To quote the beloved William J. Bludworth: In Death, there are no accidents, no coincidences, no mishaps, and no escapes.
If only Alex and Clear had truly listened to the mortician’s advice, they might still be with us today. Those who followed—both in the chronological and philosophical sense—regrettably continued to make the same mistake. They viewed those original deaths as evidence of the inevitable, rather than lessons from which they could’ve benefited. 
All of us, without exception, will one day die. There are “no escapes”, but this does not mean that every fatality is unavoidable. Oxford’s dictionary defines the word “accident” as “an event that happens by chance or is without apparent or deliberate cause”. Applying the rule of double negatives, Bludworth’s warning was meant to advise that there were apparent causes for those events. His audience, however, chose to infer that the inescapable entity known as Death was behind the catastrophes surrounding them. Alex and Clear correctly identified the events as non-accidents, but for the wrong reasons.
This explanation was easy for them to accept. By believing that an invisible force was pulling the strings, they were able to dismiss their own responsibility, their own culpability. They could rest more peacefully—both short- and long-term—knowing that the bad things were outside of their control.
But if we interpret literally the idea that there are “no accidents, no coincidences, no mishaps”, then we must examine the real contributors to these tragedies. Many of us know these infamous deaths by heart, as if they were the lyrics to a song of our adolescence, and it’s time we looked at them through a new lens. Fundamental risk management requires us to assign each incident into one of three categories of causality. Through this stratification, we can finally begin to understand where the human failures occurred.
1) Failure to Maintain
Death didn’t rip loose the chains holding those logs in place, nor did it snap the brake lines on the rollercoaster known as Devil’s Flight. It didn’t tamper with a weightlifting machine so that a football jock’s head would become flattened like a sopping pancake. It had no hand—pun intended—in rigging the propane grill that ruined a momentarily delightful barbecue. It didn’t pull the trigger of a nail gun, override an elevator’s protocol, or shabbily install the shelves in any tanning salon or acupuncture spa. Lastly, the Grim Reaper was not among the crew or passenger manifest for Flight 180.
In the back of the classroom, human negligence embarrassingly raises its hand.
In each of these briefly described cases, a flesh-and-blood individual failed long before our victims arrived on the scene. A mechanic hurried through their routine checklist. A manager decided a weekly inspection was too costly compared to a monthly one. An engineer bent to the demands of shareholders and eventually told them what their profit-driven ears wanted to hear. Somewhere along the vast line of decisions, a person made the wrong one.
Every machine or device should first be designed with user safety as the top priority. As users—or, more importantly, as those servicing equipment for the users—we must understand the maintenance required to keep those features in working order. Grease this, inspect that. Does it move? Should it move?
Sadly, the pressures of a capitalistic society can drive people to cut corners. Or perhaps we take for granted that someone else with the proper expertise took care of it. We might even assume that modern technology and corporations have our best interests and well-being at heart.
And we know what happens when we assume.
2) Failure to Observe
Even when we have absolute certainty that no errors occurred in the previous category, we are far from being in the clear. Our equipment might’ve been maintained properly, but it would’ve been done in ideal conditions. And conditions, unfortunately, can change.
Perhaps your gymnastics bar and beam are up to par—but what about the water dripping onto the equipment and floor? And is that wiring supposed to be exposed like that? Then again, perhaps all it takes is a little distraction to make those aerial contortions become permanent.
If you work in a relatively dirty job, it can become easy to accept the messes. When working in construction, for example, there are many tools and equipment inherently designed to create debris. What matters, however, is how you leave it between shifts or at the end of the day. A bit of sawdust beneath and around your table saw is normal, but should there be piles of it after hours? Did you stop to think what could result from leaving mountains of combustibles lying around? You might even consciously disregard it, fully aware that the three ingredients to a fire are oxygen plus fuel source plus heat. You’ve looked around and seen no potential heat source, as if they are sentient and considerate, making themselves known to avoid unwittingly taking part in blowing up a movie theater.
Unsafe conditions can also stem from modifications or installations we’ve made without thoroughly vetting them. Such as a clothes drying line in the shower. Is that really the best place to install it? Are you sure nothing could happen in that consistently wet environment? Wouldn’t you want to consider the laundry room or even the backyard?
Suit yourself. It’s your funeral.
Our homes, our places of work, and the public spaces linking them can be treacherous if we allow it. The world is full of hazards, pitfalls, and traps, just waiting for a lackadaisical biped to come along and make its day. As you navigate that world, keep your eyes and ears open, clean up after yourself, and don’t walk under any cranes carrying large panes of glass.
3) Failure to Think
If you roll a pair of dice fifty times, you might believe that you’ll never see the dreaded sum of 2. Then, on that fifty-first turn, you get an unpleasant surprise.
This behavior, the prioritization of past experiences over what could and will occur, is the definition of complacency. Once we’ve performed a simple task hundreds or even thousands of times, we smugly accept that it will always be done flawlessly—and safely.
Walking backwards is a simple act for any grown person. The worst thing that’s ever happened is perhaps the time you stumbled over something. Maybe you even fell to the ground, but in the end, you got back up unharmed.
Legality aside, few of us can say we’ve never jaywalked. Sometimes it’s simply more convenient or efficient. But as long as there’s plenty of visibility, and we look both ways—twice—the lack of a crosswalk means nothing at all.
Now let’s combine these two tasks. While we’re at it, let’s throw in some extreme emotions. Perhaps a little confusion and a lot of anger—not to mention a healthy dose of fear. The level of traffic is frankly irrelevant, but feel free to adjust that variable as you please.
We’re once again rolling the dice in this scenario, and we’re confident that everything will be fine. But maybe this is that fifty-first roll. Or maybe we’ve suddenly reduced to just one six-sided piece, unknowingly evening the odds. Of course, likelihood is only one factor in the calculation of risk. Severity—the what if—carries just as much weight. Getting hit by a bus only has to happen once.
In summary, Death doesn’t need to play puppet master over our lives. The reality is that we are perfectly capable of authoring our own peril without the assistance of hidden forces. Either we’ll neglect the machinery or devices we depend upon, or we’ll leave fatal traps for ourselves and others. If those don’t get us, our arrogant mortal assumption will be there to pick up the slack.
All Death has to do is swoop in like a buzzard looking for a free meal.
It is us that we should be afraid of.
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Excellent article! Well argued!