9.
Arguing Russians
Fights between couples can often get out of hand.
Screaming, shouting, and hurling objects at each other - sometimes things can get pretty
violent.
We love to watch this kind of drama on TV, but it’s not like you can just grab a bag
of popcorn and watch it in real life!
Or can you?
In May, earlier this year, a guy was walking down the street in St. Petersburg, Russia,
when he heard a couple arguing.
You could hear the rage in both of their voices.
So he decided to watch and let it play out.
But he didn’t just watch and listen, he went the extra mile and recorded it on his
phone too!
That’s live reality TV baby!
It’s a little rude and an extreme invasion of privacy, but he did it anyway.
So much for intrusion you would say, but the same witness turned out to be their life saver.
Here’s what happened.
The couple was in the middle of an intense verbal spat when they were met with an unlikely
interruption.
And the guy that recorded the whole thing was actually just trying to get footage of
the historical buildings nearby - at first.
Olga Volkova and Yevgeny Karlagin were fighting and screaming at the top of their lungs on
the balcony of their 2nd-floor apartment.
That's when, suddenly the railing broke loose and the two fell!
They fell 25 feet(7.6m) below onto the hard concrete.
The passerby who was recording, immediately called for medical help.
Paramedics arrived and rushed them to the hospital.
According to the eyewitness, Olga and Yevgeny have a 10-year-old son who was inside the
house when the incident happened.
Maybe the couple didn't want to argue in front of the kid and stepped out onto the balcony.
Whatever the reason, they sure were fortunate to have survived.
An investigation concerning the integrity of the building in concern is currently underway.
8.
16th Floor
First dates can have unexpected endings, but none as horrific as this one.
35-year-old Jennifer Rosoff was on a date with Stephen Close, but neither of the two
had anticipated that the night would turn out to be deadly.
In 2013, ad executive Jennifer and real estate agent Stephen went out on a date to a Mexican
restaurant.
After they were done with dinner, Jennifer brought him to her apartment which was only
8 blocks away on 57th St. near First Ave in New York.
Just when you think that things were all falling into place, something totally unforeseen happened.
The two were having a good time and they decided to take the conversation to the balcony.
A set of french doors opened to her narrow balcony of her Stonehenge 57 apartment on
the 16th floor.
Jennifer casually smoking a cigarette, holding a drink in her other hand, sat on the railing.
According to reports, Stephen apparently told her to be careful and not to put so much weight
on the railing, to which Jennifer said that she had done it before and it was fine.
A few moments later, Stephen heard a crack and before anyone could do anything about
it, the metal railing gave way and threw Jennifer off the balcony backwards.
She fell to her death on a construction scaffolding almost 140 feet (42.6m) below.
After a thorough investigation, the police said that there was no chance of foul play.
According to city law, buildings with more than 6 floors must inspect their exteriors
every five years.
Jennifer's luxury residence had been inspected a couple of months before the accident.
The management has ever since taken up maintenance and regular upgrades on the building.
7.
Concert Backflip
Concerts have been a hotbed for mischievous fans for a long time.
Some like to fling their bras at the musicians while some resort to flinging other things.
But this 40-year-old wanted to try something new.
He decided to fling himself!
In the month of August this year, during a Dead & Company concert in the Citifield stadium,
in New York, ironically, someone turned out dead.
A 40-year-old tried to do a backflip from the balcony of the venue during the intermission
at 9 pm.
He fell from a height of about 30 to 50 feet (10-15m) and was gravely injured.
5 minutes later he was rushed to the nearby New-York-Presbysterian hospital, where the
doctors announced him dead on arrival.
A driver, who was an eyewitness, told reporters that he saw the man flip before he fell on
the concrete.
He had hit the ground head first and just from the look of it you could tell that he
wouldn't be getting back up.
The driver also said that the fan was extremely drunk and he reeked of alcohol.
It was truly horrific for his brother who was attending the concert as well.
He immediately broke down after seeing the mangled body.
Other concertgoers also got the shock of their lives when they heard screams in the stadium.
Surely this is not what anyone would have expected.
6.
Planking
Almost a decade ago when internet trends were just gaining traction, planking took the world
by storm!
People from all over were seen showing off their core strength by laying like a plank
at unusual places.
People were seen planking on tree branches, on pool tables, between doors, on railway
tracks, parallel benches and more!
It was just another passing internet trend.
But who knew that it would cost someone their life.
A 20-year-old from Brisbane, Australia decided to try this trend, but wound up losing his
life in the process.
Acton Beale thought he had the best planking idea.
He would plank on the balcony railing of his 7th floor home!
Sounds totally safe!
If done right, he would have definitely gotten all those likes and shares he dreamt off.
But a small mistake made things go haywire, and he ended up going viral for a totally
different reason.
So here’s what happened.
Beale and his friend were on their way home from a night out.
The two were planking on various spots along the way and Beale wanted to try planking on
the balcony.
As he went up on the railing, he tried to pull off the pose, which he had already mastered
many times, only this time he lost his balance and plunged to his untimely death.
The young one's death sent shockwaves around the world as authorities started pointing
out how dangerous the trend could be.
Laws were put into place prohibiting high risk activities such as planking on any private
property.
The action seems to have paid off, as Beale's death was the first planking death ever recorded
and fortunately, it was the last one too.
Do you remember the planking trend?
Did you try it out?
Let us know in the comments below and if you’re liking this video, be sure to hit the thumbs
up and subscribe buttons if you haven’t already!
:)
5.
Balconing
Vacations are meant for fun and letting loose, but sometimes, people let the booze get the
best of them.
A 31-year-old British tourist visiting Spain made the headlines in June this year after
he was fatally injured and found in a pool of his own blood.
The unnamed guy had been drinking heavily and had consumed laughing gas right before
he plunged from his 3rd-floor balcony.
He had rented a holiday home for himself and his friends at San Pedro.
The group was partying and trying to make the most out of the vacation when this guy
thought of cooling down a bit.
He decided to jump from the balcony and dive straight into the swimming pool.
Now we have seen many videos with people pulling this stunt off effortlessly.
But things don’t always go as planned.
Pulling off this high-risk dive sounded too good to be ignored.
The only problem was, thanks to his intoxicated state, he totally miscalculated his dive.
He completely missed splashing into the water, instead, he hit a sunshade and landed on the
ground.
He suffered serious head injuries, damage to internal organs and numerous fractures.
He was rushed to the hospital and was last reported to be in a critical condition.
Investigators suspect that the copious amount of laughing gas and alcohol in his system
led to the fall.
Laughing gas or nitrous oxide has a very strong effect on the nervous system.
It can cause hallucinations and can make people delirious.
This is not an isolated incident.
Every year several people try to dive from their balcony into the pool.
In 2018, eight such fatalities were reported from the Balearic Islands alone.
The number of such cases has been so high that Spanish authorities have started calling
it 'balconing'.
4.
Carnival Cruise
Grief befells a family during a vacation, when a man from Indiana plunges to his death,
from the most unexpected of balcony fails; on their cruise ship!
Cruise holidays are meant for enjoyment and relaxation but this family had something entirely
different etched out in their fate.
In 2019, Brian Rice had boarded the Carnival cruise ship with his wife.
The ship was returning to a Miami port after a six-night cruise around the Caribbean with
stops in Mexico, the Cayman Islands, and Jamaica.
The couple was close to Miami when Brian fell from the balcony on the ninth-floor deck.
He came tumbling down four levels to crash onto the fifth deck.
Eye witnesses described how distraught his wife was.
She was inconsolable as she saw Rice's unconscious body.
Rice had suffered from blunt force trauma according to the medical examiner's statement.
The incident was clearly not a suicide according to investigators but it is still not clear
how Rice fell.
The cruise ship authorities chose not to announce the death to the guests immediately since
it would create a sense of panic.
But most of them had figured it out already.
Many passengers even said that they heard a loud thud by the restaurant area of the
ship on the fifth deck.
A GoFundMe page was set up for the grieving family to get them through the extremely difficult
times.
We’re sure that the family needs all the love and support they are receiving and more.
3.
Drunk Russian
Alcohol can aggravate the darkest thoughts in our minds.
And for Alexei Roskov, it pushed him to take his own life.
But from the incidents that followed, it seems like the grim reaper was not in the mood to
take Alexei's soul.
The 22-year-old survived not one, but two suicide attempts, one after the other.
Talk about luck.
In November, 2009, Alexei had decided that there was nothing left for him in this life
anymore and it was just better to end it.
He had finished three whole bottles of vodka when he finally decided to make it his last
day on this planet.
His wife Yekaterina was also present in their fifth-floor apartment in Moscow, when he spontaneously
jumped from the balcony.
But as fate would have it, he survived the 50 feet (15m) with minor scratches.
Alexei wasn't happy with the second chance at life that he got.
Irritated, he went back up to his apartment.
As natural as it would seem, his terrified wife screamed at him for what he had just
done.
The man decided it was wise to just walk out of the room, but here is what makes the whole
episode stranger than it already was; he chose to get out of the room through the window
again!
Yep!
He took that plunge all over again!
She immediately called the paramedics.
But Alexei didn't need any special medical attention.
He had survived the second fall too, again with just a few cuts and bruises.
Later, while talking to reporters, Alexei revealed that he jumped the second time because
his wife was screaming at him.
After he came to his senses, he realized what had happened and the immense stroke of luck
that he had on that really strange day.
2.
Malibu
At the beginning of the year, a dozen of partygoers faced one of the worst nightmares of their
lives.
The shocking accident left more than 9 people injured and 4 of them had to be taken to the
hospital straight away.
A sea-facing home in Malibu, California, with the bright sun and ocean air seems like the
perfect place for a summer birthday.
The guests were enjoying themselves and having fun on the balcony when the structure literally
collapsed!
It wasn't just a railing which broke or a corner that failed, the ENTIRE balcony collapsed!
On the other side of the beach house, was the Pacific Coast Highway, which is actually
a main artery road to LA, so the commotion caused a huge traffic pile up.
Things probably wouldn't have turned out this bad if there was sand beneath the house to
buffer the fall.
Unfortunately, the balcony crashed onto giant jagged rocks on the shoreline which were almost
10 to 15 feet (3- 4.5m) below.
The owner of the rental home was questioned regarding the accident.
She told the news that she had clearly told the renters not to host any parties.
The maximum number of guests that she allowed on the property was not to exceed 5 to 6 members,
but on that dreadful day, there were almost 30 people present.
The deck was already in shambles when the guests arrived.
The weak structure and the weight of having so many people on one spot led to the awful
incident.
The accident might have left the guests with some long lasting trauma, but things could
have been much worse!
1.
Alex Terrazas
When you want to calm your senses and energize your body, nothing beats a good stretch during
a yoga session.
College student Alex Terrazas knew this but one day she took her morning yoga routine
a little too far.
In 2019, in San Pedros Mexico, 23-year-old Alex Terrazas wanted to try out some advanced
yoga poses.
She decided to do something “extreme”.
She was practicing a pose where she had to hang upside down with her knees bent.
Fate wouldn't have been so unfortunate had she chosen a safer location to practice.
The young woman thought the balcony would make for the perfect spot… which it was..
for maybe 2 seconds.
As she hung upside down, with her head over the railing towards the ground below, she
lost her balance and fell!
She plunged face first from the 6th floor, 80 feet (24.3m) to the ground.
You would think falling from this height would kill someone!
But somehow, Alex survived!
She ended up with 110 broken bones but hey!
It’s still a miracle that she was even alive.
Alex was rushed to the hospital where she had to undergo 11 hours of surgery.
She had numerous other medical procedures in the months following to regain her lost
mobility.
2 months after the fall, she was reported to have been recovering well thanks to a good
dose of daily physical therapy sessions.
Talk about one bad move that can change your life forever..
Thanks for watching!
Do you have any crazy experiences with balconies?
Let us know in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe if you haven’t already!
See you next time!