People who died that were killed by their inventions, is just weird!

Henry Winstanley
http://listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/henry-winstanley00-tm.jpg
Henry Winstanley was the a famous English lighthouse architect and engineer who constructed the first Eddystone lighthouse. Winstanley wished to test the lighthouse’s strength and so demanded to be inside it during a storm. The lighthouse collapsed, killing Winstanley and five other people.

Franz Reichelt
http://listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/franzreichelt-tm.jpg
Franz Reichelt was an Austrian tailor who was famous for creating a strange overcoat/parachute hybrid that he claimed could sail its wearer gently to the ground or even to fly. He conducted his experiment from the first deck of the Eiffel Tower, and in front of a group of spectators and a camera crew, proceeded to fall straight down. He died immediately from the impact.

Otto Lilienthal
http://listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/lilienth-tm.jpg
Otto Lilienthal was a pioneer of human aviation who became known as the Glider King. He was the first person to make repeated successful gliding flights. Newspapers and magazines in many countries published photographs of Lilienthal gliding, favorably influencing public and scientific opinion about the possibility of flying machines becoming practical reality after ages of idle fantasy and unscientific tinkering. On a flight on the 9th August 1896, Lilienthal fell 17 meters, breaking his spine. He died the next day. His final words were, “Small sacrifices must be made!”

Marie Curie
http://listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/eli0-030-tm.jpg
Marie Curie was a French-Polish physicist and chemist who is famous for discovering a host of new elements, including radium and polonium, as well as the theory of radioactivity and the isolation of radioactive isotopes. She was the joint winner of the Nobel Prize in 1903 (along with her husband Pierre). She died on July 4, 1934, from aplastic anaemia, almost certainly contracted from exposure to radiation. The damaging effects of ionizing radiation were then not yet known, and much of her work had been carried out in a shed without any safety measures. She had carried test tubes containing radioactive isotopes in her pocket and stored them in her desk drawer, remarking on the pretty blue-green light that the substances gave off in the dark.
Source(s):
http://listverse.com/science/10-inventors-killed-by-their-inventions/

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A rock falling on you.
About a year ago in Puerto Rico a tourist was taking a tour of the Camuy Caves on the north side of the island. To get to the caverns you need to take a little tram that takes you down a mountain. A rock just randomly fell on her. No one else was injured. But she was killed.
Source(s):
The news story http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,320498,00.html
Info on the caves in general http://www.gotopuertorico.com/caving-puerto-rico.php

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I use to be a big video gamer (even worked at GameStop for a couple of years when it's parent company was the Bookstore I worked at) so the death by video game in 2005 wins out in my book!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm

Also check out the source link I have included for some rather strange deaths that have occurred throughout history, several of them make you just want to scratch your head!
Source(s):
http://www.neatorama.com/2007/03/12/30-strangest-deaths-in-history/

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Reportedly a Spanish governor in early colonial Ecuador was executed by natives by pouring molten gold down his throat. While I can't find any formal documentary evidence, the incident inspired some pathologists to publish an article in the Journal of Clinical Pathology about this method of execution:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1769869
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Death by human waste emitting from stab wounds!...

In the Bible (the book of Judges chapter three, specifically), there is a story about King Eglon of Moab who "was a very fat man." A man named Ehud had come to pay tribute to the king, but his actual intent was to stab the king. Ehud was left handed, so somehow this helped him to conceal his double-edged sword under his clothes on a side where it wouldn't be easy for the king to see. Eventually, Ehud stabbed King Eglon, but the sword got stuck in the king's fat.
I don't know how to put the next part so I'll just copy from Wikipedia:
"Traditionally, it is said that some form of feces or waste issued from Eglon's stomach wound in this incident." All of his servants thought that he was "relieving himself" so they left him alone in his palace room (or whatever room he was stabbed in), and he died.

That's probably the strangest death I've ever heard of.
Source(s):
http://www.ibsstl.org/bible/verse/?nasb=yes&q=Judges%203
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eglon_(king)

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I think some of the ones people inflicted on themselves through sheer stupidity are the ones that rate highest in weirdness. I instantly wanted to recount the JATO rocket-car Darwin Award ..being by far the funniest account I've read on the Darwin Awards site: http://www.darwinawards.com/ ..but I checked it today and found out it was just an urban legend. *sigh* ah well. I'm too lazy to look through the site for another one. There's tons of them there though.
Source(s):
http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1995-04.html (JATO rocket-car)

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One of the strangest deaths I've seen mentioned is the one of Allan Pinkerton. He had slipped on some pavement and had bit his tongue. He didn't seek treatment for this injury; gangrene had settled in, and caused his death. What makes this death even more unusual is the fact that Pinkerton was a spy and a detective; you'd think that he wouldn't have died from something that seems sort of mundane.

I found another odd death, and this one doesn't have anything to do with gangrene. Langley Collyer was an infamous hoarder and hermit who had lived in Harlem. An anonymous caller had phoned the 122th police presinct, and had insisted that there was a dead body in Collyer's house. After wading through a massive amount of junk, the police had found Homer, Langley's older, blind, and paralyzed brother dead. Supposedly, he had died from malnutrition and cardiac arrest, and had only been dead for ten hours after the police had found him. There were no signs of Langley. Over two weeks later, a workman had found Langley's body. Langley was located about ten feet away from where Homer was found. He was found under three bundles of newspapers which were part of booby trap to ward away intruders.

Another odd death was that of Jack Daniel, the whiskey distiller. He was unable to open a safe, and had kicked due to frustration. He ended up crushing his toe in the process. His toe eventually became gangrenous, and eventually died from the resulting infection.
Source(s):
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/gangsters_outlaws/cops_others/pinkerton/...
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A07E5DE143FE533A25751C0A961...
http://huntsville.about.com/od/daytrips/a/jackdaniel.htm
http://www.ocfoundation.org/1005/m140a_001.htm
http://www.psychologistworld.com/issue/collyerbrothers.php

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Bobby Leach, the second man to traverse Niagara Falls in a barrel... died at the hands of an orange peel. He slipped on one, was injured, developed an infection which killed him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Leach


I found a video of Franz Reichelt on youtube. It shows him jumping off and what happened at the ground level. easyeboy - I'd never heard of this guy before, and wonder why I haven't:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BepyTSzueno

Aeschylus - A playwright in ancient Greece.

An eagle dropped a tortoise on his head. He died. The tortoise did not:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeschylus


Jim Creighton
He swung a baseball bat too hard... and ruptured his bladder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Creighton


Everyone should know about the Boston Molasses Disaster:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster


Here's another one bringing forth their own demise: Alexander Bogdanov
He was a doctor, and experimented by infusing himself with the blood of one of his students... who had malaria and TB.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Bogdanov

Thomas Midgley - Invents bed with pulley control system. Strangles himself in it. He also brought us leaded gasoline and CFCs. Now that's a legacy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley,_Jr.

Leslie Harvey - Died of electrocution - touched an unearthed microphone with a wet hand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Harvey

Or, perhaps it's a good idea to change a lightbulb while standing in a tub full of water?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Fran%C3%A7ois

Garry Hoy
In an attempt to prove glass in the window on the 24th floor of a building unbreakable, he threw himself in to it. The glass didn't break... it popped out.

Armin Miiwes wasn't the dead one, but the killer. He found a volunteer to die. He cut of the man's penis, and tried to eat it, but apparently burned it by accident, and then he killed him. The victim's name is Bernd Jürgen Brandes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes

Sharon Lopatka - She searched for a man to torture and kill her... and apparently got her wish!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Lopatka


Lee Seung Seop died of Starcraft. He played it for 50 hours straight in an internet cafe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Seung_Seop
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My favorite bizarre death is the guy who ran into the hi-rise window, which then broke, and he fell out.

http://darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1996-01.html

Mythbusters did a recreation of this and found that it wasn't all that hard to do to break the window.

The Darwin awards in general is a great way to find odd deaths.

http://www.darwinawards.com/

Morbid, but interesting.
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