Morbidity data: Unusual ways to die
The morbidity data collected by the U.S. Center for Disease Control doesn’t just collect statistics on morbidity due to diseases and suicide. There are other causes of death that seem strange but are surprisingly common. A few years ago, some researchers looked up some of the more unusual CDC codes, listed between 1999 and 2014, and calculated lives lost from casualties that are probably not on our radar. It’s a list of additional things that we should all be careful about.
Such as? During that time period, 10,386 people died from “falls involving bed,” presumably incidents where somebody fell out of their bed, hit their heads and died. A total of 1,139 people died from a fall involving ice skates, skis, roller skates, or skateboards, and 1,413 deaths occurred when someone fell out of a tree. Another 951 people died from “contact with a powered lawnmower.”
You are more likely to be struck by lightning (24,000 deaths a year) than any of these, and less likely to die of a shark attack (8 deaths a year).
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Post by Bob Veres
Bob Veres, a Financial Planning columnist in San Diego, is publisher of Inside Information, an information service for financial advisors.
