Anyone that's had a near-death experience comes back a different person. Seeing the door close to closing on your life can be earth shattering to your world view. Once, you were invincible, never-ending. After a near death encounter? You're mortal, and you have an ending. Reddit user, u/evierajah, wanted to know how those experiences changed you when they asked:

How did you almost die?

My maths teacher wouldnt open the window in our very stuffy classroom. This induced a asthma attack and she denied me going to the bathroom because she thought I was faking.

3 hours later I came round from an asthma attack, being told I was hanging by a thread.

hthompson98

Was walking along not paying attention like an idiot, and stepped out in front of a double-decker bus. The guy behind me grabbed the hood of my sweater and yanked me back, but I was close enough that the bus still smacked into and broke my 'leading' foot. If he hadn't been there, or I wasn't wearing a hoodie, or I was a bit heavier, that would have been my head.

matty80

Had a bad cough so I went to the doctor. He gave me a puffer (can't remember what it was called) and when I went home I fell asleep.

Something woke me up from a dead sleep and when I sat up I started having a hard time breathing. I couldn't talk at all so I had to write on a pad of paper to tell my boyfriend, now husband, to take me to the hospital.

I wrote down my symptoms for the triage nurse and she asked me if I could l talk I shook my head no but she made me try. I choked out an "ok" and she said I could talk and said I could go home since I'm just sick or I could wait.

I waited 4 hours in the waiting room and couldn't get a great breath unless I was sipping water. It was getting frustrating watching people go in before me. I know a lot of them had good reason to be there but with how few people were actually there is was evident she kept me as the lowest priority.

When I finally went in I was feeling like death and even the few tests they did were like torture. The nurses and doctors in the actual ER were very nice and gentle but it still was awful at that point.

A short time after they were done the tests the doctor came in and said I was septic and I should have come in earlier. Any longer and my organs would have shut down and I would have died.

My boyfriend told him I had been in the waiting room for 4 hours and the doctor was pissed. I don't know what happened to the triage lady but I hope she got in some kind of trouble. I know they have to deal with a lot but her bad day could have been a worse day for me and my family.

I was put on an antibiotic pump for a week but it took a couple weeks to feel like myself. The doctor said I could have easily stayed asleep and died at home so it was good I woke up.

Shanoa0209

My parents didn't believe I was in agonizing pain, so I went back to partying, next day the pain was back, stood my ground, went to the hospital. Doctor finally comes to inform me I have a heart infection, wouldn't have needed to come in the next day.

Ashlante

Was in a bad wreck with an 18 wheeler when I was 16. I was on the passenger side in the back seat and the car we were in got crushed when the trailor jack knifed and squished us between the truck and trailer. None of the first responders could believe nobody in our car was killed or even really hurt.

grrrrjordan

I was on my motorcycle as a six-car accident happened AROUND ME. I came around a curve on the interstate as one car hit the concert barrier and spun out into four lanes of traffic. Cars were spinning and rolling around me, and I was barely even dodging, it was like they were dodging me. I pulled off and as I was coming to a stop a semi came sliding sideways through the whole mess. I hit the throttle again and it smashed into the guardrail a meter or two behind me. It was like seriously like a car chase action movie, except it was all luck and not skill.

The throttle punch at the end was the only thing that was on purpose.

JamesandtheGiant-ss

I had an accident while moving a big antique mirror by myself at home. It broke and half of it fell onto my neck. It severed my jugular vein and I came within a few minutes of bleeding to death. The paramedic who saved me said I lost about 2 litres of blood (a little over 4 pints) and I was extremely lucky to survive.

ixtlu

When I was 8, I very nearly drowned in a swimming pool in France. I was playing on the divider between the deep and shallow areas - which was effectively a row of large boulders - and slipped between two of them, getting my leg firmly stuck (and badly cut up in the process). I was trapped, hanging upside down in the water, and unable to twist my leg at all.

The only sign that anything was happening on the surface was the very tip of my foot sticking out, mostly obscured by the boulders, so there wasn't a good chance that anyone would spot anything unusual. I remember looking at all these upsidedown legs moving in the water and thinking "This is how I'm going to die. In France." After what felt like an age, I vaguely remember seeing two big hairy legs move towards me, and next thing I knew I was forcefully yanked out of the water, with blood dripping into my eyes. The guy carried me to the side and made sure I was alright. No idea what would have happened if he hadn't noticed.

[ghiscari\]1_

...in second grade I got chicken pox and ended up having viral encephalitis as a complication.

One thing I remember was a woman visiting me in the hospital and I asked her name, and it was the same as my mom's name so I told her that. Turns out it was my mom and I just didn't recognize her at the time. I spent two weeks in the hospital with that.

oneiros562

My wife went on a weekend away with friends. We lived in a little old wood house with a gas heater built into the floor of the hallway. It was late spring, and the heater was kept turned off by pushing the thermostat way down. 59F was as low as it went. I went out with some friends and came home late, went to sleep.

A cold front blew in and at around 5am the temperature dropped to 58F in the house. We kept a throw rug over the floor grate in the hall most of the year to keep out dust. I awoke to smoke filling the air and the sound of the smoke alarm. I sat up in bed and looked down the hall just in time to see the throw rug burst into flames. I jumped up, grabbed it by the corner and ran outside, hosed it off. I went back in and got the pets into the yard, woke up my neighbor, and then realized that without the smoke alarm I would be dead. I would have suffocated and the house would have burned up like a book of matches.

Smoke alarm saved my life.

grecianformula69

I'm a paratrooper in the 82nd airborne division and had the (now rare) misfortune of suffering a static line injury.

Essentially the cable that opens my chute is attached the top of my chute and the inside of the plane. Through bad luck i ended up with too much slack and it wrapped my arm. I bounced off of the outside of the plane and my parachute was too twisted to open properly. I ended up with a torn bicep and shattered shoulder blade. All things considered my injuries should've been way worse and i'm lucky to be alive

ArdatYakshi1

Parted ways with my motorcycle at 80 mph.

hosstradamus

First two times I was rushed to the ER anaphylactic shock. I swear if my mom wasn't beside the hospital bed crying the 1st time I would have let go.

Third time I was on a plane landing at the airport, but clearly flies around it a couple times. The captain comes on the speakers and informed us the wheels may not be locked/deployed. The landing way was lined all sorts of fire/EMS trucks. No problem with the landing, everyone cheered when we touched down. The captain said it was probably just a burnt out light.

I started having seizures in my late 20s, resulting in permanent partial blindness. I kind of brushed off the danger of seizures until I had one for more than a half hour. The neurologist explained that it's really bad for your brain and I was lucky to still not be a brain dead vegetable, let alone alive.

stop_being_ugly

Just pushed pretty hard on the throne. Vision narrowed and saw stars.

100% thought [dead]

BBG1976

Running with scissors.

I was a kid and I was running up the stairs with scissors in my hand. I was holding them in a fist by the handle with the shears facing upwards. I tripped and caught myself with my elbow with less than 1 inch before I impaled the scissors into my neck.

Oh, and I also OD'd on Flintstone Vitamins when I was like 5 years old. Most vitamins won't cause an issue, but the amount of iron I ingested was a problem.

BubblesMcSpanky

When I was barely 6 months old I had a really high fever. My mom took me to the doc and put one of those pills they put up your butt (I forgot what it's called) to fight the fever. He calculated the dosage wrong and after about 40 minutes my whole body was basically blue and I couldnt wake up. My parents rushed me to the ER and they got my body temperature back to normal. The doctor calculated the dosage wrong due to my weight, I was a fairly fat baby but not as fat as he thought I was....

Krikkits

I was 35 seconds too late to die in a major terrorist bomb blast. I was walking directly towards it.

I paced it a few years later. 35 seconds.

edit: doesn't matter which one. it was a big one.

David_Tosk

Got chased by tsunami then nearly drown in it.

It was 2004, I was on the coffee shop with my best friend, our body still shaking after we had experienced the 8.9 earthquake earlier. We don't know why people began to scream and running to and fro. I saw the electricity tower from far away swaying left and right, we have no idea what really happening. That's when the water slowly rising from our feet rapidly, I thought it way a massive flood, so we just run along with people. Suddenly the stream of flood (it was black) got fierce and went up to 3 meter, we're all swept away.

I alone got sucked into a small store after the water breach the door, I got pulled in along with a few bikes, and a car. I got drowned under those vehicle, I thought, this is it. Somehow there's a force of stream from below, pushed me up, I slipped between the vehicles above me, not smooth though, my upper body got injured badly. As I reached the surface, there's only 30 cm space between the ceiling and the surface of water. Luckily, the water surface level got no higher, it slowly degrading. There are three of us survive inside that small store, pretty sure there's a lot of body on the floor, below the vehicles.

unXpress99

Got my head stuck in a library book return slot.

Raunchy_Potato

A big plane hit the building I was in.

Indeface

9/11?

iliketoswimwithnemo

Yep. South tower, ~40 floors below the plane.

Indeface

H/T: Reddit

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