50 People Who Survived The Craziest Moments Of Their Lives

My ex husband strangling me while I was pregnant for not making him food (he was home all day) I worked 9 hours. It wasn't immediate but I got out.

I almost died getting a burrito.

In college , I went walking to a Mexican restaurant a few blocks down to buy burritos every now and then. They were very good, well portion and not too badly priced.

Anyway, I love listening to music. There is a hype playlist I listen to for walking and working out. We'll, one day I was listening to music on the way to said restaurant. I get there, buy my food and walk back. On the way back, I feel someone swip my backside as I crossed the tracks.

Pissed off, I turned around to see who the h**l it was, and it was a dam freight train that passed by. It was not going fast at all, just pacing through the neighborhood before picking up speed once out it was out of town.

I was on autopilot walking and listening to music so much that didn't hear the loud a*s horn or see the massive train coming. A part of the train just ever so grazed me from behind. I seriously thought it was someone swiping my back.

I rip my headphones out and I hear two things.

1. The loud a*s train horn
2. A bystander yelling at the top of his lungs "are you f*****g deaf?"

I stopped wearing heaphone for about 5 years after that.

Few years ago, struggling with job hunting I decided to drive on a rideshare app. One Sunday morning, a trip request turned out to be a robbery/hijacking.

The rider pulled a gun on me soon as they got in, 3 others came out of now where right then. I was searched & forced in the boot (trunk). This was around 09:00 in the morning and they spent the day driving around randomly robbing people.

Later the one in charge promised they'd let me go free, but they left that task to a teenager who felt sour they wouldn't let him drive earlier, he picked up his gf an went joy riding.

Eventually my people sent out the tracking company to find the car because I was unreachable for too long, the kid tried to outrun the guards and police once they caught up, he missed a turn and literally flew the car off a steep river bank, I could feel the car was not on the ground for a good while.

Somehow, I managed to walk away with a dislocated shoulder & few bruises.

4 years ago I was in absolutely crazy pain with my hip/groin/leg, couldn't walk, put any weight on it. I tried showering and was screaming in pain, nearly passed out. My leg turned purple and was freezing cold, went to a&e and this useless doctor did an x-ray for a dislocated hip, then told me I was just cold and to go home. COVID measures were still in place, so husband couldn't stay with me. When he came to get me, the intake staff were really surprised I was being released as they'd seen my leg.

We get home around 2am, I wrapped my entire leg in heated blankets and tried to sleep. Woke up and my leg had ballooned to twice it's normal size. Rang 111 and they told me to go back to a&e..... This time before I even had a blood test they wrote "pcd?" On the intake form (phlegmasia cerulea dorlens - life threatening complication of dvt).

Had blood test, Dr pulled me aside and said my bloods were through the roof for blood clots. Go into this little room and a Dr shows me all these clots in my groin on an ultrasound machine, quite fascinating to see.

Got told I saved my own life by wrapping my leg in heated blankets as it dilated blood vessels enough for a tiny amount of blood to get through. Without heat, blood was cut off to my leg and I was hours away from losing my leg or dying. Basically was riddled with huge clumps of clots through my thigh, groin and abdomen. Anyway, super scary, but still here.

Also had a wild ride in the worst hospital ward I've ever been in. One woman was bipolar, not medicated properly and would throw s**t across the room, flip out. Another was a druggy, she'd fallen and whacked her head, but kept pulling all her wires and drips out and escaping. The other woman they'd overdosed on morphine so she was in a coma for a few days, she'd then been left on that ward because she needed oxygen 24/7 and they couldn't find a mobile oxygen tank.

I wrote a 5 page complaint to the hospital and that original doctor was no longer allowed to be in a&e. Probably should have sued, but I was so traumatised and happy to be alive I didn't. Had to learn to walk unaided again, but can now walk 3-4 miles a day. Sometimes still get pain, but just thankful they eventually took me seriously and I lived to tell the tail.

Someone lit my car on fire at 3am, and I woke up to my house already going up in flames. Almost died from smoke, fire, and the power lines falling down beside us as we ran out. We all made it out alive, thankfully.

When I was 7 or so my mom and I were moving to another state and we were on the highway. I got tired and hopped in the back seat to sleep. A few minutes later my mom screamed and I opened my eyes to an 8x4 sheet of drywall coming through the windshield. It hit the driver's side pillar and rotated, driving the corner into the passenger seat. We were fine except my mom had some bruising on her arms and I had some glass in my eyes. There was a grapefruit sized hole completely through the passenger seat where my heart would've been.

Tie your s**t down.

Was walking home from a club in London early 2000’s with a bunch of friends about 2am. On the other side of the road there was a fella yelling at some girl, I could see she was cowering away from him. He grabbed her by the hair and started dragging her. All the while my friends (I’m a 5”1’ female) male & female just carried on walking. I started to walk over to the other side of the road to help, half way I yelled at the w****r to leave her alone. He stopped, looked at me, let go of her hair and smashed his beer bottle on the ground and lobbed it at me. I felt it brush the side of my face (this was my brush with death). The woman came running over towards me. We went back to the other side of the road to safety and I asked her if she could get home. She told me she had no money and was scared of him as they lived together. I gave her money for a cabbie and told her to go to her mums house or a friend’s. I was amazed that the cars were just going straight past, not getting involved, or even the friends that I was with just kept on walking. What kind of person just walks past abuse? As I taught my kids years later, “A strong man stands up for himself, a stronger man stands up for others” ~ Ben, A Good Cow….I realised some good came from this as it taught me to teach my kids how to be better humans.

I very recently got short of breath after watching a movie in the theater. My friend took me to ER. I got sick, passed out. A CT scan showed the entrance to both lungs were full of blood clots. Visibility was too low for the medivac chopper to get me. 2 hour ambulance ride to a major hospital. Arrived at 5:30. By 11:30 I was in IR as they vacuumed clots . Took nearly 2 hours to get the ones that weren’t attached. A literal handful were removed. No prior symptoms, no heart attack, no strokes. 4 weeks later and I’m nearly back to normal.
I have not had any major health issues in my 65 years. Except now my first full time medication is a blood thinner.
Like many here- I’m blessed to be alive and healthy.

It's an even split between:

"Bolt from the blue" lightning struck a lightning rod on top of a light pole about 6ft from me. I had literally *just* walked away from that spot and gotten into my security cart (basically just a fully-enclosed golf cart) after having a smoke break on the top level of a parking garage.

A storm had recently passed over, but it was miles away and we had clear skies overhead, so I figured it was safe. I can't even describe how f****n' loud it was...

And the other was when a brake line blew in my 99 Explorer on the highway. I was doing about 80mph (speed of traffic for that stretch of I-95) in the left lane, and there was a sudden dead stop ahead. I hit the brakes to start slowing, heard a `*thunk-pop*` and, well, didn't slow down any.

Through sheer f****n' luck (and either accidentally or instinctively dropping down a gear), over the next 15-20 seconds, I managed to: swing onto the left shoulder, swing back into the left lane just before the shoulder ended, veer into the middle lane, jump back into the left lane, and then finally found a clean 'river' through the middle and right lanes onto the right shoulder...all in heavy (and nearing standstill) traffic.

Once I was fully on the shoulder, I was able to reach the emergency brake (it was one of those left-side pedal types, but too h**h to easily use in an emergency...thanks Ford), and actually stop the truck. Got out, panic-puked a little, checked on my dog (she was fine!), and then collapsed into a full-on panic attack.

Thankfully a bunch of people pulled over to help (I assume because it was standstill traffic and they had nothing better to do, lol) and pretty much handled everything for me while some nice old lady sat with me and . Like some couple walked my dog, some dude went under my truck and diagnosed/found the line that ruptured, a lady called AAA to get me a tow, and some other guy set up flares.

In 1998 I went to a Slayer concert at a relatively small venue. I love the band but I didn't appreciate how violent the crowd was going to be. There were groups punching on in the mosh pit as soon as it started and it was too packed in to move away. Tom Araya called out one guy (a big angry skinhead who seemed a foot taller than nearly everyone else) and threatened to stop the show if the fighting didn't stop. Midway through 'Raining Blood' I was knocked down in the middle of a mosh and could not get back to my feet. I had people falling on top of me and I could barely breathe. After what felt like the longest time, the same big angry skinhead picked me up from the ground, held me up and let out a primal roar in my face.
I survived the rest of the concert and came outside afterwards to see the street lined with police cars.
In hindsight it was one of the best concerts ever, but I feel like that angry skinhead saved my life.

I think I still have a guitar pick somewhere from that night..

Twin pregnancy and birth. During my pregnancy, I had so many things go wrong with my body. I had swelling so bad that my pores were leaking fluid. My blood pressure was at a constant 90/100. I slept sitting up for 3 months because I couldn't breathe laying down. I couldn't eat or drink much because I would just automatically throw it up. I was constantly puking up stomach acid. I made it to almost 38 weeks and had a c-section. That part went smoothly and both babies (a boy and girl) were born healthy! Shortly after, I had mass hemorrhaging and ended up in congestive heart failure where I spent almost 2 more weeks in the hospital.

It was the most wild 9 months I've ever been through, and the hardest thing I've ever had to go through emotionally and physically. The twins are 7 months now and are healthy and thriving. They're the happiest babies I've ever seen. Even though I almost lost my own life in the process, I would do it all again for them.

A car crash that should’ve ended me. Walking away alive made me realize how fragile life is, and how every heartbeat after that is a second chance I can’t waste.

My wife and I were in separate cars, heading to a military base to drop a car off for our son, who had been away for National Guard Drill. We were driving about 50mph when a driver coming from the opposing side of traffic cut a hard left turn barely missing my wife and hit me head on. Our cars were totalled, and if it weren't for modern safety devices, we both would have died or suffered life altering injuries.

Outside the Baghdad International Airport, we were patrolling for rocket and mortar sites. We found a pretty secluded spot to hole up and overwatch a back road near a large property mound. We sit there for about an hour when the other truck reports seeing silhouette movement atop the mound. We decide they'll stay in place and our truck would move around to cut off an escape. Driver fires up the truck and starts to move out when Boom, the IED that was buried just a few feet away from us the whole time goes off. It sent fragments through my drivers head whom I was sitting directly behind, into my gunners legs whom I was sitting inches away from. It blasted my door off. Basically hit everyone and everything in the truck except me. Took me a looooong looooong time digesting that.

When I was in China about 20 years ago, I was at a traditional musical theatre production.

I needed the bathroom and couldn't find it.

The receptionist pointed in a general direction and I still couldn't find it. Asked again and got the same response, but that was again useless.

Asked again, and some man in a suit walks up to me, speaks perfect English and says, "I'll show you".

Bear in mind, I'm about 10 years old.

This guy leads me through corridors and then finally we enter the kitchens.

He opens the next door and it's the street.

I turn on my heel and sprint back the way we came.

I made the receptionist leave her desk and show me.

We had a huge wildfire in our city (Fort McMurray; the fire was called the Beast) in 2016. We had a small fire just out of the city near Horse Creek. I took a few pictures of it but it didn’t seem that dangerous. The next day, we had a fire within city limits that was put out. It distributed some ashes across our neighbourhood but was contained. I figured we must have used up all our bad luck and was relieved.

The third day, I was out sweeping ashes off my deck when all of a sudden, it got dark. I turned around and realized we had another huge fire right behind us. Nobody was prepared. I spent the next few hours trying to get gas without success. People weren’t following traffic lights and some were fighting by the gas pumps. When my husband finally got home, we had burning branches falling all around us. I took one last look at my house and we left.

Because the city was completely unprepared, all 80,000 people were evacuating at once, so it was almost impossible to get out of our neighbourhood. I came up with a work around and we finally got on the only highway out of town. Because the fire had shut down the highway south, we were all trying to go north but the roads were too full. They had to open the highway south no matter how bad the flames were.

The next half hour was the most terrifying of my life. My husband was in his truck with pets and I was in my vehicle with the remaining pets. Because there was so much traffic we were all going about school zone speed as the flames burned right beside us. The smoke was so thick, you couldn’t see. There were burning buildings and trees all around us.

Our city center is in a deep valley, once you drive through that area, there’s a steep hill to get out of town. We are creeping along and the smoke cleared for a second. The flames were so high over the trees that it looked like the air itself was on fire. Then there was a series of explosions to left as a couple of sizeable propane tanks let go. As I looked up the hill, I saw abandoned vehicles everywhere.

I couldn’t understand. At first, I thought maybe they all ran out of gas. But then I remembered an episode of a show called “I Survived” where a semi truck was driving through a forest fire. His vehicle stopped because there wasn’t enough oxygen for the engine. I suddenly realized that was what had happened.

All I could feel was terror. My mouth was dry and tasted like metal. I was sure that any second, both our vehicles would stall and we’d watch each other burn to death just a few feet apart. The minutes it took to get up the rest of that hill felt like a lifetime.

Once we got to the top, I thought maybe we’d be okay but everything, absolutely everything was on fire. Hotels, restaurants, the propane center, all of it burning. We were driving through blackness because of the smoke and I was just concentrating on the tail lights in front of me and praying nobody hit the brakes.

I glanced at a what had been a beautiful campground that was burned to the ground. There was a power pole was suspended above the ground by wires because the bottom had burned away. It was on fire in the air and looked like a burning cross.

After that, we passed the worst part. The city had closed the highway north and converted all lanes southbound. It took us 9 hours to get the 200 kilometres to a friend’s farm. We didn’t know if our children and grand children got out. We didn’t know if we had a home or job waiting. We rested for a few hours and then kept heading south.

It was a huge traffic jam for hours. No one was moving. There was no food, no water, no gas. Kind people were bringing things. A man gave me a bottle of water and a handful of trail mix. Because everyone was trying to find people, our cell phones were mostly useless. We used back roads and finally got to safety that night. Eventually, later that night, we found out that our family was alive.

We were very lucky. Most of the community worked at one of the oil sands plants nearby. We all had to take special training to deal with emergencies, even administrative staff. I think that training saved lives. They were a few people panicking but most kept their heads. We lost two young people during the evacuation due to a traffic accident. But that was it. It could have been so much worse.

I used to love summer, especially the thunderstorms. Not anymore. As soon as it gets warm, we get ready. Go bags packed, cars full of gas, ready to leave at a moments notice. We still have multiple fires each year but none as bad as The Beast.

An attempt on my own life. Anyone thinking of or currently doing it, listen to me. Stop. All you’re doing is putting more scars on yourself inside and out and it’s just hurting you even more. You hurt yourself because it makes you feel better in the moment. But it will only get worse. Trust me. .

The Plainfield Tornado, it was a rain-wrapped F5 that had no warning, the sirens only went off about 2 minutes after it had lifted. My family was driving right into its path, our station wagon getting pelted with hail when my dad noticed shingles tumbling out of the sky. He spun the car around and sped back in the direction we were coming from. We would've driven right into it.

I got groomed online by a way older couple when I was underage. When I turned 18, they moved me across the country to be with them.  


While there, I and another person, were subjected to genuine t*****e. Sleep deprived, locked and chained in a basement, r***d, beaten... It was really, really bad.


I live with the scars from that both physically and psychologically. I will forever. The other person who was with me has since ki**ed themselves. I dont blame them for taking that way out. .

Almost choked to death on a big jawbreaker when I was like thirteen. Still refuse to eat hard candies to this day.