Comets are among the most interesting celestial objects out there. Some are visible to the naked eye, and with their predictable orbits, we should always see them, provided we know where and when to look (unless they go missing). However, ancient civilizations did not have such knowledge. Comets were mysterious objects that were often considered good or bad omens—mostly bad.

Its not just the ancients who have linked comets to disasters, either. Historians, astronomers, and even regular people have blamed comets for causing some terrible event or another. Most of these connections are more superstitions and suggestions than facts. But then, the comets aren’t complaining.

10 The Death Of Mark Twain

Halley’s Comet is one of the most famous comets out there. It returns at roughly 75-year intervals, and there are historical accounts of its sightings. However, ancient civilizations did not realize they were looking at the same comet until Edmund Halley concluded that the comets spotted in 1531, 1607, and 1682 were actually the same. He predicted it would return again in 1758.

The comet returned in 1758, but Halley was dead before then. The comet was named after him, anyway.^[1] Halley’s Comet returned again in 1835, which was the same year that famous writer Mark Twain was born. Twain died on April 21, 1910, when Halley’s Comet was once again visible.

Mark Twain predicted his death and linked it to the passage of the comet. He remarked:

I came in with Halley’s comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: “Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.”

9 The Death Of Julius Caesar

In March 44 BC, a group of Roman senators assassinated Julius Caesar over concerns that he would declare himself king. Four months later, a huge funerary festival, called Ludi Victoriae Caesaris, was held in his honor. A great comet appeared in the skies during the ceremonies and remained visible for seven days before disappearing. Today, we remember that comet as the Great Comet of 44 BC. Astronomers say it is one of the brightest comets to have ever appeared in the sky, and it was also recorded in ancient China.

The Romans did not consider the appearance of the comet a coincidence. They claimed it was actually the soul of Julius Caesar as he left the Earth to become a god in the skies. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that we will ever see the comet again. The Earth sped it up as it flew past and sent it out of our solar system.^[2]

8 The Death Of Pope Urban IV

Another great comet soared past the Earth in 1264. Today, we call it C/1264 N1 or the Great Comet of 1264. It was very bright and remained visible for four months, starting in July. At the time, people already had some superstitions about comets, and seeing one was considered a forewarning of impending disaster.

This time, it was the death of Pope Urban IV, who is said to have become ill immediately after the comet was sighted that July. He died in October 1264, reportedly on the last day that the comet was visible.^[3]

7 The Battle Of Hastings

On October 14, 1066, troops loyal to King Harold II of England faced the Norman army led by William the Conqueror in the Battle of Hastings. The battle was decisive. King Harold was killed, and William the Conqueror went on to take his throne and become the ruler of England.^[4]

Halley’s Comet, which had appeared in April of that year, was linked to the battle. As we already mentioned, people of the day had not yet realized that the comet was a periodic one that came around every three quarters of a century. That year, Halley’s comet was so bright that it was four times the size of Venus and around 25 percent as bright as the Moon.

Astrologers in England suggested that the comet had something to do with an upcoming battle with the Normans. However, they could not determine if it was a good or bad omen. They discovered it was a bad omen when King Harold was killed.

However, what was bad for King Harold was good for William the Conqueror, who had also spotted the comet in France while traveling to England for the battle. He called it “a wonderful sign from heaven” and suggested it was evidence that he would win the war. He was right.

6 The Great Earthquakes Of 1811

On October 20, 1811, Europeans and Americans watched in awe as a bright comet made its closest approach to the Earth. This was the Great Comet of 1811. The comet had showed up in March, even though no one was expecting to see one at the time. Some Americans became paranoid and suggested that it was an omen of some upcoming disaster.

That disaster came on December 16, when a great earthquake shook the Midwest and Southern United States. The earthquake was so intense that the Mississippi River temporarily flowed backwards. Americans soon linked the comet with the earthquake. They blamed it again when the US and England went to war the following year.

Americans weren’t the only ones to blame a random comet for causing a disaster. Napoleon Bonaparte sighted the comet in Europe, too. He considered it a good sign and evidence that he would be victorious in his planned invasion of Russia. Napoleon later realized that the comet was a bad omen after he suffered defeat at the hands of the Russians.

The comet favored other parts of Europe, though. Grape planters had a very good harvest, which they ascribed to the passage of the comet. They even called wines made from the grapes harvested that year Comet Wine.^[5]

5 The Great Biblical Flood

A bright comet passed the Earth in 1680. Predictably, it’s now called the Great Comet of 1680. This comet was of interest to several scientists, including Sir Isaac Newton, who used it to confirm a gravity theory he had proposed. In addition, Edmund Halley used it to determine the orbit of two dozen comets.

Mathematician William Whiston later studied the Great Comet of 1680 and concluded that it had made earlier flybys thousands of years beforehand. He said the comet strayed so close to Earth during one of those flybys that water from its tail fell to the surface. Whiston added that the gravitational force of the passing comet also forced water out of the Earth’s crust.

Whiston concluded that the massive rainfall from the comet’s tail and the huge amounts of water that reached the Earth’s surface from below caused the massive flood mentioned in the Bible, the same one that Noah built an ark to escape.

Historians believe Whiston proposed the theory in an attempt to merge science with religion. This was common among scientists of the day, who often tried to use science to explain miracles and other impossible religious events.^[6]

4 536

In AD 536, the Earth suddenly got cold. Scholars of the day wrote that the Sun was small and obscured, as if there was an eclipse. The Sun could not provide enough heat, causing temperatures to drop. It got so cold that the ground was covered in frost in the middle of summer.

Crops failed, causing famine, mass migration, disease, and plague. This continued for a decade until the Earth got warmer again. The Justinian Plague of 541–542 was one of the most disastrous events of the period. It decimated a good chunk of the population of the Byzantine Empire.

Astronomers do not know what caused the Earth to cool. They suspect the sudden eruption of a massive volcano in El Salvador.

Dallas Abbott, a geologist at Columbia University in New York, has blamed Halley’s Comet for the sudden fall in temperature. Abbott suggested that the comet lost some decent-sized fragments as it traveled through the inner solar system in 530. Those fragments eventually hit the Earth, ultimately causing temperatures to fall.

Abbott reached this conclusion after studying ice cores in Greenland. The ice cores date to around 536, the same year the Earth suddenly got cold. They also contained nickel and tin, which Abbott insists are from the comet, as well as microorganisms from tropical regions, which he surmises rained down after having been thrown high into the atmosphere by an impact event.

While Abbott’s theory is considered inconclusive, astronomers know that Halley’s Comet sheds matter when it hits the inner solar system. The comet may have shed a higher-than-usual amount of fragments in 530. The Earth crossed that matter over the course of the 530s.^[7]

3 The Spanish Conquest Of The Inca Empire

The Inca Empire was the largest empire to spring up in pre-Columbian America. It had millions of people and covered a vast area until the Spanish came along and overthrew the emperor. Huayna Capac was the Incan emperor at the time the Spaniards first arrived. He knew they were going to overthrow the empire based on several signs he had seen before their arrival. One was a large green comet that flew across the sky. The other was his home, which was destroyed by lightning.

There was also a prophecy that the Incas would be defeated by some strangers who looked different from any other people they had ever seen. The Spaniards did not attack at the time Huayna Capac was emperor, however. They left and returned after Huayna Capac had fallen to smallpox (which was nevertheless carried there by the Spanish).^[8]

2 The Great Chicago Fire

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 remains one of the greatest mysteries of the 19th century. The fire lasted from October 8 to October 10, 1871, destroying one third of the homes in Chicago. One Mrs. O’Leary and her cow were blamed for starting the fire, even though there is no evidence to prove they were guilty.

Other speculations have been raised, including one that involves a comet. In 1883, Ignatius Donnelly claimed the gas from the tail of a passing comet fell to Earth and caused the spark that started the fire.^[9] Donnelly’s claims were corroborated by Mel Waskin, who blamed a comet for starting the fire in his 1985 book Mrs. O’Leary’s Comet. Donnelly, Waskin, and everyone else who have blamed a comet for starting the fire based their theories on claims by some people who said they saw fire fall from the skies at the time the Great Chicago Fire started.

Those theories may actually be plausible, considering that Chicago was not the only place that burned that October. Similar fire outbreaks occurred along Lake Michigan and in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, the same day the Chicago fire started. The Peshtigo fire was actually the deadliest wildfire in US history, despite being overshadowed by the Chicago fire.

1 Younger Dryas

The last Ice Age ended around 17,500 years ago. The Earth started to warm up until roughly 13,000 years ago, when it suddenly started cooling again. This sudden cooling lasted until about 11,500 years ago, when the Earth started to warm up again.

Historians call this cold period the Younger Dryas. They do not know what caused it, although they have a few suggestions. One of the suspects: a passing comet. Historians think the Younger Dryas started when a comet impacted the Earth.

The impact caused massive wildfires. The fires sent so much soot into the atmosphere that it blocked the heat from the Sun. This caused the Earth to cool, leading to the Younger Dryas. This is just a guess, though since there isn’t much evidence that it ever happened.

However, supporters of the theory cite platinum found in ice in Greenland and other evidence in Pennsylvania as indications that the impact did happen. There is also a carving on a temple pillar in Gobekli Tepe in Turkey that some interpret as depicting a comet breaking up in the atmosphere as it falls to Earth.^[10]

While relatively recent occurrences have brought the term into the US lexicon, regime change is as American as apple pie. For nearly all of the country’s history—but especially since the 20th century began—the United States has deemed it necessary to meddle in the fortunes of other countries, often under the guise of “protecting national security,” though you’ll soon see that there are often ulterior motives. Without further ado, here are the ten worst occurrences of regime change by the United States.

10 The Syrian Coup D’etat

The extent of US involvement in the bloodless coup which overthrew the secular democracy that had sprung up in Syria after World War II has been disputed ever since. The popular opinion is that in 1949, the CIA decided their best bet to further US interests in the area would be to “encourage” a coup d’etat in the country.^[1] A proposed construction project, the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, was in danger of not being built under the rule of Shukri-al-Quwatli, and if there’s one thing that gets America’s goat, it’s being denied oil.

Therefore, a shyster named Husni al-Za’im (pictured above), convicted less than a decade earlier for graft, was propped up by the CIA, and he led an overthrow of Syria’s democratically elected president. Almost immediately, the pipeline plans were approved, as were a number of pro-American initiatives, such as peaceful negotiations with Israel. (The First Arab-Israeli War had just ended the year before.) However, just four months after he assumed power, al-Za’im himself was deposed, shot by a strongman who managed to rule for about five years before he was deposed as well. Nearly two decades of coup after coup ensured, until Hafez al-Assad took power and reigned for 30 years before his death.

9 Operation PBSUCCESS

Like a number of others, the US-orchestrated regime change which took place in Guatemala in 1954 happened because Communism was supposedly gaining a foothold in the country. The second democratically elected president of the country, Jacobo Arbenz, instituted a number of land reforms, populist actions meant to improve the lives of the poorest Guatemalans. The CIA didn’t feel the same way and almost immediately put a target on his back. “Target” can be interpreted both figuratively and literally; assassination was an option up until Arbenz resigned. In addition, United Fruit, a US company which held quite a bit of land in Guatemala, suffered under the reforms, mostly due to the ending of their exploitative labor practices, and they lobbied the US government to intervene.

Operation PBSUCCESS, a plan for “psychological warfare and political action,” was authorized by President Eisenhower in 1953.^[2] In addition, the CIA trained and funded a paramilitary group led by Castillo Armas, which attempted to violently overthrow Arbenz, though they met with a number of setbacks. The threat of US intervention, thanks to the propaganda which was part of Operation PBSUCCESS, was enough to force Arbenz’s resignation. Ten days later, Armas took power, instituting four decades of authoritarian rule which decimated Guatemala’s Maya population, thanks to near-continuous and bloody civil war. The coup was widely reviled by the international community, with some comparing the Americans to “colonialists” or “Hitler speaking about Austria.”

8 Operation Urgent Fury

Grenada is a small island in the Caribbean, only 640 kilometers (400 mi) south of Puerto Rico, and as the locals say: It’s “just south of paradise, just north of frustration.”^[3] For President Reagan, it was a constant frustration, with Marxists having controlled the country since the onset of his presidency. In 1983, fed up with what they deemed insufficiently radicalized behavior, members of the ruling party executed their leader, replacing him with Hudson Austin, a general in the People’s Revolutionary Army. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back for the Americans, and plans were quickly drawn up to invade the island.

Troubles started immediately, creating problems which would last for much of Operation Urgent Fury, as the various branches of the military couldn’t agree on what to do. In the end, over 7,000 troops were landed in Grenada, with a number of different goals to achieve, chief among them being the removal of the current regime. (The rescue of American students in the country was used as an excuse for the invasion.) Faced against the might of the US military, Austin’s government quickly folded and was replaced by pro-US leadership. When asked about the nearly unanimous international outrage concerning the invasion, Reagan simply replied, “It didn’t upset my breakfast at all.”

7 The Iraq War

The invasion which introduced the world to the idea of “regime change,” the Iraq War began in 2003 under the auspices of removing Saddam Hussein from power, as he was alleged to possess a number of weapons of mass destruction.^[4] In reality, he had none and was increasingly cooperating with UN inspectors. However, President Bush argued against those claims, eventually giving Hussein an ultimatum: Leave the country or face an invasion.

Despite fervent international protests, the United States and the rest of the coalition forces began hostilities when the deadline came and went. Although the conventional warfare was quickly over, as the Iraqis were no match for their foes, insurgents continued to be a thorn in the side of an increasingly isolated American presence for many years afterward. Though the eventual outcome of the US intervention has yet to be determined, deeming the action a success is seemingly impossible, given the nearly 200,000 civilian deaths that resulted from the conflict.

6 The First Caco War

By 1915, after four years of constant political turmoil, the US government saw the island nation of Haiti as a problem which could only be solved by force. Vilbrun Guillaume Sam, a ruthless dictator best known for his political executions, was ousted that year by the same forces which had been behind the last six coups: Haitian peasant militias known as cacos. Faced with an increasingly smaller chance of recovering the debts owed to them, France, England, Germany, and the US sent troops to the area.^[5]

However, it was the American forces who landed first, initially meeting with little resistance. A populist notion had helped instigate the latest coup, and the cacos were reluctant to give up as they had in the past. A brief guerilla war, the First Caco War, began and lasted for a few months, until US Marines stormed Fort Riviere, the final stronghold of the cacos. A pro-America politician named Philippe Sudre Dartiguenave assumed control of the country and remained in power until 1922. US forces remained in Haiti until 1934, when President Roosevelt transferred authority to the Garde d’Haiti.

5 Operation Just Cause

In 1989, Manuel Noriega, the infamous dictator of Panama, had been ruling for about six years, trafficking cocaine and helping the CIA with their various covert military operations throughout Latin America. By 1986, he had outlived his usefulness, and there were reports that he was a double agent. A US court convicted him on drug charges a few years later.^[6] (Much of his involvement with the CIA came out as a result of various scandals, including the Iran-Contra Affair.)

The 1989 elections resulted in a win by Guillermo Endara, the head of the anti-Noriega Democratic Alliance of Civic Opposition. Angered by the fact that his handpicked winner was defeated, Noriega declared the elections void, asserting himself as the de facto ruler of the country. Public pressure mounted on the US government in the form of various claims of softness on drug crime and the apparent escalation of threats against Americans living in the country. So, on December 20, US troops landed in a number of different spots with the intent of taking several strategically important sites. Noriega was eventually captured at the Vatican mission in Panama City, after he surrendered due to a combination diplomatic pressure from the Vatican and constant rock music (which Noriega hated). Endara was later sworn into office.

4 The Huerta Toppling

The year was 1913. Three years of bloody conflict had resulted in a number of overthrown Mexican presidents, and after a particularly violent series of days known as the Ten Tragic Days, General Victoriano Huerta was installed as president. However, the US, under President Wilson, was initially reluctant to recognize the newly minted dictator, instead hoping for democratic elections.^[7]

A year later, nine American sailors were arrested for allegedly entering a prohibited area in Mexican territory, setting off what would be known as the Tampico Affair. They were then paraded around the city, enraging the regional US naval commander. Ultimatums were issued, and when Mexico refused, President Wilson sent Marines to the port city of Veracruz. A relatively short battle ensued. The US forces took control of the city, only relinquishing it when Huerta resigned from office.

Later, Huerta was contacted by German intelligence, who planned to use him to get the US bogged down in a war with Mexico. As he was heading back to Mexico from his then-home of New York, he was captured by US forces, who promptly charged him with sedition. He later died while in custody.

3 The Puerto Rican Campaign

During the Spanish-American War, a number of Spanish holdings in the Western Hemisphere were the site of conflict between the two countries, including the small Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. Less than a month after the onset of the war, US naval forces attacked San Juan, establishing a blockade. Eventually, land forces were deployed, and after only seven deaths, the US secured the island.^[8] The war ended soon after, and Spain ceded a number of territories, including Cuba, the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico.

Though US control of Cuba was temporary from the onset, the other three territories were initially going to be permanent. Almost immediately, Puerto Rico came under the “leadership” of various military officers, who set about to Americanize the population, mostly through the use of schools and mandatory lessons in English. It would be another 54 years until the citizens of Puerto Rico were allowed to democratically elect their own leader, though they remain a territory of the United States.

2 The TPAJAX Project

In the early 1950s, Mohammad Mossaddegh was the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, and in an effort to gain more national control over their oil fields, he began to audit the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British business. American fears were, as with many other similar examples, that the country would fall under the sway of the Soviet Union. Desperate to keep Communism from taking hold in Iran, the CIA began planning to overthrow Mossaddegh, hoping to reaffirm Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s power as monarch and install General Fazlollah Zahedi as the new leader of the country.^[9]

A joint task force of British and American intelligence began funneling money to various groups within Iran, who undertook terror plots designed to undermine public confidence in Mossaddegh’s government. (The AIOC itself contributed money for bribing officials as well.) A 1953 coup was successful, with as many as 300 people dying during the conflict and many more imprisoned or killed as a result of the shah’s military court tribunals. Pahlavi reigned for another 26 years, before anti-American sentiment, fueled in no small part by constant US involvement in Middle Eastern politics, resulted in the Iranian Revolution in 1979.

1 The Deposing Of Queen Liliuokalani

The first, last, and only reigning Hawaiian queen, Liliuokalani assumed the throne in 1891, after her brother’s death. Faced with declining royal authority, she sought to reaffirm the monarchy’s role in Hawaiian politics. In addition, she sought to lower the influence of foreign-born businessmen and landowners, many of whom were American. When they got wind of her plans, the wealthy elite conspired with the US military to depose her, and she was arrested in 1893.

Led by Sanford Dole (yes, of the Dole Food Company), the Missionary Party assumed control of the country, establishing a provincial government with the stated goal of getting the islands annexed by the US.^[10] Though the efforts were initially resisted by President Cleveland, who even unsuccessfully ordered Liliuokalani restored to the throne, Hawaii was eventually annexed in 1898. Liliuokalani went on to compose “Aloha Oe,” a song beloved ever since.

In medical parlance, “never events” are medical errors that should never happen. However, as we are about to find out, they do happen more than doctors would probably like to admit.

As of 2011, 29 incidents are classified as never events. They include but are not limited to patients falling off hospital beds, doctors using the wrong procedures for treatment, doctors forgetting surgical equipment in the bodies of patients, and doctors performing surgeries on the wrong patients.

Here, we will focus on never events that happened during surgery.

10 17-Year-Old Gets Wrong Heart And Lungs During Transplant

In 2003, 17-year-old Jesica Santillan experienced what should be the worst never event incident that has ever happened. Three years earlier, she had been smuggled into the US by her parents, who wanted her to get medical treatment for her failing heart and lungs. Philanthropist Mack Mahoney read about her story in a newspaper and footed her medical bills for surgery at Duke University Hospital.

Santillan underwent the surgery on February 7, 2003. But it only worsened her situation because the doctors used organs from a donor with the wrong blood type. The donor had blood type A while Santillan had blood type O. They are incompatible.

Santillan’s body rejected the organs as she suffered a series of seizures and ended up on life support. Two weeks later, she underwent a second surgery. This time, the organs were of a compatible blood type. Although they worked well, it was too late. Santillan had suffered irreparable brain damage and was put on life support for some time. Eventually, she was taken off it.

At the time of her death, there were about 200 people in the US requiring donors for a heart-lung transplant. Santillan was supposed to be at the end of that list. But she was allowed to go to the front of the line because her situation was dire.

The medical error resulted in two sets of organs wasted. It also reduced the chances of survival for others awaiting surgery because it deprived them of the much-needed organs.^[1]

9 83-Year-Old Woman Undergoes Heart Surgery For A Respiratory Infection

Staff at Mediclinic Kimberley Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa, committed a never event after they made an 83-year-old woman undergo a heart surgery intended for another patient. The woman was Rita du Plessis, and she was at the hospital to have a respiratory infection treated.

Du Plessis and another patient requiring heart surgery had the same physician. Their doctor told a surgeon to take the other patient into the operation theater, but the surgeon mixed up the names and took du Plessis instead. After she underwent the heart surgery, her family was even contacted and told that it had been a success.

Staffers only realized their error after the physician, who had been looking for du Plessis, informed them that they had operated on the wrong patient. The physician later called du Plessis’s family to explain the situation and apologize. The hospital did not charge her for the surgery.^[2]

8 Woman Loses Breast To Cancer She Didn’t Have

In April 2015, 49-year-old Eduvigis Rodriguez underwent surgery for an aggressive cancer lump in her left breast. The diseased breast was removed, and she was fine—at least until medics realized during post-surgery tests on the amputated breast that Rodriguez didn’t have cancer. The supposedly cancerous lump was caused by sclerosing adenosis, the benign growth of extra tissue in the breast.

The mistaken diagnosis of cancer was made at Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital after a biopsy. But they referred Rodriguez for surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. However, this doesn’t mean that the staff at Lenox Hill was completely innocent.^[3]

Per hospital rules, Lenox Hill staff was supposed to run tests to confirm the initial diagnosis. But they didn’t do it even though Dr. Magdi Bebawi, who performed the surgery, signed paperwork claiming that they had. After the initial surgery, Rodriguez underwent reconstructive breast surgery. According to court records, she also suffered a surgical hernia and a pulmonary embolism as a result of the unnecessary mastectomy.

7 Wrong Patient Undergoes Brain Surgery

In 2018, Kenyatta National Hospital in Kenya made the news after a patient underwent a brain surgery intended for another patient. Both men were wheeled into the hospital unconscious and kept in the same ward. However, they somehow ended up with each other’s identification tag and the wrong one ended up in the operating theater.

The patient who required surgery had a blood clot in his brain, while the other simply had a swollen head. Surgeons wheeled the patient with the swollen head into the operating theater. But they didn’t realize that they had the wrong man until two hours later when they didn’t find a blood clot in the brain.^[4]

Hospital authorities suspended the neurosurgeon, anesthetist, and two nurses who were involved with the surgery. In a twist of fate, the patient who was supposed to have the surgery no longer needed it as his situation was already improving.

6 Elderly Woman Dies After Receiving Brain Surgery For A Jaw Displacement

The staff at Oakwood Hospital in Michigan found themselves in hot water after they made 81-year-old Bimla Nayyar undergo a brain surgery she didn’t need. The water got even hotter after Nayyar slipped into unconsciousness and died 60 days later.

Nayyar was admitted to Oakwood Hospital in January 2012 for a displaced jaw. The treatment was supposed to be an easy one until a CT scan revealed that she was bleeding in the brain. Although the scan actually belonged to another patient, the hospital staff thought it was Nayyar’s and quickly planned an emergency surgery.

In the operating theater, five holes were made in Nayyar’s head before the right side of her skull was sawed open. Doctors only realized their error after they couldn’t find any evidence of bleeding in her brain. They informed her family of the error but didn’t inform them of its severity.^[5]

Nayyar never regained consciousness after the surgery and remained on life support for 60 days until the ventilator was switched off on March 11, 2012. Her family filed a lawsuit and was awarded $21 million.

5 Doctor Amputates Wrong Leg During Surgery And Another Patient’s Toe Without Permission

In February 1995, Dr. Rolando R. Sanchez found himself in trouble after he amputated the healthy leg of 52-year-old Willie King instead of the other diseased leg. Sanchez was already cutting the wrong leg when a nurse looked through the patient’s file and started crying. It was then that Sanchez was informed that he had been working on the wrong leg.

Sanchez denied responsibility for the error and shifted it to other staff members involved in the surgery. The blackboard in the operating room listed the wrong leg for amputation. So did the operating room schedule and the hospital computer.^[6]

The wrong leg had also been prepared for surgery prior to the doctor’s arrival. Sanchez added that he didn’t realize that he was cutting the wrong leg because it was also diseased and might have needed to be removed in the future.

Sanchez’s license was suspended in July 1995 after he botched a second surgery. This time, he amputated the toe of Mildred Shuler without her consent. Shuler was undergoing surgery to remove diseased tissue in her right foot when, according to the doctor, a diseased bone “popped.” He decided to remove it to prevent an infection.

4 Healthy Patient Loses A Healthy Kidney During Surgery He Didn’t Need

An unnamed patient at St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts, was left with one kidney after doctors mistook him for someone else. The real patient, whose CT scan revealed the presence of a tumor on his kidney, was supposed to undergo surgery to remove it.

However, the patient with the healthy kidney was somehow wheeled into surgery instead. The error was discovered after post-surgery tests revealed that the excised kidney was healthy.^[7]

The hospital staff was blamed for the incident as they did not follow proper identification protocols. While both patients had the same name, which was the cause of the confusion, they had different ages. If the staff had paid more attention, they would have realized that they had the wrong man.

3 Healthy One-Day-Old Boy Mistakenly Gets A Frenulectomy

The University Medical Center in Lebanon, Tennessee, got its fair share of medical never events after a one-day-old baby named Nate underwent a tongue-clipping surgery (frenulectomy) he didn’t need. This surgery removes the tissue connecting the tongue to the floor of the mouth.

A surgeon had specifically sent for baby Nate, and a nurse had gone to take him from his mother, Jennifer Melton. Jennifer didn’t ask questions because she assumed that Nate was being taken for a regular postnatal checkup. She only realized that Nate had undergone surgery when the nurse started educating her about the benefits of the procedure.^[8]

Jennifer checked whether the baby given to her was really Nate because she knew that he was healthy and didn’t require surgery. The nurse later confirmed the details and realized that the pediatrician had operated on the wrong baby. The doctor apologized for the mix-up, but Jennifer called her lawyers.

2 Doctor Removes Woman’s Reproductive Organs Instead Of Appendix

In March 2015, an unnamed woman living in the UK went to a hospital managed by the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust and complained of abdominal pain. Tests revealed that she had appendicitis, and she was scheduled for surgery to have her appendix removed.

However, the surgeon removed an ovary and fallopian tube instead. The surgeon responsible for the error passed it off as a minor mistake and blamed it on poor vision. He added that the wormlike look of the appendix and fallopian tube confused him.

UK medical authorities didn’t agree. This was the third botched surgery for this doctor within two years. In September 2013, he had removed some fat from a patient who also needed an appendectomy. The patient was in extreme pain until he underwent another surgery a month later.

In another patient, the doctor removed a skin tag instead of a cyst. The doctor apologized for the mistakes, but he was banned from treating more patients.^[9]

1 Doctor Removes Wrong Testicle During Surgery

In 2013, Steven Hanes was scheduled for surgery at J.C. Blair Memorial Hospital in Pennsylvania to remove a painful and damaged right testicle. He underwent the surgery, but the doctor mistakenly excised the left testicle instead.^[10]

Dr. Valley Spencer Long claimed that he mistook Hanes’s right testicle for the left one because the two testicles had somehow switched positions. Hanes took legal action against the surgeon and the hospital and was awarded $870,000.

Marketing is a tricky game. A lot of brands aren’t really selling anything anybody needs. A lot of promotion is about selling yourself as a company rather than the product you produce. This means brands have got to stay relevant, and they need to pull wacky stunts so that we notice them.

Mostly, these huge brands throw a bunch of money at a professional. The event passes by without any drama. Sometimes, though, they hire the wrong people, and it all goes disastrously wrong.

Related: 10 B.S. Myths We Believe Because Of Advertising

10 Jagermeister’s Pool Party

Imagine a Venn diagram with Jagermeister’s event team on the left and skilled chemists on the right. The middle section is likely sparse. In other words, best not to leave the Jagermeister team in charge of dangerous chemicals. At a brand promotion in Leon, Mexico, they proved they could not handle their liquid nitrogen well.

This particular event was a pool party in 2013 with about 200 young people in attendance. To increase the party atmosphere, the event managers decided that pouring liquid nitrogen over the swimming pool would create an awesome smoky effect. Unfortunately, they did not realize that liquid nitrogen combined with chlorine creates a toxic gas.

People soon started to fall unconscious. Never good news, but especially bad when a bunch of people are swimming. Fortunately, no one at the event died. However, a 21-year-old man ended up in a coma, and eight others were hospitalized.^[1]

9 Dr. Pepper’s Treasure Hunt

Sometimes it’s hard to fathom how these marketing ideas were born into existence. In this case, Cadbury Schweppes (who owned the soda at the time) decided to put on a treasure hunt for their soft drink, Dr. Pepper. In 2007, they hid coins worth various amounts of money around the city. Participants needed to locate them using clues to get the cash prize.

One clue led to a graveyard. A 347-year-old graveyard in Boston that was the resting place for, among others, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Robert Treat Paine. You have, by this point, likely spotted the glaring issue. The city quickly stopped the hunt after contestants started descending on the burial site. Yes, because they were afraid these people might start digging the place up. Dr. Pepper apologized, stating the coin should not have “been placed in such a hallowed site.” Something that really should have been obvious before people were running into a cemetery with shovels.^[2]

8 LG’s Accidental Riot

Yet another event that had not been thought through beyond the first move (it is unlikely many skilled chess players are on this list). In 2013, LG promoted an event where they would release 100 helium balloons, each containing a voucher for a free smartphone.

These were pricey smartphones that they were giving away—valued at more than $850US. Those that turned up were playing to win. When the balloons were released, the crowd underneath brought out BB guns and started firing. Twenty people were injured in the resulting scrum. LG decided it should probably cancel the remainder of similar events planned. Very wise.^[3]
6

7 Domino’s Tattooed Giveaway

Domino’s bit off more than they could chew with a bizarre marketing strategy in Russia in 2018. They asked fans to get a tattoo of the company’s logo in a prominent place on their body. Photos of said tattoo uploaded to social media would win the contestant a lifetimes supply of pizza. Unfortunately, they did not seem to realize how many would take them up on that offer.

They had planned to run this campaign for two months and award the pizza to anyone with a tattoo they shared on Russia’s Facebook-like social media platform. However, after five days, they had received so many pictures of tattoos they had to change the campaign to the first 350 people instead. You sure wouldn’t want to be number 351 who hadn’t heard about the change of plans.^[4]

6 Paramount’s Bomb Scares

Here we have another 1-D chess player. This time they took their idea to the L.A. streets. The Paramount marketing team, promoting the new Mission Impossible III, placed electronic devices in newspaper racks around the city. When the door was opened, they would play the theme music from the film.

Unfortunately, these devices looked an awful lot like homemade bombs. Many panicked citizens soon called the police. One news rack was blown up by the bomb squad in response to one of the suspected bomb reports. If this sounds a little extreme, know that this device was a plastic box with wires sticking haphazardly out of it attached to the inside of the newspaper boxes.

These were placed in 4,500 different newspaper vending machines, leaving the emergency services to field a lot of phone calls even after they were aware this was a music box. It caused more than a little outrage, and Paramount Pictures was subsequently sued. After an ensuing court case, Paramount was asked to pay $75,000 to settle negligence claims.^[5]

5 Snapple’s Downtown Flood

In this story, event planners failed to realize ice might melt on a hot day. Snapple had launched a set of frozen treats and decided to promote it with a record-breaking stunt. They wanted to create the biggest popsicle ever made and stand it in downtown New York. This resulted in them trying to remove a 25-foot-tall, 17.5-ton ice sculpture on a stick from a freezer truck in Manhattan on a summer day in 2005.

Before they could even put the giant Snap-icle upright, it began to melt. Strawberry-kiwi pink goo began to flow down the streets. Police had to close down the road as onlookers made a run to higher ground. Brand representatives have stated that there will be no second attempt to break the record.^[6]

4 Fiat’s Love Letters

In an ill-conceived stunt in Spain, Fiat mailed letters to 50,000 women claiming to be from a secret admirer. There was no signature. There was no indication of what or who was behind the letter. The letter pretended to be from someone who had noticed the woman while looking at them on the street. It further said, “I only need to be with you for a couple of minutes, and even if it doesn’t work out, I promise you won’t forget our little experience together.”

These were decidedly creepy letters to receive. Many women believed that they were being stalked. They stayed in their homes feeling fearful until a second letter arrived two weeks later. This letter explained that the first had been a marketing tactic and invited the women to their local Fiat dealer. The women, enraged, decided not to accept the offer. They decided it was more appropriate to sue Fiat instead.

These mail recipients won their case. However, the payout was quite small. Fortunately for Fiat, this campaign pre-dated the internet (1994), and so word of their creepy gaffe did not travel too far.^[7]

3 Lay’s Rainy Days

Lay’s (chips), which are known as Walkers (crisps) in the UK, decided to run a campaign where participants could bet on when and where it would rain. Unfortunately, the company, owned by PepsiCo in the USA, did not realize how easy a competition this would be in the UK, where it rains pretty much all the time.

Many bets were soon being won. Although contestants only received a payout of £10 for a correct bet, soon payouts were over $600,000, and the company could not continue. Walkers attempted to change their rules halfway through, limiting how much participants could bet. This led to backlash and a strict warning from the UK Watchdog for advertising standards. They banned the campaign from taking place again.^[8]

2 Amazon’s Nazi Trains

As a 2015 promotion stunt for The Man in the High Castle, their new TV show, Amazon plastered New York subway cars with themed decorations. Unfortunately, the show depicts the USA under Axis control in an alternate reality where Germany and Japan had won WWII. These themed decorations were versions of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan insignia.

On subway trains, seats and walls were entirely covered in these designs, including the American flag reimagined with the German Eagle and Iron Cross in place of the stars. They at least figured out not to include a swastika.

A spokesperson stated that advertising a show with this type of subject matter would always be difficult. Others deemed this move as pretty obviously insensitive and tasteless to plaster Nazi symbols inescapably all over the morning commute of the people of New York.^[9]

1 Cartoon Network’s Shady Boxes

The Cartoon Network managed to cause chaos and panic across Boston with a marketing stunt—poor Boston; this one was also in 2007, the same as the Dr. Pepper cemetery fiasco from above.

The marketing company they had hired decided to set up adverts on the city streets. They had an artist create boxes with LED lights depicting a character—Mooninite—from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a new show they were promoting, all over the city.

Many residents panicked at the sight of these and called emergency services. At least one of these devices was seen as so suspicious that it was detonated on site. Some residents thought that the panic was ridiculous and mocked it. They started a campaign placing stickers on devices like ATMs and parking meters reading “this is not a bomb.” Others, however, took it very seriously.

The artist behind the piece was arrested. Turner Broadcasting, the parent company of Cartoon Network, was ordered to pay out over $2 million to various security and law enforcement agencies that had been called out as a result.^[10]

About a hundred years ago, the technology of the world was decidedly different than it is today. Automobiles for the average citizen were just becoming commonplace, TV had yet to be invented, and the idea of the internet would have sounded like madcap witchcraft to even the most astute scientist. But for all the advances we’ve enjoyed with technology and all the ways it’s made our lives better, it’s far from infallible. Tech is failing all the time and there have been some stunning fails in recent memory.

10. Juicero

What do trendy, hip, proactive go-getters love more than anything? If you guessed juice and/or pointless gadgets, you have your finger on the pulse. The global juice market is bearing down on $200 billion a year. So yes, we love juice. Kitchen gadgets rake in around $17.6 billion per year. It’s a match made in heaven to put them together! Or it should have been.

In 2017, Juicero seemed like it was brilliant. A fancy kitchen gadget to make tasty juice. Individual packets of fruit were pressed in an internet connected machine that was backed by some big name investors who put $120 million into the idea.

The machine itself was like a vise that squeezed pre-made veggie and fruit packets with four tons of force to make delicious, fresh juice. And then one day, someone realized you could just squeeze the packets by hand and didn’t need the $699 juice press. When reporters put it to the test, they discovered that they could get just as much juice, and faster, doing it bare handed. 

Even after dropping the price to $400, the Juicero had already fumbled its launch too badly. They went bankrupt after being in business only a few months.

9. Zillow’s A.I.

Zillow is a real estate company that gained a lot of press in recent years for its marketplace dominance. They spent much of 2021 snatching up so many houses that they had to put the kibosh on it for several months. They had suffered a serious technological failure born from a bit of overconfidence and possibly ignorance as well.

Most people never realized Zillow actually bought and sold houses, thinking it was just a forum for real estate agents to list property. The truth was the company was in the business of flipping properties, and they had developed some AI technology to assist them in this task. Their confidence was so high that they were letting the AI make cash offers for properties. That turned out to be a bad idea. 

By November, the company had a backlog of 7,000 houses they needed to get rid of, worth around $2.8 billion. They were forced to shut down their AI algorithm and suspend home buying as a result of its slapdash spending, proving definitively that you can’t let a website invest in real estate across an entire country. 

8. Tesla Bot

Few companies are as well known these days as Tesla. With Elon Musk constantly in the news, the company can’t help but pop up frequently as well, and not always just in relation to the antics of its CEO. Don’t forget, Tesla is still leading the way in the electric car game and they frequently come out with something new and exciting to keep them on the tips of everyone’s tongues.

In August 2021, Tesla held a press event to let the world know that they were working on a humanoid robot. The goal, according to Musk, was to create a machine that can do boring, dangerous or repetitive tasks for humans. So far so good. The problem was the rollout.

For whatever reason, Musk chose to show off the idea of the robot before anyone had made a real robot. So, instead, they rolled out a man in a spandex jumpsuit pretending to be a robot. And then he danced, and it wasn’t good.

Whether or not it was meant as a joke didn’t matter. The company was raked over the coals in the media the next day. Many people chalked it up as a stunt to distract from bad press, but whatever the true motivation, it made one of the biggest companies and one the richest men in the world look foolish.

7. The Freedom Phone

There is a certain subsection of America that will look at anything they find disagreeable or threatening as a direct attack on their freedom. And their response to this attack is to randomly and nonsensically start assigning the label “freedom” to anything they feel supports their POV. Remember when France opposed the Iraq War and someone tried to rename French fries “freedom fries?” It happened. 

In more recent history, the Freedom Phone was designed for supporters of Donald Trump, who wanted to get out from under “Big Tech’s” thumb and enjoy a smartphone that wasn’t going to censor them or push a liberal agenda. It would have an app store with no censorship and even an anti-surveillance operating system. And hey, if those are your politics, that’s great. There’s money to be made appealing to people based on their political beliefs. The problem was that the phone itself didn’t really align with its own politics.

To start with, the Freedom Phone was just a rebranded, cheap Chinese phone. The $499 Freedom Phone was actually a $119 Umidigi A9 phone. Never heard of Umidigi? Neither had anyone else, really. So it wasn’t made in America and the idea that it was surveillance free and censorship free, coming from China, where neither of those attributes is highly valued, turned out to be a bit of a joke. No specs were available on the website for buyers, the OS was replaced with one made by those Big Tech companies, there are huge privacy concerns with their unregulated app store, and nearly every tech website has advised buyers to avoid this thing like the plague. 

6. Quibi

What can you say about Quibi? This is arguably the biggest bomb of 2021, a fact only tempered by the knowledge literally everyone but those involved seemed to see it coming from a mile away. 

The idea behind Quibi seemed to be the merging of traditional TV and film with something more fast-paced and consumable like YouTube and TikTok. Shows were all going to be short, as in five minutes or so so you could watch them during a morning commute, and they featured some of the biggest names in Hollywood like Kevin Hart, Anna Kendrick, Sam Raimi, Idris Elba, and so many more. How were there so many big names? Could have had something to do with the nearly $2 billion in investment money. 

Quibi lasted for about seven months. No one was on board. You couldn’t watch Quibi on a TV, only a cell phone. You couldn’t screencap Quibi shows. It was far too expensive for what it was and, most importantly, nearly everything they made kind of sucked. Critics and viewers alike universally panned almost every show on the platform. 

5. Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 was released at the end of 2020 and was one of the most hyped games in recent years. It even starred Keanu Reeves, for goodness sake. It was also one of the fastest selling games ever, with nearly five million pre-orders before its launch and about 13.7 million sold in total. Sounds like a huge win, right? Well, not exactly.

Around 30,000 buyers ended up getting refunds from the developer because the game was so buggy as to be nearly unplayable. The PlayStation Store also issued refunds and ended up removing the game entirely. 

The game was extremely glitchy on both PS4 and Xbox One. Lawsuits were filed for making the games work so poorly on older generation systems and then hackers stole information from the developer. 

At the end of the day, even when people were able to enjoy the game and had it run perfectly, the game turned out to be okay. Just okay. It never lived up to the hype and a lot of people have mostly forgotten about it since its release.

4. Coolest Cooler

Making a cooler into a tech fail is no small feat. A cooler can literally be a styrofoam box, so a company needs to go above and beyond to make it a failure, let alone one that drags technology down with it. But that’s just what the Coolest Cooler did when it fumbled its way into existence a few years back.

In 2014, the Coolest Cooler was one of the biggest campaigns ever on Kickstarter, which raised a stunning $13 million, a fact no one could have seen coming. Who knew coolers were so popular?

The Coolest Cooler was supposed to be able to charge devices like your phone and feature its own blender and Bluetooth speaker, as well as some other knickknacks. Fast forward to 2019 and the company filed for bankruptcy as the cooler finally went down in flames. 

The CEO blamed Chinese tariffs for ending the product line, but product reviews from 2016 had already pointed out that the cooler was mostly garbage. With a $399 price tag, you’d expect a high tech cooler to at least work right, and this one didn’t. The blender was mediocre at best and the battery life was about four whole minutes of blending.

The cooler never got released during its Kickstarter because the company ran out of money, so backs had to pony up an additional $96 to get one if they still wanted it. Plus, people who didn’t back the Kickstarter and just bought one on Amazon got theirs faster. 

3. Galaxy Fold

Science fiction has enticed us for a few years with the idea of foldable tech. Things like phones or tablets that you can roll up and bend seem convenient because enough of us have dropped or crushed phones and broken the screens to make it a desirable feature. So, based on that, Samsung went ahead and made a screen that you couldn’t roll but you could at least fold. Or that was the idea.

The Galaxy Fold was unleashed in 2019 and it looked kind of like a wallet. You could fold it clean in half and then unfold it and your screen was right there, arguably giving you twice the screen capacity of the size of it in your pocket. The price tag for this remarkable tech was nearly $2,000. Things didn’t go well.

Once Samsung actually let reviewers try out the phones, they failed immediately. It took only a day or two for most reviewers to point out that their folding screens just didn’t work. Some developed bulges, some only worked on one side of the fold. Other reviews removed a protective film because they didn’t know not to remove it and basically destroyed the phone.

After the phone’s release, Samsung claimed to have sold one million units in about 4 months, then quickly walked that back saying the 1 million was what they hoped to sell. Samsung’s CEO later admitted they pushed the Fold out too soon and it was embarrassing. 

2. Hacked Sex Toys

By now, everyone knows that they need to protect everything that connects to the internet from hackers because they’re looming around every corner. We all have dozens of passwords to protect everything we own and with good reasons – hackers really will hack into anything. That includes sex toys.

There’s a strong and growing market for adult toys that are connected to the internet to allow remote control by other users for reasons you can imagine all on your own. But the problem is that few of these devices have any security built into them. 

The most obvious security risk is any personal data that can be gleaned by hackers from a connected device. This may not seem like much at first, and may only be embarrassing information related to your use of sex toys. But that’s not all. 

One user on Twitter recently pointed out how their computer had been hacked and someone gained access to their Metamask, a browser extension that lets you access Ethereum and other crypto business. The user lost some NFTs and funds and the only unusual thing they could think of on their network was a sex toy they’d plugged in to charge. 

1. WeWork

WeWork was a tech startup company that helped provide shared office space for new companies and startups. So basically just real estate for businesses, though they also dabbled in virtual spaces alongside real ones and tried very hard to dupe people into thinking they did things when they really did very little. The company would rent large office spaces long term, and then divide up smaller spaces within that property for more short-term renters to use it as their day-to-day office space. Somehow, this idea managed an initial valuation of $47 billion.  

The company got an $8 billion investment from SoftBank and they set about buying office spaces in major cities across the country. They projected the market for their business to be upwards of $3 trillion and no one thought that sounded insane. They got this number by deciding that literally anyone who worked at a desk in a city where they had an office qualified as a potential member. 

The CEO and his wife were notoriously bad at business and almost cartoonishly inept. He worked barefoot and did tequila shots in the office while she once fired someone because their “energy” was off. 

The company’s only real strength seemed to be mismanaging money. In 2018, they lost $1.9 billion off of $1.8 billion in revenue and continued to tank. The CEO had to resign just to instill some faith in the business, not that it worked at all. In 2019, their IPO failed and had to be pulled. In 2021 they reported over $2 billion in losses in the first quarter alone.