WINE CHATS: The really strange ways people have actually died

Trigger warning: This episode contains discussions of death.

We all know the little ‘Dumb ways to die’ song that plays right before you watch a video of someone elaborately face-planting — but what about the people who actually kicked it in the weirdest way?

This week on The Nightly, we settle in with a lovely bottle of life-giving wine and head to Reddit to discover strange ways people have actually died, because not all of us get to be surrounded by our families in the hospital… some of us get a little creative with it!

Be warned!

Lyndsey: Good old Reddit comes through with some good stuff. I’m new to Reddit. I haven’t really looked into Reddit much until recently.

Billi: Yes, I’ve tried to stay off it, but it’s actually got some really good stuff on it.

Lyndsey: Define good though, right?

Billi: How about this whole list?

Lyndsey: This list. Okay, this is because I’m Canadian. I’m from near this place. A Toronto lawyer, not all Canadians are like this, by the way, died testing a piece of unbreakable glass on a skyscraper. He ran into it the first time and it did its job, it stayed put.

Billi: So then you would think, I’m going to stop now.

Lyndsey: You would think. But he was like, I’m gonna give it an extra go. Did it again. And the whole panel popped out.

Billi: Well, he didn’t break the glass, to be fair. So to me, that’s almost like the glass is unbreakable. But whoever put the…

Lyndsey: A gla-glazier.

Billi: I dunno what the putty is that you put… whoever put the seal on.

Lyndsey: Naughty. Not good. The dude fell 24 stories.

Billi: But did the glass break? That’s what I wanna know.

Lyndsey: Okay, so, President James Garfield, was shot on July 2nd, 1881. He didn’t die until September 19th of that same year.

Billi: Oh, that’s months!

Lyndsey: Three months. And he didn’t die from the gunshot wounds, but from the infections from all the doctors who tried to treat him in a variety of ways.

Back then they would have been experimenting and not knowing things. He was basically their guinea pig.

Billi: Well he would have survived if they had disinfectant for hands at the very least.

This is the Erfurt latrine disaster. Again, don’t laugh, these are people.

They overfilled a church. Then the floor collapsed, sending more than 60 people plummeting into a latrine literally filled with liquid poop at the time. At least 60 people died in that cesspool. And King Henry, so this is a long time ago obviously, King Henry VI only survived because he was lucky enough to be standing on a stone outcropping.

So he was standing on some sort of stone that obviously didn’t collapse while everybody else drowned.

Lyndsey: Died in poop? I mean, I love poop stories, but that’s…

Billi: But do you want to die in it?

Lyndsey: So what made the floor collapse? I missed that part.

Billi: Probably the fact that it was King Henry the Sixth’s time.

Totally triggered

Lyndsey: A suicide bomber whose vest was set off via his mobile, got triggered by a Happy New Year’s SMS that the bomber received.

Billi: That’s stupid. That is a dumb way to die, that’s true.

Lyndsey: It’s not, because he was going to die anyway. He was a suicide bomber.

Billi: But he didn’t get to his spot.

Lyndsey: No, well good!

Billi: True, good. That’s actually like a good news story, really. Oh, this one was kind of funny — again — it’s not funny. These people died.

Lyndsey: We’re already going to hell, Billi. It’s fine.

Billi: The man with the longest beard in the world had to hold it up to walk. There was a fire and he tried to run away, but he tripped on his own beard and he died.

Lyndsey: Again, I don’t know if I believe that.

Billi: Should have googled it. Didn’t. But imagine having this longest beard and that’s your pride and joy. And then you try and run and, and as soon as one little bit catches fire like you’re gone.

Lyndsey: But who, who saw him trip? Somebody in the fire that escaped?

Billi: The guy with the longest nails, he was right next door.

I just made that up, just in case we weren’t clear.

Lyndsey: Good thing you told us that. Okay, last one. This one I believe because I’ve read similar stories. Hold your wee for a wee radio competition.

Billi: I’ve read about this one.

Lyndsey: I didn’t hear about this particular one, but a woman died from water intoxication, which I only just recently found out was a thing. After drinking six litres of water in hopes of winning a Wii game console. I didn’t know that this was a thing.

Billi: I think that’s where I learned that this was the thing. Because she held it in for so long.

Time to kill the episode

We hope you heeded our trigger warnings and that you are not aggrieved by what you saw and read here today. Sometimes, you just need to make a little light out of something so very dark.

What’s not dark is the upcoming weekend so whatever you do, we hope you enjoy and come back here next Friday for another fun episode of Wine Chats Podcast here on The Nightly!

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