You could die when you least expect it.
Especially if you don't expect these things to make you die.
Let's talk about that
♪ (theme music) ♪
- Good Mythical Morning! - Being alive is dangerous.
We all know that. Today we open your eyes
to the seemingly innocuous items that are right there under your nose,
but they're lurking, waiting, ready... (scary voice) to take your life.
(normal voice) So this episode is about scaring--
- You're scaring me. - Your pants off.
No, well not scaring the pants off of you.
It's like, if you're wearing shorts, it's gonna make them sag a little bit.
That doesn't make any sense to me, but--
We're going to make your shorts sag by talking about things that could
- kill you that you didn't know. - Maybe we will help you survive something.
Okay. It's winter time. You look up,
you see some beautiful ice cones hanging from that awning,
and you're like, "Oh, those are beautiful."
And then it stabs you to death!
Well that's what happens, a lot more than you would think.
Icicles kill people.
Icicles are deadly ice swords that impale people in public.
Ice swords? Ice cones?
Fifteen people a year, in the United States alone, killed by icicles falling.
-Really? -Yes.
But what's the anatomy to this?
- Is it like they just happen-- - I don't know where it hits you.
- It hits a weak spot? - It depends on [inaudible].
Like, do people like look up and it goes in through the eyeball?
- I mean if an icicle... - That might have happened to somebody
- ..hits you on the head. - It might go into somebody's mouth.
- This is morbid. - (gasps)
I'm going to try to swallow that falling ice sword.
No, what happens is that you're just out,
minding your own business, and a big ice cone falls on you.
- Impales. - Just to give you an idea
of what this might seem like, there is an article in 1903
- in the New York Times...-- - Wow, you dig deep!
..about one Charles Daniels. Not Charlie Daniels.
This guy was an officer. It said, "Charles Daniels was killed
last night by a huge icicle which fell upon him as he was making his rounds
- and cut off the top of his head." - Oh gosh!
So it's not pretty. It is definitely not pretty.
It is ugly. It is not a good way to go,
but if you do survive one of these icicle fallings, you get
a new body piercing.
And it's sterile because it's so cold.
Alright, I got a good one for you. Imagine you're hankering
for a snack and you go up to a vending machine
and you feed that dollar in there. Do you find yourself thinking,
- "I could die at any moment?" - I've thought that.
- Well listen, vending-- - Depending on the item.
Vending machines are giant, monolithic body crushers.
Have you heard about this? Death by vending machine?
- Between 19-- - I haven't been afraid
of vending machines until now.
Well, welcome to reality. Between 1978 and 1995,
at least 37 people achieved death by vending machine.
- ♪ (8-bit music) ♪ - (Rhett) That's not an achievement.
These things can weight up to one thousand pounds,
and do you know how it happens?
Yeah. I've seen people do this. I've seen--
- What? - The shake, rattle, and roll, man.
No. You get your candy. Your candy bar is coming out,
and that coil starts turning and you start to get
mesmerized by it, and then you're about to fall over.
You grab that thing, and it's like, "Aah!" A thousand pounds right on you.
- That's never happened-- - Mesmerization.
That's never happened. You shouldn't spread things like that.
Alright, they shake it like a Polaroid picture!
And then it falls on them.
I mean, is it really worth getting that package of Famous-Amos cookies...
- Yes. - ..to risk getting smushed?
- No! - Listen, people risk their lives for food.
That's what the history of mankind is all about.
It's putting yourself out there, risking your life for a little grub.
That is human existence, man. So somebody who gets killed
by a vending machine is just carrying on the tradition of humans.
Vending manufacturers recommend to not tilt a vending machine
- beyond 20 degrees. - That's why I take my protractor
- every time I...-- - That's why you've had a protractor.
..order something up out of a vending machine.
Who, in their anger, pulls out a protractor?
19 degrees, Barb. You're not going to die. Okay!
(Jamaican accent) You're on a tropical vacation, man...
(normal voice) and, oh gosh...
- I'm trying to set the scene... - (Jamaican accent) Yeah, man.
- ..but it's not really working. - Yeah, man.
And you're drinking your little cocktail out of a coconut,
and the next thing you know, BAM!
A magical orb of death hits you in the head, and it is a coconut.
- The one you were drinking? - No, the one that fell out of a tree.
Now, interestingly, a lot of of people quote this thing.
(gruff voice) "150 people die from coconuts falling on their heads
every single year worldwide. In fact, more people die
- from coconuts than shark attacks." - (imitates buzzer)
(normal voice) That's not true. That's an urban legend.
But it is a strong urban legend because of a 1984 research paper
by Doctor Peter Bars, entitled, "Injuries due to falling coconuts."
People misapplied or misinterpreted his data,
and came up with this figure that 150 people die every year.
Not true.
There's probably a couple every couple of years.
If you go to the Wikipedia entry for Death by Coconut--
which there one-- you see that every couple of years
there's a report. Like in August 2010.
A 69 year old man was killed by a coconut that fell
out of a 12 meter, 39 feet tall palm tree while he was sitting
in a rocking chair outside his home in Melgar, Colombia.
I mean, this is cartoon stuff.
Like--(click sound)-- you know, I know what sound
it's gonna make and everything. This is blunt force trauma though.
'Cause when it's falling, that thing weighs four and a half pounds on average.
Palm trees can be eight stories tall.
So when that thing picks up that speed, it's like a ton of force
- on top of of your head-- - Oh goodness.
- I think this calls for-- - Instant death.
I think this calls for hard hats on the beach.
I mean, next time I'm going on a tropical vacation,
I'm gonna be in my Speedo, but I'm gonna have on a hard hat
- and a pair of sunglasses. - It'll be like a Men at Work music video.
- (Rhett laughs) - (Link) Alright here's another one.
Typically, ants are just an annoyance until they gang up on you
- and kill yourself! - (laughing) What?
Fire ants kill over 30 people per year.
Now there can be up to 20 million fire ants in a colony.
We know about fire ants because they're in North Carolina.
They are.
They typically attack small animals,
but they kill humans that what?
Step on them.
Fall asleep near their mounds.
Like, don't look at a mound of dirt and say,
- "Oh that'd be a perfect pillow." - Oh yeah.
I mean, it's an anaphylactic shock. People are allergict--"allergict". (laughs)
- (mockingly) Hey man, I think I'm allergict. - (laughs)
- I'm allergict to myself. - To ants.
And there's a correlation if your "allergict" to bees or wasps.
You may be allergic to fire ants. And they're not just in south east anymore.
- They're coming to California. - (whispers) Oh, coming to California.
- They are following us here. - Uh oh. Probably not.
It's just happening on it's own.
- If you're a--No. - They're for us?
- No. No to no. - (laughing)
We didn't have anything to do with it.
So, A: don't use a fire ant mound as a pillow
but then you can also try to get them in a death spiral.
You can make ants follow their own scent trail in a circle
- and they will do it until they die. - What do you get?
Like a big donut or something? How does this work?
Put them on a plate or just direct them to
where they create a circular path, and they will do it until they die.
Or could just pour molten aluminum into their anthill and make art.
- That's a thing? - It's a thing and it's pretty awesome.
Okay. Now out here in the California, we like to wear the flippy-floppys.
- We call them thongs, feet thongs. - I do not.
But they are... (scary voice) instruments of death!
(normal voice) Okay, not so much instruments of death, but do you know
- that in the UK in 20--or 2002. - Twenty-O-Two.
Over 55 thousand people went to the hospital with flip-flop related injuries.
- 55 thousand! - But they didn't die though.
Well, some of them may have.
- That's not in the stats. - I hope not.
By 2010, there were 200 thousand flip-flop related injuries,
costing the British Nation Help Service over 40 million pounds.
- What? - Now, you might be saying,
"Well, hold on now. How are these things dangerous?"
It's kind of underwhelming. It's like tendinitis and stuff like that.
Apparently wearing flip flops is incredibly bad for your joints,
and your tendons.
And people do-- and I am one of them--
have horrific injuries because of flip flops.
I didn't die, but on my recent vacation a few weeks ago with my family,
I was walking in the front yard of the place we were staying,
and I stepped in a little bit of mud. And I tried to pull my foot back out,
- and the thong on the thing just-- - Snapped?
I did some kind of 360 and caught me-- you know I've got a bad back--
and caught myself and I'm thinking, "I hope nobody saw that."
I mean, I could see how if I had been on a cliff side,
or something like that, I could have died.
And now this tendinitis stuff has got me scared, not to mention
18 thousand types of bacteria on a typical pair of flip flops,
- including staph bacteria. - Ew. That could kill you.
And I'm not talking about bacteria that works for you.
I'm talking bacteria that can kill you. Flesh-eating bacteria.
Stay away from flip flops!
I used to like flip flops. I used to like icicles.
I used to like ants even.
- Really? - I mean, they were strong.
You shouldn't wear flip flops around anthills either.
I don't know. Maybe we will balance this episode,
one that's the bright side of all these things that could kill you.
but for now just thanks for liking and commenting on this video.
And remember, you can support the show by checking out lynda.com.
- (babbling) - (higher pitched babbling)
Let me speak in English. You want to know how to video edit,
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Go to lynda.com/rhettandlink. Get a free trial!
You know what time it is!
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Also, click through to Good Mythical More, where we explore the reality
of death by champagne cork.
Two buffalo.
(western accent) Oh me. Oh me.
Being a buffalo is just another day at the office.
Hey man. What up?
(western accent) You can talk too?
- Yeah. I'm a buffalo! - Shh! Shh! Shh! Shh!
(whisper) I though I was the only one.
Keep your head down. Keep your head down!
What are you doing with your arms?
Where are your horns at? Make horns with your hands!
- Oh right. - Make horns with your hands.
- Head down. Head down. - Right, right, right?
- Let's get in here. - Right?
We gotta take this place over.
Right, man.
Who's going first?
Herb. I hate Herb.
- (quiet laughing) - Oh we're gonna kill Herb first.
- (laughs louder) - Can he talk?
He's stupid.
[captioned by Hayleigh: GMM CaptioningTeam]