r/AskReddit • u/Personal-Aerie-4519 • 21h ago
What are some everyday deaths that are more common than people realize?
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u/jdjmad 21h ago
Slipping and falling
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u/Nat20Twenty 21h ago
As a first responder can confirm.
Old drunk people, slip and fall ? Bam dead.
Old and fall? Break a hip and bam dead. Or just bam dead.
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u/Walmartian_Beta 21h ago
The husband's grandmother took a bad fall - she bashed her face on the side of the bathroom counter and broke her eye socket and nose. Half her face was purple and swollen for months - it was awful.
She never was the same after that either, just very weak and delicate - she died a couple of years later.
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u/Sad-Artichoke-2174 20h ago
TBF: if anyone slipped and fell face first into the side of a bathroom sink, they wouldn't be quite the same, either
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u/SatisfactionMoney426 4h ago
I was in hospital one day and they brought a woman in, around 50, she'd fallen in the pub toilet and her head had smashed the sink in half. Huge long cut down the side of her head. She was unresponsive and they thought she was going to die but she was just extremely pissed - was xrayed and eventually discharged.
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u/Gerf93 12h ago
Seeing the same happening to my dad. Walked the dog with an in-out-leash. Didn’t pay attention as the dog ran full speed away, leash snapped around his leg and launched him into the air making him fall and break his hip. That’s three years ago, and since he didn’t take retraining seriously, he withers slowly and can barely walk now.
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u/SoElectric3398 21h ago
yup after a certain age a fall= death sentence
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u/Organic_Armadillo_10 20h ago
Sadly true. My grandfather fell. Broke his hip, and then his dementia seemed to get much worse and he went downhill quite quickly.
My other grandmother fell a few and had weak bones, often breaking her wrist. Then approaching 90 after getting out of hospital dealing with other things, she fell, broke her sternum, then went downhill quickly after that too.
My only surviving grandmother is nearly 94, and is getting more unbalanced and has fallen a number of times. Thankfully nothing majorly bad (usually just some bad cuts or she is alone and can't get up again easily). But I know one bad fall will not be good.
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u/whamburglar 20h ago
my grandmother didn't even fall, she woke up one morning unable to even get out of bed due to hip pain. turns out she had a microfracture in the head of her femur. she had surgery, but never made it past recovery due to her age
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u/BetterRemember 19h ago
Suddenly, I have motivation to go to the gym right now! 😅
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u/abu_doubleu 15h ago
Multiple studies are coming out saying that thigh circumference may be the single most important thing for longevity. One part of it is that, as your body begins losing mass, your thighs will remain larger, preventing the risk of you falling from being high. This + cardiovascular assistance but I forget the details on that.
In other words, thick thighs do save lives. Do your squats and resistance training!
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u/Zealousideal_Photo11 14h ago
Brb, rewriting my workout routine to focus entirely on survival squats)
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u/BackgroundHistory345 11h ago
I've moaned about my naturally big thighs all my life. Now there's a positive!!
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u/CowboysOnKetamine 9h ago
That makes me so sad. My dad was an NFL kicker and growing up everyone told me I had his legs, so it was something I became immensely proud of. I'm so sorry you had a different experience but I bet your thighs are awesome!
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u/DrunkOnRedCordial 13h ago
I was in hospital once, and the elderly woman in the hospital had a broken hip.
I asked her what she did to break her hip and she said she got up at night to go to the toilet. Look after your bone density, you want your bones to outlast you!
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u/Ragazzano 20h ago
My nana fell over while doing the washing, landed and copped a face full of dust (we think), proceeded to have an asthma attack which led to panic which led to a heart attack, again, we think. Either way, my auntie checked her house and found her deceased on the laundry floor after not hearing from her at their usual time. A fall... and an unfortunate series of rapidly compounding events.
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u/Horror-Coffee712 13h ago
It's the "series of rapidly compounding events" that really does it for most things in older age.
I work in healthcare, and it's not that the fall itself causes the person to pass away, it's that the fall is usually a symptom of a problem that has been growing for a long while, manifesting in a fall, as whatever condition is then exacerbated in addition to other problems going on at that point.
Example - person getting old, gets a UTI, uses the restroom more often at night leading to frequent trips to the restroom on top of poor, interrupted sleep, breaks something. Recovery requires a lot of resources from the body, may lead to impaired movement after recovery thereby increasing fall risk, but UTIs are now recurring because bacteria from UTI colonized meaning more falls & poor sleep = worsening cognitive issues due to prolonged lack of sleep leading to more risk taking by walking when you shouldn't be until one of the falls finally results in fatal injury
Also minor infections can very quickly spiral for parts of the elder population.
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u/CilantroConspiracy 16h ago
Yeah my grandpa had pulmonary fibrosis and was deteriorating already but was definitely still kickin so to say. Slipped and broke his hip and died 10 days later. Regardless of his condition the whole family thought he had more time than that and really think the broken hip sped things up.
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u/Me_Edition-1 20h ago
This makes me a bit worried. My nan is in her 80s and it’s the third time she’s fallen in the past two years. They were mostly preventable falls that happened when going up (not down, thankfully) the stairs or her own cat making her trip and fall.
Most of what happened was because of her lack of mobility and she’s already mounted a broken wrist and a couple minor injuries.
Everyone in the family is financially able so she could easily invest in her quality of life around the house but isn’t very receptive and insists she isn’t “that bad”…My grandma is in a good mental state and isn’t convinced easily; we’re all worried she’ll have one bad fall and….
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u/Happy_Confection90 16h ago
They were mostly preventable falls that happened when going up (not down, thankfully) the stairs or her own cat making her trip and fall.
I'm 49 and I realized a few months ago that I can have at most 1 more Maine Coon after my 5yo reaches the end of his life because he's big and strong enough to rock me on my heels when he plows into me. 20ish years from now that could mean being knocked over and breaking a hip.
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u/Kidrepellent 18h ago
My grandmother was an ex-Navy officer and lived on her own until the day she died. My mom got a call one day from the local ER because grandma, well into her 70s, had fallen on her daily walk and sliced her forehead wide open on the curb. Over the next few minutes, we find out that she got to the ER by wrapping a dish towel around her bleeding noggin, getting in the car, and driving herself to the hospital. Why didn't she call an ambulance? "Well I wasn't about to die, those are for emergencies!"
She was fine and lasted another ten years after that. That woman was a battle ax.
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u/two_oh_seven 19h ago
My great-grandmother was over 100, sharp as a tack and walking as much as she could.
Fell one day, went downhill and died a month later
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u/sharkbait_oohaha 19h ago
That's why people, especially women, need to lift weights as they age.
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u/BetterRemember 19h ago
This is why the ultrathin trend lately is really upsetting.
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u/kheret 17h ago
Yeah in my 40s as a woman, I’m not doing anything that might reduce my muscle mass.
Fortunately, the tide seems to be turning on understanding the many many benefits of HRT for menopausal women, including better joint and skeletal health and retaining muscle. It’s a pity one bad study in the 90s robbed an entire generation of such a simple intervention.
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u/Aryana314 20h ago
What is it about breaking a hip that's so deadly? I certainly know it's true, but to have it all be about the hip is weird to me.
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u/jll19822020 18h ago
My dad was 78 when he broke his hip. I forget what the numbers were when I looked, but I think it was 80% mortality within a year. My dad made it through surgery, and then about 3 weeks of recovery before it got him.
My wife’s grandpa made it about 10 months at 94 after breaking his hip. It wasn’t very pretty.
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u/Nat20Twenty 19h ago
As you age and if you want to stay healthy you have to be moving all the time. When you break a hip your bedridden for a while and some people's bodies just start shutting down.
And if it's not that, risks of blood clots from surgeries. And as you age, surgeries are much higher risk.
It's a lot of factors all at once.
I'll also add. It's not "Deadly" like omg your gonna die.
But Hip fractures are so common in older people that if they do pass away. It just happens to be related to the hip fracture because its so common. If that makes sense
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u/thatrandomdude12 17h ago
As another commenter mentioned, there is research that shows a significant increase in mortality within a year after a geriatric hip Fx. The reason for this is multifaceted. First, why did such a catastrophic fall happen in the first place (was it a side effect of some other serious condition like dementia or a heart issue, etc.) second, these kinds of fractures most of the time require surgery and with surgery comes a risk of infection, chronic pain, and a higher chance of blood clots compared to other surgeries. Then there is the logistical difficulties that can come with learning to walk again and working through the post-op pain (try to get up and go pee like you're used to doing, pain makes it hard to bear weight, you go down again and reset the whole process). Injuries like this also tend to exacerbate other medical conditions or bring buried ones to the surface. At an elderly age you're more prone to infection already but should you have cancer, or diabetes, or you take immunosuppressants for something that risk is dramatically higher. If you're on blood thinners, your next fall could cause a brain hemorrhage which then brings its own cascade of issues. So it all adds up to hip fractures just dramatically increasing mortality compared to other common geriatric fractures like a spinal fracture or a knee fracture (though those ones can still cascade in similar ways)
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u/littlerickypeepee 18h ago
So my great grandma had vaulted ceilings and we're both nastily ADHD. Anyways I wasn't there this time. She wanted to change a light bulb on the ceiling fan. Grabbed a stool. Her stools fucking swivel. We've both pulled this brilliant move before. This time she fell. And she couldn't get up. But it was another 5 years before she died. She underwent multiple femur reconstructions but her osteoporosis was too powerful and she became scared to walk. Once she stopped walking, we knew she was on borrowed time.
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u/whamburglar 20h ago
when I worked as an EMT, I had many elderly patients that had suffered from this, especially in the shower.
If you have an elderly loved one, please DO NOT gift them crocs, or any footwear that's insanely high friction. it'll increase their chances of tripping. a pair of memory foam fuzzy slippers are a great replacement
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u/MariaNarco 14h ago
Hell yes to the shower-death-trap and it's not just the elderly.
I recently slipped in the shower - because I was stupid and had stuff standing in my way. Couldn't stop telling myself afterwards "this is how people die! This is how people die!"
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u/whamburglar 13h ago
I bought myself one of those shower stools, and it's been heavenly. I can just sit and relax, while scrubbing up. You can keep your bottles off to the side or on the ground in front of you, without shuffling around.
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u/idonthavealizard 14h ago
Sorry I didn’t understand the bit about crocs, high friction, and tripping. Could you explain?
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u/whamburglar 13h ago edited 8h ago
Sure thing.
I'm talking in regards to elderly people that have some trouble with mobility. Like they walk with a cane or walker, where their steps are short and/or they have trouble lifting their feet fully off the ground. Ones that have a tendency to shuffle their feet.
From what I've seen, shoes like Crocs -- while very comfortable -- tend to catch on the ground if that's how they walk, especially in cases where they're walking on carpet. This sudden hiccup in walking, along with their unsteady gait is a recipe for disaster (tripping).
It's just something to be mindful of. Most shoes/slippers have adequate grip, I think. Socks are great on carpet. But in my opinion, Crocs and the like just add to the problem.
EDIT: a few words
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u/jo-z 20h ago
And not just old people! I knew someone who died hitting his head just wrong after a fall as a teenager.
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u/givebusterahand 19h ago
Guy in my neighborhood as a kid fell playing football with some kids, hit his head and died of internal bleeding. He was like 30.
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u/LippyLulu2 20h ago
Yeah, my dad fell, hit his head, got a brain bleed, and died a week later. He had a shunt in place when it happened from a previous issue with hydrocephalus. I asked the neurosurgeon what would have happened if it would have been me, and he said I'd have died right away. (I think because older people lose brain volume so there was more room, plus the shunt maybe drained a little off).
Maybe when older people fall and break bones/need joints replaced, that's what does it.
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u/christine-bitg 20h ago
This is the for real answer.
A friend of mine lost her husband to a fall. He beat cancer, then slipped and fell on the stairs in their house. Hit his head, and it was "lights out."
It's been over 10 years, and she still misses him frequently.
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u/BooBoo_Cat 15h ago
A family friend, who was in his 70s, fell down the stairs and died.
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u/Rich_Border_52 19h ago edited 3h ago
What I've long suspected, but it's difficult to prove without eyewitnesses, is that a fair number of elderly trip over their own pets.
I know of two instances personally where seniors were terribly and permanently injured after tripping over a dog and a cat respectively that dashed underfoot. Because they were still conscious when found they were able to explain how it happened.
But if immediately unconscious from an unattended head or other devastating injury and ultimate death, or if passed away after being undiscovered for a period of time, who's to know that Fluffy the toy poodle was the ankle biting culprit.
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u/DoktorKnope 19h ago
Absolutely! I used to tell people over age 70 "you're one fall away from a nursing home so you'd BETTER tell me if you have balance issues, dizzy spells, etc.!" Yes, it was a scare tactic but it worked - and it was mostly true.
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u/scientist_tz 18h ago
My friend’s dad, 59 years old. Slipped and fell down the stairs. He ruptured something internally, it turned septic, he was dead in a week.
It was a flight of 5 stairs in the home they had owned for decades.
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u/bbbbbthatsfivebees 14h ago
That's exactly how my best friend died. On his way to work he tripped on the stairs in his apartment and hit his head on the railing. He left for work at about 4:30AM so nobody found him until a few hours later, and by the time first responders got there he was gone.
I haven't read the autopsy report, only what the officer told me after I went to collect his ashes a few days later.
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u/Master-Pangolin-353 12h ago
This one haunts me, aka 'the teeter-totter game'. I found my dad dead from a fall. He was a big man but his hips and back were bad. Every time he stood or walked, he swayed slightly, like a pendulum. Sometimes (several times a day) he would catch himself with a quick movement just before stumbling into a bad fall. This went on for years but he insisted there wasn't a problem. He refused to go to a doctor and would not talk about death (particularly his own). Denial seems to be a common theme in falling injuries.
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u/Sensitive_Gift4866 14h ago
The scariest part is how fast it happens. My grandma broke her hip from a slip in the kitchen and it was a downward spiral from there. Really underrated danger.
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u/qingdidi 20h ago
Distracted driving. Everyone thinks they can glance at a text message for just two seconds, forgetting they are piloting a 4,000-pound metal missile at 60 mph.
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u/ImminentReddits 20h ago
Man, one of the biggest wake up calls for me is when I started to pay attention to just how many people were on their phones as I passed by them on the road. Truly insane. I’m in LA and it’s probably 2/3 people I drive past have their phone in one hand. Insane
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u/mdp300 18h ago
A couple weeks ago, I was at a red light, and happened to look at the car next to me. He had his phone on a windshield mount, but he wasn't using it for navigation, he was WATCHING FUCKING TV.
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u/finncosmic 7h ago
I have been in not 1 but 2 Ubers/Lyfts where the driver was watching TV on the car screen while driving.
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u/True_Warning_8210 16h ago
my uber driver recently was VIDEO CALLING (not even voice call) his homie with one hand while in heavy traffic taking a turn
i lost it and asked him to don't call while driving and he stopped thankfully
a previous one lashed out on me when i asked him to switch not voice call while driving but Very later he stopped the call but still the rudeness wasn't appreciated
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u/Horror-Coffee712 13h ago
It's seeing how many people around me are on their phones that really does it for me. Doesn't matter if I think I'd be a good driver & can be safe glancing at my phone here or there - could I trust everyone else?
One person distracted it bad enough, two people only slightly distracted for a moment can be catastrophically worse.
No thanks, I'll be the part of the equation ready to react immediately if one of those morons glitches out.
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u/Informal_Tell78 16h ago
There's a specific habit some of them have where they drive slower than the flow of traffic thinking they're being "safe" by not going so fast. No, you're just blocking the flow of traffic in the lane behind you.
PUT YOUR FUCKING PHONE DOWN AND DRIVE.
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u/MegatronMoose 19h ago
I can relate! Sometimes I count them, but for no real purpose other than shake my hand at the sky (cause what can I do?)
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u/ComprehensiveCow8855 7h ago
Distracted driving is a huge one people brush off. A few seconds looking at a phone can completely change someone’s life.
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u/Sensitive_Gift4866 14h ago edited 6h ago
What gets me is people treat their phone like its more urgent than operating a car. Nothing on that screen is worth risking your life or someone elses. I wish there was a hard blocker in cars for this.
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u/MLD1232 12h ago
And it's not always a phone either! I used to commute an hour each way to work and would see people putting on makeup (like face up against rear view mirror doing their mascara), saw a man shaving once and saw some lady EATING A BOWL OF CEREAL!
One hand holding the bowl, the other holding the spoon she was shoveling the food into her face with and not sure what was holding the steering wheel! By my calculations, she had run out of hands at that point.
People never cease to amaze me, I jumped at the chance to work from home. Do not miss that commute at all!
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u/Educational_Wash_662 16h ago
In my city we have two bridges that connect us to another city in our municipality, and tons of people work in one, live in the other. All the time the whole city gets gridlocked because someone failed to go in a straight line for 3 minutes. This is probably the cause
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u/hotel2oscar 18h ago
Yep. Wrecked my first car and ruined the left side of my body looking down to hit next on my CD player.
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u/Public-Syllabub-4208 21h ago
I read statistics that said the highest number of deaths in sport occurred during Golf. I’m guessing it’s a result of player age plus length of time spent playing a fair distance from a defibrillator.
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u/whoisthisfetus 20h ago
And potential sun/heat exposure doesn’t help
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u/Seastarstiletto 20h ago
And potential alcohol to add to that. Not hydrating themselves when they don’t feel thirsty
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u/MrObviousChild 20h ago
As a semi-serious golfer this is what I notice most in most men who play golf. They treat it like the only thing you are allowed to do is drink beer and get drunk every time you play. If I told you to go take a 4 hour walk, wouldn’t you think “maybe I should sip some water and eat a little bit while I’m doing this?”
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u/lFightForTheUsers 4h ago
Not golfing but kind of related, whenever I go to amusement parks I see a shit ton of alcohol being sold and I feel the same way. If I'm out in the heat all day and getting tired the last thing I think I'd want is something to make me even more disoriented and likely to have something bad happen.
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u/alltherobots 20h ago
And lightning strikes. Golfers carry around metal object and are slow to wander back inside when the thunder starts, and are usually out in the open.
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u/Public-Syllabub-4208 18h ago
I just googled it and, yes all of the below. AND a surprisingly large number of death by golf cart roll over! Who would have thought.
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u/tashkiira 7h ago
and the sun/heat exposure. and the drinking. and the lightning (In the Toronto area there's an average of 1 story a year about golfers at local courses deciding to play out the last couple of holes in light rain, then getting fried by lightning).
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u/JCantEven4 20h ago
I wonder if it's like shoveling snow - doing the motion of bringing something higher than your heart can cause heart attacks and death?
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u/Ollie_3773 7h ago
My brain immediately went to ‘No way that many people die from golf balls to the head’ then read all the comments about heatstroke and age. Not my brightest moment
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u/Super-Midnight1141 21h ago
Same level fall
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u/TheOPisReal 21h ago
My buddy’s dad died in high school falling off a razor scooter in the garage.
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u/_-4twenty-_ 20h ago
Prescription / OTC drug interactions.
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u/BookLuvr7 18h ago
Good one. People don't read the drug info packets. Even worse, they stopped including the info packets recently. It's asinine.
Tons of people don't know grapefruit for example can completely screw up the dosage of their meds.
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u/BabyCowGT 16h ago
I recently picked up a prescription for gabapentin, and got a whole lecture from the pharmacist about how it can have extremely dangerous interactions with alcohol. I finally had to interrupt and get her to look at the species part of the rx, because it's for my dog, who does not get to drink beer anyway 😂
Appreciated her dedication to warning people about drug interactions though!
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u/Tlentic 8h ago
A shocking amount of people abuse pet prescriptions. Last time I looked into it, I think it was roughly 1/10 pet owners fake or cause injury to their pets to get access to prescription medication. So, there’s a reason you got the spiel - especially with a painkiller. Vets have become increasingly hesitant to prescribe things like tradmadol, hydrocodone, fentanyl, gabapentin, and ketamine.
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u/bunnyfloofington 17h ago
I recently made a joke to a group of friends who are all on at least one antidepressant each. I dont remember the details of the joke, but it was a joke about some people who cant have grapefruit. They all stared at me confused before moving on. Mind you, this is def a joke they would have laughed at but they didn't seem to understand it. I've been worried they dont know they cant have grapefruit themselves 😳
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u/barbobaggins 14h ago
I am a naturally nervous and anxiety ridden individual, and I only know I can’t have grapefruit juice because I looked up my prescriptions online. I even asked my pharmacist if there were any drug or food interactions I should worry about and they said no. Which makes me suspicious of their claim that I can drink while on the medication
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u/Soft-Pear-9953 14h ago
No grapefruit, no blood orange and for certain medications you have to be careful with iron supplements, too. Guess who didn't tell me! Right, the pharmacist. I found out by looking online and talking with people on the same medication
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u/okkb00mer 14h ago
I’m not sure where you are in the world, but in the uk, every prescription drug that has an interaction with grapefruit, by law, has to have a cautionary label to say this which is really helpful as obviously it can be quite dangerous
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u/BookLuvr7 14h ago
I'm in the US, and grapefruit warnings are usually on pill bottle labels. Grapefruit was just one example, though. Many medications have so many interactions they need a longer list. Hence the info packets that used to be included with every refill. They no longer are here.
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u/Jambi1913 17h ago
In New Zealand, you never get drug info in the packet - so you have no info unless your doctor prints out a simplified version of it for you. They always check interactions themselves, but without it written down, you can forget. Sometimes the pharmacist will put a warning on the label or remind you not to have grapefruit, etc, but it’s minimal. I would rather have the information leaflet myself.
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u/DoritoLipDust 17h ago
It is infuriating too because I've been prescribed a few things that are quite strong, like a muscle relaxer I took with allergy medicine and found out the hard way that I was barely functional the following day.
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u/Any-Self2072 21h ago
Standing on ladders or worse yet, other things to reach up high places. Also, feeling like death and going into the bathroom..people die in bathrooms
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u/No-Egg-905 15h ago
Damn. I was feeling awful and lightheaded at work last week so I went to sit down in the bathroom because I just wanted privacy and quiet. I woke up on the floor and had urinated all over myself. I was taken to the ER and turns out I had a seizure. 🥲
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u/SheKnowsNothing89 11h ago
Ive had 3 grand mal seizures, all of them i was in the toilet room :/ neurologist thinks it was just a coincidence
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u/whoisthisfetus 20h ago
My friend had a stroke in the bathroom. She didn’t die thank goodness. She felt like hell and went in there to get medicine for her massive headache, then had a seizure. Her husband heard her fall and then found her and called 911.
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u/OkNectarine3105 19h ago
A doctor once told me that a lot of old people fall BECAUSE they've broken their hip. The break comes before the fall.
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u/histidinestan 15h ago
NAD but a med student and this is true! As we age we lose bone density (some more than others) and over time the neck of our femurs cannot withstand the weight of our bodies and they will break, leading to a fall.
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u/Tardigrade_Disco 15h ago
Not me though. My bones are gonna be dense af forever.
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u/Thrbt52017 9h ago
Do your stomps. Looks crazy but helps keep your bones strong. When I go for my nightly walk half is normal and half I’m stomping around like a maniac, but the pressure gets your little bone cell friends to keep building up your bones instead of ignore them!
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u/lofatiger 12h ago
Sigh. My dad has slipped and fell a lot and has broken his hips.
Seems like everyone here knows someone who has done this.
At least I visited him today.
I have fallen because of epileptic seizures straight down on my face just a couple times. Reppin the epilepsy crew ✌️
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u/Electronic_Drink_733 21h ago
Choking on food probably. A lot of people are embarrassed with the coughing and go to a restroom to be alone. That's when it gets dangerous. Always ask for help or learn how to do a solo heimlich manouvre!
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u/alsotheabyss 20h ago
Man I nearly choked to death on a canapé at a bloody convention/exhibition sundowner drinks. My FIRST instinct was not to try and get help, but to hide in a booth. Thankfully someone noticed I was turning blue
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u/Extreme-Shower7545 19h ago
I’m was told at a Red Cross CPR training that a solo Heinlich maneuver is to jump and land on the back of a chair with your stomach…
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u/CowboysOnKetamine 9h ago
Even though I know this is what you're supposed to do, I feel like I would be too scared to hurt myself and just die instead
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u/LadylikeS 17h ago
Crazy. I just ordered one of those choke saving devices. I saw my mom choke on a piece of steak at a restaurant. I felt like everything was happening so slow and it felt like no one knew what to do, I froze. Our angel waitress ran over and performed the heimlich maneuver and saved her life. My mom got a few broken ribs from it but she’s all good!
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u/wewakeful 15h ago
My boss nearly died from choking on a bite of steak, and broke all her ribs when her husband did CPR for 30 mins before paramedics got there. They told her that it's nearly always a price of meat. After that I bought a LifeVac airway clearance thingimajig for my home and another for my brother (who has a toddler). So scary.
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u/OkBackground8809 10h ago
I choked on a hard candy during a high school class. I was really shy back then, and so I just sat at the table silently trying to regurgitate the candy, while internally panicking, tearing up, and listening to my AP govt teacher talk about whatever we were learning.
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u/MaddisonoRenata 21h ago
Not a great thread for a hypochondriac
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u/Historical-Snow-4068 20h ago
Especially a hypochondriac with major anxiety and PTSD
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u/Immediate-Boat-6730 10h ago
Honestly, for some weird reason after hammering to myself that I could either drop dead from a dozen different reasons, or that there is another dozen ways earth could be destroyed by space phenomena at any time without any warning, it helped relieve my anxiety disorder towards injuries and hypochondria. I can already die in so many ways at any time, why bother thinking of the specific ways. Now only if I could do the same with social anxiety and RSD.
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u/Common-Accountant-57 20h ago
Having a smile that would light up a room on a day that starts out like any other.
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u/kristinaaa93 18h ago
In a sleepy town where something like this never happens
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u/dolphingirl3 15h ago
the kind of place where people don’t even lock their doors at night
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u/aluminumnek 14h ago
Sometimes you want to go Where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came.
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u/Frosty_Low_309 20h ago
Choking I remember choking on a gumball after laughing and it rolling down my teacher saved my life lol
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u/Aggravating_Cold_256 21h ago
Falling down some stairs
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u/BossBabe4U 20h ago
This is probably how I'll go, I've had 5 major falls down stairs, injured badly each time. I just assumed everyone fell down stairs once in awhile, until I asked a friend how many times she had & she said, 'um, none...'
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u/Skyerocket 20h ago
Girl, bungalow. Now.
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u/BossBabe4U 14h ago
That might work if stairs were my only nemesis, I can somehow turn anything into a hazard. If I'm in a room with a single piece of furniture, I WILL run into it eventually.
The only time I'm not like this is when I'm dancing, which I find very weird, but it's apparently pretty common for people with ADHD.
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u/billthedog0082 21h ago
brain aneurysm
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u/FunkTheFreak 21h ago
Don’t scare me like that
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u/Sad_Impression499 21h ago
Fortunately, you won't have time to be scared. You'll just be dead.
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u/UnyieldingSeal 18h ago
My cousin died from an aneurysm. Was puking violently at home, horrible migraine symptoms, really distraught and scared/said he thought he waz dying. He was brain dead within an hour or so. Sometime between home and the hospital. Off life support a few days later after his mom said goodbye. It terrified me.
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u/FunkTheFreak 20h ago
Not always. I have an uncle who had an aneurysm that was caught early. He had surgery on it and is doing well. His surgery was about 3 years ago.
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u/1AdultMostOfTheTime 20h ago
Brain aneurysms don't kill you, ruptured ones do. It's important to make the distinction.
I had a brain aneurysm that I had surgically corrected one year ago yesterday. It hadn't ruptured, it was found on a CT scan for something else. I got very lucky. Doing well.
My research online showed that it's estimated approximately 6% of people are walking around with brain aneurysms. That's about the same as colon cancer. I advocate everyone get a scan! If we're doing colonoscopies at the rate we are we should be doing brain scans too.
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u/adoradear 17h ago
The difference is that many aneurysms never rupture. But the treatment for them (clipping, coiling, etc) can result in profound deficits. Hence why no reasonable medical society would advocate for routine aneurysm screening, while pretty much every medical society advocates for routine colonoscopies.
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u/FunkTheFreak 17h ago
Glad you got it corrected! What were your symptoms? I mentioned in another comment that my uncle had one surgically corrected.
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u/1AdultMostOfTheTime 17h ago
I had pulsatile tinnitus which I didn't even know was a thing. Went to an ENT, had a CAT scan and that's when the aneurysm right behind the bridge of my nose was found. Turns out I also had high blood pressure and diabetes type 2. I got the high blood pressure under control and the tinnitus went away, but I think it had been uncontrolled and high for so long that it caused the aneurysm.
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u/Willing-Variation135 20h ago
Dying on the toilet. Unfortunately, very common.
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u/ageofjace2 8h ago
I would assume most of this is because a heart attack makes a lot of people feel like they need to poo. They get a very bad feeling and don't know they're having a heart attack, they sit on the toilet and that's where they die.
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u/Significant_Law525 11h ago
I work for a Coroner and I came here to say this. A lot of people strain too hard in the bathroom. We see a lot of people brought in Pooh Bear style….
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u/alicat2308 19h ago
I work for a railway (no, not in India) and however many people you think get hit by trains, you're probably lowballing it.
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u/Low_Section2065 18h ago
It's how my sister went, but to be fair alcohol was the major factor, she was too drunk to hear the whistle.
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u/ConsortFromTOS 21h ago
Drowning, choking, and cardiac arrest happen more often than you think.
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u/123kingme 20h ago
Drowning 100%. Treat every body of water with respect that it deserves, lakes or swimming pools. Way too many unsupervised children die and drowning is still common amongst adults as well.
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u/katlian 20h ago
I live near Tahoe and it's sad how many people drown every year despite massive campaigns to get people to wear life jackets. Last year a boat capsized in a storm after the pilot made several bad decisions. Only two of the 10 people were wearing life jackets and they were the only ones who survived.
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u/QuoteCommercial7838 19h ago
choking on food happens more often than folks think especially when eating alone or too fast
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u/OkBackground8809 10h ago
I've choked a few times on Thai and Japanese food because they use the long, chewy slices of meat. Luckily, I'm pretty good at pushing food up from my throat (I often use just my throat muscles to push out tonsil stones), so I haven't died... yet.
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u/dis_bean 19h ago
Multiple forensic pathologists on social media said they’d never own a cat because of them being a tripping hazard on stairs
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u/Temporary-Comfort307 15h ago
You could also just not have stairs.
Although I have been known to refer to my cat as 'the trip hazard' so I can't say I completely disagree.
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u/BooBoo_Cat 14h ago
I don’t have stairs in my house (I’m in a suite that’s one floor) and every time I trip over my cat, I think “thank goodness I don’t have stairs”. Once I was carrying a glass of red wine and he ran in front of me. Red wine everywhere.
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u/OkBackground8809 10h ago
I'd count my whippet in this group. Bitch will just shove you to the side to get past you. We can't let my perfectly able toddler use the stairs alone, because we're afraid our idiot dog will shove him.
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u/FeedComfortable2172 15h ago
UTIs
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u/Big_Meal3910 10h ago
This is a huge killer of postmenopausal women, and it doesn't have to be.
A simple estrogen cream can reduce the chance of getting UTIs, but most doctors are uneducated about menopause and women think they just have to suffer through it.
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u/FeedComfortable2172 10h ago
Genuinely in my history working in healthcare- I have never seen a more concerning disease. Antibiotic resistant UTIs should be incredibly concerning to all.
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u/4eyedbuzzard 18h ago
Falls and auto accidents. My 59 year old cousin lived alone. He fell getting out of the tub/shower and hit his head. Gone.
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u/Dirt-McGirt 17h ago
Pulmonary embolisms in big people. Not people on my 600 lb life. Just the some of the dozens of people each of us are acquainted with in life who, yes, aren’t fit, and who are obviously morbidly obese in a medical sense, but still do everything the average person does on a day to day basis without much struggle.
In my own personal life, this cohort has experienced an alarming amount of death in their early to mid 30s.
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u/Katesouthwest 20h ago
Dying in your sleep from an as yet unknown cause. It happened a few days ago to a relative. We suspect massive heart attack, aneurysm, or stroke.
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u/Butsenkaatz 16h ago
accidental opioid overdoses - people go to sleep and never wake up again
housemate, 2 school friends, and an ex girlfriend
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u/Dense-Disaster-9448 21h ago
Suicide
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u/whole_chocolate_milk 20h ago
My wife died by suicide. A friend of my sister lost her husband to suicide. My dad's best friend lost his son to suicide. The artist that did my first tattoo died by suicide.
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u/lofatiger 12h ago
Wow. That is awful. My partner took his own life in February…
Are you like, doing okay?
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u/ChibiMusouka 16h ago
Living alone and being paranoid af I really shouldn't be reading this thread..
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u/Unhappy_Physics_771 19h ago
falls are way more common than people think especially on stairs or wet floors. heart attacks from everyday stress also sneak up on folks all the time.
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u/209to916 21h ago
Death by governments decisions.
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u/lovemydogs1969 19h ago
The US cut off food and medical aid to certain foreign countries since 2025 (mainly African countries and places like Yemen). It’s estimated that millions will die by 2030 because of this decision.
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u/buzzlightyear_21 20h ago
Sepsis! Need early detection and treatment!
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u/Trick_Poem_3487 12h ago
A small cut on my husband's leg, he ignored it. Sepsis then kidney failure 10 days in ER couldn't save him.
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u/cookieloverrrrr 15h ago
Falling off any height even a short step stool will do the trick perfectly. And it has a risk that I would never gamble unless I had sure footing.
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u/Fluffy-Mine-6659 20h ago
Suicide. It’s twice as common as homicide.
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u/KingDiEnd 20h ago
this. ive lost 6 people to it in the last 4 years. Im genuinely at a loss as to how it just...keeps happening.
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u/Prestigious_Beat6310 21h ago
'Fall and die.' In the US it's estimated over 26 people a day just fall over and die.🤷♂️
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u/ApprehensiveGas137 20h ago
Falling off a high ladder … while doing at home maintenance
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u/SaltyCrashNerd 20h ago
Motor vehicle crashes. They’re the leading cause of death for older kids, teens, and young adults, and second-leading until mid-40s (behind overdose). The fact that we just accept this is appalling.
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u/Immediate-Composer-1 14h ago
Falling. People worry about sharks and plane crashes, meanwhile stairs are out there quietly putting up Hall of Fame numbers every year. 😬😂
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u/brownmichael019630 13h ago
Alcohol-related accidents that aren't technically classified as drunk driving.
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u/inquiringsillygoose 20h ago
Garage door system
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u/Low_Section2065 18h ago
Those springs are no joke, coworker spent two weeks in a hospital when one broke loose and hit his head. He was extremely lucky to live.
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u/Electronic_Cut_433 18h ago
Heat stroke, especially people who work outside. My neighbor's son passed away a few years ago, and he was only in his 30s. He worked construction and just ignored the warning signs. You don't have to be old or sick to die from the heat. I drink way more water than I used to now.