How do you want to die?
Happy Friday! Let’s talk about this!
We have a relatively new database up on STLtoday that describes the ways people in Missouri and Illinois have died. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction to the database, which you can explore by clicking this link:
More than 150,000 people die each year in Missouri and Illinois. The information comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which compiles mortality data for the U.S. from death certificates in each state. Some deaths occur from multiple causes, but an overarching cause is determined for almost all deaths. More than 36,000 people in Missouri and Illinois died of some form of cancer in 2004. In St. Louis City, Jackson County, Mo., and Cook County, Ill., more people died from homicides than motor vehicle accidents in 2004.
In my home county in 2004, for example, 10,712 people died. Of those, the lion’s share were by what is described as “natural causes.” Ischemic heart disease was the leading single cause with 2,529 deaths.
I intend to live a good long life and then die in my sleep quietly at home; it isn’t going to be a surprise to anyone. Wish me luck with that.
How do you want to go?
Kurt is the director of social media for the Post-Dispatch, where he has worked since August 2002. He's been a journalist since 1982, covering municipal government, courts, education and two hurricanes as a reporter before becoming an editor. 
I wanna go out the way I came butt-naked and in japan
usahats
What does that have to do with the price of tee in China?
Stick to the Question at hand
How do you want to go?
Getting caught in the gears of a combine. No that’s a way to go.
Shot by an irate husband at age 102 while climbing down a drain pipe from the third floor!
I hope to die without a pulse or respirations. Other than that, I know where I’m going so it does not matter.
I would like to go out in blazing glory.
My prayer is for a happy and holy death - having been anointed and having received Holy Communion from a priest, surrounded by family. Also, how beautiful it would be to be escorted from this world by the Blessed Virgin Mary at the hour of my death.
Eaten by a rampaging pack of rabid chipmunks… Just like my old man.
I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather. Not like the screaming passengers in his car.
I would like to die of a massive heart attack at the age of 89 while sweatfully paying my annual Mile High Club membership fee…