People Describe The Closest They've Ever Come To Death

Gravity is not always our friend.

The Right Landing

"I fell two stories off my roof onto concrete a few years back. I broke my knee and my wrist. Luckily that was it. If I’d fallen on my head, it would have been game over."

– Actuaryba

Tethered To Life

"Slipped on a steep hill with 100lbs of cable around my neck/chest. One end caught between some rocks and the cable started tightening around me, while I was sliding down the hill into a river ravine. I couldn't grab onto anything and saw the edge of the cliff coming up quick."

"Fortunately the cable stopped tightening before it got to my throat, and that ended up saving me from going off the cliff."

– hypnogoad

Lucky Timing

"Late teens heading to school by train, I was feeling like sh*t that morning and even puked halfway to the train but shrugged it off."

"As I was standing on the platform, waiting for the train, I was hoping it'd get better once I sat down on the train."

"A couple of minutes later when the train arrived, I waited until the train stopped and walked towards it. I blink and I'm suddenly on my back on the platform with a circle of people around me and a police officer asking me if I can tell her what weekday it is."

"Turns out, I had fainted walking towards the train and fell down on the track, behind the train. A passerby pulled me back up on the platform."

"Had I positioned myself near the tracks a few seconds earlier like I normally do, I would've fallen in front of the train. Instead, I got a mild concussion and a scar on my chin from the fall."

– Miathon

Some unexpected detours can be a matter of life or death.

Popped Tire

"Car accident on the fwy when I was 12. My mom popped a tire, lost control of the vehicle and ended up spinning around to a dead stop facing on coming traffic. A giant trailer was headed right for us. We got so lucky he saw the whole thing unfold so he had already slowed down and was able to stop."

– Turbulent-Army2631

Misinterpreting The Signal

"I ran a red left turn arrow right in front of a Chevy 2500 doing close to 60MPH. I was already stopped at the light and had been waiting for it to turn green. It was later in the day and the sun was positioned directly behind the light. 16 year old me looked up and said 'yeah, that's probably green'. No, no it wasn't."

"Anyway, I got T-boned right where the front and rear doors meet on the passenger side. The part of the frame that separates the doors got pushed all the way to the center consul, which I smacked my head against. I just remember waking up in a daze with a lot of blood on the right side of my face."

"Fast forward through the call to mom and the ambulance ride. doctors showed me a scan and said several fragments of my skull were a piece of paper thickness away from entering my brain. The best (worst) part is I was supposed to be taking my sister with me. She was taking her sweet time at home so I left without her."

– ThePassenger08

Close Call

"Haul truck ran an intersection and nearly ran me over. I speed up and swerved between him and another oncoming haul truck to avoid collision. A safety supervisor witnessed all of it, and had me and the idiot in the truck stop at a camp and proceeded to chew him out for nearly killing me."

– anothersatanist89

These examples serve as a reminder how our bodies are unpredictable.

Illness

"I managed to get Legionnaires Disease a couple years ago. 25% fatality rate, even with treatment."

"Spent 1 week in the hospital, and 1 week sleeping at home. Couldn't eat for most of the time (the bacteria was in my left lung and stomach)."

"edit: I didn't find out what it was until a week or two later when the Health Department called me with questions. Up to then, I was only told it was pneumonia."

– SubversiveLogic

Shower Accident

"Had a seizure in the shower, smashed my head into the faucet when I fell and landed face-down. I was turning blue and had a four inch gash on my head when my boyfriend found me. Cat was soaking wet, because he jumped into the tub. Took about four minutes of CPR."

"I do not shower with the bathroom door closed, and I do not shower if someone isn't at the apartment with me."

– SocksAndPi

Mom To The Rescue

"My appendix ruptured while I was lying in a hospital bed trying to convince the doctors that I really was in pain. They assumed I was pregnant and just lying about it. They took blood, pee, and did a pelvic exam--which made me throw up because it hurt so bad to move my torso, let alone put my feet up in stirrups."

"All negative. They still didn't believe me that I wasn't even sexually active at the time."

"Anyway, I have a very hazy memory of talking to my mom and telling her that it was okay, soon it wouldn't hurt anymore. I was just gonna sleep for a bit."

"She flipped and happened to work at that hospital, so she got them to do an ultrasound to find this phantom pregnancy. 1 terrified look from a tech later, I was booked for surgery and finally got a morphine drip. After almost 14 hours in the ER."

– Nillabeans

Aggressive Infection

"I had pneumonia, and I didn't realize how serious it was until the doctors tried three strong antibiotics, and the infection kept growing, and fluid was building up on my lung."

"They openly told me they didn't know why the infection was growing, only they it was resistant to all three antibiotics they tried. They put me on two IVs for four days, but the infection was not going away. It was getting harder to breathe, and laying on my back was impossible because of all the pain in my right lung."

"Eventually the infection started shrinking on its own, but it was so scary!"

– hyacinths_

On The Brink

"I was dx with lung cancer in 2014. Numerous failed treatments and I got down to 101lbs. I was very sick. But we finally found a good treatment and I have been NED for about 3 or so years now."

– Diianeee

These Redditors almost reached their final destination.

Mystery Tug

"Working on flight deck of aircraft carrier during flight ops. Felt someone behind me tugging on my coat trying to get my attention. When I turned around it wasn’t a person tugging on me; it was the intake of an F-14 trying to pull me inside for a closer look at the afterlife."

"Or maybe all the other near-death stuff that happens on a flight deck. It’s hard to pick just one. Cool job, though."

– ChooChooSoulCrusher

Thin Ice

"Fell through the ice ones frigid January day. Not quite the middle of nowhere. Thankfully a random motorist was driving the back roads and found me."

– PMyourTastefulNudes

Good Instinct

"Almost stepped on a Mojave rattlesnake when were were miles from civilization and nowhere near a road. I was a child at the time, and it was before everyone carried cell phones so if I got bit I would have been in serious trouble. That's one of the deadliest snakes in America."

"The snake was nestled in some big rocks that made a little hole in the ground. I was going to step in there because it looked cool, but right before I did, I had a six sense sort of feeling that I shouldn't. I trusted my gut, and really examined the area in front of me."

"It took me a while but I eventually spotted a little baby Mojave rattler right where I was going to step. One of the few times my I've experienced my instincts protect me like that. Kind of cool actually, it almost feels like a superpower when it happens"

– 14thCluelessbird

Consequence Of Contaminated Food

"I thought I got roofied once. One beer got me drink for 6 hours, got someone to drive me home from the bar. Next day worst headache I ever had, immediately threw up anything I tried to drink, so slept all day. Day 3 got up to pee, fell down couldn’t get up. Crawled to the couch and called 911."

"Ambulance lady said I had a temp of 103, I had E. coli in my blood, said another 24 hours I woulda been dead. I only called 911 cause my work said I’d get fired without doctors note. Otherwise I woulda just went to sleep on the couch."

"Also didn’t have pants on when I called 911. Had no pants to go home in."

– SomePerson80

The Unfriendly Visitor

"I was in Iraq and I thought I was just 'backed up' from the fortified peanut butter. It got worse so I went to the medic. Next thing I know they are flying me to Kuwait. I fucked up real bad, and caught some crazy parasite from eating ice off the local economy. The doctor said I would have died if that medic hadn’t got me outta dodge. Mortar fire, small arms fire on a daily basis and I almost get taken out by a parasite eating a hole in my colon….."

– 4t0micpunk

A Major Catastrophe Thwarted

"I learned that one of my coworkers was planning a mass shooting at my office, and the only reason it didn’t happen was that a family member found out and intervened at the literal last moment."

– Umbre-Mon

Failed To Detonate

"I stepped on two IED pressure-plates that failed to detonate, during one deployment."

"On another, my Bradley CFV juuuust clipped the edge of a AT mine buried in the road, but since we didn't roll over the pressure-trigger in the center, it didn't explode."

"Just another day in the life, back then......"

– TheGoodJudgeHolden

This terrified my mother more than it did me, but as a five-year-old–I believe–I fell out of the passenger seat of the car while she was driving on a residential street.

Luckily, the truck behind us came to a stop. However, my mom had kept driving as she panicked from seeing the empty seat next to her and mistook the gas pedal for the brake.

Apparently, I begged to sit in the front like the "grown-ups" did and I eventually figured out how to unbuckle the safety belt, unlock the door, and pull on the handle.

I was a very curious child.