We're All Going to Die--It's in the Contract

Casino lobbyists insist there is nothing wrong with a little wager, but a survey of nearly four-hundred Gamblers Anonymous members disclosed that 75 percent had contemplated suicide, and more than half had definite plans on how they would do it. The National Gambling Impact Study Commission reported on a 2003 case in Atlantic City, in which a sixteen-year-old boy attempted suicide after losing $6,000 on lottery tickets. And there was a middle-aged couple in Joliet, Illinois, who both committed suicide in 2004 after the wife accumulated $200,000 in casino debt. 

• Although women are far more likely to be addicted to gambling than men, it appears to be more dangerous for men: The total number of sudden cardiac deaths of elderly white men at or around casino tables within the last five years: 3,567

Splurging on one piece of cake or an occasional candy bar is not bingeing. Eating three, four, or five pieces of cake and two pies—now that’s bingeing, defined as eating for eating’s sake, uncontrollably, even when hunger has long been sated. Bingers will, at the least, gain weight; at most, they can die from complications of obesity. 

Bingers soon compensate for their feelings of guilt by learning the techniques of purging. This combination of bingeing and purging over a sustained period of time causes another set of medical problems, serious and fatal. No organ of the body remains unaffected by repeated purging. Purgers use self-induced vomit techniques, finger, spoon, or foul-tasting substance, laxatives and diuretics, to expel the food and the shame that eating excessive quantities have caused. They may also engage in extreme exercise, or go through periods of complete starvation.

Eight million Americans suffer from binge-purge syndrome, the psychosomatic illness, known as bulimia nervosa. Death certificates reveal 960 deaths per year, although an additional 2,319 suicides resulting from this condition can be added to the list. Suicides among female sufferers occur more often during menstruation. 

Terri Schiavo, the unlucky woman who became the focus of a right-to-death national debate in 2005, descended into a “persistent vegetative state” as a result of her constant purging. In 1990, her brain was starved of oxygen caused by abnormally low potassium levels. She then suffered cardiac arrest as a result of bulimia-induced hypokalemia (potassium imbalance) and went into a coma.

LIQUID BINGE

Binge drinking has become widespread on many college campuses. According to the Harvard School of Public Health College’s Alcohol Study, binge drinking is defined as “the consumption of at least five drinks in a row for men, or four drinks in a row for women.” The body is only capable of metabolizing about an ounce of alcohol an hour. In 2002, at Cornell University, a drunken student died after bingeing when he fell into a gorge. In 2003, at Michigan State University, a student died from heart failure after downing two dozen consecutive shots of tequila. And in 2004, a Pennsylvania State University student died during his twenty-first birthday celebration from consuming four gallons of alcohol through a beer-pong apparatus. 

TWENTY-FIVE THOUSAND DIE BECAUSE OF ALCOHOL BINGEING EACH YEAR.

The first bicycle, called the penny-farthing, had high, disproportionate-size wheels, the front much larger than the rear, so that a rider’s feet couldn’t reach the ground. Riding it was like riding a unicycle, which made keeping one’s balance rarely possible; the contraption was notorious for causing accidents. Mark Twain, who learned to ride a high-wheel bicycle in the early 1880s, wrote of his numerous trips to the hospital trying to master it: “Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live.” Between 1880 and 1895, bicycle accidents, from falls and wagon collisions, caused 4,312 deaths.

NATIONAL DEAD CYCLIST MONTH

In 1869, forty years after the invention of the bicycle in France, bicycles became popular in the United States, when solid rubber tires replaced the iron wheels of previous models. By 1895, Chicago and other large cities put mailmen on bicycles. As soon as the car was invented, however, bicycle use declined rapidly and was relegated to a childhood activity. In 1962, a bicycling revival began, and by 1972 bicycles outsold cars in the United States. In 1975, over 75 percent of all bicycle traffic fatalities were youngsters. As of 1998, just 30 percent of all bicycle fatalities were still juveniles. Most fatal bicycle-car crashes occur in broad daylight, in good weather, with clear skies.  June has the distinction of being the month with the greatest number of bicyclist fatalities. 

• In Florida, a 2003 statewide survey found that bicycle fatalities had tripled since the new drunk driving statutes, which forced DUI-convicted alcoholics to ride bikes, were implemented.

ELEVEN HUNDRED PEOPLE ON BICYCLES COLLIDE WITH CARS AND DIE EVERY YEAR. 

There are over twenty-five thousand bed & breakfasts (B&Bs) operating in America. Over three hundred of these claim to be haunted and offer not only a comfy bed but a close encounter with a ghost. When a B&B takes this tact to entice guests, it seems the more grisly their past, the better the bookings.

According to a recent Harris poll, 75 percent of Americans believe in ghosts. Twenty-eight of those surveyed believe it is possible to communicate with the dead. Ghost devotees note it’s all in the ectoplasm; they claim this energy of the previously alive—whether it’s benign or malevolent—is what lingers in the physical world. Although unlikely, it is possible that this ectoplasic energy can kill. Some believe that when a violent incident occurs, such as a murder, this malevolent ectoplasm force can regenerate and continue to kill at the exact location where the original death happened. In Quincy, Illinois, a pyromaniac ghost has been on the loose, setting unexplained fires all over town for a hundred years. Certain streets in Manhattan still have higher-than-usual homicide rates, even neighborhoods that have been cleaned up from a more sordid time. For example, a restaurant on Barrow Street and a brownstone on Clinton Street continue to attract an unusual amount of crime even though the areas have vastly improved, as if marking the spot of previous violent deaths that occurred at these locations. Paranormal experts claim certain energy is just bad and believe it can cause fatalities in unknown ways. 

REAL ROOM SERVICE

The San Carlos Hotel in Arizona is haunted by the ghost of a desperate woman dressed to the hilt for ballroom dancing who jumped to her death from the rooftop in 1928. She paces the halls, knocks on doors, and then runs. At The Lemp Mansion in St. Louis, a thirty-three-room mansion built in the 1860s by brewing baron William Lemp, guests can hear the weeping and wailings of Lemp’s family, all of whom met tragic ends, by way of suicide and murder. The McMenamins Edgefield B&B in Oregon was once the Multnomah County Poor Farm, and later a retirement home. The building is haunted by the destitute and old people whom, some say, are seen playing shuffleboard or trapped in an endless game of bingo. At The Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville, Louisiana, an insomniac gets to test his sleeping skills knowing that the house was the site of ten murders and was built on an Indian burial ground.

ALTHOUGH “KILLED BY GHOSTS” HAS NOT BEEN FOUND ON A SINGLE DEATH CERTIFICATE, THREE THOUSAND DIE EACH YEAR IN “UNEXPLAINED” FIRES. THERE IS ALSO A GROWING NUMBER OF UNSOLVED HOMICIDES IN THE UNITED STATES—5,213 IN 2003—THAT, DESPITE THE LATEST CSI TECHNIQUES, MIGHT HAVE ONLY ANOTHER, OTHER-WORLDLY EXPLANATION TO BLAME.

Animal House and other college-life film fans might believe Beaver Fever is only an obsession with female “companionship,” but it’s actually the work or a parasite, called giardiasis. Hikers venturing into wilderness areas often pick up this parasite by drinking from what they believe to be the pristine waters of creeks and lakes. This water, however, is usually contaminated by droppings from infected animals, including beavers and muskrats. 

Those plagued with Beaver Fever get stomach cramps, throw up at unusual times, and feel washed out. Beaver Fever is contagious and can pass from one Beaver sufferer to the next by sharing food or drinking from the same bottles. It usually only lasts a few weeks, but if left untreated it could be fatal. Beaver Fever is found all over the world but is more common in rural and wilderness areas.

Outbreaks of Beaver Fever occur periodically in college students attending campuses in the northern parts of the country. One fraternity, at Washington State University, became so frequently overwhelmed with Beaver Fever that failed grades and wasted semesters were epidemic. 

2,130 DIE EACH YEAR FROM UNTREATED BEAVER FEVER.

The Miss America Pageant started in 1921 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, when a hotel owner wanted to come up with a gimmick to keep tourists in town after Labor Day. After he recruited dance girls, “lookers” who frequented the boardwalk—and even some hookers to spice up the beauty contest—the press sarcastically dubbed it the “real Miss America contest.” The name stuck and the event persisted annually for over eighty years, eventually moving from Atlantic City to Las Vegas in 2006. Today, there are over three thousand pageants, two thousand for girls under twelve years old, attracting 250,000 participants annually. Some parents have been known to spend up to $12,000 to “beat the competition” with the latest fashions and accessories. Often, the grand prize is no more than a trophy, but some beauty queens and their mothers will go to great lengths to secure the top spot. 

I HAD NO MOTIVE 

Barbara Dubois was a twenty-three-year-old finalist in the Yoknapatawpha County Literature Festival Beauty Pageant. In January 2004, the day prior to the final segment of the competition, her body was discovered in her home. Soon after, Erma Webb, fifty-two, of Oxford, Mississippi, was arrested in connection with the murder. According to the Oxford Eagle, “Web’s daughter, Scarlett, was also a finalist in the pageant.”

Until the 1996 murder of JonBenét Ramsey, a six-year-old beauty pageant champion, most of America knew little of this sub-culture. Her still-unsolved death, which some believe had to do with her winning streak, led to a national debate about the treatment and sexualization of young girls on the pageant circuit. Pageant mothers have a tendency to live vicariously through their children, and losing, or placing badly, is not acceptable. The government has laws to protect a child’s health from smoking and drinking and provide education and safety, but not very much against manipulative adults. 

Although only 1 percent of all those who participate in beauty pageants go on to further careers in modeling, the names of approximately forty-three hundred former beauty pageant participants show up in the obituaries each year—2 percent from murder or unexplained accidental death. 

In 2002 in New Mexico, a ninety-three-year-old woman went downstairs into her kitchen when she heard pots and pans falling to the floor. She found a 275-pound black bear, which had busted the lock on the back door, helping himself to the food in the pantry. When the tough one-hundred-pound lady tried to chase the bear out with a broom, the beast turned on her. She died “by multiple bite injuries.” Desperate for food, black bears are getting bolder; these bear-human confrontations are on the rise. In Colorado, bears are caught hanging out at malls and are seen regularly near schools. The American Bear Association claims that black bears have killed only forty people in the United States in the last one hundred years. 

GRIZZLY MAN

Tim Treadwell loved grizzly bears and they loved him, literally, because in the end, they ate every morsel of him. For thirteen summers Treadwell lived among the grizzlies at Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Reserve to study bear behavior, documenting his encounters on homemade video. Treadwell knew the dangers—he once said, “If I show weakness, I’m dead. They will take me out, they will decapitate me, they will chop me up into bits and pieces”—but he persisted, even convincing a girlfriend to join him. In August 2003, his prediction came true; Treadwell and his girlfriend were killed and eaten by a grizzly. His story is told in Werner Herzog’s documentary film Grizzly Man.

BETWEEN 1786 AND 1899, 143,983 PEOPLE WERE KILLED OR MAULED TO DEATH BY BEARS. FROM 1920 TO 2000 GRIZZLIES AND POLAR BEARS KILLED 1,682.

Ride-on toys have caused 180 fires and twenty-two deaths since 1995. (In 1995, 10 million battery-powered Power Wheels ride-on cars and trucks were recalled due to faulty, overheating wires.) In 2004, another ride-on toy was recalled after it was learned that a loose screw shorted out a battery wire; an eighteen-month-old California boy died from the fire caused by this wire short. Each year there are twenty-five fatalities from battery-powered golf carts. The government now requires golf carts that can reach 15 mph to be equipped with seat belts and windshields. 

THERE ARE 1,134 DEATHS FROM NON-POWERED SCOOTERS EACH YEAR; 90 PERCENT COULD BE PREVENTED IF HELMETS WERE USED.

On September 15, 1999, a bat flew into the house of a forty-nine-year-old California man. He chased it around until it flew out and didn’t realize he had gotten bitten in the process, attributing his scrapes to the scuffle. The next day he began to hypersalivate, experiencing uncontrollable muscle twitching. He became confused and tried to bite his wife. After that, she took him to the hospital where he was placed on a mechanical ventilator. Within five days of initial contact with the bat he died of renal failure. In Utah, a forty-four-year-old man, who liked to camp outdoors without using a tent, was bitten by a bat. For three weeks he had a sore throat, fever, chills, and weakness. He developed encephalitis from the bite of a silver-haired bat with rabies and died. 

Since 1951 there have been twelve deaths directly attributed to rabid bats. However, in that same period, 8,312 died from histoplasmosis, a disease caused by inhalation of spores found in bat guano. It is advised not to handle bats without gloves.