Buzz
Few things highlight the fragility of the human body like sports. Whether it's a physically intense activity or a demanding sport, injuries are often inevitable rather than just a risk.
Baseball athletes frequently suffer from torn elbow ligaments. Professional football players can list numerous concussions—assuming they can still remember them. Fast-moving players, such as those in basketball and soccer, often experience devastating ACL tears.
This doesn’t even account for extreme sports enthusiasts—like BASE jumpers, BMX riders, and free climbers—who constantly face the risks of death, disfigurement, decapitation, dismemberment, and other gruesome outcomes that don’t even start with the letter “D.”
While it’s tempting to live a cautious and uneventful life, fate often disregards the precautions we take. So, why not take the leap and go skydiving? After all, even the most mundane activities can lead to unexpected injuries.
10. Chess
During the 41st Chess Olympiad in Tromso, Norway, held in April 2014, a tragic incident occurred. Kurt Meier, a 67-year-old Candidate Master from the Seychelles team, suffered a heart attack during his final match against Alain Patience of Rwanda. The event, known as the pinnacle of international chess competition, was marred by this unfortunate event.
Emergency responders quickly attended to Meier. However, chaos erupted when attendees mistakenly identified a defibrillator as a firearm, leading to a stampede and widespread confusion. Despite efforts to revive him, Meier could not be saved and passed away after being rushed to the hospital. Adding to the tragedy, Meier collapsed near his 29-year-old son, who was competing on a nearby board.
Though chess is not typically associated with physical danger, the mental stress it imposes has led to numerous injuries and fatalities. Heart attacks and strokes are frequent occurrences, with at least seven confirmed deaths during tournaments.
Remarkably, Meier’s death was not the only tragedy at the 41st Chess Olympiad. On the same day, Alisher Anarkulov, a participant from Uzbekistan, was discovered deceased in his hotel room.
9. Bowling
Ever wondered how a bowling alley’s ball-return system operates? Andy Gardner, a staff member at Wagner’s Lanes in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, learned the hard way that it’s best left unexplored.
Shortly after finishing his shift in February 2014, Gardner heard screams and saw a young boy stuck in the automatic ball-return machine. The child had ventured so far down the lane that he activated the pin-cleaning mechanism, nearly getting crushed by its metal bar.
Gardner quickly responded, hitting the system’s emergency stop button and rescuing the boy. Once pulled to safety, the child escaped with only a fright and no serious injuries. Without Gardner’s swift intervention, the outcome could have been deadly.
In a separate incident, David Geiger, a seasoned bowling professional with 30 years of experience, met a tragic end while working at Northwest Lanes in Fairfield, Ohio. While performing maintenance on the pinsetter, his clothing became entangled in the machine, dragging him into its mechanisms.
The autopsy revealed that Geiger’s cause of death was “traumatic asphyxia.” Fortunately, thanks to Andy Gardner’s quick thinking, the young boy in Wisconsin avoided a similar fate.
8. Video Games
Injuries from playing video games often involve stress-related issues, such as repetitive wrist movements that strain tendons and nerves. Indeed, video games are increasingly linked to carpal tunnel syndrome. Many gamers, regardless of skill level, now take breaks and adopt preventive measures like hand exercises. Some even end their careers due to severe hand and wrist injuries.
However, carpal tunnel syndrome isn’t the most severe or unusual injury gamers face. Spontaneous pneumothorax, or a collapsed lung, is alarmingly common among gamers and is a potentially life-threatening condition requiring immediate medical intervention.
In 2014, Hai Du Lam, a professional League of Legends player for Cloud 9, experienced a collapsed lung, forcing him to withdraw from the All-Stars tournament. Despite this, Lam livestreamed a four-hour practice session from his hospital bed instead of resting.
Months later, he returned to guide his team to a remarkable qualification for the LCS World Championship. Lam’s case isn’t isolated, as there have been at least six confirmed instances of collapsed lungs among professional gamers in recent years.
Why does this happen to gamers? Medical professionals point out that the typical profile of a collapsed lung patient—an underweight young man with a sedentary lifestyle—closely matches that of many e-sports athletes.
7. Stationary Biking
Mountain biking is widely regarded as one of the riskiest sports, with dangers like colliding with trees, plummeting off a cliff, or suffering severe falls. Surely, moving the activity indoors and using a stationary bike is much safer, right?
Donna Wood, a 42-year-old from New York, might have a different opinion.
In 2016, during a SoulCycle class in Beverly Hills, California, Wood sustained an injury that would make even experienced mountain bikers wince. While attempting to get off the bike, she accidentally pierced her right leg on a support beam, leaving her suspended and unable to break free.
Due to the loud music and dim lighting in SoulCycle classes, no one heard Donna’s screams of pain. In fact, several minutes passed before anyone noticed her predicament. After a classmate helped free her, Donna was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she received 50 staples and was left with a significant, permanent scar.
Donna filed a lawsuit against SoulCycle, joining others who have taken similar action. The fixed-gear bikes used in their classes have been responsible for numerous injuries over the years.
6. Sneezing
People can be divided into two categories: those who sneeze quietly and those who unleash a sneeze with the intensity of a thousand suns. Kevin Pillar, the Toronto Blue Jays center fielder, definitely falls into the second group.
In 2015, while warming up before a game, Pillar suffered a severe sneeze that strained his right oblique muscle, forcing him to sit out for a week. While it may seem hard to believe, the intense, involuntary spasms of a sneeze can indeed cause strains in different parts of the body.
Pillar isn’t the only baseball player sidelined by sneezing. At least nine major league players, including Sammy Sosa, have sustained injuries from sneezing.
However, attempting to suppress a sneeze isn’t a safe alternative. In 2017, a 34-year-old man in the UK visited the ER with symptoms like throat swelling, voice loss, and a popping sensation in his neck. He had tried to stifle a sneeze by pinching his nose, causing the trapped air to redirect down his throat.
5. Using The Toilet
If your diet isn’t the best, it might feel like every bathroom visit is a battle. But even your most challenging encounter with the toilet can’t compare to what happened to Michael Anderson Godwin in 1989.
A South Carolina inmate, Godwin, was multitasking by using the toilet and tampering with the wires of earphones connected to his cell’s TV. While seated on the metal toilet, he bit into the wire, causing a powerful electric current to surge through his body, resulting in fatal electrocution.
Ironically, the convicted murderer had successfully appealed to have his sentence reduced from the death penalty to life imprisonment without parole.
4. Getting A Haircut
Many professionals in the beauty industry claim that razors and clippers aren’t the most dangerous tools in a salon or barbershop. In the early 1990s, a 63-year-old woman experienced dizziness, nausea, and vomiting during a salon visit.
Initially, doctors suspected gastrointestinal issues, but her symptoms persisted for days and worsened to include loss of coordination and balance. Eventually, they diagnosed her with a rare condition informally called “beauty parlor stroke syndrome.”
The cause?
Tilting your head back into the sink during a hair wash can overextend neck arteries, potentially causing tears and restricting blood flow to the brain. It’s surprising that such a relaxing part of a salon visit could pose such a risk.
However, there’s no need to worry. Experts emphasize that beauty parlor stroke syndrome is extremely rare, and the chances of experiencing a stroke during a hair wash are almost nonexistent.
3. Getting A Massage
Massages are beloved by millions worldwide for their restorative and relaxing benefits. When performed by skilled therapists, they can also aid in faster recovery from injuries.
Few people loved massages more than an 88-year-old man admitted to the hospital in 2005 with a high fever and acute kidney failure. He was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis, a serious condition where muscle tissue breaks down, releasing toxins that harm the kidneys.
The cause remained unclear until the man shared that he had been receiving hour-long massages every other day for 40 years. Just before his symptoms appeared, he had undergone an unusually intense two-hour session with two masseuses. Compression-induced rhabdomyolysis is rare, particularly when linked to massage therapy.
So, enjoy your massages—but in moderation!
2. Eating Pancakes
If you’ve ever taken on IHOP’s All-You-Can-Eat Pancake Challenge, you’re likely familiar with some of the risks: feeling sluggish, stomach discomfort, and a hit to your pride. In rare cases, eating pancakes can even lead to back injuries—or so claims Dustin Penner, former LA Kings forward.
In 2012, Penner experienced back spasms while—quite literally—eating his wife’s pancakes. “I woke up feeling fine,” Penner explained, “but as soon as I sat down to eat, my back completely locked up.”
The real question is, how intensely does one need to eat pancakes to injure their back?
1. Brushing Your Teeth
Brushing your teeth at least twice a day is essential, but it’s equally important to focus fully on the task. This becomes especially clear after hearing about an incident involving a young boy in India.
While brushing, the boy and his sister were playfully roughhousing. He tripped and fell face-first with the toothbrush in his mouth, driving it through the inner cheek lining and into the underlying muscle.
While doctors managed to remove the toothbrush manually, the boy endured significant pain as the bristles remained embedded in his cheek. A minor surgical intervention was required to extract all the bristles from the sensitive tissue. Surprisingly, this isn’t the only instance where someone has been hospitalized after falling onto a toothbrush!
