by Cary McNeal
FACT 865 Service members who drank three or more energy drinks per day tended to sleep fewer than four hours per night and were generally more stressed and tired.
LIFE IS SHORT, THEY say, and it’s true. Life is also cruel, precarious, and wickedly ironic. One moment you’re here, minding your own business, and the next you’re as dead as Julius Caesar because some jerk decides to skydive off a building, his parachute fails, and he lands right on top of you and kills you. You don’t even get a few seconds to say some final words, which in this case would be something like “Are you fucking kidding me?!”
FACT 866 In 2007, a man walking down the street in Oakland, California, was killed when he was struck in the head by a fire hydrant that had been uprooted by a car crashing into it and propelled by water pressure.
FACT 867 In 2010, Jimi Heselden, the multimillionaire owner of the company that makes Segway personal transporters, died after transporting himself over a cliff on his Segway and plunging eighty feet.
FACT 868 A six-year-old boy died in July 2013 while undergoing a routine MRI exam at a New York–area hospital. The magnetic pull of the MRI machine caused a metal oxygen tank to fly across the room and strike the child’s head.
FACT 869 A spectator at a 1979 New York Jets football game died during a halftime model airplane exhibition when the pilot of a miniature flying mower lost control of his vehicle, which crashed into the audience.
FACT 870 In 1995, a female moose trampled a seventy-one-year-old man to death on the campus of the University of Alaska in Anchorage. Witnesses said students had been throwing snowballs and harassing the moose and her calf for hours before the attack.
FACT 871 In August 2013 in Panguitch, Utah, a strong wind catapulted a trampoline more than 150 feet through the air, killing a nine-year-old girl who had been sitting on it.
FACT 872 A Congolese regional airliner crashed in 2010 after a crocodile that was being smuggled by a passenger chewed its way out of a bag. Frightened passengers fled to the front of the plane, causing an imbalance that sent the craft plummeting to the ground, killing twenty people. One man and the crocodile survived.
FACT 873 Former Electric Light Orchestra member Mike Edwards was killed in 2010 when a seven-hundred-pound hay bale rolled down an embankment and onto the roof of his car, crushing him. Know who else hates those circular hay bales? Horses—they can’t get a square meal anymore.
FACT 874 Two people were killed and thirteen wounded in 2006 when an inflatable maze/bounce castle in Chester-le-Street, England, was picked up by strong winds and hurled across a public park.
FACT 875 A stunt gone awry killed Canadian WWF wrestler Owen Hart during a televised event in 1999. A rig meant to lower Hart down to the ring from the rafters above malfunctioned, dropping him seventy-eight feet to his death.
FACT 876 An entire soccer team—eleven men—was killed instantly in 1998 when lightning struck their playing field during a match in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
FACT 877 In 2012, a Chicago waterfowl caretaker drowned after being attacked by a swan in a pond. Authorities believe that the man got too close to the bird or its nesting area.
FACT 878 King Alexander of Greece died in 1920 when he received a lethal infectious macaque bite while defending his dog from an attack. Yep—a macaque attack put Al on his back.
FACT 879 A youth athletics official in Düsseldorf, Germany, died after being struck in the throat by a javelin in August 2012.
FACT 880 A four-year-old boy was killed in 2012 when a six-foot-tall tombstone fell on him in Utah’s Glenwood Cemetery. The boy had been playing behind the statue when it fell.
FACT 881 “To die, a momentous thing.” Those were the final words sung by baritone Leonard Warren before he dropped dead on stage in 1960 from a cerebral hemorrhage.
FACT 882 The final words sung by tenor Richard Versalle in 1996 were, “You can only live so long,” after which he suffered a fatal heart attack and fell off a twenty-foot-tall ladder.
FACT 883 Dancer Yoshiyuki Takada died on stage in 1985 when the rope holding him upside down ripped apart, dropping him six stories to his death. Strangely enough, his final performance was named “The Dance of Birth and Death.”
FACT 884 In March 2013, a popular coach at Rio Linda High School in Sacramento, California, died after running his bicycle into an open metal gate and impaling himself.
FACT 885 A Manhattan advertising executive was crushed to death in 2011 after an elevator she was entering began to ascend with the doors open, trapping her against the shaft wall and dragging her up eight floors.
FACT 886 An eerily similar accident occurred a year later, when New York City ad exec Suzanne Hart was crushed to death after an open elevator began to move.
FACT 887 A nineteen-year-old model aircraft enthusiast in Queens, New York, was killed in September 2013 when the miniature helicopter he was flying struck him in the head.
FACT 888 Spanish cyclist Xavier Tondo died in a bizarre accident in 2011. While trying to get his garage door open, Tondo’s car rolled forward, crushing him against the door.
FACT 889 Thirty-two members of the crew of the HMS Trinidad were killed in 1942 when one of their own fired torpedoes circled around and struck them.
FACT 890 A Yale University chemistry student was killed in 2011 when her hair got caught in a laboratory lathe, a piece of machinery that spins very quickly, pulling her in. The cause of death was accidental asphyxia by neck compression.
FACT 891 A twenty-five-year-old bride-to-be in Virginia Beach, Virginia, was paralyzed in 2010 when she was pushed into the shallow end of a swimming pool during a bachelorette party and hit her head on the bottom.
FACT 892 The four-year-old daughter of boxer Mike Tyson was killed in 2009 after accidentally hanging herself with a treadmill cord in the family’s Phoenix, Arizona, home.
FACT 893 A Michigan woman was killed in 2008 after a seventy-pound stingray leaped from the water and impaled her through the neck with its barb. The woman had been sunbathing on a boat deck when the incident occurred.
FACT 894 In a prank gone horribly wrong, a New York teenager died in September 2013 while trying to surprise a friend. The girl jumped out of a closet and was shot by the friend, who mistook her for an intruder.
FACT 895 In 1814, a 135,000-gallon beer vat ruptured at Meux & Co.’s Horse Shoe Brewery in London, starting a chain reaction of overturned vats that caused eight drownings.
FACT 896 In July 2013 at Panama City Beach, Florida, two vacationing teenagers were seriously injured in a freak parasailing accident. A cord tethering the parasail snapped, sending the two girls careening into the side of a high-rise condo balcony. Don’t you hate it when people drop in unannounced when you’re at the beach?
FACT 897 In March 2013, a flight status display board at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport in Alabama crashed down, killing a ten-year-old boy and injuring several members of his family.
FACT 898 A central Florida man died in March 2013 when a sinkhole opened underneath his home and swallowed him as he slept in his bedroom. The man’s body was never recovered.
FACT 899 A three-year-old Harlem girl was killed in September 2013 when the sofa bed on which she and her sisters were playing suddenly snapped shut, suffocating her.
FACT 900 A commuter in Lexington, Kentucky, died in July 2013 when a highway mowing crew ran over a softball-size rock as he drove by. The rock shot through the man’s car window and hit him in the face, killing him instantly.
FACT 901 In Orlando, Florida, in 2012, a fifty-five-year-old man was killed when the side-view mirror of a passing truck struck him in the head as he mowed his lawn.
FACT 902 A seventeen-year-old boy was electrocuted to death while working at a Baltimor
e-area Circuit City store in 1995. Managers said James Hill was vacuuming when they heard a scream.
FACT 903 On a California highway in May 2013, a three-foot-long metal pipe flew through a car’s windshield, killing the driver.
FACT 904 In 2012 in Sydney, Australia, a truck carrying twenty-two tons of timber toppled over while turning a corner and dropped its load on several cars waiting for a light to change, instantly killing one driver.
FACT 905 In 1976, seven motorists were killed and an additional 170 were injured when a truck carrying anhydrous ammonia overturned in Houston, Texas, releasing a toxic cloud of fumes.
FACT 906 Five men working on a nineteen-hundred-foot radio broadcast tower died in Houston, Texas, in 1982 when a guy wire was severed, causing the structure to collapse.
FACT 907 In 2003, a doctor at Houston’s St. Joseph Medical Center was decapitated when an elevator’s doors closed on his head and the car bolted upward.
FACT 908 In 2013, a fourteen-year-old boy died while playing hide-and-seek on the Texas Tech campus. The victim accidentally ran into a large statue of a bull and impaled himself on one of the horns.
FACT 909 A sixteen-year-old Queens, New York, boy died in 2012 after he stuck his head out of the emergency hatch atop a double-decker party bus and struck a freeway overpass.
FACT 910 A homeless Fort Worth, Texas, man died in July 2013 after falling asleep in a Dumpster and being crushed to death by the compactor of a sanitation truck.
FACT 911 In 2011, a Toronto, Canada, pasta company worker was killed when he fell off a ladder and tumbled into an industrial dough machine while it was still running.
HERE’S A TIP: A nasty smell is nature’s way of telling you that whatever is in your nose at that moment is bad news. Whether it’s a dog fart or volatile organic compounds, the stink says you should seek oxygen elsewhere before you asphyxiate. So listen to the stink and obey. Or die with that “I smell poo” look on your face. Your choice.
The more you know . . . *rainbow*.
FACT 912 The combination of bleach and ammonia produces chloramine gas, which can cause coughing, choking, lung damage, and death.
FACT 913 The strong initial smell of chloramine gas may be blocked due to a phenomenon called nasal fatigue, which can make it hard for people to detect increasing danger.
FACT 914 A strong foul smell called mercaptan is added to propane and natural gas, which have no readily detectable odor, to help people identify potentially fatal leaks.
FACT 915 If you smell burning rubber, it’s a possible indication that something electrical—from overheated motors to overloaded extension cords—could be close to starting a fire.
FACT 916 While sewer and septic systems are mostly just smelly, accumulations of gas can be a health threat and even cause explosions.
FACT 917 When water smells like rotten eggs, the cause is typically hydrogen sulfide gas, which can cause health problems when highly concentrated.
FACT 918 Unchecked moisture in a home can lead to smelly mildew, which is produced by molds and emits volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that can be dangerous to your health and damage your home.
FACT 919 Most new carpets contain VOCs and emit them as strong-smelling gases that can cause a variety of health issues, from headaches and nausea to allergic reactions and dizziness.
FACT 920 Carpets can also contain known carcinogens such as p-dichlorobenzene, which can cause hallucinations, nerve damage, and respiratory illness in humans.
FACT 921 The new carpet smell is courtesy of the chemical 4-phenylcyclohexene (4-PCH), which can cause eye and breathing problems.
FACT 922 The retardant polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE), found in new carpeting, has been shown to affect the human thyroid and immune systems and damage brain development functions.
FACT 923 Toxic carpet fumes are especially dangerous for infants and people with asthma, migraines, allergies, or other immune-compromised illnesses.
FACT 924 Solvents and VOCs in household paint can evaporate as toxic fumes as the paint dries.
FACT 925 Inhaling paint fumes can exacerbate asthma and sinusitis. As your body takes the paint solvents into your lungs and bloodstream, you can also experience headaches and dizziness.
FACT 926 Exposure to large quantities of paint fumes has been linked in animal studies to birth defects, cancers, and damage to the central nervous system.
FACT 927 According to the World Health Organization, professional painters have an increased risk of getting different types of cancer, in particular, lung cancer.
FACT 928 “Painter’s dementia” is a neurological condition brought on by long-term exposure to paint solvents. Another kind of painter’s dementia is thinking you should paint the room yourself because you can do as good a job as a professional, right? So why not save a few bucks? It’ll be a fun project.
FACT 929 According to researchers at Sheffield University and Manchester University, men exposed to paint chemicals are more likely to experience fertility problems.
FACT 930 You can thank a buildup of bacteria in the mouth, lungs, and gut for your dog’s bad breath. That, and the fact that he licks his own ass for hours on end.
FACT 931 Persistent bad breath can indicate that your dog needs better dental care or that something is wrong in his gastrointestinal tract, liver, or kidneys.
FACT 932 Dental or gum disease can cause halitosis in dogs, and certain dogs—especially small ones—are particularly susceptible to tartar and plaque buildup. It’s hard to floss without thumbs.
FACT 933 When inhaled in sufficient amounts, pesticides can damage the nose, throat, and lung tissues, or can be absorbed through the lungs into the bloodstream. The most serious risks come from vapors and small particles.
FACT 934 If mishandled, the potentially deadly nitrogen-based gas anhydrous ammonia can burn, as well as cause irritation in the eyes, nose, and throat.
FACT 935 Neighbors of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) frequently complain about odors, and tend to experience higher levels of tension, fatigue, confusion, and depression.
FACT 936 Studies of people who live next to CAFOs also report respiratory ailments, headaches, and nausea.
FACT 937 Diesel engine exhaust adds soot and gas to the atmosphere, and has been linked to cancer and lung and heart diseases.
FACT 938 Studies show that workers who are regularly exposed to diesel exhaust have an increased risk of lung cancer.
FACT 939 Railroad workers, heavy equipment operators, truck drivers, and other workers with ongoing exposure to diesel exhaust have higher lung cancer death rates than those who aren’t exposed.
FACT 940 Among the foul-smelling gases produced in landfills, ammonia, sulfides, methane, and carbon dioxide are of most concern.
FACT 941 Ammonia and hydrogen sulfide are responsible for most of the odors at landfills. Short-term exposure to elevated airborne levels of either of these compounds can cause coughing; headache; breathing difficulties; and irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat.
FACT 942 Body odor is caused by bacteria that feeds on the milky sweat produced by our apocrine glands, which are found under the arms and around the genitals.
FACT 943 Body odor that smells like rotting garbage can indicate that a tampon has been left too long in a woman’s vagina.
FACT 944 A vaginal discharge with a pasty, yeasty smell like bread dough is a sign that you have a yeast infection caused by an overgrowth of the naturally occurring fungus Candida.
FACT 945 The growth of Candida, which occurs naturally in the vagina, is kept in check by other bacteria. But when this balance is disrupted—often by antibiotic use, pregnancy, diabetes, or a compromised immune system—a yeast inf
ection can result.
FACT 946 Fetid urine can point to a urinary tract infection (UTI) in the kidneys, bladder, ureters, and/or urethra. Other symptoms of a UTI include burning, urgency, leaking, pain, and cloudy or bloody urine.
FACT 947 Strong foot odor is called bromhidrosis, or smell caused by sweat. The sweat doesn’t smell on its own but creates a moist environment ideal for the growth of bacteria and fungi, which cause the odor.
FACT 948 Trimethylaminuria, also called TMAU or fish odor syndrome, is a rare metabolic disorder that results in a constant fishy body odor.
FACT 949 Very little treatment is available for fish odor syndrome. Low doses of antibiotics can alleviate some of the odor, but the smell often increases when people with TMAU eat eggs, beans, broccoli, or seafood. Or when anybody eats eggs, beans, broccoli, or seafood.