Not to freak any of you out, but life can be scary sometimes. You're about to read some pretty unsettling stuff, so just keep that in mind. From bus accidents to comas to encounters with um, strangers... it's all here.
After Redditor Sqrootveg asked the online community, "What is the scariest event that you have been through?" people came through with their stories. We might have trouble sleeping tonight.
"I didn't know my neighbors very well..."
I came home one night after hanging out at a friend's house a few years ago. After I was sitting in my house alone for a few minutes, I heard screaming and crying coming from the neighbors. Apparently, their teenage son heavily overdosed and they found him dead on his bed with foam coming out of his mouth. The ambulance came, and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
I didn't know my neighbors very well, but it was a pretty chilling experience.
"Dropped everything and went."
The birth of my son. My wife had to have a c-section when our oldest was born, so she had some complications with the pregnancy when she had my son. One night she comes out of the back after dinner and says she's bleeding. Call the doctor, who said get to the hospital ASAP.
Dropped everything and went. Dropped my wife with the nurses at the front of the hospital and parked the car. By the time I made it inside they had two lines in her and were prepping for emergency surgery. I was able to walk with her to the door of the operating wing, but then they told me I couldn't come. Spent 3 hours pacing in the waiting room. When a nurse finally came out they told me my wife died on the table twice. The complications caused her uterus to rupture during the c-section and she lost 7 units of blood. They more or less had her stabilized after removing her uterus and she was in the ICU recovery. Still couldn't see her.
Asked about my son. He inhaled a mouthful of amniotic fluid on his way out and was in the NICU under observation.
A couple of more hours and they finally let me see my wife because she was partially awake and screaming for me.
She spent two days in ICU, 4 in trauma recovery, and 5 in in-patient while she stabilized. My son was ok after 4 days in NICU. Her doctor told us flat out the trauma her body went through was equal to being hit by a train. All in all she had 9 units of whole blood, 8 units of plasma, and 5 units of platelets transfused before she finally stabilized.
Saw the doctor last year, as a customer at my work. I walked over and gave her the biggest hug in the world and thanked her again for giving me my wife back. I will never forget her and will always be thankful for that amazing woman.
"I was trying to nap..."
I was in a bus that crashed into a house. I was trying to nap after a late-night flight when suddenly the bus shook, so I opened my eyes and saw us going off the road, knocking down a small tree and then colliding with a house. There was a strong smell of gas, so we thought the bus was going to explode. We all had to get out through the fire escape window, and I cut my hand on broken glass when I landed. Thankfully the bus did not explode and everyone got out with only minor injuries. Nobody was home in the house either.
"As a kid..."
As a kid, I made a makeshift zipline between two trees in my yard with some rope and and old shirt. I went to go across it just after the sun set one summer night and my shirt was caught on a broken off branch from behind and started choking me. I thought I was as good as dead because I couldn't yell very loud due to being choked.
I held on to the zipline shirt for dear life when I saw one of my older brothers friends walking down the sidewalk. He saw me hanging and got my shirt off the branch.
"Forty years ago..."
Forty years ago I got home very drunk late at night. The police had my house staked out waiting for me and tackled me in the driveway and took me to jail for burglary that they accused me of. Spent three days in jail before they figured out that I was innocent and just cut me loose about an hour from my home without my wallet which they still had at the county jail that I was originally booked into. Didn't have a cent on me but I was sure happy to be out.
"London has held no joy for me since."
Being on a bus in central London on 7/7. Had travelled up from Bristol early morning to attend a work meeting and as the taxi queue was massive we decided on the bus. Bus moved a little but it was obviously gridlock. Internet access wasn't a big thing on mobiles then, so it took one of my colleagues having a phonecall with a friend to find out there had been a bomb on the tube. I called my Mum to say that I was in London but not to worry as I was on a bus and safe.
Then of course the bomb went off on the bus. With the mobile networks all bottlenecked my mum couldn't get through so she left a message. Honestly, the scariest thing was hearing the utter panic in her voice as she spoke. I can still hear it now. Just begging me to get off the bus. We got off at Marble Arch and walked back to Paddington. Work excused us from the meeting, we managed to catch the last train out of London back to Bristol that day and we were given the rest of the day off. I went straight to my mum's and held her for hours.
London has held no joy for me since.
"I remember very little..."
Saving a woman's life.
I was walking past my building's pool on the way home from the parkade when a guy flagged me down and yelled, "I think she's drowning!"
I remember very little of what happened next, but I pieced together that I ran like hell to get there, jumped in fully clothed, phone in pocket, grabbed her from the front - hot tip: don't grab a drowning person from the front, they will CLIMB you - and got her out of the pool.
I was in no danger, but after the crisis was over, fear washed over me like I could not believe. I cried in the shower for an hour until I finally calmed down.
I would do it again in a heartbeat.
"I still don't understand how..."
My 6'2", 300lb (now ex) husband decided I wasn't allowed to leave him.
For reference (not that it matters), I am 5'4", 155lbs.
I'd been out with friends one night and too "out of touch" for his liking... I came home to ugly accusations and verbal abuse. Unfortunately, I decided in that moment that telling him I wanted a divorce (this had been building for months) was a good idea.
As soon as I said "divorce," he escalated.
I still don't understand how, but I survived strangulation, smothering, dragging, and all kinds of other physical assault while our kids slept in the next room.
Thankfully my neighbors heard me screaming for help and called the police.
He went to jail for 3 days and is still in deep legal s***.
But as of last week, my divorce is over.
Nearly a year of nasty legal battles and PTSD and panic attacks and single parenting and I am free.
2020 has been one hell storm after another, but it's also given me my freedom.
"I challenged him..."
My (now deceased) father pointed a gun at me when I was a teen and we were arguing.
It was about a dog that kept getting out. Anytime someone got close he would run even faster. When we finally got him my dad pulled his pistol and pointed it at the dog yelling about how if it doesnt behave he would just shoot it.
I challenged him and he pointed the gun at me. It was the longest moment in my life. On the bright side, as a 120lb woman I've never been more scared of any man than him.
"Six weeks..."
Six weeks in an inducted coma. I woke up six weeks later in a strange hospital and I couldn't move nor speak! I thought I was in Hell.
"My heart goes out to anyone..."
When I was 5 my parents were driving me to kindergarten, and on the way (it was a horrible Manitoba winter) we were in a 3 car pileup. The roads were so slippery no one could stop.
I thankfully was sleeping through the whole thing, but I smashed my face on my knees (this was back in 85 when kay cars didn't have shoulder belts in the back) broke my face and my collarbone.
My dad crushed all of his ribs on the steering wheel and broke his arm in 3 places holding my Mom back from hitting the dashboard. She ended up breaking her leg when it was crushed with the front end.
We all survived. But I was the only one that has lifetime PTSD. The only thing I remember and it plays in my head through night terrors is waking up in the ambulance and there was blood in my eyes, I couldn't scream.. and all I could hear was the paramedic telling my mom I'm not going to make it, and my mother screaming.
I'm almost 39 now. And I am heavily medicated and had to be put through 14 years of psychologists and psychiatrists to heal.
My heart goes out to anyone who's faced trauma. I wish I could have hugged the paramedics who kept me alive and the doctors who make sure 5 year old me still had a future ahead.
As much as PTSD is terrifying, I value each and every single day I'm on this earth.
"At some point..."
The scariest event occurred at work. My life wasn't threatened or anything but I was literally watching a woman bleed out and knew there wasn't anything we could do. I'm a respiratory therapist and I work night shift (important to this story). Night shift means that fewer doctors are around and that we have less staff in general.
I was working in the surgical ICU that night. A woman came out of surgery with her belly still open (not uncommon) because they couldn't completely find the source of a bleed. Her stomach had a vacuum pump on it. She was intubated. She had started to get unstable in surgery so they opted to bring her to stabilize her in the unit and go back to the OR in the morning. Not rare and more common than some people would like to think. The plan that I was told was that we were just going to leave her.
At some point, we were told we had to go get more scans (a CT/CAT) even through multiple objections about how we didn't think this patient was stable enough. We had a window where we thought it might be okay and since the objections were overruled by higher-ranking doctors we decided to go for it.
Normally a CT would take us 5 minutes on the table and 5 back to the ICU. She was on the table for over 20. At some point, the portable pump dies. I'm the one who caught it because her vent starts to alarm and I realize I don't hear the pump anymore (those things are loud). The surgical resident who came with us just in case runs in and starts to hold this woman's belly together. I'm running to the tube station to get the blood products that are coming down to hand off to the RNs. The whole thing from when we notice to getting her back to the OR probably was no more than ten minutes, it felt like hours. We put in at least five units (pints) of blood and it was just pouring into her belly.
The patient died on the table.
It wasn't my first or last serious situation, or time for taking a questionable patient to CT. It is the one that sticks with me the most and has been the scariest time in my medical career.
"If anyone else has had one..."
Having an anxiety attack. If anyone else has had one they know what I'm talking about.
"Was coming home..."
Was coming home from a Boy Scouts camp out and one of the drivers (my friends dad) didn't get a full nights rest I presume and he ended up closing him eyes for like 3 seconds and drifted lanes and hit another car. Luckily no one was hurt.
"Ended up landing..."
Flying through a blizzard. Had to divert to two different airports and couldn't land at either of them because the conditions were just as bad. Ended up landing at the original destination nearly out of fuel and with a visibility of about 100 feet...
"We were going to a horse ride..."
When I was having horse riding lessons, at 8 or 9 years old. We were going to a horse ride, next to a golf field. Problem is, apprently, horses can only see silouhettes (aside from being fearful and kind of stupid as well). So, we assumed that one of the pony saw something creepy (like a golf ball flying towards us), because she panicked. Panicked hard. Like "oh shit I'm gonna die" kind of panic. So the others panicked as well.
They all entered in what we call "crazy gallop", when they run insanely fast to evade or something. We tried everything to stop them. Figures, directing them in bushes and stuff, but nothing worked. My pony was so freaking fast I fainted. I though I was gonna die. Then, he went into the forest, and I was thrown against a tree. I woke up after my fall, walked a few steps, to saw one of my friend with broken leg and arm, another one with a broken clavicle.
I was soooo lucky. This day, before riding, my father bought me a back protector jacket. Without it, I would have been paralyzed.
"Everyone..."
A guy crashed his car and escaped the police while on campus during the night. Everyone had to stay inside buildings while they searched the area.
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