The Milton Train Crash in 1955

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understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.

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My grandfather was a GP in a village a few miles away at the time & also did all his own dispensing & had to order drugs himself. He had a patient with terminal cancer & ordered ten ampoules of morphine. When the drugs arrived at his surgery there were one hundred ampoules of morphine & he was furious because it was it was a dangerous (and expensive) error. That afternoon he was summoned to a terrible train crash where many died & over 150 people were injured. Many were trapped in the wreckage. He used every single ampoule of morphine that afternoon. He'd been an avowed atheist until that day but veered towards the agnostic thereafter.
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Date submitted:Sun, 07 Jan 2018 11:11:51 +0000Coincidence ID:9724