Have you seen the TV series, ‘1000 Ways to Die’?
Now in its 4th grisly season on the SPIKE network, 1000 Ways to Die depicts graphically funny (albeit chilling and uncomfortable) true-life deaths. It uses CGI animation to docu-dramatize some of the silliest & goriest ways that real-life people have accidentally offed themselves.
Typical shows feature deaths from bizarre explosions or freak accidents, like the episode featuring a woman who was wearing special panties made of candy. Her lover was eating the candies one by one, when a piece of candy lodged in his throat and he choked to death.
But what about everyday travel activities and adventures? How safe is it, for example, to jump out of an airplane with a parachute on your back?
Travel fatality statistics are notoriously hard to gather — especially when the entire travel industry want to whitewash all their experiences to make them seem even safer than if you stayed at home on the couch.
Fortunately here’s a fresh, well-researched infographic that illustrates how safe (or unsafe) you can feel on your next action vacation.
First a fun statistic. Your odds of dying during:
A DANCE PARTY
Odds: 1 in 100,000
Not too shabby. Just avoid dancing in front of a towering stack of speakers.
Of course, your odds of dying go way up as you push yourself to greater outdoor extremes. Here are your odds of dying by:
HANG GLIDING
1 in 560
SCUBA DIVING
1 in 34,400
SKYDIVING
1 in 101,083 (that’s almost as dangerous as dance parties)
CANOEING
1 in 10,000
BUNGEE JUMPING
1 in 500,000
And the most dangerous sport/recreational activity is:
BASE JUMPING
1 in 60 chance of dying. If you’re keen on doing these extremely dangerous BASE jumps off of ‘bridges, antennas, spans, and earth’, maybe just do it 59 times or less.
If you love mountain sports, here are your odds of death by:
SNOWBOARDING
1 in 2.2 million participants
SKIING
1 in 1.4 million participants
MOUNTAIN HIKING
1 in 15,700 each year
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING
1 in 1,750 annually
EXPERT CLIMBING
0.0145 in 100 each year
IN NEPAL
1 in 167 each year. Harsh! And the deadliest mountain sport is:
CLIMBING ABOVE 6,000 METERS IN THE HIMALAYAS
10 to 12.6 in 100. Which soundsl like a beautifully horrible way to die.
As for your odds of dying during transport, here are your chances of dying on:
AIRPLANES
1.27 deaths in 100,000 flight hours
CARS
1 in 6,700 cars, and 16.13 drivers out of every 100,000
MOTORCYCLES
21.45 deaths in 100 million vehicle miles
And regardless of all the above risks…your chance of dying in a year DOUBLES every 8 years.
So you can stay home and do nothing…or get out there and risk everything.
What’s it going to be, then? When your time is finally up, how do you want to go?
— Ken Hegan
BING: How not to die
Statistics compiled and illustrated by Best Health Degrees
Read all of Ken’s MSN travel posts here and follow Ken to victory on Twitter
Ken Hegan 
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