As usual, after Apple’s release of OS X 10.1.5 last week, user reports of issues with the new operating system began to come in to sites such as MacInTouch and MacFixIt. Amongst the normal complaints about bugs with video out, networking and other particulars, was a disturbing bug report indicating the operating system update killed a guy in Sacramento.
Sandwiched between user reports entitled “Where are my fucking Dock settings?” and “Yes, there are so speed improvements, God damn it!” on MacInTouch, is a report stating “10.1.5 causes kernel panic and sudden, unexplainable death.”
Submitted by Ken Ressler, a 43-year-old system administrator at the University of California’s Sacramento campus, the report claims 10.1.5 killed a student intern at the school. Ressler says 19-year-old James Denman had just begun installing the update on a computer in the school’s lab when a kernel panic occured.
At the very same moment, Denman, experiencing some sort of unknown internal failure of his own, clutched at his chest and fell to the floor.
When Ressler reached his side, Denman could only choke out “It… was… the update!” before expiring.
A similar posting by Ressler on MacFixIt speculated that a “non-standard” PCI card installed in the machine may have been the cause of the kernel panic and/or the homocide.
A search through Apple’s Knowledgebase turned up only a vague reference that “the potential for loss of life exists with any operating system update on a machine that contains non-Apple brand components. Use only Apple-brand Apple components in your Apple Macintosh Apple Computer. Apple.”
In accordance with school policy, Ressler buried Denman in a shallow grave behind the Student Co-op.