Blue Jay that too would be a very low number 6000 deaths in the USA per year are auto accident related. It would be less than 50.
Getting back to the original post about folks dying on the trail - accidents and heart attacks - I am going to ponder something that I picked up on a long time ago that more green footed people are reading a book or getting infomation on the internet and hiking the trail will little knowledge or little excersise... If I pulled a group of pictures of the crowd at the Pinnicle in the past all were skinny as a rail today I see some very heavy people including myself. So going forward this is going to happen a lot more why?... Look at one very healthy athlete - Jim Fixx You can build muscle and health but you cannot exercise and build heart muscle.
Here is the reference.
On July 20, 1984, Fixx died at age 52 of a fulminant
heart attack, after his daily run on
Vermont Route 15 in
Hardwick. The autopsy revealed that
atherosclerosis had blocked one coronary artery 95%, a second 85%, and a third 70%.
[3] Although there were opponents of Fixx's beliefs
[who?] who said this was evidence that running was harmful, medical opinion continued to uphold the link between exercise and longevity.
[4] In 1986 exercise physiologist,
Kenneth Cooper, published an inventory of the risk factors that might have contributed to Fixx's death.
[5] Granted access to his medical records and
autopsy, and after interviewing his friends and family, Cooper concluded that Fixx was genetically predisposed (his father died of a heart attack at age 43 and Fixx himself had a congenitally enlarged heart), and had several lifestyle issues. Fixx was a heavy
smoker prior to beginning running at age 36, he had a stressful occupation, he had undergone a second
divorce, and his weight before he took up running had ballooned to 220 pounds (100 kg).
[6]