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Ashely Alker, "99 Ways to Die: And How to Avoid Them" (St. Martin's Press, 2026)
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- [00:01]
Ashley Elker
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [00:05]
Rebecca Buchanan
Hi. This is Rebecca Buchanan, host at New Book Network, and today I'm here with Ashley Elker, who is the author of 99 Ways to Die and how to Avoid Them. Ashley, thanks for being here with me today.
- [00:18]
Ashley Elker
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
- [00:20]
Rebecca Buchanan
Could you start out by giving a bit of an overview about this book and why you decided to write about all the different ways we could possibly die?
- [00:30]
Ashley Elker
Yeah, so I didn't get to include all the ways because eventually my editor asked that I stop writing. I was afraid it was going to be too short. And that is not what happened in the end. So apparently there are a lot of ways to die. I'm an emergency medicine doctor, so I deal with death daily, unfortunately, although the rule on my shift is that nobody dies. And this book is kind of my public health degree and my desire to be a part of preventative medicine kind of coming out in, you know, art form as a book. I've done a lot of work in the past in writing for television and film. I did medical screenwriting and technical consulting for shows for Disney, Netflix, HBO. Kind of ran the gauntlet for the past 10, 15 years. And it was one way for me to kind of get passive public health education out there. And this is another. So this is a little less passive because you have to read. But I've written it in a very specific way that everyone can understand that's engaging for people in the medical field, but also is very approachable and digestible for anyone outside of the medical field. And these are 99 things you don't have to die from. So that's good news.
- [01:42]
Rebecca Buchanan
So you've divided this into kind of, I think, is it 13 different sort of areas, topics. Can you talk a little bit before we dive into some of these ways? Why? Like sort of how you divided this book, how you kind of thought about putting things together, how you kind of. Yeah, the organization of it.
- [02:03]
Ashley Elker
Sure. So basically I looked for things that were either had a huge human interest component and were very common or were very deadly. And then of course, they had to be preventable in some way, because otherwise, what are we talking about? The book includes infections, vaccine, preventable diseases, heart disease, brain disease, sex, drugs, animals, poison, food, locomotion. So like, you know, cars, trains, helicopters. Actually, trains is not in there. Crime, elements, warfare. And so basically, I look at all these different sections and I included stories either that I had from my personal life in medicine or my life outside of medicine. I've been fortunate to live and work in a lot of other countries. So I've worked in public health and medicine in Honduras, Tanzania, Cyprus, France, Spain, Morocco. And so, you know, I have a lot of experience in diseases that we maybe don't see as much in the United States. And that has made, you know, my journey in medicine pretty interesting. And so the whole point was to take these stories and create something that is captivating and entertaining, that can teach you something. And that's hopefully what the book does. And that's kind of how the sections came about. I, you know, picked things that, that kind of followed all of these guidelines.
- [03:25]
Rebecca Buchanan
So we can't talk about all 99. And I just keep wanting to sing Jay Z every time I think of your, you know. But yeah, that's a whole nother thing. But I thought we could go through and maybe highlight some of the diseases that you talk about or some of the ways to die that you talk. I'm thinking about the infections as the first one. So yeah, can you, can we talk a little bit about, you know, a couple of the things in infection? I mean, you cover like corona and Ebola, like viruses, but parasites and bacteria as well.
- [04:01]
Ashley Elker
So.
- [04:02]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah, I don't know if there's any you're interested in talking about. I know you have some that are very rare and some that are more common. So.
- [04:11]
Ashley Elker
Yeah, and the correct lies. So the very first chapter, and I think it might have been one of the first chapters I wrote to chronologically was leprosy. And leprosy is really interesting because it's a disease that most people think, oh, that's an ancient disease, it doesn't exist anymore. But leprosy is pregn present in over 120 countries. And only very recently did we close our last leper colony in Hawaii. So this is not a disease that, you know, is of the past. It is still very much of the present. The only difference is, is that now we have antibiotics to treat this disease. And we also understand more about the disease. We thought that it was a very contagious disease. And so these people who were infected with leprosy were then placed in colonies and basically had to form their own communities and microcosms. And I kind of talk about that in the book about lepr and how they created their own communities. Because this isn't a disease that would kill someone right away. It's something they would live sometimes a very long time with. And so, you know, it's important to understand like both the culture and historical aspects of these diseases because it's not just the science that, you know, we need to remember. And what's interesting now is that we understand that leprosy isn't a disease that everyone can get. There are some people who do not have the genetic composition to contract leprosy, and then others do, and that's why it is only contagious to some people. But it. It isn't a disease of the past. It's something that we actually are seeing more commonly in the southern states because the armadillo is unfortunately, a host for leprosy. And so it is a reservoir host, meaning that humans, it, you know, lives in armadillos down there. And every once in a while, a human gets handsy with an armadillo, and they, you know, can get leprosy from this. So it's. It's not just the science that we look at. It's definitely, you know, the history, the culture, you know, art sometimes. And, you know, sometimes there's just funny stories about certain things. Like in the STD chapter, I talk about Casanova, who was a real person, and some of the just ridiculous, awful things he said, or at least was quoted in history as saying. But, yeah, another one in the infection chapter that's specific to bacteria is strep throat. And strep throat is another disease where I think people think, oh, it's no big deal. I just have strep. And, yeah, today it is no big deal, but there's a reason for that. Untreated strep throat causes rheumatic fever. It causes scarlet fever. It can cause an abscess of the neck, of the tonsils. And so, you know, this is a disease that actually did used to kill a lot of people. Rheumatic fever was a leading cause of heart disease. Scarlet fever took lives, actually, in the community I live in, there's a story historical, you know, writing about a bunch of children dying of scarlet fever, you know, before we treated it, before we had penicillins and antibiotics. So strep throat, that's tested and treated for no big deal. And that's kind of the way that we think about it in our society and the context that we live in. But actually, this is something that is very deadly if you just, you know, ignore it and don't get tested when you have a sore throat. So some, you know, there's a lot of this type of stuff in there. Botulism is in there, which I find super interesting. A lot of people don't know that the reason that we don't give babies honey under the year of one is because they can contract botulism from this, because they don't have, you know, the thought is that, that their stomach acidity isn't quite low enough or strong enough to kill botulism spores, and that's why they can contract it. But we've seen this, we know it happens. So it's very important to not give babies honey in the first year of life, which isn't a big deal, but you should know about it because if you do it, then it, it becomes something that can be life threatening. So there's a lot of this type of stuff in the book. I cover viruses, obviously, and vaccine, preventable disease chapters. These are a lot of things that we haven't maybe seen in our society. Maybe I didn't see them in my emergency department when I was in training because of our VACC rates in the United States. It just wasn't not. It wasn't something we saw a lot of. But unfortunately, we're seeing more and more of it. And as an individual in this society, you should be aware of what diphtheria is, how measles kills you, what whooping cough looks like. You know, who are the people that are most susceptible, you know, and that might be obvious. It's infants.
- [08:25]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah. And I don't know if it was in that chapter or another chapter you, you know, even talk about, like somebody going to, was it Disney World or Disneyland and. Right. And so that kind of thing, too. We have this disease and I don't, like I said, I don't remember which one it was. But we have all these diseases, like you say, that are preventable nine times out of ten, if you just get vaccinated, but when one person chooses not to do that, it impacts so many other people.
- [08:52]
Ashley Elker
Yeah. They actually did a recent study that was published in jama, I believe, or it might have been the Lancet, but regardless, it was a study that looked at vaccines over the past 50 years, and it showed that the estimated number of lives saved over the past 50 years worldwide from vaccines was 100, 156 million. And that's about six lives a minute for 50 years. And 101 million of those lives were infants were children, because those are the people that are most susceptible for these diseases. If you or me get whooping cough, it's terrible, you feel awful, you know, whatever. But unless you have lung disease, you're probably, you'd probably be okay. If a newborn or an infant gets whooping cough, they can die. So, you know, these are the type of things we have to decide as a society if it's important for us to protect the next generations. And it's something that we value and it requires a certain level of empathy. And that empathy needs to be developed from knowledge, from understanding what these diseases do and what our society looked like within the presence of these diseases. And so I tried to do that in this book because it's very near and dear to my heart because I don't think any child or any person should ever die from one of these diseases.
- [09:59]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah. You know to jump around because one of your chapters is on kind of sex. But pregnancy is a big thing and as a mother of a 32 week old preemie who's now 20, like they're right but there is no in it all the way. But yeah, yes, I know my, the younger one is like now he's old but, but like that idea like to be around someone who like trying to keep your child away from when you, when you have a baby who's two pounds, they cannot be around someone who's not vaccinated. Right. So you kind of about even with pregnancy and when you mentioned children and, and that kind of thing, like there are these preventable things that we, we often just take for granted.
- [10:40]
Ashley Elker
Yeah. And I think also, you know, you mentioned a really important chapter to me and that's pregnancy. I actually got pregnant during the writing of this book and had, I had twins. My baby and my book were born around the same time and I am, you know, I get it. My kid is everything to me. I understand parents when they have hesitations or vaccine hesitancy and you deserve to have your questions answered greatest scientific certainty possible. And to have those conversations with a pediatrician you trust, you shouldn't get be getting information from the Internet from people fear mongering that are using, you know, correlations instead of causation to try and you know, basically hit emotional buttons for you not to do certain things. And you know, what do they get out of this? Well, they don't understand the science so they think that they're saving you because they believe that these vaccines are bad for you. But there hasn't been anything to prove that. And if you look at the people who are, are educated on the subject such as primary care doctors, you're talking about like 98% vaccination rates for like yearly yet plus you know, so with the people who know what's going on are doing it, that's probably means that it's safe for you. Now if none of them were getting Vaccinated, and then they were telling you, hey, you should get a vaccine. I would question that. That's a little weird. But that's not the case. Right. And a lot of this is just about being informed. Right? So pregnancy was an important chapter to me because I thought it was so important that women know the risks, benefits of pregnancy. So, you know, we are solely responsible for propagating our entire species. And that is a really big undertaking. And it's an undertaking that is life threatening for young, healthy women with no medical problems. You go into this and you can get preeclampsia, you can get increased, you have increased probability of pulmonary embolisms. There are types of cancer you can only get from being pregnant. You know, pregnancy is not a small undertaking and everyone should make that decision knowing the risks and benefits. And also there should be more appreciation for the fact that, you know, a perfectly healthy woman is putting her body at risk to have a child and then ends up with heart failure for the rest of her life because of postpartum cardiomyopathy. Our society doesn't make any space for this. And it's really not taught. Women don't know. They think, you know, I'll be fine. And luckily most women are fine. But it is a huge undertaking that needs to be appreciated and it needs to be something that, you know, we talk about informed consent and informed decision making in medicine. Like, how often do we make sure that women know these risks and benefits or do we just expect them to go on having children? So, I mean, this is something obviously I knew about all these things before I got pregnant and I chose to start a family with my husband, but that was my personal decision and I understood the risks. If I was someone who didn't, I'd be pretty pissed when I had heart failure for the rest of my life, you know. So I think it's the type of thing where the information in this book not only can save your life, but it also can help you make better decisions day to day, or the decision that's right for you, whatever that is.
- [13:41]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah. And I just want to, like, second, I appreciated that chapter in that section because of that. I think until you have if everything quote, unquote, works the way people assume it should work, then you're oblivious, Right? But, like, when you end up in a situation where it's like, sorry, you're having this child in like, you know, 24 hours or less or whatever it might be, then you start to hear about, okay, there's all these other things that these Other factors that go into it. And you have to think about that. So I appreciated that and thinking about that. So you. Yeah, in that chapter. And we'll come back to some other ones, but like you mentioned. So you talk. One of the things, you know, throughout this, you talk about some of the things you've seen in your. Like, either working in emergency medicine, working in an er, working in different places. So there is some serious things. There's also some things that are kind of humorous, like the sex chapter. You have. The butt stuff chapter.
- [14:40]
Ashley Elker
Yes, you can't forget about that. Everyone expected the buttster stuff chapter. They're like, do you have a chapter about things in people's butts? I'm like, yes, don't worry, it's in there.
- [14:49]
Rebecca Buchanan
But it made me. I mean, not knowing their. The Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. There's this museum of medical. Questionable medical. Their medical stuff. But there is a hole, and I'm sure you've been. You might have been there. I don't know. But there's all these drawers for people who don't know where. Somebody collected everything he pulled out of people's, like, nose and ears and stuff.
- [15:10]
Ashley Elker
And so he kept orifices in general.
- [15:12]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yes, kept all of those objects. And so you can open, like. You can pull out these drawers and see all the little things.
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Ashley Elker
So I don't do that, just so you. I have no doubt. I wouldn't.
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Rebecca Buchanan
I wouldn't either.
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Ashley Elker
Not for me. But I do love the Mudder Museum, and I love Philadelphia, so. But, yeah, I think that, you know, there's a place for the weird Science, too. I think it makes things memorable. And I think the stories help. Right. So stories are how we've communicated, you know, anthropologically speaking, throughout, you know, the existence of mankind. It's how we taught each other things. So I think that it's important that. That, you know, this information is given to you in a way that's not only, you know, something that everyone can understand, but also something that's entertaining and captivating. And that's what I tried to do here, was make it something that everybody can read, because that's who I'm looking for. This isn't a book specifically for doctors or nurses or people in medicine, although I think that they'll get a kick out of it, and I think that they'll. I've been told they like the refresher because it's a lot of diseases we don't see. But this book was written for the general public.
- [16:15]
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- [16:37]
Rebecca Buchanan
so, yeah, you, so you cover diseases and that kind of thing, but you also cover things like, like, you know, different animal drugs, animals kind of, you know, food. So can you talk a little, let's talk a little bit about some of the things that are not necessarily disease related. Right. So even. Yeah, so maybe you start with drugs and think about. Right.
- [17:01]
Ashley Elker
Because. Yeah, so drugs are interesting mostly because I mean, I think that a lot of us don't know. I mean, unless you're in that world, you might not know like the difference between different drugs and what they do. And so I think drugs are interesting for that reason. And also, you know, there's a lot of historical context there, but there's also, you know, over the counter medications in this. So most people don't know that Tylenol is the number one cause of acute liver failure in the United States. Tylenol overdoses specifically. So over the counter drugs and non, you know, non FDA regulated supplements, which are all supplements. These are things that can be really dangerous, especially because they, we don't know how much is in a lot of them. Right. It says 5 milligrams, but when it's not FDA regulated, it could be 2, it could be 10. So I'm not telling you not to take supplements, I'm just telling you to talk to your doctor about them so that, you know, A, if it interacts with anything and B, maybe, maybe you're taking something with an active ingredient that is the medication. A lot of times the synthetic forms of medications come from plants and all these things that we say, oh, it's natural, you know, natural things can kill you, you can die from water. There's like, like several chapters in here about that. You know, so it's possible to die from things that are natural. And I think that they're kind of presented to us as safe for that reason. But especially in the day and age of, you know, social media and you're buying all this stuff online, you need to be very careful because a lot of times that active ingredient is the same thing that you're taking in your, you know, physician, physician prescribed pill. So and another thing that people might not realize is that, you know, a lot of People worry about drug withdrawal, right? Especially things like opiates. When people are withdrawing from opiates. The only drug withdrawal that is like intrinsically life threatening and can kill you kind of on its own is withdrawal from alcohol and benzodiazepines. And alcohol is something that's, you know, culturally, obviously it's not illegal and it's acceptable in our society to use. So overuse of alcohol is actually extremely dangerous in withdrawal of that alcohol. So like, things like that, people just don't know. You need to talk to your doctor if you're going to stop drinking, if you're a heavy drinker or abuser of alcohol, because you can have seizures, you can have delirium, tremendous. And you can't die from, from this. So, you know, the drugs chapter kind of goes in and out of some like, historical and pop culture y stuff too, obviously, because there's a lot of like rock stars and stuff that have used certain things. And the psychedelics are pretty interesting. Although no one's, you know, died of some of these drugs like ghb, surprisingly. And a couple other things aren't really things that have caused a lot of deaths, but there's other things that can happen with, with, with, you know, the 99 Ways to Die. It's not all about quality, quantity of time. It's not all about death. Some of it's about quality too. You want to be healthy and you want to have good years. You just don't want to have, you know, time. It's not always just about that. And I think that's something that, like I've learned in medicine is that the quality of life is sometimes just as important or more important in some situations as the quantity.
- [20:04]
Rebecca Buchanan
So you also, like. So animals come up and there's some animals that I think we normally think, right, like you have snakes, snakes, spiders, like sharks, jellyfish, like. But were there when you were thinking about animals because you have one like sort of Australia and Africa. So a couple continents where you're going to run into many animals. But are there animals in particular that you were. I don't know if were shocked is the right word, but you were like, this is not an animal that people normally think of that goes along with when you.
- [20:33]
Ashley Elker
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, Australia and Africa have some pretty interesting animals, especially Australia. I'm not sure what happened there, but they seem to have like a very high concentration of deadly animals in Australia and Africa has like the number one, you know, most dangerous mammal other than humans, who isn't who you would think it is, it's hippos. Hippos are very dangerous. But the animals that I really like and I'm interested in that are sometimes deadly are generally like ocean and aquatic animals. There's a lot of like fish and this is in the food chapter, but there's a lot of really interesting like fish borne diseases that you can get. And then also there's a lot of, of you know, poisonous and venomous ocean creatures. For example, I talk about, you know, everything from like the blue ringed octopus to puffer fish to cuttlefish. You know, I talk about the electric eel, which technically isn't salt water. It isn't salt water and it's technically not an eel. But it's just an interesting fish that can electrocute you. The Portuguese man of war. There's certain types of snails that are really interesting that really overshoot the potency of their, their venom. Basically they, you know, are trying to eat fish, but they're, they're, their poison can basically kill you know, 100 humans. So they kind of overshot it there because they've never eaten human before. They're like the size of your, you know, your thumb. But the thing about these shells is they're beautiful and you'll see them when you're on vacation and want to pick them up. But, but you know, don't. So I talk about a lot of these things. A lot of it, you know, comes from places I've like lived and worked and some travel stuff because some of the stuff isn't as common in the United States. But it's still really interesting. Like I, who wouldn't be interested by an electric eel? I just think that is such a cool species.
- [22:26]
Rebecca Buchanan
I know. And then I feel like as a big fan of any kind of like sort of murder mystery, true crime, we've got, you know, you've got like the chapters on like things that you can actually use to kill people. I mean, I shouldn't be saying you're not promoting it at all, but, but from my point of view, right, I'm like, it's great like the poison, I think the food and even the crime.
- [22:49]
Ashley Elker
Well, so you know what to look for. Right?
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Rebecca Buchanan
Exactly. So yeah, there's that. And then I would love to talk about some of that. But first, like, I love that under poison you put health influencers because health influencers drive me kind of crazy.
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Ashley Elker
Oh gosh, they're so dangerous.
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Rebecca Buchanan
I don't believe anything.
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Ashley Elker
Yeah, I mean you shouldn't and, and it's such a huge problem this day and age, because it's not. The credibility these days is not people who are licensed, people who are credentialed, and people who have something to lose by misleading you. If a doctor lies to you, they can lose their license, they can get sued. They are culpable for that information. If an influencer lies to you, they might lose some followers, maybe not. So that's the point is you're listening to people online who have their, their credentials are solely based on the number of people following them. And crowdsourcing information about your health is very dangerous and not how you should be doing it. So, you know, and these people also basically are set up to sell you misinformation because misinformation is so much sexier than the truth. It is often novel. It is weird. If you drink kangaroo pee, it's going to cure your cancer. You're going to click on like, it's not, it's. It's things that are clickable. It's very easy to make lies attractive and promote lies. So, you know, MIT actually did a study on this and it showed that misinformation on the Internet moves about six times faster than the truth. And that is because it is so much easier to sell a lie and make a lie interesting and attractive because you get to make it up. So, you know, even people who aren't doing this in a. From a place that is maybe purposeful, it is still, I mean, we're all guilty of it, right? We all click on these things and look at these things and that actually increases the misinformation on the Internet because the algorithms push it forward. So just please, please, please do not get your information from the Internet. It seems obvious, but it's so easy to do. You need to have a doctor that you trust that you can get your information from or at least check things with. And I advocate for a primary care doctor, but if you need me, the emergency department's always open. But yeah, there's a whole thing in there on health influencers and how they use correlation to basically market things to you instead of using the science of causation and kind of the dangers that we all fall into there and basically their playbook, whether or not they're doing it maliciously. Yeah.
- [25:18]
Rebecca Buchanan
And I, I think it was in that chapter, but there was something, it. Was it the teenage girl who kind of didn't even have a medical license, who went to Africa and kind of started a hospital.
- [25:28]
Ashley Elker
Right.
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Rebecca Buchanan
So, so this idea of thinking about, like, who are you? Who are you supporting? And Donating your money to. And how are they adding to even deaths of like, what? Over a hundred children died during that?
- [25:42]
Ashley Elker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, she opened a medical clinic. There was actually an HBO documentary on it as well. She's actually from Virginia, but it was a homeschooled girl. No, I don't even think she had a college education who went to Africa and basically started. Initially it was supposed to be a thing that she was like providing food. And malnutrition in itself can be very dangerous and refeeding syndromes can be deadly. So that in itself is something that you need to know the science and medicine to partake in that, but maybe a little bit lower end. But in the end, she ended up basically creating a medical clinic that was doing transfusions and all this other stuff without any type of supervision. It was terrible. And of course children died in this place. So poor people do not. Not deserve poor medicine. And that is not something that should be happening when we, you know, when you go to other places and try and donate and help, you need to know what you're donating to and you need to understand kind of the cultures and intricacies of these societies. And it's best to kind of go through their channels to help with these things because it's their. It's, you know, their community. And that's who you should be kind of letting lead the charge on those things. Things. But yeah, I mean, it's a. That's a form of like medical influencer. That's what I'm talking about. Right. There are people out there that are trying to do the right thing and are. Are credentialed and are, you know, getting good information out there. But it's just so hard to fight all like, it's just a dumpster fire of information at this point. So, I mean, buy makeup, find clothes, watch funny videos, but please don't do medical information on the Internet. I wrote a book, read the book. Like, like do that. So, you know, I just. That's actually one of the reasons I wrote the book is because it's written down and there's a responsibility to that. Right. I can't go change it at. On a whim. This is information that is researched. I've written it down. It is like solid. You. You can touch it. This is not something that, you know, can go viral and then, you know, in, you know, get. Get taken down and changed and all this other stuff. I mean, the, that's the problem with some of the social media stuff is that you edit Things and change things, and the information is so. So, like, cursory. It's just not the same. It shouldn't be. Don't get important stuff from there, please.
- [28:03]
Rebecca Buchanan
One of the other. Another chapter that I think is really interesting is the Elements, right. So, like, some things, I mean, scuba diving, I think is in there. You know, there's something we might have a little bit of control over. But thinking about those. Those big, scary. Like, I grew up in Minnesota, so tornadoes were always this kind of thing that, like. Like, is the tornado coming? And I live in the middle of, you know, rural Illinois, so tornadoes are a thing.
- [28:28]
Ashley Elker
But.
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Rebecca Buchanan
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, that? Like. So, yeah. We have these things that we sometimes don't know if we. We don't know if we're going to end up in a situation where lightning's going to strike or.
- [28:40]
Ashley Elker
Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean. And I think the Elements was just kind of a fun chapter for me, too. I actually. I had a chapter on black holes and exploding stars, too, but there just wasn't enough space in the book. But everything from, like, lightning to tornadoes to earthquakes. I'm from California, so I'm pretty. Pretty well acquainted with earthquakes, volcanoes, altitude sickness. I mean, these are all things that, depending on where you live, I mean, you're going to be exposed to something on this list. And it's just best to know, you know, what it means. Like, what is hypothermia? What are the stages? When do you need to go to the hospital? You know, during earthquakes, there's all these fallacies that we create over time by. By passing down faulty information, such as stand in doorways. That's safer. They're no more structurally sound than the rest of the building. And in fact, you're actually more exposed to falling debris. So this information, it came from the San Francisco earthquake, because all of the pictures after the earthquake and the fire had these door frames. And so people thought, oh, that must mean the doors are more structurally sound. Stand in the doors. That's actually not true. And that's something that we need to correct. It's actually more dangerous to do that. You should, you know, duck under something. And as. As kids in California, we learn duck and cover. I don't know if everybody learns that. Probably not, because some places don't have earthquakes. But. Yeah, and that's. You also mentioned the crime chapter. And I will say there's also. I had to do a chapter on serial killers because I don't know what the deal is, but there's this great infatuation in America with serial killers. But also we have like exponentially, like logarithmic mean more serial killers than any other country. And I don't know if it's just because we're good at catching them or if maybe we're just like sociopaths in our society, but we're talking like orders of magnitude greater. And it's crazy because we have so many here. And then I moved to this desert island for part of graduate school and I met it's like one and only serial killer, which is the story in the book, which shouldn't have happened, but did happen. And the most embarrassing part of that is I'm like, oh, I think I have all this situational awareness. I had no idea. Somebody had to tell me later and show me a picture of us and be like, this is the guy. And I'm like, I don't remember that person. Which is probably the mark of a good serial killer. But you think you will be able to pick out a sociopath in a bunch. But they are, they're tricky. And they're not who television tells us they are. They aren't these like diabolical geniuses. They're actually generally like average intelligence. And I mean, if, if any like personality disorder or like psychiatric disorder is associated, it's usually narcissistic personality disorder. Not like, you know, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Not like one of the disorders that, you know, we generally associate with these things. Not at all. And the other thing that I find really weird is they're generally like, engaged in society. They have like, children and families and jobs and all these things. So. Yeah, so that story is in there just because, you know, it was interesting and unfortunate, but hopefully these things kind of help people remember. Remember the science and remember like the, the, the things that could actually help you someday.
- [31:42]
Rebecca Buchanan
I will just put a shout out because that reminded me of Murderland. I don't know if you've read that book by Carolyn Fraser and she looks at like the, the, the huge amount of serial killers who came out of the Pacific Northwest at a certain time and looks at it as an environmental. Right. Like what was going on, like, were like lead poisoning, like all the ways.
- [32:05]
Ashley Elker
Yeah, why?
- [32:06]
Rebecca Buchanan
Yes, right. Like, so it's. So it's super fascinating with, from a medical and environmental perspective and thinking about like there was a larger number of serial killers coming out of the Midwest or about the, the Pacific northwest in the like, 70s. Right, sure.
- [32:22]
Ashley Elker
And I mean, we are a big country. There's a lot of People, but you can correct for that. And the numbers still don't really make much sense, which is something I talk about in the book. But I think the important part that could save your life is they're not who you think that they are. And so, you know, just be wary of everyone.
- [32:39]
Rebecca Buchanan
So anybody. So your last, like, sort of your last section of ways to die are through war. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think that is something. Again, again, we often think of it in the United States, I should say we often think of it as something that is not that we are not going to encounter. We see it in other places, but we, we know right now throughout the world that warfare, biological weapons, chemical weapons, nuclear weapons are things that are very. Yeah. Scary.
- [33:14]
Ashley Elker
Yeah. And I think it's important to at least understand what these things are. Like what are biological weapons? How can they kill you and how can you protect yourself against what are the different types of chemical weapons and how do they kill you? And if you're in a situation where you encounter them, how, how to best survive what, you know, what are the nuclear weapons today? How does nuclear fallout, you know, work? Is it an issue anymore with fission versus fusion bombs? All of this stuff I talk about and like, how far away do you need to be to be safe? Or you know, nuclear fallout isn't the same as what it used to be with, with you know, H bombs versus nuclear, like good old fashioned atomic bombs. But you know, it's just, you know, stuff that's interesting but also, you know, doesn't hurt to have the knowledge, that's for sure. And then there's a chapter on anthrax which is obviously a biological weapon, but has a very interesting like cultural and kind of recent history in the United States. So I kind of, I included that in its own chapter just because there was a lot of information that could help people remember something that might save their life.
- [34:17]
Rebecca Buchanan
So I mean you kind of talk about this but. And we've been talking for a while but like you, can you talk just maybe just reiterate like what you want people to get out of this because you kind of end with what we see on television and when, how we see sort of, you know, the er, medical dramas. I've been obsessed with the show Doc lately. Right. But that doesn't mean it's like really how it all work, how medicine and works. So. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about. Yeah.
- [34:47]
Ashley Elker
So the, the afterword is titled the Afterlife, which unfortunately I, I am very straightforward. I can't tell you much about the afterlife, but I can take you to the door. And I know what that part looks like. I, you know, I've done lots of cpr. I've had lots of real life experience going up against death in my personal life with family members and then also so obviously with my patients. And I think the practical knowledge that I've gained throughout my medical career and kind of, you know, the important parts of medicine aren't always the science. Sometimes the things that I learn from my patients are things that kind of go beyond that and are leave space for things like miracles and understanding that we don't understand everything with science and that's okay. But the whole point of this book was to bring you the science and as much of what we know based on that that I could in a way that's understandable, in a way that's interpretable, in a way that's entertaining. And that's why I've done what I've done on television. That's why I wrote the book, is that I think that entertaining people with stories and passive education through those stories is one of the best ways to compensate. Combat. Combat medical misinformation in this day and age is that you have to captivate people and you have to give them something to emotionally connect to in order to remember, hey, if I have a sore throat, I should get treated for it. And make sure you don't give my six month old niece honey and you know, don't drink seven gallons of water in a day because it can cause brain swelling and seizures and death. And I explain all the science in a way that's very understandable throughout the book for each of these things. But also, so I give you kind of the background of like the sociology and did you know Bruce Lee might have died from hyponatremia from drinking too much water and Brooke Shields had a seizure from the same thing. These are people that people know and can relate to and understand. And so it helps you remember and it helps the medicine be much more approachable.
- [36:52]
Rebecca Buchanan
So final question. The book came out in January, so it's out self promotion. So anything with the book you want people to know about or anything else you're working on? Yeah, go for it.
- [37:02]
Ashley Elker
Yes. So the book 99 Ways to Die and how to Avoid Them is available wherever books are sold, your local independent bookstores, large book retailers, online. There's an audiobook, it's an ebook, it's a hardback book. You can get it wherever you get your books. I am online on social media even though I hate it. But I am aalkermd on all handles. I mostly post about the book right now. I'm doing my best, but like I said, I can't stand social media. But I think that the book is a fun read. I think that anyone who reads it, I promise you'll learn something and hopefully I'll make you laugh. I'm told it's darkly funny.
- [37:43]
Rebecca Buchanan
Well, Ashley, thank you so much for talking with me for New Books Network again. Ashley Elker and her book 99 Ways to Die and how to Avoid Them.