A Fear, Conquered. Sort of...

I am currently reading a really good book called "The Survivors Club" by Ben Sherwood. It is a New York Times Best Seller. I tend to trust the NYT so I figured it would be a good read. I also really liked "Deep Survival" by Laurence Gonzales which is a similar type of book. I am a geek for nonfiction, especially if it has some sort of relevancy to my life.

Basically "The Survival Club" is about survival (duh) - why do some people survive extraordinary things while others don't. It may seem morbid but it is actually an incredibly interesting and USEFUL book. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a nice piece of nonfiction.

Anyways, Sherwood has a whole chapter on airplanes. But before I get into details let me tell you that I am incredibly afraid of flying. I've flown dozens and dozens and dozens of times...maybe even hundreds and hundreds and I hated every single flight. I hate the fact that I have NO CLUE how an airplane works (a giant piece of metal flying thousands of feet in the sky whilst going ridiculously fast??? No thank you). I hate turbulence. And most importantly, I hate the fact that if my plane were to crash, I would have TIME to think about death. In almost every other type of accident you would really have no idea what was about to hit you. It all just happens so fast. But in a plane, you KNOW what is going to happen. I can just imagine that would be the most horrible and hopeless feeling in the world. So yeah, hence my utter paranoia. I spend the entire week before a flight suffering from horrible anxiety and whilst I am on said flight, I am basically having an internal freak out.

But now, thanks to the Survivor's Club, I think I have a much HEALTHIER outlook on flying. Here are some interesting and wonderful things I learned.
- The risk of death per randomly chosen flight is 1 in 60 MILLION. I like those odds.
- On average that means you could fly every day for the next 164,000 years before you would perish in a crash. I need this type of perspective...it really helps with the anxiety.
- The survival rate in plane crashes is 95.7%. THIS IS THE BEST NEWS I HAVE EVER EVER EVER READ. SERIOUSLY, WHO KNEW?!
- How do they know this? The National Transportation Safety Board analyzed all the airplane accidents between 1983 and 2000. 53,487 people were involved in those accidents and 51,207 SURVIVED.
- Of those accidents, 26 were the worst. Excluding those accidents that were the worst (i.e. no one had a chance) the survival rate in the most "serious" accidents is 76.6%.
- Basically, many plane crashes are survivable.

I could really go on and on about this, but in the end Sherwood concludes that people survive plane crashes because they pay attention to what is going on, they do not panic, and they ACT. Knowing this, I feel a lot better about future flights that will come my way. And I will try REALLY REALLY hard not to sit there in a panic-stricken coma. If you have any sort of anxiety about flying (or survival in general) you need to buy this book immediately.

Fly on people, fly on!!!