35 Silly And Careless Mistakes That Have Cost People Their Lives

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.

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.

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.  

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. 

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.