Sometimes good intentions can make things worse. For example pulling an object out someone who’s been impaled may seem like a good idea. But it can make the victim bleed to death. Meanwhile, other mistakes with dangerous consequences are mostly due to lack of knowledge or accidents. Here are 10 mistakes people thought were simple but can actually be fatal.Â
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1. Walking in the Cold to Find Help
If you get in an accident during an extremely cold or snowy day, walking to get help could be what you in. One user specified: “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.”
2. Putting the Baby in the Backseat
Multiple answers discussed how many young babies get sick or die because they are forgotten in the backseat. One shared, “I’m in childcare, and I’ll do some insane things to remember there’s a baby back there. People forget. It doesn’t matter if you’re a mom, nanny, father, nurse, [or] firefighter. It happens. And yet someone always says, ‘I’d never forget my baby.’ And every year, babies die because of it.”
3. Mixing Cleaning Ingredients
Even before the age of TikTok and other social media apps, there have always been avenues for finding “lifehacks” or suggestions for doing things more efficiently. Unfortunately, these suggestions have begun carelessly, including ideas like mixing cleaning ingredients, which you should always avoid. Someone told a story where they witnessed this happen to a family member: “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 remove the chlorine gas he just produced.”
4. Assuming Heart Attacks Have a Clear Set of Symptoms
You’ve probably heard the signs of heart attacks to look out for, including chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea, and discomfort. However, the truth about heart attacks is that a heart attack can happen in many ways, with a wider variety of side effects, and affects women vs. men differently. A contributor told a personal story about their four heart attacks: “My first one -— for a week, my left arm steadily got increasingly sore. I couldn’t find a comfortable position at all. I ended up going to the ER, and — surprise! Heart attack. For my second one, I had arm soreness again. My third one, I was fatigued. No soreness or other symptoms. Just really tired, so I went to my primary care to get checked out. My last one, I was feeling a little sore, not really great.”
5. Not Having a Carbon Monoxide Detector
If you’ve ever wondered whether you need a carbon monoxide detector in your home, the answer is yes! One person said their dad owns an HVAC company whose customers frequently don’t understand the importance of fixing or installing one. He added, “He had had people try calling the police when he condemned a furnace calling him a thief and conman when he is just trying to save them from flooding their house with carbon monoxide and dying in their sleep. The fact that people don’t have carbon monoxide monitors is unthinkable to me.”
6. Pulling an Impaled Knife or Object Out
After an accident that involves impalement or a stabbing, shock or panic sets in, and many people are tempted to take the object out. Unfortunately, this can be much more dangerous than you realize. Many commenters were discussing the importance of leaving the item where it is until you can get assessed by a medical professional: “Literally if you’ve been stabbed, LEAVE THE THING INSIDE YOU. It’s the only thing stopping you from immediately bleeding to death.”
7. Trying to Climb Through a Window
If you lock yourself out, don’t try to scale a fence or gate or sneak in a window. Multiple users had personal anecdotes of people they knew who met their early demise after they locked themselves out. For example, somebody shared, “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.” Another added, “A friend of mine’s stepmother died this way. She locked herself out, tried to climb through a bathroom window head first, lost her balance, and fell, breaking her neck.”
8. Not Treating a Gun Like It’s Loaded
It would help if you always were overly cautious regarding gun safety, regardless of whether it’s your first time handling one or you consider yourself an expert. One commenter put it as clearly as possible: “Never point a gun at something you don’t want to destroy. Never put your finger on the trigger unless you want to fire the gun.”
9. Failing to Be Honest About Medications or Substance Use
You might be embarrassed to tell your doctor about all your medications. Still, it’s essential for your safety. Certain drugs have dangerous interactions, as one user pointed out: “It has many dangerous drug interactions and can cause a lot of problems from what I’ve heard. Trust me; the doctor isn’t going to 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.”
10. Not Using a Turn Signal
When people fail to turn their turn signal on while driving, it can cause annoyance and minor inconvenience. However, there’s a reason the turn signal exists, and it’s for everyone’s safety. Failing to use a turn signal (and general inattention) is one of the most common causes of car accidents. Source: Reddit.
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