WEIRD URBAN LEGENDS
Added on: 8th Jun 2016
THE DEAD BODY OUT FOR A SWIM
If you think public pools are gross due to little kids peeing in the pool,
that will be the least of your worries after reading about this urban
legend which turned out to be true. Two days after her disappearance,
Marie Joseph was found by a passer-by, limp and lifeless at the bottom
of the pool. The cause of death? Drowning, two days earlier.
Joseph had gone down a slide with her neighbour’s son. Upon landing
in the pool, she began to sink. Her neighbour’s son reported it
immediately but the lifeguards ignored the claims, not even noticing
the dead body at the bottom of the deep end for the next two full
days as locals swam above.
THE REAL-LIFE GREEN LANTERN
The Green Lantern may be just be a comic book superhero (though
we hope he’s real and out there somewhere), but an urban legend
of a green man wandering Pennsylvania turns out to be true. Also
known as Charlie No-Face, Raymond Robinson was a normal boy
who took on a friend’s dare to climb a trolley bridge. Reaching
the top, he accidentally touched an electricity line which sent
22,000 volts of electricity through his body, severely disfiguring
his face. To avoid being seen by the locals (many of whom were
scared by his appearance), Robinson took walks late at night,
sometimes meeting teenagers or others who would drive along
Route 351 in an attempt to grab a glimpse of him. It’s unknown
if his skin was a pale shade of green or if he was just frequently
seen in his favourite-green shirt.
BURIED ALIVE (IN 2011)
It has become well-known in recent years that, before medicine’s
understanding of comas, humans were buried alive; to combat this,
a string was attached to the deceased’s wrist and connected to a
small bell above ground which a caretaker would listen for.
Well, this 2011 case proves love can make us blind and crazy.
Polish woman Michelina Lewandowska found that out when she
awoke in an old TV box, with hands and feet duct taped up,
after being tasered by her (now) ex-boyfriend, but Lewandowska
was the most clever one, using her sharp engagement ring to
break the tape before digging her way out through the earth
piled above her.
FROZEN ALIVE (AGAIN, IN 2011)
If being buried alive isn’t enough of a shock for you, how about
dying in another type of box for the dead? A morgue locker.
Eighty-year-old Maria de Jesus Arroyo was (incorrectly)
presumed dead after a heart attack in 2011 and taken to the
morgue. Funeral workers later came to pull her body from the
frigid lockers to prepare her for the funeral. Rather than a normal
dead body, they found an unzipped body bag and a corpse
filled with bruises, evidence that she awoke in the locker
and tried to escape.
THE NEARLY-EXPLODING, ENGORGED SHIP
After a fire broke out in a freighter’s cargo of lumber, the crew
continuously doused the smouldering wood with water over the
next 3.5 weeks to keep it from reigniting. What they didn’t
consider was other cargo which could be affected. Fifteen hundred
tons of tapioca (enough to serve a million eaters) in the cargo
hold slowly simmered (due to the heat and water) and
expanded so much it nearly burst the ship.
THE REAL-LIFE ACCIDENTAL HANGING
Sparta, Michigan, was rocked by the startling death of fourteen-year-old
Caleb Rebh choked to death. While acting at a Halloween experience,
Caleb replaced a skeleton hanging from a noose to scare hayride
visitors. Though his feet were still on the ground after letting go of
the rope, the line was pulled so taut that he soon suffocated as
his fellow workers looked on in amusement at what they
thought was acting.
THE ESCAPE ARTIST'S ROUTINE THAT
WENT ALL WRONG
Though they look dangerous, escape artists’ stunts are far-from-it.
Whether it’s being straight-jacketed at the bottom of a pool or
locked in a burning, run-away car, escape artists always make it
out just in time – almost. Joseph “Amazing Joe” Burrus, in going
for the biggest stunt of his career, was locked up in a
transparent plastic coffin seven-feet (2.1m) down. Above him
was three feet of dirt followed by four of concrete, the weight of
which came crashing down on him, killing him in another
wild but true urban legend.
WAKING UP IN AN ICE BATH WITH A KIDNEY MISSING
One of the most fraudulent urban legends out there relates to
waking up in a bathtub filled with ice; after drinks with a stranger
the night before, you read a note saying you’re missing a
kidney and need hospital care. Though this exact reading of the
urban legend is false, there have been hundreds of true stories
like it. From 2000-2008, about 500 Indians were caught up in
an illegal kidney-transplant ring run by four doctors, five nurses,
twenty paramedics, and three private hospitals. Many of the
victims were day labourers picked up on the streets with the
promise of work. Naseem Mohammad was one such man who
had his kidney removed in early 2008.
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