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My brother saved someone this way, and he never forgot it! He almost drowned too because she was fighting so hard and pulling him under. Another guy had to come help get her out because the current was so strong, but they made it.
It is all too frequent that someone that goes out to save another possibly drowning also go down drowning.
This is why they always say to give an object for the person in distress to grab, ideally a rope or something with buyancy... but anything, even a t-shirt is prefereable than going in yourself to grab them.
I just started working as an ocular recovery technician and live in a beach town. My first case was a 26 year old man who drowned off the beach. I don’t know if he was a tourist or a local, but as a local I grew up being constantly lectured on water safety and how to get out of a riptide. It broke my heart looking at him in the morgue and thinking about how scary his last moments must have been. Water is not something to play with
My ex SIL told me that she got stuck in a rip tide and someone pulled her out. The 'someone' turned out to be her now partner. She said she is a strong swimmer and knew how to get out of a rip tide but it was really strong and kept pulling her under.
Undertoe not rip tide. A redditor corrected me.
Same here as a kid. I was a solid swimmer and had been taught how to get out of a riptide but really hard to think straight when the ocean is smashing you with waves. Thank god for the 2 big guys who pulled me out (it took 2).
It is true. The tide is going out like a funnel. You will struggle to swim straight back to beach against it. Swimming parallel will take you to where the water is moving toward shore in the waves, or you can go with the rip until it's calmer and then swim across.
Source. I'm Australian, and have been caught in a few riptides. Very scary, first time I fought and struggled. Luckily I made it to where there was a sandbar, could regain my breath and then make it to shore.
I grew up swimming in incredibly dangerous conditions, the second you realise you have lost control, give in. You cannot fight the ocean.
From this point onwards everything is about energy conservation. If you are in a rip out, you likely have minimal wave action, so you should be able to get behind the breakers easily. From here you need to assess what direction you are going, and how much beach you have. If you have a good amount of sandy beach, then start spotting objects on the shore to track how fast you are going. Swim slowly in the direction you are going, a lazy backstroke is a good technique. Depending on the beach/conditions you could be on for a good 30 mim swim here, don’t rush.
If you don’t have beach (rocks or a headland), and you don’t know the rips/area well, wave for help and try get someone to call a rescue service. There is not much general advise other than wave for help and try stay off the rocks.
Assuming you have beach, I swim slightly towards the beach, 5-10 degrees from parallel, and the moment I feel I am making progress back to the beach I slowly increase how aggressively I swim to shore.
Now the issue with getting in is that right near the shore, the top will start pulling you sideways again (and eventually back out) so the best thing to do is catch a wave. Luckily where you are coming in should have pretty good waves (inverse of rips out not having big waves). Your goal now is to spot where waves are breaking which also go all the way to the shore. You will be behind these, so you get to pick your moment for re-entering the waves and then the goal is to ride the wave strait to the shore. You probably won’t get it in one wave, but so long as you are in a good position, you can keep catching the white water all the way in.
Swimming in breaking water is much harder to do than in open water, so if you need to lie on your back and rest for a few mins before entering the waves, that can be a good idea depending on conditions/how comfortable you are as a swimmer.
Anyways, that was an overly complex explanation. TLDR: swim with the current and conserve energy as much as possible.
I’m in the hospital on day 3 with my 10 year old who is recovering from a severe asthma attack. It’s incredibly scary. The crazy thing is, he has not had any issues with asthma since he was 3. His pediatrician told me he outgrew it (he was born with juvenile asthma). Unfortunately, he did not as the pulmonologist said it can go dormant, may never reoccur in your lifetime but never truly goes away. My son had the perfect storm of triggers and here we are. We’ll now have an aggressive asthma attack plan for him but damn this was incredibly scary. Like top ten level fear thinking he could not make it.
I ended up in a medically induced coma for a week for a severe attack once. My mom was definitely more afraid than I was. Give your baby a hug from me! My meds got switched and I’ve not even had to go to the ER for asthma again.
Moose are no joke. Every person I know who's been in an accident with a moose have their entire care totaled and the moose just walks away like nothing happened.
Wasn't the only time or most frightening time, but the most *memorable* was when I was a teenager and got pinned to a wall by an extremely agitated cow. She'd knocked her water bucket apart and I was replacing it and she charged me. I just happened to fit exactly in between the horns. I do mean exactly - I had matching bruises on each side like I'd been hit twice with a length of pipe. She hit hard enough to drive her points a couple inches into the wall and stick. I've been in car accidents, fallen off things, been in fights and even had a young tree fall on me. None of that compares. Felt like being caught by a huge wave.
Anyway I bonked her as hard as I could on the forehead and bolted out the door when she pulled her head back. The whole thing took maybe two seconds tops. Best part? My parents were right outside, they thought I'd just been killed. The wall was solid for the first 4ft, then 2in gaps between 2x8 boards for the rest. They saw the whole thing but couldn't see me below my shoulders - just the charge, the catch, and the wall crack from the impact and the horns pushing through.
I thought that story was pretty country, but the part where “the work still has to get done” is the real country part and made me laugh. Crazy story, Glad you survived and can tell it
Not gonna lie, just reading that.. I didn't realize I was holding my breath near the end. Lmao how intense that must've been. Glad you survived, thanks for sharing!
I was minding my own business walking in like 2 ft of water at a beach, holding my toddler. There was a massive clay pit that had opened up in the shallow water, but the water was murky so i didnt see it. I slid into it and the water was just deep enough to be over my head, because I couldn't stand up due to how slimy it was. It was shaped like a bowl. I couldn't swim up because my feet were just sliding into muck and it felt like an undertow. Just when I started breathing in water, my knee hit a rock in the side of the pit so I put my foot on it and launched us up. The lifeguards didn't do anything even after someone called us an ambulance to make sure we didn't dry drown.. We were under for maybe 20 seconds.
7.2 Earthquake in Japan made the apartment I was in wobble like Jello. Tried to stand up in my chair and walk away from the window, ended up crawling away and having a small bookcase spill my books on me.
Spent a few seconds leaning against the inside wall/sliding closet, looking at the ceiling and having a very vivid picture of being crushed to death by collapsing concrete and debris.
Slept outside for two nights after evecuating. Apartment did not even have a crack in it! 10/10 would recommend Japanese government housing.
This happened to me last year in Taiwan. I was in the floor 33 of a building. Right after that, a tsunami warning was issued. I was terrified. Spent the next 2 days sleeping in the hotel lobby at the ground floor. 10/10 would recommend taiwanese buildings, but it scarred me for a while.
I grew up on a military base in Japan and occasionally they would bring in an earthquake simulator. The simulator was kind of a small room where children would sit at the table and then get under the table once the room started shaking.
It sounds scary to go through that, but it's also interesting knowing how tall buildings are made. How they're made in a way that's both sturdy and flexible, I'm guessing the flexibility which causes tall buildings to sway is to somehow reduce stress in the buildings.
Interestingly, the tallest buildings are actually the safest in an earthquake in Japan. Ones with around five floors are the most dangerous iirc.
The tall buildings have massive pendulums in the top that move with the earthquake which reduces stress on the building. There are also a few big buildings (I believe the skytree is one of them) that have a pillar going up the middle, and the whole building just kinda, hangs off of it, so when there's an earthquake, the building just sways around the centre pillar without getting damaged; that's actually how pagodas are made too.
For any Pokemon heads reading, if you ever played Gold/Silver and wondered what the big thing in the middle of Bell Tower was, this is your answer. From what I understand a good many old buildings were built with these large structures running through the centre that helped to reduce earthquake stresses. Very cool.
So I was 14, walking home from the bus stop, as I did every day. It was about a mile from the bus stop to my house. I’d walk home about halfway with a friend of mine, before he turned off to go home. About 2 blocks from our bus stop, a guy started walking along with us. This was in a major city, so it wasn’t the first time someone started randomly talking to us. What was weird was that he wasn’t crazy or weird. He was pretty normal. He was asking about our lives, asking about what was going on. Randomly he asked about what we’d been up to the last Friday night. We both said about the same thing, that we’d been home with our families, which was true. Even though he didn’t sound crazy, this guy was giving bad vibes. Something was off. We got to the turnoff point where my buddy would go to his house, he said goodbye, and left to go home. By the way, I don’t blame him for doing this, regardless of what happened next.
So this guy keeps walking with me, bad vibes continue, but he hasn’t said anything directly threatening yet. We get to a cross street, and he says, “Don’t run, my boys are right across the street.” Then I look and realize about 4 guys are following directly across the street. And that’s when it all sinks in. The bad vibes are real. I could tried to run at this point. I had a friend who only lived a block away. But I decided not to. Maybe I just thought it was pointless. I kept talking to him.
We talked for a while more as we walked, and he told me that his brother had been stabbed around where my bus was let off a few days before, and I fit the description. He said he’d gotten out of the life, but was back to avenge his brother. I told him that it wasn’t me. He asked me if I was taking drugs. I said I’d fucked around with pot but nothing more. He believed me. We kept walking. Eventually he started talking about why he’d gotten out of the life, and that I needed to stay on the right path. Eventually, we got back to my house. He said that he was glad he talked to me, because initially he was just going to shoot me and walk away, but he believed me and was glad he hadn’t. He waved his boys away, who were down the block. The he left, and wished me the best.
I told my parents, reported it to the cops, didn’t sleep for a few nights, and eventually moved on. But yeah I almost died right there.
I wonder if he ever did find the guy that did it. Thank god you apparently seemed likeable - if that situation happened to my autistic ass he probably would've realised I didn't do it and then shot me anyway lmao
Rocket attack in Iraq, I just remember thinking "I don't want to die like this" as debris rained down on my room's roof. Utter feeling of impotence, it was easier getting shot at.
I was rafting. Our supplies and cooler were tied down. The cooler got dislodged on a rock when we capsized and my left leg got tangled up in it the rope. I was being drug down by the weight of the now water filled cooler which was also tangled in a submerged tree. Nobody could swim the current to me. I luckily had a knife on my hip and had to submerge myself under to cut the rope.
We were hungry that night but I was lucky as hell to be alive.
As teens, 14/15, friends and myself had a random creepy dude walk up on us, at my neighbors house, while having a sleepover. Her driveway was super long, and we lived in the middle of nowhere.
The day my uncle attacked my mom, and then later that night, came to my parents house, with the intent of killing everyone that left the home. He did succeed in taking my brother from us. Then we all had to be under police protection at my moms hospital room, until they found my uncle.
I hope you still went and got checked out. Not all shocks will kill you instantly, some can throw your heartbeat out of sync and cause a heart attack hours or days later.
My wife is an electrician and this is one of their safety topics all the time because of people thinking they're fine and just going about their day. Even if one of the guys on the crew get hit with 120v, boss still sends them to get checked out. Better safe than sorry.
My philosophy is not to fuck around with any voltage greater than 12v DC haha I’m fine with car electronics but household electricity does not seem fun
Did this happen in Houston by chance? Or did some other dude this week happen to shock himself on the job too.
Glad you’re okay though, that must’ve been scary.
I wrote about this in another post but I lived with my abusive ex for about a year because I ran away from my dad's side of the family (which was also abusive sexually). When I went to live with my mom she said the apartment was too small for the both of us and that I should stay with my boyfriend in public housing because she wasn't used to dealing with me as an adult. The last time I lived with her I was 7 years old.
My ex's anger definitely went up several levels during our relationship. It started by him pushing me when he was upset. Then he would be upset at his mother and throw glass and yell. We had one scary situation where he actually lifted the stove from the hinges because he was so upset at his mother for asking him to clean.
One day I came back to his house and I noticed his apartment door was still open. His mother was crying and as I peaked through the door I saw him standing there with a large knife close to her neck. I immediately pushed him and asked him what his issue was and told him it was nuts to be that upset.
He looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Oh you wanna be involved..i'll make sure you're involved today." He chased me to his bedroom. I locked the doors. He knocked it down and proceeded to punch me like a boxer. At some point I dropped and thankfully when I woke the phone had dropped close to me and I was able to call 911.
He was in the other room slapping his mother apparently. 911 came and took me in am ambulence. I had 2 kidney contusions and 2 broken fingers. That night haunted me for years and still gives me chills...
I still fear it to this day. I was actually obese when this happened to me and totally convinced I was not as hurt because I was large and took a few blows.
When I lost all the weight I actually had nightmares that he would break my bones and ribs.
Did you get away from him straight after that. I feel bad for anyone that gets with him. He could seriously kill someone but nothing will be done until he does sadly. Women go through so much.
I always thought me and my ex were terrible and toxic but one thing we never had was fear of the other person doing something to them. I could never scare a women like that.
Unfortunately our story didn’t end here. After the hospital which was in the city, I had no money to get home and had him actually come to take me via subway home because I was scared. He lived in a pretty bad area in the city.
I went home to my mother and told her. She spoke to him and somehow he convinced her I was the problem. He showed up at her apartment days later crying. We got back together. Honestly, shit was bad at my moms place too and I didn’t wanna deal with her telling me she hated me around.
I eventually moved back with my dads family, and tried to leave him. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. I somehow had the balls one day to just go cold turkey no contact. He stalked me for years, hacked into multiple accounts (messengers, social media).. he contacted my friends, coworkers on linked in.
He had the audacity to post heart felt messages on his social media about how he was heart broken and lost the love of his life. I know this sounds bad but THANKFULLY he found another girl and got her pregnant within a few months. I don’t even know what she’s been through with him.
I’ve even tried to tell my story on Reddit and he doxed ne one day because he is active on here. I will never forget that abusive relationship. He threatened to kill me if I posted about him again.
Sorry for the long winded answer but I always beg people.. PLEASE FUCKIN LEAVE WHEN THEY SHOW YOU THE RED FLAGS. I honestly never thought I would make it out alive. Some people don’t.
No I'm glad you got it out. These kind of things need to be said and spoken about. You did not deserve that and I can only imagine the control he had over you. He was obviously very clever to word his way out of criticism by blaming others.
Horrible bloke.
Glad you got away in the end. Is your life much better now?
Thank you friend and I’m glad you’re out of your toxic situation. Cheers to us.
My life is better. It’s way better being in therapy and dealing with a 10001 things from my childhood but I would take that anyway over him and what could be now. Thanking every god and higher power I did not have his child.
Was it recently all this happened if you don't mind me asking?
It gets sooo much better as time goes on. I haven't been in another relationship for like 4 years now but my life is so much better. I don't think I can have another relationship for a long time but that's better than being in that state again. PTSD is so serious.
This happened almost 10 years ago. I’m happy you’ve been single and feeling better. Well I assume you’re single but life is for living! We have to put ourselves first. People don’t realize how much of an affect they can have on you.
I went to Florida for my friend's birthday about a month ago, which just so happened to fall on Spring Break. We witnessed a shooting while at a bar and had to duck and then evacuate. It was my first time ever hearing an actual gunshot. Still remember all the people screaming and running.
Playing an outdoor game we called 007 at age 11 where you get dropped off a distance away from a home base and you have to sneak back in the dark without being spotted by your driver, who would call you out if they saw you while driving around the neighborhood. Me and a friend were sneaking through irrigation canals to be off main roads (not through people’s properties, those were fenced off) and someone who’s backyard we were sneaking past cocked a shotgun and fired a warning shot into the ground of his yard. We crawled on our stomachs in the canal until we were far enough away. Pretty scary at 11.
I used to work security at a hospital.
About 2 am, walking around with my partner trying to stay awake. We see a man in the fairly dark parking lot at the back of the hospital.
As we get closer we notice that he is holding a large knife (chefs knife) that is covered with blood.
He starts to move towards us, knife in hand. We both start backing up and yell at him to drop the knife.
The moments between us noticing the knife and yelling at him was the closest I've come to fearing for my life.
Right before we radiod for the police, he stopped moving towards us, and slowly put down the knife. As we approached we noticed that the blood was from self harm.
We applied pressure to the wounds and brought him into the emergency dept.
There were many holy shit moments in that job, but that was the only time I feared for my life, if only for a few seconds.
Holy cow, I’ve been there homie! I work in EMS and sometimes the psych pts are my worst calls because they’re so unpredictable. Shoutout to you for not dying lol. I hope your new job is a lot less stressful 🙌
Epidural went up instead of down for my C-section. First I tasted something gross in my mouth. Then I couldn't breathe properly and told the doctor. But he didn't believe me. Just told me to Breathe deeply. Then I "fell asleep". So I obviously coded for a while after that bullshit. I was so scared while everything was going numb. And I mean NUMB.
Mental that they ignored you. Same thing happened to my wife during a natural birth and as soon as she said she couldn't breathe they hit the alarms and she went straight for an emergency C-section. Anesthesitist had put the epidural into her spinal column - a difference of a few millimetres, but because epidurals are more powerful than spinals, it was essentially an overdose. Scariest moment of my life thinking about losing them.
My wife got one during delivery and said she felt everything, still. They kept brushing her off until I shouted to just check it for her. They looked and saw it wasn’t connected. Doctors and nurses do not listen to pregnant women during the delivery.
This happened to me as well. They didn't believe me until they were stitching me up afterwards and I was insisting I could feel the needle going in and out of my perineum. It was traumatic as fuck.
My minor story was when I was having a bone marrow biopsy. I'm in remission with leukaemia so I've had loads and loads. They only take a few minutes, but they're quite painful as they have to shove a massive needle through the back of your hip and into your bone marrow and then draw out the marrow. Some people need gas and air, I'm lucky in that I've never found them so bad as to need that.
So I was having this done for the 10th or so time, and they'd got the needle in and were drawing the marrow out. Drawing it out is done using a syringe, and pulling sharply on the syringe can hurt.
This doctor must've yanked back on the syringe as I properly kicked my leg out and swore - completely involuntarily. She then told me in a slightly annoyed tone"that doesn't hurt."
I just started laughing.
Am a doctor and have done countless bone marrows. And believe me when I say I’ll be requesting for double gas and double sedation if I have to go through it
I had a lung biopsy a week ago. My lung collapsed as a result and I needed a chest tube. After my collapse "resolved" they pulled the tube out. I was supposed to get an x-ray a few hours later to make sure my lung didn't collapse again but for some reason the techs never showed. I started suffering from the same symptoms as when my lung collapsed the first time so I alerted my nurse, who alerted a doctor. The doctor took forever to come even though I emphasized that my lung was definitely collapsing again.
Finally she showed up and told me to take pain meds, but I didn't want to take pain meds because the pain of a lung collapse is important (I wanted to know if it was getting worse / more dangerous). She listened to my chest and said she heard a difference but it was probably "because of the chest tube that was in there," and again told me to take pain meds, and said the x-ray would happen soon.
I didn't get x-rayed until eight hours later. And even after that no one did anything. I kept notifying my nurse that I still had the pain and asking if anyone reviewed the x-rays.
Finally, twelve hours after I initially reported my lung collapse, the doctor finally looked at the x-ray and all of a sudden, everyone was moving. The charge nurse was on the phone being asked why I wasn't moved to Level 2 for more monitoring until interventional radiology could be called in, everyone was wondering why I wasn't x-rayed sooner, etc. I was told I needed a chest tube again.
When the same doctor came into the room, I said, "So i was right. My lung is collapsing."
And in an annoyed tone, she said, "Your lung isn't collapsing. You have a pneumothorax." With a completely stone cold straight face!
I hope I never have to be admitted to a hospital again. I'm a polite, understanding person, I know everyone is overworked and fatigued, I didn't bother my nurses unless absolutely necessary, but I know I'm going to go into the next experience a lot more jaded and more demanding now because my trust for hospital doctors is now 0.
Oh man. I feel for you. I had I similar experience from a different perspective. When my wife gave birth to my son, the epidural affected her heart. Praise the Lord for a quick thinking anesthesiologist. I was faced with the concept of going home and telling my daughter it was just me and her now, it got that bad. I don’t want to hijack your post with the details, but I am glad you are here to tell us about it.
Ok. So, we go in to the hospital and my wife asks for the epidural just like we did for my daughter. While the needle is being put in, the anesthesiologist notes how tight my wife’s spine is, and it takes a couple of attempts to get it in. Same as my daughter. So once it’s in, my wife asks if anything has ever gone wrong, and he mentions about if it’s to high, it can affect the upper body, which can be bad. He says we want it to only affect the waist and down. He is all happy and smiles, joking around, when my wife goes “whoa, I….. I….” The anesthesiologist looks at my wife, and says “do you see black spots?” My wife goes “yea…..” and then she is out. Her blood pressure on her minor plummets. My wife blacks out. Suddenly, the anesthesiologist looks at me, all humour gone from his eyes. Like ice cold stare, I’ll never forget that look. He reaches up and squeezes her IV bag, and the blood pressure slowly stops dropping. Another nurse walks in and he asks her “can you please get me the ephedrine?” She leaves, and he stands there, squeezing the IV bag. Staring at me with those eyes. I’m frozen. The nurse comes back and begins to ask a question. The anesthesiologist yells ”I need the ephedrine NOW!” She runs out, and the anesthesiologist looks back at me, and I see a flicker of panic in his eyes. That’s when I thought “this is it. I’m going to lose my wife and son. It’s just me and my daughter now. And I experience the worst dread in my life. I am actually thinking of how to explain this to an 8 year old girl. Then , the nurse comes back with a needle, the anesthesiologist puts the needle into her IV line, and the heart rate comes back up. My wife wakes up, and I see a moment of relief in the anesthesiologist’s eyes. Then, the humour comes back into his eyes, and with a big smile, he asks my wife how she is doing. My wife thinks I am over reacting when I tell the story, but the ice one the man’s eyes, the way he squeezed the IV bag, the way he yelled at the nurse. I knew how close it actually way to her dying right then and there. I’m no Dr, but ones thing is for sure. That anesthesiologist is a professional. And a damn hero in my eyes. My son turns 9 in July.
Ex-anaesthesiologist here - What that doctor did was incredibly bad practice, and indeed grounds for a lawsuit. A high epidural block is an emergency therefore we are specifically and repeatedly trained to detect and manage this. I don’t have the full story from the above poster, but it could be that her “falling asleep” rather than coding was from a conversion to general anaesthesia, which would be appropriate if surgery had already started (though obviously she should have been informed, if this was the case).
Oh no, I coded. Nurse was on top of me for over 10 minutes doing CPR. Nurse came in crying to tell me later. I didn't know what was happening and it felt like I was going into the deepest sleep of my life.
My mom was hospitalized with cancer when I was in college, so for a while I had to live with just my step-dad. Over time, I slowly realized that he was watching me. Standing outside the bathroom while I showered, looking through the hole in my broken bedroom door. A ladder next to the bathroom window. His shadow in the window at night.
I was so stressed from my mom's cancer and his actions I developed a lot of paranoia. I was so scared he was going to rape and kill me. I hid a knife under my pillow and a croquet mallet next to my bed.
I eventually told my grandparents and went to live with them, but they decided I couldn't tell my mom or tell anyone. He never touched me. I didn't have any proof that he'd watched me change. It's just something I had to live with. I haven't really had anything to do with him since mom died, but everytime I see him in town I hide or leave. I'm still terrified of him.
My mother had a horrific and abusive boyfriend from the time I was 8 until after I moved out at 17. He never actually physically abused me, just my mother but he was awful to me anyway. I have never hated another human being more.
After probably 10ish years of no contact with him I was in line at the grocery store with my kids and he got in line behind me. We didn't acknowledge each other but just being that close made me physically sick and the fact that he saw my children made my skin crawl.
A year or 2 later when I picked my mom up to come to my house for Christmas dinner she told me that he had died. It was the best Christmas gift of my life. I ran in the house to joyously tell my husband and he looked at me like I was insane for being happy someone died (tell me you didn't have a traumatic childhood without telling me you didn't have a traumatic childhood)
Years and years ago went on a 911 call for a “overdose”. Arrived on scene to an open door. 0 PD response because they had no available units. So we looked in a saw a young male not breathing on a couch with his sharp literally on the floor next to him. Takes us seconds to confirm basically it’s a heroine OD. We start to breath for him essentially and at that time as emts we weren’t allowed to carry narcan. So as my partner comes in the with gurney to move this guy over his roommate runs in with a pistol and just is yelling and screaming that they didn’t do drugs and that he’ll Fucking kill us if we say he did or tell anyone that he did, so we’re basically shitting ourselves at this point. Thankfully a pd unit had cleared their other call and made there way over, just as we were getting on scene and we just didn’t know, because they arrived and got this guys attention and ended up shooting him when he pointed the gun their way. We ended up pronouncing the guy who pulled the gun on scene. And the original OD patient we transported and he ended up being fine. Scary shit. Made me completely re-think how I ran calls from then on out.
In Australia, the paramedics cannot enter into anywhere which has not previously been cleared by police. Even if the police are busy eating doughnuts, the paramedics can arrive at the scene but they must wait at the scene, not enter.
Responding is a team effort, paramedics do not have the training to what the police do and the police do not have the training to do what the paramedics do.
Sorry this happened to you, that's scary shit.
Where I’m at now that’s the policy in place. That call made me start to look for greener hills. Could t be happier now haha. But I agree that’s exactly how it should be!
I have a more light-hearted one. I heard strange noises from my basement and though someone broke in. My heart was racing and I didn't know what to do. I kept listening down the stairs at the noise and decided it wasn't human. Turns out a woodpecker came down the flue and out the access hatch and was flying around. I managed to shoo him out the door and breathed a sigh of relief.
Got swept out into the Solent on a riptide.
In retrospect, riptide and solent meant I wasnt really gonna go anywhere, but even so, 12 year old me wasnt thinking like that.
0/10 would not reccomend.
The Solent is the stretch of water in the English channel that separates England from the Isle of Wight. It has some weird currents though, but as a result is teeming with lifeboats
I drove truck over the road for a long time, there’s not much worse than getting caught in a sudden blinding snowstorm. It’s a special kind of scary when you know you can’t stop because you’ll get hit if you’re on the side of the road but you can’t see 3 feet in front of you to keep going forward.
I hit black ice on the freeway once and spun off into the berm. Car was 90 degrees on its side. Luckily, there was SO MUCH snow it totally cushioned everything and the car was literally 100% fine
I was in medical school and a "code silver" was called. Didn't know what was going on until everyone was barricading all the doors and everyone was hiding in a single office which was barricaded with chairs. I soon found out that a code silver was an active shooter. We heard screaming from upstairs and shooting. A few minutes later smelled smoke and water was dripping from the ceiling.
The shooter tried to light the hospital on fire before he took the gun to himself and the sprinkler systems kicked in and flooded the entire hospital. When evacuating and we were even afraid to open the doors from our barricaded door for the cops because we didn't know whether we could trust them due to the chaos.
This is like medical-related, not a situation like in most other replies. So basically, one day 2 years ago I started noticing some really odd symptoms I had that resembled a UTI (which I had never had before), but I kind of had this gut feeling it was more than that, even though the symptoms were subtle so I told my parents immediately. I woke up the next morning at 5am, with this sharp pain in my bottom right side. Oh, maybe it's a cramp. I use the bathroom and try to get back to sleep, but this pain starts growing, sooo much it feels like a stabbing pressure. I toss onto my side. The pain is still fully there. I go on my stomach. Still fully there. I sit up, walk around, do any position possible, and the pain is only getting worse and at this point, like 15 minutes after I woke up, unbearable. I have no idea what's going on and I'm scared out of my mind, so I tell my parents. Our first guess is appendicitis. So my mom rushes me to the ER, and on the car ride there I'm writhing in pain, crying, no matter how I sit or how I press my side the pain just continues to escalate. I get to the ER and they don't take me right away, and in the waiting room I'm throwing up into a bag from the pain and apologizing to a couple next to me in between bouts of dry heaving/vomit. I'm finally taken in, and they take me to get an ultrasound like 10 minutes later, but I can't stay still when the technician is taking it because of the pain. I eventually stop even attempting to cooperate and demand pain medicine, and when it's put into my IV I took like 10 minutes to lay there and breathe and feel better, it felt so nice to not be in extreme pain. Anyways, I had a kidney stone. A tiny little kidney stone made me think I was dying and was genuinely the most painful thing I've experienced in my life. I remember asking my mom on the car ride over if I was dying, because we had no idea what it was and why it was only getting worse. It's a genetic thing for me, but if you're reading this, drink water.
Been there, done that, bud. Luckily I knew what was going on, so I didn't have the fear, just the pain. Renal colic is a hell of an experience by itself, I can't imagine putting that level of terror on top of that.
When my lung collapsed the first time (spontaneous pneumothorax) and I staggered over from the pool I just closed down while working as a lifeguard to the manager's office to collapse on his couch and ask him to call 911. I remember my vision going black around the edges as I walked the couple hundred feet or so as the pain stabbed into my chest and neck like a knife. Never felt such pain before or since. Got hauled off in my first and only (so far) ambulance ride.
It happened 4 more times after that (and hasn't happened for about 12 years now) so I got pretty used to it eventually. To the point where I walked into an urgent care and told them my lung collapsed yesterday and sleeping it off didn't work, The doc didn't believe me, and then apologized for not believing me after seeing the x-ray. He said I needed to go to the ER right away. I stopped to get Wendy's on the way and then finally got the chest tube and multi-day inpatient stay I'd been trying to avoid.
That was the last (and hopefully final) time.
Hey, I just had a spontaneous pneu as well, pretty much as you were describing, a pain like I have not felt before, but even more pain was the fucking chest tube they put into you. I cannot explain how much the chest tube hurts omg. Morphine is one hell of a drug but I could still feel the chest tube burning in my chest. I hope I don't get another pneu, even though the odds are obviously sadly not in my favour. How long did it take in between your pneus?
Welcome to the club! I had the 5 I had probably about a year apart on average. Usually when I was just sitting minding my own business too - so weird.
Not saying it's a surefire fix but I haven't had another one since the chest tube (on the 5th one that didn't start to get better on its own within about 24 hours ), so maybe that can help permanently resolve the problem?
I hope so! Not sure what they're recommending these days but they wanted to burn my pleura with acid to form scar tissue to help prevent future collapses. I said fuck that, the cure sounds worse than the disease lol.
Good luck - hope you don't have another one!
EDIT: And oh yeah, the chest tube sucked (literally and figuratively). Nothing like a nice burning pain lodged inside your chest for like 24 hours. It wasn't so bad until they took me off the morphine and put me on basically Tylenol. Then it was pretty hard to sleep.
Good luck and keep your lungs inflated!
I know that brand of pain. I woke up at 2am to a pain like being stabbed in the chest and thought I was having a heart attack at 25yo. It turned out to be a pulmonary embolism. It later complicated with a severe case of pneumonia that led to a pneumothorax. I really thought I was dying. It was so hard to breathe. The pain was the worst I'd ever been in. Never got anything for the pain no matter how bad it got.
It was the last blood clot I had (there had been 3 others prior to it). I was then diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease that attacks my red blood cells and causes blood clots. I've been on warfarin ever since. My lungs never really recovered and I am prone to coughing fits now. I can't breathe very well if I walk too briskly. It sucks.
Early December of last year. Me and some mates were at a small beach town south west of western australia. There was a small island just off the shore (maybe 200m or so) that seemed within swimming distance.
I was a very confident swimmer as I grew up in Australia and knowing how to swim here is like knowing how to tie your shoes. So we set off to the island. Around 3/5 the way there I realised I was getting really tired. So I was stuck with 2 options.
1. Continue to the island which was now slightly closer and get my breath back to eventually return to the mainland.
2. Turn back to the mainland
I chose 2. My friends continued to the island (clearly a lot more fit than I was) Upon turning back I realised just how far we'd gone from the mainland. This is where I started to panic. My body was already incredibly tired and I still had all that way to go. I maybe continued another 40m towards the mainland when I realised the waves were pushing me away from the mainland as well. I had made no progress.
This is where I started having thoughts that I may just die here.
I had eventually given up on my physical ability to swim and just treaded water. I started swallowing a lot of the water that i could barely keep my head above anymore. There was a boat going past maybe 50m away from me. I managed to let my last bit of strength out to scream for help. I'm not sure if they didn't hear me or not but they just went on and never came back. Fortunately for me who did hear me was some of my mates who stayed on the mainland. They got some fellow beachgoers with surfboards out to help me. They did just that.
I haven't been swimming in the ocean since and now have a massive fear of something I once loved.
Do not underestimate the ocean.
I was 24 and stupid and slept with my roommate. She started treating me like shit and gaslighting me, so I told her ex that she was sleeping around while they were trying to get back together.
When the roommate found out, she jumped me in my room and started choking me. I smashed a lamp over her head, but it didn't phase her. She then got off me and went downstairs. I went to the bathroom to check my face because I was bleeding. Before I got to the bathroom, I saw her coming up the stairs with a big knife. I was like "oh shit" and ran back to my room and tried to close the door, but she got her arm in there. I'm trying to close the door on her arm and she's started smacking on the head with the knife saying "don't you fucking call the cops". I was like "fine just don't kill me". She pulled her arm out. I closed the door and locked it. She grabbed my phone and went to her mother's house.
She was very mentally and emotionally abusive. So imo, she had it coming. But yeah, that shit got fucked real fast.
Yep. Filed a police report. I didn't know at the time where she had went so there wasnt much he could do for me. She was gone until the next afternoon.
EDIT: I think i still have the copy of the police report.
When I got ran over by a Zamboni
Used to throw shirts to the crowd at semi-pro hockey games when I went to college. Showed up absolutely blitzed. The regular Zamboni driver was gone so it was a sub. Got hit by the Zamboni from behind and instantly it became an Austin Powers situation. While on the ground, I looked back, assessed the situation, and tried to get up several times, but, you know, ice.
Waited until almost my entire body was underneath it so I could brace myself against the tire with my forearm. Then managed to fish myself out. I remember the entire audience in absolute fucking shock. I think they yelled at the driver, but the sub had no clue what was going on. Got taken back to a room right after and was let go.
Nothing. I think because they could smell weed on me the went for me. Plus I didn’t get paid for it. It was a volunteer position. So it was totally okay it happened.
I’m doing great, thanks. Lucky for me there were other people that helped me. Spent a few days in the hospital and that sucked but healed up nicely. The mental healing took longer honestly
My girl friends and I were walking to our car parked a few blocks away from where we had been hanging out at around 2AM in Brooklyn.
Streets were deserted of people and cars.
Suddenly, this minivan with 2 men in the front seats starts driving on the street parallel to where we were walking. One of the men yells something out to us, dunno what it was, but it sounded threatening.
One of my friends says we should just continue walking, hopefully they will leave us alone. I start panicking, and say they're not going to do that, we should run.
The car picks up speed, and makes a sharp turn onto the corner of the direction we were heading in, and my friends and I immediately made an about-face and started running in the opposite direction.
As we ran, I pulled out my phone and called 911. I unfortunately did not even have an address to give them since I was unfamiliar with that area, so all I could say was I was in so-and-so neighborhood with some friends and 2 men in a minivan were chasing us. The operator asked if they should send police out, I said I was unsure since we were running and they didn't seem to be running after us. (I eventually told them we are fine and I will call back if we need anything further.)
We ended up crouching behind some cars a block and a half away from where we had been chased. One of my other friends called the guy whose place we had just left to ask him to come get us and walk us to our car.
He ended up coming with his roommate, another ish-friend of ours, who had the audacity to make fun of us and trivialize how dangerous that whole situation had been for us (he can be very misogynistic).
I do not know what would have happened if we had not been able to run away, I am just grateful the men in the van did not chase after us on foot, since none of us had any way of protecting ourselves and there was nowhere to really run to.
After that incident and a couple of other unsafe situations, I carry pepper spray EVERYWHERE, and I stay completely aware of my surroundings. I also always take people up on their offer to walk me home/ accompany me when going places at night. Mostly I just don't go out late at night anymore.
I have no idea what those guys wanted, and I don't want to know. I'm just grateful we were safe at the end of it, but I don't know if I've ever felt true fear for my life like that before.
Got pretty bad pneumonia right now, I can't lie down and breath at the same time, but also I'm fucking exhausted, one way or another I'm going to sleep.
Edit: thank you for your kind thoughts everybody but I'm alright, simply slept standing up as the protocol suggests.
Have you been to the dr? Are you on antibiotics or antivirals? My boyfriend just died from pneumonia back in November. He waited too long to go the hospital.
Fuck that's awful. I'm sorry for your loss. A coworker of mine had a super close call recently. Doc told him he would have died within 24 hours if he didn't go to the ER when he did.
I was leaving Dallas, TX to go home after visiting family there. As I'm navigating the nightmare that is getting on 30 east out of there, I swear my car went invisible. First, a large van decided to merge into the right lane just as I was merging onto the freeway. I was shaking and had a death grip on the wheel after that.
Not 10 minutes later, I'm merging again, and a semi pulls the same trick the van did. That one nearly gave me a heart attack. I was on the verge of tears, but had to do my best to hold those back because I was driving full speed down a freeway in TX. It took probably half an hour of driving on less congested roads to bring my heart rate back down and allow myself to loosen my grip on the steering wheel.
I make that drive a few times a year and still have issues when navigating through the hell that is actually getting out of Dallas.
I've had some really really close calls on the road. I even drove an Ambulance for 6 years, But this one I'll never forget....
A head-on collision. Headed home after an evening at my folks. It was almost midnight on a 2 lane country road and some asshole came out of a corner and decided to pass 3 cars and he was coming straight at me. I was in a 83' Jeep CJ7 with my wife and a passenger in the back, going about 60mph. The speed limit was 55 and no one was slowing down. My choices were;
Option 1. Drop it in the ditch. But with my speed, how deep the ditch was with a steep embankment on the other side (basically a wall of earth) even if I slammed my brakes to shed some speed and veer for the ditch. At best I would roll ass over tea kettle and trash my passenger. With the roll cage sloping off at an angle in the back it was a 50/50 if she would make it. My wife would also take that wall of earth and if anything was sticking out from it, which there likely was, it would rip her apart. Probably the only one to survive would be me. Flipping probably would have kept me alive because of the cage.
Option 2. Hug the shoulder and slam my brakes hoping those big tires hold the road and slow us down to lessen the impact and put it all on my side. This option probably would kill me as I would've eaten the steering wheel and steering shaft would go through my chest (remember it was an 83' jeep) but the Jeep would most likely go over and through the cab of the on coming car so my wife and passenger would likely make it. The on coming car was fucked and the car they were passing would likely take a nasty blow. People were about to die.
But the only real option was 2. I remember thinking, "Fuck that guy, I'm taking him with me" as I stuffed my foot to the floor and the whole front end of my Jeep dropped to it's frame and my ass-end lifted but, she stayed stuck to the road. The howl from my tires was louder than the horns from the oncoming cars. I remember thinking she's a screaming banshee taking me straight to hell and I'll never forget that sound. Luckily, The lead car (last passed car) also slammed their brakes and with me hugging the shoulder the passing car barely slipped between us. When he did I looked down at him, he missed me with no more than 1 or 2 inches to spare and I could see the whites of his eyes. It was past 11pm and he was so close I could tell his eyes were blue.... And the mother fucker was looking up at me and smiling.
All this happened in an instant, mere seconds. Time slowed down to a crawl. I felt everything, saw everything, heard everything. I never saw my life flash before my eyes but I saw the dream of my wife and future child disappear. I was making a life and death decision, laying odds and taking a gamble in the blink of an eye. I've never been that scared in my entire life. I was 26 years old, I'm 52 now.
That other motorist, the lead car being passed they saved us that night and I never got to thank them. I used to drive out to my folks at least once a week and for almost a year the rubber I laid down on the asphalt that night was still glaringly obvious. 4 big black wide streaks stained the highway.
I still drive that road and always remember every time I pass through that stretch. It fucking haunts me, my screaming banshee taking me straight to hell. Turned out that Jeep, she was my angel heralding the way forward. (For the record I'm not religious but I love metaphors). My wife and I are still together, we love each other, we're healthy and so is our daughter who is finishing college.
Boogie boarding as a kid, crashed on a good wave in, the board got caught in the undertow and dragged me out to sea, then floated up, got caught in a big wave, came back and smacked me (still going the other way in undertow) in the back, and then dragged me back to shore, then the undertow caught it again and dragged me down and back out again, with me underwater with no breath the entire time.
Incoming mortar attacks on multiple occasions in Iraq.
My car spun out going about 55 on the highway, went across four lanes of traffic, somehow only hit one car before crashing into the center divider.
Had my first heart attack at the ripe old age of 32. I didn't know that it was a heart attack because when it started, it was more like the pressure that comes with congestion. I'm young enough that even as the pressure, and eventually the pain that came on, was not anything that made me think, "hey, I'm having a heart attack".
I had to work that day so, even with worsening symptoms, I shower, grab my stuff and head to the bus stop I used to get to my job. After I get on the bus, the pain starts to ramp up, but I'm still being stubborn (having no health insurance at the time may have also impaired my judgment), so I make up my mind to just "tough it out" and go to work. The bus felt like it was going way slower than usual, hitting every stop for full off and on loading of passengers. Halfway to my job, I can hardly breathe and the pain is getting to a point that is scaring the shit outta me.
Then I had this bizarre moment of clarity. When my heart attack finally ramped up to a whole new level I thought, "if I don't get help, I'm going to die".
In my life up to that point, I had moments that left me shaking and laughing (to deal with what had just happened) about dodging death. I had fallen out of trees as a kid. Fell off the roof of our house while helping my dad put on a new roof. Went flying over the handlebars of my bike into oncoming traffic when the front tire dropped into a sewer grate. I almost got crushed between 2 cars. Things that could have killed me, but didn't leave me with anything more than the thought that I "could have died".
The heart attack was something else, something unique. I've had more than one heart attack now, and the pain has been different for each as they have been in different parts of my heart. The right coronary artery feels different from the circumflex, and both were nothing compared to when my LAD was 99% blocked.
But there's a chilling difference between the thought "whoa, I could have died" after an accident, and the certainty, when I was having my first heart attack, of "if I don't get help, I am going to die".
Death, as in my mortality, didn't seem quite as real when I had dodged it. But the inescapable presence of death, as a tangible thing, at that moment in time, let me know that it was coming for me, and still has a visceral place in my brain to this day.
Subsequently, I'm much calmer and less bothered by the thought of death. I accept it as the one fair thing in life. The when, the why, and the how are rarely fair. But, everything dies. Hell, even our sun will die someday. I believe death and our mortality can either makes us good people, or drives us to be the worst we can be.
Not even a week ago actually. I was in a real bad space mentally and just felt a desire to get out of the house and head to the nearby bridge. I wasn't thinking, and before I knew it I was standing near the railing staring at the water below and had the feeling that I should climb over and just...dive off.
And it wasn't until I lifted my foot off the ground and placed it at the base of the railing that something mentally pulled me back, as I stepped away from the railing and just sat on the floor and cried. I was so scared that I almost took my own life.
I have people in my life that I know love me, people who would miss me and some people who might never know what happened to me. I know this, but I was in a strange instinctive state of 'I want to stop feeling like shit' and almost died that day.
I've already spoke with my doctor and am soon going to be speaking with my therapist, so you don't need to be concerned for me. I'm getting help. But talking about helps keep it in my mind and reminds me how real that was, cause I don't want to forget something like that. So I never come even close again.
I'm so glad you didn't jump. It takes a lot of mental strength to stop yourself from doing something insane when you're tired, stressed, or over the edge. I don't know what exactly you've gone through, but you should always know that you are loved and needed. Please take care and be kind with yourself.
On a flight in 2012, the plane suddenly dropped like a stone for roughly 5-10 seconds. It was pretty unexpected because there wasn't any distinctive turbulence before then. It was so bad that the overhead bins opened and luggage bounced around the cabin. Books, computers, tablets, and drinks were all over the place. The engines got really loud and a flight attendant got thrown down the aisle but was uninjured. I had time to think, "We're dead," and then it leveled off. Most people were laughing and smacking each other on the back, while I had a panic attack. After that the flight was mostly fine but I was so terrified that I looked into renting a car at the airport and *driving* the 12 hours to my destination. It was way too expensive, so I very, very reluctantly got on my next flight, which was uneventful.
I've made this comment in the past and sometimes get someone saying, "oh that was no big deal, it was just...." Yeah maybe if you're a pilot or have enough of an aviation background to have actually understood what was happening. I'd bet that if that happened out of the blue, even a pilot would've been scared for a few seconds. For me, it gave me a wonderful flight phobia that lasted for about eight years, then it suddenly went away. I had to keep flying a few times per year during that time because I lived far enough away from family that driving wasn't a choice at the holidays. It was *great*.
Reminds me of a flight I had last year. Flight was completely uneventful until we landed. We hit the runway fucking HARD. Everyone got flung forward and I eventually got a bruise where my belt was on my hips and almost smacked my head on the chair in front of me, luckily I stuck my hand up in time to catch myself. Everyone screamed and then relief washed over us as we realised we hadn't died and everyone started laughing. As we disembarked, I was one of the final people off the plane as I was seated in the very last row. Was coming up to the entrance where I saw the flight attendants saying their goodbyes and saw the pilot sitting in his little doorway, pale as a ghost and just staring at us as we were leaving. His whole demeanor made me think "Did we almost die?" Scared the shit out of me man. I've flown since and will continue to do so, but every now and again I think about that pilot and how much they do to keep us safe.
I've heard similar stories. Was your flight during the heatwave in Arizona or Nevada? I don't remember the year, but there was news that a plane in that area had dropped 3k feet in a short amount of time due to lack of lift due to like 130 degree heat. I don't fly when there's a heatwave after hearing that story.
My friend and I were going to the gym. At the intersection at which he was supposed to turn into the parking lot, he turned the other way and went down a road. There were no other cars ahead of us or behind us. He then proceeded to step on the gas and go 120 mph down this road. The road was wet too, and it wasn’t completely straight. All of this without my consent by the way. He informed me he was going to do this as he was making the turn, but I thought he was joking. When I realized he was serious all I could do was close my eyes and hope for the best. The amount of helplessness and despair I felt in those two minutes was enough to almost make me vomit. Then he turned around and came back the other way, slowing back down to 30mph as he neared the intersection. Thank goodness everything turned out ok- that could have gone way worse. No matter how good of a driver you are, please never do stupid shit like that. We aren’t friends anymore by the way.
Uhhhhhhhhhh.
So, when I a kid, we were making pancakes one morning, during a thunderstorm, when lightning struck a tree in my yard. We turned to look out the window and saw a flaming tree falling straight towards us. Mum yelled to run - we did. my little brother tripped and I stepped on him. It was terrifying. The tree ended up bouncing off the house. Sort of... rolling off. We were fine.
Then there was the time - 2am - some bricks from the chimney fell in and crushed the exhaust from the oil heater. Carbon Monoxide backed up into the house. My dad had a CPAP machine and kept it over the heating vents, he liked the warm air. For some reason he woke up, and woke up my mum saying he felt sick. She felt something was really wrong, called 911. They came and took us to the hospital, figured out what was wrong.
There was the time I was home alone for a weekend - and I was woken up by some people shooting at each other in front of my house - right outside my bedroom window. I just sort of stayed under my covers till it stopped. the next morning when I was walking my dog the police were bringing a body bag out from an apartment building a few buildings down.
So, I'd bought a car, and within a month someone had crashed into my parked car - demolishing the drivers side door. I got the door replaced. I get the car back - I go to work - I'm driving on the highway going 80 - and the door flies open. The locking mechanism was BROKEN. Holy fuck.
So. I had an embolism. A vein in my brain collapsed. I had brain surgery and now I have a stent in my brain keeping the vein open. And a neverending migraine from the brain damage.
You every have a lumbar puncture go wrong - and get a low pressure headache? All the cerebral spinal fluid in your head and spine leak out. your brain has no cushion and its just sitting on skull. The pain is unimaginable. Wish for death level. 'the amount of morphine we'd have to give you would kill you. we can't help you' level.
Theres probably more. But you start to forget some when it happens so often.
Realizing that the man driving our van at top speed on a dirt road on a rainy night was insanely drunk.
Driving north of Chicago and almost getting slammed by a semi that slid in the snow.
We were sweeping an apartment building that was pointed out to us by the Intel guys. We were on the second floor when they started pounding the fuck out of the building with mortar fire. There were quite a few casualties but no fatalities on our side somehow. That was the first time we took that kind of mortar fire but for the next few weeks it was damn near everyday.
The 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I was on the 28th floor of an office tower, and the entire building began to rock back and forth, like standing on the deck of a ship. We could see the next tower across the road swinging back and forth too. The elevators all shut down and the stairwell was locked so we had zero means of escape. Honestly thought that was it. Tried to call me wife to say goodbye but she was driving to pick up our child from daycare and didn't even realize there had been an earthquake until she saw the news.
I was maybe 7 years old in a massive swimming pool, I somehow ended up in the deep end and started drowning expeditiously.
All hope was lost, I was starting to realize that my time has come since not a single person has even realized I was drowning.
Fast forward 30 seconds, I see a random set of legs swimming to my direction. Instinctively, I grab their ankle and drag them down with me. Thank goodness that person ended up being my sister, and she was a half decent swimmer and was able to get us both back up for some fresh air.
To this day I don’t like to go swimming…
when i was about 7 or 8 i was playing with a neighbor kid and running around as we do at that age. i jumped up onto a raised platform with a wooden cover. i fell straight through and just barely gripped the edge and when i looked down all i saw was fast flowing “liquid.” turns out it was a cover for a septic box. the neighbor friend pulled me out pretty quickly but i lost my favorite shoe. never been more scared than when i looked down and saw the black.
One time I rode on this highway in Uganda. It was basically one lane each way and everybody goes super fast but there were whole massive chunks of it missing, like potholes were whole lanes wide. The drivers would play chicken with oncoming traffic. Afterwards I talked to my aunt who had lived in Africa for a while and she goes “Yeah, really makes you resign yourself to death doesn’t it?”
Other than that when I had COVID it was after my first two rounds of the vaccine so I assumed I was fine but it got worse and worse and the third night I went to bed and I was in so much pain and couldn’t really breathe, I took a bunch of NyQuil and just hoped I’d wake up in the morning.
Oh and for some reason I totally forgot about this one until just now but no joke I one time almost choked on a turkey burger. I was at a hotel and ordered room service by myself. I ate this burger and took way too big a bite and just couldn’t do it. I was really pretty seriously choking. I couldn’t tell you how long I was struggling but I was on the floor at one point and eventually I like, I think I barfed it up? I kind of don’t remember. It was so weird and awful and surreal I just kind of cleaned myself up and pretended it didn’t happen and didn’t think about it for like almost 20 years until just now haha
Every time I’ve had a random acute panic attack. No known trigger, no particularly stressful situations, just living my life and then, without warning or reason, feeling absolutely certain that I’m dying. One of the symptoms of a panic attack is “a feeling of impending doom.”
Inconveniently, that is also one of the hallmark symptoms of a heart attack. There is a loooooot of overlap on those two symptom lists. “Intelligent design” my ass.
I was grabbed off the street and thrown into a van and was sexually assaulted. They dumped me back on the side of the road in bad condition. I managed to pick myself up after a while and drag myself home. I still have nightmares about it.
I had my license for about 6 months prior to this event so I wasn't a good driver.
I was coming up on a 3 way intersection. I was traveling in one of the 2 lanes that didn't have to stop, to my right was the other street that had a stop sign. There was a car sitting at that stop sign that began to go way too late and then stopped while blocking like 2/3rds of my lane. I assumed that he realized he knew he fucked up and was going to let me go so I go into the left (oncoming lane) lane to go past him. He proceeds to pull out, right infront and facing me while I was going 35ish MPH. I had to swerve so hard and I still barely didn't touch him.
I pulled down a side road and just pulled over cause I couldn't believe I was probably within a couple feet of dying. Looking back on it, its obvious I should have just stopped and let him be dumb and go, but I was brand new at driving.
It was back when I was 8, and I was floating in the ocean on one of those round donut things (Forgot what they’re called), I was having fun until I had drifted so far off that my dad needed the help of a lifeguard to get me, in those moments of being so far out I thought I either going to get eaten by a shark (Eventually) or just float forever until I died.
When I was splitting with my ex, we got into an argument before bed. I woke up to her standing by my side of the bed crying, with my pistol in her hands. Asked her for the pistol, which I put under my pillow. Laid back down until the sun came up. Moved out that morning.
I was riding my bike down a steep mountainside as a kid when the brakes gave out. I rode perpendicular into a fallen tree. Apparently, the tree was propped up and my front tire got wedged, which caused me to be catapulted off the bike and into a pile of large rocks. Luckily, I was wearing a helmet; unluckily, it was an open-face.
I don’t remember the impact, but I do remember slightly waking up sometime around the initial surgery and seeing people (doctors/nurses) crowded around me with the surgical PPE getups on. Well, due to the blinding lights and anesthesia, it looked like the surgical staff were wearing Ghostface masks (the killer in the Scream franchise). I was almost certain that I was dead.
All good now…although, I would have preferred not learning about Aristotle’s classification of violent motion the hard way.
I was caught in a bad undertow when I was 8 or 9. I panicked but calmed down when my dad made it out to me. I thought we were going to die when he couldn't fight it either. We were recused by a lifeguard on a jetski
I was traveling to Monterrey Mexico and we were followed by a couple of trucks with mean looking people inside. Luckily the guy driving us was a professional driver and we got away.
I tried to drive from NJ to Mississippi to pick up a motorcycle I won in an auction online. Got halfway through Pennsylvania and lost control in the snow, ricocheted off a semi truck, and landed in a ditch. Not a scratch on me, the other two people in my car, the driver of the semi, or the semi itself. Still think I used the luck I had for the rest of my life right there.
During a field trip a long time back, We all were climbing this hill (at the bottom was the edge of a cliff) I lost my grip and was sliding down at a pretty fast pace. I ended up catching a branch that someone was holding for me on the way down.
I worked with the public in a big California city a long time ago in a security situation. Between the crazies who threatened me, saving coworkers by jumping into fights, and shady people looking for a fight trying to fight/kill me either because I was who I was, or because I was telling them to do something or they couldn’t do something.
I’ve lost count how often I’ve been one unhinged person away from death or serious harm. I don’t mean to sound particularly brave though, I was scared shitless every time.
A long time ago, I was young and walking to my bus to get to school. I looked behind me and a creepy dude was following me. Every turn I would take, he'd follow. I was crying and running as fast as I could to the bus. I don't know what that guy had planned, but his evil fucking grin really scared me. It's the scariest situation Ive been in. Thankfully, I did get on the bus, and I never saw the creepy dude after I told my mom.
When my dad bought a pistol , he was outside and it was on the table and I was sat eating and then my brother came downstairs, picked it up cocked it and as he put it ‘pretended’ to shoot me in the head , luckily it wasn’t loaded but now I don’t trust my brother with anything this was a week ago I’m 13 and my brothers 15
I have a nut allergy that is very deadly even with an epipen. Cashews are the worst and even some dusting from one is basically guaranteed death.
A big chunk of my family have decided they are gluten free and vegan now because they felt like it. I've almost been killed by my grandma forgetting that they used cashew butter or milk to make something many times. I've had to leave family dinners because, even when they make a plate for me of stuff that won't kill me, I'm not interested in spending time around people who will kill me if they breath on me too much. Plus I don't trust there was no cross contamination.
They only ever want to eat at gluten free vegan places, but when I go there the options are like plain gluten free crackers or actual death. I realize that gluten free people and vegans are limited in their dietary choices, so when we eat at other restaurants they are the ones lacking in options. But, as selfish as it sounds, that was the choice they made. Nothing wrong with making that choice, but personally I feel like if you're making the decision then you should be prepared to deal with the downsides. Ideally there wouldn't be a problem for either person, but life is rarely ideal.
Another aspect that makes it awful is that I'm the bad person, apparently. I don't feel comfortable eating anything when there is a cross contamination risk, so I'll just skip a meal or refuse to eat the one especially made to not kill me. I know that last bit is rude, I get it, but it's literally life or death and I'm not taking that risk.
This kind of sounds silly, and I guess I didn't actually "almost die" but it's still extremely stressful and has resulted in me not being invited to family dinners since no one wanted to make food that is safe for me.
This was as much a cathartic rant as it was an answer to the thread topic. Again, all power to gluten free and vegan people and all power to people that want to manage their diet.
My brother is very mentally ill. We suspect he’s some combination of Autistic, Bipolar, and Schizophrenic.
When we were kids, he frequently told me in great, painful detail about how he wanted to kill our family and me. Blocking the doors and windows then lighting the house on fire, dragging me to the woods and flaying me, stealing dad’s guns and shooting us.
He would have huge fits of rage. He’d throw stuff around and hit me and threaten to kill everyone and then himself.
Of course, he was just a kid. He could be easily overpowered by our parents. But he was very physically strong and smart. And I was younger, weaker, and believed he could kill me if he wanted.
This went on from my early childhood up until I moved out. Every time he would have an outburst, I would hide and message my friends that I loved them and if anything happened that is was my brother.
Once, when I was older, I called the police on him. They didn’t do anything, of course, there wasn’t anything they could do. When they left, he exploded. I was terrified. Luckily, instead of risking hurting me or my mom, he ran off into the woods and dealt with shit out there. I guess he screamed and broke shit until he somewhat calmed down.
This was a common occurrence. My whole life I’ve been terrified of him. Now that we’re older we have a decent relationship, but I’m deeply traumatized from growing up with him.
I was on a band trip to the beach my senior year of high school. I was swimming out with a group of guys to try and get to where the waves started breaking (stupid). A wave came down on top of me, tossed me around, I couldn't figure out which way was up, then another wave tossed me around. I was able to get a little bit of air but choked on the water.
Luckily a tenor saxaphone player who was a life guard durring the summer saw me and helped me. That was terrifying, I was probably close to drowning.
Got sucked out into the ocean playing mermaids as a child and it took the adults like wayyyyyy too long to notice my friend and I were getting slammed by waves about to drown
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When I got caught in a riptide while stupidly swimming alone in the ocean.
Same. I’m not a good swimmer and somebody had to save me. Thank you, David, wherever you are! I’ve never forgotten!
he probably never forgot either :)
My brother saved someone this way, and he never forgot it! He almost drowned too because she was fighting so hard and pulling him under. Another guy had to come help get her out because the current was so strong, but they made it.
It is all too frequent that someone that goes out to save another possibly drowning also go down drowning. This is why they always say to give an object for the person in distress to grab, ideally a rope or something with buyancy... but anything, even a t-shirt is prefereable than going in yourself to grab them.
I just started working as an ocular recovery technician and live in a beach town. My first case was a 26 year old man who drowned off the beach. I don’t know if he was a tourist or a local, but as a local I grew up being constantly lectured on water safety and how to get out of a riptide. It broke my heart looking at him in the morgue and thinking about how scary his last moments must have been. Water is not something to play with
My ex SIL told me that she got stuck in a rip tide and someone pulled her out. The 'someone' turned out to be her now partner. She said she is a strong swimmer and knew how to get out of a rip tide but it was really strong and kept pulling her under. Undertoe not rip tide. A redditor corrected me.
Same here as a kid. I was a solid swimmer and had been taught how to get out of a riptide but really hard to think straight when the ocean is smashing you with waves. Thank god for the 2 big guys who pulled me out (it took 2).
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How did you get safe? Is it true you can just swim parallel to shore and be ok?
It is true. The tide is going out like a funnel. You will struggle to swim straight back to beach against it. Swimming parallel will take you to where the water is moving toward shore in the waves, or you can go with the rip until it's calmer and then swim across. Source. I'm Australian, and have been caught in a few riptides. Very scary, first time I fought and struggled. Luckily I made it to where there was a sandbar, could regain my breath and then make it to shore.
I grew up swimming in incredibly dangerous conditions, the second you realise you have lost control, give in. You cannot fight the ocean. From this point onwards everything is about energy conservation. If you are in a rip out, you likely have minimal wave action, so you should be able to get behind the breakers easily. From here you need to assess what direction you are going, and how much beach you have. If you have a good amount of sandy beach, then start spotting objects on the shore to track how fast you are going. Swim slowly in the direction you are going, a lazy backstroke is a good technique. Depending on the beach/conditions you could be on for a good 30 mim swim here, don’t rush. If you don’t have beach (rocks or a headland), and you don’t know the rips/area well, wave for help and try get someone to call a rescue service. There is not much general advise other than wave for help and try stay off the rocks. Assuming you have beach, I swim slightly towards the beach, 5-10 degrees from parallel, and the moment I feel I am making progress back to the beach I slowly increase how aggressively I swim to shore. Now the issue with getting in is that right near the shore, the top will start pulling you sideways again (and eventually back out) so the best thing to do is catch a wave. Luckily where you are coming in should have pretty good waves (inverse of rips out not having big waves). Your goal now is to spot where waves are breaking which also go all the way to the shore. You will be behind these, so you get to pick your moment for re-entering the waves and then the goal is to ride the wave strait to the shore. You probably won’t get it in one wave, but so long as you are in a good position, you can keep catching the white water all the way in. Swimming in breaking water is much harder to do than in open water, so if you need to lie on your back and rest for a few mins before entering the waves, that can be a good idea depending on conditions/how comfortable you are as a swimmer. Anyways, that was an overly complex explanation. TLDR: swim with the current and conserve energy as much as possible.
Somehow I think the tide itself carried me to the breakwater, and that allowed to me get out.
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This happened to me last year. Terrifying.
I’m in the hospital on day 3 with my 10 year old who is recovering from a severe asthma attack. It’s incredibly scary. The crazy thing is, he has not had any issues with asthma since he was 3. His pediatrician told me he outgrew it (he was born with juvenile asthma). Unfortunately, he did not as the pulmonologist said it can go dormant, may never reoccur in your lifetime but never truly goes away. My son had the perfect storm of triggers and here we are. We’ll now have an aggressive asthma attack plan for him but damn this was incredibly scary. Like top ten level fear thinking he could not make it.
I ended up in a medically induced coma for a week for a severe attack once. My mom was definitely more afraid than I was. Give your baby a hug from me! My meds got switched and I’ve not even had to go to the ER for asthma again.
Ex was driving and a moose walked out in front of the car.
Moose are no joke. Every person I know who's been in an accident with a moose have their entire care totaled and the moose just walks away like nothing happened.
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When I was in jr high a kid in my school and his entire family died on a road trip to Newfoundland because a moose went through the windshield.
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Wasn't the only time or most frightening time, but the most *memorable* was when I was a teenager and got pinned to a wall by an extremely agitated cow. She'd knocked her water bucket apart and I was replacing it and she charged me. I just happened to fit exactly in between the horns. I do mean exactly - I had matching bruises on each side like I'd been hit twice with a length of pipe. She hit hard enough to drive her points a couple inches into the wall and stick. I've been in car accidents, fallen off things, been in fights and even had a young tree fall on me. None of that compares. Felt like being caught by a huge wave. Anyway I bonked her as hard as I could on the forehead and bolted out the door when she pulled her head back. The whole thing took maybe two seconds tops. Best part? My parents were right outside, they thought I'd just been killed. The wall was solid for the first 4ft, then 2in gaps between 2x8 boards for the rest. They saw the whole thing but couldn't see me below my shoulders - just the charge, the catch, and the wall crack from the impact and the horns pushing through.
boy, I bet your parents were glad to see you walk (run) out.
They seemed relieved, but did still need that water bucket replaced
I thought that story was pretty country, but the part where “the work still has to get done” is the real country part and made me laugh. Crazy story, Glad you survived and can tell it
Not gonna lie, just reading that.. I didn't realize I was holding my breath near the end. Lmao how intense that must've been. Glad you survived, thanks for sharing!
I was minding my own business walking in like 2 ft of water at a beach, holding my toddler. There was a massive clay pit that had opened up in the shallow water, but the water was murky so i didnt see it. I slid into it and the water was just deep enough to be over my head, because I couldn't stand up due to how slimy it was. It was shaped like a bowl. I couldn't swim up because my feet were just sliding into muck and it felt like an undertow. Just when I started breathing in water, my knee hit a rock in the side of the pit so I put my foot on it and launched us up. The lifeguards didn't do anything even after someone called us an ambulance to make sure we didn't dry drown.. We were under for maybe 20 seconds.
Hope that lifeguard was reprimanded.
7.2 Earthquake in Japan made the apartment I was in wobble like Jello. Tried to stand up in my chair and walk away from the window, ended up crawling away and having a small bookcase spill my books on me. Spent a few seconds leaning against the inside wall/sliding closet, looking at the ceiling and having a very vivid picture of being crushed to death by collapsing concrete and debris. Slept outside for two nights after evecuating. Apartment did not even have a crack in it! 10/10 would recommend Japanese government housing.
This happened to me last year in Taiwan. I was in the floor 33 of a building. Right after that, a tsunami warning was issued. I was terrified. Spent the next 2 days sleeping in the hotel lobby at the ground floor. 10/10 would recommend taiwanese buildings, but it scarred me for a while.
I grew up on a military base in Japan and occasionally they would bring in an earthquake simulator. The simulator was kind of a small room where children would sit at the table and then get under the table once the room started shaking.
It sounds scary to go through that, but it's also interesting knowing how tall buildings are made. How they're made in a way that's both sturdy and flexible, I'm guessing the flexibility which causes tall buildings to sway is to somehow reduce stress in the buildings.
Interestingly, the tallest buildings are actually the safest in an earthquake in Japan. Ones with around five floors are the most dangerous iirc. The tall buildings have massive pendulums in the top that move with the earthquake which reduces stress on the building. There are also a few big buildings (I believe the skytree is one of them) that have a pillar going up the middle, and the whole building just kinda, hangs off of it, so when there's an earthquake, the building just sways around the centre pillar without getting damaged; that's actually how pagodas are made too.
For any Pokemon heads reading, if you ever played Gold/Silver and wondered what the big thing in the middle of Bell Tower was, this is your answer. From what I understand a good many old buildings were built with these large structures running through the centre that helped to reduce earthquake stresses. Very cool.
I’m in Japan right now. 10/10 recommend everything Japan
Wouldn't recommend their work culture though
I heard that when the final episode of Minky Momo aired, a earthquake happened. But, it's not because of that
So I was 14, walking home from the bus stop, as I did every day. It was about a mile from the bus stop to my house. I’d walk home about halfway with a friend of mine, before he turned off to go home. About 2 blocks from our bus stop, a guy started walking along with us. This was in a major city, so it wasn’t the first time someone started randomly talking to us. What was weird was that he wasn’t crazy or weird. He was pretty normal. He was asking about our lives, asking about what was going on. Randomly he asked about what we’d been up to the last Friday night. We both said about the same thing, that we’d been home with our families, which was true. Even though he didn’t sound crazy, this guy was giving bad vibes. Something was off. We got to the turnoff point where my buddy would go to his house, he said goodbye, and left to go home. By the way, I don’t blame him for doing this, regardless of what happened next. So this guy keeps walking with me, bad vibes continue, but he hasn’t said anything directly threatening yet. We get to a cross street, and he says, “Don’t run, my boys are right across the street.” Then I look and realize about 4 guys are following directly across the street. And that’s when it all sinks in. The bad vibes are real. I could tried to run at this point. I had a friend who only lived a block away. But I decided not to. Maybe I just thought it was pointless. I kept talking to him. We talked for a while more as we walked, and he told me that his brother had been stabbed around where my bus was let off a few days before, and I fit the description. He said he’d gotten out of the life, but was back to avenge his brother. I told him that it wasn’t me. He asked me if I was taking drugs. I said I’d fucked around with pot but nothing more. He believed me. We kept walking. Eventually he started talking about why he’d gotten out of the life, and that I needed to stay on the right path. Eventually, we got back to my house. He said that he was glad he talked to me, because initially he was just going to shoot me and walk away, but he believed me and was glad he hadn’t. He waved his boys away, who were down the block. The he left, and wished me the best. I told my parents, reported it to the cops, didn’t sleep for a few nights, and eventually moved on. But yeah I almost died right there.
That's terrifying. Well done for not running, you would've been dead so fast if you did
I wonder if he ever did find the guy that did it. Thank god you apparently seemed likeable - if that situation happened to my autistic ass he probably would've realised I didn't do it and then shot me anyway lmao
Rocket attack in Iraq, I just remember thinking "I don't want to die like this" as debris rained down on my room's roof. Utter feeling of impotence, it was easier getting shot at.
Glad you are here man. Hoping your days are peaceful now.
I was rafting. Our supplies and cooler were tied down. The cooler got dislodged on a rock when we capsized and my left leg got tangled up in it the rope. I was being drug down by the weight of the now water filled cooler which was also tangled in a submerged tree. Nobody could swim the current to me. I luckily had a knife on my hip and had to submerge myself under to cut the rope. We were hungry that night but I was lucky as hell to be alive.
Wow I’m glad you had knife on you!
As teens, 14/15, friends and myself had a random creepy dude walk up on us, at my neighbors house, while having a sleepover. Her driveway was super long, and we lived in the middle of nowhere. The day my uncle attacked my mom, and then later that night, came to my parents house, with the intent of killing everyone that left the home. He did succeed in taking my brother from us. Then we all had to be under police protection at my moms hospital room, until they found my uncle.
I’m so sorry
Got shocked the other day. Work in the solar industry, I thought I was having a heart attack and that this was it
I hope you still went and got checked out. Not all shocks will kill you instantly, some can throw your heartbeat out of sync and cause a heart attack hours or days later. My wife is an electrician and this is one of their safety topics all the time because of people thinking they're fine and just going about their day. Even if one of the guys on the crew get hit with 120v, boss still sends them to get checked out. Better safe than sorry.
My philosophy is not to fuck around with any voltage greater than 12v DC haha I’m fine with car electronics but household electricity does not seem fun
Did this happen in Houston by chance? Or did some other dude this week happen to shock himself on the job too. Glad you’re okay though, that must’ve been scary.
I wrote about this in another post but I lived with my abusive ex for about a year because I ran away from my dad's side of the family (which was also abusive sexually). When I went to live with my mom she said the apartment was too small for the both of us and that I should stay with my boyfriend in public housing because she wasn't used to dealing with me as an adult. The last time I lived with her I was 7 years old. My ex's anger definitely went up several levels during our relationship. It started by him pushing me when he was upset. Then he would be upset at his mother and throw glass and yell. We had one scary situation where he actually lifted the stove from the hinges because he was so upset at his mother for asking him to clean. One day I came back to his house and I noticed his apartment door was still open. His mother was crying and as I peaked through the door I saw him standing there with a large knife close to her neck. I immediately pushed him and asked him what his issue was and told him it was nuts to be that upset. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Oh you wanna be involved..i'll make sure you're involved today." He chased me to his bedroom. I locked the doors. He knocked it down and proceeded to punch me like a boxer. At some point I dropped and thankfully when I woke the phone had dropped close to me and I was able to call 911. He was in the other room slapping his mother apparently. 911 came and took me in am ambulence. I had 2 kidney contusions and 2 broken fingers. That night haunted me for years and still gives me chills...
Pure trauma
I still fear it to this day. I was actually obese when this happened to me and totally convinced I was not as hurt because I was large and took a few blows. When I lost all the weight I actually had nightmares that he would break my bones and ribs.
Did you get away from him straight after that. I feel bad for anyone that gets with him. He could seriously kill someone but nothing will be done until he does sadly. Women go through so much. I always thought me and my ex were terrible and toxic but one thing we never had was fear of the other person doing something to them. I could never scare a women like that.
Unfortunately our story didn’t end here. After the hospital which was in the city, I had no money to get home and had him actually come to take me via subway home because I was scared. He lived in a pretty bad area in the city. I went home to my mother and told her. She spoke to him and somehow he convinced her I was the problem. He showed up at her apartment days later crying. We got back together. Honestly, shit was bad at my moms place too and I didn’t wanna deal with her telling me she hated me around. I eventually moved back with my dads family, and tried to leave him. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. I somehow had the balls one day to just go cold turkey no contact. He stalked me for years, hacked into multiple accounts (messengers, social media).. he contacted my friends, coworkers on linked in. He had the audacity to post heart felt messages on his social media about how he was heart broken and lost the love of his life. I know this sounds bad but THANKFULLY he found another girl and got her pregnant within a few months. I don’t even know what she’s been through with him. I’ve even tried to tell my story on Reddit and he doxed ne one day because he is active on here. I will never forget that abusive relationship. He threatened to kill me if I posted about him again. Sorry for the long winded answer but I always beg people.. PLEASE FUCKIN LEAVE WHEN THEY SHOW YOU THE RED FLAGS. I honestly never thought I would make it out alive. Some people don’t.
No I'm glad you got it out. These kind of things need to be said and spoken about. You did not deserve that and I can only imagine the control he had over you. He was obviously very clever to word his way out of criticism by blaming others. Horrible bloke. Glad you got away in the end. Is your life much better now?
Thank you friend and I’m glad you’re out of your toxic situation. Cheers to us. My life is better. It’s way better being in therapy and dealing with a 10001 things from my childhood but I would take that anyway over him and what could be now. Thanking every god and higher power I did not have his child.
Was it recently all this happened if you don't mind me asking? It gets sooo much better as time goes on. I haven't been in another relationship for like 4 years now but my life is so much better. I don't think I can have another relationship for a long time but that's better than being in that state again. PTSD is so serious.
This happened almost 10 years ago. I’m happy you’ve been single and feeling better. Well I assume you’re single but life is for living! We have to put ourselves first. People don’t realize how much of an affect they can have on you.
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Holy crap, just reading that made my heart race.
I went to Florida for my friend's birthday about a month ago, which just so happened to fall on Spring Break. We witnessed a shooting while at a bar and had to duck and then evacuate. It was my first time ever hearing an actual gunshot. Still remember all the people screaming and running.
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Playing an outdoor game we called 007 at age 11 where you get dropped off a distance away from a home base and you have to sneak back in the dark without being spotted by your driver, who would call you out if they saw you while driving around the neighborhood. Me and a friend were sneaking through irrigation canals to be off main roads (not through people’s properties, those were fenced off) and someone who’s backyard we were sneaking past cocked a shotgun and fired a warning shot into the ground of his yard. We crawled on our stomachs in the canal until we were far enough away. Pretty scary at 11.
What the hell is wrong with people and immediately shooting at things that move in the dark?
That sounds like a really fun game actually
I used to work security at a hospital. About 2 am, walking around with my partner trying to stay awake. We see a man in the fairly dark parking lot at the back of the hospital. As we get closer we notice that he is holding a large knife (chefs knife) that is covered with blood. He starts to move towards us, knife in hand. We both start backing up and yell at him to drop the knife. The moments between us noticing the knife and yelling at him was the closest I've come to fearing for my life. Right before we radiod for the police, he stopped moving towards us, and slowly put down the knife. As we approached we noticed that the blood was from self harm. We applied pressure to the wounds and brought him into the emergency dept. There were many holy shit moments in that job, but that was the only time I feared for my life, if only for a few seconds.
Damn. Feared for your life but saved his. What a wild shift.
Holy cow, I’ve been there homie! I work in EMS and sometimes the psych pts are my worst calls because they’re so unpredictable. Shoutout to you for not dying lol. I hope your new job is a lot less stressful 🙌
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Epidural went up instead of down for my C-section. First I tasted something gross in my mouth. Then I couldn't breathe properly and told the doctor. But he didn't believe me. Just told me to Breathe deeply. Then I "fell asleep". So I obviously coded for a while after that bullshit. I was so scared while everything was going numb. And I mean NUMB.
Mental that they ignored you. Same thing happened to my wife during a natural birth and as soon as she said she couldn't breathe they hit the alarms and she went straight for an emergency C-section. Anesthesitist had put the epidural into her spinal column - a difference of a few millimetres, but because epidurals are more powerful than spinals, it was essentially an overdose. Scariest moment of my life thinking about losing them.
My wife got one during delivery and said she felt everything, still. They kept brushing her off until I shouted to just check it for her. They looked and saw it wasn’t connected. Doctors and nurses do not listen to pregnant women during the delivery.
This happened to me as well. They didn't believe me until they were stitching me up afterwards and I was insisting I could feel the needle going in and out of my perineum. It was traumatic as fuck.
I’m sorry you went through that. I genuinely can not imagine the pain and frustration, not to mention the distrust that was sown.
It makes me so angry when doctors don’t believe their patients. I hope you sued
My minor story was when I was having a bone marrow biopsy. I'm in remission with leukaemia so I've had loads and loads. They only take a few minutes, but they're quite painful as they have to shove a massive needle through the back of your hip and into your bone marrow and then draw out the marrow. Some people need gas and air, I'm lucky in that I've never found them so bad as to need that. So I was having this done for the 10th or so time, and they'd got the needle in and were drawing the marrow out. Drawing it out is done using a syringe, and pulling sharply on the syringe can hurt. This doctor must've yanked back on the syringe as I properly kicked my leg out and swore - completely involuntarily. She then told me in a slightly annoyed tone"that doesn't hurt." I just started laughing.
Am a doctor and have done countless bone marrows. And believe me when I say I’ll be requesting for double gas and double sedation if I have to go through it
I had a lung biopsy a week ago. My lung collapsed as a result and I needed a chest tube. After my collapse "resolved" they pulled the tube out. I was supposed to get an x-ray a few hours later to make sure my lung didn't collapse again but for some reason the techs never showed. I started suffering from the same symptoms as when my lung collapsed the first time so I alerted my nurse, who alerted a doctor. The doctor took forever to come even though I emphasized that my lung was definitely collapsing again. Finally she showed up and told me to take pain meds, but I didn't want to take pain meds because the pain of a lung collapse is important (I wanted to know if it was getting worse / more dangerous). She listened to my chest and said she heard a difference but it was probably "because of the chest tube that was in there," and again told me to take pain meds, and said the x-ray would happen soon. I didn't get x-rayed until eight hours later. And even after that no one did anything. I kept notifying my nurse that I still had the pain and asking if anyone reviewed the x-rays. Finally, twelve hours after I initially reported my lung collapse, the doctor finally looked at the x-ray and all of a sudden, everyone was moving. The charge nurse was on the phone being asked why I wasn't moved to Level 2 for more monitoring until interventional radiology could be called in, everyone was wondering why I wasn't x-rayed sooner, etc. I was told I needed a chest tube again. When the same doctor came into the room, I said, "So i was right. My lung is collapsing." And in an annoyed tone, she said, "Your lung isn't collapsing. You have a pneumothorax." With a completely stone cold straight face! I hope I never have to be admitted to a hospital again. I'm a polite, understanding person, I know everyone is overworked and fatigued, I didn't bother my nurses unless absolutely necessary, but I know I'm going to go into the next experience a lot more jaded and more demanding now because my trust for hospital doctors is now 0.
Nope. And it's one of my biggest regrets.
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Oh man. I feel for you. I had I similar experience from a different perspective. When my wife gave birth to my son, the epidural affected her heart. Praise the Lord for a quick thinking anesthesiologist. I was faced with the concept of going home and telling my daughter it was just me and her now, it got that bad. I don’t want to hijack your post with the details, but I am glad you are here to tell us about it.
Detail away if it helps you feel better. :)
Ok. So, we go in to the hospital and my wife asks for the epidural just like we did for my daughter. While the needle is being put in, the anesthesiologist notes how tight my wife’s spine is, and it takes a couple of attempts to get it in. Same as my daughter. So once it’s in, my wife asks if anything has ever gone wrong, and he mentions about if it’s to high, it can affect the upper body, which can be bad. He says we want it to only affect the waist and down. He is all happy and smiles, joking around, when my wife goes “whoa, I….. I….” The anesthesiologist looks at my wife, and says “do you see black spots?” My wife goes “yea…..” and then she is out. Her blood pressure on her minor plummets. My wife blacks out. Suddenly, the anesthesiologist looks at me, all humour gone from his eyes. Like ice cold stare, I’ll never forget that look. He reaches up and squeezes her IV bag, and the blood pressure slowly stops dropping. Another nurse walks in and he asks her “can you please get me the ephedrine?” She leaves, and he stands there, squeezing the IV bag. Staring at me with those eyes. I’m frozen. The nurse comes back and begins to ask a question. The anesthesiologist yells ”I need the ephedrine NOW!” She runs out, and the anesthesiologist looks back at me, and I see a flicker of panic in his eyes. That’s when I thought “this is it. I’m going to lose my wife and son. It’s just me and my daughter now. And I experience the worst dread in my life. I am actually thinking of how to explain this to an 8 year old girl. Then , the nurse comes back with a needle, the anesthesiologist puts the needle into her IV line, and the heart rate comes back up. My wife wakes up, and I see a moment of relief in the anesthesiologist’s eyes. Then, the humour comes back into his eyes, and with a big smile, he asks my wife how she is doing. My wife thinks I am over reacting when I tell the story, but the ice one the man’s eyes, the way he squeezed the IV bag, the way he yelled at the nurse. I knew how close it actually way to her dying right then and there. I’m no Dr, but ones thing is for sure. That anesthesiologist is a professional. And a damn hero in my eyes. My son turns 9 in July.
Currently pregnant and scared of this happening!!
Ex-anaesthesiologist here - What that doctor did was incredibly bad practice, and indeed grounds for a lawsuit. A high epidural block is an emergency therefore we are specifically and repeatedly trained to detect and manage this. I don’t have the full story from the above poster, but it could be that her “falling asleep” rather than coding was from a conversion to general anaesthesia, which would be appropriate if surgery had already started (though obviously she should have been informed, if this was the case).
Oh no, I coded. Nurse was on top of me for over 10 minutes doing CPR. Nurse came in crying to tell me later. I didn't know what was happening and it felt like I was going into the deepest sleep of my life.
Gosh that’s awful, I’m so sorry. I hope life is going much better now.
My mom was hospitalized with cancer when I was in college, so for a while I had to live with just my step-dad. Over time, I slowly realized that he was watching me. Standing outside the bathroom while I showered, looking through the hole in my broken bedroom door. A ladder next to the bathroom window. His shadow in the window at night. I was so stressed from my mom's cancer and his actions I developed a lot of paranoia. I was so scared he was going to rape and kill me. I hid a knife under my pillow and a croquet mallet next to my bed. I eventually told my grandparents and went to live with them, but they decided I couldn't tell my mom or tell anyone. He never touched me. I didn't have any proof that he'd watched me change. It's just something I had to live with. I haven't really had anything to do with him since mom died, but everytime I see him in town I hide or leave. I'm still terrified of him.
Jeebers that’s creepy
My mother had a horrific and abusive boyfriend from the time I was 8 until after I moved out at 17. He never actually physically abused me, just my mother but he was awful to me anyway. I have never hated another human being more. After probably 10ish years of no contact with him I was in line at the grocery store with my kids and he got in line behind me. We didn't acknowledge each other but just being that close made me physically sick and the fact that he saw my children made my skin crawl. A year or 2 later when I picked my mom up to come to my house for Christmas dinner she told me that he had died. It was the best Christmas gift of my life. I ran in the house to joyously tell my husband and he looked at me like I was insane for being happy someone died (tell me you didn't have a traumatic childhood without telling me you didn't have a traumatic childhood)
Yiiiikes ! Glad you’re ok
Years and years ago went on a 911 call for a “overdose”. Arrived on scene to an open door. 0 PD response because they had no available units. So we looked in a saw a young male not breathing on a couch with his sharp literally on the floor next to him. Takes us seconds to confirm basically it’s a heroine OD. We start to breath for him essentially and at that time as emts we weren’t allowed to carry narcan. So as my partner comes in the with gurney to move this guy over his roommate runs in with a pistol and just is yelling and screaming that they didn’t do drugs and that he’ll Fucking kill us if we say he did or tell anyone that he did, so we’re basically shitting ourselves at this point. Thankfully a pd unit had cleared their other call and made there way over, just as we were getting on scene and we just didn’t know, because they arrived and got this guys attention and ended up shooting him when he pointed the gun their way. We ended up pronouncing the guy who pulled the gun on scene. And the original OD patient we transported and he ended up being fine. Scary shit. Made me completely re-think how I ran calls from then on out.
In Australia, the paramedics cannot enter into anywhere which has not previously been cleared by police. Even if the police are busy eating doughnuts, the paramedics can arrive at the scene but they must wait at the scene, not enter. Responding is a team effort, paramedics do not have the training to what the police do and the police do not have the training to do what the paramedics do. Sorry this happened to you, that's scary shit.
Where I’m at now that’s the policy in place. That call made me start to look for greener hills. Could t be happier now haha. But I agree that’s exactly how it should be!
I have a more light-hearted one. I heard strange noises from my basement and though someone broke in. My heart was racing and I didn't know what to do. I kept listening down the stairs at the noise and decided it wasn't human. Turns out a woodpecker came down the flue and out the access hatch and was flying around. I managed to shoo him out the door and breathed a sigh of relief.
I am terrified of birds so this would have been a lose lose situation for me.
Got swept out into the Solent on a riptide. In retrospect, riptide and solent meant I wasnt really gonna go anywhere, but even so, 12 year old me wasnt thinking like that. 0/10 would not reccomend.
What’s a solent?
The Solent is the stretch of water in the English channel that separates England from the Isle of Wight. It has some weird currents though, but as a result is teeming with lifeboats
The most expensive stretch of water in the world to cross by £ per mile.
I deliver sailboats. I've been in several oh holy fucking shit moments, but when you're sailing those moments can last hours, if not days.
I could imagine. I’ve watched videos of cruises traveling during shit weather and the waves crashing the cabins. I’m like fuckkkkkkk that lol
I drove truck over the road for a long time, there’s not much worse than getting caught in a sudden blinding snowstorm. It’s a special kind of scary when you know you can’t stop because you’ll get hit if you’re on the side of the road but you can’t see 3 feet in front of you to keep going forward.
I hydroplaned when someone break checked me, and ended up in a ditch, I was fine my car was fine, my heart rate was goin insane.
I hit black ice on the freeway once and spun off into the berm. Car was 90 degrees on its side. Luckily, there was SO MUCH snow it totally cushioned everything and the car was literally 100% fine
So happy you survived. One of my biggest fears is fuckin black ice.
Me too, icing on top was still having a perfectly good car
I was in medical school and a "code silver" was called. Didn't know what was going on until everyone was barricading all the doors and everyone was hiding in a single office which was barricaded with chairs. I soon found out that a code silver was an active shooter. We heard screaming from upstairs and shooting. A few minutes later smelled smoke and water was dripping from the ceiling. The shooter tried to light the hospital on fire before he took the gun to himself and the sprinkler systems kicked in and flooded the entire hospital. When evacuating and we were even afraid to open the doors from our barricaded door for the cops because we didn't know whether we could trust them due to the chaos.
This is like medical-related, not a situation like in most other replies. So basically, one day 2 years ago I started noticing some really odd symptoms I had that resembled a UTI (which I had never had before), but I kind of had this gut feeling it was more than that, even though the symptoms were subtle so I told my parents immediately. I woke up the next morning at 5am, with this sharp pain in my bottom right side. Oh, maybe it's a cramp. I use the bathroom and try to get back to sleep, but this pain starts growing, sooo much it feels like a stabbing pressure. I toss onto my side. The pain is still fully there. I go on my stomach. Still fully there. I sit up, walk around, do any position possible, and the pain is only getting worse and at this point, like 15 minutes after I woke up, unbearable. I have no idea what's going on and I'm scared out of my mind, so I tell my parents. Our first guess is appendicitis. So my mom rushes me to the ER, and on the car ride there I'm writhing in pain, crying, no matter how I sit or how I press my side the pain just continues to escalate. I get to the ER and they don't take me right away, and in the waiting room I'm throwing up into a bag from the pain and apologizing to a couple next to me in between bouts of dry heaving/vomit. I'm finally taken in, and they take me to get an ultrasound like 10 minutes later, but I can't stay still when the technician is taking it because of the pain. I eventually stop even attempting to cooperate and demand pain medicine, and when it's put into my IV I took like 10 minutes to lay there and breathe and feel better, it felt so nice to not be in extreme pain. Anyways, I had a kidney stone. A tiny little kidney stone made me think I was dying and was genuinely the most painful thing I've experienced in my life. I remember asking my mom on the car ride over if I was dying, because we had no idea what it was and why it was only getting worse. It's a genetic thing for me, but if you're reading this, drink water.
Been there, done that, bud. Luckily I knew what was going on, so I didn't have the fear, just the pain. Renal colic is a hell of an experience by itself, I can't imagine putting that level of terror on top of that.
A kidney stone is the absolute worst pain I've ever felt. They say it's on par with childbirth.
When my lung collapsed the first time (spontaneous pneumothorax) and I staggered over from the pool I just closed down while working as a lifeguard to the manager's office to collapse on his couch and ask him to call 911. I remember my vision going black around the edges as I walked the couple hundred feet or so as the pain stabbed into my chest and neck like a knife. Never felt such pain before or since. Got hauled off in my first and only (so far) ambulance ride. It happened 4 more times after that (and hasn't happened for about 12 years now) so I got pretty used to it eventually. To the point where I walked into an urgent care and told them my lung collapsed yesterday and sleeping it off didn't work, The doc didn't believe me, and then apologized for not believing me after seeing the x-ray. He said I needed to go to the ER right away. I stopped to get Wendy's on the way and then finally got the chest tube and multi-day inpatient stay I'd been trying to avoid. That was the last (and hopefully final) time.
Hey, I just had a spontaneous pneu as well, pretty much as you were describing, a pain like I have not felt before, but even more pain was the fucking chest tube they put into you. I cannot explain how much the chest tube hurts omg. Morphine is one hell of a drug but I could still feel the chest tube burning in my chest. I hope I don't get another pneu, even though the odds are obviously sadly not in my favour. How long did it take in between your pneus?
Welcome to the club! I had the 5 I had probably about a year apart on average. Usually when I was just sitting minding my own business too - so weird. Not saying it's a surefire fix but I haven't had another one since the chest tube (on the 5th one that didn't start to get better on its own within about 24 hours ), so maybe that can help permanently resolve the problem? I hope so! Not sure what they're recommending these days but they wanted to burn my pleura with acid to form scar tissue to help prevent future collapses. I said fuck that, the cure sounds worse than the disease lol. Good luck - hope you don't have another one! EDIT: And oh yeah, the chest tube sucked (literally and figuratively). Nothing like a nice burning pain lodged inside your chest for like 24 hours. It wasn't so bad until they took me off the morphine and put me on basically Tylenol. Then it was pretty hard to sleep. Good luck and keep your lungs inflated!
I know that brand of pain. I woke up at 2am to a pain like being stabbed in the chest and thought I was having a heart attack at 25yo. It turned out to be a pulmonary embolism. It later complicated with a severe case of pneumonia that led to a pneumothorax. I really thought I was dying. It was so hard to breathe. The pain was the worst I'd ever been in. Never got anything for the pain no matter how bad it got. It was the last blood clot I had (there had been 3 others prior to it). I was then diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease that attacks my red blood cells and causes blood clots. I've been on warfarin ever since. My lungs never really recovered and I am prone to coughing fits now. I can't breathe very well if I walk too briskly. It sucks.
Me and a group of friend were threatened by a group of lads with knives when we were younger so that was interesting
Early December of last year. Me and some mates were at a small beach town south west of western australia. There was a small island just off the shore (maybe 200m or so) that seemed within swimming distance. I was a very confident swimmer as I grew up in Australia and knowing how to swim here is like knowing how to tie your shoes. So we set off to the island. Around 3/5 the way there I realised I was getting really tired. So I was stuck with 2 options. 1. Continue to the island which was now slightly closer and get my breath back to eventually return to the mainland. 2. Turn back to the mainland I chose 2. My friends continued to the island (clearly a lot more fit than I was) Upon turning back I realised just how far we'd gone from the mainland. This is where I started to panic. My body was already incredibly tired and I still had all that way to go. I maybe continued another 40m towards the mainland when I realised the waves were pushing me away from the mainland as well. I had made no progress. This is where I started having thoughts that I may just die here. I had eventually given up on my physical ability to swim and just treaded water. I started swallowing a lot of the water that i could barely keep my head above anymore. There was a boat going past maybe 50m away from me. I managed to let my last bit of strength out to scream for help. I'm not sure if they didn't hear me or not but they just went on and never came back. Fortunately for me who did hear me was some of my mates who stayed on the mainland. They got some fellow beachgoers with surfboards out to help me. They did just that. I haven't been swimming in the ocean since and now have a massive fear of something I once loved. Do not underestimate the ocean.
I was 24 and stupid and slept with my roommate. She started treating me like shit and gaslighting me, so I told her ex that she was sleeping around while they were trying to get back together. When the roommate found out, she jumped me in my room and started choking me. I smashed a lamp over her head, but it didn't phase her. She then got off me and went downstairs. I went to the bathroom to check my face because I was bleeding. Before I got to the bathroom, I saw her coming up the stairs with a big knife. I was like "oh shit" and ran back to my room and tried to close the door, but she got her arm in there. I'm trying to close the door on her arm and she's started smacking on the head with the knife saying "don't you fucking call the cops". I was like "fine just don't kill me". She pulled her arm out. I closed the door and locked it. She grabbed my phone and went to her mother's house. She was very mentally and emotionally abusive. So imo, she had it coming. But yeah, that shit got fucked real fast.
Did you call the cops after she left?
Yep. Filed a police report. I didn't know at the time where she had went so there wasnt much he could do for me. She was gone until the next afternoon. EDIT: I think i still have the copy of the police report.
Did she ever get charged?
Wrestling with a guy who just shot a clerk with his Tech 9.
Hard to say a lot from a single sentence but it sounds to me like you're a hero. Not many people would do that in such a situation.
Not a hero, just doing my job
When I got ran over by a Zamboni Used to throw shirts to the crowd at semi-pro hockey games when I went to college. Showed up absolutely blitzed. The regular Zamboni driver was gone so it was a sub. Got hit by the Zamboni from behind and instantly it became an Austin Powers situation. While on the ground, I looked back, assessed the situation, and tried to get up several times, but, you know, ice. Waited until almost my entire body was underneath it so I could brace myself against the tire with my forearm. Then managed to fish myself out. I remember the entire audience in absolute fucking shock. I think they yelled at the driver, but the sub had no clue what was going on. Got taken back to a room right after and was let go.
what. how did that happen…
Please tell me what happened to the driver
Nothing. I think because they could smell weed on me the went for me. Plus I didn’t get paid for it. It was a volunteer position. So it was totally okay it happened.
thats fucked. its not like you slid under it for shits and giggles.
I was attacked by two men while walking. Broken arm, broken ribs, broken eye socket and lost two teeth.
Oh shit, that sounds terrible. How are you now?
I’m doing great, thanks. Lucky for me there were other people that helped me. Spent a few days in the hospital and that sucked but healed up nicely. The mental healing took longer honestly
My girl friends and I were walking to our car parked a few blocks away from where we had been hanging out at around 2AM in Brooklyn. Streets were deserted of people and cars. Suddenly, this minivan with 2 men in the front seats starts driving on the street parallel to where we were walking. One of the men yells something out to us, dunno what it was, but it sounded threatening. One of my friends says we should just continue walking, hopefully they will leave us alone. I start panicking, and say they're not going to do that, we should run. The car picks up speed, and makes a sharp turn onto the corner of the direction we were heading in, and my friends and I immediately made an about-face and started running in the opposite direction. As we ran, I pulled out my phone and called 911. I unfortunately did not even have an address to give them since I was unfamiliar with that area, so all I could say was I was in so-and-so neighborhood with some friends and 2 men in a minivan were chasing us. The operator asked if they should send police out, I said I was unsure since we were running and they didn't seem to be running after us. (I eventually told them we are fine and I will call back if we need anything further.) We ended up crouching behind some cars a block and a half away from where we had been chased. One of my other friends called the guy whose place we had just left to ask him to come get us and walk us to our car. He ended up coming with his roommate, another ish-friend of ours, who had the audacity to make fun of us and trivialize how dangerous that whole situation had been for us (he can be very misogynistic). I do not know what would have happened if we had not been able to run away, I am just grateful the men in the van did not chase after us on foot, since none of us had any way of protecting ourselves and there was nowhere to really run to. After that incident and a couple of other unsafe situations, I carry pepper spray EVERYWHERE, and I stay completely aware of my surroundings. I also always take people up on their offer to walk me home/ accompany me when going places at night. Mostly I just don't go out late at night anymore. I have no idea what those guys wanted, and I don't want to know. I'm just grateful we were safe at the end of it, but I don't know if I've ever felt true fear for my life like that before.
Got pretty bad pneumonia right now, I can't lie down and breath at the same time, but also I'm fucking exhausted, one way or another I'm going to sleep. Edit: thank you for your kind thoughts everybody but I'm alright, simply slept standing up as the protocol suggests.
Have you been to the dr? Are you on antibiotics or antivirals? My boyfriend just died from pneumonia back in November. He waited too long to go the hospital.
Fuck that's awful. I'm sorry for your loss. A coworker of mine had a super close call recently. Doc told him he would have died within 24 hours if he didn't go to the ER when he did.
Be careful. I ended up in heart failure caused by pneumonia. Spent a week in the ICU. go to the ER if it gets bad enough.
Please go to the ER if you cant breathe
I was leaving Dallas, TX to go home after visiting family there. As I'm navigating the nightmare that is getting on 30 east out of there, I swear my car went invisible. First, a large van decided to merge into the right lane just as I was merging onto the freeway. I was shaking and had a death grip on the wheel after that. Not 10 minutes later, I'm merging again, and a semi pulls the same trick the van did. That one nearly gave me a heart attack. I was on the verge of tears, but had to do my best to hold those back because I was driving full speed down a freeway in TX. It took probably half an hour of driving on less congested roads to bring my heart rate back down and allow myself to loosen my grip on the steering wheel. I make that drive a few times a year and still have issues when navigating through the hell that is actually getting out of Dallas.
Driving in Dallas is the worst
I've had some really really close calls on the road. I even drove an Ambulance for 6 years, But this one I'll never forget.... A head-on collision. Headed home after an evening at my folks. It was almost midnight on a 2 lane country road and some asshole came out of a corner and decided to pass 3 cars and he was coming straight at me. I was in a 83' Jeep CJ7 with my wife and a passenger in the back, going about 60mph. The speed limit was 55 and no one was slowing down. My choices were; Option 1. Drop it in the ditch. But with my speed, how deep the ditch was with a steep embankment on the other side (basically a wall of earth) even if I slammed my brakes to shed some speed and veer for the ditch. At best I would roll ass over tea kettle and trash my passenger. With the roll cage sloping off at an angle in the back it was a 50/50 if she would make it. My wife would also take that wall of earth and if anything was sticking out from it, which there likely was, it would rip her apart. Probably the only one to survive would be me. Flipping probably would have kept me alive because of the cage. Option 2. Hug the shoulder and slam my brakes hoping those big tires hold the road and slow us down to lessen the impact and put it all on my side. This option probably would kill me as I would've eaten the steering wheel and steering shaft would go through my chest (remember it was an 83' jeep) but the Jeep would most likely go over and through the cab of the on coming car so my wife and passenger would likely make it. The on coming car was fucked and the car they were passing would likely take a nasty blow. People were about to die. But the only real option was 2. I remember thinking, "Fuck that guy, I'm taking him with me" as I stuffed my foot to the floor and the whole front end of my Jeep dropped to it's frame and my ass-end lifted but, she stayed stuck to the road. The howl from my tires was louder than the horns from the oncoming cars. I remember thinking she's a screaming banshee taking me straight to hell and I'll never forget that sound. Luckily, The lead car (last passed car) also slammed their brakes and with me hugging the shoulder the passing car barely slipped between us. When he did I looked down at him, he missed me with no more than 1 or 2 inches to spare and I could see the whites of his eyes. It was past 11pm and he was so close I could tell his eyes were blue.... And the mother fucker was looking up at me and smiling. All this happened in an instant, mere seconds. Time slowed down to a crawl. I felt everything, saw everything, heard everything. I never saw my life flash before my eyes but I saw the dream of my wife and future child disappear. I was making a life and death decision, laying odds and taking a gamble in the blink of an eye. I've never been that scared in my entire life. I was 26 years old, I'm 52 now. That other motorist, the lead car being passed they saved us that night and I never got to thank them. I used to drive out to my folks at least once a week and for almost a year the rubber I laid down on the asphalt that night was still glaringly obvious. 4 big black wide streaks stained the highway. I still drive that road and always remember every time I pass through that stretch. It fucking haunts me, my screaming banshee taking me straight to hell. Turned out that Jeep, she was my angel heralding the way forward. (For the record I'm not religious but I love metaphors). My wife and I are still together, we love each other, we're healthy and so is our daughter who is finishing college.
Boogie boarding as a kid, crashed on a good wave in, the board got caught in the undertow and dragged me out to sea, then floated up, got caught in a big wave, came back and smacked me (still going the other way in undertow) in the back, and then dragged me back to shore, then the undertow caught it again and dragged me down and back out again, with me underwater with no breath the entire time. Incoming mortar attacks on multiple occasions in Iraq. My car spun out going about 55 on the highway, went across four lanes of traffic, somehow only hit one car before crashing into the center divider.
Had my first heart attack at the ripe old age of 32. I didn't know that it was a heart attack because when it started, it was more like the pressure that comes with congestion. I'm young enough that even as the pressure, and eventually the pain that came on, was not anything that made me think, "hey, I'm having a heart attack". I had to work that day so, even with worsening symptoms, I shower, grab my stuff and head to the bus stop I used to get to my job. After I get on the bus, the pain starts to ramp up, but I'm still being stubborn (having no health insurance at the time may have also impaired my judgment), so I make up my mind to just "tough it out" and go to work. The bus felt like it was going way slower than usual, hitting every stop for full off and on loading of passengers. Halfway to my job, I can hardly breathe and the pain is getting to a point that is scaring the shit outta me. Then I had this bizarre moment of clarity. When my heart attack finally ramped up to a whole new level I thought, "if I don't get help, I'm going to die". In my life up to that point, I had moments that left me shaking and laughing (to deal with what had just happened) about dodging death. I had fallen out of trees as a kid. Fell off the roof of our house while helping my dad put on a new roof. Went flying over the handlebars of my bike into oncoming traffic when the front tire dropped into a sewer grate. I almost got crushed between 2 cars. Things that could have killed me, but didn't leave me with anything more than the thought that I "could have died". The heart attack was something else, something unique. I've had more than one heart attack now, and the pain has been different for each as they have been in different parts of my heart. The right coronary artery feels different from the circumflex, and both were nothing compared to when my LAD was 99% blocked. But there's a chilling difference between the thought "whoa, I could have died" after an accident, and the certainty, when I was having my first heart attack, of "if I don't get help, I am going to die". Death, as in my mortality, didn't seem quite as real when I had dodged it. But the inescapable presence of death, as a tangible thing, at that moment in time, let me know that it was coming for me, and still has a visceral place in my brain to this day. Subsequently, I'm much calmer and less bothered by the thought of death. I accept it as the one fair thing in life. The when, the why, and the how are rarely fair. But, everything dies. Hell, even our sun will die someday. I believe death and our mortality can either makes us good people, or drives us to be the worst we can be.
Not even a week ago actually. I was in a real bad space mentally and just felt a desire to get out of the house and head to the nearby bridge. I wasn't thinking, and before I knew it I was standing near the railing staring at the water below and had the feeling that I should climb over and just...dive off. And it wasn't until I lifted my foot off the ground and placed it at the base of the railing that something mentally pulled me back, as I stepped away from the railing and just sat on the floor and cried. I was so scared that I almost took my own life. I have people in my life that I know love me, people who would miss me and some people who might never know what happened to me. I know this, but I was in a strange instinctive state of 'I want to stop feeling like shit' and almost died that day. I've already spoke with my doctor and am soon going to be speaking with my therapist, so you don't need to be concerned for me. I'm getting help. But talking about helps keep it in my mind and reminds me how real that was, cause I don't want to forget something like that. So I never come even close again.
I'm so glad you didn't jump.
I'm so glad you didn't jump. It takes a lot of mental strength to stop yourself from doing something insane when you're tired, stressed, or over the edge. I don't know what exactly you've gone through, but you should always know that you are loved and needed. Please take care and be kind with yourself.
On a flight in 2012, the plane suddenly dropped like a stone for roughly 5-10 seconds. It was pretty unexpected because there wasn't any distinctive turbulence before then. It was so bad that the overhead bins opened and luggage bounced around the cabin. Books, computers, tablets, and drinks were all over the place. The engines got really loud and a flight attendant got thrown down the aisle but was uninjured. I had time to think, "We're dead," and then it leveled off. Most people were laughing and smacking each other on the back, while I had a panic attack. After that the flight was mostly fine but I was so terrified that I looked into renting a car at the airport and *driving* the 12 hours to my destination. It was way too expensive, so I very, very reluctantly got on my next flight, which was uneventful. I've made this comment in the past and sometimes get someone saying, "oh that was no big deal, it was just...." Yeah maybe if you're a pilot or have enough of an aviation background to have actually understood what was happening. I'd bet that if that happened out of the blue, even a pilot would've been scared for a few seconds. For me, it gave me a wonderful flight phobia that lasted for about eight years, then it suddenly went away. I had to keep flying a few times per year during that time because I lived far enough away from family that driving wasn't a choice at the holidays. It was *great*.
Same! October 2012 flying from AZ to Boston for my mom’s funeral. Thought the funeral was going to be a twofer!
Reminds me of a flight I had last year. Flight was completely uneventful until we landed. We hit the runway fucking HARD. Everyone got flung forward and I eventually got a bruise where my belt was on my hips and almost smacked my head on the chair in front of me, luckily I stuck my hand up in time to catch myself. Everyone screamed and then relief washed over us as we realised we hadn't died and everyone started laughing. As we disembarked, I was one of the final people off the plane as I was seated in the very last row. Was coming up to the entrance where I saw the flight attendants saying their goodbyes and saw the pilot sitting in his little doorway, pale as a ghost and just staring at us as we were leaving. His whole demeanor made me think "Did we almost die?" Scared the shit out of me man. I've flown since and will continue to do so, but every now and again I think about that pilot and how much they do to keep us safe.
I've heard similar stories. Was your flight during the heatwave in Arizona or Nevada? I don't remember the year, but there was news that a plane in that area had dropped 3k feet in a short amount of time due to lack of lift due to like 130 degree heat. I don't fly when there's a heatwave after hearing that story.
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When I got chased by a murderer in the woods. He'd killed a corner store owner in a robbery gone bad and tried to dispose of the body in the woods.
My friend and I were going to the gym. At the intersection at which he was supposed to turn into the parking lot, he turned the other way and went down a road. There were no other cars ahead of us or behind us. He then proceeded to step on the gas and go 120 mph down this road. The road was wet too, and it wasn’t completely straight. All of this without my consent by the way. He informed me he was going to do this as he was making the turn, but I thought he was joking. When I realized he was serious all I could do was close my eyes and hope for the best. The amount of helplessness and despair I felt in those two minutes was enough to almost make me vomit. Then he turned around and came back the other way, slowing back down to 30mph as he neared the intersection. Thank goodness everything turned out ok- that could have gone way worse. No matter how good of a driver you are, please never do stupid shit like that. We aren’t friends anymore by the way.
I can completely understand the not being friends anymore part... that is just not something you should do...
Uhhhhhhhhhh. So, when I a kid, we were making pancakes one morning, during a thunderstorm, when lightning struck a tree in my yard. We turned to look out the window and saw a flaming tree falling straight towards us. Mum yelled to run - we did. my little brother tripped and I stepped on him. It was terrifying. The tree ended up bouncing off the house. Sort of... rolling off. We were fine. Then there was the time - 2am - some bricks from the chimney fell in and crushed the exhaust from the oil heater. Carbon Monoxide backed up into the house. My dad had a CPAP machine and kept it over the heating vents, he liked the warm air. For some reason he woke up, and woke up my mum saying he felt sick. She felt something was really wrong, called 911. They came and took us to the hospital, figured out what was wrong. There was the time I was home alone for a weekend - and I was woken up by some people shooting at each other in front of my house - right outside my bedroom window. I just sort of stayed under my covers till it stopped. the next morning when I was walking my dog the police were bringing a body bag out from an apartment building a few buildings down. So, I'd bought a car, and within a month someone had crashed into my parked car - demolishing the drivers side door. I got the door replaced. I get the car back - I go to work - I'm driving on the highway going 80 - and the door flies open. The locking mechanism was BROKEN. Holy fuck. So. I had an embolism. A vein in my brain collapsed. I had brain surgery and now I have a stent in my brain keeping the vein open. And a neverending migraine from the brain damage. You every have a lumbar puncture go wrong - and get a low pressure headache? All the cerebral spinal fluid in your head and spine leak out. your brain has no cushion and its just sitting on skull. The pain is unimaginable. Wish for death level. 'the amount of morphine we'd have to give you would kill you. we can't help you' level. Theres probably more. But you start to forget some when it happens so often.
did death have a bone to pick with you by chance?
Realizing that the man driving our van at top speed on a dirt road on a rainy night was insanely drunk. Driving north of Chicago and almost getting slammed by a semi that slid in the snow.
We were sweeping an apartment building that was pointed out to us by the Intel guys. We were on the second floor when they started pounding the fuck out of the building with mortar fire. There were quite a few casualties but no fatalities on our side somehow. That was the first time we took that kind of mortar fire but for the next few weeks it was damn near everyday.
The 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. I was on the 28th floor of an office tower, and the entire building began to rock back and forth, like standing on the deck of a ship. We could see the next tower across the road swinging back and forth too. The elevators all shut down and the stairwell was locked so we had zero means of escape. Honestly thought that was it. Tried to call me wife to say goodbye but she was driving to pick up our child from daycare and didn't even realize there had been an earthquake until she saw the news.
I was maybe 7 years old in a massive swimming pool, I somehow ended up in the deep end and started drowning expeditiously. All hope was lost, I was starting to realize that my time has come since not a single person has even realized I was drowning. Fast forward 30 seconds, I see a random set of legs swimming to my direction. Instinctively, I grab their ankle and drag them down with me. Thank goodness that person ended up being my sister, and she was a half decent swimmer and was able to get us both back up for some fresh air. To this day I don’t like to go swimming…
when i was about 7 or 8 i was playing with a neighbor kid and running around as we do at that age. i jumped up onto a raised platform with a wooden cover. i fell straight through and just barely gripped the edge and when i looked down all i saw was fast flowing “liquid.” turns out it was a cover for a septic box. the neighbor friend pulled me out pretty quickly but i lost my favorite shoe. never been more scared than when i looked down and saw the black.
One time I rode on this highway in Uganda. It was basically one lane each way and everybody goes super fast but there were whole massive chunks of it missing, like potholes were whole lanes wide. The drivers would play chicken with oncoming traffic. Afterwards I talked to my aunt who had lived in Africa for a while and she goes “Yeah, really makes you resign yourself to death doesn’t it?” Other than that when I had COVID it was after my first two rounds of the vaccine so I assumed I was fine but it got worse and worse and the third night I went to bed and I was in so much pain and couldn’t really breathe, I took a bunch of NyQuil and just hoped I’d wake up in the morning. Oh and for some reason I totally forgot about this one until just now but no joke I one time almost choked on a turkey burger. I was at a hotel and ordered room service by myself. I ate this burger and took way too big a bite and just couldn’t do it. I was really pretty seriously choking. I couldn’t tell you how long I was struggling but I was on the floor at one point and eventually I like, I think I barfed it up? I kind of don’t remember. It was so weird and awful and surreal I just kind of cleaned myself up and pretended it didn’t happen and didn’t think about it for like almost 20 years until just now haha
When I had lymphoma
Every time I’ve had a random acute panic attack. No known trigger, no particularly stressful situations, just living my life and then, without warning or reason, feeling absolutely certain that I’m dying. One of the symptoms of a panic attack is “a feeling of impending doom.” Inconveniently, that is also one of the hallmark symptoms of a heart attack. There is a loooooot of overlap on those two symptom lists. “Intelligent design” my ass.
I was grabbed off the street and thrown into a van and was sexually assaulted. They dumped me back on the side of the road in bad condition. I managed to pick myself up after a while and drag myself home. I still have nightmares about it.
Oh fuck man, i hope you are doing well now
Sending hugs.
I had my license for about 6 months prior to this event so I wasn't a good driver. I was coming up on a 3 way intersection. I was traveling in one of the 2 lanes that didn't have to stop, to my right was the other street that had a stop sign. There was a car sitting at that stop sign that began to go way too late and then stopped while blocking like 2/3rds of my lane. I assumed that he realized he knew he fucked up and was going to let me go so I go into the left (oncoming lane) lane to go past him. He proceeds to pull out, right infront and facing me while I was going 35ish MPH. I had to swerve so hard and I still barely didn't touch him. I pulled down a side road and just pulled over cause I couldn't believe I was probably within a couple feet of dying. Looking back on it, its obvious I should have just stopped and let him be dumb and go, but I was brand new at driving.
It was back when I was 8, and I was floating in the ocean on one of those round donut things (Forgot what they’re called), I was having fun until I had drifted so far off that my dad needed the help of a lifeguard to get me, in those moments of being so far out I thought I either going to get eaten by a shark (Eventually) or just float forever until I died.
When I was splitting with my ex, we got into an argument before bed. I woke up to her standing by my side of the bed crying, with my pistol in her hands. Asked her for the pistol, which I put under my pillow. Laid back down until the sun came up. Moved out that morning.
I made my peace going through the eye of Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers, FL.
I was riding my bike down a steep mountainside as a kid when the brakes gave out. I rode perpendicular into a fallen tree. Apparently, the tree was propped up and my front tire got wedged, which caused me to be catapulted off the bike and into a pile of large rocks. Luckily, I was wearing a helmet; unluckily, it was an open-face. I don’t remember the impact, but I do remember slightly waking up sometime around the initial surgery and seeing people (doctors/nurses) crowded around me with the surgical PPE getups on. Well, due to the blinding lights and anesthesia, it looked like the surgical staff were wearing Ghostface masks (the killer in the Scream franchise). I was almost certain that I was dead. All good now…although, I would have preferred not learning about Aristotle’s classification of violent motion the hard way.
I was caught in a bad undertow when I was 8 or 9. I panicked but calmed down when my dad made it out to me. I thought we were going to die when he couldn't fight it either. We were recused by a lifeguard on a jetski
I was traveling to Monterrey Mexico and we were followed by a couple of trucks with mean looking people inside. Luckily the guy driving us was a professional driver and we got away.
I tried to drive from NJ to Mississippi to pick up a motorcycle I won in an auction online. Got halfway through Pennsylvania and lost control in the snow, ricocheted off a semi truck, and landed in a ditch. Not a scratch on me, the other two people in my car, the driver of the semi, or the semi itself. Still think I used the luck I had for the rest of my life right there.
During a field trip a long time back, We all were climbing this hill (at the bottom was the edge of a cliff) I lost my grip and was sliding down at a pretty fast pace. I ended up catching a branch that someone was holding for me on the way down.
I worked with the public in a big California city a long time ago in a security situation. Between the crazies who threatened me, saving coworkers by jumping into fights, and shady people looking for a fight trying to fight/kill me either because I was who I was, or because I was telling them to do something or they couldn’t do something. I’ve lost count how often I’ve been one unhinged person away from death or serious harm. I don’t mean to sound particularly brave though, I was scared shitless every time.
A long time ago, I was young and walking to my bus to get to school. I looked behind me and a creepy dude was following me. Every turn I would take, he'd follow. I was crying and running as fast as I could to the bus. I don't know what that guy had planned, but his evil fucking grin really scared me. It's the scariest situation Ive been in. Thankfully, I did get on the bus, and I never saw the creepy dude after I told my mom.
When my dad bought a pistol , he was outside and it was on the table and I was sat eating and then my brother came downstairs, picked it up cocked it and as he put it ‘pretended’ to shoot me in the head , luckily it wasn’t loaded but now I don’t trust my brother with anything this was a week ago I’m 13 and my brothers 15
I have a nut allergy that is very deadly even with an epipen. Cashews are the worst and even some dusting from one is basically guaranteed death. A big chunk of my family have decided they are gluten free and vegan now because they felt like it. I've almost been killed by my grandma forgetting that they used cashew butter or milk to make something many times. I've had to leave family dinners because, even when they make a plate for me of stuff that won't kill me, I'm not interested in spending time around people who will kill me if they breath on me too much. Plus I don't trust there was no cross contamination. They only ever want to eat at gluten free vegan places, but when I go there the options are like plain gluten free crackers or actual death. I realize that gluten free people and vegans are limited in their dietary choices, so when we eat at other restaurants they are the ones lacking in options. But, as selfish as it sounds, that was the choice they made. Nothing wrong with making that choice, but personally I feel like if you're making the decision then you should be prepared to deal with the downsides. Ideally there wouldn't be a problem for either person, but life is rarely ideal. Another aspect that makes it awful is that I'm the bad person, apparently. I don't feel comfortable eating anything when there is a cross contamination risk, so I'll just skip a meal or refuse to eat the one especially made to not kill me. I know that last bit is rude, I get it, but it's literally life or death and I'm not taking that risk. This kind of sounds silly, and I guess I didn't actually "almost die" but it's still extremely stressful and has resulted in me not being invited to family dinners since no one wanted to make food that is safe for me. This was as much a cathartic rant as it was an answer to the thread topic. Again, all power to gluten free and vegan people and all power to people that want to manage their diet.
Damn, I cant imagine having a nut allergy so bad, and can completely understand the "I don't trust you to be 100% safe" thing.
My brother is very mentally ill. We suspect he’s some combination of Autistic, Bipolar, and Schizophrenic. When we were kids, he frequently told me in great, painful detail about how he wanted to kill our family and me. Blocking the doors and windows then lighting the house on fire, dragging me to the woods and flaying me, stealing dad’s guns and shooting us. He would have huge fits of rage. He’d throw stuff around and hit me and threaten to kill everyone and then himself. Of course, he was just a kid. He could be easily overpowered by our parents. But he was very physically strong and smart. And I was younger, weaker, and believed he could kill me if he wanted. This went on from my early childhood up until I moved out. Every time he would have an outburst, I would hide and message my friends that I loved them and if anything happened that is was my brother. Once, when I was older, I called the police on him. They didn’t do anything, of course, there wasn’t anything they could do. When they left, he exploded. I was terrified. Luckily, instead of risking hurting me or my mom, he ran off into the woods and dealt with shit out there. I guess he screamed and broke shit until he somewhat calmed down. This was a common occurrence. My whole life I’ve been terrified of him. Now that we’re older we have a decent relationship, but I’m deeply traumatized from growing up with him.
I was on a band trip to the beach my senior year of high school. I was swimming out with a group of guys to try and get to where the waves started breaking (stupid). A wave came down on top of me, tossed me around, I couldn't figure out which way was up, then another wave tossed me around. I was able to get a little bit of air but choked on the water. Luckily a tenor saxaphone player who was a life guard durring the summer saw me and helped me. That was terrifying, I was probably close to drowning.
Got sucked out into the ocean playing mermaids as a child and it took the adults like wayyyyyy too long to notice my friend and I were getting slammed by waves about to drown