Pranks are by definition meant to be funny. However, if they don’t go according to plan, the prankster and the person on who the prank is carried out can face ugly consequences. Sometimes taking these innocent risks of doing pranks can come at the cost of sacrificing somebody’s life. The following is a list of 10 such pranks that went horribly wrong and harmed people.

1 A 44-year-old man, Randy Lee Tensley, in 2012 executed a crazy idea of scaring the travelers passing by on Montana’s Highway 93. He impersonated a bigfoot by dressing up in a military-style ghillie suit hoping they would think they’d witnessed the mythical animal. The man was run over by two cars driven by teens and lost his life after suffering from severe injuries.

The ghillie suit is an outfit often used by military snipers or hunters to camouflage themselves. It is designed to resemble dense and thick foliage. Tensley used this type of suit to pull a prank on travelers on the Montana two-lane highway.

Before he was struck by two cars, a couple of people reported sighting a bigfoot on the highway on 26 August 2012.

He was already injured in the middle of the road when a teenager struck him for the second time. It was indeed a scary sight for her at 10:30 p.m. on a Sunday night near Flathead Lake, in northwestern Montana.

Tensley was reported dead at the scene. After his death, both the drivers were investigated to try to determine if they were culpable in any sense, but the odds of that were extremely low. The officer agreed that the ones that are unfamiliar with the ghillie suit are likely to assume that they were actually witnessing a bigfoot or sasquatch. (Source)

2 Adrian Broadway, a 15-year-old from Little Rock, Arkansas with her friends, egged, toilet-papered, and smeared mayonnaise on a car. When they were about to flee, the owner of the vehicle, Willie Nobel, busted out of his house angrily and fired his gun at the teens’ car. Broadway was shot with a bullet in her head and died. Nobel was sentenced to prison for 30 years.

On a Saturday morning of 15 February 2014, the group was on a retaliating prank mission. The Little Rock Police Department said that their intention was to prank back the teen who had pranked them earlier on Halloween.

To do that, they made a mess out of a car parked near that teen’s house. Little did they know that this could go terribly wrong. When the 48-year-old owner of the car, Nobel, opened fire on teens, Broadway died immediately and one of her friends was severely injured. The driver’s right arm was wounded and was taken to a hospital where he was treated and eventually released.

However, the madman Nobel was charged with first-degree murder, acts of terrorism, and five counts of aggravated assault. After his arrest, he was assigned a bond of $1 million. (Source)

3 In 2003, Mark Drewes, a 16-year-old in Boca Raton, Florida, was shot dead while playing a ding-dong-ditch prank. He was ringing bells on every door in his neighborhood and running away. Drewes was shot dead when he was hovering around Jay Levin’s home. Levin claimed that he thought the teen was an armed intruder, but he was sentenced to jail for 52 weekends.

On 25 October 2003, Drewes was annoying his neighbors as a part of his birthday plan. One of his friends was with Drewes who witnessed his death.

When they reached 40-year-old Levin’s place, Drewes took the lead and his friend was waiting nearby. Drewes tapped on Levin’s windows and knocked on his door and didn’t run. Levin came out of his home with a pistol and didn’t know it was a game. He thought Drewes was armed and fired on him.

It was quiet in the streets at the midnight, but no one even heard the gunshot. His friend saw that Drewes had been shot and yelled for help. Soon, Drewes was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

After a few months, Levin was sentenced to jail and was also made to pay $750,000 to Drewes’ parents. (1, 2)

4 A train prank went wrong in 2015, and a teenager was burned to death. Ashley Mathew, a 19-year-old, dangled from a bridge over a railway depot and suffered burns over 84% of his body when his left ankle hit the 2500,000-volt cable. The teenager was trying to jump on a moving train.

Ashley’s brother Jake and his friends were filming during the prank. They fled in panic as soon as he caught his ankle in the cable and faced electrocution. The victim was taken to the hospital immediately but couldn’t survive for more than a day.

Ashley sneaked into a rail freight depot in Walsall in the UK and was intending to hop on the train. He was filming throughout the stunt from the time he climbed on the bridge to the horrifying ending scene.

The electrocution happened with a loud sound and a white flash. He was still conscious in the hospital and gave an account of what happened, describing it as an accident. However, his story was proven untrue when his brother came out and revealed footage and explained the real incident. (Source)

5 On a stag party on a river cruise in Portugal, a 31-year-old best man died when he was thrown overboard during a prank. Nishanthan Gnanathas hit his head on a wire balustrade when he was pushed from the yacht into the Lisbon River Tagus.

Gnanathas had organized the event for his friend Youssef Ismail’s first anniversary. It was his idea to have a stag party on that day. The host didn’t know how this would turn out until he was pushed by one of the party invites named Andre van Eck.

Eck asserted that he asked the captain if it’s okay to throw the best man overboard. After the approval, he picked Gnanathas and threw him in the water.

At that moment, the victim grabbed the rails that turned on him and hit the side of the boat. He went unconscious when he hit the water and never resurfaced. The best man was not found when others dived in as well.

The deceased’s family had to wait for six days before their son’s body was recovered after an intense search conducted by police boats and helicopters. There were no signs of attack or other injuries on the victim’s body.

Gnanathas was thrown overboard first simply because he was the best man. There were no ulterior motives at all. (Source)