1. stairs
Many people are afraid to take a lift. It’s scary: the power goes out and you find yourself suspended above the abyss on cables in a metal box. That is why some people (the author of these lines among them) prefer not to use these lifting mechanisms.
Escalators cause people much less fear than lifts. In the latter you are locked, but on a self-moving staircase you stay in the open space, and the breakdown of the mechanism will not trap you.
However, statistically speaking, lifts are a safer way to travel between floors. According to research, there are about 10,000 injuries per 35,000 escalators in the United States. And for 900,000 lifts, there are only 7,000 cases.
The reason is simple: in a lift a person is isolated from mechanisms and machines, on an escalator – not.
Most often people are injured on the moving belt when parts of their clothes, shoelaces or hair get caught in the comb or shafts that move the metal web of the steps. This results in fractures, strangulation and even death. In a lift, on the other hand, human carelessness doesn’t play a big role: you can’t damage the pulleys and blocks that move the car.
However, people are injured the most on ordinary stairs, according to data published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. On average, stairs injure…. about 1,076,558 people a year, and that’s just in the United States. Where lifts and escalators combined.
2. champagne
Alcohol is seriously harmful to your health. And not just when consumed internally. According to Peter Kaiser, an ophthalmologist at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, one of the most common reasons people go to the doctor on New Year’s Eve are eye injuries related to… carelessness when opening champagne.
A cork flying into the face can cause fractures to the eye socket or orbital bone, bleeding in the eye, retinal detachment and tearing of the iris and eye wall.
You might say: what kind of idiot would you have to be to uncork sparkling wine with the neck pointing at your face?
Well, such hapless individuals do occur, and they suffer the most serious injuries. However, more often than not, eye and facial surgeons are the ones who hold the bottle upwards. It’s all about the ricochet: the cork bounced off the ceiling and hit the poor people in the face.
There is also a rumour on the internet that champagne bottles kill more people a year than poisonous spiders. There’s no confirmation of this, though. Physicist Friedrich Balck from the Clausetal University of Technology measured the speed of the cork, and it was insufficient to penetrate the bones of the human skull and reach the brain. But this part can seriously traumatise you.
So open champagne carefully, without shaking it. And pre-cool the drink – so fewer bubbles are formed.
3. Livestock
Australia has a reputation for being a very inhospitable country, with all manner of wildlife trying to kill you in one way or another. There are huge furry spiders lurking in your slippers, and beautiful green lawns on your front lawns are teeming with snakes.
But statistically, the main danger of Australia is livestock. So, from 2008 to 2017, cows and horses together killed 77 people. During the same time snakes took the lives of 23 people, dogs – 22, and spiders, which everyone is so afraid of, have not killed anyone at all since the 70s.
This, by the way, is not that many – after all, in Australia equestrian sport is not as popular as in the United States. There, about 100 people die from horse accidents every year. But American cows are apparently a bit kinder than Australian cows, because they kill only 22 people a year.
In general, be careful and, if possible, do not get too close to ungulates, no matter where you live – in Australia, America or Moscow region. You will be safer. If even Genghis Khan, the greatest horseman in history, died after falling from his horse, we, mere mortals, should stay away from these creatures.
4. Water
Water is known to be the source of life. But don’t let the innocent-looking substance bubbling in your glass fool you! It’s actually an insidious killer.
WHO statistics show that drowning killed 236,000 people in 2019, for example, and this is almost 8% of the total mortality rate. Very often it is caused by not taking water seriously enough. For example, swimming alone and diving after drinking alcohol.
Water can also be poisoned if it’s dirty. And this is the cause of even more deaths. For example, according to the same WHO, dirty water killed 485,000 people in 2020 – more than wars (8,200) and natural disasters (87,400) in the same time.
Also, don’t forget that even the cleanest water can be choked on. It’s a very insidious liquid.
Finally, some people suffer from a disease called aquagenic urticaria. When their skin comes into contact with the liquid, they experience excruciating itching and redness. Water from the tap, sea or swimming pool, sweat, tears and saliva all cause them irritation.
In general, keep contact with water to a minimum and only drink Coke… Just kidding. Just be careful when swimming and boil or filter liquids before drinking.
