User:Geodudewang/sandbox/Death by COCO

Death by COCOs

Humans have recorded deaths by coconuts as early as 1777. While this may seem like a joke at first, this “killer fruit” is no laughing matter. Coconuts have caused around 150 deaths per year, while shark attacks have only killed between 5 and 15 each year.

A green coconut, full grown and with its shell, still on the palm tree, can weigh up to 4 or 5 pounds because it’s full of water. If you take into account that palm trees can grow as high as 98 feet which is about the height of an 8 story building, the speed with which a coconut falls reaches around 53 mph. This means that the force of the coconut as it hits the ground is the same in weight to a ton, which is pretty much the weight of a full grown elephant.

While it may be tempting to sleep in the shade under a palm tree on an island getaway, it may be best to lie somewhere else, where falling objects cannot kill you.

Background
Coconuts are a kind of nut that grows on a palm tree. When the coconut become too old it falls off of the tree. Because it is very hard, the coconut hurts if it hits a person. It may even kill a person. People that do not know that a coconut has fallen from the tree can not see it and they could get hit by it. When it is not being used to hurt people, the coconut has water that a person can drink. Coconuts are found in warm places with beaches; this is where palm trees are found

Documented Occurrences
There have been many times that a coconut has fallen and hurt a person or people. Some of the times are as follows: 1520: A story tells that a group of Indians was walking on a beach. Then, a group of bad coconuts got up from the sand and hurt all of the Indians. The Indians ran off the beach. They did not see the coconuts ever again. 1765: King Larry Weber was eating. His helper tripped while putting a coconut on his plate to eat. It hit him in the head. 1792: Captain Jack Sparrow was left on a beach island. He needed to make a boat to get off the beach. He started hitting a tree to knock it down. But a coconut fell and hit him. 1902: There was a town by the beach with a lot of coconuts. There was a strong wind. This carried the coconuts through the air and hit the town. The town was very hurt and all of the buildings fell. 2016: Patrick Hanbury was walking along the beach during Spring Break in the Bahamas. A crazy person was sitting in a tree looking at him. The crazy person threw a cocoanut and it hit Patrick in the head.

Coconuts and the Law
Lots of people have been hurt by coconuts, so new laws have been made. The most known law created because of a coconut death was the Coconut Ban of 1996 in Boston, Massachusetts. This Ban was created because of the fighting between the Bloods and the Crips, which resulted in bad coconut fighting, and over 240,000 deaths from coconuts breaking. Mayor Paul McCartney, said that no one could buy coconuts in Boston anymore. No deaths from coconut have been written down since this ban in 1998. Coconut rights supporters, such as the Coconut Society for Coconut Welfare (CSCW) and the Coconut Friends of America and Beyond (CFAB) have joined efforts to get rid of this rule. The Supreme Court will hear the CSCW and CFAB side of the story in November, 2016 on if the Boston Coconut Ban is ok.

Pop Culture
Coconuts have been the most liked vegetable in pop culture for the last 50 years, according to a study by Bullshit Statistics Incorporated (BSI) in 2015. The first marriage between a coconut and a famous person happen on March 22, 2015. Emma Watson a famous actress, married Bobby-Jones Coconut, the riches coconut in the world in the moment. Emma Watson had a coconut allergy. Emma Watson’s death in 2016 marked the first death by coconut because of “marriage problems."