Death by Misadventure: 210 Dumb Ways to Die by Dale Dreher Page A

million
negligence suit against New York City. The City appealed and nine
years after Garcia's death, the New York State Supreme Court threw
out the entire award. The five judges ruled unanimously that
Garcia's "reckless and culpable conduct" was the only legal cause
of her death. New York Times, October
21, 1994
    6. Burglar Gai Pan . Octavio Cerda killed himself
trying to break into a Chinese Restaurant in Lynwood, California.
The 34 year old and a friend gained entry through the
restaurant's roof vent. Cerda died after falling from the roof onto
the hard kitchen floor. The friend fled and alerted Cerda's
family. New York Times, October 25,
1994
    7. Bible Hard to
Swallow. Franco Brun, 22, an inmate at
the Metro Toronto East Detention Centre died trying to swallow a
bible (4 x 2.5 x .5 inches). The Coroner concluded that the former
race track employee was trying to "purge himself of the Devil by
consuming religion." Brun was serving a 15-day sentence for
possession of a stolen credit card and damaging a police
car. Toronto Globe and Mail, September
3, 1987
    8. Driver Strikes
Lightning . It
is alleged that Kent Wilson, 45, was electrocuted trying to
sabotage a 12,000 volt transformer in Mountain View, California.
Wilson, a delivery truck driver, was one of 2,000 striking
employees of the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner newspapers.
Wilson was apparently trying to disrupt electricity to one of the
papers' suburban distribution centres. Globe and Mail, November 7, 1994
    9. Prison Trash . Florida police had to use
fingerprints to identify the remains of escaped convict Anastasio
Figueroa, 41, found at a landfill site. Figueroa was serving a life
sentence for attempted kidnapping when he escaped the Hendry
Correctional Institute in the back of a garbage truck. Figueroa,
however, did not manage to allude the truck's garbage
compactor. New York Times, February
16, 1994
    10. Mechanics of Sabotage. It
appears that shop steward Kim Man Tseung was a casualty in the
workplace feud between mechanics and management at the New York
Transit Authority. Tseung's head and chest were crushed under a
12-ton bus. An air bag in the vehicle's suspension system had been
slashed, as had the bags on 2 other nearby buses. A folding knife
was found under the bus with Tsueng. The Transit Authority alleged
several other incidents of sabotage, while the union claimed that
the Transit Authority was pushing employees too hard, creating
unsafe working conditions. New York
Times, November 4, 1994
    11. Operation Snake Dance. George Scribner, 38, of White Plains, New York, had been
arrested 3 times for trying to steal the copper wire that powers
the Metro North commuter rail line. A week after his last
arrest, Scribner was found lifeless beside his hacksaw. Scribner's
arrests were part of a successful police crackdown on the theft of
the wire, which is sold for $1 a pound. Operation Snake Dance
reduced the rail line’s losses from this type of theft from $1.3
million in 1990 to $120 thousand in 1992. New York Times, March 5, 1993
    12. Chew Your Evidence Slowly. A
Buffalo man died shortly after being arrested for robbing a woman
in a supermarket parking lot. The suspect choked on a $50 bill he
was trying to hide from the police. New York Times, April 28, 1995
    13. Cold War
Victim. Kevin Mulcahy, a former CIA
employee died from exposure on the porch of a rural Virginia motel.
Mulcahy, 40, was waiting his turn to testify against another
former spy, Edwin Wilson, accused of selling arms to Libya.
Mulcahy, who suffered from emphysema and pneumonia, was reported to
have been drinking heavily at the time of his death. Wilson was
later convicted on 7 of the 8 charges against
him. Miami Herald, October 27 and
November 19, 1982
    14. Way to go
Ohio. High school buddies, Paul
"Little Keebler" Smith and John Bertram, were surprised by an Akron
car dealer while they were stealing the hubcaps from one of the
dealer's corvettes. Bertram was caught, while Smith chose