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Death by chance: When people lost their lives in bizarre ways

Updated on: 16 September,2016 04:01 PM IST  | 
mid-day online correspondent |

A 28-year-old from Powai died after he banged his head against the feet of the Ganpati idol that he and his friends were immersing in Powai lake. Here's a look at other freak incidents of death

Death by chance: When people lost their lives in bizarre ways

Dead man alive


October 2015: 'Dead man' who came alive at hospital mortuary dies
A 50-year-old man who was mistakenly declared dead by doctors but was found to be alive when brought to mortuary of a Mumbai hospital, died a couple of days later. According to sources at the civic body-run Sion Hospital, after realising that the man, identified as Prakash, was alive, he was shifted to ICU, however he didn't survive for long.


The case unfolded when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduled to address an event in Mumbai and there was a heavy police security and patrolling on city roads. The police on patrolling duty near the hospital found Prakash "dead" and took to the hospital. Dr Suleman Merchant, dean of the hospital, had said at a press conference that "when the patient was brought in, he was on a stretcher and his face and ear were infested with maggots which are normally found in decomposed bodies. He was apparently picked up from a bus stop at Sion.


"During preliminary checking his pulse and heartbeat were found missing completely, additionally the policemen who brought the patient reaffirmed saying that they have brought a dead body, which could have led the doctors to believe that the patient was dead," Merchant had added. But a mortuary attendant found signs of life in him, and informed the doctors. Finding him alive, doctors shifted him to the hospital's intensive care unit, where he died.

Man mistakes rat poison for tonsil medicine, dies

June 2015: Man mistakes rat poison for tonsil medicine, dies
Dharavi resident Deepak Borse died a week after he consumed rat poison mistaking it for tonsil medicine. Borse, who worked as a security guard at a temple at Dadar, had been undergoing treatment for a tonsil problem and was taking medication for the same. While he was on duty on May 25, Borse consumed rat poison mistaking it for the medicine he had been taking. He was admitted to Sion Hospital. Senior Police Inspector Parshuram Kakad from Shivaji Park police station said, “When the hospital informed us, our officials went there to ask Borse why he had attempted suicide. Borse, however, said in his statement that he had mistaken the poison for medicine.”

Brazilian fisherman dies after fish gets stuck in throat

November 2012: Brazilian fisherman dies after fish gets stuck in throat
A Brazilian fisherman, who reportedly made a bizarre bet with his friends that he would be able to hold a slippery fish between his teeth for a minute, died after the fish swam down his throat and choked him to death. Police said the man was fishing with friends on a beach in Icapui, in Brazil’s northeastern state of Ceara, when he reeled in a small sole fish, the Telegraph reported. As he put the fish into his mouth to show it to his friends that he can hold it between his teeth, it escaped and swam down his throat, getting lodged in the man’s windpipe.

Despite suffocating, the angler managed to get to his car and drive to a hospital two miles away. But when he arrived there he collapsed and died before doctors could save him. Medics eventually removed the fish but it was already too late, according to Icapui’s police chief Carlos Alberto.

April 2014: 'Dead' woman wakes up in morgue, then freezes to death
Maria de Jesus Arroyo, 80, woke up in a body bag inside the mortuary freezer but she then actually died when she failed to get out. The woman, a grandmother, came to at the mortuary of White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles, California in the United States. She was found upside-down in the body bag, which was half unzipped, and she had several facial injuries. A pathologist ruled that she hadn't died of a heart attack, as was first thought, and instead died from asphyxiation and hypothermia after she was put in the morgue. Her injuries were consistent with a struggle to get out.

The family’s lawyer, Scott Schutzman, had said: “This case keeps me awake at night. She was put into that body bag while she was alive. The cold from the hospital morgue woke her up, and she was fighting her way out when she died. She must have got the wounds while she was fighting, while she was on her way out, and that’s why they found her upside down.”

Girl dies after drinking two bottles of vodka!

October 2012: Girl dies after drinking two bottles of vodka!
A 22-year-old female university student in Britain, whose life had become "isolated", died after drinking two bottles of vodka. Zara Malone was studying English and Classical Literature at Exeter University, the Daily Express reported. In the last few months of her life, she had become isolated and was drinking heavily.

Malone's housemate, Francesca Parker, said that on the night before she died, she had found her drunk. Parker found two bottles of vodka, one empty and one nearly empty, by her friend's body. A court heard that Malone had depression and was prescribed medication by a doctor. "She didn't go out and socialise. So I knew she was drinking at home on her own," Parker added. The coroner recorded a verdict of death by alcohol abuse, adding that Malone was a habitual heavy drinker.

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