"Had I Just Held My Pee In, I'd Be The One Currently In A Coffin:" 21 People Who — By The Skin Of Their Teeth — Survived Nearly Fatal Situations
Warning: This article contains descriptions of intense bodily injury, gun violence, and mentions of rape. Please proceed with caution.
Recently, Redditor u/Traditional_Sea603 asked, "People who escaped death by complete luck. What happened?" Needless to say, there were some Final Destination-level horror stories that people fortunately survived. Here are 21 of the wildest near-death experiences people shared:
1."I was 16 in Bermuda, riding my moped into town when I came up to a bus stopped at a red light. I came to a stop, and then, as is tradition, I scooted around the bus to be at the front of the traffic. No more than 10 seconds later, a second bus plowed into the back of the first bus at 30-40 mph. I would have been pancaked, no question, had I not moved. Apparently, the second bus driver had a medical event and lost consciousness. I just sat on the side of the road for 30 minutes afterward and looked at the trees, contemplating my mortality."
2."The guy who set fire to my house used lighter fluid on a wet mattress he found behind the house. Because he used the wet mattress, the fire spread slowly enough for us to wake up, see the smoke, and call the fire department. They told us that, had the mattress been dry, we'd be dead, because he put it up against the side of the house with the gas line. So not just burnt to death, but confettied."
3."I was in the passenger seat of my dad's small sports car (low to the ground) when a crowbar came off a work truck in front of us and flew into the windshield of our car. Somehow, it stopped a few inches away from my face. Fortunately, I was looking down, which meant all the glass that would have ended up on my face was in my hair instead. I always think about how lucky I was; I can't explain why that crowbar stopped half in and half out of the car. Wild to think that if it didn't stop, it would have hit me square in the forehead, killing me."
4."One time, I went on a blind date with a guy, and everything went great. We wanted to go to his apartment, but suddenly, my mother called me, saying my dad was in the hospital. I left my date there and rushed over. After that, I didn't hear from the guy. A few weeks later, the police knocked on my door, saying I needed to go to the station because they wanted to ask some questions about my date. As it turned out, he had raped four girls, and one of them died after they met up."
5."I'll try to make a long story short. My ex-wife and her boyfriend (which she had behind my back) tried to hire someone to kill me so that she could have my life insurance and there wouldn't be a custody battle over our daughter. Luckily for me, the guy they hired to do the job was an undercover deputy working a completely unrelated case against the drug-selling gang her boyfriend belonged to. Yeah...finding out about all this was a nice surprise. I had absolutely no clue. The boyfriend got 10 years because the gun he gave the deputy to kill me with was stolen, and he had other stuff related to the gang on him. She got five years for conspiracy and was released after three."
6."Worked at my local mall while in college. I've always prided myself on never being late. I was going in early to go to my bank, which was at the main entrance. A series of ridiculous events began, and I found myself running late, which really frustrated me. Again, it rarely, if ever, happened. I drove quickly to find police cars flying past me. As I approached the mall, I saw the cops swarming the main entrance, where I was headed. Turns out, a woman had entered the main entrance with a rifle and began shooting as she entered, and continued as she walked through the mall. She killed three and wounded seven, some critically. No doubt I would have been in the line of fire had I not been late. She spent decades in jail and was recently released."
7."I lived in the attic apartment of an old Victorian house. I kept hearing noises in the walls, until one night I woke up to a room full of bats. Needless to say, I didn’t want to live in an apartment infested with bats, so some friends of mine said I could live in their extra room. I moved really quickly, because bats. Ugh. Anyway, two days later, the entire old Victorian house went up in flames and burned to the ground. I thought, 'Whew, I got outta there just in time.' But that wasn’t the end of it. A few days after that, some detectives showed up on campus where I had class and asked to speak with me. They started asking me all these questions about whether or not I knew this guy who lived in the basement of the old house."
"I explained that I may have said ’hi’ in passing a few times, but that was it. Well, it turns out that the guy was obsessed with me and moved into the basement of the building because I lived there. He freaked out and SET THE FIRE when I left because he didn’t know where I went. I had NO IDEA. They found a bunch of pictures of me and all kinds of creepy shit in his belongings. Luckily, no one was hurt in the fire, and he went to prison for arson (which carries a stiffer penalty than stalking, SMH).
I love bats now. Bats are my friends. Thank you, bats."
8."The light turned green at the intersection where I was stopped. I started to move forward, but the driver in the lane next to me honked and hit his brakes. I hit my brakes, too, and looked around. Just then, a car blew through the red light, going 45+ miles an hour. Had I continued through the intersection, my little hatchback might have been T-boned on the driver's side by a much larger vehicle. Thank goodness that other driver saw the car about to run through the light and honked his horn, or I might have been flattened."
9."My frat bro’s mom was in the Chi Omega house at FSU in 1978. Ted Bundy broke into the house while they were sleeping, killing the two girls in the room across the hall from hers and seriously beating up two other women. She had to testify at his trial. What saved her? She locked her door."
10."I was at an indoor shooting range testing a potato cannon (don't ask). I was leaning against the stall wall with my hand behind my head while my buddy took a shot with it. Suddenly, I felt a pinch/burning sensation on my wrist. I took a look at my arm and saw blood streaming from a half-inch-deep hole on my wrist. The idiot in the stall next to me wasn't sure if his handgun was empty, so he did the most logical thing he could think of, which was apparently to point it at the stall wall and pull the trigger. The bullet grazed my wrist, about three inches from my head. That's the only time I've ever seen a range safety officer tackle someone."
11."We went to a party at Paul Smith College — my friend's favorite cousin was a student there. There was a bonfire, booze, and someone had the bright idea to bring out a snowmobile. I was going to ride on it, but had to go to the bathroom. I guess I took too long, because he asked a different girl to ride with him. She did. They were both killed about two minutes later. They'd taken the snowmobile out on the frozen lake in the fog and went far enough out that they hit a giant rock. It was traumatizing. It blew my mind for a long time. Had I just held my pee in, I'd be the one currently in a coffin instead of Kristine."
12."A street light collapsed on me (my neck) and onto the face of the girl in front of me on a 5th-grade field trip. I was surprisingly fine, while the girl in front of me got helicoptered out. She made a full recovery, though!"
13."It happened almost 20 years ago. It was a pretty stupid way to get injured. I went on a school beach trip at the beginning of the year. I went into the ocean, which was very calm, so I jumped in to acclimate myself to the water and then dove in. We get a phenomenon called aguaje, which means dead plankton, which turns the sea yellowish and keeps you from seeing what's below the surface. I was unlucky enough to hit a sandbank when I dove and immediately broke two vertebrae. The upper fracture would've been enough to kill me on the spot had the bone fragments gone into my spine, but it was a clear fracture. The lower one, though, did get into my spine."
"Then and there, I suddenly became nothing more than a head attached to a seemingly dead body, with no way to turn around and ask for help. While holding my breath, I saw a hand next to my cheek and thought I was gonna make it. It was horrifying to realize it was my own hand.
And then... the deus ex machina! A wave turned me over, and I could finally breathe and scream for help, or so I thought. As it turns out, you can't scream if you can't fill your lungs properly. All I could do was produce an indoor voice call for help.
Since this was during a school trip, I was surrounded by other students. One of them saw me and assumed I was just enjoying myself until she saw blood on my lip. Had I not inadvertently bitten my lower lip as I jumped, I would probably not be writing this.
A year in physical rehab got me to recover a good deal of sensation and mobility; I'm no longer just a head, but I did get a severe, life-lasting disability. I wish I could say I'm used to it and doing well, but that's just not true. I have chronic pain, and today is a particularly difficult day. It's not all bad, though; most days are worth living, and I still have my dreams and ambitions. I might not be the smartest or strongest, but I'm definitely the most perseverant person I know."
14."While white water rafting, my raft went through rapids when I got ejected and sent underwater. I swam up and hit my helmet on a rock. It was pretty dark and murky, and that was when I realized I had been pushed by the current either underneath a rock outcrop or into an underwater cave; I'm not sure which. Trying my best not to panic, I did the only thing I could think of, using my hands to grip the rock and push myself against the current while kicking. After what felt like an eternity underwater, but it was probably no more than about 2 or 3 minutes, I noticed the light was getting brighter, and before I knew it, I had reached the surface. Once at the surface, the current of the rapids shot me downstream, and I floated to the nearest river banker to collect myself."
15."I had a tree fall on me. I was two steps away from being crushed by the trunk. Paramedics made sure to tell me that while I was sitting there with a flap of skin hanging off my scalp. Like, thanks, dude, for pointing out I almost died while I was already in shock."
16."I got clotheslined across the neck by a fence while I was riding on the back of a four-wheeler. These people had a fucking pot patch in the mountains, so they roped it off from the trail I was on, not with a fence, but with a single wire that you couldn't see until you were right up on it. Anyways, because I'm deaf in one ear and the engines were loud, I couldn't hear my mom warning me, so I didn't tense up, and the shit rag-dolled me instead of breaking my neck. This is incidentally also the story of why I don't ride on the back of any ATVs, bikes, etc. anymore. My own damn mom nearly killed me, so I sure as hell don't trust anyone else. I drive, no compromising."
17."Back in the year 2000, 7-year-old me and my friends were outside exploring. That day's location happened to be a power station. An older 9-year-old boy lost his life on top of a machine. The electricity burned a hole through him. I lost both my hands trying to climb up and help him. Amputated below my elbows. Electricity went through both my arms and exited in my armpit on one side and my neck on the other side. It never went through my chest, or I'd be dead, too."
18."When I was a naive 10-year-old, a guy in a shitty car asked me to hop in and help him find his lost puppy. My dumb ass was about to get in when my little brother happened to ride by on a bike and started screaming. He probably saved my life that day."
19."I smelled gas in my house after coming home from three days away. I rushed to the kitchen to check the gas stove and switched on the light (as customary) on the way in. It was a very dark kitchen with no windows, and it was ingrained in me to just switch on the light as I went in. I'm very lucky I realized that the second I did it, or it might've killed me."
In case you're confused, you're not supposed to turn any electric switches — including light switches — on or off in the event of a gas leak, as they can create a spark that could cause an explosion, thus killing you.
20."One day, I was walking through the streets of my city when I decided to change my usual route to surprise my friend for her birthday. As I was on a side street with little traffic, I heard the sound of an explosion coming from behind a nearby building. Frightened, I turned around and saw a car that had just lost control due to engine failure and was crashing right where I had been standing seconds before. Thanks to that sudden decision to change paths, I escaped death by pure luck."
21.And finally, "When I was young, my first car was a junker. The driver seat was held upright by a two-by-four wedged against the backseat. If you took it out, the seat went flat below the car's window line. I was working nights and fell asleep behind the wheel on the way home. I woke up to the roof of my car about two inches from my nose and heard the firefighters outside, betting how many pieces my body was in. I politely told them to be careful, as I was still alive. Walked away with a few cuts from the glass, but that was it. My car had flipped sideways on a country highway by a bridge ravine and had gotten wedged between two trees. Apparently, the other miracle was the way it was wedged, which was in a way that all the gas drained out of the tank, so I didn't go kaboom."
Have you ever had a near-death experience like these? If so — and if you feel comfortable sharing – tell us about it in the comments below or via this anonymous form, and it may be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community post.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
