" I was stationed in England in the mid-1970s , a time when the IRA was setting dud off in London . We had been shopping at Harrods department store , finished shopping , and left the computer storage . Just transactions after leave , a bomb explode in the department my wife and I were tell on in . We go bad to the nearest pub and got a deglutition . "
1.“My mom was a school psychologist. On 3 April 2025, she went toLindhurst High Schoolto do testing. She finished and then drove five minutes to the next school. By the time she got there, it was chaos, they had started lockdown protocol, and everyone was freaking out about a shooter at the school she had just left. She was eight months pregnant with me at the time.”
— badwolfjenni
2.“When I was in grade six, I sat at the back of the class. There was a bookcase behind me with a big old (1970s) TV on it. One of the boys in my class bumped the shelf hard, and the TV fell. It hit the back legs of my chair before it hit the floor. Probably the closest I’ve come to dying.”
— carleenh
3.“Just a few months ago, I was alone in my apartment getting ready to host my friends for a Christmas party. I decided to take a cube of cheese from the plate and eat it, and I must have swallowed wrong because it got lodged in my throat, and I was choking. Full-on choking, like, I could not even get a single breath of air. I started to panic because I was alone, and I didn’t think I’d have time to get to a neighbor or anyone who could help me. All of a sudden, I remembered a scene from30 RockwhereTina Feyis choking alone in her apartment and she used a chair to Heimlich herself. I did the same, and the cheese came out (with some vomit), and I could breathe again!”
" I just plop down on the floor and study the fact that if I had not been successful , my friends would have make it expecting a Christmas party and feel me utter on the floor rather . So , I judge in a weird manner , I owe my biography to Tina Fey . "
— michelangelofangirl
4.“I was stationed in England in the mid-1970s, a time when the IRA was setting bombs off in London. We had been shopping atHarrodsdepartment store, finished shopping, and left the store. Just minutes after leaving, a bomb exploded in the department my wife and I were shopping in. We went to the nearest pub and got a drink.”
— Anonymous
5.“This was a while ago, but me and my friend were sitting in Hyde Park in Sydney, Australia having lunch together under this massive old tree. A ladybug landed on her, and she started freaking out saying we had to move. I just laughed at her, but she said every time a ladybug had landed on her, something bad had happened. I agreed to move, and we got under a new tree. She had finally calmed down when we heard this massive CRASH behind us. A massive old branch had fallen out of the tree we were just under and would’ve landed right on top of us if we hadn’t moved. I still don’t know if I believe the ladybug prophecy, but I’m glad it helped that day.”
— mutagenic
6.“My mom and I were at Typhoon Lagoon inDisneyWorld; we got sucked in too far in the wave pool there and kept getting pulled under and couldn’t get above. It was so intense, and we both had a hard time coming up out of the waves, she genuinely thought she was going to drown. She still jokes about it now — how we could’ve died at Disney!”
— babymagenta
7.“I should’ve died on12/21/12, the day everyone thought the world was going to end as it was the end of the Mayan calendar. I had kittens who were chasing each other and, unbeknownst to me, accidentally turned on the gas stove, not the flame, just gas pouring out. I had the bedroom door closed and two fans on because I get hot when I sleep. I got up and lit a cigarette — miraculously didn’t explode. My husband came home and said he could smell the gas from outside. Having that door closed with those fans running saved my life, it must’ve lowered the gas concentration. Needless to say, I don’t smoke anymore and now live in places with electric stoves!”
— simplysarahish
8.“It was 1976. I had hitched a ride on a two-engined WWII Curtiss-Wright C-46 cargo plane and was sitting up front with the pilots. It was carrying a full load of dried fish from the Amazon at Leticia to Bogotá, high in the mountains. We were flying at 1,500 feet over an endless jungle. Occasionally, we passed over a muddy/brown meandering river. But it was jungle, jungle, jungle. Then, suddenly, the number-two engine started spluttering. The pilots reacted lightning quick, flipping about a dozen switches. Then they watched the dials, waited, and listened. I thought I was about to die. Fortunately, I was mistaken. But having had the experience, I know how I would feel if it were to happen for real. No panic. Just a feeling of resignation:So this is how it is going to end. After about a minute, the engine recovered, and the flight continued to its destination.”
" The punchline is that the ship’s company — Aeropesca — keep out down in 1982 after THREE of its planes crashed with no survivor . "
9.“The driver of a steamroller thought the man with the stop/slow sign at the construction site was motioning for him to go forward instead of the car with my entire family in it. I looked in the rearview mirror to see an enormous machine bearing down on us and screamed at my dad to gun it. Thankfully, he did it no questions asked, but we were inches away from being run over by a steamroller.”
— elongb2015
10.“It was the very first structure fire I made entry on as a paid firefighter. Massive two-story 5,000 sq. ft. house that had a fire on the second floor on the back of the house. The initial engine company grabbed their attack line and made an interior attack. As the second in unit (rescue), my company’s assignment was to conduct a search of the second floor. The lieutenant and engineer were searching a room, and I was just outside the room next to the 1 3/4” line and figured I’d help the engine co. out since the hose was coming straight up to the second-floor balcony. The level I was standing on was 15’–20’ in the air. I was reaching over the railing, grabbing the hose, pulling up and rotating, and throwing it down the hallway for the engine co. After three to four such efforts, I reached over, grabbed, came up rotated, and BAM, the ceiling collapsed. I was hit with several sheets of drywall plus a ton of junk from the attic that fell down on top of me and pinned me.”
" fortunately , LT and engine driver came and sustain it off me . One second to begin with and the roof would have carry me over the rail and down where I probably would have landed on my strain pack and broken my spine . "
11.“When I was 2, my younger sister and I were playing in the little plastic play pool by the big pool that my other, older sister and her friend were in (they were 14 and 15 and were supposed to be watching us). I decided I wanted to swim to her, and about halfway across the big pool, I got tired and just remembered looking up at the sunlight through the water and thinking how pretty it was. The next thing I know, I’m waking up in an ambulance with people rushing all around me.”
" Apparently , my untested baby saw me jump off in the bigger pool and started screaming to our other babe , ' Baby go under , baby go under ! ' Thankfully , my eldest babe jazz CPR and saved my lifetime that twenty-four hour period . To this day , I still remember everything , and I was very relaxed when I went under . I do n’t remember freaking out , I just blend with it . It was a joint effort , but both my sisters save up my life that twenty-four hour period . "
— cutiepienat
12.“When I was 19, I lived with my brothers out on a pretty empty, 7-acre property we got from our grandparents in rural Kansas. One evening, I was driving home, and it was really stormy, hard to see, with lots of lightning. What happened next was probably the scariest thing that’s ever happened in my life: A small little prop plane, big enough for maybe three or four people, came flying down and crash-landed just a few feet in front of the car. I slammed on the brakes and sat there in shock. The debris of the plane was scattered across the road and in the grass by the side of the road. Then it hit me that whoever was in the plane probably needed help. I got out of the car and ran over there in the rain. It was really hard to see inside, but I caught a glimpse of movement. I called 911, and then, I called my brothers for help. They showed up within minutes, and emergency crews were there within half an hour.”
" There were only two people in the plane ; one of them survived ( with some serious wound ) , and unfortunately , the other pilot did not . It turned out they had gotten caught in the storm , which was too much for their footling plane , and seek to land on our theater , but the malarkey were too strong and the champaign not completely suitable for landing , and they crashed . We still keep in tinge with the surviving pilot , and I retrieve back and realize how prosperous I was that I was n’t reach by that plane . "
13.“I was on the motorcycle with my then-fiancé, we were going to his family farm to set a date for our wedding. I said, ‘Let’s not take the bike, I just don’t feel right,' but he just laughed at me. So, we took the bike. A half block away, we were hit by a car — it was his cousin coming to our place. I hit the windshield and died…they brought me back.”
14.“I was pregnant with my first child, and at my 8-month checkup discovered I had developed pre-eclampsia and had stroke-level blood pressure. I was admitted to the hospital for the remainder of my pregnancy, and at 38 weeks, they decided to deliver my baby early. I was in induced labor for five days until my water broke on the fifth day. I continued in hard labor for 36 hours after to deliver my 5-lb. baby. I was exhausted and completely depleted. When they returned me to my room after delivery, they kept the baby in the nursery so I could rest, and my hubby was gone to get some dinner. However, they failed to place me close enough to the wall where my call button was plugged in, and it slipped off of the bed. After a short time, I began to have difficulty breathing, it felt like a 10-ton rock was on my chest, and my arms and legs were going numb; I was losing the ability to move. My call button was on the floor, and no one had come in the room to check on me.”
" I felt like I was dying and was so sad that I would n’t get to see my baby , and worried about my hubby having to raise a newborn … it ’s crazy how you suppose , believe you are dying . Just then , a nursemaid peek inside . I do n’t know how she have a go at it , but she immediately come in and ask if I was OK . I could barely get the words out , ' ca n’t rest … , ' and she straight off rack up the code blue , sending Doctor , nursemaid , and the crash pushcart into my way . They give me oxygen , examined my freshly sew organic structure , contract blood , and were working on me to figure out what was going on . It was a toxic level of an anti - seizure drug they had given me during the extended labor that had not been egest ( not an overdose — my tired body was not functioning correctly ) . They break me an shot to counteract it and monitored me through the night . That nurse saved my life sentence . I knew I was give out , and it was a chance meeting of the eye that drew her into my room ( everyone fuck how exhausted I was , so take on I was sleeping ) . It was divine interposition . "
15.“This may not be very dramatic, but once during college, I was celebrating in the street with other students because our basketball team won the national championship, so it was super packed, full of people. My friends and I were trying to leave because it was getting super rowdy, and these two guys yanked a stop sign out of the ground and lifted it up over their heads. Well, the stop sign was super top heavy and it started to fall directly toward me (the edge of it was coming toward my head), and I tried to push myself out of the way but couldn’t get the crowd to move, so I was stuck. Fortunately, the guys caught it before it sliced my head open. My friend said it was two inches before it would’ve hit me. We got out of there as fast as we could.”
— katannwill91
16.“I was snorkeling in Costa Rica by myself (stupid mistake #1) and without a life jacket (stupid mistake #2) in an area that was a mix of shallow areas and deeper ones among protruding rocks. I came up to look around and decide where to head next when a massive wave came out of nowhere and hit me in the face. Then another one, and another one. I was choking on seawater and couldn’t see anything, and in my panic, I forgot to flip onto my back and float it out until I could breathe again. The waves pushed me up against the rocks, which were covered with barnacles. Eventually, I managed to climb up, but I was covered in gashes and bruised from being smashed into the rocks over and over. Still glad I only lost my snorkel and not my life.”
17.I was driving in the right lane of a freeway about 20 years ago with one tractor-trailer in front of me and another behind. Wouldn’t you know it, a third came up along my left side, boxing me in, and the driver eventually forgot I was there. His directional comes on, and I stand on the accelerator and lean on my horn, but only get about half of my car in front of his truck before he comes over. My car bounced off the truck, hit the guardrail of the overpass we were on at the time, and bounced back in front of the truck, getting plowed sideways down the freeway. I looked out my window at the grill of the truck on the other side of the glass and thought,So this is how I die. I really thought it was going to be more my fault.I ended up walking away nearly unscathed."
— pacman6282
18.“I recently went to urgent care thinking I had a bladder infection, but my glucose came back high. The urgent care doctor tested my blood sugar, and it was at 400 (for reference, 300 is considered high). They sent me home and said to go into my doctor ASAP for an A1C test to confirm a diabetes diagnosis. That night, I started having trouble breathing. I couldn’t move without getting out of breath. I also just felt really sick. The next day, I tried going to work, but things kept getting worse and worse. I kept begging my mom to take me to the ER because I felt like I was in DKA (diabetic ketoacidosis), but she didn’t believe me at first. She finally caved, and we went to the ER. Even the admitting staff knew I was already in DKA, just from the smell of my breath. I stayed in the ICU for five days. If I hadn’t stayed so adamant about going to the ER, I could have ended up in a lot of trouble.”
— fillionfan4002
19.“When I was around 4 or 5, I went to one of my parents' friend’s house. They had a pool, and we were ready for a full day of swimming. I wasn’t very good yet at swimming so I had to use floaties on my arms, and my mom told me not to go into the deep end, which was seven feet. Well, being stupid little 4-year-old me, I decided to take off my floaties and test it out anyways. My parents and my friend’s parents were talking and lounging on some chairs. I was fine at first, but as I floated out, I found myself in the deep end which was way too deep for me to stand, obviously. So, I started struggling and inhaling water in my throat and nose. I was drowning. I started to black out. Then all of a sudden, I felt this sharp pain from my friend’s mom’s watch. She pulled me out of the water.”
" I was cough up water , but I was finally capable to breathe . dependable to say I owe my life to her , and I was much more thrifty in the urine go ahead . "
— gswannspams
20.“I almost died when I was 14. I was riding my skateboard to a friend’s house at about 10 p.m. on a Thursday so the streets were dead. I get to a street that I have to cross to get to their house. This street was very long and straight, and it was common at this time (the ’90s) for people to drag race on this street. I had just started to skate across when in the back of my mind I heard my mom and dad say, ‘Never ride across the street, always get off and walk!’ I remember thinking,There’s literally no one on the road right now, and started to skate across. But I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t. So, I get off my board and kick it up to start walking. About five seconds later, a sports car going over 100mph blew past right in front of me.”
" If I had decided to skate across , I would ’ve been in front of this speeding car , and I do not believe that I would be awake today . I kind of just stood in the middle of the crosswalk for a good moment freaking out before continuing on my way . Still freaks me out to think about how close my parents came to getting a very inauspicious sound call . "
21.“I had a fight with my husband and, to cool down, I decided to go for a drive. It was 9 p.m., but there were plenty of street lights. A car had its brights on, and I moved out of the way, and I dinged the corner of a parked car. That in turn caused my car to flip and roll. As it happened, I was like,Oh, this is bad. Airbags went off, my glasses flew off my face. I landed upside down and managed to unbuckle myself and crawl out of the car. If I had not worn a seatbelt, I for sure would have died. I went to the hospital, and I had minor scrapes from broken glass and some bruising, but otherwise, I walked away from a very bad car wreck.”
— kasandraraux
22.“When I was a kid, me and my neighbors went to this tiny little beach. There was a little cliff that people were jumping off, and we decided we wanted to do it, too. We were all over 18 so there were no parents with us. To get to the jump point, you kind of had to climb out on these rocks; there was a step-down and back up. Before you stepped down, you had to wait for the water to go out and then quickly run across the little part before the water came back. Three of my friends and I mistimed the water and ended up getting knocked over and started getting sucked out to sea. My friend and the guy who was there with us put my friend on his back and swam out and then back to shore. I was in a complete panic. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to swim out and back. I was somehow able to cling to the barnacle holes in the rock while getting pulled out and slammed into the rock. But I never took my fingers out of the holes.”
" fortuitously , a duo of guys who had been behind us realized I was not okay and work a human range to save me . I think the guy cable saying , ' Grab my hand , I get down you . ' But I was terrified that if I let go I would die . Once one of the guys had his hand around my articulatio radiocarpea , I let go of the little holes . To this day , I do n’t live how I was able to jam my fingers into those lilliputian holes and throw on for real darling life . I am forever thankful for those guys who risked their lives to save me . "
23.“I had just broken up with my ex a few days before and wasn’t sleeping well. I was coming home from a friend’s house at 4 a.m. after watching a movie marathon. I was in my little VW Rabbit going about 70 mph. I fell asleep and crashed my car. The entire car was crushed EXCEPT where I was sitting. That area was untouched. I wasn’t wearing my seatbelt. The strange thing is, my little brother had passed away on the same date, and the same time, and the same situation exactly one year earlier. I thank God every day that I did not die. It truly was a miracle.”
24.“When I was around 13 years old, we (my parents, sister, aunt, uncle, and two cousins) went on a family trip to visit my grandparents in Florida. My grandparents had a really nice in-ground swimming pool so that’s where we kids spent most of our time. One day, it started lightly raining, which didn’t bother us at all, but my mom and aunt made us get out of the pool immediately. Within 60 seconds of us getting out, the pool was struck by lightning. To this day, I’m cautious about even the slightest amount of rain.”
25.“It was late April of my freshman year of high school. Our school always has what they called ‘mini-classes’ then — two days of fun things we could sign up to participate in. That year, I’d signed up to go on a bike ride around town with one of the teachers. There were probably 8 to 10 of us, and all the other kids had fancy 5-speed or 10-speed bikes, but mine was just ordinary. It was half-raining and cold when we started out, and I couldn’t keep up. I ended up way behind the rest of the group. Finally, I turned my bike around and started to ride home. The teacher never noticed. I got about halfway and was so very cold I couldn’t keep going. I pulled over on the side of the road, put down the kickstand, and tried to curl into a ball in my coat to try to warm myself up a little.”
" While I was sitting there , shiver so heavily , I could scarcely keep my teeth from biting my tongue to ribbons , a auto pulled up . The number one wood involve me where I was going , and I told him home . He asked how far it was , and when I told him , he tell it was too insensate for that , and just put my bicycle into his trunk and drove me home . I did n’t know then about hypothermia , but I do now . That man save my life that day . "
26.“When I was around the age of 7, I went to Disneyland with my family. This was around the time that my little sisters took naps regularly, and I wanted to explore the park. My dad eventually took me down to the park, but with the one exception that we had to go to the beach first. I was not a strong swimmer at the time, and I told my dad that I wouldn’t go further in the water than my hips. My dad went to go get something to eat, and I waddled around the beach looking for seashells — the beach was completely empty, except for an elderly lady who was sun tanning. I wandered a bit further out, and I hit a severe drop-off. I remember the feeling of seaweed tangling against my feet and the hopelessness I felt as I tried to pull myself back up. Eventually, I blacked out. I wouldn’t be alive right now if it wasn’t for the elderly lady on that beach, who dove in to save me and perform CPR when she realized my dad wasn’t coming any time soon.”
27.“I was snowmobiling for the first time, and I hit a tree. I ended up with a brain bleed, grade V liver laceration, broken vertebrae, broken and chipped teeth, a broken scapula, a broken arm, and a brachial plexus injury (my nerves were severed from my spinal cord). I was in the hospital for three weeks. To this day, I can’t use my right arm and hand and still have a lot of pain, but I am so lucky to be alive.”
28.“So, I was surfing at the age of 13, and I saw this really good wave and started to paddle to catch the wave. Then all of a sudden, a SHARK comes out of nowhere and was swimming near me. It swam away, but less than 100 yards away from me, another surfer was being pulled under by this shark. He ended up being OK, thank god. All I think about now when I’m surfing is that that other surfer could have been me.”
29.“When I was about 8 years old, I was swimming in my grandmother’s pool. She had a waterslide, and I was scared of using it at first. My mom encouraged me, and finally, I was enjoying the slide on my own. But one afternoon, I was out swimming and wanted to use the slide. I ended up falling off the slide about halfway down. I hit my head on the edge of the pool and fell into the pool, completely unconscious. Luckily, my mom saw what happened, ran out, and pulled me from the pool. I remember waking up on the concrete outside of the pool. My mom took me to the ER. I ended up having a concussion and a pretty sizable bump on my head but was OK otherwise. I still remember the headache I got and the soreness on the bump for a day or two after.”
30.“I was on a Youth Trip in Florida the day I nearly died. I was 12 and had made friends, at least I thought I had, with another girl in the group. Now, I don’t remember the exact beach we all went to, but I do remember that the hotel was literally right there, and there was AMPLE signage warning about rip currents. That night, the girl (henceforth named ‘Ann’) kept on talking about going out to the sandbars, but I said that I couldn’t as I couldn’t really swim. She insisted that she’d swim and I could use her donut floaty — problem solved! I said OK and off we went the next day. At first, the water was very calm, and everybody had a great time playing about. But then, Ann left me alone on the first sandbar the moment we arrived and took the floaty with her. I was confused, but didn’t think anything of it at first —Ann probably just forgot something.”
" Well , I had been out there for a few minutes when the waves start growing … and pushing me toward where all those sign said the rip current started . I call for Ann . I could see her and a group of other girls on the beach , but they did nothing . The wave grow stronger , and I started scream for her and my old brother , who I could also see on the beach .
By now , I ’m fully panic — the wave are eminent enough that I can scantily split the surface of the water no matter how much I seek to establish myself out of the water , and I ’m continuously labor toward the stream . I could feel the rip current pulling on me now , and I thought that I was going to die out . I could feel myself drown . … I could feel the last of the airwave being slip from my lungs , my heart thundering for life , my arm growing heavier , my lung at the same time convulsing and combustion , and my vision started fading … I was alone and was go to die that way .
I gather everything I had left and yield myself one last launching to the Earth’s surface to scream — and suddenly , there was this guy from another youth mathematical group there . He got us to shore . I do n’t know who he was , but he sit around with me while I holler , and I never saw him again . Ann and I never speak again ( she ditch me for that group of girls she was with on the beach ) . "
Note : Some submissions have been edited for distance and/or clearness .
