July 9, 1993

Posted on July 9, 2020 by Joel Byers

On July 9, 1993, Garry Hoy of Toronto performed the ultimate “Hey Y’all Watch This” maneuver. He was a lawyer, who also had an engineering degree, with an office on the 24th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower. When his firm would hire a new employee, he’d happily perform his special stunt for them and any curious onlookers. What was his special stunt? Was it the ability to eat poutine while standing on his head? No, it was so much better for the adrenaline junkie crowd. He would point at the floor-to-ceiling safety-glass windows and explain how safe they were. Then to drive the point home, he’d launch his 160-pound body against them and bounce harmlessly off the glass. He’d then explain how safe the glass was and how it wouldn’t break. On July 9, 1993, Garry said his spiel and then jumped at the window to do his trick. The glass did not break. Instead, it just popped out of the window frame and Garry and the safety-glass fell 240-feet to his death. The maker of the window’s glass did want it noted that the glass didn’t break, so their guarantee was still intact. At the time, the ‘Toronto Star’ quoted structural engineer Bob Greer. He said that he didn’t know of any code in the world that would allow a 160-pound man to launch his body at a window and have the window withstand it. In 1996, Garry Hoy was posthumously recognized with a ‘Darwin Award’ for his act of accidental self-defenestration.

[Facebook] [MySpace] [Twitter] More »

About Joel Byers

Born in North Georgia and educated at some very fine public institutions. Real education started after graduating from college and then getting married and raising two boys. Has the ability to see the funny and absurd in most things and will always remark on it, even if it means getting the stink-eye from his victims.
This entry was posted in 20th Century, Historical Facts and tagged , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *