Florida Man has had some crazy escapes - usually with the police in tow.
But every streak has to come to an end.
Today, we pay tribute to those fearless Florida men and women who are no longer with us.
It’s time for Dumb Ways to Die - Florida Edition.
A salesman from Hialeah was in a hurry in 1993, likely on the way to his next big hustle.
But he may have been in a bit too much of a hurry.
He was near Lantana, and witnesses said he was going around 80 miles an hour when his
car swerved into the median lane - and crashed right into a pole, killing the unfortunate
driver instantly.
It seemed to be a standard crash, until officers checked what was on the man’s body.
It was an open sales manual - indicating that he was in the process of reading as he was
speeding through Florida.
Looks like it wasn’t just texters in the future who multitasked themselves to death.
Self-improvement is a good thing - but it’s not always a do-it-yourself operation.
Vera Lawrence was a middle-aged secretary in Miramar, but she always wished she was
a little more...prominent in certain areas.
She didn’t want a boob job or plumper lips - she wanted to supercharge her butt.
She couldn’t afford high-end plastic surgery, so she attended a questionable “plastic
surgery party” hosted by a friend.
Mark Hawkins, a wannabe plastic surgeon from South Carolina, would visit these parties
and give women injections of silicone for a fraction of the price.
After Hawkins left, Lawrence started having trouble breathing.
She was rushed to the hospital where she died.
The cause of death?
Silicone embolism, after the injections had entered her bloodstream.
It was the end of Hawkins’ enterprise, as he faced serious jail time for manslaughter.
Not even the happiest place on earth is safe from bouts of bad judgement.
Disney World is known for its water activities, and some can be more than a little risky.
When Patricia Schenck and her son Brian were visiting the park in 1989, they decided to
check out a small speedboat and zoom around the Seven Seas Lagoon, filming their friends
and family as they waterskied.
But they veered into the path of a large ferry that was transporting passengers to the Magic
Kingdom.
While the ferry sounded the alarm, Schenck wasn’t able to steer away in time and was
killed when the ferry hit her boat.
The ferry crew rescued Brian, but the Schenck family rejected a settlement offer from Disney
and geared up for a bitter lawsuit against the happiest place on earth.
Sometimes, pride goes before a fall.
Molly Jerman was a former gymnast in high school, but she hadn’t gone professional.
Still, she thought she was pretty flexible, and while staying at a hotel with a friend
in North Fort Meyers, she decided to put that to a test.
She called out to her friend and yelled “Watch to see what I can still do” and jumped up
to the railing of the second-floor balcony.
She proceeded to do a handstand on the thin railing - and lost her balance and plunged
to the hotel patio below.
She was killed instantly, and police ruled out foul play.
It was just a simple case of a gymnastics move that may have looked pretty cool, but
was in the worst possible place.
Sometimes when you’ve got to go, it’s best to hold it.
Shawn Paul Montero liked to party, and he had enjoyed a wild night at a Pompano Beach
bar in 2008.
But he forgot one critical detail before he left the bar - he didn’t visit the little
drunk’s room before getting in his car.
His first bad decision was driving drunk, but that wouldn’t be what would get him
on the list.
As he was driving home, nature’s call hit him hard.
He pulled over at the side of the I-95 freeway and decided to urinate - only to find that
freeway traffic didn’t make for a great bathroom.
So he decided to climb the freeway wall - only to lose his balance and fall sixty-five feet
to his death.
When they say “Do not attempt this stunt”, sometimes it’s best to listen.
It was 2008, and the show “Jackass” was at its prime.
Led by Johnny Knoxville, the trained stuntmen and professional idiots entertained people
by seeing how much they could injure themselves.
Cameron Bieberle and Michael Smith were huge fans, and they decided to pull off a stunt
of their own.
Bierberle would ride in a shopping cart and hold on to Smith’s SUV while Smith drove
and picked up speed.
But as they started their stunt, they hit a bump in the road - a literal one, as the
cart’s wheels hit a speed bump.
The cart overturned, Bieberle went flying, and hit his head fatally on the parking lot.
Smith wound up being sentenced to four years in prison for manslaughter, something that
never happened on Jackass.
They weren’t the only daredevils to meet a bad end.
Kleman Plaza in Tallahassee was a tall structure, serving as a multi-level parking garage.
And to a young man named Brian, it looked like the perfect place to relive some past
glory.
Brian was known among his friends as a daredevil, and previously that had been used for good
when he saved a friend from drowning.
But by 2004, his thrill-seeking had taken a dark turn - especially when he fell in love
with reality TV shows about dangerous stunts.
And when he saw the banister at the parking garage, he saw his opportunity.
But he wasn’t just going to slide down it.
Instead, he boasted that he would do a running leap onto the banister to begin his high-speed
slide.
Instead, he sailed right over the banister and into the gap - plunging fifty-two feet
to his death.
His friends were saddened, but not shocked.
One even said this wasn’t the craziest thing Brian had done.
When it comes to strange deaths, it takes all kinds.
The death of Bryan Loudermilk was a mystery.
He was found in a specially-dug ditch, with his SUV’s wheel parked on a board over his
chest.
Loudermilk had died from the pressure on his chest - but how?
An investigation of his wife Stephanie gave the detectives some clues - and it led them
to an odd corner of the kink world.
It seemed Bryan and his wife had been involved in making “Crushing” videos sold on the
black market, where Stephanie would step on small wild animals like mice.
But they had apparently decided to move on to bigger things, and thought a crushing video
with Bryan in the starring role would be the ticket to success.
The wheel was too heavy for Bryan, Stephanie faced criminal charges, and mice everywhere
breathed a sigh of relief.
Sometimes, a few seconds can make all the difference.
David Pedroso was a daredevil, and that was clear to anyone who saw him rolling around
Punta Gordo on his motorcycle - usually without a helmet.
But in 2008, he pushed his luck a little too far.
The drawbridge to Manasota Key would frequently be raised to let ships through, and Pedroso
wasn’t willing to wait for the slow ship traffic.
So he decided he would beat the gate - gunning his motorcycle and speeding forward as the
gates came down.
It wasn’t the best idea, as the lowering gates clipped his head, throwing him from
the motorcycle and dealing him a fatal head injury.
No one knows if he would have survived if he had been wearing a helmet - but it probably
wouldn’t have hurt.
When you race traffic, traffic usually wins.
It was 2007 when Cammie Krusoe hit the jackpot, winning tickets to a show of her favorite
musicians, the Dave Matthews Band.
She invited her friend Megan Thompson to join her and they went to the Ford Amphitheatre
- only for a massive thunderstorm to derail the conference.
The girls were soaked and seeking shelter, but they didn’t want to wait for the bus
to get to the casino across the road - they decided to test their luck with multiple lanes
of heavy traffic on Interstate 4.
The young women raced across the highway, only to be hit by a car.
That then sent them flying into another lane, where they were hit by several more cars fatally.
Sometimes, just getting wet is the smartest option.
Sometimes you fish for big game, and sometimes the big game gets you.
Gary Cagle loved the water.
The avid fisherman and free diver was regularly searching for a big catch near the Florida
Keys, but he didn’t always stick to the law.
Goliath groupers are a protected fish, but that didn’t stop Cagle in 2006.
He used his speargun to pierce the fish’s skin - only to be surprised by just how big
and strong it was.
The fish bolted, yanking Cagle along with it.
He got tangled in the wire, and that’s where his second mistake came in - he had forgotten
to bring his knife.
Unable to get free of the line and trapped underwater, Cagle eventually drowned.
His body was found a day later, still tethered to the dead grouper - who no doubt became
a legend among other fish for the day he reeled in the big one.
But one man tested his fate with an even bigger beast.
Daniel Dukes was a drifter who mostly stayed below the radar, but he would become a household
name in 1999 - when his body was found at Sea World Orlando.
Not only was he in the popular theme park, but he was dead in the tank of Tilikum, a
massive Orca that was controversially kept to perform at the park.
Tilikum was known to be aggressive, killing three people in total - but the other two
were trainers.
Dukes had apparently snuck into the park after dark, climbed into the tank, and decided to
either swim with the massive sea creature or interact with him.
The incident wasn’t caught on camera and what brought Dukes to this point is unknown
- but getting up close and personal with an orca with a body count will rarely end well.
Not even the famous are immune from dumb ends.
Roy Halladay III was an acclaimed baseball player for the Phillies and Blue Jays and
one of the most dominant pitchers of his day.
But he was also troubled, and after retiring in 2013, he went down a bad path.
He was piloting a single-engine plane around the Gulf of Mexico when it crashed - despite
air traffic controllers not getting any distress signals from Halladay before the accident.
It brought an end to the legacy of a talented ball player, but the post-crash autopsy revealed
some disturbing things.
Not only was Halladay’s bloodstream full of multiple drugs, but he had been pulling
off risky acrobatic moves just above the water.
He eventually climbed too high, the plane lost speed, and began one final freefall into
the water.
We return to Disney World for this next high-altitude death.
It’s not uncommon for people to get sick on Disney rides, including Splash Mountain.
The themed flume ride takes you through several drops before plunging you down a massive chute.
But one tourist handled his upset stomach in the worst way possible.
Feeling ill, he decided he would get off - in the middle of the ride, with dozens of log
flumes moving through the massive mountain at high speed.
Sure enough, only seconds after he hopped out of his log to try to find the emergency
exits, he was struck by another one coming down the pipe and fatally wounded.
But no one made a worse decision at high altitudes than this last couple.
It was 1991, and a mysterious accident had just occurred in Rainbow Lake, Florida.
A small Piper aircraft had just crashed, killing its male pilot and his female passenger, who
was also trained in flying.
The plane had shown no sign of mechanical failure, but the explanation for the crash
would soon become clear - nakedly clear.
When the cockpit was opened, the two deceased were found half-naked and not wearing their
harnesses.
Apparently they had decided to join the mile-high club while flying - with fatal consequences.
At least when people do it in the airplane bathroom, it won’t take down the plane.
Want to learn about the Florida men who survived?
Check out “Most Crazy Florida Man Stories”.
To learn about other Americans who tested fate and lost, why not watch “Dumb Ways
to Die - USA Edition”?