"If potatoes aren't stored properly and start rotting, they can produce a toxic gas."
In a post shared to r/AskReddit, site user u/ObligationPlus953 asked, "What’s something simple that can actually kill someone accidentally that isn’t common knowledge?" Here are some of the most-upvoted responses:
"Being shoved."
"I've seen too many videos of fights and scuffles where someone is shoved or punched, and they trip on concrete and suffer fatal TBIs [traumatic brain injuries] hitting their head on the concrete.
The brain is fragile. Protect it."
2. "A dental infection. I went to grief support meetings, and a woman there lost her son to an impacted tooth that spread infection to his brain."
"This is why seeing those 'veneer techs' pop up drives me insane. Some of them are putting veneers/crowns over decay not knowing (or not caring) that it will probably create an abscess or infection. It is so dangerous."
3. "Sleep apnoea."
"The only reason my husband and I can afford our apartment is because the guy who had it before us died in it of sleep apnoea.
My husband also has horrible sleep apnea. He finally got a CPAP."
4. "For the love of God, when you're boiling water on the stove, turn the handles of your pots inward."
"When my grandmother's sister was a toddler, she ran around with her arms in the air and smacked the handle of a pot of boiling water. The water poured all over her, and she died a few days later from her injuries.
Because of that, all throughout my life it was drilled into me to a) use the back burners first and b) if you need to use the front burners, turn the handles in. It wasn't until I became an adult and moved in with roommates and partners that I realised so many people don't think to do that."
5. "I made garlic-infused olive oil once. I left it out because that’s how I always saw it on people's counters. Used it a few weeks later. Botulism."
"I was out for four whole days writhing in pain with nothing left to expel. Turns out, I could have died."
"It's specifically the combination of garlic and oil that is the issue here. The only other time that botulism can be threatening for most people is improperly stored home-canned foods.
Most of the time, you leave food out at unsafe temps for too long and bacteria that can make you sick will grow on it. Clostridium botulinum is a bacteria that is relatively common in the wild, but not very competitive; meaning that when you leave food out, odds are a different bacteria will outcompete it. This is a good thing because given enough time and food, the botulinum bacteria will produce botulinum toxin, one of the deadliest substances on the planet.
But clostridium botulinum thrives in low oxygen environments such as oil, garlic is low acidity meaning it's the perfect place for botulinum bacteria to grow, and room temp is the perfect temperature for them. When you combine these factors, you create one of the few situations where your food might end up with botulinum toxin in your improperly stored foods, instead of a more common bacteria that might give you an upset stomach but probably not kill you."
6. "A grape."
"My wife had a friend and coworker whose young daughter choked to death in front of her and her mother. They tried to dislodge the grape and nothing worked. By the time an ambulance got there, the girl had suffered a significant brain injury.
We cut our kids' grapes in half until they were 10 after that."
7. "Ladders. People think you have to fall far to get hurt or die. Eight feet is plenty."
8. "A high-pressure puncture wound or high-pressure injections."
"Imagine you're wearing all your PPE, got your goggles, your gloves, etc. And you're working with high-pressure liquids. I'm not talking about cutting steel with water jets, just something with high enough pressure that can pierce or puncture the skin. And bang, you get a little stab from a pressurised fluid source. Not even bleeding that much, if at all, sometimes it’s just a little sting, but you go to medical and get assistance. After a day, your hand is sore but otherwise fine.
If you obtain one of these injuries and don't alert the medical staff, you typically lose the limb. It can be just as bad with water or steam as with chemicals.
This was a safety moment at my company due to a mechanic getting a pinprick while changing a line. While he went for medical help, he didn't tell them it was a high-pressure wound. As such, he progressively lost three fingers on his hand because the substances were blasted into muscle tissues and caused necrosis, slowly."
"Not fluids, but I had a teacher in the union who had a nail in his brain. He was an elevator worker and was shooting very, very thin nails into the shaft to reinforce certain parts. He said one sparked, and he thought nothing of it. When he came up, his buddy noticed a tiny hole and crack in his glasses and told him he needed to get it checked out. The teacher insisted he probably just dropped them earlier, but the coworker made him go to the ER.
Of course, they found a three-inch nail in his brain and couldn’t remove it. It’s a miracle it never affected him or anything. He was the one who got me to buy ballistic safety glasses that can stop a .22 mag. I wear them every day."
9. "Rags covered in linseed oil can spontaneously combust when left in a pile."
"I randomly discovered this fact in a Reddit post. A carpenter I know confirmed that this is a real thing.
I've been getting into refinishing old furniture, so I'm glad I learned this now. You'd think it'd be more common knowledge!"
10. "Playing in a deep hole at the beach."
"I had a friend who had a holiday job in construction as a student. One day he dug a trench which collapsed on him, and he was dug out by his crew. It was about midday but they all knocked off for the day and went to the pub where they all got drunk, which he thought was great as they were buying. When he asked if it was some sort of tradition they explained that usually, the person caught in the trench didn't survive."
"We had a very scary close call with friends. We dug a hole for hours, it was like three metres deep. All of a sudden one of the sides crumbled, burying one of my friends from the waist down. It was impossible for him to move. Needless to say, we got him out and closed the hole ASAP."
11. "A trampoline. It’s a really dangerous children’s 'toy.'"
12. "People don't realise that many people who die in house fires die in their sleep."
"The fire is too small to wake them from the heat alone or it's farther away, yet it is releasing carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide along with a ton of other toxic fumes into the air.
You are just sleeping, breathing in that gas, which makes you even more tired and eventually unconscious, then dead.
If you don't have them, this is a big PSA: fire alarms increase your survivability in a fire by a ton. Get and check those alarms, make a plan in case of fires, and get fire extinguishers. Learn how and when to use them if you can afford to. If not for you, do it for those you care about in your home. Check your batteries!"
13. "Allergies."
"A guy at work didn't believe a coworker had a deadly peanut allergy and had to try it out. The victim was lucky that the medical centre in our company has a doctor and medicine."
"I have a friend who has an extreme nut allergy. He ordered a soy latte once… the shop was apparently out of soy and substituted almond milk.
He fortunately noticed it tasted off immediately, and asked the barista who said 'We were out of soy. Almond milk is better for you anyway.' And when he had to go to the bathroom to make himself puke, she responded that he was just 'overreacting.'
He did talk to a manager eventually but after making sure he was healthy/okay/not dying."
14. "A cracked toilet."
"Even if it isn't leaking or doesn't seem like it's a problem, replace it immediately! Do not sit on it! If it breaks while you're doing your business, that sh*t will slice your leg/ass open like a razor [and if not taken care of may get infected]. Broken porcelain is no joke especially when you put all your weight on it!"
15. "Flowing water inches deep can still have the strength to sweep you away if you’re not careful."
16. "Cheerleading."
"I had an accident and almost died because one of my teammates lost balance while I was on top, and that caused me to fall. That fall broke my neck and I haven't been able to walk or move most of my body ever again."
17. "If potatoes aren't stored properly and start rotting, they can produce a toxic gas and can make a person unconscious if they’ve inhaled enough. It can even death in some cases."
"There was a news article back in 2013 of an entire family in Russia that was killed by it."
18. "Garage door springs."
"Garage doors weigh several hundred pounds. You cannot lift them by yourself, and a motor cannot do it without being massive, hence the garage door spring. They come in a few varieties, some are twisted, and some are tensioned, but the point is that they effectively provide a counterbalance for several hundred pounds of door, and their default state is storing energy.
Some people try to replace them or fix parts of their garage door that require de-tensioning the springs or removing them, and some people think they can do this without the proper know-how and tools. Some do it just fine. Many don’t. I have seen a picture of somebody's arm after the spring broke on them. You could see the bones in their forearm. I have also seen a video of somebody getting their arm entirely removed by one. Please don’t look that up."
19. "Mixing bleach and ammonia when you clean produces toxic gas that will make you REALLY sick."
"Mixing cleaning products is almost always a bad idea. It can be fatal and doesn't even make them more effective. In some cases, it can even make the outcome about as useful as using water."
20. "Food left out overnight can develop a toxic bacteria that's lethal."
"Just a couple of months ago, a student ended up dying because they ate some fried rice that they had left out."