Dumb Ways to Die
- Emily Kay
- Feb 24
- 15 min read
Season 1, Episode 41. 02/24/2025
Intro~
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Summary
This episode of RAW-tism is about the real-life occurrences of the incidents covered in “Dumb Ways to Die” by Tangerine Kitty. This song describes twenty-one completely preventable ways that people can die, ending with a PSA about train safety, which was the primary intent of the song’s release. I did my research and found real-life events where someone did actually die, or nearly died, from these incidents.
Content warning here: I am a true crime lover, so I tend to get excited when talking about deaths. It’s not that I’m happy that they're dead. It's quite the opposite. I’m just fascinated by the unique ways that people succumb to the one thing that connects all of us: death. Within this episode, there will be mentions of child death and other instances that may be uncomfortable to some.
Set Fire To Your Hair
In the music video for “Dumb Ways to Die,” the first line in the song depicts one of the little cartoon beans running toward the camera with flames rising from their head. This seems like a silly thing that never happens, but it has.
In 2018, 13-year-old Grace Peerless died from complications with her injuries after her hair caught fire at her family’s backyard fire pit. I hesitate to refer to Grace’s death as “dumb” since the story is very clear that it was an accident that could have happened to anyone. An ember found its way into her hair while she was alone by the firepit. The doctors told her mother, Lynn Peerless, that she had a 95% chance of survival three days before she went into cardiac arrest during her surgery to repair the second-degree burns covering at least 25% of her body.
That same year, a 13-year-old girl’s hair was set on fire by a bully at a bus stop down the street from their school. Thankfully, she survived with only first-degree burns and bald patches, but this example shows that setting fire to hair is something that really happens, which is crazy.
I’ve never understood how bullies think about these things. Who thinks, “I’m going to set that girl’s hair on fire,” and actually does it? It must either be an impulse control thing or a skewed sense of right and wrong, right? I just don’t understand.
Poke a Stick at a Grizzly Bear
I couldn’t find an instance of death by a grizzly bear that specifically stated that a poking stick was involved, so I had to settle for researching grizzly deaths in general. I was about to type “last year” for 2023, and then it hit me that it’s 2025 already as I’m writing this. Time goes by so fast.
Back in the olden days of year two thousand twenty-three, a 62-year-old couple was killed by a grizzly bear at Canada’s Banff National Park. (I guess wildlife did not get the memo that Canadians are stereotypically friendly.) The couple, Doug Inglis and Jenny Gusse, were described by Doug’s uncle in the following quote:
“They are a couple that loved each other and loved the outdoors. And they were highly, highly experienced in being out back, whether it be serious treks or canoeing, whitewater canoeing in the North country.”
I thought that was a cute detail to include. With victims of that age, people tend to have lived a pretty full life, so death by hobby is a pretty decent way to go, in my humble opinion. I’m not saying that sixty-two is old, nor am I endorsing that it’s okay for those who are 60+ years old to die. I just think that, compared to the 13-year-old, this is a “lighter” death. I know, I’m very weird.
Eat Medicine That's Out of Date
This scenario described is one that people tend to play fast and loose with. It may seem very unlikely to die from expired medication, but it does happen.
In October of 2022, ten children fighting leukemia were killed in Yemen after they had taken expired medication, their ages ranging between 3 and 15 years old. This medication was used because of the lack of resources in Yemen during the war. Drug smugglers sold medical establishments expired medications, knowing that they were out of date. That’s awful. I can’t imagine how these children’s families felt after this event.
Unfortunately, in some circumstances, expired medication is the only option. It’s something that I don’t understand about the world. Why can’t we all just help each other? We should work toward tolerance and understanding instead of fighting for money and power. Anyway, that’s my soapbox for this episode.
Use Your Private Parts as Piranha Bait
I’m just gonna put it out there: using private parts as bait for any animal is a bad idea. Piranhas would probably be especially dangerous in this instance since they can consume an entire adult human in under five minutes (and the music video uses this visual with our bean friends). The most common trend in piranha-related deaths, though, is that the victims drown before they’re eaten.
In October 2021, a thirty-year-old man was fishing with two friends in Landia de Minas, Brazil. Their boat hit a log that happened to have a beehive in it. The pump disturbed the bees, who swarmed onto the three fishermen. The two friends dove into the water and swam safely to shore while the third man was eaten by piranhas four meters, 13.1234 feet, from shore. One of the survivors told authorities that they couldn’t help their friend because they are allergic to bees. It is unclear whether the victim drowned before being eaten by the piranhas, but that would explain why he was the only one not to make it to shore.
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Get Your Toast Out With a Fork
I was not able to find any deaths related to getting toast out with a fork specifically, but toaster fires and electrocutions kill over 700 people a year. The best way to avoid this outcome is to unplug the toaster before sticking anything into it, regularly clean the crumb tray, and use it only as intended. In the 1920s, when the toaster was first mass-produced, 3,000 deaths from toaster accidents occurred within that first year.
In August 2022, a 29-year-old Florida man, Andrew Buckley, tried to light his cigarette using a toaster. His roommate argued with Buckley—who had a history of domestic abuse—about the incident, which led to an altercation. A third family member—fearing that the roommate’s life was in danger—stabbed Buckley in the back, literally, and the roommate was stabbed in the shoulder during the scuffle. All three survived the incident.
Buckley fled the scene but was later tracked down by K9 deputies. After a short stint in the hospital, Buckley went to jail, making this event his seventh arrest in two years.
Do Your Own Electrical Work
If you are not a trained electrician, doing your own electrical work is another dumb way to die. Hire a professional. Electrical fires cause more than 50,000 house fires annually, causing 500 deaths and 1,400 injuries yearly. Electrical wiring is the third most common cause of house fires.
Avoiding damaged electrical cords is a significant way to reduce your risk. Twisted, kinked, and/or broken cords can easily lead to sparks and/or the start of a fire. Extension cords are the worst offenders. People have the tendency to dangerously overload them. Convenience is more important to the average American than considering the safety regarding extension cords. Ask your electrician for more details about electrical cords.
The biggest issue with doing your own electrical work, specifically, is the risk of faulty installation, using incorrect or defective parts, and overloading wires or circuits. If you are an electrician, this does not apply to you, but anyone else should be careful making big decisions like that for your home.
You’ve probably seen the “Florida Man” memes about the dumb things that men happen to do in Florida. I found four examples that fit this theme of electrical mishandling:
In 2015, a man electrocuted himself while working on his boat on Merritt Island.
In 2016, a man died by electrocution when trying to fix a blackout in Jacksonville.
In July 2023, a 42-year-old man touched live wires in his home, killing himself by electrocution in Cocoa.
In November 2024, a man died from standing in water when it touched a live wire in Bradenton Beach.
Teach Yourself How to Fly
I’m sure you’ve heard the Greek myth about King Minos commissioning an architect named Daedalus to build a labyrinth with a minotaur trapped in the middle. We can discuss more about the famous labyrinth/minotaur story later, but here we’ll focus on the one about Daedalus’ son, Icarus. Daedalus crafted human-sized wings out of feathers and wax so that he and Icarus could escape the captivity of the labyrinth. He warned his son not to fly too close to the sun because it would melt the wax or to the sea because it would wet the feathers, resulting in the wings failing. While flying over the Aegean Sea, Icarus became too confident in his ability to fly. They accidentally flew too close to the sun, melting the wax supporting the wings, contributing to his death. This myth teaches the importance of balance in one’s life and warns against arrogance.
In 2017, Clements Sogn, the 26-year-old international sensation known as “Batwing Man,” died at the airshow in Vincennes, France, after his parachute failed to open, causing him to break every bone in his body.
Eat a Two-Week-Old Un-Refrigerated Pie
Most food poisoning-related deaths come from grains like noodles. The phenomenon is sometimes known as “Fried Rice Syndrome,” when someone ingests lethal quantities of Bacillus cereus, a bacteria that causes diarrhea and vomiting in most cases. Severe cases, though, end in liver failure and death.
I am all for meal preparation. I make myself gluten-free noodles with salsa con queso, black beans, and peas every Sunday to have a filling, easy-to-pack meal throughout the week. I usually keep the containers in the freezer and then move on to the fridge the night before use. Some people prepare food for the week and just leave it stacked in the refrigerator, another great way to store it. A terrible way to store prepped meals is at room temperature, where it is free to grow bacteria that can hurt you later.
Unfortunately, in 2008, a 20-year-old student wasn’t aware of these facts when he meal-prepped spaghetti with tomato sauce in Tupperware containers that he left out on the counter all week. Five days later, he reheated a serving of the pasta and ate it. He remarked that it tasted weird but had figured it was due to using a new sauce brand. Half an hour later, after some physical activity, he started to experience nausea, abdominal pain, and a headache, followed by diarrhea and vomiting. He stayed hydrated and tried to sleep it off. His parents found him dead the next morning. Medical examiners determined that he had passed away around 4 am, ten hours after ingesting the lethal amounts of Bacillus cereus.
All this is to say that food-borne illnesses are very real and can lead to death. If you ever have severe food poisoning or any other unexplainable gastrointestinal symptoms, please seek medical attention immediately. Even the simplest symptoms can be the difference between life and death.
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Invite a Psycho-Killer Inside
I don’t need to research inviting a psycho-killer inside to know that it is a horrible idea. While cartoons show the killer in an outfit that definitely stands out as a killer-appearing wear, most “psycho” killing happens by people in plain sight. I have watched enough horror movies to know that it can be the person you trust most or someone you haven’t even met. You don’t always know where the psycho-killer closest to you is hiding.
As of this recording, I’m currently watching Dexter and its follow-up shows New Blood and Original Sin. For those who don’t know about the franchise’s premise, protagonist Dexter Morgan is a blood analyst for the Miami Metro police department in Florida, who moonlights as a serial killer. Dexter’s friends and family think that he’s a bit weird, but harmless. They are completely unaware of his secret life, having no idea what he does when he’s alone. Luckily, Dexter only targets killers—usually ones that have escaped justice—but as it usually happens, if you were to know a serial killer, they probably wouldn’t be selective over the guilty and innocent.
Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, more commonly known as the “Lonely Hearts Killers,” were a pair of serial killers in the 1940s. Fernandez would “fall in love” with a widowed or unmarried woman, and then when they felt safe with him, he would falsely claim financial troubles, asking to move in with her. His actual fiancée, Beck—posing as his sister who lives with him—would also move in to give the target more security. It would help them think that Fernandez (or whatever alias he was using), couldn’t be dangerous if he allowed another woman to move in with their family. Beck and Fernandez would then kill the innocent woman, take their money, and move to their next victims. They were finally caught on March 1, 1949, when they did this scam on a woman with a daughter. After both were killed, the neighbors grew suspicious, which later led to their arrest.
Scratch a Drug Dealer's Brand-New Ride
Substance abuse – especially when it comes to drugs – kills hundreds of thousands of people each year, but those who deal with drugs can be just as dangerous. Scratching a drug dealer’s brand-new ride can be seen as disrespecting someone with power and connections. If they are already dealing in illegal activities as their main income, chances are that homicide isn’t off the table to protect their business.
In a study of “Homicides Related to Drug Trafficking” that I was able to find on the NCJRS Virtual Library website, out of 50 homicide cases in New York City that were pulled randomly, 42% of these were drug-related. If you’re interested in reading about this study, I have it linked in the script for this episode under my sources, which can be found on Patreon or ArchlinkLLC.com, both listed in the description for this episode.
The example I found for y’all happened in 2002. Robert Dawes, who was known as an “international drugs kingpin,” instructed one of his foot soldiers, Daniel Sowerby, to kill Gerald Meesters. Meesters had nothing to do with the conflict. He was murdered at 52 years old in his Netherlands home because Dawes suspected his estranged sister may have had money or drugs hidden there. She did not. Meesters died for no reason other than being related to someone who got involved with the illegal drug trade. Sowerby received a life sentence as the one to physically kill Meesters. Prosecutors wanted a life sentence for Dawes also, as the “intellectual mastermind” who incited the killing, but he wasn’t charged until 2021. This left Dawes plenty of time to get into legal trouble in Europe. He was arrested on an array of drug trafficking charges: Nottinghamshire in 2008, Venezuela in 2013, and Paris in 2018.
Take Your Helmet Off In Outer Space
Taking your helmet off in outer space is a great way to ensure a swift death. Statistically, people can only survive for less than two minutes without their helmets. First, the person would lose consciousness from lack of air in the vacuum of space before experiencing hypoxia, vaporization, boiling, freezing, and tissue expansion, all of which lead to death.
Hypoxia is a condition where the oxygen in your blood turns into gas and escapes through your lungs. Vaporization is when all of the moisture in the body evaporates; the most common moist places (yes, cringe Gen Z, cringe) are the mouth, eyes, and throat. The blood and other fluids boil due to the low air pressure, which causes tissue expansion.
Finally, the body freezes in space, leaving a dead, puffed-up block of human popsicle. I don’t think that sounds like a good way to go. If you somehow get the chance to experience the universe outside of our lovely green and blue planet Earth, I implore you to keep your helmet on the entire time you are out of the spacecraft. Thank you.
There are no real-life examples of this happening, but you can find many in the media, including Arnold from The Magic School Bus cartoon.
Use a Clothes Dryer as a Hiding Place
Clothes dryers in and of themselves are very dangerous, causing more than 15,000 fires annually, but the danger intensifies when someone is sealed inside the machine. Fun fact: if you have seen Lilo & Stitch as it was initially released, there is a scene where Lilo hides from Nani in the dryer with the door closed. The version of the movie available on Disney+ was edited to have her hiding in a cabinet behind an old pizza box to protect children from the all-too-real reality of dryer-trapped deaths. The tight seal of the clothes dryer door can suffocate the child, and muffle screams from inside. This one makes me so sad because it’s usually young children who are the victims of this type of incident. Please ensure any kids you know are made aware to never hide in a clothing dryer while playing.
January 29, 2025, Suzana Dazar dos Santos, the stepmother of a toddler living in Brazil, was charged with enticing the child into a washing machine using toys and helping her inside. Three-year old-Isabelly Oliveira Assumpção drowned inside their washing machine in her family’s washroom back in 2022. The Public Ministry of Paraná is charging her with qualified homicide, alleging that Dazar was jealous of the co-parenting relationship between her husband and Isabelly’s mother, which she solved by getting rid of the need for parenting. The stepmother claims that Isabelly was playing “unaccompanied,” which was an accident.
The case is still ongoing, but Isabelly’s father, Alex dos Santos Assumpção, said in an interview that the evidence clearly shows that Dazar was responsible. He also said, translated from his native language, “Nothing will repair the loss, having lost her, but justice will calm our hearts a little.” This breaks my heart. As a nanny, I understand that children are frustrating and can lead to negative thoughts. Still, I could never, in my wildest imagination, even consider doing such a horrible act to little children.
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Keep a Rattlesnake as a Pet
In the United States alone, 8,000 people are bitten by rattlesnakes yearly. Thankfully, only five of those 8,000 bites are fatal. I still warn against handling snakes without proper training and equipment. You should especially refrain from keeping a deadly rattlesnake as a pet without the correct permits and training. Those things are fast and you will be bit—end of story.
In 2024, the 25-year-old social media influencer David Humphlett—known for his animal-themed adventures on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube—spent over two weeks in the Dixie County ICU after a rattlesnake bit him. He stayed in good humor for the entire experience, saying, “Welp, I’m cooked,” when the snake initially bit him and reassuring his audience, “I don’t want anyone to be mad at the snake” while being treated at the hospital. It took 88 vials of antivenom to reduce the swelling in his leg.
Sell Both Your Kidneys on the Internet
In 2019 alone, 254,028 people died of kidney disease in the Americas. Globally, the number rises at least 5 million each year. Kidney injuries, diseases, and cancers can all cause death if new kidneys are not transplanted before dialysis — a treatment using a machine that replicates the kidney — stops working. Dialysis can only clean the waste from the blood for so long before the body rejects it and fails. Because of these facts alone, I recommend not selling both kidneys online. Plus, it is very illegal.
In late 2022, in Mandalay, Myanmar, a family that was well below the poverty level also lost their income. They took out loans to support their family and ended up in overwhelming debt. In early 2023, the father sold one of his kidneys to a wealthy Chinese-Burmese businessman so he could afford to take care of his wife and daughter.
Eat a Tube of Super Glue
When researching this line, I found that the inventor of superglue, Harry Wesley Coover Jr., died in 2011 at age 94 of natural causes. I just want to say how cool it is that I lived in the same time period as someone who invented such a widely-used tool. I think Coover’s legacy will last centuries, thinking on how commonly we use it in practice; superglue seals quickly, so accidentally or purposely ingesting a tube of it would seal the insides together and stop allowing the body to work correctly.
After swallowing superglue, a 62-year-old man spent a week in the ER in 2011. The doctors were able to pull out the dried glue that had formed a mold of his upper airway.
"I wonder, what's this red button do?"
Any movie fanatic knows to NOT touch the red button. Especially if it’s big, glowing, or says something like “eject,” “blow,” or “destruct.” Pressing any buttons without knowledge of what they do is dangerous.
In 2024, a woman in northern Switzerland died by pressing a button in a sealed capsule that released nitrogen gas. She fell asleep almost instantly and died within minutes. Police are still investigating whether or not she was aware of the button’s function.
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Dress Up Like a Moose During Hunting Season
There are at least 100 deaths from hunting-related accidents per year, so I would very much recommend not dressing up as a moose or any other hunted animal during hunting season. Why tempt fate with that many guns around?
Though not related to moose or someone foolishly dressing as one, In 2024, a high school football player at Newberry High School who had just been voted Prom King was killed when a hunting rifle accidentally discharged. The victim was Malachi Lancaste, the son of two pastors. He was shot just out of Gainesville at 18 years old. He was quickly taken to the hospital where his family arrived just in time to see him before he succumbed to his injuries. While I’ve heard of murders covered up as accidental shootings while hunting, in this case, there was no further investigation because all evidence supported the incident described by witnesses.
Disturb a Nest of Wasps for No Good Reason
Between 2011 and 2021, the average number of stinging deaths from wasps, bees, or hornets was 72 people a year. Disturbing a nest of wasps for no good reason is not a good idea. The anaphylactic shock is not worth it.
There are many stories about deaths and injuries caused by bothering wasp nests, but I found one fascinating and unique story. On July 27, 2024, 65-year-old Gary Johnson died while driving a helicopter that was leaking fuel due to a wasp’s nest, specifically the mud dauber wasp. Though Gary did not know he was bothering the wasps who had taken shelter in the fuel tank, it did lead to his death.
Conclusion
Stand on the edge of a train station platform
Drive around the boom gates at a level crossing
Run across the tracks between the platforms
Now, we have reached the central message of the song. The song “Dumb Ways to Die” was written as part of a campaign by Metro Trains in Melbourne, Australia, for railway safety. This song and video were released in 2012, but I had never heard of it before 2022. After ten years, it is still a good educational video. Whenever the two-year-old I nanny gets hurt, he will only calm down if I show him the music video on YouTube. He is obsessed and is the reason that I know every word by heart.
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