25 Astonishing Encounters With Death That People Miraculously Survived

Near-death experiences have a way of shaking us to our core, but they also make for some truly harrowing stories. When someone asked on Reddit, “What’s something that ALMOST got you killed?” the community responded with jaw-dropping tales of close calls and narrow escapes. From accidents to bizarre circumstances, these stories are enough to make anyone appreciate the fragile nature of life.

#1

Image source: Extension-Magician44, Zbynek Burival

As embarrassing as it is to admit, a grape. Was eating alone at home one night and swallowed it whole, and I immediately started choking. Obviously I managed to dislodge it, but damn if it wasn’t the scariest moment of my life.

#2

Year was 2001. Just left a buddies house with 4 of my buddies in a small a*s 1980s Plymouth reliant. We were only a 1/4 mile away, I was in the passenger back seat. We pulled up to a Stop sign on a busy road. Driver didnt  really fully stop and pulled out into the street. An F350 was was barreling down the road and hit us going 70mph. I was on the impact side.

We got pushed 40-50 feet or more into a gas station, coming within 3 feet of a gas pump. I was knocked unconscious and woke up roughly 15 minutes later , in a daze unsure what had happened. When I came to, I just remember being hunched over, and first thing I noticed was my jaw didn’t feel right. I moved it left to right and it just made the worst popping sounds. I remember looking up and seeing police lights flashing everywhere.

They ended up using the jaws of life to get me out. Ended up breaking both my mandibles in my jaw, my left clavicle, 3 places in my pelvis and my collar bone. Couldn’t walk for 3 months. Jaw was wired shut.

Ended up making a full recovery and living a normal life. I was 19 at the time, even enlisted in the navy the following year. 41 today and suffer from some joint ailments and dull aches and pains but that’s about it. Happy to answer any questions. Oh and everyone survived miraculously. .

Image source: Sombrer0sTeve

#3

Image source: Mint_Blue_Jay, David Peinado

The ceiling in my bedroom collapsed while I was sleeping due to water damage. Luckily I had rearranged the furniture in my room a few months before and my bed was under the only part of the ceiling that didn’t collapse. I was 12 at the time.

#4

Image source: Leather_Ad6525, Ernys

Working tired and in a rush. Worked late about 14 hours trying to please my boss. I was way too tired to be working, and my coworker and I were rushing to get done to go home. I’m a painter and was cutting in the top part of the wall on a 4 foot scaffold. I was on the tip top and missed the step board on the way down. My foot went in between the boards and vaulted the back of my head into the concrete at what I assume a decent speed. I was entirely unconscious, but my coworker came over, and he said I just looked stiff, and then I seized then limp and then seized and limp. He called 911, and the whole 10-15 minutes, he said I would seize go limp and then seize again. He heard the sirens and said the last thing he saw was me go limp and start snoring aggressively (agonal breaths). Luckily, I woke up not knowing anything, and I mean, I had no clue my own name couldn’t recognize my wife, couldn’t tell them where I lived and it took several days to be able to remember some things. Dr. Said that fall, and the damage to my head should’ve [ended] me. Boss stuck me with the $15k hospital bill and told everyone I worked for myself. I had a focal seizure a few days later, and now I’m dependent on epilepsy meds and can’t function without them and will never be off them. I have never been the same since the injury. Lesson- Don’t do anything extra for your boss they don’t care whatsoever about you.

#5

Image source: peachesfordinner, Turan Kaymaz

Giving birth and having the placenta not detach so lost a lot of blood.

#6

Image source: therealgrelber, Artem Saranin

Had a small infected sore on my foot. Got progressively worse over a long weekend. Got home on a holiday Monday and developed a high fever – freezing cold on a 90 degree day. Wanted to sleep it off and my wife forced me to emerg. Cellulitis. Gigantic memory foam leg. IV therapy for a week. Exact same thing happened two years later.

#7

In college my friend and I (both females) were bored one Friday night so we decided to go on a drive and play the left right game. Basically when you come to an intersection you pick left or right. Anyway, we ended up at the nearby lake and we decided to get out of my car and walk down the dock to see the stars over the water. After a few minutes we get cold and walk back to my car and get in. As soon as I turn the car on and the headlights come on, the lights shine on 3 men coming towards us out of the trees and one was carrying something. My friend screamed and we hightailed it out of there. We were lucky…who knows what would’ve happened if we didn’t get cold so fast.

Image source: No_Extreme5191

#8

Get a normal amount of sleep!

I ran my own business and was really proud of it, ended up getting a big project where I estimated based on two other developers helping me who’d worked on a number of projects before. The two other developers had major life crises happen that left them to drop out so I was left to complete the project in the promised time of one month.

I got maybe four hours of sleep a night, but realistically an average of two with a short nap or two during the day. I honestly didn’t feel that bad during it. My ex-wife had gone on a trip to visit her family during the end of it since I was too busy to really pay attention to her at all and had planned to come back the night of the deadline.

She was arriving at like 2am the night of the deadline so after I handed off the project I went to sleep at like 8pm thinking I’d be rested enough when she got in to great her. I woke up at 6am to her being home and apologized for oversleeping, she said she couldn’t wake me. About and hour later I realized the date on my computer was forward by a day…but really, I’d slept for 34 hours straight.

While it seemed kind of funny or cute at the time the lack of sleep damaged my heart and while it’s technically recovered now doctors have said that most likely my life expectancy is lower than someone who hadn’t been through that.

100% not worth it for any reason, get a solid 8 hours of sleep each night and live longer.

Image source: IAmASolipsist

#9

Three occasions I was almost unsubscribed from life.

First time I was working a late shift in the drive thru at McDonalds. There was a shootout in the parking lot and a stray bullet barely missed me.

Second time, I doubt anybody will believe this story. I was in a brawl and someone tried to run us over with a car, and I jumped on the hood with surprisingly minor injuries. Someone also pulled a knife out, but luckily there were some rocks nearby and I landed one on his face before he could stab anybody.

Third time was a few years ago. I had congestive heart failure from a combination of being fat and kidneys almost failing from eatng so much sodium and sugar. Not exercising also contributed to that. I’m much healthier now and won’t take that for granted again.

Image source: krufarong

#10

Image source: Chance-Butterfly4970, Corina Rainer

I was drunk, fell asleep in bed with a cigarette and only woke up because I touched the embers of my smoldering mattress in my sleep. My room was already completely full of smoke, maybe another hour and I would no longer be here.

#11

Image source: MightyKittenEmpire2, Eric Brehm

5th parachute jump my main failed, couldn’t go to reserve bc I was spinning too fast. Main popped at 400 ft.

All my other jumps had been from 3000 ft. This one was from 5000 ft bc another jumper had paid extra to go higher. If not for him, I would have splattered.

#12

Image source: DirtyWritin, JC Gellidon

I had an appendicitis and went to the ER, where they did some scans. They told me everything was fine and come back if the pain persists. Fortunately, I had looked at the notes for the scan on the hospitals patient app and saw that they saw what looked like a clip on my appendix like I had an appendectomy though the appendix was still there. I asked the doctor about it, and they still told me to come back if it persisted.

I went home and was still in excruciating pain. I am talking pain worse than any broken bone or other type of experience I have EVER had. Eventually, I went back and insisted they check my appendix, they did another scan, and eventually got them to bring in a surgeon. The surgeon didn’t do much more than put his finger on my abdomen and ask me about the pain before he told them to prep me for surgery.

As it turned out, my appendix was almost ready to rupture, and I had a bowel obstruction. Either of those things could have [ended] me.

Remember folks, always advocate for your own health. Medical professionals make mistakes at work the same as any of us.

#13

Image source: Far_Kaleidoscope_102, Blake Cheek

Jumped into a river to save a drowning friend, when I jumped in and made the swim he was panicking and tried to pull himself up on me which in turn pushed me under. If it wasn’t for another friend throwing in the life ring both of us would have died that day.

Now whenever I see a missing ring near water I report it immediately.

#14

Image source: outdooridaho, Skyler Ewing

I got bit by a dog after it had been chewing on a dead bear. Got sepsis within 48 hours. Horrible.

#15

Image source: Chevross, Polina Tankilevitch

Pneumonia, which was misdiagnosed as anxiety. I perhaps had Covid atop of pneumonia. I had been working a new teaching job for two months and had moved to a new location. I became sick. The doctors chalked it up to pneumonia while anxiety was making the illness worse than it seemed. Turns out I had myocarditis and a heart attack occurred during the inflammation of my heart muscles. I’m still recovering despite it being a year later. My stamina took a major hit and my heart shows signs of damage on an EKG.

#16

A stranger, and my best friend.

Stranger drugged me at a bar; but I OD’d. Ended up in cardiac arrest.

My “friend” waited 3.5 hours to call EMS, because she thought I was being “dramatic and drunk.”

She also failed to perform CPR on me correctly (on my clavicle) after telling me 6mos prior I was stupid and didn’t know CPR (been in medical care for 10 years, and cpr trained since I was 16) and that she was smarter than me despite never taking a single cpr class.

She had the audacity to act like she saved my life after all was said and done.

I was lucky her 16 year old brother was at the apartment when she finally managed to get me upstairs and throw me on the couch. He called EMS the 3rd time I collapsed. (She let me fall down 2 flights of stairs, THREE TIMES)

I woke up several days later on life support with a busted nose, two black eyes, a busted mouth, fractured clavicle, fractured leg, and tendons torn in my arm.

She thought I couldn’t remember anything, but I remember bits and peices; enough to know how much of an a-hole she is.

Tldr; Be careful of who your friends are. Turns out she was a super jealous and insecure person who didn’t care about me at all, and envied me to the point she wanted to see me burn.

Image source: ScientistEasy368

#17

Image source: jmiller1856, Tom Fisk

I fell out of the raft while white water rafting. Our guide was great about telling us where to go if we fell out during certain rapids. On this particular rapid he said “if you fall out on this one…..well, just don’t fall out.”

So anyway, I fell out on that rapid. My shoulder hit a rock hard enough to tear the skin off. I heard the guide yell “oh s**t” right as I got pulled under. I don’t know how long I was under for, but it seemed like forever and everything slowed down. When I came back up the guide had his paddle stretched out just barely out of reach. We both stretched a little further and I grabbed the paddle and got pulled back into the raft. Apparently, earlier that week someone had died on that rapid after falling out.

#18

Image source: spiderfishx, Robby Fowler

I was returning a DVD to the collection bin in the parking lot. I had a girlfriend in my truck with me.
I pulled up, put my window down and started to put the DVD through my window. I hit the frame and it knocked the DVD out of my hand on to the ground. I jumped out to pick it up without putting my truck in park.
My door hit one of the steel poles protecting that bin from idiots, but not this one.
My door trapped my head between it and my truck. Car isn’t in park, so it’s moving forward and crushing my head. I could feel the bones moving in my skull.
The girl in my truck couldn’t see what was going on clearly. She was laughing.
I got my foot inside and hit the brake. Shifted into reverse, and freed my head. Had a good dent for a couple of weeks.
I hate to think about panicking and hitting the gas that day.

#19

A dog.

Pretext – I was 9y/o and at a family reunion and a family member had an Akita. This dog had already snapped at multiple kids and had bitten their daughter’s hand, requiring stitches.

I was outside playing with my cousin, I came inside because I was hot and my mom looks over at me from a basement bar she is sitting at with her siblings and parents, and she offers to get me water. I declined the water and right after I said “no thanks”, the dog lunged at me from a couple feet away and I happened to look down at it as the movement startled me. Me looking down meant that it only got part of my neck, the rest was my jaw. If I hadn’t looked down I would likely have died as the dog would have gotten my neck. Anyways, I started bleeding profusely and my mom was obviously in shock. Thankfully, two family members are nurses, and my uncle was a veteran and had critical life saving skills. So they were able to keep me going until I got to the nearest hospital where I was operated on to stitch me up and repair damages to my tissue and jaw bone. The bite was, per the surgeon, “too close for comfort to my carotid artery”.

Later on my wounds got infected and one of the K-9 tooth wounds popped with infection. Literally popped. I have a massive scar where it popped because it made the wound so much bigger. So then I had an extended stay in the hospital while they treated that issue.

Also the hospital had a therapy dog going around one of the days I was there and for some reason nobody passed along the memo to not bring it in my room.

Image source: TH3_C1N1BUN

#20

Image source: GTFOakaFOD, Maxim Hopman

I wanted to see if my car could reach 100mph.

I was on a dark country road.

I think about that now and a pit forms in my stomach. Such an idiot.

#21

I touched a rock to remove some fishing line while scuba diving, I was wearing my cold water gloves cause I couldn’t find my thin warm water ones that morning. That rock was a stone fish, his spines went through my heavy gloves and scratched the skin but didint break it, I would have been dead before I got to the boat.

Image source: BadLandzChugz

#22

Stupidity did that.

My family and I were on a little trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, driving around the forest area, admiring the white waters. After a moment, my dad pulled over at a spot where there was just a little bit of road with just enough room to walk along the edge. My mom and dad got out with their phones, They told me if I got out I would fall, so I took that as a challenge of course. I was on the side where, if I opened the door and stepped out, I would have plummeted into rocks, sticks, and a s**t ton of old trash, PLUS a strong current below.

But, being a stupid pubescent 13-year-old, I decided to test my luck. Same second I stepped out I cartoonishly plummeted. I managed to grab onto a strong root with my right hand and dug my nails into the dirt with the other, desperately trying to hold on. My dad noticed instantly and bolted over to my dumba*s and angrily gripped my wrist lifting me up like a crazed gorilla.

What was insane was that he was at least four feet away, but he reached me in like half a second. The most impressive part is at the time, my dad was morbidly obese, yet he moved faster than I had ever seen a human move. He saved my life that day.

Not too crazy of a story but just felt like sharing.

TL;DR
I was a dumba*s and stepped out of my car and nearly plummeted to a rocky and sharp river with a current.

Image source: Geckland

#23

I was 5 or 6 years old, walking home from a friend’s house in the afternoon, which was totally kosher in the 80’s.

Thin guy with stringy blond hair pulled over in his, I kid you not, white van to ask for help looking for his pet. I absolutely believed him because he knew the animal’s name. Perfect 5 year old logic.

He got close enough to hand me $2 to reward my help, and something shook loose in my brain and I booked it home. My dad was FURIOUS. He flushed the money down the toilet and then disappeared for a couple of hours. He never brought it up again.

Honestly, if he hadn’t flushed the money I might not even remember the incident. Now, at 41 years old, it scares the absolute s**t out of me. I still remember that guys hair. In my memory, he looks exactly like Funboy from The Crow.

Anyway. Those after school specials were a goddamned documentary apparently, and I was almost on a milk carton. Good times.

Image source: Safestsearch

#24

Image source: NoRecording66, Tima Miroshnichenko

Diabetes. During the Covid pandemic, I started losing my hair, having severe heart pain, constant vomiting, my vision became blurred and I lost around 30kg in 2 months. My change was so quick and drastic that my wife thought I had cancer. I went to the doctor and my blood sugar was 790. The doctor said that if I had taken a few more days to start treatment, I would probably have had a heart attack at 23 years of age.

#25

Image source: F0ggyEyesight, Md Jahid Hossen

A lollipop. I was eating one at night my family was sleeping and I started choking, I couldn’t breathe. I would be very embarrassed in heaven right now if I were dead.??.