Have you ever had a ‘close call’ before, and didn’t think you would survive?
Redditors shared their close calls that were a little too close for comfort. Some of them had near misses at historic disasters, and luckily survived.
Warning: some people may find these stories disturbing, as they deal with near-death experiences.
Thanks to everyone who shared their stories. Check out the source links at the end of the article to read more.
During a trip up North, a mate came up with a stupid game called Tennis ball roulette.
You threw your tennis ball further into the Daly river than the last bloke and swam out to get it. Each person throws it a little further out until someones chickens out.
Or, as we found out, got attacked by a bull shark.
I was in the middle of the river at the time when I saw my mate get pulled under. Luckily he was only about 5-6 metres from the bank so the rest of us jumped in there for him. But I was further out in the river than him at the time, which scared the crap out of me.
The_Seed_In_Tweed
One of my dad’s college classmates worked in the WTC, but happened to oversleep his alarm that day. He woke up, decided he was just going to take the day off anyways, then turned on the tv to see the towers in flames. Can’t imagine what was going through his mind.
PM__ME__STEAM__KEYS
I was in Charlottesville and nearly missed getting killed or injured by the car that murdered Heather Heyer because I stopped to take a picture. I got to Cville late in the morning. Right as I got to the corner, a feeling just made me turn around to look behind me.
This older lady was standing quite a ways behind me just looking at me smiling. I don’t know why my eyes picked her out in that big crowd. She had a shirt on that said Virginia defenders for Freedom. There was something about how happy her face was, so I turned around and walked back towards her to get a picture. In doing so I walked out of harms way, because literally as soon as I clicked the picture the vehicle driven by that idiot hit everyone and the two cars he slammed into wound up right where I had been standing.
The picture that saved me…
Had braces while I was in school. One day we had a pizza party in one of my classes. A kid said something along the lines of “nobody can stuff a whole slice in their mouth!’ well I did it…he wasn’t even speaking to me. I just overheard and wanted to try it. The cheese hooked on to one of the brackets and so when I swallowed in lumped up in my throat and I couldn’t breath. Fortunately I was able to spit it all back out.
that_blind_panda
I was leaving the mall after buying some clothes for a wedding I was attending and began to walk to my car, as I was getting into my car I realized I didn’t buy a tie and had to go back in. I got out of my car and a small pickup truck slams into the back of my car and pushed it into the center of the parking lot aisle. the entirety of the back of my little Ford Focus was completely crushed and the guy inside died. Turns out he was drunk and was coming from the bar across the street to go into the mall for the foodcourt and hit my car.
kindofafugitive
I was 11 at the time, and to celebrate my sister’s 10th birthday, we threw her a surprise party at our church. Although we weren’t aware, the furnace in our church began leaking the night before. (For some reason, our church was not equipped with a carbon monoxide detector.)
Gradually, throughout the day, I started feeling worse and worse. I could see my mom getting sick, too. She had to leave the party to vomit in the bathroom for a long time, and I started getting a throbbing headache. Other girls at the party started complaining about having headaches, and some left early. I vomited a couple times and passed out once. We stayed through the remainder of the party and did a half-hearted job cleaning up and got out of there (around 8:30pm). At this point, I had a headache so painful I was bawling; I was vomiting on myself and hardly staying conscious. My mom was even worse. We made it home safely, (we lived less than a quarter mile from the church) and when we got home, my father immediately knew something was really bad (former paramedic) and rushed my sister, my mom, and me to the hospital. We were on oxygen overnight and through the next afternoon, but we all ended up being fine. I heard some other girls went to the hospital, too.
It’s scary to know that I was literally dying and I had no idea. There was no smell, nothing suspicious. I could feel my body shutting down and I had no explanation for it. It’s hard to describe, and it was hard to understand as a kid. I knew I didn’t feel right, but I had no way of knowing that I was actually being poisoned.
And the really scary part is that at the party was supposed to be a slumber party, but a couple girls’ schedules didn’t work out so we changed it to the afternoon. If it had actually been a slumber party as intended, they would have opened the doors the next morning to 15 dead girls. It was just really scary and really eye opening.
brieflyinsane
I was at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester and was planning to leave before the encore, out the main entrance like I usually do to miss the big crowds. However I decided to stay to the end of the concert because I’m quite a big fan of hers.
Fast forward three minutes to the end and a bomb went off at the entrance I was planning to leave through right at the end of the concert. Scary to think it could have been me. It sounds horribly narcissistic to think about that when I walked away unscathed while people lost their lives, but it’s still really messed me up even now a few months later thinking how I might not have been so lucky.
TheHarrisonKaye
A friend of mine had a babysitter all set so her and her husband could have a night out. They lived right down the street from a nightclub and planned on going there to hear some live music and get some drinks. At the last minute, the babysitter cancelled and she couldn’t get a replacement, but she wasn’t really upset since it wasn’t a big to-do anyway.
The nightclub? The Station in Rhode Island. The night she was supposed to go was the night of the tragic fire that killed 100 people.
its_a_cruelcruellife
I was due to have a back operation for scoliosis and on the morning of the op date, the doctor came to my bedside and said he’d had a dream (or a gut feeling) that he shouldn’t operate on both curves of my spine and only do the top one, the worst one. I just agreed to whatever he thought would be best, I mean, I could always go back for another op if need be.
And thank goodness he had that feeling because I literally bled out on the table… as quick as they were pumping blood into me, I was chucking it back out. The op should’ve lasted 3-4 hours, but mine lasted 8, nearly 9 hours because I wouldn’t stop bleeding. He said if he had opened my whole back up I would’ve most likely died.
I would just like to thank anyone who donates blood, you’re unsung heroes, and thank you to doctors and nurses who do everything they can to help save people, you’re brilliant!
Warm_Kitty
Last minute, guy took my place on a patrol about to leave. I had been up for 3 straight days and was grateful.
Fast forward 8 minutes later, the patrol was hit by a car bomb. I’m not religious, but I prayed to whatever force that might listen for the rest of the guys to be okay, and I did that all the way until our plane touched down on American soil.
tickleyou
My phone vibrated in my cup holder (just a junk email for moores) while waiting at a red light.
In the two seconds it took me to look at my phone, the light turned green and a dump truck blew through their red light doing at least 100kmph.
I was dealing with a lot of depression at the time and was slightly upset that it missed me. But now, looking back on it, I feel like there is something important out there for me and I have another chance to find it. Whatever it may be.
GozerDaGozerian
When I was in my teens, our family always used to go to the same place for groceries. Always the same day of the week, always the same time when our parents got home, always passing through the same spot to the parking hall when we were done.
Then we got a dog. The day we usually went shopping he had a vet’s appointment, so we postponed groceries. That day, right around the time we would have been passing through that usual spot to get to our car, someone detonated a bomb killing and wounding several people.
I knew what would have happened to us without our dog who managed to save us simply by existing. I started crying, thinking how close it was. Later I’ve been thinking how many lives it affects when something like that happens – one second in one spot, and the lives of countless family members, friends, coworkers and acquaintances will never be quite the same again. And it’s not only the death. Many survivors were injured permanently and suffered for years because of it, maybe even today. It could happen anywhere, and it will. Again and again. One day I may not cheat death again and it will be my family that is affected.
NightFellTooFast
My dad works for a pretty well known jet company as a flight test engineer. One weekend he was supposed to be working overtime but he called out to go to a wedding. That weekend, the jet he would’ve been test flying had a bad takeoff and crashed killing everyone on it. Needless to say, he no longer works in test flights.
gxbcab
I was recently in Lima waiting in line to go on a bus tour to San Cristobal when my dad decided that we didn’t wanna go there and instead went on the tour to Miraflores which is the richer part of Lima.
That bus ended up falling down the hill, killing at least 8 and injuring a lot. After that we went back home and thought about how our vacation could have ended drastically different. I had no clue what happened during the tour until the family in front kept getting calls and I heard them say that they were fine. Later the tour guide told us about the accident.
Achurro
My mom demanded that someone come in on September 11th for an interview for a job, rather then fly out on vacation because the job had to be filled ASAP. Anyway the plane he was supposed to be on wound up hitting one of the twin towers. He was forever grateful to my mother being bossy. He also got the job.
Mr_Boneman
I was in a terrible car wreck on a family roadtrip when I was 9 years old, ejected out the passenger window while it flipped over three times. All I suffered was a head laceration and minor concussion. My sister and mother were fine—they were wearing their seatbelts. I was not wearing mine. Here’s the clincher—if I had been wearing my seatbelt I’d be dead because where I was sitting, the back passenger seat, was completely crushed. Only moments before the accident I took my seatbelt off so I could reach in the front seat where my backpack was so I could grab a Calvin and Hobbes book. My perspective hasn’t changed much.
doonkune
My fiancee (now wife) and I were shopping for a wedding ring for me. She took me to a store to show me her first choice with the option to go to another store directly opposite if I didn’t like it. Fortunately, I liked the ring a lot, and we ended up buying right away and going directly home after.
Not twenty minutes after leaving the store, we heard on the radio that there had been a shootout between burglars and security guards at the jewellery store we ended up skipping. Several customers had been shot. Similar taste in wedding rings may have saved us that day.
PM_ME_YOUR_CAT_LADY
I skipped class one morning and avoided a shooting at my school.
What changed with regards to my perspective on life? I get anxious in large crowds, always check for exits where I go, have panic attacks when a group of people suddenly change direction.
polyesterangel
My uncle worked at the WTC, and on 9/11, his girlfriend convinced him to skip work and go on a picnic with her. They were away from their phones until late in the afternoon. We were certain he was dead! My grandmother (his mother) was an emotional wreck when he finally replied to the 200 missed calls.
He married the girlfriend a couple years later!
PitchPurple
Appendix burst, thought it was just a flu with a weird stomachache. Waited two weeks to see a doctor.
Doctor said I wouldn’t have lasted one more night, immediately met a specialist and went into surgery.
On the plus side they found I have an unnaturally high tolerance for pain! (Which will probably kill me for something similarly major down the road.)
On a related note, morphine is weird. I hallucinated people visiting me and the time in the hospital is mostly blank.
chrisman01
Hailed a cab in NYC about a year ago. Realized I left my wallet in the hotel room. Told him I’d be right back, he said that would be too long and took another customer.
When I came back out of the hotel I saw his taxi overturned halfway up the block. Turned out that a van driven by a drunk driver blew through a red and slammed the side of the taxi. Both the taxi driver and his customer died.
I would’ve been going in the same direction had I stayed in the cab.
Wouldn’t say I’ve changed much, but I was certainly more cautious in the weeks following the event.
RME198
I stayed in my car to listen to the end of the news on the radio after parking up. As I turned off the ignition someone speeding lost control of their car and skidded straight into the back of mine, driving it 4m forward and through the cars in front. Tore the back off mine and wrote off 2 other cars as well. I got a bit of whiplash and was rather dazed for a couple of days. The other driver was banned and charged with a string of driving offences.
If I hadn’t stopped to listen to the radio I’d have been halfway out of the car instead of restrained inside it. And the other driver would have had manslaughter added to the charges.
aeon-lakes
Got hit hard by the swine flu back when that was everywhere. Was hospitalized and had a fever that peaked at ~41.8 C (107 F). Genuinely thought I was going to die any moment for several days until the fever started to pass. Was left with a pneumonia that kept me in bed for almost a month.
Pisses me off when people talk about swine flu conspiracies. That stuff was completely real, and it was nasty.
[deleted]
I was 15 and went with my mom to the bank. She asked if I was staying in the car to wait or go inside with her. I stayed in the car for maybe 3 minutes. Then turned off the ignition and went inside the bank, just cause I was bored. Not even 5 minutes pass and a man runs in and says a truck smashed into a 2003 Ford windstar. The passenger side was crushed. If I hadn’t gotten bored and went inside I would be dead.
LadyLamorna
Comments may have been edited for clarity.