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9 Inventors Killed by Their Own Inventions: 01) THOMAS MIDGLEY, JR. (1889-1944) : PULLEY SYSTEM

Nine inventors were killed by their own inventions, including Jimi Heselden who died riding an all-terrain Segway. Other inventors who died from their inventions include Thomas Midgley Jr. who was strangled by a system of pulleys he invented to lift himself from bed after contracting polio, Valerian Abakovsky whose experimental high-speed railcar derailed and killed him, and William Nelson who died testing his own motorized bicycle.

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100 views8 pages

9 Inventors Killed by Their Own Inventions: 01) THOMAS MIDGLEY, JR. (1889-1944) : PULLEY SYSTEM

Nine inventors were killed by their own inventions, including Jimi Heselden who died riding an all-terrain Segway. Other inventors who died from their inventions include Thomas Midgley Jr. who was strangled by a system of pulleys he invented to lift himself from bed after contracting polio, Valerian Abakovsky whose experimental high-speed railcar derailed and killed him, and William Nelson who died testing his own motorized bicycle.

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9 Inventors Killed by Their Own Inventions

Jimi Heselden didn't invent the Segway, but he was the company's owner Sunday when
he tumbled off a cliff while riding an all-terrain version of the self-balancing vehicle.
Maybe he would have invented something like the Segway, though, if Dean Kamen
hadn't gotten to it first.

A former coal miner who lost his job following the 1984-85 miners' strike that affected
much of the British coal industry, Heselden took his redundancy, or layoff, money and
invented Hesco bastion, a collapsible wire mesh and fabric container that is used for
military fortification and flood control.

The product has done so well over the past couple of decades, that Heselden was able to
purchase Segway in late 2009 and also to donate millions of his personal fortune to
charity. When he died this past weekend, Heselden was worth more than $250 million.

The Segway's future is uncertain in the wake of this public relations nightmare, but
Heselden was hardly the first to go because of a product he loved. Here, nine other
inventors who were killed by their own inventions:

01) THOMAS MIDGLEY, JR. (1889-1944): PULLEY SYSTEM

A mechanical engineer-turned-chemist,
Midgley held over one hundred patents when he died in 1944. It was his last
invention, though, that did him in even as he fought polio. Severly disabled by the
polio he contracted at the age of 51, Midgley built an elaborate system of pulleys
and strings that others could use to lift him out of the bed with ease. But the
system failed. Four years after he had contracted polio, it wasn't the disease, but
the ropes, that killed him. Accidentally entangled in the device, Midgley strangled
to death.

02) VALERIAN ABAKOVSKY (1895-1921): AEROWAGON

Intended to carry Soviet officials,


Abakovsky's aerowagon was an experimental high-speed railcar powered by an
aircraft engine. After making its first one-way test run successfully, the
aerowagon derailed on the return trip to Moscow and killed everyone on board
including Abakowsky, then just 25 years old. The aerowagon is considered the
precursor to other experimental vehicles that were powered by an aircraft engine,
including the M-497 Black Beetle and the turbojet train (pictured).

03) KILLED BY OWN INVENTION:


"KILLED BY OWN INVENTION" a New
York Times article screamed in 1903 when William Nelson, then just 24, died while
testing his own invention: a motorized bicycle. An employee of General Electric at
the time, Nelson was regarded, according to the Times, "as an inventor of much
promise."

04) OTTO LILIENTHAL (1858-1896): HANG GLIDER

Known as the Glider King, Otto Lilienthal


was a German aviation pioneer who was the first to make several well-documented
gliding flights. Taking off from an artificial hill he built near Berlin, Lilienthal made
more than 2,000 flights between 1891 and his death five years later. Lilienthal
died the day after snapping his spine when his glider lost its lift and he fell from
about 50 feet. He was credited as a major inspiration by the Wright brothers who
were aware of the research he had done on heavier-than-air flight.

05) WILLIAM BULLOCK (1813-1867): ROTARY PRINTING PRESS

Bullock's rotary printing press helped to


revolutionize the printing industry in the 1860s with its speed and efficiency. A
life-long inventor, Bullock had previously created a cotton and hay press, a lathe
cutting machine, a grain drill and a seed planter, but it was the printing press that
made him most famous. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to continue inventing as he
was killed in an accident only a few years later. Making adjustments to a press that
was being installed at the headquarters of the Philadelphia Public Ledger, Bullock's
leg was crushed in the machine. He developed gangrene and died a few days later.

06) FRANZ REICHELT (1879-1912): COAT PARACHUTE


Labeled the Flying Tailor, Reichelt thought
he could build a suit that would allow him to fly. By lying to authorities -- he told
them that he would be strapping the suit to a test dummy -- Reichelt was able to
climb the Eiffel Tower and throw himself off. But the suit, as you might have
guessed, didn't work and Reichelt plunged to his death on the streets of Paris. The
Austrian trailor had been hoping to develop a suit that could be worn by aviators
and used in the case of emergency evacuations from aircraft. Initial experiments
from the fifth floor of his apartment building had proved successful.

07) AUREL VLAICU (1882-1913): VLAICU II


A Romanian engineer and airplane
constructor, Vlaicu built his first plane -- a glider -- after working for a couple of
years in a car factory. With the two plane designs that followed, Vlaicu won several
awards. He died in an old model Vlaicu II while trying to cross the Carpathian
Mountains in 1913. On his way to Transylvania, Vlaicu's plane lost its wings. He left
the Vlaicu III unfinished, but a pair of friends completed the design in honor of
Vlaicu a year after his death. Today, an airport in Bucharest, Romania -- the second
busiest in the country in terms of air traffic -- is named after him.

08) LI SI (208 BCE): THE FIVE PAINS


It wasn't a physical object that Li Si
invented, but a method of execution. Serving under Qin Shi Huang, the First
Emperor of China, Li Si was an influential Prime Minister and also a noted
calligrapher. Seen by some as an early practitioner of totalitarianism, Si wrote
many of the state's policies. After betraying his dead emperor, Si was charged
with treason and executed by way of The Five Pains, which Si had written years
earlier. Once sentenced to The Five Pains, an individual had his or her nose cut off,
followed by a hand, then a foot. Still living, the sentenced was then castrated
before finally being cut in half at the waist.

09) MICHAEL DACRE (1955/1956-2009): FLYING TAXI


A British aviation pioneer, Dacre died when
the flying taxi that he invented crashed and burned on its first test flight. The
eight-seater that Dacre hoped to release to the public the following year was
supposed to be able to take off and land on very short runways so that small
airports could be built closer to city centers. Dacre, managing director of the
British-based Avcen Ltd. at the time of his death, died about 190 miles north of
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in the town of Taiping. According to a witness, the taxi
failed to take off on the first three attempts. On the fourth, it shot vertically
into the air before veering to one side and faling to the ground.

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