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Post Info TOPIC: Time for the crossbo... no, wait. Too late!
ddvmor


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Date: May 22, 2008
Time for the crossbo... no, wait. Too late!
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Lava Lamp Death
Sooner or later, the Grim Reaper comes for us all, but sometimes his mode of operation almost defies explanation. Take the 2004 demise of 24-year-old Phillip Quinn of Kent, Washington, who was done in by his lava lamp.

An icon of the 1960s and 1970s that experienced a resurgence in popularity in the mid-1990s, lava lamps are generally considered benign items of the sort one might happily stare at for hours while in a marijuana-infused haze. They consist of blobs of wax suspended in a liquid enclosed by a glass or plastic container, the blobs rising and falling when the container is heated by a bulb at the base of the unit. The motion of the blobs is slow and rhythmic, almost hypnotic. It is therefore hard to conceive that one of these slow, soothing light shows could kill a man.

Yet one did. Phillip Quinn was found dead in his trailer home with shards of glass from a lava lamp embedded in his chest, including a shard that pierced his heart. According to the medical examiner's reconstruction of the events that caused the young man's death, Quinn had been heating the lamp on the kitchen stove and likely had been standing in front of it when it exploded, then stumbled into his bedroom and died.

"Why on earth he was heating a lava lamp on the stove, we don't know," said Kent Police spokesman Paul Petersen. Quinn's death was ruled an accident.

In 2004, a lava lamp was put to use as a weapon in an attempted murder in the Dallas area when 35-year-old Tammy Britt Miller beat her mother, 62-year-old Connie Britt, with such a lamp, stabbed her repeatedly, and smashed a large picture frame over her head before attempting to suffocate her with a plastic bag.

Barbara "not always soothing, apparently" MikkelsonSo the police don't know why he was heating the laval lamp on his stove. I do...

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Aodan


Teiam Member




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Date: May 22, 2008
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why?

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ddvmor


I am the Jammie King!




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Date: May 22, 2008
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Because he was an idiot. An idiot who lived in a trailer...

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JonnyStead


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Date: May 22, 2008
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I remember seeing this on a TV show and they tried to replicate it. They thought it was probably either cracked already, an urban legend or something else made it break. The reason is they are not a closed mold - rather they are sealed with a metal stopper (I think at the top) and if you do over heat one the top is designed to give way before the glass will shooting hot liquid upwards (not nice in any event) but not breaking the glass.

That is all smile.gif

-- Edited by JonnyStead at 15:52, 2008-05-22

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ddvmor


I am the Jammie King!




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Date: May 22, 2008
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Given the source, it's unlikely to simply be an urban myth. Probably the 'something else' option. Of course current lava lamps have the metal stopper on them, but do original 60's ones?

-- Edited by ddvmor at 17:06, 2008-05-22

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JonnyStead


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Date: May 22, 2008
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Yeah, they've pretty much always been the same - you have to get the lava in there!

However, modifying the bottle (with an overly strong lid) produces the desired result see here - http://www.mypartypost.com/watchvideo/3815/Mythbusters-_Lava_Lamp

BUT - that doesnt explain the story above - unless the guy was dumb enough to change the lid AND put it on a stove - in which case I think we're well past the point of blaming the lava lamp. Its kinda like saying "Wow a lava lamp blew some guy up in a trailer and all he had to do was wrap it in explosives and light the fuse! - so everyone bin your lava lamps because they're really dangerous!"



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I'll take arrogance and the inevitable hubris over self-doubt and lack of confidence.

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Susan


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I'm Roger Moore's Stunt Double!



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Date: May 22, 2008
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JonnyStead wrote:

"so everyone bin your lava lamps because they're really dangerous!"

Aaaaargh! omfg.gif  I have one in my loft - run to the hills!



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JonnyStead


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Date: May 22, 2008
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I bet its an original! :cough:

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I'll take arrogance and the inevitable hubris over self-doubt and lack of confidence.

"Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face" - Mike Tyson
Susan


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I'm Roger Moore's Stunt Double!



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Date: May 23, 2008
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bawling.gif

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