Cheating Fate: People Share Tales of Survival Against the Odds

In our lives, we cannot always be safe. There are instances where we make and regret our mistakes to the fullest, especially if that mistake costs our lives. 

However, mistakes are inevitable, and whether we like it or not, we make them occasionally. These people shared their actions that made them regret it for life and fell into a series of dangerous events.

1. Groggy Times

Back when I was in 6th grade, I got Burkitt's lymphoma. Chemo is the usual treatment, and along with that, part of the chemo is to get spinal taps to protect and test the spinal cord. It is important to note that I was also a freakishly large 6th grader at just under 6 feet tall and over 200 lbs.

On a particular spinal tap they were giving me, I was resisting the anesthesia they had given me (I attribute this to me being huge and the children's hospital just not having to deal with kids this large usually.), and they had to up the dosage.

It was not a problem; I got knocked out fine, and the procedure went as planned. Fast forward to the next time I needed to get one. Before they put me under, the doctor had mentioned that it was her first time doing one solo and that she was really excited. Uh oh.

She read my chart, pumped me full of anesthesia, and did the procedure. The problem is this: when the doctor looked at how much knockout juice they gave me the last time.

She looked at the total amount they gave me and gave it to me at once instead of spreading it over the hour or for however long the first tap went.

The next thing I remember is being very groggy and just wanting to go back to sleep, but the nurse, doctor (now sobbing), anesthesiologist, and my mom were all trying to get me to stay awake.

I was pissed and just wanted to take a nap, but they were having none of it. I found out later that my heart slowed WAAAYYYYY down, and my blood pressure dropped significantly.

Apparently, I was about as close to dead as you can get without being dead. The doctor apologized over and over to both me and my mother. And that's how I got unlimited ice cream at the hospital.

KapitanTurtle

A couple of winters ago, I went out drinking with my roommates, and all night afterward, I felt like absolute crap. I felt a headache, vomiting, sweating profusely, extremely disoriented with auditory hallucinations.

In my confused state, I'd figured it was just the alcohol or food poisoning or something, but in the morning, I'd discovered that the same thing happened to everybody else in the house.

The chimney for our heater had gotten clogged and leaked carbon monoxide into the house all night while we slept. The maximum safe ppm for CO is something like 24 ppm.

I ran out and got a detector, and it immediately started chirping with a readout of over 800ppm. The gas works guys wouldn't even step back into the house after they took their reading.

According to them, we probably shouldn't have lived through the night and would definitely all be dead if we'd spent another few hours in the house.

rudezombie

One February day ten years ago, a younger (11 years old) and nerdier version of me was walking home from school together with a few classmates. The temperature had been around 0 degrees (Celsius) for the last week.

Some days above, resulting in thawing of the still thick layer of snow, and some days right below, refreezing the water, creating extremely slippery roads.

As we were walking uphill, happy that the school was over for the day, some of the cooler kids started to throw snowballs at each other.

Suddenly, they decided to all gang up on the smallest in the group: me. As the snowballs flew towards me through the air, I flinched and took a step backward, slipped on a spot of ice, and fell out on the road.

As I spin around 180 degrees in mid-air, I can see the old Volvo just a few meters from me, heading in my direction, downhill, on an icy road.

As I fall on my stomach and close my eyes in fear of what I think will be my death, I can hear the breaks screeching and my classmates screaming, and suddenly, I feel something bump into my back and push a foot downhill.

After a moment of complete silence, thinking I was dead, I finally realized I wasn't, and I dared to open my eyes. All I see is the dark rubber of a wheel inches away from my face.

My backpack, or rather the number of schoolbooks in my backpack, saved me from getting hit by the front of the car with enough force to push me to safety, leaving my head intact.

Without those extra 5 inches on my back, my brain would've ended up as a puddle of red jello on the road. And thanks to the old man in the car, slowing down to 5mp/h when passing playing schoolchildren, being fast enough on the brakes, and having put on brand new winter tires for the season.

HoneyBad

When I was visiting India at the age of 7 or something, 3 trucks ran over the motor rickshaw me and my family were in. The driver died, my aunt's arm got messed up really badly, and my toe was bleeding.

But surprisingly, no one else got hurt. The trucks did not stop; they obviously just wanted us out of the way. Running people over was their solution.

I remember it very distinctly because I landed on my butt, facing the trucks, and one of them ran over my toe. Suppose I landed a couple of inches closer to the trucks. I don't even want to think about it.

[deleted]

I was windsurfing at a local competition, out of my league, in really cold water without the right wetsuit, and overpowered (I'd rigged up a sail way too big for the wind speeds we were seeing).

I was way off to the side, out of view practicing, tried a move I'd never pulled off before, and took my mast to the side of the head, knocking me out cold. I was wearing a life jacket, which I usually don't wear, but this comp.

I required them. Needless to say, now I rarely go out without one. Anyway, long story short, I remember coming to. I didn't know how long I'd been out, but I was severely hypothermic.

Tried swimming to shore but was too far out and blacked out again from the cold this time. Another competitor came across my drifting rig, knew it was bad, and went straight to shore to tell the organizers, in turn, told the Coast Guard, who eventually pulled me out of the water.

By then, I didn't have a pulse. They started CPR and, thankfully, had a defib, gave me the zap, and now I get to tell the story about how my own stupidity actually backfired.

I don't know if it's related, but after the zap, I developed an interesting spiral pattern in my chest hair that I still have now. It's probably not related, but I like to think it is.

doesthissmellright

I was driving home from working a 12-hour shift in the middle of February, and during the overnight, it had snowed enough to be slippery but not absolutely dangerous. I was being careful, but even more so, as my car was only a few months old.

Heading down 95 South in the passing lane, I see a tractor-trailer up ahead, and I'm not sure if it's moving or not because of the snow.

I then catch a glimpse of a few warning triangles staggered out behind it and realize that the truck isn't going anywhere, so I transition to the travel lane to go by it.

I happen to glance in my rearview mirror and see a monster of a Buick bearing down behind me, having switched lanes, as he, too, realizes the truck ahead isn't moving. Bullet time.

As he slams into the back of my car, I'm acutely aware of glass flying around me like snowflakes. His car begins to push me towards the side of the trailer's cargo hold.

I know this because I see that metal "foot" thing that they put down when they detach the cargo part coming slowly toward me.

You don't have time to panic, even though things are moving slowly. You don't even have the wherewithal to go, "Oh well, here comes death," but the body has an amazing survival instinct.

Under the truck's back end, I am pushed, and the top of my car begins to peel back like a sardine can as the big rig's back end shears off the roof.

The next thing I remember, I'm sitting in my brand new car, unintentionally hunched down, with the roof missing, looking up at the underbelly of a truck.

My hat, which was on my head, had been knocked off and thrown back into the road behind us. I had just ducked enough as to where it was my hat and not my head. I don't feel so bad when my reflexes aren't good, say in COD or MW. When it counts, I get it done.

[deleted]

I was driving home in my brand new Buick one evening in the snow, doing maybe 40. It was a little slippery, but the car was heavy, and the road was clear in front of me.

I see this guy in the other lane doing about five mph. That's pretty slow, I think to myself, but then I see there's a truck in front of him.

He must be slowing down to a stop... WRONG! The idiot pulls out in front of me without even looking just as I'm about to pass.

I've slowed to 30 at this stage, but it's too late! SMASH! I ram straight into his back. Next thing I woke up in hospital in traction and suffering from serious head injuries.

Krlll

I was coming home from a run a few summers ago, and I noticed my feet were really itchy. I'm talking about taking your shoes off in the middle of the sidewalk so you can scratch your feet. It is kind of itchy.

I didn't know what was happening, so when I got home, I hopped in the shower in case I had run through some sort of brush that had given me some sort of reaction.

Everything becomes blurry, and I can't see properly anymore. I get out of the shower and realize my eyes are swelling shut. Then I realize my throat is closing, too.

This had never happened to me before, so I called my dad. Dad knows what to do in every situation. He works 5 minutes from my house, but by the time he gets to me, I have less than half my airway left.

My body was covered in hives, and one eye was swollen shut, and the other one was almost out of commission, too. I was so scared I began saying my goodbyes to my dad.

By the time we got to the hospital, I had maybe 20% of my airway left. As soon as they gave me the adrenaline, the swelling began going down, and I felt good again. Turns out I'm allergic to exercise. Shut up, it's an actual thing.

grummlinds

When my dad was still alive, he was visiting Ireland and stopped for a bite to eat (I don't remember what city he was in. I was nine and wasn't on the trip with him).

When he returned to his rental car, he opened the door, and a man came running and screaming at him, "Don't get in there, run, get away from the car."

The man grabbed my dad by the shoulders (my dad was 5'6 and around 160lbs. not a big guy at all) and dragged him back across the street just as his rental car exploded.

Apparently, some men had noticed that he was a tourist and wanted to mess with him and planted a device on the underside of his car. The man who saved him had noticed and pulled my dad back just in time to save his life.

AnnaMolly

I was living in Bridgeport, in an area where there was a lot of construction going on. The stretch of streets I walked every day was pretty desolate for a city, but for the most part, it was busy with pedestrian traffic.

One day, I walked back from the train to my apartment and noticed a van driving slowly. I start to speed up, and I hear a window roll down. The guy in the van yells out to me, “Karen, get in the van.”

My name is definitely not Karen, and I was not about to get in the van, so I booked it FAST. The guy in the van speeds up and he is yelling, “KAREN! GET IN THE VAN. DON’T MAKE ME COME OUT THERE AND GET YOU, KAREN!!”

I’m like, “My name isn’t Karen” and I run into the nearest neighborhood. The guy turns to follow me, and I’m just weaving in between houses, freaking out.

For whatever reason, there was NO ONE outside for once in the entire time I lived in that neighborhood, and no one answered their door. This whole time

I’m trying to call the cops on my phone while running like an idiot, and I am so shaken I can’t even dial because this guy is driving up and down the streets of this neighborhood looking for my ass.

I ended up hiding in someone’s bushes for 15 minutes until he finally drove away. I notified the cops of the shady behavior, and maybe I overreacted, but darn. I was scared.

[deleted]

A few years ago, I decided to walk home from an 18th birthday party to avoid the taxi fare as I was a broke high school student. I estimated the time to walk home to be about 20 minutes, which I hoped would help me sober up.

Fifteen minutes in, I finally reached my street. My street, to this day, is still very poorly lit. Even under the already few street lights, it is difficult to check your watch.

I quickly glanced at my phone to check the time, just so I could guesstimate how long it would take to be reunited with my glorious bed. As I looked back up, I saw a tinge of orange light slowly moving.

I guess while inebriated, I found this light mildly fascinating, so I was fixated on it for a short period. Before I knew it, I came upon the source, which happened to be a very tall and lanky, topless junkie smoking a cigarette.

My heart jumps, but I suppress all physical reactions to the best of my ability and carry on. A few seconds later, I can't help but think about what I just saw.

This extremely scummy-looking guy is standing around topless at 3:30 am in the middle of Winter doing scat all. Alarm bells start ringing, so I turn around and hope to see him still in the same spot using my peripheral vision.

He was gone. I started to panic and picked up my pace, hoping he lived in that area and had returned home. I turn my head again to see him across the road from me, walking in the same direction.

Thousands of different scenarios start to play out in my mind, 99% of them telling me to run. I turn my head slightly to use my peripherals again. I caught him crossing the street towards me, so I decided to Usain Bolt out of there.

After running 100 meters, I turned around to see him 20 meters behind me—he was chasing me. After another good 100 meters, I finally reached my house.

I was running into my driveway and to the back of my house. I stopped and turned around to see that he was no longer there. I stood there out of breath, laughing in relief.

MeNoEnglish

One of many close encounters. I was sitting on something on the top of an apartment building on the Northern edge of Fallujah on November 9, 2004.

It was a brisk morning, and I was trying to dry out from the pouring rain that night. I was a boot, so my poncho went to cover the machine gun, and I got to get soaked all night on watch.

Anyway, I was smoking a cigarette with my helmet off. There was a large metal container that the locals used for water reservoirs for their sinks and whatever else, and that was directly behind me.

Maybe halfway through my cigarette, I heard a loud bang, like something hitting metal. I looked over to see a hole in the reservoir that was maybe a foot at the most from my head. I calmly got up from whatever I was sitting on and moved behind a brick wall to finish my cigarette.

darkhorseguns

I'm not entirely sure how close this is to near-death, but I did once, in 2nd grade, have to deal with my tonsils being jerks, and they had swollen to a size so large that I could barely breathe and seemed to progressively get bigger through the day.

I went to school and felt a little strange, but I hardly noticed it at all. Felt a little bit better but was kind of tired around recess time.

My teacher (she's awesome) was like, "Hey, Sarah, don't go to recess. I want to ask you something." Of course, my little kid's senses were tingling, and I immediately thought I was going to get in trouble.

I hadn't done anything wrong, so I worried more about false blame than anything serious. Much to my surprise, everyone left for recess, and she asked me if I was feeling okay. I said that I felt fine.

She knew me well enough because that was my third year with her (same teacher for seven years throughout my elementary/middle school career), and she decided to call my grandparents anyway.

She called, and my mom came to get me at school. She told my mom that I wasn't acting like I normally was. I seemed lethargic and like something was wrong. Mom brought me to my grandparents.

I wanted to lay down, so they put me on the bed but didn't let me go to sleep (I didn't understand why then; I definitely do now) as much as I wanted to.

This next part is a blur because I don't remember what happened. I think I went to the ER for immediate relief, but I could have gotten a rushed appointment with my physician.

Whatever happened, I discovered that my tonsils had swollen to the point of throat apocalypse, and I, semi-easily, could have died of asphyxiation if it had taken much longer or if my teacher hadn't noticed because I surely didn't notice that I was sick. It was weird.

[deleted]

When I was about 5 or 6, I shared a bunk bed with my brother. I usually slept on the top, but on this particular night, I decided to sleep on the bottom.

Not thirty minutes later, I heard a crash and felt wooden boards pounding my small body into the mattress.

The wooden beams that kept the top bunk intact fell right across my throat and chest, blocking my airway.

My brother began screaming for my parents and attempted to lift the bed. Sure enough, adrenaline kicked in, and he lifted the bed frame just high enough for me to crawl out. I was fine, other than some cuts and bruises.

Helios_Arcos

During my last three years of college, I lived in the ghetto of Boston, which was right next door to my campus (Roxbury, for those of you who are familiar with the area).

I was heading to the local liquor store with a friend of mine, which is in the midst of the ghetto. As we were walking back, this ~10-year-old kid ran by us, and for some reason, my friend went, "Is he running a marathon or something?"

There were these three people behind us, and one of them apparently got annoyed with the comment for whatever reason and went, "I'm going to flip. I'm like Hurricane Katrina right now."

He pulls out a knife on us and tells us to keep walking and shut up, or he's going to finish us off. I saw his eyes, and he looked like he was either messed up beyond belief or crazy (or both).

My friend talked back and said, "I'm not going to say a thing." We had no idea what was going on, but we eventually approached a main road and jetted out of there. They didn't go after us. It was a very weird but scary incident.

pumper911

I go to school in London. One time, I was walking home down a very steep hill. There was a group of kids in front of me walking very slowly, so I stepped to the side of the road to overtake them.

As I was still on the road, I felt something scrape the top of my head.

Turns out a bus freewheeling down the hill at about 40mph had gone past me, and the side mirror had scraped the top of my head.

I was absolutely shocked but tried to style it out and carried on walking. I was at the bottom of my stride when it happened. If it had happened at any other moment, I reckon it would have definitely knocked me straight to the ground and most likely have ended me.

qmanoulton

Not me, but my dad. This was back in the early 80s when he had three kids under three years old. He worked at a hot dog factory in a bad part of Chicago, and we worked odd hours because he did the repair work.

When he got off the train, a security guard usually waited for him to escort him through the alleys to work. My dad isn't a big man.

He's actually quite small—5'5" or so and, back then, maybe 150 pounds. He decided not to wait for the guard and just went on his own, playing his portable radio.

A couple of guys jump out and demand his radio. My dad is, well, my dad... and he decided he'd rather fight them than swallow his pride and give them his radio.

They beat him. They took his radio and, before leaving, slammed his head into the curb, splitting it open. My dad managed to remain conscious and crawled the rest of the way to work, where someone found him and saved his life.

[deleted]

About three years ago, I was out at a friend's house drinking in excess despite the fact that I had work in the morning. After not sleeping that night due to the naked girl in my arms, I went to work from 8 am till about 5 pm.

I work at a cafe, and in case none of you know, that job is demanding. I worked at one of the busiest stores on the East Coast. Anyway, at the end of my shift, I drove home completely exhausted and fell asleep at the wheel.

I somehow cut the wheel to the left, went across a lane of traffic, and slammed into a tree, going 50 miles an hour. That tree totaled my car, shattered my elbow, and forced me to be airlifted to a hospital.

I had to have two surgeries. One to put in 6 screws, a rod that was about 6 inches long, and a plate that wrapped around my elbow.

The other was to remove the metal six months later. The messed up part about this whole thing is that I only decided to put my seat belt on about 3 minutes before the accident.

imnotdown85

I've had multiple experiences myself. When I was 6 years old, I was fishing at a dam with my father. Well, one way or another, I fell in the water and headed rapidly towards the electric lines they use to keep fish from doing whatever. My dad leaped in and grabbed me just in time. That was fun.

When I was 16, my friends and I lived in a small town with big, empty country roads. Well, we bought the fastest cars we could afford and joy rode.

There have been a few scary accidents, but the worst was taking a ~90-degree turn at 80mph and sliding sideways through a cornfield for 50 yards or so with corn flying through the car as the windows were down, naturally.

When we finally stopped, we got out and took inventory. There were three people, one with a seat belt on, and all was okay. Then we turned around and noticed we stopped about 10 feet from a big boulder about four times the size of the Daytona. We felt very mortal that night.

New Year's Eve, 2005, (22 years old) party with all my closest friends, drank quite a lot in a series of drinking games, which apparently I was not doing well.

Anyway, I woke up hungover, drove home to go back to bed, and woke up around 1:00 p.m. on New Year's Day. I got some coffee and ate some food. A couple of hours later, I took a shower.

Everything is cool until I get out to dry off. I reach for the towel, hear a snap in my head, and my left arm goes totally limp, just rubbery and non-responsive.. but I quickly recover.

I chalked it up to low blood sugar or something at first. So I go upstairs and put clothes on, singing along to a song on the stereo. I notice in my mirror that half of my face is slumped. I'm having a stroke.

Five days in the hospital (which luckily is very near my house at the time) and a bit of therapy, and I am 100% normal.. awesomely enough.

[deleted]

I used to live in a very small town in France, and I used to ride my bicycle a bit everywhere (to go to basketball training, see my family, etc.).

I used to ride my sister's rusty old BMX bike, whose tires were completely slick, and the brakes no longer work. Still, hey, it is not like there was much traffic around where I lived, and I learned to safely anticipate way before every intersection.

One day, I caught a flat tire, and since I could repair it right away, I asked to use my sister's brand new all-terrain bike with brand new, shiny, powerful brakes. I learned not to brake too hard the hard way (I went over the handlebar).

A few days later, when my father fixed my flat tire, I went back for a ride on my good old BMX, unless this time, I completely forgot that my brakes were as efficient as rubbing butter on the tires.

So, I was riding full speed on a farm road and came across a blind intersection with a road. And I hear this car coming in the distance. I was struck with horror and realized the following: even though I was still far away, I knew that I could never manage to stop in time with these brakes.

I braked as hard as I could. Tires screeched. I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. The car stopped inches away from me, and I'll never forget the look on the driver's face. He couldn't even articulate anything.

He just stared at me from his windows as if he saw death as I poker-faced and casually continued riding my bike down my street. I've never told anyone about it. Only a few years later, I realized how close I was to being run over.

Calagan

First, it was about four years ago. I was at a friend's bonfire. Everything was cool; we were just drinking and having a good time. Someone dumped a bunch of leaves on the fire and, in doing so, didn't notice dropping a spray paint can in as well.

I was sitting pretty close to it when the whole thing just exploded. I blacked out for a few moments and can only remember hearing it. It took me a second to realize what had happened after I came back.

I ended up with a flash burn over my entire face, my lips were blistered, and my right forearm was covered in second-degree burns from when I instinctively brought it up to protect myself.

Luckily, I only ended up with one scar on my right wrist from the largest second-degree burn, and I can laugh about the whole thing now. I was looking toasty for a couple of weeks, tho.

The second time was about a year ago. I was late for work, driving down the freeway. As I approach my exit, I notice a giant plume of smoke ahead. I noticed smoke coming from the underpass below as I got to my exit.

I exit and look to my left, where I would normally go. A tanker truck flipped upside down completely, and the entire underpass was on fire (at least it looked like it).

The truck had gone off the freeway and fell into the intersection below it. If I had been 1-2 minutes early, I would have been right under the truck when it fell.

Mikey-2-Guns

A number of years ago, I was on a cruise ship in Greece on a school trip when the captain unexpectedly ran the ship into the crags of an island, and we were pulling in.

I was on the bottom floor of the ship when it happened. I looked outside my room and saw water spilling in from hundreds of gallons everywhere around me.

It was ridiculous. Two people in the room next to me died. I hauled up the ship stairs. Luckily, we were close enough to shore that a ton of lifeboats came and rescued us.

[deleted]

I was hiking in Colorado as a young child. The trail became so steep that, for the sake of most non-hikers, it turned into a series of switchbacks, much like roads do to ascend mountains.

I was on the trail above my parents, walking in the opposite direction yet parallel to them. I decided to run down through the brush to meet them.

My momentum built until I was not able to stop myself from running and would have run straight off the side of the mountain into the river below (about a 700-foot drop.) The only thing that saved me from this was my mom reaching out and grabbing my shirt.

thnku4shrng

I fell asleep in a studio I rented with a friend. I woke up with my eyes bulging out of my head, and I wasn't able to breathe. Something was lodged in my throat.

In a moment of panic, I reached into my mouth to feel what was lodged in there and realized that my Uvula had swollen up to the size of a golf ball.

The only way for me to breathe was to lean forward and use my finger to keep it from blocking my airway. I got up and walked about two blocks to a hospital, looking like a madman with my fingers in my mouth, hacking and gagging the whole way (go ahead and touch your uvula and see what happens).

I had to write a note to the nurse at the desk. They immediately sat me down, and a doctor came in with a spray can. They fired this into my mouth, and the swelling went down within minutes.

I even made my flight to Boston a couple of hours later. It turns out that a spider had crawled into my mouth and bit my lip. Gosh.

lukestauntaun

I was driving in the fast lane of the highway once, at around 2 in the morning. There was construction to the left of me, so the soft shoulder was about a foot in width.

In the lane to my right was a tractor-trailer just ahead of me. Just as I started passing him (I was doing about 110K, and he was doing about 100), I noticed him start to come over and then signal.

He didn't see me beside him (obviously), and I hammered my horn and gunned the engine, getting up to around 140 when I finally got in front of him.

I was pushed over to the soft shoulder to the point that I was only an inch or so from losing my driver's side mirror, and thankfully, I got out in front of him in time.

He did a mini-fishtail when he saw me 'pop out,' and I figured that he might have been driving tired. I was thankful that my car (a 92 Sunbird GT) had the guts enough to get me out of there in a hurry, or I surely would have been finished off.

TKJ

This almost puts me on the Darwin Awards, and every time I think back on it, I facepalm and hate myself. I was driving my car, and I saw two of my friends on the side of the road.

I rolled down my window and screamed at them to get their attention. While I wasn't paying attention to the road, I swerved to the left.

When I looked forward again, I was about feet from getting into a head-on collision. With crap in my pants, I swerve the heck out of the way and start hating myself.

If I did get in that collision, me and my brother would've surely died ( I drive a Volkswagen Vanagon), and I would've seriously injured the other passengers. My friends half scold me and half make fun of me every time they bring it up.

PaddleBoatOnFire

I was about 14 and was fishing in a river with some friends. I was sitting on top of the train trestle about 50 feet off the water. My (smarter) friends were on the banks below.

I grew up close to railroad tracks, so the trains' sounds were not alarming. A train is coming down the tracks, and I'm not moving. A friend below says, "Bohica...you gonna get off the tracks?" I looked up and saw the train about 600 yards away. So, I started to pack up my tackle box.

This train trestle was one track wide, had no side rails, and had about a 6-inch gap between each railroad tie. If you didn't step on the boards, you would fall through and probably break your leg, so you had to be careful walking up there.

So, back to the story...I'm gathering my things; I start to reel in my line. I look over and realize that the train is moving WAY faster than I thought. At this point, the train was about 100 feet from the bridge I was on and closing quickly.

I realize I don't have time to reel in my line, so I start running. I'm chopping my feet, knowing that if I trip, I'm dead. I had to run about 50-75 feet. I was terrified. The train was blowing its horn. The bridge was shaking. I remember feeling shocked over how huge and powerful this thing was.

I knew it was getting close, so I jumped from the bridge at about a 45-degree angle. There is a concrete wall at each end of the bridge that leads down to the water.

I jumped over the 50-foot drop to the bank below, luckily over the little concrete wall, and slid down this hill of rocks. The train passed before I hit the ground, so it was very close.

My friends below saw the whole thing, but since they were down in the river, they couldn't see if I had made it or not. They were yelling for me, but I could barely hear them because of the train.

The train was pretty long, but none of them started climbing to check on me because they weren't sure if I had made it, and they didn't want to see me splattered. So they stayed put and yelled for me. I responded to them once the train had passed, and they came up to check on me.

As a footnote, I was fishing off the right side of the bridge, and I jumped off the left side. Which means I pulled my fishing line over the tracks. When I reeled in my line, it was SMASHED off. The line was about an inch wide.

B0h1c4

In the movie The Hunt for Red October, there is a scene where Alec Baldwin, Fred Thompson, and Daniel Davis are sitting and talking about Jack Ryan's cover story and how they are going to fly him out to the USS Dallas.

The desk in the background against the wall is where I was sitting when I tried to 'restart' my heart. While stationed on board the USS Enterprise, I was sent down to the Executive Officer's (XO) stateroom to replace a button attached to a buzzer in the officer's mess.

We couldn't find the fuses for this circuit, so my supervisor told me to just use a pair of 5000V gloves and replace them. For those of you who don't know, 5000V gloves are meant to insulate you from anything under 5000V, are thick as hell, and 'one size fits all,' so they didn't fit in the least bit.

The box where this button is is a jumble of wires, and with the gloves on, I can't weed through them to find the ones I need, so... I take the gloves off. I'm sorting through them and find one side of it (and hold on to it so I don't lose it), then find the other side.

Do you know the sound a car makes when you try to start it after it has already been started? That's how my chest felt after putting 115V across it.

So, here I am, sitting at the desk of the XO, in his stateroom, thinking for the only time in my life that I'm going to die. I finally calmed myself down and (obviously) didn't die, but damn, if I wasn't scared.

JesterOne

About ten years ago, while I was living in Guam, we were in the middle of a typhoon. My upstairs window was leaking water, and my father told me to go up and sweep up the water.

So there I am, right in front of the window, sweeping up the water. For some reason, I move away from the window, and not one second later, the window implodes.

My dad screams and runs upstairs. I'm in shock, and there's glass everywhere. Some had enough force to be embedded in my couch. To this day, I believe that if I were standing in front of that window, I would not be typing this today.

Ninjasteevo

When I was 4, I was hit by a van while crossing the road on a very rural street. He was going fast enough and quietly enough that little me didn't know there was a van coming.

My head took out the headlight on the right side, and I did a lot of damage to the rest of the front side of the car. I guess I was pulled under, and one of the tires ran over my right leg, leaving a lot of scratches.

I am told that I was asking for my blankie. I woke up in the hospital later that night while being x-rayed. Other than a concussion, I didn't have any broken bones or any other problems.

But I also scared the crap out of my mom, who was pregnant, and she had gone into labor that night. But the next day, all was good, and I had a new brother.

[deleted]

I was in the Air Force working on F-15Cs. My job was as a flight controls and instruments specialist. One day, I'll be working on a fuel indication problem. I am on top of the jet (about 10-15 feet off the ground) with panels removed and test equipment and tools all around me.

The jets are parked in rows three deep, nose to tail and about 100+ feet in between me and the next jet in front of me. I'm working, minding my own business, and the jet in front of me starts up for an engine run ops check.

No big deal. There is plenty of space as long as they stay idle. Anytime they are supposed to be above idle, they usually run the engine in a hush house (building to contain the sound).

After about 20 minutes, I saw the crew chiefs getting ready to shut down. This is where I almost died. They usually run the engines up a little before shutting down. I don't remember why it had something to do with fuel entrapment or something.

Sometimes, you get a crew chief who wants to show off and take it a little past what is safe. I look up when this happens to see the exhaust nozzles closing and then igniting.

The idiot has pushed it past 80 percent and gone into burner on the flight line. I grab the lip of the panel hole in front of me and hold on.

The 2ft by 2ft metal panel in front of me lifts off, passes right where my head was just a second before, and proceeds to hit the left horizontal stabilator.

If I had fallen off, it would have been backward and head-first into concrete. I spoke with the crew chief who was running that jet, and he got his run certification taken away.

angryspec

It was a pretty nice night out. It's really nice if you consider that it's March, and I was in Ohio.

I was climbing out onto my friend's roof to enjoy a beer and the nice weather ( I hadn't been drinking at all before that, and we weren't planning on getting drunk on the roof, just having a beer, maybe two).

As I climbed out of the window, my foot got tangled in the string used to open/close the blinds, and I started falling. My one friend grabbed me and kept me from falling over, and it didn't really hit me until a few minutes later that I could have easily fallen to my death.

toOsOUpy

A long time ago ('98-'99, I can't remember when). Suppose I was living in Bangkok, Thailand. I was in the car with my mom at the time and the local driver we had.

We were on our way home from doing groceries, so we went up the main road (4 lanes). We had to make a U-turn at the end of the road to get to the other side of our house.

We patiently waited for the cars in front of us to make the same U-turn. Finally, it ws our turn when suddenly a large public bus came speeding towards us right as we were about to take the U-turn.

The driver, seeing this, hits the gas and quickly gets out of the way. The bus only missed us by a few meters and flew straight into the ditch, separating the two different lanes of traffic.

If we had been 5 sec later or if the driver hadn't seen the bus, it would have gone head-first straight through the side of our van, most likely finishing us off.

Exodias

I was around 15 when I visited an ancestral family home that some family friend oversaw. It was my first time there, and he gave my family and me a tour of the house and garden.

I was walking on what looked like dried mud when I felt the earth shake and lost balance. I was fast sinking into this 'mud,' and I went about waist deep when I shouted for this guy who helped me out before I drowned.

It turns out it was not 'mud' and cow poop rather, and I had been walking over a reservoir for a gobar-gas plant. Dry weather made the surface look like earth, dried after rain.

piecesof8

One lucky Christmas, my parents bought me an Introduction to Racing course at Skip Barber in Laguna Seca. The course works by separating the students into fast and slow groups.

I made it into the fast group along with another guy my age (19 at the time). We basically spend a few hours lapping the track behind the instructor, switching positions each lap. We follow very closely when possible.

I was third in line when the guy in front of me clipped a corner before the red/white curbs began. It must have been windy because the dirt that is normally there was blown away. Creating a 6-inch cement wall where the curb began.

This instantly ripped off his front left wheel, launching his car into the air end over end... about 15 feet in front of me. I drove under his car while it somersaulted across the track. Drove. Under.

His car settled on the outside of a corner with the front half of the car gone, besides the cockpit frame. I immediately pulled over to make sure he was alive.

I helped him out, and we sat and talked about how amazing the day was while we waited for the track tow truck to arrive. Yes, he did have to pay for the race car, but his father drove a Lamborghini, so I assume it wasn't a big deal.

Marcusm117

I was very young (1-3, I can't recall how old exactly), so I have no actual recollection of the events. However, the story goes something like my family was driving home through the country, and we stopped to get some peaches from a fruit stand to shut me up for the time being since I loved fruit.

Fast forward a week or so, and my parents started noticing a lump on my stomach that kept getting bigger and bigger as time passed (the size of a baseball, they say).

As the situation started to look dire, I was taken to the hospital, where the doctors diagnosed it as a liver abscess that would require surgery.

Unfortunately, I was without medical insurance and my parents were a young couple with no real savings to pay for any expensive surgeries.

Luckily, my dad had his most prized possession, a sleek blue corvette, that after some heated arguments he was convinced to sell in order to pay the expenses.

I'm told that liver abscesses' have a mortality rate of 20% even with treatment and nearly 100% without health insurance.

Arrjibarbar

My mom told me several times about one time when I was a few months old at our home in India. While my dad was at work and my mom was in the bathroom, I just crawled out of the house. They found me a few hours later sitting under a truck.

The second time, again in India, when I was 6 or 7, I was at my grandmother's house and wanted to go to my friend's place down the road.

On the way, there was this playground with a spiked metal fence around it, and this time around, I got chased onto it by a wild dog. The dog eventually went away, but when I tried to get off the fence, I somehow fell and cut my head open.

Again, from what my family tells me, I was bleeding out on the street and would've done so if two girls from a local college saw me and brought me back home.

[deleted]

There was one time I thought I was going to die. I was climbing trees in 8th grade. It was early morning, and the trees were mossy; everything was slippery.

I got higher than ever and decided to start coming down. I misaimed and totally slipped on a piece of moss. The fall seemed to take forever, and I was going head first.

I tried to block the fall with my arm but ended up on my face/chest/arm. I broke my arm and bruised my ribs. On a cool note, I rode my bike back home and refused to go to the E.R. for three days, even though it was clearly broken.

Nowin

One time, when I was about three years old, there was a huge rainstorm, and our basement flooded. It wasn't bad, but there were about 6 inches of water down there.

My dad was in the basement doing some repairs and trying to fix the flooding, and being a curious 3-year-old, I started heading with my hand outstretched towards some exposed wiring in the wall.

It was probably to grab some wires and stick them in my mouth or whatever little kids do with things like that. When I'm about a foot away, my dad sees what I'm about to do.

However, there's no way he can get to me in time, so he grabs the closest thing to him, a rake, and hits me in the face with it, knocking me into the water.

Obviously, I didn't realize why he did it at the time, so I was pretty upset and scared of him for a while, but thank god he did.

Tenome

I was sailing around and decided it would be fun to tip my friend's boat. Sail on over there and tell my little crew member to just come around and pick me up after I've tipped the other boat.

I make a leap and grab the side of the other boat, pull myself on, and haul on the mast. Normal procedure is that once the boat is past 45 degrees, it's pretty much over, and you get out of the way.

I hung on for a split second, and the sail landed on me. Meanwhile, a wave hits the other side of the boat and begins to turn or go completely upside down.

I'm being a good boy and wearing my life vest, so I can't dive out from under this sail, and it's pushing me under as the boat flips. Take one last breath.

Feel the rigging around me. Realize I'm going down. Start swinging for my life. I connected with something three or four times.

Turns out I broke a few ties that attached the sail to the spar and floated through the resulting hole. Found myself on the surface, and my friend was pissed about the hole I put in his sail.

Niloch2o

When I was 15, working in a grocery store, I was trying to pull a plastic pallet out of the middle of a stack of wooden pallets. I think the stack was about 9 feet tall, and the plastic pallet was under six wooden pallets.

They were all the big blue heavy things, about 60 lbs a piece, while I weighed about 130 at the time. As I pulled the plastic one out about a foot, the whole stack tipped, and the top 6 pallets slid right off toward me.

I tried to backpedal away but wasn't fast enough, and they slammed me backward. My back/head was slammed against a metal wall about 4 feet behind me. About 4 inches to the left of my head, attached to the wall, was a thin slab of metal sticking out about 5 inches.

dfolez

​​Last winter, I had my tonsils removed; a day later, I hemorrhaged, and my body had trouble clotting. I remember going black on my bathroom floor, thinking, "That is way too much blood to lose."

My mom heard me hit the bathroom floor from downstairs and came and rushed me to the hospital. They cauterized me up pretty well, and I went home.

The next day, I hemorrhaged again. This time, I was about to take a shower, and I only managed to wrap myself in a flimsy bathrobe before being rushed to the ER.

I stumbled through those doors with the robe open, holding a gigantic mixing bowl full of clotted blood. That time, they made sure to give me actual stitches. There were children in that waiting room. They probably still have nightmares.

Igotlost

Last summer, I was riding in the passenger seat of a pickup truck, sitting on the truck owner's lap while another coworker drove. It was about midnight, and it had rained a bit earlier.

We were out in the countryside by the coast of SC, going about 45 on a freeway--no other cars in sight. The driver was smoking (I didn't think twice about it; I was used to him smoking, so I assumed that's what it was anyway).

So he dropped his cigarette and went to pick it up BY HIS FEET. I see us going quickly into the ditch on the right. He looks up and yells, "Crap," and turns the wheel to the left sharply.

He overcorrects at least one more time before we're completely sideways, flipping across the freeway. I closed my eyes and bit my teeth, accepting my fate (sort of).

All that I sensed was the enormously loud crunching metal sound and the flecks of glass surfing across my face and arms. The noise faded to silent darkness, and I immediately crawled out the window onto the grass.

We landed upside-down, and I took the wreck in, realizing that the three of us should have died. If not, then at least I should have. I came out without injuries, although I was sitting on someone's lap in the passenger seat, without a seatbelt.

archetypeblonde

My little brother went into the deep end of the pool; we were both young, and I went over to help him out. He got on top of me, trying to keep above me, which kept me under the water.

I didn't want him to drown, so I let him stay up, but I couldn't carry him to the shallow side and kept gasping for air whenever I could. It was terrible, and I thought I would die.

This whole time, an adult was in the pool with us but didn't help till the last second. She thought we were just playing and joking.

mixand

My mother, my little brother (5-6 y/o), and myself (11-12) were riding horses down some back country roads near our house.

This very overweight guy in boxers and a T-shirt runs out of his house yelling very loudly to "GET OFF MY PROPERTY," but we were on the road, county property.

Well, the horses are caught off guard, so we are trying to get them under control. He runs back in, lets two bulldogs out that attach themselves to my horses' legs (luckily, he had on performance boots, so their teeth didn't get to him), and comes back out with a handgun.

We were about to bolt at this point, but my brother and I were farther up the road than my mom, so he was in his yard, but between my mom and us as of distance.

He points the gun at us and tells us to be still (on horses that are freaking out, super difficult), my mom is basically begging to let us go, and he is running up and down the ditch, yelling insanely.

Again, rather overweight and having trouble running, I was super scared he was going to trip and do something stupid. Luckily, he told us to get out of there, so we went home. Filed a police report. Ends up being strung out, had been for days.

I was super scared and thought he might shoot one of us. Especially because he wanted us to be still, but it was all we could do to keep our horses under control.

[deleted]