Episode 12: Surfing Deaths in Vigo County

Surfing Deaths in the Midwest? Dr. Roland Kohr Explores Two Unusual Vigo County Cases on the Latest Episode of Kohroner Chronicles

In the latest episode of Kohroner Chronicles, forensic pathologist Dr. Roland Kohr unpacks two bizare deaths in Vigo County that both fall under an unexpected category: "surfing" accidents, except these didn’t involve ocean waves.

With decades of experience unraveling medical mysteries, Dr. Kohr invites listeners to journey through forensic oddities, and this episode delivers a particularly haunting look at two tragic cases rooted in thrill-seeking behavior and dangerous trends.

A Surreal Case: Car Surfing in the Cornfields

Dr. Kohr opens the episode by painting a vivid scene: a quiet, rural dirt road flanked by Indiana cornfields becomes the unlikely setting for the first surfing-related death in the area.

“It involved a 14-year-old young man and an 18-year-old friend who used very poor judgment,” Dr. Kohr says somberly.

Emulating a stunt popularized in movies like Teen Wolf, the teenager had been “car surfing”,  standing on the hood of a moving car, using a makeshift strap looped across the hood to stabilize his feet. Tragedy struck when the driver lost control, flipped the car, and pinned the young surfer beneath it.

Dr. Kohr describes the victim’s autopsy findings in stark detail. Despite bruising, abrasions, and a broken collarbone, there were no major fractures or punctured organs. The cause of death? Compression asphyxia,  a condition where pressure on the chest prevents breathing.

“This young man suffocated because of the car laying across his chest. No help could reach him in time. It was a tragic death, and completely preventable,” Dr. Kohr explains.

An Alarming Trend: A Second Surfing Incident Weeks Later

Even more disturbing, says Dr. Kohr, is what happened next. Despite media coverage warning of the dangers, a group of college students attempted the same stunt weeks later. Again, the car flipped. This time, miraculously, no one died — although the vehicle caught fire after the crash.

“They got lucky,” Dr. Kohr says flatly. “But the judge didn’t see it that way. Some jail time was handed out, which, in my opinion, was appropriate.”

The original case became so medically interesting that Dr. Kohr submitted it for publication in a forensic journal and even had an artist render an illustration for academic presentations.

Elevator Surfing: An Urban Daredevil’s Demise

As if one surfing-related death in landlocked Indiana weren’t strange enough, Dr. Kohr recounts a second case, this time in the urban core of Terre Haute, inside a high-rise dormitory at Indiana State University.

The episode takes a darker tone as Dr. Kohr explains elevator surfing: forcing open the elevator doors and climbing onto the top of the elevator car for a joyride up and down the shaft.

“It mystifies me,” Dr. Kohr admits. “Why that’s considered exciting, I don’t know. But it’s real.”

The victim, a college student who had been drinking with friends, used a coat hanger to trigger the emergency latch and climbed onto the elevator car. But in the process of riding the elevator shaft, he accidentally tripped a maintenance switch designed to disable movement. The elevator froze, at its highest point.

Worse still, due to the alternating floor layout of the dormitory’s elevator shafts, the young man was trapped behind a cinderblock wall with no exit and no means of calling for help.

He was stuck in the darkened shaft, high above the ground," Dr. Kohr explains.  "There were cinderblock walls on three sides, and the open shaft on the fourth.  But rather than shouting for his accomplice to get help, he made the fatal mistake of thinking he could climb down the steel superstructure to the next door that could be forced open, two stories below."  He made it about halfway there before he was struck by the second elevator ascending the other shaft."

When he was finally found, it was too late.

A Pathologist’s Perspective: From Shock to Scholarship

While both deaths stemmed from reckless risk-taking, Dr. Kohr emphasizes the forensic importance of documenting and sharing these unusual cases.

“Every body has a story,” he says. “And when something this bizarre occurs, it’s important to share it with colleagues across the state, the country, even the world. Because if another forensic pathologist sees something similar, it might help solve a future case.”

Dr. Kohr admits that writing up a journal article isn’t the glamorous side of forensic work, but it’s vital. “These aren’t high-powered science experiments,” Dr. Kohr added. “But they do add to the greater body of knowledge, and hopefully, they prevent someone else from making the same fatal mistake.”