Hey Pandas, What Was Your Closest Brush With Death? (Closed)

Did you know constipation can kill you? I'd say that one.

A steel pipe fell through the roof a metre from my head, that was pretty scary

3 years old; hit by a logging truck running across the street to play. I remember seeing the underside of the truck. All that happened was that I 'skinned' my elbows. I still feel for the man who was driving that truck; he must have thought he killed a kid.

So about 2 years ago, I was at a summer camp (not a day-camp, so we actually spent a whole week over at the camp). On the third or fourth day there, me and my group were allowed to go over to the waterfront. They had all these different fun things to do there, like a giant waterslide, a little beach area, etc. They also had this thingymabob they called "the blob". It was basically a giant, very long balloon that was in the water, where one kid would sit on the edge of it and another would jump on the opposite edge, flinging the kid sitting down into the air and then splashing into the water. Well, I decided I was gonna try that. So I sat on the edge, and my friend came over and jumped onto the other end. I felt like I was flung 20 feet into the air! I was probably only flung 10 feet. I splashed down into the water... But when my life jacket floated back up to the surface, I had gone UNDER the blob. So I was stuck underneath the blob, thrashing around trying to swim out from under this giant balloon. I couldn't believe my life jacket actually put me in danger. I managed to swim away, and the lifeguard wasn't much help. She only helped me once I came out from under the blob. So yeah, that's my top story on how I almost died.

I was riding on the back of my boyfriend’s motorcycle—neither of us wearing a helmet—and a cabbie pulled out of an alleyway and hit us while we were in the middle lane of one of San Francisco’s busiest roads on a Saturday night around midnight. I went flying off the motorcycle, skidded across the street, but managed to not hit my head on anything. I was wearing a leather jacket, mid-arm-length leather gloves and leather boots up to my knees. My medical alert bracelet somehow managed to make its way off of my arm and out of my gloves, and I had a gash down my left leg despite the boots, but—fortunately—neither of us hit our heads. The next day my back was so seized up I had to be carried to the car and it took months with a massage therapist to get rid of the pain. Forty years later, I still have several small scars on my right leg, despite the boots.

When i was 7 years old , i didn't know how to swim so i usually stayed in the shallow end of pools. Once in a hotel pool in Canada- I was walking around the edge of a pool and a crazy kid pushed me in then ran away. Luckily one of my friends noticed before i drowned...

When i was around 7, me and my brother decided that we should go race around the park. At around the fifth lap i tripped and cracked my head open on a metal edge and blacked out for a bit, next thing i knew i was in hospital getting stitches. My hair is thinner in that area still

When I was in my mom, a car reared into her car at 45mph and pancaked her car with my mom in it. My mom had to go to the hospital, but they couldn’t take Xrays because it was unsafe to an unborn child. So they literally had to pray and hope that i was still alive, not knowing if I would have been born

I was in Oregon with my family and we were at a beautiful lake. It was freezing and my brother tipped the canoe in the deepest part of the lake so I swam, stupidly, back to shore, and it was deep, even near the shore. As I was swimming, my mouth was filling up with water and I was becoming tired. I almost drowned.

My friend and i got trapped in a walk in cupboard in a caravan and the caravan was towed. We were only 1 and 2.

Combat, Viet Nam, flying an air support mission for GIs in a tight situation another aircraft which had been hit by ground fire collided with us severely damaging our flight controls, flaps and landing gear. aircraft commander sounded the "prepare to bail out" alarm but was able to regain control after we had dropped almost 1,000 ft, my heart was in my throat thinking it was all over. We were able to fly back to home base but when we touched down we had no right main gear , plane swerved off the runway and the fuel tanks exploded, Entire crew evacuated with minor injuries, aircraft destroyed, two chances of dying in one night, on my FIRST mission in country. I flew another 1,000 night combat hours that year but had to deal with major anxiety for six months afterward!

This one kid, several years back, somehow managed to overpower me and nearly drowned me. The sad part was, none of the lifeguards were looking in our general direction. It took me several times to garble out something that sounded like "stop" in order for them to stop.
Whoever reads this–please, teach your kids NOT to press down on someone's shoulders in the pool, you can legit drown from it–I was close enough, and even though I am a trained swimmer, if the pressure is great enough, one can die from lack of oxygen.

I was once in a car ( on the way to the dentist ) when another car started speeding towards us ( my mom, brother and me ) it was about to hit MY side of the car, ( my mom and brother were on the other side ) when my mom swerved away, which almost hit ANOTHER car. Luckily nobody was hurt and no cars were damaged, i know loads of other ppl have had worse..but i cant think of anything else right now.

One time, me, my dad, and my six year old brother went camping. My dad decided that we would go for a short ride on our bikes on a trail. turns out that trail was so long, that it was blocked off. It was getting dark and cold, and there were so many big hills to climb/ride. We almost gave up, but if we did, we would have gotten eaten or we would have froze to death.

I was in a serious car accident a few years ago. My car, which I was not driving, drove into the back of a big transport truck. The passenger side in front, where I was sitting, was completely wrecked. If I had not worn my safety belt I would be dead today.

I got washed out to sea on a surfboard when I was around ten, along with a friend and my dad, we didn’t realise how far put we’d gone until we turned around and could only just see the shore. Got rescued by a lifeboat! Had a couple of health issues which could have taken me. Married to an abuser for 25+ years, that was a close escape to get out before COVID lockdown.

January 2016, got a pretty nasty injury on my head after walking into the edge of a cupboard door at full speed. Profuse bleeding for a few minutes, stopped it, thought "Whew, the worst part is over", but oh wait... I suddenly started to black out. Squeezed every last drop of energy left in me to drag myself to the relative safety of the sofa, where I finally passed out. Woke up about 15 minutes later... Never felt more grateful for waking up.

Perhaps I wasn't in any real danger, but the whole sensation of losing control and my brain shutting down was the scariest thing I've ever experienced in my life. The thought I might be dying crossed my mind for sure.

I was out in the horse pen with my gelding, Gunny, and decided it would be fun to just get on him bare back. No bridle, no saddle, just sit on my horse. He was just standing there & I wanted him to walk around the pen, so I nudged him a couple of times to get him to walk. He started walking and walked right into the electric fence. Well, he went sideways I went flying and bounced off a t post chest first. Lucky for me I was not impaled! I still have a place where the cartilage was pushed up by the post. It sticks out and you can feel it. I went in and told my husband about it and he's meh. The Doc said I was lucky not to be killed. The post slid off my chest wall and up to my chin. I had some pretty spectacular bruises. Horses will hurt you pretty badly, it's just when.

When some myopic moron in an SUV hit my motorbike on a motorway, throwing me over the central barrier into the opposite carriageway. I ended up spending several months in hospital and needing 2 years of physiotherapy.

Iraq. Bullet went swwwwiiiiiiiissssh a foot from my ear. You can't hear the crack of the shot if the rifle is far enough away.