Tragic story of lawyer who fell out of skyscraper window while trying to prove glass was unbreakable
We have all gone to extreme lengths to prove a point before, but would you be willing to run full pelt at a glass window 24-storeys up just so you could say I told you so?
Well, poor old Garry Hoy would.
But sadly for him, his efforts to corroborate his claims about the strength of a glass window resulted in him smashing into a stone block on the pavement below in Toronto, Canada.
The 38-year-old attorney was a well-respected employee at the Holden Day Wilson law firm located in the city and he also had a degree in engineering under his belt.
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These two passions later led to Hoy getting clued up on building safety and compliance too, so you can imagine how he became absolutely fascinated by the robustness of the state-of-the-art skyscraper he was working in.
The law firm was based inside the Toronto-Dominion Centre, which was situated in the Financial District, on the 24th floor.
Forget the carpets, spinning chairs or fancy decor inside the offices though, as it was the power of the window glass which really piqued Hoy's interest.
As they were supposed to be 'unbreakable', the lawyer would routinely throw his full bodyweight against them to prove just how indestructible the windows were.
And it worked - Hoy, who is said to have weighed around 73kg, started to do this regularly when he had a new crowd to show off his stunt to.
It became something of a party trick for the Canadian, so of course he decided to demonstrate just how heavy-duty the glass panes were when a group of articling students were visiting the Holden Day Wilson offices on 9 July, 1993.
The firm were throwing a welcome party in their conference room for the budding lawyers who were set to intern with them over the summer, so what better time for Hoy to fling himself against the windows, eh?
The attorney seized the opportunity to impress and, just like he had done multiple times before, he hurled his full weight against the large window to show that it was shatterproof.
And Hoy was right, it didn't break - but he wasn't so smug the second time he did it.
That's because he didn't bounce back like he had done all those other times before, but instead went flying through it.
To the pure horror of the interns and the 38-year-old's colleagues, the pane of glass popped out of the window frame and plummeted 24-storeys down... and so did he.
Hoy tragically plunged into a stone block on the pavement below him and was killed instantly.
A structural engineer questioned about the incident told the Toronto Star: "I don’t know of any building code in the world that would allow a 160-pound man to run up against a glass window and withstand it."
Which is a fair point.
Holden Day Wilson - which at the time was the largest law firm closure in Canada - ended up closing three years after Hoy's death, somewhat due to his passing.
However, there was one so-called silver lining at least. It turns out that Hoy's blind faith in the strength of the window pane was bang on - as even when it tumbled from the building, the glass never broke.
It was the frame that failed, rather than that 'unbreakable' glass the lawyer had been chucking himself into.
Hoy was later given a Darwin Award for his awkward demise, which was classified as 'accidental auto-defenestration' - which in layman's terms means throwing yourself out a window by accident.
A structural engineer questioned about the incident told the Toronto Star: “I don’t know of any building code in the world that would allow a 160-pound man to run up against a glass window and withstand it."
Hoy has now become something of a cautionary tale for those who just have to be proven right.
Topics: World News, News, Weird
Olivia Burke