As humans with autonomy and knowledge, we try to protect ourselves as much as we can. However, accidents do happen, and while we can expect the unexpected, we can't always protect ourselves from it.
Because there isn't always a defense, people sometimes have a close brush with death. They experience something that could've killed them but, by some miracle... didn't.
More people have stories like that than we expect.
Redditors are no exception and, in fact, were eager to share their close calls.
It all started when Redditor XboxCorgi asked:
"What has been your closest moment to death?"
Minding My Own Business
"Was sitting at my computer on the ground floor playing TF2 when a car came through the wall, smashed my desk and computer and almost killed me."
– caulkhead808
"I can’t imagine just chilling playing a video game and then the next second a car comes through my wall."
– RoutinePeach8752
Swim Parallel To The Shore
"I almost drowned in the ocean in Hawaii. I had swum out from shore, started getting tired, started swimming back but the current was pulling me out to sea! Scary as hell. I started to panic, but I remembered that the side stroke is the one that takes the least energy, so I started doing that and for 10 or 15 minutes just went back towards the shore. I wound up a few beaches south of where I had started! I had to walk north to return to my group."
– Snoo-35252
"I almost died like this in Panama when I was in the Army. Some of my buddies and I tried to swim out to what we thought was as an island from the beach, got halfway there only to realize it was a volcanic rock and that the waves crashing against it would surely crush/drown us. As we’re treading in murky pacific water something very large bumped against my leg (I suspect it might have been a shark but cannot say for certain as I never saw a fin). As we tried to swim back to shore we were all caught in a rip current, swimming towards the beach but going nowhere. As my friends and I ran out of steam to the point that we were panting faces barely above the water I put my foot down onto a coral reef or volcanic rock where I was able to catch my breath and then help my friends over to where I was."
"Eventually made it back to shore after swimming sideways out of the rip current, but that is legit probably the closest I’ve come to death."
"Unfortunately years later I had a friend in the army stationed in Hawaii who kayaked to an island, his boat got pulled out by the tide, and when he swam to get it he went under and never came back up. I knew we’d had a close call, but when that happened it really sunk in how incredibly stupid what we did was."
– MotoGeno
Twister!
"Joplin tornado in 2011. I was in the bathtub as my house was destroyed around me."
"Edit: I was taking cover in the bathtub, not taking a bath."
– m48a5_patton
"There was a tornado 15 years back or so in Oconto County in WI and a bar owner told us he had no shelter so he got into his bath tub and his house (trailer?) was destroyed around him. He says when it calmed down and he sat up there was a deer standing nearby looking at him and he said, "well buddy, I guess we made it.""
– arriesgado
Incredible Luck
"The light was red so I put my car to park because it was taking a while longer than usual. It went green and I forgot to take it off park, but as soon as I put it in drive a semitruck ran a red light."
– laxmagic
"Mate, that is f*cking terrifying. I can actually picture the scene and imagine the sound of it rumbling past, possibly horn blaring. Thank goodness for that little brain fart you had."
– Ecstatic_Ad_7104
"A Fart That Saved My Life"
– TheImpossibleBanana
Not All Heroes Wear Capes
"Was working on an oyster boat. It was a beautiful day and we were sorting oysters on the boat of the deck. All of a sudden I felt the gentlest of taps on the back of my skull. When I turned around I saw my supervisor, red-faced with the effort of restraining the metal boom, which had come loose and almost slammed right into my head. He was able to slow it down just in time so I only got that little tap (guy's basically all muscle). If he hadn't done that I would have been dead for sure."
– Valahar81
A Terrifying Vacation
"I went to Mexico in 2017 and nearly died my first day there. Was all good, having fun, having a few drinks, nothing too crazy though. Went to my room in the evening, and suddenly got a bad stomach ache that just got worse and worse with each min that passed. I also got feverish and delirious pretty quickly."
"I remember for some reason I decided a shower would be a good idea, and that's where my gf at the time found me heaped on the floor screaming in pain. I vaguely remember a paramedic stabbing me in the a** with some morphine which allowed to calm down. (Was not all the fun its cracked up to be, just made me sleep)"
"Get to the hospital, and they quickly find out that im going septic from a stomach infection. A few more hours and Id have been dead. Spent 3 days there, lost 30 pounds and could only eat soft fruit for about a week after."
"I also got the worst strep throat on the plane ride home too... my immune system was already weak, so it was horrible. Made me cough so much that blood came up. That was another hospital trip when I got home."
"The doctor who oversaw my care in Mexico was the most amazing doctor though. He spent the first 36 hours with me to make sure I was Ok, didn't eat or sleep or anything."
"Edit: I didn't get the infection in Mexico, I brought it with me. Doc said it had been building in my system for at least a week from the strength of it."
– Youpunyhumans
Think Fast
"I was around 3-4, picked up a live electric wire on the ground to play with. Got electrocuted immediately. Good samaritan grabbed a wooden stick and hit it out of my hands. People told my me later that they told my dad not to touch me because I was probably gone. That good samaritan saved my life. Acted when no one else did."
– champsgetup
"Wow insane that they knew what to do. I don’t think I’d be able to think that fast the correct way to save someone in such a situation."
– missilefire
Unspoken
"When I was real young, I was with my family at a hotel in Virginia (not sure which), but it had a decent sized pool.
"We were swimming in it, and my family went over to the deeper end. Not knowing how to swim, I stayed at the shallow end. After a while, I started feeling left out cause it looked like they were having fun, so I started to make my way over, hanging onto the edge."
"Dumb little me got careless, and my fingers slipped off the edge, and I started drowning pretty quick. About 5 seconds later, I get hoisted partly out of the water by a big Mexican lady, and she sets me on the edge of the pool. I hacked and coughed for a good minute before I walked along the edge to my family.
"They never noticed, and I never said a thing about it to them since."
– ThatThingTerran
Sugar Sugar
"I had undiagnosed diabetes for about 6 months, my blood sugar was in the 500's, I got to skip the line in the emergency room the doctors were so scared I was going to go to a coma."
– ThatOneTubil
"Hey, fellow diabetic here. Same story but my sugars were apparently over 800? Doc said the only reason I wasn't admitted straight to the ICU was cause I walked into the hospital instead of being brought in by an ambulance."
– Whit3Mex
Super Speed
"I was 7. My family had just arrived back home from watching The Incredibles in theaters. I decided to try and run like Dash around the whole house."
"I ended up running through the kitchen toward the back door that led to our back yard way too fast and couldn’t stop. This door had a window in it, and when I put my hands out to stop myself, I ran into the door and my hands went through the window."
"My parents heard the crash and called out for me to ask if I was ok. I came walking out of the kitchen into the living room, blood pouring from my wrist. I was in a Disney princess night gown too, so it was honestly like a scene from a horror movie."
"We lived in a remote area, so when my parents called the ambulance, it couldn’t find our house at first. My mom had to run out and flag down the ambulance while my dad was applying pressure to my wrist with a bunch of towels to try to stop the bleeding. The ambulance finally got to our house and the EMTs were able to get the bleeding to stop and take me to the hospital."
"I lived! The scar is pretty gnarly."
– turtledovefarts
Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls
"Waterfall hiking. Dipped my foot in on top and was immediately swept under and over about 3 waterfalls. Was very lucky to land where I did. Still have a chunk outta my leg to this day."
– mystery_leaf
Miraculous
"I was on the back of my dad's motorcycle and he had a heart attack and blacked out. Bike went over; I hit the ground headfirst. Luckily he felt something was wrong and slowed down, so it wasn't nearly as close to death for me as it was for him, but it was still super scary. Thank god for helmets."
– zapatodulce
"dam did you r dad survive too?"
– GetaGoodLookCostanza
"He did! This was about 10 years ago and he's been taking good care of himself and hasn't had more heart problems!"
– zapatodulce
Despite the happy ending, that might actually be the worst one, and that's saying something!
We all want to believe we are perfectly safe, but the fact is, the world can be a scary and dangerous place sometimes.
For the most part, we can protect ourselves, but sometimes we end up in dangerous situations through no fault of own (or anyone else's).
Redditors are no strangers to situations like these. In fact, some of them have been in actual near-death situations, and they are ready to share those stories.
It all started when a Redditorasked:
"When have you ever feared for your life? Why?"
Fight The Ocean
"When I got caught in a riptide while stupidly swimming alone in the ocean."
– ItAllDepends99
"My brother saved someone this way, and he never forgot it! He almost drowned too because she was fighting so hard and pulling him under. Another guy had to come help get her out because the current was so strong, but they made it."
– sordidcandles
"I just started working as an ocular recovery technician and live in a beach town. My first case was a 26 year old man who drowned off the beach. I don’t know if he was a tourist or a local, but as a local I grew up being constantly lectured on water safety and how to get out of a riptide. It broke my heart looking at him in the morgue and thinking about how scary his last moments must have been. Water is not something to play with."
– maddicatdog
Living Roadblock
"Ex was driving and a moose walked out in front of the car."
– IjsKind
"Moose are no joke. Every person I know who's been in an accident with a moose have their entire care totaled and the moose just walks away like nothing happened."
– bobbi21
Just Breathe
"Woke up in the throes of a severe asthma attack. Clocked my pulse at 227. As I was digging for my inhaler, I kept thinking what a stupid way to die this would be."
– BuddleiaGirl
"I’m in the hospital on day 3 with my 10-year-old who is recovering from a severe asthma attack. It’s incredibly scary. The crazy thing is, he has not had any issues with asthma since he was 3. His pediatrician told me he outgrew it (he was born with juvenile asthma). Unfortunately, he did not, as the pulmonologist said it can go dormant, may never reoccur in your life but never truly goes away. My son had the perfect storm of triggers, and here we are. We’ll now have an aggressive asthma attack plan for him but damn this was incredibly scary. Like top ten level fear thinking he could not make it."
– HideousYouAre
She Was Mad!
"Wasn't the only time or most frightening time, but the most memorable was when I was a teenager and got pinned to a wall by an extremely agitated cow. She'd knocked her water bucket apart and I was replacing it and she charged me. I just happened to fit exactly in between the horns. I do mean exactly - I had matching bruises on each side like I'd been hit twice with a length of pipe. She hit hard enough to drive her points a couple inches into the wall and stick. I've been in car accidents, fallen off things, been in fights and even had a young tree fall on me. None of that compares. Felt like being caught by a huge wave."
"Anyway I bonked her as hard as I could on the forehead and bolted out the door when she pulled her head back. The whole thing took maybe two seconds tops. Best part? My parents were right outside, they thought I'd just been killed. The wall was solid for the first 4ft, then 2in gaps between 2x8 boards for the rest. They saw the whole thing but couldn't see me below my shoulders - just the charge, the catch, and the wall crack from the impact and the horns pushing through."
– Iamtheonewhobawks
Shaking Earth
"7.2 Earthquake in Japan made the apartment I was in wobble like Jello. Tried to stand up in my chair and walk away from the window, ended up crawling away and having a small bookcase spill my books on me."
"Spent a few seconds leaning against the inside wall/sliding closet, looking at the ceiling and having a very vivid picture of being crushed to death by collapsing concrete and debris."
"Slept outside for two nights after evecuating. Apartment did not even have a crack in it! 10/10 would recommend Japanese government housing."
– kaidenka
A Surprise Drop
"I was minding my own business walking in like 2 ft of water at a beach, holding my toddler. There was a massive clay pit that had opened up in the shallow water, but the water was murky so i didnt see it. I slid into it and the water was just deep enough to be over my head, because I couldn't stand up due to how slimy it was. It was shaped like a bowl. I couldn't swim up because my feet were just sliding into muck and it felt like an undertow. Just when I started breathing in water, my knee hit a rock in the side of the pit so I put my foot on it and launched us up. The lifeguards didn't do anything even after someone called us an ambulance to make sure we didn't dry drown.. We were under for maybe 20 seconds."
– BackgroundAd7040
A Scary Walk Home
"So I was 14, walking home from the bus stop, as I did every day. It was about a mile from the bus stop to my house. I’d walk home about halfway with a friend of mine, before he turned off to go home. About 2 blocks from our bus stop, a guy started walking along with us.
"This was in a major city, so it wasn’t the first time someone started randomly talking to us. What was weird was that he wasn’t crazy or weird. He was pretty normal. He was asking about our lives, asking about what was going on. Randomly he asked about what we’d been up to the last Friday night. We both said about the same thing, that we’d been home with our families, which was true. Even though he didn’t sound crazy, this guy was giving bad vibes. Something was off."
"We got to the turnoff point where my buddy would go to his house, he said goodbye, and left to go home. By the way, I don’t blame him for doing this, regardless of what happened next. So this guy keeps walking with me, bad vibes continue, but he hasn’t said anything directly threatening yet. We get to a cross street, and he says, “Don’t run, my boys are right across the street.” Then I look and realize about 4 guys are following directly across the street. And that’s when it all sinks in. The bad vibes are real."
"I could tried to run at this point. I had a friend who only lived a block away. But I decided not to. Maybe I just thought it was pointless. I kept talking to him."
"We talked for a while more as we walked, and he told me that his brother had been stabbed around where my bus was let off a few days before, and I fit the description. He said he’d gotten out of the life, but was back to avenge his brother. I told him that it wasn’t me. He asked me if I was taking drugs. I said I’d f*cked around with pot but nothing more. He believed me. We kept walking."
"Eventually he started talking about why he’d gotten out of the life, and that I needed to stay on the right path. Eventually, we got back to my house. He said that he was glad he talked to me, because initially he was just going to shoot me and walk away, but he believed me and was glad he hadn’t. He waved his boys away, who were down the block. The he left, and wished me the best. I told my parents, reported it to the cops, didn’t sleep for a few nights, and eventually moved on. But yeah I almost died right there."
– NiteOwl2020
A Shock To The System
"Got shocked the other day. Work in the solar industry, I thought I was having a heart attack and that this was it"
– ryanjbanning
Bond. James Bond.
"Playing an outdoor game we called 007 at age 11 where you get dropped off a distance away from a home base and you have to sneak back in the dark without being spotted by your driver, who would call you out if they saw you while driving around the neighborhood. Me and a friend were sneaking through irrigation canals to be off main roads (not through people’s properties, those were fenced off) and someone who’s backyard we were sneaking past cocked a shotgun and fired a warning shot into the ground of his yard. We crawled on our stomachs in the canal until we were far enough away. Pretty scary at 11."
– SolarisIX
"What the hell is wrong with people and immediately shooting at things that move in the dark?"
– dewky
Noises In The Basement
"I have a more light-hearted one. I heard strange noises from my basement and though someone broke in. My heart was racing and I didn't know what to do. I kept listening down the stairs at the noise and decided it wasn't human. Turns out a woodpecker came down the flue and out the access hatch and was flying around. I managed to shoo him out the door and breathed a sigh of relief."
– SpecterCody
"I am terrified of birds so this would have been a lose-lose situation for me."
– Oohwsh*twaddup
Metal Death Trap!
"I hydroplaned when someone break checked me, and ended up in a ditch, I was fine my car was fine, my heart rate was goin insane."
– Crimate_Change
"This is like medical-related, not a situation like in most other replies. So basically, one day 2 years ago I started noticing some really odd symptoms I had that resembled a UTI (which I had never had before), but I kind of had this gut feeling it was more than that, even though the symptoms were subtle so I told my parents immediately."
"I woke up the next morning at 5am, with this sharp pain in my bottom right side. Oh, maybe it's a cramp. I use the bathroom and try to get back to sleep, but this pain starts growing, sooo much it feels like a stabbing pressure. I toss onto my side. The pain is still fully there. I go on my stomach. Still fully there. I sit up, walk around, do any position possible, and the pain is only getting worse and at this point, like 15 minutes after I woke up, unbearable."
"I have no idea what's going on and I'm scared out of my mind, so I tell my parents. Our first guess is appendicitis. So my mom rushes me to the ER, and on the car ride there I'm writhing in pain, crying, no matter how I sit or how I press my side the pain just continues to escalate."
"I get to the ER and they don't take me right away, and in the waiting room I'm throwing up into a bag from the pain and apologizing to a couple next to me in between bouts of dry heaving/vomit. I'm finally taken in, and they take me to get an ultrasound like 10 minutes later, but I can't stay still when the technician is taking it because of the pain."
"I eventually stop even attempting to cooperate and demand pain medicine, and when it's put into my IV I took like 10 minutes to lay there and breathe and feel better, it felt so nice to not be in extreme pain."
"Anyways, I had a kidney stone. A tiny little kidney stone made me think I was dying and was genuinely the most painful thing I've experienced in my life. I remember asking my mom on the car ride over if I was dying, because we had no idea what it was and why it was only getting worse. It's a genetic thing for me, but if you're reading this, drink water."
– kglove34
Well, I'm definitely going to hydrate all the time now!
As morbid as it is, death is the inevitable yin to life's yang.
The inevitable end of our mortality looms ahead for all of us, but hopefully it's not for a long time.
That doesn't mean there are close calls along the way.
Not everyone is fortunate, but there are the lucky few who somehow managed to cheat death and lived to talk about their close calls.
Curious to hear from those who were granted another chance at life, Redditor CrownedBird asked:
"What moment made you say 'Yep, I’m definitely dead', but survived with no major injuries?"
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.
Life after death... that is one of life's greatest mysteries. What is going to happen after we leave this Earthly plain.
Is there a Heaven? And let's hope there isn't a Hell. Will there just be nothing?
Will there be pain? So many questions.
Many people have claimed to reach the other side just to be brought back.
Are they imagining it? Is it just hopeful thinking? Again... more questions than answers.
Let's see if we can find something definitive.
RedditorAPater6076wanted to hear from everyone who's lives were almost shuttered.
They asked:
"Redditors who have ‘died’ and been resuscitated, what was your experience? Did you see bright lights? Nothing? Do you remember anything about it?"
My near death experiences are about avoiding death, not experiencing it.
So I have nothing to share.
But I am fascinated as death is my greatest fear.
And taxes.
Darkness
"Just blackness and a really warm and comfortable feeling like if you were being hugged by a bed but I could hear a low muffled sound f people talking." ~ Turbulent_Squash_301
Giphy"Makes the thought of dying someday less frightening"
"I felt the same as if I had went to sleep. (I had an alcohol withdrawal related seizure and woke up in the hospital bed, I was told my heart stopped for 8 seconds) Although the one thing I 'remember' is this feeling that the weight of the world lifted off my shoulder. It was such an indescribable feeling, but it was as if everything thing that I care and/or worry about is so insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Makes the thought of dying someday less frightening." ~ MuluLizidrummer
Naptime...
"A very warm blackness. Wasn’t cold or scary. Very calm and serene. Best nap I’ve ever had. Five out of five stars, not in a hurry to do it again but certainly not scared to die when the time comes. Now the heart surgery I had after being resuscitated, that was painful and awful, so I do not recommend heart failure. Zero out of five stars." ~ _addycole
Careless...
"The most beautiful comforting warmth. Every 'care' I had on earth seemed so freaking meaningless. Like really you cared about money, cancer, popularity, like anything man made seemed like when you were a kid and thought losing a sports match was the end of your life. Then you come back and are expected to care about those things the same."
"Everyone thinks I have depression, but it's more like a peace knowing what's coming and not feeling the need to 'perform' in the meantime anymore. I just want to go back and be in eternal peace, but I can't help but feel I wasn't kept there for a reason. I have more to learn and connect to here before joining it again." ~ ono412
The Tough Boy
"My son said he climbed a blue ladder into a boat, but then I came and got him. He’s little though." ~ RileyTheCoyote
GiphyWell a lot of that sounds more pleasant than not.
I'd still rather live, but at least if I have to go, I'd like it to be peaceful.
Voices
"Warm, dark, and heard me late best friend's voice, kept telling me to keep trying." ~ Fluffy_Article_8690
GiphyI was 16...
"From what I can remember (I was 16), I had a big operation and we did not know I was deadly allergic to morphine. It was the most peaceful 'Sleep' I have ever had in my entire life, it felt like nothing but somehow something you know? I vividly remember seeing someone resuscitate from another point of view but I could have made that up."
"Woke up with my dad holding my hand saying you scared the crap out of me. A couple years later my dad had the same experience after an operation and the same thing happened to him as me, he woke up (I couldn't be more thankful saying those words) and after we told him he grabbed my hand and said 'I got you back.'" ~ Bobbacata12
Shadows
"A warm fuzzy silver room, last best memory with family all around but only in shadow form watching tv, everything was so fuzzy and shakey.. I think the warmth came from pissing myself during a grand mal seizure. It was a comfortable feeling though." ~ ssdoots
You're not alone...
"Reading this has made me feel kind of better. My dad is dying in the hospital tonight & I know this is Reddit & a bunch of strangers. But it’s nice to know he probably won’t feel anything but peace when they take him off life support. Thank you for this thread. Hug your loved ones close." ~ throwawaymenance
A Preview...
"Not me but my grandfather. He had a heart attack and he said before they shocked him back it was the most peaceful experience of his life. I hope his actual death 20 years later was just as peaceful." ~ aydeeachdee
GiphyDeath is coming for all of us.
We can't avoid it, and until it happens to us, we'll probably never really know.
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We tend to think of death as kind of a permanent thing. Even people who believe in reincarnation think of it as coming back to a different body and a different life. But sometimes, a person will fall so ill or be so gravely injured that they die - but only for a little while.
It's those cases, when death is less than permanent, that we are going to talk about today.
In October of 2018 my whole household got sick. We still don't know what caused it, but everyone came down with what one doctor eventually called "sudden group pneumonia. maybe."
My eldest child ended up in the hospital for a week with Kawasaki's, which up until that point I thought was a dirt bike or something. A few days after she came home my health took a sharp decline and I ended up losing my pregnancy.
It took a ridiculous amount of time to get the medical help I needed due to my state's abortion laws and federal abortion rules for medicaid (Did you know it still "counts" as an abortion if the child is already deceased?) A little over a week later I was finally able to get the procedures I needed.
They did not go well. Pneumonia and genetic disorders do not play well with anesthesia. I woke up a lot. And then I didn't.
From my perspective, it felt like a restless sleep, good sleep, struggling to wake up because good sleep was good and omg everyone shut up, and then having my eyes flutter open to see more people than usual (this was far from my first surgery) around me and they all had very straight, tense mouths.
That's it.
I later found out one of the nurses yelled at my partner for not telling them I had pneumonia. He had told them. So had I. And it was in the chart.
I think the nurse was just stressed out by the experience (it had been a grueling and lasted about 20 hours at that point) and snapped at him. Nearly losing a patient who shouldn't have been in an emergency situation has got to be trying.
There had been chaos and tension trying to get me back, and I was obviously in the room for it, but experienced none of it. I just felt like a restless, tired body trying to get some damn sleep and these loud kids won't get off my lawn.
One Reddit user asked:
and yeah... other people were way less "get off my lawn" about almost dying.
For some it was a profound experience that changed them - and I mean really changed them, one person forgot how to speak languages they were fluent in before. For others it was nothing.
What do you hope your experience will be like?
Confidence Is Key
GiphyI fell 3 stories back on the 80's. Broke my sternum, most of ribs on my right side, my right arm, femur where the hip joint is and fractured my pelvis in many places.
I was alert while the fire department cut the fence down so the ambulance could get me out of the courtyard I was in. Also most of the ambulance ride. I knew I was in deep sh~t when the paramedic told the driver that I was code____ unknown and to redirect to another hospital.
I remember the paramedic trying to keep her balance while she was pulling stuff out of the upper cabinets because the ambulance was swaying real hard now.
Everything became really peaceful. I was now observing everything from a different angle. As if I was above and to the right of myself.
I came too while a surgeon was sewing my left eyelid back on. As it was partially torn off when I hit something on the way down.
He asked me how I felt, and seemed very curious if I saw anything.
I died in the ambulance that day. Shock is hell of a thing.
It changed my life in so many ways. I became much more happy.. I don't sweat the small stuff as much. It also somehow made me more confident.
A Soundproof Room
So let me preface this by saying I'm immuno compromised and that's why things went bad fast.
A few years ago I got an abscess in my lower back and about 4 hours after I started showing symptoms (fever, site inflammation, pain, etc.) I started going septic while waiting in the ER. Just started REALLY feeling like sh!t.
After being admitted and already started on some hardcore broad spectrum antibiotics, I just wasn't getting better. In fact I was getting worse, and I felt awful and it hurt so badly, but nothing showing up on CAT, MRI, or X-Ray to suggest an abscess. So they thought it was a skin infection.
About 3 days in, packed with ice bags, my temp was 104.7 and my organs were starting to shut down. It was weird because I went from feeling the most miserable I've ever felt, to peace, calm, pain free, and quiet. I couldn't hear anything. Like I had just been put in a soundproof room.
I could still see my wife, my Mom, and siblings and they started panicking. (I didn't know at the time but my heart was going into a weird rhythm or something along those lines) I just closed my eyes like I was just gonna take a nap.
Remember just feeling like "I've had a good life" and only being sad I was leaving my wife behind because we had only been married 3 years at this point.
Remember seeing almost like a foggy haze, like you see in movies where they're by the docks early morning.
Remember being told "Not yet." by a figure in the fog.
Woke up a couple hours later and apparently they got me back and also gave me emergency surgery as the surgeon had a hunch where the abscess was even though charts didn't show anything. Spent an entire month in the hospital recovering. Bandage changes were a bitch because it was so deep.
Thanks to that surgeon and rest of the staff I'm still here today!
Cease To Be
I woke up during surgery once and drowned in my own blood, I was clinically dead for about 3 minutes. I didn't see/hear anything. When I woke up I was totally unaware that anything had happened.
To me, everything had gone as planned and I had just woke up as planned. If it wasn't for the extra nurses/doctors around me, I'd have never known anything had gone wrong.
This is why I don't believe in heaven or hell. When we die, we simply cease to be.
- cOnsumTs
Blissful
When I was really young I went to a church party at a pastors house and went off the diving board to look cool in front of big kids.
Well, I couldn't swim so I immediately sank. I kept breathing in water every time I surfaced, then I remember feeling really tired and really calm. I looked towards the surface and saw it get further and further away everything grew dark.
Weird to say, but it was blissful. I felt nothing then remember hacking my lungs out, and nothing in between. Kid saw me and rushed over.
I don't remember being pulled out or the mouth to mouth, all I remember is coughing violently.
- John7763
I have drowned as well, and it was an incredible sense of euphoria and peace and acceptance. I think back to that moment often. There was no fear, no pain, no anxiety, just the warm hug of the water.
An Insufferable Bible Basher
GiphyWhen I was 7, I choked on a hot dog at a backyard BBQ. Because I was quietly sitting by myself in a corner, reading, nobody noticed me until I was already on the ground and blue.
My uncle pretty much shoved his whole hand down my throat to get the food out, then did mouth to mouth and cpr for 2 minutes until I was conscious. I slipped in and out if consciousness for the whole ambulance ride to the hospital, and I remember feeling like the oxygen mask was choking me, and fighting the EMTs who strapped me to the board. I spent the night in the hospital, with a concussion.
My grandmother fainted and hit her head when she thought I was gone, and they let us stay in a room together. She taught me how to play Gin that night.
Anyway, my strongest memory is feeling the world slip away from me. I was frozen, I knew that I was going to die and I was too scared to move. My whole family was on the other side of the yard, and it felt like I was being pulled away from them into nothingness.
I don't remember any bright lights or anything like that, what I remember most is a sudden burst of noise. It was total silence and then sudden screaming and crying. I think that was the scariest thing of all, to wake up to the sound of both of my parents and even my super stoic grandfather just wailing.
I was very religious as a kid, and I think it pushed me over into a zealotry that lasted pretty much until puberty, when I decided that I liked boys more than Jesus. I was afraid that if I so much as told a fib, I would die and not get to spend eternity in paradise with my family (we were Jehovah's Witnesses).
And I was all up in everyone else's business, too, because I wanted to be sure we were all free of sin so we could be together if one of us suddenly dropped dead or if Armageddon came. I'm atheist now, so obviously it didn't stick, but I was an insufferable Bible basher for my entire childhood, basically, as a direct result of a stupid piece of hot dog.
- MrsABCDE
It Was Nothing
It was nothing. I overdosed. All I remember is right before and then waking up in the ambulance. It was just like sleeping.
Same. I've overdosed and it's exactly like falling asleep. You don't remember the exact moment you fall into sleep, you sort of just drift into the darkness. Kinda the best way to go In my opinion... until they hit you with the narcan and you freeze to death.
Collective Knowledge
I died on the operating table. I was awake (emergency C-section) an artery was severed, I bled out. I knew instinctively I was dying. I heard myself flat line. There was this strange sensation like a suction pulling me out of myself, I saw my body, lifeless, masked doctors and nurses rushing about and then there was darkness.
I was aware that I was no longer an individual, but part of something so much bigger, there was no fear or pain, I was at peace. I knew as if being told, but not in words, almost a collective knowledge, that I had a choice to remain in that peace or to go back into my body.
As soon as I thought of my children, I was pushed violently back into my body, it seemed smaller than before, all the fear and pain rushed back.
I am very different.
I have lost so much language. I can only speak English now, before I died I spoke German, Latin, and French in addition to my native tongue.
I had a photographic memory, also lost.
I also spent over a year in physical therapy. My body and brain have never fully recovered and it's been over 2 decades since my experience.
For a long time I thought my condition was punishment for rejecting Heaven. I have suffered chronic illness, autoimmune disorder, crushing depression, but I am still here.
There is more to this existence than I can understand. Love with your soul, in the grand scheme of things love is the only thing that matters,. Love is stronger than death. Love is the reason I came back. I am kinder now more patient.
What I lost was so little compared to what I have gained. It took death to teach me how to live.
- VeganMon
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