Oh, I could have ended up a statistics

Yesterday I was reading a really interesting article in a popular science magazine about dying and what happens to the body before and afterwards. A bit morbid maybe, but nonetheless interesting. I’ll spare you all the details, but there was an interesting section called the “causes of death statistics” by Statistics Netherlands (CBS).

In 2005:

136,402 people died in the Netherlands.
Main cause of death: cardiovascular diseases/diseases of the heart - 43,350 people died
Second place goes to: cancer – claming 40,373 people
Third place: respiratory diseases, pneumonia and influenza – killed 14,315 people.
After that, there is a whole lot of nothing, followed by psychical problems (including Alzheimer’s) – take 6,436 lives
Problems with digestive organs – 5,384 victims
5,343 people die unnatural or unintentional, think accidents
Interesting fact: People are least likely to die when they have eye problems, only 5 victims a year.

174 people get murdered, 1,572 commit suicide and 1,961 die when they fall.* (Hopefully they didn’t slip on the sidewalk).
Strange, I never realised so many people lost their lives by falling. Did you?

Anyway, I didn’t end up a statistic this time around, but I probably will in the future. After all, everyone dies in the end!

* Leaves 17,489 people who probably died of old age a.k.a natural causes. They aren’t mentioned.