“This Is Actually A Horrendously Common”: 80 People Whose Lives Ended In Weird And Disturbing Ways

A friend of mine medevac-ed a farmer who was replacing a large light on the outside of his barn. The farmer couldn't reach the bulb, so he tried to climb the paddock fence and balance on that. Still couldn't reach it, so he drove a tractor with a front-end loader over, raised the bucket, and climbed up the fence into the bucket.

He was screwing the bulb in when he lost his grip on the bulb. It fell and shattered on his head. He staggered backwards off the bucket and slammed down onto the gate to the paddock fence, partially impaling himself. The entire gate crashed to the ground, pulling some of the fence down with it. A piece of the broken fence somehow kicked the brake off the tractor, and the tractor then ran him over.

Since he was being medevac-ed, I realize this might actually be the weirdest way someone *almost* died, but the air ambulance crew was told his odds of survival were beyond astronomical. I'd be thrilled to find out that he made it though!

My old babysitter simply fell in her kitchen. Hit her head, never woke up. She was Miss America at one point.

High school class president was hiking. He reached above his head and grabbed on to a rock to pull himself up, and stuck his hand in a rattlesnake nest. He didn't make it to the hospital.

Tripped and fell while drunk. Banged her head on a table before hitting the floor. Friends asked if she wanted them to call 911. She said no, she just needed to go lay down for a bit.

It was her birthday.

Pilot in Alaska. Flipped his float plane on landing and was pissed so he sat there a few minutes stewing. All his passengers got out while he was sitting there - when he finally went to unbuckle his seatbelt it was stuck and no one else was there to help him out. He drowned.

There was a family of 4 in my home city that died in a fire. The neighbors called in the fire during the middle of the night because the family was away for a vacation. The fire spread quickly and the fire department had trouble containing it. Long story short, the fire didn’t get put out until the next day. And thats when they discovered the family inside. The fire department hadn’t even attempted a rescue because they thought the home was empty.

When my cousin was 19 years old he went to a party and left early because he was wasted. He must have passed out in the middle of the road because his friends ran him over when they went to look for him.

The previous owner of our house died in Alaska after she fell out of a raft on a guided river/wildlife tour. She was in her 70s. Her husband, same age range, caught her as she was going over the edge and held her hand as the boat dragged her over rapids - but he lost his grip and she was lost in the rapids. She didn’t even want to go on the trip apparently. A few years later, her grandson took his life by shooting himself in the driveway - the house was then put up for sale and we bought it knowing nothing about these tragedies.

Ran off to Ukraine and join the war... fighting for Russia. Blew my mind when I heard that as someone from northern England.

Froze (he was too high and it was super cold) while paragliding and crashed.

Not washing her hands after changing her litterbox is what the medical investigator suspected.

My aunt had heart surgery; she survived it despite being given low chances due to her long-standing malnutrition issues and her type 1 diabetes.

A couple of weeks after surgery, she was found dead at home locked in her bedroom with the cats. They told my grandma that she died from an E.coli infection in her heart, at the site of the incision, and the most likely cause was handling cat litter or dog feces and not washing her hands before touching her incision or clothing that touched the incision.

Hit by a boat propeller while swimming.

I used to go to a renfaire in my town. They had to move their location to a different park, and the first year they were at the new place, there was an actor sitting under a tree, doing some sort of crafting, when an enormous tree limb broke with no warning and fell directly on her head. The staff there were heroic: instantly formed a crew to move the limb off her and start CPR. They did it for what seemed like forever, but was about a half hour until the ambulance arrived. She likely died on impact, and one of her kids was right next to her and wasn't injured. I was walking right there less than a minute before the accident, and had several friends trapped by the other end of the limb. It was a horrible day, and the renfaire itself, after being a major summer event for our community for roughly 30 years, ended up moving to a completely different area several hundred miles away. I personally have never walked in that park since then.

In our early forties our social circle included a guy who was the most convivial, positive pleasant man you could meet. Not a mean bone in his body. Great husband and father. He was a lifelong avid downhill skier. He was with some of our mutual friends and knew the mountain they were on like the back of his hand.

He started his run down, they all did, and when they got to the bottom he wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere.

Turns out he used a cross trail to reach another run, caught an edge on an exposed tree root and slammed head first into a tree. Helmet on. Died instantly.

Just like that. Poof. Gone.

Not a friend but a coworker at a big-4 consultancy that I previously worked for; he was working at his desk and we all went out for a late boozy lunch but he stayed back working.

We got back to the office around 6 and he was still at his desk seemingly working.

He had headphones in and didn't respond to us so we didn't think anything of it.

Little did we realise that he had a heart attack while working and died sitting up at his desk.

We only found out because the cleaners found him that evening.

Grim.

Choked to death on a peanut butter sandwich in the bathroom. No I’m not kidding.

Friend of mine was out looking for apartments with his kid.
He opened a door off a hallway, and took a step inside expecting it to be a closet. It was the stairs to the basement. He fell down the entire flight of stairs.
Was in a coma for a week before he passed.
I still miss him and talk to him when I need advice.

Hit a tree snow skiing.

Birthday cake crumbs.

Older auntie accidentally inhaled a crumb from her birthday cake. Got a lung infection, didn't recover. Happy birthday, I guess?

Ex partner was a fitness trainer. Great shape, good diet. Had a blood clot or something in his leg. He was 42, I think. I think about him every single day.