Recently, Reddit user SadiePaige11 asked the fine people of the AskReddit community, "How have you almost died?" And most of their responses sounded like something out of a Final Destination movie. Check it out:
1. "Kayak capsized out in the ocean, and dumbass me didn't have a life jacket. Tide was going out. Tread water for about three hours, and by some miracle, a random jet skier found me."
2. "Due to a broken bone, I was prescribed morphine. I took it as prescribed, and one afternoon, I took my pill and laid down to take a nap. The morphine caused me to sleep very deeply, and I aspirated in my sleep. I stopped breathing. Thankfully, my sister happened to just stop by to check on me that afternoon. She found me not breathing and unresponsive. She called 911 and performed CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. I woke up hours later in the ICU with some chest pain, and I was very groggy. I was very confused when I woke up. Just thought it was a dream. Thanks, sis, for saving my life!"
3. "So, I was a kid sunbathing in my yard. My mom's room window was on the second floor right above me. My little sister was playing around in her room for some reason. I decided I was done sunbathing. The second I got up and walked away from my spot, the in-window air conditioner unit landed on the ground right where my head was."
4. "Working in steel, cutting samples off the end of the mill line while the line was running (standard operating procedure). Each bar coming off the line is around 240 feet long, red hot (makes for easier cutting with a torch cutter), and exits at several mph. The slide brake to slow down the exiting bars didn't re-engage after the bar I was about to cut stopped. I noticed it almost too late and jumped back as quickly as I could. As soon as I did, the next bar came flying down the mill line, and with no functioning slide brake, launched itself out of the line to where I was originally standing. It came so close to hitting me that it melted some of the buttons on my shirt. No surviving a hit like that."
"Just out of morbid curiosity, what would've happened had it hit you full-on? Was it hot and fast enough to have gone straight through you, or just do a ton of severe damage?"
"It would have impaled me. I wasn't there when this happened, but I heard horror stories of a bar going through a guy's thigh in a similar situation."
5. "Cutting wood, and the saw blade got loose. Flew under my armpit."
6. "In college, I once took a sleeping pill and started to choke on it. I then started laughing as I was choking because of the idea of my death being caused by a sleeping pill felt like peak irony."
7. "I was crushed and suffocated in a conveyor belt work accident. Some have said my heart stopped momentarily. Seventeen days in the hospital and 13 surgeries so far from one fateful day."
"Here's what happened... The system was supposed to be down from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. for maintenance. My job was to feed the system with demolition debris from my excavator.
I was bored and had nothing else to do, so at 10 a.m., I decided to do a bit of maintenance on the bit of conveyor that I was responsible for. I was supposed to have an HOUR to do a 10-minute job. Well, a temp employee didn't know any better and didn't make sure everyone was in the proper position when he was given the word. He started the system up with me lying on it.
I fell down to the next conveyor, and my body was caught between the two with the conveyor I was on hitting me in the head (yay hard hats). I couldn't get out of the way; my arm was pinned behind me, so I had to snap my humerus to get out, which also tore my shoulder to shreds.
Once I did get out, I started to go up the conveyor and got caught under what is called a tension bar. Which is, like, three inches high above the belt. When I got sucked under that, I heard my back and ribs crack like bubble wrap. The conveyor system then shut down, though.
Buuut...I couldn't get out from under the bar, and with every breath I took, it got tighter and tighter until I thought I was going to die. The last thing I remember thinking was, This will be a bad phone call to mom and dad before I passed out and accepted dying. I have no idea how long I was under that bar, but I woke up to a friend/coworker slapping me in the face with my boss and another coworker over me. I looked around and said, 'Ok let's get back to work.' My boss simply said, 'Nah, man. You're pretty fucked up.'
I remember flirting with one gal in the ambulance and scoring a date with her 'jokingly' for later that night. Then, it was just mayhem and confusion once I got to the hospital. I don't remember much until later that night."
8. "MRSA infection. Had fever and night sweats for weeks before doctors found what was wrong. Took three months to recover. I fell into the stereotype of 'you should be young and healthy!' 😑 All they did was give me generic blood tests, generic antibiotics, and STD tests. Testing is one of the biggest problems in our healthcare system."
9. "An incompetent surgeon perforated my colon and put my insides back together wrong. A new surgeon saved me, but I was in a 5 1/2-week coma, nearly 2-year recovery, permanent damage, and ongoing conditions. Glad to be alive, angry to have chronic pain, and US drug laws are awful."
10. "I was electrocuted at age 9. Technically, I was dead for several minutes. Then, at age 22, I was in San Francisco, and a drunk driver jumped the curb and was heading straight for us when his tires blew, and he veered and missed us by inches."
11. "I got T-boned by a logging truck on the driver's side when I was 17. It was inches away from hitting my door head-on. Luckily, I remembered my dad telling me if you're ever in a wreck, do everything you can to get out of the way up until the point of impact, even if it's just half a second. Knowing this, instead of freezing, I slammed the gas pedal, and the back driver's side door ended up taking the hit. I walked away with a sore back, but that's it. Didn't even go to the hospital."
"Sometimes, though, when I'm up late at night, I wonder if I actually did die in that accident and if my life since then has been a simulation or some weird hellish afterlife. It would explain a lot."
12. "Rip tide in Fort Lauderdale. Started swimming back in after body surfing. Started realizing I was actually farther away from shore than when I started swimming in. Started doggy paddling, I was so tired, and for a brief second, I actually thought I was going to die. Then, I remembered about swimming parallel and looking for the break in the waves."
13. "When I was little, I underestimated the strength of a wave pool at a hotel. I went to the deep end where the waves are first formed, and I was on a little pool donut; I was maybe 6 or 7. I remember I got turned around by accident and a wave hit me from behind, and I immediately got sucked down into the water. I thought I was a good swimmer then but was soooo wrong. Had it not been for my dad watching me, I probably would’ve drowned as the lifeguard didn’t even notice me get swept underneath."
14. "I was in Vienna and was trying to cross a wide street. I looked left, and it was clear. I looked right, and there were a lot of cars so I sat with my head out looking right waiting for them to clear. I heard what sounded like a bicycle bell coming from my right but ignored it because it sounded like a bicycle bell. The bicycle bell continued to ring and get closer, but I was still watching for traffic on the right. Suddenly, a large street car passed less than an inch from my face. I felt the wind of it passing slap me. I don't know why they didn't have a more aggressive-sounding horn, but it was damn close to braining me. My brother turned to me and said, 'Woah, bro, you almost just died.' I was pretty shocked by how close I had come to dying so we went to a bar because I needed a drink to get over the fact that I was an inch away from death."
15. "I almost drowned as a kid. The rich kid in our school had a birthday party. He had one of those Robin Leach-style pools and his idiot parents thought it would be a good idea to buy the inflatable 10-person white water rafting boats. Anyway, I'm swimming like a regular 9-year-old, and I get hit in the back of the head by an oar. I get dazed for a minute, and the next thing I know I'm underneath the middle of the raft. I'm desperately trying to push it up to the side and panicking. I don't make it and pass out. Luckily, the rich kid's dad was a doctor, and half the parents were, too. The kids were oblivious, but a parent saw me get hit and jumped in when they saw I couldn't get out. I came to with my pediatrician getting water out of my lungs. I avoided the water for the rest of the summer and still don't feel comfortable around large inflatable water things."
16. "Almost drowned as a toddler. I was 3 years old, and for some reason, I was swimming in a lake with my older siblings, and nobody saw me go under. There was a restaurant/bar, and a drunk patron jumped in the lake fully clothed and pulled me up from the water like a fish. I had weird dreams about it for years as a kid."
17. "Replacing a fuse in a cupboard under the sink when I was 19. Awoke sitting against the fridge on the other side of the kitchen (approximately 9 feet) holding said fuse in blackened fingers."
18. "Got thrown by a horse directly into a barbed wire fence. Had I landed on my head or the wire caught my neck, I'd be toast. Thankfully, my legs went into the wire, and I walked away with the wind knocked out of me and three pretty impressive lacerations on my legs. Still have the scars 25 years later."
19. "When I was, like, 13, I was out at a lake park and suffered a heat stroke. I guess I didn't drink enough because I started feeling faint on the stairs of a slide. I told my dad to call an ambulance because I knew something was wrong. I began to pass out, and he immediately picked me up to run me to the front for some water. I began to suffer temporary blindness on the way; the last thing I remember was coming to once my family started giving me water and pouring it on me."
20. "I had a pimple in my armpit. It was tiny so I ignored it. I kept ignoring it as it got bigger. Really big. Then, one night I suddenly experienced uncontrollable shivering. I guessed it was an infection, and [I] asked my wife to take me to the ER. It was sepsis. My cubicle in the ER was suddenly filled with nurses and the ER doctor. I don’t remember much, but my wife told me they all had their game faces on and were all extremely serious about the situation. My stupidity almost cost me."
21. "I had to get some dry ice from the bottom of the four-foot-tall chest we kept it in. Scraping the bottom of the barrel, I leaned all the way in and stupidly inhaled. Almost blacked out. It was in a part of the hospital that wasn’t being used and had very little foot traffic. (Dry ice is solid carbon dioxide, and the fun 'fog' you get from it is just carbon dioxide gas. It can suffocate you.)"
22. "Allergic reaction to a peach. 🥲"
23. Finally, "One time I was in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota on a solo trip. Before you go, they give you a quick training on wildlife and how to handle encounters…particularly with a bear. You’re supposed to make yourself as big as possible, and be loud, essentially scaring the bear into backing down. Unfortunately, that information made things worse when I encountered a moose! I was preoccupied with trying to hang my food sack from a tree (out of the reach of a bear) when I got knocked down from behind. I sprung to my feet and was face to face with a gigantic moose. Pictures don’t do justice in conveying how massive these creatures are."
"Not knowing what to do, I used my 'bear training.' Unfortunately, that doesn’t work for a moose and actually makes things worse; they are incredibly territorial creatures and will attack when threatened.
With massive force, he rammed me into a tree, and pinned me against it… I could feel some bones breaking as he continued hammering me over and over again. I collapsed to the ground as he started trampling me, forcing his massive weight upon me. I couldn’t see any longer as blood and mud made vision impossible. I started to slip out of consciousness, but the last thing I remembered was hearing a gunshot.
I woke up days later in a hospital bed. Apparently, someone from the DNR was trolling by on the lake and saw the incident go down from the middle of the lake. He fired his rifle to get the moose to flee. He then pulled me onto his boat and brought me to a place where there was a clearing and had a helicopter come and airlift me out. Normally, it wouldn’t have been recommended to move me with a back injury like I had, but he had no choice as the helicopter couldn’t get to me where I was.
Apparently, I was semi-conscious during the time and kept saying 'fucking Bullwinkle' over and over again. I had two broken vertebrae, six cracked ribs, a collapsed lung, a broken arm, a broken nose, eight lost teeth, and a shattered knee. If you ever encounter a moose, don’t try to scare him or make him angry…run! And get something between you and the moose…a car, a tree, etc."
Now, it's your turn — have you ever had a near-death Final Destination experience? If so, tell us in the comments below or use this anonymous form here!
