What moment made you say “Yep, I’m definitely dead”, but you survived ?

what moment made you say yep I'm definitely dead but but you survived Story one back in college while living in an apartment complex my dryer stopped working I'm not particularly handy and I don't remember exactly how I diagnosed the issue but I somehow came to the conclusion that the power cord was either burned out or had a short so I pulled the plug out of the wall detached it from the back of the dryer and took it to one of those cluttered hoarder esque appliance repair shops that most small towns seem to have I bought

a replacement and headed back home back at my apartment with the dryer pulled away from the wall I started reattaching the new cord when I had the brilliant idea to double check that the plug matched the outlet if you've ever seen the cords and Outlets that some big appliances use you know they're not the standard three prong setup like a floor lamp these are 220 volts sl240 volts monsters designed to move massive amounts of electricity without any concern for how real life works I plugged the unattached dryer cord into the outlet the second the prongs

made a connection a blue Fireball exploded from the dangling contacts on the other end of the cord and all the lights in my apartment went out I just sat there dumbstruck the exposed contacts were inches away from my leg I took a moment to process the sheer level of stupidity and the fact that I probably didn't deserve to be an unsupervised adult once the adrenaline rush faded into full body shakes I called the apartment complex handyman and turned myself in he laughed and said so that's why the power in the whole building went out fantastic

an hour later everything was back up and running except my self-esteem story two I was riding my bicycle at a high speed tucked into the arrow position when you're on Arrow bars you have to take your hands off them to reach the brakes as I was flying down the road I approached a downhill turn that turned out to be steeper than I expected because of the combination of my speed the incline and the curve I was having having a hard time getting my hands off the arrow bars in time finally I managed to grab my

rear breake just as I went off the left side of the paved trail luckily the ground beside the trail was muddy which slowed me down just enough to regain control of the bike I somehow managed to stop right in the middle of the path I looked around expecting someone to have witnessed my miraculous recovery but there was no one so I raised my arms to the sky and no joke declared I'm a bad mother well you get the idea Story three back in college I was at a big house party in some rundown off-campus house

I was up on the third floor balcony with a bunch of people just hanging out another guy and I were leaning back against the railing talking when suddenly it snapped time slowed down to this day I can still remember the horrified Expressions on the faces of the people around me as I fell backward it was about a 25- ft drop and in that moment I was certain I was about to die I might might have flipped I don't know but I hit the ground on my back with a brutal thud the impact knocked the wind

out of me and for what felt like an eternity I couldn't inhale when I finally regained some awareness I saw my friend kneeling over me he was in the Army at the time and was already assessing me I felt an intense pain in my legs and tried to move but he held me down telling me not to in case I had a spinal injury long story short I got lucky just some deep bone bruising on my feet from when they slapped against the ground after I landed flat on my back the other guy wasn't so

lucky I landed in a soft muddy lawn he hit a concrete patio he broke his spine in two places and suffered a slight skull fracture on a lighter note when they took me to the hospital I had to pee badly I had been drinking after all they gave me morphine and didn't want me moving around since I hadn't been x-rayed yet my best friend's girlfriend who had come with me because we were old friends helped me use a urinal she took it to dump in the sink but suddenly tripped lost her grip and basically launched

it into the hallway of the ER sending my pee everywhere the ER staff was not amused story four a few years ago I went camping next to a river that night I got super drunk and wandered over to a neighboring campsite to drink even more when I eventually stumbled back through the pitch black woods pushing through bushes and trees my legs suddenly vanished from under me I had stepped straight into the river in total darkness drunk as hell the water was belly button deep freezing cold Glacier runoff and the current was strong enough to carry

me away without a trace I could feel my feet slipping against the riverbed and the bank I was desperately grasping at was shoulder high and made of dirt every time I tried to push off the river floor the current kept pulling me sideways I jumped and clawed at the ground above me probably 10 times looking for anything to hold on to I started screaming for help but no one could hear me over the chaos of the drunk partygoers one of my friends heard me but since they couldn't see what was happening they thought I was

just messing around and laughed at my calls for help at that moment I was sure I was done for I was drunk to the point of puking had zero coordination and my muscles were cramping from the freezing water and the strain of holding on to that dirt Bank just as I was about to give up I felt a tree root deep beneath the surface with my foot with what little energy I had left I pushed off it and dug my nails into the dirt finally managing to ha myself out of the water it was the

most terrifying sobering moment of my life afterward I ended up puking in the Laughing friend's back seat a true Happy Ending Story five I was robbed at gunpoint and forced to drive to a secluded Road deep in the woods the guy in the passenger seat told me to get out and walk toward the tree line while he followed behind me with the gun pointed at my head all I could think about was my mom of course I didn't want to die but the thought of her having to go through the pain of me being missing

then eventually being found dead was worse when I reached the tree line he told me to lay down on my stomach I did as I was told he backed away and told me not to move for at least 30 minutes before even thinking about getting up then he got into the lead car with his buddies and drove off I'm not the type to claim divine intervention I'm not even religious but something made him change his mind about pulling the trigger and for that I'm grateful story six my sister came to pick me up from work

in our parents Subaru as soon as she pulled up she mentioned hearing a weird rhythmic flapping noise and thought it might be a tire issue we checked them all but nothing seemed off no Flats no visible damage so we decided to drive home and have our dad take a look when we got there as we got on the freeway the sound continued I heard it too but I couldn't tell what it was we were going about 70 mph when suddenly the back passenger tire completely detached from the car every everything after that happened in slow

motion my sister lost control and we started swerving violently across both lanes the car twisting back and forth I gripped the seat powerless against the motion and thought this is it I'm about to die but somehow we didn't we were unbelievably lucky no cars were beside us when it happened even though we were in the Middle Lane when we finally came to a stop we ended up on the shoulder facing backward in the only flat grassy spot for Miles every other stretch of that Highway had a guard rail with a steep ditch right next to

the road if we had spun out anywhere else the car could have flipped turns out the lug nuts on the right side of the car had all been loosened after hearing similar stories from people at the University where my dad worked we believe someone had been going around campus loosening people's tires story seven I overdosed on Xanax I was in a really dark place mentally and had some Xanax for anxiety one day I picked up a full pack from the pharmacy grabbed some s from the store to mask the bitterness and went through with it

I was in my room wearing just my underwear I remember thinking about how when my grandfather passed away 20 years earlier in another country the women in my family had to wash his body before burial that stuck with me for some reason then I fell asleep my cat curled up next to me and I didn't wake up until the next morning when my mom found me she called an ambulance immediately I kept slipping in and out of Consciousness in the ambulance every time I woke up I told her not to scold me of course she

was so scared that was the last thing on her mind I was discharged the next day and strangely enough things got better after that I realized I didn't actually want to die I just didn't want to live that life anymore I had to make some real changes and I did little by little I worked on improving my life and finding happiness again Story 8 I've been asmatic since I was 16 so I always carry my inhaler with me when I was 24 and in med school I had just finished a test and was waiting outside

the classroom for my then girlfriend to finish I went to a very small med school in Mexico and the hallway was practically empty out of nowhere I felt like sitting down no particular reason just an urge so I sat down on the ground my back against the wall then suddenly I started struggling to breathe I reached for my backpack searching frantically for my inhaler but it was nowhere to be found I dumped everything out nothing the hallway remained empty and I was completely alone gasping for air it was getting worse by the second Panic set

in as I crumpled onto my side my arms legs and face going completely numb I couldn't move I couldn't even speak I could feel my rib cage and thoracic muscles working overtime to try and pull in air my lungs wheezed so loudly that people in the surrounding classroom started pouring into the hallway my girlfriend ran out screaming for help one of the professors rushed over placed a stethoscope on my chest and I heard her say that almost no air was getting in or out as my Consciousness started to fade I heard someone mention that the

first aid kid in the building was locked they couldn't get to it my eyes closed and I realized I'm dying tears streamed down my face as the world around me faded into silence then suddenly a rush air filled my lungs in a massive gasp I looked down at my leg and saw a syringe sticking out of my thigh someone had injected me with epinephrine I sat up dazed and saw a younger student pulling the needle out he was a certified EMT and by pure luck had been carrying epinephrine that day for a class presentation within

minutes I fully recovered with no complications story nine my dad flipped the wrong breaker while we were replacing a light switch and I got thrown across the room I put my dad's truck on two wheels while taking a sharp corner because a cigarette landed on the seat right behind me I fell off a three-story Log Cabin frame on gravel I was chased down by a bull and at the last second my dad yanked me over the cattle gate right as The Bull crashed into it denting the metal I overdosed on a mixture of alcohol and

Aderall I fell out of a moving car while going 25 mph while driving I fell through the ice while fishing with my dad a friend of mine almost drowned me in a lake when our canoe flipped he couldn't swim so I had to save him instead I've been accidentally set on fire multiple times oh and my brother intentionally threw me into a bonfire once I think that's all of them but I might be missing one or two story 10 I once drove a Nissan Micra off a dirt road and Into the Woods at around 100

km per hour somehow I barely cleared a massive Rock possibly helping the car hop further and shot between trees finally stopping about 25 M deep into the forest also there was a 40 kg Shepherd dog in the car with me when we crashed the force of the impact sent the dog flying into my back breaking both the seat and my seat belt making it completely useless because of that I smashed my head into the windshield cracking it honestly it didn't even feel that bad even the dog was totally fine but the physics behind it that

was shocking just the force of the dog hitting my back was over 800 kg not even counting the car going from 80 km per hour to a dead stop all I walked away with was a bloody scratch on my forehead the cops had a hard time believing what happened story 11 I was driving on the interstate going about 85 miles per hour with a concrete barrier to my left and an 18-wheeler to my right then my car started hydroplaning for 10 to 15 agonizing seconds I had zero control the car wouldn't stop skidding and no

matter how hard I gripped the wheel it kept trying to point toward either the concrete barrier or the truck I was screaming eventually the car came to a stop facing oncoming traffic about A4 mile from where the hydroplaning started and then there was the time my plane was struck by lightning it fried the onboard circuitry and we had to make an emergency landing luckily there was an airport within 10 minutes of us because from that point on it was a straight descent story 12 in 2018 Anchorage AK and the surrounding region experienced a 7.1 earthquake

I was living in a third story apartment in a cheaply built building on the edge of Baxter bog getting ready for work when it hit the shaking lasted for minutes and I had just enough time to dive into the small space space between my bed and the wall but I immediately regretted that decision because I was effectively pinned my body wedged in so tightly that I had no wiggle room lying there on my side my cheek smashed against the mattress I was convinced this cheap building was about to slide straight into the bog across the

street I had enough time to contemplate life at one point a particularly violent stretch of shaking triggered a montage of memories flashing before my eyes I even chuckled picturing my body being dis covered centuries from now perfectly preserved in mud looking like Peter Griffin when he falls on his face or worse like Tom seura attempting that ill-fated dunk is a silly Universe thankfully Anchorage has strict building codes designed for earthquakes and despite this one being among the most powerful in US history no one was killed still my workplace didn't seem too impressed I was actually

written up for not showing up to work that day story 13 back in the early '90s I worked for a towing company part of our response area included a stretch of Interstate that required special permits to operate on it was somewhat exclusive but the trade-off was brutal failing to respond within 30 minutes meant heavy fines or even losing the permit entirely basically no matter the time or weather if A call came in you went most calls were routine hook the car tow it move on but working on the side of a highway with trucks and

cars flying past at full speed was was always dangerous there were no move over laws back then one call took me to a car that had broken down right next to a guard rail there was barely any room to work I did as much as I could from the passenger side of the tow truck but to finish securing the vehicle to the flat bed I had to step onto the driver's side I was just tightening the last strap when I saw a truck approaching in my peripheral vision he gave me room but the truck behind

him he had no idea I was there he wasn't doing anything wrong it was just one of those blind spots where he couldn't see beyond the truck in front of him and he wasn't tailgating as they passed the first truck veered slightly giving me a decent birth the second truck held his line I flattened myself against the flatbed as much as possible and in that moment my entire life flashed before my eyes that truck driver saw me at the last possible second and swerved but to this day I have no idea how he didn't hit

me it was so close that my shirttails got caught on some part of the truck ripping my shirt and yanking my hat clean off my head it took me two or three hours to fully process what had just happened I could have died right there and the driver might not have even realized he had hit me after that I spent years working on roadways in heavy traffic but I never took another risk every time I parked my vehicle at an angle at least 100 ft back with the wheels turned away from me I set up

flares a few hundred feet behind me wore a safety vest and took every possible precaution but the the strangest part of all even 30 years later I vividly remember that life flash it was real so many moments from my life rushed through my mind in what was probably less than a second from the moment I first sensed danger to when it was over I've always wondered if anyone else has experienced that and what it was like for them story 14 the brakes on my bicycle failed at the worst possible moment I was on a two-day

Expedition with the scouts carrying a full pack of gear on my back weighing me down just as I reached the crest of the largest Descent of our entire route a brutal 16% gradient lasting A4 mile ending in a sharp u-turn at the bottom my brake pads burned out completely by the time I realized they had failed and weren't just covered in mud I was already going too fast to stop I considered jamming my foot in the wheel or scraping my heels but at nearly 40 mil per hour I knew that would just end in injury

as I hit the Bottom by all accounts doing at least 50 mph I lost control there was no way to make the turn so I went straight off the track and into a massive Nettle Bush Gathering thousands of stings all over my body as I continued at high speed at some point I became airborne and I felt my bike drift away from me in that moment I thought this is it next thing I knew I opened my eyes and found myself Tangled in tree branches at the bottom of a ditch my bike was suspended above

me about 3 feet up also caught in the branches my friend called down are you okay I wriggled around to check aside from the fiery burn of what felt like a million nettle stings I was miraculously fine they helped drag me out of the ditch and we stared in shock at the distance I had traveled I had smashed through branches as thick as my arm head first apparently thank God for my helmet my pack had broken my fall and probably saved my spine that was one very lucky day I didn't ride a bike again for

a year after that story 15 I went cliff jumping hit the water badly and heard a massive crack for a few seconds I couldn't feel anything as I floated deep underwater in Eerie silence I genuinely thought I had broken multiple bones or worse my back I started wiggling my toes one by one then my legs and arms everything seemed to be working relieved I swam to the surface but as I started making my way back to shore my legs began to ache badly within moments they hurt so much I couldn't use them at all I

had no choice but to swim the entire way back using only my arms when I finally reached the shore I could walk again but the pain was brutal turns out I had hit the water in a semi-seated position and the backs of my thighs had impacted the surface like it was concrete I walked away with some seriously impressive bruises but no other injuries story 16 in high school just after the school year ended I was at a friend's house about 45 minutes from home I left about 20 minutes before my curfew which which meant of

course I was speeding not anything insane but still pushing 60 mph in a 45 Zone on a back road it had rained earlier so the road was damp but not overly slick everything was fine until I saw a sign that said 25 mph and realized the road had a sharp left jog ahead it wasn't a huge curve but I panicked and slammed on the brakes the car immediately turned sideways I was suddenly staring at houses through my driver's side window completely convinced I was about to plow straight into someone's living room if I was lucky

I'd only kill myself then somehow the car straightened out except now I was fully off the road skidding through the grass heading straight for a tree a road sign flashed into my headlights and I obliterated it finally I managed to come to a stop after sliding nearly 100 yards in about 5 Seconds shaken I pulled into a nearby neighborhood got out and walked around to calm down the first house to the left was up on a hill and the owner came out to check on me he asked if I was okay then casually mentioned that

a lot of people crashed at that exact spot he didn't call me an idiot outright but he didn't have to I got the message loud and clear I drove home much more cautiously after that I got in trouble for being late and when I told my mom what had happened she let me decide whether or not to tell my dad I chose not to of course he eventually noticed the grass in the wheels and the sign shaped dent in the bumper I just Shrugged it off and he didn't press me me for details not until

years later long after I had moved out when he randomly brought it up again that's when I finally told my family the whole story story 17 back in high school my friends and I had a game called you're my be the rules were simple someone would say you're my B if followed by a dare and if you didn't do it well you were their be stupid absolutely but that didn't stop us one night I was driving I had gotten my license about a month prior and needed to drop my two friends off before my curfew

we turned onto the road leading to my buddy's neighborhood approaching a long curve when one of them turned to me and said you're my be if you don't hit 70 mph now this wasn't a difficult task but it was a terrible place for it well I wasn't about to be anybody's buddy so I floored it we hit 70 mph in no time and I immediately lost control the car slid straight into a tall blunt curb launching US Airborne for about 10 ft when we hit the ground I accidentally slammed my foot on the accelerator instead

of the brake and we shot forward another 20 ft right into a pine tree the impact uprooted the tree entirely and we landed on the roote base with my driver's side door pinned against the ground we had to drop down through the passenger side to climb out we got really lucky if I had lost control just a fraction of a second later we would have slammed into a row of parked cars a fraction earlier and we would have crashed straight into someone's walk out basement we also narrowly avoided hitting the neighborhood's electrical junction station the

car was total worse yet it was my parents brand new 1994 Honda Accord barely a month old my yep I'm definitely dead moment happened the second we hit the curb but somehow all three of us walked away completely fine the only injury was a tiny scrape on my right thumb from the airbag deploying it was a miracle we didn't end up in the hospital or Worse story 18 when I was 19 my friend and I decided to float down the river near our College on an air mattress we didn't have any inner tubes so we

figured it would work just as well it did not we planned to get out before going under the bridge because the current there was insane kayakers used it to practice their balance and there was a massive Rock slab along the bank that jutted dangerously far into the river the last thing we wanted was to get caught in that mess but as we tried to paddle toward Shore the current yanked us back before we could react fact we were sucked under the bridge the waves folded the air mattress in half flipped us over and swallowed us

beneath the water the current was brutal we thrashed around completely submerged just fighting to surface for a few terrifying seconds I had no idea which way was up when we finally broke through gasping for air we realized something horrifying we had been pulled completely under the rock embankment somehow instead of getting smashed against the Rocks we had shot through and resurfaced farther down the river miraculously unharmed as we caught our breath we noticed dozens of people staring at us some from the bank others from the bridge watching the two idiots who had almost gotten themselves

killed on an air mattress story 19 in 2012 I was at a friend's house with a girl I was seeing there were about eight of us there some of whom lived in the house one of the guys who lived there was a well-known drug dealer mostly selling weed but also dealing in other substances we all knew this and some of us even worked with or for him another guy who had recently moved back from a nearby city was out on bond for drug distribution charges he had a lot of connections and routinely transported material for

sale at the time a nearby associate had recently been robbed and beaten so the general rule was that both the front and back doors stayed locked unless someone was coming or going at some point a friend asked if I wanted to step outside for a cigarette I said no since I didn't want to turn off the girl I was with he got up exited through the back door and walked around to the front to smoke he left the door unlocked none of us noticed until a few minutes later when the back door flew open three

or four masked men rushed into the house with guns drawn ordering everyone to the ground at first we hesitated until one of them pistol whipped a friend sitting across from me and the girl I was with that was enough we hit the floor I shielded the Girl by lying on top of her The Intruders kept demanding to know where the drugs were no one answered at first but eventually one person pointed to a bedroom then another the leader of the crew pistol whipped anyone who lifted their head to speak when they kept asking the same

question I pointed at the room and shouted that the drugs were inside I got pistol whipped once but one of my friends who was lying in the middle of the room wasn't so lucky he was the easiest Target and they kept beating him over and over then a gunshot while assaulting my friend one of the guys accidentally pulled the trigger the bullet struck my friend in the back piercing his heart he died instantly for a few seconds we all thought we were next but then silence when we looked up The Intruders were gone they had

fled they were caught later the shooter was only 17 years old he got 50 years in prison the other three a little older each got 20 story 20 when I was 13 my dad older brother nephew and I went fishing at a Reservoir in Utah it was February meaning it was cold as hell probably around 20° F we were out on this rickety little boat in the middle of the lake freezing our asses off and hadn't gotten so much as a bite all day my dad being the jokester he was decided to cast his line

backwards over his head just to switch things up within a minute his fishing pole bent hard he had hooked something big my dad was a big guy around 250 lb and in his excitement he stood up in this tiny unstable boat to reel it in that was all it took within seconds the boat flipped sending all four of us into the frigid water we were hundreds of feet from Shore the moment I hit the water my body locked up my muscles froze instantly I couldn't even move I was in shock completely Paralyzed by the cold

thankfully my dad and brother grabbed me and dragged me to the overturned boat where we hung on for dear life but the reality was setting in hypothermia was about to kick in Fast and if we didn't drown first the cold would kill us within minutes then by some miracle a man on a motorboat saw us capsize and sped over to help he pulled us out of the water and took us to shore right near where our car was parked my nephew and I sat in the car stripped down to our underwear with the heat cranked

all the way up while my dad and brother gathered what little we could Salvage before we left we were shaken and terrified but alive if that man hadn't seen us flip and come to our rescue I know we wouldn't have made it story 21 I went hiking alone in the Smoky mountains while on a business trip traffic was terrible so I got there later than planned and only had one bottle of water I had never been there before but I'd done plenty of hiking so I wasn't too worried at the turnaround point I felt great

so instead of heading back I kept going by the time I reached the top the sun had started to set I was exhausted dehydrated and clumsy from fatigue but I tried jogging anyway that's when I felt myself falling right at the edge of a cliff by some miracle there was a wire fence around the mountain I grabbed on to it just in time and it saved my life Not only would I have likely died from the fall but even if I had survived no one would have found me for at least a day if I

had been knocked unconscious they might not have found my body for a long time lesson learned don't hike alone in an unfamiliar place without telling anyone where you're going I also rolled my ankle on the way back but luckily I was close enough to the car by then story 22 one day I had a massive headache and then I went blind for about an hour I casually mentioned it on Reddit and people freaked out telling me to get to an ER immediately I called my doctor instead thinking they were overreacting but he freaked out too

he told me he was faxing the hospital to expect me and that I needed to get to the ER right now when I arrived the nurses were casual at first until they found out why I was there their faces went pale within minutes everyone had me convinced I was about to dropped dead from a massive stroke so I spent the entire day and evening until about 1:00 a.m. sitting in Waiting rooms getting blood drawn CAT scans and a bunch of other tests the whole time everybody was treating me like this might be my last day

on Earth and yet it was also the most boring experience of my life it was like someone saying hey you're about to die now sit here and wait for the bus for 6 hours there was nothing to do but sit there and contemplate imminent death and I guess I made peace with it honestly I can say I'm ready my father-in-law passed away recently and it made me realize I don't need to accomplish anything else if I died today it wouldn't be a tragedy it would just be my time that said I love living and I'm

in no rush but every day feels like a bonus oh and the bottom line it was just a freak migraine I've never had a migraine before or since which is why everyone was so worried story 23 IED Afghanistan 2013 I had just turned 20 we were rolling through the middle of nowhere somewhere between fob leatherneck and dwire no roads just sand and camels I was in the lead vehicle sitting on the Ring of my turret super exposed and smoking a cigarette for the record don't do that smoking and sitting on top of a turret both

kill we reached a a dried out riverbed and I finally got back inside the turret like a good soldier the whole place stank but we pushed forward then and boom the truck behind me disappeared in a cloud of dust and all I heard was nothing explosions that big are weird there's so much stimulus that your brain just shuts off I can't even tell you what it sounded like but I can tell you what it felt like like standing in front of a leaf blower but colder the shock wave pushed back all the fluid in my

face and Tiny bits of debris stung my skin the truck behind me about 100 ft away had hid an IED thankfully they had had a mine roller on the front of their vehicle it wasn't there anymore but they were okay as for me the IED was packed with shrapnel but none of the flying debris hit me the little stings I felt were just sand and rocks when root clearance showed up they swept the area turns out the reason the wty smelled so bad was because the debris littering the ground that was what was left of

a camel it had stepped on another much larger IED for years I kept thinking about it every time I saw a red light camera flash in my rearview mirror I'd have a moment but now I'm good that day changed my entire outlook on life because in so many other scenarios my ticket would have been punched and since then every single day has felt like a gift story 24 I was riding snowmobiles with my best buddy when we were much younger I had almost no experience with them and the one I was using was an older

model with the skis set really close together making it super Tippy we were tearing through the trails him behind me both of us laughing and having the time of our lives obviously since I was in front I wanted to go faster than him that's when we hit a section of the trail with a sharp turn way sharper than I could handle I cranked the steering hard to the right but instead of making the turn I got launched into the air at full speed in that Split Second I noticed a down log up ahead covered in

sharp Jagged branches sticking out in every direction I was flying straight toward it for sure I thought I was about to get impaled but somehow my body avoided every single Branch Landing perfectly between them I just lay there staring at the sticks pointing all around me completely unscathed my friend skitted to a stop both of us in total shock for a few seconds then without saying much we just got back on the snowmobiles and kept riding like nothing happened Good Times Story 25 back in Dallas in 2010 I was driving down one of those wide

open highways heading southbound at around 80 mph yes I was speeding but the limit was 75 I had just passed an 18-wheeler when a car suddenly swerved in front of the truck and then into my lane cutting me off I reacted instantly jerking my steering wheel left toward the shoulder to avoid being hit but I overcorrected way too hard and lost control of my car the highway divider wall was now directly in front of me so I swerved back the other way right into the path of the truck I had just passed Panic kicked in

and I swerved again but this time I was headed straight for the guard rail at this point I let go of the wheel and just screamed thinking please just hit something so this spinning stops my car spun out of control whipping back and forth like a ragd doll it felt like forever but in reality it was probably just a few seconds when everything stopped I realized I was now facing the wrong direction sitting smack in the middle of the highway through my wind Shield I saw four vehicles two 18-wheelers and two trucks completely stopped in

the road waiting for me they had held up traffic to avoid hitting me I hadn't hit anything not the car that cut me off not the truck not the divider not the guard rail nothing my little white 2009 Toyota yars was completely untouched I sat there gripping the wheel my heart pounding and let out the deepest breath of my life then I slowly turned the car around and kept driving as I passed the other vehicle Les some drivers waved or gave me a thumbs up I smiled back but inside I was still in full-blown panic

mode story 26 when I was around 12 I was visiting my uncle's farm he had a couple of smaller quads that we'd ride around on and after spending the day riding with him he trusted me to take one out on my own with the strict rule that I wasn't allowed to go past second gear of course the second I was out of earshot I gunned it now my uncle raised cows and to keep them in certain path pastures he used movable electric fences just a single 1/8 in wire stretched 300 M across held up by

white plastic supports spaced about 50 m apart I was heading back toward the house as the sun started setting absolutely ripping across a field in fourth gear Full Throttle then at the last second I saw the wire I instinctively stood up and slammed on the brakes but it was too late the wire caught me right across the stomach and launched me off the quad for a split second I was suspected bended in the air and I swear the wire stretched back like a slingshot I had just enough time to think this is how I die

before it catapulted me a full 20 ft backward I landed hard but miraculously wasn't hurt the ride back was very slow and very careful didn't go past second gear story 27 when I was 19 I was driving to the airport at night to pick up my dad I was cruising down the highway at about 65 mph when I came up behind an old Honda Odyssey going 40 mph with its hazards on since the speed limit was 65 I figured I'd just pass it as I pulled into the left lane to overtake I suddenly noticed sparks

flying in the road ahead a second later the van's front wheel rim and all detached and shot straight into my lane I had maybe a split second to react I slammed on the brakes but it was too late I hit the loose wheel head on with my passenger side tire and the impact set my car onto two wheels tilting at an angle while still going at least 55 mph for a terrifying 3 seconds my car was practically on its side I kept thinking oh sh this is it I'm going to flip but somehow I didn't

the car finally came back down onto all four wheels and I swerved back and forth between two lanes for nearly a quar mile before I could regain control in shock I drove another half mile before finally pulling over me and the other driver who had just lost his wheel were both okay but but that was without a doubt the scariest moment of my life story 28 back when I was very young and living with my grandparents I was playing alone outside with a stick swinging it around like a sword eventually I went inside but kept

waving it around like an idiot not long after I accidentally knocked my grandma's glasses off the table they hit the floor and shattered we were poor back then lived in a shack barely getting by even basic necessities were expensive so I knew how much of a struggle it must have been for her to afford those glasses in the first place the second they broke I knew I was dead to make things worse my grandma was outside clearing the back of the house with a machete I remember thinking she's going to cut me into pieces and

feed me to the pigs I don't even remember crying just a sinking feeling of pure dread as she walked in and saw her broken glasses she scolded me but she didn't cut me into pieces story 29 I almost almost drowned at La Hoya this year the tide kept pulling me farther and farther out but I didn't even notice at first I was just messing around with my boogie board having fun until I glanced back at the shore and realized I was way farther out than anyone else Panic said in I started kicking as hard as

I could to get back but no matter how much I tried I kept getting pulled out even farther the waves were massive sometimes making the shore completely disappear from my view that's when I started to really freak out because because if I couldn't see the shore there was a good chance no one could see me either for some reason I thought my boogie board was making things worse so in a dramatic move I threw it away then I started swimming toward the shore with everything I had that's when I realized I wasn't just struggling I

was caught in a rip current I had never been caught in one before so I didn't really understand what was happening I just knew I was exhausted the more I fought the weaker I got that's when I stopped trying to fight it and focused only on staying afloat I started waving my arms and screaming for help but I remember thinking nobody can hear me and worse I realized that from a distance I probably didn't even look like I was in danger for a few moments I genuinely thought this is it I'm going to drown then

out of nowhere I saw the Lifeguard swimming toward me guess I wasn't going to die after all story 30 I was in an awful car crash on the freeway at 12:30 a.m. when traffic was light a Honda Accord going at at least 80 or 90 mph tried to squeeze between me in my Nissan Cube and an 18-wheeler I remember seeing him enter my blind spot but he never appeared in my periphery just as I was processing how odd that was I caught his headlight swerving in my side mirror before I could react he lost control

and slammed into the back of my car I rolled over and skidded down the freeway upside down time slowed as I watched sparks fly from my car's roof scraping against the asphal my only thought was well this is how I die and this terrifying image will be my last memory then I slammed into the guard rail on the opposite side of the freeway my music still playing as I hung upside down in my seat belt somehow I managed to get the door open unbuckle and roll out the passenger side was completely demolished I grabbed my

phone to call 911 but it was still connected to Bluetooth and I couldn't hear anything I managed to turn off the car and call again but the call wouldn't go through meanwhile the the guy who hit me had also ended up upside down but instead of calling for help he ran up to me and told me to call a tow truck instead of 911 I told him our cars are upside down on the freeway I'm calling 911 then he took off on foot the 18-wheeler had somehow ended up on the opposite side of me knocking

over the guard rail and hanging halfway off the grade that meant that while we were both spinning out of control we had actually crossed paths and yet he had somehow managed to avoid hitting me that guy must have been one hell of a driver thinking back I reasoned that the Honda must have hit the truck first then bounced off it and then crashed into me but beyond the truck driver's insane reflexes I also believe I survived because of my Cube's High boxy roof I'm a tall guy but my head never touched the ceiling of the

car even while flipping people always made fun of me for driving a cube but that weird shaped car saved my life that night the insurance nightmare that followed was a whole different kind of disaster but that's a story for another day story 31 before my first chemotherapy treatment my doctor warned me about a rare side effect that could trigger an allergic reaction and in very rare cases even be fatal I Shrugged it off what else could I do fast forward to the actual treatment I was hospitalized and my dad was sitting beside me the nurse

plugged in the IV and started the treatment then left the room about 15 minutes passed everything was fine so my dad stepped out to grab a drink another 10 minutes went by and I started to feel nauseous I brushed it off as a normal chemo side effect until within seconds the nausea exploded into something far worse a crushing pressure built up in my skull my vision tunneled and I could barely breathe that's when it hit me this is it this is the reaction they were talking about I had just started treatment and my dad was

going to walk back in to find his son dead on the floor goodbye world then suddenly the nurse sprinted into the room and shut off the IV instantly all the symptoms disappeared turns out it wasn't the rare deadly reaction at all it was just a known side effect that feels like you're dying but isn't actually dangerous the doctor later apologize for not warning me beforehand practically giving me a heart attack for no reason story 32 I was attached to a submarine that was sinking at night with no working air systems and no one realized there

was a problem the sub dropped down down to about 40 ft while I was stuck hanging above it tangled in multiple air and communication lines as I struggled to free myself I felt my vision starting to gray out tunnel vision creeping in I knew I was running out of time desperate I pulled myself down the Tangled lines back to the submarine reaching in blindly for a regulator I knew all the air systems were dead but I was hoping just hoping that there was some residual air left in the lines pure luck my hand landed on

the regular for a spare Pony bottle I got it in my mouth just before blacking out when I came to I was still hanging above the sub the pony bottle dangling below me my mouth clamped onto the regulator mouthpiece my dive buddy had surfaced because he had missed everything while doing his pre-dive checklist he didn't see me when we hit the bottom assumed I had ditched him and went up meanwhile the surface support crew just thought I was still diving as usual after my buddy surfaced and I didn't they waited another four or 5 minutes

before sending a rescue Diver Down by the time they got to me I was done mentally checked out ready for early retirement but instead they tied a rope around my waist and sent me back down solo to retrieve the submarine story 33 I was driving home after Christmas a long snowy Drive about 4 hours of it then suddenly the weather cleared up the roads looked fine so I sped up to around 80 km per hour then I hit a patch of black ice my car started spinning I had just passed over a bridge when I

lost control and now I was headed straight for a rock face on the side of the road I had just enough time to think I'm either dead or seriously injured then somehow my car changed Direction I went backwards across the eastbound Lanes through the patch of grass dividing the highway and then across the westbound Lanes as I slid I looked out my driver's side window and saw a wall of cars coming straight for me then somehow I finally stopped I was facing west slightly down a hill completely off the road I sat there for a

second completely shaken then called my mom a tow truck and worked to let them know I wouldn't be coming in for my shift while waiting for the tow truck two police cars pulled up one officer looked at me listened to what happened shook his head and then just stared at me where's your Halo he asked because you should be dead my car had only minor scratches two tow trucks had to wedge it out of the snow and then I was back on the road the remaining 3-hour drive home took me closer to five white knuckling

the steering wheel the entire way normally it would have taken half that time but I was still shaken to the core story 34 I have a nephew close to my age we were like brothers growing up one night when I was about 17 we got bored and decided to just drive around the city it was probably around 1:00 a.m. if you're wondering no our parents didn't care since we were considered good kids and never got into more trouble than the occasional speeding ticket we were just cruising down random freeways when a light rain started I

was driving and didn't notice that my speed was creeping up we approached a notoriously sharp curve and I just assumed I was going the correct speed I wasn't I was in the far left lane of a four-lane freeway heading straight into a tight left-hand curve when the car suddenly spun out it felt like it spun for eternity I had no idea how to correct it my area doesn't get snow or ice so I'd never learned how to recover from a skid my nephew and I just sat there waiting for the inevitable crash either into the

wall or into another vehicle the scariest part this was an industrial area full of massive big rigs then somehow we came to a stop perfectly in the right lane completely unscathed the only problem we were now facing the wrong direction we sat there in stunned silence for a few seconds processing what had just happened then out of nowhere we both burst into uncontrollable laughter probably harder than I've ever laughed in my life even decades later we swore that nobody would ever hear about what happened well the adults never heard the story but there was no

way we weren't telling our friends story 35 I hydroplaned on a limited access Highway basically an interstate but in a more rural area while going about 75 mph I lost control almost instantly and spun in a full 540° turn sliding from the right lane across the left lane Lane and straight down the embankment on the side of the road the only reason I had a relatively soft Landing pure dumb luck there just happened to be a giant pile of mulch sitting there which my car slammed into if that mulch hadn't been there I would have

gone straight into a tree and worse there were a few thick branches sticking out right in the path my car was headed if I had hit them at that speed I could have easily been impaled or at the very least seriously injured instead I walked away without a single scratch some good old boys in big trucks happen to be driving by I'm from the south and they pulled over to check on me they offered to call for help but I was just standing there completely in shock at how I had somehow gotten out of that

without a single injury I was 100% sure I was dead while I was spinning so yeah don't drive that fast when it's raining it's dumb I was dumb if the speed limit is 70 and the roads are wet you shouldn't be going five over you should be going 10 under story 36 I was riding my motorcycle through a field on some property my dad owned really moving at a pretty good clip the land wasn't completely cleared yet but I didn't realize how much of an issue that would be until it was too late thick grass

covered everything hiding the fact that an old barbed wire fence had been knocked down but never removed at one point a loose section of wire had formed a slack Loop about a foot or two off the ground somehow I perfectly caught this loop around my brake pedal from my perspective I was cruising along at high speed and then in an instant my bike was just gone completely ripped out from under me my body however was still going full speed I had just enough time to think what the hell just happened before I slammed into the

ground and started rolling miraculously I got up with just a few scratches and scrapes I got incredibly lucky there was no stationary object in my path no tree no stump no fence post no Rock no nothing that could have stopped me much more violently when I walked back to my bike I saw that the brake pedal had been yanked so far backward that it was touching the exhaust somehow despite all that force my foot was completely fine I still have no idea how that happened my best guess is that I must have been repositioning it

at the exact moment the wire caught but I don't remember that part clearly all I know is that the wire grabbed my bike not my leg and for that I'm very grateful story 37 I was out skiing taking it very slow because the weather was even worse than I expected the fog was so thick I could barely see anything and the ice made everything treacherous then of course I slipped instead of falling like a normal person my body decided it would be a great idea to launch me head first down the mountain on my back

the moment I hit the ground I heard a crack all I could see above me was Pure White fog I was lying there head pointing downhill thinking Shish I tried to lift myself up but I couldn't move my head panic set in instantly did I just break my neck was that crack of vertebra snapping I refused to believe this was happening out of pure Instinct I tried wiggling my big toe something i' do to snap out of sleep paralysis it moved okay maybe I'm not paralyzed I mve my arms then my legs everything seemed to

be working fine but when I tried to lift my head again nothing by this time my parents had noticed my fall and crawled back up the mountain to help me they got me on my feet and surprisingly I was able to make my way down very carefully my neck felt stiff but I could turn it left and right so I figured I was okay back at the hotel I decided to lie down for a bit then when I tried to sit up I realized something horrifying I couldn't I literally couldn't lift my own head the

only way I could sit up was by holding my head in my hands like a giant creepy baby whose neck muscles hadn't developed yet we eventually went to the hospital where I found out had massively overstretched the muscles and tendons in the front of my neck they were so strained that they physically couldn't lift the weight of my own head the adventure didn't stop there but this story is already long enough so I'll spare you the sequel story 38 Labor Day 2000 I was the only one in the house who had to work and needed

to be in Before Dawn my truck was a stick shift that leaked oil a detail that would become important soon I got in cranked it then noticed the dashboard lit up indic indicating it needed oil so I shut it off popped the hood and stepped out that's when I realized two very important things first my truck was parked on an incline second I had already taken off the parking brake and never put it back on the truck started rolling backward I was wearing boots and in a split-second decision I figured I could jump back in

and push the brake down bad call I slipped one foot got stuck under the brake pedal and my other foot which had been on the ground was now in the air my boot was wedged tightly too snug to pull free the next thing I knew I was upside down being dragged across the yard with my face just inches from the front driver's side tire at that moment I had a new much more urgent realization the truck was headed toward one of two places the ditch in front of my house or the Gully across the street

both were full of water worse the sides were steep uneven and lined with Jagged rocks that would break me apart if I hit them I was either going to be dislodged and run over or knocked unconscious by the rocks and drown then just as suddenly as it all started the truck hit a bump in the yard the jolt simultaneously released my foot lurched the vehicle slightly to the passenger's side and bounced it just enough that the front tire only barely grazed my arm before rolling on it kept moving until one of the wheels dropped into

the ditch and stopped cold the whole thing lasted maybe 5 seconds but it felt like a lifetime afterward I did what any same person would do I grabbed my cigarettes and the oil from the cab stood there shaking as I smoked topped off the oil and then drove to work pum here cuz bills don't care if you almost die they just care that they get paid story 39 my husband and I were driving to the California coast taking a road we'd never been on before that wound through the coastal mountain ranges as we reached the

top of a mountain I casually mentioned how far the drop was at least a few hundred feet no trees no guardrail my husband turned his head to look then I noticed the car slowing and drifting into the opposite lane I looked over and realized he was having a seizure I started yelling but of course he wasn't responding the car continued drifting toward the cliff and for a moment I thought well at least his foot's off the accelerator then the seizure intensified and his foot slammed on the gas we were going straight for the edge I

grabbed the wheel and yanked Us in the opposite direction toward the mountain by some miracle there was a turnout up ahead and I spotted a covert drain sticking up in the ditch with no other option I aimed straight for it we hit it at over 40 mph the impact set off all the airbags the car bounced up the hillside before rolling once twice before finally stopping I never lost Consciousness but I just kept thinking please let the car stop rolling please don't let us go down the hill anyway when it finally came to a stop

I unbuckled my seat belt and tried to open the door but it wouldn't budge my husband was still seizing suspended Above Me by his seat belt then I heard voices outside people had stopped to help someone told me to stand up that's when I realized the car was on its passenger side I stood up stuck my head out of the driver's window and saw them waiting the engine smoking someone said they pulled me out more people had stopped including off-duty EMTs who got the fire under control and worked on tipping the car back over so

they could reach my husband we rode to the hospital and and an ambulance together miraculously neither of us had any serious injuries I had some bruises and a nasty seat Bel burn but that was it the fire chief who saw our car later told us that when they usually come up on wrecks like that they're pulling out bodies we were pretty damn lucky story 40 I fell through a frozen pond once the entire surface was covered in snow so I had no idea it was even there until it was too late the second I broke

through it felt like a million needles piercing my body all at once the shock was instant and overwhelming I tried to swim upward but my clothes were dragging me down making every movement harder worse I hadn't even taken a breath before I fell in meaning no oxygen was getting to my brain Panic said in I was alone no one knew I was there for a brief moment I thought about giving up but then my survival Instinct kicked in and I started fighting even harder somehow I managed to get my hands above the water and Claw

at the ice that's when an ice ice Fisher nearby saw the splashes turns out I had fallen into a common fishing spot he rushed over grabbed one of my hands and pulled me toward the edge of the hole I had created in the ice he climbed out ran to his truck and threw me a rope while I held on to the ice for dear life I gripped it tight as he towed me out inch by inch until I was finally back on Solid Ground he probably saved my life I don't even want to think about

what would have happened if I had gone under if I had drowned I don't know if anyone would have ever found me story 41 when I was 14 I had a summer job as a brickie on a construction site my job was to haul cavity blocks massive bricks up to The Brick Layers working at the top of the building These Bricks were delivered by the hundreds and it was my job to make sure they got where they needed to go one Thursday afternoon as I was carrying bricks up the scaffolding I stepped onto one to

give myself extra height and make lifting them easier that was a mistake the brick shifted and before I could react I was pitched into the air I was over four stories up as I fell I hit a plank about halfway down which barely slowed my descent I remember staring at the ground rushing toward me between my hands and thinking okay here goes Cheerio then B I opened my eyes and saw a block on the ground just inches from my face if I had landed a little differently that thing would have caved my skull in I

laid there for a second gingerly wiggled my fingers they moved wiggled my toes those moved too slowly I stood up I walked away with scratches bruises and a scar on my right arm that I still have to this day no broken bones and somehow I was back up on that scaffolding working the following Saturday morning story 42 I was in a car crash with four other friends during University we were driving back from a trip to some islands in a small absolute beater of a car I don't even think any of us were wearing seat

belts we were on the highway probably speeding when the guy driving fell asleep at the wheel I still remember my friend in the front passenger seat poking him awake as the car started drifting the driver jolted awake panicked and jerked the steering wheel way too hard he lost control completely and the car spun out I can still picture it in slow motion one thought after another ran through my head oh crap we're going to die then this is really How It Ends finally the worst thought of all my mom is going to be devastated then

it stopped we had smashed into two other vehicles while spinning but somehow none of us were hurt the worst injury a smashed phone in my friend's pocket but he was fine we were all fine I still can't believe how lucky we got