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 Redditor asked:
"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!
People Who've Come Close To Dying Divulge What Their Final Thoughts Were
Dying is a scary concept that haunts us as humans no matter who we are or where we are in our lives.
Some of us have gotten way closer to death than we would have liked. Fortunately for those people, they lived to tell the tale--and lived to tell what exactly went through their brains in that last pivotal moment.
u/Blue-2th asked:
People who have came close to dying, what were your "last" thoughts?
Here were some of those answers.
Suffered The Same Fate
"Your shoe is untied"
I said that to my dad before promptly falling down a 20ft cliff into the underbrush. Broken arm, fractured skull, ruptured kidney. Woke up two weeks later to my dad saying thanks for letting him know his shoe was untied as he could have tripped.
Las Policias
I got knocked unconscious and blacked out from a car accident and it was nothing, like you said. Just darkness overwhelming me immediately. I woke up gasping for air and wondering how the police and ambulance knew the accident was going to happen. I had been out long enough for them to arrive and start rending to some of us but I thought they were waiting for us.
Thump Thump
My heart stopped beating for 7 seconds while I was eating dinner in my hospital bed waiting to be discharged. I realized I was going to pass out and put my arm across my plate so I wouldn't fall face-first into it. All I could think of was "this is gonna make a mess." Glad they took their time with the paperwork. Ended up walking out of there 7 days later with a pacemaker at the age of 46.
Hear Ye, Hear Ye!
As I was getting the Heimlich I remember thinking how embarrassing it would be to die at a renaissance fair.
It was the day before my 29th birthday so I also remember being disappointed I wasn't going to make it to 30.
It seems like choking at a renaissance fair is actually pretty common. If anyone knows a Cigar Salseman that was working at Scarborough Fair 6 or so years ago give him my thanks for saving me life.
Boom Boom
'Sh*t, wasn't the car that hit me white?'
As I'm looking down at a car underneath me.
I'd been hit hard enough I bounced up over the car that hit me and had enough air time to clear the second one. Props to the driver of the third vehicle, he must've stood on the damned brakes the moment he saw me because he brought the cement truck to a stop before it got to me.
Second time I was hit by a car as a pedestrian. I'm now MUCH more careful crossing streets.. not that it's helped much, I seem to have a car magnet in my a**...
Being Struck By Lightning
I was in the process of being electrocuted, having been working all day atop a scissors lift. The electricians had left a 277-volt line live and while I was standing and reaching while running the last low-voltage run of the job, I contacted their line. I saw the white light at the end of the tunnel. All I knew was throbbing and 60-cycle noise and the white light.
My last thought was "I wonder if I can tell my knees to unlock?" Obviously they did, since I am here typing this. Severe electrical burns, still here livin ' the life!
I Want To Remember This Moment
Had a stroke last year and was taken to the ER by my brother. The last thing I remember was asking him to take a picture of me with his phone as "I must look terrible." After I was admitted, I didn't remember anything other than dreams until late October, and days after I was admitted (when everything was a blank) they induced a coma so that my brain swelling would go down, and I was "critical," so I presume I was pretty close to dying then.
Oof Oof Oof
Hello,
Have you ever had a headache that was so bad? I mean, like call your parents and ask them if you were still on the healthcare plan? Even though you live in Canada and they live in the USA?
Yes, I've had this pain, i felt as if my head was goin to implode. I was half right. I had a brain clot. Then bleed.
So a stroke and an aneurysm all at once. My last thought before I regained consciousness weeks later?
I don't want to die in this sh*tty ground level apartment.
That Was Hella Lucky
"I can't believe this is how I die."
Drunk, falling off a 30 foot cliff into about 2 feet of water at Lake Havasu, AZ on Spring Break. It just hurt really bad.
Well Darn
Nearly was run over in a town square when a car decided to go through it, instead of around it, and went onto the sidewalk.
First and only thing to come out of my mouth to my friend next to me before we dove out of the way;
"Well that's not good"
Pain is not gain.... pain is just pain; especially for the sensitive souls out there. However when put into perspective, a toothache is not as excruciating as a knife wound to the abdomen... but it's a close second. We've all survived our fair share of "minor" injuries and we live to tell the tale. We have to be careful accidents and mishaps can happen at the drop of a hat. Like pulling your back, a minor injury caused by bending over. Be careful people. It may not be ER worthy but the body isn't invincible.
P.S.... Paper cuts kill.... spread the word.
Redditor u/DorfGANG wanted everyone to tell us about their tales of survival by asking.... What is the worst "minor" injury?Mouth Issues.
betty boop toothache GIF by Okkult Motion PicturesGiphyToothache. It's not life threatening but the pain is constant and inescapable.
Weeeeeeeeeeell, it actually can be life threatening if left long enough, the infection can go into the bone and/or blood.
Edit: If all the horror stories below are anything to go by - take care of your teeth, people!!!
Too Close For Comfort...
When you're shaving private bits and you nick yourself right in the crease of your leg where the hem of your undies go. That stuff itches so bad but you can't just scratch your crotch in public or explain that its not your crotch that's itchy, it's the area mere centimeters from your crotch.
Fragile Flesh.
Burns on your tongue.
Edit: I commented this while doing my work. Sleep and come back to the most amount of upvotes I've ever had! Thanks guys.
Or the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth when you get too excited for hot pizza.
The Itch.
tlc network omg GIF by TLC EuropeGiphyA pimple in your ear or nostril.
Also above the upperlip (where you have the moustache), cuz it's too sensitive and having to squeeze a pimple there will make my eyes water.
Good times.
Oh man I once had to have some molds made or something at the dentist's and they messed up. They knew that crapy paste heated up, but they didn't know how much.
There I was, breathing heavily, trying to withstand it and they noticed and removed it. That's how I got the roof of my mouth burnt AF and skin hanging off it that I just couldn't remove, but could perfectly feel with my tongue. Good times.
Tasteless....
Irritated taste bud. So tiny, so annoying.
Edit: I had no idea this was so universally hated. I don't know the proper name, it's not a canker sore though, those are different. And yes, I psych myself up and bite it off just to get it over with. Glad to know there are so many other freaks out there too!
UGH I've gotten a handful of those in my life, right on the tip of my tongue and they hurt so much, always for an entire week. No less. Eating hurts, talking hurts, being awake and having my tongue doing nothing hurts.
Ingrown....
Ingrown toenail
My nasty butt ingrown nail the blood coming out of the left side is one of 3 shots they gave me to numb it.
Oh god. I used to get ingrown toenails frequently in 7th/8th grade. Whenever I banged one against something, I would see a spectrum of light that I'm pretty sure science hasn't identified yet.
The Split
lick lips GIFGiphySplitting your lip from smiling because of winter, splits open every time you move your mouth.
YOU CANNOT EVEN IMAGINE!!
Mouth ulcer.
I am VERY VERY prone to mouth ulcers, literally anywhere in my mouth, gums, cheeks, below the lips, tongue, absolutely everywhere is free real estate and I get at least 3 every month, sometimes two medium sized ones will form next to each other only to combine and last half a damn month.
Recently I had two VERY large ulcers, one on my right cheek and another on my left and let me tell you I have never felt more pain in my mouth before, and since the area inflamed a bit it causes me to bite down on them and OH MY GOD YOU CANNOT EVEN IMAGINE.
In conclusion, we should divert ALL of humanity's resources into funding a cure for mouth ulcers.
Cheek 2 Cheek....
marilyn manson cheeks GIFGiphyWhen you bite the side of your cheek and so it hurts to eat for like 3 days.
So I'm a chronic canker sore sufferer and know that pain all to well. If you still get them a lot try changing out your toothpaste to one without sodium lauryl sulfate. That's made the biggest difference in frequency of canker sores for me.
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When you are but a breath away from the wrong step and certain death, life shifts perspective for you.
Humans sometimes forget that they are mortal and that at any moment, they may face the end of their lives. When confronted with that mortality, people have a hard time fully grasping that. It can cause a full shift in their lives.
And chances are, you'll never forget the incident that almost ended your life.
u/ferfeb asked:
Here were some of those answers.
Trigger warnings: violence, blood, moments of terror, death.
Hostage Situation
I was an English teacher in Honduras. About 8 months in myself and 4 other volunteers decided to go to a "bar" a few towns over(the closest one) to celebrate one of their birthdays. A few hours in, a group of 4 men came in with masks and HUGE guns and told everyone to drop to the floor. Being half in the bag (or possibly more), I decided to hide in the men's washroom as I was right beside it.
I got yanked out by one of the men and pushed up against the wall. He then held the gun to my head and told me to give him everything I had. He then told us 4 (we were put together on the wall as we were obviously the ones that were not from around there), and said if we reported them, they knew where we worked (and they did), and would kill us. We reported the incident (although nothing came from it), and I was back home in Canada 3 days later.
Thank Goodness Indeed
GiphySlipped on some rocks and was about to fall 20-30 feet into the ocean and more rocks. When you see someone in the movies falling and they grab on to basically nothing. That can't happen you think. Wrong, thank goodness.
Away From The Cliffside
I went hiking with a friend and her family in 6th grade during a camping trip they invited me on. We were coming back down and I lost my footing and feel. I started sliding towards a cliff and a bush caught me. If not for that bush I would have gone off a 200ft (at least/best guess) drop into a lake.
Even now at 21 hiking makes nervous.
Saved From The Tupperware
Shoeing horses. Was tucked under the hind end of one when something spooked him. I got dragged down between his hind legs. He was in cross ties so he could only really move side to side so neither of us could get away. Luckily my boss was nearby and was able to untie him and get him off me.
I was really lucky and got off mostly okay. Had a few broken ribs, a punctured and collapsed lung, broke my nose, and got a bunch of soft tissue injuries in my right arm.
But it got me out of a Tupperware party I didn't want to go to so all in all 10/10 would get trampled again
Just Driftin'
My doctor prescribed me medications that had an interaction which suppressed my central nervous system. Basically it felt like I was taking heavy tranquilizers constantly.
At the time I was commuting on a mountain road to go to night school and the meds made me so tired I almost fell asleep driving multiple times. After I almost got in what would have been a huge accident I withdrew from school for the semester.
Another doctor figured it out, took me off my meds, and I felt like a new person within days.
Just The Wrong Angle
Slipped in a club and fell onto a half pint glass. The glass shattered and sliced open my wrist, nicking the artery and the tendon and opening my palm to the bone.
Plus side; just before I went I to shock I got to see my tendon move like the terminator! Minus side; I accidentally covered a bunch of people in my blood. Oh, and the surgeries... and the scar on my wrist
An Old Injury
Hit by a car doing 70mph back in 1989 - shattered my femur, half of it turned to dust, the other half ripped its way out my outer thigh as if to say "welp, gotta go kiddo, my work here is done...".
Fractured skull with brain swelling, smashed knee, smashed hip, internal bleeding - according to most witnesses, I looked like I'd stepped on a landmine.
I spent 6 months in hospital, was fitted with a custom titanium reinforced composite femur, had to relearn how to walk. The scar went keloid and its about 8 inches long, going from my hip to my knee.
In 1993 I had to have the bone swapped out for an adult one so as not to screw up my growth. I walk fine but I run with a limp.
A Warning To All
I made the mistake of driving drunk. Not, "a little tipsy" and not, "I'm pretty sure I'm fine".... Drunk with a capital D.
I am a complete jerk for driving in that state. I didn't even remember getting home. Fortunately nobody got hurt, but waking up in bed the next morning with no recollection of how I got there...
I could have killed someone and myself. Please, anyone reading this: There is always someone willing to come pick you up and drive you home. Don't let pride get in the way of that. It is always the safer option.
Just Typical Of Newark
I was almost run over by a speeding bus in my teens. I lived in Newark, NJ at the time, and I was listening to Slipknot on my Zune (lol). I was going to cross the street, when a song came on that I didn't wanna listen to, so I stopped for a second to hit next, and the exact second I did, a bus flew past me, just inches away from my face. I literally felt the wind almost knock me back. The driver had ignored a red light and just kept on going, and I would've been mush, if I hadn't stopped to select a different song. Slipknot's Iowa album literally saved my life, in a way.
We Have Ignition
GiphyI was an aircraft hydraulics specialist and while looking for a leak in a 3,000 psi pressure line, a pinhole leak started right next to my head and shaved off a bit of hair just above my ear. Had I been just an inch or two to the left I would of had a stream of high pressure fluid cut right into my skull.
People Who Have Been Clinically Dead Reveal If They Saw Their Life Flash Before Their Eyes
Have you ever wondered what a near-death experience is like?
We've seen them dramatized in film and TV countless times. A white light, a figure, "turn back, it's not your time;" the whole shebang. But what is it actually like?