This is courtesy of an AP report picked up by the New York Times:
"A man fleeing sheriff’s deputies sank waist-deep into a mud hole and died, apparently of exhaustion and cold, as the authorities tried to pull him out. The chase began when deputies stopped a vehicle driven by the man, Shawn E. Leflore, 33, for having an outdated registration sticker. When deputies discovered that Mr. Leflore had given them false information, he ran into a field....[deputies] tried for several hours to pull him out."
Apparently the expired registration is all they had on the guy. But you've heard similar stories. Someone in the wrong place at the wrong time who made the wrong decision. Like people who just happened to wander into the deli for a Diet Pepsi the moment it was held up. Or, tragically, like the family who took a wrong turn in downtown DC and was killed by gang members. But I'm not talking specifically about these.
I'm talking about the stupid deaths. I like to think I'm a smart person, but everyone does dumb things from time to time - locking keys in cars, underestimating the friendliness of random dogs, thinking you have enough space to pass the car ahead of you.
Or the guy in Pennsylvania, a radio talk show host, who felt sorry for a female caller and sent her a dozen roses, only to be stabbed to death by her jealous husband.
You know the stories. They always come at the end of the news. Or show up as a little blurb in the "out of town" section of the paper. It usually begins with a guy who was drunk and said, "Hey, watch this," And it ends with a nail gun driving a 4" brad through his skull. Many of them involve stupid criminals, many of them make it to the Darwin Awards.
I know the odds are small, since I'm more cautious than most, but please, God, or whoever is control of such things, don't let me go like that. Or, if I do happen to meet up with a piece of unexploded ordnance from the Civil War while hikeing in the woods, go off my meds and try to outrun the border police, or get my foot stuck in a toilet and starve to death, please don't let it make the news.
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4 comments:
OSHA has a little news letter they have called "Fatal Facts". Years ago, while work for one of the previous construction companies of my youth, I wore the hat (amongst many others) of Safety Director. I regularly used their newsletters to bring home a fact. One of my favorites was an electrician, wiring a light over a pool. He put a metal ladder into the pool (which was full of water) and then, rolled up his pants legs and removed his boots, before working on the electrical wiring. Not a bright guy. Well, he's dead now, so I suppose that doesn't matter.
As to the fella you mention that tried to outrun the police over expired tags, well, I have a hard time with this. I was pulled over recently for a malfunctioning headlight. I didn't feel a need to outrun the police. This one sounds like a personal responsibility issue to me. And, much like a recent story here about a kid who was shot fleeing police and then the police were took to task by the kids parents. The kid was selling drugs and took off running when the cops pulled up on his corner. The police shouted for him to stop or they'd shoot. He didn't stop. They shot. He died. Personal responsibility. I'd rather he hadn't been killed. But I can't see how this isn't mostly his fault that he's dead.
Now, vacationing in a new area and rounding the corner into gang territory is an entirely different matter in my eyes.
ugh...did I really say "the police were took to task by the kids parents"? Rough morning, k?
Ooo-kaaaay.
That one about getting your foot stuck in the toilet and starving to death...you made that up, right?
Christ, I hope so. But I remember this story from when I was a kid about some kids who were playing in an old refrigerator and it closed on them and stuck and no one found them and they died. I don't know if this was one of those urban myths like Mikey and the Pop Rocks, but my older brother teased me mercilessly about it until I was afraid of refrigerators.
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