How do you want to go out of this
world? Probably resting peacefully, slipping away in your sleep completely
unaware of it happening. That makes sense, since most people are afraid of death so what
better way of crossing over to the other side than when you aren't aware? Us though, we'd prefer
to go out in a giant explosion, perhaps battling terrorists or a giant gorilla at the top of the
Empire State Building- maybe even giant gorilla terrorists. We just think it'd be kind of weird
to be asleep one moment and the next be sitting in the afterlife, but if you die in an explosion it's
quick, painless, you're fully aware of what just happened, and bonus points for going out killing
a bunch of terrorists/rampaging giant gorillas. But what's science have to say about
the absolute worst ways to die? Let's dig deep and answer yet another
of life's most pressing questions. EATEN ALIVE Alright, we didn't exactly consult any
scientists on this one, we just figure that dying while being eaten alive has to
be one of the worst ways to go there is. We're not talking about getting chomped on
by an animal and then bleeding out and dying, we're talking about being alive for the entire-
or at least a large portion- of the experience. And there's several ways this could happen
to you... even in the safety of the big city. Most large predators will kill their prey
with a single bite or blow to a vital area. Lions, cheetahs, and tigers all have an
innate instinct to go for the jugular and suffocate a victim to death. Bears and
mountain lions share this instinct as well, and it exists for the protection of the predator
rather than some sense of mercy for prey. Being a predator is all about taking risks,
and every hunt involves the risk of injury- which can be fatal for a predator
who needs to hunt daily to survive. That's why most predatory animals have evolved
to find the most efficient way to kill, rather than wound prey and
risk them fighting back. Some animals though show little regard for their
own safety in bringing down, and eating prey. Enter the hyena, one of the most savage predators
in the world, and the last animal you'd want to be eaten by. Hyenas typically hunt in packs, but can
often go on solo hunting expeditions. Unlike other pack animals, hyenas though don't suffocate their
prey- hyenas start eating their prey alive before it's dead. Prey will find themselves swarmed by
hungry hyenas who bite and tear into their flesh, often consuming large quantities of it before
the animal finally dies from massive blood loss. Typically this means disemboweling the prey and
going for the soft bits around the stomach area, while lesser ranking members rip the legs from
the body so as not to risk angering the senior hyenas who feast on the soft stomach bits. By
the time any vital organs are finally consumed, the prey animal has been watching itself be
eaten alive for a significant amount of time. Even worse though is when solo hyenas hunt. While
a pack may tear prey apart in a minute or less, a solo hyena follows the same feeding strategy,
but that can drag death out over many minutes. Even more terrifying is the fact
that hyenas have attacked many campers out in the African bush,
eating them alive within their tents. If you think you're safe in the city, think again. Just last year, a toddler was eaten alive by ants,
and only saved from her fate after authorities investigated claims of abuse and neglect by
neighbors. By the time that the police arrived, the child was completely covered by ants,
who had consumed parts of her body. In 2015, a former beauty queen was eaten alive in her
nursing home after her body became infested by hundreds of thousands of mites. Staff not only
neglected the woman, but were warned to not touch one of her hands for fear it would simply
fall off. The coroner who performed her autopsy said that it must have taken her months or years
to die, and it must have been horribly painful. Slow deaths are probably the worst ways to go, and
our next worst way to die is all about going slow. BURNING ALIVE Fire hurts, trust us on this one, we've researched
it. But the good thing about burning alive is that typically you either die from the extreme
heat before your body is consumed by flames- like happened with many people burned at the
stake- or you're consumed by fire so quickly that it sears off your nerve endings
before you can register much of the pain. But what if the fire was slow to
spread, and not particularly large? In that case the fire won't generate so much
heat and smoke that it makes breathing difficult, leading to asphyxiation, nor would it spread
fast enough to consume large parts of your body and sear off the nerve endings. A slow burning
fire starting at the feet would move slowly enough that while any nerves in direct contact with
flames would die, all the nerve endings remaining along the length of your body would very much be
alive and transmitting pain signals to your brain. Some ancient societies used this particularly
brutal method of execution regularly, letting victims be consumed by a controlled fire
from the feet up. But today if you're caught in a particularly nasty vehicle accident you
could suffer a similar fate. Imagine being trapped in a cage of broken metal, good samaritans
unable to pull you out as your car slowly burns. The incredible heat would roast your
body as flames slowly consumed you. Our next method of death will have
you begging for sweet release, and was experienced by one man who was
kept alive for 83 days against his will. RADIATION Death by radiation is a grim prospect, and
probably one of the most gruesome ways of passing away. When your body is blasted
by radiation, the high energy particles zipping through your body can destroy cells
or damage your DNA, causing harmful mutations. We're not talking superpowers here,
unless your superpower is to get cancer. If exposed to a high enough radiation dose,
your body's cells and even your DNA can be so badly affected that you simply start to break down
physically. Typically a person starts exhibiting radiation sickness after an exposure of about 200
rem- for comparison a chest x-ray is equivalent to about .02 rem. At 200 or higher rem, the risk
of cancer is dramatically increased and odds of survival begin to plummet. You can look forward
to a slow lingering death in a hospital bed that can take weeks or months, and unlike regular
cancer which has a chance of being treated, the damage caused by radiation is so severe that
the resulting cancers are simply unstoppable. The only way to save you would be to repair your
DNA- something we're currently unable to do. What if you had no DNA left in your body though, like a Japanese man in 1999 who became
the only human in history to have no DNA. Hisashi Ouchi was a technician at a nuclear
power facility who suffered the greatest direct radiation exposure of any person to date. The
accident occurred when too much uranyl nitrate solution was dumped into a precipitation tank,
pushing the uranium content to a level that caused the fuel tank to go supercritical and temporarily
become a makeshift nuclear reactor. This resulted in Ouchi, who was the one pouring the liquid,
to be blasted with an incredible 17 sieverts of radiation- that's the equivalent of being
blasted with 85,000 chest x-rays all at once. Typically 8 sieverts are considered fatal,
and Ouchi had received twice that dosage, so needless to say his outlook seemed grim.
Doctors were shocked to discover that the damage to his body was so extensive that
they discovered no DNA left in his blood, and soon after the accident his body
began to decompose from the inside out. Incredibly, Ouchi would
survive for 83 gruesome days. As his body broke down, doctors found it
increasingly difficult to draw blood, which was itself becoming thick, brackish and brown.
Ouchi's flesh began to fall off his body and nurses were forced to wrap him in bandages just
to keep him from bleeding through his own flesh and dying to blood loss. Doctors desperately
tried to keep Ouchi alive by pumping him with multiple blood transfusions a day, but after just
a week Ouchi begged that he be allowed to die. His doctors however knew this was a
once-in-a-lifetime chance to study the effects of radiation on the
body, and refused his request. The blood transfusions continued,
and were the only thing keeping Ouchi alive as his own body became
unable to produce new blood cells. The bandages his body was wrapped in were
keeping his flesh from falling off the bone, and in a small act of mercy Ouchi was placed
in a medical coma. Ouchi's right leg eventually simply fell off at the knee, and within a
few weeks he resembled a living skeleton. Finally, Ouchi passed away from a heart
attack on day 83, weighing less than a quarter of his original weight and mostly just
a skeleton wrapped in a thin layer of flesh. Our next way to die is not just very possible
in our modern world, but incredibly painful. DEHYDRATION Compared to slowly falling apart due to radiation,
dehydration seems like a rather easy way to die- that's only because you don't know the
science of one of the worst ways to die. Whether you're lost in a desert or simply
trapped in an elevator for several days, you have about three days before
dehydration will kill you. Dehydration starts at losing two percent
of your body weight's worth of water, which you can do by nothing more than rigorous
exercise for an hour or a long walk on a very hot day. This effectively makes you thirsty, and
as your body begins to panic about water loss, it shuts down any ways of losing water that aren't
completely vital to your survival. You'll begin to sweat far less, which is bad news because
sweating is one way we keep from overheating. Your urine will also become very dark as
your body sends less water to the bladder, and the smell will be much more pungent. After two days of no water, your
blood thickens in your veins, leading to greatly decreased blood flow. This in
turn causes your skin to shrivel up on your body, and with the loss of blood pressure you
become prone to fainting. Your body will no longer waste water on sweating, which
puts you at great risk of overheating. Shortly after, your body kills the flow
of blood to non-vital organs in an attempt to keep you alive. This means that organs
within your body begin to wither and die, and toxic waste begins to build up inside of
you. At this point your insides slowly start to become a toxic dump. Your muscles also
begin to cramp from lack of water and salt, leading to incredible pain- imagine the
worst charlie horse you've ever experienced, but all over your body instead of just one of your
legs. Then imagine it lasting for a day or more. Eventually your body simply can't
continue functioning without water, and the buildup of toxic wastes inside of
you will become fatal. Unable to expel waste, your breaking down organs poison you from
the inside out, and your blood thickens even further becoming more a sludge-like paste than the
free-flowing red, red kroovy you're familiar with. At this point if you don't start drinking water
immediately, you'll be dead within the day. Turns out there's a lot of incredibly
painful and horrifying ways to die, though for us being eaten alive by wild
hyenas or even ants in our own home is probably the most terrifying. If this video has
scared you, just remember: death is inevitable and it comes for all of us. But some of us will
experience more horrifying deaths than others. Now to find out more terrible ways to die check
out Worst Punishments In The History of Mankind. Or check out this other video instead!
