The uncomfortable truth that we all want to avoid is that someday, we’ll all die. However, until that moment comes, it’s up to us to ensure that our lives have purpose and meaning, that we leave behind a positive legacy, and that we get to enjoy as many awesome things as we can. The longer we live, the more time we have to do all of those fun things with great people. That’s why we take care of our health and avoid taking dumb risks.
However, when you sit down and think about it, there are far more risks to our health out there than many of us realize—and many of them aren’t all that apparent. Redditor u/adventure21mc started up a viral thread on the r/AskReddit online group, asking internet users about the things that cause death “more than people realize,” and many shared their thoughts. You’ll probably be more careful in the future, as you’ll never look at things like driving while sleepy and avoiding treating dental problems the same way again.
Keep in mind, though, that the purpose of this article isn’t to make you scared, simply to make you more aware of what reality can be like, without any frills. There is no such thing as being ‘perfectly safe.’ We can do our best to avoid many dangers, and we shouldn’t stop living our lives because we’re too frightened of getting hurt.
We reached out to redditor u/adventure21mc for a friendly chat about their viral thread, how to balance safety with living to the fullest, and how to make life feel more purposeful. The OP was kind enough to answer Bored Panda's questions. "I think my post resonated with many people due to them discovering that many common causes of death go unreported or underreported. While I did get a few responses I was expecting (alcoholism, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc.), I did not know stairs and tripping kill thousands of people every year," they said.
"In addition, what inspired me to make this post was the hundreds of thousands of people who die every year due to medical malpractice, which is a very common form of death that nevertheless goes underreported or ignored by society." Read on for the rest of our interview with the author of the thread.
#21
Selfies, in obviously dangerous situations.
silent_manu replied:
Schools banned field trips in our region before for a year or two due to three different incidents of students trying taking a selfie during a field trip.
107points
#22
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.
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101points
#23
Anorexia has a higher death rate than depression. It has the highest death rate among all mental disorders
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96points
#26
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.
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88points
#27
Alcoholism causing liver failure and its on the rise in the USA.
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85points
#28
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*****g around, it's not worth your life.
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84points
#29
Odd fact I learned over New Years, Champagne corks [take out] more people that spiders on average every year. I think the yearly average is 34 deaths.
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82points
#31
Tripping. On average around 17k people a year in the US die from injuries incurred after tripping and falling.
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77points
#33
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.
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76points
#34
Ladders. Ladders [take out] around 300 people/year in the US.
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74points
#35
Untreated infections. Your body will become septic, in which it essentially kills itself trying to kill off whatever infection one has.
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73points
#36
Diabetes ... its not always the disease itself that kills you its all the co morbidity that comes with it.
Swelling , prone to infection , organ damage , eye damage, limb loss even cutting ur own toenails keeping feet free from cuts ... tiny scratches that can turn into cellulitis then sepsis .
Yeah don't recommend it
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73points
#37
Alcohol withdrawal. As a person that has has many withdrawals people don’t seem to understand how potentially serious the withdrawals are, especially done without medical assistance. Thank f**k I don’t have to go through that s**t.
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68points
#38
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 Affective Disorder is no joke. Talk to your physician first but SAD can be treated with Vitamin D and getting as much sunlight exposure as possible.
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65points
#39
Medical malpractice. One hears about it, but one doesn't really hear that much about it. It's not reported in the media, there aren't any loud groups screeching about it all the time, but medical malpractice results in around 300,000 deaths per year in the U.S., according to the CDC. Compare this to all firearm related deaths, including suicide (which make up about half of all firearm deaths in the U.S.).
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65points
#40
I got this one because it was one of the first facts I learned on reddit: a bottle of minced garlic past it's due date. Literally poison and an incredibly painful death.
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50points