Odds'r The Odds on Everything Book

Life or Death 1 "It's not that I'm afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens!" WOODY ALLEN What are your odds of surviving a barrel ride over Niagara or a routine surgical procedure? Are you more likely to survive a run-in with a deer or the running of the bulls in Pamplona? Will your suicidal friend leave a note? Whether you're 18 or 80 we've got the numbersand the odds of living or dying in predicaments from the mundane to the monstrous. QUESTIONS 1. Scalpel, Forceps...Embalming Fluid You're most likely to die from which of the following surgeries? A)Liposuction B)Hernia C)Hip Replacement 2. Buried Assets You'll most likely pay which of the following for the average funeral in the U.S.' A)$6,500 B)$9,500 C)$12,500 3. Bagged by Your Dry Cleaner Your lifetime chance of being suffocated by a plastic laundry bag is which of the following? A)1 in 3,000 B)1 in 13,000 C)1 in 130,000 A N S W E R S 1. C) Hip Replacement Of the 120,000 hip replacements performed annually, about 400 patients die from complications within three months of the surgerymost often because of the advanced age of the patient. Liposuction sucks the fatand the lifeout of about 80 people annually. And hernia surgery, though a pain in the groin, is responsible for only an estimated 40 deaths out of the 800,000 procedures done annually. Source: CDC 2004 2. A) $6,500 You can't take it with you, so leave a healthy chunk close at hand. The average funeral costs about $6,500. Switch from a wood casket to copper and you're up to $10K; bronze runs twice as much. And for those who insist on having the last laugh, a German company now manufactures "wacky coffins" shaped like everything from Mercedeses and tuxedos toonions! Source: NFDA 2004 3. C) 1 in 130,000 There's no reason to end up with a tag on your toe instead of your top, but each year 27 people turn up as stiff as their own starched shirts by not taking those clingy clothes wraps seriously enough. Turns out mob money isn't the only thing it's dangerous to launder. Source: CDC 2004 L I F E O R D E A T H QUESTIONS 4. Bull Run Over the 80 years of the "running of the bulls" in Pamplona, Spain, what are the chances that a runner, once run over,didn'tlive to tell the tale? A)7 in 100 B)35 in 100 C)75 in 100 5. Snow Exit Between 1989 and 2004, in which state was it likeliest that someone would die in an avalanche? A)Alaska B)Colorado C)Idaho 6. Just Chillin' What's your lifetime chance of dying from suffocation in a refrigerator or some other "airtight" space? A)1 in 27,000 B)1 in 270,000 C)1 in 2,700,000 A N S W E RS 4.A) 7 in 100 Since Hemingway first glamorized this questionable tradition inThe Sun Also Rises,more than 200 people have been injured in the running of the bulls. Of those, only 14 have died. Of course, if the unsuspecting bulls realized that their day would likely end by being stabbed, castrated, and de-eared as a matador's prize, we suspect that the casualties would be much higher. Source:National Geographic; CNN 2004 5. B) ColoradoSchlaifer, Roger is the author of 'Odds'r The Odds on Everything Book', published 2005 under ISBN 9780553383461 and ISBN 0553383469.