In addition to causing widespread damage to our health, cigarette has many other ways how it can kill you
1. Woman Shoots Her Daughter While Lighting A Cigarette
Sometimes you come across a news report that makes you question everything. You read it and you just can't believe what you see. How could they survive to this point and not die in a tragic accident.
Woman of such questionable intelligence almost killed her daughter [*]. A 30 year old mother tried to light up a cigarette by shooting it. She thought that a gun was a lighter.
Luckily the shot did not seriously injure her 12 year old daughter. Smoking might not be as quick as a bullet but it is as deadly. Quit smoking cigarettes because you endanger not only yourself but also your loved ones.
2. Kids Keep Swallowing Cigarette Butts
As a parent one thing you want is to ensure the safety of your children. Sometimes we can put their lives at risk without realizing it. This is especially true with smoking. Kids keep getting poisoned by eating cigarettes or swallowing cigarette butts.
Cigarette is a very dangerous thing. Young kids love to put everything they find into their mouth. That's how they explore the world and cigarette might bring that exploration to a tragic end.
Cigarette and cigarette butt is dangerous because kid might choke to death on it or if he/she is able to swallow it - they are in a mortal danger of getting poisoned. Children ingest both cigarettes and cigarette butts. Almost 8000 kids every year swallow cigarette or cigarette butt just in US. This might cause nausea, vomiting, dizziness, tremors, sweating and high blood pressure.
Severe poisoning can be life-threatening and lead to seizures. So even if you think that you are taking precautions to protect your family by never smoking near them, you still expose your family to high risk. Quit smoking because it might be your kids who will find your cigarettes and decide to try what they taste like.
3. You Can Explode
Explosions happen not only in movies but in real life as well. Most often this happens due to a gas leak or similar reasons. Gas leak by itself won't cause an explosion. You need a spark.
Lighting up a cigarette is a spark gas needs. Numerous people have died in explosions because they lit up a cigarette and this detonated the gas. Smokers are more vulnerable to die this way because of the damage this habit causes their body.
Your nicotine addiction has damaged not only your lungs and heart. Smoking cigarettes damages your whole body and your breathing system suffers the most direct damage.
Smokers not only smell bad but they are also bad at smelling. Cigarette smoke damages your ability to taste and smell. That means that you can't truly enjoy any meal but even more important, if you have a gas leak this damage might prevent you from smelling the gas.
4. You Might Burn To Death
This one should not surprise you. A lot of people have perished due to falling asleep while smoking. We tend to fall asleep in comfy chairs or beds. These are highly flammable things.
People keep dying just because they want to have one last smoke before going to sleep. I even knew one person who woke up every night and had a smoke before going back to sleep. He ended up with a collapsed lung.
You might think to yourself that this won't happen to you because you never smoke in your bed but fiery death might await you due to different circumstances.
Numerous houses have burned down due to a cigarette that was left burning or discarded by throwing it out of the window. If you throw out the cigarette it doesn't disappear. Sometimes cigarettes, which were discarded in such fashion, end up burning your neighbor's apartment or even the whole building.
Wildfires seem to be getting bigger and more common each year. Often these are also caused by carelessly discarded cigarettes. This is why you need to be very careful if you want not to kill yourself or others with your pointless habit. Quitting smoking is a much better option.
5. Man Shot Dead With Cigarette Butts
Practical joker from Woodbine, NJ killed a father of two young daughters by shooting him with a gun which was loaded with cigarette butts [**]. No information on whether this was a convoluted way to persuade victim to quit smoking.
Prankster loaded a muzzleloader riffle with cigarette butts and shot at his friend. Autopsy later discovered that three cigarette butts penetrated his friends' rib cage above his heart.
It was a horrible tragedy and even worse practical joke but as an extreme cautionary demonstration it does work on some level. What you should take away from this ridiculous tragedy is that it is extremely important to quit smoking and to always follow gun safety rules.
6. Asking For A Cigarette Might Cost You Your Life
Every smoker sometimes finds himself in a situation when he/she runs out of cigarettes. Craziest thing is that almost without a fail I used to be able to identify smokers when asking to lend me one.
Smoking damages your nervous system and your skin so it is not a very difficult trick to be able to identify a smoker. Sometimes such request unfortunately might be the last thing you ask.
People get killed over cigarettes. Is it really worth it to die over a stick filled with chemical soaked grass? Apparently some people believe so. People get killed because they ask for a cigarette, others get killed because they don't give cigarette and others die just because they asked smoker not to smoke.
That's why cigarette smoking is number 1 killed in the world. Smoking kills not only by slowly poisoning you. Smoking can be a cause of your death in a number of shocking ways.
7. Smokers Are At High Risk Of Sudden Death
The most disturbing result of smoking is the high risk of sudden heart-related death. Sudden Death syndrome is called that way because it does what it says.
You might be feeling completely okay. You might even get checked by doctors and all your results are great but you suddenly die for no apparent reason. For me, the only more disturbing way to die would be spontaneous human combustion.
Sudden Death syndrome is extremely disturbing thing because you might be feeling good and you might think that you are taking care of yourself but all of the sudden... one minute you are enjoying your life and the next one you are no more.
Smokers are three times as likely as non-smokers to die due to Sudden Death syndrome. Moreover, the more you smoke and the longer you continue to do it, the greater the risk.
The only way to decrease your chances to die due to Sudden Death syndrome is to quit smoking. The more you learn about smoking the less you are surprised that people who quit smoking add at least 10 years to their life expectancy.
Smoking damages your nervous system making you anxious and increasing your stress. Cigarette smoke poisons your whole body so it is time to stop letting this habit control your life.
Quitting smoking is not hard if you know how to do it. Work on your attitude towards smoking and you'll notice that nicotine addiction is quickly losing its grip on you.
Cigarettes have no positive effect on you. Understand this and quitting smoking will be easy, quick and permanent.
- [*] Banning-Beaumont Patch "Mother Mistakes Small Gun for Cigarette Lighter, Daughter Wounded" Jul 27, 2011 <https://patch.com/california/banning-beaumont/mother-mistakes-small-gun-for-lighter-daughter-wounded>
- [**] Associated Press "Shot to Death With Cigarette Butts; Police File Charges in Fatal Practical Joke" 13 February 2001 <https://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/news/2211>