Fatally Fast Fish and the Great Molasses Flood: 5 Unbelievably Odd Accidents
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Ever heard of something being an accident waiting to happen? Well, not all of these bizarre incidents were that obvious to their hapless victims. Take a look at...
The Cow Methane Conflagration
Impaled by a Speeding Needlefish
The Great Molasses Flood
Leaping Mackerel Lacerates Throat
A Deadly Demonstration by the Defense
Well, the methane has to go somewhere... (lloorraa)
The Cow Methane ConflagrationIn 2023 Texas a colossal plume of of dark-grey smoke erupted from South Fork Dairy. Emergency services arriving on the scene found a hellish sight - around 18000 cattle were dead and a worker was critically injured.
So what was the cause of this devastation? Investigators suspect it began with an overheating bit of machinery called a "honey badger" normally used to remove manure and dirty water from a cattle barn.
Now one thing about cattle is that they produce quite a bit of methane... and if that flammable gas is trapped inside something (say, a poorly ventilated barn) it might as well be a bomb waiting for a spark. The hot honey badger is thought to have ignited the trapped methane, producing the deadliest cattle-barn fire on record.
Needlefish are slender creatures with an elongated mouth lined with small sharp teeth. Rather than chewing prey, they swallow them whole... the teeth are just there to get a grip on prey. Even weirder, needlefish don't have a stomach - prey is digested in the heavily mucous-lined intestine instead.
Their other trick is the short hops they make above the surface of the ocean, during which they can reach speeds of 40mph. This may be what led to the demise of Manfrini, who was struck in the chest by one of the fish. The "needle" left a 5cm deep wound that pierced her lung, with medical care unable to save her by the time she was brought to shore.
Though needlefish are not aggressive towards humans, their reckless swimming means fishermen consider them a danger. Manfrini wasn't even the first person to be killed by a needlefish in 2024 - a Filipino fisherman received a lethal stomach wound earlier in the same year.
The Great Molasses Flood
They say sugar is bad for you - that was certainly the case In 1919 Boston, when a flood of molasses rolled through the north end of the city.
The incident started with the collapse of a large storage tank that contained more than 2 million gallons of molasses intended for industrial alcohol manufacture. The bursting tank released a wave of syrup that may have been as much as 12m high and 49m wide, travelling at around 35mph.
The "Great Molasses Flood" destroyed several of city blocks and killed 21 people (along with a large number of horses) while injuring many more. Rescue efforts were hindered as the sticky molasses hardened, trapping people like flies on flypaper. At least one victim is thought to have suffocated beneath the syrup.
Researchers believe that the flood was particularly dangerous due to the mild-to-cold temperatures. If the weather had been warm, the molasses would have been more liquid and less hard to move through!
Leaping Mackerel Lacerates ThroatAustralia has a reputation for dangerous animals... and to be honest, it really seems that the wildlife there is doing everything it can to live up to the hype.
The high-speed fish knocked Belinda down and ripped open her throat, inflicting a deep wound that almost reached her thyroid and clipped a number of major blood vessels. Fortunately they were able to stem some of the bleeding, call an ambulance and reach the shore. Belinda survived with quite the fishing tale and a vicious scar to back it up - the mackerel was killed on impact.
A Deadly Demonstration by the Defense
Lawyers often want a piece of evidence to stay in the mind of a jury - and that's certainly something Clement Laird Vallandigham accomplished when he accidentally shot himself in the middle of a murder trial.
Vallandigham was an American civil-war era politician from Ohio with Southern sympathies. His anti-war rhetoric eventually got him banished behind Confederate lines. After the end of the war, he returned to Ohio and attempted to re-join politics... with little success.
He eventually met his end while practicing law in a bar-fight turned murder trial between defendant Thomas McGehan and Tom Myers. In order to prove that Tom Myers could have shot himself, Vallandigham would draw an unloaded pistol from his pocket, cock and fire while it was still pointed downwards at himself. Or at least, that was the plan.
Performing a dry run in front of his co-counsel, Vallandigham picked up a pistol he had been using to see powder residue at different ranges... rather than the unloaded one intended for the court. When he directed the muzzle towards himself and "dry-fired" the pistol, the resulting point-blank shot inflicted a fatal wound. Vallandigham died the next morning, but his client would eventually be found innocent!
