Death is a difficult thing to understand to a lot of us living and we always want it to come as late as possible and as natural as possible. But there are times that death is unusual. Check out the 25 most unusual deaths of 21st century till now -
1) 2001: Bernd-Jürgen Brandes, from Germany, was voluntarily stabbed repeatedly and then partly eaten by Armin Meiwes (who was later called the Cannibal of Rotenburg).
Brandes had answered an internet advertisement by Meiwes looking for someone for this purpose. Brandes explicitly stated in his will that he wished to be killed and eaten. This inspired the Rammstein Song "Mein Teil" ("My (private) part") and the IT Crowd episode "Moss and the German".
2) 2001: Michael Colombini, a 6-year-old American boy from Croton-on-Hudson, New York, was struck and killed, at Westchester Regional Medical Center, by a 6.5-pound metal oxygen tank when it was pulled into the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine while he underwent a test.
He began to experience breathing difficulties while in the MRI and when an anesthesiologist brought a portable oxygen canister into the magnetic field, it was pulled from his hands and struck the boy in the head.
3) 2003: Brian Douglas Wells, an American pizza delivery man in Erie, Pennsylvania, was killed by a time bomb that was fastened around his neck. He was apprehended by the police after robbing a bank, and claimed he had been forced to do it by three people who had put the bomb around his neck and would kill him if he refused.
The bomb later exploded, killing him. In 2007, police alleged Wells was involved in the robbery plot along with two other conspirators.
4) 2003: Dr. Hitoshi Christopher Nikaidoh, a surgeon, was decapitated as he stepped on to an elevator at Christus St. Joseph Hospital in Houston, Texas, USA on August 16, 2003. According to a witness inside the elevator, the elevator doors closed as Nikaidoh entered, trapping his head inside the elevator with the remainder of his body still outside.
His body was later found at the bottom of the elevator shaft while the upper portion of his head, severed just above the lower jaw, was found in the elevator. A subsequent investigation revealed that improper electrical wiring installed by a maintenance company several days earlier had effectively bypassed all of the elevator's safeguards, and thus enabled it to move under any circumstances.
5) 2004: Phillip Quinn, a 24-year-old American from Kent, Washington was killed during an attempt to heat up a lava lamp bulb on his kitchen stove while observing it from a few feet away.
The heat built up pressure in the bulb until it exploded, spraying shards of glass. One pierced his heart, killing him. The circumstances of his death were later repeated and confirmed in a 2006 episode of the popular science television series MythBusters.
6) 2004: Ronald McClagish, from England, died after being trapped inside a cupboard for a week. A wardrobe in the bedroom outside had fallen over, trapping him inside.
In an effort to free himself, McClagish accidentally wrenched a water pipe from the wall and the water gushing from the pipe eventually caused his death from bronchitis. His body was not discovered until two weeks later.
7) 2004: An unidentified Taiwanese woman died of alcohol intoxication after immersion for 12 hours in a bathtub filled with 40% ethanol. Her blood alcohol content was 1.35%.
It was believed that she immersed herself as a response to the ongoing SARS epidemic.
8) 2005: Kenneth "Mr. Hands" Pinyan of Gig Harbor, Washington, U.S. died of acute peritonitis after seeking out and receiving anal intercourse from a stallion, an act he had engaged in previously on numerous occasions without injury. Pinyan delayed his visit to the hospital for several hours out of reluctance to explain the circumstances of his injury to doctors.
The case led to the criminalization of bestiality in Washington state. His story was recounted in the award winning 2007 documentary film Zoo.
9) 2005: Lee Seung Seop, a 28-year-old South Korean, collapsed of fatigue and died after playing the videogame StarCraft online for almost 50 consecutive hours in an Internet cafe.
10) Erika Tomanu, a seven-year-old girl in Saitama, Japan, died when she was sucked 10 metres down the intake pipe of a current pool at a water park. The grille that was meant to cover the inlet came off, yet lifeguards at the pool at the time deemed it safe after issuing a verbal warning to swimmers. It took rescuers more than six hours to remove Tomanu by digging through concrete to access the pipe.
11) 2006: Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian State security service, and later a Russian dissident and writer, died after being poisoned with polonium-210 causing acute radiation syndrome.
He is the first known case of deliberate poisoning in this manner.
12) 2007: Jennifer Strange, a 28-year-old American woman from Sacramento, died of water intoxication while trying to win a Nintendo Wii console in a KDND 107.9 "The End" radio station's "Hold Your Wee for a Wii" contest, which involved drinking large quantities of water without urinating.
13) 2007: Kevin Whitrick, a 42-year-old British man, committed suicide by hanging himself live on a webcam during an Internet chat session.
14) 2007: Surinder Singh Bajwa, the Deputy Mayor of Delhi, India, was warding off several Rhesus Macaque monkeys at his home and fell from a first-floor balcony, suffering serious head injuries.
He later died from his injuries.
15) 2008: Abigail Taylor, a 6-year-old American girl, died nine months after several of her internal organs were partially sucked out of her lower body while she sat on an excessively powerful swimming pool drain.
After several months, surgeons replaced her intestines and pancreas with donor organs. She later succumbed to a rare transplant-related cancer.
16) 2008: Gerald Mellin, a U.K. businessman, committed suicide by tying one end of a rope around his neck and the other to a tree.
He then went into his Aston Martin DB7 and drove down a main road in Swansea until the rope decapitated him. He supposedly did this as an act of revenge against his ex-wife for leaving him.
17) 2008: David Phyall, 58, the last resident in a block of flats due to be demolished in Bishopstoke, near Southampton, Hampshire, England, cut his own head off with a chainsaw to highlight the injustice of being forced to move out.
18) 2008: James Mason, 73, of Chardon, Ohio, died of heart failure after his wife exercised him to death in a public swimming pool. Christine Newton-John, 41, was seen on video tape pulling Mason around the pool and preventing him from getting out of the water 43 times.
19) 2008: Nordin Montong, 32, a janitor at the Singapore Zoo, committed suicide by entering an enclosure containing white tigers and provoking them with brooms and a pail.
Three of the tigers pounced on him, dragging him by the neck to the back of their enclosure. He was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene.
20) 2009: Jonathan Campos, an American sailor charged with murder, killed himself in his Camp Pendleton, San Diego, California, cell by stuffing toilet paper in his mouth until he asphyxiated.
21) 2009: Sergey Tuganov, a 28-year-old Russian, bet two women that he could continuously have sex with them both for twelve hours.
Several minutes after winning the $4,300 bet, he suffered a heart attack and died, apparently because of having ingested an entire bottle of Viagra just after accepting the bet.
22) 2009: Taylor Mitchell, a Canadian folk singer, was attacked and killed by two coyotes, only the second recorded human fatality from a coyote attack.
23) 2009: Vladimir Likhonos, a Ukrainian student, died after accidentally dipping a piece of homemade chewing gum into explosives he was using on another project.
He mistook the jar of explosive for citric acid, which was also on his desk. The gum exploded, blowing off his jaw and most of the lower part of his face.
24) 2009: Kim Sa-rang, a 3-month-old Korean girl, died from malnutrition after both her parents spent hours each day in an internet cafe raising a virtual child on an online game, Prius Online.
25) 2010: Jacquelyn Kotarac, 49, a physician (internist) from Bakersfield, California, was found dead in her boyfriend's chimney. She had been trying to break in through the chimney and died of asphyxiation.
The body was found after a house sitter noticed an odor and fluids coming from the chimney.
