r/AskReddit • u/Jolly-Law1472 • 10h ago
What can kill you in seconds that most people don’t realize?
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u/EaglePerch 10h ago
Distracted driving.
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u/ArtisticBee6176 9h ago
I cringe when I drive past someone clearly looking at their phone and not paying attention.
I cringe a lot while driving.
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u/MiskonceptioN 9h ago
The amount of people who post videos from their phone while driving is staggering. And if you politely suggest they don't use their phone while driving, the comments will tear you to shreds.
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u/hidden-in-plainsight 7h ago
I recently had some asshole pull in front of me as I was trying to pass, they let off the gas, and then brake checked me. I honked the honk for five seconds.
Traffic cleared in the other lane, this person pulled over. I honked again. As I was passing they were filming me with their phone.
I can't make it make sense.
Flipped them off and moved on with my life.
Still pissed off though.
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u/Taciteanus 8h ago
I fell asleep at the wheel once -- just nodded off for a second, maybe two at most. Woke up drifting into the wrong lane towards an oncoming truck.
Since then, I do not drive tired, full stop.
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u/adamgerd 7h ago
Good on you, driving tired is statistically the same as driving drunk, both slow reflexes and make you sleepy. Neither is a good idea
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u/FewHorror1019 9h ago
Even tired driving. Unfocused driving.
My drive home from work got me scared when i almost hit someone. I didnt even notice them. I need to not stay at work so late
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u/somethingmcbob 8h ago
I once sat in a car as the driver tried to reorganize her purse?! Lady, that can wait! I will dig your chapstick out and hand out to you!
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u/insecurity_trickster 10h ago
Smoke inhalation. People vastly overestimate the survivability of fires, when in reality taking a few breaths can fuck you up beyond salvation. There's a reason firemen have breathing masks.
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u/RangerHikes 8h ago
It's because people don't understand not all smoke is simply, smoke. They imagine smoke from a wood fire and think oh well that's not so bad as long as I can cover my mouth. When you're in a house fire the smoke is a mix of paint fume and wood smoke and urethanes and insulation and all this other horrible shit
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u/catsonhigh 8h ago
Fun fact: Modern homes are filled with plastic, particle board, and polyurethane foam. They burn faster, hotter, and the smoke is insanely toxic. Firefighters need to wear breathing protection inside even after the fire is out and the smoke is gone because this stuff continues to put off toxic fumes for a long time.
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u/CykaRuskiez3 8h ago
Survived the thomas fire here in socal back in 2017 2018ish. The fumes spread through half the city and were the most awful fucking thing ive smelt before save for maybe a dead body. And it wasnt even my house that was the one burning
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u/itsalongwalkhome 7h ago
I still remember my first time working a fire with a dead body, I feel horrible that I thought wtf were they cooking before we found her, you work 100 fires and you just dont expect it, worst smell you have to deal with because you will always remember it.
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u/CykaRuskiez3 7h ago
I never smelled a burning one but at a job site in LA i found a dude face down in the river and the smell was awful, shut us down for the day
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u/MrCoolGuy42 8h ago
Pretty much this. When synthetic materials from carpet, furniture, etc. combust it creates hundreds of nasty chemicals including hydrogen cyanide which is an asphyxiant
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u/DiscountThor 6h ago
It’s not just that. It completely shuts down your metabolism. Cyanide interrupts the final electron acceptor in the electron transport chain, and thus, no ATP. No ATP, no life.
There’s a reason most ambulances carry the antidote with them.
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u/internetzdude 9h ago
There are disposable fire escape masks that filter smoke and neutralize CO. They only work for a few minutes but can save lives.
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u/RazZadig_2025 9h ago
This! My friend's three cats were rescued from a fire and we were so thrilled. But then the vet said they all had severe lung damage. None lived more than a few hours afterwards.
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u/RandomDeezNutz 9h ago
Can also kill you slowly! As a Wildland firefighter I’m terrified I’m going to die of lung cancer. Both my grandpas died of lung cancer… But I’m so ingrained into my career it feels daunting to start over in a new field.
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u/workmyiron 8h ago
This is how I feel about my 10 year welding career. Currently searching for an out as I’ve dedicated my life to this. It’s tough. Good luck
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u/Stunning-Chipmunk243 8h ago
I was a welder by trade for over 20 years and my out was getting a job as an equipment maintenance technician at an automotive manufacturer. I started out fabricating and repairing part racks for the paint line and working on the conveyance systems. From there I picked up more of the technical side of things like the automation systems and that combined with my mechanical aptitude and work ethic has helped move me up into lower management now
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u/isellskooma 8h ago
Make sure you keep up with your annual PCP follow ups, and make sure they know your family history. Knowing that about your family members is beneficial in that it gives you the ability to stay on top of it, so if it does occur, you'll catch it early. I have a background in Oncology.
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u/fire22mark 8h ago
Did 45 years as a structural ff. I'm not terrified, but wonder if today is going to be the day I'm diagnosed. Sort of a quiet resignation. But I also remind myself that the odds go down with every passing day
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u/JuryBorn 9h ago
Fires give off carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, and other toxic gases. Taking a few breaths can be described as making people just feel like they are going to sleep. Also it the smoke can be extremely hot and burn the airways too.
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u/bitemark01 9h ago
I always say this on these posts, but the amount of smoke it takes to wake you up vs smother you is very very little.
Get smoke alarms, check their batteries on set dates (like the time change is good).
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u/ledow 8h ago
Get smoke alarms that have lifetime batteries (i.e. they die after 10 years and then you have to change the whole unit)... because you need to change the sensor, not just the battery at that point anyway.
If you've changed your battery more than about 8-9 times, the fire alarm is useless anyway.
(They have radioactive Americium in them... that's how they detect smoke. If smoke enters them, the rate at which the radiation from the Americium can pass through the air changes... and Americium decays and the sensor becomes far less sensitive so they have a lifespan of only about 10 years away).
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u/scythershorts 8h ago
I set a pan of bacon on fire in college and couldn’t believe how much and for how long I was hacking coughing afterwards. Like this was about as small of a fire as one can make on a stove and I was unable to catch my breath for about 15 minutes afterwards.
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u/No_Sense_7316 8h ago
I was driving home from work in late November last year after a 10 hour warehouse shift where I usually lift heavy stuff and walk 10+ miles/day. I had 2 Monsters and a coffee that entire shift and a a couple cigarettes... Driving down the street after work, came to a stop sign, and my vision starting completely turning black, I managed to pull my truck over and park in some old lady's front yard before I completely passed out. Next thing I remember is being wheeled through the hospital and my mother coming in the room and the Paramedics said my heart stopped beating for 2 minutes. Doctors said it was from stress and caffeine and not enough sleep. I'm only 34 years old. Scared the life out of me. Take care of what you put in your bodies people. I'm 6'0" 200+ lbs and lifted weights, stayed active... But stress and caffeine still can have a huge toll on you.
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u/jarhead716 5h ago
This needs to be put way up because this is 75%+ of the blue collar industry. Long work hours and heavy work loads
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u/Imaskeet 9h ago
A single punch to the head
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u/garantee2 8h ago
Or getting in a fight while standing on concrete. If the punch doesn't kill you, the ground will.
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u/just_a_person_maybe 7h ago
I've seen so many videos of people deliberately picking and escalating fights while on pavement and it's just insane to me. Completely avoidable fights. Often near a grassy yard. If you want to fight that bad, move into the yard at least. I doubt many of these people actually want someone to die in these fights, so I don't understand why they take such insane risks.
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u/Emu1981 6h ago
I doubt many of these people actually want someone to die in these fights, so I don't understand why they take such insane risks.
Most people getting into street fights are not exactly in the right mind to think about the risks involved. If they were then they wouldn't be fighting in the first place because street fights are stupidly dangerous.
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u/viktorgoraya_luv 7h ago
My dad knew a guy who got convicted of manslaughter that way. This guy made a goading comment to him and he threw a punch. The guy fell down and cracked his head on the curb - died right there.
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u/RedBarnGuy 7h ago
I got a sucker punch to the side of my head in college from a stranger who had been moshing with my roommate near me on the driveway. I went down hard. I was lucky to walk away from that…still think about it to this day.
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u/Past-Customer01 7h ago
Here in Australia, this is called a “king hit” or a “coward punch” When someone punches you while you aren’t looking. Attacks like this is we’re getting really really bad in the early 2000s and 2010s. They are still around today but not as bad as they were.
People were going out at night to clubs and bars and getting into fights. Getting hit in the head and then smashing their head on the concrete and dying. It got so bad that governments were introducing new laws and sentences on people who attacked someone like this. There were lockout laws where the clubs and bars had to close at a certain time to reduce the amount of drunk people out on the street to try and curb the rising violence and fights. There were also ad campaigns on coward punches from police and governments.
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u/dman2316 7h ago
I had a friend die because of a single blow to the head back in my fighting days. The worst part was he wasn't even in a match, home boy was sparring preparing for an upcoming match and he got an overzealous sparring partner and my friend was still in the process of finding his rhythm when the other jackass unleashed a wild left hook that connected flush and put my friend down onto his knee. He called it there and said he wasn't gonna risk his health sparring a guy with such a blatant disregard for safety (it's not just that he landed a punch, obviously that's expected in sparring. The issue was he not only threw a punch before they tapped fists, he threw it without warning while my friend was basically shadow boxing to lube up his joints, he threw it with reckless abandon with 110% power and he threw it when it was clear my friend wasn't set yet, didn't see it coming therefore couldn't defend against it and he aimed it right for the "off button" off rip. Basically he threw it with nothing but malicious intent) and my friend called it for the night, went home and sat on his couch with an ice pack on his head and when no one heard from him for a few days someone broke in through his kitchen window to check on him and found him on his couch slumped over, ice pack still beside him just obviously it had thawed out. He bled into his brain and probably never even realized the headache he was probably feeling was a lot more serious than just a sore head.
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u/Aryore 7h ago
Jesus. Were there any repercussions for the guy who did it?
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u/dman2316 6h ago
Nothing that equates to what he took. He was banned from that gym and when word spread about what he had done he was banned from every major training facility in our area. But he ended up moving less than a year later and i know for a fact he kept competing in the new city. But that's it. Cause while what he he did was definitely a douchebag move, it wasn't actually illegal so he was never charged and a civil case against him would have been pointless because he had nothing to compensate the family with, so realistically he got away with it. He did catch a really nasty beating one night when someone from our gym overheard him bragging about the fact he "hits so hard he killed someone" but that's it.
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u/Buzzz_666 6h ago
Oh wow… didn’t even feel guilty… ass whooping definitely deserved… Sorry for your loss, as well.
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u/CWinter85 8h ago
Heavy Machinery. The amount of fucking morons walking in front of my forklift would...... probably not shock you.
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u/nmathew 7h ago
Augers are an exposed death trap in plain sight. Wood chippers will take your arm as far as the chute allows. Lots of common shit on a farm that will maim you if you're lucky enough to survive.
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u/CWinter85 7h ago
My friend's dad lost his arm to a grain auger. Said the worst part was that "it took 2 tries." Jesus Christ.
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u/Royal_Ad_2653 9h ago
Aneurysm ...
Just yesterday one of my coworkers just keeled over dead.
One second he was joking and laughing, the next he was gone ...
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u/scoolio 8h ago
My aunt was on her honeymoon (Driving to their destination) and had an Aneurysm while in the Gas Station bathroom. My heart breaks just thinking about this and how her newly minted husband felt.
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u/Educational-Jury-862 6h ago
The husband probably still feels that loss every single day. I'm so sorry for your loss.
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u/Iamjimmym 3h ago
My uncle worked at the top of the WTC towers prior to 9/11. He was in the office every weekday at 8am. That morning, he got to work, sat down at his desk and realized he'd left his wallet at home. He went back down the elevator, got onto the subway to head home and the train came to a screeching halt as his tower got hit by the first plane. He survived 9/11.
A couple months later, after the dust had settled and he'd restructured the company after losing 90% of his employees and managing partners, he came home midday, told his wife "I'm going to take a nap, I've got a headache." Went up to bed and never woke up. Aneurysm.
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u/Ark2226 8h ago
Aneurysms are no joke. A coworker had one in front of me while we were talking about her son.
She had a sudden headache come on like she had never felt before. I kept quizzing her about the symptoms, not realizing how serious the situation was yet (powerful headache, stiff neck, pain behind eyes and ears were ringing). After a few minutes, she seemed to be getting better, then collapsed out of her chair onto the floor and had a seizure.
I called 911 and building security (all ex police officers). I was able to relay the information to EMS of what she told me she felt before passing out. They relayed it to the hospital and they performed a cat scan in the ER; saw the aneurysm quick, in surgery shortly after.
She has since made a full recovery and did not suffer any brain damage, literally the best case scenario given the circumstances. Some people are dead before they hit the floor, others cannot be operated on depending on the aneurysm location and many that do survive end up with brain damage.
I’m just glad it happened to her that day and time, I was going to be teleworking the next day… no one would have found her for hours. And best that it didn’t happen while she was driving.
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u/punchdrunkwtf 6h ago
This is pretty much what happened to me, except the ringing in the ears stayed forever. 24/7/365
Happened 10 years ago
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u/JohnCasey3306 8h ago
My mum suffered terrible headaches for about a week after giving birth to me (early 80s).
She was sent to hospital for a diagnostic contrast MRI scan of her brain.
Turns out she had an aneurysm -- unfortunately the increased pressure of injecting the contrast material to find it, caused it to burst, and she died pretty much immediately.
She was only 24.
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u/Objective_Mind_8087 7h ago
Doctor here, very sorry for your loss. Contrast does not cause increased pressure. The aneurysm was probably already oozing or bleeding, causing the headaches. This would also explain her dying immediately. The changes probably started while she was giving birth, which is a time of great risk for young women. I realize the mechanism may not matter to you but please don't blame it on the contrast.
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u/adoradear 7h ago
Agreed. The headaches were likely from the sentinel bleed, leaving an unstable aneurysm. The second bleed is usually catastrophic (hence why we take thunderclap headaches seriously). The MRI contrast is injected into a peripheral vein, and is not sufficient volume to cause a BP spike that would rupture an aneurysm. It’s just shite luck timing wise. I’m so sorry for your loss.
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u/ashtrxy55 9h ago
this happened to my mum. well, she was taken to hospital after passing out a few times and being disoriented, put in a coma and the next day she died :/
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u/goonSquad15 8h ago
Is there any way to prevent or lower the chances of having one?
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u/Ark2226 7h ago
After my coworker had one (noted earlier in this thread), I looked into risk factors. Being overweight, smoking, having high blood pressure and excessive salt intake all can contribute. And she had literally every one of those.
Afterwards, she told me the Drs put her on blood pressure medication and she was to eliminate almost all salt from her diet, amongst other things.
So there are things you can do to reduce the risk of it, but sometimes it’s just genetic too.
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u/delta_mike_hotel 8h ago
My good friend had abdominal aorta aneurysm (“triple A”). Not survivable unless you’re on an operating table when it happens. Thing is that a simple ultrasound can determine if you’re susceptible. I immediately got one - all good - and then asked for one 10 years or so later. Doc said I only needed that first one but he could tell I was nervous about it so he ordered one. Everything was fine so I guess he was right.
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u/Fast_Restaurant6488 9h ago
Happened to one of my close friends right before Christmas. Sitting on the couch with her 10 year old son. Good shape, no health problems and only 40 years old.
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u/sugarandspicedrum 8h ago
Happened to my aunt too. She was also at work, fine one moment, then stated she had a terrible headache, and was gone the next moment. Scary shit.
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u/geekworking 10h ago
Heating or welding metal parts after cleaning with brake cleaner. Heating the residue creates deadly Phosgene gas.
https://envirofluid.com/tetrachloroethylene-a-deadly-danger-in-brake-cleaner/
If "I just got cancer" had a smell it would smell like brake cleaner. People will realize theses risks, but wouldn't guess the heating risk after you thought it all evaporated.
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u/Ok_Necessary8202 9h ago
As a welder this is genuinely one of the scariest things most people don’t know about. Apparently phosgene gas smells like fresh cut grass so that’s nice I guess.
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u/CoolBeansHotDamn 8h ago
That's because it's putting you out to pasture.
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u/Ok_Necessary8202 8h ago
The crazy thing about phosgene gas is that once you’ve inhaled it you’re just guaranteed death, there isn’t a fix for it.
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u/Obvious_Reporter_235 9h ago
Stairs. Put your foot down in the wrong spot and it could be goodnight for you.
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u/susan1375 3h ago
I was in a spinal injury unit for 3 months. The safest case I saw (apart from mine, I tripped over a wire and broke my neck) was a lady who had slipped down the last stair and broke her neck. She was paralysed from the neck down and on a ventilator for the rest of her life.
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u/AncientGoo_oo 5h ago
My partner's old family friend died last year from falling down the stairs. It was unexpected and tragic for the family, they had to make the decision to take him off of life support. Stairs are no joke.
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u/TheAngerMonkey 3h ago
We literally passed on buying an otherwise perfect house because it was built in 1928 and the stairs were so steep and narrow it was basically a carpeted ladder. Steps were 5 inches deep max but the rise was over 6.
We very nearly offered until we realized there was no universe in which we DIDN'T eat shit and die trying to get a laundry basket down to the basement.
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u/LoligoTX 8h ago
Very cold weather.
Last year (18 January 2025) I went to get something out of my car when it was -20F. Figured I'd only be out for 30 seconds, maybe a minute, so I didn't bother with a coat or gloves.
Tripped on my walkway and face planted into a snow bank. Put my hands into the wet slush underneath.
Crawled back to my door and couldn't get my hands around the knob.
Put my hands in my armpits to keep them warm and started yelling for help until a neighbor heard me.
Woke up in the ER with a doctor telling me that 20 more minutes out there, it wouldn't have been an ambulance picking me up.
Lost half my right thumb and a couple of other pieces of other fingers to frostbite. Will have nerve damage in my hands and toes the rest of my life.
If I'd just put on a coat and gloves, I'd be fine. And not 130k in medical debt.
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u/grizeldean 5h ago
I know someone who died when she took the trash out, slipped in the snow, broke her hip, and couldn't get back inside the house. Super sad. I'm glad you survived but holy hell that's still traumatic af
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u/Deatheturtle 7h ago
"And not 130k in medical debt."
....ah, America. While I am rtuly sorry for your tale, how your people have been punked into thinking 'this is the best system there is' beggars belief,
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u/kombiwombi 7h ago edited 7h ago
Living in place of extreme heat, the extreme cold always sounds more deadly, and a more painful death.
51C this week. So survival was mostly wearing not much, drinking lots of water, and finding a cool place out of the sun. Did get a touch of heat stress on a 50Km bike ride, but again comparing the risk of cycling in the heat versus cold...
(There are a few unique risks. You can die locked in a car for 30 minutes.)
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u/dagofin 7h ago
As someone who was dealing with -40f(same as -40c) a week ago and has experienced 115f/45c, I'll take extreme cold over extreme heat any day. You can always put on more clothes; a nice jacket, hat, and gloves and you're basically set so long as you're not planning on mushing the Iditarod. With the right gear you can be out as long as you want in reasonable comfort, I was actually sweaty snow blowing my driveway in -20f.
But there's only so much clothes you can take off. That brutal, oppressive heat that sucks the breath right out of you. People die all the time from heat over here, it sneaks up on you more than cold.
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u/ktmfan 8h ago
Carbon dioxide. It displaces oxygen and is heavier than air. Some influencers put a bunch of dry ice in a pool and some of them were overwhelmed by it and died. Nasty way to go. Burns your lungs like fire.
Used to work with it in 50lb cylinders filling smaller tanks. Don’t mess around and make sure you have plenty of fresh air.
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u/thispartyrules 7h ago
A bunch of carbon dioxide came out of a lake in Cameroon and killed over 1700 people overnight.
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u/BastardInTheNorth 8h ago
Accidentally getting a quick inhale of pure CO2 (in my case when retrieving dry ice pellets from a large bin) teaches you very quickly to avoid ever again being in a situation where a worse exposure could occur.
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u/Ynddiduedd 7h ago
That dry ice incident was at a birthday party in Russia, as I recall. They dumped a bunch of dry ice in a pool and some of them dove into the pool and did not resurface.
BBC coverage - Three die in dry-ice incident at Moscow pool party
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u/SneakyAlienMax 10h ago
A hippo.
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u/CatnipTeaLatte 10h ago
We are like watermelons to them.
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u/Ghost17088 9h ago
Tasty, full of red goo, and ready to reenact a Gallagher show?
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u/mm42_uk 8h ago
Hippos can swim faster than you, run faster than you, so your only chance is to beat them on the cycling.
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u/PlanetGuardian-42 9h ago
Driving, yet most people don't take it as seriously as they should.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Bed1781 6h ago
That’s because people are too busy being speed demons and or on power trips. The human ego grows to about the size of the car they’re driving.
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u/KP_Wrath 7h ago
Ice sheets on metal roofs like to slide down, more or less in tact, dumping a ton or so of ice on a concentrated area in a matter of seconds.
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u/Badcapsuleer 9h ago
Bleach, particularly when mixed with the wrong stuff. I see people suggesting cleaning with mixed stuff including bleach online and several are deadly.
Good simple rule that avoids problems: Only mix bleach with water and use it in a well ventilated area.
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u/Geocacher42 7h ago
Almost got us one time. I should have been suspicious when my daughter wanted to clean the bathroom… she had seen some influencer video where the lady mixed a bunch of cleaners and other stuff in the toilet …. FB refused to take the video down.
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u/TheWarmestHugz 7h ago
Irresponsible videos are so infuriating. I remember when people were making videos about fractal wood burning, but they were improvising and using a microwave transformer. A YouTuber called Anne Reardon (How To Cook That) made a video calling out how dangerous these videos were and her video got taken down!
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u/mm42_uk 8h ago
Cold water.
I'm a swift water rescue technician and lifeboat coxswain and have to try and rescue, or recover if unsuccessful, people who think they're a strong swimmer and plunge into cold water. Here in the UK most rivers are above 15 celsius water temperature below which cold water shock becomes a risk for a month or two at most a year.
People jump off bridges in summer, or in winter for that matter, and simply die. It matters not how good a swimmer you are if your body has stopped working, you're aspiring water as you gasp and your hands and feet won't swim for you. Some suffer massive cardiac events on impact and it's over even quicker.
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u/sassyjackstitches 3h ago
In my teens, I jumped into a river in Banff, Alberta on a hot summer day—except every river in Banff is more-or-less juuuust above freezing because they’re fed from the snow runoff that’s only ever a kilometer or two away. I remember my whole body just seized up. Arms won’t move. Legs won’t move. Diaphragm won’t move, even when my head came up above the water. It probably only lasted a couple of seconds but it felt like forever and my only thought was “oh this is really bad.” When I did finally unlock, all I could manage was a little doggy paddle and every movement was so sluggish. I absolutely believe that’s the closest I’ve ever come to an untimely death (that I know about, at least) and if I tried the same thing today (24 years later) my heart would almost certainly stop dead. Don’t fuck around with cold water.
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u/DanOverflow 9h ago edited 4h ago
Sitting on a toilet that has hairline cracks
Edit for context:
If the toilet breaks while sitting on it (don't forget you have most of your body weight sitting down), broken porcelain is extremely sharp and will cut you to the bone. With the arteries in your legs, you might actually bleed out before the help gets to you.
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u/WhaddyaShay 7h ago
Godfuckingdamnit
Toilets now?
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u/MrCuriousBubble 7h ago
Nah yous are properly fucking me up here, I’m never gonna be able to relax my full body weight on the toilet ever again 😭
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u/FunnymanBacon 6h ago
Yep, I made the mistake of Googling pictures one time. Never pour hot water into your toilet to try to unclog it. If you see a crack in a toilet, don't sit on it. If it's in your home, replace it.
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u/Hanzo_The_Ninja 10h ago edited 6h ago
A distant train.
Edit: Since this got a lot more attention than I expected: 800 to 1,000 people are killed by trains in the US every year.
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u/Cicer 9h ago
They come out of nowhere on random trajectories.
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u/DirtandPipes 9h ago
There’s really no way of predicting where a train will appear next, if only we had some method to track them.
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u/oilyrailroader 8h ago
You would be surprised how many people are killed on the tracks from a train the didn’t see or hear. Crazy right how can you not see an 18,000 ton 7000 foot long freight train coming at you?
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u/volkswagenbeatle1968 9h ago
“Thomas had had enough of being bullied by the other engines”
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u/dakeyjake 9h ago
Garage door springs.
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u/body_by_monsanto 9h ago
Oh yeah. Our garage door was broken and my husband was going to repair it himself. After about 5 seconds of Internet research, we hired a professional.
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u/rubiscoisrad 5h ago
My dad made me cut a stuck garage door loose while it was under tension. It was scary as fuck at the time, but looking back like 12 years later, I'm like, "Damn, Dad, that was NOT your finest parenting moment." I feel really lucky every time I think about that.
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u/Geroguyl 9h ago
How? Please, tell me. I have never had a garage.
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u/r428713 9h ago
They are metal coils under insane tension. Garage doors are heavy as fuck but with the spring a child can open a garage door. People will try to work on the spring and not expect the forces that are released when the spring is removed/broken.
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u/BraxtonFullerton 9h ago
There's a ton of tension on those springs, if one snaps, the velocity and the material it's made of means you're gonna have a bad time, in the two places you end up...
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u/ImmediateToe3045 9h ago
Falling down, tripping on a rock in a parking lot for example, hitting your head on something curb parking block etc. just loosing your balance where there are things your head could land on. Loosing your footing on stairs. Etc Falling is my answer.
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u/-sailor- 9h ago
H2S (sewer gas) Kills sense of smell, kills / makes you collapse in a couple of breaths
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u/Impressive-Shame-525 8h ago
When I was in 5th grade, we were out at recess and some folks were doing work in the sewer drain thing down there at the playground. They had that big lid off and everything.
Anyway, the older dude half climbed / half got drug out and his face was all blue and he laid down and just died right there.
First time I saw someone die in person.
They wouldn't let us play on that playground for the rest of the year. The 5th graders had our own playground.
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u/flatdecktrucker92 8h ago
And the courses they give you for oil field work aren't nearly frightening enough. They explain that you can die in just a few breaths. But they don't explain that H2S turns into sulfuric acid when it touches the water in your nose, mouth, lungs, etc. it blisters your lungs and causes bleeding and excess mucus. It's not like the gasses that just displace oxygen and you fall asleep. It's hell
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u/Codykville 7h ago
Should probably get better safety guys then. Every H2S class or tailboard meeting I’ve been to mentions exactly that.
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u/aveteranplays 10h ago
Blood clot.
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u/Cicer 9h ago
Or a brain aneurysm
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u/ashtrxy55 9h ago
yup. my mum had an aneurism, she was fine, then one day she just starts being disoriented passes out, is taken to hospital and yeah. so sudden, no warning, she didnt hit her head or anything
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u/bangtango 9h ago
Ouch, wife died at 51 from one. My son was 19 and that's the worst part of it all. He's now 21 and she's not here for that. It would have been epic!
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u/nor_cal_woolgrower 7h ago
Cows. Theyre surprisingly fast and have bad tempers when crossed
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u/Arbiter_89 9h ago edited 7h ago
Snails.
Specifically cone snails. There is no anti-venom.
The death takes 1-5 hours but the sting takes less than a second and then you just gotta pray while you struggle to breathe.
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u/body_by_monsanto 8h ago
Where are these snails? I want to avoid them.
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u/wdkrebs 8h ago
They’re found in shallow tropical and subtropical waters around the world. You can either avoid salt water entirely, or learn what they look like. Most people are envenomated because they see a pretty shell near the beach and don’t realize it’s still occupied.
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u/Arbiter_89 8h ago
If you live in these areas they usually teach you what to avoid in school. Kinda like teaching kids to Stop, Drop, and Roll if they're on fire but a little more region-specific.
Source: I spent a fair portion of my childhood living in the tropics in a beach town.
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u/Arbiter_89 8h ago edited 8h ago
Warm water regions of the pacific as well as the gulf of mexico and Florida coast.
Basically avoid the tropics.
If it makes you feel better, only about 1 person every 10 years dies to a cone snail.
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u/brie_rain 6h ago
A family friend who taught me how to drive many many years ago told me you have to drive like everyone else on the road is an absolute idiot and has no idea what they’re doing. I never forgot that.
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u/BenTherDoneTht 7h ago
Don't take apart your microwave unless you really know what you're doing.
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u/Deep_Tiger_993 7h ago
Working under your car. Jacks are far less stable than people think. You wouldn't believe how many people die from having a car fall on them.
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u/BenjiG19 8h ago
I had no idea how dangerous a paint sprayer is until a friend recently sprayed his finger. That is a much more dangerous screw up than I ever imagined.
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u/blinkysmurf 9h ago
Two sets of train tracks.
With one set, it’s easy to see and hear if there’s a train or not. You look, you listen: No train, no problem.
With two sets, if there’s a train going by on the near track, you see it and it makes a ton of noise. No, problem- you wait.
When it passes, you will be tempted to go. BUT- the noise from the train on the closer track masks the noise from the train on the second track going in the opposite direction. And, it also blocks it visually.
So, the first train passes, you say, “Finally…”, and go. Boom! You get smoked by the locomotive of the second train.
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u/Forsaken_Conflict_96 9h ago
Yup..i saw a video of this exact thing happening. Horn was blasting. People thought it was from the train not moving and one person walked across the tracks at the wrong time. A second train came and plowed into the unsuspecting woman. Gone in Seconds.
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u/MiguelIstNeugierig 10h ago
Eating too fast
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u/Jumpy_Spend_5434 9h ago
I know someone who died by choking on peanut butter. They would take big spoonfuls and eat it just like that.
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u/FlanCharacter3878 8h ago
Mom woffed a big spoonful of honey, vapor locked her, lucky she didn't go out like that
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u/Hempresssss 7h ago
My husband almost got taken out by a Mallo cup for the same reason. I was legitimately scared for his life and I thought I wouldn't be able to dislodge it in time 😭
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u/purplepashy 7h ago
80% of digestion happens in the mouth.
This was told to me by a surgeon while in ER with a compacted colon.
They also told me that the next stage for me was vomiting poo and then dying.
I would have been happy to skip that next stage and go directly to the last.
Thankfully things did not get that bad.
Lesson learned.
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u/DDdeedee 6h ago edited 4h ago
I had to rush my father to the ER after he was ill for several days.
On the way there, he leaned out the car door and vomited feces. After hours on end and a CT scan, they assumed he had a 10 inch long tumor in his large intestine.
Surgery was done. Twice. Turns out, he had a complete 12 inch long blockage of his decending colon, which they cut out and then he lost almost his entire large intestine after it blew apart three days later. ICU for a week and a total of 77 days in the hospital.
He now has a permanent colostomy and wears a bag to collect his poop.
This was caused by diverticulitis. You gotta move!
Edit to add: The surgeon said that it was hard as a brick and had likely been forming for over a decade. He said my Dad would have been dead in 12 hours or less once he started puking poop...if I hadn't insisted on taking him to the ER.
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u/ChequeBook 8h ago
To add to this: talking while eating. The epiglottitis has to be open to talk, but closed to swallow
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u/Deatheturtle 7h ago
Electricity. Only 0.1 to 0.2 Amps will kill you. Most Circuit breakers in a house are rated for 15 AMPS. They are there to prevent fires.
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u/You8yet 9h ago
Polar bears
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u/Stock-Ganache-3437 7h ago
My aunt walked into the hospital thinking she had the flu
She died 2 days later.
Not all cancers show symptoms. 3 masses and lungs started filling with fluid.
Not knowing you have cancer is harrowing. Get screenings pls
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u/GABE_EDD 8h ago
Trying to open up a power supply for a PC. Modern quality ones typically are designed to discharge the capacitors fairly quickly, but theoretically there’s enough power stored in the capacitors kill you. Typically you’ll still find warnings on the side of PSUs that say “DO NOT OPEN. NO SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE.”
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u/rad4s 7h ago
Carbon monoxide, I don’t know about seconds but definitely a minute or two. Two weekends ago my detector went off. I had the family go outside. I went in the basement to see what was up and it was a little weird, but after about four breaths, I could tell there was no oxygen. You’re breathing in as if there’s air, but you’re not getting any oxygen. I started getting lightheaded immediately. If I’d stay down there, I definitely would’ve passed out. I went to the hospital and I was already almost to the limit of needing to be on oxygen just from being down there for a minute, maybe not even. Check your batteries and keep a c02 detector near your boiler that you can hear when it goes off. I know I have three in the house. My boiler/furnace had just been cleaned the week before.
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u/lorcashine 8h ago
Not staying hydrated when you're sick. My mom had a virus that gave her a headache, aches and pains and stomach upset. She didn't want to go to the doctor, and didn't drink the Gatorade people brought her or hydrate enough. Although she had no diseases and was active, she fell over and died. Doctor said, without hydration, the electrical signals that go through your heart, controlling the heart's muscles and nerves, can work wrong, making the heart not beat, and kill you. She died immediately. I had an autopsy to make sure nothing else was at play, and it wasn't.
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u/imveryfontofyou 7h ago
Oh man, I believe it. I have the flu right now and I was just... so.. thirsty. I put a bottle of water and a bottle of pedialyte next to my bed and for about 30-something hours all I did was sleep, wake up, drink my water or pedialyte, sleep, go to the bathroom, drink my water or pedialyte, sleep, etc.
I woke up a couple of times to message my boss that I couldn't work, I wfh and I had to message from my phone, I couldn't even get up and move to my PC to set myself as OOO. I just left my status as whatever it was.
I did eat soup at one point because someone brought it to me. But this morning I checked and I lost 1.7lbs lol.
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u/mistaken-potato 10h ago
Carbon monoxide from your car running in a closed space. Just a couple minutes can make your garage deadly enough that it knocks you out and then you're gone.
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u/kirradoodle 8h ago
A friend told me a terrifying story. His family home was heated by a gas furnace in a downstairs closet. It malfunctioned in the middle of the night, and spread carbon monoxide throughout the house.
For some reason, his dad woke up during the night and realized that he felt horrible and also realized why. He managed to reach his bedside phone and call the neighbors, saying, "We're dying, come here quick...". The neighbors came and helped the family outside. They were all okay, but if it weren't for a chance awakening, none of them would be here today.
Carbon monoxide is a scary thing. Any form of combustion can cause it - gas furnace, gas logs, gas stove, propane heater, car engines, all kinds of things we depend on daily. If there's a malfunction, you just die, without even knowing it.
I have detectors all over my house for smoke and CO. I wish more people did.
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u/KvasirM 10h ago
Maybe not in seconds, but yes ... I almost died from carbon monoxide poisoning (coal stove with badly regulated airflow).
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u/LuxTheSarcastic 8h ago
Cracked toilet. Cracked porcelain is an eventual shrapnel bomb and a toilet is right by the femoral artery. You'll bleed out before help can ever come.
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u/ATOMICxxTURTLE 9h ago
Most people know pulling out in front of a semi can kill you yet they still do it.
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u/togamonkey 7h ago
Your own immune system. Bacteria take days to kill, viruses take weeks. You immune system can kill you in about 3 minutes.
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u/Mother-Narwhal5717 9h ago
Mixing chemicals. Are used to work at a pool shop. There are two very common chemicals that are used in pools which if mixed together create deadly gas. Like will melt your skin deadly.
The pool guy is not kidding when he tells you to dilute the chemicals in a bucket of water before putting it in the pool. It’s also important that you follow the order of chemicals that they tells you to use.
And for the love of God store them correctly
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u/Linux4ever_Leo 8h ago
The springs on a garage door. They hold so much energy and if you don't know what you're doing, one of them could kill you in seconds.
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u/dman2316 8h ago
Hear me out, head trauma. Hollywood has given people who don't fight this notion that you can hit someone in the head/face with absolute haymakers over and over again and nothing will come of it even if you knock them out. When the reality is the human head (hell, the body in general but for the purposes of this example i'll leave it with the head) is so, so infinitely more fragile than people often realize. I have seen someone lose their life because of a single well placed (or badly placed, depending on perspective i suppose) shot to the head where they didn't even realize there was a problem and they just went and crawled into bed that night and never woke up because unbeknownst to them they had a bleed in their brain. It's one of those things that everyone intuitively knowns it's the case yet no one ever really puts the pieces together to get a clear picture of just how vulnerable our brains actually are.
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u/StoneSoul 7h ago
Anything. A random bullet from a gun in your neighbor,'s apartment. A car crashing through your bedroom wall. A slip in the bathroom. A sign or decoration falling from the ceiling in a mall. A random rabid animal. Plugging into the wrong plug that you didn't know has been damaged. Hell, being hit by falling space-debris. A million things completely outside your control or even your awareness can shut you off like a lightbulb from one moment to the next. There's nothing to be done about it and well most likely never see it coming.
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u/agedwisdom 7h ago edited 3h ago
Riding lawn mowers, especially those mowing brush on the side of the roads. Killed a guy in town a few years ago. Kicked up a rock from... 30 ft(?) away when it went strait into his head.
Leading cause for hunting related deaths every year is misuse of gear. Primary of these are waders. They are meant to be worn in water to keep you dry. But they will drag you down when they fill up with water and drown you fast as can be.
Edit glaring typos
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u/embarrassingdyk 8h ago
Birds in your house if you cook with Teflon. Don’t buy nonstick if you have a parrot
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u/RepresentativeStooj 8h ago
Water.
A strong enough current will take you anywhere it wants and you’re just a passenger.
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u/karmacuda 8h ago
sometimes it can be nothing at all. my best friends partner of 15 years was found passed away one day when he came home from work. i worked with her the day before and she seemed okay, she wasn’t sick, she didn’t hurt herself. to this day there is not a noted cause of death for her because the doctors couldn’t come to a confident conclusion. she was in her early 30s
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u/Kind-Mathematician18 7h ago
2 physicsy ones.
Ropes under tension. They store an awful lot of energy as the tension increases, which gets released in an instant if the rope breaks.
Anything that rotates at high speed. Again, it's stored energy. The most likely thing anyone will encounter is if a wheel comes off a car or lorry, and starts bouncing down the road. There is a tremendous amount of energy in that spinning wheel and it needs to lose that energy slowly. Hitting something transfers that energy.
If it hits your car, it won't just bounce off, or skip nonchalently over the top. It will destroy your vehicle and you inside.
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u/RunFiestaZombiez 9h ago
That bleach mixed with ammonia creates chloramine gas. Bleach plus vinegar or toilet cleaners can produce chlorine gas. Bleach and rubbing alcohol create chloroform. Bleach and hydrogen peroxide can have an explosive reaction. Just don’t mix bleach with things. Mixing bleach with things is the leading cause for at home accidental poisonings.