Well... I'm not sure anyone deserves something like that to happen to them!

(Except of course, those scumbags known as ISIS. But nobody else really deserves such a fate.)

Don't forget that grasping tightly to objects, especially at a moment of danger, is a common human (primate) reflex.

When someone's sleeping, if they are holding an object in their hand, and you try to slowly slide it away from them, in many cases their hand will automatically grasp it tightly.

This is a reflex we inherited from our primate ancestors, who evolved it, so that they were less likely to fall out of trees while sleeping. (Their hands would just automatically grasp a branch tightly...)

I've also seen the same reflex happen when people are first learning to water ski, and their instinct is to hold the tow-bar tightly, even after wiping out, so they end getting dragged underwater for a little ways, before it finally dawns on them to negative that natural reflex and just let go!