Thailand Is Fourth Favorite Country To Unnaturally Die Abroad For Americans

[greenwanderer108]

Having a constitution ensuring freedom and flow of information is so wonderful!

I recently found American unnatural fatality statistics abroad here, and boy is it a great reality check if not fuel for potentially a great thread!

Statistical Summary of unnatural American deaths abroad 2004-2007

For further specifics of all such reported unnatural deaths of Americans by country see Archived 2002-2004 and 2004-2007

So all together it looks like over the past three years, on average 2 Americans die abroad every day of unnatural causes, and if I'm not mistaken, these stats aren't including war casualties i.e. Iraq, though do include terrorist attacks.

As far as Thailand, (forgive me for not being exact down to the decimal), off the top of my head, over the past three years, an American has died unnaturally in LOS once every 12 days or so.

The overall world tables in the links above might be a little overwhelming and inconvenient for the sake of Thailand talk, but no worries as I've reformatted and combined the tables into to one including all such reported unnatural American deaths in Thailand since October 2002 up to May 2007

So anyway, these are simply statistics of one country, which numbers might just prove to be smaller than other nationality fatalities in LOS if I were to have a guess at it... I'd be interested to see similar statistics of of other countries if anyone could find and post them here.

So I'm sure someone is bound to come across this thread that may even have known someone on the above lists, and there's bound to be others who are oblivious to the possibility that they may be added to such lists or other following lists in the future... It's a small world. Let's get an open discussion about it. We need more reality checks !

Cheers

Edited September 30, 2007 by greenwanderer108

[WaiWai]

Analysis from many expert statistitions will follow, but that's not a small number under any analysis .

What particular sorts of "unnatural" death are we referring to ?

Edited September 30, 2007 by WaiWai

[keemapoot]

That is very interesting. I would never have thought that Thailand would even be in the top 20!, but 4th? Clearly something disproportionate here. Even more interesting would be of those totals, how many died in Pattaya.

[solo siam]

Most of them seemed to die in the Tsunami, the fact that a very small amount of Americans retire overseas obviously greatly exaggerates the numbers present here in Thailand.

[greenwanderer108]

Most of them seemed to die in the Tsunami, the fact that a very small amount of Americans retire overseas obviously greatly exaggerates the numbers present here in Thailand.

Out of the list from 2002 - 2007 of well over a hundred deaths (reported)...Tsunami accounts to only about 20...ofcourse there are plenty more that weren't reported or known perhaps...

A majority of deaths are actually, not suprising Motor vehicle accident related...

Retired overseas? I don't get your connection. Any retired 60 year old bloke who's cause of death was heart attack or such sort was likely not included in the lists above.

Unnatural deaths include Homicide, Suicide, Drowning, Natural Disasters, Accidents (Car, motorcycle, Plane) etc...

[SamuiJens]

Easy to understand by looking at the moterbike/car/ped. deaths in Thailand, with alcohol, drive on the left-side(confusing for Americans used to the right) I see it daily on Samui when there. Not to mention drownings!

[solo siam]

Most of them seemed to die in the Tsunami, the fact that a very small amount of Americans retire overseas obviously greatly exaggerates the numbers present here in Thailand.

Out of the list from 2002 - 2007 of well over a hundred deaths (reported)...Tsunami accounts to only about 20...ofcourse there are plenty more that weren't reported or known perhaps...

A majority of deaths are actually, not suprising Motor vehicle accident related...

Retired overseas? I don't get your connection. Any retired 60 year old bloke who's cause of death was heart attack or such sort was likely not included in the lists above.

Unnatural deaths include Homicide, Suicide, Drowning, Natural Disasters, Accidents (Car, motorcycle, Plane) etc...

Well a relatively small amount of Americans retire outside their country, so obviously a major disaster like the Tsunami which takes a lot of lives will seem to exaggerate the amount of people that di in Thailand.

It's a list for 5 years, 100 people died, 20 of which in the Tsunami - The Tsunami only happened once in one particular year.

[ttthailand]

These numbers are only for Americans. Add in all other countries and I bet the numbers are in the thousands. Not really a safe place to live or visit but it sure is fun ....at lease until something happens.

Any idea on the overall numbers ?

Any idea where to get the ,perhaps not so true, given crime rate in Thailand.

[solo siam]

These numbers are only for Americans. Add in all other countries and I bet the numbers are in the thousands. Not really a safe place to live or visit but it sure is fun ....at lease until something happens.

Any idea on the overall numbers ?

Any idea where to get the ,perhaps not so true, given crime rate in Thailand.

You could easily ahlve those numbers simply if people behaved teh same way here as they do in their own country. Like for example not riding motorcycles, wearing helmets or not driving when drunk.

[greenwanderer108]

Most of them seemed to die in the Tsunami, the fact that a very small amount of Americans retire overseas obviously greatly exaggerates the numbers present here in Thailand.

Out of the list from 2002 - 2007 of well over a hundred deaths (reported)...Tsunami accounts to only about 20...ofcourse there are plenty more that weren't reported or known perhaps...

A majority of deaths are actually, not suprising Motor vehicle accident related...

Retired overseas? I don't get your connection. Any retired 60 year old bloke who's cause of death was heart attack or such sort was likely not included in the lists above.

Unnatural deaths include Homicide, Suicide, Drowning, Natural Disasters, Accidents (Car, motorcycle, Plane) etc...

Well a relatively small amount of Americans retire outside their country, so obviously a major disaster like the Tsunami which takes a lot of lives will seem to exaggerate the amount of people that di in Thailand.

It's a list for 5 years, 100 people died, 20 of which in the Tsunami - The Tsunami only happened once in one particular year.

To be more precise, I think it was more like 130+ that were on the five year list...So lets assume the tsunami didn't happen, that's like 110 divided by 5...that's still 22 per year...or almost 2 deaths per month...of only Americans dieing unnaturally in Thailand...Still a lot IMO...

I'd be willing to bet there are plenty more Brits, Germans, Scandanavians, Dutch, Japanese, and other nationalities visiting and residing in Thailand, and likely more dying unnaturally on average...so hopefully someone else can scrape up some more statistics for comparison...

BTW...still don't get your connection or relevance talking about Americans retiring in/outside of the USA and what it has to do with American citizens dying of unnatural causes in Thailand... Perhaps it's just me ??? Confused ???

[solo siam]

I just meant that I would expect a disproportionate amount of Americans to retire out here rather than say Laos, or Africa for example. You wold have to divide your results by the AMOUNT of americans that retire here for it to be wrth anything.

FOr example if 10,000 USA citizens retire here but 20 die a year, thats not so bad - better than 100 retiring to some African state and 10 dieing.

[greenwanderer108]

Well, I did a quick search for Brits and could only find this source for British behavior abroad from April 2004 to March 2005, which shows some 274 Brits died in Thailand during that year period... Taking into account of Tsunami, according to BBC, some 199 Brits died in Tsunami (which I assume was mostly in Thailand)

...so roughly 70-80 (non Tsunami) Brit deaths were reported in LOS in the one year period...though this is all deaths, including grandpa overdosed on viagra in the hotel room type deaths, etc...

Let's say only 40 of all deaths were unnatural, that's more than 3 a month... assuming it is only 40 per year, though could likely be more.

My guess is that German or perhaps other Scandanavian has got to be up in the top, but would have lot better luck if someone could use their Doytch skills to confirm so...

[greenwanderer108]

These numbers are only for Americans. Add in all other countries and I bet the numbers are in the thousands. Not really a safe place to live or visit but it sure is fun ....at lease until something happens.

Any idea on the overall numbers ?

Any idea where to get the ,perhaps not so true, given crime rate in Thailand.

Couldn't find a very recent deal of the overall numbers, but here's a general idea from a March 2004 article referring to 2003 foreign fatalities in Thailand statistics...

Of the more than 9.7 million tourists who visited Thailand last year, British citizens hold the record for the highest number of fatalities at a number of 148, followed by 137 tourists from the United States, 120 from Germany and 73 from Japan.

In 2003, the ten most important foreign embassies in Thailand representing less than half of the foreign tourists visiting Thailand reported 595 fatalities resulting in loss pf life.

Though my assumption is that such quoted statistics are for all deaths, not just unnatural deaths as the 137 American deaths were apparently reported that year...when in fact much less are reported (unnatural) by the Department of State ..

Anything recent would be nice, but I imagine 2003 is probably an normal average year for 21st century.

Edited September 30, 2007 by greenwanderer108

[onnut]

Having a constitution ensuring freedom and flow of information is so wonderful!

I recently found American unnatural fatality statistics abroad here, and boy is it a great reality check if not fuel for potentially a great thread!

Statistical Summary of unnatural American deaths abroad 2004-2007

For further specifics of all such reported unnatural deaths of Americans by country see Archived 2002-2004 and 2004-2007

So all together it looks like over the past three years, on average 2 Americans die abroad every day of unnatural causes, and if I'm not mistaken, these stats aren't including war casualties i.e. Iraq, though do include terrorist attacks.

As far as Thailand, (forgive me for not being exact down to the decimal), off the top of my head, over the past three years, an American has died unnaturally in LOS once every 12 days or so.

The overall world tables in the links above might be a little overwhelming and inconvenient for the sake of Thailand talk, but no worries as I've reformatted and combined the tables into to one including all such reported unnatural American deaths in Thailand since October 2002 up to May 2007

So anyway, these are simply statistics of one country, which numbers might just prove to be smaller than other nationality fatalities in LOS if I were to have a guess at it... I'd be interested to see similar statistics of of other countries if anyone could find and post them here.

So I'm sure someone is bound to come across this thread that may even have known someone on the above lists, and there's bound to be others who are oblivious to the possibility that they may be added to such lists or other following lists in the future... It's a small world. Let's get an open discussion about it. We need more reality checks !

Cheers

So then, who says Thailand has got nothing going for it?

[jumnien]

I suppose STD's took quite a toll!

[richard10365]

I suppose if your in the American military and you die in Iraq, that is considered a natural death. If not, then Iraq would be at the top of the list with over 3000 Americans killed there.

[simon43]

Stay out of the water, stay off the roads, stay away from high buildings . . . you should be fine!

Simon

[sriracha john]

I suppose if your in the American military and you die in Iraq, that is considered a natural death. If not, then Iraq would be at the top of the list with over 3000 Americans killed there.

and nearing 4,000 as of yesterday....

As of Sunday, Sept. 30, 2007, at least 3,803 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

[Scott]

Sometime back (several months ago), the BBC was reporting that Thailand is the most dangerous country for Brits abroad. I don't exactly remember if they were talking about deaths, accidents or what. Anybody remember or have a link for that one? It was quite an eye opener.

[geriatrickid]

The interpretations offered are incorrect. The numbers per country are only raw numbers. A statistical significance cannot be determined unless one knows what the actual total population is in those reporting countries.

These statistics are useless for comparison sake unless you also have the specific age groups associated with the numbers. If you look at the total USA population (source CDC- NCHC death reports) you will see that, the top 3 causes of death for the age group 15-24 are as follows;

1. Accident (Unintentional injury) with subgroup of vehicular collision the biggest.

2. Homicide

3. Suicide

If I judged the USA by the above, I'd need to keep my eyes open for drive by gangbangers, angry former lovers, maniac drivers and folks leaping from high buildings.

There are large numbers of young Americans in Germany due to the presence of military facilities. As such one would expect to see a high incidence of the 3 types of deaths above. This would not mean that Germany was a hotbed for accidents or suicide or homicide, just that it's higher than "normal" concentration of young people produced the result.

Now go to the over 65 age bracket. Accidents are the leading cause of unnatural death in this age group. Therefore, if one had a concentration of elderly americans, one would expect to see a high accident number.

Now back to the age 25-44 age group, The 5 top causes of death are 1. Accidents, 2. cancer, 3. Heart disease, 4. Suicide, 5. Homicide.

The leading cause of death for Americans and most Europeans in Thailand continues to be heart disease and stroke. That doesn't mean that you are at risk because you live in Thailand, just that your life circumstances (age & health condition) mean that the grim reaper is sharpening his scythe. I'm sorry, but that's part of the aging process.

[Scott]

I think heart disease and stroke are natural causes of death.

[roietjimmy]

As expected Mexico tops the list given the number of US Citizens traveling there. I was very surprised to see Canada did not even make the list. US Citizens traveling to Canada must be very high. Maybe only second to Mexico.

[greenwanderer108]

As expected Mexico tops the list given the number of US Citizens traveling there. I was very surprised to see Canada did not even make the list. US Citizens traveling to Canada must be very high. Maybe only second to Mexico.

Nope Canada is not in top five.. Go back to the world list of last three years here and I think there are like 34 unnatural deaths in Canada over three years...

Go back to my initial post for specific reference links, but you'll find after Mexico, second was Iraq (US military without passport not counted as its Dep. of State stats) third was Costa Rica, Fourth Thailand, and 5th Germany

@geritrickid

Raw numbers or Statistical Proportions and age groups is aside from the matter. The reality is (for me anyway), even taken out the Tsunami deaths, on average still about 2 Americans have died of unnatural causes every month in Thailand in a five year window (about the time I've lived here)

And the time I've lived here, I've only ever met some 6 Americans, which were mostly at University.

[roietjimmy]

Using statistics from the same web site, the number of US Citizens traveling to Thailand in 2005 (the latest data they had) was 489,000. Using the number 22 for unnatural deaths per year from comments in this post, the odds of dying an "unnatural death" in Thailand is 0.004%.

In 2005, California had a murder rate of 6.9 people per 100,000 and a suicide rate of 9.4 per 100,000.

The odds of dying an unnatural death (homicide and suicide only) in California are 0.016%.

Citizens of California have a 3.6 times greater chance of dying an unnatural death than US Citizens in Thailand.

[ThaidleHands]

Using statistics from the same web site, the number of US Citizens traveling to Thailand in 2005 (the latest data they had) was 489,000. Using the number 22 for unnatural deaths per year from comments in this post, the odds of dying an "unnatural death" in Thailand is 0.004%.

In 2005, California had a murder rate of 6.9 people per 100,000 and a suicide rate of 9.4 per 100,000.

The odds of dying an unnatural death (homicide and suicide only) in California are 0.016%.

Citizens of California have a 3.6 times greater chance of dying an unnatural death than US Citizens in Thailand.

What nobody seems to take into consideration is that you cannot arrive at these statistics, particularly where tourists are concerned, by a simple count of heads. You must take into account how many days were spent in Thailand by the average visitor.

Per TAT stats, in 2005 there were roughly 640,000 entries by American visitors to Thailand and an average length of stay of 9.85 days. This represents 6,304,000 person-days or 17,271 person-years. Given that in a group this large behavior will be relatively average, those 22 deaths per 17,271 person-years is equal to 127 per 100,000 or .127%.

[siam-i-am]

Having a constitution ensuring freedom and flow of information is so wonderful!

We need more reality checks !

Cheers

May I respectfully suggest you edit the 'We' to I.

[Old Croc]

"Thailand Is Fourth Favorite Country To Unnaturally Die Abroad"

Is "favorite" the best terminology for places to die?

[SamuiJens]

Having a constitution ensuring freedom and flow of information is so wonderful!

I recently found American unnatural fatality statistics abroad here, and boy is it a great reality check if not fuel for potentially a great thread!

Statistical Summary of unnatural American deaths abroad 2004-2007

For further specifics of all such reported unnatural deaths of Americans by country see Archived 2002-2004 and 2004-2007

So all together it looks like over the past three years, on average 2 Americans die abroad every day of unnatural causes, and if I'm not mistaken, these stats aren't including war casualties i.e. Iraq, though do include terrorist attacks.

As far as Thailand, (forgive me for not being exact down to the decimal), off the top of my head, over the past three years, an American has died unnaturally in LOS once every 12 days or so.

The overall world tables in the links above might be a little overwhelming and inconvenient for the sake of Thailand talk, but no worries as I've reformatted and combined the tables into to one including all such reported unnatural American deaths in Thailand since October 2002 up to "May 2007"

So anyway, these are simply statistics of one country, which numbers might just prove to be smaller than other nationality fatalities in LOS if I were to have a guess at it... I'd be interested to see similar statistics of of other countries if anyone could find and post them here.

So I'm sure someone is bound to come across this thread that may even have known someone on the above lists, and there's bound to be others who are oblivious to the possibility that they may be added to such lists or other following lists in the future... It's a small world. Let's get an open discussion about it. We need more reality checks !

Cheers

So then, who says Thailand has got nothing going for it?

GLAD IT STOPPED IN MAY '07!

[TopDogger]

Where's the "happens everywhere in the world" brigade?

[chiang mai]

It happens everywhere in the world Happy now?

I seem to recall that the number of Brits who die here (of all causes) is substantially higher than those mentioned earlier although I like the other poster am unable to find the numbers.

Edited October 1, 2007 by chiang mai