More People Drown in Deserts Than Die of Thirst! Interesting Travel Facts

There are common fears associated with certain locations on our planet, dehydration in hot places, hypothermia in cold places, hypoxemia at altitude, and drowning at sea. Although these fears may seem like logical fears to have, considering their locations, they may not be as frequent as you may think.

1. More People Drown In Deserts Than Die Of Thirst
A desert is basically a barren area of land with sparse vegetation and generally a more extreme climate. Although we tend to think of a desert as being an excessively hot place it can also be excessively cold too, Antarctica, for example, is actually a desert.
A desert receives very little rainfall, the Sahara has just 75mm a year and Death Valley averages about 60mm, with so little rain throughout the year you'd expect the leading cause of death to be dehydration, but this is not the case.
The majority of people who live in, or near a desert are aware of how little water there is and therefore are fully prepared for venturing into the barren land.
No, the leading cause of death is actually drowning! But how can you drown with so little annual rainfall?
the problem isn't the amount of rainfall, it's the unpredictability of that rainfall.
60mm of rainfall a year may not seem like a lot, until, as happened in March 2019, over a quarter of it falls in just one day! The Sun-baked desert soil doesn't absorb the rain so the water just runs off the surface creating flash floods that surprise anyone unlucky enough to be camping in the wrong place at the wrong time.
In 2008, flash floods in the Sahara town of Gharaia damaged 500 homes, injured 48 people, and killed 29.
If you add the danger of flooding, the possibility of sandstorms drowning you in the sand, and the dangers of quicksand, In the desert, dehydration is the least you have to worry about.
Sadly the main reason for the majority of deaths by dehydration actually has nothing to do with the heat and more to do with malnutrition, contaminated drinking water, and diarrhea.

2. More Fishermen Die At Port Than At Sea.
Oddly enough the most common cause of death for a Fisherman isn't drowning. In a similar way that desert dwellers are prepared for the dangers of the desert, Fishermen are prepared for the dangers of the seas and therefore extremely wary when aboard ship, life jackets, GPS locators, flares, and life rings all help to reduce the risk of drowning but can't reduce the risk of injury.
Injuries occur both onboard the ship and at the port, because there is heavy machinery, cranes, forklifts, and vehicles that are all rushing to load and unload as quickly as possible, this, coupled with long work hours, minimal sleep, and irregular eating patterns creates fatigue that can lead to fatal errors.
Fishermen can get injured by faulty gear, machine failure, electrical faults, fires, being struck by a moving object or vehicle, or by the fishing equipment itself, and if these injuries happen while they're at sea, medical help is usually a long way away.

3. More Mountaineers Die From Avalanches Than Lack Of Oxygen.
The majority of deaths in mountain sports activities are actually caused by trauma, people falling over or down, or being hit by falling rocks or ice. Another common reason is heart failure, this is mainly a result of older people overexerting themselves or not being physically fit enough for the activity they are attempting to do.
High altitude mountaineers tend to be prepared for the reduced oxygen levels at higher altitudes and bring oxygen bottles with them, avalanches, however, are impossible to prepare for, they can be avoided, but this requires a certain amount of knowledge and experience that unfortunately, a lot of mountaineers lack, leaving them unable to see they are entering an avalanche risk area and clueless as of what to do when they are caught in one.

4. More People In The Arctic Die Of Suicide Than From The Cold.
Here, the truth is that people in the Arctic are more likely to die of unintentional injuries, chronic liver disease, homicide, diabetes, and virtually anything else other than the cold and this is for the same reason as everything else on this list.
People who live in the Arctic are aware that the cold is a danger and therefore are prepared for it.
People in the desert are aware heat is a danger, Fishermen are aware drowning is a danger, and Mountaineers are aware that lack of oxygen is a danger.
Ironically, all of these dangers are so blatantly obvious to us that we can prepare for them and thus almost completely eliminate them as a danger, making the most obvious danger a region or area may have, possibly the least likely way you will die.

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