Sorry - here goes a novel.
In life we're all subject to death, loss and injury. This is beyond our control and humour is just one way of shaking off the dread.
It seems to me whenever something of this sort happens we first bow our heads in horror and respect ... and then after a while the "inappropriate jokes" start arrive - seep in really. At first told among people who know each other well, with guilty glee, later publicly as the incident starts to fade in time.
Timing, then seems to be of the essence.
"death smiles to us all - all a man can do is smile back" says Russel Crowe in gladiator.
Van Helsing - in the original Dracula - when all seems black and innocent loved ones have been slain suddenly bursts out laughing all the good men present are horrified that he should be laughing at such a grave moment. He responds that when king laughter knocks on the door there is nothing a man can do and goes on to explain that he was not laughing at the victim or the pain of the relatives - but in horror at Man's sad fate and essential helplessness.
Gallows humour. Look thee to Shakespeare or the Icelandic sagas.
Paramedics and people who clean up subway suicides develop raw physical humour. Are they callous - or struggling to face a callous reality?
For all intents and purposes the modified verb struck me as funny in a grotesque and possibly rude way. I can see why some would feel offended. Personally I don't.
With my own grieves I hope to be able arrive at the "Van Helsing state" and laugh it up through clenched teeth, accepting the horror of mortality that underscores the frantic beauty of every breath we take.
And that has nothing to do with lack of sympathy for the suffering (note that the frase was coined by the victim of a harrowing experience).
"Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee".
There, enough with the semiremembered literary references. I'm off to Sharm El Sheik to make the best of it. Pray I don't get ... stung.