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You'll Catch Your Death

Documented: Corn chips can damage the esophagus

Various apparently-innocuous items (e.g. corn chips) have damaged people's esophagus, leading to serious but non-fatal problems. References: Pediatr Emerg Care. 1993 Aug;9(4):211-5, Am J Gastroenterol. 1992 Jan;87(1):128-31.

In Dispute: Supercooled Siberian vodka causes instant death when overeager drinker takes a slug.

The story: Soviets in Siberia (or workers in Antarctica) leave vodka outside, drink it at -100 degrees, freeze esophagus and "die instantly". Variants include hunters leaving booze in car, getting frostbite on contact, and teeth shattering instead of death. Although alcohol has a much lower freezing point than water, it will freeze; standard vodka (40% alcohol) will freeze at above -20 degrees C, even very concentrated ethanol (75%) will freeze at above -50 degrees C.

So the vodka's not as cold as the story would have you believe. What about the "instant death"? If the vodka-swiller was prone to supraventricular tachycardia (i.e. has a cardiac electrical re-entrant pathway), sudden cooling of the left atrium could theoretically alter the physiology of the area such that the tachycardia was triggered; this could conceivably lead to ventricular tachycardia, which would look to all the world like "instant death". Drinking a large amount of very cold fluid could achieve this, as the oesophagus runs right behind the left atrium.