It's a funny thing this behaviour: It's like cocaine, you can spend years doing it and then one innocuous little line can kill you. Participants foolish enough to think they can control their circulatory system because they've done it countless times end up hanging in a closet stiff in entirely the wrong way; mortifying their family, friends, fans - and themselves too if they were around to see the result.
Breath-play is risky behaviour and autoerotic asphyxiation is just flat-out Russian Roulette.
So David Carradine found out. I won't say it was a tragedy because it was just stupid. And sad. A 72 year-old man who thought getting off by obstructing his breathing solo was worth the risk of dying of strangulation or heart-attack...but then there wouldn't be the thrill otherwise, would there? I suppose that's the rush.
You can only push the envelope with Death so many times before he snatches it from you and slaps a stamp on it.
I still think there was a hooker there who hauled ass when she (he?) realized David had passed on. Regardless, I feel horrible for the family. Dealing with a loved one's death is bad enough without also weighing the possibility that it could have been so easily prevented. I'd be mortified if my Dad (or husband, or brother, etc.) went out like that.
ReplyDeleteI would hope to never have the word "genitalia" mentioned in my obituary. It is sad. I was not much for the Kung Fu sort of thing, but I remember the other Carradines with affection, especially Robert in all the nerd movies. And David had kind eyes. I doubt that he was alone when he did it.
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