Chickens are not to be trifled with, fam.
People underestimate the chubby little velociraptors, but if you spend any significant length of time with them you'll soon find they're ferocious enough to kill. We don't normally think of them as predators, but they are downright bloodthirsty.
If chickens, particularly in groups, see blood - they go on the attack as a group and don't stop. They can, and have, scratched or pecked human beings to death - typically by tearing open veins and arteries.
We're not saying you should be afraid, just maybe don't underestimate them. If we didn't all like chicken nuggets so much it's quite possible we would be overrun by clucky murderers.
Reddit user ThomasHarrison618 asked:
What can kill you that people often underestimate?
... and yeah CHICKENS immediately came to mind for me. Not that I have a personal vendetta or anything, regardless of anything that may or may not have happened in my years owning a chicken in a small Manhattan apartment. Those stories are for another article.
Let's take a look at the stories other people had about stuff we tend to underestimate.
A Stomach Ache
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Bacteria. Appendicitis. Dad told me to man up, shut up and deal with it, and to fix my diet, and that it was just a stomach cramp that everyone gets. I'm on the smaller side and pretty fit. If I had followed that advice I would've been dead by the next day.
I had to have emergency surgery. Dad was giving me that lecture again when the doctor walked in and shut down every single point.
That's how my paternal grandmother died. Her husband, my grandfather, told her to stop complaining. She was in her 20's with 4 kids.
- ppw23
Just Passing Out
I almost died from carbon monoxide poisoning two days ago. I spent about two days just passing out in my bed, I was so tired. Eventually somebody smelled gas, because I couldn't, so they called the energy company who had somebody there maybe 30 minutes later.
Her CO meter was going off as she walked up to the door before it was even open. She said open windows and leave right now. That was when I realized I had been passing out for two days, and in such awkward positions that my back was sore as hell.
So I got to the hospital and my resting heart rate was about 130, and I was told my skin was an off color, but other than passing out I felt no symptoms. I didn't notice my heart rate was so high because it wasn't accompanied by heavy breathing like usual. I was the only one home most of the time, I might never have woke up if that had continued for much longer.
- et50292
Tylenol
Tylenol overdose... the difference between typical dose and dangerous overdose is surprisingly few pills.
- blipsman
A case I will never forget from when I was in nursing school. I was doing a rotation at the Children's Hospital and a kid who was 15 was going under for a liver biopsy. He had overdosed on Tylenol in a suicide attempt at 13. He was on his second liver transplant and, like the first, this one was beginning to reject.
It was heartbreaking to see a kid whose suicide attempt was seemingly going to eventually be successful, but only after years of attempts to reverse it :(
I'm an RN and I've seen people die of accidental Tylenol overdose. Lots of pain, taking it around the clock without paying attention to the label. It's a dangerous drug. I never take Tylenol for any reason to be honest.
Choke
Choking on your food. Eat more slowly, chew your food people it won't run away from you.
Choking on food when I'm alone and dying as a result is one of my biggest fears, tbh
Like just knowing that I'm not going to make it and slowly fading out while staring at my dog who is worried but cant help me? No thank you, I'd rather just not eat
Zzz
Falling asleep on the toilet and smashing your head on the tile. After working 12 hour shifts 14 days in a row, it nearly happened to me, luckily we had a bath mat so I just got a minor head wound.
Botox
Botox. Botox is the most lethal poison in the world, not when injected for your face, but when ingested. If you ingest about 0.00007mg of botox, it would be lethal and kill you.
I have Botox injected into my lower back to relax the muscles - I wonder if someone who tried to eat me would die? I'm sure the chances of dying at the hands of a cannibal are pretty slim, but that'd be the ultimate pay back.
Don't Bleach It!
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Using Bleach to clean up Urine .
The chemical reaction with the ammonia can create Chlorine Gas that can kill you.
Mixing chemicals together for cleaning. A guy at work did this to clean a toilet at work & ended up gassing himself. He survived, but wow.
How do people not know that? Though the smell alone is terrible so I automatically assumed it could kill you lol.
- big-spo
You are reasonably safe using household strength cleaners to sanitize your bathroom. Just don't use it to hose down the cowshed.
Wrestlemania
Wrestling with your little brother. One awkward angle and his spine and skull break and crack leaving you with a corpse. Play safe.
One of my fraternity brothers died after a drunken wrestling match with a couple friends. They were all horsing around and someone accidentally crushed his windpipe.
- gogojack
Bucket
Water buckets kill about 20 toddlers per year in the US. It happens when they inspect the bucket only to fall in head first. It's a very small risk relative to other dangers, but it's not zero.
Poop
Bearing down to move your bowels.
When I was a paramedic I used to find people dead on or next to the toilet with one floating in the bowl. When you bear down it stimulated your vagal nerve and that slows down the heart. Sometimes a bit too slow.
I'm sure there are exceptions, but everyone I ever encountered that went out that way was in their fifties or older.
- SCCock
I have epilepsy. I also have chronic constipation caused by various other medical issues. Bearing down too hard to push one out will sometimes give me a seizure.
- eekknock
I knew a boy in high school (he was a couple years below me) who died from a seizure on the toilet...not a nice way to go. He was on a camp too and they couldn't unlock the door to get to him until it was too late (not even sure if they knew straight away or just went looking for him when he didn't come back)
Cavities
A cavity can lead to sepsis.
Untreated cavity becomes abscess (abscesses are a pocket of pus in a tooth caused by an infection) infection spreads to bloodstream then you become septic.
Doesn't even need to be an abscess. Bacteria from the mouth can temporarily enter the bloodstream and lead to infection of the heart valves (endocarditis). (This can also happen in people with good oral hygiene but poor oral hygiene increases the risk).
Brush ya teeth
Abscesses which lead to septic arthritis.
I had an abscess on my gum, my phobia of the dentist (due to childhood trauma) meant I wouldn't let the dentist remove my tooth. I was 8 and developed septic arthritis. My mom tried one last time to get my tooth removed else I'd be taken to theatre. The dentist had to sit on me while a nurse and my mom held me down. Septic arthritis can kill, it can develop into sepsis which is often lethal. I was a healthy child but that abscess could've easily killed me. Do not ignore abscesses, the bacteria can get into your bloodstream and easily cause complications.
Me-ouch!
Cats...
I had a friend who nearly died from a cat bite that got severely infected, a cat got into his backyard with 3 dogs, he was trying to help the cat because it was stuck he was holding high because his dogs were jumping, it bit his wrist and within 48 hours was in hospital ICU with doctors contemplating amputating his arm from the elbow down.
He didn't blame the cat.
The Kangaroo Sanctuary
Kangaroo's can be extremely dangerous if they decide to attack. A large big red kangaroo can disembowel a person with one kick with the power it has in its legs.
A lot of people may have seen the guy that punched the kangaroo in the face, he was extremely lucky the kangaroo had the 2 dogs to worry about as well. You see for a split second the kangaroo deciding whether or not to kick the sh!t out of him but his attention turns back to the dogs, that bloke was very lucky.
Bug Bites
Won't quite cause instant death, but Insect bites or smaller injuries when not treated right can very quickly lead to blood poisoning or other nasty stuff which can very likely land you in hospitalization. Especially when your immune system is for whatever reason (recent illnesses, poor hygiene, HIV, etc.) is already weakened.
Don't neglect insect bites! Scratching them will not only further irritate your skin, but also spread the insects secretion into your blood, which encourages infections in either the surrounding skin or your bloodstream!
Also take greater care for disinfecting open wounds!
Yosemite
Yosemite National Park. Everywhere.
I live near the park and have friends that work there and hear of people dying there all the time. People climb rocks in areas roped off and marked with warnings and slip and die. People back off cliffs doing selfies. People have huge chunks of rock fall on them and crush them to death. They decide to go for a dip in the Merced River and don't realize that the current is so fierce, and get ripped to shreds when the water pushes them over massive jagged rocks.
People die there all the time. It's a thing.
- dma1965
A Melted Ice Cube
Water or slippery trash on the floor. With bad luck and a hard enough blow to the back or front of your head, a receipt or even a few drops of water on the floor can send you to your death.
I always get mad at my husband for letting fallen ice cubes melt on the kitchen floor especially because someone could skip and hit their head on the corner of the stove.
I think about death a lot. :(
Coconuts
Coconuts, an average of 50 people die a year because they were under the wrong coconut tree at the wrong time and a coconut fell on his/her head and killed them.
Crafters Beware
Glue guns. Less than 5 minutes ago I turned round and it was on fire and it was a pain to clear up (dont even ask me how it set on fire i have no idea)
Feel The Pain
Taking pain meds every time you feel pain. Unfortunately pain is natural for humans to feel, it tells us there's something wrong. Headaches can mean stress; lack of sleep, water,etc.
As a child I suffered from frequent migraines and would take advil, ibuprofen, and other over the counter pain meds almost daily. Turns out I had asthma and the lack of oxygen caused my headaches.
Unfortunately the years of pain meds have consequences. I now suffer from IBS, acid reflux, and gastritis as a result. Do not abuse over the counter meds, save pain meds for when you really need them. If you can deal with it then don't take anything. Long term it only harms our bodies.
Another downside is that I am limited in the over the counter meds I can take now because only certain ones work for me. My body has built up an immunity to most pain meds.
Straight In Your Throat
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Your own tongue, hit your head the wrong way and that f*cker is straight in your throat.
- canekobe
Get Used To It
I work in emergency services for elderly people. They sometimes forget that they take serious drugs like strong pain killers. If they take them for a long time they forget the danger coming from it and start to drink alcohol. That can kill them. So basically getting used to danger can kill you
Try not to follow the bad advice given here, because you don't want to get the results that these guys did.
U/Duckerton375 asked: What's the worst advice someone ever gave you, but you still followed?
The workplace can bring a cornucopia of terrible advice. Don’t follow these unless you want to get fired.
​Bad jobs are usually not worth it.
Stick with a job no matter how bad it is. I stayed with a terrible job working retail, dealing with horrible customers and sexual harassment. I was told I wouldn't find anything better.
"No, no, you misunderstand. I said you wouldn't find anything better at making you feel like complete garbage."
This gets really creepy really fast.
frustrated workplace GIFGiphy"After you put in a job application, you need to call them at least once a day every day until they hire you."
Note: this did not get me hired. It got me called out by the HR person I was calling and forbidden to ever contact their facility again.
I work for a law firm that employees over 1500 people in the home office alone. Once I received a call from the building security saying, "Insert Name is here to speak with the owner." Well we are run by a committee so that's odd. Found out they just applied for a job and wanted to talk directly to the person that would potentially hire them. Told him the firm will contact them to schedule an interview. They refused to leave without "talking to the owner." Had security escort them out of the building.
​This is absolutely not true.
"Sleep is for people who do not want success" great words from my uncle, it almost killed me.
Now I may be oversleeping.
​Interpersonal relationships are also a big breeding ground for terrible advice. Don’t listen to any of these.
Heartbreaking.
My father always tought me and my brother that "having friends is bad and in the end they will never be there for you" so everytime I told my father about my friends he would get kinda mad and give me the advice to stop talking to them.
Now I am afraid of people and have several trust issues, thanks dad.
​This won’t end well.
A Christmas Story GIF by filmeditorGiphyIn the fifth grade my teacher was talking about bullying, then she said "if anyone tries to bully you just agree with them." So the next time I got bullied I agreed with the bully and they bullied me more.
Dude one time I saw an anti bullying video that told the victims to just BE NICE TO THE BULLY. Like the bully was hurling insults and the victim was smiling and complimenting him. My first thought was about how much I hated the mere thought that this would work. My second thought was of how the people who came up with that method had clearly never been bullied.
​Oof.
When I met my now wife at the age of 19, one of my coworkers said that it's very important to start at the bottom with presents and work your way up, she still has the socks I gave her on our first anniversary on the wall over our bed as a reminder...
I'm still trying to teach my boyfriend about good presents and bad presents. Biscuits from the supermarket = bad present. Cheap unbranded laptop battery from China as my only present = bad present (and only lasted 2 months). Anything off my 7-page wishlist = good present. It's literally a list of things I want to receive as presents.
​Can tell you from experience that this is a bad idea.
Had a falling out with some friends. My husband recommended I reach out to an old friend who ghosted me suddenly in a manner that induced some pretty severe abandonment trauma. Went for it anyways because "it's been so long, surely they changed". Am now experiencing the same things as last time.
When you follow bad advice, it can lead to mistakes that you just can’t come back from.​
Buying a house is tricky.
for sale dancing GIF by Lisa VertudachesGiphy"Buy a home now before the prices go up!" -my FIL in 2006.
We bought in 2007 and paid $259,500 for our 1,300 sq ft house (we really couldn't afford it and had an 80/20 so we had 8% interest for one loan and 6% on the other) and in 2008 it was worth $97,000 so refinancing wasn't even an option. We watched all of our neighbors walk away or get foreclosed on but we kept paying our bills and as of this very moment our house is worth $462,000. I'm so happy we stuck it out, we both worked our @sses off and the house will be paid off in 2 years.
It worked out for us, it's a horrible idea. Especially since 1300 sq ft houses are $460+k
My heartbreaks for future generations, I honestly don't know how people are going to afford housing in the future.
It’s there for a reason.
"Never apply for any government assistance."
Cue years of suffering trying to work full-time with a painful disability. Quit a particularly terrible job, and wanted to apply for food aid until I could find another gig; a friend with lots of DHS experience recommended I apply for Social Security "just to get in the system." Turns out my disability was bad enough to get accepted the first time, which I wasn't expecting. Really could've used that support, oh, the 30+ previous years of my life.
Credit is important to have.
I was told to not get a credit card until after college. I was super fortunate to have my college paid for so I had no loans, car paid in cash, no credit card or anything to start building credit. Found myself out in the world at 22 years old with a credit score of 0.
So while a lot of this bad advice came from trusted people, oftentimes they were too misinformed to give that advice in the first place. Don't trust the word of one person--do your research, and make decisions for yourself.
It'll be way better in the long run