Near-death experiences can profoundly change a person. It makes them realize the fragility of life and how everything can end in a single moment.
For these people, it’s an event that will remain with them for the rest of their days. They have since shared their stories in a recent Reddit thread, telling the online community in detail how they lived to tell the tale.
Many of these anecdotes involve near-fatal highway encounters, attempted robberies, and freak accidents during concerts, to name a few. If you’ve had some close calls yourself, feel free to share them below.
#1
I almost died getting a burrito.
In college , I went walking to a Mexican restaurant a few blocks down to buy burritos every now and then. They were very good, well portion and not too badly priced.
Anyway, I love listening to music. There is a hype playlist I listen to for walking and working out. We’ll, one day I was listening to music on the way to said restaurant. I get there, buy my food and walk back. On the way back, I feel someone swip my backside as I crossed the tracks.
Pissed off, I turned around to see who the hell it was, and it was a dam freight train that passed by. It was not going fast at all, just pacing through the neighborhood before picking up speed once out it was out of town.
I was on autopilot walking and listening to music so much that didn’t hear the loud a*s horn or see the massive train coming. A part of the train just ever so grazed me from behind. I seriously thought it was someone swiping my back.
I rip my headphones out and I hear two things.
1. The loud a*s train horn
2. A bystander yelling at the top of his lungs “are you f*****g deaf?”
I stopped wearing heaphone for about 5 years after that.
Image source: click2Install, Kai Pro
#2
Someone lit my car on fire at 3am, and I woke up to my house already going up in flames. Almost died from smoke, fire, and the power lines falling down beside us as we ran out. We all made it out alive, thankfully.
Image source: A_Dehydrated_Walrus, Rodrigo Teixeira
#3
Few years ago, struggling with job hunting I decided to drive on a rideshare app. One Sunday morning, a trip request turned out to be a robbery/hijacking.
The rider pulled a gun on me soon as they got in, 3 others came out of now where right then. I was searched & forced in the boot (trunk). This was around 09:00 in the morning and they spent the day driving around randomly robbing people.
Later the one in charge promised they’d let me go free, but they left that task to a teenager who felt sour they wouldn’t let him drive earlier, he picked up his gf an went joy riding.
Eventually my people sent out the tracking company to find the car because I was unreachable for too long, the kid tried to outrun the guards and police once they caught up, he missed a turn and literally flew the car off a steep river bank, I could feel the car was not on the ground for a good while.
Somehow, I managed to walk away with a dislocated shoulder & few bruises.
Image source: Rust_Bucket2020, Sony Dude
#4
In 1998 I went to a Slayer concert at a relatively small venue. I love the band but I didn’t appreciate how violent the crowd was going to be. There were groups punching on in the mosh pit as soon as it started and it was too packed in to move away. Tom Araya called out one guy (a big angry skinhead who seemed a foot taller than nearly everyone else) and threatened to stop the show if the fighting didn’t stop. Midway through ‘Raining Blood’ I was knocked down in the middle of a mosh and could not get back to my feet. I had people falling on top of me and I could barely breathe. After what felt like the longest time, the same big angry skinhead picked me up from the ground, held me up and let out a primal roar in my face.
I survived the rest of the concert and came outside afterwards to see the street lined with police cars.
In hindsight it was one of the best concerts ever, but I feel like that angry skinhead saved my life.
I think I still have a guitar pick somewhere from that night..
Image source: smarti77, Laura Stanley
#5
My ex husband strangling me while I was pregnant for not making him food (he was home all day) I worked 9 hours. It wasn’t immediate but I got out.
Image source: Kangaroowrangler_02, cottonbro studio
#6
4 years ago I was in absolutely crazy pain with my hip/groin/leg, couldn’t walk, put any weight on it. I tried showering and was screaming in pain, nearly passed out. My leg turned purple and was freezing cold, went to a&e and this useless doctor did an x-ray for a dislocated hip, then told me I was just cold and to go home. COVID measures were still in place, so husband couldn’t stay with me. When he came to get me, the intake staff were really surprised I was being released as they’d seen my leg.
We get home around 2am, I wrapped my entire leg in heated blankets and tried to sleep. Woke up and my leg had ballooned to twice it’s normal size. Rang 111 and they told me to go back to a&e….. This time before I even had a blood test they wrote “pcd?” On the intake form (phlegmasia cerulea dorlens – life threatening complication of dvt).
Had blood test, Dr pulled me aside and said my bloods were through the roof for blood clots. Go into this little room and a Dr shows me all these clots in my groin on an ultrasound machine, quite fascinating to see.
Got told I saved my own life by wrapping my leg in heated blankets as it dilated blood vessels enough for a tiny amount of blood to get through. Without heat, blood was cut off to my leg and I was hours away from losing my leg or dying. Basically was riddled with huge clumps of clots through my thigh, groin and abdomen. Anyway, super scary, but still here.
Also had a wild ride in the worst hospital ward I’ve ever been in. One woman was bipolar, not medicated properly and would throw s**t across the room, flip out. Another was a druggy, she’d fallen and whacked her head, but kept pulling all her wires and drips out and escaping. The other woman they’d overdosed on morphine so she was in a coma for a few days, she’d then been left on that ward because she needed oxygen 24/7 and they couldn’t find a mobile oxygen tank.
I wrote a 5 page complaint to the hospital and that original doctor was no longer allowed to be in a&e. Probably should have sued, but I was so traumatised and happy to be alive I didn’t. Had to learn to walk unaided again, but can now walk 3-4 miles a day. Sometimes still get pain, but just thankful they eventually took me seriously and I lived to tell the tail.
Image source: anniestandingngai, Andrea Piacquadio
#7
A car crash that should’ve ended me. Walking away alive made me realize how fragile life is, and how every heartbeat after that is a second chance I can’t waste.
Image source: LilacSerenade-, Mike Bird
#8
My wife and I were in separate cars, heading to a military base to drop a car off for our son, who had been away for National Guard Drill. We were driving about 50mph when a driver coming from the opposing side of traffic cut a hard left turn barely missing my wife and hit me head on. Our cars were totalled, and if it weren’t for modern safety devices, we both would have died or suffered life altering injuries.
Image source: 00Wow00, Scott Greer
#9
It’s an even split between:
“Bolt from the blue” lightning struck a lightning rod on top of a light pole about 6ft from me. I had literally *just* walked away from that spot and gotten into my security cart (basically just a fully-enclosed golf cart) after having a smoke break on the top level of a parking garage.
A storm had recently passed over, but it was miles away and we had clear skies overhead, so I figured it was safe. I can’t even describe how f****n’ loud it was…
And the other was when a brake line blew in my 99 Explorer on the highway. I was doing about 80mph (speed of traffic for that stretch of I-95) in the left lane, and there was a sudden dead stop ahead. I hit the brakes to start slowing, heard a `*thunk-pop*` and, well, didn’t slow down any.
Through sheer f****n’ luck (and either accidentally or instinctively dropping down a gear), over the next 15-20 seconds, I managed to: swing onto the left shoulder, swing back into the left lane just before the shoulder ended, veer into the middle lane, jump back into the left lane, and then finally found a clean ‘river’ through the middle and right lanes onto the right shoulder…all in heavy (and nearing standstill) traffic.
Once I was fully on the shoulder, I was able to reach the emergency brake (it was one of those left-side pedal types, but too high to easily use in an emergency…thanks Ford), and actually stop the truck. Got out, panic-puked a little, checked on my dog (she was fine!), and then collapsed into a full-on panic attack.
Thankfully a bunch of people pulled over to help (I assume because it was standstill traffic and they had nothing better to do, lol) and pretty much handled everything for me while some nice old lady sat with me and . Like some couple walked my dog, some dude went under my truck and diagnosed/found the line that ruptured, a lady called AAA to get me a tow, and some other guy set up flares.
Image source: BlottomanTurk, Vlad Zaytsev
#10
Outside the Baghdad International Airport, we were patrolling for rocket and mortar sites. We found a pretty secluded spot to hole up and overwatch a back road near a large property mound. We sit there for about an hour when the other truck reports seeing silhouette movement atop the mound. We decide they’ll stay in place and our truck would move around to cut off an escape. Driver fires up the truck and starts to move out when Boom, the IED that was buried just a few feet away from us the whole time goes off. It sent fragments through my drivers head whom I was sitting directly behind, into my gunners legs whom I was sitting inches away from. It blasted my door off. Basically hit everyone and everything in the truck except me. Took me a looooong looooong time digesting that.
Image source: GuerillaRiot, Y S
#11
Y2K and the Mayan apocalypse in 2012.
Image source: LoveDistinct, Kaboompics.com
#12
The Plainfield Tornado, it was a rain-wrapped F5 that had no warning, the sirens only went off about 2 minutes after it had lifted. My family was driving right into its path, our station wagon getting pelted with hail when my dad noticed shingles tumbling out of the sky. He spun the car around and sped back in the direction we were coming from. We would’ve driven right into it.
Image source: chungubarboyle, Greg Johnson
#13
When I was 7 or so my mom and I were moving to another state and we were on the highway. I got tired and hopped in the back seat to sleep. A few minutes later my mom screamed and I opened my eyes to an 8×4 sheet of drywall coming through the windshield. It hit the driver’s side pillar and rotated, driving the corner into the passenger seat. We were fine except my mom had some bruising on her arms and I had some glass in my eyes. There was a grapefruit sized hole completely through the passenger seat where my heart would’ve been.
Tie your s**t down.
Image source: Photon6626, Will Creswick
#14
Either a 50mph head-on collision with a drunk driver, a Ford Focus driver running me over while on foot, or a school shooting.
Seen some s**t…
Image source: DudeWhereIsMyDuduk, Nathan Cowley
#15
Motorcycle. Another motorcyclist turned into my lane and was on a collision course. I yanked the handlebars real hard right then back left and the rear wheel picked up and skipped to the right by about five feet. Onward we went.
Somehow it felt like nothing despite it being literally everything.
Image source: Miserly_Bastard, Valentin Sarte
#16
Pinned against the barricade in the front row, O’Hara arena November 1993, …Nirvana live. It’s an ice hockey arena so the ground was covered in wet plywood. I broke 4 ribs, my feet didn’t touch the ground for most of the show. It was awesome.
Image source: DoookieMaxx, ELEVATE
#17
Guy cut the Jacob’s ladder on the freighter we were boarding in the Malacca Strait. I hit the water wearing 45ish lbs (22kg) of gear at 16 knots. Felt my life jacket get yanked over my head as I hit the water.
I swear someone reached in the water and just caught my hand as I lost grip on the tattered life jacket. I broke the surface and one of our boat crew got a boat hook for me to grab.
After being pulled back in, all boat crew swears I was 60ft (18m) in front of them on impact since I was last off. No one could or did reach in the water for me from their report. Only reason they drove up was for potential body recovery, hence the boat hook.
Broke my right collar bone, was unable to swim/ rescue myself since I’m right handed. Arm flat out wouldn’t raise. Took two guys to pull me out of the water since I was basically helpless.
No matter how much I argued, my statement wasn’t accepted until I removed the part that someone grabbed me. “I was in shock.” “I was delirious.” “I misremembered.” 6 witnessed my fall, no way I could recall correctly. I took the hint, re-wrote the statement, and finished my tour.
I know what it feels like to be pulled in water, and I know I’m hear because someone or something did. Whether the boat was closer and didn’t want to be in trouble for being to close, or divine intervention, I’m alive. I’d just like to know who to thank.
Image source: HelicopterPenisHover, Amine
#18
Ran out of air 80ft underwater on a shipwreck in Vanuatu when I was 16 (took quite a long approach and the swim to the shipwreck was a workout so I burnt oxygen fast). Second time the ocean nearly ended me so now I stay out 😂.
#19
Swimming pool electrocution. Actually went under at 2.oo am and by luck my roommate and neighbor heard my last gulp for help. Second up would be my father and me rolling our family Datsun off a emergency drain thing coming back from Yellowstone. Truck was completely destroyed and the people behind us thought we were dead. Had other stuff happen as well. .
Image source: IntroductionLife1061, cottonbro studio
#20
I was dispatched to a CPR in progress, arrived on scene and the PT was not in cardiac distress. They were however under the influence of h****n and the caller was elderly and had no idea what was going on. I arrived on scene and after a few minutes of this “person” yelling and treating medics like s**t, got up and walked away.
I was getting ready to leave the area and observed a random car I hadn’t seen before. Ran the plates and it was stolen. Different neighbor advised that the occupant of the car was the same subject of the medical call.
I recontacted the subject about a block and a half away and they wanted nothing to do with me. After 15 or so seconds of telling the subject to wait and briefly explaining they were legally being ordered to stop I told them to put their bags down. That’s when they started reaching into their duffle bag after being advised not to. The fight was on at that point and for the next minute or so, I held onto their right hand (in the duffle bag) while wrestling to the ground and eventually arresting.
A loaded 357 short barrel was found in the duffle bag after arrest.
My cover that shift was an officer who was afraid of conflict and actually drove the OPPOSITE direction after hearing the tones and that I was contacting the subject.
Made it out alive with few scrapes but boy am I glad I trusted my gut and relied on my training.
Image source: Nowherefarmer, Mikhail Nilov
#21
In my friends motor swapped Honda crx he was driving on a winding road after a summer rain. He lost control and we spun out counter clockwise into the oncoming lane. I remember looking out the passenger side window on the back end of a full 360 and seeing the silver bulldogs face looking down on us and the word MACK glisten as the car corrected back clockwise. We missed becoming a meat stuffed pancake by less than 3 feet and maybe an eighth of a second. He sold the car that next week.
Image source: BudgetBallerBrand, Erik Mclean
#22
When I was in China about 20 years ago, I was at a traditional musical theatre production.
I needed the bathroom and couldn’t find it.
The receptionist pointed in a general direction and I still couldn’t find it. Asked again and got the same response, but that was again useless.
Asked again, and some man in a suit walks up to me, speaks perfect English and says, “I’ll show you”.
Bear in mind, I’m about 10 years old.
This guy leads me through corridors and then finally we enter the kitchens.
He opens the next door and it’s the street.
I turn on my heel and sprint back the way we came.
I made the receptionist leave her desk and show me.
Image source: J4MEJ, Meruyert Gonullu
#23
I very recently got short of breath after watching a movie in the theater. My friend took me to ER. I got sick, passed out. A CT scan showed the entrance to both lungs were full of blood clots. Visibility was too low for the medivac chopper to get me. 2 hour ambulance ride to a major hospital. Arrived at 5:30. By 11:30 I was in IR as they vacuumed clots . Took nearly 2 hours to get the ones that weren’t attached. A literal handful were removed. No prior symptoms, no heart attack, no strokes. 4 weeks later and I’m nearly back to normal.
I have not had any major health issues in my 65 years. Except now my first full time medication is a blood thinner.
Like many here- I’m blessed to be alive and healthy.
Image source: RamBach81, Anna Shvets
#24
150+ mph car crash as a passenger, flipped at least three times and landed upside down. Only injuries were airbag bruising and I burned my hand on the muffler trying to get the driver out.
Used up all my luck, though, I can’t play roulette anymore.
Image source: KDY_ISD, Anthony Maw
#25
April 27, 2011, in northern Alabama. The sky turned green and everything went silent as my family and I huddled in the middle of the hallway. Our house was the only one on the block without a functioning basement or storm shelter, and with one arm around my little sister and the other around my parakeet’s cage, I prepared myself for the worst. Everything started swirling around us, I could see it through the Hello Kitty bedsheet we used as curtains for my room, which was straight across from the highway. A tree at least a century old fell toward us from the neighbor’s yard, short of our house by inches.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
If it had touched down, we would have been dead. My mom was telling us to pray and be ready to go to Heaven and meet Jesus. When the tornado did touch down, it was rated an F4 I believe, and caused multiple casualties. The whole super outbreak killed over 300 people. We narrowly cheated death that day.
Image source: logalogalogalog_, Marek Studzinski
#26
Was walking home from a club in London early 2000’s with a bunch of friends about 2am. On the other side of the road there was a fella yelling at some girl, I could see she was cowering away from him. He grabbed her by the hair and started dragging her. All the while my friends (I’m a 5”1’ female) male & female just carried on walking. I started to walk over to the other side of the road to help, half way I yelled at the w****r to leave her alone. He stopped, looked at me, let go of her hair and smashed his beer bottle on the ground and lobbed it at me. I felt it brush the side of my face (this was my brush with death). The woman came running over towards me. We went back to the other side of the road to safety and I asked her if she could get home. She told me she had no money and was scared of him as they lived together. I gave her money for a cabbie and told her to go to her mums house or a friend’s. I was amazed that the cars were just going straight past, not getting involved, or even the friends that I was with just kept on walking. What kind of person just walks past abuse? As I taught my kids years later, “A strong man stands up for himself, a stronger man stands up for others” ~ Ben, A Good Cow….I realised some good came from this as it taught me to teach my kids how to be better humans.
Image source: Wilful_Fox, MART PRODUCTION
#27
Had a gun pulled on me by some egotistical fucko that wanted to mess with some teenagers.. even though I had that thing pointed straight at my face. I ran.. jumped over a fence into a yard and then ran through several more yards.. and hid while imploring the neighbor not to shoot me… just call the cops.. as soon as I saw the lights of the cop car I jumped the fence and ran out into the street only to have 2 cops frantically screaming at me to get on the floor with hands raised, while they pointed their guns at me.. I was just a skinny teenager standing on our block with some friends.
Image source: dyslexiasyoda, cottonbro studio
#28
Idk if this count, but a terrorist attack, so there’s a festival in my hometown and the police found a bomb on one of the stage, luckily it’s failed to explode, only knew it after i read it on the news the next day, literally i was only a few meters away from where’s it found.
Image source: Noirezer0, Vlada Karpovich
#29
Got grabbed by a rip current at dusk. Went from “I’m fine” to “this is it” in 10 seconds, floated sideways and washed up two coves down shaking.
Image source: Mental_Fall_423, Rabeebur Rahman
#30
Laughed at a mugger’s face when he was trying to get my wallet or phone. I thought it was just a kid trying to be annoying. He smacked me in the head with his gun. That’s when I understood I was being mugged.
The story’s crazier actually. I was in a LAN house playing command and conquer with my friends. I was about to be destroyed when all of the sudden my friends’ tanks just… stopped. I was like “alright!” and was fully engrossed in the game and didn’t realize their tanks stopped because the entire Lan house was being robbed while I kept playing.
Image source: FalconLeading, Filip Marcus Adam
#31
Twin pregnancy and birth. During my pregnancy, I had so many things go wrong with my body. I had swelling so bad that my pores were leaking fluid. My blood pressure was at a constant 90/100. I slept sitting up for 3 months because I couldn’t breathe laying down. I couldn’t eat or drink much because I would just automatically throw it up. I was constantly puking up stomach acid. I made it to almost 38 weeks and had a c-section. That part went smoothly and both babies (a boy and girl) were born healthy! Shortly after, I had mass hemorrhaging and ended up in congestive heart failure where I spent almost 2 more weeks in the hospital.
It was the most wild 9 months I’ve ever been through, and the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through emotionally and physically. The twins are 7 months now and are healthy and thriving. They’re the happiest babies I’ve ever seen. Even though I almost lost my own life in the process, I would do it all again for them.
Image source: sillybanana2012, Ivan Samkov
#32
It wasn’t dangerous-dangerous but 2011 Earthquakes in Tokyo had an end-of-times vibe. City grinding to a halt, no trains, traffic jams, walking for hours to get home. stores with lights out. The constant big aftershocks with loud warnings from all TVs and phones. Then the rain and the idea that it might be radioactive.
Image source: YakuNiTatanu, Jens Aber
#33
My family took a guided horse ride in the mountains from Real de Catorce (the same place they filmed The Mexican) and as we were walking along this ridge my horse got spooked. Earlier my sister and I had had some fun prodding our horses to go faster, but this was a flat out run. So I’m barely holding on from falling off the horse and down this ridge to my left when my horse reared back and I fell to the right. And landed just a few feet from a vertical shaft down to the mines below. Idk how far down I would have fallen before dying, but It felt like it was moria way down there. We had dropped a few rocks into another ventilation shaft and they sounded very deep. Needless to say, I did not get back on the horse that day.
Image source: will_da_beezt, Ivy Son
#34
An attempt on my own life. Anyone thinking of or currently doing it, listen to me. Stop. All you’re doing is putting more scars on yourself inside and out and it’s just hurting you even more. You hurt yourself because it makes you feel better in the moment. But it will only get worse. Trust me. .
Image source: OutrageousPlan8260, Pixabay
#35
Pancreatic pseudocyst that was 15cm. I knew I was in pain and pretty sure I had to stay in hospital, but I was worried about getting a parking ticket. I walked two km from a long term parking spot and collapsed at the hospital at my checkup.
Image source: ohgolly273, Akram Huseyn
#36
Crashed my motorcycle into a truck while going 70 km/h. I have absolutely no recollection of the crash, I remember putting my hand on the door handle to leave the door and a few seconds later I woke up in the hospital while they were hammering down a titanium rod down my hip to my knee.
I had broken my femur, crushed my kneecap, got compression syndrome in my other calf which killed a piece of it and tiny holes in my lungs and spleen (which the doctors said was from the force of suddenly stopping).
All in all it took 4 months to relearn how to walk and 4 years to get free of pain.
Although, the latter was due to a mistake that the doctors made.
Image source: Aurori_Swe, Angelina
#37
Picked up a drunk buddy, still in our bouncer uniforms (college). He was at a drive through throwing rocks at cars (drunk). I threw him in the back of my friends Tahoe. Long story short, 16 cop cars and a helicopter stoped us about a mile away for kidnapping.. it was scary because they thought the worst, we were just helping.
Image source: milehighcards, Jesús Esteban San José
#38
I got groomed online by a way older couple when I was underage. When I turned 18, they moved me across the country to be with them.
While there, I and another person, were subjected to genuine t*****e. Sleep deprived, locked and chained in a basement, r***d, beaten… It was really, really bad.
I live with the scars from that both physically and psychologically. I will forever. The other person who was with me has since ki**ed themselves. I dont blame them for taking that way out. .
Image source: please_have_humanity, Kaboompics.com
#39
When I was a teenager, I went on an exchange program to Costa Rica. One day, we went to a beach on the pacific coast. I was swimming in the water and turned around to realize I was waaay out from the shore. Yep, I’d been caught in a rip. I had no knowledge of this situation or how to get out of it, but as I bobbed up enough to see my friends on the beach, I could see them waving their arms telling me to swim parallel to the beach. That’s what I did but kind of angled back to the shore. After what felt like an eternity, I finally made it back and collapsed in the sand. When we got back to my host family’s house, the mother showed me an article in the paper about two people who had just died in a rip at the same beach the day before.
Image source: brrraaaiiins
#40
I was bombing a hill on my long board and there was an intersection at the bottom of the hill. The light turned red for the direction I was going and I didn’t have enough time to stop before I would end up going into the intersection. Even if I bailed, the momentum from my fall was still going to cause me to go into the intersection, and I would likely end up under a moving vehicle.
I just closed my eyes and hoped for the best. When I opened my eyes I was on the other side of the intersection and perfectly fine. The rush I got from making it through unscathed was exhilarating.
Image source: screechypete
#41
I was in a car accident that I don’t remember anything about. I remember parts of the morning leaving home, but my next memory is waking up in the back of an ambulance and hearing my son crying and feeling blood go down my face and legs. I couldn’t see anything. I asked if my son was OK and said I could feel the blood coming from my leg and face, and then lost consciousness again.
Woke up again on a gurney into the ER, then again in the trauma room with my wife there. I was OK enough, not moving. My son was OK, bump on his head, but he was discharged and I stayed in the hospital for a few more days. Couple of lacerations on my forehead and legs, couple fractured vertebrae, but overall I made it out pretty OK considering. Car was totalled (I miss it to this day), never found out what happened. I still feel lucky I’m here though.
Image source: fuzzycuffs
#42
60 mph head on collision
60 mph off-road excursion on a full-dress bike
grizzly bear encounter 10 feet away
rattlesnake whiffed on my leg.
Image source: Earthling1a
#43
I almost got crushed by a landscaping truck pulling a trailer about a year ago. I was going down a 3 lane road on my Harley. He was waiting to pull out on the right. I was in the middle, and moved to the far left anticipating him coming into my lane because of the trailer. What I wasn’t anticipating was him cutting across two whole lanes into the lane I had switched into. I ended up between a median and his trailer with my front and rear brakes locked up, so I was basically sliding. I’ve been riding dirt bikes all my life so an unstable motorcycle isn’t anything I can’t handle. But having *inches* on either side of me to keep the bike straight and upright, or probably die was enough to scare the s**t out of me.
Image source: WhitebeltAF
#44
Almost choked to death on a big jawbreaker when I was like thirteen. Still refuse to eat hard candies to this day.
Image source: BaloothaBear85
#45
Unknown guy came up behind me and held a knife at my throat, dragged me by my hair several blocks away, a car pulled up at a cross street so he stopped for a second. I slid out from under, hit the ground, he kicked me in the head and ran off. Although it’s unconfirmed, I think it was the same guy who killed a man while robbing a dry cleaner later. This ruined my freedom to walk around for many years. It was early evening in a safe area.
Image source: MissHibernia
#46
Sepsis following a nick to my small bowel during a routine out-patient procedure that no one noticed. I was in a medically induced coma for a week and in the hospital/rehab for 3 months. My abdominal cavity was open for a month, and I have seen my own insides.
10/10, do not recommend. But it was the quickest and easiest way I’ve ever lost 50lbs.
Image source: ZeGermansAreHere
#47
We had a huge wildfire in our city (Fort McMurray; the fire was called the Beast) in 2016. We had a small fire just out of the city near Horse Creek. I took a few pictures of it but it didn’t seem that dangerous. The next day, we had a fire within city limits that was put out. It distributed some ashes across our neighbourhood but was contained. I figured we must have used up all our bad luck and was relieved.
The third day, I was out sweeping ashes off my deck when all of a sudden, it got dark. I turned around and realized we had another huge fire right behind us. Nobody was prepared. I spent the next few hours trying to get gas without success. People weren’t following traffic lights and some were fighting by the gas pumps. When my husband finally got home, we had burning branches falling all around us. I took one last look at my house and we left.
Because the city was completely unprepared, all 80,000 people were evacuating at once, so it was almost impossible to get out of our neighbourhood. I came up with a work around and we finally got on the only highway out of town. Because the fire had shut down the highway south, we were all trying to go north but the roads were too full. They had to open the highway south no matter how bad the flames were.
The next half hour was the most terrifying of my life. My husband was in his truck with pets and I was in my vehicle with the remaining pets. Because there was so much traffic we were all going about school zone speed as the flames burned right beside us. The smoke was so thick, you couldn’t see. There were burning buildings and trees all around us.
Our city center is in a deep valley, once you drive through that area, there’s a steep hill to get out of town. We are creeping along and the smoke cleared for a second. The flames were so high over the trees that it looked like the air itself was on fire. Then there was a series of explosions to left as a couple of sizeable propane tanks let go. As I looked up the hill, I saw abandoned vehicles everywhere.
I couldn’t understand. At first, I thought maybe they all ran out of gas. But then I remembered an episode of a show called “I Survived” where a semi truck was driving through a forest fire. His vehicle stopped because there wasn’t enough oxygen for the engine. I suddenly realized that was what had happened.
All I could feel was terror. My mouth was dry and tasted like metal. I was sure that any second, both our vehicles would stall and we’d watch each other burn to death just a few feet apart. The minutes it took to get up the rest of that hill felt like a lifetime.
Once we got to the top, I thought maybe we’d be okay but everything, absolutely everything was on fire. Hotels, restaurants, the propane center, all of it burning. We were driving through blackness because of the smoke and I was just concentrating on the tail lights in front of me and praying nobody hit the brakes.
I glanced at a what had been a beautiful campground that was burned to the ground. There was a power pole was suspended above the ground by wires because the bottom had burned away. It was on fire in the air and looked like a burning cross.
After that, we passed the worst part. The city had closed the highway north and converted all lanes southbound. It took us 9 hours to get the 200 kilometres to a friend’s farm. We didn’t know if our children and grand children got out. We didn’t know if we had a home or job waiting. We rested for a few hours and then kept heading south.
It was a huge traffic jam for hours. No one was moving. There was no food, no water, no gas. Kind people were bringing things. A man gave me a bottle of water and a handful of trail mix. Because everyone was trying to find people, our cell phones were mostly useless. We used back roads and finally got to safety that night. Eventually, later that night, we found out that our family was alive.
We were very lucky. Most of the community worked at one of the oil sands plants nearby. We all had to take special training to deal with emergencies, even administrative staff. I think that training saved lives. They were a few people panicking but most kept their heads. We lost two young people during the evacuation due to a traffic accident. But that was it. It could have been so much worse.
I used to love summer, especially the thunderstorms. Not anymore. As soon as it gets warm, we get ready. Go bags packed, cars full of gas, ready to leave at a moments notice. We still have multiple fires each year but none as bad as The Beast.
Image source: Secure-Corner-2096
#48
I received a second chance.
Bomb-drone blew up on the spot I used to sit and read books at, which I was on my way to at the very moment. 30 meters away.
If I hadn’t delayed a bit I would have been sudoku’ed.
My ears were ringing couldn’t hear a thing and I found my self pouring cups of water to crying civilians.
I know I got a second chance.
And you did to. You came back to this very moment. This is a reminder for your second chance. Make it count. .
Image source: ArtisticScallion5491
#49
Mass shooting at a festival. Left a couple hours before the shooter snuck in. The one time I went when it opened at like 8am and left at like 11am. Shooter came around 1pm.
Image source: gilg2
#50
Slid on black ice. My friend and I were on a road trip, ignored weather warnings to “beat the storm”. Going 70mph the car just started rotating. We just started screaming. Did two full spins, hit a van and binked off to the side of the road where there was gravel, miraculously not flipping over.
Image source: FartGoblin420
#51
I had a diving accident that dislocated and fractured 2 of my vertebrae 1mm away from my spine. I had no buoyancy device keeping me afloat and my EMT brother had to rescue me from drowning since I couldn’t keep my head out of the water. It was in the middle of nowhere in Indonesia and had to be airlifted to Singapore to have surgery.
A long with that I had fractured a bunch of other bones like cheek, collar, sternum and one of my eyes was toast for a while because blood filled it up
I was never really at risk of death other than during the surgery where my surgeon said it was more or less. 5% chance of critical failure in the surgery.
Thankfully I don’t have any lasting issues other than chronic back pain and a stiff neck
Made me realise life is worth living for and have been changing my lifestyle since to be better to myself and to those around me, especially my girlfriend who wouldn’t leave even if I had given up and was sure that I would become tetraplegic.
Image source: vismaron
#52
My dad, cousin, and I got pulled out to see by a (unusually) strong rip tide current at a beach in N.C. We were in to about eye level with decent waves over our heads and had reached the ‘don’t try to swim against the current, it’s too strong, wait it out’ stage. Eventually we randomly fetched up on a sandbar and, as the tide was coming out, the area we were in started to get more shallow and we could wade back in. People had the beach had called the water rescue on sea doos, but they ended up being not needed.
Image source: WhiteKnightier
#53
8 (9?) year old me, kayaking with my dad. We get pulled against a big rock by the current, kayak flips against the rock. The rock slants down towards the bottom, current pins me against the rock. Luckily my dad managed to yoink me out from there.
At 23 I survived a car crash I still have no idea how I walked away from. Was the passenger in a friend’s car. We pull up to an intersection. No traffic coming, this was at 5ish in the morning. We start driving, suddenly a van driving like a bat out of hell comes from the right. My friend saw it coming just in time, managed to turn the car just enough where the van hit the front of the car and not fully on the side. It would’ve nailed me otherwise. Car was totalled. Van driver was going about a 100 on a 30 road. No way we could’ve anticipated.
Friend saved my life there, I’m sure of it. I’m 36 now, and I’m still skittish about things coming at me from the right fast(-ish), inside or outside a car.
Image source: Niadlaf
#54
During my student teaching, a kid brought a gun to school. I had three kids behind me, a scared, angry kid with a gun in front of me and I was hoping like hell that the kid who got out of the room found the principal ASAP because the kid with the gun was getting angrier and I wasn’t confident of my chances of getting the gun away from him without someone getting seriously hurt.
I was 22, the kids were 6th graders, so roughly 11 years old. Fear is knowing an 11 year old holds your life and the lives of three others in their hands.
Image source: the_owl_syndicate
#55
Rolled over in a car crash back in the ’80s and supposedly I was ejected from the vehicle. I was 3 and only remember just before the accident. Survived with a fractured skull. I was in the hospital for 6 weeks afterwards. I still have a plate in my head today because of it.
Image source: HoonArt
#56
Fallujah was pretty tense. I stepped over a trip wire 3 times before I saw it and found the tank mine it was attached to. It would’ve been the end for sure, but now it’s just a moment in time.
Image source: moresmartest
#57
My friends and i went to pukkelpopfestival in Belgium, set up camping etc. and had an amazing fun time the first Day. The second day started with as much fun and drinking and music as the first one, amazing weather and all around good vibe.
We wanted to go see Rise Against on main stage an hour later but it suddenly started to rain just a tiny bit. Gf decides we should get our raincoats from the tent, we could do with a time apart from the rest and have some ‘privacy’. We make plans to meet up again and we go to the camping.
And then the sky turned GREEN.
The most voilent storm i ever witnessed happened upon the festival, wreaking havoc, wind that just pulled tents out of the ground and trew them in the air, trees fell over, one crashed into a festivalstand,large hail started hitting everywhere.
And it was over in almost 10 minutes.
People died. A couple who went to shelter in their tent had a heavy construction stand fall on them. Another one lost his leg apparantly, a tree branch hit someone else in his face and he was also death unfortunatly.
That first hour was hell. Nobody knew what happened, nobody could reach eachother and everybody reported some horrific story about people that had to be carriers away or needed medical attention. It took more then 4 hours to find my best friend again, who had his guardian angel working overtime. He was right under the big tree that fell into the crowd. He last minute ducked under a steel table and that saved his a*s.
My gf and me went relatively unharmed, i had bruises from the hail.
The only thing i vividly remember is the colour of the sky. Just GREEN. Calm, beautifull green,and then the horror that followed. .
Image source: nakiva
#58
Walked out of a shelter and stood in the eye of a tornado. Watched the debris swirling around me. When the back eyewall approached, I went back into shelter. No injuries.
It was amazing.
Don’t do this at home!
Image source: AlmostHuman0x1
#59
An Avalanche. Truly a humbling experience.
My Fiancé, my friend, and I were hiking up this valley towards this glacier. It was early June, so we weren’t too worried, but this valley was extremely narrow. The mountains were situated just right, to where it was prone to avalanches, and you could hear the booming and popping of them. We could watch them at the end of the valley on the tip of the glacier, a few miles from the point where we wanted to go.
Along the trail and valley, there were the chutes, and you could see where previous avalanches had come down, but with them already calved we assumed we were good, along with the other 50 people along the trail.
We saw where there had been a decent one that had made it halfway across the valley, and there was a creek running through it. There were two guys climbing on the ice above, and we stopped to admire them, and look at the tunnel the creek was making through the ice flow.
We decided to continue on the trail, and we’re following the trail around this chute and outflow of snow, and we’re about halfway around, with the snow from the previous avalanche on our left, and then the slope up to the mountains on our right. We hear an incredibly loud “BOOM” matched with a series of “CRACK.” It sounded like thunder going off paired with sonic booms.
We stop, and we look around the mountain tops, looking for where it was coming from, when my fiancé points straight above us and yells “We need to go right now.”
We look up and we just see this massive cloud of snow and ice at the top of the mountain. We look around and we are directly in the middle of this previous chute and we have a ways to go on either side. So we turn around and start running up the other side of the valley yelling “get up!” And “we have to get as high as we can!”
We’re running up this mountain and we’re all close together, and we make it maybe 200 yards up the mountain when I turn around to see where we all are. There is no sky, we are in a cloud now. You can’t see the snow traveling down, but you can hear it. I see my fiancé and our friend ducked behind a massive boulder close by, and yell if they are okay. A shockwave of what felt like a 90mph wind of ice slams into me, knocking me backwards and blowing my hat away. I turn around and brace, and I can feel the ice on my neck, all I can think about is how are we going to get out if it covers us, how am I going to get them out if they’re buried, and acceptance of this is it. We’ve gone as far as we could with the time we’ve had, we don’t want to get slammed into the boulders. The sound was deafening.
I turn around and the cloud is dissipating, and we can see the snow and ice stopped maybe 50-100 feet away. I see my fiancé is okay, and our friend is okay, and immediately all I can think about is that there were two people climbing on the chute when it happened.
I immediately drop my pack and run down to see if I can find them, and there is another guy running over. The two guys luckily did not get completely burried, and their heads were above the snow, but they were stuck. The relief to see their eyes moving and hear them yelling for help instead of finding bodies is something I will never forget.
We spent the next hour digging them out with our hands and water bottles and anything we could get our hands on. The snow was like concrete. A helicopter had to come get them, but I’m pretty sure they both lived!!!
If you read this far, thank you for reading and I hope it was worth it!!
Cheers.
Image source: WigginFromCiggin
#60
November 2024 I was headed to work on a Friday, I was stopped at a red light about to get on a highway. That’s the last thing I remember. My next memory is coming to in my driver’s seat and some man has opened my passenger side door and is asking if im ok, im disoriented and groggy and Im trying to open my drivers door and try again and again to open it finally I get frustrated and remove my seat belt and hop over the center console to get out the passenger side. The man is telling me “not to move madame” that ive been in a major accident “dont move dont move” he keeps saying, as I get to the passenger side it occurs to me im not on the ground and the man helps me as I forcefully slide out of the car and I jump down the foot to the ground. I stand there and look back at the car to see part of my bumper is in the tree and I think to myself well thats odd. Im immediately met by a first responder who asks me the date and I give give wrong answer and im taken to the hospital. I didnt know at the time but I had epilepsy and what I experienced was a seizure at the wheel, completely blacked out and ultimately drove the car onto the highway and then it veered off the road, flipped into the ditch and landed upright in a tree within the wooded section at a highway intersection. The car was totaled, every window busted out, the drivers side airbag blew. I still can’t believe i jumped out of that and walk away with not even a broken bone..
Image source: notacreepernomo13
#61
I went to turkey in 2021 to visit family. I had to spend the night in the Adana otogar (the place where busses stop and go). It was very crowded, a lot of people there. I arrived at like 10 pm and had to wait until 5 am. I didn’t know what the hell of a night was before me. First I drank a tea and called my uncle and he warned me of thieves there. I had only a backpack with me so as long as I kept it with me all was good.
I wandered around the place and when I went to the bathroom, I heard 2 boys propably working there threatining each other to k**l each other. It seemed like they did this everyday. I tried to not make a lot of it but it gave me an impression of the place.
I waited a couple more hourse and when I was hungry I saw what I can get. I walked towards a place that seemed to sell some kind of kebab. It was 3 young guys that invited me in when I told them I’m visiting form germany. They seemed very friendly at first serving me warm bread and some tomato mush with onions. I ate but the guys kept staring at me. The vibe shifted and I felt more and more threatened. I don’t remember much after this but they began talking with a more aggressive tone. I tried keeping calm but they started walking around me like vultures. We talked more about germany and turkey but when I couldn’t take it any longer, I made it very clear that I’m here to visit. I got loud and had to push my finger on the table. I yelled that I WILL visit my uncle and that I WILL go back to germany and I asked them if they understand. The guys completely calmed down and said yes they understand. I took my stuff and went away.
I think this was the first time I felt threatened to the core and I felt I might have getten mugged or something.
A syrian guy sitting on a bench a bit closer to the ticket selling station asked me if everything is allright. I said yes and that I had to teach them a lesson (I didn’t know what else to say). He told me to just stay away from them and I did. I spent the rest of the night laying on the grass next to the station and waiting for the bus to islahiye.
There were a lot of dogs in this otogar and sometimes when cars drove by the dogs chased them barking. But they were really peacefull the rest of the time. Other dogs came to me and one even slept next to me. It was really cute.
The man from the ticket selling station was very kind and wanted to carry my backpack to the bus.
This was a very weird and potentially dangerous night for me in the Adana otogar. I will always remember it.
Image source: Sakazuki27
#62
When I was 28, I spent 4 and a half days in the hospital for pneumonia that went septic. I had called off on Friday for a cough, it felt like a normal upper respiratory infection. Stayed about the same Saturday and Sunday, but it got significantly worse overnight. I went to UrgentCare Monday morning, they told me to get X-rays to check for pneumonia. Their X-ray technician is off on Mondays, so my roommate had to drive me to the nearest hospital with the referral.
Around 5:00 PM I get a call from the hospital, it’s pneumonia. They send over the prescription for antibiotics. At this point I am *really* out of it. I was not aware of how sick I was. Around 7:30 PM, I sit up from the couch to take a swig of Gatorade. I start coughing on the third sip, next thing I know I’m sprawled on top of the coffee table with a small puddle of blood from a bloody nose. Based on the size of the blood stain on the carpet, I was out cold for at least a minute.
I call my mom to take me to the ER, since my roommate was at work. They do the standard intake stuff, check my vitals, fever’s about 102.5°F, and draw a vial of blood or two. Next thing I know, I’m getting hooked up for IV antibiotics and transferred from the ER to the main hospital ward because I was in early stage sepsis. It only took 3 and a half days to go from a moderate but normal-feeling cough to deadly serious infection.
Thankfully the antibiotics did the trick, but it was not an easy recovery. After I was released from the hospital, I was on short term disability for almost 3 months. I got sick the last week of January 2023, and I didn’t have the stamina to work a full 40 hours workweek until mid to late April. I had a job that was 95% desk work at the time.
Image source: OGRuddawg
#63
Decades ago I went to a music fest in the Seattle-ish area. Not only was it July 4th, but the Grateful Dead were touring through. Not only was there shitloads of LSD, but military grade illegal fireworks. It was a g*****n war zone. People got shot and stabbed. The State and county raided shut the place down right after, and turned up far worse stuff nobody knew about. .
Image source: TwinFrogs
#64
When I was a kid, my parents and I were caught in a tornado while in a single cab pickup. I watched the clouds roll like waves, the fields laid flat, and the air turned green. A spout came down near a house, and I watched as parts of the house started going up. I started panicking and crying. The tornado came directly at us and shoved us and a little red Mazda into a ditch, stuff hitting our vehicles. As the winds were dying down, our truck was still being pummeled by what I thought was debri. The debri was softball sized hail. My mom had pillows in the cab because we were on a long trip. We ended up having to use the pillows to hold the windshield in. Once everything stopped, the ditch we were in was full of rushing water. My dad somehow managed to get the truck out – I don’t remember how. In the aftermath, I saw fields of smashed watermelons and peppers and trees completely stripped of their leaves. I saw quite a few dead cows, and for the first time in my life, I saw a dead man face down in a parking lot. I’m 43 now and still get nightmares.
Image source: LorettaJenkins
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