Date: 05-14-2007
Location: Meat Packing District, Albuquerque, New Mexico
The overfed slab of a man you're lucky you can't see is named Billy DeMayo (aka South Philly Billy), he works for a butchery and is tasked putting some slices of meat in an industrial-sized freezer. As he puts the meat slices away, he hears the freezer door slam shut. He quickly rushes over to the door and tries to open it. Some say that meat lockers like these can be slammed shut to prank any butcher like South Philly Billy. But when he was locked inside, it was no prank. Billy kept pounding on the door and yelling, but no one heard him.
Billy's body temperature starts out at a healthy 98.6 degrees, but once the door slammed shut, it starts decreasing. Time and temperature were now his enemies. After 10 minutes, the palms on Billy's hands are down to 60 degrees. Anyone who's ever been out too long in the cold without gloves knows one thing: it hurts like hell. Capillaries in the surfaces of the hands constrict, causing blood to retreat deeper into the torso to keep vital organs functioning. This response to severe cold is one of our built-in defense mechanisms. The human body will sacrifice its own toes, fingers, hands, and feet to frostbite in order to ensure survival.
Seventeen minutes in the freezer, and Billy's core temperature has dropped to 95 degrees. This triggers a major reaction. Deep inside his brain, the hypothalamus has detected the temperature drop. And orders the constriction of the entire web of surface capillaries. His body warming blood is now in full retreat. Hypothermia, which means a lack of heat, sets in when the body's core temperature dips below 95 degrees. It continues to fall about one degree every half hour.
Billy's core temperature has now fallen below 90 degrees, and his eyesight has begun to fail him. Such simple things as the numbers on his watch become gibberish. Billy has now crossed the border into a medical condition called profound hypothermia.
His blood thickens and slows, reducing his ability to burn oxygen. His nerve tissue is getting too cold to transmit electrical impulses. This causes his heart to beat erratically. Right before Billy's heart stops forever, a pang of consciousness breaks through the ice.
Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to smuggle sides of beef out the backdoor.
And a really bad idea to have gotten the boss's seventeen-year-old granddaughter pregnant.
There's an old Italian proverb, which says, 'Revenge is a dish best served cold.' For South Philly Billy, it was served...sub zero.
Way to Die #293: Freeze Died
When people freeze to death, they are often mistaken as victims of sexual assault. The reason: Right before dying, constricting blood vessels dilate. Producing a sensation of extreme heat, prompting them to strip down. It's a phenomenon called paradoxical undressing.
Date: 08-23-2010
Location: Marina, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
Richard Paxon and his two pals had been exploring the reefs by Cabo San Lucas for the last three days. They decided to squeeze in one last dive before heading home. After an hour at 45 feet, the divers made their way back to the surface, making sure to come up slowly enough to safely release nitrogen gas stored up in their bloodstreams. After the dive, the three men opted not to go to the decompression chamber, believing they came up safely enough. Richard was eager to get home. He was even more excited to test out his new plane, a gift he gave to himself to celebrate getting his certification to fly a twin engine aircraft. Without any thought, the three men get on the plane. Unfortunately, Richard forgot one of the cardinal rules of diving: Never dive and fly the same day.
As soon as the unpressurized plane climbed out and reached its cruising altitude of 12,000 feet, Richard and his friends began to feel the first symptoms of decompression sickness, commonly known as The Bends.
Decompression sickness (DCS) occurs when rapid pressure drops cause dissolved gases in the blood and tissues to form bubbles. Nitrogen bubbles formed during rapid ascent damages the brain by obstructing blood vessels, triggering inflammation, and can cause fatal strokes or other neurological issues.
With Richard at the controls of the plane, but losing control of his mind and body, it was the all-time worst case scenario. The three men, incapacitated by the bends, could only watch in horror as their plane augured straight into a mountainside.
Way to die #713: Dive Bombed
1870, New York City. During the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, workers came down with a mysterious malady known as Caissons Disease. The workers would come back to the surface and double over in severe pain. Leaving many crippled and some dead. They were suffering from a newly diagnosed illness: the bends.
Date: 09-22-2007
Location: Du Bois Residence, Jacmel, Haiti
The island country of Haiti knows a thing or two about death. With a history rich in occult ritual and voodoo practices, death is deeply embedded in Haitian culture. They've even turned it into a commodity. One of Haiti's biggest exports are human cadavers for research purposes. But it's on the voodoo scene where Haiti truly garners major death kudos.
Parker: "This land belongs to me."
James: "The only thing you own is 12 warrants and a gambling addiction!"
These two brothers are fighting over a land dispute. With some name calling, a push, and a shove, the brother on the ground, Parker, is infuriated and plans revenge on his brother, James.
He seeks out a witch doctor and asks him to curse a brother turned enemy.
While out for a walk, James is maced with a powder from the witch doctor. The white powder seemed harmless enough, so James kept on his way, weirded out. The powder contained a slow-acting poison called tetrodotoxin or TTX. Extracted from pufferfish, TTX binds to voltage-gated sodium channels in nerve and muscle cells, preventing the flow of sodium ions and disrupting nerve signals. If you have severe enough poisoning, you can get dangerously low blood pressure, abnormal heart rhythms, and paralysis that will start in the lower parts of your body and ascend towards the upper parts.
One day later, James is believed to be dead as he shows no signs of breathing or consciousness.
At his funeral, many family members are in grief over James's death. When they buried him, he was paralyzed in a zombie-like state –still conscious, yet unable to move or scream. He could only watch as he was buried alive.
The night of his burial, two grave robbers dig out his coffin, but when they see his corpse, they flee in shock. Turns out, James came to and tried to claw his way out of his own casket. He died to suffocation, fighting for his life to escape, until his fingers were worn down to the bone.
Way to Die #91: De-coffinated
Date: 08-21-2007
Location: Dalph's Office, Riverside, CA
Dalph Smith was a German marine biology teacher who had a serious fetish...for fish. As a boy, he wanted to be as close to fish as possible. To swim with them and to swim like them.
So at his old age, this amateur ichthyologist took an old waterbed, cut it up, glued it with Latex, and turned it into something he called the Merman. Driving to the nearest lakeside, Dalph was excited to take the Merman on its maiden voyage. He put the suit on and headed down to the water. It was slow going, and Dalph started to overheat.
Millions of glands surround the human body. When body temperature rises, sweat begins to form in these glands. As sweat evaporates, heat is dissipated. The water bed was not at all breathable. The water molecules couldn't penetrate. Dalph was in a bad spot. He couldn't lose heat from sweating, nor could he lose heat from radiation. If the temperature outside had been cool, that could've saved him.
Unfortunately for Dalph, it was a scorcher, 97 degrees. He began feeling the first symptoms of hyperthermia with some pain and disorientation. To reach a point of hyperthermia would normally take around 3 hours. It was so hot, and Dalph exerted so much energy that he got there in less than 15 minutes. One wrong footing from the dazed Merman caused Dalph to fall onto the hot sand. Undeterred, Dalph began rolling and pushing himself towards the water.
With the lake's edge tantalizingly close, Dalph's temperature red-lines at 109 degrees. Unable to cool himself off, he dies right next to his water sanctuary.
Right before he died, Dalph finally got his wish. He knew exactly what it felt to be a fish... out of water.
Way To Die #606: Wet Dream
When will you die?
50 years? 50 days? 50 seconds? There's no countdown. No warning.
Whether it's bad luck, bad choices, or just bad timing—death finds a way.
So while you're alive... don't just exist.
Swim. Fly. Enjoy the cold. Practice voodoo. Live like you're dying.
Because you are.
Tick tock.