I Exist Because Mom Ducked

"Not me, but my mom before I was born. She was riding in a convertible with a friend of hers. They came to an intersection and the friend wasn't paying attention and lost control of the vehicle. There was a big rig going through the intersection and they went right under the trailer. My mom ducked, the driver didn't not. Driver was decapitated, my mom was lucky and only ended up with a scalp full of glass and some serious psychological trauma. She had to get over 200 stitches in her scalp But nothing else significant."

"I think about it all the time and think how close I came to never being born at all."

– Laszerus

Split Decision

"I was at the end of a 2 hour journey about 10 mins from home, pretty rural and I was probably complacent because I took that road everyday. I took a bend at 40MPH (legal limit was 60MPH so wasn’t breaking any speeding rules) which I’ve done many times before, probably faster which looking back was really reckless."

"Didn’t see until it was too late that a car had spun out on the other side of the corner and another car had pulled up to help. I slammed on but I wasn’t going to stop in time before hitting the cars pulled up/crashed. I was hurtling straight towards the other cars and people who where stood in the road from the other crash."

"It was like time slowed down and I was at a cross roads; in my mind I had three choices. Continue on my path and hit the other cars and people, veer to the right and go into a field but there was oncoming traffic and there was a chance I’d hit them or veer to the left and fly into a wooded area. I chose the last option, and in that moment I knew the chances of me surviving or not being seriously injured after a 40MPH head on collision to a tree in a 10 year old Ford KA was pretty slim. I just felt a complete peace come over me, turned the wheel and woke up slumped over the steering wheel to some poor man shouting ‘OMG I THINK SHES DEAD.’"

"Turned out I passed out from shock or something before the impact so when I hit the tree I was completely floppy and this contributed to me having no serious injuries. The front of my car was completely disintegrated, after coming to I tried to put my clutch down to take the car out of gear out of habit and my foot hit the tree trunk. The tree was absolutely fine. I drove past that tree everyday for years after and you could see the chunk my car took out of it."

– Comfortable-Pie8349

That Strange, Calm Feeling

"I was a passenger in an accident where the car went airborne and was flipped into a concrete ditch, and knew on the way down that I was going to die. Had that same feeling of peace and just accepted it. Crossed my arms, closed my eyes, and felt so bizarrely calm. We hit, opened my eyes, and realized I was upside down but completely fine. Rest of the car was smashed flat, and driver had been thrown into my passenger 'safe bubble,' so he only had minor injuries. That feeling of peace you described is what made me comment. It makes me feel more at ease about my eventual death, hopefully will have that same calm feeling."

– crunchytacodumpster

The result of peer pressure can be a matter of life or death.

Adventurous Friend

"I had an idiot friend and we were hiking. We got to this waterfall and he goes 'dude let's climb it!' I said no f'king way. He says 'well I'm gonna do it and if I fall and die it's on you for not coming.'"

"So I climbed it with him. Got stuck halfway up on a slick a** rock. Pinched a nerve in my shoulder, so my right arm was useless. I thought I was certain to slip off the rock to my doom, but we managed to get me unstuck. That was the beginning of the end for that friendship."

– blindfire40

Jill Came Tumbling After

"I nearly died following a friend who took a crazy route down a hill on a hike. It's crazy how strong that peer pressure can be."

"We were up on a mountain and he slid down the snow of this one section as a short cut. He went down in a crouch with one foot out front. When I tried to do it I ended up a starfish pose just spinning around as I came down. My legs rolled over a bunch of rocks and I came to a rest with my head in a snowbank."

"I had to hike down hill for like 4 hours after that and every step was excruciating. I just kept thinking if it was my head or back going over those rocks if I would have made it out. I still have scars on my leg."

– AmnesiacReckoner

Fortunately, there are heroes among us who don't want us dead.

The Guardian Angels

"Wife was pregnant and we went away for the weekend to house we rented in the mountains. Second day she went to bed early and I stayed up drawing. At 3am she comes downstairs and says she’s in a world of pain and is worried about baby (2 months before due date)."

"We head out and there is no cell reception. By the time we can call her doctor we realize the time needed to get to a hospital that has the right level NICU we might as well head back to our hospital. Two hours later we are there and due to Covid restrictions I can’t come in."

"It was freezing outside and they wouldn’t let me be anywhere in the hospital where I could lay down so I talked my way into some room in the lobby and tried to sleep while sitting. Got kicked out of there and just bummed around waiting for an update. Around noon they say they’ll be keeping her for observation but I still need to clear out from the rental."

"Driving back two hours and it starts snowing pretty hard. It’s a semi rural area and if they do plow the snow they haven’t gotten there yet. I’m being careful and fighting off sleep. The roads are super winding and high in the mountains. At some point car starts drifting across the double lines."

"I did my best to even out but it completely got away from me. Slide through the opposite lane and continue to the shoulder. I see the ledge and realize if the car doesn’t stop I’ll plummet to my death. Have a brief moment where I think about my daughter and the kid in my wife’s belly I haven’t met yet. Felt like a stab in my heart and that second go off the road completely."

"Fortunately there was enough snow in the space between the ledge to trap my car. I passed out in the crash but luckily a couple was a minute or two behind me and their honking snapped me out of it. They pulled me out of the car and went to get help (no service on the mountain). A couple of other people stopped including a guy who had a big pickup. We dug the car out some and rigged the rope so he was able to pull me out."

"Despite Covid I had to be physically removed from both these guys because I was hugging them so tight. I was able to make it back to the hospital without anyone knowing. Told them after the kid was born. Sent my guardian angels pictures and $100 gift cards as if that’s adequate."

– MrFunktasticc

Rescue With Assistance

"I was a senior in high school, and the student club I was in organized an unofficial beach trip towards the end of the year; no teachers or official permission, leaving me and a few other seniors in charge of supervising everything. After a couple hour’s worth of fun, one of the other students came running up to me and said that three of the younger members of the club had been swept out by a riptide and couldn’t get back towards the shore."

"Me and two other of the older students, all experienced swimmers, immediately went to go help them; my friends got two of the three kids in trouble and started guiding them parallel to the shore to get them out of the current, but the guy I went for was panicking, barely staying above the water, and started dragging me down with him almost immediately. I yelled for people to get a lifeguard and tried to keep both of us afloat, but after a few minutes (maybe five, maybe ten, it felt like forever) I was getting exhausted, having trouble keeping both of us above the water, and I couldn’t see anyone coming to the rescue."

"I started getting big mouthfuls of water and my leg muscles were starting to cramp up, and I remember thinking 'Holy sh*t I might actually die right here, right now' as the current started pulling us further and further away from where everyone was."

"Thankfully for everyone involved, one of the students on the beach had flagged down a couple of surfers, who made their way out to where we were as quickly as they could and hauled first the younger student and then me onto the front of their boards and took us back to shore. I’ll always be thankful and appreciative for those strangers who put themselves in the dangerous position of rescuing two drowning swimmers."

"Edit: As several people have pointed out, it’s not uncommon for people to die doing what I did, i.e swimming into the water to rescue a drowning swimmer without training or equipment; there are a few techniques for rescuing someone drowning in the comments that everyone should learn if they’re ever in the unfortunate situation of having to use them. I should’ve used them, but I was 17 and not thinking straight at the time and almost paid the price because of it."

– JustACharacterr

I nearly got smashed by a 18-wheeler driven by a drunkard who was swerving in and out of his side of traffic.

I had to decided to either swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid a more devastating head-on collision or into the row of parked cars on the busy street.

I chose the latter just as the semi clipped the rear corner of my vehicle and spun me 180.

I didn't hit any parked cars, but my vehicle was inoperable. The semi was nowhere to be found but I was more focused on the fact that I came out of that scary situation completely unscathed.

I continue counting my blessings to this day.