How the 10 Worst Ways to Die Would Kill You
1. Trampled to Death
Imagine being at a mass function that involves hundreds of thousands of people around you.
Where can you run when danger arises?
Picture people at Times Square in New York City during New Year's Eve when the ball is about to drop.
What if around that time some sort of terrorist like bombing or shooting were to occur in the center of that humongous crowd?
New Year's Eve Massacre
Everybody would be scrambling/panicking, and there would be piercing screams and cries as the fear enveloped them.
You'd become powerless against the mob that's pushing and pounding through resulting in a tumble.
Next thing you know you're on the ground with thousands of human feet stomping your face and body causing you to bleed out.
You try to get up but it's impossible, and you're left gasping for air yet the relentless onslaught continues.
There's no escape as you're left in excruciating pain suffocating and bleeding to death.
What a horrific way to go!
2. Buried Alive
There have been countless movies and stories written about this topic, and it's been a common theme or act of many magicians or illusionists in the past.
But what if this really happened to you?
It's highly unlikely to occur because medicine has advanced to the point that it's improbable doctors would mistake you for a corpse.
However there have been occasions where people were believed to be dead only wake up as they're being dragged out to the morgue.
Still, it usually stops there before the funeral and burial occurs.
A more probable way of this occurring would be if some sadistic murderer decides to knock you unconscious, stuff you in a coffin, and bury you alive.
Then you may wake up hours later to find yourself in trapped in a small box under six feet of mud and darkness.
Can you imagine being claustrophobic, unable to move, and wait for death?
Being buried is easily one of the longest and most psychologically painful things someone would have to go through before death.
3. Wild Animal Attacks
It's the Walking Dead come to life except instead of zombies it's living animals (maybe cannibals).
Films like "The Revenant" have shown how brutal wild animal attacks really are, and let me tell you Leo got very lucky in that movie.
In real life most would not survive a monstrous grizzly bear attack. It's not only bears we have to fear though, there's wolves, lions, tigers, and of course sharks (Jaws anyone).
Even wild, angry dogs could rip you to shreds in a worst case scenario. This death would be up there in the most painful category because you would feel every bite and tear prior to bleeding out.
This is also a real threat especially for campers and hikers as well as swimmers and surfers where danger lurks in every corner.
The good news is that the risk of getting killed by sharks or other large animals is very low. In actuality it's the smaller, poisonous animals that pose a greater threat.
Despite the low probabilities, you wouldn't want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when dealing with a lethal animal, and we have survival guides for a reason.
4. Plane Crash
The worst part of an impending plane crash is not about dying but those anxious moments leading up to it.
I can't imagine how the passengers of those planes on 9/11 felt like knowing death was inevitable.
On the other hand it wouldn't all be psychological. There would probably be some physical pain during a rapid descent.
You may get thrown or endure suffocation with a loss of air and rapid pressure changes possibly leading to unconsciousness, which to be fair is probably a lot better than the mental torture you'd endure.
Fortunately the chances of a crash is quite low and odds drop annually as technology and navigation continue to improve. However with so many people flying, it's one of those "what-if" possibilities.
I'm sure plane crash survivors (very rare) never thought it would happen to them thus the anxiousness will never really go away.
5. Death by Fire
In my opinion I think this would be the most painful way to die.
Every part of your face and body would be in agonizing pain for several minutes before you finally lose consciousness and pass away.
We hear stories of people dying in a fire all the time, so it makes it a very palpable threat. That's why I can't emphasize the importance of smoke detectors and fire extinguishers in homes.
Unfortunately poorer, urban neighborhoods where citizens are stuffed into outdated, torn-down buildings lack these essentials along with outdated building codes.
Also those living in fire zones have to endure the annual wildfire season, which seems to get worse every year.
Regardless of where you live, we're all at risk particularly at night when everyone's sleeping.
It's absolutely terrifying and heartbreaking whenever we hear stories about families burning to death in their sleep, and sadly it happens far too often.
6. Electrocution
In terms of the death penalty, this method is vastly outdated but it hasn't been completely eradicated.
However, the majority of states opt for a lethal injection procedure because of it's supposedly more humane properties compared to inflicting tens of thousands of volts onto someone.
(By the way lethal injections are not painless at all)
Electrocution incorporates the "ouch factor" because of how it travels up and down your entire body, and sadly it's a very common occurrence outside the death penalty through electrical equipment mismanagement and lightning strikes.
We commonly mishandle electrical appliances particularly when trying to remove, change, or fix a large electronic device like a refrigerator, microwave, or washer & dryer, and a failure to oblige to safety rules can result in injury or death.
The cause of death when electrocuted if often from cardiac arrest where the heart suddenly stops, and it doesn't take much electricity to do this.
So don't ignore safety procedures because even the slightest error could have disastrous consequences.
7. Lethal Poisoning
The effects of lethal poisoning is devastating to your body and psyche.
After you become poisoned your body starts to feel numb, your head starts getting dizzy, and your stomach begins to hurt.
You feel nauseous and begin vomiting as your entire body feels like it's about to explode. The eyes become bloody red as the rest of your face gets darker.
You continue to spew vomit but this time there's blood and bile mixed in, and you begin to choke on it. You collapse on the floor in a pool of blood and vomit as your body aches and quivers in pain.
You beg for help but there's no one around to help you, and you can't even reach the phone to call for help.
The cries for help are evident, but you're alone convulsing until everything fades into darkness. After several minutes of torture you are finally knocked out cold.
Finally the heart and other organs like the brain stop functioning leading to your demise.
Doesn't sound like much fun does it?
8. Beaten to Death
With urbanization rapidly increasing, the chances of getting mugged and beaten continue to steadily rise.
When I was a student at Rutgers University I would receive police reports everyday of victims (students) getting punched and beaten over nothing, and yet it doesn't compare to most urban locales.
You may pay a hefty price when living near meager surroundings despite it not being your fault. However the very real dangers of beatings and muggings in urban communities is one of the biggest reasons why people move to safer, quieter places.
The last thing anyone wants to experience is a helpless alley way mugging.
Getting beaten to death elicits fear like no other because you don't know how far your attacker will go.
They could take your wallet and run in the best case scenario or rob you, beat you to a pulp, and even shoot you in the worst.
9. Drowning & Hypothermia
It's one of the more common methods of deaths that's more likely in the summer.
Whether it be drowning in the ocean, lake, river, or pool, it happens more frequently than we would like.
A lot of this has to do with people's idiocy because most drowning incidents are preventable.
Even worse is that many victims are small children who are often left unattended, can't swim, or get swept away by the water's force.
But whose fault is this?
I'd guess negligent adults or caretakers that could have prevented a senseless death/s. These are probably the same adults who foolishly disregard the warning signs of high waves and rip currents.
In non negligent cases drowning can occur any time a boat/ship capsizes due to an accident at sea because of either faulty construction, misdirection, or a storm/hurricane.
Our most famous example of this is the Titanic though the near freezing waters were a greater cause of death than drowning alone.
In fact along with drowning, hypothermia is probably just as bad and is often a secondary cause of death.
The worst part of drowning is the panic prior to death, which is why tips like treading water and staying calm are critical to saving your life.
10. Deadly Virus
Out of all the items on this list, disease is the most common method of death.
When you think about the most horrible ways to die, you often think of freak accidents or something that would hurt but doesn't disease fill that slot.
When someone whose been mentally and physically healthy all their lives suddenly gets cancer, then isn't that a freak accident and let's not forget the years of long lasting pain of chemotherapy and the cancer itself.
Besides cancer, heart disease is the most common cause of death worldwide. Consider yourself lucky if you never get any serious illness and die peacefully because of old age.
Despite the improvements in medicine, there are always new diseases and mutations sprouting everyday, and you never know when one of them could get you.
The scariest part is that even the healthiest of people could contract a lethal illness.
There are ways to keep the risk factors lower than normal, but it won't guarantee you perfect health for the rest of your life.
So disease may not sound as imaginative or horrifying compared to other forms of death, but it's a lot closer to home than most of these.
Your Thoughts!
What's the worst way to die?
Comments
I forgot to mention a few things. Electrocution and strangulation are more dangers to fear. Giant snakes such as Boas, Pythons, and Anacondas constrict or strangle their prey and its said to be incredibly painful. The world is not a friendly place.
Continued. Amusement parks arent so amusing, and the fun can turn into tragedy and horror. We're talking about heavy, fast moving machinery which can decapitate or squash a person or hurl a person to the pavement.
And the worst horror of all is being buried alive, whether its inside a coffin, crypt, vault, a tiny attic, a tiny cellar, a crawlspace, a bomb shelter, a hole in the ground, inside a refrigerator, can all become torture chambers and death traps. Closets and car trunks are also dangers. Suffocation and claustrophobia are among the worst forms of torture. Its the ultimate in horror, a fate worse than death. Being unable to breathe, the tightening of the throat, lungs, and chest, and being unable to move is cruelty and horror BEYOND imagining. Its the worst suffering. The body should have an on and off switch to respiration and an on and off switch to consciousness. When there is no hope of rescue and no hope of escape, then the most merciful, humane thing to do would be to turn off the body's respiration and just as important to switch off the consciousness, permanently if necessary. Its the most appalling, horrificly, monstrously cruel fate. I dont want to be conscious in a buried alive scenario. Its insupportable torture.
Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes, volcanic eruptions, being guillotines, being hanged are more cruelties and horrors. Nature is incredibly cruel as are human beings. The world really is a horror movie. I live in fear everyday.
I got cut off by the computer. The list of diseases goes on and on and on. Diseases are among the cruelest ways Nature has to torture and kill its creation.
During the Precambrian era, some 2.5 billion to 4.6 billion years ago, planet earth was a suffocating, anaerobic, unbreathable, toxic, hellish inferno with boiling mud pools, active volcanoes, methane, ammonia, high levels of carb8n dioxide, and carbon monoxide, and the temperature was thousands of degrees hot. It sounds like a horror movie. An unprotected human body would suffocate and incinerate to death in seconds under these hellish conditions. The Precambrian earth was as inhospitable as the planets Mercury, Venus, and Mars, and as inhospitable as the Moon.
Being eviscerated or having ones internal organs spill out while alive is said to be unimaginably painful as well as repulsive. Falling down bridges, cliifs and having heavy objects fall on the body such as boulders, pianos, furniture, or being stepped on or being squashed by an obese person or large animal such as an elephant is also horrific.
Alot of the machines used in factories and warehouses are scary and dangerous as well. Theres a machine which wraps packadges passed on conveyor belts and if a person were to be put through on the conveyor belt it would be a gruesome fate.
Amusement park rides can be very scary and dangerous. Roller coasters, the Zero Gravity ride, a ride called Enterprise are all super dangerous.
The list you have is accurate and correct and could be added to. The human body is very defective and vulnerable, and the world and universe is scary and dangerous. Its really a horror movie, whether the dangers are caused by humans or caused by Nature.
Lets start with the human cruelties. Being kicked, punched, scratched, being shot with guns, harppons, arrows, darts, tanks, land mines, dynamite, bombs, and being run over by motor vehicles, cars, trucks, buses, trains are all horrifying. Even simple man made tools such as knives, forks, hammers, pliers, chainsaws, ovens, incinerators can cause horrific injuries and death. Theres danger galore everywhere, including in our own houses.
Nature has loads of cruelties and horrors which torture and kill both man and beast, such as parasites such as Screw worm flies, ticks, fleas, lice, hookworms, mosquitoes, Tsetse flies, and theres thousands of venomous animals such as Box Jellyfish, Stonefish, Bullet Ants, the Orange Baboon Tarantula, the Scolopendra Centipedes, Gaboon Vipers, Cone Snails etc all of which inflict agonizing, torturous pain. A Stonefish sting is unbearably painful and victims often scream and writhe in agony. Its said to be more painful than a kidney stone!
Countless poisons exist in liguid, solid, and gas states. Ammonium and cyanide poisoning is a horrible way to suffer and die. The list of poisons is endless, and numerous plants are poisonous as well.
Intense cold and intense heat, being burned in fire, drowning in a liquid, suffocation, starvation, dehydration are all horrible beyond imagining.
Large dangerous animal life such as big cats, sharks, crocodiles, barracuda, hippos, rhinos, buffalos, moose, elk, forest hogs or pigs with humongous razor teeth, baboons, chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, elephants are all capable of causing appalling injuries and death. This list can certainly be added. Giraffes have a dangerous kick, horses, donkeys, and zebras kick and bite and can trample, and ostriches and cassowaries can cause lethal injuries by kicking. Its not a peaceable kingdom out there.
Theres also great danger from unknown animals on land and in water. Sea serpents and lake serpents strike fear in any sensible person. There are frightening dinosaur like animals in Africa such as the Mokele-mbembe which bites and kills any person going near it, and in Lake Victoria, theres a 20 foot to 30 foot long horror called the Lukwata which is like a dolphin or whale with a long neck. It kills and eats crocodiles, it makes bellowing roars, it overturns boats and canoes and grabs anyone in it. Cryptozoology is the study of cryptids or unidentified animals, and nearly all of them are scary and dangerous. See the book, On the Track of Unknown Animals, by Bernard Heuvelmans, and look up or google:the Lukwata, African lake monster, and When Lake Monsters Attack.
Horrifying diseases such as stroke, aneurysm, heart disease, cancer, epilepsy, meningitis, tooth decay, dental abscess, ebola, malaria, yellow fever, elephantiasis, sleeping sickness, Chagas disease, and the list goes on and on
- AUTHOR
Thank you all very much for the great feedback. Tony I'm greatly appreciative of such strong language toward my piece. I know such bleak subject matter isn't for everyone. I don't want to poison the positive thinkers with dark material, but it is something we will all share eventually (death that is).
It is a matter of worry though luckily odds are we won't experience that kind of mortality apart from possible sickness.
Thank you again for taking time to read and comment. Have a good day to you all.
This is brilliant. Not a popular topic for everyone perhaps, but very much a reality of life. Bravo!
This is a worryingly brilliant Hub. The way you explain in detail how the effects of these methods occur is fantastic. A very unique Hub and a thoroughly enjoyable one also.
Chris , I was so moved by the depth and detailed construct of your article on dying...a flow of thoughts that have occupied my mind (as well) many times. Although I am a believer , I am far from the confines of the religious morals and values that seem to prevent others from celebrating the various ways of experiencing the reality of death , as so beautifully expressed/displayed in this presentation . I have shared so many moments with those in the dying state and have often posed the same questions (within) as you have so boldly affirmed. You're an excellent thinker and creatively think in an excellent way . I would love to have the artistic dexterity in expressing the way you seem to put "form to the vision" of death/dying. All in All , I applaud your stance in giving considerations to the various formats/ways of dying...it is an incredible thought process that develops while reading your conclusive insights/perspectives......thanks for the openness you've brought me to and the ponderables it offers .
You express this well, I for many years mostly in my young years experience the exact same feelings. But really having only a small amount of truth causes this conclusion.
Being a bible student . Has helped greatly, especially on the subject of death. Death is programed in our genes .nno matter how healthy we can die.
But there is a cure. Jesus paid for it for us .
many people will never experience death, because the end to this world will happen, and , and they will walk into the new system,
.the way Noah and his family did and survived the flood.
Reference Bible
Re 7:9After these things I saw, and, look! a great crowd, which no man was able to number, out of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes; and there were palm branches in their hands.
These are the people like Noah .
The heavenly Father has not change his ways for he is perfect in every way.
Also notice what will happen into that new world.
Reference Bible Job 33:25
Let his flesh become fresher than in youth;
Let him return to the days of his youthful vigor.
Yes even old age will be reversing.
- AUTHOR
Thank you Kiss and Tales. I do fear it sometimes but it's going to happen eventually so why dwell on it. Having beliefs is a powerful way to alleviate the stress of facing death especially when you know it's coming due to disease or old age.
New World Translation
Lu 18:27He said: “The things impossible with men are possible with God.”
We exist and he made us possible.
New World Translation
Ps 100:3Know that Jehovah is God. He is the one who made us, and we belong to him. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.
And he will keep his promise to return life lost.
Reference Bible
Nu 23:19God is not a man that he should tell lies, Neither a son of mankind that he should feel regret. Has he himself said it and will he not do it, And has he spoken and will he not carry it out?
- AUTHOR
You know it wouldn't surprise me one bit if we eventually advance far enough to do that.
Your hub is very important! and I truly do appreciate how you have compiled your information, there is no way we can feel good about death, especially for young people, but really for anyone.
Death will always be our enemy, because life has ended.
Yet we can draw comfort from the Heavenly Father in his words that death will end soon.
New World Translation
Re 21:4 And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”
New World Translation
Joh 5:28 Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice
Joh 5:29 and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.
according to the scriptures many people are just sleeping in death,
They will return , also notice those that even
Were unrighteous will get another chance at being educated by Jehovah and Jesus.
Death is certainly not the end .
Also we can say all people who are older then 100 years died young as well because Adam lived to be 930 years, Methuslah lived 969 years, Enoch Fathered Methuslah and lived for 365 years.
Man was supposed to live longer then plants and animals because they were to care for them as written have these in subjection. Gen 1:28
To conclude the oldest living tree is the Methuslah tree over 4000 thousand years old.
New World Translation
Isa 65:21 They will build houses and live in them, And they will plant vineyards and eat their fruitage.
Isa 65:22 They will not build for someone else to inhabit, Nor will they plant for others to eat. For the days of my people will be like the days of a tree, And the work of their hands my chosen ones will enjoy to the full.
We will be able to live longer then this tree!
This hub makes me wish someone invented a fear button in the brain, so that if we're gonna die in any of these ways, we just touch the fear button and enjoy the ride.....
- AUTHOR
Good point about the torture, I have instances where they think of the absolute worse things to do to you long before they finally decide to kill you.
Being buried alive is just one of those unimaginable things because like you said the time is lengthy. I'd rather be done with it immediately but it's nearly impossible to do so.
Buried alive is probably the most horrible, because it could take a long time to die.
Some things are truly painful but for 10 seconds, minutes, ten minutes, and then it's over. But if you're buried alive with some amount of air, you could live for weeks.
On the other hand, you didn't mention the deaths by torture where the whole point is to make the thing as painful as possible for as long as possible.
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