May is the month which offers the best chances for the hundreds of people who attempt each year to reach the top of the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest. And every climbing season on Everest, people die trying to reach the summit. You have to go all the way back to 1977 to find a year where no climbers have perished on Mount Everest. And this year has been no exception as eight people have died. This list will look at some of the lesser known fatalities and the amazing and harrowing stories behind their attempts to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

The urge to be “the first” on Mount Everest is powerful. The biggest “first” was accomplished in 1953 by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay when they became the first to reach the summit and stand at the top of the world. Everything since then has been, well, second. Not to be deterred at the thought of being second, there have been all manner of attempts since 1953 at other “Everest firsts”. The first to paraglide off Everest, the first to ski down Everest, the first blind person to climb Everest, etc. The other route to “Everest fame” is to be the oldest person (or youngest) to reach the summit and as such there have been multiple people to achieve that goal and hold the title of “oldest” (“youngest”) to climb to the top of Mount Everest. That is, they hold the title until someone older or younger comes along and tops it.

In 2011, the former Nepalese foreign minister, Shailendra Kumar Upadhyay, set out to be the latest oldest man to climb to the top of Everest. He was 82 years old. He made it as far as Camp I when he became ill. He was descending back to Base Camp for medical care when he collapsed and died. His body was airlifted to the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu. He was trying to break the record held by a 76 year old Nepalese man.

In 2013, in fact, just a few days ago, Japanese climber Yuichiro Miura at the age of 80 beat that record and became the oldest person to reach the top of Mount Everest. Not only has Miura, for now, claimed the “oldest to climb and reach the top of Everest” title, he also summited Everest twice before. Even more remarkable than his age is the fact he has had four heart operations and in 2009 he broke his pelvis while skiing.

Even casual observers of the history of climbing Mount Everest know of the dangers faced by climbers. Lack of oxygen, falls, and of course the cold, the ice, the wind and the storms. Lesser known is the threat posed by the landscape the climbers must pass through to reach the summit. The Khumbu Icefall is located at the head of the Khumbu Glacier just above Base Camp on the popular South Col route to the top of Everest. As such, to reach Camp I, all climbers attempting this route to the summit must pass through the Khumbu Ice Fall after leaving Base Camp.

The glacier is moving at a rapid pace and thus crevasses open up to swallow climbers with little warning. But the real danger are the seracs – huge, house-sized, towering blocks of ice, precariously balanced and ready to tumble over at any time, with no warning what so ever. Any climber caught in the wrong place when a serac decides to give way is out of luck. With no time to jump out of the way and nowhere to go, the climber is crushed. Many times the body cannot be recovered. The glacier moves down the face of the mountain at 3-4 feet per year. Sometimes the bodies emerge, years later, deposited back at Base Camp by the glacier.

One unlucky climber who was in the wrong place was Canadian Blair Griffiths. Griffiths was a Canadian Broadcasting Company cameraman documenting the Canadian Mount Everest Expedition in 1982. Griffiths and others were securing one of the many ladders used by climbers to cross over crevasses when the glacier decided to move. A six-story serac crushed Griffiths between two gigantic blocks of ice. After several attempts his climbing partners retrieved his body which was cremated on the mountain.

Many know of the tragic 1924 British Expedition that aimed to climb Mount Everest for the first time. This expedition led to the disappearance and death of climbing legend George Mallory and his partner Andrew Irvine. Mallory’s body would be discovered in 1999 and his death appears to have been as a result of a fall. No sign of Irvine has ever been found and it remains unclear if they were the first to summit Everest and died on their descent, or if they died trying to reach the top.

Lesser know is the story of another Englishman, Maurice Wilson who ten years later, on his own, in either a fit of English eccentricity or madness (perhaps both) attempted a solo ascent of Everest. Where huge British climbing expeditions had failed before him, Wilson thought he could “do it alone”.

Believing the problems of the planet could be solved through fasting and faith in God, Wilson set out to climb Everest so as to promote his beliefs. Injured in WWI, Wilson overcame his suffering through 35 days of prayer and fasting. Wilson convinced himself that his beliefs could allow him to succeed where Mallory had failed. His plan was to fly a plane close to the summit and crash it, then walk the rest of the way (eccentric, yes, but a plan none the less). Not being able to fly an airplane and knowing nothing of climbing mountains, Wilson set out to teach himself both. He bought a used Gipsy Moth plane (which he called “Ever Wrest”) and set off for Asia by air. His mountaineering experience and training was even worse than his flying. He took off in 1933, crashed his plane, was grounded by the British Air Ministry, ignored the ban, and took off again.

Somehow, in two weeks, he made it to India. He wintered over near Tibet; by chance meeting three of the Sherpa’s who had worked previous British Everest expeditions. They joined Wilson and slipped into Tibet. He made his first attempt and was beaten back by the weather and his inexperience. After a time to recover his strength he set off again, this time with two of the Sherpa’s to guide him. He made it to an altitude of 22,700 feet where he encountered a forty foot ice wall. Defeated again, he and the Sherpa’s turned back. The Sherpa’s begged him to come down the mountain with them but he refused and in a gesture of British stubbornness that would make Robert Falcon Scott happy, he made one more attempt. This too failed. He died days later in his tent, just like Scott.

Although recovering bodies from the Death Zone on Everest is extremely dangerous, it has been done. One such example was the recovery of the body of Canadian climber Shriya Shah-Klorfine. Born in Nepal, climbing Everest had always been a dream for the 33 year old Canadian when, on May 19, 2012, she died trying to descend the mountain. Three other climbers would die that same day. The dangers of dying and having your body left behind on the mountain are not unknown to climbers, in fact, some Everest guide services have climbers sign a form asking them to choose to remain on the mountain should they die, or have an attempt made to recover their body (which can cost upwards of $30,000).

Ms. Shriya Shah-Klorfine died very near the summit, at an altitude of over 8,000 meters (nearly 27,000 feet). This would make her recovery very challenging. First a team of 6-8 Sherpa’s must climb the mountain to reach her body – dangerous enough on its own. Then the real danger begins. The only way to bring down a body from that altitude is to place it in a sled while the Sherpa’s, slowly, carefully, lower it (in a controlled slide) down the mountain at angles as steep as 60 degrees. They also need to pick up the body and lift it by hand over any crevasses encountered along the way. The trip down the mountain can take an entire day. It is very dangerous work on the steep icy mountain face. One slip and everyone on the ropes could fall to their own deaths. The goal is to lower the body to the elevation of Camp II (6,500 meters) which is the highest point on the mountain reachable by helicopter (to land, take on a load, and take off again). On May 29, 2012, the body of Ms. Shriya Shah-Klorfine was safely recovered.

The goal of Marco Siffredi was simple – become the first person to snowboard down Mount Everest. At the age of 22 in May of 2001 Marco summited Mount Everest with the plan to snowboard the Hornbein Couloir. But there was not enough snow that spring for him to snowboard that route. Instead he went to plan B and set off on his snowboard down the North Col Route. On the way down one of the bindings on his snowboard broke but he and a Sherpa were able to repair it. He eventually snowboarded all the way down to Advanced Base Camp, becoming the first person to successfully snowboard, continuously, down Everest. It took him four hours to do it.

However, his true goal has eluded him. He returns to Everest the following year, but fatefully, he forgets to bring the lucky cross he always wears around his neck. Marco has come in August this time hoping the snow will be deep enough to snowboard down the “true face” of Everest, the Hornbein Couloir. The Hornbein Couloir is the most steep and most continuous descent possible from the summit. This time there is plenty of snow, too much and he needs to wait for avalanches to subside. He and his team begin their ascent, establishing base camp and higher camps as they climb, sometimes in waist deep snow. Along the way Marco’s radio breaks. A new one is on its way back up to Marco to aid him in communicating with Sherpa’s and those below as he snowboards down the mountain, but he receives a good weather forecast and jumps at the chance to summit and snowboard. He sets off without the radio.

At 2:00 PM he and his Sherpa helper’s reach the summit after a 12 hour climb through chest deep snow. Marco tells his Sherpa he is “tired”. His Sherpa is elated at reaching the summit, but then his Sherpa doesn’t have a 3,000 foot of descent by snowboard at 45-55 degree angles yet to do. It is late in the day, 3:00 PM and his Sherpa’s urge him not to go, but Marco has come too far to not give his dream a try. So he tells his Sherpa he will ‘see him tomorrow” and pushes off down the face of the Hornbein Couloir. The last the Sherpa’s see of him is when he hangs the left away from their descent route to snowboard down the Hornbein Couloir. Later they believe they see a figure sliding down the face of the North Col. But there is nobody else climbing Everest at this time of the year, they have the mountain to themselves. Who could it be? The Sherpa’s descend to the bottom of the Hornbein Couloir.

Marco should be there as it would only take him two hours to snowboard the route. The Sherpa’s reach the point on the North Col. where they are certain they saw the man. There are no snowboard tracks. It appears Marco has fallen to his death. With no radio to even try to contact him, Marco has disappeared. A search party finds his snowboard tracks end about 1,500 feet down the Hornbein Couloir from the summit where he set off. His body has still not been found.

As if climbing Mount Everest is, in and of itself, not difficult or “extreme” enough, some extreme sports people need to take it even farther. Such was the case of Swedish skier Tomas Olsson and his partner Tormod Granheim who in 2006 wanted to be the first to descend the North Col (North Face) Route by ski. That’s right, ski down from the summit of Everest via one of the most difficult of all the difficult routes to the top of the mountain.

On May 16, 2006, after a full day of climbing, the two met up on the mountain and reached the summit. Exhausted, they wondered if they had the strength to ski down. Undeterred by their fatigue, they set off on skis down the North Face via the Norton Couloir at angles as steep as 60 degrees and a shear 3,000 meter drop. Unfortunately, just as they set off, and after only skiing down the North Face approximately 1,500 feet, one of Olsson’s skis broke. They tried to repair the ski with tape but at 27,900 feet, they reached a 150 foot rock cliff on the couloir. This they could not ski even with undamaged equipment so they tried to rappel down.

They set a snow anchor because they could find no good rock to set screws. Olsson went first, rappelling down the cliff still wearing his skis, when the snow anchor they were using failed and Olson fell 2,500 meters to his death. Granheim continued on alone by ski and by climbing and made it down the mountain alive. Several days later Olsson’s body was found by Sherpa’s at 22,000 feet.

The popular South East Ridge Route to the top of Mount Everest was at one time called by climbers “The Rainbow Valley” because of the sheer number of bodies that littered the route to the summit, all dressed in various colorful climbing gear. It was impossible to summit by this route without coming close to and seeing many of these dead climbers. Over the years, climbers have cut ropes and pushed some of these bodies over the side while snow and ice have covered others. But even today, multiple bodies are visible along the South Ridge Route.

One infamous example was that of German climber Hannelore Schmatz. In 1979 she died on her descent after summiting. At the time she was the first woman to die on the upper slopes of Everest. Exhausted and caught at 8,300 meters (27,200 feet) just below the summit, Ms. Schmatz and another climber made the decision to bivouac as darkness fell. The Sherpa’s urged her and American climber Ray Gennet to descend, but they laid down to rest and never got up. Genet’s body disappeared and has never been seen, but for years, climbers would pass the frozen remains of Ms. Schmatz, still sitting and leaning against her pack, eyes wide open and long hair blowing in the constant wind. A climber who had to pass her body to reach the summit described the experience: “It’s not far now. I cannot escape the sinister guard. Approximately 100 meters above Camp IV she sits leaning against her pack, as if taking a short break. A woman with her eyes wide open and her hair waving in each gust of wind…..it feels as if she follows me with her eyes as I pass by. Her presence reminds me that we are here on the conditions of the mountain.”

Five years after she died, two climbers attempted to recover her body. Yogendra Bahadur Thapa and Sherpa Ang Dorje somehow became tangled in their ropes and both fell to their deaths while trying to recover the body. Years later the wind finally blew her body over the edge of the mountain.

Perhaps the most infamous of all the dead bodies climbers must pass along the Northeast ridge route to the summit of Everest is a body known as “Green Boots”, believed to be the body of Indian climber Tsewang Paljor. The name comes from the green mountaineering boots he is still wearing and which stick out from the entrance to the small cave where his body can be found lying on its side. The body and cave are located at 27,890 feet (8,500 meters). It is thought “Green Boots’ crawled into the cave in a desperate effort to survive.

In the same year (1996) as the ill-fated Everest climbing season told in the book “Into Thin Air”, a six man team from India was also trying to reach the top of Everest by the northeast route. Close to the top they were hit by the blizzard that would kill so many in the Rob Hall and Scott Fisher mountaineering parties going for the summit on the more popular southeast route. Three of the Indian climbers turned back but Paljor and two others tried for the summit and disappeared. They radioed that they had reached the summit (though there is some doubt that they did) and no further radio contact was heard from the three.

Later, a Japanese team headed for the summit may have passed the three Indian climbers but were unsure because of the conditions. When the Japanese climbers found out from one of the three Indian climbers who had turned back that their climbing companions were missing, the Japanese offered to help with the search. But the ferocious storm prevented them from searching until the next day. It is thought that “Green Boots” is one of the missing Indian climbers because he was wearing such boots on that day.

In 2006, British climber David Sharp would crawl into “Green Boots cave”. Many climbers walked right past the dying Sharp, believing him to be Green Boots. By the time aid was rendered, Sharp died.

In 2007 British climber Ian Woodall, who was on the mountain in 1996, and had been haunted by the memory ever since, attempted to climb to the cave and give “Green Boots” a proper burial. But he was unable to dig the body out of the ice due to bad weather. He was planning on making another attempt if he could raise the funds.

On May 22, 1998, climber Francys Arsentiev accomplished one of the “Everest Firsts”, by becoming the first woman from the USA to summit without bottled oxygen. Unfortunately, she never lived to celebrate this accomplishment. Arsentiev and her husband climbing partner Sergei Arsentiev were in position to reach the summit on May 20 and May 21 but had to turn around both times. On May 22nd on their third attempt they made it. But they had been in the “Death Zone” above 8,000 meters for almost three days. Because they were exhausted from spending so much time above 8,000 meters they summited late in the day and had to camp and spend another night above 8,000 meters. The next morning they descended but somehow got separated. Sergei reached camp and found she was not there. He immediately went back up to find her carrying oxygen and medicine.

Late that morning an Uzbek team found Arsentiev frozen and struggling to survive. They attempted to help her and brought her down as far as they could before they became too exhausted to do more. They saw Sergei on his way back up the mountain as they descended. That was the last anyone would ever see of Sergei Arsentiev alive.

The next morning a team of climbers including Ian Woodall and Cathy O’Dowd found Francys Arsentiev where the Uzbek team had left her, amazingly, still alive, but barely. Sergei had left his ice axe and rope but there was no sign of him. There was nothing Woodall, O’Dowd and their party could do to save her and she died that morning. For a true account of what happened as told by O’Dowd, read this article.

Woodall and O’Dowd gave up their own chance at summiting to stay with her and care for her as much as they could. But they had to leave her where she died, and her body remained as one of the “landmarks” along the path from high camp to the summit for all subsequent climbers to see as they passed her on their way to the top. Sergie’s body was found a year later down the mountain face. He apparently fell to his death trying to save his wife.

For almost ten years the memory of her death haunted Ian Woodall and he set out in 2007 to try to reach her body and give her some manner of dignified burial. Although he was unable to free the body of “Green Boots” on this mission back to Mount Everest he called “The Tao of Everest”, Woodall did reach the body of Francys Arsentiev. After a brief ritual, Woodall lowered her body to a lower section of the mountain where she would no longer be visible to climbers passing by on their way to the top of Mount Everest.

One of the tragedies of Mount Everest is climbing it has become such an obsession for thousands of people that the mountain is now littered with junk left behind by the hundreds of expeditions who have come and gone over the decades. The liter includes used oxygen cylinders, trash, as well as human bodies. By the 2000s the trash problem had become so bad that expeditions were formed to try to remove some of it (as well as the bodies). But it was not until 2010 and the “Extreme Everest Expedition”, organized and lead by mountaineer Namgyal Sherpa, that bodies and trash were removed from the higher elevations of the mountain where it is most difficult to reach. The expedition was composed of all Sherpa’s.

Its goal was to clean the slopes of Everest above 8‚000 meters. The expedition removed 2,000kg (4,000 pounds) of waste and two dead bodies. One of the bodies they did not recover and bring down was that of climbing expedition leader Rob Hall who died on Everest during the infamous 1996 Everest disaster. Hall’s widow requested that his body remain on the mountain.

Namgyal Sherpa was a legend among Sherpa’s and the clients and climbers he guided on Everest. He worked his way up from porter, to cook, to starting his own company and leading Sherpa teams on some of the biggest Everest expeditions. He himself summited Everest an amazing ten times. But his tenth summit would be his last. On May 16, 2013 at 8,000 meters, he collapsed. He had complained of feeling ill and then pointed to his chest before he passed away.

There are many mysteries surrounding people who have tried to climb Mount Everest and died in the attempt. Did Mallory and Irvine reach the summit and die on the descent, thus beating Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay by 29 years? What really happened during the tragic 1996 Everest climbing disaster made famous in the bestselling book “Into Thin Air”?

There is no mystery about what happened to Irish businessman John Delaney. He died on May 21, 2011 at the age of 42 only 50 meters from reaching a lifelong goal of summiting Everest. He died from a common cause of death on Everest – altitude sickness. While climbing, his wife gave birth to a baby daughter he would never live to see.

What is mysterious about Delaney is not his death, but what happened afterward. Delany was the CEO and founder of the Internet trading website Intrade. Intrade received popularity during the 2012 US Presidential election as people wagered whether Mitt Romney would defeat Barack Obama and later, for bets people placed on who would be made the next Pope.

However, in 2013 Intrade shut down and it was announced that in the last two years of his life, Delaney’s personal account had received un-authorized transfers of money from the company totaling $2,600,000. A March 2013 audit confirmed the lack of documentation to account for this money, but there still is no firm resolution as to how Delaney pocketed this company money or if anything improper was even done. Apparently uncovering possible financial fraud is now more difficult than climbing Mount Everest.

Patrick Weidinger is a frequent contributor to Listverse.

Sometimes movies get it right and sometimes they don’t. When it comes to depicting controversial life scenarios such as terrorism, tragedy or mental disturbance, there is an especially fine line between accurate and ridiculous. On this list are much talked-about movies that set the tone for depicting mental disorders. [WARNING: This list contains spoilers]

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10 Matchstick Men—2003

Nicolas Cage has some truly terrific films under his belt. One of these is the fantastic black comedy Matchstick Men, in which Cage plays Roy Waller, a con artist suffering from OCD and Tourette syndrome. Roy and his partner Frank swindle people out of their hard-earned cash by selling marked-up water filtration systems. When Roy unexpectedly suffers a severe panic attack, Frank convinces him to go to a psychiatrist.

Roy’s obsessive rituals include compulsive vacuuming and opening and closing a door three times before walking through it. He experiences extreme anxiety when people walk through doors without performing the ritual. Bright sunlight also exacerbates his Tourette’s symptoms. Pile on top of this extreme agoraphobia and you have an unforgettable performance by a theatrical actor. He embodies the personality of someone with extremely conflicted emotions, such as when he stares at his hand after a phone number has been written on it, or when his fourteen-year old daughter opens a beer and slugs it.

Nicolas Cage immerses himself in the role of Roy Waller, complete with facial tics and loud exclamations, virtually radiating anxiety and paranoia.^[1]

9 Betty Blue—1986

Betty Blue begins with an erotic, red-hot love affair between a man in his thirties named Zorg and 19-year-old Betty. Everything is great for a while until the two get into a heated argument and Betty smashes up their love shack.

She eventually burns it down after which the couple move to the outskirts of Paris. Betty’s temper keeps flaring and she even stabs a pizzeria patron with a fork. Meanwhile, Zorg is trying to get published but keeps getting rejected by publishers. He hides the rejection letters from Betty, but she finds one and slashes the face of the publisher.

Betty’s mental health continues to deteriorate throughout the film as she starts hearing voices, hacking off her hair, lures a young boy away from his mother and eventually gouges out her own eye. Then Zorg receives a phone call from a publisher who tells him he loved his manuscript and wants to publish his book. In a very dark twist, Zorg smothers Betty with a pillow, after which he returns home to finish the soon-to-be-published book.^[2]

8 We Need To Talk About Kevin—2011

When We Need To Talk About Kevin was released in 2011, it had the desired effect of getting people to talk about the movie. Based on a novel by Lionel Shriver, the film sets out to highlight the symptoms of Antisocial Personality Disorder and make people very uncomfortable at the same time.

It is clear right from the get-go that Kevin hates his mother, Eve, and it seems to be a reaction towards her resentment of him. She used to travel for work but now must stay home to be mother to a son that can’t stand her. Kevin continually acts out, notably when he pours drain cleaner onto his sister’s face, causing the six-year-old Celia to lose an eye.

The movie takes a dark turn when Kevin, at the age of fifteen, murders both his sister and father with a crossbow. He then proceeds to lock several students into his high school’s gym and murders them as well. Kevin is locked up in juvenile prison and diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder. Although the movie never explicitly uses the term ‘psychopath’, it is clear that Kevin’s behavior is psychotic with a violent outlet.^[3]

7 Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte—1964

Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte is a psychological thriller that stars Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland. Davis plays Charlotte Hollis who plans to marry her already married lover, John Mayhew. John is brutally murdered shortly after a confrontation with her father and Charlotte discovers his body in the summerhouse. Everyone assumes Charlotte is the murderer while she is convinced it was her father.

Skipping to 1964, Charlotte is a wealthy old maid whose mental health is failing her. She displays all the characteristics of a person slowly losing their mind. She drifts between sanity and insanity, including hallucinations, based on her immediate surroundings and it is fascinating to watch.

After her cousin, Miriam (played by Havilland), moves in with her, Charlotte starts hearing a harpsicord playing a song John wrote for her and is haunted by John’s severed head. When Charlotte discovers Miriam has known all along that John’s wife murdered him and has been blackmailing her for years, she kills her. At the end of the film, when Charlotte is being driven away to an asylum, an envelope is handed to her containing John’s wife’s confession to his murder.^[4]

6 Gaslight—1944

Gaslighting is not a new term in 2020. It was coined when the movie Gaslight first graced the silver screen in 1944. In the movie, a husband cunningly manipulates his wife to the extent that she starts believing she is going insane. After charming her into marrying him, he slowly isolates her from the world, sets up situations where the lighting is unexpectedly dimmed, and objects disappear and reappear. He eventually succeeds in convincing his wife of her own insanity.

The twist to this story is that the wife, Paula, is not the one with the mental disorder. Her husband, Gregory, is and displays many of the characteristics of a psychopath. The movie intensely and accurately depicts the lingering effects of gaslighting when in its final moments Paula still isn’t sure of what is real and what isn’t and suspects that the knife in her hand might just be a figment of her imagination.^[5]

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5 Black Swan—2010

Black Swan follows the life of a ballerina named Nina, played by Natalie Portman, who finds herself having to compete for a part in a production of Swan Lake. Her competition comes in the form of Lily, a newcomer played by Mila Kunis.

Nina has a dysfunctional relationship with her narcissistic mother and has psychological problems causing her to self-harm. However, the movie’s portrayal of Nina’s psychotic breakdown makes it difficult to ascertain which of her injuries are real and which are imaginary.

Nina is terrified all the time and as she suffers hallucinations that threaten the line between reality and delusion, it becomes apparent that she also suffers from obsessive compulsive behavior and an eating disorder. Natalie Portman does a fantastic drawing the viewer into her world and keeps them on the edge of their seats as she fights to maintain her sanity. Portman won the Oscar for best actress for her role in this gripping film.^[6]

4 A Beautiful Mind—2001

A Beautiful Mind is based on the life of John Nash, Princeton mathematician and Nobel Laureate, and was inspired by the bestselling novel by Sylvia Nasar.

Nash displayed symptoms of schizophrenia around thirty, suffering from delusions and paranoia. He was in and out of hospital as the years went by and didn’t always stay on his anti-psychotic medication.

In the movie, Nash is brought to life by Russell Crowe who does a great job portraying a character that is not always in control of his own mind and suffers paranoid schizophrenic hallucinations. He stops taking his meds because of the severe side effects and suffers a relapse which causes him to leave his infant son in the bathtub with the water running. His wife, Alicia, gets to the baby in time but realizes Nash has relapsed when he tells her his friend “Charles” was watching their child. Nash realizes at this point that the three people he keeps seeing do not actually exist. Yet he refuses to restart his medication regime and simply ignores the hallucinations. This seems to work and after being allowed to teach again, he finally wins a Nobel Prize in 1994. As he accepts his prize inside a Stockholm auditorium, his hallucinations appear again, and he sees three figures watching him. He refuses to let his illness win and just briefly glances at them before leaving the auditorium.^[7]

3 Psycho—1960

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was one of the most influential directors in film history. He gave the world memorable films such as The Birds, Dial M For Murder, Mr & Mrs Smith and of course Psycho.

While Psycho will always be remembered for the infamous shower scene, it is also considered to be one of the earliest slasher films and one of Hitchcock’s best efforts. Most critics agree that the Norman Bates character, played by Anthony Perkins, accurately and chillingly displays the symptoms of a person diagnosed with Dissociative Personality Disorder (DID).

Bates is unable to deal with his childhood trauma that saw him lose his father and killing his own mother, Norma. He develops DID so that he doesn’t have to deal with his extreme feeling of guilt.

He carries on conversations between his mother’s corpse and himself. His Norma personality is extremely jealous of any woman that Norman feels an attraction to and becomes violent enough to kill. When Norma completely takes over Norman’s mind, he dresses as her and satisfies her blood lust.^[8]

2 Joker—2019

Set in 1981, Joker takes the life of Arthur Fleck and turns it into a spiral of darkness and insanity. Joaquin Phoenix took on the role of Fleck and portrays a character who failed at being a stand-up comedian and eventually becomes a criminal struggling with mental illness.

Fleck lives with his mother in Gotham City and suffers from Pseudobulbar Affect (PBA) which causes him to laugh at inappropriate times. He is assaulted by three rich men who work for Wayne Enterprises and shoots them all. When the murders are condemned by mayoral candidate, Thomas Wayne, protests erupt in the city leading to social funding cuts. This causes Fleck to have to make do without his much-needed medication.

After learning that his mother lied about his adoption, he murders her and then proceeds to murder his co-worker, Randall. He also kills a talk show host for mocking his laughing disorder and comedy routine. Towards the end of the film rioters bust Fleck out of the police car he is riding in after being arrested and Fleck dances for the crowds while they cheer him on.

Joker earned itself 11 Oscar nominations and Joaquin Phoenix won the Best Actor award at the 2020 ceremony.^[9]

1 One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest—1962

The late Kirk Douglas turned Ken Kesey’s novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest into a Broadway play. Kirk played the main character, RP McMurphy. His son, Michael Douglas, later produced the film along with Saul Zaentz. The movie was shot in an actual mental hospital in Oregon and Douglas roped in some excellent actors including Louise Fletcher, Danny DeVito and Jack Nicholson.

The place is a melting pot of mental disorders, but it soon becomes apparent to the viewer that RP McMurphy is faking his insanity and instigates mayhem in the hospital to avoid being handed a custodial sentence. When he assaults a staff member, however, he receives electroconvulsive therapy as punishment. McMurphy’s arch enemy, Nurse Ratched, is eventually revealed to be conniving and manipulative.

The other ‘inmates’ include ‘Chief’ Bromden who seems to suffer from paranoid schizophrenia and believes that Ratched is a machine and Billy Bibbet who has psychological issues stemming from his relationship with his mother and can’t stop stuttering. George Sorenson has an extreme dirt phobia, while Martini sees hallucinations all the time.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest won five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress.^[10]

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Approximately 1.5 million people were murdered in Poland alone during WWII, with the Nazis mercilessly killing six million Jewish people from countries across the world, as well as five million Roman gypsies, homosexuals, disabled people, and prisoners of war.

From the minute the Nazis entered Poland, the attack on Jewish people had begun. The Nazis arrived in Krakow on September 6, 1939, and immediately changed the lives of Jewish people, depriving them of state pensions, imposing compulsory disclosure of foreign bank deposits, and demanding people between the age of 14 to 60 embark on forced labor.

All Jewish people were also ordered to wear badges with the Star of David. What’s more, they were banned from public transport, moving freely across the city, and were later moved to the ghetto, a Jewish living quarter, in 1941 “for sanitary and public order reasons.”

10Life in the Ghetto

75,000 Jewish people were removed from their homes and forced to live in the ghetto, with slums situated across 16 square blocks. With a third of Krakow’s population living within the walled ghetto, food was as scarce as mercy. Only people with money could access the ghetto’s black market to purchase unavailable items.^[1]

Krakow became the capital of the Generalgouvernement (General Government) and was one of five major ghettos across Poland. The ghetto was situated on the right bank of the Vistula River in the Podgórze district, and it became known as ‘Krakow’ or ‘Podgórze Ghetto,’ stretching across a 50-acre space that featured one and two-storey buildings.

In the 17 days leading up to the resettlement, the 3,000 original residents were forced to move from the district to make way for 16,000 Jews, which proves the little space Jewish people had to endure during their time in the ghetto. However, approximately 2,000 more people illegally entered the ghetto, believing they were safer behind the ghetto walls than in front of them.

9Tombstone Walls

One apartment block was allocated to four families inside the ghetto, which meant the average person had two square meters (21 ft²) of space. However, it was not just overcrowding that provided a problem for Jews, they were deliberately made to feel oppressed, as windows facing the city were boarded up to prevent outside contact.

One of the most dominant features of the ghetto was the 3-metre-high (10 ft) wall, which was installed across the ghetto’s confines. Sickeningly, the walls were crowned with arches to resemble their tombstones. The people of the ghetto were helpless, and they would have felt it every day of their lives.^[2]

8The Final Solution

In 1941, Hitler originally authorized the mass murder of 11 million Jews, but it was on January 20, 1942, that SS-Gruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the German General Security Office, chaired a conference on the matter in Wannsee, Germany. It was here that the fate of Jewish people in the Third Reich territories was decided, with the delegates agreeing to the deportation of Jews to death camps.

This marked the beginning of the mass genocide, and the plan was effectively implemented on June 3, 1942, following an agreement between Reichfuhrer SS Heinrich Himmler and General Governor Hans Frank. The world-scale genocide was given the code name “The Final Solution of the Jewish Question,” which estimated the murder of approximately 11 million Jews under the agreement. The fate of the Jewish people in Krakow and beyond was sealed.

The mass killing of Jewish people had, however, already begun prior to the agreement, as both the SS and German Army had already embarked on the extermination of Jewish people in Serbia and the German-occupied Soviet Union.^[3]

The Krakow Ghetto experienced two significant deportations. 7,000 Jews were deported via Plaszow to the Belzec death camp between June 1 and 8, 1942, with 1,000 of the Jews murdered before the train continued its journey to Belzec. Another 6,000 Jews were deported from the Krakow Ghetto by the SS and police on October 27 and 28, 1942, killing 600 people during the deportation process—300 of the innocent victims were Jewish children. Tragically, not a single deportee survived the death camp.

7The Jewish Fighting Organization

Two resistance groups existed in the Krakow ghetto by 1942: the Akiva group, led by Aharon “Dolek” Liebeskind, and another group of fighters led by former soldier Heshek Bauminger. Following the mass murder of Jewish people in the Chelmno killing center, and the deportations of thousands of Jews in June 1942, the Jewish fighters decided it was time to fight back against the Nazis. The leaders, therefore, enlisted the help of courier Hela Shüpper to contact other Jewish resistance groups in cities such as Warsaw, Rzeszow, and Tarnow, sharing information and smuggling weapons into the ghetto. Shimshon Draenger also led the creation of a forgery workshop to falsify documents and papers.

After the two mass deportations of Jewish people from the Krakow ghetto, the two resistances groups came together to form the Jewish Fighting Organization (JFO) in October 1942. Over the next few months, the JFO raided German warehouses, sabotaged railway lines, and attacked both German soldiers and the security police. After careful planning at their base outside the ghetto, the JFO orchestrated a series of attacks on German forces throughout Krakow, throwing grenades into cafes where German officers dined, as well as distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, sabotaging police and army vehicles, assassinating German soldiers, and raising Polish flags across the bridges over the river Vistula.

Unfortunately, the German authorities succeeded in their massive manhunt to find the fighters. Tragically, the Gestapo discovered Liebeskind’s hiding place, but he didn’t go down without a fight, as he was tragically killed in a shootout. The following day, Bauminger met a similar fate. Undeterred, the JFO continued to fight against the Nazis, distributing Anti-Nazi leaflets, continuing with their sabotage, and encouraging Jewish people to flee to the forests.^[4]

6Propaganda

Ahead of the liquidation, Jews who were refused the right to stay in the Krakow ghetto were gathered for deportation at Zgody Square, which is now known as Bohaterow Getta Square. Those who did not have a stamp in their job cards to confirm their employment by a German company were deported to Belzec. A crowd of people stood on a horse-drawn platform. From the balcony above The Eagle Pharmacy, which stands to this day, the Gestapo took photographs to provide evidence of the resettlement, which was to prove they were humanitarian in their treatment towards Jews.

Tragically, after the photographs were taken of the crowd, the Jewish people were chased off the platform, with many beaten during the action. The coachmen were also dismissed from their duties, and the Jewish deportees were sent to the railway station in Prokocim for transportation to the death camp.^[5]

5The Eagle Pharmacy

The Eagle Pharmacy was an anomaly in occupied Europe, as it could continue its operations day and night following the erection of the Krakow ghetto. The owner was Tadeusz Pankiewicz, who was the only gentile permanent resident living in the ghetto. The pharmacy became the hub of intellectual activity from the moment the ghetto came to existence, with professionals, scholars, and artists meeting in the pharmacy’s basement. It was at The Eagle Pharmacy that residents would share news from the front, discuss everyday issues, or comment on war communiques.^[6] They also arranged dinners to the music by brothers Leopold and Herman Rosner and would host scientific and political debates.

Once the ghetto’s post office closed, residents would transfer letters, money, and news from within the pharmacy. In fact, Tadeusz employed additional staff to act as intermediaries. The pharmacists were: Irena Drozdzikowska, Aurelia Danek, and Helena Krywaniuk. Many residents also sought refuge at the pharmacy during night raids, whilst the front and back entrances that led to the courtyard helped save the lives of many Jewish people. When the deportations started, Tadeusz distributed sedatives, cardiac medicines, and wound dressings without charge, which were delivered to physicians and nurses. Many Jewish people visited the pharmacy as the last point of contact before the deportations to leave a message or valuables for relatives and friends. Tadeusz also specially commissioned a cabinet from a joiner to save ten old precious Torahs in a secret vault.

Following encouragement from many of his friends from the ghetto, Tadeusz published his memoirs in 1947, which was called The Pharmacy in the Krakow’s Ghetto, and he also served as a prosecution witness at the Nuremberg Trials. Tadeusz Pankiewicz kept his pharmacy open from the beginning to the end of the Krakow ghetto’s existence, and it continued its operations until 1951 when all pharmacies became nationalized. He worked as the pharmacy’s manager until 1954, before he asked to be moved to a different pharmacy at 29 Listopada Street. Tadeusz was also bestowed with the title Righteous Among the Nations.

The Eagle Pharmacy closed its doors in 1967 but, thanks to the efforts of Tadeusz’s colleagues and friends, it re-opened as a Museum of National Remembrance in 1983. The building now serves as a branch of The Historical Museum of the City of Krakow.

4Ghetto A & B

Following the June and October mass deportations, a squad was assigned to steal Jewish furniture and valuables, which were sent to a storage area at Jozefinska Street. Once the empty flats were “cleaned up,” the ghetto was ready for a new settlement of Jewish people. In December 1942, more Jewish people were transferred to the ghetto; however, this time it was divided into two sections: Ghetto A and Ghetto B.

Ghetto A was allocated to the working Jews, whilst Ghetto B was for other Jewish people, such as non-workers, elderly people, those suffering from an illness, and children aged up to 14. Little did the Jewish people know that the division was in preparation for the final liquidation of the Krakow ghetto.

Tragedy would strike the Krakow once again on March 13, 1943, as SS Oberfuhrer Julian Schemer ordered for the liquidation of the ghetto to be undertaken in two phases. That same day, 6,000 Jewish people from Ghetto A were sent to the recently constructed Plaszow labor camp. The next day, Ghetto B was liquidated, with 3,000 people killed during the action, while the remaining residents were transported via lorries to Auschwitz-Birkeneau.

The members and the families of the Jewish council, as well as the Krakow ghetto police force, were also sent to Plaszow. From the 3,000 people sent to Auschwitz-Birkeneau, only 499 men and 50 women were sent to the forced labor camp in Plaszow, whilst the remaining individuals were mercilessly murdered in the gas chambers. Between September and December 1943, nearly all Jewish people at the Plaszow labor camp were tragically killed in a series of mass shootings.^[7]

3Roman Polanski

Roman Polanski’s family moved back to Krakow in 1936 and were living in the city when the Germans invaded Poland at the start of World War II. The Polanski family was moved into the Krakow ghetto, along with thousands of Jews. During the deportation of Jewish people to concentration camps, Roman watched as his father was taken away from the family. His mother was deported to Auschwitz and was murdered not long after her arrival.

After witnessing the murder of a Jewish woman in the ghetto, the six-year-old hid in the recess in the stairs in the nearest building he could find and did not come out for hours.^[8] His movie The Pianist (2002) provides a true depiction of life inside the ghetto walls. Fortunately, Roman escaped the Krakow ghetto in 1943, adopting the name Roman Wilk, thanks to the help he received from a Polish Catholic family. Mrs. Sermak delivered on her promise to his father to provide him with shelter. He later stated: “I survived because I did not look very much like a Jew . . . I definitely looked like a lot of kids in Poland.”

2Polish Righteous Among the Nations

Tadeusz Pankiewicz was not the only person to be honored with the title Polish Righteous Among the Nations. There are 6,706 Polish men and women who have been recognized as Polish Righteous following WWII.

They were recognized for selflessly helping Jewish people during World War II. Engraved on the medals is the inscription “whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.” These people not only helped Jews in the ghetto and in Krakow, but across Poland.^[9] It was their bravery that helped to secure the future of many Polish families.

1Plac Bohaterow Getta Square

Plac Bohaterow Getta, known as Plac Zgody Square during World War II, was the center of the Krakow ghetto. It was the place residents would go to escape their overcrowded housing. Yet, it was also the scene of one of the city’s greatest horrors.

At the square, thousands of families were torn apart as the Nazis ordered mass deportations to concentration camps. Jewish people were also cruelly beaten and executed in the open space. Following the final liquidation of the Krakow ghetto, all that was left of the residents was the furniture, luggage, clothing, and personal items they were forced to abandon. It was an image that would later come to define the square.

Once World War II came to an end in 1945, Plac Zgody’s name was changed to Plac Bohaterow Getta, which aptly translates to Ghetto Heroes Square. A small monument was erected in their honor, yet the square was later only used for public toilets and a parking lot.

After experiencing many decades of neglect, a new iconic design was created in Plac Bohaterow Getta in 2005. Seventy well-spaced chairs now stand in the square to symbolize the departure of Jewish residents from the Krakow ghetto.^[10] It now serves as a memorial to the ghetto’s victims.

Elisabeth Sedgwick is a freelance writer from Liverpool, England. You can read more of her work here.

One of the most chilling chapters in bestselling author Dean Koontz’s many thrillers details a lone survivor’s experience of a horrific airplane crash. Even more terrible are these 10 harrowing emergency landings caught on tape… because they really happened!

Related: 10 Shocking Air Disasters Caused by Birds

10 Alaska Airlines Flight 1288

On August 20, 2023, during Tropical Storm Hilary, Alaskan Airlines Flight 1288’s 106 passengers’ anxiety increased tremendously when a problem with their Boeing 737’s landing gear forced the pilot to undertake a risky landing at John Wayne Airport.

The 737 parked on the runway rather than taxiing to the gate, and buses took passengers to the terminal building. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) found that the airliner’s left main gear had collapsed but could not determine why. Fortunately, there were no injuries or deaths.

Abhinav Amineni, who filmed the moment, admitted that he “was panicking,” thinking sparks along the runway might indicate that the airplane was about to burst into flames. His video offers a sense of the jitters he and his fellow passengers felt as they touched down roughly in the dark and raced along the wet runway as sparks streaked past the speeding airplane.^[1]

9 LOT Polish Airlines Flight LO16

As the result of a six-year, year-month-long investigation, Poland’s State Commission on Aircraft Accidents Investigation concluded that the November 1, 2011, LOT Polish Airlines’ Flight L012’s Boeing 747 landing gear wouldn’t work due to a combination of mechanical failures and human errors. Aircraft design features and other procedural omissions were contributing factors.

While the airplane circled the airport to burn off fuel, firefighters doused the runway with flame retardant. An ABC News video of the airplane’s crash-landing at a Warsaw airport shows the screeching aircraft skidding along the runway on its belly, emitting sparks and smoke from its underside. After it landed, the firefighters sprayed thick streams of water over the airplane, preventing it from bursting into flames.

Safe inside the terminal building, passengers praised Captain Tadeusz Wrona’s performance. One said that the landing was so “masterful” that the 747 had seemed to land “on [its] wheels.” None of the 220 passengers or 11 crew members who’d begun their trip in Newark were killed or injured.^[2]

8 Red Air Flight 203

As NBC News reports, when a Red Air twin-engine McDonnell Douglas MD-82, carrying 126 people, crash-landed at Miami International Airport on June 21, 2022, it burst into flames. Three of the people onboard were treated for minor injuries. After controlling the blaze, firefighters dealt with the aircraft’s fuel spill.

The airplane’s front landing gear collapse appears to have caused the fire. Video included with the NBC News article shows the fiery, smoking aircraft’s rough landing, first responders’ arrival on the scene, and firefighters subduing the fire.^[3]

7 Cathay Pacific Flight 780

A Civil Aviation Department’s Accident Investigation Department’s bulletin provides details concerning the April 13, 2010, crash-landing of the Airbus A330-342 in operation during Cathay Pacific Flight 780. The pilot announced the emergency situation as the aircraft approached the Hong Kong International Airport with 13 crew members and 309 passengers aboard, stating that there were “control problems on both engines.”

Despite these conditions, Captain Malcolm Waters and First Officer David Hayhoe landed the Airbus, but at a ground speed of 230 knots (approximately 265 mph or 167 km/h). After the rescue leader confirmed “fire and smoke on the wheels, the commander initiated an emergency evacuation of passengers.” There were no fatalities, but one passenger was seriously injured.

Mayday: Air Disaster video’s simulation of the incident puts viewers inside the cockpit and the cabin with the terrified pilots, passengers, and flight attendants.^[4]

6 Air France Flight 358

An online CBC article sums up the story of Air France Flight 358’s Airbus A340-313’s August 2, 2005, crash landing, stating that the airplane “ended up skidding off the runway.” Canada’s Federal Transport Minister Jean Lapierre says the fact that no one was injured or killed in the incident was a “miracle.” The violence of the crash landing is indicated by the fact that, although no deaths occurred, “12 people suffered serious injuries,” and some passengers believed that they would die.

A Disaster Breakdown video, offering further details concerning the flight from Paris to Toronto, explains how inclement weather and a number of pilot errors were responsible for the crash-landing, during which the airplane overshot the runway by 300 meters. The video also mentions the flight attendants’ decision not to open two of the airplane’s doors due to the fire hazard as an aggravating factor.^[5]

5 Qantas Flight 72

As the 7NEWS Spotlight video concerning the November 7, 2008, Qantas Flight 72 indicates, the airliner was on its way from Singapore to Perth when Captain Kevin Sullivan, a former Top Gun pilot in the U.S. Navy, was alerted that the autopilot had disconnected. This alarm was followed by contradictory stall and overspeed warnings. Then, the airliner began to pitch “violently down.” As Sullivan put it, the aircraft’s “automation… was trying to kill us.”

As the airplane plummeted toward the Indian Ocean, passengers and flight attendant Fuzzy Maiava, who were not strapped into their seats, were thrown against the ceiling. Two were rendered unconscious. All were pinned in place. Sullivan released his control stick, and the plane righted itself, causing Fuzzy and the unrestrained passengers to fall from the ceiling.

The primary flight computer, the automatic brake, the auto-trim function, and the third trim had also failed. Over 100 passengers were injured, some severely. Sullivan decided to land at nearby Learmonth, a Royal Australian Air Force base. Passengers were ordered to fasten their seat belts, but Caroline Southcott had trouble doing so. She was in agony, having broken her back and an ankle, the latter so severely that her foot faced backward. She would require extensive surgery.

Despite his concern that the automated system could again wrest control of the aircraft, Sullivan successfully landed the airplane. Walking through the cabin, he witnessed the injuries, terror, and trauma that his passengers had suffered and was so affected that he quit piloting.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau found that “incorrect data” caused the in-flight emergency but could not say how or why.^[6]

4 Asiana Airlines Flight 214

On July 6, 2013, with 292 passengers on board, Asiana Flight 214 was completing its overnight journey from Seoul to San Francisco when the pilots were alerted that the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was dangerously low. The pilot-in-training, Lee Kang-koo, and his trainer, the pilot-in-command Lee Jeong-min, tried to ascend, but it was too late. Short of the runway, the plane struck the ground, and its tail was ripped off.

The front part of the aircraft skimmed along the runway before coming to an abrupt halt. Were fire to spread from the burning engine to the fuel tanks, the airplane could explode. There was no slide, but evacuating passengers were able to climb down the fuselage. Firefighters fought the blaze and tended to injured passengers.

Although there were contributing factors, the National Transportation Safety Board determined that there were several probable causes of the accident, two crucial ones of which were the flight crew’s mismanagement of the airplane’s descent during the visual approach and their delay in executing a go-around after becoming aware that the airplane was below acceptable glide path and airspeed tolerances. Of the 310 people aboard the aircraft, 3 died, and 187 were injured, 49 seriously.^[7]

9 Flying Tiger 923

Engine number three of the Flying Tiger, a 73-ton Lockheed 1049H Super Constellation with 76 passengers on board, was on fire, spitting flames and bits of molten metal as an alarm bell clanged. Captain John Murray ordered the discharge of an extinguisher. The September 23, 1962, crisis had been averted—or so the passengers and crew had thought.

In fact, as Eric Lindner writes, flight engineer Garrett “had forgotten to close the no. 3 engine firewall.” This oversight “triggered a chain reaction” of equipment failures, and the airplane lost “two of its four engines.” Nearly 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) from land, the Flying Tiger had no alternative but to ditch into the Atlantic Ocean. Impact “would feel like crashing onto a cement runway,” a Popular Mechanics article observed.

It didn’t help when rain started, obscuring visibility, especially since Murray would have to ditch between waves; otherwise, the airplane’s wings could snap off, or the aircraft itself might break apart and sink when it struck the water at 120 mph (193 km/h).

Murray was up to the task, though, and all aboard survived the impact and evacuated. Unfortunately, only 48 lived through the seven hours they spent in the bitter-cold waters; the other 28 drowned. An Aviation Horrors video captured the passengers’ and crew’s harrowing ordeal.^[8]

2 U.S. Bangla Flight 211

According to the final report concerning the March 12, 2018, accident involving U.S. Bangla Flight 211’s Bombardier Q400 aircraft, the aircraft’s pilot, Abid Sultan, probably experienced “disorientation and a complete loss of situational awareness.” As a result of the crash-landing, all 4 crew members and 45 out of the 67 passengers aboard the aircraft were killed, and “more… succumbed to injury later in hospital during the course of treatment.”

The report also found other contributing factors, including dangerous attempts to “align the aircraft with the runway… at very close proximity and very low altitude,” without any prior attempt to execute a “go around,” even though such a maneuver appeared to be possible until the last instant before touchdown on the runway.

A Smithsonian Channel video indicates that, near the conclusion of the 90-minute flight from Dhaka to Nepal, the airplane flew past the Kathmandu Airport toward the mountains. The control tower’s supervisor redirected the errant plane, instructing the pilot to loop back around and land on the runway for southbound traffic. The turn was executed, but the aircraft was to the right of the runway.

During several attempts to correct the aircraft’s approach, Sultan first aligned the airplane with the taxiway before lining up with the control tower instead of the runway. The plane missed the tower but crashed into a field 1,443 feet (440 meters) away from the runway, bursting into flames.^[9]

1 United Airlines Flight 232

The explosion of the DC-10 aircraft in service to the July 19, 1989, United Airlines Flight 232, as it headed from Denver to Chicago, severed the airplane’s hydraulic lines, disabling flight controls. Captain Alfred C. Haynes, First Officer William Records, and Second Officer Dudley Dvorak eventually stabilized the aircraft by “adjusting the thrust” of the one working engine on each wing. An off-duty flight instructor among the 284 other passengers and the 11 crew members on board joined them in the cockpit to operate the throttles.

They’d attempt to land at Sioux City, Iowa. As the Des Moines Register’s understatement declares, “It was not a happy landing.” The flight crew was unable to reduce speed, and the aircraft’s right wing, clipping the runway, caused a fuel spill. The airplane broke into four pieces, the main part of the burning wreckage sliding into a cornfield.

One hundred and twelve passengers died. Two local hospitals, assisted by the Iowa National Guard, whose soldiers helped search for and rescue the injured and perform triage, treated the crash-landing’s 184 survivors.^[10]

Nearly two decades after the most devastating terrorist attacks in history, the most enduring images of September 11, 2001 seem set in stone. Smoke billowing from two of the world’s tallest towers. The live-TV horror of a second plane slamming into New York’s World Trade Center, eliminating any lingering hopes that the initial impact was an accident. Twin 110-story buildings imploding in heaps of ash and dust as thousands below ran for their lives.

See Also: 10 Disturbing Raw Videos From 9/11

But of the nearly 3,000 victims, approximately 200 – about 1 in every 15 deaths – died not from crashing planes, fanning flames or collapsing skyscrapers but by falling or jumping to certain death from the towers’ upper floors. Deemed too awful to air and too provocative to publish, the 9/11 jumpers have become the least confronted of the day’s victims, marginalized by society’s refusal to reckon with the unreckonable.

8 In the North Tower, the Jumpers Were Right in Assessing Their Fate

Of the 2,606 people who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center, more than half – at least 1,356^[1] – were in the North Tower (Tower One) at or above the point of impact of American Airlines Flight 11, which slammed into the building at 8:46am. The South Tower (Tower Two) would be struck at 9:03am.

There are three reasons that the death toll was comparably high in the North Tower. First, since it was the first building impacted, those on high floors in the opposite tower had time to begin evacuating (more on that shortly). Second, the North Tower’s upper floors included the legendary Windows on the World^[2] restaurant, which was hosting an event that morning attended by nearly 100 guests with more than 70 venue staff.

The third reason was both simple and tragic: no one above the impact zone in the North Tower had any chance whatsoever of surviving. Their fate was sealed by the plane, which wiped out all elevator shafts and staircases. The ensuing raging fire and all-encompassing smoke made any attempt at rooftop rescue via helicopter impossible. They were all doomed.

Most of the jumpers on 9/11 came from the North Tower – and they began falling just minutes after the plane’s impact. They had no exit and little choice, as temperatures in parts of the building rose to an estimated 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Some took to standing on desks because the floor was so hot.

Whether acting reflexively to intense heat or simply realizing there was no escape, the jumpers from the North Tower were only expediting the inevitable – one last act of control over the uncontrollable.

7 In the South Tower, Some May Have Had an Escape Route… But Didn’t Know It

In the South Tower (Tower Two), about 620 victims were at or above the point of impact of United Airlines Flight 175, which struck about 17 minutes after the North Tower crash. This precious time allowed many in the South Tower to evacuate, explaining why only half as many perished as in Tower One.

It also partially explains why there were far fewer jumpers from the South Tower. The other reason is that Flight 175 struck the South Tower considerably lower than Flight 11 hit the North Tower, meaning it would take longer for overwhelming heat to force many into so impossible a decision as to leap to certain death.

Still, no more than 18 people survived^[3] who were at or above the point of impact, which ripped through the South Tower’s 78th floor Sky Lobby^[4] where scores of people were awaiting transfer to express elevators down to the safety of the ground floor.

Unfortunately, far fewer should have died in the South Tower. For starters, many who began evacuating immediately following the North Tower impact were told to return to their desks.^[5] Naturally, another impact was not anticipated.

Just as tragically is that one stairwell remained clear post-impact . . .^[6] but very few people knew about it. We’ll never know for sure whether any of the South Tower jumpers had a realistic chance of reaching that stairwell, but others who perished when the building collapsed at 9:59am almost certainly could have made it out had they known.

6 Their Plight Was Too Terrible for Television

As the horror unfolded, television screens around the world filled with terrifying visuals. The North Tower’s upper floors engulfed in smoke, flames lapping from its gaping gash. The second plane’s impact sending a giant fireball^[7] into the clear blue sky, instantly eliminating any hope that the first crash was an accident. Finally, the towers pancaking to the ground, half an hour apart, sending plumes of dust as tall as adjacent skyscrapers long dwarfed by the Twin Towers.

However, one image was too terrible for TV. As rumors of desperate jumpers reached NYC news anchors with cameras affixed on the burning towers, many—especially those broadcasting from nearby roofs or helicopters—could have zoomed in. They did not, choosing to inform viewers with sorrowful words rather than shocking close-ups.

Instead, most of the footage we have of the 9/11 jumpers comes from amateurs. One look leaves little wonder why newscasters decided against broadcasting the sorrowful spectacle. Many blessed themselves before their leap of faith. Some tried to make parachutes out of curtains or tablecloths. One man hopelessly tried to climb down the building.

This understandable modesty, however, had a long-lasting downside: Ten full years after 9/11, anniversary articles remarked how the jumpers had been “airbrushed from history”.^[7] Besides the media’s reluctance to be deemed voyeuristic, another factor was the notion, however wrong, that the jumpers had committed a sort of circumstantial suicide rather than the plain reality that they, along with every other 9/11 victim, were simply murdered.

5 What They Were Jumping from Was Pure Hell

Several scientific studies explaining why the towers ultimately collapsed, including those exploring the thermodynamics of 9/11,^[8] have been written. In layman’s terms, it was pure hell. The impacts of the planes sent an aviation fuel fireball through half a dozen levels of each tower, igniting desks, chairs, shelving, carpeting, work-space partitions, wall and ceiling panels, plastics of various kinds and, per the day’s macabre confetti, reams and reams of office paper.

The fires in some areas may have reached 800 degrees Celsius, yielding air temperatures impossible to fathom let alone survive. Thick, black smoke slowly choked people trapped on floors with exits jammed shut by the plane’s initial impact, or those in stairwells made entirely impassable from debris.

Humanizing the account are hundreds of phone calls^[9] made from those trapped above the impact zones of both towers. As the situation went from bad to worse to hopeless, telephone calls to loved ones impotently watching on television showcase the panic as people fought to live. Many correctly weighed the deteriorating conditions in their blockaded offices against the likelihood of firefighters reaching them in time. Tom McGinnis, trapped on the 92nd floor of the North Tower, summed up the situation to his wife by saying “You don’t understand. There are people jumping from the floors above us.”

4 They Had a Long, Horrifying Way Down

The World Trade Center Towers were each approximately 1,300 feet tall – about one-quarter of a mile high. Even at speeds approaching 150mph,^[10] the fall took approximately 10 seconds. Those 10 seconds were completely and utterly hopeless. They could see the crowds looking up and the ruined bodies of preceding jumpers. Some held hands and jumped in pairs, others stayed on their cell phones as they fell.^[11]

One of the reasons the 9/11 jumpers leave so haunting a legacy is what their choice represents. If they chose to die by falling to their deaths from two of the world’s tallest buildings, we can only imagine how horrible it must have been inside those buildings.

This is evidenced by the confusion and denial at the ordeal’s inception. Many initially mistook the falling bodies for office furniture, perhaps hurled to smash a window for fresh air. Once it became unmistakable, we were horrified by what we saw – the jumpers, falling – in part because of what we couldn’t see – where and what they jumped from.

If this was their best option, what was their worst? This question is implied by the tribute statue honoring the jumpers^[12] at New York/s 9/11 Memorial Museum, which was initially deemed too emotionally disturbing for public display.

3 One Fell on a Firefighter

Of the 343 New York City Fire Department officials killed on 9/11, the very first documented fatality was 37-year-old Danny Suhr. He wasn’t killed by smoke inhalation or building collapse, but rather when a woman falling from the South Tower (Tower Two) fell directly on him.^[13]

FDNY Captain Paul Conlon witnessed the entire incredible, heartbreaking spectacle: “It wasn’t like you heard something falling and could jump out of the way,” Conlon recalled. Suhr was just a few feet behind Conlon when the jumper landed on him. The impact was so violent that, in describing Suhr immediately afterward, Conlon said “it was as if he exploded.”^[14]

In the type of tragic irony that often separated life from death that day, the incident likely saved Conlon’s life. By the time he was able to extract Suhr from the immediate vicinity, arrange for an ambulance (which was likely overly optimistic, but firefighters rarely leave men down) and begin back toward the South Tower… it was 9:59am. Tower Two came crumbling down. Conlon ran, successfully, for his life.

Throughout the ordeal, as firefighters formed makeshift command centers in the lobbies of both Towers, the jumpers crashing loudly outside were a constant reminder of both the urgency and hopelessness of the situation. That so many started up those endless flights of stairs nonetheless is a truly remarkable act of bravery.

2 A Jumper Was the Subject of a Highly Controversial Photo

The most famous image of a 9/11 jumper was taken by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Richard Drew. Simply called “The Falling Man”,^[15] the photo depicts an adult male, head over feet with a light dress shirt fluttering in descent, against the backdrop of the unmistakable steel-slatted World Trade Center facade. Amid the fire and wreckage off-camera, the Falling Man is disturbingly serene.

After running in several newspapers on September 12, 2001, the photo generated such an uproar – many found it exploitative and intrusive – that it largely disappeared for several years. Drew once called the image “the most famous photo no one has seen”.^[16]

The image’s relative obscurity ended in 2006 with the release of a documentary called “9/11: The Falling Man”.^[17] Among other revelations, the film shows that the man was not diving straight down in the image’s eerily peaceful pose; rather, as shown by other photos in the series, he was in the throes of a violent, twisting tumble.

The film also posited an educated guess about who the Falling Man is. Most believe it was Jonathan Briley,^[18] a 43-year-old audio technician for Windows on the World restaurant. A major clue was an orange tee shirt^[19] visible in one photo of the series.

1 The Jumpers Were Given Unfair Stigmas… Even by Families of Victims

Any reasonable assessment of 9/11 concludes those who jumped from the Twin Towers were, along with everyone else who died, homicide victims. Unfortunately, the notion that jumpers were somehow “less than” those who perished from plane crashes, smoke, fire, or building collapse persisted in the tragedy’s aftermath.

For some, it was a matter of religious interpretation disavowing those who participate in their own death, regardless the impossible circumstances the jumpers’ faced. One victim’s daughter, confronted with the possibility that the famous Falling Man photo might depict her dad, angrily said “That piece of s— is not my father.”^[20] (She was correct; her father didn’t own an orange tee shirt, which became an important identifying clue.)

However, other family members sought closure in determining precisely how a loved one perished that day. One grieving fiancée, Richard Pecorella,^[21] spent untold hours scouring the Internet, poring through the troves of photographs and videos taken during and immediately following the terrorist attacks. In 2004, he found a photo of a group of people desperately peering from gaping holes high in the North Tower. One woman fit the description of his fiancée, Karen Juday,^[22] including her outfit that day.

Sometime later, Pecorella came across a photo showing what seemed to be the same woman plummeting down, headfirst. As horrifying as the photo is, he said it provided some amount of peace.

About The Author: Christopher Dale writes on society, politics and sobriety-based issues, and has been published in The Daily Beast, NY Daily News and Parents.com, among other outlets. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisDaleWriter.

Of all the places in all the world you could hang out, the morgue has to be at the bottom of most peoples’ lists. Maybe as a visitor you’d be willing to breeze through but as a resident, well, that’s no fun at all. 

In general, the morgue is a grim place, but it turns out, when you dig a little deeper, things sometimes get even worse.

10. Friends Stole John Barrymore’s Corpse from the Morgue

It’s never easy to say goodbye to someone you love, whether that’s a friend or family. Losing a person often feels like losing part of yourself and in the immediate aftermath your grief can feel like you’re even losing yourself. How we deal with our grief will vary from person to person and you may have heard that there’s no wrong way to express that emotion. That said, we can probably all agree that some ways of expressing grief are more usual than others. And some may be, to put it politely, frowned upon.

Actors Errol Flynn and WC Fields were known to be good friends with John Barrymore. The famous actor, and grandfather of Drew Barrymore, was a staple of Hollywood’s golden age. He died of cirrhosis of the liver and pneumonia in 1942. His friends didn’t take it well.

After he passed, W. C. Fields and Sadakichi Hartmann went to the city morgue and stole Barrymore’s body. According to Flynn’s memoirs, some friends a story about Barrymore’s aunt being so distraught that she needed to see him one last time, so they convinced the mortician to let them borrow his corpse for an hour. That and a $200 bribe sealed the deal.

The body was brought to Flynn’s house and placed on the couch as a prank and then they waited for Flynn to get home. Flynn supposedly freaked out on the porch of his house and the others returned the body having suitably traumatized Flynn.

9. Cruise Ships Have Morgues Big Enough for Several Bodies

For a certain group of people, a cruise is the absolute epitome of a luxury vacation. A beautiful resort on the sea with all the amenities, what more could you ask for? And sure, cruises have been known to be troubled now and then but most of them turn out just fine, right? 

Nothing is always fine though and cruise ships have to be prepared for that. People live on board of these vessels for weeks at and over 30% of the passengers are over 60 years of age. About 14% are over 70. So it’s not impossible to imagine a scenario in which a passenger might pass away rather unexpectedly while a ship is out to sea.

For that reason, though they tend to never advertise it, every cruise ship is equipped with a morgue. The morgues have small refrigerators able to accommodate several bodies. In a pinch, then a walk-in freezer can be used. Apparently if something extremely unforeseeable took out enough passengers, the ship would call for air assistance and a helicopter could transport bodies back to land. 

As many as 200 people per year die on cruise ships, so it’s just part of standard procedure. Any ship should be able to handle 6 to 10 bodies.

8. There are About 40,000 Unclaimed Bodies in Morgues Around the US

Have you ever seen a TV show or movie when someone has to go to the morgue to identify a body? Often it’s a big, emotional reveal and sometimes it’s a twist when we discover the deceased isn’t who we thought it was. But what happens then? In real life, what happens if no one comes to identify that body?

Turns out, it happens more often than you might think. A lot more often. The real numbers are sobering and pretty sad, too. There may be as many as 40,000 unclaimed bodies in morgues around the United States. In 2021, there were 2,510 unclaimed bodies in Maryland alone, about 4% of the state’s total. 

Some of these unclaimed bodies are those of homeless people, who had no friends or family to claim them, but not all. There are a number of unclaimed bodies that have families and loved ones who refuse to come and claim them. Sometimes it’s as simple a matter as not being able to meet the financial burden of burial, so they simply leave the body where it is and let the state worry about it.

Different locations deal with this in different ways. Los Angeles buries unclaimed bodies in a mass grave every three years. In 2016, the county buried the remains of 1,400 people in a mass grave. 

7. You Can Buy a Corpse From a Philippines Morgue to Fake Your Own Death

Every so often a movie comes along in which a character faking their own death is a plot point. In real life this happens as well but it’s remarkably rare. Hard to say how often, though, since if it works we’d never know.

If you’re ever moved to do this yourself, or suspect someone else has done it, you may want to look towards the Philippines. Turns out there’s a lucrative industry there for Death Kits. That’s the thing where you pay about £350 for forged documents that say you died but, more importantly, an actual corpse. We just mentioned the US has an abundance of unclaimed bodies but so does the Philippines, and people started selling them to fake deaths. 

There have been a few documented cases of travelers getting caught doing this. It’s also worth noting, as one PI pointed out, that if you engage in this transaction you are dealing with criminals who now have serious blackmail dirt on you so they can continue to milk you for money afterwards. Fake your own death at your own risk. 

6. Parents of a Teen Who Died Discovered His Brain Had Been Kept at the Morgue in a Jar

Picture this scenario. You’re in high school and a friend and classmate dies in a car crash. It’s tragic and people are distraught but life does go on. Time passes. Months later, you’re on a field trip with a forensic science club from school and you head to the city morgue. While you’re there, you see a jar on a shelf. It contains a human brain and on the outside of the jar is a label with a name on it. The name is your friend who died in the crash. The morgue has been keeping his brain on a shelf for a few months. What do you do with that information?

For some kids in New York who this happened to for real and they ended up telling the sister of Jesse Shipley, who died in a car crash in 2005. Shipley’s parents had known their son was being autopsied, but they had also later buried him assuming his body was intact.

Medical examiners defended their actions by pointing out that determining cause of death is not a fast process and, in this case, they needed more time to gather evidence. A brain needs to be kept in fluid for weeks to prepare it for examination and, in that time, bodies are usually buried. They were simply following normal procedure. The family disagreed and sued but the court sided with the city. No rules were broken, and the pathologist was doing what their job required of them, while the family was still able to bury their son, according to the ruling. 

5. The Paris Morgue Was Once a Hot Spot for Entertainment

In the modern age, horror movies are big business and fans love to watch a little grisly mayhem. You could argue it’s in our DNA. People love the macabre, as witnessed historically in cases like the Paris morgue being a jumping destination for a night on the town.

In the 19th century, the Paris morgue was like the zoo. People would show up to gawk at the corpses. If someone died mysteriously, crowds would form that were so large they spilled onto the street and stopped traffic. Everyone wanted to see the victims for themselves. The death of one little girl brought 150,000 people to come see her. 

The story in a paper was one thing, but people wanted to see it themselves. It was bringing a grisly story to life, so to speak, and it was a huge form of entertainment. Vendors sold food outside, police had to keep the peace since the crowd often got rowdy. It was like an outdoor concert with the dead instead of bands. 

4. People Still Regularly Wake up in Morgues

There’s an oft-told story about how, long ago, some coffins had little strings in them to allow the occupant to pull them and ring a bell should they wake up decidedly not dead and find themselves in need of rescue. 

In the modern world, we don’t bury people with bells. But some folks do still wake up in the morgue. One woman woke up in the fridge after being declared dead 11 hours earlier. Another man was just about to be embalmed when he came to. 

How did this happen? In the US, at least, many coroners are elected officials and don’t actually have medical training. So they have no qualifications to actually determine if someone is dead or alive if it’s not readily apparent as it would be to any layman. 

3. There’s a Photographer Who Gets his Subjects From Morgues

Many artists seem to benefit from a muse. John Carpenter loved working with Kurt Russell. Andy Warhol was inspired by Edie Sedgwick. And Joel-Peter Witkin has corpses. He uses bodies from morgues and to say his work has been controversial is to grossly undervalue the word “controversial.” His work includes images that most horror movies wouldn’t use. 

He sourced many of the bodies in his works from Mexico, where a deal he struck with a hospital let him use unclaimed bodies, and parts, to stage his photos. The end results are beauty to some and nightmares to others.

2. An Idaho Coroner was Accused of Using Human Remains as Fertilizer

In general, there are a few things you’d expect to happen with human remains. An examination to determine cause of death. Maybe a full autopsy. Embalming. Cremation or burial. And not much else. So when a coroner decided to take some remains home to use as garden fertilizer, well, that was not usual. That was an allegation made by a deputy coroner in Canyon County, Idaho, back in 2018.

This was one of several accusations lodged against the coroner which also included harassment and creating a hostile work environment. Whether any of that was ever proven remains dubious as there seems to be little media follow up. 

1. Legally Selling Human Body Parts is Worth Millions

We saw that there’s a market for bodies to fake deaths already, and you’ve likely heard stories for years about black market organs for sale. Well, things get so much worse. And legal, too.

If you have ever lost someone and made arrangements for the body, you may have been approached by someone with a deal. You can get a cheaper funeral/cremation if you donate the body for study. You know, for science. Advanced medical studies, they call them.

Your loved one’s body becomes the property of a body broker if you agree to this deal. This is the part where it becomes a full on horror movie nightmare.

In Nevada, residents living near a funeral home started noticing a seriously rank smell. Also, someone was dumping blood-soaked boxes in the dumpster. Cops showed up to investigate and found a man in scrubs in the yard hosing off a frozen human torso. With a garden hose. In the middle of the afternoon. Bits of corpse ran down the street in the gutters.

The company sells body parts for research and study. Not for transplant, which is regulated. As such, there are few if any laws governing the practice. The bodies were not obtained illegally, and they don’t need to meet any medical requirements.

The brokers cremate some of the body, as promised, and the families get what they asked for. The company keeps the profitable parts and sells them to schools or research facilities for huge profit. At least one company was making over $12 million per year. And in four states that track data on these bodies, between 2011 and 2015, over 50,000 bodies and 182,000 body parts were shipped around. 

In one case, a man made over $13 million in 6 years selling diseased parts that he’d cut up with chainsaws and preserved in coolers full of mouthwash.