People Explain How An Accident Completely Changed Their Lives
Reddit user NoFile9376 asked: 'What happened by a total accident but changed your life completely?'
Life can change in a moment, but sometimes, we're not even aware that it's in the process of changing.
Right in front of our eyes, we've taken a job, met a person, or purchased a product that will change our lives in a big way.
Or on the negative side, maybe we're having the unluckiest of days, where we feel the lowest of the low, only for it to lead to something incredible.
The point is, there's no telling what incredible thing is around the corner waiting for us, or what small moment will lead us there.
Redditor NoFile9376 asked:
"What happened totally by accident but changed your life completely?"
Unique Opportunities
"I went for a coffee with a friend before he went out to pitch a TV show in LA. He asked what I was up to, and I mentioned the comic book I was planning to write."
"His pitch went well and the studio asked if he had any sci-fi ideas. He pitched my idea, and a month later I was in LA with a bunch of agents and managers wanting to sign me."
"We got close with that sci-fi concept, and I worked in LA on and off for about a decade working on a lot of cool stuff that never got made, but I got paid very well, so I can’t complain."
"It was basically ‘Oceans 11 in space,’ and it still gets dusted off every now and again. It’s one of those things that everyone loves but never gets made."
"When the pandemic hit, I started writing comics and have been doing that for a few years now. I have a new movie spec script planned for the new year, so I guess we’ll be taking that out and see if anyone bites."
- MikeSizemore
Unappreciative Bosses
"The water main leading into the house burst, requiring the contractors to lay a new pipe from the street into the first floor. I had to clear everything out, and then go get jugged water to last a week for a family of four."
"I asked to take the afternoon off work so I could take care of this, and they said it would be a write-up for an unexcused absence."
"This p**sed me off to no end because I had recouped hundreds of thousands of dollars that my predecessor had lost and generally unf**ked their processes."
"Not really intending to quit, I rage-applied to jobs just to blow off steam and landed a new job with a $30,000 pay boost, WFH (Work From Home), and complete schedule flexibility."
- pinelands1901
The Power of Saying 'Thank You'
"I got into some trouble while very, very drunk."
"When I got sober, I wrote a thank you note to someone who treated me really well and urged me to get help."
"He was friends with the editor of the local newspaper and thought my letter was well-written. He asked if he could show her and I said yes, then kinda forgot about it."
"A few months later, the editor came to find me to offer me a part-time job filling in for someone."
"I've been working in journalism ever since. The pay sucks, but I love it."
- LizardPossum
A Smooth Career Redirection
"Getting my Class A commercial driver's license."
"I basically tried the majority of work that an individual can get into with a GED (General Educational Diploma)."
"I randomly searched the internet for truck driver jobs out of curiosity. The top of the list was a small form to fill out. A recruiter called me within five minutes. They set me up with a bus ticket to their training facility two states over and lodging for the duration."
"All I had to do was bring enough cash and clothes for a week. They paid enough to feed me the rest of the training. I had an over-the-road job lined up for me right out of training. All I had to do was stick it out with that company for at least a year to cover training costs."
"Boom, entry into a skilled labor field at d**n near no upfront cost, and a guaranteed minimum one year of incredibly valuable experience. This was back in 2008."
"And for what it’s worth. I didn’t even own my own vehicle yet back then. And I only tried manual transmission vehicles twice for maybe 10 minutes total prior to learning how to drive a 10-speed."
"Now, I can simply email or walk into a job that interests me with my resume and my experience speaks for itself. I don’t have to sell myself to an employer. They have to sell the job to me."
"I'm currently about to start up with a local company less than a five-minute drive from home, hauling mostly oversized loads up into and out of the mountains. It’s the highest starting wage I’ve ever had, with a guaranteed multiple dollars per hour raise once I demonstrate I can do everything they’ll need me to do."
"The moral of the story is, don’t be afraid to try something new or different. You might just be great at it."
- tumblevv33d
Going Surgery-Free
"When I was younger, I had a neurological condition called hydrocephalus, which required me to have a shunt in my brain to keep me alive, and every few years, it would break or get infected and have to be replaced."
"About 20 years ago, I developed an infection that my neurosurgeon refused to take seriously, so it wasn't properly diagnosed for about two years after I moved away from that hospital and ended up in the ER."
"Long story short, thanks to some faulty medical equipment that by some weird coincidence wasn't doing its job properly, while I waited for surgery, we discovered that I wasn't actually using my shunt and I didn't need it anymore. So surgery was canceled, and once the infection cleared up, I was sent home."
"It was a really, really awful couple of years, but it ultimately gave me my life back. I'm now 15 years surgery-free and as much as I hate the way it happened, I wouldn't change a thing because if it had happened any other way I would have just had another brain surgery, and then another, and so on."
- NotAngryAndBitter
A Mysterious Lump
"My mother went to the doctor for a routine exam and her doctor noticed a bump on her arm my mom passed off as a cyst. She removed the bump, which she also believed was a cyst, and sent it for a biopsy to be safe."
"Results came back and they weren’t really sure what to make of it. It wasn’t cancer but it wasn’t nothing either."
"Turns out she had a very rare cancer that appeared benign but behaved malignant."
"The doctors had no idea how to treat it, even reaching out to other doctors all over the world."
"She died two years later once it had spread all over her body."
"The kicker is they believe if the initial bump would’ve been left alone it wouldn’t have spread and killed her."
"It’s been two years, five months, and 17 days since she’s been gone, and I will never stop missing her."
- Khaleesi1998
A Second Chance
"I made a left turn instead of a right turn when I noticed a restaurant I liked had closed. I reopened it, and 35 years later, we are still going strong."
"It's not especially heartwarming, but it changed my life as well as my wife, my kids, and 28 employees' lives."
- bbqtom1400
The Choice to Stay a While
"I was working in a large state park as a guide/docent while finishing up my geology degree. I was only interested in science, talking about rock types and tectonics and whatnot."
"It got cold and windy FAST, and snow started coming down and soaking my clothes. I admittedly was not prepared and ducked into a cabin I came across that I thought would be empty."
"It wasn’t. There was a historical interpreter doing traditional chair seat weaving in the cabin. Fire in the hearth and all."
"He said, 'Take your shoes off and stay a while.' Let’s just say that MULTIPLE years later, I own one of the most respected furniture restoration businesses in the state and specialize in antique Appalachian rockers."
"I visit the old man in the nursing home weekly. I go out to the cabin once a month or so to relax and demonstrate to passersby. I took my shoes off and stayed a while."
"P.S. Geology is still cool."
- Most-Cow-2474
The Other Guy
"I accidentally accepted a friend request of (my now husband), thinking it was another guy I knew with a similar name. I was ignoring the request before."
"And the rest is history. We've been married for 12 years, now with two kids."
"The website was Orkut if any of you are old enough to remember it, lol (laughing out loud)."
- zenzephyr42
A Doubly Good Deed
"I was planning to spend $2.49 on a breakfast sandwich and go home to do some chores. They had a two-for-three dollar breakfast sandwich deal."
"I brought the 51-cent bonus sandwich and gave it to a homeless friend. He had a tiny stray puppy following him around and asked me to bring her to the shelter because he couldn't feed her and himself."
"She became my best friend for 13 1/2 years! I'll love you and miss you forever, baby dog!"
- JensElectricWood
It All Began with a Broken Phone
"I dropped my phone from my bed onto the floor and the screen (with the protector) COMPLETELY shattered, which is weird because I’ve dropped my phone from bigger heights and bad angles and there’s usually just dents in the protector."
"Anyway, I was out a phone and super broke, and I didn't have the money to get it fixed right away. None of my friends had extra phones so I posted on my then-company’s slack channel, asking if anyone had a spare phone I could borrow, just for calls and texts, nothing fancy, and I’d be super grateful."
"I was also going through a terrible heartbreak where I’d been love-bombed and then dropped in a second. It was just an awful time."
"So one person responded to my shot in the dark and offered this extra phone he has. I had no clue who he was or what he even did in the company, even though I have several friends in the company. We’d never met because we both worked remotely and no one ever mentioned him to me."
"Our departments were also very different so there was no interaction ever. I was also a bit confused as to why he’d offer a phone to someone he didn’t even know. I thought he was too trusting, lol (laughing out loud)."
"Anyway, he couriered me the phone, I ended up needing it for longer as I saved up, and we finally met up in person a few months later. Long story short, it’s been a couple of years, and he became my best friend and then my SO (significant other)."
"For the first time in my life, I know what healthy, unconditional love is, he is the embodiment of love that keeps on giving. I grew up seeing an abusive marriage so my idea of love and relationships was completely skewed (still learning in progress). But with him, my heart’s calm. He’s my biggest fan and my rock whenever the going gets tough. There’s no one like him. I don’t know anyone as generous in love as he is."
"I remember that time and being absolutely gutted that not only had I got my heart broken in the most miserable way but my phone freakishly completely broke from the shortest of falls, all in a matter of a week."
"I felt so unlucky for the longest time. But looking back now, I’m so glad my phone broke that day (and my then-bf ghosted me). Or there was just no way I’d have ever met the love of my life."
- fluffypoopkins
The Love of a Sibling
"My brother asked out a girl when they were 17."
"My brother started dating this random girl. He needed a job so he started working at the company where her family worked. Next year, I needed a summer job, so they got me a job at the same company. I liked the job and kept working at the company long after my brother and her broke up."
"At 21, I took a job in another state to further that career and moved 700 miles away from home. Now my partner, all my friends, my hobbies, everything that is my adult life is because of that move."
"My brother randomly dating a girl for a year when we were teens changed literally everything about my life."
- ColSurge
The Vital Wake-Up Call
"I almost failed out of college. I tried to up my GPA by doing research WAY too early in my academic career. I met a professor who didn’t even work at my university. I had a brief conversation with him in the lab and he said, 'You’d make a great professor one day.'"
"It changed the course of my life. I scraped by with my Bachelor of Science and was one of the top students in my Master's program. I got a 4.0 for my PhD with several first-author papers."
"Now I work for one of the top professors in my field, I’m talking top three percent."
"That conversation was over 10 years ago. Thank you, Dmitry. I would’ve never met you if I wasn’t failing."
- zagottamove
For the Love of Language
"I randomly decided to take German instead of French when in school as my foreign language the day before class started."
"I'm now a German teacher. It's wild how such a small decision shaped my entire life."
- zapolight
Meant to Be
"I went in on my day off work, thinking I had a shift that day."
"I didn’t but they were short-staffed for the lunch rush, so I stayed for a few hours."
"I ran into my childhood friend who moved away 15 years prior."
"We are now married with kids."
- bree-marie92
These stories are undeniably surprising, and it's incredible how such small moments created such big results in most of these Redditors' cases.
It's important to remember to never take our lives for granted, because there's really no telling what small moment will lead to greatest next phase of our lives.
All scars tell a story.
Some scars people wear proudly, as they are possibly a reminder of their service dedicated to fighting for what's right.
Other scars might be more poignant, serving as a reminder of a life saving surgery.
And then there are the scars which we can only look upon with laughter.
The scars which we gained from such a ludicrous reason, that nobody will likely believe the story that comes with it.
"What's the dumbest way you've gotten a scar?"
Someone's Got Issues...
"My cousin scratched my face because I was very ill and everyone was taking care of me."
"So she got jealous and nobody noticed for a long time because they were focussed on getting my temperature back to normal."- notmytype_xoxo
Partying A Little Too Hard...
"I was headbanging my hair dry in the bathroom, I hit the counter."
"I was 8."- calamityjane515
Tried To Get Ripped, But Only Got Cut...
"I was in middle school and we were going to see 'Coach Carter' in theaters with the boys b-ball team."
"Middle school me was PUMPED."
"While in the shower I thought 'Coach Carter' eh, I bet they do push ups in that movie'."
"Imma do push ups right now'."
"Tried to do a wall push up."
"Slipped, smacked my face on the edge of the tub, and split my upper lip open from mouth to nose."
"Needless to say, did not make it to the movie."- lovesbreadtakesdumpz
Yoga Push Up GIF by YOGABODYGiphyTighter Squeeze Than Anticipated...
"I was trying to squeeze between 2 cars."
"One of the cars must have had a jagged bumper because it sliced a 2 inch gash in my leg."- Carsto_2
The Dangers Of Potty Training
"I got hit on the bridge of my nose by a ceramic toilet seat when I was learning to pee like a big boy."
"Now I think about it, that's probably the best outcome there."- Oddball_bfi
Pain In The Name Of Cleanliness
"I used a pressure washer on my foot."- polish-polisher
Limpeza Faxina GIF by WAPGiphyThey Warn You Not To Play With Needles
"Fir needle cut me across the wrist while playing hide and seek out in the woods."
"A fir needle!"- wunderbraten
Happy Birthday Indeed...
"For my 8th birthday, a classmate got me something like a 'grow your own stalagmite' kit you could buy at educational stores."
"Apparently, the purpose was to add water to some powder material, and use a funnel in the kit to drip it down to make your own cave features."
"Exciting, I know."
"Anyway, I kept it and the other birthday presents I got in a cardboard box in my room."
"Evidently, at some point, moisture got into the box and the plastic the powder was in, and it began expanding."
"Having nowhere else to go, the 'stalagmite' material oozed its way out through the narrow slits in its box, and hardened into razor sharp edges."
"I found this out quite bloodily when I put my hand into my birthday box to grab another toy, and pulled it out with permanently altered fingerprints on my thumb, index, and middle fingers."- Dahhhkness
Good Thing They're Now Mostly Obsolete
"Boys from my class were throwing CDs like you throw frisbee."
"One of those hit me right between the eyes."
"Still got a small scar there."- Domoradzka
cd spinning GIF by Anthony AntonellisGiphyReady Or Not, Here I Come!... Or Not...
"Playing man hunt."
"Some idiot made the camp fire area base."
"I was running for my life to get there, jumped this huge pile of fire wood, tripped over something and rolled right into the fire"
". It could've been SO much worse, but I only burned my elbow and some of my hair."
"It's been probably 15 years and the scar is only about 3inches long and 1 wide."- jwolfe728
Scars are a lingering reminder, often of things we would rather forget.
But seeing as they won't go away anytime soon, all we can do is own them.
For at the end of the day, all scars, be they from fighting in battle or simply falling over your own to feet, should be worn proudly.
Depending on the job, non-office employees work tirelessly to push through with their physically-demanding tasks despite their fatigue to earn that paycheck.
But in their exhaustion, judgments can be impaired and exhausted workers can be vulnerable to workplace hazards.
And when an accident occurs while on company property, it's a devastating predicament that can have long-term effects.
Curious to hear job horror stories, Redditor Bwrice asked:
"What’s a work related accident that still haunts you to this day?"
"Beware of falling objects" was the last thing on these workers' minds.
Do Pets Miss Their Owners?
"While building Levi Stadium, a trucker was unloading rebar when the entire pile fell on him, impaling him multiple times and also crushing him."
"I never met the man, but his cat and elderly dog ended up a a local shelter. We planned to adopt the dog and ended up taking home the cat too because we didn't want to split them."
"Nena (the dog) passed away in her sleep in 2017 about 2 years after we brought her home. Seal (the cat) is around 7 years old now and doing just fine."
"I've always wondered if they ever thought of him."
– ryneaeiel
I Scream
"Worked for Edy's Ice Cream. My truck was loaded wrong so at a stop had to shimmy between pallets to get to the back pallet."
"Was unloading the top pallet and the pallet below collapsed. The top pallet slid on to me. But since I was between 2 waist high pallets about 1200lbs of ice cream bent me at the waist the wrong way."
"Sort of like bending over normally, backwards."
"Ended up with 2 broken vertebrae, nerve damage and was not fun."
"Eventually got a six disc fusion and was able to walk again."
"But now I have arthritis in my back and it really hurts most of the time. I also have numb areas in my right thigh and my whole lower back."
"Would not recommend."
– Im_too_old
Fatal Collapse
"Trench collapse. Guy was pinned mid chest. Not good but not immediately fatal. Guy’s coworkers freak out and use the backhoe to dig him out. Ended up catching him with the teeth on the bucket. Essentially cut him in half."
"The guy on the backhoe was his brother."
"Dude would have probably been alright had they rescued him the right way."
– Flame5135
Drowning in Molasses
"Not me, but at the cookie factory where my brother worked a worker died when someone accidentally dumped out a massive mixer full of molasses on top of him. He suffocated before they could dig him out."
– brainbarker
No one ever expected these jabs to happen.
Implementation Of A Rule
"Engineer decided to open a parcel with a Stanley knife, not sure if he slipped or what angle he was cutting at but BAM! Stanley knife in the eye. Never saw him again but h&s quickly introduced a policy that safety goggles needed to be worn when opening boxes"
– Quizzical_Chimp
Ruined Wedding Gown
"Used to be a wedding caterer. While the bride and groom were going to cut the cake it started to fall off the table as they were both trying to catch this ridiculously huge thing the bride slipped, fell into a pyramid of wine glasses on a foldout table behind her... The table collapsed and a wine glass stem pierced her neck."
"She survived, but she was not gonna be able to take that gown back to the rental place... I've never seen so much blood in my life."
– DanteWolfe0125
These accidents were uniquely different from the common examples above, but horrific, nonetheless.
Mad At The Machine
"I dunno if you can call this an accident but I was working with this guy and outta nowhere he says 'I'm sick of working here, check this out' and jammed his foot into the gears on the machine. Completely mangled his foot. Saw him 20 years later and his foot was still f'ked."
"He was looking for a couple weeks of workers comp, got a lifetime disability instead. It was pretty horrific."
– KingGuy420
Bashed In The Face
"Work in a dealership and once a tech was using a tool that broke free bashing him in the face, knocking out multiple teeth, splitting his lip and breaking his nose…it was a bloody mess. Young kid, with balls of steel appearantly. While waiting for an ambulance he was sitting there talking and smiled to show the damage. That smile was horrifying. He recovered and got a ton of dental work and still works there."
– smallboxofcrayons
Dedicated Employee
"I was a cashier in a grocery store. One of my fellow cashiers was a senior, just killing time in retirement. One day, she had a dizzy spell, collapsed, and cracked her head open on the floor. Paramedics were called, and as they were loading her into the ambulance, she was crying out that she could still finish her shift."
– originalchaosinabox
Aviation Disasters
"I used to fly small airplanes in north west Alaska. In the two years I worked there I knew three pilots that died in crashes."
"Don’t miss how those days felt."
– SweatyMooseKnuckler
Severed Digits
"Coworker, who was fresh out of trade school was using a table saw to cut 1” thick sheets of plastic into strips. It was cold so he put on some leather work gloves."
"A glove got caught and pulled his hand into the saw, nearly severing his right index and middle fingers."
"He came to me and said, 'uh, I think I cut my hand'. It literally looked like a package of pork ribs - all mangled bone and tissue."
"They were able to save the fingers, but they’re non functional and don’t bend."
– funtobedone
Sad Sacrifice
"I worked as a maintenance tech for a fiberglass facility and one of the operators crawled out on a crane over 1500 degree Celsius molten glass to clear a jam. He fell in and there was nothing to recover."
"Dude gave his life instead of shutting the line down for an hour. The worst part is our management was cool about unplanned shutdowns since we were always hitting above our target production anyway."
– wildwildwaste
Fatal Accident
"Worked at an industrial setting, had a contractor come in and use a hydraulic ram to pull a bearing about the size of your head. They didn't hook up the lines correctly and 40,000 psi of fluid hit him in the neck and almost decapitated him. It took out part of his brain stem, I got there for the death rattle. Blood everywhere, we couldn't help him. He was in his early 20s and his wife just gave birth a few months prior."
– FrenchiestFry234
Why We Remove Rings
"Not really haunted, but we had a guy in the Army violate one of the cardinal rules of working in the motor pool; remove watches, rings and dog tags."
"He had kept his wedding ring on and was working in the turret of an Avenger (surface to air missile launching system mounted on a HMMWV). When he climbed down the tiny ladder at the back he decided to jump down the last few feet to the ground. His ring caught on the ladder and degloved his finger."
"He held up his hand and just looked at it and said, 'Oh f'k.' We grabbed him, wrapped his hand (not much blood honestly) and took him to the hospital. All the while another soldier was carrying the fleshy remnants in his hands and dry heaving. Once he was taken in at the hospital they just removed the finger. He became a cautionary tale for all my future soldiers."
– Detritus_AMCW
Zapped
"Electrician here. walked into a house on a Monday morning. A dishwasher had a ground fault that didn’t trip out. Plumber became part of the circuit Friday afternoon and was still part of the circuit Monday morning. This is partly why they must be gfci protected now."
– fooshsnickens
Beware The Forklift
"Locally a forklift driver ran over a worker and the workers skull was crushed blood and brains everywhere."
"Made me more cautioned to forklifts in my factory."
– Annghellic
Working in theater, I've seen my share of fellow performers getting injured.
From theme parks to Broadway, the things actors do for the sake of entertaining audiences are nothing short of risky.
Anything can go wrong when actors rush backstage for a quick costume change or when they rely solely on the mechanics of set pieces to move efficiently.
A good friend of mine was the victim of the latter, when he expected the bottom of the trap door would be clear of a moveable stair case when jumped in as he always did at a particular moment during a theme park show.
He landed on a staircase that hadn't been switched out for the airbag because of a crew member's incompetence.
My friend sustained several non life-threatening injuries but survived.
The things we do for art...
Workplace craziness is an everyday occurrence.
And it doesn't have to be in an office.
The workplace can be lethal.
Firefighters, police, and EMTs aren't the only ones not coming home sometimes.
The easiest job in the world can be the deadliest.
That's because life is fragile and you never know.
Redditor Adventurous-Pea-4925 wanted to hear about all the drama and trauma everyone's jobs have caused. They asked:
"What is your workplace horror story?"
Working in restaurants was a daily minefield. People slip, fall and fight all of the time. It's hazardous.
4 Inches
Season 5 Fainting GIF by Living SingleGiphy"I watched a woman get scalped by an assembly line. She was underneath it cleaning when someone started up the line, her hair got caught up in a roller and pulled off a 4” chunk of her scalp. So much blood."
GibberBabble
Ducked Up
"I wasn't there that day when it happened, but heard some of the details. I may be off but here goes. 2 maintenance guys were up in a scissor lift working on an overhead indoor crane. Someone on the floor grabbed the remote for the other crane and started to move it. One maintenance guy yelled 'duck' and ducked, the other turned to see what was happening and apparently was crushed between the 2 cranes and then fell out of the lift."
"I don't know how true this is, but apparently his insides were out and still alive for a short time. I got a call from my idiot team lead telling me work was shut down for at least the day, probably longer. He didn't mention the guy dying, just mentioned it was awesome to have a long weekend."
mat-tar
Severed
"I was the boss and some guy wasn’t paying attention and had his arm on the bar behind him on the forklift he was backing up. He backed up right into a container and all but severed his arm. Just a small flap of skin was holding it on. He ran in the building spurting blood all over and I ran over and stopped him, sat him down and got one of the guys to get me some stuff for an improvised tourniquet."
"I held his severed arm under mine and I squeezed the upper arm to slow the flow until I could get the tourniquet on and tight. All the while I was getting covered in his blood from head to toe. I finally got it stopped and sat there trying to keep him calm while the paramedics were on the way. After they took over, I asked the firemen that accompanied them if they could blast me off with the firehose."
"They blasted all the blood off but my clothes were ruined. I sat outside until I dried and then went home and showered well and threw the stained clothes away. I got dressed and went back to work to help the crew clean up the blood and toss the chair he was in in the trash."
"I could taste his blood the rest of the day. It even got up my nose! I didn’t notice until I went home again but my mustache and goatee were stained from the blood too. I had to shave clean. They were able to reattach his arm but it never worked right again. He went on permanent disability afterwards."
mrsmith2929
#NeverForget
"I worked in a manufacturing facility as a buyer. I was in my office one day when I saw two of the product line supervisors sprint by and head toward the production floor. Seems a mechanic had tried to get a machine unjammed and had failed to turn the machine off. He reached in and the machine indexed and caught his arm, then it indexed again and partially ripped it off."
"I was on the safety committee and trained in first aid so I was called on to assist the plant nurse and safety director. I thought I was going to pass out - the guy was lying on his back and what was left of his arm was shards of bone and tissue. I'll never forget it."
GreatMaria
Strap In
dennis quaid falling GIF by RETRO-FIENDGiphy"Superintendent of a construction project refused to tie himself in whenever he was on top of the building. On the very last day of the project, as the crew is cleaning up, he slips and falls 100 feet. The only fatality at our company and it sucks because it was really preventable too."
Old_Snow3086
Going to work does not seem safe. We should all be independently wealthy.
Crap
dog poo GIFGiphy"Not me but my office had a bring your dog to work day and I saw an intern slip right in dog poop. Half the office had to leave for the day the smell was so bad. Guess what day didn’t happen the next year. LOL."
Jasper_Beardly_
Death
"This was years ago, I worked at a small college. One day a woman in Financial Aid's estranged boyfriend came in and stabbed her to death in front of her co-workers and several students. Campus police were able to arrest him, but didn't get there in time to help her. We also had a healthy 40 year old professor drop dead of a heart attack while in a meeting with a student. Not as bad as the first one, but it shook the student up pretty badly."
Coconut-bird
click it click it....
"Was working a graveyard shift at a Comcast (May have been AT&T at the time) call center. There were TVs everywhere with movies on, as there weren’t many calls at midnight. Suddenly all of the TVs shift to a channel change, down to one of the paid porn channels. My coworkers and I spot this, and start chanting ‘click it click it.'"
"The click goes through, then the ‘do you accept the charges’ comes up. We chant again and wonder of wonders it goes through. Suddenly there’s a full spread on every television in the call center. We spot two managers running full tilt across the cubicles, and shortly after it got shut off. Apparently the security guard thought the TV at his station was just for him."
FoomFries
"reasons"
"We had someone electrocute themselves during their shift. Poor guy was only 18, went to plug in a floor buffer to an extension cord on the wall. The cord was faulty but due to 'reasons' was never replaced. When he plugged the buffer in the shock dropped him and away he passed, due to insurance and potential lawsuits from the family over the faulty equipment the security footage of that night is sealed and the company went crazy afterwords removing every single extension cord they used."
SleepingGunner3282
Inked
gross dumb and dumber GIFGiphy"One of the printers briefly stopped thinking for like 30 seconds, went to clean a roller while the machine was operating at a high speed, and half of his finger got tore off. After he went to hospital, my brother went over to run the machine through to get the blood out and the other half of the finger came out and fell in ink tray."
Soul_of_Miyazaki
Aisle 8
"A man was murdered on aisle 8 in the freezer section of the grocery store I worked at. Happened 2 minutes after I left my shift for the day. One guy made inappropriate comments about the other guys 14yo daughter, and he didn't like that. He stewed for a bit, took his groceries and family out to his car, went back inside, confronted the man, it turned physical."
"Guy knocked him to the ground and stomped his head into the ground. Afterwards he went outside after someone called the police, went outside and said goodbye to his family, that he was going away for a long time, and waited for the police to arrive."
nryporter25
On the pavement...
"Don’t work there anymore this was an internship I had in construction management. Asphalt paving contractor. Several years ago, an inspector who was hard of hearing was out on the job site. He did not realize he was in the way of an asphalt compactor."
"The compactors move really slowly and their brakes are not built to abruptly stop (at least the old ones) seeing as you could see these things coming with more than enough time to move. Several guys on the equipment tried yelling at him to get out of the way thinking he would right away but he didn’t hear them. The guy on the compactor obviously applied the brakes but the others realized too late that he wasn’t getting out of the way."
"You could imagine what happened next. They said the sounds were unimaginable, he didn’t make a noise but his body being crushed did. They had to scrape him off the pavement. The guy on the compactor took an office job after this and now has severe PTSD."
achavira13
Dry Heaves
"Ugh. Ok. I had this guy who was around 650lbs come in to the hospital via EHS. It took twelve people to move him onto a stretcher. He was coated in rotting flesh from his behind, groin and thighs from sitting in a recliner for so long, and there were flies buzzing everywhere. There were so many maggots and flies covering him that we had to shower him outside of the department while he lay in the stretcher."
"We wheeled him into the trauma bay, leaving a trail of brown rot-water behind him. Lucky me, I got assigned the job of placing a Foley catheter in him. I had two masks, a gown, and as much other PPE as I could find. The smell was not masked in the slightest. As I tried to fight back my dry heaving, I pulled the blanket back that was covering him in an attempt to grab his penis for cleaning prior catheter insertion."
"There were still maggots literally alllll over his groin and legs, and some were legitimately falling out of his penis hole. I damn near threw up in my mask. I remember thinking to myself 'omg, I’m going to be pushing maggots up into his bladder, but I gotta do what I gotta do.' End result for all you wondering, he passed away later that evening."
Nurse_malibu87
The Creep
"Dude got fired for being useless and a huge creep towards anyone he was even remotely attracted to. He'd always been quite inappropriate with his jokes and about what kind of stuff you're supposed to talk about in the workplace (hint: not your puppy play fetish or nazi sympathies)."
"But it had gotten out of control by that point. During his one month period of notice he wore the same clothes every day and never showered. On his very last day he went into one of the bathrooms, masturbated and finished over everything."
Jealous_Hospital
Head First
"I used to be a lift operator for a ski resort. A guest at the resort asked at closing if I new where to get marijuana. I did and I help the guy out by taking him with me to go get some. The next day he crashed head first into a tree. I happened to ski past the scene minutes after it happened and before ski patrol responded, dudes head was in several pieces. I could tell from his jacket that it was the same guy."
off_the_cuff_mandate
Salad Guy
"I work in a restaurant, one evening one of the salad tenders cut off the tip of his finger and it was bad enough that he had to go to the hospital for it. Unfortunately, the salad he was making somehow made it out of the kitchen and onto a table. Shortly after, a guest complained about something chewy in their salad that they thought was a piece of bacon, and they didn’t want bacon in their salad. The salad guy couldn’t find the tip of his finger before he left."
Sz3to
Miserable
"A long-term employee who started at the lowest rung was promoted repeatedly over time to his level of incompetence as a manager. It only because the CEO was closed personal friends with him, not because the guy was in any way qualified for the job."
Turns out this guy's main objective was to make everyone's lives as miserable as possible - to subject employees to the vagaries of his temperamental whims and make workers feel afraid of his potential reprimands for the least little thing. It turned what once was a pleasant, productive environment into an oppressive, fear-dominated workplace."
Back2Bach
The Filth
Chuck E Cheese Wink GIFGiphy"Chuck 'e cheeses was literally the most unsanitary place I have ever been in, the kitchen was crawling with roaches, the balls in the ball pit actually had mold on them even after they where clean, which by the way they used a pickup truck and a drive through car wash to do that, and the rat costume reeked to such a degree that the only people who could be inside it where the 2 people who had no sense of smell. The boss was also just the biggest a**hole and would regularly harass his own employees."
froopty1
This is why I work from home. Although that isn't the safest either.
People who aren't necessarily daredevils like to say they like to live life by throwing caution to the wind.
"What is a very easy mistake that can get you injured or killed?"
Not only are your endangering your life by doing, or not doing these things, you're putting others you at risk.
Dangerous Distraction
"Messing/texting on your phone while driving."
– azakd
Gauging Fatigue
"Underestimating how tired you are and then getting behind the wheel."
– ---Spitfire----
Beware Of A Delayed Response
"The risk here isn't just that you might fall asleep at the wheel, by the way. When you're drowsy, your reaction time is impaired, very much as it is if you've had a few drinks. Drowsy driving is bad for the very same reasons drunk driving is bad; while one of these is that you might become unconscious and completely unresponsive, another is that your reactions are impaired even while you're still awake."
– fubo
Assess The Situation
"There would have to be certain extreme circumstances, but I've heard that after a serious car accident, people have died by turning their heads too quickly. When the adrenaline takes over and you can't really feel the pain, some people don't realize that they have serious injuries in their necks and they break them quite easily after trauma like that."
– domoronnoc1
Even the most innocent circumstances can be subject to great harm.
Remove Loose Articles And Accessories
"Wearing jewelry while working with heavy machinery. My Dad saw a guy get his arm ripped off because he wore a wedding ring that cause his hand to get caught in the machine."
– Nacho_eating_Zombie
Don't Underestimate Slipping
"Especially elderly people. My grandmother's legs are paralyzed and she has to use an electric scooter to get around. She fell one day and broke her wrist, doing much better now though."
– gabesnightmare
Slippery When Wet
"Slipping in the shower."
– AndresDickFingers
Taking time for inspection can potentially save your life.
Final Checks Before Operating Heavy Machinery
"Long hair or loose clothes around rotating tools or machinery. Second, not making sure you have the breakers turned off before doing electrical work."
– ShortPlains
Rinse For Your Life
"Not washing food properly."
"Food poisoning is really dangerous."
– Rule34ofAntartica
Before Shooting
"Handling a firearm without checking to see if it's empty."
– CorollaBeachBum
Food Prep
"Not washing food properly."
"Food poisoning is really dangerous."
– Rule34ofAntartica
Having common sense is extremely beneficial.
Exercise Awareness
"It's a bit of a general thing, but not being mindful of your physical limitations. A few particular variants that come to mind is people who get stuck in narrow spaces, or who fuck around at water parks. Just... don't. Especially if alone. If you're going to have to maneuver yourself to grab something from a tight, enclosed space, go get a broom or something. Etc."
"It's a complicated and general thing, but young people especially tend to overestimate their immortality and dexterity. Stop and think."
– xatrue
There's No Competition
"Trying to beat a train."
– lightonahill
Bad Chemistry
"Trying to put out a grease fire with water."
– lovelynutz
If You're Stabbed
"Pulling out the object thats impaled you."
– WillowIsKindaFruity
When theme park operators tell you to keep your hands and arms inside the moving vehicle at all times, it's for a reason, and probably because a tragic incident in the past led to the warning.
I don't have to be reminded to keep my arms and legs inside my rocket whenever I ride Space Mountain at Disneyland.
With all those metal beams seemingly inches from my head as I whizz by, I dare not even think about raising my hands in the air as most people on roller coasters do.
If you don't want your hands severed, I strongly advise you heed the warning.