15 Horrifying, Shocking, And Upsetting Things I Learned About This Month
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Note: Some graphic stories ahead.
1.The shocking fact that the author of Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown, died as a result of doing a high kick.
According to the New York Times, "After receiving an emergency appendectomy in France, she was asked by a nurse how she was doing. 'Grand!' she replied, giving a cancan kick. It dislodged a blood clot in her leg, which swiftly traveled to her brain. She was 42."
2.The tragic story of 4-year-old Brandon Zucker, who was crushed underneath one of the vehicles in the Roger Rabbit Car Toon Spin ride at Disneyland in 2000. Brandon suffered "serious brain damage," and "never talked or walked again." He died in January 2009.
According to the LA Times, "Brandon tumbled from a spinning Roger Rabbit 'taxicab' and was trapped under another car. The vehicle rolled over him, folding his 45-pound body in half. He was stuck for about 10 minutes before being freed, suffering serious brain damage. Although he would occasionally smile and laugh, he never talked or walked again."
After the state conducted a major investigation into the incident, it was determined that Disneyland employees "did not properly load Brandon into the ride — with the smallest child farthest from the cutout entryway — and failed to fully lower the lap bar. It also ordered significant safety changes to the ride, including a sensor-equipped guard around the bottom of each car."
Brandon's family sued Disneyland and settled for an undisclosed sum to help pay for his medical care.
3.The awful death of Ilda Vitor Maciel, an 88-year-old woman in Brazil who died after accidentally being injected with soup. Allegedly, one of the nursing technicians injected the soup into her veins instead of her feeding tube.
According to KHQ, "The nursing technician mistakenly injected the soup into the woman's IV in her right arm instead of her feeding tube. Maciel's daughter, Ana Ruth, was with her when the injection happened and said her mother started to squirm uncomfortably and stick her tongue out as soon as the soup was injected. She said she had not seen her mother that physically distraught since being in the hospital. Maciel died just 12 hours after receiving the injection."
4.The fact that A LOT of people actually go overboard on cruise ships (we're talking hundreds). And, even worse, in the past, less than a quarter of them were actually rescued.
According to USA Today, "Between 2009 and 2019, there were 212 overboard incidents globally involving passengers and crew, according to statistics. Only 48 people were rescued." Brian Salerno, senior vice president of global maritime policy at the Cruise Lines International Association, explained, "I'll stress that people don't just fall over the side. There are railings, and they're pretty high. It's almost always the result of an intentional act."
5.The first firefighter killed after responding to the 9/11 attacks was a man named Daniel Suhr...he was hit by a falling body, someone who had jumped from one of the towers.
According to Jean Suhr Ryan, Daniel's sister, "When he was down, his coworkers, other firefighters from his house and other houses, helped try to resuscitate him. When they closed the ambulance doors, the tower came down. The men from his firehouse would have been in there if he didn’t die first."
6.In 2018, construction workers in Valdosta, Georgia discovered HUNDREDS of human teeth BEHIND A WALL. The building, which was originally built in 1900, had been occupied by a dentist, although no one really knew why the teeth of all his patients had been stashed behind the wall.
According to Time, "Ellen Hill, Valdosta Main Street director, said that Valdosta is not the first town in Georgia to have discovered a trove of teeth interred in the walls of a historic building, as Greensboro and Carrolton have found the same." Hill explained, "I’m not sure if it was a common practice between dentists at that time, but it’s very strange that there were two other people that said, ‘Hey, we’ve had that happen, too.'"
7.The fiery and unimaginable death of Russian cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, who crashed down to earth while "crying in rage" in 1967. Komarov was the first human to die in a space flight after the parachute failed on his capsule, the Soyuz 1.
According to NPR, "When the capsule began its descent and the parachutes failed to open, the book describes how American intelligence 'picked up [Komarov's] cries of rage as he plunged to his death.' Some translators hear him say, 'Heat is rising in the capsule.' He also uses the word 'killed' — presumably to describe what the engineers had done to him.
Komarov was honored with a state funeral. Only a chipped heel bone survived the crash."
8.This upsetting video, which recently went viral, that shows HOW MUCH TRASH has been left and accumulated on Mount Everest by tourists (which has become a major problem).
Speaking with Newsweek, Tenzi Sherpa said, "I think the government should make strict rules for those who leave trash [on Mount Everest], and a more effective cleaning campaign project should be held."
See the whole video here:
9.The recent tragedy of Cameron Robbins, a teenager and recent high school graduate who fell overboard while on a sunset cruise ship in the Bahamas on May 24, 2023. According to reports, Cameron allegedly jumped off the ship on a dare. Video of the incident showing Cameron swimming in the water in near-total darkness went viral online.
According to the Independent, "The US Coast Guard and Royal Bahamas Defence Force spent several days searching for Mr. Robbins before suspending their search efforts on Saturday, 27 May."
10.Also, the recent death of a 23-year-old Russian man who was attacked and violently killed by a shark near a beach in Egypt. The disturbing video of the incident, which went viral on TikTok, showed the man being attacked and screaming, "Papa!"
According to the Independent, "The 23-year-old Russian national had gone swimming in the waters off his resort near the city of Hurghada when a shark emerged underwater and grabbed him." The article continued, "The environment ministry in Egypt later said it had caught the shark and was examining it in a laboratory to try to determine the reasons for the rare attack."
11.The existence of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, aka prion diseases — a group of "exceptionally rare brain diseases" — which have a 100% mortality rate and affect both animals and humans. An example of this would be "mad cow" disease.
According to the Guinness World Records, "These are spread by the ingestion of abnormal proteins called prions. Prions are misfolded malfunctioning versions of common proteins that have the ability to transmit their shape to the normal versions of the same protein."
12.This "omgggg whaaaaat?!?!" video of what a sturgeon's mouth looks like (SIDE EYE).
The whole video for the full effect:
@wwgsmn veteran fishing up at rainy River! love these fish! #veteran #woundedwarriorguideservice #fishing#bandofbrothers
♬ original sound - Jessica groves
13.The "incorruptible" body of Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, a nun who died in 2019 at the age of 95. Four years after her death, her body was exhumed and showed no signs of decay.
According to CNN, "When the coffin was unearthed, Lancaster’s body was apparently 'incorrupt,' which in Catholic tradition refers to the preservation of the body from normal decay. The remains were intact even though the body had not been embalmed and was in a wooden coffin." The article continued, "Experts say it is not necessarily uncommon for bodies to remain well-preserved, especially in the first few years after death."
14.The 53-year-old cold case of "trunk lady," who, thanks to modern DNA testing, has now been identified as Sylvia June Atherton, a mother of five, from Tucson, Arizona.
According to CNN, "On Halloween 1969, St. Petersburg police were called to a wooded area behind what was then a restaurant named the Oyster Bar." At the time, "Two children reported seeing two white men in a pickup truck unload the trunk in the field and leave. When the officers opened the trunk, they found a woman’s body, wrapped in a large plastic bag, police said in a statement. She had visible injuries to her head and was partially clothed in a pajama top. She had been strangled with a bolo tie, police said. Investigators were unable to identify the woman, and she was buried as 'Jane Doe' in St. Petersburg’s Memorial Park Cemetery."
15.And finally, this wild image of what an owl's ear actually looks like, which is both amazing and also looks like something out of a sci-fi horror film. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
