Bizarre Ways to Die

it gets so bad and do it again. And we've noticed that when Chuck does this, we have a good take. So prepare for an excellent podcast because he just did it twice. So we're good, right, Chuck. I think we're set. Yeah, so, and and I feel a little bit better after um, you told me that this article we're about to talk to you talk about Tim Bazzarre Ways to Die, was blowing up on the home page because it means that there's a lot more people, uh than me who are

who have a morbid curiosity slash fascination with death. There are Buddy this one and the are their dead bodies on Mount Divers apparently did phenomenally well on the homepage. They exploded on the home and uh, you know, people want to to know about these wacky, bizarre death so we're going to share some of them. Yeah, we agree. We we're gonna do all ten right now, of course not okay. I don't know if you picked h the guy from Canada the first one, but if you didn't,

have a question for you. So, this guy from Canada in two thousand and eight got stuck in a sewer grade after he win after his wallet, and he was still alive right when they pulled him out by tow truck, but then he died. So my question is, did was he crushed to death and they pulled him out? Did the tow truck kill him? Like? What killed this guy? Well, that's a great question and I don't have the answer. Actually, my editor, Amanda asked me the same question. She said,

how do you actually die? And I couldn't find it. I looked other than the fact that he was stuck in a sewer, wedged several feet down, you know, upside down for a period of hours, which can't be good for you. But he was still alive when they pulled him up. By tow truck. He died on the way to the hospital or at the hospital something. I think he was alive when he came out of the sewer grade he was, so he was pronounced dead at the hospital. And this isn't the first person to die from being

stuck in a sewer dry, which really sad. Yeah, and we should say we're not We're not making light of any of these very sad tragedies that have happened, but so abnormal sometimes that they you know, well, it's in the title bizarre. Bizarre. Yeah, yeah, he'd he'd uh went down to get something, retrieve something, to drain his wallet and after a robbery and got stuck upside down for a period of hours and was, like you said, pulled out by a tow truck. Yeah, and it was too late.

It's odd. It is. Well, uh, that's one. I don't know if you're playing on talking about that guy or not, but I had that question. I was not actually, Okay, well give me give me one of yours, Josh, I'm gonna talk about the woman who died by her sheep's hand or I guess um. And this again another sad tragedy.

A woman in England. Uh. You know, she was a farmer's wife and she was going out to feed the sheep and she had a little a TV that I guess she wrote out to where the sheep were, and sheep were really hungry, and apparently they came at her with a lot of force and knocked her off of a cliff and she was parked along the edge of a quarry, right, yeah, And so they knocked her off, and they say that the sad tragedy is that she may have lived, um, if not for her a TV

falling on top of her. So that was knocked off as well. I came down on her hungry sheep, very hungry sheep. Did you get an idea of how many there there were? Uh, it just said a flock a flock, So well, it's like two or more, right, sure, Yeah, so I'm thinking probably a little more than two to to TV and a woman. Yeah, that is kind of, um bizarre. Again, I think that definitely falls in the category. Let me ask you, how did you choose these? That's

a good question. I thought you might ask that. Well. I mean, you just start looking around on the internet for strange deaths and bizarre deaths and pretty soon you've got a big master list of stories, and did you have to pare down? Oh yeah, sure, Okay, well give me one that you that didn't take the list. Yeah, I can't think of one right now. You put me on the spot. I love putting you on the spot. I can't think of one, all right, Well maybe by

the end of the podcast. Okay, well, let me give you one of my chuck which, by the way, this is just an excellent article. It's it's as good as numbers journalism gets, right. Yeah. Um, so I guarantee this is one of yours too, but I'm going to just go ahead and steal it. Um in nineteen nineteen. Yeah,

I love this one. It's just so nuts. Um. In nineteen nineteen in North Boston, there was a neighborhood that was largely populated by Italian immigrant it and one of the big features of this neighborhood was, I guess a huge holding tank. I assume a molasses processing plan or something huge, huge holding tank that that held um two point five million gallons of molasses. Apparently that's a couple of gallons too many, because the tank ruptured and from

what I gather, exploded with molasses. There was shrapnel that was flying everywhere. So some people died that way, sure, But I think the the the most horrific aspect of the deaths that came out that that day was that one people were killed by a twenty five ft high wall of molasses. And you know, the term slow as molasses that did not apply in this case, because their reports where that it was going about thirty five miles

an hour. The problem is that you have that much molasses and it's traveling that fast and you get stuck in it, You're going to drown in molasses. And I can't imagine it takes more than one breath of molasses to drown you. Yeah, I would say something, but yeah,

that's a pretty horrible way to go. Yeah. And the weird thing is is that it's apparently to this day, I understand they the residents of this neighborhood almost a hundred years later, at least well ninety years later, still say that on a hot day they can smell the molasses that took years to clean up this mess, right, And don't you know, of course that's one of those things that might be lower at this point, but it

makes for a good story. It definitely does. But yet one people died drowning in molasses, right, Yeah, bizarre, very bizarre. Onto the Call Your Brothers. These two, this is my other favorite one. These guys were pretty famous too. If you're from New York City, UM, you've probably heard of the Call Your Brothers at some point. Um Langley and

Homer Callier. They moved to New York to Harlem in nineteen o nine when they're in their twenties, and they were from an upper crust family, uh, kind of well to do, and the brothers lived together in Harlem and uh became hermits basically over the years. Yeah, and not just hermits, but compulsive hoarders, which you know, we should do a podcast on this one, which should That's very interesting,

you know. Um, I read an analysis of compulsive hoarding using the Wonder Machine, and they found that when asked to decide like if they if they should throw away one piece of junk mail or another, the region of the brain that's associated with processing very unpleasant experiences lights up like a Christmas tree. Really interesting and I'm yeah, from what I gather, Homer and Langley, we're definitely compulsive hoarders. Legendary, right, legendary.

Apparently they accumulated a hundred and eighty tons of you know, they called it junk in their apartment. I know, and think about that every time you can think of that's sixty more tons than what they've got every year on Mount Everest, which is one of the most littered places on Earth, and there is an apartment. These guys had it an apartment. Yeah, so I think to call them

compulsive hoarders is right on the money. Uh so. I mean we're talking busta chandeliers, baby care, just smashed pianos, clocks, furniture, newspapers just stacked to the ceiling. Homer went blind in the nineteen thirties and was bedridden because of rheumatism. By and his younger brother helped care for him night and day and saved all these newspapers and hopes that one day his brother would regain his sight, which I found

beyond sweet. Yeah, it's pretty sweet and strange. Um. The other odd thing is is they had their home booby trapped because they were What they did was, you know, they moved to Harlem, and then Harlem over the years started becoming a little bit more of a rough neighborhood, and they never moved. They just like shut themselves in and and you know, closed all the doors. Yeah that's true. Yeah. Um, so they set these booby traps and uh, it turned

out to be Langley's undoing. He tripped on one of these booby traps and was buried beneath an avalanche of junk, and Homer was starved to death because his brother wasn't around the thick care of him. Did you get the impression that Langley died instantly, like a broken neck or something like that, or did he possibly starved to death

as well? You know, that's a good question. I didn't get that because I didn't say it, just said that he was buried underneath a pile of junk, So he could very well just been trapped and had to starve to death as well. I mean, can you imagine Homer realizing that his brothers just died under a pile of junk and blind and bedridden. You imagine you would have been like, oh right, I'm toasted. Yeah, exactly. So bizarre, Yeah,

very bizarre. Yeah. And apparently I read this, I think it was a New Yorker article about this, and the author said that he grew up in the nineteen sixties and seventies in New York and his parents that was something they would say, They say, you know, clean up your room and you're gonna end up like this. Call your brothers sort of poor guys. But they were grossly misunderstood too. Probably. Yeah, alright, well, I guess it's my turn. Hunt.

I call this one death by irony because that's what it feels like to me every time I hear this one. Pagan twistle. Yeah. Yeah, So she was a failed actress, somewhat successful back in New York, but she got um. She was drawn to Hollywood Land, as the sign originally said, right um and and in ninety two, after a string of rejections she acting role rejections, Thank you romantic, Yeah,

you're absolutely right, wow wow um she so yeah. She kept turned down for part after part after part um, and she decided she was going to take her own life, which I called dedication to your craft. Right. So she climbs up to the H but first leaves a suicide note at the bottom of it. Climbs up to the top of the H which is like what sixty ft or something like that. I think it's about that. I smell some listener mail in my future. Um. But she climbed it to the top, jumped off sixty ft or

whatever it is. It killed her and they found her two days later, and her her suicide note was very apologetic and short and sweet, and she just couldn't take it anymore, right. And what what kills me is that the day after she died she killed herself, a letter arrived at her house offering her apart for the role of a suicidal woman. Yep, yeah, that one. That's bizarre and agonizing, agonizing. You know, I used to the Hollywood sign was outside my window in my apartment in l A. Yeah,

that's very cool, very cool view. And didn't for Sutherland to live in your neighborhood too. Uh, ry mouth be there. I'm gonna go ahead and jump straight to number one. Death by unexplained phenomenon is what I'm calling it, even though I know it's really space aliens. Uh. In the Ural Mountains of Russia. This is a group of college students, Russian college students went hiking from Eural Polytechnic Institute. And this is in the wintertime and so it was cold.

Nine never made out of the woods, and what the investigators found was frightening. It really was horrific. I think is a good word. Hurt. I don't even know if this one's bizarre. It's horrific. Yeah, just unexplained and horrific. Um. First of all, they found their tent abandoned. It was ripped open from the inside and half buried in snow, and their shoes and like their coats and their belongings were still inside the tent. So that's where we're starting

with the investigating. There's there's snow everywhere, it's like winter right sure, February and Russia. The first two bodies were found at the edge of the forest, barefoot and dressed in their underwear. The next three bodies were found near near there in similar state, and then two months later, the last bodies were found buried in the snow about two hundred and fifty feet away from them. So they're all dead. Um. Four of the students had massive internal injuries,

broken ribs, crushed skulls. One of them was missing her tongue, which is just freaky and uh, but they had no external wounds and no signs of struggle. No, so they had like crushed skulls, but no external wounds. That's insane, yes, But the weird thing is what they found on their clothing, right, Well, the final victims were wearing the clothing of the other victims, right, But it wasn't the clothing irradiated. Yeah, they did test on the clothing and found that it had high levels

of radiation. The case records were sealed until nineteen and when the case came back open, they learned that there were bright orange spheres spotted in the sky that night by other hikers. So you think, you think aliens? Oh and these people their faces were a sunburned too. Well, I mean, I don't know if it was aliens necessarily, but I think it was probably what I think it was some kind of army experimentation radiation, maybe bombs, something

like that. That's very odd, but I mean it's still to this day, they the Russian government won't own up to anything happening out of the ordinary in the area nine of your your youth killed it your hand accidentally or otherwise. It makes for bad pr And you guys can't see this, but that one, it was clearly Chuck's favorite because normally, like in an article, he will highlight a little passenger to as a reminder. He has that entire thing highlighting. You love that one, don't you do?

It's really strange. Can I do one more? We have a hit? Ten? Yea have we? Okay? So I call this one disco boy, the sixteen year old kid in England. Um And if he was sixteen, he probably only started using deodor it maybe a couple of years before. But he took a real shine to this stuff, a Saul deodorant right. Um. And apparently this kid would just slather it on all over his body a couple of times a day. And you say in the article it was so so thick sometimes that his family downstairs could taste

it right in the air. Um. And eventually, at age sixteen, he dropped out of a heart attack, right. And the reason why they round he he had heart failure due to um UH levels ten times the lethal dosage of butane and propane liquid liquid natural gases that are used as accelerants and aerosols or were. And this kid built it up time over over probably two years. Man, I mean think about that, and it just built up in his system and finally just stopped his heart, which is

just crazy to me. And apparently he used it in a very confined space like his bathroom. Um, so not only was he absorbing it through his skin, yeah he was. He was inhaling it as well. So we're not saying it's dangerous to use any kind of aerosol. Well, good luck finding an aerosol deodorant these days. I don't legal illegal, at least ones with with propane and butane in them. Sure, so we'll go to the store and look, you want

to after this? Yeah, well I bring that up because I know somebody who occasionally will use fabreeze in her hair to kind of like freshen up. And now now I'm kind of like, what kind of kild do not? I find that strange? As do I? As do I? So yeah, okay, well it's ten bizarre deaths x number

of bizarre deaths. There's still more that you can read about. Yeah, and I strongly recommend anyone go on to the site read this article, a fine one written by one Charles W. Bryant, and all you have to do is type in ten bizarre ways to die in the handy search bart how stuff Works dot Com and chuck while we are here, while we have everyone's attention because we know you guys don't go anywhere. You know, listener mails coming eventually, you want to hear your names. So first, exactly, Um, first,

let's talk about our spoken word album. That's right, Josh and I and Jerry got together, excuse me, Josh and me and Jerry got together and we recorded our first ever full length is like an hour plus super Stuffed Guide to the Economy and we break it down economics on a global level and tell you what it means to the individual and get into some pretty complex stuff

in it in the way that we like it. Yeah, I feel like we broke it down into very um manageable knowledge, right, Yeah, well that's the stuff you should know. Super Stuff Guide to the Economy, which we love that name. It's up on iTunes for what right now nine If you guys want to go get it, that's cool with us. You can actually find it on iTunes by typing in super and stuffed. We're super stuffed two words, I mean

in the little search bar on iTunes. And I think it's the first thing that comes up, maybe the only thing. No it's not, but it is definitely the first thing that comes up. And you can find it there, like I said, on iTunes, And I guess while we're at it, we should go ahead and plug the blog to right our weblog. Well, we have a blog now, folks called stuff you Should Know oddly enough, and you can access it through the homepage how stuff works dot com over

on the right side. Chuck and I each post once a day, so it's updated twice. Sometimes it's news items that we find interesting. Sometimes it's something that a fans and end that maybe isn't full enough for a podcast. I do a little recap on Friday, so where we can, you know, talk to the fans about what we podcasted about that week. And it's fun stuff. It is fun. Actually I've kind of taken to taken a shine to it. Yeah,

I can see that. Yeah, so, Chuck, I guess it's listener in mail time, right, Josh, this is a really good one. I'm just gonna call this exceptional fan mail. We get these from time to time. Remember when you brought up proso pagnosia. Yeah, facial blindness, facial blindnes. Yeah, you're gonna do a real quick recap of what that is. Basically, there's a there's a malfunction of the brain region that

processes visual facial information. And so people with probe how do I We'll say it one more time, chuck, Uh, proso pagnosia. Yeah, well, facial blindness. Um, I have a total inability to make a memory of someone's face. So seeing somebody you've known for years, uh, for the thousandth time is like seeing them for the first time. You don't recognize them. So we had someone right in who has this, which is very cool. So we like these firsthand accounts. So Anna wrote in and said that we

could read this to our fans. So I thought it's kind of cool. She said that she cannot visualize the faces of her coworkers or anybody for that matter, but she does I do see faces when I look at them. This means that we can memorize features such as hair and skin color, haircut, and facial structure to some extent. Feature based recognition like this is useless for recognizing people out of context, but it's usually enough to differentiate differentiate

between people in context when you expect to see them. So, in other words, she's comes up with a system of how to recognize people at work, Let's say, or you know, somewhere else she might go to the club. Um. Secondly, we recognize voices just as well as the next person. I know a lot of people wrote in an assets much excellent point. Yeah, so that safe uh that safe word thing when talking to relatives is absolutely not necessary. You were talking about and having a safe word, that's fine.

Uh So in the workplace, if a colleague greets me, I know who they are from their voice. Thirdly, people's body language is very individual, and although I can't recognize somebody's face, I can recognize how they walk and move, which is very individual. And that made sense to me because it's just the face exactly, only the face. Um, yes, that's what she says. It's it's facial recognition is specialized

for faces only in the brain. And fourth she says that people tend to dress similarly from day to day, and that's also a good guideline. So you develop coping strategies. Most of the time you get by well enough. Although I work at a large company, I very rarely have problems at work and with people I meet regularly, and I don't think my colleagues notice. So that's correct. Yeah, you come up with a system it's it's kind of interesting, kind of like the guy Memento would write down important

things or tattooed the really important thing, right somebody? Yeah, Well, thanks Anna, you sound like a sharp tech. Appreciate you sharing all that with us, And if you want to share some tips for overcoming facial blindness or anything else, you can send us an email to Stuff Podcasts at how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you