I can tell from when I see them. Oh, and RM95, that example combines the two meanings of die. Bonus points!
I burned up a lot of brain cells in the 90's. Refresh my memory, please. If it's too bad for the bbs send it to my email add in my profile. I vote for <b>Cancer</b>. Slow and painful and your family gets to watch you waste away with little hope of long-term recovery. Just watched an Aunt's 3 year battle and it was <b>BAD.</b>
I may have gone to high school with your girl. Midway High? Oh goodness, I hope I haven't ever dated your girl. HOW HILARIOUS WOULD THAT BE?!?!?!
From what I've heard of her past guys, you better hope you haven't either. She actually lived with her Grandmother down by Wooded Acres and Cobb (or something like that), but she lived in Woodway during law school from 1999-August.
I agree with fire. The mental anguish of dying knowing that you've irreparably hurt your family (like RM95's girl's dad) doesn't occur unless you have the time to think about it (that couldn't have happened in a car crash). Combining physical pain with mental anguish is a killer (sorry for the poor pun), but it's difficult to come up with appropriate situations because you need time for reflection with mental anguish, but not so much that death comes as a relief, know whatm'sayin'? Being forced to listen to Vogon poetry is pretty bad too. (Yes, I know I'm a dork.)
A little off topic, but this reminds me of my favorite graffiti (each line by a different writer): Kill yourself and tell me what it's like. No, I won't. You first. I did it. What was it like? It was like Tron.
Several years ago in a National Park in CO around the holidays, a guy hiked out alone. After a few miles down the trail, he stopped, pulled out a knife and committed suicide by slicing both achilles. Since he couldn't walk, he had a lot of time to consider his death, which ultimately came from freezing. It was a drag for the Park Rangers that found him, as they had to cart his frozen 250+ lb body back to the trailhead in the cold. About 3 years ago (maybe 4) in a National Forest in Utah, a couple dropped off their toddler at day care and went cross-country skiing. When they got to the trailhead, a Forest Service guy advised them not to go, as they were headed towards avalanche country and there was a lot of fresh snow. The wife seemed hesitant, but the husband was clearly the dominant party in the marriage, met her objections, and they took off skiing. When the kid was not picked up by the time the day care closed, the authorities got involved and found the car late that night. The next morning, the FS guy had to go out and follow the ski tracks. They led, predictably, to an avalanche chute and did not come out on the other side. Looking at the tracks, the chute, and the position of the bodies, it was determined the husband went first with the wife following closely behind. Neither stopped to examine the situation, as both went straight through the transition zone into the chute. The avalanche probably started as the husband was about midway across. If the wife had been another few seconds behind, she would have been alive. As it is, they both had a few horrifying moments of being thrown down the mountain and maybe a couple of minutes to realize they were going to suffocate under the snow, leave their child parentless, and had only their own stupidity to blame. The folks doing body recovery said the couple looked like ski store mannequins, frozen in place with all new gear. More money than sense.
On the fire issue, I know a few people who were burned over in a wildfire and lived. One guy said he knows he's going to heaven because he's already been to hell. I believe him. In almost all wildfire tragedies, death comes not from direct flame contact, but from breathing super-heated air that scars your lungs. You suffocate to death.
Not sure about the worst, but this cant be the best. If you own a dog you know how bad he felt before he dived in: Claim: Man is burned to death attempting to rescue dog from boiling hot spring. Status: True. Origins: Self-preservation is one of the most powerful instincts a human being -- or any animal -- possesses. Human intelligence gives us the ability to detect dangers other creatures may not be perceive, but it also endows us with emotions that can sometimes overpower our rational judgement. When someone near and dear to us -- a spouse, a child, a beloved pet -- is threatened, our impulse to act in aid can overcome our instinct for self-preservation and lead us to confront death is ways we would never otherwise conceive. The tale that follows is one example of this phenomenon, concerning a man who died in one of the most gruesome ways imaginable in an attempt to rescue a friend's dog. The hot springs found in abundance throughout Yellowstone National Park's thermal areas are bubbling cauldrons of steam and boiling water, most of them hotter than 150°F, and many of them in the 185°-205°F range. (Due to the elevation, water boils at about 198° in Yellowstone.) Nineteen scalding deaths have been recorded in connection with Yellowstone's hot springs since 1870, all of them known or believed to have involved people who inadvertently fell into the springs through accident or carelessness -- save one. On 20 July 1981, 24-year-old David Allen Kirwan from La Canada, California, was driving through Yellowstone's Fountain Paint Pot thermal area with his friend Ronald Ratliff and Ratliff's dog Moosie. At about 1:00 P.M. they parked their truck to get out and take a closer look at the hot springs; Moosie escaped from the truck, ran towards nearby Celestine Pool (a thermal spring whose water temperature has been measured at over 200°), jumped in, and began yelping. Kirwan and Ratliff rushed over to the pool to aid the terrified dog, and Kirwan's attitude indicated he was about to go into the spring after it. According to bystanders, several people tried to warn Kirwan off by yelling at him not to jump in, but he shouted "Like hell I won't!" back at them, took two steps into the pool, and then dove head-first into the boiling spring. Kirwan swam out to the dog and attempted to take it to shore; he then disappeared underwater, let go of the dog, and tried to climb out of the pool. Ratliff helped pull Kirwan out of the hot spring (resulting in second-degree burns to his own feet), and another visitor led Kirwan to the sidewalk as he reportedly muttered, "That was stupid. How bad am I? That was a stupid thing I did." Kirwan was indeed in very bad shape. He was blind, and when another park visitor tried to remove one of his shoes, his skin (which was already peeling everywhere) came off with it. He sustained third-degree burns to 100% of his body, including his head, and died the following morning at a Salt Lake City hospital. (Moosie did not survive, either.) Perhaps David Allen Kirwan didn't realize just how hot the thermal springs really are, perhaps he didn't consider the deadly effect submersion in water of such temperatures would have on him, or perhaps blind emotion drove him to act without taking even the briefest moment to consider his own safety. Foolish, brave, rash, or otherwise, can any of us imagine a circumstance, no matter how dire, under which would willingly dive head-first into a pool of boiling water? Update: A mere three days after we published this page, yet another (non-fatal) incident of this type occurred in Yellowstone when a 39-year-old tourist from Washington state entered a thermal pool in an attempt to rescue a dog which had bolted from his family's motor home and jumped into the scalding waters. The man was fortunate to have suffered only second-degree burns and was released from the hospital the next day.
OUCH! I think I'd jump in for one of my kids if it was the only way to save them, but other than that...
I read it last night and thought about it a few times today. When they said he was blind think about this. His eyes must have cooked like a hard boiled egg.
