You see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's glow calls, beckons, for you to come towards it. It'll be easy, you might think, to simply walk into it. But suddenly, your metal-loving neighbor yanks you up, gives you the Heimlich, and forces you to spit out the candy lodged in your throat.
Near-death experiences are unique for everyone unfortunate enough to experience them, but thankfully, that's what we have the internet for.
Reddit user, u/th0nx, wanted to know what it was like when they asked:
When was your "Oh sh-t I'm going to die" moment but you didn't actually die?
Not. The. Bees.
GiphyI'm alergic to bees.
One time I got stung while sitting at a red light. It was a rental and I forgot my bag. No epipen. I turned into a car dealership and yelled to them to call 911. Within 4 minutes (which felt like an eternity) my throat completely closed. Last thing I remember is the guy who was with me yelling that I was blue. I don't know how long I was out, but as soon as the EMTs pushed the epinephrine I sprung back to life. Thank goodness they got there so quickly.
The next day I brought the dealership and the EMTs baskets with cookies.
Seeing The Point Of Impact
It happened when I was a teenager. Two of my cousins, my mother, and I were on the way to San Francisco. I was sitting in the backseat playing on my Nintendo DS. As my cousin was making a left turn (light was green), from my peripheral vision I could see a SUV speeding towards our vehicle. I'm not sure if SUV was running a red light, the driver was distracted, or if just hitting another car for some reason was the driver's intent.
It really felt like time slowed down in the few seconds prior to the accident. I remember thinking I would feel the biggest impact and would probably die because of it since it was coming directly towards my side of the vehicle.
I braced myself, said a quick prayer, thought of my father and grandmother and everyone else we would leave behind. I remember glancing up at the point of impact and watching my DS fall from my hands. The SUV sped away.
Thankfully none of us were injured, just very shocked. Hearing my mom wailing out my name thinking I was hurt or dead right after we got hit was the worst.
Bad Puppy
Mauled by a dog.
I have no memory of most of the bites, but at one point the dog lunged & latched on to my abdomen, a bit up & to the left of my belly button. It was so terrifying & excruciatingly painful I was convinced that the dog was going to rip my guts out. When it was over & I was being escorted to the ambulance I kept my hand pressed over the bite on my gut because I thought I must be bleeding out. The funny thing was that bite was actually nbd & pretty shallow, it was the bites I didn't feel that were severe & caused lasting damage.
Never Trust A Lake
I had a stupid tradition where I'd swim to an island by a camp site I go to every year, it's about a 40 minute swim. I'm a good swimmer and never really bothered taking a life jacket or floating device. One year, I got a massive leg cramp in my left leg when I was 15 minutes from shore. I thought I was done but luckily it went away.
When Death Is Better Than The Alternative
I had the flu pretty bad. It got to the point that I couldn't keep anything down and I could barely walk into the urgent care. It kept up nearly a week, I felt like I was drunk the whole time. I'd wake up and think "if I died, that'd be fine." I didn't want to, but I thought if I did, it would be preferable.
Dangerous Undercurrents
When I was little my family went to Mexico for a holiday vacation. I was playing in the ocean when I felt myself being pulled out to sea. My parents were distracted, but I remember looking up at my sister screaming just as my head went under the water. I'm not sure how long i was underwater, but two guys came out of nowhere, dragged me out of the water, and as quickly as they appeared they were gone.
My parents looked all over the beach and never found them.
See? This Is Why We Have Life Alert.
GiphyHeart attack.
Alone.
Out of town on business.
Hotel booked for a week.
Do Not Disturb on the door.
Passed out from pain and exhaustion.
As I blacked out, I thought 'this is it.'
I wished I could tell my wife, I love her.
Woke up the next day...
Was truly surprised I was alive.
Roughly Uber'ed to hospital, ASAP.
Out of work on leave for 3 months.
Completely changed lifestyle and food.
Doing better, right arm, 50% numb.
Just glad to be here.
🙂👌🏻
A Slippery Slide Of Doom
Okay so, about 2 years ago I was on my way to a friends birthday party, and keep in mind it was the middle of winter in Michigan. On the way there my mom hit some black ice, sliding off the road and the car hit some dirt, making it standing standing on both right tires.
Almost flipped and while it was I said "oh sh-t" but then the car flipped back onto all four. I still joke about it with my mom every winter. Good times.
Irresponsible Choices
After a party one night I made the 45 minute drive back to my house at around 4 or 5 in the morning, may have been less than sober, and when I got home I realized that I had driven with my knees the whole time and was sitting with my arms crossed.
I thought "wow, I should've died"
By The Skin Of Your Neck
This happened when I was about 18/19. Coworker shot a power washer at my neck from point blank range. In that split instant, I thought "I'm dead."
It had only recently been turned off (we were stripping paint from a large barn/shed) and although it hurt on impact, when I reached up to my neck, there was no blood. The relief I felt didn't counteract the feeling of nearly dying. I took off from work that day and cried on the lawn for like an hour, just trying to calm down.
There's A Pun In That Name...
According to my mom, when I was 2 years old I got a candy stuck in my throat. Thankfully my mom was a doctor so she poked her finger inside my throat and fished it out.
I now rarely eat candy other than life savers.
A Water Park...OF DOOM
Back in the day, there was what I considered to be the best water park in the US - Six Flags Atlantis in Hollywood, FL. They had once of the best wave pools in the country. I was 6 at the time - my parents recently divorced. I was with my father in the wave pool. It was so crowded that I lost him and I didn't think he could see me. I barely knew how to swim. On top of that, even at the age of 6, I thought I was pretty smart. I thought my father was just taking me to the water park because that's what father's do - not out of love (turns out I was right and this was the case as 2 years later he completely gave up his own visitation rights).
So here I am, drowning in the wave pool and thinking the only person who's looking for me is a dude that doesn't even really want to be with me (but needs to because it's court mandated). So, my thought process was: what incentive does he have to go bat shit crazy and look for me instead of just casually looking for me? I was under water for a good 30 seconds and couldn't hold on any longer. JUST as I needed a breathe, my father drags me to the surface and saves me. I was shocked. I couldn't believe it. On the drive home, it hit me: if I would have died, my mother would have murdered my father...so his incentive to save me was pretty fucking big.
Car. Surfing.
When I was 16 I was the dumbest kid you've ever met. I was trying to "surf" my car while my friend drove it down a back road, and after a few minutes I tried to crawl back in. I was drinking, and I couldn't quite get in the small windows, so my dumbass put my foot down trying to jump into it and it pulled me down.
Had some pretty serious road rash and cracked my head open. Probably would have died if my friend wasnt terrified that I was doing it and slowed down when I tried to climb in.
Stairway To Death
I was being stupid, and I fell down a flight of stairs, hit my head on the hard wall, and if I wasn't lucky, a ladder would've fallen on me. Lucky me though, I walked out with a sprained elbow, could have been worse, but when I was falling, it felt like my life was flashing right before my eyes.
You've Reached Your Final Destination
I was driving home from my girlfriends place in the city. I was driving home on the highway and out of no way a large pvc pipe comes rolling out in front of my car and I'm doing 70mph. It rolled to the point it seemed it was gonna strike my two left tires and somehow I turned just enough to avoid it. Needless to say a heart attack almost occurred.
Slowly Fading
Stepped on a stingray at the beach and the stinger went almost all the way through my foot like stepping on a nail. I got out and laid down near my family (last day of family vacation) and got my foot wrapped tight in a towel. It only took a few minutes for the poison to set in and my whole leg felt like it was on fire. Everything in my body started going numb, I had a hard time breathing, my fingers and toes curled up and my lips were tightening up. I told my wife I loved her and thought that might be it.
One of my brothers was bawling like crazy thinking I was done for. Somehow I pulled out of it and was able to get to ER and get treated. Hot hot water is the only thing that neutralizes stingray venom/poison. Worst pain I ever felt in my life but so glad I pulled through. Only time I've ever been convinced I wasn't going to make it. And it was a couple months after Steve Irwin's death.
LPT: do the stingray shuffle whenever you are in the water at the beach. Shuffle your feet so you are never taking a big up/down step with your foot. This scares away the stingrays and they don't sting you this way.
When You Want Something To Happen, But It Doesn't
This is gross, but about a year ago I woke up in the middle of the night with stomach pain. This isn't unusual since I have colitis, so I got up, grabbed a Calvin and Hobbes anthology, and prepared to spend some time in the bathroom. Normally the pain comes and goes and I can handle it. Unfortunately, this particular night I was horrifically backed up from nausea medication and couldn't go. I'd never had this happen before and suddenly the pain went from a manageable if unpleasant 5 to 'oh sh-t I might actually be calling 911.'
Unable to force anything out that way, I started vomiting uncontrollably. It honestly felt like my guts were being crushed by something. The only pain I can compare it to is like a Charley horse but in your entire colon. I've got a high pain tolerance but at one point the pain kept getting worse and worse until I was pouring sweat and I had a real moment where I thought my guts might rupture or something.
I panicked and things got real weird for a few minutes. My vision started going and I got really shocky. Dry mouth, more vomiting. I almost passed out in the tub when the spasms got worse because I couldn't keep myself upright. I couldn't push to get my guts moving because even the slightest amount of force was enough to make me shriek in pain. Eventually, with a concentrated effort, I was able to get things moving and I unleashed hell on our toilet. It sounds ridiculous, but I have NEVER been in that much pain. I was absolutely terrified, and that is the closest I have ever come to being like "man, I might die here."
What's the closest you've come to dying? Share it with us!
- Are Near-Death Experiences Just Hallucinations? Scientists Weigh ... ›
- Brain Surgeon Recalls His Near-Death Experience, Says He's Been ... ›
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- How Near-death Experiences Work | HowStuffWorks ›
- About Near-Death Experiences ›
- The Science of Near-Death Experiences - The Atlantic ›
- Near-Death Experiences and the Afterlife ›
- Near-death experience - Wikipedia ›
- NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCES best of 2018 [FailForceOne] - YouTube ›
"What's an unspoken rule on a first date?"
EyeContact, And Not With Your Screen...
"Your phone is not part of the date."- Wonderful-Note9289
"Don't be on your phone the whole time."
"And don't talk about your ex."- HoW-LoNg-DoCtOR-YES
Think Very Carefully Before That Second Round
"Don’t drink too much."- drivethruhell
"Had a date like this."
"Within the first 90 minutes they had taken like three shots, and were on their third drink."
"I understand wanting to calm your nerves, but damn."
"The whole 'you need to play catch up LOL' isn't as cute as you think it is."
"We did not go on any other dates."- mothershipq
Drink GIFGiphyThere Is no Scent More Intoxicating Than Your Own...
"Have a shower beforehand."- Porriz
"And take it easy with the perfume/cologne."
Your date shouldn't smell you before they see you."- imnotlouise
No One Likes A Moocher...
"Don't order any extras plates to eat at home with your mom when the other is paying."- lil_wavey999
Always Be On The Same Page...
"Both should know it is a date."- mosquitohater2023
"I met a woman at an out of town festival through a friend of mine that she was hooking up with."
"She ended up taking too many shrooms and I spent an hour with her helping her to feel calmer."
"She is a traveling nurse and was going to be in my city in a few weeks so we exchange numbers and when she gets in town she asked if I want to get some sushi."
"Happy to make a new friend, we meet up, talk a lot about my friend that she’s hooking up with telling funny stories about him."
"Eventually it comes up that I’m leaving the next day for a 3 week trip to Europe with my girlfriend and she screams, 'I thought this was a f*cking date!'"
"Reeeeaaallly awkward."- redmoskeeto
Dating Wtf GIF by MaxGiphyBe Open And Transparent...
"Not a rule but never make the other person carry the conversation."
"You're both here to make an effort and give each other the respect."
"If you both want different things then let it be said after."
"No need to hurt someone's self-respect for your ego."- Arkjump
"Be there with honest intentions and nothing else."- S-Vagus
Or At Least Be Willing To Share
"Don’t order 3 full meals."- WinkMartindale
"AND expecting him to pay for all of it."
"I mean sure if you want to take some home for your mom, you pay for that yourself."- Widowhawk·
GiphyBe Prepared For A Lack Of Shared Interests...
"Leave the coin collection at home, wow her with that on the second date."- IronLion11·
Choose Your Activities Carefully
"Don't go to the movies or a fancy dinner on your first date if you don't already know this person."
"The movies is a place where you sit in silence for 2 hours staring straight ahead."
"That does not give you any opportunity to get to know the other person."
"A sit down dinner can be perfectly fine, but if you know within the first 10 minutes that you have no desire to spend any more time in this person's presence, you're stuck through the rest of the meal."
"First dates should always be intentionally short with an option to extend."
"Coffee, froyo, drinks, things that can turn into an hour of talking or 'would you like to grab a bite to eat?'"- baltinerdist
Get Your Emotions Under Control
"Don't excuse yourself to go to the bathroom and then accidentally think about your ex while in there, have to fight back tears, and then come back to the table after way too long, with puffy red eyes."
"Whoops." - Reddit
Sad That 70S Show GIF by LaffGiphyJust Be Open And Honest... To an Extent...
"Don't: Unload on your date about your trauma."
"Gotta keep that sh*t under wraps until at least date 5."
"Do: Be yourself, unless your whole personality teeters on your traumatic history--in that case, self-deprecating humor will suffice until you can successfully abandon all hope and sit in your car for an hour to cry afterward."-Deep-Essay-4829
A Conversation Is A Two-Way Street
"Usually when asked a question I’d answer it and then hit her with a 'what about you?'"
"To ensure that I wasn’t dominating the convo."
"Let the other person speak."- bumboclawt
... NOPE...
"Bring an egg, uncooked, in your pocket."
"Casually let it fall out at the end of the date."
"This establishes you as a breadwinner, who else has the money to just carry eggs around in their pockets?"
"When your date, inevitably, wants to know more about the egg just shrug it off."
"You're not here to brag, your egg does that for you."- wearywarrior
Broken Heart Love GIF by Share It AgainGiphyIf there is one rule absolutely everyone should follow when going on a first date, it's not being beholden to rules, spoken or unspoken.
After all, the best romances are often the ones which happen organically.
Love cannot be forced.
Not to startle any of you, but death stalks us.
We all have nightmares about diseases and murderers.
But what if, in the end, we just choke on a pickle we inhaled too fast?
Maybe instead of a pickle, a little coleslaw would have been the wiser choice.
We'll never know.
The most minute things can send us packing.
Redditor SuffocatedByThighs wanted to discuss the things that can extinguish our lives in the most basic ways, so they asked:
"What simple mistake has ended lives?"
Tripping over untied shoelaces.
It can break your neck.
TIE YOUR SHOES!!!
Off the Rocks
On No Falling GIF by Outside TVGiphy"There have been too many instances of rock climbers rappelling off of the ends of their ropes, which could have been easily avoided by tying stopper knots at the ends of their ropes."
LZRDLZRD
Seconds
"I worked at a tire place for a summer and the first thing they told me was 'See that torque wrench? One mistake with this and you can kill a whole family in a matter of seconds.' I thought well, better take this thing seriously."
FrenchMicrowave
"Man for a second I was thinking 'F**k you'd have to swing that thing around fast to take out an entire family' and just bluescreened on the idea of changing a tire."
lurking_my_a**_off
How Vexing...
"THERAC-25. The world’s deadliest software error. Cost several radiation patients their lives by administering lethal amounts of radiation, and for a while, the doctors didn’t even know."
Longjumping_Event_59
"THERAC-25 suffered a particularly vexing sort of error known as a race condition. Essentially, the circuit required multiple inputs in a particular sequence, but sometimes the timing of that sequence could get thrown out of whack and it would lead to all sorts of nonsensical output."
"This is less than ideal when all you're doing is manipulating pixels, but when your software is handling radiation beams you really don't want this to happen."
"Even more vexing is that race conditions are frequently heisenbugs, which can vanish altogether when one attempts to study them. If you don't have a good idea of what's causing the error, you may never cotton on to what sort of bad input is required to test it. Under those circumstances, it's easy to write them off as imaginary, only to then find."
dancingmadkoschei
Heavy Drifting
"Leaving the stranded vehicle on the road in winter and trying to walk to get help. It happens in rural parts of our province once or twice a year and they find the body a few days later. They get disoriented and freeze."
Regina_Runner
"I got blown off a road in high winds. Heavy drifting. Less than a mile from a friend's house after I had turned around. Drifts made it impossible to complete the trip. Trying to run a mile in full blizzard conditions was a fight for my life as an in-shape 24-year-old male athlete.
"rotyag
Simple Slips
Uh Oh Omg GIF by BounceGiphy"Almost any simple mistake can end a life if you're an anesthesiologist, that's how my grandpa died in his early 60s."
dwserps
Any second. Any moment.
Stay vigilant people.
Celibacy could be better...
Oh My Wow GIFGiphy"Not being honest with doctors about Viagra. It has many dangerous drug interactions and can cause a lot of problems from what I’ve heard. Trust me the doctor ain’t gonna judge you guys, they have seen many more embarrassing things. And it would suck to die because you wanted to hide something just for it to be later stated in your death certificate."
The_upsetti_spagetti
Check the Numbers
"As a healthcare worker, giving the wrong amount of insulin."
UzumakiHorror
"During the first shift of my first clinical rotation in nursing school, I watched a nurse draw up insulin out of an auto-injector pen that was CLEARLY marked to specifically not do that AND she was drastically wrong about the dosage and almost killed a guy by giving him essentially like a hundred times the intended dose."
someguynamedg
Stay In
"Pulling the knife out of someone."
rcadephantom
"Yeah, I did that but it was a broken tree branch that had impaled my leg. Without even thinking I pulled it out. Blood started gushing so I pulled off my shirt and tied it into a pressure bandage. I was lucky I didn’t bleed to death."
Olddog_Newtricks2001
"Shock is an IQ reducer. I once sliced a bit off the side of my hand with a broken glass, and sort of dazedly picked off the piece of me and tried to stick it back on. It did not work."
UncannyTarotSpread
Stay Dirty
"Mixing cleaning ingredients."
Jonnysource
"My dad was trying to unclog his kitchen drain and mixed drain cleaners by adding one then adding another a few minutes later. It started bubbling and he began coughing intensely. I heard him coughing from the other room, saw what happened, and opened the nearby window to get rid of the chlorine gas he just produced."
"I forgot there was a large hive of wasps that had moved into that window and they did not appreciate this unexpected interruption. I took him to the emergency room for the gas exposure and it was tough explaining that the wasp stings were not why we were there."
CharmingTuber
Dear God
Jeff Goldblum What GIF by The Late Late Show with James CordenGiphy"A friend’s husband locked himself out of their home. He tried to get in through a window that had security bars. While squeezing through his foot slipped and he essentially hung himself on the window sill."
Cokej01
Life is fleeting. Here is proof.
LIVE!! But live smart.
