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What's worse than dying?  Going in such a manner that you are remembered for how you went and having people shake their heads.  Some examples below, more in future Bytes.

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Gerard Hommel ( - 1993)

Hommel was a French mountaineer who had scaled Mount Everest six times.

He died after falling off a stepladder while changing a kitchen light bulb.

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Cynthia Jean Gillig-Stone (1954-2011)

Cynthia was better known as Echo Valley, an American porn actress and adult model. In 2008, she played the bit character "Tits Hemingway" in the mainstream comedy Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.

On the night of May 21, 2011, less than a week away from her 57th birthday, Echo was rear-ended by a pickup truck. Because she was not wearing a seatbelt, the collision caused her to be ejected from her car and she died at the scene. According to a friend, she did not wear seatbelts while driving because of her large breasts.

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Michael Anderson Sloan (1969 – 1989)

In 1980 21-year-old South Carolina man, Michael Anderson Sloan, was charged with the murder of Mary Elizabeth Royem, 24. Miss Royem’s body was found in her West Columbia apartment. She had been sexually assaulted and beaten to death with an electric iron. Sloan, who was on work release from prison (for robbing a woman at knifepoint in 1977) was charged with the assault and murder. Found guilty, he was sentenced to die in South Carolina’s electric chair. 

Sloan’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1983, after a retrial cleared him of the sexual assault.

In 1989, Sloan was sitting naked on a metal toilet in his cell and was trying to repair earphones to a television set. When he bit into the electrical cord he was electrocuted. (Does this seem like a Final Destination moment to anyone else as well?)

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Hans Steininger ( - 1567)

Steininger was famous for having the world’s longest beard, nearly 1.4m (4.5 feet) long)=.

In 1567 there was a fire in town and, in his haste, Hans forgot to roll up his beard. 

He accidentally stepped on his beard, lost balance, stumbled, broke his neck and died.

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Jimi Heselden (1948 -2010)

James"Jimi" Heselden was a British entrepreneur and former coal miner, Heselden made his fortune manufacturing the Hesco bastion barrier system, those wire baskets with rocks in them that you see used as retaining walls alongside roads to support cliffs.

In 2010, he bought Segway Inc, maker of the Segway self balancing scooters.

That same year he lost control of the Segway he was riding (driving?), went over a cliff and died from his injuries.

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David Grundman (1955-1982)

David Grundman was out in the Arizona desert with his friend shooting cacti with shotguns. After destroying smaller ones, they went after a much larger saguaro cactus. The close range shotgun blast knocked off a 4-foot limb, which fell and crushed Grundman to death. 

Vandalizing a cactus (known as cactus plugging) is actually illegal, but this time the cactus got its revenge.

This will give an idea of the size and height of such cacti.