Life can be unpredictable. The risk of injury or loss of life is always present. And yet, despite this fact, you try to go on as if nothing bad can happen to you. When it does, the trajectory of your life can change in the blink of an eye.
Digital content creator Mike Kang (@showerthoughtswmike) asked his Instagram followers to share stories of how people’s lives were ruined “in just a matter of minutes.” Keep scrolling for their horrifying, real tales.
#1
My aunt drove while nearly blackout drunk, her infant in the car. Ended up flipping the car multiple times. Lost custody, might be paralyzed for life, and has to serve a prison sentence the moment she gets out of the hospital
Image source: xposedxnervexendingx, Jan Baborák
#2
Begged a bar customer not to ride his motorcycle because he was drunk, he didn’t make it five minutes down the road, I had to drive past the crash scene.
Image source: intergalacticdespair, Eddie Wingertsahn
#3
Distracted driving. Arguing with his girlfriend over text and slammed into the back of my families car at 80mph. He killed my 7 year old sister.
Image source: lexi_babyy7, EyeEm
#4
I was ran over while crossing the street by a physician assistant who was texting and driving while speeding and ran a red light. I used to run every day. Now it hurts to stand for longer than 5 minutes because of the irreparable damage she did to my legs that 7 years of physical therapy could not heal
Image source: pcarosi13, Ravi Sharma
#5
My brother was drunk and had a fight with his partner. He was locked out. They lived in an apartment. He tried to crawl through a window. Fell five stores and died.
Image source: ella0823, freepik
#6
Had someone ruin my life in minutes. My dad (apoc and a great driver) was hit by a 16 y/o who was driving distracted (head-on) and he got no charges. He later made a GoFundMe because he “couldn’t work with his dad anymore” (he broke his shoulder) and he got hundreds of dollars and I got nothing for it but a dead dad
Image source: possibly_thatcg, sippakorn yamkasikorn
#7
Kid I knew decided it would be cool to buy a motorcycle and show off. He was dead about 2 weeks later. RIP Sam
Image source: patrick.durgin, lineu
#8
Had a friend who thought “noone can od on acid” did 9 tabs on a dare and was rushed to the er and went into coma and died
Image source: silliebillie4, Getty Images
#9
My ex cheated, and now drawn pictures of him being pregnant by luigi from Mario is all around his college
Image source: youallaretoxic, Drazen Zigic
#10
My brother shot me in the chest in cold blood for staying up all night with him, trying to talk him out of suicide for 7 hours. He’s facing a first degree felony.
Image source: sirchanselot777, Getty Images
#11
My wonderful beautiful friend . Her mother was over bearing and a bully she pushed her into getting married twice and when she divorced them she had to go home to live and then she just stopped eating and passed away at 30 from anorexia
Image source: april_g88, creativaimages
#12
Know someone who was a police officer, got called out to a road vehicle collision, boy racer had been speeding to impress his girlfriend who was in the car. Ended up crashing at over 90 mph, he survived but his girl was dead. Even after being told that he kept talking about his car. Hope he’s still rotting in jail
#13
I girl I heard about was applying to colleges and she was the entire package, 4.6 gpa, 1580 sat, and CRAZY ec’s. Whe she submitted her personal statement on common app, sh accidentally copied the long breakup message she was sending to her bf that had a bunch of vulgarity in it to the common app instead of her personal statement and got rejected from every. Single. School.
Image source: jxnes.247, freepik
#14
A friend of mine was drunk and passed out in the back seat of the car. Unfortunately the driver was also drunk and hit another car at a high rate of speed. She flew through the windshield since she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Crippled from the neck down the summer after high school graduation.
#15
Friend of a friend of a friend situation, I knew the guy but not so well. On his way to school with his friend behind him, he went up a hill in his truck and crossed over the line on accident and slammed into a pole. Friend behind him came out and pulled him out, watched him die in his arms. He was only 16. RIP Austin we never got to hang out again like we said we would
Image source: anarchycharlie04, Rahul Pugazhendi
#16
Didn’t know him personally but some kid a town or two over broke into his bully’s house and murdered his family but left him alive. Truly some tragic stuff.
Image source: kaydyn_denison, tonodiaz
#17
The kid didn’t do it to himself, but the teacher kind of did. When I was in high school this kid was fake sleeping and the teacher yelled at him to wake up. The kid did this another 2 times since the class kind of laughed. On the third time he was fake sleeping the teacher had enough and told him to just leave. When he asked where to go she said she didn’t care. The kid started to walk home and got hit by a car about a block from the school and died
Image source: nicky__noble, pressfoto
#18
My neighbors son defended a girl who had gotten slapped, in Myrtle Beach and the boy who he stood up to ran a knife all the way across him and opened him up and he passed away right there. The guy only did 4.5 years for it and get this, he is also from our town and works at Walmart, where people have to constantly look at him.
#19
I went to highschool with this dude that was in the same grade at me, he always looked weird to me and I avoided him , was nice to him and said hello from time to time. Fast forward about 8 years later I saw on the news he was arrested because he stabbed his mom multiple times (she didn’t died miraculously) however he is now in jail and won’t be getting out.
#20
Homeslice went to a park after dark (his lawn was literally on the line with the edge of the park. Literally one step you’re in his lawn, the other you are in a park). Ended up falling into a culvert about 60 yards from his house. Paralyzed himself from the chest down. Somehow when he fell his legs gave out and his back hit a rock at the bottom just so that he ended up paralyzed. Btw this culvert was only about 3.5-4 feet deep.
Image source: eh.9838, DC Studio
#21
a kid i went to school with and another adult planned a robbery, botched it, killed the kid and tried to burn the body, they got caught a day later, both doing life now
Image source: simply.st0n3d, EyeEm
#22
Decided to continue driving through a fogstorm at midnight with 3 passengers. I don’t know why. None survived to explain.
Image source: edgarmcgregor_, Andrew Teoh
#23
Blacked out and fell down some cement stairs. Got a concussion that rattled my brain. Had to drop out of school, and don’t enjoy reading like I once did. I also just feel… slower?? Anyways. Been sober a few years now! 10/10 would recommend!
Image source: brynne.nelson
#24
Friend’s brother, motocross accident, permanently paralyzed at 15.
Image source: bro.what.117
#25
I did it by taking that first sip of vodka at 17
Image source: payaso.hhr
#26
I ruined my own life by not calling CPS at 12
#27
I got pregnant by a dude I met online when I was 16. My parents refused to let me abort and the rest is history
#28
A drunk driver ruined a woman’s life and dream. She had just gotten married to the man she loves and birthed a beautiful boy. They both went to live in Paris and got a car (which was rare in the 80s) and big beautiful house. Only 6 months later, her husband got hit by a drunk driver and died, leaving his wife alone with a baby. She wasn’t able to pay the bills so she went back to her hometown, her family refused to take her back in because of her baby. She worked so hard just to get a decent job, and ever since then, she had to work everyday from 7am to 7pm to get enough money for her and for her son, she had to be a mother and a father at the same time, nonstop, for the next 20 years. And the son lived alone, always on his own, had to walk 2km to go to school and 2km to go back home. A man chose to drink, and turned a woman’s happy life into a labor hell, and snatched from a child the chance of having a father. That woman is my grandma and her son is my father.
#29
Some dude in Florida didnt like how a fiber plant node looked in his yard so he cut it out and took out the internet for loads of people. Got charged with criminal vandalism and fined like 600,000 dollars
Image source: greythoughtsinmymind, sakdinon
#30
bloke walked into my store got mad we couldn’t do a refund on an item that hadn’t even arrived yet threw a monitor at me threw some stuff at other co workers then had a fight with security police and a random guy. Got minimum of 5 years probably closer to 10 all over a £280 bag
Image source: jamie.7235
#31
He drives a dump truck for a living. He was a heavy drinker and drank while on the job. He killed six people in an auto accident.
Image source: cheyenneshaner31, Lars Portjanow
#32
Got married
#33
I’d say myself with cutting for the first time at 12. Went on until I was 17 and now I’m over a year clean. Scars will forever remain though so it’s difficult wearing clothing that doesn’t cover my arm and thighs
#34
A distant relative of mine. Went for a regular check up. Something seems slightly wrong so the doctors suggested the ECG test. Found several small heart blockages. He decided he wanted to get operated immediately. They did so. As soon as they opened the blockages, a nerve in his brain burst open. Brain dead. A man who drove himself to the hospital to the test was brain dead in the next 7 hours.
Image source: tanvidwdvi05
#35
My classmate in 7th grade called in a bomb threat to school because she wanted a day off. Cops tracked it back to her immediately.
#36
So, I ruin my own life for kicks and giggles but there was this one moment where I really had to think to myself, “I’m really ruining my life here” I was a gambling addict and I did it to support mostly me. At first I was winning, then I was losing. I started doing it because I wanted to earn money the fastest way possible. It strained my relationships with my family and friends and also on top of the fact that a Hurricane hit my area and my brain couldn’t think of ANYTHING ELSE TO DO. Needless to say, a month later I checked myself into a facility because I felt like I was really ruining my life.
#37
There’s a deep ditch behind my parents house next to a road with no sidewalks or street lights. One morning around 10am a runner saw 2 bodies in it who had been victims of a hit and run. Later that afternoon the guy who did it pulled into the gas station up the street and they caught him because of the damage on his car. He had no idea he’d killed 2 people because he’d hit them super early that morning when it was still dark and he assumed he’d hit a trash can (it was garbage day and since they’d been launched into the ditched when he looked back he didn’t see anything in the road. One day he was just a 27 year old guy working at a Covid testing facility and the next he was in jail facing two counts of vehicular manslaughter
#38
A guy got in a play fight but slipped and smashed his head and went into a coma for 2 years and his family died and his girlfriend left him. He had nowhere to stay and nobody to go to.
Image source: ttop_noah007, camilo jimenez
#39
Lied to me about her age and then after told everyone to try to get me in trouble after I told her I didn’t want her bc of her age (no I could not tell she had tattoos everywhere and multiple face piercings and drank a lot)
Image source: aidenangelopiel
#40
Someone i know bought a hotel from a crime family in Romania because of a personality disorder he has.
Image source: boaz_tsvieli
#41
My best friend was a great wrestler and could’ve wrestled in college but instead went blue collar and we don’t talk much
#42
Stabbed his dealer in half over 700 dollars, now he’s in for life without
#43
Kids with wrong person
#44
I ruined my own life, wanted to drink and just got completely reckless
#45
When my little sister ran across the road and got hit by a car
#46
Had a cousin who was a new driver speed backwards and ran over a cop and killed bro, he’s in life for manslaughter man
#47
He married the girl that completly wrecked his friend circle and cut him off from everyone around him exept his family
#48
Ppl who cheat on their spouses with whom they have kids.
#49
some guy from my country, studying to become a dentist in Europe, got his Moroccan gf pregnant, she refused to abort it, and he had to drop out to work some random job pushing boxes to sustain her and the child. Don’t know who he is, but I hope he’s doing better now.
#50
The chick who got an internship at NASA and told one of the board members on Twitter to shut tf up
#51
Had a friend who was a delivery motoboy. One day he rode a little too fast for a delivery and hit a car who was doing an U turn (it’s not exactly right, but it was a straight line and there were no traffic so he wasn’t entirely wrong either). My friend died on spot.
#52
A kid a town over started a fight with a 9th grader when he was in 11th grade and he definitely shouldn’t have done that but people bullied him to suicide for fighting the 9th grader. He had a twin brother and a sister and a very loving mother that my mom is mutual with and its insane how something like that ended how it did, rip
Image source: sbd4646
#53
Lying to the p0lic3 about something and ruining that relationship forever. Also being too angry at someone and saying things they don’t mean when they should have just cut someone off, that was the person that had the p0lic3 called on them
#54
Getting associated with BAD people
#55
bartender killed a late guest.
#56
one of my former friends said the n word (as an Asian) a little too loud in a crowded hallway with like 3 admin there. he got entirely expelled and I’m pretty sure he’s in juvy for something else cuz after that he just went downhill
#57
Me when i told my mom how i feel
#58
An old classmate of mine had been in a boxing match for a charity event and ended up dying three days later all because the guy he was playing against hit him in the head since they werent trained at all. The guy still gets harassed to this day, and it affected everyone in both their lives over a silly charity event.
#59
jumping someone over a lie
Follow Us
