Lava lamp left on hot stovetop explodes, killing man

KENT, Washington (AP) -- A man who placed a lava lamp on a hot stovetop was killed when it exploded and sent a shard of glass into his heart, police said.

Philip Quinn, 24, was found dead in his trailer home Sunday night by his parents.

"Why on earth he was heating a lava lamp on the stove, we don't know," Kent Police spokesman Paul Petersen said Monday.

After the lamp exploded, Quinn apparently stumbled into his bedroom, where he died Sunday afternoon, authorities said.

Police found no evidence of drug or alcohol use.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/11/30/lava....h.ap/index.html

yeech, I know alot of people with those things... my boss has one in his office even. And I'm pretty sure when younger I've done the same thing with them but it didn't break for us. Poor guy. Dying alone is sad to me.

That is very sad. I mean it's sad when anybody dies but Freak accidents really suck!

I think i know why he did it, because he knew that the "waxy" material inside the lamp reacts to heat maybe he was trying to see what would happen if the material is heated beyond the heat from the light. But he probably forgot that heat make the water expand and forced the glass to explode...It's a curiousity killed the cat case, really.

i think you're giving the guy too much credit. i'm betting the guy figured "well, there's lava in there, wonder if i can make it even hotter!"

*stares suspiciously at her own lava lamp*

......


The guy was probably getting impatient with it and wanted to speed it up. You know, the light bulb in there takes over 4 hours to melt the stuff.

But that's so sad, getting killed like that all alone...

And his poor parents. What a terrible scene to walk in on.

Man, that's one thing that's off my christmas list.....lol!

Well that's why you have to "plug it in." People have a cord to make it heat up my electricity. The amount of electricity heat is not much compared to the heat of a stove. He probably wanted it to heat up faster, i don't really think he was experimenting because if he was he would know the possible possibilities... or maybe he's just stupid.... who knows. But anyways, yeah probably didn't know hat he was doing and didn't expect that incident......

I heard this on the news this morning and thought (first, how incredibly sad it is) but I also thought it is so weird how stuff like this happens (he just happened to be standing where the glass went through his heart).

Do you think it was "his time" or something else? If it was his time.. why in such a grizzly way??

(I instantly felt really sad for his parents too)

Sad stuff.

they are the only ones i feel sorry for...
The guy i feel no pity for, it was his fault he put it there in the first place...

Poor guy, but it was a very stupid thing to do and his parents must be devastated, I just feel so sorry for them!

Poor guy. My friend has a lava lamp...*psycho music* Hope she's not stupid enough to try that.

It just takes one wrong judgement.

'The worst it can do is cracking right?'

..sigh

OK, being as I've never owned a Lava Lamp is it dangerous to just keep it 'plugged in all the time'? Cause if it's always on it should always be warmed up right? Which would negate the reason for placing it on the hot surface to begin with.......cause as somebody earlier said it takes 4 hours to heat up I'd most likely leave it on all the time if it was safe to do..........

But if fate were involved and he DID leave it plugged in all the time it might've just caught on fire anyway and he could've died in that fire......as another poster stated maybe it was 'just his time'.......

Who knows.....

Could have been cooking up the lava lamp, you never know if the guy was a little toasted himself, stared at the lamp and thought, "wonder what that would taste like?"

A few years ago my evil halfbrother was living in my house and one night one of his idiot friends left an aerosol can sitting on the WOODSTOVE! HELLO???!!!

There's still paint on my ceiling. :-/ Fortunately no one was around at the time it blew.

Loretta

lava lamps rock.. i have two of them.. hoping to get one that is 4' in height *drools* (yes, i think i was born in the wrong era)
but seriously... what a git... do you think his family was a bit in-bred for him to think "hey, i wonder what'll happen if i stick my lava lamp here....?" he probably got kicks out of sticking his tongue onto 9 volt batteries too. (bad pun)

thats gotta go into the darwin awards for dumb ways to die

condolences to the family tho.. it still is pretty sad (but mighty funny)

Thats very sad poor parents

The perfect ending... You wake up in your trailer one day and get a little bored. Out of your boredom your logic becomes weakened. For some reason you decide to heat up a lava lamp on a stove as a science experiment. You stare into the lamp as you philosophize about life, Suddenly the lamp shatters and shards of glass and hot liquid fly all over! One shard pierces you right in the heart, You begin stumbling about your trailer and loosing blood thinking this is the end. You finally stumble to your bed, curse god, and collapse...
I imagine this is how it happened.

what a original suicide

I'm surprised that the glass was moving fast enough to pierce his ribcage....but its just another one of those freak accidents.

How dumb is this guy? That is insane that he would heat it on the stove isn't there some warning about that on the box or something?

I think he was just warming up the lamp faster, instead of waiting 4 hours for it. This process does work... you just have to be extremely careful about doing it, like not letting it overheat.

I think this was a "freak accident" more than a suicide or darwin award death. Shattering glass doesn't always kill, and lava lamps don't always explode when you heat them up.

It just goes to show that you never know when or how you're gonna die.