Accidents happen on a daily basis. Some can be controlled or avoided and others, unfortunately, cannot be helped. A moment of panic, a feeling of weightlessness, and losing consciousness is what majority feel when they’re close to dying. In this article, people share their closest encounter with death.
[Source can be found at the end of the article]
I was eating somewhere, a tiny bit of salad went just where to esophagus and the trachea are separated, covering it and I couldn’t breathe for I don’t know how much time. I became purple in color, people around didn’t know what to do, till I luckily managed to spit it out somehow. Was beginning to pass out, I was scared.
gojiralis
When I was 8 years old, a chandelier almost fell on top of me in my living room. I was watching a movie (Lilo and Stitch) when I heard a crack, looked up, and the huge chandelier was about to fall on top of me. I rolled off the couch and it barely missed me. I still had tons of cuts from all the glass though; just not a direct hit.
phobee144
When I was a kid one of my ‘friends’ dragged me into the deep end of the pool and left me there even though they knew I couldn’t swim. Bear in mind they had to peel my fingers off the edge of the pool to do so and all the while I was screaming for them to stop. Inhaled a lot of water before someone else came to help me. Lifeguards didn’t notice anything and the pool was large and full of shrieking children so my screams for help went unnoticed.
I never realised until then how easy it would be to drown surrounded by other people.
undernessus
Got held down by a huge wipeout surfing in Ventura, CA, then after thinking I could make the surface, I exhaled the rest of my air, and as I surfaced, another wave slammed into my face, spinning me over and over until I started to black out. When I finally reached the shore, I was shaken for awhile.
micros101
Fell off a cliff and had my spine break and both my legs snap, had multiple surgeries and almost had my leg amputated a couple years later. Tip for future people in wheelchairs, don’t get the automatic one, it’ll make you weak and will slow your process to recovery. Suffer through the type you have to push your self. Only reason I’m able to walk today.
Canadiancurtiebirdy
I got placed in a non-urgent queue at a hospital after having food allergic reaction. I started feeling very cold and my body started uncontrollably shaking. My mom (who took me the hospital) freaked out and asked the staffs when will it be my turn, they immediately transferred me to emergency after realizing I started to faint. They injected something on me that put me in sleep. Later on when I woke up, they told me I almost died over lack of treatments.
wongmjane
So many occasions to choose from, but my favourite is as follows:
One cold Winter night (central heating was out) I was alone in the house, I decided to have a warm bath before going to bed.
Once the hot bath was full I undressed, keeping on a T-shirt until the last minute I stepped in; Raising my arms above my head to take off my T-shirt I accidentally smashed the light fitting.
I froze, because at that moment I was standing barefoot in the pitch black, in water up to my shins, surrounded by shards of broken glass, and with a live 240V cable somewhere near my hands.
CygnusRex
So I grew up on a farm on the Welsh/English border (so lots of hills). When I was 7 I went with my dad in the car up one of the fields because he was fixing the fence at the top of the hill. He left me in the car in the backseat whilst he went to work. In my boredom I decided to climb to the front of the car, in doing so I stepped on the handbrake and the car started to roll down the hill and pick up speed.
So as this happened I panicked and had no idea what to do, Im not a religious person but in that moment I just remember being calm and praying to be alright as the car headed for a whole load of trees at the end of the field. Then I looked to the right and saw my dad sprinting alongside working his way to the front of the car, he jumped in and slammed on the breaks and managed to control it to a stop. This was promptly followed by “Don’t tell Mum about this.
captmonkeyman
My appendix burst really badly and I the doctors didn’t realise it had burst and thought it was appendicitis and so it wasn’t an emergency, the appendectomy was delayed till the following day (an extra 10 hours). During this time the infection spread a lot and I had developed sepsis (blood poisoning), when the cut me open they realised it was really bad and the operation took about 3 hours (standard appendectomy is about 1). Afterwards I was in hospital for a week and I lost 2 stone and there were lots of mixups with painkiller dosage. It was painful and horrible and had my operation been delayed by another 5 hours I would’ve been seriously in trouble.
ElCaskito
Significant other and I were driving home from the airport, and some guy pulls out, illegally, from a light. We were in a sports car, going about 50 on a back road. He was driving a flatbed tow truck. We laid down some serious rubber, and all I could thing was, let us hit the tires. We hit the back end, it ripped the car to pieces, but we walked. Cop who responded told us that if we had been five feet left, we would have been decapitated. I rather knew that. Be safe drivers.
calcaneus
Running across train tracks going to school in 4th grade, falling on them, hearing train approaching from a curve (you couldnt see it until it was right on you), scrambling to get up and run, the granite gravel that is used to fill the space between tracks flying everywhere as I start seeing the train and manage to just get out of its way.
Couple of near hits in cars although never as the driver, near drowning due to swimming at sea.
Typhera
On my way home from the airport in a bus and a truck came careening down a merging lane just barely stopping by hitting the brakes. I could’ve touched the driver if there’d been no glass in the way. He looked just as scared as I felt. Every moment after that has been a bonus moment. I think he must’ve been distracted somehow and didn’t notice the bus until the very last moment to stop the truck. Right on my side of the bus at my window too.
NettleGnome
Biking in Norway, suddenly hear a snort to my right, a huge musk oxen was standing next to the path staring at me. Needless to say, I took off as quickly as I could. Later that day, taking a tourist bus, they said that you should stay 200 meters away from musk oxen, as they will react if they feel threatened. They can also reach speeds of up to 60km/h…
Lusado
When I was 2 I waddled over to my next door neighbours pond in their front garden and fell in. My parents realised and pulled me out, but it was already too late they performed CPR and called an ambulance, they were able to resuscitate me with a defibrillator. I was in hospital for about 3 months and was in a controlled coma for a week. I made a really good recovery and luckily didn’t suffer any brain damage and am now happy and healthy.
mattycazza64
When I was 11 I went to Florida on holiday with my family. One day we were at a water park (I forget the name), I was laying in the most shallow part of the wave pool when a huge woman washed over me in a rubber ring. Because of how shallow the water was (about 10-15cm) I was completely trapped and could barely move, I started to panic massively and have no idea how long I was under there. Somehow I managed to wriggle free and she had no idea I was under her, as well as no idea I’d even wriggled free. I had cuts all over my back because the bottom of the pool was rough so people could grip, but it tore me up.
I don’t have a fear of swimming, or fat people which is somewhat surprising considering how young I was.
MilpOrDie
As a child, a man in a van once approached me and asked me to get in, so I could help him find his lost puppy. I was pretty concerned, as a fan of puppies, so I thought it seemed appropriate. Just as I was weighing whether or not my parents would be proud of me for helping out my fellow man, my mother (who apparently kept a vigilant eye on me from the window as I played outside) came charging out, and the guy in the van sped off. That’s when I got my worst: “Don’t get into vans with strangers, idiot” speech ever. I figured he wasn’t just any old stranger, but a man with a lost dog. I just thought my mom was being mean, and unfair. And I’m sure the pedophile did as well. I don’t know for sure whether or not he would have killed me or anything, but I know that if my mom hadn’t been such a worry wort, at least a part of me would have died that day.
Na_01
When I was down climbing a steep path on a mountain, 1000 meter drop below me. The handhold I had stopped being a hold, and became a lose piece of rock in my hand. Logically, this meant I dropped of the mountain. Imagine this nearly straight cliff, almost no vegetation, except for 1 tree about a meter below where I dropped. Was weird.
SadedOr
When I was 15, I tried drifting on my bike down a long steep hill with a small curve covered by 2 rod fences covering a stream. The curve is super short, and easy to maneuver. I, a foolish 15 year old, decide its wise to go as fast as I can down the hill. Well it turns out, my brakes stopped working. The moment that happened I was 3/4th the way down, screamed oh shit and did the best I could in that split second to avoid any head injuries as I was not wearing a helmet. So instead of trying to drift anymore, i decide its best to just crash into the gate at an angle into the gate and I held my head back so that the handlebar can take the blow. Guess what appendage holds the handlebar? 🙂
I ended up with little scratches and scuffs. No big deal. I also ended up with a destroyed right hand. I had major reconstructive hand surgery. 52 little pieces to put back together.
Anyway, compared to others that is far from being close to death but it could have gone a LOT worse.
I also remember that i once had a fever of 105.5~ from something, flu I think.. I think thats supposed to be dangerous? I didnt remember much of it because I was asleep 16 hours of the day and could barely move a muscle.
ThatShyGuyS
12 year old me thought it’d be super smart to eat some mozzarella sticks while I took a shower. I managed to sit the little bag of mozzarella sticks from the fast food restaurant on my towel rack and just reach out and eat them in between the shower process. I was in the middle of downing one of those fuckers and a huge piece of hardened cheese got caught in my throat for like a solid minute. I eventually just reached in my throat and pulled it out by the end of it. Damn if that wasn’t scary, and damn if that wouldn’t have been the lamest possible way to die.
mardybum430
When I was 8, my brothers and I were playing at forest edge on our rural property in British Columbia. In a split second…too fast to know what happened, a cougar grabbed me from behind . My two older brothers immediately ran at it the cat let go.
All I remember is being dragged on the ground then not much of anything after that. I was told the doctor cleaned up some surface wounds and gave me a tetanus shot. The good side was dad went brought two big ‘mutts’ home after the incident and they were my best friends until I went off to college.
Roxytumbler
In October of 2016 I had my gallbladder removed. You know simple surgery. In and out, except for the fact I have spinal muscular atrophy, so they decide to admit me over night just in case anything went wrong. Well, something went wrong. The surgery itself went okay. They had issues with intubating me. They ended up using an LMA tube because of my throat. They had to put an extra hole in my upper left side for a camera because my back is very crooked and the surgeon couldn’t get the correct angle to see clearly. After that everything went great. In recovery It took me two hours to wake up from anesthesia. Once I woke up I stopped breathing. Complete loss of breathing function. It was terrifying. There I was suffocating on nothing. They had to put a c-pap on to help me breathe but then it happened again. The second time felt like an eternity before they got me breathing again. I was freaking out in my head as I gasped for air. They ended up shoving some type of suction tube down my throat and pulled out red goopy stuff from my chest. After that I could breathe fine. I spent the night in ICU just in case it happened again. But my Doctor said that I was a fighter and strong enough to go home. Breathing problems is the number one killer of people with spinal muscular atrophy. Shit was scary. I feel much better without that damn gallbladder inside me. But I don’t think I will ever go under anesthesia again.
Alliewh33lz
I was pregnant with our son at about 14 weeks, and started to bleed. The doctor on call told me I was having a miscarriage and to let it get on with it — there was nothing that could be done. I accepted that with grief, but we had two small girls, and I went on for a day, spotting blood. Then randomly, I stood up and blood gushed down my legs, and filled my shoes. I called my husband home in a panic and he rushed me to the hospital. My placenta had partially torn loose from the uterine wall, and all the blood that should have gone to the body was pouring out. There is no surgical way to fix this and most of the time the babies and even the mothers die. I was told that the only chance was for me to lay still and hope it healed back. I laid on a mattress in my living room for 4 months until everything seemed safe. The baby came out fat and healthy and just graduated college these many years later. But I was one of a small percentage that survived.
Borderweaver
In the middle of winter in the Northwest, dad flipped our canoe after reaching for a spilled can of Pepsi in the middle of a lake. Didn’t know to take jeans off to swim better. We had life jackets on but the current kept pulling us toward the center of the lake. Dad started panicking and screamed for help. A fisherman, that wasn’t even within eyesight, heard his cries and rescued us. He pulled us out with his hand that only had three fingers on it. By the time he reached us hypothermia had already set it. We were blue and blood was coming out of our noses and ears. Back on shore, we took hot showers and then laid under a heated blanket to get our temps back up. I remember shivering for hours. Thank God, for that fisherman.
Yinzer_Werewolf
I broke through the ice of a pond when I was 5 years old. I managed to get back out by myself. I was there with a friend, who was also 5 years old, so I don’t think he could have done anything when I would’ve drowned… It was a pond in our neighbourhood and we weren’t supposed to be there alone. After I was out, I only thought about how to hide that from my mother – wich didn’t work couse my clothes were wet. But she wasn’t even mad, I think she just was happy that I lived.
samzi87
I had a heart attack while delivering my oldest child.
Maternal heart attacks during labor or following delivery are not unheard of, so most modern hospitals have all the necessary life saving equipment at arms reach. I was on already on a heart monitor when it happened. And I was surrounded by doctors and nurses so I received intervention pretty immediately. Even then, it was touch and go for a while and I had a very, very long recovery.
Txmama1998
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