9 inventors killed by their own invention

Invention can be an extremely dangerous thing, especially for pioneers in a completely new field.

Most of us when we think of "inventors", usually think of people like the Wright brothers, Alexander Graham Bell or Thomas Edison - people who changed the world by creating something new. and alive to tell its story. But few people know that there are inventors who are not so lucky. Because in the process of trying to create machines for the future, they end up becoming victims of their own work in the process of perfecting them.
Franz Reichelt - or "The Flying Tailor" - was an Austrian tailor born and lived in France in the early 1900s. He is credited with pioneering the development of a wearable paragliding suit, but it looked unlike today's modern parachutes, but more like a bedspread held in place by a string. But that didn't stop Reichelt from testing it himself with a jump off the Eiffel Tower in early February 1912.

Source: Gizmodo

In fact, he was so confident in that jump that he called in the local press to film his invention. Needless to say, things did not go as planned. Reichelt swooped down from the tower, with his clothes on, his skull crushed, and bones spewing out of his body as he fell to the ground, dying almost instantly. Even the entire event has been recorded, but we do not encourage you to search and review it.
Second on the list is William Bullock, an American inventor who lived in the mid-19th century, who is recognized as one of the first fathers of modern printing. In 1863, Bullock created a new type of printer that greatly reduced the time and labor used, replacing the widely used rotary printer that had been introduced to the public about 20 years earlier.

Source: Gizmodo

The only problem with this machine - as was the case with all machines made at the time - was that it was not something that could be called "safe". Bullock realized how unsafe his new invention was on April 3, 1867, when his foot was sucked into one of the presses while it was being installed at a local Philadelphia newspaper. His leg was crushed and became gangrene within a week. Just nine days after the accident, Bullock died during an amputation of his crushed leg.
In 1917, Soviet engineer Valerian Abakovsky came up with the idea of ​​grafting the best parts of an airplane (early) onto the best parts of a wagon (early). And he wanted to use this newly constructed device to transport Soviet officials around Russia. The result, which was named "Aerowagon", lasted only four years before it was scrapped.

Source: Gizmodo

On July 24, 1921, Abakovsky was making a trip from Moscow with some international delegates when the car suddenly derailed, killing 7 of the 22 people on board. Abakovsky was among those killed, and was only 25 years old when the accident happened.
Austrian inventor Max Valier is one of the names credited for inventing the Opel RAK, the world's first rocket-powered airplane. The first Opel RAK aircraft was able to fly at 75km/h during its maiden flight in March 1928.

Source: Gizmodo

About two years after this first flight, Valier switched to experimenting with liquid propellants. As a result... it was not the best option. He died on May 7, 1930, when the alcohol fuel in one of the rockets caught fire on the test bench, exploded and swept Valier away.
Thomas Midgley Jr, a mechanical engineer in Pennsylvania who is best known as the man who developed the "lead" used in leaded gasoline. He has even been called “the most harmful inventor in history” who contributed to the changes in climate change today.

Source: Gizmodo

And it was the chemical he invented that killed Midge. It made him paralytic. And as Time Magazine reports, on November 13, 1944, Midgely accidentally strangled himself on a harness, which he had devised to get out of bed.
Inventor Henry Smolinski of Ohio, USA began his own efforts to build a car hybrid airplane in the early 70's. Calling it the “AVE Mizar,” it was built by attaching the rudder and wings from a Cessna plane to the back of a Ford Pinto, resulting in a rather messy appearance.

Source: Gizmodo

On September 11, 1973, during a test flight in Camarillo, California, one of the wing struts detached from the Pinto's fuselage during mid-flight. Needless to say, the car crashed to the ground. The Pinto (along with Smolinski, who was piloting at the time) did not survive the trip.
Of course, this list wouldn't be complete without Marie Curie. This famous chemist and inventor discovered radium and polonium with her husband Pierre in the late 1800s. But she also changed medicine forever when she created the first portable X-ray machine.

Source: Gizmodo

Similar to the X-ray machines used in hospitals today, Curie's car-sized devices could be used by military surgeons on the battlefield to quickly capture images of any bullets or shrapnel trapped inside the patient.
Although her device may have saved countless lives on the battlefield, it may have ended up killing the great inventor. Her overexposure to X-rays was later accepted by many as one of the core causes behind her dangerous anemia, which eventually killed her on June 4, 1934.
Alexander Bogdanov is a Russian doctor who is widely hailed as one of the pioneers in the field of blood transfusion. But he is also famous for trying a number of blood transfusion experiments for himself. From 1924, he began to exchange his blood with several patients. Four years later, on April 7, 1928, he completed his last experiment, swapping his own blood with that of a medical student suffering from malaria and tuberculosis. The schoolboy made a full recovery from the procedure, but Bogdanov died fairly quickly afterwards.

Source: Gizmodo

Last, but not least, was John Day, a British carpenter who had the honor of being the first ever recorded submarine casualty. In 1774, Day created a wooden "diving chamber" (something nicknamed "Maria") to stay underwater at a depth of about 40 meters for 12 hours, before he needed to get to the surface.

Source: Gizmodo

Instead, on June 22 of that year, after he himself locked the doors of the Maria and loaded her with the weights for her first launch, the ship sank to the bottom, with Day trapped inside. He died.