What Is The Worst Way To Die?

[LordKiran]

Anything with prolonged pain. Given the disinclination for most governments to allow assisted suicide, that turns out to be the reality for many of us; Apparently it is vitally important that a person, who is in so much pain that only a lethal dose of opiates will relive their suffering, be allowed to suffer for as long as it is possible to keep them alive. Because God loves us.

The best way to die would be to be atomized by an effect propagating faster than nerve impulses - a large and very close explosion would not be something you could ever know about, as the brain would cease to exist before it was able to receive any pain signals. The brain itself has no pain receptors.

Of course, it needs to be a very large explosion to atomize a human head completely and rapidly. And you need to be close enough to it that the lag between the radiant heat and the disruptive shock-wave is shorter than your reflex reaction time - unless it is so large that the radiative/heating impulse is itself enough to atomize the skull and brain. But a direct hit from a large explosive munition would likely be pretty painless; you would never hear it coming.

For best way, a fall at terminal velocity would be best. Since you'd be dead before your nervous system even registered the impact

For worst? Drowning I guess. That or dying of radiation sickness after a nuclear holocaust murders everyone you knew and loved, left to die among the scattered ruins of the world you once knew.

 

[bilby]

Hemorrhagic fevers (such as Ebola) sound pretty unpleasant - all of your internal organs liquefy while you are still alive.

 

[LordKiran]

Hemorrhagic fevers (such as Ebola) sound pretty unpleasant - all of your internal organs liquefy while you are still alive.

You could accomplish the same effect downing a shot of sulfuric acid. Far more dramatic too!

 

[bilby]

Hemorrhagic fevers (such as Ebola) sound pretty unpleasant - all of your internal organs liquefy while you are still alive.

You could accomplish the same effect downing a shot of sulfuric acid. Far more dramatic too!

Yeah, but then you miss out on watching everyone around you die horribly too.

 

[LordKiran]

You could accomplish the same effect downing a shot of sulfuric acid. Far more dramatic too!

Yeah, but then you miss out on watching everyone around you die horribly too.

Isn't that a plus though? Depends on how much contempt you hold for those near you I guess.

 

[bilby]

Yeah, but then you miss out on watching everyone around you die horribly too.

Isn't that a plus though? Depends on how much contempt you hold for those near you I guess.

I refer you to the title of the thread. Pluses are counterproductive.

 

[DBT]

Most of us should have uneventful, relatively quick, and painless deaths. (Hopefully) But if you're among the unlucky few who face torment at the end, what's the worst way to go? I'd say being burned alive is at the top. I used to think drowning was not so miserable until I saw one of those ISIS videos. Of course, a slow torture would be bad; death by a thousand cuts and all that.

Some of the ancient torture methods were quite nasty, broken on the wheel, impalement, flaying, etc, given a choice not one of them would be a better option.

 

[ZiprHead]

Does the OP have an enemies list prepared?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It takes at least 3 minutes to fall from 40,000 feet (although a dive under power could be shorter).

That's a pretty long time.

Having said that, in 1972 at the age of 22, Vesna Vulović survived a fall from FL330 (approximately 33,000 feet, or 10km) when the aircraft (a DC-9 operated by Yugoslav airline JAT) on which she was working as a flight attendant was blown up by terrorists; She died last year, aged 66.

So it's not certain to kill you.

She had an advantage-she still had a bit of wreckage around her and she went into forest. That would tend to break her fall while protecting her against the lighter impacts from the trees. (It wouldn't save you if you came down right on the trunk or the like, though.)

Jebus Loren! There is no fucking advantage when plummeting from tens of thousands of feet in the air. It was absolute dumb luck she survived, with relatively fewer expected injuries than one would expect from a fall that'd kill 999,999,999 in a 1,000,000,000.

The one that is most remarkable is a guy who jumped from 18,000' without a parachute. He blacked out on the way down and woke up in a snowbank. As it was wartime the incident wasn't properly investigated but it appears he hit a pine tree just right, then deep snow. He couldn't find any injuries that he attributed to the fall (he was already injured when he jumped.)

They are both extremely remarkable. But thanks for the needless trivia.

 

[TSwizzle]

I was watching a nature program and that made me think about being hunted down by lions and eaten. Some smaller animals pretty much pass out with fright but some of the bigger beasts are practically being eaten alive by a few lions. That must be horrible. So, eaten alive is something I would want to avoid.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I was watching a nature program and that made me think about being hunted down by lions and eaten. Some smaller animals pretty much pass out with fright but some of the bigger beasts are practically being eaten alive by a few lions. That must be horrible. So, eaten alive is something I would want to avoid.

Sounds like what athletes go through every day playing for New York City or Montreal.

 

[funinspace]

Leaving aside something like a sadistic murder or torture, I'd say probably dementia.

Throw in liver disease with elevated ammonia levels in the blood...yeah fun to watch a parent howl like a wild animal simply because care givers want to wash them or change their depends; or as the body doesn't know to stop as the person is ever less able to eat and then finally even drink; and still the body doesn't quit for another week or two...9 months of hospice hell; on top of the several years of watching the shell of the person they once were.

 

[Playball40]

Alone and scared.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

What if you were tied down and eaten by a colony of fire ants?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

For best way, a fall at terminal velocity would be best. Since you'd be dead before your nervous system even registered the impact

I definitely disagree--it depends on how you hit. Head first in a dive, yes, you will die before you can perceive the pain. However, if you hit feet first the initial impact exceeds neural speeds but you will slow as you fall--while you won't feel your feet getting smashed you will feel your chest getting smashed.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

She had an advantage-she still had a bit of wreckage around her and she went into forest. That would tend to break her fall while protecting her against the lighter impacts from the trees. (It wouldn't save you if you came down right on the trunk or the like, though.)

Jebus Loren! There is no fucking advantage when plummeting from tens of thousands of feet in the air. It was absolute dumb luck she survived, with relatively fewer expected injuries than one would expect from a fall that'd kill 999,999,999 in a 1,000,000,000.

As the old joke goes, it's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing.

Survival involves in some fashion spreading out the impact energy. Absorbed all at once it's lethal but the more you can spread it the better your prospects.

While riding wreckage into the forest is dumb luck but it's a nearly ideal situation for a survivable landing as it lets you bleed energy into smashing branches rather than taking it all at once when you hit the ground.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Jebus Loren! There is no fucking advantage when plummeting from tens of thousands of feet in the air. It was absolute dumb luck she survived, with relatively fewer expected injuries than one would expect from a fall that'd kill 999,999,999 in a 1,000,000,000.

As the old joke goes, it's not the fall that kills you, it's the landing.

Survival involves in some fashion spreading out the impact energy.

Oh... so you are saying that instantly absorbing 30,000 ft of falling minus limitations due to terminal velocity in a bare instant is a bad thing. Thanks. Appreciate the contribution!

Next up on the Loren Hour, Water is wet.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Pops died of emphysema. That was pretty brutal for him, and mom. Ten years from diagnosis to the end; slow suffocation. In the end, the very end, literally a dance of death in front of mom by this now emaciated man.
And that was that.
I supposed a lack of oxygen to the brain caused these actions prior to death.
What an experience it must have been for my mom. To hear her tell it on the phone, it seemed so antithetical to her faith, that a person would die in such a macabre way.
Still, she has her faith. It comforts her, and to that end, me.

 

[snoiduspoitus]

I was watching a nature program and that made me think about being hunted down by lions and eaten. Some smaller animals pretty much pass out with fright but some of the bigger beasts are practically being eaten alive by a few lions. That must be horrible. So, eaten alive is something I would want to avoid.

Better than a big pack of wild dogs. No kill bite. At least a lion might cut your air off with a throat bite. With wild dogs and if you're a big animal, you're pretty much eaten alive every time.

- - - Updated - - -

Hyenas don't seem to give much of a shit either.

 

[dendrast]

"Do you expect me to talk, Goldfinger?" "No, I expect you to die, Mr Bond."