We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about their terrifying animal encounters. Here are some of the responses.
2. "I had to drag a blind woman out of the sea after I was stung by a jellyfish."
"I was living in Ecuador about seven years ago for school. One day we took a trip to a beach, and my blind classmate asked me to take her swimming.
"I took this blind woman nearly a half mile from the beach, and that’s when I felt it. At first I thought a fish swam past me and brushed my arm, but after a moment the pain kicked in. I'd been stung by a big-ass jellyfish. I had to drag the blind woman back to the beach while in severe pain with only one arm. The pain was so bad I was nearly blacked out by the time I realized someone was peeing on me."
4. "A bull mastiff had me by the neck."
"A few years ago I was visiting a friend in a shared house. One of the occupants had two bull mastiffs. Both were friendly at first, but then something switched. One of the dogs jumped up at me – I’m 5’4”, and the dog standing on its hinds was about 6ft – and it’s mouth was around my neck. My friend pulled the dog off me and I tried sprint off the lawn, with blood pouring out of my neck, but the dog clamped onto my arm. Luckily I escaped, and my friend drove me to ER."
6. "I saw a massive, shadowy shape by me in the water."
"A few years ago, we were on a snorkeling day trip in Hawaii. I ended up getting separated from the group and drifted pretty far away. I saw tons of beautiful fish swimming about and the water was so clear you could see rays of light down to the floor. All of a sudden, hundreds of fish that had been surrounding me darted into the coral. I curled into a ball and removed and held my flippers in my hands (trying not to look like a juicy seal and to limit splashing).
"Just then I saw a massive, shadowy shape about 7 feet in front of me. I stayed curled in a ball for what felt like eternity, until I was sure the animal was gone. Later that night we got to the hotel room and saw on the news that a woman had been attacked by a shark about half a mile away from where we were. The woman lost an arm and bled out on the beach. The next day, on the way to the airport we passed the beach where we snorkeled and I pointed it out. The cab driver said, 'Oh yeah. That’s shark beach. I’ve seen a woman get ripped in half there.'”
8. "There was this huge motherfucking buck deer standing in the bathroom."
"At the camp I went to as a kid, the bathrooms were separate from the cabins. At night, you were supposed to wake someone up to go to the bathroom with you. I'm up late one night reading a scary book, when I suddenly realize, at peak terror, that I have to pee really badly.
"I don't wanna wake someone up to go with me, so I take a deep breath and run to the bathroom. When I get there, I hear a noise coming from one of the stalls. I’m like, 'Phew, someone else is in here.' So I call out to them but no one responds. The noises stop, and everything is piercingly quiet.
"I start to walk towards the stall where I heard the noises as I continue to say, 'Hello? Is someone there?' I get to the stall, peek around the door, and there is this HUGE MOTHERFUCKING BUCK DEER standing inside, its face inches from mine. I scream absolute bloody murder and the thing just flips a shit. It starts to go nuts, bucking and kicking, spinning around, panicking and crashing into the walls to get out.
"It lunges for me, and I throw myself backwards, colliding full throttle with the sinks. I fall to the ground as the buck tears out of the stall, and I roll out of the way just time. So I’m sitting under the sink absolutely horror-struck when a whole bunch of counsellors come bursting in to find me sitting in my own pee, crying and shaking with bruises forming on my back and head."
10. "An emu tried to have sex with me."
"My mom and I went to an emu farm when I was 14. We went into the enclosure and an emu came up to me and its neck began to turn turquoise. That’s the color their necks turn when they’re sexually aroused and want to mate. So it wraps its long-ass, strong neck around my body and starts, well, humping me. It keeps yelling/hissing at anyone who comes near and not letting go of me. This lasted for about four minutes until the owner of the farm and my mom were able to get it off of me."
11. "My cat jumped onto my lap one night – except, turned out, it wasn't my cat."
12. "They were crawling all over my hands, in my hair, and on my clothes."
"A pigeon flew into my apartment through an open window. I grabbed it with my hands, and all of these house fly–sized bugs swarmed out of the feathers. They were flying around my apartment and crawling all over my hands.
"Apparently I had just discovered the wonders of the pigeon fly louse, a flat, blood-drinking, flying insect. They were all over my apartment, in my hair, and in my clothes. Oh, and they're just about impossible to kill! Totally un-squishable.
"It took me over four hours to catch them all and get them out of my apartment. I still don't sleep well."
– Christine Hyatt via Facebook
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.