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The Man Who Died of Laughing
Can you laugh to death? As a matter of fact, there are more than ten registered cases of fatal hilarity. On 24 March 1975 Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King's Lynn, England, died laughing while watching an episode of "The Goodies", featuring a Scotsman in a kilt battling a vicious black pudding with his bagpipes. After twenty-five minutes of continuous laughter Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and expired from heart failure. His widow later sent the Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell's final moments so pleasant. In 1989 a Danish audiologist, Ole Bentzen, died watching A Fish Called Wanda. His heart was estimated to have beat at between 250 and 500 beats per minute, before he succumbed to cardiac arrest. In 2003 Damnoen Saen-um, a Thai ice cream salesman, is reported to have died while laughing in his sleep at the age of 52. His wife tried to wake him up but couldn't, and he stopped breathing after two minutes of continuous laughter. It is believed that he died either of heart failure or asphyxiation. According to some traditions, the mythological Greek prophet Calchas died of laughter when the day that was to be his death day arrived and the prediction didn't seem to materialise. And in the third century B.C., the Greek philosopher Chrysippus died of laughter after giving his donkey wine, then seeing it attempt to feed on figs. |
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