'. My assumption is that being off-duty for an hour they dropped the gang lookout procedure and just forgot lo look both ways.
 
Yes, I'm not sure whether this is familiarity breeding contempt or a kind of bravado. If you know your job is extremely dangerous then maybe there's a tendency to try to 'style it out' to reduce your own fear, somehow?
The example of the three track workers was about 'familiarity breeding contempt'. My assumption is that being off-duty for an hour they dropped the gang lookout procedure and just forgot lo look both ways.
One wonders of course why they didn't hear the train coming. Could have been wearing ear protectors of course.
 
One wonders of course why they didn't hear the train coming. Could have been wearing ear protectors of course.
You don't hear electric locomotives before they hit you and would be stuck to the front of a Pendolino before you noticed the sound.

Train companies stand new recruits on a platform with their backs to the track and tell them to turn round when they hear the train approaching. They're always too late.
 
I can vouch fir this. While wandering the tracks one night in my youth I was nearly killed by a train. It was traveling probably 60-70 MPH and was nearly on top of me before I realized it. You really can’t hear them coming.
 
I can vouch fir this. While wandering the tracks one night in my youth I was nearly killed by a train. It was traveling probably 60-70 MPH and was nearly on top of me before I realized it. You really can’t hear them coming.
60/70mph is NOTHING. They can do twice that!

In fact, at 60/70mph a loco might be slowing down for a station and (remainder of post thought better of and abandoned.)
 
The example of the three track workers was about 'familiarity breeding contempt'. My assumption is that being off-duty for an hour they dropped the gang lookout procedure and just forgot lo look both ways.
In the construction industry we have historically called this “asleep at the wheel” and alludes to those who drive the same route at the same time every day. Eventually they zone out and can remember the start and finish of the journey but very little in between. The same is true of construction workers who consistently undertake a dangerous job role but eventually stop paying attention. Then they get squidged!
 
A prisoner with a history of both violence and mental illness killed himself by "disembowelment" in a Montana prison.
Prisoner with history of mental illness dies after disemboweling himself at Montana state prison

A man with a history of mental illness and self-harm died May 23 after he disemboweled himself while in custody at the Montana State Prison, reports The Daily Montanan.

Shaun Duncan Morrison, 39, died from a self-inflicted open wound to his stomach wall, according to his death certificate. Morrison caused the injury to himself on May 19. He lived for four days before dying from his injuries as well as sepsis while receiving treatment at Benefis Healthcare System in Great Falls. ...

Morrison was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole after he killed another inmate at the prison in 2011. ... Prior to that, he was incarcerated for attacking a police officer, records show. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.kbzk.com/news/montana-n...disemboweling-himself-at-montana-state-prison
 
From the Out Of The Frying Pan Into The Fire desk ...

The strangeness in this case has to do with two causes of death in play (with no final decision made yet). A 3-year-old fell from a window into his family's fenced back yard. That's possibility #1. Possibility #2 concerns the alleged pitbulls kept in the fenced yard into which he fell, who then mauled him.
City to euthanize dogs that attacked 3-year-old who fell from window and died, official says

City officials are moving to euthanize the two dogs that authorities say attacked a 3-year-old boy who fell from a rear window of an Elizabeth home Wednesday and died. ...

“The dogs are currently quarantined, and the City is moving towards euthanizing them,” said Elizabeth spokeswoman Kelly Martins. The dogs belonged to the victim’s family and were in its fenced yard when the boy fell, authorities have said. ...

Three neighbors who live nearby the home on the 400 block of South 5th Street identified the dogs as pitbulls, but authorities have not named the breed. It’s unclear if the boy died from the fall or the dog attack and authorities have not announced any charges in the case.

A woman who lives near the home said she saw a man run to the front of the house carrying the bloodied child.

The boy, who authorities have not identified, had serious injuries when police arrived ... He was rushed to Trinitas Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later, authorities said.

The child fell about 10 feet and was bitten by the two dogs, authorities have said. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crim...from-window-and-died-official-says/ar-AAKVfhj
 
A man in Iowa died when he became stuck in a cattle farm's manure tank.
Worker dies in eastern Iowa cattle farm manure tank

Authorities in eastern Iowa say a man has died after becoming stuck in a cattle farm manure tank.

The Quad-City Times reports that the death occurred Tuesday at a farm in Stockton ...

New Liberty Fire Chief Chad Petersen said his volunteer fire department responded around 10 a.m. Tuesday to the scene.

Petersen says the man was doing some work in the tank when he got stuck. ...

Firefighters retrieved the man’s body from the tank late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.
FULL STORY: https://www.kcrg.com/2021/06/10/worker-dies-eastern-iowa-cattle-farm-manure-tank/
 
One Simon Brown died in the same way in 2016. He was travelling as a passenger when he leaned out of a 'droplight' window and his head hit a trackside sign.
The company was fined for 'cluttering' the space around the warning sign.

Rail firm fined £1 million after man killed sticking his head out of Gatwick Express

Mr Brown was a train fanatic and railway volunteer and employee -
I really don't get that. He must have known (as I did when I used to do it) that it was forbidden. What's the sign got to do with anything?

Ah, hanging out of the leading coach in the tunnels out of Kings Cross drinking in the Deltic howl and fumes. No wonder I have tinnitus. That and the bass stack.
 
I really don't get that. He must have known (as I did when I used to do it) that it was forbidden. What's the sign got to do with anything?

Ah, hanging out of the leading coach in the tunnels out of Kings Cross drinking in the Deltic howl and fumes. No wonder I have tinnitus. That and the bass stack.
I totally agree. Everything to do with those old door/window arrangements is dangerous including opening the door from the outside. They are like executions on wheels waiting to happen. You don't need a sign to remind you!

Not to be rude about someone who has sadly died, and who seemed to have been a well-liked and respected railwayman, I have to say it must have been a temporary lapse of common sense.
 
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I really don't get that. He must have known (as I did when I used to do it) that it was forbidden. What's the sign got to do with anything?

Ah, hanging out of the leading coach in the tunnels out of Kings Cross drinking in the Deltic howl and fumes. No wonder I have tinnitus. That and the bass stack.
Whether it's forbidden or not, and whether there are signs or not - surely, surely anyone with a normally functioning cognitive facility (I was going to say 'half a brain', but given the incidents...maybe just no) can work out for themselves that sticking your head out of a window whilst the scenery - some of it quite close at hand - goes by at nearly 100mph, isn't a sensible move.

I remember back to the Age of Steam when I was young - and being warned not to put my head out of the window of a train going much much more slowly than the modern ones 'because you might get your head taken off'. My railway worker will have told us gory tales of people being beheaded by passing trains from very young.
 
Whether it's forbidden or not, and whether there are signs or not - surely, surely anyone with a normally functioning cognitive facility (I was going to say 'half a brain', but given the incidents...maybe just no) can work out for themselves that sticking your head out of a window whilst the scenery - some of it quite close at hand - goes by at nearly 100mph, isn't a sensible move.

I remember back to the Age of Steam when I was young - and being warned not to put my head out of the window of a train going much much more slowly than the modern ones 'because you might get your head taken off'. My railway worker will have told us gory tales of people being beheaded by passing trains from very young.
As you'll know, Vyvyan does it in The Young Ones. When he catches up with his head further along the track it shouts 'You took your time, you bastard!'
 
US tycoon John McAfee found dead in his prison cell.

"Anti-virus software entrepreneur John McAfee has been found dead in his cell at a Barcelona prison.

Just hours earlier, Spain's National Court had agreed to extradite him to the US to face tax evasion charges.

The Spanish Justice Department said in a statement that "everything indicates" Mr McAfee took his own life.

A controversial figure, his company released the first commercial anti-virus software and helped spark a multi-billion dollar industry."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57589822
 
US tycoon John McAfee found dead in his prison cell.

"Anti-virus software entrepreneur John McAfee has been found dead in his cell at a Barcelona prison.

Just hours earlier, Spain's National Court had agreed to extradite him to the US to face tax evasion charges.

The Spanish Justice Department said in a statement that "everything indicates" Mr McAfee took his own life.

A controversial figure, his company released the first commercial anti-virus software and helped spark a multi-billion dollar industry."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57589822
A very odd thing.
A bold, brash man like McAfee would have brassed it out for as long as he could.
 
A very odd thing.
A bold, brash man like McAfee would have brassed it out for as long as he could.
He was only up on tax evasion charges, you would have thought a heafty fine , house arrest or at most a couple of years in a cushy federal prison was all he was looking at.
 
He was only up on tax evasion charges, you would have thought a heafty fine , house arrest or at most a couple of years in a cushy federal prison was all he was looking at.
He could have hired the best lawyers.
 
In the days of steam someone I knew worked in the steam sheds and they came
across a hand just perched on top of a axel box on a LMS 5MT never found were
it came from nothing ever reported, so were the rest of the body was was never
found.
 
Two Iranian fighter jet operators were killed when their ejection seats fired unexpectedly ...
... while they were still inside the hangar.
Two Iranian fighter jet pilots are killed when ejector seats activate before take-off 'and smash them into hangar roof'

Two Iranian fighter jet pilots were killed on Tuesday when their ejector seats activated before take-off, smashing them into the hangar roof.

State broadcaster IRIB reported the F-5 fighter jet had a 'technical problem' that killed both the pilots ...

The report said the incident unfolded at Dezful Vahdati Air Force Base, approximately 270 miles south of the capital Tehran, and near the Iraq border. ...

According to BBC Persian, ejector seats were 'wrongly activated' for both the front and rear cockpit pilots. Both men 'lost their lives due to a severe impact with the roof of the hangar', the report added.
FULL STORY: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...pilots-killed-ejector-seats-activate-off.html
 
Four people have died, and one person is in a critical condition after a hot air balloon hit power lines in New Mexico.

"Four people have been killed and one more is in a critical condition after a hot air balloon hit a power line in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The basket the passengers were riding in detached from the balloon and crashed, according to the city's police department.

Witnesses on Twitter described seeing the balloon fall to the ground in a completely deflated state.

The incident cut off power to more than 13,000 people in the area."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57624698
 
A toddler removed 'button batteries' from a remote control and died of internal bleeding after swallowing one or more.

What I find is unusual here is that a small child could access the batteries. There is no mention of the control as faulty or broken so the batteries must have been easy to remove.

Who'd imagine a TV remote could be so dangerous? :(

BBC report -

Two-year-old's button battery death sparks warning

Harper-Lee Fanthorpe died in hospital in Stoke-on-Trent in May after swallowing batteries from a remote control.
An inquest found acid from the battery burned through her food pipe and into a major artery.
 
Sounds pretty horrific , you would think it would pass through
long before the acids had time to eat it.
 
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