Death from falling coconuts

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Bilingual (English / Japanese) warning sign in Honolulu

Coconuts falling from a palm tree can cause head injuries . Only a few fatal accidents are documented in media reports. According to a legend , however, there are regularly a high number of deaths in coconut accidents. This number is often used to compare the number of deaths from shark attacks .

history

The legend of the coconut death threat originated from the essay Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts by hospital doctor Peter Barss from Papua New Guinea , published in 1984 in the Journal of Trauma . Barss had seen coconut-induced injuries multiple times in his clinic and heard of two deaths. He calculated the impact force of the falling nut - after it had reached a speed of 80 kilometers per hour in a fall from a height of 25 meters, it exerted more than a ton of pressure on impact. In 2001 Barss was awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for his article .

A study of coconut accidents in the Solomon Islands over a five-year period in the 1990s (Coconut Palm-Related Injuries in the Pacific Islands) names 16 serious injuries from falling coconuts, none of which were fatal.

The British travel insurance company Club Direct picked up the Barss article in a press release in February 2002, in which the incorrectly extrapolated number of around 150 deaths per year was mentioned for the first time. Club Direct's managing director Brent Escott assured in the announcement that vacationers with travel insurance from the provider are entitled to coverage for coconut accidents. The number was put in a ratio (10-fold) to fatal shark attacks. The number 150 was chosen arbitrarily, as there is no record of victims. Few deaths were picked up by the media.

Shark advocates later used the number to relieve people of fear of shark attacks. For example, by using the comparison , Greenpeace wanted to contradict stereotypical ideas about the dangerousness of sharks and argue for a restriction of hunting. In contrast to deaths from coconut injuries, there is a reliable record of fatal shark attacks. This International Shark Attack File is maintained by the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida .

George H. Burgess, shark researcher and director of the International Shark Attack File , stated in a press release in May 2002:

"Falling coconuts kill 150 people worldwide each year, 15 times the number of fatalities attributable to sharks."

"Falling coconuts kill 150 people worldwide each year, [15 times] the death toll from shark [attacks] e."

- George Burgess : University of Florida.

In a June 2002 article in the New York Times , Burgess is also quoted as saying that the likelihood of being killed by a shark is less than being killed by a falling coconut. This statement by a scientist gave the 150 death toll some legitimacy. In a contribution by Deutsche Welle , the number 150 is even referred to as the result of a study by the University of Florida . When asked about the source on the coconut death count, Burgess referred to the Club Direct press release .

Joel Best, professor of sociology and criminal law at the University of Delaware , stated in 2004:

“Although it turns out that the medical literature includes a few reports of injuries - not deaths - inflicted by falling coconuts, the figure of 150 deaths is the journalistic equivalent of a contemporary legend. It gets passed along as 'true fact', repeated as something that 'everybody knows'. "

“Although the medical literature turns out to have some reports of injuries - not fatalities - caused by falling coconuts, the number of 150 deaths is the journalistic equivalent of a contemporary legend. It is passed on as a 'true fact', repeated as something that 'everyone knows'. "

- Joel Best : More Damned Lies and Statistics: How Numbers Confuse Public Issues .

False reports (selection)

The arbitrary 150 figure is repeatedly used by the media, such as Euronews ("... every year around 150 people around the world are killed by a coconut on beaches"), Die Presse ("Coconuts that fall kills about 150 people a year"), NZZ Folio ("Annual deaths from falling coconuts worldwide: 150"), Süddeutsche Zeitung ("Die worldwide annually ... from falling coconuts 150") or the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ("Every year an average of 150 people worldwide ... are killed by a falling coconut "). The Handelsblatt referred in 2013 to the 150 coconut accident victims with respect to the Barss article. The tabloid Bild allegedly alleged that coconuts dropped injured 150 people in 2011.

With reference to shark attacks, Focus wrote in 2012 without using the 150 number: “Every year more people die from falling coconuts.” T-online.de said in 2017: “More people are killed worldwide by falling coconuts than by attacks by Sharks. ”Likewise, the Augsburger Allgemeine reported in 2018 that every year more people are killed by a falling coconut than are killed by a shark attack.

The wrong information is also used in non-fiction and specialist literature, such as in works from Erich Schmidt Verlag (2005), Redline Verlag (2014), Csiro Publishing (2017) or Springer Verlag (2017).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Kira Hanser, What the "Knight of the Coconut" gets on the palm , October 30, 2017, Die Welt
  2. Peter Barss: Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts , in: The Journal of Trauma. Volume 24, No. 11, 1984, pp. 990-991, PMID 6502774 (English)
  3. Günter Ermlich, holiday hazards: The killer coconut , November 13, 2003 Time Online
  4. Christoph Drösser , Are more people killed by falling coconuts than by sharks? , March 20, 2014, Die Zeit
  5. JS Mulford, H. Oberli and S. Tovosia, Coconut palm-related injuries in the Pacific Islands , in: Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery , ISSN 0004-8682, Issue 1/2001 (71), January 2001, 32- 4, Abstract (english)
  6. Andrea Maria Dusl , How deadly is the coconut? , Issue 43/2019, October 23, 2019, Falter
  7. Club Direct covers holidaymakers against "killer" coconuts , February 12, 2002 Insurance Times (English)
  8. ↑ Hit hard: More on the subject of coconut accidents , March 3, 2018, Sat.1
  9. Media reports on deaths: Baby dies as coconut falls on head , May 17, 2010, Times of India ; Falling coconut kills Colombian man , August 28, 2010, mid-day.com (English)
  10. ^ Dan Collins, Most lethal: shark or falling coconut? , May 21, 2002, CBS News (English)
  11. Dona Z. Pazzibugan, Falling coconuts deadlier than shark attacks , August 11, 2014, Philippine Daily Inquirer (English)
  12. Alex Kasprak, Do Falling Coconuts Kill More People Than Sharks Each Year? , May 30, 2017, Snopes.com (English)
  13. Jeffrey Selingo, How it works: When the Shark Doesn't Bite , June 13, 2002, New York Times (English)
  14. Wiebke Feuersenger, known as all-rounder: the coconut , 29 March 2012, German wave
  15. Joel Best, More Damned Lies and Statistics: How Numbers Confuse Public Issues , ISBN 978-0-520-93002-5 , University of California Press , 2004, Legendary numbers , p. 19 (English)
  16. Death from coconut or shark bite? Which is more likely? , June 26, 2017, Euronews
  17. The ten most dangerous killers in nature , January 21, 2009 (online), January 22, 2009 (print), Die Presse
  18. Reto U. Schneider , Warning, coconut! , January 2003 edition, NZZ Folio
  19. Death and Fear: And One Dies Different , May 10, 2010, Süddeutsche Zeitung
  20. Shark Attacks: Coconuts Are More Dangerous , July 9, 2002, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
  21. Thomas Trösch, Which fruit is more dangerous than a great white shark? , July 16, 2013, Handelsblatt
  22. ^ N. v. Hirschheydt and A. Steinbach, fear of sharks? Better watch out for coconuts! , May 6, 2013, image
  23. Australia clears sharks to be shot: How Dangerous Sharks Really Are , September 27, 2012, Focus
  24. Uwe Krauss, How you survive a shark attack , June 26, 2017, t-online.de
  25. Felicitas Lachmayr, Coconut: What is the truth about the reputation of superfood? , March 2, 2018, Augsburger Allgemeine
  26. Harald Pechlaner, Risk and Danger in Tourism: Successful Dealing with Crises and Structural Breaks , ISBN 978-3-503-08377-0 , Erich Schmidt Verlag GmbH & Co KG, 2005, p. 22 (“ .. there are approx 150 dead from falling coconuts ")
  27. Kishor Sridhar , How You Can Get Others to Do What You Want , ISBN 978-3-864-14664-0 , Redline Wirtschaft , 2014, p. 24 (" ... none of the 150 or so deaths a year ")
  28. Blake Chapman, Shark Attacks: Myths, Misunderstandings and Human Fear , ISBN 978-1-4863-0737-1 , Csiro Publishing, 2017 (" 150 deaths per year ")
  29. Joachim Wambsganß , Universum für alle: 70 exciting questions and entertaining answers, ISBN 978-3-662-56002-0 , Springer-Verlag , 2017, p. 316 (" ... worldwide die from ... falling coconuts: about 150 people ")