Garry Hoy

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Garry Hoy (born 1955, died 9 July 1993) was a lawyer for the law firm of Holden Day Wilson in Toronto. Managing partner Peter Lauwers described him as "one of the best and the brightest."

Hoy became famous for an accident in 1993, where he threw himself through a glass wall on the 24th story of the Toronto-Dominion Centre in an attempt to prove that the glass was "unbreakable."^[1] He had apparently attempted this stunt many times in the past, having previously bounced off the glass, harmlessly. On July 9, 1993, he attempted his trick for a group of summer interns when the glass broke and he fell to his death.

In the words of Toronto Police Service Detective Mike Stowell:

"At this Friday night party, Mr. Hoy did it again and bounced off the glass the first time. However, he did it a second time and this time crashed right through the middle of the glass."

His firm tried to spin Hoy's stunt as a quasi-scientific investigation of the tensile strength of the window. This failed when people noticed that he had performed his 'experiment' during an after-hours party at which alcohol was being served to law students. Nobody accused Hoy of being drunk, and it seems likely that he was trying to show off for the interns.

[edit] In popular culture

Hoy's "experiment" has been recreated by Mythbusters in the episode "Vacuum Toilet, Biscuit Bazooka, Leaping Lawyer".

For his dramatic death, Hoy was recognized with a Darwin Award^[2] in 1996.

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

• The Globe and Mail, December 18th, 1995
• Toronto Star, July 12th, 1993