It's easy to feel invincible when you're #blessed with good health, a roof over your head, and food only one Seamless delivery away. But life is incredibly fragile and can end in a split second, as one harrowing Reddit thread recently made clear. spacexe asked"What was your scariest 'A second later and I would've died' moment?" and people came through with some terrifying responses. I might never talk to a stranger, get inside a car, or go near a train ever again. Sure, I'd be doomed to a life of isolation and solitude...but remember when I mentioned Seamless? As long as someone brings food to my door, I'm set. In the meantime, read the below anecdotes and feel justified in your everyday paranoia.
1. Acridid12 got lucky.
I was walking into a Miller's Outpost (tells you the time period) and the 'M' from the sign above the store fell down and hit me on the shoulder. It was a big glass sign. One moment sooner and it hits my head. Because it drew blood, the store offered to give me any item I wanted so I wouldn't sue. I chose an awful red cardigan. I was 16 and dumb.
2. clipperlad was almost kidnapped! Omg.
I can not confirm whether this would have been death however it would have changed my and my parents life like death. I was about 6 or 7 and I went along with my mum to go train the new puppy we had. The training ground was quite far away from home and I remember that it was a big field surrounded by a forest and a motorway on the side of it. I was told to stay in the car and play on my gameboy (back when they were a thing lol). After an hour or so I got bored and I went to have a look at where my mum was with our puppy. The carpark was a little while from the training ground but I decided to walk towards her anyway. In the meantime an older man (30ish) starts talking to me and the naive little boy I was I talked back (regardless of all the times my mum told me to NOT TALK TO STRANGERS). He convinced me I was going the wrong way and told me he would take me to my mum and puppy has. We ended up by the motorway side and we were about to walk down the bank to the side of the motorway where his car was parked. As I am about to disappear down the bank I hear the loudest scream of my name from my mum, I look back and feel the grip of the man tighten on my hand but I was just in time to get my hand out of his grip and run towards my mother. My mum runs past me to see where this guy is but he had just got into his car and drove off. To this day I still imagine about the what if scenario and how close I was to being kidnapped and potentially killed.
3. LongJohnColt offered a variation on the theme.
My story is "a second earlier and I would have died."
Basically I got t-boned by a van while riding my bicycle. Missed me by a couple inches, destroyed the back of the bike, and threw me into traffic.
4. ethanlan's life could've ended in a split second.
Outside my college dorm my freshman year there was this "stoop" that was half under the building, half out from under it. The building was 18 stories tall.
So I'm sitting out there sitting on the steps (not under the building) and I get up for no real reason and walk under the building. As soon as I get under the building, a huge sheet of glass falls right where I was sitting. Some idiots where messing around on the 11th floor and knocked a 10x9 window pane out of its mooring.
5. kimb0q reinforced my irrational fear of elevators.
My friend and I were taking an elevator down to the cafeteria in our dorm in college. For some reason, we were arguing about something when the doors opened, so we hung back for a second.
Then the elevator dropped two floors with the doors open.
I still hate getting in/out of elevators and I do a weird running start every time.
Edit: happened in Canada, was an old building/elevator (<1950s)
Second Edit: We were in the elevator when it dropped. More terrified of the “getting sliced in half” aspect than the drop.
6. NZT-48Rules was in the worst carpool EVER.
When I was in junior high I was car pooling with another kid and her mom. For a reason I can't fathom she decided to race a transit train hoping to get across the tracks before the train stopped traffic. She gunned the car. I was in the back seat screaming NO. She hit the train. Because I was in the back seat I was injured the least. I had a pointy piece of metal pierce through my jeans and flesh until it hit bone. Had she been a second faster the train would have hit us broad side and killed us all.
Edit To answer the questions. This was 1980. She was not charged or sued. It was labelled an accident. She and her daughter suffered broken bones, lacerations and concussions. Because of the parental acrimony I couldn't be friends with the girl anymore. The family moved away before the end of the school year. I know at the time her mum was still not working. I'm not sure if she ever went back to work. Clearly she had or had developed some kind of mental or emotional problem which the accident probably made worse. I wondered if she was an alcoholic who began day drinking, but I never mentioned my suspicion to anyone. I needed crutches for a few months.
7. janearcade evaded certain death.
About 30 years ago my family and I were driving up to Jasper, Alberta in the winter. There was a slow car in front of us, and an impatient one behind us who kept trying to pass. Eventually the car behind us did pass, on a blind corner and hit a logging truck head on. The slow car in front of us was also hit, but my dad managed to put us in the shoulder and not in the collision.
This was way before mobile phones, or anything like that. So I remember my dad and my older brother getting out and going over the other cars and talking with the truck driver. It was this indescribable moment of total silence, and freezing cold, and disbelief until the authories came (quite a bit later). I remember sitting in the backseat with my younger brothers wondering what the hell just happened.
8. That's scary, fms10, but at least you got to miss work.
I passed out at work and came around in the hospital. They diagnosed a bleed on the brain and eventually decided to drill a hole in my skull to drain the fluid. Just as they were about to put me under, the phone rang. It was the Head of Neurology. I actually had a burst aneurysm. According to my doctor, I would have probably been dead seconds after they started the surgery.
9. elephantlover85 almost died thanks to a nurse's negligence.
When I was in middle school I called my mom on my cell during lunch because my head hurt so badly I couldn't move (she was 1 on speed dial). Well the nurse came and brought me to the office for a check up and some pain pills while I waited for my mom (we didn't live close). Nurse said no fever, and to take me home and put me to bed. My mom watched me get into the truck and decided that maybe we should go to the hospital to be safe. By the time we reached the hospital (it was further then our home) my temp was at 104 and I was incapacitated. I had meningitis. If we went home and she put me to bed like the nurse suggested, I never would have woken up.
Edit for detail: For those who keep asking/speculating it was Viral Meningitis (the less severe form) but it progressed very quickly. I had no headache when I arrived at school. By lunch time I couldn't move on my own and I couldn't see because light was too bright. The nurse came to get me and I didn't have a fever. After waiting for my mom 10 minutes and the 20 minute drive to the hospital and 10 minute wait at the hospital it was at 104. Yes we told the nurse after, but there was only some of the symptoms when I left school. She never gave me or my mother advice again, just told symptoms and gave pain meds.
10. Of COURSE some dumb teen driver almost killed HopelessDreamerDM.
I was freshman in college and came back to my hometown for fall break. I decided to go to a football game to hang out with some old friends. On the way home, I stopped at a red light and when it turned green, I pulled forward, as usual.
From the left, a truck suddenly hit me. He was speeding and ran the red light, t-boned me right in front of my driver's door. I luckily got out with just an injured knee and fractured clavicle and some bruising.
It haunted me for a while that, had I pulled forward just a little faster or he had been just a quarter second slower he would've gone straight into my driver's door and I likely wouldn't have made it.
He wasn't even drunk or under the influence, it was just a 16-year-old kid not paying attention.
11. luckygiraffe experienced danger while working construction.
I was working on a pipe crew in 1998, we were installing a large concrete vault in a pretty big hole. I'm standing in a ditch about six feet deep marking grade while the excavator operator is digging. So to the front of me is a large excavator bucket, itself weighing hundreds of pounds and backed by powerful hydraulics and thousands of pounds of steel armature, and behind me is a solid concrete wall about a foot thick. And the ditch is only a few feet wide and too tall for me to jump or climb out of with any kind of speed.
Suddenly the excavator spins to one side and the arm snaps out to full extension with full force, and the operator shuts it down. The bucket missed my head by about a foot. He climbs out of the machine, visibly shaken, and tells me that something has failed on the machine and the arm "wasn't supposed to have done that." So as he's been digging he's been noticing that ever so slightly there's a bit of a delay between his inputs and the machine's actions, and in the moment before failure he just felt "something wasn't right" and tried to pull the bucket in; when it didn't seem to want to, he turned the excavator "just in case" and that's when the arm extended. Had he not, I would have been crushed to fucking death.
There were two other excavator operators on that crew, and they were basically idiots. Had one of them been with us that day, I'm sure I'd be dead.
12. ...and one last terrifying anecdote from fruchte.
My dad and I were driving down the road after heavy rainfall in Vermont. He is driving, and I am fiddling with the radio. I hear a very load CRACK, and before I can ask my dad what it was, out of the corner of my eye I see movement.
An entire tree was falling on the road - due to the heavy rainfall, the dirt was too wet to keep some trees in place.
My dad stood on his brake, cartoon style, and we slid nearly right into the tree. I heard a pop before we fully stopped, and when we lurched back to 0mph, we were both breathing hard. My dad got out to check the damage, and the pop I hear was a branch hitting a headlight out.
First time I've ever seen my dad call 911. It was scary. Could have been he end of us if he didnt top to chat to the waitress after we left the restaurant to go home.
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