Ow, His Balls!

So there’s a wild story emerging that one of the fatalities among the invaders of the Capitol the other day — the one who died of cardiac arrest — supposedly triggered his own heart attack by accidentally tasering himself in the balls while stealing a painting of Tip O’Neil:

He attempted to remove a large painting of Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, speaker of the house in the 80s, but in reaching up to remove the painting, activated the taser in his pants pocket. This subjected his testicles to the full force of the electric blast, and with the switch continually pressed by the fold in his trousers, delivered many shocks there, one following another.

Even the heart of a great patriot could not withstand such an attack and he died of cardiac arrest, possibly with the painting of O’Neill draped over his lifeless form.

To be honest, this is just a Twitter rumor, with no solid source that I can find, fleshed out with additional lurid details that appear to have no sourcing whatsoever. So, upon sober assessment, it’s probably not true. But it’s funny!

Were his last words were “Ow, my balls!” do you suppose?

Update: And here’s Snopes to spoil all our fun. They actually called her widow (awkward) who denied the entire story. I’ll admit I wouldn’t weight her denial very highly by itself, but apparently the New York Times (no link because paywall) corroborates her:

An article published by the New York Times and written by Adam Goldman depicted the events leading up to [the man’s] death, corroborating [his] wife’s account. A reporter for the publication was near [him] when he “fell to the sidewalk” while on the phone.

“A New York Times reporter watched as emergency personnel rushed to help, furiously performing chest compressions, but were unable to revive him,” wrote the publication.