TRIPOLI – An autopsy performed on the body of Muammar Gaddafi revealed that the former Libyan premier died not from a gunshot wound as was originally believed but instead from blunt force trauma sustained when he tripped over the spelling of his own name. He promptly went tumbling down the stairs in his Sirte safe house, causing internal injuries from which he would not recover.

One of Gaddafi’s right hand men, Tarek Al-Abgari, confirmed this finding. “He was just standing at the top of the stairs, shouting ‘all power to Gaddafi!’ when he suddenly stopped. “’Or wait,’ I remember him saying, ‘is it GA-daffi or KHA-daffi with that hard throaty sound?’ As he contemplated this his legs began to wobble and we all began to worry for his safety.”

Al-Abgari claimed that he, along with Gaddafi’s other assistants, attempted to move in and steady their leader, but they failed when they too had to stop and contemplate the proper spelling of his name. “I was reading the New York Post the other day and they used ‘Khadafy,’” Al-Abgari remembers thinking, “and I had to ruminate about whether or not it was kosher to just substitute in the y at the end like that.”

Gaddafi finally lost his balance as he tripped over the symbols used in the written form of his name. “What is that squiggly thing over the second a in ‘Gaddafi,’” Al-Abgari remembers him saying, “and how do you pronounce the apostrophe in ‘Mu’ammahhaaaaaaaaahhoofowoofowuh—” Gaddafi could have been saved with immediate attention, but his aides were too busy attempting a Sporcle quiz that asked for every acceptable spelling of Gaddafi’s name and thus could not attend to their leader.

In other news, a Gaddafi sympathizer died of asphyxiation after the sounds of his choking were mistaken for a mourning cry of “Gaddafi!” and thus not given proper medical action.