70,000 WAYS TO DIE

(October, 2015) There are officially 70,000 ways to get sick, hurt or mortally injured. U.S. hospitals, doctors and other care providers have now started using internationally developed standards called ICD-10 codes to bill government programs and private insurers. If it can harm you, there’s a code for it. The codes cover everything from parrot bites to getting sucked into a jet engine. For example:
– Code Z63.1: Problems in relationship with in-laws
– Code V91.07XA: Burn due to water skis on fire
– V00.01XD: Pedestrian on foot injured in collision with roller-skater
– S10.87XA: Other superficial bite of other specified part of neck, initial encounter. In other words, a hickey.
– W55.41XA: Bitten by pig
– W61.62XD: Struck by duck
– W61.33XA: Pecked by chicken
– W59.22XA: Struck by turtle
– W220.2XD: Walked into lamppost
– R15.2: Fecal Urgency
* 70,000 because 70,001 would be overkill.
* Actually, they’re going to need a few hundred more codes when the drone injuries start kicking in.
* Sliced by drone propellers, struck in head by drone, distracted while driving by drone … it’s going to be fun.
* You can be injured getting struck by a turtle? I guess maybe if it was shot from a catapult.
* A burn due to water skis on fire? Gee, if only there was a substance nearby that could put out the fire.
* I don’t know what fecal urgency means but I’m not sure I want to know.