Eideard

An explosive south Fulton County fire was apparently started last month by a man trying to burn his ex-girlfriend’s body…Sarone Bridges perished in the ensuing blaze, but not immediately after the blast that started the quick-burning fire, Fulton County Fire Chief Larry Few said.

“Based on how his body was positioned, I think (the) explosion took its toll on him,” Few said. “The concussion from the blast could have made him disoriented where he fell, and he received the thermal burns afterwards.”

Investigators from the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office said Bridges died of burns and smoke inhalation.

Bridges’ ex-girlfriend, Beverly Bland, 34, was strangled before the fire, police said…

Few said Bridges, 35, doused a sleeping bag with gasoline and laid Bland’s body on the bag to set it on fire. But his plan literally blew up in his face.

“When he threw that match, the vapors of gasoline are what ignited,” Few said. “There was an immediate fireball that blew the windows out…”

Sometimes you get what you deserve.

Police say a motorcyclist participating in a protest ride against helmet laws in upstate New York died after he flipped over the bike’s handlebars and hit his head on the pavement.

The accident happened Saturday afternoon in the town of Onondaga, in central New York near Syracuse.

State troopers tell The Post-Standard of Syracuse that 55-year-old Philip A. Contos of Parish, N.Y., was driving a 1983 Harley Davidson with a group of bikers who were protesting helmet laws by not wearing helmets.

Troopers say Contos hit his brakes and the motorcycle fishtailed. The bike spun out of control, and Contos toppled over the handlebars. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Troopers say Contos would have likely survived if he had been wearing a helmet.

Uh-huh.

Thanks, Ursarodinia

What began as a fun night on the town ended in death Sunday after a 24-year-old Clinton Township man pushed through a hatch on a party bus and hit his head on an overpass, Michigan State Police said.

The incident is being investigated as “an extremely tragic accident,” Sgt. Sheila Shields said.

“People don’t realize how dangerous a moving vehicle is,” she said. “People have to think.”

According to a preliminary investigation, Salvatore Talluto was among a group of about 25 people on the party bus returning from an outing in downtown Detroit.

Scott Wanagat, Talluto’s brother-in-law, said the group was having a bachelor party and hired the motor coach to make plans easier.

Police said the bus was heading east on Interstate 94 near Van Dyke on Detroit’s east side about 2 a.m. when Talluto left his seat and put his head through an emergency exit hatch. Soon after, he struck an overpass, Shields said.

The bus was traveling about 55 mph at the time; the force of the impact knocked Talluto back into the bus, Shields said. It was unclear if Talluto had been drinking alcohol or if the bus driver would face charges. Police were called and the man was transported to St. John Hospital in Detroit. He was declared brain dead that evening, Wanagat said.

Ayup.

A Russian man died after burying himself alive in a friend’s garden in the Far Eastern city of Blagoveshchensk in an endurance test that went wrong, according to investigators.

The 35-year-old man wanted to test his endurance and asked his friend to help him spend the night buried, according to Alexei Lubinsky, a senior aide to the region’s chief investigator.

The two men dug a hole in the garden and put inside an improvised coffin with holes for air pipes. The man also took a blanket, a bottle of water and a mobile phone.

The victim’s friend told investigators he covered the hole with planks and earth to a depth of around eight inches and then went home, after receiving a phone call from his friend telling him he was fine. The next morning, he found his friend dead.

Investigators speculated that a rainstorm overnight could have blocked the air supply to the coffin.

“We know that the victim was a computer programmer and that he has a small child,” Mr Lubinsky said, adding that he probably was influenced by reading stories about self-burial on the internet.

I’m honestly dismayed by the number of truly stupid risks people take with their lives after reading about inane behavior on the Web. If I strolled around town handing out leaflets suggesting idiotic life-threatening stunts for people to try I’d probably be locked away as a menace.

Deservedly so.

Dr. Frank Ryan, plastic surgeon to Heidi Montag and other celebrities, was sending a Twitter message about his border collie just before his fatal car accident, his ex-girlfriend tells PEOPLE.

“He lived up in Malibu on a tiny street and he was texting while driving and he accidentally went over the cliff,” Charmaine Blake says.

Blake, a celebrity publicist, says Ryan’s family was told by investigators that the Tweeting caused the wreck on Monday.

The dog, whose name is Jill – Blake’s middle name – was in the car at the time of the crash and survived injuries to the head, eye and paw.

The California Highway Patrol confirms Ryan was texting before the crash, but investigators have not officially determined the cause of the accident.

“It is one of the elements that we are investigating,” CHP Officer Steven Reid says…

She adds that she hopes other people learn from this tragedy that “people should not text and drive at all.”

Golly gee, thanks for the tip, lady.

One person died when a pipe bomb exploded outside a nightclub in West Virginia early Saturday morning.

The incident, which took place at Cactus Joe’s in Barboursville in the southwestern part of the state, occurred around 2:30 a.m.

“We have an individual that brought explosive devices outside of the business. One of the devices detonated, proving fatal for the individual,” Cabell County Sheriff Tom McComas said. “I don’t know an exact age of the victim. We’re still in the infancy of this investigation…”

Angie Ferguson, assistant supervisor of Cabell County 911, said authorities found another pipe bomb that had not been detonated. She said there were no other casualties from the incident…

“It would be imprudent for me to speculate at this point if the bombing was an act of terror,” McComas said, adding “it was strange activity” for the working-class town, which sits eight miles east of Huntington…

Police were examining a sport utility vehicle the victim was believed to have driven to the club, McComas said…

Ferguson called the blast an “isolated incident” and said it was unlikely that the explosion was related to terrorism. “We don’t have much of that here.”

“Co-owner of Cactus Joe’s, Kathy McComas, says that the man responsible was banned from her bar, because he came there to stalk his ex-wife..”

Sounds about right.

Fourteen suspected terrorists died Tuesday night when the bus they rigged with explosives blew up prematurely, police said.

The explosion occurred as the suspects were riding the bus in the province of Kunduz, said police chief Abdul Raziq Yaqobi.

Yaqobi said the suspects wanted to attack Afghan police or foreign soldiers.

That was his best guess, of course. There wasn’t anything/anyone left to interrogate.

A Ukrainian chemistry student has been killed by exploding bubble gum that tore off half of his face, police said Thursday.

Vladimir Likhonos, a student at a regional branch of the Kyiv Polytechnical Institute, is thought to have accidentally dipped his chewing gum into explosives he was using for his studies, police spokeswoman Elvira Biganova told The Associated Press. She said the 25-year-old mistook the powder for citric acid, which he often added to prolong the gum’s taste.

Likhonos, from the town of Konotop, in northeast Ukrainian, blew off his entire jaw and most of the lower part of his face in Saturday’s accident. Medical workers who arrived on the scene attempted to treat his injuries but were unable to save him….

“Anybody could have mixed them up,” Biganova said.

You have to give Biganova credit for trying to think of something positive to say.

Darwin Award candidate, or simply a very tragic accident? Voice your assessment in comments.