Weird news - Woman dies after wrong blood transfusion

Blood transfusion is a very common medical procedure, and needed for a host of services. Whether during an operation, or after an accident, or for numerous other such cases, blood transfusion is critical. However, blood is of several different types, and the body will reject blood of a different type. Hence, when going in for a blood transfusion, it is highly critical that the right blood type be selected. In this, there are some variables, some blood types are more common than the others, and some blood types can be used by others while others cannot be used - so there are terms such as universal donor, and universal recipient. However, given how routine blood transfusions are, everybody involved in this business knows what is involved and there is very little chance of error. So when an error happens, it is strange, and also deadly, such as this case in India (link to article):

45-year-old Sukanti Nayak of Hadabandhasahi locality in old town area was admitted to the medicine ward of the district headquarters hospital here yesterday afternoon and doctors advised her one unit of blood, hospital sources said. Acting as per the doctor's advice, the patient's husband Birendra Nayak went to fetch a unit of 'O' group blood from the blood bank in the hospital premises, they said. However, the laboratory technician at the blood bank allegedly handed over a packet of 'A' group blood which was administered to the woman by a staff nurse, they said, adding that the patient died after a short while last night.

Weird news - Person dissolves in Yellowstone hot water spring

A horrific accident, that just goes to show how dangerous it can be to take security considerations and safety rules lightly. Yellowstone National Park is very attractive for visitors because of the beauty, and because of the hot springs and geysers; but underlying all this is the fact that the park sits on top of a huge volcanic chamber, and the conditions on top are because of the magma chamber underneath. As a result, there are many different types of gases (many of them dangerous), different levels of heat in the water along with many minerals that can make contact with the water dangerous. For the safety of visitors, there are regulations about where all visitors can go, and visitors are forbidden to go outside these regions. In addition, even though it may seem attractive to enjoy bathing in these hot springs, the conditions can be dangerous and hence it is prohibited. This horrific accident shows why these regulations should be followed (link to article).
This sister faced the horror of seeing her brother fall and die in a hot spring, and the high level of minerals (corrosive) caused a quick dissolution of the body to the extent that when rescuers tried to retrieve the body later, it could not found (link to article):

Like many of the 840,000 people who visited Yellowstone in June, Colin and Sable Scott, a brother and sister from Oregon, came to marvel at the basin’s thermal features. But their visit took a turn for the horrific, as The Washington Post reported, when the pair left the protective boardwalk and hiked 225 yards into the basin. “Then, somehow, Colin Scott slipped, and as his sister watched, the 23-year-old tumbled into one of the boiling springs. Despite her immediate call for help and the prolonged search efforts by park staff, her brother was never seen again,” The Post reported in June. One of the few pieces of evidence left behind was a pair of Scott’s flip-flops.

Weird news - Suspected thief stuck in chimney, dies after fire lit

It's always been a horror story. Imagine those scenes in movies where people try to enter a secure place or escape captivity by going through narrow pipes or metal tubes where there is a flame going to come through, or a fan moves at regular intervals that can cut people to pieces, and they manage to make it through everytime. Real life is more dangerous, and people are not successful every time they try to make it through such dangerous entrances. One of the perennial questions about the concept of Santa Claus is about coming in the house through a chimney, and whether Santa would get stuck inside the chimney or if the fire was lit, then it would get real dangerous. In a tragic case, a real life situation ended up where a suspected thief tried to enter the house through a chimney, got stuck, and died when the house owner lit a fire (without knowing that there was somebody stuck in the chimney). What a horrible way to die, although it might be the gases passing through the confined chimney rather than the fire or heat itself (link to article):

The man appeared to have climbed into the chimney during the night while the owner was away and then became stuck, according to the Fresno County Sheriff's Office. The owner of the home in Huron lit a fire in his fireplace on Saturday afternoon but then heard a man yelling inside the chimney as the house filled with smoke, the sheriff's office said in a statement. The homeowner tried to extinguish the flames but firefighters who dismantled the chimney during a rescue effort found the suspect dead inside, the sheriff's office said.

Weird news - Man declared dead, gets up before post-mortem

It is hard to visualize this entire concept. If a person has been found dead, then the law mandates that a post-mortem be done to establish the reason of death, and a post-mortem is a pretty tough process where the body is cut open, the various internal organs taken out and sent for analysis, and so on. How do you visualize the concept where a man is declared dead and then wakes up before the post-mortem can be carried out, and the Doctor who declared this man dead tries to cover up the tracks by removing the documentation, supported by the other doctors.
This case has happened before, but it is still weird when it happens. Except for some extra-ordinary cases where a person has supposed to be declared dead and then wakes up later, it is normally pretty easy for a doctor to determine if a person is dead (pulse, heart, brain activity), and unless revival has happened, the person stays dead. Thus, it is weird if the person wakes up after being declared dead (link to article):

In what could have been a scene from a comedy, a patient at Sion Hospital woke up minutes before his post-mortem, after a doctor had mistakenly declared him dead. The reality is far from funny, however, as the incident points to shocking negligence at the civic hospital. What's worse, according to the police, the doctor at fault immediately destroyed all records of the incident in an effort to cover up his mistake. The body was taken to the mortuary on a stretcher, where it was kept near the lift in the lobby. From there, the body was to be taken to the first floor for the post-mortem. But just as morgue staffers Subhash and Surender were about to take the body upstairs, they received a shock: "The dead man was breathing. We saw his stomach moving up and down," said Subhash.

Weird news - Girl being taken to funeral wakes up

The pain and sorrow that parents feel when their children die in front of them is different to describe. It is the rare case where their pain and sorrow can be alleviated, such as in this case. The 3 year old girl was being taken for a funeral in the Philippines, after the doctors had declared her dead. The shock and sorrow had to be handled while the girl was being prepared for her funeral, and then something joyous happened. One of the neighbors saw that the head of the girl moved, which meant that she was not dead, and the declaration by the Doctors was not true. To confirm, the pulse of the girl was checked, and she was found to be alive, and one can imagine the change in mood, not only of the parents, but of the entire neighborhood when it was confirmed that the girl was alive (link to article):

A three-old-girl, who had been declared clinically dead by doctors, did a strange thing at her funeral ceremony: she woke up. One of her parents' neighbours saw the unnamed girl's head move while arranging the coffin. Someone then checked the girl's pulse and found that she was alive. The girl was quickly lifted out of the coffin as amazed mourners gathered around to see.

A video was already being shot, and is now available at Youtube:

Weird science history - Scientists who died as a result of their research

When you see some of the marvels of the modern world, you must be wondering about where these came from. But have you thought about all the people who did all the work that caused these marvels, these inventions, etc. Consider the more hazardous stuff that people have had to endure when you consider the nature of the more dangerous stuff that we now use under a lot of safeguards - such as radioactive stuff, poisons, acids, the invention of flying or of submarines. Now, we have a lot of warnings and safety when these are in use, but earlier people did not even know about the dangers, or discovered the dangers when it was too late. It was the path-breaking efforts of these people who actually showed us this stuff. 

This article has a list of scientists who did a lot of work in areas that are now classified as dangerous but which are also very critical for us now (for example, radioactive substances are used not only in the power generation industry, but also in medicine for diagnosis, and for destructive purposes in the form of nuclear bombs). 

1. Carl Scheele (1742-1786) - Died due to heavy metal toxicity caused due to his experiments
2. Elizabeth Fleischman Ascheim (1859-1905) - Heavy exposure to X-rays as part of experimentation, died due to radioactive poisoning
3. Alexander Bogdanov (1873-1928) - Lots of experiments in terms of blood transfusions, but his last one was infected and died as a result
4. Marie Curie (1867-1934) - One of the most famous scientists of her time, and a heavy exposure to radiation caused leukemia
5. Haroutune (Harry) K. Daghlian Jr. (1921-1945) - Died as a result of the action he took during an experiment to prevent a danger, died due to massive amounts of radiation
6. Malcolm Casadaban (1949-2009) - Died due to a bacterium that he got exposed to in his lab
7. Richard Din (1987-2012) - Died due to exposure to a bacterium that he was working on

Out of these deaths, the last 2 happened in modern times when people knew about the dangers due to what they were working on, and yet any accident or slip can cause such accidents.

Weird news - Man kills his daughter because she did not smile at him

Sometimes it is difficult to write about something, something so weird that you cannot even imagine how somebody could do this. A parent is somebody who is supposed to protect their children, especially when the child is unable to protect themselves. In nature, the protective nature of parents is incredible, and they say that the biggest danger is standing between a mother bear and its children, since that would make you a threat to the young bears and the bear would act to remove all such dangers. In the case of humans, children need the support of their parents for many many years, till the time that they are in their late tears, and parents put in a lot of effort to ensure that their children get a better future.
In this case, a father felt that he was not able to make a bonding with his daughter, maybe due to the fact that she was living with her grandparents for some time; and given that he had an anger and attitude bad enough that he killed her for something that was not so important, it could be that his behavior towards her was never loving; but killing your own daughter could not be forgiven (link to article):

The man threw his daughter against a wall and then stomped on her because she never smiled at him, the prosecutor told the court. The girl died of fatal injuries in March 2010, 21 days before her third birthday. She was affected with pneumonia, which the court heard had been caused by the injury to her brain. The court heard the accused was not able to form a close bond with his daughter, and became "frustrated and angry" with what he thought was the spoilt behaviour of his child.

Weird news - Father kills his own child for making too much noise

When you read news like this one, you wonder as to how somebody could do things like this. The bond between a parent and their children is extremely strong, where a parent could do anything to ensure the safety of the child. If somebody else says anything to the child, the parent can and in most cases, does react against such utterances by other people. Given all this, it seems impossible to believe as to how a parent could be so barbaric to their own children (link to article):

Enraged by the continuous bawling of his infant daughter, a man allegedly flung the two-month-old baby down a drain resulting in her death in West Bengal's Murshidabad district, police said on Monday.
"Mujibur Sheikh, a mason, was at his home and got irritated by the continuous crying of his baby. He asked the mother to calm the baby, but she failed. Enraged, he threw the baby into a drain which killed her instantly," said Jagannath Das, officer of Ragunathgunj police station.

Weird news - Man kills wife and beheads her

Once in a while, you will watch a particularly gory movie or read a book that describes a murder scene that is particularly gory. If you watch a movie such as "Saw", then you will be watching pretty gory scenes, and these can be disturbing. But what happens when you see such a scene in real life ? It can be utterly horrible, something that is very disturbing and in many cases, requires the people witnessing such scenes to get some sort of medical attention or counselling so that their memories of such scenes are somewhat mollified. Imagine seeing a person walking, carrying the head of his wife in his hand; most likely if you see such a scene, you would run away screaming (link to article):

An autorickshaw driver killed his wife and walked the roads of Guwahati's Hengrabari with her severed head and a blood-stained machete before he was arrested. The couple's younger son is missing.
Ranjit Das was charged with murder and produced in the chief judicial magistrate's court. He was remanded in judicial custody on Friday.

No matter what the reason be, it is just not justifiable to commit such an atrocity.

Weird news - Man kills unknown woman and then hides the body

When we read about murders or homicides, in most of the cases, there are motives for the incident. In many cases, these are revenge killings, or done in the heat of the moment, and when the person ends up in court, there is a motive. In some cases, where the reason is reason enough (such as in self-defence or to avenge some utter humiliation), people can think that the motive is something that may get convince that there was no option other than the killing, and the murder punishment can be reduced to that extent. However, there are cases where the killing is so random, or when there is no motive for the murder, and society cannot determine why the crime occurred. In such cases, the punishment is even more severe, with the trial typically ending in a very severe penalty (link to article):

A Dutch engineer accused of murdering the woman who lived next door in southwest England strangled her and then researched how long it would take a body to decompose, his trial heard on Monday.
Vincent Tabak, 33, admits manslaughter but denies murdering 25-year-old landscape architect Jo Yeates, whose body was discovered hidden under leaves and snow next to a country road near Bristol on December 25 last year.
Prosecutor Nigel Lickley told Bristol Crown court that Tabak attacked the woman in her flat, bundled her body into his car, dumped it and then sent a text message to his girlfriend saying he was "bored".
Yeates had gone missing on December 17 after going for a drink with colleagues and buying a pizza from a supermarket on the way home.

Weird news - Young girl dies in an amusement park in a freak accident

Amusement parks are meant as a place where people come to relax. Some of these rides seem very thrilling, with people dropping fast through large heights, or sitting in an open vehicle that runs on rails and moves at fast speeds. All of these provide great excitement, but need a lot of planning and design to ensure that everything goes right when they are in operation; however, from time to time, you do hear of problems that do occur in amusement parks, a few of which turn fatal. Parks need to have a thorough preventive maintenance program, and even then something can go wrong. But, the only good point is that such accidents are few and you only read about them once in a while. In this case, a girl was sitting in an amusement park ride, and the ride broke sending her dropping down (link to article):

A young boy who was on the ride suffered minor injuries, but walked away from the twisted metal on his own, Barcelona spokeswoman Rosa Diaz said.
The names of the victims have not been announced.
The mechanical arm of "El Pendulo" (The Pendulum) broke and the basket carrying the teens fell on top of the ride known as "The Golden Mine," said Sara Jaurriete, director of the Tibidabo amusement park.
The park's website describes El Pendulo as "the ultimate free fall and the first of its kind in Spain."

Weird news - Precious items stolen, even after death

One of the biggest fears that people have with respect to airline travel is not about the fear of some accident, but more about losing their luggage. So, consider that you reach a different location after a long flight, and then find that your luggage has not made it, or something has been pilfered from your luggage (and the airline authorities are not really concerned about what has happened). What would you do ?
In this case, something even more horrific happened. When somebody dies in a different land, their relatives are worried about the process of getting the body back to their native land, and then, if they find that things have been stolen from inside the coffin, they would be shocked. This is what happened in the current case, where items were actually stolen from inside the coffin, including valuables that belonged to the person who dies (link to article):

Conception D'Souza died of natural causes in Singapore on June 5, while on her way back from New Zealand after visiting her daughter, Zulfiya Chawdhary.
After the post-mortem, the body was sent to Mumbai in a coffin, which also contained some of her other belongings- jewellery, cash, clothes and some chocolates she had bought during her trip.
When the coffin reached Mumbai on June 7, it was kept at the morgue at the Bhabha Hospital in Bandra, where it was opened by D'Souza's son, only to find that the cash and jewellery was missing.

Weird news - Man sucked into a plane engine at maintenance bay

Once in a while, you would have seen stories of how powerful a jet engine is, and in an occasional movie, you would see a fight between a hero and villain (typically in a plane) being terminated by somebody or something being sucked into the engine of the plane. You might wonder about whether such a thing really exists, and can people really be sucked into a plane engine.
You need to consider that a plane engine has so much power that it pushes out gases at such a high speed that it can propel a heavy plane at very high speeds. To this effect, it sucks in air from the front part of the engine, and this creates a powerful sucking force when the engine is at full operating speed (article).

SAFE Air did not detail how the man died but Fairfax Media said it was informed by sources that the man was sucked into the engine of a C-130 Hercules. The engine had been removed from the aircraft and was installed in the airline's testing bay.
The man had apparently walked into the testing bay while the engine was running, Fairfax reported.

Weird news - Mom sentenced to jail, killed baby by putting her in a microwave

One wonders about parents such as this one. One normally expects parents to protect their children, especially when their children are not in a condition to take care of themselves (in fact, in nature, the deadliest wild animals are those mothers who are protecting their children; after all, they say that you should never be in the way of a wild animal and her children, since this is the easiest way of getting killed).
So what do you say to a mother who, when arguing with her boyfriend, gets so angry that she takes her poor defenceless baby girl, puts her in a microwave for 2 minutes, until the girl is dead ? The girl is only a month old, an age when the girl could not take care of herself for even a brief minute ? The only thing society can do is to take the mother, try her for the crime she did, and sentence her. But the tragedy of the event remains (link to article):

After deliberating for six hours over the course of two days, an Ohio jury recommended life in prison without parole Friday for a mother convicted of killing her month-old baby in a microwave. The jury, which had found her guilty of aggravated murder a week earlier, spared 31-year-old China Arnold from the death penalty in her third trial for daughter Paris Talley’s 2005 death.
The sentencing phase of Arnold’s trial had been delayed for a few days earlier in the week so she could undergo a mental exam, but two psychologists testified Thursday that she showed no signs of mental illness. In an effort to avoid a death sentence, the defense told the jury that Arnold was very drunk at the time of the killing and that she had no prior criminal history. Prosecutors argued that there were no mitigating factors that outweighed her crime.

Weird news - Student dies in Yale after hair gets stuck in machine

One hears of freak accidents all the time; sometimes these accidents happen in regular everyday places where one would not dream that such accidents happen. Even when such accidents do happen, rare is the case where such an accident could cause a high degree of harm, or cause injury or loss of life. Consider the following case where a female student died in an accident inside a school lab at Yale (link to article):

A Yale University student nearing graduation was killed inside a school lab when her hair was pulled into a piece of machine-shop equipment, an official said today. Michele Dufault, a senior majoring in astronomy, died yesterday night "in what appears to have been a terrible accident involving a piece of equipment," school officials said Wednesday. The school said the accident took place inside a chemistry lab machine shop but didn't say what the equipment was.
On its website, Yale's chemistry department says it maintains a state-of-the-art machine shop to allow students, faculty and staff to construct or modify research instruments. Access is limited to those who have completed a shop course, according to the website.

Such deadly incidents remind us how much sudden tragedies can strike anywhere anytime.

Pilot dies while flying a Qatar Airlines flight, flight diverted to safety

When a flight is in the air, the only thing standing between the passengers and danger is the skill of the pilot, keeping the plane flying or landing safely. Towards this end, the pilot needs to be in perfectly good health, quick to react, able to think quickly, and very skilled. But, what happens when some sudden misfortune strikes the pilot ? There is a co-pilot who can take over, but typically the pilot has a much higher level of skill than the co-pilot. Consider the tragedy that occurred to this pilot, and the danger to the passengers of the Qatar Airlines flight (link to article):

Qatar Airways diverted its Manila-Doha flight to Kuala Lumpur early yesterday after the pilot suffered a massive heart attack on board and later died. The co-pilot flew the plane (Flight No QR645), with roughly 260 passengers on board, to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) for emergency landing. He requested the KLIA authorities for permission to land after the pilot complained of chest pain, and urged that a medical team be kept ready so that the pilot could be provided medical care.
But the medical team declared the pilot dead after the flight landed at KLIA. The passengers on board were not told about the pilot’s condition, it is learnt. The deceased, Ajay Kukreja, was an Indian in his early forties. The flight took off from Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport early yesterday.

Weird news - Father kills 7 year old son over matrimonial dispute

Disputes between parents and children is nothing new, but you hear of those typically when both parents and children are adults and both have their own views (and the disputes could be over monetary issues, or over differences of opinion); but when the children are young and defenseless, one gets horrified at scenes of violence between parents and children.
Consider the following case where a father killed his own 7 year old son since he was having a fight with his wife, and this led to his taking out the anger on his own son, hitting him hard with a hammer on the head (link to article):

In a gory fallout of a matrimonial feud, a property dealer from south Delhi killed his seven-year-old son with a hammer blow to his head on Sunday. The victim, Arpit Singh, a class I student of Greenfield Public School, fell dead instantly.
Though police remained tightlipped, it appeared that the attack was a result of a heated argument between Bhupender and his wife. Arpit's 11-year-old sister and his mother were not in the room when the incident took place. Bhupender also reportedly suffers from alcoholism. According to senior police officers, the couple had a bitter argument on Sunday after which Bhupender stomped back to his room. Sources said the argument was over an extra-marital relationship and the manner in which the accused conducted himself in public.

Spending 100,000 Euros to find a missing snake, which was dead all this time

Once in a while you come across stories that could make your blood boil as a tax payer, to see municipal authorities spending huge sums of money for something that may not seem to require so much money. But read the following case and wonder about else could have been done, given the situation. A poisonous snake escaped from its owner, and other people in the area are in danger. The authorities need to find the snake, and this is not a lion or tiger that can be trapped easily. Snakes are far more difficult to find, slithering into hidden places and so on. So, you had the authorities literally blocking the entire neighborhood to find the snake, while running up huge expenses; in the end, they found the snake, which was dead (link to article):

After the highly poisonous monocled cobra escaped from its container in March, fire services cleared the entire apartment block, removed all the furniture and gutted the owner's flat. They then sealed all the doors and windows of the building, so the 30 cm (1 foot) long reptile couldn't get out, and set large sticky traps to catch it, Wiebels said.
Officials finally found the snake lying dead in the rooftop apartment of its 19-year-old owner on Thursday. By that time the cost of the operation had ballooned to about 100,000 euros ($133,700). Taxpayers are likely on the hook for 40,000 euros, because an escaped snake is considered public hazard, Wiebels said.

A dead man getting elected as mayor, even when the election was held after his death

For politicians, getting elected is a huge problem. They need to spend a lot of money and effort to get elected, to convince a whole set of cynical people that they are indeed there for a good cause, and will do good once they are elected. What could make it easier for them is if it turns out that the current incumbent is widely disliked, and then people would welcome somebody new. Even then, it is a stretch to imagine that people would vote for a candidate who has died before the election, but whose name remains on the list of candidates. Think about how widely disliked the current mayor would have been to lose to a dead candidate (link to article):

Carl Geary died a month ago from a heart attack as he campaigned to be elected mayor of Tracy City, Tennessee; despite his sudden death, he still polled over three times as many votes as his rival, a media report said. His widow, Susan Geary, said his election "was not a surprise at all to me". "The day he passed away, people were calling with condolences and saying, 'We're still voting for him'," she said.
Local business owners said the vote to elect Geary was as a protest against the current mayor, Barbara Brock. "I knew he was deceased. I know that sounds stupid but we wanted someone other than her. If he were to run again next week I'd vote for him again," Chris Rogers, owner of Lunch Box restaurant, told local newspaper the 'Chattanooga Times'.

Weird - South Korean couple took care of an online / virtual baby and let real baby starve to death

Sometimes when you read some news, you cannot believe as to how this is possible. When parents have a baby, they are fiercely protective of them, taking care of them, making sure that the baby is getting all the required attention and nourishment. Even poor families try their best to ensure that their children get all the required attention, and Governments have programs to ensure that children get attention, including free meals. A baby is so defenceless and without any ability to take care of itself that it treated as a criminal matter to neglect a child.
Modern virtual games which allow the creation of virtual avatars, friends, relatives, are very engrossing and can lead to people spending large amounts of time, being totally engrossed in these. However, the combination of these events spelt doom for a poor infant in South Korea, whose parents neglected to feed the baby, instead spending all their time on a virtual child, and their baby eventually starved to death (link to article):

The couple, residents of a Seoul suburb, allegedly neglected their prematurely born three-month-old daughter, feeding her just once a day in between 12-hour stretches at a neighborhood internet cafe, the official Yonhap news agency reported.
Professor Kwak Dae-kyung of Seoul's Dongguk University told the Yonhap news agency that the couple appeared to have lost track of reality. "Online game addiction can blur the line between reality and the virtual world. It seems that taking care of their on-line game character erased any sense of guilt they may have had for neglecting their daughter."