Risky Business

This is one of those episodic blog entries that delves into some aspect of my personal life. I've often asked if I'm a risk taker, given my alpine mountaineering passion, rock/ice climbing activities, and my travel around the world

Here's the way I think about my life. Let's say there is an activity that results in 100% chance of death (mortality). Let's call that 1 Mort.

Is it possible to skydive without parachute and survive? Highly unlikely, so such an activity is probably .99999 Mort.

How about flying on domestic airlines? Over the past 20 years, the fatalities per plane flight in the US have been 1 in 7 million. This means that if I took a non-stop flight every day, I would average 19,000 years before succumbing to a fatal crash. Even frequent flyers face minimal cumulative risk over their careers. What's my risk? Last year I took 166 non-stop flights which is .0000237 Morts - 23.7 microMorts.

I'm 45 years old, so let's look at the CDC mortality rate data.

All causes of death 3.52 milliMorts
1 Malignant neoplasms .867 milliMorts
2 Diseases of heart .696 milliMorts
3 Accidents (unintentional injuries) .426 milliMorts
4 Intentional self-harm (suicide) .169 milliMorts
5 Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis .151 milliMorts
6 Cerebrovascular diseases .119 milliMorts
7 Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease .115 milliMorts
8 Diabetes mellitus .10 milliMorts
9 Chronic lower respiratory diseases (J40-J47) .056 milliMorts
10 Assault (homicide) .053 milliMorts

The National Safety Council (NSC) publishes an annual summery of fatalities and accident statistics called Injury Facts.

All accidents have a risk of .56 milliMorts , which is very close to the CDC accident data above for 45 year olds of .426 milliMorts

Motor vehicle accidents are .15 milliMorts per year

My life insurance policy prohibits me from from operating a private plane, skydiving and scuba diving. Per my review of the literature

Operating a single engine private aircraft has a risk of .35 milliMorts
Skydiving has a risk of .30 milliMorts
Scuba diving has a risk of .02 milliMorts

Thus, perceived high risk behaviors are just twice as risky as driving in Boston and are half the risk of having a 45 year old heart.

The medical literature suggests that alpine mountaineering causes 1.87 deaths per 1000 climbing days. Last year, I did 5 days of alpine climbing. That's 9.35 milliMorts compared to the baseline all cause rate for 45 year olds of 3.52 milliMorts

The bottom line is that my highest risk behavior is just 2.65 times more risky than breathing as a 45 year old.

Thus, for the moment, I'll continue to climb, fly commercial aircraft, and do a few alpine ascents every year. At 9.35 milliMorts per year, I've got 107 years to go before I reach a Mort!