Cast Away
Drifting in the middle of the ocean with no chance of rescue.
José Salvador Alvarenga unfortunately had to endure this fate. Survived though surprisingly after 14 months.
Caved
Occasionally I see news stories about people (often cavers) crawling into very tight spaces and being unable to get out and dying. I have an absolute terror of very tight confinement and am extremely claustrophobic. I'm having to look away from my computer just writing this. If I even think about the possibility of dying that way I have to get up and pace around the room.
On the Wheel....
Being broken on the wheel. I think it might even be worse than burning at the stake because of how long it takes. Basically they tied you to a wagon wheel and then smashed all your limbs with sledgehammer and then threaded the mangled wreck through the spokes like some bloody, moaning octopus and hung the wheel up in the public square until you died, which apparently could take days.
Cartoon Death
Being chained down in a vat of acid that's only just barely strong enough to disintegrate you at an incredibly slow rate.
The Roman Way
Crucifixion. The Romans were masters of torture, so they devised the cross as the ultimate torture punishment. Crucified prisoners would have to hold up their body to avoid being suffocated. It's like being slowly suffocated, but drawn out so you can physically feel yourself dying sometimes over the course of days. Plus, everyone gets to see your junk and bloody body.
Depleted Air....
I think being buried alive, running out of air and trying to escape only to drown in dirt is the one that scares me the most.
Ryan Reynolds did a movie about that called Buried, it was really good and made it hard for me to breathe safely on my couch.
Thought that was it....
I had complications after having my gall bladder removed, which included a massive bile (alkaline) leak into my abdomen, its was incredibly painful. By the time they figured out what was going on, and were taking me back into theatre, I had to hold my stomach as it was so swollen and the bile sloshing around while being wheeled on the stretcher was agony.
Melted....
lava GIFGiphyLava.
For one, you don't sink. Since it's molten rock, it's more dense than your body. You'd hit the lava, submerge for a second, then pop back up. Meanwhile, your skin would start boiling off, and since your body is 80% water, you'd skid across the top of the lava like a droplet of water, your skin still burning, until eventually you explode in a fantastical flash of guts and blood.
The Bull....
Probably something to be said for the Brazen Bull, a method of execution so terribly that according to legend the king that commissioned it thought it was so terrible that he had the engineer who came up with it killed via the mechanism he made, because surely he was awful for having come up with it.
Basically it's a big metal tube you put a person in and then put it over a fire, so they roast to death.
WTF?!
Strapped down, rat in a bucket on your stomach and then hot coals placed atop the bucket to ensure the rat borrows away from the heat. What a horrible way to die.
Keep Eating...
Starvation. It's actually relatively difficult to starve to death, and is in no way a quick end. When faced with starvation, the body will burn through its fat stores for energy. Once that runs out, it will go for the muscle but, eventually, it's going to run out of options. The extreme lack of vitamins and minerals will likely lead to a severely weakened immune system. It might be this, as opposed to exclusively starvation, that eventually finishes you off as you would have little defense against all kinds of diseases.
Agony....
Third degree burns, sometimes people take a week or longer to die, in total agony.
Radiation sickness is still far worse.
Source: have read all the IAEA incident reports several times.
Edit: https://www.iaea.org/publications/search/topics/accident-reports?keywords=
Hard on the family....
My dad recently passed from creutzfeld jakob.
I'd say in his case it wasn't so terrible for him, he simply wouldn't notice how he slowly just... went away. Also it isn't painful at all.
It's hard on the family though, imagine Alzheimers disease but the whole thing goes down in something like 3 months.
One day he seemed to be doing okay next day he didn't know who we were, couldn't form a coherent sentence and didn't know how to use a spoon.
Rabies seems painful and miserable, totally agree.
Ok Hannibal....
Being flayed sounds pretty dismal. They cut your skin away from the circumference of the hips, peel it up over your torso, and then tie the skin off over your head, so you end up suffocating in a bag of your own skin. But while you hang there suffocating they throw salt and acid at the now exposed raw flesh of your body the entire time.
Titanic 2
titanic leonardo dicaprio GIFGiphyTrapped in a sinking boat at night.
Jim_Dickskinhttps://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/05/a-sea-story/302940/
One of the best articles I've ever read about a passenger ship sinking in the black sea in the 90s that went down with many people. Legitimately first hand account of chaos and terror.
up the what?!
Being impaled slowly on a hot metal poker, starting up the rectum.
My dad knew a guy whose sister was sold some screwed up drugs and died from an OD. He tracked the dealer down and beat them to death with a baseball bat akin to Lucille in TWD. He's doing life in prison.
the blood....
I'd have to say bleeding out. You're just sitting there, in pain, hoping someone can help you, dreading the moment of your death, and then you realize death would at least end the pain you're in, or you just lay there and cry about how there was so much you wanted to do with your life, how you had dreams you wanted to make a reality. You either welcome your death, hope for help, or just wish that you got to live your life to the fullest and look back on every decision you wish you didn't make. It's a combination of both physical and mental pain.
Tubing....
I've this recurring fear since I was little. Imagine a long tube that's slightly inclined, and closed on one end. It's just wide enough for you to fit. You are put hear first into the tube, your head is slightly below your feet, you cannot move, and it's completely pitch black. The tube is slowly filling up with water.
The Nasty.....
There are lots of particularly nasty diseases out there, but one of the worst I have seen is ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). You are completely lucid, completely cognitively intact, but you slowly lose control of all of your muscles. You lose the ability to move your mouth for speech or swallowing. You cannot swallow your saliva, it either falls out of your mouth, or down your throat. The only part of your body that you can control is your eyes. If you're lucky, someone will bring you a large alphabet board and you can look at each letter, and spell out words.
Some people are lucky and get a fancy Eye gaze communication board, but they are somewhat difficult to program, and have a learning curve. Your helper has to know how to set it up so that your eyes can be tracked. Eventually, you die because you lose the ability to make your diaphragm work, so you just cannot breathe, but you are conscious the whole time.
Top 10
Things in my top 10:
Chopped up by woodchipper feet first.
Killed by Crocidile/Alligator.
Sucked out of an airplane, & fall to your death.
Mauled by lion/bear/tiger/any big predator who will surely kill you for predatorial purposes.
Swarmed by rats or ants, & eaten alive.
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