Ten Products More Dangerous Than Sharks

I was browsing the interweb and ran into the article "Ten Products More Dangerous Than Sharks". Sure, there are arguments against how statistics is used in these examples, but it has an eye-opener relevance, especially for all who would like to divide the world into medium and high risks products. I am not going into all the details. I'll share the juice ones. (All based on USA data)

Let's start with Sharks. On average, there are 70 shark attacks yearly in the world. Of those,?only around four ever prove to be fatal.?

Balloons

On average, six children die of suffocation from a balloon annually. Balloons send around 500 children to the hospital yearly from choking or other injuries.

Lawnmowers

Lawnmowers cause an average of 75 yearly deaths in the United States alone. Furthermore, every year 80,000 people go to the hospital to get treatment for injuries from lawnmowers. That is two out of every thousand trips to the emergency room.

Furniture

In the USA, there are 43,200 hospital visits for injuries caused by furniture tipping over someone annually. Of those people, 26 are crushed to death.

Coffee tables cause 143,070 children under 5 to visit the emergency every year.

Pens and pencils

Annually, 6,000 people go to the hospital for pencil-related injuries. The injuries often result from a pencil being stuck in someone’s eye. While other times, sharp pencils stab and cut the skin. Of these 6,000 injuries, 100 more prove to be fatal. Pens also injure and kill people.

On average, 100 people a year die from chewing on a pen. That is because the pen cap comes loose, gets stuck in the throat, and causes people to suffocate to death.

space heaters

These present a significant fire hazard and can cause severe burns. Space heaters cause 40% of all household fires. They also cause an average of 1,490 injuries and 470 deaths yearly.

Toasters

700 people worldwide are killed every year by toasters. The United States alone has 300 toaster-related deaths. Most deaths result from electrical shock from sticking a knife into the slots to remove jammed toast.

Toothpicks

These sharp, thin shapes can be very dangerous. Every year 9000 people end up in the hospital from choking on toothpicks. Most toothpick victims are children between the ages of 5 and 14. Furthermore, an average of 3 people die yearly from accidentally swallowing toothpicks, puncturing their internal organs. Toothpicks kill nearly as many people every year as sharks.

Zippers

Pant zippers put an average of 1,700 men in the emergency room in the United States every year. Men get caught so often in zippers that they are statistically the number one cause of injury to male genitalia.

The US WISQARS database is an excellent information source.

Knowing what in reality is happening is the first step when analysing risks. Don't guess. Use data.

I'll conclude with a free risk-reducing tip to all men: wear proper underwear!

Greetz, Caspar

PS Perhaps you think, Caspar, this only happens in your dreams. You should be careful because 1.8 million people go to the hospital after falling out of bed. Four hundred fifty of those people die from the fall.