What do you want your obituary to read? It's not something many people think of on a regular basis, but death comes for everyone eventually. How would you feel if your death certificate and your obituary said that you died from misadventure? The phrase “death by misadventure” may sound like something from a pirate tale or a Victorian novel, but it’s a formal legal term used by coroners to describe certain types of accidental deaths. Those who are killed by misadventure “knowingly engage in risky behavior,” which could ultimately lead to death. This differs from a plain “accidental death” because misadventure implies a choice: the person knowingly engaged in something dangerous, even if they didn’t expect to die from it. Modern examples include cases of drug overdose and alcohol poisoning. A person knowingly takes risky drugs and accidentally suffers the consequences. That's why misadventure is a manner of death rather than a cause of death. The cause of death in a drug overdose is an overdose, which often causes respiratory or cardiac arrest. The manner of death is misadventure, in which a planned yet risky activity goes sideways.
