hey, I need a slew of common ways people die accidentally. 11 year old kid in particular. I've thought of drowning, hit by car, falling down stairs. But I really would love a long list, so anything you can think of would really help me out. thanks.
Poison, electrocution, plain old stunt-gone-bad like climbing a tall tree. Suggest you Google for this.
How violent should this death be? I could think of a kidnap/murder (wait, that's not accidental), choking to death, run over, gunshot. Or sickness-related: cancer, pneumonia, allergy.
Hi, I seem to remember dying as a kid when I stuck a six inch nail in a power socket. Apparently I flew right across the room screaming. But the most common in New Zealand are falls and drinking things that look like soft drinks which are actually either medicines or poisons. There are of course the classics. Putting on a bedsheet like a cape and doing a jump off the roof like superman - almost. Someone mentioned falling out of trees, but add flying foxes and play forts to the list. (I've fallen out of both of those myself - possibly the first indication of my severe clumsiness.) If you want gross, of course burning to death is a major as kids set themselves and their houses alight playing with matches all the time. Fireworks are even more dangerous in the hands of the young (or me!). And again a kiwi tradition, getting lost in the woods and freezing to death etc. A lot of our houses border wooded areas so its more of a problem then you might imagine. Cheers.
Car crashes are usually quick and simple to explain. There's also household accidents, like playing with power tools, matches, and guns. There's instances of really simple sicknesses, such as the flu or whooping cough, mutating into fatal illnesses.
Maybe this child was climbing a tree, lost his/her grip and took a fatal plunge to the ground? Or maybe he/she was on the roof with dear old Pa as he did roofwork, lost grip and fell? What is this story about? Why is this 11-year-old child dying?
Falling through ice, down a well or mineshaft. Being run over by a tractor trying to take a drink to the farmer. Being caught in a large irrigation ditch when the water is turned on or playing in a Wash (a streambed that is dry or mostly dry most of the time) when there is a flash flood. Surprising someone who's putting the dishes away, if they turn around quickly with a knife in their hand. Being mistaken for someone else at the hospital and given their meds. Getting locked or falling asleep in a car or trunk on a hot day. Climbing a bookcase. Misjudging the distance when jumping across a gorge or misjudging how quickly a car is coming. Standing up on a roller coaster when they said not to. Catching a garter snake to scare someone then finding out it's really a baby rattlesnake. Riding on a push lawn mower while your friend pushes it and then tripping when you jump off. Having a golf cart roll on a steep hill. Cliff jumping into unknown water or even cliff jumping where you have to jump way out to hit the water. Sledding into a fence post. Trying to catch a loose bull especially if the rope tied around the bull gets twisted around your hand and then you are dragged. Jumping from a rope swing into an irrigation ditch but hitting the barbed ware fence on the other side of the ditch and being impelled by one of the posts. I could go on listing all the near-death experienced being raise with a house full of boys has allowed me to experience or see first hand but my brothers might not appreciate my letting everyone know how crazy they were and I might embarrass myself because of the stupid things I let them talk me into.
These are the two things in my neighborhood that have happened. Kids accidently playing with ropes and things and hanging themselves. And one guy riding his motorbike and hitting a cable that was tied across a dirt road. It caught him in the neck.
What's wrong with drowning or hit by a car? You wanted common, right? lol Now if you want uncommon, then maybe we got something to get talking about. But since I am probably the unofficial, unknown king of whacking 11-year-olds (or kids around that age) in a novel (how the HECK did that happen? IDK), I'll make a few suggestions. BTW, whose fault is this supposed to be? The kid's? The parents? Anyway, there's always a fire. It's common and it's easy drama. Whether he/she dies of smoke inhalation or burns to death, it's dramatic. You can do what I did in book one and have a bully's prank go awry and he gets killed that way. (ie they push him and he hits his head or takes a bad fall, he has a fatal asthma attack, he gets left in the woods and is struck by a hunter's stray bullet, (yeah, I can do this all night) Another option can be he gets struck by a falling tree during a storm. His friends think it'd be cool to play with knives and well, you can kill him 100 different ways with that. You can poison him in an endless number of ways. Some unknown fatal allergic reaction. Has a seizure due to a really intense movie. The street caves in under him when he's walking home from school. Gas explosion sends a beam through his body. Slips on a wet floor and crashes out a 6th story window. (IDK why I am referring to the kid as a "he," prolly projection but most of these could work fora girl too I think, although boys have more believable accidents. ) Gets trampled to death at a rock concert. Breaks into a neighbor's yard and is mauled to death by their angry pitbull. Has a stroke after intense boredom in class. (We need some ridiculous ones. ) Falls from the rope at school gym and breaks his neck. gets a brain bleed after being hit in the head too hard with a hard ball. Gets struck by lightning while under a tree or while swimming. Gets killed by a shark at the beach. (You didn't specify the season) Dad's cutting down the Christmas tree with an axe and he gets in the way. Puts on too much spray-on deodorant to impress a girl within a closed space and basically poisons himself. (Something like this did happen) I can whack fictional 11-year-olds in endless ways. How about you tell me more specifics so we can narrow it down some?
^ Well, now I know who to refer to whenever I need a young fictional child to be whacked off in my stories. But yeah, I can whack off a character easy myself. However, if you want intense drama that's not the boring, typical danger an eleven-year-old child could face, and you still wanted the setting to be on Earth? Have him perish on a sinking ocean liner. I'm not talking about Titanic either. It wasn't the first ship to sink, and it wasn't the last. If you wanted him to perish any other way on the ship and not have to endanger everyone else onboard, have him fall overboard. He was leaning too far over and took a plunge into the Atlantic Ocean (or any other body of water a cruise ship goes). As a sprinkle of irony? It was a Disney cruise ship. For added cruel irony, the Mickey Mouse character was next to the kid, encouraging the kid to look further out and was too slow to rescue him when he fell off. Or, if you're going for the historic path, maybe he dies of scurvy or all the other illnesses that pratically brought the death sentence to anyone younger than 20 years of age?
^^^^yeah. Lol I'm nuts. Lol All good ideas. I think we really need some parameters because there are literary no limits to the ways a kid can accidentally die under any and all circumstances and times.
Using metal objects to fiddle around with toast while it's still in the toaster is supposed to be one of the most common accidental deaths, and it's suitable for almost any age group. Children are notorious for mistreating dogs... Holiday in Canada --> BEAR ATTACK Falling down the stairs Falling up the stairs Falling off/losing control of their bike near or on a busy road Falling, generally falling Computer rage --> computer headbutt? Overdose of yummy medicine I'm very much aware some of these suggestions are uncommon, but they have to be said.
Mom gets frustrated on question number 6,492 and throws something at him/her which causes a hemmorage on the brain that goes untreated because the kid is otherwise fine?
Electrocution the same way I electrocuted myself. Bend paper clip. Put ends of paper clip in power socket. Are able to safely turn on socket without electrocuting self. Short out circuit. Decide to try and pull paper clip out, despite the fact that it could be really hot and might burn a groove into your finger. I still maintain that I burned myself, not electrocuted.
I remember a little boy dying locally when he went into a construction site and got hit by a falling brick.
http://top-10-list.org/2009/05/16/top-10-causes-accidental-deaths/ car accident, falls, poisoning, drowning, burns, suffication(choking), firearms, gas poisoning(CO gas) medical errors, machinery.
I admire your dedication. I certainly do not venture into this kind of writing because it is not up to me to define what death is like. There is no definit answer to how it occurs.. I chose to write about the opposite such as birth because it is easier to guess and there is only one to go about it. That is writing made easy for me.
not exactly... there's more than one way, actually, as any woman who's had a caesarean can testify to... plus, there's 'natural' and a variety of 'drug-assisted' births... plus the 'in water' method and various 'primitive' ways... and if you include conception as part of 'birth' there's a plethora of ways there, too, nowadays! for the record, i've given birth 7 times, so know somewhat whereof i speak...
I work in a rehab hospital and Bicycle accidents are the ones that cause the most damage believe it or not. We constantly have spinal cord injuries or brain injured patients who should have been dead in our facility. More of which were hurt in a bicycle accident than even motorcycles. Bike vs. car, bike vs. tree, bike vs. ditch, bike vs. dizzy spell, bike vs. gravel on road, the list goes on and on. You asked for common. Common seems to be bicycles.
Hell, you could write a book... great post. I love the attention to detail! Uh, right. This is not about you or how you're unable to write about death. And there are certainly definite answers to how it occurs, just as any pathologist, they can determine with about 99% accuracy how death occured. Birth is not the opposite of death, just the start of a life cycle. And like Mammamaia says, there's more than one way to give birth. But I'm glad you found a way through all difficult topics and ambivalent issues to hang on to a misguided opinion that helps make writing easier for you.
By the way, household electricity is rarely enough to kill an 11-year old. Unless it's an old house without fuses or safety measures and a higher electric currency than modern appliances can handle. If someone dies from electricity, it's often either secondary [they get a shock and fall from a ladder], or they manage to sneak into an electric company's substation/powerhouse, where high voltage currency is distributed to the lower voltage outlets.
i'm reminded of a real life incident (involved a 12 yo) wherein the false ceiling of the house collapsed and landed onto the kid during sleep.
