When it comes to the need to survive, most organisms will do anything to stay alive. While self-preservation isn’t the ultimate goal of every life-form, it’s definitely up there as one of the most important facets of our existence. It is the satisfaction of successive goals which keep us alive and make our lives valuable, giving them meaning, imbuing them with a sense of purpose, that keeps us going. But sometimes, we must make tough, life-or-death decisions when faced with extreme, rare, unusual, or challenging circumstances.

The fact that it is believed that all of us are, in some way, the descendants of cannibals shows that our human ancestors went to extreme lengths to survive and keep the human race alive long enough for you to exist today. And today, people can still face equally hard choices—some people have even had to remove parts of their own bodies in order to reach those successive goals and survive. Here are ten unbelievable people who amputated a part of their own body in an effort to stay alive.

10 Aron Ralston

Aron Ralston was a pretty normal guy, but he always had an extremely adventurous streak and a desire to travel and see the world.^[1] During his childhood, his family moved to Denver, Colorado, a place offering many opportunities to climb mountains, explore, and ultimately become the adventurer he’d always wanted to be. Back in 2003, Ralston was climbing in the remote, mountainous wilderness of Southwestern Utah, when the unthinkable happened: Aron became trapped in a crevice in the rocks and pinned by a boulder that weighed over 360 kilograms (800 lb). The weight of the rock crushed his arm, and he was pinned by it. Aron took photos of his bad situation (which was going to get a lot worse) as he waited for rescue teams to come remove the rock so that he could get out and home safe.

But rescuers never came. Aron waited for them for days as his hope faded. He knew he had to do something. He was 18 meters (59 ft) above the floor of the chasm he’d found himself pinned in, and he had a pocketknife. He made what must have been one of the most difficult decisions of his life: to amputate his own arm beneath the elbow in order to survive. Aron cut the lower part of his arm off, having to wrench his forearm against the boulder to break the bones, and then got himself down to the bottom of the canyon, where he would begin to walk and search for help. Luckily, help arrived in the form of a helicopter that spotted him, covered in blood. Aron had tied off the wound to keep himself from bleeding to death pretty successfully and would eventually make it out alive.

Ralston went on to become a motivational speaker and continued to travel and climb mountains—he didn’t let an incident that forced him into the most strenuous of circumstances, cutting his own arm off, stop him from doing what he really loved.

9 Michael Lasiter

While his attempt at self-amputation was not successful, in 2008, a man named Michael Lasiter tried to cut his own arm off in order to stay alive—or so he thought. Lasiter was injecting cocaine into his arm in a California motel room when he came to believe that he might have injected an air bubble into his vein, which is potentially fatal. Panicked, he ran, fleeing the motel room and making his way to a nearby Denny’s restaurant, where he grabbed a butter knife and tried quite unsuccessfully to cut off his arm.

After this unsuccessful attempt at self-amputation, Lasiter charged into the actual kitchen area of the restaurant, where he retrieved a chef’s knife and began sawing at his arm to remove it. By this time, the police had been called. They attempted to talk him down, telling him to drop the knife, but Lasiter was absolutely convinced he was going to die. The police then used a Taser to knock the subject off his feet and were able to take him to a nearby hospital.^[2] Was Lasiter just really high when he freaked out and barreled into a restaurant to remove his own arm? Or did he actually have a reasonable suspicion that he would likely die? The world may never know.

8 Jonathan Metz

Jonathan Metz, a Connecticut man, was heating up dinner as he normally did one fateful night in June 2010 that would change his life forever. While his food was cooking, he decided to run down to the basement to fix his furnace. Somehow, he became trapped beneath the furnace.^[3] Jonathan spent a full 12 hours screaming for help and a total of three days pinned underneath the furnace.

When it became clear that help wasn’t coming, Metz thought to himself, “What would MacGyver do in this situation?” Yes, of all things, Metz thought back to the television show MacGyver. Then, he decided to do what most of us would consider unthinkable, something straight of out a Saw movie: He retrieved a hacksaw that had been lying nearby and began to slowly saw his arm off to escape. He made it most of the way before passing out. That same day, a friend had become worried by Metz’s absence and ultimately called the police. Metz was found and rescued.

His attempt at self-amputation did save his life, however, even though he didn’t fully complete the amputation himself. Doctors finished the job later on. They noted that had Metz not used the hacksaw to remove the tissues that were connected to the rest of his body, a powerful, systemic bacterial infection would have set in and killed him within a couple of hours. By even attempting to saw off his own arm, Jonathan Metz saved his own life. He was fitted with a prosthesis.

7 Jon Hutt

On August 19, 2011, a 61-year-old Colorado logger named Jon Hutt was out in the remote wilderness of Western Colorado when six tons of machinery fell off his trailer and onto his foot, pinning him instantly.^[4] Hutt had been loading trees into his trailer when the incident happened, and he acted extraordinarily quickly in order to survive. He couldn’t get a cell phone signal, and he knew that no one was coming way out that way, so he dug out his pocketknife.

Hutt went straight to work and amputated his own toes with his tiny little pocketknife, a tool he carried with him whenever he was in the wilderness, and managed to escape to safety. Jonathan Hutt would return to the wilderness in short order, being out and about only a month after the incident. He even had a good sense of humor about it all after treatment.

6 Myron Schlafman

The next tale of self-amputation comes, surprisingly, from another harmless, everyday activity that went terribly wrong. Myron Schlafman was in his garage making sausage with a meat grinder on August 17, 2018. As he went to retrieve some of the meat from the electric grinder, he accidentally hit the foot pedal, which sucked his left arm into the machine. His hand was sliced up, and his arm bones were broken, but he was still stuck to the grinder by other, unsevered tissues.

But this 69-year-old Vietnam War veteran wasn’t going down without a fight and knew that, considering the damage done to the flesh of his arm already, he’d likely bleed to death if he didn’t free himself from the grinder and get help. So, he instantly decided to cut his hand off.^[5]

Schlafman simply didn’t hesitate; he reached for a nearby knife and got to work. He escaped and called the police, who tied off the wound. He managed to survive by the grace of his cast-iron nerves and quick thinking. This 69-year-old North Dakotan saved his own life through self-amputation.

5 Al Hill

In 2007, Al Hill, a 66-year-old from Iowa Hill, California, was in the woods cutting down trees when he became pinned under a fallen one. He remained there for 11 full, long, painful hours. He, too, found himself pinned under an object too heavy to lift in a remote area with no cellular service. Al also used a pocketknife to sever his own leg below the knee in the name of his own survival.

After he’d freed himself, Al yelled for help, and a passing neighbor heard him. The neighbor trekked out to a place where he was able to call the authorities and have Al airlifted to a hospital. Al underwent surgery and ended up surviving the incident, miraculously.^[6]

4 Zheng Yanliang

Zheng Yanliang is a farmer and factory worker in China who was forced to do the unthinkable under some pretty bizarre and cruel circumstances. This terrifying yet inspiring story of personal grit and perseverance began when Zheng was diagnosed with arterial thrombosis in his leg. The hospital visits had already drained Zheng’s financial resources, and there was no way he would have been able to pay the approximately $48,000 needed for the required amputation. Doctors apologized, saying that he likely had three months left to live, and sent him on his way.^[7]

Over the following months, Zheng’s leg got worse and worse. Maggots began to infest his limb. But Zheng wasn’t about to give up without a fight, especially with his family on the line. During the early morning hours of April 14, 2012, he decided to bite down on a large piece of wood and, using a fruit knife and a hacksaw, remove his own leg. This self-amputation saved Zheng Yanliang’s life. He later reported that it took him 20 minutes to grind through the bone with the saw to save his own life and remain with his family. He also lost three teeth from biting down on the piece of wood so hard. But because of his efforts, he lives on to tell this bizarre tale of survival.

3 Ramlan

This next incredible tale of self-amputation began with a tragedy of nearly unthinkable magnitude and ended in a tale of heroism and friendship that serves to inspire us all and give us a little more faith in humanity. Ramlan, age 18, was working with his friend, Eman, 53, when an earthquake struck their home city of Padang, Indonesia, on September 30, 2009. Concrete began to shake beneath their feet and then began to collapse all around them.^[8] The construction workers on Ramlan’s crew managed to escape to safety, but Ramlan himself was pinned beneath a concrete girder that entrapped his leg.

Frantic and terrified, the teenager decided that his only hope would be to amputate the leg. After a few minutes, the shaking stopped, and he proceeded to grab a nearby hoe and attempted to cut off his leg with the tool, finding it too dull to break the bone. He was able to place a phone call to his friend Eman, who rushed to help the young man, locating him where he had been stuck in the rubble. Eman found a trowel for Ramlan to use, but that didn’t work, either. Eman then found a hacksaw, and Ramlan again tried to saw through his own leg to free himself in the name of survival, but he had become too weak by this point.

That’s when Eman realized what had to be done and took the saw and finished the job Ramlan had begun. Eman sawed the rest of his friend’s leg off, wrapped the wound, and took Ramlan to a nearby hospital, where yet another amputation would take place a little further up to ensure a clean break and a clean wound. But Ramlan would survive the incident and live to tell the tale.

2 Doug Goodale

Doug Goodale was a lobster fisherman back in 2002, when he was out at sea searching for his latest catch. The man from Maine decided to do the unthinkable when his arm got caught in a winch while he was out in the open water during stormy weather: He, too, cut his own arm off. He was actually thrown over the side of the ship, still hanging from the winch, and all he could think about was his children, who would be without him if he died.

He managed to pull himself back onto the deck of his boat, though doing so dislocated his shoulder. He was still caught in the winch. That’s when he reached for a nearby knife and began to cut through his own arm. By sawing his own arm off at the elbow, he managed to save his own life. Bleeding badly, he guided the ship into harbor, where he was able to alert the authorities and survive the incident. He managed to return home to his children.^[9]

1 Sampson Parker

Sampson Parker was a farmer who was working alone in his field in South Carolina when he got his right arm stuck in a mechanical picker in 2007. The piece of machinery trapped his arm and also caught fire. Faced with the possibility of burning to death slowly, trapped by a piece of heavy machinery, he decided to take his tiny, 8-centimeter (3 in) pocketknife and saw through his own arm to make his escape. Parker managed to cut his arm off and would later remark that he felt very little during the experience.^[10]

A firefighter named Doug Spinks arrived on the scene to find Parker burned and bleeding profusely and would end up saving his life. Parker would later recount the events of that day, as he sat for interviews in front of the same piece of machinery which nearly killed him, noting that he believed it was the fire which kept him from passing out from the shock and pain of sawing his own arm off with a pocketknife.

I like to write about the weird, bizarre, unusual, dark, and often macabre. Oddities are awesome.

People are comfortable with the idea that humanity is at the pinnacle of our experience as a species. However, people often forget that many wars, disasters, and massacres throughout history have wiped out much of our knowledge and forced us to start over on various subjects many times.

Despite this, many people still believe that humanity has slowly learned better social rules over time and has successfully built upon inventions to get where we are now. However, there are many examples in history when social rights existed, were lost, and then were regained. There have also been important inventions that historians now believe were discovered, lost, and rediscovered at least once by our species.

10 Women Have Fought The Battle For Their Rights Many Times

Today, there is strong support for ensuring that women are treated equally to men, and many laws have been put in place in recent years to that effect. There may even be a female president of the United States someday.

Some would say that women are taking large strides forward and becoming better treated than ever before in history. However, the truth is that women have sometimes been treated better or worse than now. It also varies during the same historical time period based on the part of the world you are in.

For example, in the United States, equal rights for women is currently a cause that is gaining steam with every passing day, and much has already been done to that effect. However, in Saudi Arabia, woman are treated more like chattel, and they have a long way to go. This was the same in terms of ancient history.

Many ancient cultures treated women badly, but many treated women with equal respect in comparison to men. Some Greek societies like the Spartans were very proud of their strong women, and Norse society put their women in charge of almost everything while the men were off raiding. Men and women were considered to be equal in Norse society and had equal say in the families’ major decisions. In addition, women were able to own property as much as any male member of Norse society.

Of course, at the same time in history, many cultures did not respect women or treat them equally. Women have been fighting the battle for their rights across many continents for a long time. It has not been a linear march of progression but a constant battle where ground is sometimes greatly gained and sometimes greatly lost. Rights are something that no one can take for granted. We all have to fight for fair rights for all people, or we will end up losing them over time. Then the next generations will have to fight for them all over again.

9 Gay Marriage And Other Relationships Were Once Perfectly Acceptable

Although some evangelical groups are still strongly against the gay lifestyle, the average Christian today takes a much more live-and-let-live attitude. They may not agree with a state-sanctioned gay partnership or believe that marriage among two people of the same gender is right according to their religion, but they believe in allowing other people to live their own lives without judgment. In most countries today, marriage between people of the same gender is legal and the battle has turned to rights for transpeople.

However, while some people laud this as the latest step forward for society, the truth is that we are not even close to being as accepting as people were in the ancient world. Even today, many people snidely make fun of those who are in same-sex relationships even if they are okay with it legally. Crude stereotypes are the norm, and some people are all too happy to make their distaste clear. In the ancient world, this could not be further from the case.

There is strong historical evidence that most ancient civilizations found same-sex relationships to be perfectly normal. Apart from the well-known proclivities of the men of ancient Athens, historians have found cultures like the ancient Egyptians and other African cultures to be strongly accepting of homosexual behavior and relationships.

But in their day, gender orientation was not a big deal like it is now. People would sometimes have relationships with both genders and wouldn’t necessarily classify themselves as one thing or the other. They simply had both kinds of relationships. It has only been fairly recently that homosexual relationships and orientation have become a subject of such strong disdain and scrutiny.

8 Child Labor Was Not A Problem Before The Industrial Revolution

While people would be right to think that laws against child labor are a recent thing, the truth is that child labor laws aren’t necessarily a straight societal progression. Rather, they are more of a reactionary law put in place due to a time period in history that changed the face of society forever and greatly ramped up the exploitation of not only children but all laborers in general.

This time period was the industrial revolution, and there is no doubt that its effects have greatly changed how the world works today. The industrial revolution changed the pace of the world and greatly decreased the demand for individual skilled laborers. It also increased the exploitation of both adult and child workers, but child laborers took the brunt due to society’s view of child labor before everything went mad.

In the ancient world and a small number of societies today, children worked but not in factories or anything of that sort. Instead, they were trained from an early age in the trade of their parents and helped out with the family business or whatever the family did to subsist.

This was and is not exploitation as the child learned valuable skills while working alongside their parents and helping to support the family at the same time. Their parents could make sure that their children weren’t overworked and could also use the time to properly bond with them. With the coming of the industrial revolution, many parents were no longer taking their children on as apprentices but instead were sending them to work in factories. Many children encountered hard conditions that were outside of their parents’ control and didn’t learn any valuable skills.

Even today in countries like the United States with strict child labor laws, there are still exceptions for parents who are teaching their kids important trades and need help on a farm or other similar situations. The reason is because the spirit of child labor laws is to protect children from exploitation. The idea of children just being kids and playing all the time is a recent idea.

7 The Invention Of Writing Doesn’t Have A Clear History

Many people like to think of our modern times as the latest progression in humanity, but they also tend to forget that we have suffered many setbacks in our knowledge as a species. Baghdad was once a jewel of learning in the ancient world. Then it was sacked and destroyed as was the Library of Alexandria and so many other places. While we like to think of writing as a fairly recent invention, the truth is that historians are not really sure when writing was first invented.

The best samples they have are from the Middle East and Mesoamerica in ancient days, and both were from around a similar time period. Years after this, multiple ancient peoples seem to have discovered writing on their own. Some historians are also unsure how many times writing or systems of writing have actually been invented from scratch by various groups throughout history and how many have actually been partly borrowed from the knowledge of neighboring humans.

We are also unsure how many times people invented writing and then had their civilization destroyed. We may yet find older samples of writing from more ancient peoples, and there is also the possibility that any evidence of their writing knowledge was simply destroyed. Many historians believe that it is impossible to know how many times humanity has invented systems of writing and then lost them again. We may yet learn about more ancient examples as we dig deeper into the Earth.

6 Air Conditioning Is Not A New Invention

As far as most people are concerned, air conditioning is an extremely recent convenience. While most people today who are used to air conditioning would absolutely hate to be without it, especially during the summer months, there are still many people around the world today who have no access to it. For this reason, most people who do have the convenience of air conditioning assume that ancient people had to suffer through hot summers and maybe cool off by swimming in a lake or something.

However, depending on how advanced the civilization was, there were multiple cultures with fairly advanced systems that can easily be categorized as air conditioning. In the ancient Middle East, structures were designed with spiraling systems to circulate airflow perfectly to cool the buildings. The Egyptian people had a fairly primitive air conditioning system where they would hang soaked mats in front of their doors to air-condition their homes.

By far, the most advanced air conditioning design was created by the ancient Romans. Using the aqueducts that distributed water throughout the city, they had a system to circulate water through the walls of their houses—essentially cooling the entire living quarters.

While this may not seem as advanced as some of what we use today, it certainly worked quite well for the people who used it. In fact, it may have been more environmentally friendly and energy efficient than today’s air conditioners, which all use refrigerant liquids like Freon.

5 Ancient Peoples Had An Amazing Grasp Of Mathematics And Invented An Analog Computer

Computers are something that people are certain are an entirely new invention. After all, our technological revolution has only been very recent. As far as we know, the digital devices we use today are a new thing, but complex analog mechanisms that can be described as computers are not a new thing at all.

One of the best examples is the Antikythera mechanism, a device discovered by historians that is believed to have come from ancient Greece. This incredibly complicated device was found deep underwater, ravaged by time and missing pieces. No one had paid attention to it for many years.

With more recent technology, however, scientists discovered that it was once an incredibly complicated analog computer with loads of sophisticated moving gears that used complex mathematics to track and plot the positions and movements of the stars and planets in the night sky. The device may not have been a digital computer, but it shows how far humanity has been able to progress and how many setbacks we have suffered.

Many people know that the Greeks were quite the scholars and well versed in mathematics and astronomy. But many people don’t realize just how many amazing devices the Greeks invented, and historians may still discover many more. Some historians even believe that part of the success of the Roman Empire was due to their ability to assimilate cultures they conquered instead of destroying them.

This allowed the Romans to build on the incredible inventions and knowledge of the ancient Greeks and create an incredibly powerful empire that spanned multiple continents. While much knowledge was still lost due to wars, sometimes among the Greeks themselves, it is likely that humanity would have been set back even further if the Romans had destroyed the people they defeated like some ancient conquerors.

4 The Current Stance Many People And Countries Have Against GMOs Is Setting Back The World

Many people today are concerned with practices involving genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Although it may sound like a somewhat scary term, GMO has a fairly broad meaning and isn’t as frightening as a lot of scaremongers make it out to be.

There is some legitimate concern about various companies copyrighting certain seed designs, and it’s understandable if people are bothered by some of Monsanto’s business practices. It’s also understandable if people are concerned with the trend in which seeds produce plants that don’t produce more seeds on their own. In the event of a disaster, those particular seeds could be very bad for the world. However, this concern has been conflated into an overall distrust of GMOs, and it is setting back scientific and human knowledge.

Experts like Neil deGrasse Tyson have tried to come out against the anti-GMO hysteria, but even they have been unable to do much good. The truth is that farmers—whether they are raising crops, animals, or both—have been using techniques to produce better crops and animals for thousands of years. Many of those techniques are not much different than those used by biotech companies today. These techniques have been used to get better yields, more eye-popping colors, more delicious flavors, and stronger smells. They have also been used to make specific animals that are better for certain kinds of hunting and better for eating.

These techniques are not new at all and are not harmful to humans in any way. In fact, many GMO crops help farmers increase yields, help seeds stay alive during cold snaps, and help crops to resist other problems like diseases. There are concerns about “seedless” plants, but many GMO plants do produce seeds. GMO plants in and of themselves are not dangerous for human consumption at all.

Most products in the grocery store that are labeled as “non-GMO” are really quite misleading. It should really say “non-recent GMO.” The truth is that if we literally stopped eating all genetically modified foods and animal products, if we could really trace the patterns of ancient farmers all the way back, we would likely find that we would have nothing acceptable left to eat.

3 Abortion Was Legally And Socially Acceptable In The United States In The Recent Past

Most people think that abortion was only made legal in the United States in the last few decades with the advent of the Roe v. Wade decision. Although abortion had been illegal when the Roe v. Wade decision was made, this was not the first time that abortion had been legal in the United States. Back in the 19th century, abortion was an incredibly common practice in the US.

Many drugs to induce abortion were openly advertised and sold, and while this particular trade was technically banned, it still widely persisted and was hardly enforced. Furthermore, the ban was not put in place to stop abortion per se but to stop the sale of dangerous abortion drugs that could harm or even kill women. One woman sold abortion services for 35 years in the 1800s. She made a full-time career out of it and never once ran afoul of the law over her operation. On the contrary, she was publicly lauded for her allegedly amazing pills.

The other misconception people have is that abortion was banned originally over moral concerns. While that may be the chief reason that people protest abortion today, they had different concerns back then. A good many of those lobbying to ban abortion were actually physicians. At the time, most abortions were performed by pseudo–medical professionals like midwives, and doctors felt like they were being dangerously left out of the equation.

There was also a strong element of support from jingoist groups like the KKK. At the time, immigrants were entering the country in great numbers and the KKK felt that the country needed a lot more white babies—as did other jingoist groups at the time. While there was also an element of support from morally opposed groups like the Catholics, the vast majority of the support was simply not there to stop abortion for religious or ethical reasons like today. Back then, the reasons for banning abortion were varied and complicated and mostly detached from the current ethical framework.

2 Race Relations Have Ebbed And Flowed Over Time

While it’s an understandably optimistic view to wish to live in a world where people will not see race, the truth is that people have long looked for ways to punish others for being different from them and that may never change. Some people have suggested that racial problems will end when almost all humans look the same from intermingling. But most likely, people will simply hate other people for another difference between them. A good example of this is the genocide in Rwanda. The two sides of the conflict are almost indistinguishable to most outsiders, but the genocide occurred nonetheless.

Many people are also convinced that race relations are historically at their best today. In many parts of modern society, it has become much less acceptable to harbor racist views or even hold onto stereotypes. In fact, people are often shunned for openly pushing racist viewpoints. However, what most people don’t realize is that race relations have gone through periods in history where they were not as volatile as they are now.

For example, when Pope Benedict XVI resigned recently, one of the candidates on the presumed short list was a black cardinal from Africa. The media breathlessly speculated about the “first black pope” in an absolutely epic misunderstanding of church history or historical race relations. Although we don’t have much proof of their features, at least three popes may have been black and definitely hailed from African origin in some form. In reality, it wouldn’t have been noteworthy enough to record at the time. North Africa was a very important center for early Catholicism, and a black African pope would not have been strange at all.

Although there have been many racial genocides throughout history, there have also been many examples of different people living in peace and tolerating one another’s races and religions just as well or better than people do today. Like the battle for women’s rights, fighting the ignorance of racism and the stereotyping of those who are different is something that we will always have to be vigilant against. Humans naturally gravitate to splitting into groups and finding differences.

1 The Very First Automobiles Were Electric Powered

Most people have heard of Tesla Motors, Inc., which is run by Elon Musk. His electric cars have been popular among those who can afford them and have reinvigorated the electric car market. However, many people assume that electric cars are just starting to hit their stride now. The truth is that electric cars were once the top dog in the automobile market and ended up losing their popularity.

In the 1800s, before Henry Ford had invented his famous mass production methods or his gas combustion automobile, several iterations of electric car had already been designed and were enjoying a fair amount of commercial popularity. When Ford came along, things started to change. The gasoline engine designed by Ford allowed people to go farther without needing to recharge their batteries or otherwise stop. His cars were also faster. These changes spelled the beginning of the end for the electric car, at least for many years.

In the 1960s, the electric car enjoyed a mild resurgence due to environmental concerns, but it still didn’t come close to retaking the throne over nonelectric cars. While Tesla Motors may yet bring electric cars back to the forefront, it may be a long time before that could even be possible, especially with the current costs associated with the technology. Regardless, electric cars are not a new idea and were actually the king of the early automobile scene.

In 2011 a novel strain of Escherichia coli or E coli bacteria caused a serious outbreak of food borne illness focused mostly in northern Germany. It took months before authorities were able to track the source of the contamination to the seeds of fenugreek imported from Egypt and used in brussels sprout production. Almost 4,000 people became ill and 53 died. This is just one of the latest and most newsworthy cases of food poisoning to strike without warning, around the world. Here are ten more examples you may not have heard about.

Though it comprises just 0.2% of the United States population, the state of Alaska accounts for 50% of its food-related botulism poisoning. Most cases are related to the eating of native food dishes. Arctic explorers gave accounts of entire villages dying of botulism poisoning from eating contaminated meat. Prior to the 1960s when education programs taught Native Alaskans how to identify the early symptoms of botulism, so as to receive the antitoxin in time, the death rate for those who contracted the disease was more than 50%.

Most people today think of botulism as “Botox” injections used for cosmetic application for wrinkles. Droves of celebrities now have their faces permanently frozen by repeated injections of detoxified botulism. But botulism is an ancient and deadly food poison caused by the Clostridium botulinum bacteria. The bacteria creates a toxin in the body which can cause muscle paralysis, breathing difficulties, loss of sensation to the skin, respiratory failure, cardiac arrest, paralysis, and death.

In July 2002 two people from a Yup’ik village in western Alaska came across the remains of a beached beluga whale that appeared to have died in the spring. They cut the tail fluke into pieces, and put the pieces in sealable plastic bags. They then shared the whale meat with family and friends. Within days of eating the whale meat, a local physician reported three suspected cases of botulism poisoning. A total of eight Alaskan Natives were confirmed to have botulism and they were treated successfully with antitoxin, No one died.

In one of the strangest cases of recent food poisoning, 13 people in China were hospitalized after eating snake. However, it was not the snake that (directly) caused them to become ill. It was what the snakes had eaten. The snakes had eaten frogs, which had been fed clenbuterol. All 13 people had eaten snake on September 1 and 2, 2010 at a local restaurant and had developed symptoms such as flushing, headache, chest tightness, palpitations, trembling, etc. These are common symptoms of clenbuterol poisoning. The cooking of the snake was not enough to rid it of residual clenbuterol that had built up from ingesting the contaminated frogs. Clenbuterol is approved for use as a bronchodilator for asthma patients and is also used by athletes as a performance-enhancing drug. Though it is prohibited, Clenbuterol can be added to animal feeds to obtain leaner meat. The frogs had been “juiced”, fed to the snakes, and the snakes poisoned the humans.

“Pruno” is prison lingo for “hooch” or any kind of homebrew made from whatever prisoners can lay their hands on. Some fruit, water, and sugar and “pruno!”, you have yourself a party! But sometimes you just can’t get any fruit, so if not, potatoes will do just fine. As in the case of a group of 2006 Utah prison inmates who laid their hands on weeks old baked potatoes for their pruno batch. Unfortunately for the prisoners, Clostridium botulinum bacteria which causes botulism, likes to live on the roots of potatoes. Eight prisoners developed botulism when they all drank the same pruno batch made from the potatoes. All developed classic symptoms of botulism poisoning—difficulty swallowing, vomiting, double vision and muscle weakness. Several had to be put on ventilators. One inmate who was spared took one sip of the pruno and spit it out it was so foul tasting.

Just two cyanide-contaminated grapes caused a nation wide “grape scare” in the United States in 1989. On March 2, 1989 an individual called the US Embassy in Santiago Chile and warned that some fruit being exported to the United States and Japan had been poisoned with cyanide. The terrorist claimed this was done to draw attention to the plight of the poor in his country. US officials took the threat seriously. Only seven years before, the United States had been rocked by the Tylenol scare when cyanide contaminated Tylenol led to the deaths of several people and all of the Tylenol in the country was recalled. The US FDA launched the most intensive food safety investigation in its history to determine if there was a threat to the American food supply.

Seasonal export of fruit is the second largest export industry in Chile. Thousands of tons of fruit are shipped from Chile and to ports around the world. Some of the grapes that arrived at the port in Philadelphia, PA appeared suspicious and were tested. Two grapes were found to contain a small level of cyanide. Based on these tests, the US FDA warned the public not to eat grapes and banned the import of fruit from Chile. This caused a “grape scare” in which Americans refused to buy or eat grapes. However, the FDA ban only lasted a few days and fruit from Chile was allowed to return to American ports and grocery stores. But in that time it is estimated Chile lost upwards of $330 million in exports. This caused a second crisis—this time a diplomatic one, when the government of Chile accused the United States of over reacting or even, deliberately tampering with the grapes.

Food safety organizations and agencies around the world test for contamination and sometimes they find it before mass outbreaks of disease or illness occur. Once such case occurred in 2004 when the New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) detected, during routine food testing, the contamination of egg custard with lead. The health authorities determined the lead was in a shipment of corn (maize) imported into the country and then made into about 100 tons of cornflour. The cornflour was thus contaminated with lead when it was used in the making of other products. Some of the contaminated cornflour was shipped to Australia and Fiji and New Zealand authorities notified these countries of the danger. Products made with the cornflour were recalled.

The NZFSA traced the lead contamination to specific ship, the MV Athena which, in 2003, had hauled lead concentrate between ports in Australia. It then went to China to pick up a shipment of maize and carried the maize in the same compartment as that used to hold the lead concentrate. Obviously, the ships crew never cleaned the compartment, thus the maize became cross contaminated with lead.

Polybrominated biphenyl (PBB), is an endocrine disruptor and suspected of being a human carcinogen. PBB’s are one of just six substances—along with lead and mercury—banned by the European Union’s Restriction of Hazardous Substances. They were also behind one of the largest agricultural disasters in the history of the United States. In 1973 this manmade chemical, used as a fire-retardant, was mistakenly put into cattle feed, sold, and fed to animals across the state of Michigan. Before the mistake was discovered thousands of cattle and other animals would be destroyed, farmers would march on the state capital and dump the carcasses of their dead cows on the capital steps, and thousands of people would eat the PBB-contaminated milk and meat.

It all began at a company called Michigan Chemical which made both the PBB (sold as a fire retardant under the trade name FireMaster), and magnesium oxide, a cattle feed supplement under the trade name NutriMaster (a great example of non-confusing product naming). Somehow by mistake, 10-20 of the fifty-pound bags of PBB made it to the Michigan Farm Bureau Services operation where it was added to the cattle feed instead of the NutriMaster. The PBB-contaminated feed went to farmers all around the state of Michigan. Quickly, after being fed the PBB-contaminated feed, the cows began to grow weak and their hides grew thick “like an elephant”. Veterinarians were puzzled and had no idea what was causing the outbreak of a mysterious disease in cattle all over the state. After nine months, the source of the contamination was identified, but not before 500 farms were quarantined and not allowed to sell milk and thousands of cows were destroyed along with 1.5 million chickens and thousands of pigs, sheep and rabbits.

Today, people who ate the contaminated food feel it is probably the source of elevated cancer rates they feel are taking place all around the state. All across the state, people who live near pits where the contaminated animals were buried fear their water is contaminated with the PBB leaching out of the pits.

In the days before the widespread use of air-conditioning in homes, summer months were often times too hot for cooking of meals. On July 2, 1971, a couple in Westchester County, New York decided it was too hot so they went for a meal of Bon Vivant brand vichyssoise soup. Vichyssoise soup is often served cold and the couple ate the soup right out of the can. It tasted bad so they did not finish the soup, but it was already too late. The soup was contaminated with botulism. The man was dead within a day and the wife poisoned and paralyzed by the botulism toxin. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a public warning and recalled all cans of the Bon Vivant vichyssoise soup, 5 more cans were found to contain the botulinum toxin. The FDA shut down the Bon Vivant plant and recalled all of their products. Because Bon Vivant also made generic “store brands” of soup as well as their own brand name products, people not only stopped buying Bon Vivant soup, they stopped buying any kind of soup at all. A full “soup-panic” was underway in the US. The incident destroyed consumer confidence in Bon Vivant and it soon went into bankruptcy.

One of the largest public health crises and mass food poisoning events occurred in 1971 when seed grain, meant to be planted and used as seeds, was instead used as food. The seed grain had been treated with a fungicide, highly toxic methyl mercury.

The seed grain was shipped to Iraq late in the growing season of 1971 from suppliers in Mexico and the USA. The mercury-treated seed was dyed red as a warming not to eat it, but the Iraqi’s did not know this. In addition, the red dye would wash off, but not the mercury. The bags containing the seeds were labeled in Spanish and English the rural inhabitants of Iraq could not read. The Iraqi’s either did not understand or chose to ignore the skull and crossbones warnings on the bags. The confusion led some to believe it was food, and not seed.

Those who ate the seed suffered muscle paralysis, numbness, loss of vision, and other symptoms typical of mercury poisoning. People were exposed to the mercury when they used the seed in making bread, when they ground the seed and breathed in the dust, and when they fed the seed to animals and then ate the animals. People began to fall ill and die in late 1971 and into 1972. All total it is estimated that at least 650 died from eating or being exposed to the mercury-contaminated seed, but some believe the true number could be ten times that. An estimated 10,000 people suffered permanent brain damage from the mercury.

The story of how more than 200 people in 1858 Bradford England became poisoned by arsenic (20 would die) is an amazing one but which illustrates the need to protect the public with laws to regulate and punish the adulteration of food and drink.

William Hardaker better known as “Humbug Billy” sold sweets at the Green Market in Bradford. He purchased his sweets from Joseph Neal who made them himself. The sweets or “lozenges” were peppermint “humbugs” which were supposed to be made using peppermint oil, sugar, and gum. However, to save money, Neal and others who made sweets at that time would insert instead an inert material they called “daft” instead of the sugar. Daft could be almost anything, plaster of Paris, limestone, and all manner of appetizing replacements.

For this batch of lozenges, Neal sent a lodger by the name of James Archer to his druggist, a man by the name of Charles Hodgson, to collect his “daft”. Archer, not being familiar with the finer points of daft collection, by chance came to the druggist on a day when Mr. Hodgson was to ill to wait on him. So instead of the knowledgeable daft man—Hodgson, Archer met a daft-challenged replacement, a Mr. William Goddard. Unsure of where to locate the daft in the store, Goodard asked Hodgson who said it could be found in a cask in the corner of the store. Goddard found the cask and sold Archer 12 pounds of what he though was “daft” but what was in fact arsenic trioxide.

Archer returned to Neal with the arsenic trioxide who gave it to his experienced sweet maker James Appleton. Appleton mixed 12 pounds of arsenic trioxide with 40 pounds of sugar and made the lozenges. He thought the finished product looked odd and so did Humbug Billy who demanded a reduced price. Humbug Billy soon became ill himself from eating the arsenic lozenges, but not before he sold enough of them to make over 200 people sick and kill 20 of them. Authorities eventually traced the line of the dead and sick back to Humbug Billy and his sweet stand. After testing, the lozenges were found to have between 0.7 and 1 gram of arsenic (a half a gram is lethal).

The event contributed to the passage of the Pharmacy Act 1868 in the United Kingdom and legislation regulating the adulteration of foodstuffs.

What happened in Pont Saint-Esprit France on August 16, 1951? Over sixty years later, we still do not know the truth. What is known is that on that day over 250 residents of this small French village were overcome with hallucinations and madness, which resulted in 7 deaths and 50 people being sent to asylums. Authorities claimed it was a mass-poisoning event caused by a food borne illness, probably ergot poisoning of rye bread. Ergot is a type of psychedelic fungus (Claviceps purpurea) that can naturally occur in rye. Once eaten, the alkaloids produced by the fungus can cause hallucinogenic effects.

There is no doubt the people were experiencing severe hallucinations. Victims recalled feeling as though “serpents were coiling up my arms”, that “they were on fire”, and that they were “shrinking”. Some victims threw themselves out windows, others injured themselves by trying to claw and cut out insects they believed were inside their bodies. People were put into straightjackets and chained to beds.

The ergot poisoning explanation is one of several possible causes of this mass hallucinogenic event including exposure to mercury, nitrogen trichloride, or other fungi. However the explanation that may make the most sense is the town people were deliberately dosed with a hallucinogenic substance—LSD. In his fantastic book on the history of the secret LSD program operated by the CIA called “A Terrible Mistake”, author Hank Albarelli puts forth a convincing series of arguments, backed by declassified documents, suggesting the CIA was behind the Pont-Saint-Esprit event.

A CIA scientist named Frank Olson traveled to this little town not long before the event happened. Olson was one of the CIA scientists involved in “MKULTRA”, the secret LSD experiments conducted by CIA operatives and doctors, on unsuspecting victims. Some of the evidence Albarelli found included a document referencing Olson and Pont-Saint-Esprit which was ordered to be “buried” by David Belin. Belin was the executive director of the US government commission investigating CIA misdeeds in 1975. Another declassified report was of an interview with a representative of the Sandoz Chemical Company in Switzerland. In 1951, the Sandoz pharmaceutical plant was not only located a few hundred miles from Pont-Saint-Esprit, it was also the only laboratory in the world, at that time, manufacturing LSD. The Sandoz representative admitted, “The Pont-Saint-Esprit ‘secret’ is that it was not the bread at all… It was not grain ergot.”

Widespread reports of ISIS selling illicitly obtained artifacts have brought to light the importance of ensuring the legality of purchased items. Museums, and to a lesser extent private collectors, often claim to have followed the letter of the law. More often than should be acceptable, their claims have been proven false. Here are 10 interesting cases of archaeological or artistic theft.

10 Italian Conquest Of Ethiopia

In 1937, just before the onset of World War II, Italian soldiers under the direction of Benito Mussolini came to the town of Aksum (or Axum), which housed one of Ethiopia’s most revered treasures—the Obelisk of Aksum, a monument which dates back to the fourth century AD. (Technically, it’s a stele, as it doesn’t have a pyramid at the top.) The city of Aksum was of the holiest places in Ethiopia and a central figure in the rise of Coptic Christianity in the country.

The Italians were pushed out of Ethiopia at the end the war and signed a peace treaty just a few years later, which included the condition that they return any looted artifacts within 18 months. While many items were repatriated, the stele remained outside a United Nations building in Rome. Two more treaties were signed over the coming decades, each with the condition of repatriation, but it never budged. It was finally returned in 2005, though it had to be broken into three pieces for the voyage, as it stands over 24 meters (79 ft) tall and weighs 160 tons. (It was rebuilt when it arrived in Ethiopia.) The stele was described as the largest and heaviest object to ever be transported by air.

One of the main concerns that the Italians raised (one commonly raised by countries asked to return stolen goods) was that the Ethiopians would not take care of it. Italy’s deputy minister of culture, Vittorio Sgarbi, said at the time: “Italy cannot give its consent for a monument well kept and restored to be taken to a war zone, and leave it there with the risk of having it destroyed.” He even threatened to resign if the stele was ever returned, though he didn’t follow through with it. When it was damaged in a severe thunderstorm, he finally relented, saying, “After all, it has already been damaged, so we might as well give it back.”

9 Looting Of The Old Summer Palace

Following the defeat of Chinese forces in the Second Opium War, the United Kingdom found itself in Beijing and also in need of, shall we say, “compensation.” To that end, British forces, with a little help from the French, descended on the city and made a beeline straight to Yuanmingyuan (Garden of Perfect Brightness). Since looting had been a recognized byproduct of war for millennia as well as the fact that they need to pay their soldiers and defer the cost of the dead, the Europeans began to take anything they could lay their hands on, while an envoy went to the Chinese to discuss peace talks.

However, the envoy never reached its goal, as they were taken prisoner by the Chinese and tortured until they were dead. Angered beyond belief and out for vengeance, the commander of the British forces, the eighth earl of Elgin, ordered his army to burn Yuanmingyuan to the ground. (If the name Elgin sounds familiar, it’s because his father was the same Lord Elgin who “acquired” the Parthenon [aka Elgin] Marbles.) One of the items stolen was a Pekinese dog, which was given to Queen Victoria and named “Looty.”

Chinese officials estimate that about 1.5 million items were pilfered from the site by the end of the war, with nothing but rubble left behind. Its looting is still a sore spot for the Chinese. Yuanmingyuan was purported to be the greatest collection of art and architecture in the entire country, and virtually nothing survived the British destruction. Even the British recognized its beauty, as a participating officer said at the time: “You can scarcely imagine the beauty and magnificence of the places we burnt. It made one’s heart sore to burn them.”

Investigators have spent decades trying to recover the artifacts, with most of their requests falling on deaf ears. One of Elgin’s descendants, showing a complete lack of understanding, said, “These things happen. It’s important to go ahead, rather than look back all the time.”

8 Russo-Japanese War

Fought between two countries with imperialistic ambitions in Manchuria and Korea, the Russo-Japanese war lasted for nearly two years just after the beginning of the 20th century. In the end, Japan emerged victorious, and it was the first major military conflict in modern times in which an Asian country defeated a European nation. As the area known as Manchuria spans territory both in Russia as well as in China, Japanese forces often found themselves on Chinese land.

Though an estimated 3.6 million artifacts were looted in the time between the First Sino-Japanese War and the end of WWII, one of the most sought after relics was stolen during the Russo-Japanese War—the Honglujing Stele. With its construction dating back nearly 1,300 years, the stele is believed to be of the utmost importance in the study of the Bohai Kingdom. Very few people, even Japanese researchers, have been allowed to look at it.

Housed in the Tokyo Imperial Palace for over a century, the Japanese consider the 9-ton Honglujing Stele to be a “trophy” of their victory in the war as well as the property of the emperor. Thus, they’ve rebuffed Chinese demands to return it.

7 Construction Of The East Indian Railway

Much like the more famous Koh-i-Noor diamond, the Sultanganj Buddha has been a point of contention between the Indian and British governments since its removal from India in 1861. It was discovered by E.B. Harris, the local engineer for the British, during the construction of a station yard at the North Indian town of Sultanganj. It was believed to have been buried in an effort to hide it. Harris himself said, “From these discoveries I conclude that the resident monks had only just time to bury the colossal copper statue of Buddha before making their escape from the Vihar.” The Sultanganj Buddha was whisked away to Britain in the following months and brought to Birmingham by an industrialist involved in the construction of the railway.

Atop a list of stolen treasures that the Indian government would like returned, the statue, which dates back as far as AD 500, has remained in Birmingham. Like all British museums, the Birmingham Museum has steadfastly refused to return it, standing by laws which forbid it from returning major artifacts. (Small, in other words less valuable, items are routinely returned, however.) The British maintain that they have proper ownership of the bronze Buddha, claiming that Harris was the only one who realized its value and saved it from being melted down by the locals.

6 The Morean War

Though the Republic of Venice longer exists, and its naval commander, Franceso Morosini, is more well-known for his destruction and subsequent looting of the Parthenon in Athens, they were also responsible for the theft of a number of artifacts, chief among them being the Piraeus Lion. Thanks to their veneration of Saint Mark, their patron saint, the Venetians would often search for depictions of lions to loot during their conquests.

During the Great Turkish War, a conflict waged between the Ottoman Empire and a collection of European nations collectively known as the Holy League. Various smaller wars between the countries broke out as well. One of them was known as the Morean War, and it was basically between Venice and the Ottoman Empire. As the war raged on, the Venetians and Morosini found themselves in Athens and were determined to take the city. Once they succeeded, the looting began, with the most valuable monument being the white marble lion located in Piraeus, the Athenian harbor.

With its construction dating back to the fourth century BC, the Piraeus Lion had stood in the Greek city for nearly 1,500 years before Morosini and his Venetian soldiers looted it and brought it to the Venetian Arsenal, where it remains to this day.

5 Napoleon’s Conquest Of Italy

Setting an example for future dictators like Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, Napoleon Bonaparte wished to fill his newly constructed Louvre museum with a virtual encyclopedia of artistic history. He, and much of France’s elite, believed that the French people had better taste and would appreciate the plundered artifacts better than anyone else. Setting themselves apart from most entries on this list, however, they actually stole from fellow Europeans.

First on Napoleon’s long list of victims, which included one of the first coordinated lootings of Egypt, was Italy. The Louvre, briefly known as the Musee Napoleon, was to be the home for the spoils of war, an idea which owes its origins to the Convention Nationale, which deemed valuable works of art as viable for payment for war debts. Some of Italy’s greatest works, including Correggio’s Madonna of St. Jerome and Raphael’s Transfiguration, found their way to France thanks to that decision.

When he was done looting, Napoleon referred to the plundered art as harvest, saying that they would have “all that there is of the beautiful in Italy.” Although they initially felt the legality of their acquisition to be beyond reproach, the French government returned many of the paintings after Napoleon’s abdication and subsequent exile. Some, however still remain in Paris.

4 Excavation Of The Karun Treasure

While they weren’t personally involved in the excavation and eventual theft and export of nearly 200 pieces from the Karun Treasure, the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art was well aware that they were illicitly obtained and are just as culpable. In fact, they knew from the beginning. Thomas Hoving, the director of the Met, said in his memoirs, “If the Turks come up with the proof from there side, we’ll give the East Greek treasure back. [ . . . ]We took our chances when we bought the material.” (This was very much in the middle of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” period for US museums.)

Collectively known as the Karun Treasure or the Lydian Hoard, the pieces were discovered in 1965, looted from Iron Age burial mounds in western Turkey. Nearly 2,500 years old, the 363 artifacts were unearthed by local treasure hunters and smuggled out of the country over the following two years. Though they were briefly displayed at the Met during the 1980s, the pieces were eventually returned to Turkey in 1993.

To add even more intrigue to this story, one of the most prized pieces in the collection, a hippocamp brooch purported to belong to King Croesus of Lydia, was found to be a replica in 2006. The director of the museum in which they were held later admitted to swapping out the real one in order to settle gambling debts. (He blamed his bad luck on an ancient curse said to reside in the brooch.) It was eventually found a few years later and returned to the museum.

3 Looting Of Berlin During WWII

Though Russia has since returned a handful of the artifacts that their armed forces looted during the aftermath of Nazi Germany’s surrender, many of them still remain locked away in Russian museums and private collections. (However, if you ask Russia, they’ll say that over 90 percent of them have been returned.) Chief among them is Priam’s Treasure, a collection of artifacts discovered at Hisarlik, which is generally accepted to be site of ancient Troy.

Unearthed by an amateur archaeologist named Heinrich Schliemann, the find dates back 4,500 years, centuries before the originally purported owner, King Priam of Troy, was said to have lived. Originally illegally smuggled out of Turkey, the collection of copper artifacts, which includes an exquisite diadem known as the “Jewels of Helen,” found their way to Berlin, where they remained until the Soviets looted them in 1945. Seen by the Russians as the spoils of war (or “trophy art”) the very existence of Priam’s Treasure was denied for decades before it finally turned up in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow in 1993.

The artifacts’ return, either to Germany or Turkey, seems unlikely, as the Russian government has deemed the artwork and artifacts that they’ve kept as payment for the “moral crimes” which Nazi Germany perpetrated on the Russian people. To sum up their attitude, the longtime director of the Pushkin Museum said in an interview in 2012: “A country is liable, with its own cultural treasures, for the damage it inflicts on the cultural heritage of another nation.”

2 Amarna Excavation

Dating back 3,500 years, the bust of Queen Nefertiti, wife of the infamous pharaoh Akhenaten, was discovered by a German archaeologist named Ludwig Borchardt on December 6, 1912. Found in the remains of Thutmose’s workshop in the dig site known as Amarna, the bust was smuggled out of the country and hidden from Egyptian authorities, who had agreed to split the found artifacts. Germany disputes this version of events, claiming that everything was legal and aboveboard.

Recognizing the value of the piece, which has since gone on to gain a reputation as an icon of feminine beauty, Borchardt was said to have “wanted to save the bust for us,” according to a secretary in the German Oriental Company, who was present at the time. It was initially kept in the private residence of the excavation’s financier. Later, it was displayed as a counterpoint to Tutankhamun’s funerary mask, which had brought worldwide acclaim to the British when it was showcased.

Egyptian efforts to repatriate the bust have proved fruitless over the decades, as countless German officials have refused to give the notion a second glance. Adolf Hitler himself declared: “I will never relinquish the head of the Queen,” as it was one of his favorite pieces.

1 Benin Expedition Of 1897

A punitive expedition in retaliation for an attack on the British military known as the Benin Massacre, the Benin Expedition of 1897 was led by Rear-Admiral Harry Rawson, and it had the express intent of destroying every Benin town or village and plundering anything of value along the way as reparations. By the end of Britain’s reign of destruction, the Kingdom of Benin was no more, wiped off the face of the Earth.

When Benin artifacts finally made their way to London, their reception was incredible, with every museum from Europe and the United States hoping to get their hands on a piece of the treasure. (Germany was especially enamored with the looted artwork.) Perhaps the most noteworthy of all the artwork are the Benin Bronzes, a collection of more than 1,000 metal plaques which commemorate the battles, kings, queens, and mythology of the Edo people. They date back to the 13th century AD. Europeans became enamored with African culture after their “discovery,” astonished that a culture so “primitive” and “savage” could have produced something of such high quality.

Doctors have often been seen as some of the smartest members of society, and with good reason. It takes years of training, constant retraining, and a lot more than just book smarts to be a good doctor. But they are still human, and humans are fallible. Mistakes are made every day, and while some of them can be insignificant, others can completely change lives. Suing doctors for less-than-perfect practice is becoming more and more common, the morality of which is debatable. If you need help, and only certain people are able (and often, legally obliged) to help you, is it really fair to blame them if their best isn’t good enough? In many cases on the other hand, it is clear if a patient suffered because somebody was careless. Below are ten examples of some of the most cringe-inducing medical malpractices of recent years.

Going in for brain surgery is worrying enough for most patients, but those in Rhode Island Hospital could be forgiven for being more worried than most. Despite being the most prestigious hospital of the state, and a teaching hospital for students of Brown University, the hospital made the basic yet tremendous mistake of operating on the wrong side of a patient’s brain. Three times in one year.

The first incident was the result of a third-year resident failing to mark which side of the brain was to be operated on. The doctor and nurse in this operation claimed they were not trained in how to use a checklist, although one must ask how many people would allow their heads to be cut open by someone who has clearly never received professional training in the fine art of grocery shopping.

In the second incident, a different doctor (with over 20 years experience) never filled out which side of an 86 year old man’s brain had a blood clot, assuring the nurse that he remembered. The patient in this case died a few weeks later.

In the third case, the chief resident neurosurgeon and a nurse both clarified which side of the brain was to be operated on beforehand, and then proceeded to operate on the other side. All three cases involved different doctors, but whether it’s better to be in a hospital where one doctor repeats a mistake multiple times, or several doctors make the same mistake is debatable.

Alexander Baez is a former Mr. Mexico and a runner-up Mr. Universe. Being a bodybuilder, he is, unsurprisingly, concerned with his physique, and in 1999 he decided he wanted to get pec implants. When he awoke from his surgery, he discovered that while he had been given implants, he was actually given breast implants (C-cups), and not pec implants. Police in Florida began a search for Reinaldo Silvestre, a man who had posed as a doctor and had no legitimate medical credentials. Silvestre had forged documents and had also operated on at least two women in Florida, using kitchen utensils. In 2004, Silvestre was found in working in Belize, where he is believed to have treated hundreds of patients over at least a one year period.

Carol Weihrer had long suffered pain in her right eye, and at the advice of her doctor, decided her quality of life would be improved if she had the eye removed. The surgery was five and a half hours long, and for about two of those hours, Carol was awake. She explained that anesthesia is made up of two different elements, one to paralyze the patient, and one to put them to sleep. Unfortunately, only the paralyzing agent worked fully in her case, and halfway through the operation, she woke up but could not move at all. She was horrified to hear the surgeon listening to disco music throughout, as well as having to hear things like “Cut deeper, pull harder”. Carol was awake for the exact moment they removed the eye. Eventually, the doctor realized she was conscious, and the administered more of the nerve-blocking anesthesia, which Carol described made her insides feel like “being roasted on a barbecue pit”. She was so traumatized by the ordeal that she has slept in a reclining chair since, too afraid to lie down. Cases like these are known as Anesthesia Awareness, and it is estimated that up to 42,000 people in the US alone experience it every year.

Never having been in for any sort of surgery in my life (and after writing this, hoping I never will be), I can only imagine the worries people have beforehand: how skilled is the surgeon, what if they cut something they shouldn’t and so on. I also think it’s safe to assume that “What if I catch on fire?” isn’t a common concern among patients. But perhaps it should be. In 2009 Janice McCall, 65, died six days after she caught fire during surgery. While the cause of the fire was not released in this case, there are a number of other examples to that can explain possible causes to igniting in surgery: In 2012, Enrique Ruiz suffered second-degree burns after an electronic scalpel caused his oxygen supply to explode, which the hospital then tried to cover up.

In another case, Catherine Reuter, 74, suffered second and third-degree burns after a cauterizing tool caused the alcohol based disinfectant on her face to catch fire. The incident led to strong infections, kidney failure, and long-term sedation. Reuter never fully recovered, and died in hospital two years later. It is estimated that surgical fires affect up to 650 patients a year.

It’s likely that everyone reading this will have heard stories about people who get operations and later find out that they had foreign objects stitched inside them. There are about 1,500 such reports every year in the US. While uncommon, such an occurrence can be extremely painful, and can lead to other complications such as infection or internal bleeding. What sets Daryoush Mazarei out from other examples is not the fact that the item left behind inside his chest, a retractor, was 10 inches long, nor that it could physically be seen poking out. It is that when he went back to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, he was told he should seek psychiatric care. After a month of agonizing pain, multiple complaints, and repeatedly being told the problem was in his head, Marazei was finally given a CT scan, and the item was removed. He has begun legal proceedings against the hospital.

Jesica Santillan was a 17 year old girl who died 15 days after receiving a heart and double-lung transplant. Undoubtedly, this was a major operation and any number of things could have gone wrong. The whole thing could have even gone perfectly, but failed if Jesica’s body rejected the new organs. While her body did reject the organs, it was not simply a case of bad luck. With such long waiting lists for organs in the US, you would think that the professionals in Duke University Hospital would make sure that the organs they intend to transplant are the same blood type as the person they’re going into. Unfortunately, Jesica was blood type O, and received organs from someone that was blood type A, something over a dozen people were supposed to check, but didn’t. The hospital hid the mistake for 11 days, and then went public looking for another donor. She received a second transplant two weeks after the first one, but was declared brain dead and taken off life support. Her mother believes that she was weaned off her medication so she would seemingly pass away naturally.

Only people who have actually seen it for themselves can really know how easy it is to look at something like a pair of kidneys and tell which one is healthy and which is not. Apparently, it’s not as clear a difference as you might think. In 2000, 70 year old Graham Reeves of Wales died after not one, but two surgeons removed the wrong kidney. This sort of error is not an isolated incident, nor is it confined to any one body part. Benjamin Houghton, an Air Force veteran, received $200,000 compensation after doctors removed the wrong testicle, while Willie King, who suffered from diabetes, received a total of $1.15 million after his right leg was amputated by mistake (with the correct leg being amputated later).

Kim Tutt was getting her jaw x-rayed at the dentist, when they noticed a large lump on the left side of her jaw. After undergoing further examinations, she was told she had 3-6 months to live. The doctors told her she could possibly get an extra three months if they removed the left side of her chin, right up to her ear, and replaced it with her fibula. Desperate to spend more time with her 10 and 12 year old sons, she underwent the procedure. The lump was removed, and although slightly disfigured, Tutt was grateful to have extra time with her sons. Three months later, she was called to the doctors office, who gave her the good news that she was cancer free. The bad news was that she had in fact never had cancer at all. There had been a mix up in the lab, and Kim Tutt had gone through five surgeries and been left disfigured for nothing.

Medical malpractice is not limited to surgery, and the case of Paul Lozano illustrates this better than any other example. Lozano had been sexually abused by his mother as a child, and his psychiatrist, Margaret Bean-Bayog, decided to try a form of therapy known as “reparenting”, where the psychiatrist simulates the different stages of lifespan development in an attempt to “reprogram” the patient. She coddled him, read him stories, called him “baby”, made him call her “mother”, and made him learn cue-cards off by heart. One such card read “I’m your mom and I love you and you love me very much. Say that 10 times”. Other cards were more sexual, and more notes were found that appeared to be erotica featuring Lozano and his doctor. It was also reported that they did in fact have sexual relations. After about five years, he committed suicide.

Some of the examples mentioned so far were a result of poor communication, while others can be attributed to bad practice. Depending on who and what you believe, it can be argued that both of these are present in the case of Bryan Mejia, but what sets it apart from the others is the ethical debate that it sparked. Bryan was born with only one leg, and no arms. The deformity is obviously not the fault of the medical staff at Palm Beaches, but parents Ana Mejia and Rodolfo Santana have accused the staff of negligence for not properly detecting this through ultrasounds, saying they would have aborted their son if they had known he would only have one limb. Most people would expect that a doctor would be able to alert the parents-to-be of such a disability, but Dr. Morel, the defendant, argued that he is not to blame. The couple, who feared the child may be born with down-syndrome, opted not to undergo amniocentesis after they were told there was a 99.9% chance that the child would not have any form of mental disability. This test would have detected the missing limbs, but there was a 1 in 500 chance that it could result in a miscarriage, and Morel argued that it was their decision, and he cannot be blamed. But according to the lawyer representing the couple, the second ultrasound given to them shows all four limbs intact, suggesting they were given false evidence.

The couple was awarded $4.5 million, to help Bryan have a good life, and stated that none of this was compensation for their mental anguish. But many people see this as the couple suing the hospital because they had a disabled child. This, the fact that the couple say they would have aborted their son, and the accusations of malpractice, all caused widespread outrage and debate.

Sacks containing dead bodies or merely a torso were common finds in the early 20th century. In fact, a quick search through the archives of US and Australian newspapers shows evidence of hundreds of bodies having been found sacked and discarded.

Only a few different types of sacks were used to hold the bodies. But the most common bag was the gunnysack, also called a burlap bag. Cornsacks were also used. But the only difference between the gunnysack and the cornsack was the size of the bag and its original use before a body was placed in it.

There were a few cases of smaller bags being used where the murderer had to chop apart the body and fit it into four different bags, but that was a lot of work for one murder. Few killers were keen on putting in the effort of cleanup.

Most of the body sack cases were never solved. They were simply mentioned in two short sentences in a local newspaper. There were many instances of torsos being found. With nothing else to identify the bodies, the cases remained mysteries for all time.

10 A Floater

The number one rule to getting rid of a sacked body is to weigh it down before dumping it into a deep body of water. There is no telling how many murderers got away with their crimes by following this basic 101 tip. However, some murderers failed miserably at this most basic rule.

For example, James Moore of Texas was a different kind of special. In 1898, he grew jealous of his wife. While she slept one night, he took a hammer and bashed her skull in. After that, he proceeded to stab her with a knife numerous times before stuffing her into a sack.

Moore took his wife’s lifeless body to the Trinity River and threw her in. But he forgot to weigh down the sack, and she was soon found floating in the river. Moore was arrested and confessed to his crime.^[1]

9 Four Suspicious Sacks

Early one morning in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1902, a young man was on his way to work when he spotted two oddly shaped sacks at the back of the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons. As he walked on, he saw an even stranger sight. There was a body-shaped sack sitting on top of a dry goods box.

The young man telephoned the police, and shortly thereafter, the bicycle patrolmen arrived. They opened the sack sitting on the box and discovered a body. A look inside the dry goods box revealed a second body stuffed in a sack. When they went behind the school for doctors, two more bodies were discovered.^[2]

An investigation was made, but everyone already knew what was going on. The bodies were recognized as those who had recently been buried in nearby cemeteries and were going to be used by the doctors for dissection.

Seventeen arrests were made, including grave robbers, three doctors, an undertaker, the proprietor of one of the cemeteries, and three watchmen.

8 Half Sacked

In most cases where bodies were stuck inside sacks, the murderer would either fold the body up to make it fit or he would chop off a few of the limbs. However, in 1939, there was a murderer on the loose who just could not be bothered with either of those tasks.

In a private dam in Wycheproof Shire, Victoria, Australia, a body was discovered floating in the water in 1939. What was curious about this particular body was that its legs were in a sack that was tied to the victim’s hips. It was as if the murderer just said to heck with it and tossed the victim into the water half sacked.

There was no mention of any heavy objects in the sack to help weigh it down. Also, the victim had injuries to the head which suggested that the person had been murdered instead of committing suicide.^[3]

The identity of the man was not determined.

7 Who Knows And Who Cares?

Out of Montana came a story that was fairly typical of gruesome sack finds. It was 1910, and a chef who was out fishing found a sack containing bones along the bank of a river. The police were called to investigate. When they arrived, they saw the sack with a bone sticking out of it.

The police looked inside the bag and declared the contents to be “too dead to be recognizable.” It could have been a person, a dog, or a calf for all they cared.

Instead of having a professional identify the bones, the men buried the sack where they found it and went on with their day.^[4]

6 Laziness Or Lack Of Curiosity

For two weeks back in 1926, thousands of people crossed over the bridge in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia, and viewed the object floating in the water. No one was all that curious about it because it looked like a bag in the muddy water.

One day, however, a man noticed that the sack was floating higher than before. Upon taking a closer look at the object, he could see an ear and part of a head sticking out from it.

The police were called, and they fished the sack out of the water. Inside it, they found the bloated body of a man.

Although no follow-up on the case could be found in the newspapers, it is rather curious that no one bothered to investigate the bag. After all, this is the type of behavior we expect from modern-day citizens and not from the people of nearly 100 years ago.^[5]

5 No Missing Person Report

One of the few ways that the police of the early 20th century were able to name an unidentified body was through the missing persons reports. If someone in the local vicinity had been reported missing, it was either assumed that the body belonged to that person or relatives were brought in for further identification.

If no local person was reported missing and no one confessed to the murder, the discovered body would remain unnamed. Without any form of identification, the case would sit unsolved.

In 1929, a chaff bag washed up on the creek banks in Narrabri, New South Wales, Australia, after some recent floods. A rabbit trapper going about his business found the bag and opened it up.^[6]

Inside was the torso of a man. His head, hands, and legs had been hacked off so that the body could fit into the sack and to help prevent identification. It was estimated that the victim had been deceased for a little under three months.

The police inspector was mystified by the case. Not only did he have an unidentified body on his hands, but no one had been reported missing during the three-month time period.

4 Quite A Haul

Fishermen who fail to catch a fish are apt to catch a boot instead. At least that is what we see in the cartoons. Unfortunately, there have been more known instances of bodies being fished out of the water than shoes.

That was the case back in 1910 when a man was fishing at Tooradin, Victoria, Australia. He brought up a heavy sack from the depths of the water and saw a pale, clammy hand sticking out from the side of the sack. The top of the sack had been tied with a rope.

The victim was described as a well-dressed man who had been spotted walking around Tooradin the day before his body was discovered. The locals believed that he was a city man who had been camping by the river.

When the police went to the victim’s campsite, they discovered his clothing neatly arranged and nothing seemed out of place. Naturally, they concluded that the unnamed man had ended his own life in a rather bizarre fashion.^[7]

3 Where Is The Rest?

Many of the bodies dumped in lakes and rivers were mere torsos. In the early 1900s, there was no real way to identify these torsos unless they had a tattoo or a unique scar. Often, the torso cases remained unsolved and the rest of the body parts were never discovered.

For instance, in 1914, a sewn-up sack was removed from the Mohawk River in New York. In it was the nude torso of a woman. Her head, arms, and legs were removed. The police investigated the case, but without DNA technology, there was little chance they could identify the unmarked torso.

Again, in 1921, a torso was discovered in Rogers, Texas. This time, the torso was discovered by two fishermen who pulled a floating gunnysack out of the river. Inside the sack, they found a woman’s torso. Her head and legs had been removed, but her arms remained attached.^[8]

2 Hair Completely Cut Off

As two men were preparing to leave Lyon, France, one morning and head out to the country, they noticed a strange sack on the ground. Of course, they opened it and discovered the body of a woman. There was blood on her lips and nostrils, and it appeared that someone had cut off all her hair.

The authorities were alerted, and soon enough, the body was identified as that of Marie Servageon. Her husband was located, and he claimed that his wife had disappeared the previous day on June 13, 1908. He found her sudden disappearance rather odd but decided not to contact the police. He said he had hoped that she would return the next morning.^[9]

The police were fine with the husband’s seeming lack of concern over his wife’s disappearance. They assumed that she had been kidnapped and murdered by people unknown.

No further reports were made about the case. It appears that the husband was never charged for the murder and that the kidnappers were never discovered.

1 Sacked With Arms Sticking Out

Imagine waking up one morning to head out to the bathroom. You open the door, already expecting the stench on a warm, damp morning. But instead of the smell, you are greeted with a sight that you would not soon forget. In truth, it was something straight out of a horror movie.

It was summer 1910 when a horrifying discovery was made in Bonner, Montana. The body of a man was found inside an outhouse. The victim had been stuffed inside a gunnysack which was then sewn closed. Oddly enough, whoever sewed the victim into the bag had left the man’s arms sticking out of the sides of the bag at the seams.^[10]

While suicides in outhouses were fairly common in the early 1900s, it was doubtful that a man might sew himself up inside a bag, leaving his arms out, and then commit the terrible deed. For this reason, the police and investigators at the scene were near certain that this was a case of murder.

Elizabeth lives in the beautiful state of Massachusetts where she is currently involved in researching early American history. She writes and travels in her spare time.

Science progresses by theory and experimentation. When an experiment requires a human subject there are two main options for the investigator. By far the most popular is to cast about for a volunteer, usually obtained by offering money rather than appealing to their thirst for scientific advancement. The other option is for the scientist to use him or herself as a test subject. Here are ten cases of bizarre, dangerous or important self-experiments.

10 Pain

Pain is a tricky concept to quantify. We all know people who can deal with a limb being lopped off without complaint while we ourselves are weeping over a paper cut. One potential way to work out a scale of pain would be for an individual to experience a range of painful stimuli and compare them against each other. This was the course Justin Schmidt took when he wished to compare the pain caused by various invertebrate stings. Schmidt ranks the pain caused by a sting from 0 (Ineffective against humans) to 4 (Excruciating). For stings at the higher end of the scale he also adds a verbal description of the pain to allow a fuller examination of what one suffers. One sting—that of the Pepsis wasp—was described as “Immediate, excruciating pain that simply shuts down one’s ability to do anything, except, perhaps, scream.”

9 Cholera

Max von Pettenkofer was a huge figure in 19th century German medicine, being seen as the founder of hygiene. One of the most troubling diseases at the time was cholera, which causes death by extreme loss of fluids by diarrhea. We now know that it is caused by a germ, Vibrio cholerae, and is spread by fecal contamination. Pettenkofer lived in the early days of the germ theory of disease and was convinced cholera was caused by a mixture of a germ and soil conditions which transformed the germ into an infectious miasma. To prove the importance of soil in developing cholera, Pettenkofer drank a sample of pure cholera germs to see if he would get sick. While he felt a little unwell he did not end up dying from voluminous vomiting and diarrhea. This shows the limit of self-experimentation; we only have one self and a single datum is not generally sufficient to prove a theory.

8 Food

Since the first person starved to death it has been obvious that humans need food. What is less obvious is what happens to it once it is inside you and why it seems we excrete less than we take in. In the early 17th century a doctor called Sanctorius decided to weigh everything he ate, his own body, and everything he excreted for over 30 years. He built a special chair to allow him to measure the changes in his weight. These experiments allowed him to calculate that for every 8 pounds of food he ate he passed only 3 pounds of waste. Clearly some was being lost by a process he could not understand and he called this an insensible perspiration. Weighing all your feces and urine for 30 years is true dedication to science, but then I suppose it is better to use your own than someone else’s.

7 Infectiousness

Yellow fever is a viral disease spread by mosquitoes that still kills 30,000 people each year despite there being an effective vaccine available. In the past epidemics of yellow fever would spread through North America and people would regularly leave cities for the safer countryside during ‘the fever season.’ Since it was such a peril a young medical student called Stubbins Ffirth decided to investigate. Certain that it was impossible for the disease to pass from one person to another he tried to infect someone using samples from victims. The person he tried to infect, as you might guess from this list, was himself. He took vomit from yellow fever patients and drank it. He also rubbed it in cuts on his own body for good measure. He did not contract the disease. Perhaps that was not the infectious route, he considered; so he then poured vomit onto his eyeballs. Still no fever. He then progressed through blood, saliva, and pus. Still in robust health Ffirth decided he had confirmed yellow fever was not infectious and published his results. Unfortunately all his samples had come from patients who had passed the infectious stage of the illness and yellow fever is very much a transmissible illness. He never found out he had drunk vomit for nothing.

6 Electrical Stimulation

The discovery of electricity and its effects on dead animals lead to a scramble of scientists attempting to investigate the role of electricity in life. Johann Wilhelm Ritter, discoverer of ultraviolet light, was one such scientist. His experiments into ‘animal electricity’ did away with testing it on corpses and onto his own body. He applied charges to various areas and recorded the results. The most extreme reaction he found was when he used his battery, a Voltaic pile, on his genitals and achieved orgasm. Like a child with a new toy he repeated his experiments endlessly. He was so attached to his work that he joked about marrying his Voltaic pile. The increasing shocks he gave himself occasionally required morphine to dull the pain and it is likely he shortened his life by his work.

5 Surviving Submarines

War has been a natural training ground for scientists. The huge number of bodies produced let early medics explore human anatomy. But the urge to help prevent deaths has also spurred some scientists into risky behaviors. J. B. S. Haldane was one of the great theorists of evolution but also had a flair for dramatic experiments. He learned this from his father, also a biologist, who used to experiment on his son. Wishing to study the effects of rapid changes in pressure which a submariner would experience on escaping from a wreck, Haldane had himself repeatedly placed in a decompression chamber. While much was learned about nitrogen narcosis, the bends, no major harm was done to Haldane except for some fits and perforated ear drums. He shrugged this latter off. “The drum generally heals up; and if a hole remains in it, although one is somewhat deaf, one can blow tobacco smoke out of the ear in question, which is a social accomplishment.”

4 Upside Down World

All we know of the world is through our senses and so it is natural for scientists to investigate how those senses work. George Stratton decided to test how the mind would adapt to change in its perception of sight. By wearing glasses he inverted his vision so up was down and down was up. At first putting on the glasses led to the nausea and disconnected feelings you would expect. Within days he was able to function normally and after some time he reported that he actually felt the image he was receiving was actually the right way up. When he took the glasses off he thought the world as he saw it without the glasses was upside down. Repetitions of this experiment have failed to replicate this feeling normality but have shown the power of the brain to adapt to changes in perception compared to reality.

3 Hanging Sensation

Nicolae Minovici was a man who had a question he wanted an answer to: what does hanging feel like? For most of us the answer ‘Probably not great’ would be a sufficient guess, but Minovici wanted to know beyond reasonable doubt. The only logical answer was therefore to have himself hanged and experience it for himself. Several times and with several different types of noose he had assistants hoist him into the air. The pain was apparently severe and lasted for weeks after each experiment, not something condemned men would have to contend with as their suffering is cut somewhat short. Of course this experiment does not answer what those who suffer the long drop and a broken neck undergo when they are executed.

2 Heart Cathetar

Sometimes it is necessary for doctors to get access to the heart either for diagnosis or treatment. The simplest way to do this might seem to be to hack open the chest and have a look at the organ itself. Obviously this has massive risks and while even today opening the chest is risky, in the 1930s it would have been almost certainly fatal. Werner Forssman studied corpses and decided it would be possible to pass a thin tube, or catheter, along blood vessels and directly into the heart. Needing to discover whether this would be possible in still living humans he decided an experiment would be in order. He cut open his arm and threaded the tube up and into his heart. A small slip could have torn a major vessel and led to his death but he still needed to prove he had reached the heart. So, with the tube dangling from his arm, he walked from the operating room to an x-ray machine, and took the pictures which showed he had been successful. For this bit of scientific derring-do he shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1956.

1 Stomach Ulcers

One of the most basic rules of lab safety is no eating or drinking, but there can be serious rewards for ignoring this ban. Today stomach ulcers are, for the most part, just punch lines in jokes about people being too stressed but they were once a major cause of death. The risk is from an ulcer causing bleeding or perforating and leading to infection. The cause of these potentially fatal ulcers was a mystery until two scientists, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, discovered many patients carried the bacterium Helicobacter pylori in their stomachs. After checking his stomach was healthy Marshall downed a Petri dish of the bacteria and waited. He soon developed gastritis and other symptoms. They had shown H. pylori could cause stomach ulcers and that antibiotics could treat them. For this discovery Marshall and Warren shared a Nobel Prize in 2005.

One of the most popular plot devices in fiction is for a character to develop amnesia and lose their memory. Of course, in real life, amnesia cases don’t happen nearly as often as they do on soap operas, and they come in many different forms. But when these cases do occur, they make for some interesting stories, even when they turn out to be a complete hoax. We’ve already profiled the story of Benjaman Kyle, a middle-aged man who lost his memory after an assault and still hasn’t uncovered his true identity, but his is not the only bizarre case of amnesia (not by a long shot).

10 Ansel Bourne

One of the most well-known amnesiacs in pop culture is Jason Bourne, a character who is forced to uncover his past as a government assassin after losing his memory. So it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to learn that Jason Bourne was named after one of the first known amnesiacs. Ansel Bourne was an evangelical preacher from Greene, Rhode Island, who took a trip to visit his sister in Providence on January 17, 1887. However, for unexplained reasons, he ended up withdrawing his savings instead and traveling to Norristown, Pennsylvania. While there, he decided to open up a variety store under the name Albert J. Brown and started a new life.

When Bourne woke up on the morning of March 15, he had no idea where he was. He became very confused when residents told him his name was Albert J. Brown. In his mind, it was still January 17 and he had no memory of his previous two months in Norristown. After returning home, Bourne was studied by the Society for Physical Research. Under hypnosis, he would assume the persona of Albert J. Brown. The hypnotized Bourne told a back story about Brown that was similar to his own, but denied knowledge of anyone named Ansel Bourne. It was probably the first documented case of a psychiatric disorder known as the “fugue state,” a dissociative form of amnesia that causes a person to lose their identity for a period of time before their memory suddenly returns. After the hypnosis, Ansel Bourne lived out the rest of his life without incident and never assumed the persona of Albert J. Brown again.

9 Clive Wearing

After suffering a serious brain injury, the protagonist of Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed film Memento is afflicted with anterograde amnesia. Even though he still remembers his past, he is unable to create new memories. While this condition is real, it is far less common than retrograde amnesia, which involves losing memories from one’s past. However, a British musicologist named Clive Wearing has the dubious distinction of suffering from both forms of amnesia at the same time. On March 27, 1985, the 46-year-old Wearing contracted herpesviral encephalitis, a very rare form of the herpes simplex virus that attacks the central nervous system. As a result, Wearing cannot remember events from his past or store new memories in his brain.

The virus severely damaged Wearing’s hippocampus, the area of the brain that transfers memories from short-term to long-term. As a result, his brain can only store new memories for several seconds before he forgets them again. Wearing also cannot remember most of the details of his life before 1985. He can recall that he had children from a previous marriage, but cannot remember their names. While Wearing can still remember that he loves his current wife, he often forgets that they’re married. However, his procedural memory is still intact, meaning that even though he cannot remember his musical background, he still knows how to play the piano. It sounds like a nightmarish situation, but Wearing has managed to live day-to-day life under these difficult circumstances for the past 28 years.

8 Sywald Skeid

On November 28, 1999, a young man in his mid-twenties wandered into the emergency department of a hospital in Toronto, Canada. He had a broken nose and appeared to be the victim of an attack. The man spoke with a foreign accent, but carried no identification and claimed to have no idea who he was. He was treated by doctors, who diagnosed him as having post-concussive global amnesia. When the press picked up on his story, they gave him the nickname “Mr. Nobody.” After being released from the hospital, Mr. Nobody stayed at a shelter for a few weeks before being taken in by an Ontario couple. The young man went through various name changes throughout the years, but finally settled on Sywald Skeid.

Skeid’s photographs and fingerprints were circulated in an attempt to uncover his identity, but he refused all offers of treatment for his amnesia. He moved to Vancouver and met with a lawyer in order to lobby for a Canadian citizenship and eventually married the lawyer’s daughter. Police received a lead suggesting that Skeid was a French model named Georges Lecuit, but subsequently discovered that the real Lecuit’s passport had been stolen in 1998. Skeid and his wife fled the country and were later found living in Portugal, where he was attempting to obtain Portuguese citizenship. Skeid finally revealed his full story in an exclusive interview for the June 2007 issue of GQ magazine. He hailed from a poor Romanian peasant family and his real name was Ciprian Skeid. In the end, Skeid admitted to faking the whole amnesia episode in order to escape his past and seek citizenship in another country.

7 Jody Roberts

In 1985, 26-year-old Jody Roberts lived in Tacoma, Washington, working as a reporter for the Tacoma News Tribune. In May of that year, Roberts’ friends and family started to notice some strange changes, as she stopped taking care of herself and began to drink significantly more than usual. On May 20, she mysteriously vanished and would not be seen by her loved ones for 12 years. Little did they know that five days later, a disoriented Roberts was found wandering around in a mall in Aurora, Colorado, over 1,600 kilometers (1,000 mi) away. She carried no identification, but had a key to a Toyota, which was never found. She was admitted to a Denver hospital, where doctors determined that she had entered a fugue state and developed amnesia.

Unable to uncover her true identity, Roberts started a new life after leaving the hospital. She gave herself the name Jane Dee, got a job at a fast food restaurant, and enrolled at the University of Denver. After moving to the town of Sitka, Alaska, Roberts married a commercial fisherman and had two sets of female twins while starting a new career as a web designer. In 1997, one of Jane Dee’s Alaskan co-workers saw Jody Roberts’ picture on a Seattle newscast and recognized her. Roberts eventually reunited with her old friends and family in Tacoma, but still had no memory of them. While it’s theorized that severe stress might have brought on her fugue state, it remains unknown how Jody Roberts ended up in Colorado.

6 Raymond Robins

Raymond Robins was a noted economist and advocate of organized labor who often worked closely with the White House on such issues as prohibition and establishing diplomatic relations with Russia. On September 3, 1932, Robins had a meeting scheduled with President Herbert Hoover, but never showed up. He was last seen leaving the City Club in Manhattan. Robins’ disappearance made headlines, leading to speculation that he might have been the victim of organized crime, but there were also reported sightings of him acting strangely while wandering the streets of Chicago. On November 18, Robins was discovered living under the name Reynolds H. Rogers in Whittier, a small town in the mountains of North Carolina.

Robins had apparently arrived in the town one week after he disappeared, claiming that he was a miner from Kentucky. He lived in a boarding house, spent most of his time prospecting, and became a popular figure in the community. However, even though Robins had a grown a beard by that time, a 12-year-old boy recognized him from a photograph in the newspaper and contacted the authorities. Robins’ nephew went to Whittier to identify him, but Robins did not recognize him and had no memory of his previous life. After reuniting with his wife and undergoing psychiatric treatment, Robins finally started to regain his memory. It was speculated that a combination of stress and emotional strain might have caused Robins to enter a fugue state, prompting him to assume a new identity.

5 Barre Cox

In 1984, 31-year-old Wesley Barrett “Barre” Cox had a wife and a six-month-old daughter and worked as a minister in San Antonio. On July 11, Cox had just taken a trip to Lubbock and phoned his wife to tell her he was planning to drive to Abilene to see friends. The next day, Cox’s vehicle was found abandoned and ransacked on a rural road in Jones County, and the contents of his wallet were scattered across the ground. In the early hours of the morning, Cox had been seen at a nearby convenience store buying two jugs of fuel. He claimed his car had run out of gas and a policeman gave him a ride back to his vehicle. Cox was not seen again until 2000, when he was recognized working at a gay church in Dallas as a minister named James Simmons.

Cox claimed he had been beaten and found unconscious inside a car trunk in a Memphis junkyard. He was taken to a hospital and remained in a coma for two weeks. When Cox woke up, he had no idea who he was and learned that he had amnesia. After leaving the hospital, Cox started a new life and eventually became a minister at a gay church. However, authorities could find no police or hospital records to verify Cox’s story. The policeman who drove Cox back to his vehicle had noticed a motorcycle in the car’s trunk. This motorbike was missing when the abandoned car was found, and witnesses saw a man fitting Cox’s description riding it later that day. This has created suspicion that Barre Cox chose to stage his own disappearance and seek a new life after realizing he was gay.

4 Michelle Philpots

In the comedy 50 First Dates, Drew Barrymore plays a woman who suffers a serious head injury in a car accident. As a result, she develops a rare form of anterograde amnesia which causes her memory to reset whenever she goes to sleep. After she wakes up, all her new memories have been erased and she believes that it’s the day of her accident. Believe it or not, this story actually has some basis in reality. In 1985, Michelle Philpots of England suffered a head injury a motorcycle accident. Five years later, she re-injured her head in a serious car accident. These injuries did enough cumulative damage to Philpots’ brain that she eventually started having seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy. By 1994, she was suffering from anterograde amnesia and had completely lost the ability to create new memories.

For the past 20 years, Philpots has had all her memories wiped clean after she goes to sleep. When she wakes up, she believes that it is still 1994. Even though Philpots was in a relationship with her husband long before she suffered amnesia, they did not actually get married until 1997. As a result, Philpots’ husband has to show her their wedding pictures every morning in order to remind her that they’re married. During an appearance on The Today Show with Matt Lauer, Philpots actually forgot Lauer’s name in the middle of their interview. Even though an operation was performed to remove some of Philpots’ damaged brain cells and put an end to her seizures, it seems unlikely that her condition will go away or that her erased memories will return.

3 Doug Bruce

On the morning of July 3, 2003, an unidentified British man walked into a New York police station and told them he didn’t know who he was. He had recently woken up on a subway train having no idea how he got there, and since he carried no identification, he did not even know his own name. The man was checked into a nearby hospital for a few days until a phone number was discovered inside his knapsack. The number belonged to a female acquaintance, who came forward to identify the man as Doug Bruce. Bruce was a British citizen who had earned millions by working as a banker in Paris before moving to New York to pursue a degree in photography. But even after Bruce was escorted home to his fancy loft in Manhattan, he did not remember the place or any other details about his life.

Bruce is believed to be suffering from a very rare form of retrograde amnesia, and he became the subject of an acclaimed documentary called Unknown White Male. The film became the subject of controversy as there have been allegations that Bruce’s story is an elaborate hoax. Experts have been unable to pinpoint a specific traumatic incident that could have caused Bruce’s amnesia and some have expressed doubts that it is genuine. Shortly before the incident, one of Bruce’s friends had gone through his own bout of short-term amnesia after suffering a head injury, leading to speculation that the incident might have inspired Doug to perpetrate a hoax. Whether Doug Bruce is faking it or not, he has yet to show any signs of regaining his memory.

2 Anthelme Mangin

On February 4, 1918, a disoriented French soldier was discovered wandering around on a railway platform at the Brotteaux train station in Lyon, France. The soldier carried no identification, but after being questioned, he said that he believed his name was Anthelme Mangin. However, he didn’t know anything else about his life and could not recall how he’d ended up on the railway platform. Mangin was placed in an insane asylum and was moved around from institution to institution for years as they attempted to work out who he was.

Mangin’s photograph was widely circulated in newspapers and over 300 families came forward to claim his as their own. However, Mangin did not remember any of them, and none these families could be verified as his relatives. Finally, in 1930, a family from the commune of Saint-Maur, Indre positively identified Mangin as a former waiter named Octave Monjoin, who had gone off to fight in World War I and never returned. In August 1914, Monjoin had been wounded and taken prisoner alongside 65 other French soldiers on the Western Front. After spending the next 3.5 years in a series of prison camps, the soldiers had been sent back to France in January 1918. However, Monjoin’s paperwork was lost, so his family never found out he’d returned home. It is believed that Monjoin’s traumatic experiences in the war caused him to lose his memory.

1 Agatha Christie

Since Agatha Christie was arguably the most famous mystery writer of all time, it’s only appropriate that she became the center of her own bizarre mystery in 1926. On the evening of December 3, the 36-year-old Christie mysteriously vanished from her home in Sunningdale, England. The next morning, her abandoned car was discovered one hour away in Newlands Corner, but she was nowhere to be found. Christie’s disappearance became a huge story and once word spread that her husband, Archibald, had recently asked for a divorce, speculation ran rampant that he’d murdered her. Finally, on December 14, Christine was found alive and well, registered under the name Teresa Neele at the Swan Hydropathic Hotel in Harrogate. She claimed to have no memory of how she’d ended up there.

There has always been debate over what happened to Christie during those 11 days. At the time, many believed she staged her own disappearance for publicity or as a way of getting back at her husband—especially since Teresa Neele happened to be the name of his mistress. However, there is evidence that Christie might have entered a fugue state and genuinely lost her memory. On the morning of her disappearance, a witness encountered her walking down the road. In spite of the cold weather, she was wearing nothing but a thin dress and seemed upset and confused. It has been theorized that Christie’s impending divorce and the recent death of her mother caused her to enter a deep depression. Crashing her car might have been the breaking point that caused her to develop amnesia and forget who she was. Agatha Christie died in 1976, and took the full truth about what happened to her grave.

Robin Warder is a budding Canadian screenwriter who has used his encyclopaedic movie knowledge to publish numerous articles at Cracked.com. He is also the co-owner of a pop culture website called The Back Row and recently worked on a sci-fi short film called Jet Ranger of Another Tomorrow. Feel free to contact him here.

Mankind’s love of records left behind countless documents. Needless to say, some are so common that the very sight of them makes people regret going to the museum.

Then there are the secret codes and oaths, unique manuscripts, and caves marked with people’s fear. Text-obsessed scholars are talking in dead tongues and admit once again that the ancient Egyptians did some amazing things.

The world of rare words and pictures is a magnetic one. Sometimes, it’s even downright funny.

10 Oldest Near-Death Case

In 1740, a French doctor called Pierre-Jean du Monchaux described a curious case. An unconscious patient had recovered, only to describe a light so pure and white that the man was convinced he had stood with one shoe in Heaven. The case was included in the doctor’s book, Anecdotes de Medecine.

It might have gone unnoticed if not for Phillippe Charlier, who recently riffled through an antique shop. Ironically, he was also a French doctor. He found the book by chance and bought it for less than $1.

When he read about the case, Charlier realized he was looking at the world’s oldest report of a near-death experience. It was a time when people leaned on religion to explain such things, but the ancient physician stayed professional. He suggested a medical reason—too much blood rushing to the brain.

Monchaux’s assessment nearly matched modern explanations. Today, researchers think a lack of blood flow and oxygen to the brain cause the sensations of a near-death experience.^[1]

9 The Mysterious Devourer

In 2017, archaeologists took their shovels to a shrine-like building. The small structure stood at Zincirli in Turkey and soon yielded a pot. The stone vessel originally held cosmetics but was reused to display an incantation.

A story was carved over the surface, describing the capture of something called a “devourer” which was said to bring “fire” to its victims. The only way a person could recover was to use the devourer’s own blood.

The incantation did not specify how the blood was to be administered or the creature’s identity. Illustrations suggested that it was either a centipede or a scorpion. The “fire” sounds like a painful sting.

The author was a magician called Rahim, who carved the advice in Aramaic 2,800 years ago. This made it the oldest Aramaic incantation ever found. Archaeologists believe that the incantation was important enough to preserve after the magician’s lifetime because the inscription was already over a century old by the time the temple was built.^[2]

8 Dirty Bathroom Jokes

Ancient bathrooms with floor mosaics are rare. When one was found in 2018 in Turkey’s ancient city of Antiochia ad Cragum, it was a cause for celebration. However, the images were not beautifully rendered legends or geometric patterns. The tiny tiles told dirty jokes.

As Roman men visited the latrine around 1,800 years ago, they would have been amused by the antics of Narcissus and Ganymede. Both men belonged to real myths. Narcissus was in love with his own image. Ganymede was kidnapped by the god Zeus as a slave but also as a love interest.

The mosaics twisted the stories, first by giving Narcissus an ugly nose. Instead of admiring his reflection, he appeared to be fixated on his genitals. Ganymede’s scene was even more detailed. He was getting his private parts sponged clean by a heron. The type of sponge was usually reserved for cleaning toilets, and the bird represented Zeus.^[3]

The unusual theme stunned archaeologists but at least proved that bathroom humor is nothing new.

7 The Creswell Marks

The border of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire is marked by a limestone gorge. Called Creswell Crags, the site is historically significant. Apart from past discoveries of ancient remains, Creswell holds the only Ice Age art in Britain.

After years of investigations, the caves managed to deliver a big surprise in 2019. A tour group stumbled upon the country’s largest collection of apotropaic marks. The engravings had nothing do to with the Ice Age gallery. The latter were thousands of years older, while the newfound carvings were from medieval times until the 19th century.

Historians recognized several of the symbols. Also called witches’ marks, their purpose was to protect the living from bad supernatural influences. Among the most popular was “VV,” invoking the Virgin Mary. Others—like boxes, mazes, and diagonal stripes—captured whatever mysterious evil brought diseases and made the crops fail.^[4]

Dense clusters of symbols lined the ceilings and walls of the caves, a testament to the local people’s fear of the unknown.

6 The Nag Hammadi Library

Around 1,400 years ago, a jar was buried in Egypt. Containing 13 codices, the vessel was rediscovered in 1945 near the town of Nag Hammadi. The rolls contained Gnostic records of Jesus. The Gnostic tradition, an early and sometimes mystical branch of Christianity, is considered to be heretical by mainstream Christians. Most were traditionally penned in Coptic, a language that was spoken in Egypt for centuries.^[5]

In 2017, researchers in Texas found that one codex was different. Instead of Coptic scribbles, the text was Greek. This was exceptional. The work in question, the First Apocalypse of James, had never been recovered in ancient Greek before. The piece covered a conversation between Jesus and James, the latter taking instructions on how to continue teaching after Jesus’s death.

Another feature that set the scroll apart was little dots that divided the text into syllables. This rare technique is known from educational texts, which suggested the writer used the heretical gospel to teach Greek to students.

5 Unique Palimpsest

Centuries ago, writing material was expensive. Sometimes, an old manuscript would be scraped clean and inked with new information. These recycled documents are known as palimpsests.

In 2018, Dr. Eleonore Cellard assessed fragments containing Quran script. She noticed ghostly letters behind the eighth-century Arabic text and identified several Bible passages. Written in Coptic, they belonged to the Old Testament’s Book of Deuteronomy.

The find was extraordinary. Quran palimpsests are rare enough, but never before had a Christian document been erased to make space for the Islamic holy book. The writing style dated the Arabic text, but the Coptic was more difficult to place.^[6]

The fragility of the manuscript prevented carbon dating. Even if the document was strong enough, the technique can only date the paper and not the writing. Once again, the style was the only clue.

Unfortunately, it was a very broad one. The original Coptic was not written before the seventh century. Despite the dating issue, the palimpsest remains invaluable for its uniqueness.

4 Earliest Record Of Algol

The star Algol is actually a 3-in-1 deal. Officially discovered in 1669, the three suns move around each other, causing the “star” to dim and brighten. A papyrus studied in 2015 suggested that the ancient Egyptians discovered it first.

Called the Cairo Calendar, the document guided each day of the year, giving auspicious dates for ceremonies, forecasts, warnings, and even the activities of the gods. Previously, researchers felt the ancient calendar had a link to the heavens, but they never had any proof.

The study found that the calendar’s positive days matched Algol’s brightest days as well as those of the Moon. The appearances of one deity, Horus, also matched the star system’s 2,867-day cycle.

This strongly suggests that the ancient Egyptians were the first to follow Algol around 3,200 years ago. More remarkably, they did so without a telescope even though the system was almost 92.25 light-years away.^[7]

3 Unique Ninja Oath

In Japan, rumors of a written ninja oath persisted for almost 50 years. If true, this was a historic gem. Unlike movie ninjas, the real guys used stealth to gather intelligence and rarely used weapons. Most of their traditions and training were passed down verbally from master to student. A written document, especially an oath, would be a first.

In 2018, the piece finally surfaced. It was donated to a museum by the Kizu family, once a ninja clan from the town of Iga. The donated cache consisted of 130 ancient documents, but the oath was the most remarkable. Written by a man called Inosuke Kizu, he thanked his masters for the ninjutsu training and vowed to never reveal the secret knowledge. Not even to his immediate family.

The 300-year-old paper also captured the penalty of sharing ninja techniques with outsiders. The author accepted that his betrayal would cause his descendants to be tortured by the gods for generations. The letter was probably handed to his masters and returned to the Kizu family after his death.^[8]

2 Ferdinand’s Code

To safeguard military information from his enemies, King Ferdinand of Spain wrote in secret code. It was a little too effective. His correspondence with a commander named Gonzalo de Cordoba went undeciphered for 500 years.

Ferdinand sponsored Christopher Columbus’s trips to the Americas and fought several enemies. He recaptured Spain from the Moors in 1492 and battled France for the Mediterranean.

The letters promised interesting insights into the war king’s mind. Spain’s intelligence agency picked up the challenge. Ferdinand’s alphabet had 88 symbols, 237 letters, and six accompanying characters (such as numbers and triangles) that made each letter’s meaning more complex. In addition, the “language” ran continuously without breaks to indicate words.^[9]

In 2018, after six months, the agency cracked enough of the code to read four pieces of correspondence. They revealed details ranging from instructions on troop deployment in Italy to berating the commander for making decisions without Ferdinand’s approval. The breakthrough is a good step toward cracking the rest of the royal mail.

1 Extinct Language Spoken Again

A Cambridge academic loved ancient Babylonian so much that he decided to learn the language. Not just to read it but to speak it correctly. Babylonian went extinct around the time that Jesus was born.

Nearly 2,000 years of silence did not deter Dr. Martin Worthington, who already spoke Sumerian, Assyrian, English, Italian, and French. For over 20 years, he dove into ancient scripts and compiled a unique archive of research.

After gleaning correspondence, treaties, letters, and scientific reports written in Babylonian, Worthington arrived at a point where he could speak it. He was the first to admit that the project was not perfect. Although he could give a speech in the lost language, he was not fluent.

Worthington now teaches the language to Assyriology students, mainly to bring them closer to the ancient world they chose to study. Interestingly, if the two were to meet, ancient Babylonians might understand modern speakers because the language is related to Hebrew and Arabic, which replaced Babylonian as the Middle East’s dominant language.^[10]

The idea that life often mirrors art is one with which many of us are familiar. In most cases, these parallels between fact and fiction feel like harmless fun. There are times, however, in which the blurred line between the two can start to feel unsettling, as though there was more at play than simple coincidence.

From novels that proved eerily prophetic to famous faces who met their end in uncannily familiar ways, here are some of the most tragic examples of life imitating art.

10 Carrie Fisher And The Fate of Princess Leia

We picture her with cinnamon bun hair, a flowing white gown, and a blaster gun in hand. Indeed, actress and writer Carrie Fisher is best remembered as the woman who breathed life into the iconic Star Wars heroine, Princess Leia.

Fisher experienced a medical emergency on a flight from London to Los Angeles in late 2016. After four days in a coma, she sadly died at age 60. Shortly before her death, Fisher had finished filming scenes for Star Wars: Episode VIII—The Last Jedi, her fifth official outing as Leia.

Though having the opportunity to see her once again on the big screen was welcomed by many as a touching tribute, others—including Fisher’s own brother—found certain scenes hard to swallow. He pointed out the uncomfortable irony that Episode VIII saw Leia falling into a coma, a sequence the actress had filmed mere months before suffering the same fate in real life.^[1]

Though Fisher tragically never regained consciousness, her fictional counterpart lived to fight another day. As such, Fisher’s legacy will live on through the character and the scenes she had already completed. It is a bittersweet silver lining that does not quite take the sting out of her untimely loss.

9 The Disappearance Of Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. Her world-famous crime stories have sold more than a billion copies in English and a further billion copies in translation. So, it is certainly fair to say that she knew a thing or two about penning a compelling mystery.

However, it was her own personal affairs that had the public gripped in December 1926. In an incident that could have been lifted right from one of her books, Christie disappeared without notice.

Her uncharacteristic and unexplained absence quickly made headlines, with thousands of volunteers scouring the country in search of clues. When her car was found abandoned near a quarry, her coat and ID discarded inside, many feared the worst. When it then emerged that her husband had recently announced plans to leave her for another woman, suspicion fell on him.^[2]

Christie would eventually be found alive, 11 days after first disappearing. But it was not exactly a happy ending. Somewhat disturbingly, she had checked into a hotel using the name of her husband’s new lover and claimed to remember nothing of the ordeal.

Doctors would diagnose concussion and amnesia, and the author would speak little of the difficult period again. New theories suggest that she had contemplated suicide and hid herself away in a bout of religion-fueled shame.

The more commonly held belief is that the stress of her husband’s betrayal added to her existing depression over the loss of her mother. The combination of the two proved to be too much and triggered a mental breakdown.

8 Mary Shelley And Her Husband’s Drowning

Mary Shelley is the author of the revered horror novel Frankenstein. Another of her major works, Mathilda, was not released until years after her death because its publication was suppressed by her father. Due to its gothic exploration of an incestuous infatuation, he feared that readers would think it was autobiographical.

In the novella, there is a scene which sees the titular heroine rushing toward the sea. She is distressed by the news that someone she loves may have drowned, but she would arrive too late to save him.^[3]

A couple of years after it was written, Shelley would find herself mirroring her character’s actions when her own husband met a similar watery end. Shelley later commented on the uncanny comparisons between the two incidents. She described how she identified with her tragic heroine’s plight and had come to consider the book “prophetic.”

7 H.G. Wells And The Atom Bomb

History best remembers H.G. Wells as the author of enduring sci-fi classics such as The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and The Invisible Man. As Wells was a pioneer of the genre, his writing was often considered ahead of its time, with prescient ideas and technologies that would later become reality.

One of his most disturbingly accurate predictions appeared in his 1914 novel, The World Set Free. He described a weapon of unprecedented power that would be dropped from planes to unleash untold suffering on the world below. He called it the “atomic bomb.”

Three decades later, a frighteningly similar nuclear weapon did indeed emerge and was even given the same name. When the bomb was unleashed upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even those involved in its development were said to be disturbed by the sheer scale of misery that it caused. Perhaps things would have turned out differently had they paid closer attention to the moral warnings that had been present in Wells’s fiction.^[4]

6 A Famous Dog’s Grisly End

The 1989 comedy-action film K-9 is about a cop and his faithful furry companion. The movie’s climax sees the dog shot while trying to apprehend a criminal. Though greatly injured, he manages to pull through, and they all live happily ever after.

In real life, things worked out considerably less well. Koton, the four-legged star of the film, was an actual police dog away from the big screen. He had a successful career and was responsible for more than 24 arrests.

Heartbreakingly, just like his character before him, Koton was shot in 1991 while pursuing a suspect. Unlike his fictional counterpart, he sadly didn’t make it.^[5]

5 The Death Of Paul Walker

US actor Paul Walker is best known for his long-running role in the big-budget The Fast and the Furious franchise. The films are high-octane action flicks, full of high-speed car chases and dramatic stunt sequences.

It is this fact that made his death in 2013 all the more difficult for his fans and loved ones to accept. At age 40, Walker was killed in a car crash when the Porsche driven by his friend collided with a lamppost and became engulfed in flames.

Production of the seventh film in the series was already well underway at the time of his passing. Filmmakers decided to use existing footage of the star to craft a suitable outcome for his character. This was deemed an appropriate and sensitive way to preserve the actor’s memory.^[6]

4 Eva Cassidy And ‘Fields Of Gold’

Given the widespread admiration that exists for Eva Cassidy now, it is hard to believe that she was virtually unknown at the time of her death from melanoma in 1996. Then just 33 years old, she had been a regular on the local music scene in Washington DC.

But with most of her recordings unreleased, international audiences were still largely unaware of her. These various unheard tracks were compiled and released posthumously, which led to extensive radio play, platinum sales, and a whole new level of appreciation for the tragic star.

Shortly before her death, however, Cassidy had released Live at Blues Alley, a collection of intimate recordings. It would prove to be the last release made during her lifetime. This album included her version of “Fields of Gold.” Originally by Sting, it is a track that has endured as one of her most recognizable and beloved songs.^[7]

The touching irony of the final verse—with lyrics that speak of being remembered after you are gone—was not lost on many. This sentiment took on a whole new meaning when the singer was dead mere months after the song’s release. Thanks to the music she left behind, Cassidy has at least been remembered fondly, just as the song wished for.

3 Bill Turnbull And Stand Up To Cancer

Bill Turnbull is a journalist and broadcaster and a familiar face on UK television. Fans of The Great British Bake Off from around the world may also recognize him from his stint in the famous tent as part of a charity special.

The episode, which first aired in early 2018, was produced in aid of Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C). The aim was to raise both awareness about the importance of getting health checks and funds to help improve treatment and survival rates.

In a twist of painful irony, Turnbull was diagnosed with prostate cancer while filming was taking place. Though he underwent several rounds of chemotherapy to slow the disease’s spread, he subsequently announced that his case is terminal. Facing the situation with dignity, he has used his story as a means to further drive home the importance of regular health screening.^[8]

2 J.K. Rowling And The Loss Of Her Mother

J.K. Rowling is best known as the author behind the Harry Potter series. Rowling had been working on the first book for around six months when her mother died from multiple sclerosis. She was just 45 years old and completely unaware of the fame and fortune that awaited her daughter.

At this time, with the book still in an early draft form, the eponymous boy wizard had already been written as an orphan. Suddenly finding herself without parental ties of her own, however, Rowling was able to identify with her fictional hero’s sadness on a much greater level.

This clearer understanding of the grief she had written for him was so profound that it prompted Rowling to rework the scenes concerning his loss. His parents’ deaths were no longer glossed over. Instead, they were imbued with a heavy dose of poignancy and emotional weight.

As Rowling said herself, “Everything deepened and darkened.”^[9] Though this was to the benefit of the story, it should not be forgotten that Rowling had to endure Harry’s pain firsthand to gain this heartfelt insight.

1 The Sinking Of The Titanic

Morgan Robertson’s 1898 novella, Futility (aka The Wreck of the Titan), was about a vast, luxurious ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank, killing almost everyone on board.

Sound familiar?

Yes, indeed, the sinking of the Titanic is another example of a horrific real-life event that was eerily foretold in fiction. The book was published 14 years before the Titanic’s doomed voyage, but the name and fate of the two ships were not the only striking similarities.

It is little wonder that many suspected Robertson of clairvoyance once you start delving into the many unnerving parallels. These include the size and capacity of the two vessels as well as intricate, finer details such as the number of lifeboats present.^[10]

Even the time and date of each ship’s impact with the iceberg are nigh on identical. Prophecy? Coincidence? Whatever the case may be, it is one of the most tragic cases of life imitating art the world has yet seen.

Callum McLaughlin is a freelance writer based in Scotland. He writes content on a variety of subjects for blogs, websites, and magazines. He can be found on Twitter, where he’ll invariably be chatting about books, cats, and tea.