Everyone knows a gun shot could kill you, a car accident, a heart attack; these are common causes of death. Did you know you could die by falling out of your bed? Here are 10 strange things that could end you up in a coffin.
Your stomach has the capacity for one to one and a half liters of food; after reaching this point you’ll feel full and nauseous. Pathologists say you’ll be OK with three liters. It’s when you try to stuff yourself with five liters or more (there was an unfortunate report of a woman who managed to eat an extraordinary amount of 12 liters of food.) Of course to keep this massive amount of food down, you’ll have to have ignored your natural gag reflex time after time, until your body doesn’t respond as it should. This is why overeating that leads to death is common for those with eating disorders.
When you aren’t vomiting after eating way too much, you’re putting pressure on your stomach ways which causes tears and weakened tissue, sending the contents of your stomach into your body and causing infections and pain. Surgery is needed to repair the damage and save the patients life.
2. Drinking Too Much Water
Although water is essential for life, too much of it can kill. Drinking large amounts of water in a short amount of time can be lethal. Common in water-drinking contests, too much water can cause water intoxication. To actually die you’d have to drink lots and lots of water; gallons of it. After you drink too much water, the sodium levels in your blood drop. Sodium is responsible for balancing water in and around your cells. Too much water in your cells make them swell. Let’s just say swelling cells in your brain does not end well.
3. Being Scared To Death
Many people go on roller coasters or watch horror movies because they love the feeling of adrenaline rushing through their body. However, too much of anything is never a good thing.
When you’re scared, your flight-or-fight response trigger the release of adrenaline, which dilates your pupils, makes you heart beat faster and harder, and increases the blood flow to your muscles. Adrenaline, in large amounts, causes damage to vital organs such as the liver, kidneys and the heart. It’s the damage to the heart that kills.
Due to the adrenaline, calcium ions rushes into the heart cells, causing the heart membranes to contract. With increased levels of adrenaline the heart can’t relax. It goes into an abnormal beating rhythm, you have less blood reaching the brain and you die.
4. Hanging Upside Down
You’d have to hang upside down for at least 24 hours to actually die; less if you have heart problems. When hanging upside down, your heart has to pump harder to get blood to your feet.
Normally, the brain relies on gravity to allow the blood to flow out of it; when your upside down, blood puddles in the brain and lungs, and blood pressure in the brain and eyes increase (which can lead to blindness).
The increase blood pressure in the brain makes you pass out at first, then die from brain hemorrhage.
5. Inhaling Pure Oxygen
Like water, sometimes the things that ensure life can also take it away. We breathe 12-20 times per minute and 17,000-30,000 times a day. Are you slowly killing yourself with each breath?
The air we inhale is 20% oxygen; inhaling 100% at high pressure is a terrible idea. Oxygen is very reactive, so when you inhale pure oxygen for a long time, your cells get oxidized and damaged. Mostly your lung, eyes, and brain cells. I don’t have to tell you that damage to your brain cells can kill you.
6. Drinking Blood
You are not a vampire. You should not drink blood. Blood contains iron. Iron is an essential mineral needed to make hemoglobin which carries oxygen to the cells. Our bodies aren’t equipped to digest large amounts of it. A little bit, say a teaspoon or perhaps a cup, wouldn’t be harmful; it’s overdosing on it that can cause liver disease, low blood pressure, and heart failure.
Even though, drinking blood is harmful, there are a group of humans that do (Interested? Read more on BBC.) However, the amount consumed isn’t enough to cause damage.
7. Falling Out Of Bed
After reading the first few items in this list, you might have thought “The only safe place is my bed.” Sorry to burst your bubble, but falling out of bed causes 450 deaths in the United States yearly. The prone to this are children and those of old age.
8. Washing Contact Lens With Tap Water
Why buy a cleaning solution when you can wash your contact lens with water, right? Definitely not. Ever hear of granulomatous amoebic encephalitis, (GAE). Probably not. You get it by washing your contact lens tap water. It gets into your central nervous system and presents itself as normal nervous system condition, but what’s not normal is the presence of pathogenic amoebas. GAE is often fatal with treatment.
9. Cleaning The Bathroom
Beware when you clean your toilet and choose your products wisely. Mixing some chemicals that cleaning products contain and ammonia produces toxic gases. Mixing bleach with ammonia produces chlorine and chlorine gas and other chemicals that are toxic.
Look at your surroundings before taking out your selfie stick. Since 2014, there has been 49 deaths caused by selfies. Falling is the most common cause, responsible for 16 deaths. It is followed by drowning (14 deaths), being hit by a train (8 deaths), and gunshots (4 deaths) but drowning, being attacked by a bear, and being hit by a train.
11. Vending Machines
Even if it doesn’t give you your snack, don’t you dare shake the vending machine. Falling vending machines have killed 37 people between years 1978 and 1995. Vending machines are more likely to kill you than sharks.