Ten Situations That Will Make You Question What “Killing You” Means

Carter Colton
Mar 5, 2023
7 min read

By Carter Colton

All over the internet, we see examples of things, situations, or animals that seem harmless but are deadly when closely examined. So, we will switch things up. Instead, let us look at situations that would seemingly end in death or serious injury but are actually harmless. Reading further may forever cause you to question what “killing you” truly means.

(As a disclaimer, never actually attempt to prove any of these scientific tricks: always better to be safe than sorry.)

10. Hanging From an Electric Wire

That charge will flow through the path of least resistance is a cornerstone truth of electricity and magnetism. A person hanging from an electric wire will feel no shock because the charge would rather take the path of least resistance: through the wire. Although the human body is an electric conductor, it is much less effective in moving charge than the wire. Opposite our intuition, any incredibly high voltage will not hurt us as we hang.

"Hang" is the critical component in this odd scenario. An electric shock occurs when current flows through your body. The current flow depends on voltage change and resistance. Without voltage change, no current will flow. For example, if one clutches an electrical wire with either of their feet touching the ground, they create a voltage difference and get shocked. Therefore, hanging from a wire without touching the ground will not harm you.

However, hanging from two wires of different voltages will cause electrocution. This is because the voltage change due to the different voltage carriers causes current to flow, electrocuting the one holding the wires.

9. "Fire-Breathing" Liquid Nitrogen

Liquid nitrogen boils at -196 degrees Celsius. That is cold. Professors use it to impress students; scientists use it in experiments; chefs use it to freeze food. You are probably more acquainted with it than you think. For example, Dippin' Dots uses it to freeze their ice cream!

However, ingesting liquid nitrogen before it evaporates can have catastrophic consequences. Remember, it boils at -196 degrees Celsius. Which means it can turn water into ice instantly. Imagine what that would do to your esophagus and stomach. However, if done carefully, one can place some of the liquid in their mouth, then open it, and it would look like they are spewing white smoke like a dragon.

While unwise, spewing liquid nitrogen would not do any permanent damage. In fact, some physics professors put on the show to impress their students. Granted, they are careful to put a minimal amount in their mouth and do not breathe it in!

8. Putting Your Head Into a Particle Accelerator

Out of all the situations on this list, this one is probably the most far-fetched: not because it does not have any evidence to back it up but because there is only one identifiable instance of it occurring. As it happens, not many people want to put their heads in a particle accelerator beam.

Although not by choice, Anatoli Bugorski did just that. On July 13th, 1978, Bugorski began his job as he did every morning. But, unbeknownst to him, many safety mechanisms had failed that day. Therefore, attempting to fix a faulty piece of equipment along the accelerator's path was a particularly deadly job. As he looked down the fist-sized shaft, he saw a light “as bright as a thousand suns,” and a proton beam traveling near the speed of light collided with his skull.

Bugorski felt no pain but knew he was a dead man: he went home without a word of it to anybody. 500 rads of radiation are usually all it takes to kill somebody. Anatoli was hit with anywhere between 200,000 and 300,000 of them. That night, his face began to swell, and scientists and doctors came to observe him die. However, to the astonishment of everyone, Anatoli lived. Although he still experiences seizures, he completed his Ph.D. and is still alive today.

7. Dropping a Mouse off a Cliff

So far, we have only talked about situations that would seemingly kill humans. But what about animals? Are there any wonders in that department? Without further ado, we present the indestructible tiny mammal himself: the mouse.

Dropping a mouse off a cliff, or any height for that matter, will not kill it. A mouse's mass-to-surface-area ratio is just right. Therefore, it will reach terminal velocity at speeds that do not result in a fatality. Terminal velocity is the maximum velocity an object can reach before air resistance causes it to stop accelerating. Small creatures like mice, squirrels, ants, and others will never die from fall damage. Too bad we do not have their anatomy.

6. Having an Elephant Step on Your Foot

If an elephant steps on your foot, it will crush it, and you have a good chance of losing it. However, choose the elephant over the girl in high heels. Pressure equals force exerted over an area. Although a small woman weighs 110 pounds, she exerts all that mass within the tiny radius of her 0.39-inch-high heel. On the other hand, a 15,000-pound elephant puts all that force over a 15–19-inch foot.

Weight is a measure of force; therefore, we can calculate the pressure exerted by the woman and the elephant. After converting the above lengths and weights to metric units, we have about 50 divided by pi times 0.005 centimeters squared for the woman and 6800 divided by pi times 0.43 meters squared for the elephant (pi times the radius squared equals the area of a circle). That yields a pressure of 636619 for the woman and 11706 for the elephant. Their pressures differ by a factor of 10!

5. Swimming with Electric Eels

Do you remember that harrowing eel scene from the Princess Bride? To escape the ship of her captors, the soon-to-be princess Buttercup jumps overboard into eel-infested waters. As she swims, her smug kidnapper kindly invites her to proceed ahead, for the shrieking eels would surely kill her before she could make it far.

Surprise! The Princess Bride does not accurately depict our world’s reality. The deadliest electric eel cannot dish out more than 860 volts, which scientists deem will not result in a healthy person’s death. In fact, scientists studying electric eels have experienced shocks multiple times. Carlos David de Santana, an ichthyologist at the National Museum of Natural History, described his first shock as terrifying: clocking to about 400 volts. Note the key phrase in Santana’s wording: first shock. He has been shocked multiple times! Fortunately, electric eels do not pack quite the punch we imagine.

4. Swallowing a Razor Blade

Most of us are extremely careful about what we put into our bodies. We are cautious about things like red meat, processed foods, and sweets, so razor blades should be out of the question. However, after a scientific study published in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, we discovered that swallowing a razor blade may not be as bad as you think. In their paper, scientists concluded that the human stomach could digest a razor blade after about two hours.

3. A Baseball Dropped from the Empire State Building

Many believe that the higher an object falls from, the more damage it will do once it hits its target, which is true to an extent. We determine momentum by multiplying an object’s mass times its velocity. The force that an object exerts equals that object’s change in momentum over time. This means an object with a higher momentum change exerts a greater force. Therefore, as something falls from higher and higher up, it gathers more speed and thus attains higher momentum. Once it collides with the ground (or somebody’s head), all that velocity goes from a lot to zero: a massive change in momentum.

From the explanation of momentum and force above, we should reasonably conclude that a baseball dropped from the Empire State Building would kill. However, there is one problem, and it has to do with the reason mice do not take fall damage. As the baseball falls, air resistance continually exerts an upward force on the ball that eventually balances out the force of gravity. Once this happens, the baseball has zero acceleration and remains at a fixed velocity, about 95 miles per hour. Professional baseball players take those and survive!

2. Disease-Immune Bats

Bats are essentially super-human, or more accurately, super-Chiroptera (bats belong to the biological order Chiroptera), when it comes to fighting diseases. Although Batman has everything on his furry friends when fighting crime, he does not have anything on them when it comes to COVID-19. Bats have impressive immune systems involving a plethora of anti-viral genes.

Bats would win against the coronavirus, the common cold, the Marburg, Nipah, Hendra viruses, and countless others. That bats can coexist with such deadly viruses makes them a probable cause for the COVID-19 outbreak. Although they will not get sick from these viruses, that does not stop them from being obnoxious spreaders. Maybe we should impose a mask mandate on them!

1. The Real-Life Tower of Terror

Plenty of people fear elevators. Whether they are too cramped, do not seem sturdy enough, or bring back terrible memories of the Tower of Terror, they can be terrifying. However, falling while in one of them may not be as bad as you think. A falling elevator traps the air underneath it, creating an air buffer that will cushion its fall. Therefore, if the cables snapped and you had a long way to go to the ground, you might make it.

Betty Lou Oliver was one such elevator survivor. After a plane crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945, the elevator she was in lost the cables keeping it suspended. As a result, Oliver fell 75 stories. She fell 75 stories and lived: left with but a few broken bones! So, next time you get into an elevator, remember that you will probably be all right, even if you crash to the ground. If that does happen, however, make sure to lie on the floor and stretch out your arms and legs. Jumping or standing could make the impact worse.

Hopefully, your definition of “killing you” has changed completely. Now you can live your life in fear of things that are more likely to kill you, like texting while driving, binge drinking, not exercising or getting regular doctor check-ups, harsh weather, stroke, and heart disease.