EERIE URBAN LEGENDS

THE TEENAGER FROZEN SOLID

Jean Hilliard, a Minnesota teenager, was frozen solid after

spending six-hours in the snow. Hilliard was trying to find shelter

after a car accident and collapsed in the -8°F (-22°C) temperatures

on the way to a nearby farmhouse. When finally found and taken

to the hospital, her heart was beating eight times a minute and she

was breathing two to three times per minute. She survived after

being warmed back up by hospital workers and surprisingly

experienced no noticeable side effects.

THE NEEDLE-PRICK WHICH LEADS TO HIV

One of the more popular urban legends that makes its rounds

through our email inboxes and Facebook walls is that of a

stranger stabbing a random person with a needle before whispering,

“Welcome to the world of AIDS.” Thankfully, this random-attack

HIV-infection method is untrue. (Whew!) But, there is a true aspect

to this urban legend. In the only recorded-case of infection by

HIV-infected needle attack, inmate Graham Farlow of the Long Bay Jail

in Sydney, Australia, stabbed guard Gary Pearce. Though Pearce

only had a 1-in-200 chance of being infected, he indeed tested

positive for HIV and died from its complications seven years later.

DEATH BY COMPRESSION IN A GARBAGE COMPACTOR

Garbage is a pretty messy thing and is best kept far at bay.

Though many people hear urban legends about a child playing

in a garbage can being crushed to death in the compactor,

this one has actually happened (many times). In one instance,

a seventeen-year-old was hiding inside a garbage container

when he felt it lift off the ground. He screamed once he realized

what was happening but by the time the garbage workers heard him,

his body was already being crushed.

HUMANS HARVESTED FOR THEIR FAT

A terrifying urban legend relates to human traffickers extracting

human fat and grease for use – and the director of Peru’s

criminal investigations unit claims they broke up such a gang in

2009. Though a bit exaggerated (the story said human fat was being

extracted and sourced to Europe by Italian Mafioso’s for the

cosmetics industry), this is a true urban legend. Members of the

gang weren’t selling the extracted human fat to Nivea but rather to

shamans and sorcerers who used the fat to make candles

for satanic rituals.

THE CHEMICAL WARFARE BODY

A woman dying from cervical cancer was brought to the

emergency room in Riverside, California, one chilly February

morning. After administering a host of drugs to sedate her and

calm her heartbeat, a nurse pulled a blood sample. She noticed

a strange smell and manila-coloured particles in the sample

and a garlicky smell emanating from the patient’s mouth.

Seconds after, she collapsed followed by two fellow nurses.

In total, 23 of 37 emergency room workers experienced

symptoms from the body. The staff were not able to save the

dying woman and the only conclusions logically proposed were

that either the chemical cocktail in her blood created a noxious

nerve gas or the workers were over-worked and over-stressed.

TRAPPED IN AN ELEVATOR AND CUT IN TWO

Hitoshi Nikaidoh, a surgeon, was decapitated in his own hospital.

The culprit wasn’t some deranged patient or murderer, rather an

elevator. As Nikaidoh was entering the elevator, its doors shut

around him and refused to open despite his frantically pressing

every button. The elevator, with another hospital worker inside,

ascended, taking Nikaidoh’s body with it before severing his head.

THAT CREEPY FEELING OF BEING WATCHED

Ever feel as though you’re being watched? If you were one South

Carolina woman in September 2012, you were right. The single

mother of five found her ex-boyfriend (who she hadn’t seen in 12 years)

living in her attic and watching her through the house’s heating

vents. After hearing noises above her bedroom and seeing nails

pop out, she sent her adult children to investigate which sent

the man fleeing (leaving behind the drink cups he had been

urinating and defecating in).

A REAL-LIFE HANGING BODY

Halloween is a great time to scare our friends with pranks related

to the macabre and the dead – except they’re not always pranks.

In 2005, a Delaware woman took her own life by hanging herself

off a tree next to a busy public road. The next morning, scores

of drivers passed by, amused by what they thought was a

Halloween decoration just a few days before October 31. Hours later,

neighbours realized it was a still-warm body and called the police.