Icicle Deaths

Icicles are quite gorgeous pieces of nature during the winter time. They add subtle touches to houses covered in snow, and they inspired the "icicle lights" that we all see during Christmas. But all these nice things being said about these rather sharp, clear forms of ice... they can be rather dangerous.

Driving around with my dad today, I noticed a huge icicle hanging off the side of some guy's gutter. This automatically made me think two questions, "can icicles actually kill someone?" and "how many deaths per year in the U.S. are caused by icicles?" Morbid I know, but rather interesting if you really think about it considering how often we see them and consider them harmless.

To answer the first question... Yes. Icicles can kill people.

I googled the demand "deaths by icicles," and the first article that came up was entitled, "Falling icicles kill six." I guess in February 2008 in Moscow, Russia, six people were killed by icicles. The actual heading is...

"MOSCOW (Reuters) - Six people have been killed in three days by icicles falling from buildings in a central Russian region, ITAR-TASS news agency reported Tuesday."

 

To answer the second question, I was unable to find any statistics about deaths in the U.S. by icicles. I was, however, able to find a local article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that talks about the icicles in Western PA. The link is provided below. Keep warm.

Western Pa. growing bumper crop of Icicles