Here are a few of the worst things to happen to people at work!
10 - Unbreakable Window Gary Hoy was a lawyer at a firm called Holden
Day Wilson in Toronto.
With a pretty swank office in downtown Toronto, in the Toronto-Dominion Centre, for some reason,
Hoy loved to brag about the unbreakable windows at the office.
In fact, he was known for pulling a stunt where he would crash into the windows, only
to safely bounce right off them.
Now this worked like a charm every time, except for the time it didn’t.
While giving a group of prospective law students a tour in 1993, Hoy again tried this stunt.
Now, to his credit, he was absolutely right.
The glass didn’t actually break.
Unfortunately for him, it did however, pop out of its frame, which sent the engineer
turned lawyer hurling 24 stories to his death.
You would think that he’d realize that he might just be loosening the window from its
frame with all the stunts he was pulling over the years since he used to be an engineer.
But really though, how many times did this dude jump at the window?!
9 - Skripper Cake Maybe the first person to think of putting
a stripper inside a cake never really realized the risks of having a stripper inside a cake.
Now for those of you out there that haven’t had the pleasure of a stripper cake, it’s
more or less exactly what it sounds like.
A group of people get together for some sort of social gathering.
They order a nice big cake, and hire a stripper to be inside of it.
Then she pops out and does whatever a stripper might do.
Then everybody laughs and for some people it might actually be kinda hot.
But for the most part, it’s all in good fun.
At least in theory anyway.
But 23-year old Gina Lalapola was accidentally k1lled while performing this stunt in Cosenza,
Italy.
Apparently there were some communication issues, and the poor woman spent more than an hour
sealed inside of the cake.
Somehow they forgot about her and she sadly suffocated to death.
8 - Lost Twig and Berries What likely started off as a normal day for
44-year old Edgardo Toucet Echevarria turned out to be a nightmare that would forever impact
his life.
Without going into TOO much graphic detail, this dude got his d*ck and balls sliced off
in an industrial foam peeler, and was quite literally almost cut in half as well.
The word accident doesn’t even begin to describe how sh*tty that must have been.
I mean…….just wow…..
Now it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that it was later revealed that he wasn’t
even qualified to operate such a machine.
In January of 2010, Edgardo was employed by Spartan Staffing, a temp agency that contracted
him out to Future Foam in Orlando, the company whose foam peeler was responsible for cutting
his twig and berries off.
Filing for punitive damages, he alleged that he operated the machines only because his
supervisor basically forced him to do it before he was properly trained to operate the machine.
This situation is just like boxing, you gotta protect yourself at all times…...
7 - Just Picking Berries Most people don’t have to worry about bear
attacks on the job…..I hope.
However, for Park Rangers working for the National Parks Service, it can be an issue.
Just ask the Park Ranger who encountered a bear while she was roaming the trails at Glacier
National Park in Montana.
It was during August 2016, and for some reason she was picking huckleberries at work.
However, while picking those berries, she accidentally surprised a mama grizzly bear
and her cubs.
Unable to deploy her bear spray in time, she found herself on the defensive against a riled
up momma grizzly.
Thankfully, bystanders were able to help fend the bear off, and escort the injured ranger
to safety.
While her injuries weren’t fatal, she did end up in the hospital.
6 - Horseplay on the Construction Site Everyone’s been there, a work day that’s
so slow with nothing to do.
So you start doing completely unproductive things.
Things were apparently so slow one day on a South Dakota construction site, that Kevin
Cole and his coworkers decided to take a break in their air conditioned truck.
However, there were only so many spots in the truck.
One of his coworkers decided to prank Kevin and take his spot, so he told him he was needed
on the other side of the site.
Realizing he had been duped, Kevin tried to rush back, chasing after his coworker.
However, his coworker Jason Petrik tried leaping over a trench.
Buuuut, he didn’t stick the landing and broke his ankle.
Jason applied for workers comp, but his company, J.J Concrete, denied him coverage.
So he sued and it went all the way to the South Dakota Supreme Court.
But the Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling, deciding that Petrik's horseplay wasn't
a quote, "substantial deviation" from his normal work and therefore happened while he
was on the job.
I really don’t get this one…...
5 - Mad Hatter’s Disease For those of us that don’t know any better,
we’d probably assume that hat makers have pretty safe jobs.
I mean, as dangerous as it can be working with machines I’d imagine.
However, there was a period of time where old english hat makers used mercury in order
to stabilize the wool during a process known as felting.
This made the hats look pretty cool but could lead to the hatmakers getting mercury poisoning.
Mercury poisoning can lead to a bizarre condition known as Erethism or by its more common name,
Mad Hatter’s disease.
This is a neurological disease that causes severe behavioral changes.
So bizarre are some of these changes, that it was the inspiration for the famous character
in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
While many people think Carroll was a bit mad himself or maybe was high on some sort
of drug when he wrote his book, others say that Carroll actually based the character
on Theophilus Carter, a seriously crazy furniture dealer.
However, none of that’s never been proven and it’s beside the point anyway.
Anyways, unfortunate hat makers afflicted with this condition may experience all kinds
of changes in behavior.
Such as they might become really depressed, or shy, or become very irritable, or even
become totally apathetic.
In the case of a group of New Jersey hatters, roughly 25% of the more than 1,000 hatters
were suffering from Mad Hatter’s Disease.
By the 1930’s an astounding 80% of felt hat makers in the U.S were suffering from
this affliction.
The only reason things changed was because mercury was needed in the war effort.
4 - High and Bite Getting high on the job is pretty unprofessional,
but hey, some people still do it anyways.
But when your job is to feed Grizzly bears, getting high probably is probably one of the
worst ideas.
Case in point….Brock Hopkins.
Hopkins was working at Great Bear Adventure Park in Montana in 2007 when he got high on
the job.
However, while Hopkins was feeding bears during his altered state, he was attacked by one
of the Grizzly bears.
Thankfully Hopkins survived the attack, although he did suffer some pretty serious injuries.
With that in mind, Hopkins did what any attorney would recommend, which was apply for worker’s
comp.
The park, however, denied him as did a Montana Court judge who ruled that he acted “mind
bogglingly stupid.
The good news for him, is that the state supreme court ruled that he was in fact entitled to
workers comp, since supposedly him being high had absolutely nothing to do with his injury.
I mean, it’s not like bears discriminate specifically against pot heads when they attack.
The court ruled that bears were”equal opportunity maulers”, and yes, they actually said that,
and that since Hopkins did nothing to provoke the attack.
Let me know what you guys think about the court ruling!
3 - Drowning in Chocolate
Vincent Smith was working as a temp for Cocao Services plant in 2009.
What’s the worst that can happen?
How does falling into a giant vat of chocolate sound?
Now this might sound like a chocolate lover’s dream, but I’m pretty sure it’s a nightmare.
Sadly, Vincent drowned to death during this incident.
Not only did he hit his head on the way down, the chocolate was eight feet deep and a scorching
120 degrees.
After rescue crews showed up a full 10 minutes later, he was already de@d.
Vincent managed to fall in while standing on a plank above the vat.
Even though his coworkers were able to stop the machine, they couldn’t pull him out
in time.
2 - Too hot for anything Some photographers go to great lengths to
get just the right shot.
Whether it’s capturing footage in a dangerous war zone, snapping photos of wild dangerous
animals, or battling the extreme elements, photographers often take on a ton of risk
to get that perfect photo.
Take Kawika Singson, for example.
This brave soul nearly lost his feet and his equipment during a photoshoot demonstrating
how hot it gets when he’s taking pictures of volcanos.
While snapping photos of a Hawaiian volcano, Singson showed his workplace conditions with
a picture of his shoes and tripod on fire.
It might seem like he’s too calm, but let’s remember that this shot was actually staged.
However, he could only stand the heat for a few moments before he had to ditch his shoes.
Shooting shots of a volcano while standing on actual lava is gonna be a hard no for me.
I can imagine the experience is like being inside a giant oven with the door open!
Thankfully he survived the ordeal, since he was pretty much in control the whole time.
While he avoided any serious injury, his shoes weren’t so lucky.
1 - A Complete Game A lot of people will tell you baseball is
boring.
However, they probably don’t know the story of Ray Caldwell.
The day was August 24, 1919.
Caldwell is pitching for the Cleveland Indians, and it’s the 9th inning with two outs.
Caldwell needs to get one more out and the Indians win.
However, he was struck by lightning while he was out on the mound and knocked unconscious.
Obviously, getting struck by lightning would be the type of emergency that would knock
a guy out of a game.
Caldwell, however, was revived and put back in the game to record the third out.
Can you imagine what would happen if that happened today in a professional baseball
game?
Hmmm it makes me think how contracts handle natural disasters…..
Anyways, most people think that the lightning hit the metal pin on his cap and surged through
his body all the way down to his metal spikes.
Hey, whatever you gotta do to get that complete game!
Here’s what’s next!