IRONIC DEATHS

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Irony:

a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often wryly amusing as a result.

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c 100 BC, Agamemmon

Agamemmon, king of Mycenae and the leader of the Greek army in the Trojan War, is hailed as a hero in Greece when he returns from the Trojan War. Shortly afterwards, when relaxing in his bathtub, his wife Clytemnestra, kills him with an axe.

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1774, Dr William Hewson

William Hewson (1739 – 1774) was a British surgeon, anatomist and physiologist who has been referred to as the "father of haematology". He died as a result of sepsis contracted while dissecting a decomposing cadaver.

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1794, James Bruce

James Bruce of Kinnaird (14 1730 – 1794) was a Scottish traveller and travel writer who confirmed the source of the Blue Nile. He spent more than a dozen years in North Africa and Ethiopia and in 1770 became the second European to trace the origins of the Blue Nile from Egypt and Sudan. He died of injuries sustained when he fell down the stairs at his house.

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1857, Elisha Mitchell

Elisha Mitchell (1793 – 1857) was an American educator, geologist and Presbyterian minister. His geological studies led to the identification of North Carolina's Mount Mitchell as the highest peak in the United States east of the Mississippi River. Mitchell fell to his death in Mitchell Falls after losing his footing, he having himself named the Falls 22 years earlier.

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1939, Lady Mary Heath

Lady Mary Heath (1896 – 1939) was an Irish aviator and sportswoman who was one of the best-known women in the world for a five-year period from the mid-1920s. She was the first woman to fly solo from South Africa to England. She died from injuries sustained after falling down the stairs on a London bus.

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1950, Charles Drew

Charles Drew (1904 – 1950) was an American surgeon and medical researcher.who researched in the field of blood transfusions, developing improved techniques for blood storage, and applied his expert knowledge to developing large-scale blood banks early in World War II. This allowed medics to save thousands of Allied forces' lives during the war. As the most prominent African American in the field, Drew protested against the practice of racial segregation in the donation of blood, as it lacked scientific foundation, and resigned his position with the American Red Cross, which maintained the policy until 1950. Drew bled to death as a result of injuries sustained in a car accident.

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1965, Linda Darnell

Linda Darnell (1923 – 1965) was an American actress eho progressed from modelling as a child to acting in theatre and film. She made her first film in 1939, and appeared in both lead and supporting roles in big-budget films for 20th Century Fox throughout the 1940s. Her biggest commercial success was the controversial Forever Amber (1947) and she won critical acclaim for her work in Summer Storm (1944), Hangover Square (1945), Fallen Angel (1945), Unfaithfully Yours (1948), A Letter to Three Wives (1949), and No Way Out (1950). Darnell had a lifelong fear of dying in a fire. While staying with friends, she died in a fire after falling asleep with a lit cigarette while watching some of her old films.

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1981, Michael Sloan

In 1980 21-year-old South Carolina man, Michael 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, was on work release from prison (for robbing a woman at knifepoint in 1977) , was convicted o her murder and sexual assault and 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. He died after electrocuting himself whilst sitting naked on a metal toilet and trying to repair earphones to a television set, when he bit into the electrical cord.

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1983, Dennis Wilson

Dennis Wilson (1944 - 1983) was an American musician who co-founded the Beach Boys. He was their drummer and the middle brother of bandmates Brian and Carl Wilson. Dennis was the only true surfer in the Beach Boys and was the only one who could actually swim. He drowned at after drinking all day and then diving in the afternoon to recover his ex-wife's belongings, previously thrown overboard at the marina from his yacht three years earlier amidst their divorce.

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1986: Los Angeles Lifeguards

City lifeguards who threw a party to celebrate a summer season with no drownings discovered a guest dead in the pool when the party was over. The body of Jerome Moody, 31, was found at the bottom of the deep end when four lifeguards on duty began clearing the pool at the end of the party. About half the 200 people at the party were lifeguards, and four of them were on duty during the party.

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1991, Gerard Hommel

Distinguished mountaineer Gerard Hommel, a veteran of six Everest expeditions, died after falling off a ladder: he slipped and cracked his head on a sink as he was attempting to change a light bulb in the kitchen of his home in Nantes, France, in 1991.

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2003, Timothy Treadwell

Timothy Treadwell (1957 – 2003) was an American bear enthusiast, environmentalist, documentary filmmaker, and founder of the bear-protection organization Grizzly People. He lived among coastal brown bears in Katmai National Park, Alaska, for 13 years. Treadwell and his girlfriend Amie Huguenard were killed and almost fully eaten by a 28-year-old male bear whose stomach was later found to contain human remains and clothing.

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2005, Richard ‘Doc’ Brown

Brown, a world expert on roller coaster safety and designer of more than 60 rides including the groundbreaking Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios, died from a head injury after falling over in his driveway.

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2010, Jim Heselden

Jim Heselden (1948 – 2010) was an English entrepreneur. A former coal miner, he became wealthy by manufacturing the Hesco bastion barrier system. In 2009, he bought Segway Inc, manufacturer of two-wheeled personal transporters. He died in 2010 from injuries sustained after he drove his Segway off a cliff.

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2012, Echo Valley

Cynthia Gillig-Stone, a porn star known professionally as “Echo Valley”, was driving near Leakey, Texas, when her car was rear-ended by a pickup truck. It was reported by a state trooper that she was not wearing a seatbelt, thus she was ejected from her car as a result of the rear-end crash and died at the scene. She did not wear seatbelts while driving because of her extremely large breast implants.

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More to come.