No, not the magazine! The penthouse apartment / flat. Apparently, it’s because the medics can’t reach you in time if you have a cardiac arrest.
[
](The penthouse problem: why living in a high-rise building could kill you)
I’ll bet living out in the country is equally dangerous.
Also–if you fall out the window the death rate will probably be five times higher from the 16th to 25th floor than from second floor.
The upside of living higher is that when you jump of of a window it allows a human to get into a stable aerodynamic position before hitting the ground. You still die but a least you don’t hit the ground in any old random orientation.
I read the article in the local media. Given that the most popular dwelling these days in Toronto seems to be a walk-in closet on the 47th floor, that is indeed a concern.
Or living in a gated community.
Stranger
If you’re rich enough to afford some swanky penthouse suite, you’re rich enough to afford a live-in private physician. If you haven’t purchased one yet, you have only yourself to blame.
Stereotyping: did they control for the fact that people who can afford penthouses are either old oligarch JR Ewing types or coked out Wolf of Wall Street types and thus more likely to have risk factors (if a gold digger doesn’t murder him first, leading a plucky estranged relative to attempt to solve his murder)?
Also: “Effective CPR performed by a bystander immediately after cardiac arrest can more than double a person’s chance of survival”. Is that a matter of increasing an already small chance, because I though CPR’s effectiveness was overstated?
Not sure if this is a whoosh but gated communities have overrides on their locks for police, ambulances, and fire departments.
You can also slip on a banana peel and fall off the roof.
But I’m willing to take that risk, so that others may be safe.
In 2011, billionaire Richard Branson had a fire on his private islandand there was no fire department or rescue on the island so he had to rescue people himself and everything burned down.
Similarly, living alone must be more dangerous (especially for older people) than living with someone, e.g., a spouse.
One often sees the statistic that older single people have a reduced life expectancy compared to married older people, often with the implication that older people living alone are more lonely and depressed (which may well be true), and the stress of this shortens lives.
But the more obvious explanation, never mentioned, is that people living alone can die of a variety of medical emergencies because nobody discovers them until the next rent doesn’t get paid; whereas a partnered person is more likely to get medical help quickly.
(I lived alone in a trailer out in the back woods for several years, until I started having more health problems, then it became too scary to be there. What a shame. It was like living in a Garden of Eden, peaceful and quiet. Photo.) I miss the place!!!
What Lord Feldon said.
My parents used to live in a gated community policed by a HOA. The HOA president decided that setting an override on the gate defeated the purpose of having a locked gate and didn’t do so. My father had to call for an ambulance for my mother a few times and made sure to give their gate code to the 911 dispatcher every time. The HOA found out about it and threatened to sanction my parents over this before my mother told them to engage in sexual congress with themselves. (I was in the room when this conversation took place. I swear I saw the guy’s balls retreat back into his body cavity. It was beautiful.)
They have since moved to an apartment complex that has an override for public safety people.