Student Flung to his Death by Catapult

An Oxford University student was killed in a bizarre stunt after he was hurled 30 metres through the air by a human catapult, an inquest has heard.

Kostydin Yankov, 19, suffered multiple injuries when he missed a safety net after being flung from a medieval-style trebuchet catapult.

The biochemistry student, known as Dino, was part of the university's extreme sports club - the Oxford Stunt Factory - which visited the trebuchet site in Somerset's Middlemoor Water Park in November 2002.

Mr Yankov, from Bulgaria, had been one of five members from the club to use the trebuchet on November 24.

The inquest in Taunton heard how the trebuchet was a medieval siege weapon favoured by the Romans that had also been used to fire plague-ridden corpses and other missiles over castle ramparts.

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