Joe the Plumber dies in freak plumbing accident...
Joe the Plumber, dead at 39
November 5, 2012 - Joe the Plumber, who rose to fame after an impromptu encounter with Barack Obama on the 2008 campaign trail, and was locked in a tight race for Ohios 9th district Congressional seat, is dead. Early reports indicate he died in a freak plumbing accident while campaigning outside of Toledo.
Joe the Plumber, dead at 39
November 5, 2012 - Joe the Plumber, who rose to fame after an impromptu encounter with Barack Obama on the 2008 campaign trail, and was locked in a tight race for Ohios 9th district Congressional seat, is dead. Early reports indicate he died in a freak plumbing accident while campaigning outside of Toledo.
Joes death throws the race for the Congressional seat into disarray. His opponent, incumbent Marcy Kaptur, has issued a statement expressing condolences to Joe the Plumbers family but so far he campaign has said nothing about the effect of his death on the election, now just a day away.
Information about the circumstances surrounding the death is limited. According to witnesses at the scene of a rally this morning in downtown Maumee, the candidate was speaking to the crowd when a nearby fire hydrant began leaking and flooding the street. He just stopped speaking, left the podium, and ran down the street to his plumbing van, said Mark West, who was attending the rally. He came running back with a giant plumbers wrench and a greasy rag. But by then the crowd around him was too thick and I couldnt see him anymore.
Jerry Smith, a Kaptur supporter who came to heckle the bald-headed phony says Joe attempted to tighten the valve on the fire hydrant but couldnt stop the leak. His face was bright red, his muscles were bulging, and a vein on his shiny forehead seemed ready to explode, she said. Some witnesses claim that what started out as a relatively small leak grew into a fast-rushing torrent soon after Joe the Plumber arrived at the scene. Hundreds of gallons of water gushed onto the streets and flooded several nearby stores as Joe wrestled with the hydrant.
The epic struggle between man and fire hydrant continued for over ten minutes before the Maumee fire department arrived on the scene, but by then it was too late. Joe the Plumber lay on the ground, in a pool of water, his plumbers wrench held tight in his cold, dead hands like Charlton Heston holding a rifle, as one witness put it. The exact cause of death is pending investigation.
Joe the Plumber, dead at 39 « Joe the Plumber 2012