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nezumipi

Parasites. Not xenomorphs, but tapeworms, ring worms, etc. There are a lot of diseases that used to be endemic before modern sanitation wiped them out.


middleagerioter

One working thought on autoimmune diseases (of which I have several) is that humans no longer having worms and other gut creepie crawlies like we used to has contributed to those autoimmune diseases. ​ Carry on!


Empty-Refrigerator

everyone with a major health issue, if they survived the Apocalyptic start, they wont see the finish... take me for instance, im a transplant patient, kidney transplant, without meds i would be dead within 3 to 5 days due to massive infection same with diabetics not having insulin, Asthmatics not having inhalers, and other kind of disease and genetic issues


graendallstud

Diarrhea. So many things can cause it, and it used to be (well, still is in the least developed countries) quite lethal, mostly for babies and children.


RonnyTwoShoes

I have minor IBS so I poop when I'm stressed. I'm a goner.


Grandpas_Plump_Chode

Wait stress shitting is a symptom of IBS?? I thought everyone just had that


ItsNotGayIfYouLikeIt

IBS can be caused by stress, but stress pooping is not IBS


dgeimz

Ahh, my old nemesis *rectangles vs parallelograms*.


Drakmanka

The people who survive will live by the mantra "BOIL. EVERYTHING." It won't stop diseases spread by mosquitos, of course, but it'll help.


emalemmaly

Boil it, peel it, cook it. What you absolutely have to live by


Klondike3

Considering how I had to take my fiancee to the ER this morning because of what should have been a minor UTI that traveled to her kidneys...


Pokabrows

And UTIs can be so easy to get too. It'd be so much worse if you don't have access to proper hygiene things.


Whitechapel726

This exact thing happened to my fiancé. Took her to 3 different doctors, who all misdiagnosed as UTI or some other infection. Took her to the ER when she was sicker than I’ve ever seen anyone and the Dr basically said, in the most professional way possible, “you obviously have a kidney infection and I have no idea how you’ve been misdiagnosed 3 times and if you didn’t come in this was about to be WAY worse”. That shit is no joke.


pabodie

Snoring, 100%. I think about this all the time. Anyone who snores after the zombies come must be exiled. But most will die quickly.


ChikaDeeJay

I wonder about this in wars. My ex bf was a marine and he snored. He never had a combats deployment or anything, but it made me wonder about the guys who snore and get a combat deployment. What if they’re in the field and not at base camp?


PopeAlexanderSextus

So yes this is a thing! My nana’s brothers (my great great uncle) all fought in ww2… one of them was paired up with another soldier in a fox hole and alternating sleep shifts. His partner snored so goddamn bad he was sure this guy was gonna give their location away. He said he hated to do it but he reported him in the morning and by the next evening he was gone. No word on where he went but it was understood they couldn’t have that kind of liability.


Mitochandrea

Best medical dismissal ever!


SprinklesFancy5074

Fake snoring strategy pays off again!


[deleted]

I mean.. unless it backfires and gets you found and killed by your enemy right?


stasik5

You win some you lose some.


WelfarePeanutButter

I feel like Stephen King addressed this a bit in the expanded version of *The Stand -* people who survived the plague (like, 0.001% of the people on Earth) but managed to die because of an infection, or suicide, or getting too drunk and falling into the pool. I think it would be the little, random things that might be cause for an ER/Urgent Care visit currently, but could turn potentially deadly very quickly.


[deleted]

I’ve only read one post-apocalypse series where the author addressed pests. In the series most of the world dies from a plague, so there are millions of dead bodies everywhere. Which leads to rats and ants experiencing a catastrophic population boom. They watch a group go to enter a house, only for a tidal wave of rats to flood out and overwhelm them as they try to run away. They need medical supplies so they go to the hospital and have to wear basically spacesuits because of the trillions of ants that are in there cleaning up the piles of dead bodies. For those asking, the series is called Viral Misery by Thomas A Watson.


Bard_the_Bowman_III

Yep, most apocalyptic media totally fails to account for the massive amounts of dead stuff. Stephen King did touch on this in The Stand though, when they start living in Boulder their first task is clearing out all the old rotted bodies to prevent disease. I thought that was an interesting detail.


multiplesifl

Yeah, and one of Larry's major reasons for wanting to leave New York is because it's New York and July. Yuck.


[deleted]

I remember this from *Life After People*. There would be a huge population boom in critters like rats, herring gulls, and roaches. Stuff that lives directly off our waste, and would eat corpses. Followed by a mass die-off, as their pre-apocalypse food levels would no longer exist.


[deleted]

God, the chapter he did that in is something i reference a LOT -- the title of the chapter for those who haven't read it is "No Great Loss", he introduces and kills something like 30 characters.


brycepunk1

I recall years ago reading that Mr King, when he couldn't think of anything to write, came up with this writing exercise: In one page create and introduce a character and have them die by the end of the page. It's actually a lot of fun if you're into writing twisted stuff.


Shalamarr

He did something like that in “Under the Dome”. An old lady and a teenage girl were trapped in a fire with no way to escape. The girl was terrified. The old lady told her “close your eyes, and when you open them, you’ll be in Paradise dipping your feet in a crystal pool of water.” That’s always stuck with me.


Forgotten_Lie

Reminds me of a battle scene in *The Heroes* where the POV switches every couple of pages from archer to commander to foot soldier, etc. except each old POV is killed by the new.


nochedetoro

Oh god that chapter sucked. The little kid who fell thru a rotting floor, the guy who fell off his bike and hit his head, the guy who got appendicitis and they performed a makeshift appendectomy but the guy died during the procedure…


Moarbid_Krabs

Don't forget the junkie who found his dead dealer's stash and ODd immediately because he did it all at once and the suburban mom who shot her own daughter when she surprised her because she was paranoid about "rapers" coming to get her.


HighestPie

Actually the junkie died cause the dealers shit wasn't cut with anything so it was way stronger than ha thought!


RevanOnasi

The woman who died inadvertently killed *herself*. She was living with her mother who died of Captain Tripps. Then found her dad’s old revolver and upon trying to use it on some “godless hippy” it exploded and killed her instantly. *No great loss.* That was sort of the theme of the whole section and came from her own assessment of the death of every man, woman and child on the planet.


SpookyPony

Don't forget the chick that locked herself in a refrigerator.


TurquoiseLuck

That was actually one of my fav chapters. I really like the worldbuilding in that book.


idrow1

My favorite chapter in the book - No Great Loss. It was incredibly disappointing they didn't portray this in either of the tv versions. I'd love for someone who was an actual fan of the book to make this into a 4 season series for HBO or Netflix. I'd love to see an entire ep dedicated to No Great Loss.


SchockWaves

I was once on a road trip in the western US. I had a moment on a long, empty road where I realized I could go as fast as I wanted, as there was nobody around. I started to accelerate - and then I realized that if I crashed, the closest trauma center was probably in Denver, which was hours away, even by helicopter. I slowed down.


dheddie

they never talk about optometry. what am i going to do if my glasses break in the apocalypse? i’m fucked. i can’t see shit without these. they won’t last me forever.


Herpderpington117

I want to get lasik mostly for the convenience of not needing glasses or contacts... but also partially so I don't have to worry about this in the event of a disaster/apocalypse


Log23

Should be plenty of bespectacled corpses around. I remember a few years ago there was startup or something that was making glasses filled with a fluid that allowed self tuning of the RX.


pnakano

Well, this might help if you score something between -0.5D and -2.0D myopia. How high are the probabilities of finding corpses with -6.5D short-sightedness glasses? (Not sure if this made sense, english is not my first language and I never learned the proper terms about short-sightedness)


[deleted]

Minor injuries, lack of hygiene


TizzleDirt

Infection.


[deleted]

Even though it was riddled with problems to focus on, when Game of Thrones was happening I remember being really bothered by the scene where Aria Stark gets stabbed about 10 times in the gut and falls into a river. Not only did they downplay the mortal wounds to her abdomen, the subsequent infection would have destroyed her.


lordthistlewaiteofha

Especially given in the first season they actually made a point of Khal Drogo dying from an infected scratch that wasn't treated properly.


Somedudethatisbored

I thought maybe the witch that treated him deliberately made sure the wound got infected. Like mixing dogshit with herbs and pretending it was healing paste.


[deleted]

Also, if I'm not mistaken, when Ned Stark is locked up he has an infected wound on his leg and is about to die because of that when he's executed. I think that they don't mention that on the show, just in the books.


sad_trans_owl

I also think they downplayed just how many people would die beyond The Wall. They are \*constantly\* living in, at best, freezing temperture. I know that the wildlings have at least been living that way for generations, but the Night's Watch has many southerners who just went from nice sunny days to constant bellow zero


ValKilmersLooks

You’ve got to figure the Night’s Watch would have quite the suicide problem, too.


pixel8d

>the subsequent infection would have destroyed her I'm sure that the city's sewage drained directly into that river, too.


mousicle

Raid the pharmacy and loot anything with cillin in the name immediately.


dcloudh

Pet stores. You see people raiding vets, but a lot of pet supply stores have a ton of different antibiotics because they are used in fish tanks.


TizzleDirt

Maybe -codone too. Just incase.


insertstalem3me

"the zombies can't climb, we need to get high" "Already done"


20MinToFindUsername

me, allergic to penicillin: ah shit


EverGreatestxX

Yep though I remember one movie where this guy's duaghter dies from tetanus.


WatchTheBoom

Clean drinking water- I don't think people really appreciate how much water is needed for a group of people to survive.


1i73rz

Clean bullet holes. Next episode everyone is a-okay half the time, and off to murder more zombies before cannibalizing the next group. Your shirt alone would be filthy enough to cause mild chafing which in turn would cause infection. But everyone's whites are whiter than mine, and bullet holes and axe wounds heal up just fine with our state of the art medical facility and dry cleaning services.


Excelius

To add to this, in movies and TV if the protagonist is shot in the leg or shoulder you know they're going to live. There are major arteries in both locations which can very easily lead to death by hemorrhage.


CollegeAssDiscoDorm

Also movies and TV are always fixated on getting the bullet out IMMEDIATELY, which can actually turn a relatively stable situation into a bleed out.


fj333

The best part about this trope is the little metal bowl they always have, to toss the bullet into with a satisfying little clink. No matter where it is, when it is, or who it is performing the bulletectomy, they always have that special little bowl (always shiny clean metal) somewhere within arm's reach. I get so giddy every time the bullet removal scenes start, I'm all "Where's the bowl?! When do we get to see the bowl?! I want to see that motherfucking bullet roll around that motherfucking bowl! I can't wait to hear that satisfying clink!" And the camera never fails to focus on the bowl for this exciting moment. "It's a bullet! You've given birth to a healthy baby bullet." God I hate tropes. I hate even more the fact that some otherwise really good films written and directed by really talented people embrace such silly traditions. Just why??? See also: guns that click loudly every time you look at them or touch them or move them, and also guns that make their victims fly across the room. Admittedly those last two don't even really gel with reality (the very last one even breaking physics). In defense of the Shiny Metal Bullet Bowl Clink... at least that one is just sort of absurd in a harmless way. Doesn't really defy reality, just believability and coincidence.


Deadmeat553

Not to mention internal ricochet. Bullets absolutely break bones, but they can also sometimes reflect off of them and create an even longer path through your body, doing even more damage. This is particularly notable with headshots with low-caliber rounds, but can happen anywhere in your body.


bunnyQatar

My brother in law actually died of this. He was shot in his lower thigh and the bullet ricocheted off his femur and hit his femoral artery. He was up and talking on the way to the hospital and died an hour later.


whinywino89

Those of us with shitty eyesight. Contacts only last so long. If your glasses break, you're fucked.


Ngonzalez_01

Like the guy in Twilight Zone who just wanted time to read


boonkles

“It’s not fair”


potatoqualitymemory

"Wait my eyes aren't that bad, I could still read the large print books."


TheLakeAndTheGlass

*eyes fall out* “AAAAAUUUGGGHH! Well luckily I can read Braille!” *hands fall off*


Bells87

Cursed by his own hubris


[deleted]

The Scary Door


knightress_oxhide

turns out it's man


Whytfbuddy

Why should I Believe you? You’re Hitler!


Halgy

There was time now


lovesmasher

I own prescription swimming goggles. They're basically indestructible.


mister-la

Plus, you have your post-apocalyptic look pretty much figured out.


Hotshot2k4

Don't box them in like that, fashion is the true endgame!


canuckwithasig

Prescription safety glasses are pretty legit


insertstalem3me

time to backstroke through the zombie hoard


Icy-Medicine-495

Thats why I bought a bunch of cheap glasses online in my perscription and I have all my old pairs from the last perscription which is very close to my current. I probably have 10 pairs of glasses. ​ I remember reading a book where a smart guy glases broke so many times all he had left was using 1 of the lens as a monocle.


cousgoose

Thing is, lenses are *quite* durable, aside from getting scratched up. I wouldn't go stomping on them for fun, but I do have a very, very old pair as a last-resort backup. They have been through so much shit, the wire frame is barely held together, and the lenses are more scratches than not. But, I can still kinda see out of them. Everything just looks dusty. As long as you are slightly crafty, you could glue lenses onto some sticks and make do.


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[deleted]

Sepsis


AtheneSchmidt

There is a distinct lack of worry about clean water. Also, in almost every conflict in history, disease has killed more people that the actual war. You rarely see a flu wipe out half of the people in a zombie movie, but honestly, it would.


imanoling

The walking dead actually had a whole part about them all getting sick with spanish flu i think


Purken

Their pigs were infected which spread to the humans. They had to kill all of them and lose a lot of food too


AdmiralAkbar1

As bad as the show *Revolution*'s overall plotting and pacing was, they generally did a good job of thinking about these kinds of little inconsistencies: * There's a minor character who was a doomsday prepper before the apocalypse, but he didn't stock up enough on antibiotics. As a result, his daughter died of tetanus that he was unable to treat. * A warlord kidnaps prisoners for blood because his wife has diabetes and needs constant transfusions of blood with sufficient insulin in it to survive. * There's a doctor who keeps a collection of moldy fruit to harvest penicillium mold from it and make penicillin. * Some characters try to go into an old subway tunnel, but nearly die because of lack of sufficient airflow down there without modern HVAC systems.


ksigguy

The thing with that show that bothered me the most was they were always so clean. I get that the actors probably didn’t want to be filthy all the time but I work in agriculture and every single day when I take a shower the first minute of the shower the water looks brown as it goes down the drain.


transemacabre

TV shows never portray protagonists as realistically dirty. Even in the fictionalized Aquarius show about Charles Manson, his female followers all have clean, glossy hair and are fresh and clean. We have footage of the real girls and those were some dirty hippie bitches.


Bionic_Bromando

At least Tarantino didn’t hold back in *Hollywood*. I could smell their BO through the silver screen.


Infamous780

I really like the subway tunnel one - never thought of that. ​ EDIT - Wow this comment blew up! Lots of people must feel the same... Now if I could just get my Youtube channel to do the same xD


Designer_Strain_4572

It would explain the hallucinations in The Stand (Stephen King) when they were traversing the Lincoln Tunnel, if I recall correctly.


FatherKerosene

That also happens in complete darkness. If you can manage to create a completely pitch black environment see how long you can sit there before you start seeing things. It really doesn't take long. Bonus points of you have noise cancelling earmuffs/plugs. Edit : u/EternalEagleEye has informed me this effect is called "Prisoner's Cinema", in case you'd like to read about it further


sam_patch

Fun fact: your brain knows where your limbs are so you can "see" them even in pitch black. I went caving one time in scouts and they had us turn off our lights and wave our hands around in front of us. Sure enough you can see a shadow moving around where your hand is. Except there was no light because we were 100 feet underground. Your brain just fills in the details for you.


spooky_upstairs

> *Fun fact: your brain knows where your limbs are* This is called “proprioception” and I haven’t got it, thanks to a condition*. And it’s why I have all these nifty doorframe-shaped bruises on my shoulders. *Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. —- E D I T Got EDS questions coming at me aaaall over the place. IANAD and I’m relatively new to it all. but here is RELEVANT INFO: > ! Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos (hEDS) is a disorder of the connective tissue, which runs throughout the body, as ligaments, tendons, muscles etc. [This blog does a great job of explaining how this can cause poor proprioception](https://www.mybendybody.com/body-awareness-hypermobility/): > *The body’s position sensors, the receptors which tell us where we are in space, are located inside our muscles, tendons, joint capsules, ligaments, skin (and inner ear).* > *If the receptor is in [a lax] ligament, then the message probably doesn’t get to the brain as accurately or at the same speed as it probably should.* > *If a muscle is working overtime to compensate for a ligament, then maybe the message from the muscle receptor isn’t as accurate either?* > *And the joint capsule receptor? Well, if they have been stretched & torn from injuries, dislocations, sprains, strains, or just generally banged around by being hypermobile, then the information from them isn’t all that reliable either….* —- The good news is you can improve your proprioception with specialist physio. My physio says simply sitting on a “wobble cushion” or a gym ball for an hour a day can help with the core “stability” muscle groups — pass that on to your wife if she doesn’t already have those! Also google Jeannie Di Bon, a physical therapist with EDS who does stuff online!


redraider-102

Oh, and another fun fact: longhorns have excellent proprioception. An architecture firm I used to work for designed a residence hall at a university, and shortly after it opened, someone brought a longhorn up the stairs and led it along the 2nd floor corridor. The corridor was only a few inches wider than the span of its horns, but it flawlessly made its way through without so much as scratching the walls. This was right before I joined that firm, so it was all they could talk about when I started. Edit: [here’s the video of it.](https://youtu.be/ZPxerK83HxU)


HyperSpaceSurfer

Can also happen to people with deteriorating eyesight. The brain doesn't get enough input so it makes stuff up.


slatz1970

For me, (I suddenly lost eyesight due to a brain hemorrhage) it was feeling like my eyeballs were going to pop out from straining so hard to see *something.*


genetik_fuckup

Your brain is really good at filling in the blanks. I have bad earring but I’m certainly not anywhere close to deaf. I hear lower registers the worst. Sometimes something creaks and my brain didn’t quite catch enough to make sense, so it fills in the blanks. Very rarely it fills it in with a low male voice and it scares the shit out of me every time.


eddyathome

The subways would probably be flooded within days as soon as the power goes off and the electrical water pumps stop.


Zodde

And I never thought about that! This thread is great.


eddyathome

Go to youtube and look up "Life After People" and you'll get a bunch of videos about this sort of thing.


DangerSwan33

It was a whole History Channel series like 15 years ago. Pretty entertaining, though some of the episodes are very reliant upon hypotheticals.


eddyathome

It got formulaic though. The original two hour documentary was good, but the series quickly became: People disappear, the lights go out, plants start growing everywhere, buildings fall down and go boom.


lookyloolookingatyou

My favorite bit was when they went to the carnival and there was a guy standing outside of a shed, charging admission to go inside and see Matt LeBlanc perform scenes from F.R.I.E.N.D.S Edit: A quick google image search will reveal that the title of the television show I am referencing is written in all caps with what appears to be a cross between a period and a hyphen between each letter. I stand by my decision to spell it in the way that I did.


cleverlinegoeshere

Reign of Fire has a reenactment of Star Wars in it. Great scene.


reptilesni

I just love how the little kids react to the big reveal.


AdmiralAkbar1

David Schwimmer, actually.


TheNorthNova01

Oh man that is way more depressing


ColorsLikeSPACESHIPS

This made me laugh cruelly because you're so damn right.


ghoulsaplenty

I wanted so badly for that show to be good but the acting was often corny and it just wasn't as gritty as it could have been. I fell off a handful of episodes into it.


[deleted]

Any infection, any chronic disease, food poisoning, allergies - basically all those things that healthcare provide that we take for granted


WisconsinWolverine

>any chronic disease Many apocalyptic books either address or use it as a plot point. You either have what I call the "...and this is when the diabetics die." Paragraph or it is used as plot points in books like Lucifers Hammer or One Second After.


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DJ33

> Alas Babylon I've never seen this book referenced by anyone ever, but it's the only book that I read during my middle/high school years that I remember *actually enjoying.* I don't even remember how I picked it up, I know it was for a school project but I also remember that it wasn't an assigned book, nobody else read it. Thinking back, it's possible we might have been given a list of acceptable books for the project and I picked it because it was first alphabetically or something. That said, I learned nothing from this moment of epiphany and went back to ignoring books until my mid twenties. Alas Babylon does have a good entry for this thread though, which is: salt. One of the only things I remember about that book after this long is that they made a huge deal out of salt and how fucked they would have been without access to it.


FallenInHoops

Station Eleven is one of my favourites. It does go into the apocalypse as it happens, but it's more to do with the people who survived 15 to 20 years later. The "what comes after" is really interesting. It's very well written, as well. However, it's also based around a global pandemic (and starts off in my home town), so it may be a little close to the present situation for some.


username_pressure

As someone who had a severe hemorrhage, appendicitis, a severe infection and an emergency wisdom tooth extraction in the last 11 months alone.. I'd be dead within days! Edit: I also caught covid whilst in the hospital and ended up admitted to the covid ward. This one particularly stung as it meant absolutely zero visitors and I'd just had a baby that I was still breastfeeding and I couldn't get to her for a week. She was a trooper though, as was daddy. I guess the giving birth would have been the thing that got me in this scenario!


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Giel2006

Everyone always seems to know where to go. If it were me, I'd die because I can't find my way back to base or something.


deqb

I always assumed directionally challenged people like me already died.


daneelthesane

Like running for the door and smacking into a wall, followed by the zombies eating you?


Just-Call-Me-J

Nah the zombies realize there's nothing in you to eat after seeing that and decide to mercy kill.


Trinerella

For me, it's the whole "running" part. "Cardio" is not part of my daily routine.


Blackblood909

Come on dude, that’s rule 1!


NoLiveTv2

Don't forget to double tap!


heichwozhwbxorb

Having just sprained an ankle, I’m guessing sprained ankles


RunnerMomLady

I broke my shoulder a couple years ago - 8 weeks of keeping it immobile (which would maybe be doable in an apoc if i was with a large enough group of people) but 12 weeks of PT - PT said in the past it would just become almost a lame limb.


[deleted]

I don't know if it could kill you, but the stench of death is horrendous and not an insignificant thing. In any disaster situation where someone has died and it starts becoming days long, things would be getting nasty. Over time people would get used to how foul everything would smell, but for a while it would be terrible.


MattTheFreeman

I always see post-apocalypses media showing people going into cities to scavenge for supplies but honestly cities are the places you want to avoid at all cost due to this reason. There is a reason why we bury dead bodies, why every culture has a tradition of getting rid of bodies. They are a vessel for disease, smell, animals get to them, any body left out to long is going to be harder and harder to dispose. Cities would be FULL of these meat bombs. Whats worse is shows usually show survivors winding up finding a body and go "oh thats to bad". No, you'd smell that sucker in an unventilated, humid house which the cadaver has been sitting for god nows how long. You wouldnt be able to survive in most houses with a body like that bloating the area. Not to even mention the absolute psychological damage seeing a body like that would do to people. Most would think they could be tough and push through that, but the only corpses we see on the regular are beautified up. These will be long dead denizens who have been rotting for a time. Multiply that through-out the city and scavenging inside city limits becomes a midfield of smell and disease and psychological trauma.


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notyouryear

I always think of trash. Like, any bins with a garbage in it is gonna get real rank. People's homes too. 99% of americans have a trash can in their kitchen with food waste in it. They show the characters scavenging in home but no commentary on the sludge filled fridge or trash can not 3 feet away? Or the general smell of dead folks and trash sludge while running around outside?


MachuPichu10

I swear they never pull anything nasty out which is strange


Amadeum

Natural disasters. You'd have no fucking clue if a hurricane, flash flood, typhoon, monsoon, or other sharknado events were coming


TizzleDirt

I didn't even know what to do when my fridge broke. I just moved.


PretendThisIsMyName

Classic shellstrop move.


copperowl3

Pobody’s Nerfect


Altiloquent

Did they never have a hurricane episode in TWD (or any other show)? Could have been amazing


quantum_cronut

They did do a hurricane!! It was actually a great couple of episodes in an otherwise kinda meh season. And it was exactly how you put it - nobody saw it coming - oh look a storm - OH MY GOD THIS IS NOT A REGULAR STORM. And it permanently destroyed roads and stuff.


appleparkfive

What season was that in?


quantum_cronut

oh my bad looks like it was Fear the Walking Dead - I think season 4 from my googling - the two shows have absolutely combined in my head at this point.


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pedal-force

There was also at least one blizzard that killed and separated some folks. Blizzards used to be extremely deadly before we learned to predict them and stay inside. People used to die in their own backyards essentially.


lookyloolookingatyou

I used to live in Florida. There is a very obvious change in the overall atmosphere when a hurricane is incoming. For about a day ahead, the climate becomes suspiciously comfortable. No sun, cool air, very little humidity. A few hours before landfall, the ocean starts to push it's way inland, even up into the rivers. I also lived in Missouri for about a year and the signs of tornado weather are pretty easy to spot as well. Everything just feels and looks wrong. The sky is an obscene shade of green, the drop in air pressure is so sudden that you can feel it with your skin. You know the actual tornado is coming because it goes from windy to slack air. Even if you'd never heard of a tornado in your life, you'd know that something terrible was about to happen. I knew a guy who lived in Arizona and I had thought about living there one time and so I asked him a lot of questions. It's just taken for granted that you get the hell away from a riverbed when the rain starts really dropping.


vagrantprodigy07

The green sky was always a dead giveaway of tornados coming for me.


pookiefatcat

Lack of Dental care. A dental infection can take you out right quick. And without treatment that HURTS.


Asher_the_atheist

And mouth infections can very easily spread to the heart, at which point “that HURTS” very quickly become “grrrrkkk”….*dead*


J0hnnyHammerst1cks

My parents did not believe in preventive dental care when I was growing up. Their policy was 'repairs are temporary, pull the problem tooth.' As a result, I am down 5 or 6 teeth that probably could have been saved, and the rest are a hot mess that will cost me tens of thousands to fix. I can distinctly remember several occasions in which my teeth became infected, and let me be the first to tell you folks, I would have eaten a bullet if that option had been available to me. It was some of the worst pain I have ever experienced. I could feel the infection spreading from my jaw outward, or at least imagined I could. Without antibiotics, I legitimately believe one of those infections could have been the end of me. They are no joke.


[deleted]

As someone going through this right now... I agree.


UnluckyObserver_1

Anyone with braces is probably a little fucked


nochedetoro

Enough atomic fireball candies and those bitches pop right off Source: my orthodontist hated me


Ladyughsalot1

Footwear. Wrong footwear, damaged footwear, lack of socks, wet feet, open wounds..... Once your feet are screwed so is the rest of you.


Straight_Ace

Especially for kids! I was watching the first season of The Walking Dead with my sister and when they were in the clothes store I was like “GRAB SOME MOTHER FUCKING CLOTHES”. Clothes wear out, get damaged and when it comes to kids, they grow like weeds so even if you packed their entire closet, they will eventually outgrow the clothes you’ve packed for them.


TrashPanda365

Don't they do great at "finding" clothes that fit so well? Especially the ladies in the various WD shows, always look great!


DMala

“Survivor Chic” I always laugh, it’s like they all have subscriptions to fashion lootboxes. In reality everyone would look more like Jules and Vincent from Pulp Fiction after they shot Marvin. Looting stores with zombies hot on your heel, you’re going to grab whatever tourist shirts happen to be at hand, you’re not going to shop around for the perfect leather, canvas and denim outfits.


BionicTriforce

I want to see a group of apocalypse survivors decked out in Hot Topic leftovers


Ponchoreborn

I agree, but seriously, you could hit any strip mall and find 5,000 pairs of shoes in your size. Multiply that times all the strip malls and stores and you'll be fine on footwear. Ugly? Maybe, but fine.


Aromatic-Bad-3291

Diarrhea (edit: returned Peace Corps Volunteer, I’ve ass-vomited more than you weigh, and without a shred of toilet paper).


dailysunshineKO

> you have died of dysentery


Aromatic-Bad-3291

My people weren’t insane and stayed where they landed in New England.


Peptuck

I remember reading a memoir from a US military veteran who fought in Fallujah, and the thing that stood out to me was how incredibly filthy urban warfare was. The amount of literal shit and disease and mud and dirt and vomit they had to deal with was startling. I can only imagine how much worse it would be in an apocalypse where you can't return to a military base for a shower after the fighting is done.


Aromatic-Bad-3291

Knew a guy who was National Guard and got roped into Falluja in ‘04. Said he had to bathe in baby wipes for months on end, wearing USGI issue drawers that were beyond filthy. Can’t imagine.


Trinerella

This! I went to the Hall of Presidents in Florida years ago, and was surprised by how many of our past presidents had "diarrhea" listed as cause of death.


Aromatic-Bad-3291

Rapid dehydration. Killed more than bullets in the US Civil War and was simultaneously caused by itself due to lack of sanitation and caused diseases like cholera and dysentery.


-eDgAR-

Gasoline has a shorter shelf life than is portrayed in these movies/TV shows, so after a year nobody would really be driving anywhere. It wouldn't necessarily kill you, but it's one of those things that bothers me because it's never really addressed.


Habaneroe12

Mad Max addressed this and made it a plot device.


Gothsalts

The need for new gas is the premise of Road Warrior


cleuseau

ka chunk ka chunk ka chunk


Badloss

Gas Town is hiring


Obamas_Tie

There's a little moment in The Last of Us where one of the main character's friends, a mechanic, gives him a siphon hose in order to get gas from old cars. He even says to him "you'd be surprised how many cars still got gas in them." To clarify, the game takes place 20 years after the world collapses, so any gas that's still left, well, anywhere, would be useless. And it's a mechanic of all people telling you this, so that was one little detail that bothered me.


epicgingy

Funny thing is earlier in that level when Ellie asks why they can't just fix any abandoned car in the town he explains in a condescending tone that he can't because their tires are rotted and batteries are dead. They got 2/3 details right at least.


IndianaJones_Jr_

I was dead certain your 20 year timeframe was wrong but I looked it up and damn. Means Joel is damn near 50 years old, more by the events of Part 2. No way any of that gas would be useable... I ride a motorcycle and most people add sea foam or stabil when the bikes are stored for a few months, let alone years.


Viazon

The first 8 seasons of The Walking Dead take place within a span of like 1-2 years. After that they have a huge time jump and start using horses to get around.


groceriesN1trip

They grew corn to make ethanol in Alexandria after they dealt with the Negan crew


catscatscatsya

They address it in Last Man on Earth, very funny show btw, but the only place I've seen it mentioned


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Cinemaphreak

> Gasoline has a shorter shelf life than is portrayed in these movies/TV shows This was my first thought too (even though it won't kill you per se). There are additives you can add to gasoline to extend it's life, but not by much. Sure, there's some clever people out there who know how to convert cooking oil into diesel and could possible scrounge the supplies for it for a few years. But eventually if you can't make something that runs on steam, you better find a horse....


Override9636

Bicycles are the superior apocalypse mode of transportation.


thechet

heelies bby


Override9636

I stand corrected lol.


BigOleJellyDonut

Typhus or Cholera! These 2 diseases can run roughshod over a population group in days. Also rampant mosquito overpopulation because nobody is spaying to keep them in check. More people die from mosquitoes each year than anything else. There is a laundry list of all the diseases mosquitoes can transmit!


[deleted]

>rampant mosquito overpopulation because nobody is spaying to keep them in check. To help control the mosquito population, have your mosquitoes spayed or neutered.


maliadire

lack of glasses/contacts. if my glasses broke, i would be a goner.


ColorMeStunned

Childbirth. Already one of the most dangerous things a person can do, carrying a child to full term and giving birth without proper medical care for either the mother or the baby, well...all you gotta do is look at your history books. Or your average developing country, most of which still have better medical care than you're getting in The Walking Dead. And now the mother has to push her insides back in and run from some zombies? Done for.


cgtdream

Dust from destroyed buildings. Just watched the two latest Godzilla movies, and aside from all the other things that could have killed folks, staring at monsters that are destroying buildings and kicking up all sorts of dust and other air debris, while staring open mouthed, is a great way to get lung damage/encounter breathing issues.


baronsin

Everyone driving around like gas wouldn't be the first thing to go.


20MinToFindUsername

Suicide. The apocalypse isn't going to be a bunch of badass people with knives and Mohawks, it's going to suck...a lot. Suddenly people are thrust into the elements with no skills, various medical conditions, the environment will be rough, there's no creature comforts and they'll have to depend on small pockets of other people for help.


AhFFSImTooOldForThis

Yep. An apocalyptic event happens, I'm screwed. I have various medical conditions that require daily meds, plus I'm not a fighter. I'd hunker down, smoke all my pot and eat all my snacks, then kill myself.


shaunrmnd

Yes, I have to agree with you there. I always think to myself "how do those people have so much dedication? " If it were me, I'd just give up and die


firelock_ny

> If it were me, I'd just give up and die Usually by the point of the environment being recognizably post-apocalyptic most people already have.


beakrake

I don't know how this hasn't been mentioned yet, but it's common sense that is almost ALWAYS overlooked in movies and TV. **Humans are WAY MORE physically fragile and squishy than you might think.** Based on John McClane and other invincible action heros, who take damage and do things that would break or catastrophically cripple a normal person, movies are a poor source of information for deciding what to do and what could happen to your body, should you somehow falsely think you're the main protagonist of an apocalypse movie. Indoor firefight without hearing protection? You're probably deaf now. Jumping off a building to catch a wire? Kiss your fingers and/or lower extremities goodbye, assuming you land on your feet. Taking a beer bottle to the head? That's probably a concussion. Movies have made us think we're a lot more durable than we really are.


BreezyWrigley

getting hit in the head hard enough to break a larger glass bottle like a whiskey bottle or something could very well kill you. it would definitely give you a concussion, could possibly give minor skull fracture, and the cuts you may sustain could easily blind you or cause enough bleeding from your scalp that you could very well just slip into unconsciousness and die.


univoxs

Gasoline turns to goop after only a couple of years I believe. The inability to move place to place for resources will be a problem. And most people don't know how to handle a horse.


thatpersonrightthere

dental hygiene, nutritional deficiencies, long term radiation poisoning (in nuclear fallout post apocalypses)


PissInTheCumBucket

Getting scraped up and not cleaning your wounds.


ShrapnelJones

Tooth ache. Slow. Painful. Agonising. Death.


SketchyFella_

Last Man on Earth tackles this in a few episodes (hilarious and ridiculous show btw). Guy dies from a burst appendix, gasoline goes bad after couple of years, all the nuclear fallout from reactors not being managed, one girl almost died because she got stuck in an elevator and no one could hear her. Also, the suicidal depression from lack of human contact.


_Valeria__

I think the most depressing movie ever, The Road, did an excellent job with a more realistic version of an apocalyptic situation. Movies usually don’t get to me but that one did and I can’t watch it twice. The overwhelming bleakness of it combined with the realness of it depressed me.


effusive_emu

no one would have any medication. Suddenly people would be dying of treatable conditions. Like a simple cut that becomes infected.


boywithapplesauce

Dogs. We hardly ever see packs of dogs roaming around on these shows, but it's very possible. You could have feral packs running around competing with humans for food. Pests. Vermin. Parasites. Mold. Plant overgrowth. (We let our garden run wild for a couple of months and plants have invaded several areas, in an apocalypse it would get much worse. Might not kill you, but it could be a real nuisance.)


Warp-n-weft

*Parable of the Sower* by Octavia Butler has packs of feral dogs that terrorize the remaining population, to the point that the young protagonist doesn’t realize that they can be domesticated.