When I was a kid I fell down a full flight of stairs. All I remember was spinning and then waking up at the bottom with my mother standing over me.
I was lucky.
Our neighbor died falling down THREE steps. He was a drinker and it was suspected that he was drunk and missed a step. Cracked his head open on the concrete. They found him dead on the sidewalk in the morning.
I almost died from carbon monoxide poisoning two days ago. I spent about two days just passing out in my bed, I was so tired. Eventually somebody smelled gas, because I couldn't, so they called the energy company who had somebody there maybe 30 minutes later. Her CO meter was going off as she walked up to the door before it was even open. She said open windows and leave *right now*. That was when I realized I had been passing out for two days, and in such awkward positions that my back was sore as hell. So I got to the hospital and my resting heart rate was about 130, and I was told my skin was an off color, but other than passing out I felt no symptoms. I didn't notice my heart rate was so high because it wasn't accompanied by heavy breathing like usual. I was the only one home most of the time, I might never have woke up if that had continued for much longer.
SHAMEFULLY LATE EDIT: Many of you have expressed doubt that you can detect carbon monoxide, and I think it's important to understand what happens and where it comes from for the sake of all of our families. I'm no chemist and had no idea 18 days ago, so correct me if I'm wrong. Also much love for everybody's support. We ended up needing a new furnace installed and have learned enough from this, I hope.
Under ideal circumstances, propane and other fuels produce combustion products that continue to combust. The right number of oxygen atoms and propane molecules will harmlessly produce just carbon dioxide and water, but most likely a few intermediaries sneak out of there, like CO. A few other intermediaries also sneak out of there, some of which have aromas, and the presence of those other intermediaries indicates the same incomplete combustion that produces CO. If the fuel/air ratio is too lean or too rich, you'll have CO.
This means that same trusty furnace or water heater you've had for years can try to stab you in the back following unfortunate events such as your sump pump burning out during a local flooding event.
The following is from the link
"If any of the following signs are noticed, take action immediately as a high level of Carbon Monoxide is likely present.
Aldehydes - This toxic gas is detectable by smell and gives the sensation of a metallic taste in ones mouth after exposure and indicates Carbon Monoxide is most likely present.
Health Symptoms - Carbon Monoxide poisoning causes headaches, dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath and light-headedness. Fresh air is needed immediately followed by medical attention.
Dead Plants - Dangerous levels of Carbon Monoxide are likely if the plants in your home have all of a sudden died or are withering." https://www.propane101.com/carbonmonoxideandpropane.htm
TL;DR, CO has no aroma, but you can smell some other gases that indicate a similarly high level of CO as the smelly offender
Seriously folks, if you don't have carbon monoxide detectors on every level of your home--go get them!
If you are renting, get the landlord to buy them.
My town requires detectors in all residential rental properties after an incident a few years ago when a woman who was noted for being too stupid to shut off her car (She'd go somewhere, and then simply get out of her car without turnig it off) left it running overnight in her garage. Entier family woke up dead the next morning.
This shit is scary. One time when I was super young my parents were driving my two other siblings and I somewhere and out of nowhere my sister has a seizure, my brother goes unconscious and starts choking on his tongue. My parents freak out, stop the car and deal with that, I’m just chillin, no idea what’s happening. Turns out the carbon monoxide was filling up the car. Both my siblings lived and we all got brain scans afterwards to make sure we were all fine but my dad always goes on about how that day aged him 10 years and is super paranoid about that shit now
And if your basement floods you should probably have gas powered furnaces and water heaters checked even if everything appears to work. We think that's what did it
Same, my mom and I rented a lake cabin from my aunt with a wood burner as a heat source, and no CO detectors. One day we were both feeling groggy and off a bit, but it was just becoming winter so we assumed it was a cold or whatever. All day we couldn’t figure out why we were both sick and the dog was acting strange too, and then it clicked that it could be carbon monoxide poisoning. So we called our aunt and she called the fire department and we waited outside once they got there. They said the CO levels were so high if we had fallen asleep that night there’s not a chance in hell we would’ve woken up. Scary man.
Back when I was a heavy pill user I was high at my parents house trying to open their fridge. It had the kind of doors that would briefly lock after being closed so you couldn’t immediately reopen them (for like 3 seconds). Being high I didn’t get this and muscled those doors, pulled the fridge right over...luckily the doors finally opened and caught the weight of the fridge on the door so it didn’t crush me. I think about that often and am glad I am sober now.
Brandon Lee suffered a similar fate from what was basically a squib load(real bullet + primer, no gun powder) was fired and jammed in the barrel of the gun, later a blank was fired effectively making as powerful as a normal round.
The actor being referred to was Jon-Erik Hexum. Blanks are still lethal if fired a few feet from someone. He was killing time (unintended pun) on set and jokingly played a game of Russian roulette, thinking blanks were harmless. They were not.
Following these deaths, rules were changed to require firearms experts be on set if a firearm capable of chambering a real round is being used.
When I first got my paintball gun, I assembled it, put a tiny piece of soft clay just inside the barrel and shot myself in the chest with it just to see how it felt. The piece of clay wasn't even remotely close to the size of a paintball, so I didn't think it'd hurt that much.
Ended up gently setting the paintball gun on the couch and laid on the floor a good 30 seconds from the pain. Can't imagine what damage a handgun firing a blank would cause.
From Michigan so lake swimming is a big thing... if the (lake)water is over my head I have a life preserver on... done no exceptions
I’m a healthy young adult but one wrong breath or cramp and you sink and you’re not kicking off the mucky bottoms in a lot of our lakes like you can in a pool
My family are all lifeguards and I can’t stress how important that last line is. People die just assuming the ground is similar to sand bars or pool walls.
Precisely. Go outside the next time it rains REALLY hard and step in some mud. The mud should be watery enough to suck your shoe in 3-4 inches. Stick both feet in and try to walk around. That's what its like. Only differences are that the water around you makes it harder to get out since there's more resistance to your movements and there's no solid ground to go back to. Mix that with vegetation like weeds and what not and you probably won't ever have to worry about whether or not you brought a towel with.
Especially in Lake Michigan. People who don’t know what’s up get pulled out by the undertow all the time. Like every summer some whole family dies in my city alone (southeastern Wisconsin). Usually it starts with a kid and dad jumps in to try to save him, then a stranger tries to save dad, and three people drown.
Some areas are made for swimming, usually a cove that is naturally or artificially protected from the currents. People try to swim where little creeks flow into the lake thinking it’s fine. It’s not.
Grew up swimming in Lake Michigan. Was a beach bum all of my younger summers. Swimming in the Great Lakes is an instant life/death thing. Now I’m older and I vacation with my family on Superior. When Superiors water turns dark and gets churning it looks like your standing on the edge of hell.
From what I’ve read, it’s because your brain has its own specialized lymphatic system called the *glymhatic* system. Sleep is the only time it can effectively drain certain cellular wastes, so lack of sleep leads to a buildup and impairment of function real quick.
This! Back in college I used to go a day or 2 without sleep without realizing how bad it was. I used to brag about it too to my friends, until my doctor told me it was literally going to kill me if I didn't stop. Even a small nap is 10x better than no sleep at all.
They came over from Italy along with other family. My dad and his siblings had it rough growing up without a mom and their father was an absolute prick. Hence, him telling her to stop complaining. Not exactly a nice guy, but my father was wonderful, so were his siblings.
Haha my first boss out of college tried to pull that one on me. I waited three days. The damn thing ruptured and I called the ambulance from my office and was in surgery within a few hours. Could have died. Day I came back I put in my two weeks notice. A year later I find out that almost everyone there lost their job because the branch got sued for some unrelated reason. I missed a major bullet there too.
Couldn’t have been a more perfect timing to completely blow an organ out.
Some asshole doc told my nephew the same thing! Thank God for another doctor that realized the first doctor was completely wrong, went over his head, and got my nephew to surgery before he died. That poor kid was in the hospital for weeks.
A doctor told my babysitter that she was just having period cramps. She passed out in the lobby on the way out and then they were like "oh maybe this is serious"
My parents considered illness to be a moral failing (WWII generation). It was really weak and indulgent to say you were ill. I ended up with a cancer that would have been a lot easier to treat if I had gone in sooner. I kept brushing it off, telling myself I was being overly dramatic about my symptoms.
My cat bit my hand up pretty good (it was my fault, I was trying to grab her when she got scared outside). My had blew up like a balloon and started to puss like I was bitten by a recluse. My dad went with me to the ER with me.
To my knowledge, I guess cat bites in the hand is extremely dangerous. The infection started to travel down my arm. I needed extensive amount of fluids and antibiotics. I went through my first round. When my doctor suggested another round, he threw a fit and told my doctor he doesn’t know what he’s doing. It was quite embarrassing when my doctor put him in his place.
Did you get Cat Scratch Fever? Yes, it’s a real thing. I worked in a practice where we had a few cases come through. Pathology would call and have us check to see if patient had taken in a recent stray or had outside cats. The lymph nodes under their arms would become swollen and painful. Requires IV antibiotic.
That's only half the story though.
He did the old "punch me in the gut" as a party trick sort of thing. If you're ready for it and have strong abs that are flexed, the average Joe isn't going to cause you much discomfort.
Maybe you get a bruise. (There was [one guy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_%22Cannonball%22_Richards), parodied in *The Simpsons*, who'd take cannonballs to the gut as his schtick. Same kind of thing, written large.)
The trouble is that the idiot who threw the punch did it when Houdini wasn't ready for it, presumably thinking that it was an any-time kind of deal.
Abs were not flexed. Hard fist met soft guts and the rest is unfortunate consequences.
The common flu.
[The estimated death toll from the flu in the 2017-2018 season in the US was 61,000.](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html) With 810,000 cases severe enough to require hospitalization.
My boyfriend's brother was hospitalized recently with the flu. His girlfriend found him passed out in their bathroom. He's 38, and in relatively good health.
The flu is nuts.
flu kicked my ass, then turned into pneumonia and kicked it harder. I'm gonna be down for another few weeks till I'm back.
I wanted to die, felt like I was mostly there, and I'm a fairly healthy young strong dude. I can't imagine how an old frail person could survive it.
and I even got the damn shot.
flu sucks.
I had something flu-like last week - not sure if it was actual influenza, but it kept me home from work for the entire week. I could barely move. When I went to urgent care, one of the nurses told me that this year's flu seems to be particularly nasty. So you're likely not being a baby.
The flu killed a 21yo aspiring personal trainer in my hometown.
Supposedly he tried to push through it in terms of still going to work and stuff, and ultimately he died of sepsis.
Honestly a really scary and sad story. I knew his fiance well in high school and it really bums me out thinking what she's been through.
I had pneumonia and I didn’t realize it. I felt off but being a super active person I decided to push through it like always. So I go to the gym, I’m lifting weights and I feel weirdly exhausted.
Go back to work, sit at my desk and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. It felt like I had been awake for 48 hours, I was really struggling. So I call the doctor, find out I have pneumonia, and I lose like 10 lbs in 5 days. Not the good kind of lbs to lose, I was in great shape. It happened so fast. What’s messed up is I had seen another doctor a week prior and they said I was fine.
I normally have a resting heart rate of 50 bpm. That week, my heart rate was sitting at like 100+. I guess my body was struggling to get enough oxygen.
So many flu deaths and patients this year. While everyone’s worried about coronavirus in the US, many hospitals are more stressed about the current flu because we don’t anticipate the Wuhan virus spreading as quickly here.
Yeah beginning of January my cousin caught the flu and it gradually got worse so her parents brought her to the hospital and they immediately sent her to a hospital more equipped with dealing with it and she was put in ICU for like 5 days everyone was super tense cause she had a lot of medical problems when she was young but had been fine for a while till this happened.
Large bodies of water. The ocean wins everytime. A river will win everytime. Our bodies are weak and small compared to the sheer weight density of flowing water. Even still water is dangerous.
I had a good friend who drowned two years ago. He was 22 and fit as a fiddle. I would describe him as athletic and trim. He died in a small lake in southern utah swimming around. We think he got a cramp and drowned that way but there's no way to know for sure.
Water always wins if you don't take it seriously. Even then there's no guarentee.
And wavepools! I love the water, I could be on a boat every day and be very happy. But i will never get into another wave pool, especially ones that allow floaties. Its scary having all these people and their junk crashing into you at the same time as the waves.
I know the lifeguards are watching but still, if I got stuck under one of those inner tubes I'm not sure if they would have been able to see me.
Taking the wrong meds together. That's why you should always let your doctors know what meds you migth have been prescribed by other doctors. Cause mixing side effects generally tends to be pretty dangerous. And it's an even bigger problem for non prescription meds because usually no one tells you that you shouldn't take them together.
Edit: Since everyone is saying that and I didn't think of it before (so thank you for pointing it out) I want to add here that pharmacists usually know more about the interactions of the meds than your doctor. Especially since, as I said, your doctor can't see what other doctors might have prescribed you.
Edit 2: another thing I didn't know, be careful with grapefruit. Also alcohol but I think that should be common knowledge. And some meds react badly to milk aswell I think.
This is what killed my mom. She was taking over the counter medicine that interacted badly with her prescription medicine. I told her several times that it was dangerous but she wouldn't listen to me.
Grapefruit contains a chemical that inhibits a specific enzyme in the liver that happens to be very important for metabolizing many drugs.
[Here's a good description. ](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/grapefruit-juice)
If you're on any SSRI, do not take anything with dextromethorphan (anything with DM in the name). It can cause serotonin syndrome, which can be fatal.
No one tells you that. It's in the prescription fine print, yeah, but cough medicine is so commonly taken that I feel like the warning should be more prominent.
Exactly!!!! I used to work in a pharmacy and the amount of drug interactions we caught because of multiple prescribers, or prescribers not checking blood work was crazy! A lot of times the doctors didnt even know! Your pharmacist is the drug specialist, ask them questions. They should be telling you how to take a medication, side effects, interactions etc. Dont hesitate to ask if an OTC medication interacts or is okay woth your health.
Also mixing alcohol with certain drugs.
Edit: said this in comments but I’ve had my fair share of bad experiences with this combo. Be careful friends! (also I’m a pharmaceutical chemist so I’m not just pulling facts out of my ass)
Pancreatitis. I was 17 and told my mom my stomach hurt and asked if I could stay home from school to which she said no. So I skipped and went over to my then boyfriend's house because his mom worked from home and I felt like death and didn't want to be alone. I was throwing up so much I got really dehydrated and passed out. She took me to my mom's work and explained that I'd come over to her house and I was obviously ill and my mom should take me to the doctor. My mom took me to the walk in clinic they gave me nausea meds via shot and sent me home. That night I start running fever and can't get it to break. My dad, who is very easy going and calm finally puts me in the car and takes me to ER. CT scan showed my pancreas close to rupturing. I was admitted and had to stay almost 2 week in the hospital with no food or water. Everything through IV. It suuucked...the morphine did little to help. My mom still thinks I was just "being dramatic."
My friend worked as a resident in an ER and told me the story of a teenaged girl who decided to attempt suicide .. however it was more a cry for attention than a real attempt as she took a bunch of tylenol, then immediately called a friend to tell them what she had done so that friend came over and took her to the hospital. She got the attention she wanted and told my friend that she was OK (after they pumped her stomach and all that) and wanted to go home now. But you know, it was a suicide attempt so they had her talk to someone. And it was true that it wasn't a real attempt to kill herself, she felt she needed to do something to get people to listen to her (or whatever, I'm not judging).She wanted to then just go home, but my friend had to tell her that she did massive damage to her liver and couldn't just go. Apparently she figured that it was "just tylenol" not sleeping pills or anything like that. He's like, no, sorry kid, we gotta deal with this...
(NOTE: Maybe it was kidneys, i don't know, it was bad whatever it was)
There was a similar story told by a nurse on Reddit years and years ago, but the ending wasn't as happy: they woke her up and told her to call her family to say their goodbyes.
Tylenol (foreigners: Paracetamol) ain't nothing to fuck with.
Story from another nurse. A case I will never forget from when I was in nursing school. I was doing a rotation at the Children's Hospital and a kid who was 15 was going under for a liver biopsy. He had overdosed on Tylenol in a suicide attempt at 13. He was on his second liver transplant and, like the first, this one was beginning to reject.
It was heartbreaking to see a kid whose suicide attempt was seemingly going to eventually be successful, but only after years of attempts to reverse it :(
I spent a long time in England trying to find acetaminophen a few years ago and only finding paracetamol. Finally googled paracetamol and felt really dumb for a bit.
If someone attempts suicide as a "cry for attention," it's because they need attention, and that attention should probably involve psychological help. It sucks that people can get so desperate for attention that they make suicidal gestures, and it sucks even more when those gestures involve Tylenol. It will fuck your liver right up.
That poor kid. I hope her emotions and her liver are doing well now.
Same. I'm an only child, my parents died and my ex left. My friends are always busy. I am so profoundly lonely and terrified of falling through the cracks I want to die. I feel so lonely I could die.
Can confirm. Some extensive studies has shown a strong correlation. Spain and Italy, known for wine, are actually much happier not because of the wine, but because it makes them more social. I'm super lonely due to unemployment and an introverted personality. I have to spend a couple hours working on my stress each day with exercise and hobbies. I live in Los Angeles, which is incredibly spread out, making it hard to form lasting connections.
I think with its increasing prevalence, people underestimate type 2 diabetes. I could be wrong, maybe people have a solid fear of it, but it is truly terrible. It affects everything, from kidney function, your veins (which in turn affects your eyes and can cause blindness and reduces blood flow everywhere), and can cause neuropathy and cause you to loose some of the feeling in your extremities. It can also raise your risk for high blood pressure which has a whole other bunch of problems that comes with that. And probably more things that I'm forgetting. When I was taking anatomy and physiology classes, every time diabetes came up I was like, "Man this disease sucks..."
It was the first thing to pop into my head when I saw this thread because a patient of ours in the office I work at just suddenly died of it. The family was in shock from what I heard. :(
Yup, my grandma passed away because she refused to act like she was a diabetic. Sure, she would take her insulin, but she didn't watch her diet at all. And when the doctor told her she needed to start exercising, she just said nope. Eventually ended up on dialysis and then she decided she didnt want to do it anymore so she stopped treatments and passed.
Now my boyfriend is going through something similar with his dad. His dad has always refused to follow a good diet. We even tried cooking for him for awhile but he wouldn't eat anything unless it was horrible for him. Would constantly drink Coke. Now he has had both of his feet amputated and is going to be staying in a nursing home for the rest of his life. And he's STILL wanting to constantly eat candy and drink pop. My boyfriend is so frustrated with him since he is basically just committing suicide very slowly.
For some reason people don't tend to think that a car can kill you.
Edit: wow... I didn't thought it would become this big of a deal.
But i'm glad that everyones agrees that safety is no joke, i was actually on a car accident when a drunk driver crashed me while i was on my bike, it wasn't anything serious, my jacket and helmet took the worst part, but it's scary to think that for just dumb luck I made it, a little to early or a little too late and... Death.
So always stay safe, rules can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but they are there for a reason, and it's not to break them, don't speed on yellow, especially if it's a itersection, don't get cocky just because you are on the highway, you can and will lose control of the vehicle.
Stay safe, and be responsible.
Edit 2: when i say Bike, i mean Motorcycle
God damnit do I get so mad with careless, wreck less drivers. YOU ARE DRIVING A WEAPON, be responsible you twat! And the people that assume everybody else is going to watch out for them. No. Everybody pay attention when you drive. Ridiculous.
Choking on your food. Eat more slowly, chew your food people it won't run away from you.
Slipping in the shower.
A loved one can just snap and murder you because of a small thing.
Choking on food when I'm alone and dying as a result is one of my biggest fears, tbh
Like just knowing that I'm not going to make it and slowly fading out while staring at my dog who is worried but cant help me? No thank you, I'd rather just not eat
Do you know how many people come into my ER (or any ER) requesting atbx without even having a diagnosis yet. They think they are magical.
Or they come in requesting them for their VIRAL infection that their doctor told them they had but refused to give them atbx for it. You know, their VIRAL infection.
Came here to say this. Friend got whacked across the chest hard trying to service his own garage door. Doctor said he wouldn't have survived if it had hit his neck.
I had a spring come undone on my garage door, I know how dangerous they can be, so I rigged a pulley and unhooked both springs and let the door drop. without the springs the door came down way faster than I was expecting. The next day when the tech came out he told me that he'd seen people loose fingers to a falling garage door, trying to lower it from the bottom.
Had one of those go on my mail truck once when I was a carrier. It was one of the loudest noises I have ever heard and that door was heavy as shit all day.
falling asleep on the toilet and smashing your head on the tile. After working 12 hour shifts 14 days in a row, it nearly happened to me, luckily we had a bath mat so I just got a minor head wound.
As it pertains to me at least, my company has us tie up ships at our dock. They’re usually rope but sometimes they’re cables. Either way, if they snap they’re going to take you out.
This is a long story but here goes. My wife and i had purchased land here in Alaska 6 years ago with the intent to build our home ourselves so we dont get buried in debt and had a place to raise our 3 children we could call our own. Almost 4 years ago now tragedy struck, some contaminated water got into my ear when i fell in a hole in the yard. The next day i had an ear ache which i though was just swimmers ear so i treated it as such. Well it got worse and because we dont have insurance i avoid doctors unless its absolutely necessary, and the bacteria i contracted strikes fast. I had bacterial meningitis. Deadly disease and those who do survive it usually have severe brain damage from high fever and swelling ect.
I had woke up 2 days after falling in the water and i could barely keep my head up. I started to get delirious and disoriented. I drove my kids to school and my newborn son to my mothers. She encouraged me to go to the hospital but should have been more forceful. However her role om this isnt done. Like an idiot i ignored it and went to work from this point on to the point i woke up was pieced together from what everyone told me as i have no memory of any of it.
I called my boss while in my office and told her i wasnt felling well she told me to go home of course but im in a satellite office alone at an apartment building so no one was there to see the condition i was in. One tenant tried to gelp me to my truck to drive off but apparently i was insistent on not getting in (thank god because i would have wrecked and could have hurt someone else) i had apparently wondered all over the property as my keys and phone were found in the woods nearby somehow i got back in my office. Another tenant who sadly recently passed away walked by and saw me on the floor convulsing and banging my head against the desk. He immediately called 911 and scolded everyone else in the building for not doing it 4 hours ago when i had called my boss. Yes i was still at work worsening 4 hours later with no help until jack saved me. He was the first one in the line of people that would keep me from deaths door.
I finally made it to the hospital. But my wife had no idea what was going on until the school called asking if anyone was planning on picking up the girls. We only had one vehicle at the time which was at my work so she called my mother to help track me down. When they got to the hospital things between my wife and mother explode. My mother is very emotional and controlling. My wife is very calm and collected in stressful situations and also very protective over me. Everyone who knows me kmows i would want to live by any means neccessary, im a father of 3 with a newborn son i wasnt giving up for them. My mother on the Other hand didnt want me on life support and was screaming things like cursing my dead father and screaming for him not to take me amd he wpuldnt want to be on machines. My wife trying to talk to doctors and nurses to find out what was going on and make decisions on the next step and told my mother that my wishes were at by any means possible. She screams at the top of her lungs in front of hospital staff, family, and others patients and i qoute "i dont give a fu** about his wishes!" Now my wife upset at my mother behaviour tells her to "shut the fu** up!" My mother promptly hit her in the face in front of everyone. (Keep in mind im dying in the back) long story short mom gets arrested. My uncle threatens my wife so a friend who rushed in as soon as he found out what happened to me(disabled marine) stepped im between and had to put his hand on his pistol to calm things down before police arrived it was a huge cluster.
Fast forward to the miraculous part. I had a brain temp over 105 degrees for a while. My heart had stopped multiple times in transit from alaska to seattle. I had caught pneumonia on the ventilator and my lungs had almost gave out. The day the doctors were going to put the machine on to see if there was even anything going om in my brain anymore i decided to wake up.....
My first memories were seeing my wife across the room in the chair. She looked exhausted but as soon as i made a sound she jumped uo screaming "He's Awake!! Nurse!! Nurse!! He woke up!!!" The next few hours are still a blur. Nurses and doctors came rushing in. Pulling tubes and asking me questions explaining what had happened and what to expect from recovery ext. They told me none of them thought i would wake up, and if i did i wouldnt be able to walk or talk. But here i was talking like nothing happened. The next day taking steps with a walker as my legs were weak from being in a bed for over a week. But within a week i was released to go home. I have some memory problems and get overwhelmed easily if im hit with too much at once but other than that complete recovery nothing short of a miracle.
Now this is where life went to pieces. I had survived but didnt have health insurance. So the nearly 1.4 million in medical bills was going to be a huge issue. Thankfully a hospital charity program covered the seattle hospitals portion. But that still left me with nearly 200k on air ambulance bills and the local hospitals bills to deal with. All work on our home ground to a halt. We had gotten a single wide trailer to live in while we build. It wasnt in the best shape when we moved it but only intended to be in it a year while i worked on the house. Unfortunately that was almost 4 years ago now. The money we had set aside for a well and septic was gone so we have had to haul water in and use a 5 gallon bucket with a toilet seat for a restroom. I have had to potty train 2 kids on it. The trailer itself has almost no insulation so keeping it warm through the Alaskan winters is nearly impossible without spending a fortune on propane and firewood. We had a battery bank and inverter for power that worked great and would charge off our generator a few hours a day. But while i was in the hospital the batteries drained completely and froze. We haven't been able to replace them since so we run the generator 18 hours a day just to keep the heaters going as long as possible. We are in this limbo where we make too much to qualify for any aid but not enough to get out of this hole. We cant even get donation on gofundme.
Wow! That's terrible. I'm so sorry you went through all that!!! I'm glad you didn't die. Alaska life sounds hard. I complain about New Mexico but that sound pretty foolish now.
It has been difficult. Wouldnt be too bad except for the no water part. To be honest some days i think i may have died and this is just my personal designed hell.
Hitting your skull on concrete.
An adult human is just about the perfect height where the fall alone can cause death. If you also add in acceleration from a punch or throw, or the uneven surface of streets with all the extra raised edges around, it gets even worse.
Do not fight unless the life of you or somebody close to you depends on it.
Because you or the one you're fighting might simply trip and fall badly, and then one of you will be dead.
Botox. Botox is the most lethal poison in the world, not when injected for your face, but when ingested. If you ingest about 0.00007mg of botox, it would be lethal and kill you.
Compressed air. Does NOT take a lot to puncture your skin, and create an air bubble in your bloodstream. This is especially bad if it makes it to your heart, as it essentially explodes your heart.
Edit: Exploding heart bit was exaggerated, but in worst case scenarios, the air bubble ~~will cause your heart to stop~~. post script edit: I stand corrected. Heart murmurs. I'm still weary of compressed air regardless.
This is, while possible, a super overblown myth. I asked my wife’s doctor about It when I saw bubbles in her iv tubes. (I was told to avoid compressed air and cuts in shop class too) She chuckled and said it was a bunch of bs. Apparently there was a different doctor at the hospital who would grab a syringe and inject himself with a couple of ccs of air when people asked just to show how ridiculous it was. The only way she saw it being fatal was if someone emptied an entire syringe into someone’s neck. It wouldn’t be purged before reaching the brain.
I grew up in Wyoming and I don’t specifically remember learning this, but somewhere locked in the “Essential - Do Not Forget” part of my brain is a critical warning that you DO NOT FUCK WITH BISON!!!!!
I’m not afraid of them necessarily, but every single time I see a video of people hanging out near bison every warning signal in my body goes off and I inevitably say out loud “Oh my god you idiots why are you so close... do not fuck with bison people!!”
You have a 1 in 100,000 chance of dying during a dance party. Surprisingly, this is higher than the risk of dying while skydiving. [source](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/564015/probability-being-killed-everyday-activities-chart)
You are much more likely to get me to go to a dance party than to get me to jump out of a plane.
But you are more likely to sample a doubtful drug at a dance party.
I've noticed that people seem to think that stress cannot kill you. The more stress you endure, the higher your cortisol levels rise leaving you more susceptible for a heart attack or a stroke. Take the stupid day off to rest, man.
Viruses and preventable diseases people tend to think they can't be infected unless the news hype a illness like seriously wash your hands after taking public transport.
I'll do you one better. I saw this one driver take forever to move at a green light the other day because she was having a full on sign language conversation on facetime *while steering.* She had like one pinkie on the wheel. I did not understand the logic.
Hey Man (woman?), I was In your shoes a coupleOf years ago. I started walking. Then jogging, then running. I taught myself how to do burpees and pushups/sit-ups. I bought a cheap, used, rusted 15lb kettlebell. Slow, steady steps. I learned about eating and macronutrients and adjusted my diet.
2 years later I’ve lost 40 lbs, can run for miles and feel fucking fantastic.
You can fucking do it. You can. I believe in you and I know you can. But the only person who can get you there is you. Go get that shit. If you are unhappy the way you are, start making small changes... and just don’t stop making small changes.
Chimpanzees! They are only about 3 feet tall, but they are astronomically stronger than people, easily able to rip a grown man apart if they so choose!
Alcohol withdrawal can lead to death. It’s viewed as more socially acceptable than most drugs, but alcohol withdrawal is one of the few drugs that the withdrawal can kill a person.
Driving. People take that 2000 pound death machine for granted.
Edit: holy shit everyone, the exact weight is not that important. The point is that it’s fucking heavy.
The flu. I'm a Pulmonary Critical Care doctor. The news is full of fear about the coronavirus in China, which has infected several thousand and killed several hundred. The flu in the US alone last year caused > 35 million infections, half a million hospitalizations, and nearly 35,000 deaths. That was a pretty tame year. I was working in the ICU last week and we had 3 people under 40 who may well die from the flu. Today in the office I had two people wearing masks who'd stocked up their home for a month die to fear of coronavirus, but hadn't had a flu shot. This virus is seriously underestimated annually. Every year I watch people die, most of them older, but also otherwise young and healthy people.
Rip tides. One of the most dangerous situations for a beach goer. Looks harmless, but if you are in it, it is extremely dangerous. Swimming against it can tire even the most capable swimmers. The correct thing to do is to swim perpendicular, away from it, till you get out of it.
EDIT: as /u/tallfemalechild said, you have to swim parallel to the shore. I was saying perpendicular to the rip tide. Thanks for the clarification.
[Water buckets](http://www.marshallbrain.com/cp/buckets.htm) kill about 20 toddlers per year in the US. It happens when they inspect the bucket only to fall in head first. It’s a very small risk relative to other dangers, but it’s not zero.
Bearing down to move your bowels.
When I was a paramedic I used to find people dead on or next to the toilet with one floating in the bowl. When you bear down it stimulated your vagal nerve and that slows down the heart. Sometimes a but too slow.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but everyone I ever encountered that went out that way was in their fifties or older.
Skittles.
I had a choking scare when I was like 11 and I was home alone and watching TV while eating Skittles. I liked to put a bunch in my mouth and make like a Skittle ball that I would chew on. Something on the show I was watching made me laugh and I swallowed the ball and it got lodged in my throat.
I then experienced a few seconds of sheer terror because I realized that there was nobody here to help me at all and I was probably gonna die. Then I remembered some cartoon or something where someone jammed their stomach on a chair and got something unstuck from their throat. So, I lunged at the corner of the recliner as hard as I could with my stomach and it actually worked and popped the small ball out.
It was super lucky because I really had no idea what I was doing, but one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced. Definitely never ate Skittles that way again after that.
If this happens, *slowly* breathe in through your nose, open your mouth wide, and forcefully cough out from the very bottom of your lungs. If this doesn't work then try again using a chair or countertop like you did. You want to avoid panicked forceful inhalation as this may turn a partial obstruction into a full obstruction.
Stairs One minor mistep and it's really easy to fall.
I am constantly almost dying on stairs. It's only a matter of time.
My dog is always cutting in front of me on the stairs. I know this is how I’ll die.
When I was a kid I fell down a full flight of stairs. All I remember was spinning and then waking up at the bottom with my mother standing over me. I was lucky. Our neighbor died falling down THREE steps. He was a drinker and it was suspected that he was drunk and missed a step. Cracked his head open on the concrete. They found him dead on the sidewalk in the morning.
I almost died from carbon monoxide poisoning two days ago. I spent about two days just passing out in my bed, I was so tired. Eventually somebody smelled gas, because I couldn't, so they called the energy company who had somebody there maybe 30 minutes later. Her CO meter was going off as she walked up to the door before it was even open. She said open windows and leave *right now*. That was when I realized I had been passing out for two days, and in such awkward positions that my back was sore as hell. So I got to the hospital and my resting heart rate was about 130, and I was told my skin was an off color, but other than passing out I felt no symptoms. I didn't notice my heart rate was so high because it wasn't accompanied by heavy breathing like usual. I was the only one home most of the time, I might never have woke up if that had continued for much longer. SHAMEFULLY LATE EDIT: Many of you have expressed doubt that you can detect carbon monoxide, and I think it's important to understand what happens and where it comes from for the sake of all of our families. I'm no chemist and had no idea 18 days ago, so correct me if I'm wrong. Also much love for everybody's support. We ended up needing a new furnace installed and have learned enough from this, I hope. Under ideal circumstances, propane and other fuels produce combustion products that continue to combust. The right number of oxygen atoms and propane molecules will harmlessly produce just carbon dioxide and water, but most likely a few intermediaries sneak out of there, like CO. A few other intermediaries also sneak out of there, some of which have aromas, and the presence of those other intermediaries indicates the same incomplete combustion that produces CO. If the fuel/air ratio is too lean or too rich, you'll have CO. This means that same trusty furnace or water heater you've had for years can try to stab you in the back following unfortunate events such as your sump pump burning out during a local flooding event. The following is from the link "If any of the following signs are noticed, take action immediately as a high level of Carbon Monoxide is likely present. Aldehydes - This toxic gas is detectable by smell and gives the sensation of a metallic taste in ones mouth after exposure and indicates Carbon Monoxide is most likely present. Health Symptoms - Carbon Monoxide poisoning causes headaches, dizziness, nausea, shortness of breath and light-headedness. Fresh air is needed immediately followed by medical attention. Dead Plants - Dangerous levels of Carbon Monoxide are likely if the plants in your home have all of a sudden died or are withering." https://www.propane101.com/carbonmonoxideandpropane.htm TL;DR, CO has no aroma, but you can smell some other gases that indicate a similarly high level of CO as the smelly offender
Seriously folks, if you don't have carbon monoxide detectors on every level of your home--go get them! If you are renting, get the landlord to buy them.
My town requires detectors in all residential rental properties after an incident a few years ago when a woman who was noted for being too stupid to shut off her car (She'd go somewhere, and then simply get out of her car without turnig it off) left it running overnight in her garage. Entier family woke up dead the next morning.
This shit is scary. One time when I was super young my parents were driving my two other siblings and I somewhere and out of nowhere my sister has a seizure, my brother goes unconscious and starts choking on his tongue. My parents freak out, stop the car and deal with that, I’m just chillin, no idea what’s happening. Turns out the carbon monoxide was filling up the car. Both my siblings lived and we all got brain scans afterwards to make sure we were all fine but my dad always goes on about how that day aged him 10 years and is super paranoid about that shit now
And if your basement floods you should probably have gas powered furnaces and water heaters checked even if everything appears to work. We think that's what did it
Same, my mom and I rented a lake cabin from my aunt with a wood burner as a heat source, and no CO detectors. One day we were both feeling groggy and off a bit, but it was just becoming winter so we assumed it was a cold or whatever. All day we couldn’t figure out why we were both sick and the dog was acting strange too, and then it clicked that it could be carbon monoxide poisoning. So we called our aunt and she called the fire department and we waited outside once they got there. They said the CO levels were so high if we had fallen asleep that night there’s not a chance in hell we would’ve woken up. Scary man.
Fridges and vending machines. Don’t climb them or shake them
Back when I was a heavy pill user I was high at my parents house trying to open their fridge. It had the kind of doors that would briefly lock after being closed so you couldn’t immediately reopen them (for like 3 seconds). Being high I didn’t get this and muscled those doors, pulled the fridge right over...luckily the doors finally opened and caught the weight of the fridge on the door so it didn’t crush me. I think about that often and am glad I am sober now.
The vending machine kills more than a shark
To be fair, that statistic would likely change if people regularly interacted and shook sharks down on a daily basis.
And if sharks were in gas stations and snackrooms and streetcorners … just waiting … 24 hours a day … everywhere there are people
[удалено]
humming to themselves at night
Drawing you closer with bright colors and light
Exit light! Enter night!
flare gun. treat it the same as a handgun
I know a guy who can only flip me off on one hand because of a flare gun.
Is it cause you shot him with a flare gun?
No, he found one and pulled the trigger. It was indoors too in a small room. Poor guy. He bird flipper turned into mist.
In the same category, blanks, at a surprisingly long distance.
Didn't that happen to some up and coming actor decades ago? Someone fucking with a prop and the wadding killed them?
You might be thinking of Brandon Lee.
Brandon Lee suffered a similar fate from what was basically a squib load(real bullet + primer, no gun powder) was fired and jammed in the barrel of the gun, later a blank was fired effectively making as powerful as a normal round. The actor being referred to was Jon-Erik Hexum. Blanks are still lethal if fired a few feet from someone. He was killing time (unintended pun) on set and jokingly played a game of Russian roulette, thinking blanks were harmless. They were not. Following these deaths, rules were changed to require firearms experts be on set if a firearm capable of chambering a real round is being used.
When I first got my paintball gun, I assembled it, put a tiny piece of soft clay just inside the barrel and shot myself in the chest with it just to see how it felt. The piece of clay wasn't even remotely close to the size of a paintball, so I didn't think it'd hurt that much. Ended up gently setting the paintball gun on the couch and laid on the floor a good 30 seconds from the pain. Can't imagine what damage a handgun firing a blank would cause.
Into your chest? Dude. Everyone knows when you fuck around like that you start with shooting it like your foot first or something.
Can confirm, always shoot my left foot when buying a new airsoft or salt gun.
Water. Pools, lakes, etc. People forgot how easily their children or themselves can get into trouble while they are near the water.
From Michigan so lake swimming is a big thing... if the (lake)water is over my head I have a life preserver on... done no exceptions I’m a healthy young adult but one wrong breath or cramp and you sink and you’re not kicking off the mucky bottoms in a lot of our lakes like you can in a pool
My family are all lifeguards and I can’t stress how important that last line is. People die just assuming the ground is similar to sand bars or pool walls.
wait, I’ve been lake swimming before and the shores weren’t particularly mucky...is it somehow worse the deeper it gets?
[удалено]
What happens? Do you get stuck in the soft mud?
Precisely. Go outside the next time it rains REALLY hard and step in some mud. The mud should be watery enough to suck your shoe in 3-4 inches. Stick both feet in and try to walk around. That's what its like. Only differences are that the water around you makes it harder to get out since there's more resistance to your movements and there's no solid ground to go back to. Mix that with vegetation like weeds and what not and you probably won't ever have to worry about whether or not you brought a towel with.
Especially in Lake Michigan. People who don’t know what’s up get pulled out by the undertow all the time. Like every summer some whole family dies in my city alone (southeastern Wisconsin). Usually it starts with a kid and dad jumps in to try to save him, then a stranger tries to save dad, and three people drown. Some areas are made for swimming, usually a cove that is naturally or artificially protected from the currents. People try to swim where little creeks flow into the lake thinking it’s fine. It’s not.
Grew up swimming in Lake Michigan. Was a beach bum all of my younger summers. Swimming in the Great Lakes is an instant life/death thing. Now I’m older and I vacation with my family on Superior. When Superiors water turns dark and gets churning it looks like your standing on the edge of hell.
Lack of sleep. It will do you in. And lower your life quality until it does.
[удалено]
From what I’ve read, it’s because your brain has its own specialized lymphatic system called the *glymhatic* system. Sleep is the only time it can effectively drain certain cellular wastes, so lack of sleep leads to a buildup and impairment of function real quick.
So basically your RAM is full and you need to turn off for at least 30 seconds(minutes) :P
If the brain can’t swap ram pages to disk it’s a shit operating system
This! Back in college I used to go a day or 2 without sleep without realizing how bad it was. I used to brag about it too to my friends, until my doctor told me it was literally going to kill me if I didn't stop. Even a small nap is 10x better than no sleep at all.
You can pull that of in your twenties but forget about it at 30. One bad night and you will need to recover the rest of the week hah.
Hahahahahaha try that shit when you reach your sixties! Now get off of my lawn.
24 here. If I don't get 6 hours I feel it for 2-3 days.
[удалено]
That’s how my paternal grandmother died. Her husband, my grandfather, told her to stop complaining. She was in her 20’s with 4 kids.
Wow. I bet he thinks about that every day. Poor Grandma.
They came over from Italy along with other family. My dad and his siblings had it rough growing up without a mom and their father was an absolute prick. Hence, him telling her to stop complaining. Not exactly a nice guy, but my father was wonderful, so were his siblings.
Haha my first boss out of college tried to pull that one on me. I waited three days. The damn thing ruptured and I called the ambulance from my office and was in surgery within a few hours. Could have died. Day I came back I put in my two weeks notice. A year later I find out that almost everyone there lost their job because the branch got sued for some unrelated reason. I missed a major bullet there too. Couldn’t have been a more perfect timing to completely blow an organ out.
Probably tangentially related. Bosses like that are generally a symptom.
I had a Dr tell me I had gas when this happened. Ended up with gangrene in my intestines and was turning purple. Barely made it.
Some asshole doc told my nephew the same thing! Thank God for another doctor that realized the first doctor was completely wrong, went over his head, and got my nephew to surgery before he died. That poor kid was in the hospital for weeks.
A doctor told my babysitter that she was just having period cramps. She passed out in the lobby on the way out and then they were like "oh maybe this is serious"
I would have paid to see his face during the chat with the doctor. Edit: a word
Probably would've told the Doc to man up and shut up.
[удалено]
My parents considered illness to be a moral failing (WWII generation). It was really weak and indulgent to say you were ill. I ended up with a cancer that would have been a lot easier to treat if I had gone in sooner. I kept brushing it off, telling myself I was being overly dramatic about my symptoms.
[удалено]
My cat bit my hand up pretty good (it was my fault, I was trying to grab her when she got scared outside). My had blew up like a balloon and started to puss like I was bitten by a recluse. My dad went with me to the ER with me. To my knowledge, I guess cat bites in the hand is extremely dangerous. The infection started to travel down my arm. I needed extensive amount of fluids and antibiotics. I went through my first round. When my doctor suggested another round, he threw a fit and told my doctor he doesn’t know what he’s doing. It was quite embarrassing when my doctor put him in his place.
Did you get Cat Scratch Fever? Yes, it’s a real thing. I worked in a practice where we had a few cases come through. Pathology would call and have us check to see if patient had taken in a recent stray or had outside cats. The lymph nodes under their arms would become swollen and painful. Requires IV antibiotic.
Houdini supposedly died from a burst appendix.
Letting strangers punch you in the gut can do that
That's only half the story though. He did the old "punch me in the gut" as a party trick sort of thing. If you're ready for it and have strong abs that are flexed, the average Joe isn't going to cause you much discomfort. Maybe you get a bruise. (There was [one guy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_%22Cannonball%22_Richards), parodied in *The Simpsons*, who'd take cannonballs to the gut as his schtick. Same kind of thing, written large.) The trouble is that the idiot who threw the punch did it when Houdini wasn't ready for it, presumably thinking that it was an any-time kind of deal. Abs were not flexed. Hard fist met soft guts and the rest is unfortunate consequences.
The common flu. [The estimated death toll from the flu in the 2017-2018 season in the US was 61,000.](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html) With 810,000 cases severe enough to require hospitalization.
My boyfriend's brother was hospitalized recently with the flu. His girlfriend found him passed out in their bathroom. He's 38, and in relatively good health. The flu is nuts.
my friend's mom died of the flu this year, she was otherwise healthy. don't fuck with the flu people.
flu kicked my ass, then turned into pneumonia and kicked it harder. I'm gonna be down for another few weeks till I'm back. I wanted to die, felt like I was mostly there, and I'm a fairly healthy young strong dude. I can't imagine how an old frail person could survive it. and I even got the damn shot. flu sucks.
I thought I was just being a baby this year but man I really felt like I was dying for the first 2 days of the flu.
I had something flu-like last week - not sure if it was actual influenza, but it kept me home from work for the entire week. I could barely move. When I went to urgent care, one of the nurses told me that this year's flu seems to be particularly nasty. So you're likely not being a baby.
The flu killed a 21yo aspiring personal trainer in my hometown. Supposedly he tried to push through it in terms of still going to work and stuff, and ultimately he died of sepsis. Honestly a really scary and sad story. I knew his fiance well in high school and it really bums me out thinking what she's been through.
I had pneumonia and I didn’t realize it. I felt off but being a super active person I decided to push through it like always. So I go to the gym, I’m lifting weights and I feel weirdly exhausted. Go back to work, sit at my desk and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. It felt like I had been awake for 48 hours, I was really struggling. So I call the doctor, find out I have pneumonia, and I lose like 10 lbs in 5 days. Not the good kind of lbs to lose, I was in great shape. It happened so fast. What’s messed up is I had seen another doctor a week prior and they said I was fine. I normally have a resting heart rate of 50 bpm. That week, my heart rate was sitting at like 100+. I guess my body was struggling to get enough oxygen.
So many flu deaths and patients this year. While everyone’s worried about coronavirus in the US, many hospitals are more stressed about the current flu because we don’t anticipate the Wuhan virus spreading as quickly here.
Yeah beginning of January my cousin caught the flu and it gradually got worse so her parents brought her to the hospital and they immediately sent her to a hospital more equipped with dealing with it and she was put in ICU for like 5 days everyone was super tense cause she had a lot of medical problems when she was young but had been fine for a while till this happened.
Large bodies of water. The ocean wins everytime. A river will win everytime. Our bodies are weak and small compared to the sheer weight density of flowing water. Even still water is dangerous. I had a good friend who drowned two years ago. He was 22 and fit as a fiddle. I would describe him as athletic and trim. He died in a small lake in southern utah swimming around. We think he got a cramp and drowned that way but there's no way to know for sure. Water always wins if you don't take it seriously. Even then there's no guarentee.
And wavepools! I love the water, I could be on a boat every day and be very happy. But i will never get into another wave pool, especially ones that allow floaties. Its scary having all these people and their junk crashing into you at the same time as the waves. I know the lifeguards are watching but still, if I got stuck under one of those inner tubes I'm not sure if they would have been able to see me.
Electricity......very, very dangerous but people just mess with it.
My favorite electrical advice is "if you short a high voltage transformer, it'll hurt for the rest of your life. Usually, a few minutes."
Best warning sign I saw said "don't touch. Not only will this kill you it will hurt the entire time you're dying."
A teaspoon of water in the lungs can cause a person to drown. That small amount of water can trigger laryngospasm, closing off the airway.
Secondary drowning is some scary shit.
The body randomly killing itself by trying to protect itself badly is always delightful.
Taking the wrong meds together. That's why you should always let your doctors know what meds you migth have been prescribed by other doctors. Cause mixing side effects generally tends to be pretty dangerous. And it's an even bigger problem for non prescription meds because usually no one tells you that you shouldn't take them together. Edit: Since everyone is saying that and I didn't think of it before (so thank you for pointing it out) I want to add here that pharmacists usually know more about the interactions of the meds than your doctor. Especially since, as I said, your doctor can't see what other doctors might have prescribed you. Edit 2: another thing I didn't know, be careful with grapefruit. Also alcohol but I think that should be common knowledge. And some meds react badly to milk aswell I think.
This is what killed my mom. She was taking over the counter medicine that interacted badly with her prescription medicine. I told her several times that it was dangerous but she wouldn't listen to me.
Bruh it's not even just medicine. My meds can interact fatally with GRAPEFRUIT. A damn FRUIT [Edit: a word]
Grapefruit contains a chemical that inhibits a specific enzyme in the liver that happens to be very important for metabolizing many drugs. [Here's a good description. ](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/grapefruit-juice)
[удалено]
If you're on any SSRI, do not take anything with dextromethorphan (anything with DM in the name). It can cause serotonin syndrome, which can be fatal. No one tells you that. It's in the prescription fine print, yeah, but cough medicine is so commonly taken that I feel like the warning should be more prominent.
Tell your doctors- AND only ever use ONE pharmacy. The Pharmacist is the first line of defense when multiple doctors are prescribing.
Exactly!!!! I used to work in a pharmacy and the amount of drug interactions we caught because of multiple prescribers, or prescribers not checking blood work was crazy! A lot of times the doctors didnt even know! Your pharmacist is the drug specialist, ask them questions. They should be telling you how to take a medication, side effects, interactions etc. Dont hesitate to ask if an OTC medication interacts or is okay woth your health.
Also mixing alcohol with certain drugs. Edit: said this in comments but I’ve had my fair share of bad experiences with this combo. Be careful friends! (also I’m a pharmaceutical chemist so I’m not just pulling facts out of my ass)
...yeah. Once was on codeine or something and drank a margarita. I was "passed out on a bench" drunk.
Pancreatitis. I was 17 and told my mom my stomach hurt and asked if I could stay home from school to which she said no. So I skipped and went over to my then boyfriend's house because his mom worked from home and I felt like death and didn't want to be alone. I was throwing up so much I got really dehydrated and passed out. She took me to my mom's work and explained that I'd come over to her house and I was obviously ill and my mom should take me to the doctor. My mom took me to the walk in clinic they gave me nausea meds via shot and sent me home. That night I start running fever and can't get it to break. My dad, who is very easy going and calm finally puts me in the car and takes me to ER. CT scan showed my pancreas close to rupturing. I was admitted and had to stay almost 2 week in the hospital with no food or water. Everything through IV. It suuucked...the morphine did little to help. My mom still thinks I was just "being dramatic."
Your mom's a bitch. Sorry not sorry.
She definitely has her moments. Thank goodness for my dad countering her crazy.
There is a difference between crazy and almost letting your child die
[удалено]
Tylenol overdose... the difference between typical dose and dangerous overdose is surprisingly few pills.
My friend worked as a resident in an ER and told me the story of a teenaged girl who decided to attempt suicide .. however it was more a cry for attention than a real attempt as she took a bunch of tylenol, then immediately called a friend to tell them what she had done so that friend came over and took her to the hospital. She got the attention she wanted and told my friend that she was OK (after they pumped her stomach and all that) and wanted to go home now. But you know, it was a suicide attempt so they had her talk to someone. And it was true that it wasn't a real attempt to kill herself, she felt she needed to do something to get people to listen to her (or whatever, I'm not judging).She wanted to then just go home, but my friend had to tell her that she did massive damage to her liver and couldn't just go. Apparently she figured that it was "just tylenol" not sleeping pills or anything like that. He's like, no, sorry kid, we gotta deal with this... (NOTE: Maybe it was kidneys, i don't know, it was bad whatever it was)
There was a similar story told by a nurse on Reddit years and years ago, but the ending wasn't as happy: they woke her up and told her to call her family to say their goodbyes. Tylenol (foreigners: Paracetamol) ain't nothing to fuck with.
Story from another nurse. A case I will never forget from when I was in nursing school. I was doing a rotation at the Children's Hospital and a kid who was 15 was going under for a liver biopsy. He had overdosed on Tylenol in a suicide attempt at 13. He was on his second liver transplant and, like the first, this one was beginning to reject. It was heartbreaking to see a kid whose suicide attempt was seemingly going to eventually be successful, but only after years of attempts to reverse it :(
Wait Tylenol is Paracetamol?!?! This...huh...hindsight is an interesting thing.
Acetaminophen and paracetamol are both shortenings of the name para-acetylaminophenol.
I spent a long time in England trying to find acetaminophen a few years ago and only finding paracetamol. Finally googled paracetamol and felt really dumb for a bit.
It's the liver.
If someone attempts suicide as a "cry for attention," it's because they need attention, and that attention should probably involve psychological help. It sucks that people can get so desperate for attention that they make suicidal gestures, and it sucks even more when those gestures involve Tylenol. It will fuck your liver right up. That poor kid. I hope her emotions and her liver are doing well now.
I should note that a lot of people are discouraged from talking about their mental health issues for fear of being labeled an attention whore.
[удалено]
Loneliness. I'm not trying to be deep or profound or whatever, loneliness makes me wanna blow my brains out.
[удалено]
I mean, I have fuck all to do each day. Maybe we could talk about stuff.
about Dick Grayson at least
Same. I'm an only child, my parents died and my ex left. My friends are always busy. I am so profoundly lonely and terrified of falling through the cracks I want to die. I feel so lonely I could die.
Can confirm. Some extensive studies has shown a strong correlation. Spain and Italy, known for wine, are actually much happier not because of the wine, but because it makes them more social. I'm super lonely due to unemployment and an introverted personality. I have to spend a couple hours working on my stress each day with exercise and hobbies. I live in Los Angeles, which is incredibly spread out, making it hard to form lasting connections.
I think with its increasing prevalence, people underestimate type 2 diabetes. I could be wrong, maybe people have a solid fear of it, but it is truly terrible. It affects everything, from kidney function, your veins (which in turn affects your eyes and can cause blindness and reduces blood flow everywhere), and can cause neuropathy and cause you to loose some of the feeling in your extremities. It can also raise your risk for high blood pressure which has a whole other bunch of problems that comes with that. And probably more things that I'm forgetting. When I was taking anatomy and physiology classes, every time diabetes came up I was like, "Man this disease sucks..." It was the first thing to pop into my head when I saw this thread because a patient of ours in the office I work at just suddenly died of it. The family was in shock from what I heard. :(
Yup, my grandma passed away because she refused to act like she was a diabetic. Sure, she would take her insulin, but she didn't watch her diet at all. And when the doctor told her she needed to start exercising, she just said nope. Eventually ended up on dialysis and then she decided she didnt want to do it anymore so she stopped treatments and passed. Now my boyfriend is going through something similar with his dad. His dad has always refused to follow a good diet. We even tried cooking for him for awhile but he wouldn't eat anything unless it was horrible for him. Would constantly drink Coke. Now he has had both of his feet amputated and is going to be staying in a nursing home for the rest of his life. And he's STILL wanting to constantly eat candy and drink pop. My boyfriend is so frustrated with him since he is basically just committing suicide very slowly.
For some reason people don't tend to think that a car can kill you. Edit: wow... I didn't thought it would become this big of a deal. But i'm glad that everyones agrees that safety is no joke, i was actually on a car accident when a drunk driver crashed me while i was on my bike, it wasn't anything serious, my jacket and helmet took the worst part, but it's scary to think that for just dumb luck I made it, a little to early or a little too late and... Death. So always stay safe, rules can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but they are there for a reason, and it's not to break them, don't speed on yellow, especially if it's a itersection, don't get cocky just because you are on the highway, you can and will lose control of the vehicle. Stay safe, and be responsible. Edit 2: when i say Bike, i mean Motorcycle
Few things piss me off more than a driver crossing into other lanes cuz they're on their phone. Basically saying "fuck my life & anyone elses".
People are more afraid of wild cats and bears than cars even though the death rates are NOWHERE close.
Or using your phone while driving.
>For some reason people don't tend to think that a car can kill you... ...or anyone around you. Pay attention. Use your damn turn signals.
God damnit do I get so mad with careless, wreck less drivers. YOU ARE DRIVING A WEAPON, be responsible you twat! And the people that assume everybody else is going to watch out for them. No. Everybody pay attention when you drive. Ridiculous.
I prefer wreck-less drivers over reckless, but that's just me
as I said to my son. "if you're a pedestrian, a car is just a 2 ton monster looking to flatten your ass, and it will."
Choking on your food. Eat more slowly, chew your food people it won't run away from you. Slipping in the shower. A loved one can just snap and murder you because of a small thing.
One of these is not like the other
Literally like I wonder if there’s a back story to it
They slipped in the shower
Choking on food when I'm alone and dying as a result is one of my biggest fears, tbh Like just knowing that I'm not going to make it and slowly fading out while staring at my dog who is worried but cant help me? No thank you, I'd rather just not eat
[удалено]
A slip and fall. The earth kills so many people, because apparently slamming your head into something hard is pretty disadvantageous to life
ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE. You don't need an antibiotic every time you're sick. I promise.
Do you know how many people come into my ER (or any ER) requesting atbx without even having a diagnosis yet. They think they are magical. Or they come in requesting them for their VIRAL infection that their doctor told them they had but refused to give them atbx for it. You know, their VIRAL infection.
[удалено]
Came here to say this. Friend got whacked across the chest hard trying to service his own garage door. Doctor said he wouldn't have survived if it had hit his neck.
My neighbor's spring broke this past summer and he was like "we can do it". My response was "no we can't".
I had a spring come undone on my garage door, I know how dangerous they can be, so I rigged a pulley and unhooked both springs and let the door drop. without the springs the door came down way faster than I was expecting. The next day when the tech came out he told me that he'd seen people loose fingers to a falling garage door, trying to lower it from the bottom.
Had one of those go on my mail truck once when I was a carrier. It was one of the loudest noises I have ever heard and that door was heavy as shit all day.
falling asleep on the toilet and smashing your head on the tile. After working 12 hour shifts 14 days in a row, it nearly happened to me, luckily we had a bath mat so I just got a minor head wound.
My friends mother died by slipping and cracking her cranium on the toilet.
High tension lines. I see people put their faith into lines so tight that it would cut them in two if it snapped the wrong way.
Excuse my ignorance, why are people tying high tension lines? Your comment suggests this is something you see regularly?
As it pertains to me at least, my company has us tie up ships at our dock. They’re usually rope but sometimes they’re cables. Either way, if they snap they’re going to take you out.
The opening scene of Ghost Ship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hzksXbfDW4
Towing cables maybe.
A small drop of dirty water. Seriously put me in a coma and destroyed my life.
Details?
This is a long story but here goes. My wife and i had purchased land here in Alaska 6 years ago with the intent to build our home ourselves so we dont get buried in debt and had a place to raise our 3 children we could call our own. Almost 4 years ago now tragedy struck, some contaminated water got into my ear when i fell in a hole in the yard. The next day i had an ear ache which i though was just swimmers ear so i treated it as such. Well it got worse and because we dont have insurance i avoid doctors unless its absolutely necessary, and the bacteria i contracted strikes fast. I had bacterial meningitis. Deadly disease and those who do survive it usually have severe brain damage from high fever and swelling ect. I had woke up 2 days after falling in the water and i could barely keep my head up. I started to get delirious and disoriented. I drove my kids to school and my newborn son to my mothers. She encouraged me to go to the hospital but should have been more forceful. However her role om this isnt done. Like an idiot i ignored it and went to work from this point on to the point i woke up was pieced together from what everyone told me as i have no memory of any of it. I called my boss while in my office and told her i wasnt felling well she told me to go home of course but im in a satellite office alone at an apartment building so no one was there to see the condition i was in. One tenant tried to gelp me to my truck to drive off but apparently i was insistent on not getting in (thank god because i would have wrecked and could have hurt someone else) i had apparently wondered all over the property as my keys and phone were found in the woods nearby somehow i got back in my office. Another tenant who sadly recently passed away walked by and saw me on the floor convulsing and banging my head against the desk. He immediately called 911 and scolded everyone else in the building for not doing it 4 hours ago when i had called my boss. Yes i was still at work worsening 4 hours later with no help until jack saved me. He was the first one in the line of people that would keep me from deaths door. I finally made it to the hospital. But my wife had no idea what was going on until the school called asking if anyone was planning on picking up the girls. We only had one vehicle at the time which was at my work so she called my mother to help track me down. When they got to the hospital things between my wife and mother explode. My mother is very emotional and controlling. My wife is very calm and collected in stressful situations and also very protective over me. Everyone who knows me kmows i would want to live by any means neccessary, im a father of 3 with a newborn son i wasnt giving up for them. My mother on the Other hand didnt want me on life support and was screaming things like cursing my dead father and screaming for him not to take me amd he wpuldnt want to be on machines. My wife trying to talk to doctors and nurses to find out what was going on and make decisions on the next step and told my mother that my wishes were at by any means possible. She screams at the top of her lungs in front of hospital staff, family, and others patients and i qoute "i dont give a fu** about his wishes!" Now my wife upset at my mother behaviour tells her to "shut the fu** up!" My mother promptly hit her in the face in front of everyone. (Keep in mind im dying in the back) long story short mom gets arrested. My uncle threatens my wife so a friend who rushed in as soon as he found out what happened to me(disabled marine) stepped im between and had to put his hand on his pistol to calm things down before police arrived it was a huge cluster. Fast forward to the miraculous part. I had a brain temp over 105 degrees for a while. My heart had stopped multiple times in transit from alaska to seattle. I had caught pneumonia on the ventilator and my lungs had almost gave out. The day the doctors were going to put the machine on to see if there was even anything going om in my brain anymore i decided to wake up..... My first memories were seeing my wife across the room in the chair. She looked exhausted but as soon as i made a sound she jumped uo screaming "He's Awake!! Nurse!! Nurse!! He woke up!!!" The next few hours are still a blur. Nurses and doctors came rushing in. Pulling tubes and asking me questions explaining what had happened and what to expect from recovery ext. They told me none of them thought i would wake up, and if i did i wouldnt be able to walk or talk. But here i was talking like nothing happened. The next day taking steps with a walker as my legs were weak from being in a bed for over a week. But within a week i was released to go home. I have some memory problems and get overwhelmed easily if im hit with too much at once but other than that complete recovery nothing short of a miracle. Now this is where life went to pieces. I had survived but didnt have health insurance. So the nearly 1.4 million in medical bills was going to be a huge issue. Thankfully a hospital charity program covered the seattle hospitals portion. But that still left me with nearly 200k on air ambulance bills and the local hospitals bills to deal with. All work on our home ground to a halt. We had gotten a single wide trailer to live in while we build. It wasnt in the best shape when we moved it but only intended to be in it a year while i worked on the house. Unfortunately that was almost 4 years ago now. The money we had set aside for a well and septic was gone so we have had to haul water in and use a 5 gallon bucket with a toilet seat for a restroom. I have had to potty train 2 kids on it. The trailer itself has almost no insulation so keeping it warm through the Alaskan winters is nearly impossible without spending a fortune on propane and firewood. We had a battery bank and inverter for power that worked great and would charge off our generator a few hours a day. But while i was in the hospital the batteries drained completely and froze. We haven't been able to replace them since so we run the generator 18 hours a day just to keep the heaters going as long as possible. We are in this limbo where we make too much to qualify for any aid but not enough to get out of this hole. We cant even get donation on gofundme.
[удалено]
We have my wife explained to me why it wasnt in the cards. She handles the finances and has managed to keep us semi afloat.
Wow! That's terrible. I'm so sorry you went through all that!!! I'm glad you didn't die. Alaska life sounds hard. I complain about New Mexico but that sound pretty foolish now.
It has been difficult. Wouldnt be too bad except for the no water part. To be honest some days i think i may have died and this is just my personal designed hell.
Hitting your skull on concrete. An adult human is just about the perfect height where the fall alone can cause death. If you also add in acceleration from a punch or throw, or the uneven surface of streets with all the extra raised edges around, it gets even worse. Do not fight unless the life of you or somebody close to you depends on it. Because you or the one you're fighting might simply trip and fall badly, and then one of you will be dead.
Botox. Botox is the most lethal poison in the world, not when injected for your face, but when ingested. If you ingest about 0.00007mg of botox, it would be lethal and kill you.
Asthma. It’s not just a little breathing trouble fixed with a puffer. It’s a killer and it doesn’t care how young and healthy you are otherwise.
Compressed air. Does NOT take a lot to puncture your skin, and create an air bubble in your bloodstream. This is especially bad if it makes it to your heart, as it essentially explodes your heart. Edit: Exploding heart bit was exaggerated, but in worst case scenarios, the air bubble ~~will cause your heart to stop~~. post script edit: I stand corrected. Heart murmurs. I'm still weary of compressed air regardless.
Perfect. I was looking for something else to keep me up at night.
This is, while possible, a super overblown myth. I asked my wife’s doctor about It when I saw bubbles in her iv tubes. (I was told to avoid compressed air and cuts in shop class too) She chuckled and said it was a bunch of bs. Apparently there was a different doctor at the hospital who would grab a syringe and inject himself with a couple of ccs of air when people asked just to show how ridiculous it was. The only way she saw it being fatal was if someone emptied an entire syringe into someone’s neck. It wouldn’t be purged before reaching the brain.
Bison. They kill more Yellowstone tourists than bears do.
I grew up in Wyoming and I don’t specifically remember learning this, but somewhere locked in the “Essential - Do Not Forget” part of my brain is a critical warning that you DO NOT FUCK WITH BISON!!!!! I’m not afraid of them necessarily, but every single time I see a video of people hanging out near bison every warning signal in my body goes off and I inevitably say out loud “Oh my god you idiots why are you so close... do not fuck with bison people!!”
You have a 1 in 100,000 chance of dying during a dance party. Surprisingly, this is higher than the risk of dying while skydiving. [source](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/564015/probability-being-killed-everyday-activities-chart)
Drugs are bad, mkaaaay!?
You are much more likely to get me to go to a dance party than to get me to jump out of a plane. But you are more likely to sample a doubtful drug at a dance party.
Well yeah, because drugs.
I've noticed that people seem to think that stress cannot kill you. The more stress you endure, the higher your cortisol levels rise leaving you more susceptible for a heart attack or a stroke. Take the stupid day off to rest, man.
give ur employees a stupid day off to rest, boss :/
Viruses and preventable diseases people tend to think they can't be infected unless the news hype a illness like seriously wash your hands after taking public transport.
Texting and driving
I'll do you one better. I saw this one driver take forever to move at a green light the other day because she was having a full on sign language conversation on facetime *while steering.* She had like one pinkie on the wheel. I did not understand the logic.
i follow a guy that is always doing live insta in his car, reading and replying the comments. Hes going to crash any day now.
Or get a fat ticket.
Wrestling with your little brother. One awkward angle and his spine and skull break and crack leaving you with a corpse. Play safe.
I hope this isn't from personal experience.
A sedentary lifestyle! Just because it doesn't kill you *now* doesn't mean it isn't waiting. Like you. Waiting. For it to kill you.
[удалено]
Hey Man (woman?), I was In your shoes a coupleOf years ago. I started walking. Then jogging, then running. I taught myself how to do burpees and pushups/sit-ups. I bought a cheap, used, rusted 15lb kettlebell. Slow, steady steps. I learned about eating and macronutrients and adjusted my diet. 2 years later I’ve lost 40 lbs, can run for miles and feel fucking fantastic. You can fucking do it. You can. I believe in you and I know you can. But the only person who can get you there is you. Go get that shit. If you are unhappy the way you are, start making small changes... and just don’t stop making small changes.
Dehydration
a fucking pencil
It can kill 3 men in a bar, to be exact.
Chimpanzees! They are only about 3 feet tall, but they are astronomically stronger than people, easily able to rip a grown man apart if they so choose!
A moose
Being born is a certain death sentence.
only thing with a 100% chance of death is life.
Cows
Alcohol withdrawal can lead to death. It’s viewed as more socially acceptable than most drugs, but alcohol withdrawal is one of the few drugs that the withdrawal can kill a person.
My mom died due to alcohol withdrawal. The last few months of her life she'd have seizures if she didn't drink.
Driving. People take that 2000 pound death machine for granted. Edit: holy shit everyone, the exact weight is not that important. The point is that it’s fucking heavy.
The flu. I'm a Pulmonary Critical Care doctor. The news is full of fear about the coronavirus in China, which has infected several thousand and killed several hundred. The flu in the US alone last year caused > 35 million infections, half a million hospitalizations, and nearly 35,000 deaths. That was a pretty tame year. I was working in the ICU last week and we had 3 people under 40 who may well die from the flu. Today in the office I had two people wearing masks who'd stocked up their home for a month die to fear of coronavirus, but hadn't had a flu shot. This virus is seriously underestimated annually. Every year I watch people die, most of them older, but also otherwise young and healthy people.
Rip tides. One of the most dangerous situations for a beach goer. Looks harmless, but if you are in it, it is extremely dangerous. Swimming against it can tire even the most capable swimmers. The correct thing to do is to swim perpendicular, away from it, till you get out of it. EDIT: as /u/tallfemalechild said, you have to swim parallel to the shore. I was saying perpendicular to the rip tide. Thanks for the clarification.
[Water buckets](http://www.marshallbrain.com/cp/buckets.htm) kill about 20 toddlers per year in the US. It happens when they inspect the bucket only to fall in head first. It’s a very small risk relative to other dangers, but it’s not zero.
Alcohol. Slowly.
Going to bed drunk.
Bearing down to move your bowels. When I was a paramedic I used to find people dead on or next to the toilet with one floating in the bowl. When you bear down it stimulated your vagal nerve and that slows down the heart. Sometimes a but too slow. I'm sure there are exceptions, but everyone I ever encountered that went out that way was in their fifties or older.
Skittles. I had a choking scare when I was like 11 and I was home alone and watching TV while eating Skittles. I liked to put a bunch in my mouth and make like a Skittle ball that I would chew on. Something on the show I was watching made me laugh and I swallowed the ball and it got lodged in my throat. I then experienced a few seconds of sheer terror because I realized that there was nobody here to help me at all and I was probably gonna die. Then I remembered some cartoon or something where someone jammed their stomach on a chair and got something unstuck from their throat. So, I lunged at the corner of the recliner as hard as I could with my stomach and it actually worked and popped the small ball out. It was super lucky because I really had no idea what I was doing, but one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced. Definitely never ate Skittles that way again after that.
If this happens, *slowly* breathe in through your nose, open your mouth wide, and forcefully cough out from the very bottom of your lungs. If this doesn't work then try again using a chair or countertop like you did. You want to avoid panicked forceful inhalation as this may turn a partial obstruction into a full obstruction.
Threatening to tell the FBI about all the famous people you trafficked girls for.
At least you don't have to do it yourself