When you hear the words drowning, you would generally assume that there’s water involved right?
And while you would be right most of the times, there have been quite a few crazy incidents
where people drowned, but there was no water anywhere near them!
10.
London Beer Flood – As far as dying goes, there are many ways to go but if we could
choose how it happens, drowning in alcohol would be pretty much on top of the list right.
Unfortunately for the residents of Tottenham Court Road in the parish of St. Giles, London,
it actually did happen.
The Meux and Company brewery had installed a massive 22 feet wooden fermentation tank.
But on the 17th of October, 1814, one of the iron rings that held the structure together
snapped.
A domino effect followed which resulted in 610,000 litres of beer to spill out.
To make matters worse, the force of the beer burst open other containers in the brewery
and terrifying 15 foot tidal wave of alcohol engulfed the streets, destroying many homes
and claiming 8 lives.
But there was an upside to it as well.
The brewery was located near a densely populated slum and the residents instead of rushing
away from the flooding beer grabbed any container they could and helped themselves to some ale!
Well, maybe we would have done the same.
But in a weird twist of fate, some of them suffered and even died from overindulging
in the alcohol.
As they say, there are no free lunches, or beer, in this case!
9.
Ketchup – Ketchup has been used as fake blood for many pranks.
But could ketchup actually cause death?
Unfortunately for 6 workers in the Akansha food products unit in Lukhnow, India, it did.
A 20 feet tank which housed vegetables for fermenting was the cause of misery for the
families Usha and the other workers.
When she was trying to scoop up some of the fermented vegetables, her ladder slipped and
she fell into the tank.
The other workers who saw her fall immediately jumped in to save her.
Sadly, lady luck was not smiling on them that day and they were declared dead when they
reached a nearby hospital.
Police investigations found that the gases that were released during the fermentation
of the liquids rendered them unconscious once they were inside the tank and thus, they were
unable to save Usha or themselves.
While one must admire the courage of the workers who jumped in to save her, death by ketchup
does sound like an interesting crime mystery!
8.
Paint – The Ford transit van plant in Southampton, England were trying to do a decent thing for
the environment when they decided to recycle the paint from the factory’s paint shop.
So, they built a huge tank to collect the paint but it ran into quite a few problems
within a year of its construction.
Quite often, it would overflow and one of the workers even fell into it when they were
trying to clean it.
Unfortunately, no lessons were learnt from this and a short while later, 30 year old
Christopher Shute observed that the tank was leaking again.
But a lid had been removed and because of the overflow of the paint, Shute was not able
to observe that and fell inside the tank while he tried to fix the leak.
While Shute frantically tried to pull himself out and even his co-workers tried to help,
the paint made everything very slippery and Shute drowned in the paint.
The accident could have been avoided if proper safety procedures had been followed and Ford
was fined 300,000 pounds for the mistake.
We really hope that they learnt from their mistake this time around!
7.
Pit Toilet – Well, what can we say?
Death stinks and in this case, quite literally.
Young Michael Komape was in his first year of primary school in a South African village
when he went to the toilet.
Two hours later, his mother, Rosina, got a call that Michael had been missing for some
time.
When she frantically rushed to the school, the teachers told her that they had searched
everywhere.
But finally, Michael’s friend came forward and told her that he had seen Michael fall
into one of the pits in the toilet.
On rushing there, she saw Michael’s hand rising above the pool of waste.
The fire department was alerted immediately and they managed to pull out his body but
sadly it was too late.
The government was quick to install brand new lavatories in the schools in the area
but it was a little late for little Michael.
Hopefully others take a lesson from this and safeguard their homes and toilets before shit
hits the fan, quite literally.
6.
Oil – Chips are one of the most favoured snacks all over the world but doctors advise
against them because of the amount of oil they contain.
As it turns out, that oil is not just dangerous but fatal as well as Donald Boone found out.
Working in the Frito-Lay factory in Lubbock, Texas, Boone and a co-worker were making repairs
on the roof of a 15 foot oil tank on the 9th of February, 2001.
As luck would have had it, Boone fell through a 2 feet opening in the tank.
His colleague noticed his fall and immediately raised a cry for help.
The workers in the factory quickly opened the valve in the tank to release the oil and
paramedics rushed onto the scene barely 5 minutes after Boone fell through.
However, even this prompt action was not able to save him as he was declared dead in the
hospital.
It was later found that Boone had hit his head during his fall which caused him to drown
in oil.
Later investigations found that there were safety violations in the factory and Frito-Lay
paid a sum of $57,000 in fines.
Turns out, oil’s not well when it doesn’t end well.
5.
Grease Pit – Imagine a family outing to have ice cream in the afternoon.
Doesn’t sound dangerous at all, right?
But the Andrews family of Alabama would like to differ.
They were having ice cream on a regular afternoon and their daughter Sadie, along with her sisters,
was playing behind the shop.
Unknown to her father, there was a 6 feet grease trap there which was covered with a
lid.
But when Sadie stepped on the lid, it flipped and closed behind her as she fell into the
grease trap.
As soon as the family realized she was missing, a frantic search was carried out and she was
found in the pit 10 minutes later.
The ice cream shop workers and her family performed CPR, but sadly Sadie was declared
dead on arrival at the hospital.
CCTV footage showed that her father had turned away just momentarily when Sadie fell into
the trap.
Well, maybe if he hadn’t, Sadie could probably be a very different kind of grease monkey
today!
4.
Manure Ponds – A drive by the countryside with all the fields and farms sounds charming,
right?
But have you noticed that stench that forces you to close your nose from time to time?
It comes from the manure ponds where animal waste is stored to prevent it from contaminating
the water supply and to manufacture fertilizers for organic farms.
But for Ruperto Vasquez-Carrera, pinching his nose wasn’t really an option.
He was driving along the Sunrise Organic Dairy farm in a feed truck when he crashed into
a manure pond.
He managed to get out and tried swimming to safety but was completely disoriented.
Makes sense right?
After all, he was swimming in a load of animal shit!
Turns out, manure is more deadly than we could ever imagine as this was not an isolated incident.
A worker in a different dairy farm met the same fate just 7 months after Ruperto!
Well, as they say, shit happens!
3.
Sulphuric Acid – We have all cringed when movie villains threaten to dip the heroes
in vats of acid.
It is perhaps one of the most gruesome ways of dying that we can think of.
Unfortunately for Fernando Gonzales, it became a reality.
He was working in a late night shift in the Coastal Circuits factory in Redwood City where
his job was to submerge circuit boards in sulphuric acid.
But when he did not come home on time, his father, who worked in the same factory, went
to find him and discovered his body in the vat containing sulphuric acid.
Authorities believed that the fumes from the chemicals caused Fernando to lose consciousness
and he fell into the vat as a result of that.
While there were many questions raised about the safety in Coastal Circuit like why he
was working alone or why he didn’t have a face mask, Fernando’s death was ruled
as an accident.
But will that theory pass the acid test?
We wonder!
2.
Chocolate – Death by chocolate might be one of the popular forms of cakes, but who
would have thought that it could be quite literal as well?
In 2002, Yoni Cordon, an employee of the Kargher Corporation, a candy factory in Pennsylvania
was working on the platform near a vat which contained about 1200 gallons of molten chocolate.
The vat was used to mix the chocolate and no one actually saw Yoni fall into the vat.
When his body was discovered later in the vat, people figured he slipped and fell into
the vat.
Considering that the other alternative is that Yoni probably couldn’t resist the urge
to taste that chocolate and jumped in, we think they might be correct!
And as it happens, this is not the only case of chocolate drowning.
In 2009, Vincent Smith II was also killed when he was hit by one of the blades that
mixed the chocolate causing him to fall in the vat.
While his co-workers tried to pull him out, he was dead by the time they managed to do
so.
So the next time you want to scare the kids off chocolate, tell them that it is harmful
to more than just their teeth!
1.Molasses – The name behind most of the sweeteners and flavouring in food, molasses
is the reason most foods are worth dying for.
But when that becomes more than a figure of speech, its time to start cutting down on
the sugar!
In the summer of 2016, Robert Herweyer was working for the Agri-Technology in Michigan.
Herweyer, along with a colleague, was cleaning the 12 feet molasses tank and when the level
of molasses inside became too low to be pumped out, he entered the tank to adjust the valve.
Although he used proper safety equipment and process to do so, he stopped moving when he
was climbing out and slipped under the molasses.
When frantic measures to bring him out didn’t work, the plant owner sawed through the tank
but it was too late for Herweyer who was most definitely the sweetest person ever by that
time!
These were some instances when people drowned in something other than water, so the next
time you hear about someone drowning, do make sure it was water before blaming it their
swimming skills!