Student Killed By Human Catapult

[matcom]

<snip>

AN Oxford University student was killed in a bizarre stunt after he was hurled 30m through the air by a human catapult.

Kostydin Yankov, 19, missed a net after being flung from a medieval trebuchet, an inquest heard yesterday.
Biochemistry undergraduate Yankov, known as Dino, was part of an extreme sports club, the Oxford Stunt Factory, which had visited the trebuchet site in Middlemoor Water Park near Bridgwater, Somerset, in November 2002.

Mr Yankov, from Bulgaria, was one of five students to use the modern-day trebuchet that fired human "shots" instead of missiles.

A student said: "I saw Dino as a ball in the air. He missed the safety net but I couldn't say by how much. As he hit the ground I heard a thud." :rofl:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17114340-13762,00.html

[afdip]

1. an oxford education isn't what it used to be . . .

the catapault didn't kill him, the catapault was nowhere near him when he died.

[Truebrit71sbruv]

3. hehe

too true...

mind you... he's well in the running for the 2005 "Darwin" Award...

[BigMcLargehuge]

2. they showed a similar clip on a show about catapults

on The Discovery Channel (I think) a couple of weeks ago and mentioned this place in England that flings folks into a net.

ouch.

[billyskank]

4. That's not the first person who killed themself

by being slung by a trebuchet. Also there was another woman who broke her pelvis when she hit the net but bounced back out of it.

Some people are just too dumb for words. :eyes:

[underpants]

5. What them Oxfords needed was one them rocket scienteests

book learning.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

6. My mom told me

to never use myself as a human catapault. She was right.

[DainBramaged]

7. I guess no one here has ever seen the amazing Powerade

commercial featuring just that. Laugh your ass off face hurting funny. Human catapult, big wheel drag racing (where on has the parachute come out when it catches on fire) and hand walking on walking tread machines. Simply priceless.

http://us.powerade.com/sport/

[JVS]

8. What do you know, real life Oxymorons!

[Loonman]

9. Largest trebuchet ever built

King Edward the First(the guy depicted as 'longshanks' in wacky Mel's movie) had laid siege to Edinburgh. The siege was going nowhere, and the Scots wouldn't budge, so he had his combat engineers build a massive trebuchet.

When the Scots in the city saw how big it was going to be, they surrendered immediately. Edward had his soldiers force the people back into the city because he wanted to take a few shots at them anyway, when the trebuchet was completed.