While we try not to think about it too much, our mortality is often just around the corner. Humans underestimate the dangers to themselves all the time, often putting themselves at unnecessary risk.
So one internet user wanted to know about the simple and generally avoidable risks people have subjected themselves to, often with lethal results. Netizens gave some insightful and often frightening tales of deaths that could be avoided. So read through and make sure to take some notes, it just might save your life. Remember to upvote your favorites and comment your own stories and suggestions.
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Basing test dummies on the proportions of the average man. Many women and children have died in car crashes because the seatbelt is up too high across their body or the airbag hits at the wrong angle because it was designed to expand to accommodate a taller person. Just wish SOMEONE figured out not everyone is the same size BEFORE people died
I'm 5'4" (162cm). I have to drive with the seat so close to the wheel that, if the airbag deploys, I'm at least getting a broken nose.
There's a super famous example which got made into a film eventually I think called open water
But the original story was a yacht was found sailing adrift with a baby aboard and no crew anywhere to be seen. No signs of panic were found. The baby was dehydrated but otherwise fine.
Eventually it was assumed that whilst at sea they went for a swim. The sides of yacht stick out of water quite high in place but on most boats the stern is lowered so you can climb into and out of the yacht from a tender (small dingy). This yacht was different and had a ladder lowered from the back.
This was either up or missing. But they couldnt get back on the boat and eventually drowned or were attacked by predators.
Now I never jump in without thinking about this. Because you can't ever garuntee the person behind won't do the same.
Imagine trying everything to get back to your screaming baby mere feet away and just being out of reach. It'd get dark. The wind might pick up and carry the boat away.
Those final moment would be agony from such a simple mistake
Not using a f*****g turn signal.
Also fun - using a turn signal but not following through with the indicated action.
While often we think of life-threatening situations as somewhat dramatic, involving at least a car, if not a natural disaster, the sad truth is that in most cases, it’s our body malfunctioning that gets us. In the developed world, heart disease, often manifesting as a heart attack, is one of the most common killers. In general, a healthy lifestyle is the most important, preventative measure, but this often comes too late, so it’s vital that people know and recognize the symptoms of an attack.
The first thing most people will jump to is chest pains. These are indicators of a heart attack, so please don’t ignore any random spasms of discomfort in this area. Pain in the arms and shoulder are symptoms as well, so be vigilant. If you are relatively healthy and have no other indicators, it could be nothing, but a heart attack isn’t one of those things to leave up to chance.
Go to hospital after almost drowning!!!! Water can still be in your lungs and kill u later!!
Baby in the backseat.
I’m in childcare and I’ll do some insane things to remember there’s a baby back there. Take my shoes off, put my phone back there, dirty diaper as a reminder.
People forget. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Mom, nanny, father, nurse, firefighter. It happens.
And yet there’s always someone who says “I’d never forget my baby”. And every year babies die because of it.
It definitely does happen when you have a lot on your mind and you're trying to remember everything, or just get lost in thought and feel like you're running a routine errand you don't normally have your baby with you. I think the daycare worker is being smart. Doesn't hurt anyone to make yourself not forget. That makes you self-aware and caring about the little ones that are in your care. Why would anyone shame anyone for taking preventative actions?!
Mao's idea to get rid of sparrows.
In short, Chinas great leader Mao had calculated that sparrows eat grain and if china got rid of them, they would have more food. So they did indeed decimate the sparrow population.
They did not consider that sparrows eat lots of insects aswell, which started to thrive. Including locusts. The locusts ate the grain, famine, between 16 and 30 million people died.
When he recognized his mistake, he asked the soviet union for help and they secretly shipped sparrows to china.
This is a bit a stretch though, lots of factors led to the famine, lots of mistakes were made. But of all of them, this was probably the most obviously stupid one.
Mao did a few things that caused famine. Just look up "the Great Leap Forward, an attempt to improve production (I think of steel or iron?) C'mon, let's all build a smelter on our back yard! When leaders do stupid things lots of people die.
But chances are most of you already know about heart attacks. However, did you know that the symptoms for men and women can be quite different? This is the unfortunate result of medical samples that aren't balanced by gender. Unexplained tiredness and nausea are more common signs for women but often go overlooked until it's too late. So understanding the symptoms and risk factors of a leading cause of death seems like a no-brainer, yet many people just don’t.
The most common cause of quadriplegia is diving into water without checking the depth of the water. Always check the water depth before you jump.
If you dive high enough, the water alone can cause serious injury upon impact. For a good split second it's like hitting a solid surface. I'm pretty adventurist and love thrills. One thing that's not on my bucket list is cliff diving. Does anyone check the depth and incline of the cliff before jumping off?
Not wearing a seatbelt
I don’t get why people don’t do this. It’s so easy and comes at no cost to you.
While less likely, people often underestimate the weight and risk factors of dying from a large, falling object. While modern fridges are quite stable, vending machines often aren’t due to the number of items inside that will vary over time. Of course, vending machines, notoriously, will end up with items stuck. So people will vent their frustration, unbalancing the machine that then falls and crushes the unlucky person.
Leaving the stranded vehicle on the road in winter and trying to walk to get help. It happens in rural parts of our province once or twice a year and they find the body a few days later. They get disoriented and freeze.
Similarly, getting stranded in the Outback and leaving your car to find help and dying from thirst in the oppressive heat
A man in Toronto wanted to show off to his colleagues about the new “shatter-proof” glass that was installed in their high-rise office, so he ran at the window full speed and threw all of his weight into it.
He fell to his death, because the entire window pane popped out.
Long, long ago I was on the crew of a submarine older than me. We went into the shipyard; one of the planned jobs was to install some new equipment that required a hull penetration. One Friday afternoon a shipyard worker drilled a 1/8 inch pilot hole through the hull, intending to come back on Monday to finish the job. The job got cancelled, he got reassigned, and the hole remained. It was covered with duct tape to keep dirt out.
The painters went ahead and sprayed over the tape.
How deep can a piece of duct tape + paint hold on a dive? About 218 feet. Before you ask, yes, we survived.
I’m not sure why, but this seems like an odd thing to do last thing on a Friday. “Five already? Time flies when you’re drilling one critical, potentially lethal hole. I’ll definitely come back to this Monday, even though apparently projects routinely get randomly cancelled”
While it seems straight out of a comedy or the Final Destination movies, vending machines cause less than a hundred deaths a year. Interestingly, the vast majority of these cases are caused by men, who seem to believe that violence against the machine will help them get their soda or candy bar. Still, the odds of dying to a vending machine are quite low, unless you take it upon yourself to fight one. Just remember, you will probably lose.
I worked at a tire place for a summer and the first thing they told me was “See that torque wrench ? One mistake with this and you can kill a whole family in a matter of seconds”. I thought well, better take this thing seriously
Just had a similar conversation about amusement rides tonight. Guy approached me in Wal-Mart to comment on my theme park hoodie. He works at the park; I worked there years ago. He goes "man, running rides is so easy, a monkey could do it." Sure, until you lean into that mentality, get careless and kill a kid. I had exactly one close call (not even out of carelessness, but it would have been Very Bad if I wasn't paying attention) and have been militant about ride safety ever since.
People outdoors getting amazed when their hair stands up during a thunderstorm.
PS: it means you're about to die.
It means you're about to be hit by lightning. Run to shelter!
A much more common, and unfortunately avoidable death is when a pedestrian inattentively crosses the road and gets hit by a car. In some cases, the driver is to blame, but in most collisions between a car and a person, you can guess who comes out worse. Mobile phones create enough distractions that let a person somehow not notice a multi-ton vehicle moving towards them. As a result, some counties, such as Lithuania, have passed laws against using a phone when on the street at any time.
Pulling the knife out of someone
If someone has been stabbed with a knife or has another stabbing wound that has the item in PLEASE DONT PULL IT OUT!!!
Mixing cleaning ingredients.
I once had a coworker who told me she mixed bleach and ammonia. I told her that made a deadly gas and it shouldn't be done. She said they opened windows when they used it. She acted like I was crazy for thinking that was stupid.
Near me there was a serious traffic collision. Several cars and 2 trucks. 3 people died when one truck ploughed into stationary traffic at around 50mph. The crash and resulting fire was so horrific 2 people were only identified by their dead dog on the carriageway (it was microchipped).
It was on the BBC news and have been documentaries about it.
The truck driver was on his phone. He was charged and is now in prison.
That all heart attacks have the exact same symptoms. They don't.
Trust yourself and seek help ASAP if you are afraid that you're having a heart attack.
Female heart attack survivor here... The chest pain I experienced was fairly mild and felt more like heartburn. I also felt lightheaded and really tired, and felt an overwhelming sense of impending doom. (Mine was a 90% blockage in the right coronary artery. Oddly, all my other arteries were absolutely clear.)
Oily paint/staining rags will combust.
Per the internets:
"Spontaneous combustion of oily rags occurs when rag or cloth is slowly heated to its ignition point through oxidation. A substance will begin to release heat as it oxidizes. If this heat has no way to escape, like in a pile, the temperature will rise to a level high enough to ignite the oil and ignite the rag or cloth."
My Dad worked in construction and this had happened on job sites a time or two.
Not leaving where you are during a hurricane.
Saw a weather reporter standing outside in a hurricane in Florida get hit in the head by a flying Stop sign. Pretty stupid way to get ratings!
The “I had the right of way” argument while driving.
Even if you did, are you willing to literally… die on that hill?
As a cyclist I always stop when I notice a truck about to make a right turn even if I have the right of way, I’d rather be late than flat. I also stop if cars do the slowly rolling forward thing instead of stopping at a crossing: either stop or go on, don’t friggin’ roll at me!
Drinking while taking medications
Another ill-informed assumption. Very few medications actually react badly with alcohol, vanishingly few of them will do serious harm. Yes, there are some where the effects of alcohol can be increased, but the main reason that most meds (and particularly most antibiotics) carry an 'avoid alcohol' warning is that a person drinking too much might vomit or forget to take it. Source:pharmacologist.
Not checking and planning for the weather
And not RESPECTING the weather. Mother Nature is one fierce lady.
Cutting towards yourself, rather than away.
Being on statins for high cholesterol plus amiodarone for cardiac issues and having a glass of grapefruit juice before going to bed.
Smoking in bed.
former paramedic
Getting fired up from road rage.
There was a news story last year about a guy who thought it would be a good idea to brandish a handgun during his (frequent) attacks of road rage. He thought it was funny to make the occupants of the other think that were about to die. One day he followed a driver that had pissed him off somehow, and pulled his gun out as he was getting out of his car. The other driver had a gun too. Mr. road rage was shot and killed. Guess what country this happened in?
Not having a carbon monoxide detector
Not being honest with doctors about viagra.
It has many dangerous drug interactions and can cause a lot of problems from what I’ve heard. Trust me the doctor ain’t gonna judge you guys, they have seen much more embarrassing things. And it would suck to die because you wanted to hide something just for it to be later stated in your death certificate.
Seriously, don't be embarrassed to get things checked out. Health care professionals have a whole other level of what is weird or gross. Don't believe me? Google weird things doctors have had to pull out of people's bums. Whole other level.
As a healthcare worker, giving the wrong amount of insulin.
It’s so easy for something to go wrong. I had several incidents while in hospital for 3 months. Twice someone came to give me a shot of morphine, and I was luckily awake enough to point out I’d just had one. Or when they kept giving me laxatives every morning, even on the mornings we’d just established I had terrible diarrhea. Not all of the nurses, but a lot of them just did whatever the computer said after scanning my bracelet without thinking it through at all. And the communication was terrible.
Nigerian Airlines flight 2120 (operated by Nationair) departed Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, after a maintenance worker reinflated a tyre with air instead of Nitrogen. The tyre heated up, burst, and caught fire during the take off roll. The landing gear was retracted into the aircraft and burned the airfract from the inside out. The fire caused a mid air structural failure shortly before the pilots could return to Jeddah. My father's first wife was a flight attended on that flight. Her and 260 others died. It remains the most deadly aviation accident involving a Canadian airline.
The Wikipedia entry claims there were 2 underinflated tyres when the aircraft departed. There's no mention of air being used in lieu of nitrogen: "Prior to departure, the lead mechanic had noticed that the "No. 2 and No. 4 tyre pressures were below the minimum for flight dispatch",[7] and attempted to inflate them, but no nitrogen gas was readily available. The project manager, unwilling to accept a delay, disregarded the problem and readied the aircraft for dispatch.[5] As the aircraft was taxiing, the transfer of the load from the underinflated No. 2 tire to the No. 1 tire on the same portside axle resulted "in overdeflection, overheating, and structural weakening of the No. 1 tire".[7] "The No. 1 tire failed very early on the take-off roll," followed almost immediately by the No. 2.[7] The latter stopped rotating "for reasons not established", and the subsequent friction of the wheel assembly with the runway generated sufficient heat to start a self-sustaining fire"
I once listened to a guy telling the story of how, when he fell down the stairs, he desperately clutched onto the glas of wine he was carrying, in order not to break it, instead of grabbing the railing to stop his fall. He survived with a broken hip, but I imagine lots of people probably have the same weird instinct and some may not be able to tell the tale.
My grandfather once broke an arm slipping on ice, but he saved the pizza.
Grabbing what you already have a grip on is a common reaction for a lot of people. I expect that everybody here has seen a video of somebody who didn't let go of a motorcycle throttle.
That's why you should already put one hand on the railing while using stairs. If you slip, you'll grip the railing and catch your fall. I have fibromyalgia, sometimes my muscles just give out and I fall. I was taught this in physio therapy. That's also why people with insecure footing should use a walking stick. It really helps keeping the balance
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It may sound kind of terrible but I was once taught by a safety instructor that if you are holding a glass (he used of water as an example) in your hand and you begin falling downstairs, throw the glass towards the top of the stairs. This is so that you have both arms to protect yourself but also don't land on broken glass when you reach the bottom.
Then again, I tried to grab the railing and broke two fingers...
My fiancée's grandfather died while trying to put a window in his house. He was on a ladder when the wind caught his window. He didn't let go of the window when the wind caught it and caused him to fall. He would have been able to stay safely on the ladder if he had dropped the window.
My uncle sat in his lawn chair near the river, it tipped backwards to the river, and as he was tipping over, he handed his drink my aunt, " save my drink.... SPLASH!" He was fine, and his drink survived.
My dad fell down a flight of marble stairs clutching his (back then) brand new stereo as a pre teen. He has a scar on the back of his head with no hair on it to this day (he's 63)
I had a similar accident on my bike. Apparently it’s a common occurance that you tighten your grip to whatever you are holding rather than react with your hands. Had I reacted with my hands and not gripped the steering wheel tighter, I would not have the facial scar I have today. It’s instinct. It’s a totally different thing if your hands are empty. Then you’re likely to grab the first thing you can
That's something my friend learned the hard way. He was being silly and as I was watching over a cliff, he gave me a nudge(as if to push me over), and the instinct to grab something for safety made it so that I aggressively grabbed his balls.
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Slipped and fell a few years ago and busted my arm bad enough that it still gives me trouble on occasion and getting to a point where I could even hold a pen took some doing (it was my dominant hand of effing course). My phone and laptop were perfectly protected though. 😅
In Italy we say " a falling knife has no handle ".. sometime you have to fight with yourself and your instinct not to grab the wrong thing .. sometime you have to let break the thing
I'm a train driver and one cold winter morning the pantograph was frozen stuck. So I used the approved pole (glasfiber so not conducting, but seriously do not be anywhere near the wires if you're not educated on this) to shake it loose. The pole slipped and instead of letting go I held on and almost got my shoulder dislocated.
The instinct may have been something akin to glass breaks and if I land on a shard and cut my throat open I will die. Probably due to what's hammered into our heads as kids. Accidentally broke a glass and dad shouted like it's the apocalypse to WATCH OUT ITS DANGEROUS! but then we see people falling down stairs on TV and it's often portray as comedy for laughs or the people who fall end up with a broken wrist or something. So when the day comes and it's railing or glass I would probably instinctively choose glass due to my dad's glass freak outs when I was a kid.
I pulled a thigh muscle when my foot slipped out from under me when descending stairs. Didn't drop the baby though!
this is the instinct you want to preserve if you're holding a baby though! my mum tells the story of my dad bruising his leg and hip pretty bad tripping down a few stairs holding baby me rather than trying to stop his fall.
My brother rolled his car 3 times (at once, not different times). When he landed upright on the wheels he was still holding his coffee cup.
Tripped outside a bar holding my drink and smoke. Hurt myself but never dropped my drink or broke my ciggie hehe
As a teen I slipped on some ice with an old school video camera in my hand, but I knew fighting the fall would make things worse. I straightened my back, tilled my neck forward to avoid hitting the back of my head, and held my arms and the camera up (no point in breaking it or smashing my elbows. Got the wind knocked out of me, but at least I didn't land on and vertebrata.
I also dropped a hot iron once; first reflex was to try to catch it, but I stopped myself at the last second. Better to damage a $25 appliance than burn my hands.
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You can replace the glass, but not so easy to replace a damaged body part.
I’ve told my son that if you start falling, down stairs or otherwise, ditch whatever’s in your arms cause it’s not worth your life.
I once heard of a guy who worked as a server. He was trained to "toe" a dropped glass by moving his foot under it to break the fall. He quit and went to work for a steel place, where he instinctively "toed" a dropped steel plate.
There have been too many instances of rock climbers rappelling off of the ends of their ropes, which could have been easily avoided by tying stopper knots at the ends of their ropes.
Did anyone else have nightmares after watching that documentary, "Free Solo," about the climber Alex Honnold who does it without ropes?
Shaking a vending machine
More Americans, in America, were killed by vending machines during the Iraq/Afghanistan War than by terrorists.
A friend’s husband locked himself out of their home. He tried to get in through a window that had security bars. While squeezing through his foot slipped and he essentially hung himself on the window sill.
I read an article a long time ago about a aircraft maintenance worker not removing a piece of tape that was put in place to protect a sensor during cleaning. The pilot failed to notice during the preflight inspection. 70 people died in the plane crash.
I remember seeing that on one of those Air Crash Investigations shows
Yak walking. Stop walking and yakking on your dang phone! Oblivious people on their phone have walked in front of trains. It's also a good way to mugged because you're unaware of your surroundings. Also, shut up and DRIVE!
But my yak isn't going to walk itself /jk 🫣
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Never drive into a flooded road. You do not know the depth nor the current. Don't assume because you live nearby. I see it all the time in my neighborhood. The cops set up barriers and people move them. Knock on my door for help, I say nope. One time a lady was in a Porsche. We tried to stop her, car totaled. When we're helping the PD, we tell folks... it's deeper than you think. I can't tell if people are stupid, a******s, or both.
To sum up: we are lucky to be alive, because we are surrounded by idiots.
Yak walking. Stop walking and yakking on your dang phone! Oblivious people on their phone have walked in front of trains. It's also a good way to mugged because you're unaware of your surroundings. Also, shut up and DRIVE!
But my yak isn't going to walk itself /jk 🫣
Load More Replies... Never drive into a flooded road. You do not know the depth nor the current. Don't assume because you live nearby. I see it all the time in my neighborhood. The cops set up barriers and people move them. Knock on my door for help, I say nope. One time a lady was in a Porsche. We tried to stop her, car totaled. When we're helping the PD, we tell folks... it's deeper than you think. I can't tell if people are stupid, a******s, or both.
To sum up: we are lucky to be alive, because we are surrounded by idiots.
