When you hear the word “danger,” you probably think of slippery floors, shifty criminals, or busy intersections. These days, people tend to ignore the threats posed by the natural world. But after reading this article, you may decide not to come out of the bathroom—it’s a dangerous world out there.
B EWARE OF: Your backyard
EXPLANATION: Some common garden plants and shrubs can kill you if you eat them. These attractive but potentially fatally toxic plants include daphne, English ivy, fox-glove, hemlock, jonquil, mistletoe, morning glory, and yew. The list of plants that can leave you in a coma, paralyzed, or spasmodic is as long as your arm.
BEWARE OF: Golf courses and riverbanks
EXPLANATION: Each year about 100 people are killed in the United States by lightning strikes, and most of these unfortunate victims became targets while out enjoying golf or fishing. A typical lightning flash carries about 15 million volts, so you don’t want to be caught swinging a number 5 iron or a 20-foot fishing rod when a storm comes by. The National Weather Service recorded 3,511 deaths and 11,489 injuries from lightning strikes between 1959 and 1999. PGA advice to all golfers is to stop playing and seek shelter as soon as any storm approaches.
BEWARE OF: The woods
EXPLANATION: “Assassin bugs,” also known as “kissing bugs,” have been known to suck blood from the lips, eyelids, or ears of a sleeping human. There are various species that hang out in the woodlands and bushes of Africa, Central America, South America, and even North America. Most assassin bugs aren’t deadly to humans, but the Triatoma infestans makes up for it. Found mostly from Mexico to the south of Argentina, it can spread Chagas’ disease, which will kill a person in just a few weeks by weakening the nervous system, eventually causing a heart attack. Five thousand people die from Chagas disease each year.
BEWARE OF: Old baby rattles
EXPLANATION: Toy manufacturers once used castor beans as the noisemakers in baby rattles. They probably didn’t know that castor beans contain ricin, a protein that’s fatal to humans. Scientists estimate that, ounce for ounce, ricin can be 6,000 times more deadly than cyanide. A teeny bit of ricin, weighing no more than just one grain of salt, can kill an adult.
BEWARE OF: Jewelry
EXPLANATION: Another substance even more toxic than ricin is abrin. Abrin is found in jequirity beans, which are used in rosary necklaces. Just one seed can be fatal, yet this bean is often used to make necklaces in Mexico and Central America.
In 1994 Alexandra Sergeyev and several of her co-workers chipped in to buy three tickets in a lottery to win an automobile. Mrs. Sergeyev gave one to her husband to put in a safe place; soon afterward he dropped dead from a heart attack. It wasn’t until after the funeral that she realized that
1) the ticket she gave her husband was the winning ticket
2) he put it in the pocket of his best suit
3) that was the suit he was buried in
Mrs. Sergeyev consented to have Ivan’s body exhumed, but when the authorities went to dig him up, they discovered the grave was empty…and that someone had already cashed in the winning ticket.
Police discovered that a ring of grave robbers had looted the grave, sold the casket back to an undertaker, and sold Sergeyev’s suit to a thrift shop. Someone apparently bought the suit, found the lottery ticket still in the pocket, and cashed it in. Mrs. Sergeyev was eventually awarded the automobile, but she never recovered her husband’s body—the thieves had sold it for animal feed.
Homebodies: 89% of Americans don’t have a valid passport.