People Explain Which Things Seem Harmless But Can Actually Be Life-Threatening

BEWARE!!

People Explain Which Things Seem Harmless But Can Actually Be Life-Threatening
Image by BRRT from Pixabay

Be careful, you could die at any moment. Danger is lurking at every corner and ready to pounce at any given moment. The things we're naive to could be our downfall. So look at knowing these things as life saving knowledge. Yes the simplest things can also be the most harmful, in a surprising way, but that is life. It's like smelling a rose and getting stung by a bee. So smell the roses from a distance.

edditor u/Jkwon6227 wanted everyone to be warned about the things in life we may fall vulnerable to by asking.... What seem harmless but can be seriously life threatening?

Quicksand....

ocean waves GIFGiphy

Island beaches. There are a lot in Hawaii that are a lot more dangerous than tourists realize. Islands are on the edge of the vast ocean and can sweep people in.

cmccormick

Dry Humor

Wet tile.

theobviousbiscuit

This is exactly why those prank videos of people putting butter on the tiles for people to slip on make me so angry. You can kill someone surprisingly easily that way, it's not funny at all.

cassiecasper

Oh god. There's a viral video of a dude doing this to himself as a joke and he slips and kicks a counter or something and compound fractures his toe and I've only seen it once but my whole body is miserable just thinking about it.

Chapstickie

Keep Brushing

Poor dental hygiene can lead to heart disease.

speckledgem

This literally happened to my grandpa this last weekend, well at least they caught it this last weekend and he needed a 4 hour surgery to fix it. He's doing ok now but is still in the hospital.

At first they thought it was a stroke because his right side was numb, and they thought he was having mini heart attacks. The heart attacks were actually seizures brought on by the sinus infection putting pressure on his brain.

BellerophonSkydiving

Through the Pane

Springs in double pane windows. The windows are heavier than you think so the springs are pretty strong. A friend that works as a maintenance guy at an apartment complex posted a pic of one of the balancers (as they're called) that came lose and went completely through the motorcycle helmet he wears when replacing them.

It still cracked his skull, and the ER doc said if he wasn't wearing the helmet he would have definitely died. Scary to think something as simple as a window can kill you. We all know garage springs are dangerous, but so are window springs.

across-the-board

H2O

Water Douse GIFGiphy

Water. Surprising amount of people die of drowning.

Aizpunr

Swift Kick

Walking around or behind a horse without keeping your hand on it.

Horses can get very scared very fast and a well placed kick can beak your neck, can even stop your heart.

If you must move around one, keep a hand on it after it is aware of your presence and slide it with you so it knows where you are, also stay very close to it the whole time so the potential kick has less wind-up.

ironwolf6464

CO Issues

Carbon monoxide, since you can't smell or taste it you won't know it's there.

archSkeptic

CO terrifies me. We have like 6 detectors in our house. My mom went to high school with this kid who lost his entire family to CO a few years after graduation.

He and his wife had a new baby. They were at his parent's house for the holidays around Christmas. All of his extended family was there.

Their baby was having trouble breathing, so he and his wife took the baby to the ER. By the time they got back, everyone else was dead of carbon monoxide poisoning. He lost his whole family.

Local codes only require 1 CO detector in the whole house. We've got them outside all the bedrooms, by the furnace room, by the dryer, etc. I don't mess around with that stuff.

Alpacalypsenoww

A Bad Grip

Saving someone with a heimlich grip. You can definitely rupture someone's organs with this move and people have died as a result of being saved by this procedure. Always send someone to the hospital after doing this as the victim might otherwise bleed to death in their sleep that night.

sebastiaandaniel

Just a Dash....

Eating cinnamon.

CritterNYC

Was looking to see if anyone said this. Cinnamon will dry your mouth and throat out badly, it'll mess you up quick. That whole cinnamon spoonful fad a few years ago (maybe more than a few, I'm getting old) was super dangerous. I don't remember if anyone died, but I know people ended up in the hospital.

jondesu

Roadkill

funny walk crossing the street GIFGiphy

Crossing the road, even when doing it "properly."

DryProperty

Add Jelly

Eating peanut butter directly out of the jar with a spoon. If you choke on it, it's going to be nearly impossible to dislodge.

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/01/18/magazine/l-dangerous-peanut-butter-227906.html

DerHoggenCatten

But do you eat it as one giant mouthful? That sounds really unpleasant honestly. I often take a big spoonful but I don't just shove that spoon directly in my mouth afterwards. You gotta savor that sh!t because it's like 400-500 calories.

Chapstickie

The Obvi

Jesse Pinkman Reaction GIF by Breaking BadGiphy

For a serious (and somewhat generic) answer, probably not getting enough sleep or not drinking enough water, I am guilty of both of these things but it can really make you feel like utter crap and lead to serious health complications.

Few_Function_8059

Steps

My answer: stairs.

Jkwon6227

I fell down the stairs when I was 13 and couldn't sit for like 2 months and I now have a bony bump on my hip 10 years later

In hindsight I wonder if I mildly broke my pelvis and it healed wrong?

But yeah. Stairs can seriously mess you up.

TheQueenOfSomething

I have it! 

Shingles. It is already inside you!!

whiskeycaninebbq

It is miserable. I had shingles at 30 on my right side shoulder, neck, scalp and ear mostly. It can come back again, and in a different place. I am scared of it being on my face and blinding me.

tkdbbelt

Not Funny

"Pranking" someone with allergies by giving them a little bit of that allergen (I've seen articles of people putting peanuts into an allergic person's food).

MysticAviator

What the hell? That's not a prank, that's straight up attempted murder.

My friend is deathly allergic to peanuts and tree nuts and one time a kid chased him around with peanuts in his hand. Kid got suspended. Food allergies are not something to mess around with.

gnoble22

Listen Ladies....

surprised woman GIFGiphy

Leaving a tampon in too long can cause toxic shock syndrome and it can be deadly.

spookyevilghostt

Crispy

Sunburns can be very dangerous.

Normally you don't think too much of them, just a few days of irritated/itchy skin, but if you aren't careful you drastically increase your chance of getting malignant melanoma (skin cancer) through a handful of decent sunburns.

Currdogger

High Tension

Garage door springs.

huh_phd

I am very handy and can fix everything around the house. But I don't mess with garage door springs. I call the experts in for that one.

MediocreFisherman

Anything with such a high amount of tension is so dangerous, when I think about it it's quite terrifying that we use these things so frequently.

stoneballoon132

Kitty has Claws

cat mountain GIF by CheezburgerGiphy

A cat scratching you and breaking the skin. Cat's claws carry a deadly bacteria that, if untreated, can kill you.

HouseFanatic64

Emotions are Fragile

Emotional neglect - when you have ' everything '. People always brush it off as being too needy or whatever, but in reality life long emotional neglect especially during childhood development it can impact your life deeply. You can become depressed, anxious and have anxiety. If you suspect that you might suffer from this I have plenty of resources to help guide you to healing and growth. Comment or message.

elizacandle

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REDDIT

People Share Unspoken First Date Rules Everyone Should Follow

Reddit user Quotedkarma asked: 'What's an unspoken rule on a first date?'

Two people having coffee
Photo by Chewy on Unsplash

Countless emotions arise when going on a first date.

Making this all the more difficult is that a first date is one of the few things that absolutely must be done solo, so bringing friends as backup simply isn't an option.

Leaving one to wish there was a handbook for navigating a first date successfully.

Of course, while there is no official guide, everyone has rules and beliefs about what to do and what to avoid on a first date.

From how to effortlessly bring out your best qualities, to a foolproof escape plan if your date is anything but the one you've dreamed your whole life of meeting.

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woman in white t-shirt looking at the window during daytime
Photo by Dan Burton on Unsplash

My second college internship led me to a small content creation company. It was so small that the two editors were the only paid employees. Everyone else was an intern.

I was excited to start so I could add more to my portfolio only to realize that one of the editors replaced my name with hers every time she edited one of my articles. Not much of the content was changed, but I was too shy to question it.

I eventually found out that she did this to all the interns, and most of the interns had learned to private message their draft articles to the other editor, who did not take the bylines.

I asked one of my fellow interns if the founder of the company knew the editor took bylines. Turns out, the founder knew, but for some reason no one else could figure out, the editor never got fired.

It turns out this story isn't unique. There are lots of instances when someone does something at work that should get them fired, but they manage to hold on to their job. Redditors have plenty of stories like that and are eager to share.

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Not to startle any of you, but death stalks us.

We all have nightmares about diseases and murderers.

But what if, in the end, we just choke on a pickle we inhaled too fast?

Maybe instead of a pickle, a little coleslaw would have been the wiser choice.

We'll never know.

The most minute things can send us packing.

Redditor SuffocatedByThighs wanted to discuss the things that can extinguish our lives in the most basic ways, so they asked:

"What simple mistake has ended lives?"

Tripping over untied shoelaces.

It can break your neck.

TIE YOUR SHOES!!!

Off the Rocks

On No Falling GIF by Outside TVGiphy

"There have been too many instances of rock climbers rappelling off of the ends of their ropes, which could have been easily avoided by tying stopper knots at the ends of their ropes."

LZRDLZRD

Seconds

"I worked at a tire place for a summer and the first thing they told me was 'See that torque wrench? One mistake with this and you can kill a whole family in a matter of seconds.' I thought well, better take this thing seriously."

FrenchMicrowave

"Man for a second I was thinking 'F**k you'd have to swing that thing around fast to take out an entire family' and just bluescreened on the idea of changing a tire."

lurking_my_a**_off

How Vexing...

"THERAC-25. The world’s deadliest software error. Cost several radiation patients their lives by administering lethal amounts of radiation, and for a while, the doctors didn’t even know."

Longjumping_Event_59

"THERAC-25 suffered a particularly vexing sort of error known as a race condition. Essentially, the circuit required multiple inputs in a particular sequence, but sometimes the timing of that sequence could get thrown out of whack and it would lead to all sorts of nonsensical output."

"This is less than ideal when all you're doing is manipulating pixels, but when your software is handling radiation beams you really don't want this to happen."

"Even more vexing is that race conditions are frequently heisenbugs, which can vanish altogether when one attempts to study them. If you don't have a good idea of what's causing the error, you may never cotton on to what sort of bad input is required to test it. Under those circumstances, it's easy to write them off as imaginary, only to then find."

dancingmadkoschei

Heavy Drifting

"Leaving the stranded vehicle on the road in winter and trying to walk to get help. It happens in rural parts of our province once or twice a year and they find the body a few days later. They get disoriented and freeze."

Regina_Runner

"I got blown off a road in high winds. Heavy drifting. Less than a mile from a friend's house after I had turned around. Drifts made it impossible to complete the trip. Trying to run a mile in full blizzard conditions was a fight for my life as an in-shape 24-year-old male athlete.

"rotyag

Simple Slips

Uh Oh Omg GIF by BounceGiphy

"Almost any simple mistake can end a life if you're an anesthesiologist, that's how my grandpa died in his early 60s."

dwserps

Any second. Any moment.

Stay vigilant people.

Celibacy could be better...

Oh My Wow GIFGiphy

"Not being honest with doctors about Viagra. It has many dangerous drug interactions and can cause a lot of problems from what I’ve heard. Trust me the doctor ain’t gonna judge you guys, they have seen many more embarrassing things. And it would suck to die because you wanted to hide something just for it to be later stated in your death certificate."

The_upsetti_spagetti

Check the Numbers

"As a healthcare worker, giving the wrong amount of insulin."

UzumakiHorror

"During the first shift of my first clinical rotation in nursing school, I watched a nurse draw up insulin out of an auto-injector pen that was CLEARLY marked to specifically not do that AND she was drastically wrong about the dosage and almost killed a guy by giving him essentially like a hundred times the intended dose."

someguynamedg

Stay In

"Pulling the knife out of someone."

rcadephantom

"Yeah, I did that but it was a broken tree branch that had impaled my leg. Without even thinking I pulled it out. Blood started gushing so I pulled off my shirt and tied it into a pressure bandage. I was lucky I didn’t bleed to death."

Olddog_Newtricks2001

"Shock is an IQ reducer. I once sliced a bit off the side of my hand with a broken glass, and sort of dazedly picked off the piece of me and tried to stick it back on. It did not work."

UncannyTarotSpread

Stay Dirty

"Mixing cleaning ingredients."

Jonnysource

"My dad was trying to unclog his kitchen drain and mixed drain cleaners by adding one then adding another a few minutes later. It started bubbling and he began coughing intensely. I heard him coughing from the other room, saw what happened, and opened the nearby window to get rid of the chlorine gas he just produced."

"I forgot there was a large hive of wasps that had moved into that window and they did not appreciate this unexpected interruption. I took him to the emergency room for the gas exposure and it was tough explaining that the wasp stings were not why we were there."

CharmingTuber

Dear God

Jeff Goldblum What GIF by The Late Late Show with James CordenGiphy

"A friend’s husband locked himself out of their home. He tried to get in through a window that had security bars. While squeezing through his foot slipped and he essentially hung himself on the window sill."

Cokej01

Life is fleeting. Here is proof.

LIVE!! But live smart.

We all have foods that we like or don't like, and depending on how passionately we feel, it may be pretty hard to understand why someone likes a food that otherwise grosses us out.

But if that food is also expensive, we'll also be left wondering why they'd spend so much money on that dish.

Keep reading...Show less