Strange Fact # 06

My boss, who by all intents and purposes should have been a full-fledged doctor, personally witnessed the death of Jim Henson (creator of The Muppets and Sesame Street, among many others) on May 16, 1990.

It was not, as urban legend goes, the result of Jim's refusal to take penicillin or any kind of medicine for a minor infection because he was into Scientology.

The truth is as my boss explains: "he had a rare form of streptoccoccus (stepsis) that only affects one out of 10,000 people. This kind of disease takes on the symptoms of an ordinary sore throat, but when left untreated, it becomes fatal. (Jim) thought it was just a sore throat, so he left it alone."

"By the time his family rushed him to our emergency room (Lenix Hill Hospital in New York), it was already too late. I was there when they were trying to revive him."