Garry Hoy was an extremely confident man. His outgoing nature made him a natural leader at Holden Day Wilson, a Toronto-based law firm where Garry practiced securities law.
Today, he was showing a group of prospective interns around. At 38 years old, Garry was a grizzled veteran to these kids entering the corporate world for the first time, and he relished the role, showing off a little here and there while describing the work at Holden Day Wilson.
One of the interns was intensely nervous about being so high up above the ground. This was understandable, since the office was on the 24th floor. If you looked out one of those windows, you could really get a sense of vertigo.
Garry had a way of goofing around and making everyone feel better, so maybe these better angles of his instincts kicked in. He would set the intern’s mind at ease with a simple demonstration.
This glass, Garry insisted, was unbreakable. It wouldn’t even break if Garry thrust his 160 pound frame at the window with all his might. So, that’s what Garry did.
He was right! The glass didn’t break.
Unfortunately for Garry, it did pop out of the frame, and Garry fell to his death on July 9th, 1993.
Franz Reichelt was also very, very confident.
At the bold age of 19, Franz moved to Paris in 1898 and opened up his own dressmaking shop. He was a success right away, and his thriving business gave him a little extra money to tinker with his inventions.
One of the inventions Franz was most proud of—and most confident about—was a wearable parachute that could save aviators (pilots) in a crash. During the early 1910s, this was a major problem, and flying was incredibly risky: the technology was brand new and not very well understood, and potential death was a very real risk these pilots took every single time.
Inspired by the work of Leonardo da Vinci, who had sketched designs for parachutes centuries earlier, Franz designed a suit that resembled a large bat. Despite having no experience in aeronautics or engineering (very few people did at the time), his work as a tailor, along with a healthy dose of Dunning-Kruger, helped give him the last bit of confidence he needed to test out his design.
After making several test jumps from lower heights, using a mixture of dummies and himself, none were successful. A reasonable conclusion might be that this invention was not ready for prime time, but that’s not the conclusion Franz came to here.
Instead, he insisted that the parachute would only function correctly if the person wearing it was jumping from a sufficient height.
On February 4, 1912, Reichelt decided to make the ultimate test. He climbed to the first level of the Eiffel Tower, a height of about 57 meters, and jumped in front of a crowd of onlookers and cameramen.
His parachute failed to deploy properly, and he plunged to his death.
Finally, who can forget about Steve Irwin, AKA the “Crocodile Hunter”? Steve was positively gregarious, practically dripping with confidence.
He would frequently wrestle with crocodiles, grabbing them by the tails and sometimes even jumping onto their backs. Presumably, this was to show us that it’s okay to jump on crocodiles, but I’m not sure that was the intended takeaway.
Similarly, Steve liked to pick up venomous snakes and wave them close to his face, presumably to show us that snakes are safe.
He even went diving with sharks in order to, you know, show us they were safe.
His death came by way of being pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming in Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Now, I don’t really think he was trying to show us stingrays were safe, exactly, but the irony is way, way too rich to ignore here.
With all of that said, Steve Irwin made a truly lasting impact on wildlife conservation, encouraging a whole new generation of enthusiastic young advocates for the environment. He also inspired a sense of respect and understanding of wildlife (yes, even the dangerous critters).
Incidentally, Franz Reichelt’s bat-suit made a lasting impact, too. Researchers in aviation and engineering at the time studied why his parachute didn’t work. His very public death spurred rapid advancements in parachute technology, leading to safer designs used in later years.
As far as I can tell, Garry Hoy’s unfortunate plunge to death from 24 stories up only really serves a cautionary tale. At least with Irwin and Reichelt, the legacy of improvements in the fields they represented seem to give meaning to their untimely deaths. Hoy’s death, on the other hand, simply reminds us not to take risks with our lives for little or no purpose.
Let’s compare and contrast these three tales today. What are your thoughts about the similarities and differences between Steve Irwin, Franz Reichelt, and Garry Hoy? Let’s talk!
'A reasonable conclusion' that proceeding with a candidate who lost popular vote in '16 and '20 and violated laws before, during and after holding office ~ GOP says "all in". 🙈
First off, everything in Australia will kill you. People seem to be okay with this. I remember visiting a friend in 2008 (the only time I've been to Australia). He was like, "yeah, we get dangerous spiders in the house, but the cats usually kill them, so you'll be fine..." *L*
IIRC, Irwin was filming a kids' show at the time of his death. The creature he was handling was known to be poisonous, but had only killed one other person in the 50 years prior, so, virtually harmless by Australian standards. Unfortunately, the thing managed to get a barb in right under Irwin's ribcage, delivering poison right to his heart. Very unexpected, especially with somebody who regularly handled much, much more dangerous creatures regularly. For this reason, I don't think his case rises to the level of stupid that the other two do.