Accidents & Death

Ocean Liners: Titanic to Today

On April 15th, 2012, the passengers of the Balmoral, a cruise ship on the North Atlantic, will pause shortly after midnight to commemorate the loss…

Suicide and the Titanic Survivors

The odds a person who survived the sinking of the Titanic on April 15, 1912 would later commit suicide are 1 in 89. Eight of…

Fatal Politeness: British Mortality and the Titanic

How would you react if you found yourself on a sinking ship with a couple of thousand other people? A study recently published in…

Behind the Numbers of the Titanic Disaster

A New York Times article published on April 19, 1912 said the Titanic was “laden with 2,340 souls,” while the British Board of Inquiry…

Stairs Kill Far More Americans Than Elevators

Stairs killed 1,991 people in the US in 2010 (about 1 in 155,000); elevators and escalators about 7 and 3 passengers a year.

Exercising Yourself into the ER & Living the Tale

Can exercise land you in the hospital, or even worse, the morgue? In 2008, Max Gilpin, a 15-year-old offensive lineman for his high school football…

Recent US Records Show Sharks Deadlier Than Vending Machines

Not anymore: sharks killed about 1 a year in US waters, 2012 to 2025 (1 in 330 to 350 million). CPSC told Slate of no vending deaths, 2009 to mid-2022.

Source: Hannah Docter-Loeb, Slate, July 27, 2022 · Data year 2025 · per year

Letter From Afghanistan: Shaken to the Core

In April to June 2010 the US had about 93,800 troops in Afghanistan, and UN and Afghan rights monitors recorded 2,777 civilian deaths there in 2010.