Wednesday, March 19, 2008

List of inventors killed by their own inventions

This is a list of inventors who have been killed by inventions they designed or were involved in.

* William Bullock, born 1813, died 1867, Bullock had his foot crushed while trying to repair a rotary printing press that he had invented. The resulting infection would later prove fatal.
* Otto Lilienthal died August 10, 1896 from injuries sustained two days earlier in a crash of one of his hang gliders.
* Thomas Midgley, Jr. accidentally strangled himself with the cord of a pulley-operated mechanical bed of his own design in 1944.
* Alexander Bogdanov, a physician and scientist, conducted an experiment for a "rejuvenation" technique wherein he deliberately gave himself a transfusion of blood from a student who suffered from malaria and tuberculosis. He died of the subsequent infections.
* Franz Reichelt. "The Flying Tailor" jumped off the Eiffel Tower while trying out his combined overcoat/parachute invention. The parachute failed to open and he died from the fall.

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