A New York man who was described by those who knew him as "extremely superstitious", is dead tonight, after he inadvertently walked under a ladder.
Frank Ouija, 87, died in hospital on Saturday after a long and painful battle with illness, but told the members of his family gathered around his bedside that his death, which he knew was imminent, was entirely due to the ladder he had walked under in 1965.
Having carefully avoided black cats straying across his path, and stepping on the cracks in the sidewalk, Frank came out of a convenience store one day, and, examining his receipt, failed to notice a windowcleaner up a ladder, until he'd walked underneath it.
"Some spots of water fell on the sidewalk beside me," Frank told his son, Elijah, 62. "I knew right there and then, that it would end like this."
And he was right.
