On risk and the news

We've seen the ads, made the jokes, and then said, you know, it's probably not a bad idea to have one of these gadgets. My mother had one during the last months of her life. We didn't have to use it, but she and we were more comfortable because of it.
And then comes this news:

A further search shows that the headline writers amp'd it up a bit.

It's not too frantic, but it's also a reminder how poorly we assess risk. This story, after all, talks about six cases of serious injury or death since 1998. For the people who experienced these injuries, the risk was 100%.
Statistically, though, it's much, much more dangerous to have a cat. The CDC estimates that cats and dogs cause 86,000 nofatal falls per year. The number of deaths associated with per-related falls hasn't been reported, but, given the number of falls overall, we can infer that the number of deaths is greater than six.
Not only that, but canes and walkers cause 47,000 fall injuries.
Just as an aside, the Centers for Disease Control has an elaborate set of recommendations regarding fall-prevention. Their definitive document, Preventing Falls: What Works A CDC Compendium of Effective Community-based Interventions from Around the World. ( 14.5MB, 102 pages)
, doesn't mention canes, walkers, or pets at all. Lots of stuff about exercise, community programs, and 'multifaceted intervention." Nothing about Poochy lying on the floor in a darkened hallway.
Anyway, this is all a reminder that we often miss simple, abundant, and major risks because we concentrate so much on the rare but spectacular. Psychology Today describes 10 Ways We Get the Odds Wrong. For example,

After 9/11, 1.4 million people changed their holiday travel plans to avoid flying. The vast majority chose to drive instead. But driving is far more dangerous than flying, and the decision to switch caused roughly 1,000 additional auto fatalities, according to two separate analyses comparing traffic patterns in late 2001 to those the year before. In other words, 1,000 people who chose to drive wouldn't have died had they flown instead.

If you want to play with some numbers about mortality risk, take a look at this site: Death Risk Rankings.
In sum, be careful. but remember that your risk of dying from lightning is much greater than from your emergency call necklace.