Article created by: Indrė Lukošiūtė
Did you, pandas, know that a breast implant once saved a woman from a bullet? Well, you learn something new every day. I'm sure this list of strange and scary facts is a treasure trove for enthusiasts of curiosities.
The Morbid Knowledge X account has over 1 million followers and only a year has passed since its inception in October 2022. The account also has a website called Morbidful, "the ultimate destination for those who love to delve into the dark and morbid world of true crime, horror, and everything in between." We warn you, though – some entries in this list are not for the faint of heart, so proceed at your own risk, pandas.
In 2008, a Quaker parrot named Willie alerted his owner, Megan Howard, that a toddler she was babysitting started choking on her breakfast.
When 2-year-old Hannah began to turn blue, the bird squawked loudly to get Megan's attention. Then he started saying 'Mama baby' repeatedly.
Megan hurried to Hannah and performed the Heimlich maneuver, ultimately saving her life.
Megan later expressed that if Willie hadn't alerted her, she might not have come out of the bathroom in time, as the child was already turning blue.
For saving the child’s life, Willie was awarded the local Red Cross chapter's Animal Lifesaver Award.
In 2006, a man offered a hitman $50,000 to eliminate his wife, Susan Kuhnhausen, using a hammer and staging it as a failed robbery. However, when the hired assailant arrived and assaulted her, Susan fought back, ultimately strangling and killing the hitman.
For the last two decades, Chen Si has dedicated his weekends to patrolling the Nanjing bridge, which spans over China's Yangtze River. His mission is to prevent individuals from taking their lives by jumping into the waters below.
He is known as the ‘Angel of Nanjing’ because so far he has saved over 400 people.
Grover Krantz was an anthropologist who donated his body to the Smithsonian Museum to show how skeletons can be educational tools. His only condition was that he wanted his loving dog next to even after death.
Born on September 23, 1988, Matthew Robinson faced significant challenges from birth, being blind and paralyzed from the neck down due to oxygen deprivation.
Despite doctors' grim prognosis of only a few hours, Matthew defied expectations, living a remarkable 10-and-a-half years.
When Matthew passed away in 1999, his dad decided his gravestone should depict Matthew in his truest form and signify hope rather than grief.
In 2018, a heroic dad, Brad Lewis, saved his youngest son from a fatal fall from a balcony by jumping after him and cradling him to his chest, taking the brunt of the impact. He suffered a fractured skull among other injuries.
The incident happened when his son fired a toy Nerf gun and chased after the bullet onto the balcony - only for him to slip and lose his footing.
Both Brad and his son made a full recovery.
In 2017, 70-year-old Lawrence Ripple robbed a Kansas City bank, then sat down in the lobby saying he would rather go to jail than to live with his wife any longer. He was sentenced to house arrest.
During a medical procedure in 2020, Dagmar Turner performed her violin while surgeons operated to remove a tumor from her brain's right frontal lobe. This unique act aimed to help surgeons avoid harming the brain region responsible for coordination and delicate hand movements, crucial for her musical abilities. Thankfully, the surgery was successful.
Photo from 1999, taken amid the Kosovo War, shoes Mustafa Xaja, an Albanian man who had lost his two children and was desperately trying to find them.
Sometime after, the Newsweek journalist who took the photo, returned to Kosovo and journeyed to Mitrovica, Mustafa's hometown.
The reporter located Mustafa and inquired about his family. Astonishingly, Mustafa confirmed that his wife and children were alive and they reunited.
A note containing the final request of 50-year-old former NFL safety Dave Duerson that he left when he ended his own life on February 27, 2011. His brain, as he suspected, was found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy as a result of the concussions he suffered during his playing career.
In 1935, in the town of Gulf, NC, a pregnant Alton Jourdan fell into a well and gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Frank. The infant remained under water for 45 minutes without breathing until both were rescued. The child lived.
In 2016, a 26-year-man from the U.K., named Ben Innes, was on an EgyptAir flight to Cairo.
During the flight, a passenger named Seif Eldin Mustafa, hijacked the plane, wearing a vest packed with explosives and carrying a detonator.
The hijacker demanded that the pilot land the plane in Cyprus instead of Egypt. The pilot obliged fearing the terrorist would detonate the bomb if he didn’t.
Upon arriving in Cyprus, Seif Eldin released 52 out of the 55 terrified passengers but kept 3 passengers as well as 4 of the plane's crew on board as hostages.
Among these remaining 7 was Ben Innes.
Ben decided to walk up to the hijacker and then ask him if he could take a selfie. Although slightly bewildered, the hijacker allowed him to take the picture.
Thankfully, the bomb turned out to be fake. Seif Eldin was arrested and the remaining 7 people on board were freed.
When questioned about why he took the photo, Ben explained that he was attempting to remain optimistic. He reasoned that if the bomb turned out to be real, he felt he would have nothing to lose anyway.
In the 1930s, two scientists, Winthrop Kellogg and his wife Luella conducted a cross-rearing study, in which a 7 month old chimpanzee named Gua was raised alongside their 10 month old human child, Donald.
For nine months, Gua and Donald were raised as "brother and sister,” and the parents recorded their development.
At around the 6 month mark, Gua was recorded as being able to learn many human behaviors quicker than Donald, but unlike Donald, Gua was unable to speak or form any words.
The experiment was abruptly stopped 9 months in because Donald started to mimic the noises Gua made and had started behaving more like a chimp.
This is the last known photo taken of raggae legend Bob Marley before he succumbed to cancer on May 11, 1981. He was on his way home to Jamaica, but never made it. He passed away at a hospital in Miami at the age of 36. His final words to his son Ziggy were “Money can’t buy life.”
In 2009, a man sued Pepsi alleging that he found a mouse in his Mountain Dew. However, Pepsi attorneys stated that Mountain Dew will dissolve a mouse in 30 days, and showed that his can was purchased 74 days after being manufactured.
In 1926, famous jazz pianist Fats Waller was returning home after a performance in Chicago when he was suddenly ambushed by a group of gangsters.
They held him at gunpoint and ordered him into the back of their vehicle. As he was terrified for his life, Fats obliged.
After driving for a short while, they arrived at a an exclusive club owned by notorious gangster, Al Capone.
Fats was then forced inside where he performed on the piano for the entire venue.
It turned out that it was Al Capone’s 28th birthday and since he was a big admirer of Fats, he wanted Fats to perform for him.
According to Fats Waller’s son, the famed jazz musician wasn’t harmed and spent three days and nights performing for Capone, taking breaks only to sleep on his piano bench. He was reportedly paid $100 per song, which is the equivalent of over $1,600 today.
In 1945, a B-25 bomber accidentally crashed into the Empire State Building due to intense fog, claiming the lives of 14 people.
Amongst other damages, the plane severed the cables of the elevator and the operator inside, Betty Lou Oliver, fell 75 stories to the basement, somehow managing to survive. She still holds the world record for the longest survived elevator fall.
In 2004, two brothers from Austria called Andreas and Christopher, fell through the ice of a frozen lake near Vienna.
They were submerged for at least 30 minutes before being rescued. Both of them had stopped breathing, their hearts had stopped, and they were both clinically dead.
Despite no hope that either could be saved, emergency services tried to revive them and after working for 30 minutes heard a faint heartbeat coming from Andreas. Half an hour later Christopher also began to show signs of life.
After nearly an entire month in a coma, Andreas recovered fully and bud Christopher was on his way to a full recovery.
At the time, Dr Arnold Pollak, the head of the paediatric clinic at the Vienna General Hospital, said: "Andreas’ recovery happened so quickly it borders on a miracle.”
Mummy of Thuya. She was the mother of Queen Tiya, grandmother of Akhenaten, and Great grandmother of Tutankhamun, about 3400 years ago She died in her mid-50s. Discovered in February 1905 by Egyptologist James E. Quibell, her tomb in the Valley of the Kings had been robbed in antiquity. Nonetheless, it retained a significant portion of its original contents, such as chests, beds, chairs, a chariot, and numerous storage jars.
Kurt Gödel, an Austrian-American logician, was paranoid of being poisoned and would only eat after his wife tested his food first. He passed away from starvation when his wife was hospitalized. He refused to eat food prepared by anyone else out of fear of being poisoned.
In 2015, Aitabdel Salem, a 41-year-old from Queens, spent 5 months in jail at Rikers Island, one of the country's most notorious prisons, not knowing that his bail was just $2.
Salem was initially jailed on a $25,000 bail for allegedly attacking a police officer who was arresting him on charges of shoplifting on November 21, 2014.
Prosecutors for the case, however, failed to land an indictment, and a judge ordered Salem's release on November 28, 2014, just one week after his arrest.
Salem, however, still had to pay two $1 bail charges for two unrelated tampering and mischief charges.
The only problem: Salem didn't know just $2 could set him free. He remained in the overcrowded prison until May 2015.
In 2014, three people died inside a flight simulator in a flight safety building at the Wichita’s Mid-Continent Airport, Kansas, when a real plane crashed into it. The pilot of the Beechcraft King Air B200 twin turboprop was killed along with three people in the building; six more people in the building were injured.
In July 2022, a 24-year-old woman was admitted to the Van Training and Research Hospital in Van province, Turkey, with a severe stomach ache. After undergoing an x-ray doctors were blown away by what they discovered.
The doctors could clearly see a vast array of non-edible objects in her stomach and rushed her into urgent surgery.
During the surgery, the surgeons found a large metal needle, along with 158 other metal objects. The extracted items included a pocket knife, tweezers, screws, nails, a fruit knife, and even more needles.
It became apparent to the medical professionals that the young woman had a history of psychological issues, which led her to compulsively ingest foreign objects. This is known as pica disorder.
Thankfully, the woman didn’t suffer any life threatening injuries and she survived.
