Lawyer tries to prove his case and falls out of skyscraper
This was something of a phenomenon, or freak accident...
Freak accidents are named as such due to the nature of their occurrence.
But this story really takes a toll when it comes to setting a precedent.
A lawyer, Garry Hoy, who worked at a Toronto law firm, had a special interest in building safety and compliance.
This had a lot to do with his engineering degree. "The robustness of modern building techniques was something he took a particular interest in." (Unilad)
Little did he know that his interest in the integrity of building safety would be the death of him.
Literally.
"It was when his high-flying career took him to the twenty-fourth floor of a Financial District skyscraper, built in 1969, that the office windows really caught his eye." (Unilad)
You would think that it was the views that interested him, but in fact, it was the sturdy nature of the glass windows.
Eager to prove that the integrity of the glass windows was strong, he chose to use a party trick, body-checking the windows.
Which didn't end well at all.
A welcome party for Summer interns became an opportunity for him to show off his passion.
"Garry saw his moment to impress and, as he'd done countless times before, he threw his full weight against the huge window to demonstrate its unbreakable structural design and safety." (Unilad)
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His second attempt was unlike the first one, he didn't bounce back but...
"The pane popped put of the frame.
Hoy, as shocked and surprised as anyone, fell 24 floors, dying instantly as he collided with a stone block on the pavement below." (Unilad)
Not only did Garry win a Darwin Award for his embarrassing demise, his death was "classified as 'accidental auto-defenestration' aka throwing yourself out a window by accident."
If we choose to be technical, Garry did prove his point, the frame was what failed and caused his demise, not the glass.
Image Courtesy of Pexels