Winning the inverted lottery

This is my conclusion, too.

Accidents are almost always something very silly, stupid, and something that could just happen to anyone. It only takes a single rock in a slightly wrong position, then your ankle will slip and you fall directly against a lamp post, hit your head, and you're dead.

It is interesting that people don't so much wonder "why did it not happen to me?"—until something happens, and it is then when they're much into wondering "why did it happen to me?".

Basically you need a breath a few times a minute and getting one is largely out of your own hands. And the countless possibilities to get involved in accidents just makes it very easy to build trust in the universe, if you think about it. Nervous about your startup? You'll be just fine, because there are countless of "smaller" things in your life that could fall down before that. And mostly even they don't.

And then again, most people go long stretches without anything happening. I feel that thinking about what will keep them without accidents and what will keep others cracking their heads inevitably leads, and narrows down, to the question of what is your theology.

He is maybe the author of the blog post :)

My grandfather was an engineer and his house was full of interesting electrical appliances. One day we found this really weird-looking device that had little spools of metal wire running through it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_recording). We decided to hook it up to see if we could get it to work ... a 110V machine that hadn't been used since the fifties ... to a 220V power outlet. I still feel bad about that to this day: the machine was a technical marvel & probably belonged in a museum.

Children should never be allowed to play with electric connections. My thomb took an hour to stop twitching after I electrocuted it.

I doubt it was luck: I rather think it's a completely normal way of affairs. At the moment of discovery, the gas concentration was probably far too low for an explosion. If the house was decently ventilated, the gas concentration may never have reached a sufficient concentration for an explosion. If the house wasn't decently ventilated, someone probably would have woken up from the smell. Gas leaks have a pretty large window for discovery, which is why gas leaks rarely cause explosions. The fact that he was mucking around with the electricity right before it is a coincidence, but it's also something bound to have happened in one of the many gasleaks that happen.

I think that was the point of the story. Did I miss something?

I'll take that over this comment:

"The other possible explanation is that it was not chance. The movie 'Signs' makes a good discussion of this point."

I know someone who did that too. Now he is a drive time dj on a funny morning radio show. He lists that accomplishment in his bio on the station's website. Talk about making lemonade out of lemons!