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 Or, for that matter, any unintentional fall from a great height, really. However, falling to your death from, say, a viewing station at the Grand Canyon might be slightly worse given the unexpected nature of your sudden plunge. Bungee jumping or skydiving accidents, as awful as they must be, have the individual already in a state of excitement, given the activity itself—the slight chance of death is part of the thrill. Smiling for a selfie or lining up your viewfinder to catch the perfect sunset doesn’t usually include the thought of a possible fall onto some jagged rocks hundreds of feet below.


The odds of dying at one of the USA’s most world-famous natural attractions is 1 in 400,000. But these types of probabilistic statements don’t mean that one person per 400,000 people who visit will die. It means “on average.” So if you try and take that perfect sunset selfie too close to an edge, slip, and take that last plunge, you will be that one in 400,000.

It’s behavior-driven, not a numerically bound phenomenon. Take one case recounted on mygrandcanyonpark.com: these cases of unexpected falls are tragic, “including a 38-year-old father from Texas pretending to fall to scare his daughter, who then really did fall 400 feet [122 meters] to his death” back in 2015. As the title of this list suggests—awful.[1]

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