Here it is, a somewhat comprehensive list of hopeless and pathetic ways to die. Some may be funny. Some may be embarassing. Some may be unusual. But hopefully, they all will fit under one of the above categories. New ones will be added at the bottom of the list with appropriate credits. The response to this page has been overwhelming since I added it to Yahoo. Thanks to all who responded to this page and who will respond - some of those ideas are hilarious and one wonders how many times some of these have actually happened... If you include a link to this page, please notify me so I get an idea of the "span", as it were, of this page.

Oh yeah, one more thing for those less knowledgable Americans out there - no, I did not misspell "aeroplane" down there - here in Australia, it is spelt as "aeroplane" and not "airplane". Sorry if this sounds rather crabby but I'm sick of people "correcting" me on this.

Well, here goes...happy reading!

• dying of boredom over the OJ Simpson case.
• shooting yourself in the head accidentally
• suffocating in the bath because the water's too hot
• drowning in a bowl of porridge
• breaking your neck after tripping over a chair
• contracting blood poisoning after stubbing your toe
• suffocating after falling asleep with a newspaper over your face
• smashing your forehead open running into a brick wall
• mistaking your arm for a tree while using a chainsaw in your backyard and subsequently bleeding to death
• mistakenly driving into the crater of an active volcano
• swallowing four AA batteries and having your heart stop
• jumping out of an aeroplane but forgetting your parachute
• jumping out of an aeroplane with your parachute but colliding face first with a cliff, being knocked unconscious and thus not opening your parachute
• jumping out of an aeroplane without a parachute and luckily landing on a haystack (I watch lotsa cartoons, you know) but having this needle pierce your eye and kill you instantly
• misplacing your liver
• mistaking the headlights of a car at night for two motorcycles which could easily go round you
• having your face sucked in by the vacuum cleaner and being unable to breathe
• slipping in the shower, hitting your head on the wall and falling unconscious over the drain, thus subsequently drowning
• drinking so much soft drink that your bones dissolve and you die of a calcium overdose
• choking on chewing gum
• blowing bubble gum while standing on a cliff, having a bubble explode on your face and stepping back over the edge
• dying of any cause whatsover whilst on the toilet
• getting caught in the door of a bus and being dragged along (this is relevant only to Australian readers...)
• having a violent allergic reaction to your partner while having sex
• walking over a mine...and falling into it (Doh!)
• having an eagle holding a tortoise in its claws fly overheard and mistake your bald head for a rock, then dropping the tortoise on you and killing you (Dayo@dialsprint.com)
• while walking down the sidewalk, you turn your head to look at something interesting, walking straight into a street sign, breaking your nose and driving the bone fragments into your brain (jwilson@tiaa-cref.org)
• sneezing too hard and causing an embolism (jwilson@tiaa-cref.org)
• choking on the spoon when you're eating ice-cream (Delia - address unknown)
• opening the wrong door in an aeroplane (Delia - address unknown)
• forgetting to shut the window in a safari park (Delia - address unknown)
• diving into an empty swimming pool (Delia - address unknown)
• slipping on wet grass while kicking a soccer ball, falling on your head and breaking your neck. (mohammed@telos.ca)
• having a chihuahua bite you in the neck and bleeding to death (mohammed@telos.ca)
• drowning at your baptism (palmerj@student.ns.suu.edu)
• mistakenly running into a glass door (thinking there was nothing there), crashing through, and sending hundreds of pieces of glass into your body (ejharris@unity.ncsu.edu)
• trying to see how long you can hold your breath and subsequently suffocating yourself (ejharris@unity.ncsu.edu)
• breaking off the metal part of a pencil while chewing on it and ending up choking (CNTW37D@mail.prodigy.com)
• being run over by a ride-on lawnmower (CNTW37D@mail.prodigy.com)
• of course, how could we forget this one: urinating on an electric fence (mstevens@exit109.com)
• bungee jumping with a rope that is too long, thus getting your head crushed - or your neck broken... (Brian_J_Torres@ccmail.bms.com)
• getting your arm stuck in the shut doors of an elevator which goes up, smashing your head into the ceiling and breaking your neck (rscomb01@morehead-st.edu)

Copyright © 1995, 1997 by loki. This document may be freely transmitted in electronic form as long as it is unaltered and this copyright notice is retained. Additionally, I would appreciate it if I was notified of any use of this document.

If you would like to add to this list, please remember that they should be reasonably plausible causes of death - ie. it should be (even if remotely) possible for someone to die this way. If you have something that passes that test, then please e-mail me. Please note that all submissions are subject to my warped sense of humour, and may not be included at all.

Comments on this page are welcome. Flames will be ignored, don't bother doing it. If you don't like the humour, for flip's sake just press the Back button. It's not that complex.