What do you consider the most terrible cause of death? (accidental or disease only)

[Deleted]

OT: Worse way to die would probably be gangrene that's untreated. Your body just sits there and rots day in and day out.

Gangrene isn't really painful though, had it. Also having had a near-death experience by drowning I don't think it too cruel of a way to go.
Worst that I can imagine would be burning alive or the already mentioned Fatal Familial Insomnia.

[Elgefar]

Impalement. Getting a pike, spear etc pierced through your rectum, while gravity ensures that you will not only be tortured, but you will also die a slow and painful death. In some cases the impalement itself can take days to pierce the body.

[Reeve]

I'm gonna go with Alzheimer's. Seeing yourself losing control of your own mind has got to be one of the most terrifying experiences imaginable.

[Vizardlorde]

I find nights when I cant sleep dreadful with all the weird stuff that I experience, now that happening for months until I die... Id rather die of a heart attack during a hallucination than let FFI run its course.

[Warpaladin]

Well I would consider this to be the worse "accidental" death. Being executed (sentenced to death) and being innocent of the crime you committed, about 39 innocent people were put to death in the US, from what I understand.

[smelltheglove]

I'm gonna go with Alzheimer's. Seeing yourself losing control of your own mind has got to be one of the most terrifying experiences imaginable.

it can be even worse than that... there have been holocaust survivors that lost all of their life after it, and spent the rest of their lives mentally in the concentration camps. jesus fucking christ

[Austilias]

People say being buried alive but then they neglect the fact the stereotypical scene we imagine, underground in a coffin, would likely entail a limited air supply and fate would likely spare us with either suffocation or the soil above causing the coffin to cave in, or both. Now, being buried alive with a constant air supply; that would be bad; claustrophobia coupled with the lengthy means of death that is starvation, so that's definitely right up there i'd say.

Burning alive would obviously be intense agony, so that would also be horrible. Bringing history into it, I would also posit the Black Plague, bearing in mind that there is far worse to a means of death than simply the pain. Literature records that the level of horror felt in discovering one of those famous, golf ball sized pustules on your body was positively unmatched in those days; in a mere instance, your life changed from being fearful of your own life, to being seen as a social pariah, cursed by God by a disease and left to fend for yourself with an agonizing disease with only hell and eternal damnation waiting at the end of all that suffering. It is described in ways such as;

"In men and women alike it first betrayed itself by the emergence of certain tumours in the groin or armpits, some of which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg...From the two said parts of the body this deadly gavocciolo soon began to propagate and spread itself in all directions indifferently; after which the form of the malady began to change, black spots or livid making their appearance in many cases on the arm or the thigh or elsewhere, now few and large, now minute and numerous. As the gavocciolo had been and still was an infallible token of approaching death, such also were these spots on whomsoever they showed themselves.

[IIamaKing]

With out getting too creative, I have always thought burning or drowning.

[kel]

starve to death

[expectwar]

getting electrocuted to death

[Dezerte]

Getting eaten alive by some large animal like an bear or a lion.

The thought of said animal holding you down while you're struggling, then it proceeds to take a big bite out of your stomach. No thanks.

[Vhoosh]

Some of the stuff listed sounds like a pretty bad way to go. I think Ebola would be a horrible way to go. More specifically the Zaire strain as it has a 90% fatality rate. Imagine lying in a bed and bleed from every mucus membrane. You would vomit, cough, and crap blood as your body slowly bleeds out. Not to mention the only people who are willing to treat you are covered head to toe in protective gear and possibly "moon" suits. Not the last thing I would want to see on the way out.

[matters]

I am going to go with either being locked in a coffin underground or even locked in a coffin that is in a remote area that no one would ever find. I think that would be the worst death possible because it is drawn out, you pretty much have to wait and die of starvation or dehydration. I would probably list any death that is drawn out as well since that has to be the worst way to die, you not only know you are going to die you also have to deal with yourself while you are waiting to die.

[Cybran]

I would say the worse way to die is burning.

I used to think it was drowning, but I've heard people who have almost drowned and been brought back from lifelessness have said once you reach that point where you lungs fill up, it is kind of peaceful. This is probably just a few of the cases, but it's hard to ignore them if I am going to rank ways to die.

So you haven't seen "The Prestige"?

[Deleted]

getting electrocuted to death

Surprisingly electrocution isn't actually all that painful. A few years back I was helping out with a house renovation, wiring in some florescent lighting when I got a serious shock.

It wouldn't have been a problem, as the house electric supply had been turned completely off at the fuse board, until some twonk turned it back on so he could make a cuppa. Unfortunately he did this just as I was trying to fit the lighting ballast wires. I got one hell of a shock up my left arm, but due to electrically induced muscle spasm I couldn't let go of the wires. It seemed like an eternity went past, all I could feel was a strange numbness from my hand, up through my arm and neck and I swear that I could see blue and green flashes of light going up my arm although I understand that was a kind of hallucination.

Eventually I used my other arm to rip down the light fitting, which also ripped out the supply cable cutting off the electricity. I ended up collapsed in a pile on the floor shaking. I was very lucky as an electric shock can cause heart failure and / or loss of consciousness, whereas the only long term damage I suffered was an electrical burn to my hand.

So although electrocution is a serious life threatening condition, it doesn't really rank as a painful way to die. In fact in most cases the initial jolt would render you unconscious, hence feeling no pain at all.

[Catta]

Surprisingly electrocution isn't actually all that painful. A few years back I was helping out with a house renovation, wiring in some florescent lighting when I got a serious shock.

It wouldn't have been a problem, as the house electric supply had been turned completely off at the fuse board, until some twonk turned it back on so he could make a cuppa. Unfortunately he did this just as I was trying to fit the lighting ballast wires. I got one hell of a shock up my left arm, but due to electrically induced muscle spasm I couldn't let go of the wires. It seemed like an eternity went past, all I could feel was a strange numbness from my hand, up through my arm and neck and I swear that I could see blue and green flashes of light going up my arm although I understand that was a kind of hallucination.

Eventually I used my other arm to rip down the light fitting, which also ripped out the supply cable cutting off the electricity. I ended up collapsed in a pile on the floor shaking. I was very lucky as an electric shock can cause heart failure and / or loss of consciousness, whereas the only long term damage I suffered was an electrical burn to my hand.

So although electrocution is a serious life threatening condition, it doesn't really rank as a painful way to die. In fact in most cases the initial jolt would render you unconscious, hence feeling no pain at all.

Sounds like it was only your hand completing the circuit and it didnt go through your heart as it would have had you completed the circuit with both hands

[Deleted]

Not sure, slowly burning to death, drowning, and I'm not sure if these would be accidental but getting digested alive or getting boiled alive by Ghengis Khan.

[Raphtheone]

I'm thinking something gruesome, like napalm on your face, eating its way into you until you die, or death by an animal in the water, like a crocodile, or a shark (combination of eaten alive, drowning and/or bleeding out).

Warning, this is a horrible way to die:
If we discount accidents and diseases, I read somewhere a long time ago that pirates used to torture-execute by hanging someone upside down and then with a saw, sawing the person from the groin towards the head. Hanging upside-down, the blood is kept in the head so the person couldn't pass out of the pain, and somewhere around halfway through the stomach the person died. Real or not, I wouldn't want that on anyone.

[Deleted]

Any of the mental illnesses that causes you to believe those around you aren't really your loved ones, or believing they're out to get you. I think I would rather burn for two minutes than go 10 years of paranoia.

[Arrowspace]

I consider drowning/suffocation to be the worst, but that's mainly because I have minor claustrophobia. The idea of something happening to restrict my air supply keeps me up at night sometimes. I often have dreams of being trapped on a sinking ship, and eventually getting dragged underwater, unable to swim to the surface. All of the stories I've heard (either from people I know, or random anonymous tales) have emphasized the agony and sense of helplessness that occurs. Of course, this only makes my fear worse.

Burning alive sounds like an equally horrible way to go, but my phobia still makes me fear drowning/suffocating way more.

Falling from a great height I think would be one of the more peaceful ways to die...assuming you fall from a sufficient enough height to know you're going to die, rather than break every bone in your body and still survive. Surviving a fall would probably be excruciating, but this thread isn't about surviving. :P


However, I aim to contribute something new to this thread: Radiation Poisoning, in all its forms.
Chronic or acute exposure to radiation will increase your risk of cancer, heart disease, cognitive decline and thyroiditis (inflammation of the thyroid, which can involve a plethora of unpleasant symptoms). Acute exposure can result in many symptoms depending on your exposure.

To summarize, minor acute exposures cause headaches, vomiting, and fatigue, and kills white blood cells, increasing your risk of infection. In order, greater doses can ALSO cause diarrhea, more painful headaches/migraines, fever, cognitive impairment, hemorrhage, hair loss, dizziness, disorientation, low blood pressure, electrolyte disturbance, seizures, tremors, loss or impairment of voluntary movement, lethargy, and eventually death. You may also experience delirium, sterilization, anorexia, inflammation of the lungs, scarring of lung tissue, and skin irritation causing itchiness, blistering, and ulceration.

There is a threshold where radiation will kill you within an hour. If you are below that threshold in exposure, it may very well take days or weeks, but it will still kill you. You will die slowly and painfully. The lining of your stomach and intestinal tract will die and come loose, causing bloody diarrhea. This also means you will be unable to properly digest and absorb nutrients from food, which will dehydrate and emaciate you.

Certain levels of exposure can result in a "dead man walking," where the initial symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea may have passed, leading the victim to think they're okay...but the symptoms of bone marrow death may take weeks to surface. Suddenly, weeks after the exposure, they experience bloody diarrhea, internal bleeding, and infections caused by the loss of white blood cells, leading to death.