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It isn't often we have occasion to employ the term accidental self-defenestration in an article, but that phrase certainly applies to the case of Garry Hoy, a 38-year-old lawyer with the Toronto law firm of Holden Day Wilson, who on 9 July 1993 plunged to his death from the 24th floor of the Toronto-Dominion Bank Tower building at TD Centre in front of several horrified witnesses: For motivations that remain unclear to this day Hoy had apparently developed a fondness for showing off the tensile strength of office building windows (and/or demonstrating his fearless trust in that aspect of building design) by running and hurling himself at window panes in front of onlookers, who would watch a stunt that always ended with Hoy's bouncing off of the window panes, leaving both glass and lawyer unharmed. On a fateful day in 1993, however, Hoy attempted his feat in front of a group of prospective legal apprentices with disastrous results: Apparently the first attempt came off as usual with Hoy harmlessly rebounding off the window, but when Hoy threw himself against the pane a second time, it popped out of its frame and sent Hoy fatally tumbling 24 stories to the courtyard below. The firm's spokesperson said Hoy ... was testing the strength of the window. There was a lot of joking about how the window wouldn't open maybe on a hot day ... Apparently, it was the second attempt [at testing the window] that one of them popped out and he went through. As well, a Toronto police officer reported that Hoy ... was showing his knowledge of the tensile strength of window glass and presumably the glass gave way. I know the frame and the blinds are still there. As the Torontoist reported of the incident years later: Sadly, Hoy's tragic accident led not only to his own demise but was also a contributing factor in the closure a few years later of the firm that had employed him: Our advice is to apply the same rule to architecture as you do to computers: Don't ever bet your life on windows not crashing.
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