|
|
David Spates When it comes to sharks, play the odds I try to keep things in proper perspective.
It can be difficult, I grant you, especially when emotions are
involved, but I've found that if I keep logic at the forefront
of most situations, my day will go a lot smoother. I guess my
"trouble," if you want to call it that, is that I have
a hard time ignoring the facts I know to be true. Well, someone in the media needs to remind
folks of the facts when it comes to shark attacks and how to
keep things in proper perspective. Guess what? I'm in the media,
and I'm just the man for the job! I've been reading numerous
newspaper stories and watching even more television reports about
the Summer of the Shark, as one half-witted TV reporter called
it. It's like 1975 all over again -- Jaws is circling under the boat with three barrels attached, and beach-goers are scared to death to swim in the ocean. It's 2001, and one dramatic shark-related story earlier in the summer has the national media digging up their flip-flops and hitting the beach to report on every shark that tastes a surfer. Are sharks a danger? Of course they are. Any
big fish with big teeth is. Is it a tragedy when someone is killed
by a shark? Don't be silly. Of course it is, but I simply cannot
ignore what I know to be true, and that is that you and I have
very little to worry about. Considering the number of people
in our country, and in the world for that matter, shark attacks
are an extremely rare occurrence. I haven't read or watched one shark story
that bothered to mention that the chances of dying in a car crash
on the way to the beach are far, far greater than dying once
you get there. And let's say you somehow manage to reach the
beach alive. Now, the chances of overexposing yourself to the
sun and contracting deadly skin cancer still far outweigh the
likelihood that a shark will give you even a second look. Let's
say you survive the trip to the beach, don't contract melanoma,
and somehow avoid impaling yourself with a beach umbrella. You
still have the drive home to worry about, and unless you crash
into a shark driving an SUV, chances are that your trip to the
beach has been completely shark-free, if not danger-free. According to the International Shark Attack
File, there were 79 unprovoked shark attacks in the world in
2000. So, of the 5 billion or so people we have splashing around
on our little sphere, 79 were attacked by a shark last year.
(And anyone who provokes a shark deserves what he gets,
I say.) My admittedly under-used math skills have
determined that translates into one person out of approximately
63 million, and that's just one year. Obviously not all 5 billion
of us went to a beach last year, but you get the idea. Let's put that in perspective. Life is all
about perspective. I don't go to the beach much, but I drive
practically every day. According to the National Safety Council,
my chances of getting killed in a car crash during my lifetime
is 1 in 80. That's DEATH, mind you. That doesn't count crashes
in which I'm merely injured and maimed. I like my odds with the
sharks a lot better. Here are some more of the NSC's odds on accidental
death that I found interesting -- besides, they'll make for good
coffee-machine conversation. These are all odds for a typical lifetime: ·All animals (including those naughty
sharks), 1 in 32,579. ·A fall, 1 in 233. ·Poisoning, 1 in 367. ·Fire, 1 in 932. ·Choking, 1 in 1,087. ·Medical complications or mistakes,
1 in 1,194. The NSC calls a medical mistake a "misadventure."
Doesn't that make you feel better? ·Machinery accident, 1 in 3,765. ·Struck by a falling object, 1 in 4,762.
I figure the Coyote has severely skewed this number during his
pursuits of the Roadrunner. ·Drowning during recreation, 1 in 5,405.
Why worry about sharks when that menacing water is lurking just
offshore? ·Drowning in a bathtub, 1 in 10,564.
I've enjoyed some recreational bathtubbing in my time, but that's
another story for another time. ·Storms, 1 in 37,484. ·Squished, 1 in 49,098. The NSC calls
this "caught in or between objects," but let's say
what we mean. ·Hornets, wasps and bees, 1 in 77,466.
These little bugs, which are flying near your home right now,
are much deadlier than sharks. ·Dogs, 1 in 151,565. I have three cats
whom I suspect could pool their efforts and do me in with very
little trouble. ·Fireworks, 1 in 387,332. All of this makes me recall what our pediatrician
tells us before every shot. He says there's a 1 in gazillion
(some outrageously large number) chance that our baby will have
a fatal reaction to the injection. She could die right there
on the table. Of course, if she doesn't get the shot, the chances
of dying from the disease he's inoculating her against is 1 in
5,000 or so, not to mention the perilous drive to the doctor's
office in the first place. You get the shot. Of course you get
the shot. The numbers back that up. Life is a gamble, and you play the best odds. When it comes to sharks, just be sure you're not in the bathtub when they attack. · · · |