Thomas Midgely the industrial scientist who brought us both leaded gasoline, which poisoned the earth and ruined the health of countless millions, and chlorofluorocarbons, which depleted the ozone layer and... well you know. He died before he truly knew what harm he'd done to the world when he, perhaps ironically, was killed by his own invention: he was strangled by a contraption he'd built to help him while he was convalescing with polio.