Accidents happen everyday. The coffee spill on your shirt isn’t that unusual, but a beer spill flooding the streets of London? The weirdest accidents are sometimes the most interesting and the ones that leaves us questioning how and why.
1. Bouncy castle blast
Dreamspace V was an inflatable maze/bouncy castle created to celebrate 10 years of the inflatable attraction’s business during a London festival in 2006. It was all fun and games until a freakishly strong wind got underneath the attraction, unhooked its hinges and caused the entire bouncy castle to take flight 50 feet into the air. It travelled a total of 150 feet, with families still trapped inside, before finally hitting the ground. This unusual incident caused 13 injuries and two deaths. Next time, hire the clown.
2. Crocs on a plane
A somewhat different version than David R. Ellis’s motion picture Snakes on a Plane. A passenger smuggled a crocodile onto a small airline in a sports bag. The scaly beast broke free from the bag and chaos ensued. A freaked out flight attendant ran towards the cockpit and panicked passengers followed, throwing the plane off balance and causing it to crash. 21 people walked into a plane, one guy and a crocodile walked out. Very suspicious.
3. BYOB?
Floods are common natural disasters. But a beer flood? In 1814 in London, England, a vat of beer in a brewery mysteriously exploded forcing 550,000 gallons of beer to spill into the streets. The wave of beer destroyed two homes and crumbled the walls of a local pub trapping a teenage employee under the rubble. Eight people drowned in the flood. The disaster was ruled to be an act of God.
4. Bye-bye birdy
Hollywood experienced a freak accident on March 31,1993 on the set of Alex Proyas’ The Crow. There were eight days left of shooting when lead Brandon Lee, son of famous martial arts fighter and actor Bruce Lee, was killed when Michael Massee (a villain in the movie) fired a gun at Lee as part of a scene they were filming. A bullet from a dummy round was lodged in the barrel of the handgun. The bullet was not noticed and the gun was loaded with a blank cartridge. When the blank was fired, the bullet shot out and hit Lee in the abdomen. Lee was replaced by a stunt double to wrap up the final scenes and the movie still came out. Rumors have circled that the footage of Lee’s death is still out there.
5. Lightning never strikes twice
They say lightning never strikes twice, but they may be wrong. During a soccer game in Congo in 1998, all 11 players of the Bassanga soccer team were struck dead by lightning in one strike. The home team was oddly untouched. Witchcraft was blamed for the adverse natural phenomena as many soccer teams have been known to hire witchdoctors to place hexes on their opponents.
6. Hart stops beating
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has grown into a multimillion-dollar business, but even the fakest sport sees some of the most real accidents. Wrestler Owen Hart fell to his death in 1999 during his entrance on WWE’s pay per-view special, Over the Edge. Hart was supposed to descend slowly and dramatically, but the equipment malfunctioned and he plummeted 78 feet into the ring. This all happened live where thousands of fans witnessed the wrestler’s strange and unfortunate death.
7. Haunted park
On June 9, 1991, death stalked the Kings Island amusement park in Ohio. In one incident, a man fell into a pond, a friend and an employee attempted to rescue him, but all three men suffered from electric shock, killing two of them. The park was overrun with helicopters and emergency responders. Only an hour later, 32-year-old Candy Taylor fell off the Flight Commander ride in an attempt to wave to her friends below and point out the helicopters. The park has been rumored to be haunted and in 2012, an episode of Ghost Hunters was filmed there.
8. All jacked up
The famous Jack Daniel’s liquor has been known to cause some accidents when in the wrong hands, but Mr. Daniel himself was dead sober the morning he tried opening a locked safe. Unable to remember the combination, the godfather of whiskey did the next best thing. He kicked it open and broke his toe. He eventually died from old blood poisoning after contracting a deadly infection from the broken toe.
9. Guitarthritis
Baseball player Joel Zumaya, missed three games during the 2006 American League Championship Series as a result of injury. However, this was no baseball related accident, but one caused by the famous game Guitar Hero. Rocking too hard on the guitar left the pitcher with an inflamed wrist, forcing him to sit out. Luckily, he recovered in time for the World Series. XBOX 360’s version of Guitar Hero II plays on this situation by including a disclaimer, “No pitchers were harmed in the making of this game. Except for one.” While this incident may not be as outrageously bizarre as the others on the list, it’s pretty funny that Guitar Hero was to blame for a baseball player’s injury.
10. Death by dishwasher
My mother always tells me there’s a specific technique to loading the dishwasher. I always thought it was hogwash but it seems that she was right. In North Lanarkshire, Scotland – like a scene from Final Destination—a woman in her thirties slipped in her kitchen and was stabbed by the upright knives from her open dishwasher. Safe to say I’ll wash my own dishes from now on.
