Don’t you just love those laughter sessions that leave you gasping for breath? Or simply put, the sessions post which you can say in all gaiety, “I died laughing”! And as it turns out, this idiom does have a strong connection with reality.
A fit of laughter can cause cardiac arrest and asphyxiation, causing the happy guy to die.
Some of the real-life accounts of people who had their last laugh, documented from the Ancient Greek times are:
1. A Greek painter died laughing while painting Goddess Aphrodite
A Greek painter from 5th century BC, Zeuxis died laughing while painting Aphrodite, after the old woman who ordered him to make the painting, insisted on modelling herself for the portrait. The entire scenario was evidently too funny for Zeuxis to survive.
2. A Greek poet and a comedy-writer died laughing on the jest he had prepared
Philemon (c.236-263) was clearly a BIG fan of his own works.
3. Another Greek died laughing on seeing a donkey eating figs
It is utmost cruel to get pets drunk and then watch their high-phase in order to entertain oneself. But as per the records of a Greek Stoic philosopher, Chrysippus of 3rd century BC, people in ancient days enjoyed it way too much. The philosopher found the sight of a donkey feeding on his figs quite funny. In fact, his funny bone tickled to death when he ordered a slave to give the donkey neat wine to wash down the figs.
4. In 1410, King Martin of Aragon died due to a weirdly lethal combination of laughter and indigestion!
5. In 1556, Pietro Aretino of Italy died laughing while listening to a humorously indecent story.
He was an Italian author, playwright, satirist, poet, and blackmailer, who is also said to have invented modern literate pornography. Once, on being told a bawdy story by his sister, he laughed extremely hard- fell backwards in his chair- died of apoplexy.
6. In 1660, a Scottish, Thomas Urquhart laughed to his death upon hearing the news of Charles IIÂ being restored to the throne.
Was it laughter born out of true joy or a news that seemed like a joke of a lifetime? I don’t want to know.
Urquhart was a polymath and an eminent writer. Also an eminent translator, he was the first to translate François Rabelais’s works into English.
7. In 1975, Alex Mitchell of King’s Lynn, England, died laughing while watching an episode of ‘The Goodies’.
He laughed uncontrollably while watching the episode ‘Kung Fu Kapers’ of the award-winning British TV series, “The Goodies”. After a 25-minute span of the continuous laughter riot, Mitchell suffered a stroke and died.
Mitchell’s wife even sent a thank-you note to ‘The Goodies’ for giving his husband pleasant moments before his death.
Later on, it was revealed that Mitchell may have succumbed to cardiac arrest as a result of Long QT syndrome (a heart rhythm abnormality).
8. In 1989, Ole Bentzen died while watching the movie ‘A Fish Called Wanda’
During a scene featuring John Cleese, Bentzen laughed so hard that his heart rate was estimated to have been somewhere between 250 and 500 beats per minute! Soon enough, he suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed. Bentzen was a Danish audiologist.
9. In 2003, a Thai ice-cream salesman laughed in his sleep and died.
Damnoen Saen-um’s wife tried hard to wake him up, but after an all-gags session that lasted for about 2 minutes during his sleep, he stopped breathing for once and all.
Well, as bizarre as these scenarios may sound, laughter sure is a good way to die. 😀