When we think of inventors, we usually think of people like the Wright Brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison. The people that tried to create futuristic machines and ended up being victims of those machines is less talked about.
Here are some of the more gruesome examples.
The Flying Tailor was an Austrian born tailor living in France in the early 1900s and is credited with inventing a parachute suit that looked less like a parachute and more like a bedsheet. Just look at it. Reichelt was the first to try out the device in a jump off the Eiffel Tower.
He called the local press to film his invention in action because he was so confident in that jump. Reichelt plummeted from the tower, suit and all, and crushed his skull, spine and a few other major bones when he hit the ground, dying almost instantly. The entire event was captured on film and you can see it here.
One of the early parents of the modern printing press is William Bullock, an American inventor who lived in the mid-19th century. In 1863, a new printing machine was created that cut down on the time and labor used in the printing press that had been used for 20 years.
The only problem with this machine was that it was not what you would call safe. On April 3, 1867, when his invention was being installed for a local newspaper in Philadelphia, his leg got sucked into a press and he saw how unsafe it was. His leg was gangrenous within a week. Nine days after the accident, Bullock died from his injuries.
In 1917, the Soviet engineer Valerian Abakovsky came up with the idea to use the best parts of an airplane and a railcar to carry officials around Russia. TheAerowagon barely lasted four years before it was put down.
The vehicle Abakovsky was travelling in derailed and killed seven people on the 24th of July, 1921. He was killed in the crash at the age of 25.
The world's first rocket-powered aircraft was invented by Austrian inventor Max Valier. These vehicles weren't used for the type of missions you'd normally associate with rocket-powered vehicles, but they still got some serious air. The first-ever Opel RAK aircraft was able to fly 47 mph on its maiden flight in March of 1928.
After this first flight, Valier moved on to experimenting with liquid fuel, but it was not the best choice, as one of his rockets exploded on the test bench, killing him.
The man who developed the lead used in leaded gasoline was a mechanical engineer named Thomas Midgley Jr. He has been called the most harmful inventor in history, and just not that great a guy for the environment. Leaded gas was a public health danger until it was banned for on-road usage in 1996, but that wasn't what killed Midge. Midgely accidentally killed himself on a harness he had designed to get out of bed after he had contracted the disease, according to a Time Magazine obit from November 13th, 1944.
The failed attempts at flying cars didn't stop Henry Smolinski from coming up with his own attempt at a part-car part-plane hybrid back in the 70s. The hot mess seen in the photo above was caused by the rudders and wings from a Cessna aircraft being smashed onto the back of a Ford Pinto.
It turns out that the Pinto worked as it looked during a test flight on September 11th, 1973, when one of the wing struts detached from the machine while it was in the air. The car plummeted and the Pinto didn't survive the trip.
This list wouldn't be complete without Marie Curie. The chemist and inventor discovered radium and polonium along with her husband Pierre, but she also created the first mobile radiology machine. Similar to the X-ray machines that were found in major cities' hospitals, Curie's car-sized devices could be used by army surgeons on the battlefield to quickly image any bullets or shrapnel trapped inside their patients.
Her excessive exposure to X-rays later in life may have been one of the causes of her death on June 4th.
One of the pioneers behind early blood transfusions was Alexander Bogdanov, a Russian physician. He tried out some of the blood transfusion experiments on himself, starting in 1924. He tried to swap out his own blood with that of a medical student who was suffering from Malaria and Tuberculosis. The student made a full recovery after the procedure, but he died very quickly.
John Day, an English carpenter, is the first ever submarine casualty. Day created a wooden diving chamber that was supposed to hold him underwater for a full 12 hours before he needed to come up for air. The Maria sank to the bottom after he locked it up and loaded it with weights for the first time. He died.
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When we think of inventors, we usually think of people like the Wright Brothers, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison. The people that tried to create futuristic machines and ended up being victims of those machines is less talked about.
Here are some of the more gruesome examples.
The Flying Tailor was an Austrian born tailor living in France in the early 1900s and is credited with inventing a parachute suit that looked less like a parachute and more like a bedsheet. Just look at it. Reichelt was the first to try out the device in a jump off the Eiffel Tower.
He called the local press to film his invention in action because he was so confident in that jump. Reichelt plummeted from the tower, suit and all, and crushed his skull, spine and a few other major bones when he hit the ground, dying almost instantly. The entire event was captured on film and you can see it here.
One of the early parents of the modern printing press is William Bullock, an American inventor who lived in the mid-19th century. In 1863, a new printing machine was created that cut down on the time and labor used in the printing press that had been used for 20 years.
The only problem with this machine was that it was not what you would call safe. On April 3, 1867, when his invention was being installed for a local newspaper in Philadelphia, his leg got sucked into a press and he saw how unsafe it was. His leg was gangrenous within a week. Nine days after the accident, Bullock died from his injuries.
In 1917, the Soviet engineer Valerian Abakovsky came up with the idea to use the best parts of an airplane and a railcar to carry officials around Russia. TheAerowagon barely lasted four years before it was put down.
The vehicle Abakovsky was travelling in derailed and killed seven people on the 24th of July, 1921. He was killed in the crash at the age of 25.
The world's first rocket-powered aircraft was invented by Austrian inventor Max Valier. These vehicles weren't used for the type of missions you'd normally associate with rocket-powered vehicles, but they still got some serious air. The first-ever Opel RAK aircraft was able to fly 47 mph on its maiden flight in March of 1928.
After this first flight, Valier moved on to experimenting with liquid fuel, but it was not the best choice, as one of his rockets exploded on the test bench, killing him.
The man who developed the lead used in leaded gasoline was a mechanical engineer named Thomas Midgley Jr. He has been called the most harmful inventor in history, and just not that great a guy for the environment. Leaded gas was a public health danger until it was banned for on-road usage in 1996, but that wasn't what killed Midge. Midgely accidentally killed himself on a harness he had designed to get out of bed after he had contracted the disease, according to a Time Magazine obit from November 13th, 1944.
The failed attempts at flying cars didn't stop Henry Smolinski from coming up with his own attempt at a part-car part-plane hybrid back in the 70s. The hot mess seen in the photo above was caused by the rudders and wings from a Cessna aircraft being smashed onto the back of a Ford Pinto.
It turns out that the Pinto worked as it looked during a test flight on September 11th, 1973, when one of the wing struts detached from the machine while it was in the air. The car plummeted and the Pinto didn't survive the trip.
This list wouldn't be complete without Marie Curie. The chemist and inventor discovered radium and polonium along with her husband Pierre, but she also created the first mobile radiology machine. Similar to the X-ray machines that were found in major cities' hospitals, Curie's car-sized devices could be used by army surgeons on the battlefield to quickly image any bullets or shrapnel trapped inside their patients.
Her excessive exposure to X-rays later in life may have been one of the causes of her death on June 4th.
One of the pioneers behind early blood transfusions was Alexander Bogdanov, a Russian physician. He tried out some of the blood transfusion experiments on himself, starting in 1924. He tried to swap out his own blood with that of a medical student who was suffering from Malaria and Tuberculosis. The student made a full recovery after the procedure, but he died very quickly.
John Day, an English carpenter, is the first ever submarine casualty. Day created a wooden diving chamber that was supposed to hold him underwater for a full 12 hours before he needed to come up for air. The Maria sank to the bottom after he locked it up and loaded it with weights for the first time. He died.
