According to a new report from the National Institute for Safety Management, on any given day, the average American’s life is entrusted to more than 2,000 different people who are complete strangers.
The report, which shows how any one of these anonymous individuals making a single mistake can easily cause another person’s death, concluded that it is only through sheer luck that anyone ever makes it through a 24-hour period alive.
“People you don’t know and will never even meet—food-safety regulators, bridge inspectors, whoever installed the gas lines in your home—ultimately have the power to decide whether you live or die,” the report read in part. “We have no choice but to trust that these individuals are always being very careful and know exactly what they’re doing.”
“Which is of course something we have no way of actually knowing,” the report added.
Jacob Drummond, a spokesman for NISM, unveiled a staggering list of strangers responsible for a person’s life each day, which includes everyone from officials who make sure there aren’t deadly toxins in the air we breathe, to construction workers who precariously hoist building materials over pedestrians’ heads, to motorists who stay focused and don’t veer into oncoming traffic during the rush-hour commute.
–“Report: Life Put In Hands Of 2,000 Complete Strangers Every Single Day,” in The Onion.