The True Story Of The Man Whose Death Might Have Been Caused By A Cow

Take a moment to imagine what someone might say about you in a eulogy after you've died. It's a morbid thought, but it's one most of us have had in passing at least once or twice. "Loving husband," "Beloved aunt," "Father to so-and-so," "Sister of him or her," etc. Ideally, we'd all like to be remembered for who we were during our lives and how we chose to make the best of our days above ground, but with remembrance comes death, and with death comes a cause of death. 

According to Med India, approximately 106 people worldwide die every minute. That's about 1.8 deaths per second. How many of those deaths, if you were to wager a guess, do you think are caused by cows falling through ceilings? Probably not many, but in the case of Joao Maria De Souza, it was one time too many (via Huff Post). 

"The one-tonne cow was grazing on a hill behind the small house, in the town of Caratinga, when it stepped onto the asbestos roof, which collapsed under its weight," the BBC wrote after news of the tragic and unfathomable accident spread. "Joao Maria de Souza, 45, was lying in bed when the animal fell on him." Apparently, de Souza and his wife Leni were fast asleep when their roof caved in and brought a fatally unpleasant surprise along with it. You could say they were utterly shocked when a 3,000 cow landed upon their bed (per HuffPost).

The terrified animal narrowly missed Leni after falling eight feet, though her husband sadly wasn't so lucky. Joao's leg was reportedly crushed beneath the cow's devastating weight, and as soon as she could compose herself, Leni helped her husband to the car and rushed him to a local hospital, as HuffPost reports. 

While a fractured leg doesn't necessarily spell out certain death (even if it was caused by a cow crashing through your ceiling), neglecting it for too long certainly can. According to the BBC, de Souza arrived at a nearby hospital fully lucid and in relatively good condition, considering the circumstances, but he was forced to wait an excessive amount of time before seeing a doctor. By the time he was finally brought in for treatment, it was already too late. De Souza tragically died the next day from internal bleeding that had been left untreated — or so hospital personnel believed. 

"Being crushed by a cow in your bed is the last way you expect to leave this earth," de Souza's brother told the press afterward. "But in my view it wasn't the cow that killed our Joao, it was the unacceptable time he spent waiting to be examined" (via HuffPost).