This week Jimi Heselden, owner of the British company Hesco Bastion that produces Segways, died in a tragic Segway accident. Police report that Heselden apparently fell off a cliff and into a river while out on a ride.
Although Heselden was not the inventor of the Segway, (Dean Kamen was; Heselden was merely the owner of the overseeing company that bought the scooter), the tragic irony of the man behind the invention being killed by his own life’s work is not unheard of.
Follow along as Discovery News runs down other notable men and women who pioneered new technology and paid the ultimate price.
Marie Curie (Nov. 7, 1867 – July 4, 1934)
The first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the first person to win two Nobel Prizes, Madame Marie Curie was also, sadly, the victim of her own invention — or perhaps experimentation.
William Bullock (1813 – April 21, 1867)
Native New Yorker William Bullock invented the Bullock rotary printing press — a press fed by a continuous roll of paper. Legend has it that Bullock either kicked his machine, or accidentally caught his leg in the mechanisms of one of his presses. The cut on his leg became infected and he died shortly thereafter from gangrene.
Harry Houdini (March 24, 1874 – Oct. 31, 1926)
While it may not have been a traditional magic act, Harry Houdini died literally at the hands of a physical “trick” he performed — and a bad case of appendicitis. Before a performance, two college students reportedly asked Houdini to demonstrate his physical strength “trick” of being able to absorb numerous blows to the upper body without injury. The impact on that particular day was enough to burst the famous magician’s already inflamed appendix.
Thomas Andrews (Feb. 7 1873 – April 15, 1912)
Irishman Thomas Andrews was one of the architects behind the infamous Titanic. Andrews, as a dutiful shipbuilder, was, of course, aboard for the Titanic’s maiden voyage. The rest is, well, history.
Photos by AP.