Top 10 Horrible Ways to Die

Let's face it. There is no way to die that would actually be pleasant because somewhere along the line something happens to you that is fatal. Fatal things are generally very painful and scary. That being said there are ways to go that are excessively painful and terrifying and unfortunately not entirely uncommon. Now you may disagree with the exact ranking of horrible deaths but you gotta admit, you don't want any part of any of these.

10: Airplane Crash



An airplane crash is actually probably one of the least painful ways to die possible if it is bad enough. You get obliterated in an instant and don't feel a thing if you are unfortunate enough to be on a flight that completely goes to shit. But what this death lacks in agony it makes up for in sheer prolonged terror. If you are cruising ad 35,000 feet when you lose both wings you get to sit through several minutes of knowing you are about to eat it and there is nothing you can do about it. Hell, you can't even call your loved ones to tell them goodbye because of the stupid FAA regulations forbidding cell phones usage on flights.

Even worse is if you are on a plane that only kinda crashes. Then not only do you get the horrible prolonged terror fest but instead of concluding with an instant lights-out you get to burn to death in jet fuel or slowly bleed out in the wreckage.

Your Odds

Thankfully dying in a plane crash is very unlikely. Only about 1,000 people per year perish in airplane crashes (not counting military where someone is shooting at them). The chances that you die on any particular flight are roughly 1 in 13.57 Million.

9: Starvation



Not eating sucks. Being hungry sucks. It actually even hurts sometimes. Now just imagine keeping it up until you die. You start of with the growlings of an empty stomach and slowly work your way up to dizziness and fatigue. Keep going and eventually you run out of fat reserves and start digesting your own muscles and organs to keep your brain and heart alive. Eventually you wind up with full on dementia and become too fatigued to breath or beat your heart and that's it for you.

Your Odds

If you are American your odds off starving to death are exactly zero. No one starves in America. In fact, you are in far more danger of smothering under a pile of cheese fries or choking on your own fat cheeks in your sleep. America's problem is too much food, not enough will power.

For the rest of the world however starvation is unfortunately not that uncommon an occurrence. About 5 million people go down to starvation every year worldwide. That's about 1 in every 1,350 people. Throw in a famine or economic crisis and that figure jumps dramatically so 2009 is not looking too good so far for a lot of hungry people.

8: Getting Cripplingly Crushed

There are thousands of different ways to get smooshed to death. Car wrecks, structure collapse, machinery, etc. etc. Depending on how bad the accident is, getting crushed can be an instant, painless affair or weeks of misery. If you have a whole building fall on top of you it should be over pretty quickly and you might not even have much time to get thoroughly scared. If however you only happen to get a girder across your pelvis or get pinned under a boulder you could wind up screaming in agony for quite a while. Every year several soccer fans around the world get the dubious honor of slowly being squeezed by a huge throng of hooligans until they pop like plump grapes in an agonizing gooey mess. In any case, no one wants to wind up being squished like a bug. Dreadful.


(This guy was protesting at a construction site and was run over by a bulldozer. Lesson learned, don't fuck with bulldozers)

Your Odds

Stats are shaky on this one because there are so many different ways to wind up crushed but it looks like between 200,000-400,000 people per year suffer a crushing some variety. So about a 1 in 168,750-337,500 chance depending on how many earthquakes there are that year and how many soccer games you attend.

7: Dehydration



Being extremely thirsty is being in total anguish. When you are so parched you can barely stand it there is never a time when you aren't thinking about it and lamenting the fact you thought it would be a good idea to save money and only buy one Powerade. When you starve at least there are times when hungry goes away but thirsty is always with you and never lets you alone. Keep ignoring thirsty and you get the dizzy spells, weakness, visions of palm trees and Arab princesses and eventual organ failure and death. Oh and did I mention this whole time you are thirsty? Soooooooo thirsty.

Dehydration happens quick too. They say you can go 3 days without water but that is under ideal, non sweaty conditions. If you are in say, Louisiana in the summer time you can go down in a couple of hours. I myself have seen several strapping, healthy young construction workers pass out from dehydration. They didn't die cause we were able to get a couple of delicious Slurpee's into them in time but it was quick and creepy how they went immediately from normal, healthy man to pile of sweaty meat.

Your Odds

Plenty of Americans die of thirst every year so no one is exempt. 4 million total world wide so that is a 1 in 1,678.5 chance for you.

6: Drowning



Have you ever held your breath? Of course you have. Did you absolutely hate it? Of course you did. Not having oxygen is almost instantly unbearable. I wouldn't describe it as pain per se but it is some kind of terribly uncomfortable. Excruciatingly uncomfortable. Hell, waterboarding or simulating drowning on someone is such a great torture devise that the terrorist generally cracks within minutes. Now just imagine getting trapped underwater somehow. Say your toe gets caught in the suction drain or something and for 3-4 minutes you get the sheer horror of knowing your clock is ticking out along with the tortuous no breathing of being submerged in horrible unbreathable water. Sssssssick.

Your Odds

About 250,000 people take the plunge every year. You got a 1 in 27,000 chance baby.

5: Burning

Being burned has to be the most painful way to go. You literally scorch your skin off and cook your innards as you scream in agony and choke on the asphyxiating smoke. If you have ever had even a minor burn you know it is one of the most intensely painful injuries to have. There is a reason Hell is made out of a lake of fire.


(This guy actually did this to himself. Nuts. There are much better suicide methods)

Your Odds

Happily, burning to death is relatively rare. Only about 40,000 people get barbecued ever year so you have only a 1 in 168,750 chance of experiencing hell on Earth.

4: Terminal Illness

Getting the diagnosis that you only have 6 months left to got has got to be terrible. You get the prolonged, drawn out dread of knowing you are on your last legs plus the addition of being so horribly sick that whatever you have is going to kill you. So it's not like you have 6 months of happy go lucky running around and picnicking in the park. You've got 6 months of feeling wretched and taking medicine and the disgusting tubes going in all parts of you and the crippling depression.



Even if you could manage to make it to the picnic I don't see how you could make yourself forget about the tumor of Damocles hanging over your head long enough to even slightly enjoy it. The only plus side I can see is that you probably can get some hardcore drugs to take the pain away from time to time and since you know you are making your last round you have the chance to tell everyone bye and spend all your money. Hell, I would apply for as many credit cards as I could and go nuts.

Your Odds

I don't know. I couldn't find any good stats on this one but I figure that since if you live long enough something eventually gets you the odds are probably unfortunately short here.

3: Animal Attack

Face it. Nature is not your friend. You might drive around in a hybrid car and eat the filthiest organic food imaginable but Nature still hates you. Nature wants nothing less than to terrify the shit out of you and then rip you apart and eat you.


(This dude actually got away)

Those polar bears everyone cares so much about saving? They wanna tear you apart and eat you and then lick your delicious blood off your crispy, crunchy bones. The majestic lions of the Serengeti? The Same. Endangered sharks in the over fished ocean? The Same. Rattlesnakes? Cobras? Black widow spiders? Pure evil. Even your friendly pet dog is after you and accounts for more deaths per year than any other animal.

Not only is getting killed by an animal horribly scary but it is definitely gonna be painful as hell. Animals don't care about killing humanely. Have you ever seen the alligator's death roll? It just twists off your arm, shows it to you then eats it before coming back for your leg. And what about that horrible head shaky thing that bears and lions and dogs do? Can't they be gentle? Can't they just bite you in the head and get it over with? Hell no. You are alive and crying the whole time until the very end.



And the horrendous venomous animals are just complete jerks. Jellyfish, snakes, spiders and insects. They prick you with their pointy stings and then giggle with glee as you swell up and convulse to death in terrible stabbing pain. Everyone has been stung by something at some time and knows how awful that is. Just imagine if instead of eventually going away it kept spreading and hurting until you collapsed and died. Awful, awful creatures.

Your Odds

15,000 chumps get a visit from mother nature every year world wide. You got a 1 in 450,000 of getting caught this year.

2: Murdered

Being murdered is similar to being killed by any other animal except that humans are an animal that can talk to you and tell you scary things as it chases you down. Plus humans are imaginative and can think up sadistic and perverted things to do to you that even horrible mother nature overlooked. Just imagine O.J. Simpson or Ray Lewis coming after you with their pointy death blades and you know there is nothing you can do when they catch you except listen to the sound of your own death and their evil, cackling laughter.




Anyway, unless whoever is murdering you is nice enough to poison you in your sleep you are in for a horrible, panicked, painful exit.

Your Odds

200,000 murder victims per year. What the hell is wrong with humans? Why so evil? Anyhow, 1 in 33,750 is your chance of getting murdered this year. Unless you know O.J. Simpson or Ray Lewis. Then 1 in 4.



1: Terrorism

Getting killed by a terrorist is all around bad. First of all, you know you are going to be scared out of your mind. You are going to literally be terrorized. If a guy names himself "terrorist" you know he is gonna try to scare you. Secondly, he is gonna try to make it as painful as he can. All part of the whole terror theme he's got going on.


(Eugene Armstrong in the hands of terrorists)

A terrorist will torture you and not give a damn if you confess to your crimes or give him every shred if information you ever knew. He just likes to torture you because he is evil and loves Satan. Finally, you wind up being points on the board for the bad guys. Not only are you horribly scared and tortured but the bad guys are partying and high fiving each other that they scored one for the devil.

Your Odds

Only about 1,000 people per year wind up getting their heads sawed off with the dull knives of terrorists. Only a 1 in 6.75 million chance. Still, it is scary enough that it seems higher.


Wrap Up

So that's it. Obviously you can combine any of the horrible death styles to come up with an even worse fate. So if your airplane gets hijacked by terrorists who bite you with their pet cobra and then crash the plane into a burning mass which crushes your legs into a lake where you drown you surely have a new number one. But that doesn't seem that likely. Until then I will keep it as is.