One in a million
Many people are familiar with the idea that their odds of getting struck by lightning are one in a million, when the odds are more precisely around 1 in 500K.
That said, the odds of dying from a lightning strike in your lifetime is somewhere around 1 in 15,000. Which means you have better odds of dying from smoking, skydiving, or scuba-diving.
Here’s the thing. Does this mean you are unlikely to die from a lightning strike?
Of course it does.
But does it mean that it won’t happen to you?
Certainly not.
When you hear about people who died from something as rare as being struck by lightning, its often because of two things:
They didn’t think it would happen to them—because of overconfidence and the deception of statistics.
They did something that increased their odds of it happening—almost certainly because they didn’t think it would happen to them.
Point is, stats are deceiving. Low odds plus arrogance is a deadly combination.