1 month ago
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I like to write about death...like, a lot...
If you could sense a theme, I'm fascinated by the many obscure ways we can die. As morbid as it sounds, it brings me peace knowing that death is inevitable for all of us. However, I'm still blown away by the random things that can bring your life to an end. So when Reddit user Medical_Option7769 asked the internet, "What can kill you in seconds that most people don’t realize?" I dove deep into the rabbit hole.
Here are 24 unexpectedly dangerous things that we should all be aware of:
1. "Crowd crush. There are videos on the science of crowd crushes. It's a good tool to have in the kit, just in case."
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"I was in a very brief and very small crowd crush once at a festival, and it was the most terrifying experience of my life. I vividly remember thinking, 'So this is how people die in crushes.' I could never imagine how they happened or how they could lead to death. They are so immediate, and you can do absolutely nothing about them. Horrendous."
2. "If your toilet breaks while sitting on it."
"This happened once whilst I was brushing my toddler’s teeth. The toilet seat exploded into lots of razor-sharp plastic shards. Walked away unharmed from it, but there are a lot of areas down there that don’t take lightly to getting sliced."
3. "Letting your medium-to-large dogs act like idiots around pools/ponds/lakes/docks while people are swimming, and allowing them to jump toward or onto people without correction. When I was a kid, my best friend and her family had a lab that was obsessed with the pool and would become extremely excited when the family went swimming, just hurdling at the people in the pool trying to play. They all thought it was hilarious until one day the dog collided with the back of her dad’s head and snapped his neck. He died instantly in the pool right there in front of his kids."
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"I see people post videos of their dogs acting like that around pools all the time, and they always think it’s so cute/funny… All I see is my friend’s dad lying dead in the pool."
5. "Flash flood from a geological event. No warning, it just comes at you."
PRABIN RANABHAT / Getty Images
6. "Cold water. Jump into deep water on a summer day, and you might not come back up. Might cause a cardiac arrest or just involuntarily open your mouth, lungs fill with water, and that's it."
7. "Urban exploration, such as abandoned buildings and ships. Anywhere that has potential for enclosed spaces with lots of rust. Without the proper equipment, you could be dead before you realize your mistake."
Mike Beverley / Getty Images
"That's also not including the possibility of running into hydrogen sulfide gas and floor collapses. A young girl fell four stories through a roof because it collapsed while she was on it. Over time, the floors weaken in the center.
There are ways to mitigate all this stuff, obviously. You can carry a gas sensor and a hydrogen sulfide escape kit, because if your sensor goes off, it could be dangerous in an instant."
9. "Furniture like dressers. This is why everything from Ikea includes a way to connect it to the wall. Several kids a year die from furniture falling over on them."
Helin Loik-Tomson / Getty Images
10. "Electricity. You don’t need to see it for it to be dangerous. Respect it even when it looks harmless."
11. "Some people huff compressed air dusters by blowing it into a balloon and breathing it in. This can lead to sudden sniffing death syndrome, where the heart just stops instantly."
Cary Marshall / Getty Images
"I bought some canned air at a local hardware store, and they kept it behind the counter. I asked if it was a law or something. They said they had a customer buy two cans, sit on the bench outside, huff it, and die right there."
12. "If someone mixes up milligrams and micrograms. That's part of the reason why drugs laced with fentanyl will kill you."
13. "Slipping in the shower."
Edwin Tan / Getty Images
14. "Shoveling snow. I know two people that had heart attacks while shoveling snow, and a bunch of others that were injured shoveling."
15. "Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS). Someone with hidden arrhythmic problems can go to sleep and never wake up."
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16. "One punch to the head."
"It happened in my hometown. Two drunken idiots wanted to have a fight. One got punched and hit their head on the ground. He didn't know he had an unruptured aneurysm in his head. Survived by his wife and three kids."
17. "Taking your eyes off the road while driving."
Jose Gonzalez Buenaposada / Getty Images
19. "Vending machines. Not the contents, the machine itself. People shake them if the change is wrong and it falls on them."
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20. "Burning laurel leaves gives off hydrogen cyanide, which can be lethal if inhaled."
"This is for a cherry laurel, not the common kitchen 'bay leaf' laurel. As long as you don't go out looking for your own laurel leaves in a forest, you should be okay."
21. "There can be giant methane traps in slurry pits on animal farms. It's a suffocation and explosion hazard."
Matt Molloy / Getty Images
22. "One of my exes died by choking while laughing. It's a sad reminder of how quickly a life can be taken away like that."
23. "Complacency!!! It kills very quickly for something you've most likely done thousands of times before!"
© Marco Bottigelli / Getty Images
How comforting to know that we are literally never safe!
Are there any unexpected killers that more people need to be aware of? Let us know in the comments or through this anonymous form.
Note: Comments have been edited for length/clarity.
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