14 DAY TRIAL // The online community is now abuzz with the news that, this past Monday, a man in the US used nothing but a chain and his car to commit suicide by tearing off his own head.
First off, fair warning: this piece of news is nothing short of shocking and fairly gruesome, so, should you decide to go on reading, proceed with caution.
This is because the details concerning the circumstances in which this man lost his life are bound to upset some people. These being said, here is how this most shocking suicide played out.
According to media reports, the man whose suicide is now making headlines was named Tomas Rivera. He was from Port Jarvis, a city in Orange County, New York, US, and was only 51 years old when he decided to end his life.
By the looks of it, it was in the early hours of the morning, at about 9:30 a.m., that the man tied one end of a chain to a pole close to an intersection in Bronx, the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City, US.
The police officers in charge of handling this case say that, after securing the chain from the pole, the man proceeded to wrap the other end around his head. After tying his head, he got into his car, a 2005 Honda CRV.
Without too much hesitation, 51-year-old Tomas Rivera then hit the gas pedal. The car shot forward almost immediately. Seeing how his head was tied to the chain and the chain was tied to the pole, the man was decapitated on the spot.
Otherwise put, the chain pretty much tore his head off. At the time police officers arrived at the scene, there was nothing else to do but pronounce the man dead and keep passers-by from laying eyes on his lifeless body.
The New York Daily News tells us that, after the man was decapitated by the chain he himself had placed around his neck, the 2005 Honda CVR went haywire. The vehicle ended up hitting a parked vehicle, but nobody was injured.
Word has it that, at first, police officers and folks who got to catch a glimpse of the decapitated corpse assumed that 51-year-old Tomas Rivera had lost his life in a tragic traffic accident. It was only later that authorities figured out what had actually happened.
For the time being, it is unclear why this man saw fit to put an end to his life in this gruesome manner. An investigation is ongoing, and police officers promise that as soon as they have more information, they will provide a more detailed account of this incident.