From getting locked up inside a GAP store overnight, to a cockroach laying eggs in ear canal, and getting attacked in a club bathroom, people share the most terrifying situation they’ve ever been in.
[Source can be found at the end of the article]
Locked inside a GAP store all night when I was a teenager.
I had to use the bathroom and the store was getting ready to close so I rushed in real quick. I made a mess in the bathroom so I took way longer than expected. When I got out everyone was gone.
I freaked out and tried many ways to get out. This was before cell phones, so when I tried using the store phone it required a passcode. I slept on the floor and woke up at 7am and waited/hid in the bathroom for the store to open. 20 minutes after the store opened I casually walked out and no one saw me.
I got home and my Mom was cooking French Toast. I told her I decided to sleep at a friend’s house because we stayed up late watching a movie. My Mom was cool so it was nothing. I just needed more of an excuse to not look awkward walking in the house at 8:30 am in the Summer.
Had my French Toast and fell asleep for another two hours. It turned out good in the end.
ThaloGreen
I was in Brazil and traveling by bus into Argentina. Arriving at the border I realised that I didn’t have the proper documents to get across. So I bribed the bus driver to hide me in the cargo hold and smuggle me over the border.
That was a scary few minutes. Definitely brown pants time.
mysevenyearitch
There was a bar fight.
Huge guy, out of prison that morning, unpleasant and very drunk. He’d been in the pub all day.
In walks a woman, apparently they had a quibble.
He grabs a glass and tries to smash it in her face, misses and glasses some random woman. Now he’s extra angry. Grabs his intended target, slams her into a chair, and starts punching her repeatedly.
The staff call the police, but this guy is trying to kill the woman. So I get in there and break it up. He swings at me, she bites me, I’m now in the middle of 2 people trying to kill each other.
generic_brand_cola
When I was ten I woke up around midnight to severe pain and crawling sounds in my left ear. I yelled for my father but he wasn’t around. He had gone out to a bar with a friend after I went to sleep. I spent a long time screaming in pain and trying to look into my ear on the mirror and pouring water into it. Turns out a cockroach had laid an egg in my ear and they were hatching that night. The empty egg came out about a week later. I had roach legs come out of my ear for years while cleaning it with qtips.
Jynku
Sleep paralysis is the worst. Never been more terrified in my life.
Woke up very late and night once, and literally couldn’t move anything except my eyes. At the bottom of the bed, where the window was, and the streetlight spilled in, there was a strange, black mass, in the shape of a person. I watched, absolutely terrified, as this shadow moved up the bed, around to the side where my ex-girlfriend was sleeping, and I couldn’t do anything about it. It got really close to her face, and I could’ve sworn I saw it smile. Then, as if nothing had happened, I could move again, and the shadow was gone.
I wouldn’t wish sleep paralysis on anyone.
9799606712
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When I woke up gasping for air and my right eye had swollen to the size of a pingpong ball. I washed up with cold water hoping it would reduce the swelling, but the pressure in the eye just continued to build up. That was the first time I went to see a doctor immediately instead of letting my immune system do its job.
-LifeOnHardMode-
Climbed a 14,000 ft mountain in the middle of winter. Got stuck in a terrible snowstorm and spent 3 days soaking wet and shivering in a tent with two friends as the snow piled 4 ft high. Ended up being rescued by search and rescue. The three of us got pretty close during that trip, in more ways than one.
Mikaal32
Sailed on the Andaman sea to the coast of Myanmar in a huge thunderstorm. Bad call by the crew leaving the island we were on just before the storm hit us. We saw lightning strike around as a few times and were on a tiny wooden ship with absolutely no protection. The Birmese captain was trembling behind the wheel. I truly felt it could be over at any moment and was starting to make my peace with not making it back home.
We drank many, many beers after making it through.
gatorcreator
Was about 9 years old at the time and I was really into spot the difference games I suppose, so I was looking up some spot the differences online. I came upon a website with nothing else but one picture in the centre of the screen, I got so close to the picture trying to find what was different with it, and then a creepy image jumped on the screen! I had head phones on as well, so it was loud. My 9 year old scaredy butt creamed and ran to my mum and cried.
x_macca_x
Wife and I were shopping and there was a notification of an active shooter. We were held up in the stock room of the store, which was a 2 way swinging door, so no way to actually secure it. There was about 35 people in the room with us, almost none of whom were taking it seriously and wouldn’t shut the hell up. 3 of us were military so we set up a plan and properly barricaded the best we could and told everyone else to sit down and shut it. We had a diabetic and a pregnant woman back there with us too. It lasted about 3 hours, but adrenaline made it feel more like an hour. Needless to say I hated most that my wife was in that situation with me, and I along with the other military people in there with me, where ready to fuck that person’s shit up.
All in all it ended up a false alarm, but as far as we knew it wasn’t and we treated it that way.
leviwhoelse
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I got attacked in a bathroom. It wasn’t sexual assault, it was this drunk girl who screamed about how I’d ‘disrespected’ her before —despite only getting in an hour earlier. I’d only had one drink, but this girl managed to kick my shins out from under me and send me to the ground.
For some reason, I managed to remember to use my forearms and shins to cover my squishy bits, and some girls pulled her away. It was terrifying because I hadn’t done anything, she’d just attacked me, and if I hadn’t been sober enough to use my shins and forearms to protect my stomach, I’d have had some serious injuries.
Yes, police were involved. They didn’t get her, but she was removed from the club and banned from its neighbour club, too.
aivenier
When I was a bank teller and was robbed, definitely!
It was 8am, branch had just opened, I was in the back drinking chocolate milk and my boss was the only other person. Apparently the robber came in, locked the door behind him, grabbed my boss and made him kneel on the ground. Then he came to the back to get me. He had a black gun and put it to my head, grabbed my arm and pulled me out to where my boss was and told me to get on the ground. Long story short, he was in there for about ten minutes cleaning us out and waving his gun around at us. At the end of it he made us get into the vault and locked us in there. Cops had to come and get us out. That was about 7 years ago, to this day I still get panic attacks when people approach me on my left side, because that’s he side he came at me on.
Internetmomo
Overhearing my dad and his friend planning out the murder of my mother, sister and me. I had just turned 17, back in 1986. He was going to burn the house down while we slept that night – he worked midnights. I wasn’t supposed to be home. When I heard him going through the house getting whatever items he wanted to save from the fire (& talking about the plan), I hid in the crawl space between our family room and hall closet. He left to take a load to hide at his friends house. I ran to call someone, anyone (small town of 500 & only 1 sheriff who was his friend) but he had cut the phone lines. Thankfully my mom and sister came home before he got back from his friend’s house. My sister and I had to plead with our mom to leave but she didn’t. He abused her for 25 years. Now she’s almost 80 and takes tap & jazz lessons, yoga classes, goes on all kinds of trips with her fellow seniors. She’s awesome.
getaduck11
I was about 11 years old and off school sick with the flu. My mum worked in the little shop literally 5 minutes away from our house so she left me alone that morning to do her shift and I was just chilling on the couch watching television. I heard the front door open and assumed it was my mum home early. It was a random man who was heavily intoxicated, he went straight to the coffee table and lifted up my bottle of cough medicine and downed the entire lot. I ran and hid in the bathroom and cried, there was no mobile phones back then or anything. After a while I had to run out in my pyjamas, really really sick and run along to my mum’s work. The police turned up and found the guy asleep on our couch.
CrayRaysVaycay
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I was in Iraq on my last deployment and was conducting a foot patrol. As I pass a side “street” the tailgate of a truck drops and there are 2 insurgents laying there with a machine gun who immediately open fire. The whole world slows down and seems to do one of those freaking matrix things where you can see the bullets as I scream for everyone to take cover and run for cover myself. I felt my body jerk and yank around and almost fall off my feet several times until getting behind a building for cover. I just knew I was dead and could not feel the wounds because of the massive damage. Checking over my body a canteen had been blown apart, a round had passed though a magazine pouch destroying 3 magazines of ammo, I had 2 impacts that ripped up the cover of my helmet without punching through and one round had passed through my uniform, across my chest, tearing at the inside of my body armor without touching me. 13 points of impact in all and not an scratch on me. We later joked that death must have been on vacation.
heruzobah
When my husband died suddenly in our kitchen. He’d been having panic attacks, and this event began with another of those… Only he couldn’t calm down. His heart was beating so hard, and so quickly that I could feel it. His face paled to a sickly colour, mouth going white with a rim of blue purple at the edges. He gasped, and said “Help me. Please help.”
It all happened so quickly. I still thought it was just a severe panic attack, and we were waiting for the ambulance. He stopped breathing. Things got real. My blood felt like ice, as I shook him, and I shouted for help getting himout of his chair, to lie him down flat for CPR.
I did chest compressions frantically, and puffed air into him. The air just kept coming back out. It made groaning noises as it did so. I knew my attempts were not working. The ambulance arrived, and I was shooed away, as they worked.
My husband’s heart was restarted 2 times, but he officially expired at 5:02 am. Scariest, guiltiest, most horrible thing I have ever experienced or seen. Ever.
BeezusTheRed
When I was 11, the house across the street from me caught fire. It was a fast moving electrical fire. The boy who lived there was 14 and he had a 9 year old sister. All of our parents worked full time, so we were latchkey kids (this was the early 1990s). Anyway, the boy came hauling down the street screaming for any adult to come out and help, because his house was on fire and he thought his little sister was in there. I was the only one who heard him, so I grabbed his hand and ran into my house and called 911. He wanted to run into the burning house to find his sister and I knew he would die if he did.
I was a scrawny, spindly little girl – 5’6″ and maybe 75 lbs, and he played defense on the football team at 5’8″ and probably 150-170. He was panicking and sobbing and thrashing around, but somehow I found the strength to physically hold him back until my little sister could run down the street to find an actual adult. I guess it was adrenaline or something. All I knew was that the only thing standing between that kid and a horrible death was me.
The good news is that his sister wasn’t in the house after all. She’d gone to a friend’s house without telling him. But for about fifteen minutes, we were sure she was in there burning, and I had to stop him from burning with her.
I’ve been in other scary situations since then, but because of how young we were, that one stands out.
Redshirt2386
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When I was 13 I was spending the Summer with my dad and his girlfriend. I have two brothers, age 11 and 10, that were also there. My dad got into an argument one night while drunk (nothing out of the ordinary), and he decided he was going to drive us about 30 miles back to our mom’s house. He loads us all up in his 85′ Camaro and gets ready to take off when his best friend, Jesse, jumps in the passenger seat. Jesse was a small guy, and he knew that if he tried to talk my dad out of drunk driving the only result would be my dad trying to beat him up, so he just got in the car to try to mitigate any potential damage.
We made it onto the interstate and about 10 miles down the road before my dad started nodding off. We were coming up on an exit, and there was a divider for the exit and the interstate. My dad finally passed out right then, and we were heading straight for the divider going about 75 miles per hour. Jesse, at the last moment, turned the steering wheel and was able to get his leg in to the break to stop us on the side of the highway. He pushed my dad over to the passenger side and drove us home with my direction.
Even at 13 I was fully aware of my own mortality at the moment, and I was sure that I was going to die. Jesse, may he Rest in Peace, saved me and my two brothers that night, and I can never thank him enough.
Eluviete
I was a wee lad of 14 years old in the attic (where our PC was located) playing RuneScape and “doing homework”. Later in the night, around 10 pm I heard some noises downstairs and saw a light turned on. I figured my parents had returned from visiting family.
A man that looked a lot like my uncle started coming up the stairs slowly, but he wasn’t my uncle. We made eye contact for a solid 5 seconds just in complete shock – he bolted back downstairs. I grabbed the nearest thing I could use as a weapon which were some scissors I had near me, I was screwed basically.
I can’t remember how much time had passed but I didn’t have a mobile phone with me at the time – I was absolutely petrified this entire time. And then I saw my aunt log on to Runescape (my aunt, dad and cousin all played as well at the time). I told her what happened, she called the cops and within 10 minutes everyone was home.
There were multiple knives left on the stairs and they got in through our garden, I had to describe the man I saw to the cops.
Definitely scariest moment of my life, I thought I was going to die right there and then.
Growlibi
When my now-husband was hospitalised with pneumonia.
He started off with just a normal bout of a cold, but suddenly it was a chest infection (at least that’s what the doctor said) but he couldn’t keep the antibiotics he gave him down so within a day it had turned into pneumonia. He was hospitalised because his SATs were so low. I remember ringing my grandparents that night because all I wanted was to hear my Grandpa’s voice and breaking down on the phone to him because I was so scared, and then had to go back to putting on a brave face because my husband was so scared too.
They tried him on a new antibiotic, which gave him muscle spasms as an allergic reaction, starting in his face so I thought he was having a stroke. They continued to give him this antibiotic (levafloxicin) despite this and he ended up having a seizure. I was rushed out of the room and I had to ring his mother to tell her. I thought he was going to die. It was without a doubt the scariest thing I’ve ever gone through, and it all happened about 12 days before we were meant to get married so we also then had to postpone the wedding. Fun times!
icypops
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When I was hiking in the Tetons I got ran down by a grizzly bear.
A friend and I were hiking in early September in a wooded area; off the trail we could hear a bear grunting. We were aware and pulled our our bear mace and kept hiking. Not being able to see where the bear was in the woods we continued on the trail. The grunting stopped, but before I knew it I was thrown on the ground. A great weight was just crushing me and started throwing me around like a rag doll. It began to tear into my hiking pack. I stayed on my stomach as best I could and tried to cover my vitals. Next thing I know is that my eyes and nose start burning, my friend started to spray his bear mace to get the bear off me. I’m still not sure how I did it, but I managed to unbuckle from my pack, get out of it, and crawl away from the bear. The bear continued to tear into my pack, before my friends bear spray finally got to it. It turned and ran off. We left the area quickly and waited till the bear spray wore off and hiked out. We got to a rangers station, where I was taken to a hospital to be treated. My friend and a ranger went back to the attack site to recover what was left of my things.
Luckily I escaped with minor injuries and minor scarring (a few broken bones and deep gouges). My stuff sadly didn’t make it out alright, favorite coat and pack ruined… But that is definitely the scariest situation I’ve ever been in.
crimsoneagle1
When i was around 12, there is was this massive news story on in the morning about how a clinically insane guy had broken out of his mental ward and was armed with a knife. There were helicopters out looking for this guy. The reports were suggesting that the knife guy had run through the campus of my school (which is very close by, 2 minute walk). So, it’s a school day, my mum had just left for work (she rides) and dad and I were still at home. Dad gets a call from my mum saying that she had a flat tire on her bike. So dad drives off to help her, so here I am at home by myself listening on the radio about this dangerous guy with a knife. Im still getting ready for school at this stage, when I hear some banging on the door. It sounded like someone was tugging desperately at the door knob. So I’m scared at this stage. I run to the kitchen to get a knife to defend myself. Then I ran to the bathroom and locked myself in. Then I sat there gripping the knife and listened to this sound of someone trying to open the door. I hear the door finally open and I was freaking out. “Hey mate, I’m home.” It was my dad back from helping mum with her bike. Anti-climactic but still scary for me at the time.
SlimDongUn
I was at the grocery just picking up some goodies and waiting in line when all of a sudden I hear yelling and these two guys get into a fistfight. They’re screaming obscenities, and one guy isn’t fighting very good so he runs out the door and somehow there was a car outside waiting for him. It speeds off while the other guy is still in the store breathing heavily and looking in disbelief. The cashier seemed to know to him, “calm down baby, don’t you go after him.” I wanted to suggest someone should call the cops, but decided not to say anything. The guy behind me though, “I thought someone was about to pull a gun out and shoot up the place.” I agreed with him then held up my one item. “This ice cream is worth dying for.” It was plain vanilla.
_waffleiron
Back in the early 90s my friends and I were planning on sneaking out of the house and going into an abandoned house at the end of the street. I got caught sneaking out so we didn’t go. The next morning we snuck into it anyway. There were 2 girls handcuffed and gagged in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Absolutely spooked us out. We saved their lives by sneaking into that house but the part that messed me up for a long time is that they were brought there the night before.
BLACKMACHINE
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