Woman killed by her laptop computer
April 21, 2009 by Fred HosierPosted in: Bizarre Accident of the Week, Fatality, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Transportation safety
Struck-by incidents are a significant cause of workplace injuries and deaths each year. But this has to be a first.
Police in Surrey, British Columbia, say a 25-year-old woman was killed when she was struck in the back of the head and neck with her laptop computer.
Heather Storey was on a business trip with her luggage in the back seat of her car when a tow truck collided with her, according to the CBC.
Investigators say Storey would have survived the accident had it not been for her laptop.
Her laptop was unsecured in the back seat at the time of the accident. Police believe the crash impact threw the laptop out of the back seat, striking Storey. She died of blunt force trauma to the back of her head.
Storey’s brother, Michael Pratt, is warning others to take steps to avoid similar incidents.
“Try not to keep stuff [in your car's back seat] that can get airborne or hit you, just because your family, and people that care about you, really will miss you when you’re gone,” Pratt said.
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Tags: blunt force trauma, killed by laptop computer, struck-by incidents
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June 29th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
In my younger days I would frequently get “fast driving” awards. As a result I often attended those defensive driving classes offered so you could have the fine reduced and/or dismissed. In one of those classes we had a guest speaker, a state trooper that often worked accident scenes in which there was an inexplicable cause of death.
He related to us an accident that he had recently worked where a man had driven into a utility pole, the air bags had deployed properly the driver was also using his seatbelt yet there was no apparent sign of physical trauma and no blood. There was a small facial tissue box in the floor behind the driver’s seat and a small red welt on the back of the drivers neck. The tissue box had one corner that was slightly flattened. An autopsy revealed the man died from a severed spinal cord.
The hypothesis was that he must have had the tissue box either in the back seat or on the rear window deck and it was small enough to fit through the small opening between the seat and the headrest, then became a projectile at the moment of initial impact.
Talk about a freak accident…
July 17th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Wow, that’s incredible. When you consider the formula {Object’s Weight x Speed at Impact = Crash Force} it’s not surprising that a tissue box could kill someone. If the box weighed 1 lb, and if the speed of the car was 50 miles per hour that tissue box weighed 50 lbs when it hit that man in the back of the head.
It’s not really a freak accident when you look at it that way. It was an accident waiting to happen.
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Elizbeth:
Congrats! You can probably qualify to become a NASA engineer/Safety pro!!!
Your message is what I preach to my students. What appears to be a “freak” accident is more likely an “inevitable” one, given time and circumstances.
A good friend of mine from another state e-mailed me last week to tell me that their only child, a daughter, was just killed in a “freak” accident. A sophmore in college, she was working this summer at a convenience store. Apparently, a van plowed into the store — backwards!!! — and killed her instantly.
Some would call this a “freak” accident. But how many similar incidents of vehicles ploughing into convenience stores or strip mall shops can you recall reading about or seeing it in the local TV news?! Not so freakish when you think about it.
Easily preventable via the use of barriers. The barriers, if in the form of concrete flower beds could also beautify the shopping area.
Should we press the county/state code folks to incorporate such requirements?
Just a thought.
John
Live safely — and hope that it works.
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
We here in my town had a very unusual and sad death caused by a glass bowl.
A very wonderful40 year old talented lady in her home carrying a fragile glass bowl she was alone at the time She tripped or fell and the bowl shattered It cut her Jugular vein and she bled to death alone and probably very scared.
That is a Slip.Trip and fall that was fatal.
We should learn a lesson from that
Regards, Jay
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
My friends wife got into a car accident, she drove an SUV and kept a container of fix a flat in the back storage area. The aerosol erupted after the impact from the accident and she inhaled the contents which filled the cabin. She nearly died and has not recoverd fully since it has been a few years now. How many suv drivers out there have a can of tire sealant in the back?
July 23rd, 2009 at 5:07 pm
That reminds me of an incident when I was in college a looong time ago.
Some guy on campus had some cans of spraypaint setting on his back seat. The interior of his car was black, this was middle of summer, we were in a real heatwave (in central Texas!) and he forgot to leave his windows cracked open a little.
We were leaving class and heard a commotion. We looked over to see him ranting at his car - he thought it had been vandalized. By the time the group of us had walked over there he had realized what had happened, both cans of spray paint had exploded leaving EVERYTHING inside his car coated - windows too.
The windows actually had a cool smokey look to them, to bad he couldn’t see out of them until he scraped them with a razor blade.
My wife drives a smaller SUV and I have made sure anything that doesn’t fit in the little jack compartment is properly secured because of things that happen like that. Happens more often than most people realize. Also spend a few more dollars and get the GOOD bungee cords, not those dollar & dime store specials!
August 17th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
I rolled a Grand Prix on the interstate one day, wham, bam, crash. When I went to the junkyard to get my stuff out of it, I remembered I had a couple of 25 pound barbells in the trunk. Up to a couple days before the accident I had these in the back seat. How’s that for luck?
Thank goodness the thing didn’t have a glass sunroof. It would have shattered and my head would have been grinding on the pavement as the car slid along, upside down.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
thank you all for sharing your stories.
It is 5 months since my daughter Heather died. She was a good girl. I have not had perfect children but Heather was a good girl. She knew “stupid choices” and didn’t do them. Her car was a 1990 “volkswagen hatchback” so when you “flip/flopped” the seats the trunks opened and the car became a 2 seater.
We miss Heather very much. It was the impact and her car locked under the “industrial size tow truck” (this was not a regular tow truck but the industrial/commercial one). This locking of her car under the “tow truck” caused her body to jerk and be open between the driver and passenger seat and the laptop moved forward at the speed limit. The laptop weighed 14 pounds.
We miss Heather very much.
March 9th, 2010 at 5:19 pm
My condolences to you and your family on your loss. That is very sad, indeed. Life is so precious and most of us aren’t nearly careful enough with our lives.
September 7th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
This is one of those instances where we provide information about these kinds of accidents to our associates and they poo poo it as “a freak accident” and “that won’t happen to me”.
The sad part is the people it did happen to were not expecting it, they hadn’t stowed these items so they could become deadly objects they simply put them in the back where they would be convienently out of the way.
Sadly i am as guilty I place bags of groceries in my trunk but if i just stop for a few containers of something i put it on the back seat behind the driver seat. I guess i was thinking easier to get out and grab. With this reminder I definitely will make sure i put everything into my trunk.