I’m choosing the worst-case-scenario of my demise from three horrendous death-types.
The first is from a pyroclastic flow – the utmost deadly part of a volcanic eruption. It’s the flow of gas and matter that spreads out after an eruption, and you simply can’t outrun it. In fairness, it’s a fairly swift way to perish, but with temperatures approaching 1,000C, your skin is cooked before you give up the ghost. Not recommended.
The second is radiation sickness. There is a huge amount of evidence that this is an awful way to go. Very slow and extremely painful. I have visual proof of this, but it’s far too distressing to show on a blog. Highly unrecommended.
So, I am plumping for being buried alive, as the worst way for me to die.
I actually have nightmares about this, about the abject terror of being trapped in a confined space. I sometimes wake up under my bedclothes, panic-stricken that I can’t remove the sheet and blankets, and my god I can’t breathe, I’m suffocating, help…..; utterly horrifying and scary..
For that reason, having an MRI scan, for instance, is a hideous proposition for me, and one of the most horrendous activities I have ever had to endure.
Buried alive can mean starvation or dehydration or suffocation or all three. Not a particularly agreeable combination.
Give me a fatal heart attack in my sleep please. But not just yet.
How I don’t want to die…..
It’s cancer. 100%, cancer.
My parents, thank God, never had problems with cancer, just like my elder brother. I can only hope that I will die from something else, something more ‘positive’ and less painful, both mentally and physically.
But the very idea of getting to know that you have a lethal and inevitable disease makes me shiver!
I know about genetics, check-ups, and healthy lifestyle. Yet, it can strike you anytime, even if you are 100% healthy and as rich as Elon Musk.
Andy Hug, a famous Swiss K-1/karate (pre-MMA) champion, died of leukemia in 2000, at 35. He was a fantastic athlete, had done plenty of check-ups, and had a great fighting spirit. Yet, leukemia killed him in a month!
In early August 2000, Hug started feeling unwell in Switzerland. On August 17, while training in Japan, he was given a diagnosis of acute leukemia. He passed away a week later in Tokyo, the day after he made public that he was comatose.
This thing can strike you anytime, anywhere.
If it strikes me – any kind of lethal cancer – there’ll be no turning back. And you suddenly lose the ground, literally. Your life is taken away from you – and you basically can do nothing about it, just suffer and expect death as a relief.
This is how I am afraid of dying.
How I don’t want to die…
This blog was easy for me. Sometimes I have to think about something but with this one I knew exactly what I would say the moment the topic was suggested. Stephen King said “The first fifty pages of The Hot Zone is the most frightening thing I’ve ever read.” I agree; Texas Chainsaw Massacre is for children. This non-fiction book took place just a few miles from my house.
The book opens with a man on a jet, flying over Africa. He’s got the very first case of Ebola and his death is not something I’ll share here. The Hot Zone is a book about Ebola and the real-life location was in Reston, VA. The Amazon book blurb says: “A highly infectious, deadly virus from the central African rain forest suddenly appears in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. There is no cure. In a few days 90 percent of its victims are dead. A secret military SWAT team of soldiers and scientists is mobilized to stop the outbreak of this exotic ‘hot’ virus. The Hot Zone tells this dramatic story, giving a hair-raising account of the appearance of rare and lethal viruses and their ‘crashes’ into the human race. Shocking, frightening, and impossible to ignore, The Hot Zone proves that truth really is scarier than fiction.”
I’ll put it this way, if I could pick between getting run over by a train and dragged for ten miles, or Ebola, it wouldn’t really be a choice at all. You do not want to ever, ever want to be near this and you damn sure don’t want to catch it. Example: one symptom is that you bleed from everywhere, including your eyes and ears and the blood doesn’t stay a nice, lovely red. That’s just one minor symptom.
In suppose in a twisted way it was actually good that Ebola broke out in Washington. Top scientists were near-by and it was easier to contain. In fact, a local TV station, NBC4, had a crew camped out at the office front door while the people in white haz-mat suites were sneaking in and out the back door. We locals were driving by and had no clue what was happening until after it was over. I can imagine the international headlines and panic if someone had thought to get out of the news van and walk around back. Maybe I’m wrong, the military may have let them disappear for a day or two. So yeah, it doesn’t matter what those other two pretenders write, I assure you, this is not how you want to die.