Outdoorsy People Break Down The Most Terrifying Experiences They've Ever Had In The Woods
Reddit user Inevitable-Print-702 asked: 'Outdoorsmen of Reddit, what’s your most terrifying encounter in the woods?'
Being surrounded by nature by going camping or hiking is a yearning many people have to escape their everyday metropolitan trappings.
However, as much as a breath of fresh air is a good thing for everyone, not everything encountered in the woods can be utopian or blissful.
Because we just might encounter a wolf disguised as grandma, or even worse things.
Curious to hear what other horrors might be lurking in nature, Redditor Inevitable-Print-702-702 asked:
"Outdoorsmen of Reddit, what’s your most terrifying encounter in the woods?"
Some things are better left undiscovered.
Lost Hearing
"Man I don't even go out that often but the one time I do I found a severed ear on a hiking path."
– hausenbergerdorff
Fertilizing The Grounds
"A grown man taking a sh*t, when I was maybe 8-9. He was squatting in the trees off the trail, dressed in business casual. We made eye contact, he looked absolutely terrified, and I turned and started walking away. For some reason, he said, 'Wait!'"
"I did not wait and took off running."
"He might've been some kind of pervert with a sinister post-dump plan, but I think he just panicked and probably didn't know why he said that. I like to imagine him fleeing through the woods, watching for the police and thinking, 'why the hell did I tell him to wait???'"
– FoldedaMillionTimes
Ominous Dwellers
"In the 90s, I was on a week-long backpacking trip with my uncle in the Colorado high-country. He was a professional rock climbing-trail guide at the time, so he knew his stuff while off-the-grid."
"The second day in, we were following some old trail that hadn't been groomed in years, and came across the outskirts of some random commune deep in the woods. We knew there were people there because we could see campfires and laughing/talking in the distance."
"My uncle immediately freaks out, tells me to keep quiet, and then made us back track nearly five miles, and then around. It was the first and only time I've actually seen him panic off-the-grid."
"Afterward, he lectured me that it was some kind of small sect or cult that had a rep for being very territorial in the area at the time, and was known to shoot at trespassers without provocation."
– Avery_Di_Umbra
Animals are cute...when you're not invading they're territory.
When Comes Mama
"I was all dressed up in a ghillie photographing bee-eaters and then some little boar piglets start getting near me sniffing at me. 10 seconds later I hear a very loud noise and the mom was running towards me. I left there my camera and climbed the nearby tree faster than a monkey. I stayed up there like an airborne turd half afternoon."
– Ares982
Adrenaline Rush
"While on horseback came across a deer carcass. Horse was spooked and about 30 yards away saw a grizzly stand up...... Felt my heart pumping hard."
– Quiet-Cancer
Bear-ly Breathing
"Had an over-curious bear climb up the tree I was in during a hunt and man I almost jumped out of the tree. He just wanted to say hi but sh*t yo I definitely was scared to death."
– MaximumMajestic
Bye, Kitty Kitty
"Face to face with a cougar while making my way to the deer stand. I had to check my drawers afterwards."
– otcconan
Welcome Cow-mittee
"I was on a month-long canoeing trip though the sub-arctic tundra. I was looking for a good place to set up my tent, I hadn't realized I had just accidently stumbled within 10 meters or so of a massive Caribou bull and two cows."
"We all just stared at each other for a minute or so, then they ran off."
– Drach88
Unpredictable dangers befell these innocent Redditors while in the forest.
Open Season
"When I was like 14 I was hunting deer with my dad and heard a weird sizzle. I heard 2 more and my dad screamed at me to get down. It was the sound of another hunter shooting in our direction. He hadn't seen us despite the orange. I will never forget that sound. It's a very different experience being on the other end of the bullet."
– Post-Scarcity-Pal
Close Calls
"Slipped and tumbled backwards head over heels down a rock face. There was about a twenty foot drop after that but I got wedged in between a tree and the rock face. Ended up walking away with just a couple bruises."
"Another time in the Sierra Nevadas I fell through a hole that was covered in snow. My rifle stopped me from falling straight through and I yelled for help. When I was getting pulled out all I saw was a black hole beneath me that covered in snow again. No idea how deep it was or if anyone would have heard me if I just poofed through the snow into a crevasse."
– COCKBLOKALYPSE
Raining Bullets
"Bullets whizzing over my head. Some smooth brains were target shooting in the middle of an established hiking trail. Wasn't a one off experience either!"
– _old_relic_
Woods in general freak me out due to the lack of clear line of sight.
For that reason alone, I tend to avoid wooded areas and prefer prairies, meadows, or a clearing when I go hiking.
So if I find anything that doesn't belong out on my hike, it won't raise alarm because being out in the open somehow makes it less ominous for me.
Now, if I see a wild animal that might want to cause me harm or views me as lunch, I'm pretty much screwed since I won't be able to scamper up any trees or hide behind one.
Well, so much for that.
Doctors And Scientists Break Down The Most Terrifying Diseases People Can Suffer From
Ever since the global pandemic hit in March 2020, we found ourselves becoming a bit more cognizant of protecting ourselves from contagious diseases.
Sadly, masks, face shields, and hand sanitizer can't protect us from everything.
Some diseases are simply in our DNA and will begin wreaking havoc on our bodies without any sort of warning.
Many of these diseases come with symptoms that we'd only thought could be found in horror movies.
"Doctors/biologists of Reddit, what is the most terrifying disease you can get?"
They Can't See As Clearly As They Think
"Anton syndrome: maybe not the scariest but definitely still very strange and distressing."
"Essentially you get bilateral visual cortex strokes (with some parietal cortex damage), so you’re completely blind."
"But you don’t know you’re blind."
"These people will swear on their mother’s grave that they can see, but then walk straight into a wall."
"Imagine going the rest of your life genuinely believing you can see, despite constantly being told otherwise."- Spiritual-Gap3695·
A Living Statue
"Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva."
"Your muscles and tendons slowly turn to bone rendering you immobile, in constant pain due to pinched nerves, and unable to speak or eat."
"You basically just become a fully sentient statue that is in constant agony."- ky1esty1e
Too Many To Choose From...
"fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva."
"Slowly turn into bone."
"Towards the end you have to choose whether you want to be laying down or sitting."
"Fatal insomnia."
"You can either get the generic kind or the random kind."
"Either way you will never sleep again."
"I’m also partial to Ebola and Prion diseases."
"Shout out also to alien hand syndrome, cotard delusion, capgras delusion, visual agnosia, and koro."
"Also, there is a special kind of hell for Alzheimer’s and Lewy Body dementia."- TheRealDannySugar
Why You Must Stay Up To Date On Vaccines!
"The extreme clenching of every muscle in your body until your teeth shatter, bones break, and your body constricts itself to death."
"We are constantly reminded of this disease, but with vaccination and modern medicine, people are mostly unaware of how horrible it can be outside of historical and medical texts."
"Tetanus."- Gr4ph0n
It Affects More People Than You Think
'ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease."
"Or any neurodegenerative disease, for that matter."- NuMD97
Thank Goodness For Modern Science
"Despite the fact that we have a vaccine for it, I have been absolutely petrified of diphtheria since reading 'The Cruelest Miles.'"
"Without treatment, the thought of slowly choking to death on mucus membranes covering your lymph nodes... terrifying."- GlowCavern
Manifesting Slowly
"I’m gonna go with prion diseases."
"They can hang out in your body for decades before causing symptoms, have no known treatments, and are very difficult to destroy."
"I’m also personally uncomfortable with the idea of proteins in my body misfolding."
"My nightmare scenario is a CWD becoming transmissible to humans."- Mirrorflute88
'Biologist - prion disease is terrifying."
"They're a kind of protein that is the 'wrong way' ( think mirror image) and other proteins they encounter mimic them."
"So a healthy normal protein encounters an abnormally folded prion and re-folds itself the way the prion is folded."
"This creates a chain reaction and results in neurodegeneration and encephalopathy (holes in the brain)."
"Think mad cow disease (aka, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease CJD)."
"It is always fatal and is contracted by eating brain/neural tissue)."
"F*cking terrifying."- ticklewhales
The Dreaded C-Word
"Resident doctor here."
"A terrifying type of illness I haven't seen mentioned yet are head and neck cancers in general."
"They tend to have a terrible quality of life they can have due to masses pushing into their airways or esophagus."
"Had a patient not long ago with a kind of throat cancer caused by HPV which led his bottom teeth needing to be removed and not being able to eat solid food."- Reddit
Hang On To Those Memories
"I would say Alzheimer's."
"Imagine forgetting everything and everyone you loved."
"Imagine slowly forgetting how to do things, how to walk, eat, drink and talk."
"Eventually you die because you forget how to breathe."
"To me that's pretty horrifying, and think of the family members who see them going through that!"- InFiniTeDEATH8
No Known Antidote
"I’m not sure if this is considered a disease but I would say radiation poisoning could be the worst."
"Depending on isotope and the level of exposure radiation can do some absolutely twisted sh*t to the human body."- S0M3D1CK
Only One Thing On the Menu For Them...
"Flesh eating is just as f*cked up as all the rest , you never know if its all cut-out or not until it f*cking eats your leg."- gotbetterbro
Trapped In Your Own Body
"Locked-in syndrome."
'You’re cognitively there, but you cannot move any part of your body."- Softconcrete579
Talk About Skin Crawling
"Surprised no one has mentioned pemphigus."
"It is extremely rare, but it is it an awful way to go."
"Schwarzschild died of it, you know, the guy that calculated the 'Schwarzschild radius'."
"Yeah, turns out you haven't heard of him for anything else in physics was his early, horrifying demise to pemphigus." -Reddit
Depends On The Circumstances
"Without modern medicine: plague making your blood septic and rotten."
"Without knowledge of what is happening: rabies."
"Without the support of others: alzheimers."- cherrycoloredcheeks
Perhaps the most frightening thing about all these bone-chilling diseases and illnesses?
They could happen to literally anyone.
Perhaps one reason horror films are so popular is that people know they are watching a work of fiction.
As soon as they leave the theatre or turn off the TV, they are out of the terrifying world they've been a part of for two hours but got the rush of adrenaline they need, similar to riding a roller coaster or thrill ride.
For this reason, no movie, TV show, or book, no matter how scary they are, can never equal being scared in real life.
As finding yourself, or worse your family, in a dangerous and/or life-threatening situation is an experience so terrifying, it genuinely defies description.
"What was the scariest moment in your life, and why?"
Witnessing A Near-Death Experience
"I walked in on my dad, looking like he was dead (eyes open, but lifeless)."
"He was suffering a full cardiac arrest."
"I called 911 and gave him chest compressions for 10 minutes until EMTs arrived."
"When they got there they told me his heart and lungs had stopped (full cardiac arrest) and they were struggling getting a pulse."
"I thought no way this is it and he did end up getting a pulse, being transported to the hospital and having his heart operated on."
"He survived!"- Caseylightning
A Life Nearly Over Before It Even Began
"When I went into preterm labor at 25 weeks."
"Same night she was born but wasn't making any sound."
"She was floppy and not breathing."
"So grateful to our team who breathed for her."
"She's delayed some but she's now 20 months and thriving."- prettysouthernchick
Taken By Surprise In Your Sleep
"When a poster hanging above my bed fell on me in the middle of the night."
"Thought I was being attacked."- Midnite_St0rm
Black Ice
"Hit black ice on an exit."
"My Sis in the car with me, I was driving."
"IDK how many 360's we did."
"Ended up not hitting anything and stopped inches from a light pole."
"How we both didn't piss our pants is beyond me."
"We were in our teens."
"It was the worst carnival ride ever."- pgabrielfreak
Heroic Behavior
"I used to live near a large open stormwater drain with no fencing around it."
"Three drunk guys drove their car straight into it."
"I went out and found the driver trying to get his friends foot out of the windshield."
"On the field on other side of the drain I saw the third passenger who was covered in blood."
"I asked if they were ok and my neighbor called the ambulance/police."
"The blood covered friend passed out and was twitching so I ran to the car, grabbed a towel from the back seat and ran to help him."
"I found a large, deep cut on the back of his neck/head."
"I rolled him to his back and used the weight of his head to put pressure on the wound."
"I was talking to him, trying to keep him awake and he went into shock, twitching and unresponsive."
"This was the moment I thought a man died in my hands."
"I was able to wake him and the ambulance took over from there."
"That was the most harrowing moment of my life."- TinaDunk559
Escaping For A Better Life
"It was the night that I (17 F[emale]) was escaping to Europe from Turkey (at the time I was 15)."
"I wouldn't call it a moment because it was a whole night."
"A few things happened so I'm gonna write them down here."
"The first one was actually in daylight."
"The driver was taking the group that I am escaping with to the border."
"And out of 5 people, at least 3 of them were wanted by the police ."
"We weren't criminals, don't worry."
"Government is led by a dictator so anything you do that they don't like is a crime."
" So as you can guess, we weren't supposed to get pulled aside by the police to check IDs."
"But there was a control thing on the highway and they were almost gonna stop us."
"We got lucky and the police pulled the truck in front of us and we were let through."
"I was so scared that I hold my mom's hand and didn't let go until we passed them."
"After I let go, her hand was white as paper."
"The second one is when we were out of the car and running to the border with two smugglers leading us."
"They were stopping us to lie on the ground every 30 seconds just in case there are soldiers."
"But one time they stopped us and we lay on the ground for almost 30 minutes."
"The smugglers were gone and all we can see was the starry sky."
"We didn't move, breathe when necessary, and didn't say a thing for 30 minutes."
"It was quite scary."
"And this one happened in Greece."
"We were in Greece for about 10 minutes before the soldiers found us."
"The smugglers told us to leave our bags on the ground and put our hands up if we ever see a Greek soldier."
"I am not an idiot but after some emotional breakdown on the way there and seeing the soldiers with guns, I started crying and made up all those weird scenarios where they execute us by a firing squad lmao."
"I know where it doesn't sound like a really scary thing but it is quite hard to explain the atmosphere. "
'You have to live it to understand it."- semrAwashere
Fear Of Flying
"I'm absolutely terrified of flying, so being stuck on a long haul flight with what I considered to be terrible turbulence wasn't exactly fun."
"I was in an absolute state of panic and was certain we'd crash and die."
"I've avoided flying ever since and when I have to in the future, I'll make sure to get whatever prescription that knocks me out completely."
"If I still know who, where and why I am when I'm boarding, I'm not getting on that plane."- sadsledgemain
Nearly Dying... TWICE
"Had a couple of them that I couldn't decide between."
"First one: Driving fast on a rural road, two lanes & hilly."
"I pop over a hill and there's a car stopped in the lane just ahead, and another car coming from the other direction."
"No way to stop in time and no open lane.'
"Everything went slow motion in my head, and I whipped my car onto the tiny gravel shoulder with inches to spare and got around without losing control."
"My friends in the car were all screaming."
"Second one: Just got out of surgery for my neck and was pretty much immobilized."
"They told me if I felt any pain to click the button for the morphine drip taped to my hand, and that it self limits to every 15 minutes."
"I'm in pain and click it."
"No relief."
"This goes on for a while and the pain gets worse and worse."
"The young attendant finally starts paying attention and says 'Oh, We left the clip on the drip line' and pulls it off.'
"I knew I'd clicked that button a few times so there was probably a lot in the line."
"My last memory was the older nurse in the room yelling 'Nooooo!' and lunging towards me."- lapsangsouchogn
Even Stephen King couldn't come up with material this terrifying.
While we have not all witnessed something that will forever keep us up at night, we've all seen or heard something that was terrifying.
And it seems the scarier it was, the harder it becomes to forget.
Redditor AncientTranslator405 asked:
"What's the scariest sound you've ever heard?"
Unidentified Animals
"A fox in the middle of the night. It sounds like a legitimate screaming ghost. I was in bed and chilled from the sound until I learned what it was."
- Due_Difference8575
Feeling Territorial
"My dog ran out the front door one night and didn't see the opossum on the porch until she turned around to come back in."
"That growl scream thing they do is horrifying, especially when it's a large opossum standing between you and your dog."
- mel2mdl
An Accident's Aftermath
"Two years ago, I witnessed a near-fatal accident. A truck t-boned a small sedan with kids in it."
"I'll never forget that sound of the crunch, the mom crying hysterically because she thought her kids were dead, and the sight of it all."
"The worst part is I knew the kids. They were students of mine. Everyone survived but not without permanent injuries."
- amahler03
Living with Dementia
"One thing my grandmother did when she was near the end of her dementia was to call out, 'Mama, Mama' in a long and drawn out 'Maaaaaaammaaaa.'"
"She passed in 2007, and now my mom lives with us and is also suffering from dementia. I was awakened one night by the same long drawn out 'Maaaaaammaaaaa...'"
- pastelpizza
Sad Goodbyes
"My grandmother passed last month. She was 96 and the absolute best."
"She was suffering from vascular dementia. Luckily she was peaceful with it and not violent or agitated. She remembered everyone but kept thinking people who died 50+ years earlier were still alive."
"The day before she passed, she sat up all of a sudden after being asleep basically for the entire previous week."
"She looked at me, a tear rolled down her face, and she said, 'Take care.'"
"I told her I loved her. She then said, 'I love you' back."
"I am so glad I was able to be there for that and to be there for her at the end."
- Gravath
Lost Partners
"I woke up in the middle of the night with my elderly neighbor crying and asking for help because she had just found her husband's body in their house."
"It made me horrifically sad, and when I finally went back to bed, I couldn't let go of my wife, fearing the day this might happen to one of us."
- TheAwesomePenguin106
Bad News
"I was at work and a mom got a call that her 19-year-old had just died in an accident."
"That sort of misery is a sound I hope to never hear again."
- Independent-Face-959
Missing Child
"When I worked in retail more than a decade ago, a woman came into the store crying for something in another language."
"Her cries were blood-curdling and it was her daughter's name."
"She lost her child somehow in the parking lot and hoped she wandered into the store (she didn't)."
"I can still hear her cries echoing in my head."
"Thankfully, they found the little girl wandering between parked cars. Happy ending."
- itsmarvin
Waiting for the Inevitable
"Sudden screeching car tires behind you."
"A few years ago, we were sitting at a stop sign and got rear-ended by a girl texting on her phone (going 60 miles per hour) and it was the scariest three seconds of my life. My two-year-old son was in the back seat too."
"We had been at the lake and had bags piled up, so we couldn’t really see out the back window, and all of a sudden, there was the sound of LOUD screeching tires erupting behind us."
"I just knew I was about to die while I waited a couple of seconds for it to hit us. Thank god it wasn’t a semi-truck or something."
- masterpate
A Mechanical Error
"A CNC machine I was operating made a horrifying screeching noise as it dropped a 10-inch saw blade and fired it at me. Nearly lost my leg that day, it missed the main artery in my leg by two millimeters."
"I still get PTSD dreams where I hear it screech, bang, and it whistling toward/through me."
- natha134
Storm of the Century
"My husband and I were awakened by a thunderstorm so loud and physical that we thought it was an earthquake, and a strong one. It was extremely loud and shook the house and everything in it, and the rumble that woke us up lasted for probably 10 seconds."
"It was such a violent shake, I was thinking, 'This will be the earthquake that kills us.' I swore that the ground was going to open. It took several seconds to realize what it was."
"I only have experienced thunder like that a few other times in my life, and I grew up in a high-altitude part of the Pacific Northwest."
"Where I live now, we have a fault line, and they always go on about 'the big one' and how devastating it will be. So in my disorientation, I thought it was the beginning of the big one that had woken us."
- SapphireHaze
Someone Approaching
"I was standing in the middle of Death Valley at midnight several months ago, with no light or anything else around me, as I was taking pictures of the Milky Way."
"I suddenly heard footsteps approaching. I grabbed my camera and turned to run."
"It ended up being another photographer who had been sleeping near me and then woke up and came to talk with me. It took a good two hours for my heart to calm down."
- jscheel
Breaking In
"Someone breaking into my home is genuinely my worst nightmare. It doesn't help when you have a cat that likes to do zoomies in the middle of the night, either."
- PlayerAlert
A Child in Need
"Hearing my seven-year-old scream/wailing from their room at 2:00 AM. That eerie sound of fear and despair and hopelessness calling for someone to stop whatever is going on. Hearing it come closer and closer before you can even get out of the covers to check on them."
"Fortunately, it turned out their hand had fallen asleep and they thought it was a dead hand stuck in the pajamas. They stopped screaming as we were yelling 'What?! What?!'"
"'Oh. It's just my hand.'"
"Still the scariest sound I have ever heard. I have nightmares about it sometimes..."
- mel2mdl
Houseguests
"When I was 13, I was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep."
"I went to grab a drink of water from the bottle next to my bed, and my elbow bumped the wall next to it by accident."
"Almost immediately, a singular bump ‘responded’ from the other side of the wall."
"I froze, stared at the wall, and then knocked twice in the same spot."
"Two knocks responded a moment later."
"The other side of the wall was our lounge room. There was no one in there, and I know because I didn’t get another wink of sleep until the sun rose."
"Still freaks me out, and I occasionally knock the walls of my bedroom now, hoping I don’t hear anything knock back."
- Anxiety_bunni
While almost all of these sounds are explainable, if tragic or terrifying, they undoubtedly would keep someone thinking about them for a long time.
For those who need their horror fix, they can stream tons of movies on platforms like Shudder or even find shows like American Horror Story on Hulu.
While many of those programs have enough jump scares and gory scenes of torture, rest assured, it's only make-believe.
The real stuff of nightmares is not of the unexplainable paranormal activity variety, but stories that are recounted by those who lived through truly terrifying experiences.
Curious to hear examples of these, Redditor ugotheglizzy asked:
"What’s the scariest true story you’ve heard or told?"
Warning: These stories are not for the faint of heart.
Hospital visits can be absolutely horrifying.
She Flipped Her Lid
"I’ve told this story before. I’m an eye doctor and I had a patient come to me with an infected eyelid two other eye doctors tried to treat and failed. They were dumping all sorts of medicine into it and it wasn’t getting any better. At this point, it was swollen and painful for weeks with no improvement despite being on tons of meds."
"Apparently, neither of them thought to flip the lid upside down (you know that gross trick some kids do with their upper eyelids?). It was a painful maneuver for her very swollen eyelid, which might explain it. Anyhow, there appeared to be what looked like a visible abscess inside the tissue with thick gooey material, I thought I’d give it a nudge and saw it move. This wasn’t an abscess, it was something else. I managed to remove it quite easily in one whole piece. It was a fly larva. The patient told me that she had a bug hit her in the eye a few days before she got this 'infection.' I removed the larva and within two days the wound closed and she was 100% recovered on basic antibiotic eye drops. Yes, I do have the photos from this case for those interested."
– OscarDivine
Turmoil Of Recovery
"I had brain surgery roughly 3 years ago. I lost my concept of time. What felt like 4 months was only 3 days. The amount of physical, mental, and emotional pain I went through was crazy. I had to find all of my memories and relearn how to walk, talk, everything. If you want to go through something terrifying that is it."
– AkierraLFS
Surprising Diagnosis
"My HIV story."
"I was on a trip on my first commercial flight (from Sacramento to San Diego) to visit my girlfriend, and I didnt feel well. Once I got off the plane I made it to the hotel and had bouts of nausea and diarrhea for a few days straight and finally decided to go to hospital. After waiting hours I was let into a room and some time later an Asian woman wearing a mask and gloves entered. 'Please leave the room,' she told my girlfriend (let's call Beatrice)."
"'No she can stay it's okay,' I said. The doctor still hadn't looked at me, but looked back to Beatrice. 'I think you should leave.' I looked to Beatrice and said 'can you please wait outside.' Right as the door closed the doctor said, 'you have HIV.' My mind instantly started racing, trying to problem solve. 'I cant have AIDS, I got tested before being with Beatrice and I was clean,' I said. The doctor again 'you have HIV' while avoiding eye contact. I looked at my palms and for the first time in my life they were sweating, really sweating. I said again, 'I cant, I've been tested.'"
"The doctor flipped a page and asked my name, which I responded, and finally the doctors eyes made contact with my own. 'I'm so sorry, I have the wrong chart. You have strep throat and laryngitis.' I remember the world ending and then the feeling the most relief I've ever experience in my life. When I told Beatrice the whole story she awkwardly laughed and said, 'but you dont have it, right?' Nope."
– ALEXXRN
The fear of being watched is explored in the following examples.
A Harrowing Sight
"This happened to me. This is from the days when I used to live back home (I used to live in Karachi, Pakistan but now moved to UK)."
"We used live very close to a CID (Police Investigation Department aka Pakistani FBI) building which we all were unaware of and always thought it was just an ordinary government building till on 11th, Nov 2010. On that day I around evening time coming home from work I thought I better hit the gym (because they had a sauna and after being tired from all day work that sounded like a good idea) which was hardly 0.3 miles away so I decided to walk to the gym. I change quickly and leave for the gym and start walking towards the gym."
"This is almost I've hardly walked like 10 minutes and I'm 0.1 miles away roughly and all of a sudden for a nano second I feel that ground is shaking and the next thing I hear is a loudest bang I've ever heard followed by a pressure kick into my chest. Now to let you guys know, my both the ear started bleeding because the bang was so loud and for the reference the kick in the chest was as bad as Big Show wearing military boots and kicking you in the chest straight with full force."
"Next thing? I'm on the ground covering my ears because they are in agony and covered in dirt trying to figure out what's happening. As I am trying to figure out I can see all the cars alarms have gone off. Anything made up of glass has been shattered in roughly 1-2 miles area. I'm still trying to figure out what has happened and I start smelling gun powder and as if someone is making a BBQ and is being burnt. I will always remember that smell which was something unsettling. Next things rock and dust particle starts landing on me and the surrounding areas which had 1-1.5 inches long of pieces of human skin and flesh. I am not believing that I have another human skin piece stuck to my arm. I brush up my clothes and arms getting up and covering my ear recovering from that pressure kick."
"As I move closer to a spot in a street where I am hearing loads of people screaming and crying I see a few 3-5ft cracks between some walls of the building which have been destroyed by the shockwave of the bang. I see the gap between a wall and move into the area where I see these scenes straight from a Hollywood movie where people are crying, cars on fire and dead bodies on the ground. By this time I'm thinking its a bomb blast and that's what has happened. As I move closer I see a 10ft and 30ft wide crater which has been filled with the water and the building which was a CID building is no longer there. There are hundreds of people lying on the ground crying for help as some of them don't even have legs or limbs or some don't have their complete bottom. I am still in a state of shock looking around and I see a woman crying and hitting herself because she had her husband dead who's legs and torso was missing. I seen that later. I see several people without legs, brains out and no limbs."
"One thing, which haunted me for sure was a 18-20yr old guy who was dead and lying on the floor towards his chest on the floor with his neck turned towards me. I can still remember him looking straight into my eyes. His feet were flipped the other way around. After the police arrived and media arrived I came back home after it got crowded. After I came home after the dusk everyday, I would see that 18-20yr old boy standing and starring into my eyes. I would wake up screaming through out the night and see that guy standing at the door way just staring at me. For two to three weeks I would see this guy regularly during midnight standing in my hallway staring through my soul. I still remember that guy's face and the shockwave and the sound of the blast."
"P.S to this day even the slightest bang or even a loud music drops freaks me out sometimes reminding me of that shockwave. I'm married so sometimes I tell my wife that the bang just reminded me of the shockwave I witnessed in this accident, I don't tell her but inside my heart I pray secretly that God don't ever put anyone through that even in their wildest dreams."
Photo of the Explosion aftermath
– anon
People talk about life-threatening situations that will make you count your blessings to be alive.
Trapped
"The story of John Edward Jones getting stuck in Nutty Putty cave in Utah. He became wedged in the tight crawl when he took a wrong turn in the cave system. Rescuers could do nothing to get him out and he was stuck in there for 28 hours before he died from Cardiac Arrest because feet were above his head and his heart was pumping over time. One of The Rescuers even gave him a phone to call his wife and talk to his young daughter before he died."
– xMurderMike41370x
The Stowaway
"Off the main road of a place I use to work at, a guy decided to climb under a bus to 'hitch a free ride'. Well the bus went over a speed bump and the guy fell and ended up getting caught on the back wheel. His body was dragged 5 blocks before the bus driver realized what was happening."
"A police officer who came into our store regularly, told us that the guy was still alive when they got to him, but died an hour later. He said his whole back was scraped off exposing his spine. I remember driving down that road after the fact, and you could still see a deep red blood stained trail going on for those 5 blocks."
"Absolutely horrifying."
– nana_
Imagined Horrors
"I used to love swimming, I'd go snorkeling, scuba diving, even jumped off a few cliffs into the water."
"When I was about 18 I read the necrnomicon (the collection of Lovecraft short stories, not the real thing) had a good scare, giggled at how silly I was to be unnerved and went about my life."
"Next year went to Crete on holiday, first day I jumped right into the ocean with my dad and went out deep. Lo and behold, I feel something tickling my legs. I dive under to see since its too deep for seaweed to reach this high and I wanted to see fish."
"Tentacles. Everywhere. I was so shocked I lost my air and panicked hard, I started breathing in water as glowing eyes, sharp beaks and suckered tentacles flashed about me."
"Thankfully, Dad got me to the shore and didn't understand what was going on, he'd seen nothing but suddenly had a really grim look on his face."
"Went to the doctors. Turns out I'm the victim of a family curse, Schizoaffective disorder. My dad was horrified cause since he hadn't got it like his brother and mother, he thought I'd be safe."
"They caught it early but this revelation then led to a lot of aspects of my life being thrown in the air. Entire people in my life became false, ideas I'd had were delusional, outbursts revealed to be due to mood swings."
"I'm doing much better now, I still don't go in the water."
– Voidscale
I will never forget the time I was at a party where one of the host's brother who was tweaked out of his mind went on a violent rampage and started going after partygoers with a knife.
Thankfully, nobody was gravely injured, but a few people did go to the hospital to be treated for deep lacerations.
I managed to escape by jumping from the second story window with a couple of friends and piled into the car in the parking lot just as one of the attacker's friends came after us wielding a Swiss Army knife.
As I write this, it sounds completely fictitious. I hoped it was. I've never been so terrified.