A man in his 60s was pushing his car out of a ditch in July in Montreal, Quebec, when it started to roll, and when he jumped in to hit the brakes, the car jerked, ejected him and ran over him.

A man in his 60s was pushing his car out of a ditch in July in Montreal, Quebec, when it started to roll, and when he jumped in to hit the brakes, the car jerked, ejected him and ran over him.
A 24-year-old man, fleeing police in a stolen U-Haul truck in April in Royal Palm Beach, Fla., leaped from the vehicle but failed to clear the door, sending him out head-first, where he was crushed to death.
Initially, authorities ruled the March shooting death of Texas restaurant executive Thomas Hickman, 55, a kidnap-murder, since he had been shot in the back of the head and the body dumped in the New Mexico desert. Later, however, investigators found the murder weapon nearby, attached to balloons that had snagged on cactus, and in July concluded that Hickman had killed himself but rigged helium-filled balloons to carry the gun away as he lay dying (a plan that resembled a 2003 episode of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation").
Drivers recently hit by their own cars: A woman parking her car in Athens, Ga., in July, opened the door to tell another driver that she was not leaving her space when she fell out and was run over.
School custodian Anthony Gower-Smith, 73, was awarded the equivalent of about $75,000 in June in London's High Court after suing Britain's Hampshire County government when he hurt himself falling off a 6-foot stepladder. Gower-Smith claimed that he had not been properly "trained" on how to use it, despite his long-time experience with such ladders, and despite his signed acknowledgment that he had indeed received training, and despite his having blamed himself just after he fell. (He disavowed the self-blame by saying that, at the time, he was woozy and didn't remember what he said.)
At One With Nature: Cameron Fritzson, 20, landed in the hospital in critical condition in May after he scaled first the outer, 10-foot fence at an electrical substation in Pembroke Pines, Fla., and then the main electrical tower, where his arm brushed against a live wire. Police said Fritzson was after a parakeet's nest at the top so he could sell the eggs to a pet store for as much as $20 each.

