Recently, people on Reddit revealed the dramatic ways they almost died. And, it turns out, maaaannnny folks in the BuzzFeed Community (and beyond) have similar Final Destination-like stories, too! Here's what they shared:
1. "I was about 23 and thought going to a tanning bed was a great idea. It was my first time, and I knew nothing, and the girl working clearly didn’t give two hoots because she put me in the bed for 10 minutes (note: I am also fair and freckled). I’ve never been so burnt in my whole life. Blisters all over my body, couldn’t stand up without passing out. It’s amazing I didn’t end up in the hospital. I certainly felt like I was cooked [to] death."
2. "I crashed my car when I was 18, hit a telephone pole, and the live wire was bouncing on my car. I got in and out of the car twice (in shock not thinking of being electrocuted) and touched the hood trying to fix a headlight. I didn’t have a scratch on me. The police officer who arrived on scene went pale when I told him I excited the vehicle twice. I think about this every now and then thinking how I survived it."
3. "Living in a northern US town, there had been a snow and ice storm (as usual) the night before, so roads were bad. I was driving to work and going down a pretty steep hill. The pickup truck in front of me had a semi tire in it, not tied down. All of a sudden, it somehow flew out of the truck bed and came flying right toward my windshield. I thought I was dead. At the last second, it went low enough that it hit my hood instead, and I went down into a deep ditch/ravine. The front hood was crumpled, but I was ok. Guy in truck never even noticed (or stopped, anyway)."
4. "When I was little, even before my first birthday, I saw my mom changing the plug plate and went to mimic her putting a fork inside the plug — I was electrocuted so hard that my brain actually remembers this incident. Also, my boyfriend found out he was allergic to chocolate in an Easter incident. Pretty lucky couple."
5. "I had terrible period cramps, so my roommate told me to take Ibuprofen, but I’m extremely allergic to it. Because I was in so much pain, I didn’t think of telling her that, I just said no. She crushed four pills and put them in my soup without telling me. After a few sips of the soup, I just blacked out. I literally saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I always thought it was a metaphor, but it was real. Fourteen hours later, I woke up in the ICU."
6. "I was sitting at my desk eating and watching a movie. While chewing, I laughed, then coughed, then my mouthful of food ended up lodged in my throat, and I started choking. I couldn’t cough it out, and I couldn’t breathe, so I had to figure out what my next move should be before I lost consciousness. My vision was starting to gray out, and my lips were starting to tingle — signs of oxygen deprivation. I had to give myself the Heimlich maneuver. Luckily, it worked on the first try. Be sure you know how to do it to yourself, even if you don’t live alone."
7. "As a kid I used a staple gun to staple newspaper to the ground at home. Literally inches away from where I stapled, there was an electrical wire that was live. I frequently think about it."
8. "Not me, but my brother. He'd always wanted to travel to India and Nepal, and finally booked a big trip in 2015 with lots of different activities and excursions planned. While in India, he booked a five-day excursion, but after two days, he was underwhelmed and decided to cut that particular activity short and carry on through India and on to Nepal three days ahead of his initial schedule. Some of you may have figured where this is going — in 2015, Nepal experienced a massive devastating earthquake which killed nearly 9,000 people. The epicenter of the quake which saw the most damage and highest fatalities was exactly where my brother was...three days before. He said he saw the places he stayed and the buildings he'd visited just reduced to rubble on the news."
"So, if he hadn't randomly cut short his excursion in India by three days and had been on his original timetable, he'd have been right in the center of the devastation and likely dead. He was actually a couple hundred miles away from the epicenter when the quake hit, but said it still felt like a freight train going right past your window."
9. "Barrel rolled 6.5 times in a truck off roading/mudding. My seat belt snapped, and my cousin grabbed my pants and pulled me away from the window."
10. "One morning, my cousin’s husband wasn’t feeling well and thought he was getting the flu, so he went back to bed, and she went to work as usual. She worked just down the street so she popped home for lunch and to see how he was doing. Good thing she did because he was passed out on the kitchen floor. He spent eight days in ICU with sepsis, and if she hadn’t gone home for lunch, he would have been dead by the end of the day. As it was, he barely made it."
11. "I almost died during childbirth. Was hospitalized at 32 weeks pregnant for severe preeclampsia, and labor was emergency induced at 34 weeks. My uterus literally fell out of me as the team was helping deliver the placenta. I had a uterine inversion. Went into shock, and a member of the OR team manually put my uterus back in my body by hand. My brother is a paramedic and said he has lost GSW patients with blood pressure better than what mine dropped to."
12. "When I was like 7, me and my family were having a campfire, and as a stupid 7-year-old, I was rocking in my chair back and forth near the fire. My parents told me to stop, and I didn't listen. I rocked forward and fell on my knees, my face an inch from the fire..."
13. "I was 17 and driving back from a meeting at a camp I worked for at the time. They had long, windy roads in the backwoods of Georgia. It stopped raining about 20 minutes before I left, and I came around a bend and completely lost control of the car. I plummeted about 20 yards off of a cliff, and the only thing that stopped me from going another 100 yards was a boulder that caught my front axle. I was in a Kia Spectra and somehow walked away without a scratch."
—Anonymous
14. "When I was, like, 2 or 3, I was at a swim place, and apparently, when my mom was talking to my swim instructor, I fell in, and they didn’t notice until, like, 5–10 seconds later till my mom looked over and I was flailing in the water. She apparently started yelling and screaming, and the dive instructor jumped in after me, and it's safe to say we didn’t go back for a while"
15. "I fell two floors through a 2x2 hay chute and somehow managed to land in the wheelbarrow that was placed there about 30 seconds prior. I was, like, 14 and working at a horse barn in exchange for lessons — mucked stalls, cleaned tack, taught lessons to younger kids, shoveled hay, etc. And we were tasked with shoveling hay from the upper part of the barn through this 2-foot by 2-foot hole in the floor down to a wheelbarrow in the stalls of the barn. Someone else was down there running the wheelbarrow back and forth after we had filled it each time, and I guess had just returned it empty. All I remember is being up with a friend shoveling hay, and then looking up and seeing her looking down at me and the owner of the barn hovering over me."
"I must have slipped on the hay and fell juuuust right through the hole in the floor. I tried to get up, but the owner made me stay there until my dad came to pick me up. If that wheel barrow hadn’t been there, I would have landed on the concrete floor of the barn."
16. "I was driving into downtown Pittsburgh when a truck hauling some construction equipment started to merge into my lane without looking. I slammed on the brakes as I couldn't swerve and remember looking at my window and just seeing a tire. I managed to not get hit but was so shaken I pulled into the emergency turn-off shoulder up ahead and just started shaking. A guy pulled in behind me to check on me and said he would wait until I was ready and would guide me out safely."
17. "When I was 19, I almost died from a severe allergic reaction to fish. My allergy was so bad it happened as a result of eating some rice off of my mom’s dinner plate (she was having trout). I had no idea I was allergic, and I didn’t start having any reaction until almost an hour later when we were back home from the restaurant. I remember having trouble swallowing and telling my mom about it. She instructed me to lie down, and she was looking for Benadryl in the bathroom when my stepdad walked in. He’s allergic to a bunch of stuff, and he took one look at me and said I needed to get to a hospital STAT. My mom decided to drive me instead of calling an ambulance (the hospital was about 10 minutes away). By the time we got to the door of the ER, I couldn’t talk and had to concentrate really hard to get any breath through. I was so scared at that moment and was just trying to keep calm."
"After they treated me and I was recovering, the ER doc scolded my mom and said I was very close to having my throat close up within minutes of arriving. He told her she should have called an ambulance and asked her what she would have done if my throat closed up on the drive over! She was so upset and felt so guilty. Twenty years later, we’re able to joke about how she almost killed me."
18. "When I was 2, I was playing with a bunch of new baby kittens at a relative's house...until I started having trouble breathing and my throat swelled shut. I went into anaphylactic shock and had to have an injection of adrenaline in the emergency room. Final diagnosis was cat scratch fever, severe cat allergy, and a childhood spent carrying around a prescription bottle of Benadryl in case of an allergy attack. Good news, though! I outgrew the allergy for the most part and now have three wonderful kitties."
19. "When I was 13, I was throwing a football with friends in the street in front of our houses in our neighborhood. We were throwing a smaller, hard plastic football that was easier for us to throw faster and harder. I went to catch a hard-thrown pass from my friend. It slipped through my hands and drilled me right in my sternum. It jolted me, and I remember trying to breathe as I slowly fell to the ground. My older sister was there ,and she happened to be a trained lifeguard and noticed that I blacked out. She then noticed that I was gasping for air, and I didn’t have a pulse. She performed CPR on me, and within minutes, I was conscious hearing sirens approaching. The football impact stopped my heart."
"My big sister saved my life. What’s weird is I remember hearing my friends saying that I was faking it as I was laying unconscious in the street. I wanted to respond, but I couldn’t. My sister and I are still very close."
—Anonymous
20. "I was put on Remicade infusions a year or two ago for my UC (ulcerative colitis), and had already had a weird reaction to one of the loading doses. My doctors told me that it was normal (which it definitely isn't), and I moved on to regular dosing a few weeks later. The infusions get more concentrated as you go, and the infusion team turns up the level of medication being administered. So, about 10 minutes after they cranked my meds up, I started feeling weird and out of it. Then I started having trouble breathing, felt really hot and sweaty, and got dizzy. I went to hit my call button, but the button had fallen off my chair, and I couldn't find it. I finally got enough breath to semi-yell for a nurse. A nurse finally came over and started giving me Benadryl. Needless to say, I'm no longer with that clinic."
21. "In 2020, I started feeling really crappy, puking, fever that lasted days, so I went into the ER (I waited until I basically couldn't walk because it was during COVID and our hospitals were struggling). When I got there, they immediately told me they thought I had C-Diff, which is EXTREMELY contagious. They had to use a more stringent safety protocol for me than for their COVID patients. New full-body suits every time someone would come in the room. Even as ill as I was, I was so upset over the waste of it all. Eventually, they told me that since everything was so busy with COVID that I needed to go home and get a stool sample to bring in to confirm C-Diff and sent me packing. I passed out about two hours after getting home and was rushed back to the hospital in an ambulance."
"Thankfully, I was diverted to another ER due to the pandemic, because I might have been turned away again by the same ER. Turns out I actually had had an ischemia (stroke) in my colon, and when they failed to do any testing at the first hospital, assuming it was C-Diff, my colon was dying.
The second hospital didn't realize what it was either. My roommate had told the EMTs the first ER assumed C-Diff and so they also assumed C-Diff. I was completely incoherent at this point, but I was cognizant that they were still coming in the room in the yellow space suits every time. That went on for days. I was in and out, and I don't know if y'all know this, but they aren't exactly honest with you at the hospital all the time. I had severe sepsis.
Both kidneys and my liver had shut down, my lungs weren't working, and my heart was struggling. My entire intestinal track completely shut down, and they were contemplating surgery when I finally started responding to treatment. I regained the use of my intestines with a lot of long-term issues."
22. "While working as a server, I suddenly got very dizzy, got tunnel vision, and started shaking uncontrollably. My amazing coworkers sat me down, then rushed me to the ER. The doctor acted irritated and unprofessional. I told her I had a history of hypoglycemia dating back to childhood, and asked her to please get me some juice. She refused and stormed off. Turns out, I have been diabetic for over 20 years (I’m in my late 30s), and it was simply never diagnosed by negligent doctors. My blood sugar ended up being so low, I was literally on death’s doorstep."
"I will be forever grateful to the sweet nurse who listened to me, and finally brought me apple juice. I finally got the cajones to report the doctor, and have been on the mend since. PS: Be nice to service industry people. We work our asses off!"
23. "At 4, my 3-year-old sister and I were left for a pretty long time in the bathtub alone. She kept jumping, I got pissed because of the splashing! Then she says, 'Jump with me!' I eventually gave in, 'Okay! 1. 2. 3!!' I wake up in a hospital bed to my dad holding my hand crying. Apparently, I hit my head on something, was under the water with my eyes open, and my sister, thank God, screamed, 'Ashley stop kicking me!' So my mom came in, picked me up, took me out on the grass, and started screaming, 'She's dead, she's dead!' Luckily, my neighbor was a just-starting EMT and gave me CPR, and called 911 while my little body lay on the grass."
24. "I remember nothing about the accident, so this is all according to our parents. My cousin/best friend and I were 4 years old and playing in the garden of his home with our parents in the kitchen keeping an eye on us. The garden had nothing but fences, grass, and a tree in a corner, which gave us plenty of room to run around. My cousin was chasing me across the tree corner area when there was a loud crack and a large overhanging tree branch landed on us. Turned out that, though, apparently rare, Summer Branch Drop (SBD) was a thing. He was treated for a broken collar bone, bruised lung, fractured pelvis, and such. I was out cold with a dent/fracture in my skull, a neck injury, and smashed knee cap. When I came round, almost everything I learnt was gone. Apparently, didn't take me long to relearn basic skills, though (walk, eat, speak, etc.)."
"However, the brain injury left me tinnitus and a slightly-rewired cognitive ability. Such a pain in the arse, but at least I'm alive. That's all that matters, really."
25. "Nearly fell down the stairs at work due to an epileptic seizure and smashed my shoulder. They were just about to discharge me, but I felt a bit sick so they gave me some anti-sickness tablets — which, it turned out, I was seriously allergic to. I stopped breathing, and if a nurse hadn't have been standing right outside, I'd probably have died. I wear a special bracelet which lists all of my allergies and medical conditions now."
26. "In 2009, I was dropped/fell from a piggyback ride and hit my head on the sidewalk, fracturing my skull and causing my brain to start bleeding. Had to have emergency brain surgery that night or else I wouldn't have survived, and they warned my family that, even though it may help to relieve the pressure that had built up in my head, it was only a 50/50% chance. Was uninsured at the time and had no trustworthy family or friends to fall back on at the time, so was fending for myself the best I could. The hospital ended up taking me to court a decade later for the bill, which at that point had gone up to about $200,000. Had to file bankruptcy and still trying to get back on my feet even now. The healthcare industry is fuuuuuuuckkkkked."
27. "My partner has COPD, asthma, and is a COVID survivor (long hauler). Anyway, she’d been having some trouble breathing for a couple months. Between everything mentioned above as well as allergies and the smoke from Canada making its way down here, we didn’t think much of it. Well, about three weeks ago, she was so short of breath; she called off work but refused to go to the ED (🙄), so off we went to urgent care. They took one look at her and said, 'If you don’t go to the ED, you aren’t going to see tomorrow.' We get to the ED, and they end up flying in the IR (interventional radiology) team… She had multiple (like 25!!!) blood clots removed. The surgeon said by all rights she should have died, and he didn’t understand how she was still alive let alone joking with them."
28. "They take sepsis very seriously in the ER. When I had a kidney infection that turned into sepsis, they rushed me back to a room very quickly when I said I was having episodes of uncontrollable shivering. They got me hooked up to an IV almost right away. Maybe being that ill warped time for me, hard to say, because I went into the ER alone. But three days previously, I had been in urgent care, and they could have done blood tests to find the kidney infection, but instead, they tested my pee and said it was just a UTI. So, later, when I went into the ER, I was fully thinking they would tell me to go home and that I was overreacting. PSA — you can have an infection without having a fever. I never had one."
29. "My husband almost died twice, once before I met him and the second after a year together. First time he had passed out in his apartment (he lived alone) and was laying on his arm the whole time. His sister was worried since she hadn't heard from him and broke into his apartment and found him. He developed compartment syndrome (lack of blood kills off the muscle), and the proteins of his deteriorated muscle flooded his kidneys, and he had kidney failure. Spent two months in the hospital on dialysis and has literally no muscle on the inside of his right forearm."
"Second time he threw out his back, and the VERY incompetent medical staff didn't move him for four full days. After being released, he had a lot of pain behind his knee. Back to the ~Dumb Hospital~ who said it was dehydration. Went to a better hospital, and they found a huge blood clot. Days later, he ended up with pulmonary embolisms, and he was coughing up dead lung tissue. That's how we found out he has a gene mutation that makes it easier for him to get blood clots."
30. Finally, "I was hit by a truck at the age of 16 — I flew 50 ft. I lost four of my front teeth, suffered a cranial and traumatic brain injury, had internal organ bleeding, a broken femur, tibia, and fibula. It was so bad that I had to be brought back to life."
—Anonymous
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.