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Now I know I'm old, because the headline refers to CFCs by symptom than by name...

(Wikipedia article about the guy behind them, no one-trick pony: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr.)

>In 1940, at the age of 51, Midgley contracted poliomyelitis, which left him severely disabled. This led him to devise an elaborate system of strings and pulleys to help others lift him from bed. This was the eventual cause of his own death when he was entangled in the ropes of this device and died of strangulation at the age of 55

Wow.

Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley “had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth’s history”,[19] and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed “an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny”.[20]

He died as he lived: by regrettable inventions.

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