To find what’s happened to Michael Mosley quite anxiety provoking

[Glasto73lover]

It’s that idea of never really knowing what’s going to happen- the idea that we walk such a fine line in life. If you think too much about it, you probably wouldn’t leave the house.!

A close family member died suddenly and tragically a decade ago - literally dropped dead at home age 48 - something went pop in their head. So you genuinely don’t know when your time is up.

It’s that idea of a chain of consequence that can go so horribly wrong too- people always say ‘oh but you could get hit by a bus’ - stuff like this actually makes me really anxious. So many what ifs.

For Michael Moseley - a chain of probably inconsequential decisions may have led to his death- not having a phone on him, choosing to undertake a walk that in the U.K. is nothing but in that heat, was devastating and probably caused his death.

It makes me anxious that I won’t know if I am making those decisions - am I making sense? I think as I have got older, I have become more anxious and risk averse (thanks menopause) and as a result, you could end up not leaving the house. How do you choose a sensible approach? Not too much risk but some!

But I also want to live my life too!! I guess I find incidents like this quite difficult!

I guess always having a phone, not undertaking walks in intense heat in an unfamiliar place etc are the common sense points that will come out of this tragedy.

Aibu to find it anxiety provoking tho?!

yup, not saying that its possible to plan for everything but when undertaking a risky activity, the more you plan, the less likely you are to get into shit.

@notacooldad

Not one person can plan for everything.

Of course not, but it's a bit negligent not to plan for anything!

I don't understand people who didn't even know MM feeling "furious" or "angry", all I get from that is a fear of being reminded of their own mortality.

We all make crap decisions at times and most of the time, most of us get away with them. Surely everyone has things that they look back on and think "that was stupid, won't do it again". It's part of being human and how we learn. We can eliminate a lot of risk, but not all risk, all the time, otherwise noone would ever die from falling out of bed asleep while others can go through years of combat experiences without a scratch. Life is a strange mixture of judgement and luck.

I don't suppose anyone will know the exact detail of what happened to this poor man and certainly not why he made certain decisions, some of which may well have been informed by heat exhaustion and dehydration. The lesson from it is to be more mindful in conditions like that, because we are all a lot more fragile and fallible than we like to think.

He couldn’t have taken it, was left or forgotten at the accommodation.
Also as I said under the circumstances I doubt it would have been any help at all in this case.

I would hope that MOST people don't make obvious crap decisions though....like walking over rough terrain when its 40deg with no mobile phone.

I'm feeling this too.

I doubt a mobile phone would have made a huge difference here anyway. This is a backwater of an island, it would have taken a good while for any aid to appear. It sounds like the only possible help could have been to arrive at the beach bar earlier, but even then who knows if the damage was already done. What's bad is we'll never know the point at which he realised what he was doing was a bad idea. Was there ever a point at which he could have gone back the way he came.

yup, not saying that its possible to plan for everything but when undertaking a risky activity, the more you plan, the less likely you are to get into shit.

Of course not, but it's a bit negligent not to plan for anything

Who didn't plan anything?

It sounds like the only possible help could have been to arrive at the beach bar earlier, but even then who knows if the damage was already done

Quite. And given there is no hospital on the island, the time needed for a transfer to Rhodes may well have taken too long and not changed the outcome.

From a BBC article shows what an amazing man he was:
Friend and fellow broadcaster Dr Hannah Fry told the BBC's One Show about an instance in which Dr Mosley had saved a woman's life.
"Somebody collapsed in the BBC offices in the corridors, and he saw them collapse," said Dr Fry.
"He went over, he performed CPR on them for almost half an hour until the emergency services arrived.
"[He] saved her life, she's gone on to have two children."

What an amazing man.

No, it doesn't make me anxious at all. I'm going to die some time and in the meantime I'm just going to get on with enjoying my life. If I was going to worry about anything, I'm more worried about spending my old age having a long period with a very low quality of life than I am suddenly dying in my 60s.

My parents died in their 60s (quick cancer) and just 70 (suicide). My husband is now in his 60s (I'm 10 years younger) and I have recently become much more aware of the inevitably limited number of high quality years that are left. High chance of 10, starts to get more iffy at 20. That's really not that many. But it just makes me think more carefully about how we spend those year and we are having a lovely time. I also think a little about how to prepare better for older age either with or without him. But none of that makes me either anxious or depressed at all. I think life becomes more precious and enjoyable when you are aware that it is limited.

@Uricon2 Indeed. He was a risk taking man, an adventurer, and that made him who he was and why his wife loved him. Can others be furious on his behalf? I think the fact he should have known better is whats driving this thought. But some people are risk takers and he clearly didnt expect it to end the way it did.

Indeed he was.

But now - and fuelled by the themes on this thread - I’m panicking over why she collapsed if young and fit enough to be pre-dcs. 😰

He probably does feel like he is 30 - but maybe he is doing things a 30yo wouldn't! Maybe he is trying extra hard to prove he isn't ageing unduly yet..?
OP you're not unreasonable, but it's not going to help - having anxiety about things is like enduring the worry twice. Try to channel it into sensible risk-assessment instead; are you pushing new physical boundaries, does someone know where you are, are you contactable/hydrated/fed/well rested etc etc to be able to push your body accordingly? I agree with others, I don't know how he could have thought it was a good idea, doesn't seem clear whether he took the wrong path or was actually trying to go see 'the abyss' caves? Either way mid afternoon in 40 deg heat (on day 1!!) was not the time to do it :(

Yes, I did think the same but maybe she went on to have tests to find out if underlying issue.

If we strip the whole holiday right back, you could even say its risky to go to an island like that. Accessible only by boat, no hospitals on the island. Can't say those sorts of places ever appealed to me. I read elsewhere that any pregnant women living there are told to temporarily stay in neighbouring developed island (Rhodes?) from month 8, as it's too risky to stay in Symi with the lack of medical care.

The two young widows I know both have fab close families and good friends . They are both lovely and so were their husbands both lost to cancer . The lost friends envisaged by the poster weren’t real friends in the first place .

YABU - most common causes are death are due to excess weight, lack of exercise, poor diet, excess alcohol, smoking etc. all of which everyone can do something about.

It looks beautiful but after my heat wave experience in Spain last year and my daughter’s asthma being made worse by the dust from the landscape, I have really lost my desire to go to many places in the Mediterranean in the summer when the school holidays are. My DH hasn’t but also I feel guilty about overtourism, I heard on the radio this morning about one Islands lack of water for the residents when all the tourists arrive.

I walk most days alone, away from pubic paths. It’s not something that really bothers me and wouldn’t stop me from doing things. Life is too short to be too worried to go out waking alone (or anything else you want to do). I had a cancer scare this year and it’s made me even more determined to live my life to the full. None of us know when our time will come, anyone can drop dead at any time but is it really worth worrying about?

I agree with PP who said that the laying of blame is not helpful.

My DH is a mountain guide and he has studied a lot about accidents in moutaineering in order to improve safety. Lots of tragic outcomes in climbing result not from huge bad decisions but an accumulation of poor but not catastrophic in themselves decisions. It is almost impossible to say after the fact, but it is believed that much of this can be attributed to oxygen deprivation and low-level altitude sickness. That is to say, a physiological cause.

The reason I say this, is that there all kinds of physiological reasons that can lead to poor decision-making - heatstroke, TIA, acute stress, depression, dementia etc. We have no true idea of exactly what happened, although we do know that he had mentioned feeling unwell, so may already have been experiencing the onset of illness.

We may not know truly what happened for months, or ever.

In his episode with Professor Andrew Steptoe, Head of Behavioural Science and Health at University College London, who leads the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), they really emphasised social connection and how couples relying on each other for company can be very lonely post bereavement so I am sure they were always keeping in mind to keep good people and real friends in their lives.

Excessive heat can cause death through increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. It was excessively hot that day.

Years ago I stupidly walked to the next town of a very hot country (instead of getting the bus) via a rocky path (not on my own, I thankfully had a companion). The route just got longer and longer, and higher and higher. Every time you thought round the corner you’d be there it was just more rocky terrain. I ended up not being able to breathe because of the heat. Thankfully my companion had a brown paper bag I was able to breathe into while following their instructions on how to calm down as I was hyperventilating. The heat obviously affected me far worse than it did them. It still gives me the shivers just thinking about it thirty years later. I always stick to main paths and routes nowadays and I avoid being out very hot weather, I literally can’t breathe in hot air.