When we think of deathly activities, obviously high-risk adventures like sky diving, or mountain climbing, or going on multiple drug benders might come to mind.
But if you dig into the data, there are a lot of very mundane activities that are a high cause of death.
While this can be a morbid rabbithole to fall down, it can also be fascinating and give perspective to what experiences we choose to project fear onto, while bravely barreling through in other areas of our lives.
Tripping. On average around 17k people a year in the US die from injuries incurred after tripping and falling.
Driving while sleepy.
Stairs. 20 million severe injuries each year and at least 200.000 death from consequences of the fall. Both my grandparents died because of a fall.
High Blood Pressure. It sneaks up on you and you don't know about it or don't care but its the underlying cause of so many deaths.
Influenza. Just regular old flu. Many people ignore it thinking it'll go away on its own. Globally the number per year is usually between 300k and 500k. In the US it can be anywhere from 12k to 50k per year.
Mozzarella sticks. Statistically the most choked on food.
Street fights. You watch some Hollywood blockbusters and some MMA fights and you think you can do it too. I've seen stories of a guy minding his own business and gets rocked on the side of his head.
It disconnected his spine and he was dead before he hit the ground. There was another story maybe a year ago of a scuffle where a guy was stabbed in the neck and bled out to the point of being unable to stand within 10 seconds.
Stop f*cking around, it's not worth your life.
Untreated dental problems. A cavity left untreated can lead to heart attacks and strokes.
Alcoholism causing liver failure and its on the rise in the USA.
Stress. Your body can only handle so much of it and it’s labeled the “silent killer” for that reason. With your high blood pressure and the 5 hours of sleep a night because of the stress, It will creep up on you sooner than you think.
Untreated infections. Your body will become septic, in which it essentially kills itself trying to kill off whatever infection one has.
Well, here we go.
Not exactly a huge surprise but once upon a time I worked with a regional set of hospitals coordinating nationwide cause-of-death reports and statistics.
80% of all organ donor tissues cannot be accepted due to safety concerns around organ recovery.
I won't say how much, but a surprisingly high percentage of successful organ donors are motorcyclists.
Cheerleading, particularly involving gymnastic/aerobatic actions is one of , if not the leading causes of death for young women under 18.
Football, is a major cause of CTE, and an unexpectedly large number of football and hockey players die in younger life.
Gunshot injuries and suicides are seasonal, something you can discern by way of the death-rate in provinces and territories where it is dark for long periods of winter, Seasonal effective disorder is no joke.
Constipation. About 900 deaths per year.
Lack of sleep causing psychosis.
Falling coconuts cause about 150 deaths annually Coconuts kill around 150 people worldwide each year, which makes them about ten times more dangerous than sharks.
But the moment you suggest coconut week everyone acts like you're the weird one.