Top 5 chemists who died in really lousy ways

Chemgeek said in a comment here about Lavoisier that he could be included in the 'Top 5 dead chemists who died in really lousy ways'. A nice Top 5 to do I thought, so here we go. (Lavoisier was already number one in the Top 5 executed chemists so I decided not to include him.)

1) Ernest Julius Cohen (1869-1944) The Dutch physical chemist Cohen studied under Arrhenius, Moissan and wrote his thesis for a doctorate under J.H. van 't Hoff. Chemistry was a 'family-disease', his father Jacques was a chemist who had studied under Liebig and Bunsen. In 1901 Cohen was appointed extraordinary Professor of Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam, and Professor of Inorganic and General Chemistry at the university of Utrecht in 1902. He was the first president of IUPAC. He worked on allotropy of metals (worked out the chemistry of tin pest), photographic chemistry, electrochemistry and he wrote on science history.

In 1941 Cohen's property was seized by the German occupier and became a house for German officers. Friendly neighbors took him and his wife into their house. After May 1942 he had to wear the yellow star of David to show that he was a Jew. In 1943 he wanted to visit the laboratory but was arrested and taken prisoner because 'he wanted to enter a public building'. Cohen was taken to the concentration camp Vught. The Council of the Dutch Chemical Society approached the S.S. authorities leading to Cohen's release. Despite the advice of friends, Cohen refused to go into hiding, because 'he had done nothing wrong'. He was arrested again on Febuary 28 1944, and taken to concentration camp Westerbork. The efforts of his friends to have him released were in vain. On March 3 he was transported to Auschwitz. About 2 days later he died there in a Nazi gas chamber.

2) Thomas Midgley (1889-1944)
Chemist and mechanical engineer Midgely developed TEL additive to petrol and CFC's as refrigerants. His work on TEL resulted in lead poisoning, but he recovered. Polio disabled him in 1940. He designed a device with strings and pulleys to lift him from his bed. On November 2 1944 he was strangled by this machine.

3) Pierre Curie (1859–1906)
After a luch meeting on April 19, 1906 Pierre crosses Rue Dauphine in Paris during heavy snowfall. He was intercepted by a horse-drawn wagon with a heavy load of military supplies. Pierre's skull was crushed under the carriage wheel.

4) Karen Wetterhahn (1949-1997)
Professor of chemistry at Dartmouth College, Wetterhahn, spilled some dimethylmercury on her latex gloves on August 14, 1996. Five months later she began to have troubles with her speach and sense of balance. It turned out that the dimethylmercury had diffused through the gloves, and caused mercury poisining. she slipped into a coma and died June 8, 1997.

5) Dominique Burget (1965-2006)
A pressure vessel with ethene exploded in a research building of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Mulhouse, on March 24, 2006. Burget was working in a lab above, and was killed.