People Break Down Their Craziest 'I'm Gonna Die Here' Experience That They Actually Survived

Image by Anemone123 from Pixabay |
As horrifying as the Covid-19 pandemic has been, I can't help but marvel at the people who got through a bad bout of the virus and are still here with us today. The stories I have heard have unnerved me: Quite a few people I know honestly thought they were going to die before things got better. (That's the crazy thing about this virus––you could feel like hell for a while only to experience a major turn-around within 24 hours.)
After Redditor Rares asked the online community, "What is the worst 'I'm gonna die' situation you've been through? people shared their stories.
"In a particularly rough place of the river..."
I was canoeing with my dad when we were on holiday in France. In a particularly rough place of the river, another canoe bumped us and our boat went upside down. I got carried away by the current until a man pulled me out. To this day I am glad that the man was there, otherwise, I would not be here.
"That same year..."
I was kayaking with some friends down a familiar river but the water was much higher than usual. My boat got stuck sideways across a wave. I could move sideways across the wave but I didn't have the strength or skill to get out of either end. After two or three minutes I realised I had to capsize and swim. I was carried about 200m downstream before I could get out. Someone got my boat and paddle but I'd lost my shoes. I had to walk about a mile downstream barefoot to catch them up.
That same year I travelled to the French Alps to do some skiing. I had lessons and thought I was competent enough but on my last day, I found myself on a run that was too steep for me to handle. After falling multiple times I found the only way I could stop myself from going too fast was to fall again. It took me two hours to get down a slope that others were finishing in about five minutes. I kept having flashbacks to the kayaking incident. I kept thinking how stupid I was not to have learnt anything about keeping within my abilities.
"I got a viral infection..."
I got a viral infection that spread to my brain in 2019. By the time my sister got to me to get me to the hospital, I was blind and deaf and "feral" (bit my sister, she has a scar). Everyone at the hospital told her I would've died a few hours later, definitely wouldn't have made it through the night.
Now I'm a disabled amnesiac with chronic pain.
"Had to make an emergency roof repair..."
Had to make an emergency roof repair on my house during an ice storm. Slipped, slid towards the edge of what would have been a 30' fall onto concrete. Stopped with my feet off the edge.
This is terrifying.
To come so close to that and to be stopped in the nick of the time by some dumb luck!
"Remainder of their family..."
A person with a gun shoots and kills one neighbor. The remainder of their family runs to our house for protection. We all hunker down as the person with a gun tries to get into our house.
Also terrifying.
Hopefully the authorities arrived in time.
"Facing down my then wife..."
Facing down my then-wife who was armed with a 9mm handgun. She pulled the trigger and thankfully nothing happened. I took the gun away from her and she ran out of the place. Still don't know why the gun didn't fire. She ended up going to jail and I divorced her shortly thereafter.
Well, there's a happy ending to this one...
...I guess? Sorry you had to go through that.
"A woman was being assaulted..."
A woman was being assaulted outside of my apartment by what seemed to be a boyfriend or husband.
I went out to shout at the guy, and he turned his rage on me instead.
I was about 85% sure I was going to be shot or stabbed. Fortunately, he didn't, and he backed down when he noticed that a crow of concerned people had arrived, and everyone was on the phone with 911.
"When I was about 14..."
When I was about 14, my church went on a youth retreat to rebuild a church on the coast that had been devastated by a hurricane. On the Saturday night of the trip, we went to a bowling alley to finish the weekend on a high note.
I was with all my buddies, there were the "hot" girls in the youth group to be impressed. I had way too much soda and popcorn and was ready to light up the night. The church had rented a Chevy express 12-passenger van, the kind where the seatbelt for the middle row of seats crosses the doorway and you have to duck under it. Well, my idea was to get a running start and launch off of the step into the back seat of the van.
So I did it, and it went pretty well. I got a lot of momentum, and when I launched off the step of the van it was almost perfect. I had intended to go under the seatbelt of the van, but I missed. The seatbelt hit me on the chin, and my momentum forced it down, onto my neck. Feeling the pressure on my neck I panicked and slammed into the back of the second row. The impact flipped me over the seat, into the floorboard of the third row, and twisted the seatbelt behind my neck. I'm not a small kid so my arms were pinned and the more I tried to get them free the tighter the seatbelt got because it had locked due to the impact.
The elapsed time of what had happened was maybe 45 seconds, and the youth leader was still inside paying for the rest of what the group owed. It took about five minutes for a kid to realize that I was actually struggling, and run inside to get him. He ended up cutting the seatbelt with his pocket knife and I am convinced that he saved my life.
"I don't know why I never told her..."
When I was a kid, my mom was a single parent and had awful taste in men. This one, in particular, was a drunk, at all hours of the day.
One day, he was babysitting us while my mom was at work and took us to the local park/lake to swim. About 3 hours go by with my sister and me having fun in the lake but we were tired and hungry and wanted to go home.
The guy had been sitting under a tree the whole afternoon with one of those one-gallon igloo coolers that he said was water, and was "sleeping." When we got out to tell him we wanted to go home, he didn't wake up. It took probably half an hour to shake him out of his alcoholic coma, and then my sister and I (about 4 and 8) had to get him up a very steep hill to the parking lot. He wasn't exactly a large man, but we were little, and pushing a grown man up a hill who keeps stumbling back down was not easy.
Finally, we make it to the car. That was when I realized we were in trouble. He actually got into the car and drove us home, and I use that word lightly... We were on sidewalks and people's front yards more than on the road. I was terrified and kept begging him just to stop, but he ignored me. How we made it home without crashing or being seen by police is anyone's guess. The worst part was that to this day, my mom doesn't know about this event. I don't know why I never told her... Maybe I thought I'd be in trouble. But I was a much more timid child after that.
"My scariest situation..."
My scariest situation was when I was about six. My family and I were at a camping site in a forest. I decided to go a little further and I started getting chased by three stray dogs, but I managed to get back to my parents safely.
Everyone you meet has a story.
You really do not know what other people have been through unless you ask. The resilience of the people around you might surprise you.
Have some of your own stories to share? Feel free to tell us about them in the comments section below!
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Parenting is an arduous, often thankless job.
If it's not something you ever really wanted, or even if it is, you have to be careful.
Toxic parents create toxic people.
And that is born from a lot of unresolved trauma.
RedditorGemJoltik34wanted to spread the word on the ways we can recognize toxic parenting.
"What is a sign of toxic parenting?"
I know I wasn't built for parenting. That's ok. It's just not for me.
Know it All
"Always believing they're right because they're the adult and therefore not letting the child have any say."
rhi_x
Not Bad
"If you feel like you can't be open and honest with them, even over things that are not bad."
keiome
"I can’t remember the last time I was deeply honest about my feelings or things I was struggling with. Somehow they always either 1. find a way to use it against me or 2. they find a way to blame it on things that are unrelated when in the end, it’s usually their crappy way of parenting."
"This is mainly about my mom. But in my dads case, he is emotionally cut off. He doesn’t express himself like ever. My mom is the complete opposite."
tequila-la
Standards
"Being unable to apologize, setting and enforcing standards they themselves don't follow."
19whale96
"When I tell my parents about something I feel like they should apologize my dad listens to me, if he disagrees with what I said he tells me why and if he thinks that my reasoning is correct he says 'you're right, I'm sorry,' my mom yells at me, cries, 'you're talking back, I would've never done that to my mother.' Guess who I have a better relationship with."
Confident-Thanks-143
Feelings
"When they constantly invalidate your feelings."
Hot_Comfortable_6373
"This one in a huge way… my feelings were never validated. Every time I cried it was 'stop the crocodile tears, you’re just looking for attention.' Every time I was mad 'you don’t have real reasons to be upset.' Hell, even when I was physically hurt it’d usually be something like 'rub some dirt on it.'"
Garden_Circus
Lessons
"Never actually teaching your kids anything, just criticizing, 'I told you so' and 'because I said so.'"
eveningspliff
"This was my life just about every day until I moved out. My parents expected me to know things and got pissed when I did something wrong."
playingitloud
People should be required to take parenting classes. Seriously...
Mental Space
"Parents not understanding kids have bad days too. They may not have a bad day like an adult would, but to their little minds they can get just as overwhelmed as we can mentally."
minimomma1989
Learning Bad
"Not being allowed to make mistakes and constantly being shouted at for them."
sami2503
"My significant other has legit PTSD from not meeting his parents standards and being yelled at and screamed for it. Apparently if he didn't clean to their standards they would trash the room and make him start all over again instead of just getting the parts he missed."
YoHeadAsplode
I Feel It
"Treating kids like they aren't supposed to have emotions."
Bee0099
"Damn... felt this one. My mom was this way and reacted with anger anytime I tried to talk to her about my feelings, whether it be something she did to me that traumatized me or just something that upset me during the day."
"Then had an ex who did the exact same thing (not relevant to parenting but yeah). So the treatment I received from my mom and ex made me put up a wall around my emotions. Completely ruined my recent marriage. Just hope my son always knows he can talk about his feelings around me."
leebron-jahamez69
Expectations
"The 'I guess I’m just a bad parent' line."
HoneyOaksTree
"Or 'Well, I wasn't perfect,' or 'I don't think I ever claimed to be perfect,' or 'I know I was not a perfect parent,' always with the implication that the only reason their offspring have a problem with them is due to their expectations of perfection, and therefore, the problem is with the child and their unrealistic expectations."
LeisurelyLoner
Just say it!
"Never apologizing. Own up to your mistakes!"
bellum1
"Seriously. Like my mom will give a somewhat apology, it'll be along the lines of 'I was in the right, but maybe I shouldn't have blown up and overreacted like I did.' Like sometimes she's right with that but other times she's just trying to only take partial blame."
berrys_a_ghost
Some parents cause far more damage than happiness. And we have proof... It's not a decision to be taken lightly.
Reasons to be single #1... you avoid monkeypox, apparently.
#2... all your money is yours. And Uncle Sam's.
#3... more room in bed.
#4... the list is endless.
Not to be down on love, love is great.
But love doesn't have to be the full journey.
Redditor Inspire3110 wanted to share all the best reasons to not partner up.
"What’s a benefit of being single?"
I'm single. I think I want to mingle. Convince me otherwise.
Just Me
"You only have to worry about yourself."
clayur
"I just started a casual relationship after about a year and a half of being single. Even though that previous one lasted 4.5 years, having to care about someone even a little bit is taking some adjustment. It was nice being free lol."
irishdude1212
Nobody Cares
"It's my day off. I have a bunch of projects to do around the house, but I'm laying on the couch reading Reddit. No one cares."
satanwon
"So true. I just wanna laze in bed all day on my day off sometimes. Bring in some snacks, watch a movie, read my books, take a nap or two. I don't need someone constantly asking 'are you getting up yet?'"
Zealousideal_End2330
Merry Peace
"Christmas is chill af. None of that 'Ok so we spend the eve at your parent's place, then Christmas day is split between my mom's and my dad's/his new girlfriend's place, and then we visit your brother's family to say hi to the newborn, plus uncle Jeremy invited us to his place since we are there anyway..."
foxmachine
Me Boss
"Not answering to anyone else. I've been single for a long time after my marriage ended. The temptation to just pick up with someone new was strong for the first few years, but once I got used to just being by myself, I came to really enjoy it. I'm free to do what I want, when I want. While I'm open to it, it will take someone very special to change my situation now."
ferox965
Places & Things
"Everything is exactly where I left it."
Countryegg1
"Yeeessss. That little bit of milk you left for your morning coffee. It will be there in the morning."
sunflakie
These are all valid choices. I'm in.
Betrayal
"Don't have to worry about having your trust betrayed. Don't have anyone to lie to you. You have complete control over how peaceful things are for you (barring things out of control like traffic or construction work in the neighborhood)."
HelixDraxzonyx
Career Moves
"You have the opportunity to focus on your own needs and/or make giant strides in your career progression without having to factor in and address the needs of your companion."
Lyrick_
Control
"Don't have to worry about having your trust betrayed. Don't have anyone to lie to you. You have complete control over how peaceful things are for you (barring things out of control like traffic or construction work in the neighbourhood)."
HelixDraxzonyx
"I know someone who turned down a top-tier professional sports contract because his girl would break up if he would've accepted it, since she didn't want to move from Europe to America. He killed his hockey-career with that decision, and his girl is almost threatening to leave him if he gets out of shape. Can't believe he's still with her."
mr4ffe
I'm Out
"Don't have to answer to anyone about where you're going."
detective_kiara
"This. When I became single after almost 10 years, for a good few months every time I would walk out the door I would instinctively feel the urge to say where I was going. Weirdest feeling ever, kind of like the Altoids thing Jim did with Dwight."
smorsmores
"Unless you have a pet. I tell my cat where I'm going every time I leave the house, even if it's just outside to smoke a bowl. If I don't, she screams like a banshee until I open the door... then I get a low solid meow, like she's saying 'Really?'"
AnAngryJawa
Keep you warm...
"Getting a good night's sleep. I got so tired of being awakened by someone groping me or poking me in the lower back. The whining about 'why don't you sleep naked' coupled with the 'you don't need blankets - I'll keep you warm.' I can't spend 8 hours every night f**king. I need sleep."
VapoursAndSpleen
EAT IT!!
"You can take a complete cake home and eat all of it."
Both-Ad-3763
Who knew being single could be this fun?! Plenty of people apparently.
Feel-good dramas and hysterical comedies can leave an indelible impression on audiences and make them want to come back for multiple viewings.
The films with inspiring storylines, brilliant cinematography, or Oscar-worthy performances are the most memorable.
But there are films that have the opposite effect on moviegoers, making them wish they never saw them in the first place, despite critical acclaim in their respective genres.
Curious to hear some of the more negative moviegoing experiences, Redditor Outrageous-Abies8391 asked:
"What is the most disturbing movie you've ever come across ?"

The atrocities of war are dramatically represented in some of the most powerful films.
WWI Soldier
"Johnny Got His Gun, saw it in early ‘70’s, still can’t forget it."
– vousoir
Depiction Of Nuclear Winter
"Threads (1984) is by far the scariest movie I've ever seen. It shows the events of a nuclear war breaking out, and the chilling aftermath. There's no hope and no happy ending, truly terrifying stuff."
– LuxGang
A Devastating Letter
"The answer to this and all questions like it is always 'dear zachery…' I cant unsee that rage from the grandfather. Its maybe 30secs and it's stayed with me longer than anything I've ever seen in a movie. Want real proof that a good, loving person WISHES he had murdered someone in calculating, cold blood? Got your movie for you."
– Goldbera1
Parents' Worst Nightmare
"Netflix documentary Abducted in Plain Sight. Movie synopsis: WTF, really!?"
– Upper-Job5130
Real-life horrors make for even greater disturbing cinematic experiences.
Trapped In Delusion
"Requiem for a Dream. It's one of those you can really only watch once."
– MichaelScottssmug
They're called horror movies for a reason.
Torture
"The first Hostel movie really got to me. Not sure if I was just unprepared or what, but that movie disturbed me more than I expected."
– TimeclockTurtle
It's Banned In Many Countries
A Serbian Film
"Came to say this. There were scenes that I wish I could scrub from my memory."
– evmt95
"I own this one and honestly it's just sort of shock value for the most part. Ironically because the cinematography is relatively professional it makes some of the scenes somewhat goofy for their disturbing content."
"The actual content itself is pretty f'ked but somehow because it's well made I didn't really feel as disturbed as I should have. Films like Cannibal Holocaust, Irreversible, Antichrist, and although I haven't seen them Audition and Martyrs, those films make you feel sickly and carry a heavy weight of knowledge with viewing them."
"A Serbian film is the transformers of the disturbing film genre, there's alot that goes on but it's mostly shock value and well put together production value. I've seen A Serbian film 4 different times."
– aFan0Film
Vomit Gore
Slaughtered Vomit Dolls
'If you need a movie to have some form of a linear story, don’t bother with this one. If you are tired of seeing women constantly berated and insulted and shown as weak and scared, don’t bother with this one. And if vomit isn’t your thing, yeah, definitely don’t bother with this one.' - Horrornews.net
"Yeah, might give it a pass."
– Painting_Agency
Mad scientists coming up with the most twisted experiments is the premise in these revolting flicks.
Enough Said
"The human centipede."
– nuttynutz00-D
"I have not seen that, so can't really answer. The worst part of Human Centipede for me was the bodily claustrophobia and psychological horror, not the visible gore. There are only two films I have ever seen that I wanted to walk out of: that and Lars von Trier's Antichrist."
– ipakookapi
Obsession With A Walrus
"Tusk."
– ChuyImposter
"Agreed ! f'king made me feel so uncomfortable soo weird!"
– snakeysauce
The movies that disturbed me most were, as mentioned above, Tusk and Human Centipede.
I could have stopped watching them as soon as I got sick to my stomach. But as a completionist, I voluntarily subjected to torturing myself.
If you are faint of heart, I strongly suggest you avoid these films. You've been warned.
People Describe The Scariest Thing They've Ever Woken Up To In The Middle Of The Night
There's nothing more unsettling than waking up in the middle of the night.
Particularly if what woke you up was a loud, unsettling creepy sound.
The only thing that could make the experience more nightmarish is opening your eyes and seeing something that makes you jump out of bed.
Most of the time, what ends up scaring the living daylights out of us is nothing more than a pile of laundry we forgot to put away or a cat's shadow, and find ourselves laughing about it weeks or even days later
Others however, haven't been so lucky, waking up to discover they were actually in legitimate danger.
Redditor SpaceHubYT was eager to hear the most terrifying things people woke up to in the middle of the night, leading them to ask:
"What’s the scariest thing you’ve woken up to in the middle of the night?"
Keeping an extra close eye...hopefully?
"My grandmother just standing there in the dark by my bed, quietly wringing her hands and staring at me."- fryinpaskettimobster
Terrifying no matter when
"My mom saying I needed to get up and go with the cop."- abletable342
An experience no one deserves
"My mom screaming up the stairs 'get out of the house now!!!' and my brother swinging my door open to get us out."
"The house was on fire."- stoneytopaz
One hundred little fingers...
"Centipede crawling on my face."
"I still shiver thinking about when that happened."- Slight_Librarian_399
A lesson well learned?
"A cop walking into my Airbnb at 4am in Tennessee."
"Somehow he had the code and just.. walked in."
"I was sleeping on the couch right near the front door."
"He yelled at me and asked my name and what I was doing there."
"I was dazed and said 'ugh, I’m sleeping here man' and he’s like 'we were called about a B n E at this address'." - Reddit
"And I said 'I dunno man' and he was like 'well, sorry to disturb you'."
"And he walked out."
"Found out later that the call came In from a different address and the cop still had the door code from a previous call that was put in at this building before."
"This is where I learned if someone breaks in to where I’m sleeping In the middle of the night, I ain’t gonna do sh*t."
"My reaction time is about 5 minutes."- ReferHvacGuy
Sharing a midnight snack?
"Cat dropping a giant a** spider on my chest, then giant spider disappearing in my panic."- lady_of_the_lac
One can only imagine...
"My wife sitting straight up out of bed and screaming while pointing down the hallway."
"She talks in her sleep, usually it’s hilarious."
"That time it was not."- BrotherOfTheOrder
Nature's alarm clock
"8.8 Richter scale earthquake at 3am."- sparkdaniel
There's a first time for literally everything.
"Lived in an old building in NYC."
"Had a neighbor across the hall that would seldom have night terrors."
"1st time it happened, it was about 4am and I was pretty sure she was getting murdered from the piercing screaming and loud thumps from her flailing around and the sound of glass breaking."
"I grabbed a meat cleaver and went into the hallway in my underwear to see that everyone else in the building was also awake and poking their heads out into the hallway wondering what to do."
"Me and 2 other neighbors eventually knocked on her door and when she answered she looked pale like a ghost and was dripping in sweat."
"She didn't remember any of it, apologized and explained to us her condition."
"That was some blood curdling sh*t."
"She was very apologetic about it and bought us all six packs of beer for freaking us out."
"Me and the two neighbors that decided to take action were all 100% sure that she was getting murdered at that moment."
"I lived there for 2 years and I think she only had 2 episodes during that time."- azninvasion2000
Be it over nothing, or something incredibly serious, being woken up at all hours of the morning is never a pleasant experience.
As the place everyone should always feel safest of all, is in the comfort of their own bed.