We often think of pranks as a trivignette in our lives, and perhaps just a harmless joke. However, when these seemingly minor pranks cross the line, they can have unforeseen consequences.
This article will reveal 15 tragic incidents that resulted from hoaxes, and they remind us with blood and tears that the potential dangers behind hoaxes should never be ignored. From minor teasing to deadly banter, these cases will give us an insight into the darker side of hoaxes and how they can turn into tragedies where "dark arrows hurt".
1. Stupid neighborhood kids think it's a good prank to hide behind a parked car on the side of the road and jump out when a car is approaching.... The reason why he was not hit was because the first car was driving very slowly, and the owner was so angry that he did not dare to do it anymore.
2. A child is at school and his dad flicks a towel in his face. He suffered a severe injury to his eye, which left him with permanent damage. The kid is also a rookie in the local tennis league. It's really sad.
3. A friend's dad of mine once decided to jump out of an empty closet while they were going shopping to scare his wife. He didn't see a downward-facing hook in the back of the closet, and when he jumped up to jump out, his back was hooked and his skin was torn apart. They had to go to A&E for stitches and the police showed up because the doctor was worried it was a stab wound. So he had to explain to the police how he had made a simple prank so bad that he stabbed himself in the back.
4. Once, I had a hammer in my hand and mischievously "toss" it on my sister. Unfortunately, the hammer head came off the handle and flew straight towards her head, thankfully only a few centimeters.
5. A few years ago, at a gathering of employees of a brokerage company, everyone was dressed in costumes, including a young man wearing a plastic bag. Take his girlfriend to the cubicle of the men's toilet for sex. A guy in the next compartment thought he would jokingly turn on the lighter under the door. The explosion caught fire, the boy screamed and died, and the girl was badly burned. The person who did this had a severe nervous breakdown and never worked again.
6. When I was little, my mom and her friends went out for a walk and my dad thought it would be fun to throw water balloons at them when they came around the corner. As soon as they turned the corner, we ran out with the water balloon and my dad tripped and broke his foot, leg and arm.
7. When I was younger, I went to a friend's house for the night and they planned a prank. They were dressed in creepy clothes and creepy makeup, and one of the girls (we didn't get along well) was holding a real knife and was about to slam me against the wall and lift me up to my neck as I went downstairs. Luckily, before I got there, one of the girls got scared and ran upstairs to tell me what was going to happen before I went downstairs. She was very scared and asked me when I was going to go there to "play along". I'm not going to take that risk. I think I avoided something that could very well go wrong.
8. Medical students graduated. They tied him naked to the bridge. Died of sun exposure.
9. Some friends and I sprayed hairspray on one tube and someone lit the fire at the other end. Between sprays, one of the men looked down the tube to see if there was a flame in the tube. As he did so, someone sprayed more hairspray into the tube.
It turned out that there was still a flame in the tube because my friend's head was engulfed in a flame. He didn't end up with any serious burns or other injuries, but he didn't have eyebrows, eyelashes, or bangs for a while.
10. My friend thinks it's fun to turn the car to the ditch and make a U-turn at the last second. We ended up falling into a ditch, hitting a culvert and flipping over. Some are still debating whether he intended to do so. Apparently he's the laughing stock of a lot of jokes, and I just haven't been around this group long enough to understand how deep it is. So, maybe it's a prank that went wrong, maybe it's an attempted crime. I do not know.
11. A silly kid thinks it's a funny idea to push his friend off the sidewalk to my car.
Luckily, I drove very slowly, so I was able to stop in time.
From that day on, when I was driving on the sidewalk, I was always afraid that someone would push a person under my car.
12. I heard a story where I lived, at a wedding where the groom was mischievously "kidnapped" by a group of friends and got drunk, and then someone put boots on his feet with the words "friends" written on them, which were then filled with architectural foam. The foam hardened, sealing his feet so tightly that it cut off the blood flow, and eventually he had to amputate his limb.
13. When my dad was a kid, he thought it would be fun to shoot safety pins with a slingshot made of rubber bands. Eventually, he targeted his sister, who ended up with a safety pin in her forehead. Thankfully, he didn't hit her in the eye.
14. On April Fool's Day, my great-grandfather was pulled in a chair by his best friend while he was at work. My great-grandfather broke his neck and died, and his friends will never forgive themselves.
We've never celebrated April Fool's Day at my house, and when I explained, everyone thought it was a prank...
15. A few years ago, two people went to a bar. They were drunk. There was a man sitting on a chair and falling asleep in the courtyard.
The two men decided to play a prank and tie him to a chair with duct tape. They asked the bartender for a strap and tied him up.
It's almost closing time, and they decide to leave him there for the night because it will be fun when he wakes up tied to a chair in an empty bar. The bartender girl found it funny. So she closed the place and they left him there.
It was in November, and the man froze to death at night. It was clear that he was trying to break free when he woke up, so he didn't freeze to death in his sleep. He froze to death while fully conscious.
All three were sentenced.