Inventors Killed By Their Own Inventions

This is why I never played with Legos or got into construction.

If I build a wall, it will fall on me.

Homemade Horror

"That Indian lad who was flight-testing his own, homemade helicopter. Part of the rotor sliced open his head."

peekedtoosoon

"Damn, I watched the video and it was so unlucky. The tail rotor broke and pinged up into the main rotor which broke at an angle that hit him. I mean any number of things could have gone wrong in a homemade helicopter but it's just crazy how that sequence of events occurred. Could just as easily have pinged in a different way and not killed him."

postvolta

Tangled

"Thomas Midgley Jr., a key contributor to leaded gasoline and the usage of CFC in refrigeration. After contracting Polio, he created a system of pulleys and whatnot to help him get out of bed. He was found dead at age 55 after getting tangled in his device and being strangled by it."

heyoyo10

"Just because it wasn't mentioned here I figure I would. Thomas Midgley Jr. not only almost solely responsible for probably the worst environmental and ozone damage from a single cause. He is solely responsible for the death of 100,000,000 people from CFC and TEL."

theglizzymonster

BOOM!!

"Max Valier tried using alcohol-based fuel for rockets, it blew up in his lab killing him."

LemonsForLimeaid

"To be fair, a lot of people have died trying to make rocket propellants. The stuff does tend to go BOOM, all of a sudden."

Lone_Beagle

"Alcohol is a common fuel for amateur rockets. Also, I believe the Soviets used alcohol as fuel in a couple of their rocket engines."

BDady

"Alcohol fuel was used extensively for the V2, but I don't know if it's the same mix. The Nazis found it had an unusually high rate of 'evaporation.'"

wolfkeeper

Afterglow

"Maria Skłodowska-Curie was one of the discoverers of radioactivity. She discovered Polonium and Radium. As far as I know, researchers did not know/believe that radioactivity might have a negative impact on their bodies and therefore they used little to no protection."

Equivalent_Meal2688

"Oddly enough, it was her work with x-ray imaging that is thought to have done her the most harm."

cramduck

"She used it as a night light. I’m really not joking, it was reported that she would keep some on her bedside table at night."

"As per the Nobel Prize website..."

"Pierre, who liked to say that radium had a million times stronger radioactivity than uranium, often carried a sample in his waistcoat pocket to show his friends. Marie liked to have a little radium salt by her bed that shone in the darkness."

"She lies in a coffin with inch-thick lead, and her remains are expected to be radioactive for at least another 1500 years."

Eviscerate_Bowels224

Cupid Failed

"Not killed, but the founder of Match.com, Gary Kremen, lost his girlfriend to a man that she met on Match.com."

OneGuyJeff

Those apps and websites were always going to ruin everything.

NEXT!

"Horace Hunley, who killed himself and a bunch of others aboard a submarine he built over 150 years before the current whack job."

tuckerx78

"Yes. Drowned the entire crew, they dragged it up, drained it out, and shouted, 'NEXT!' Then it sank after detonating an explosive charge on the Housatonic, recovered more than a century later, and is now in a museum."

raflcopter

Off the Cliff

"Not the inventor, but rather the owner of the Segway, Jimi Heselden, accidentally rode off a cliff on a Segway."

KafkasBalaclava

"Jesus, you just brought back memories of cities being filled with segways before e-scooters happened."

TheMantasMan

"I remember before the Segway came out, the news was going crazy about how it would be this revolutionary technology. There was talk of free energy for cities, personal hover cars, they said cities would be rebuilt around the technology, and there would be no more roads, etc. all sorts of crazy sh*t. Then it came out and... well... yeah. Huge disappointment after all the hype."

un-sub

Brazen

"Some ancient Greek dude created a torture device called the Brazen Bull. It’s just a large metal husk shaped like a bull where you put a victim inside and heat the bottom. The burning heat and scalding metal will cause the agonized victim to go to a horn inside the husk in an attempt to breathe. The horn will make it sound like bull noises on the outside. The inventor showed a king his contraption. The king was delighted by it and decided to test it out… on the inventor."

SatisfactionSenior65

4/14/12

"The guy who built the Titanic: Thomas Andrews. Thomas Andrews was an Irish businessman and shipbuilder. As the naval architect in charge of the plans for the ocean liner RMS Titanic, he was traveling on board that vessel during her maiden voyage when the ship hit an iceberg on 14 April 1912. He perished along with more than 1,500 others. His body was never recovered."

SFJetfire

Finishing Touches

"The Denver airport is known for a giant statue of a blue demon horse. While the artist was working on finishing touches, part of it came loose and severed an artery in his leg and he bled to death."

JellyNinja_

Well, now I'm glad I don't know how to make anything.

It's a gamble when I cook if I'm gonna die from food poisoning.