A few years ago, a local man almost killed himself lighting a brush pile, as the vapors ignited....and the flames went into his mouth and lungs!
I think our modern lifestyle leads us to forget that some things are actually dangerous. Everything has a warning label on it...so nobody pays attention to any warning labels...and somehow we are slowly losing common sense.
I know a guy that soaked his outhouse with gasoline and lit it. Kaboom. . . I bet you can’t guess what happened + the guy was transported to the hospital for treatment. You probably guessed it. . . he had been drinking quite heavily.
We pre computer paleo humans spent a lot more of our formative years experiencing the world and discovering how things worked.
Stories like this confirm my decision to move from our beautiful house in a nice subdivision to the country. I thought a hobby farm with a big garden/orchard would be a great environment to raise my children. With an uncertain future in mind, we wanted them to learn how to fend for themselves.
I am very sad for these parents, but I am not surprised by tragedies like this. We have raised an entire generation that thinks children riding in the bed of a pickup constitutes child abuse. Sigh.
As Thomas Sowell noted
When I saw signs in Yellowstone National Park warning visitors not to get too close to a buffalo, I realized that this was a warning that no illiterate farmer of a bygone century would have needed. No one would have had to tell him not to mess with a huge animal that literally weighs a ton, and can charge at you at 30 miles an hour.