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

I've had a few, two stand out:

1. When I was 11, I randomly started getting crazy painful migraines, hurting so much that I felt that if I knew the right spot to push, my head would explode. My teacher noticed at the same time that I had trouble seeing the blackboard. My parents took me to see an optometrist, who saw a shadow behind my eyes, ordered a CT scan, and boom, I was at Sick Kids hospital and underwent a 9 hour surgery for brain cancer. I literally have no memory of the weeks before waking up at the hospital and wondering what happened

2. Five years ago, on the way to home from work, my co-workers and I were t-boned by a stolen pickup whose driver was drunk and ran a red. Again, woke up in the hospital a week later, wondering what happened. Doctors told me that I had a badly fractured right thigh, displaced right knee, ligament damage in my chest, L2 fracture on my spine, right cheekbone fracture, concussion, and was in a coma for 5 days. Still working on rehab today

I was in Ohio.
Freezing, as usual, on a December night.

Then I read the weather forecast.
It was reading -20F.

Sadly, I was driving, and that is not the best to do with all the black ice around here.

I took one SECOND to change the radio station, and bham.
I FREAKING semi-truck had hit my rear and crushed the backseats. Thankfully, it was just me in the vehicle. I ran outside to check what had happened.

Then I slipped and almost got run over by a Nissan Rogue and a Toyota Camry.

Pretty Horrifying.

(This happened in 2009 btw, but be careful out there.)

Once I was swinging on a ledge (like, you know, hands on a ledge and just using my body momentum to swing) and swung too hard and felt I was losing balance over to the other side. It was about 12 feet down and cold concrete with metal construction spikes. I somehow managed to regain my momentum in that instance and swung back. But I know I wouldn't have survived if I didn't

I walk home from school everyday and I always cross a busy street to a elementary school. This one time I was a car coming but it wasn’t that far away so I crossed. The car sped up and almost hit me. The driver got mad at me but I was to scared to care.

I have two, they're not incredibly crazy. The first one is when my family took a trip to Amsterdam. There are lots of bikers and motorcyclists there, and there are bike trails specifically for them. I was 11 at the time, and we were supposed to be waiting to cross the bike lane. I didn't see anyone but I didn't look to see if someone was coming so I just crossed the street (it's pretty narrow) and I nearly got run over by someone on a motorcycle. I was in big trouble. The second one is when my next door neighbor got really drunk/ high. I was about 9 or 10, and suddenly I wake up to this loud noise. Turns out he thought someone was attacking him and started chopping the side of our house with an axe, the side with my room on it. We called the police and I went to school pretty late that day.

*trigger warning* I was in an abusive relationship. He kept telling people that I was depressed and suicidal when I wasn’t. He would also tell me that he wanted to kill someone just to know how it felt and that if he had the chance he’d drag it out as long as possible. He was a soulless sadistic person and I truly believe he was trying to pave the way to kill me and make it look like a suicide. Thankfully I have a permanent restraining order and have not seen him in three years

It was nighttime, and I was taking a walk. I was almost to the lighthouse in my town when I saw someone in an alley. Then I heard a loud bang and the person in the alley ran away. I was almost shot in the head. I don’t take walks at night anymore.

I live in a peripheral neighborhood of the city of São Paulo, I am a public servant in the area of citizen's health, that is, I see death up close almost every week, either due to threats or suburban violence or the chaotic nature of São Paulo traffic!

I got appendicitis when I was 23, I felt terrible but figured it was the flu. I had a diarrhea, a fever, cramps and kept vomiting. I didn't want to go to the doctors because I didn't think it was anything that needed more than rest and medicine. That night I went to bed and woke up in the middle of the night shaking and screaming, like an anxiety attack. I was freaking out and went to the emergency room, all that freaking out raised my heart rate and they admitted me, but it went back down after they did. They did tests and told me my appendix was ready to burst.

On another occasion, when I was 26, I was driving home from work. I had just left the parking lot but got a red light. I was on the far right lane waiting for the light to change green. When it did I looked both ways, the car on the left lane didn't. I saw the car get hit right in front of me and spin to the middle of the intersection, had I gone I would have been hit with them. Someone told me the girl who got hit didn't make it, I still hope they're wrong.

Also last year, I was driving on the free way and a semi truck started merging on me. Note I was on the left, so I merged left to avoid getting ran over by this giant truck. I almost hit another car, was lucky they saw me and also merged left. Till this day I still feel bad about almost hitting them, I cried the whole way home.

This wasn't my experience but my sister almost got kidnapped at an arcade. (this is a recollection of events from her) Our family went for a birthday party and this family showed up (two girls, and their parents) They began talking throughout the two hours we were there and they began offering her candy, and pizza. Thankfully, she declined and then they went on to ask her to come with them to their house to a "sleepover". The father had grabbed her wrist and began walking out of the building. at this point my sister had ran away from them and had told my parents what had happened. We immediately went to the front desk and asked to check the cameras. Apparently, this wasn't the first time something like this has happened here. The arcade went on to say that the family in question was on the radar and was being chased down for abduction. Close call.

When I was 6, I felt sick. Normal, right? Well, not exactly. See, since I NEVER cry or show any signs I’m in pain (besides a lot of complaining), my parents can’t know when I’m hurt or not. Same when I was 6. Of course, they knew I was sick, but we didn’t know the danger of the situation for a bit...

I went to the doctor. He was inexperienced and said I had a normal sickness—he saw the signs of what was going on, but I didn’t cry, so he ignored it. I went home and went to the doctor AGAIN a few days later. This guy saw what was happened and immediately ordered me to the hospital, where I got emergency surgery.

Basically, my appendix was rupturing! If it exploded, toxins would fill my body and I’d die. Luckily, I got the surgery, and after a week of staying at the hospital (I ate nothing in my whole time there, besides half a popsicle), I was fine!

My ex blood choking me until I was on my knees, laughing the whole time.

Waterwater rafting. Fell out when the boat hit a large boulder and lodged against it. I was pulled underneath the boat - along against the rock. I hit the underside of the boat as long as a could to let my friends know I was underneath and I don't remember anything else beyond waking up back in the boat and throwing up, coughing, and shaking hard. Actually, my mind usually shies away from remembering this and I think I'm just going to post and move along now...

So technically I don’t think this is to bad but my closest brush with death is the time when i had a therapist appointment that was scheduled I few hours before I planned to kill myself, luckily the therapist told my parents and they sent me to a hospital to get supportive help and sense them I’ve been doing better

Mine was more than a brush with death (although I've had a couple of those). I actually died. I bled to death because of lack of medical expertise, while giving birth in Africa. My child died too. They managed to bring us both back.

My brushes, well, I had three more in Africa. 1. I was attacked by a hippo and survived. 2. I narrowly missed being gunned down by terrorists because I had gone to the bathroom and was just about to come out when it happened, so I saw it from behind a wall. 3. I had a double blow out on a half dirt/half bad tarmac road and the car went rolling and catapulting into the bush and stopped, I kid you not, with the windshield less than an inch from a big tree. One foot further and that tree would have been wearing my face as decoration. That's enough of my excitement for one day. It's been an extraordinary life, so far.

A few times. 1)Perforated diverticulum (10 out of 10 pain, even on morphine), resulting in emergency surgery (Colectomy). Without this procedure within hours I would've died (Peritonitis). 2} Unprovoked GBH. Three men attacked me. One did a flying kick to my face, breaking my nose. Wife picked me up from hospital with tread marks still on my face 3) Stupidity, but I was only 7. Leapfrogged over an iron bollard severing my leg from knee to groin, missing major artery by millimetres. 4) Rolling a cigarette, filter in mouth and I sneezed. The intake of breath forced the filter to go into my windpipe, couldn't breathe. No one around to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre. Fortunately, I was able to cough the filter back up. I think I could go on, but I don't want to get up to number 8. Not that I think I might be a cat, but I’m thwarting strike 9.

When I was a baby my family was driving down the road our light was green so my dad went two feet into the road then stopped and just at that moment a semi truck drove thru his red light and would have killed me and my dad if my dad hadn't stopped.

My family and I were watching the 4th of July fireworks down by a lake, and some other people were setting off little ones while waiting for the big ones to go off. One of the little ones spun sideways and hit our picnic blanket. Set my jacket on fire, scarred little sis’s ring finger and narrowly missed mom’s head. Never gone back there since.

I think there r maybe 2?

1. So I was at a camp, kinda like a hocking hills thing except no hiking. So basically we were at the camps public pool and I was like maybe 6 or 7 and I wanted to go in the deep end. There was a bar on the inside of the pool where u could walk on. So as I was doing that I tried to show my step dad something. So I took my hands off the edge and then splashed into the deep end (I didn’t know how to swim) but surprisingly I didn’t try and swim upward somehow I just didn’t freak out. But then my step dad saw that I wasn’t along the edge anymore so he saved me.

I’ve been writing this for 15 minutes bc my tv is on and I couldn’t stop watching it. So now I forgot what my second one was

Pouring, Blinding rain. Tropical storm level winds.
Trying to get home from work.

Headed up the winding On Ramp to the Interstate & tapped brakes to slow down bc I felt I was being pushed by the wind, in the bed of my small pick up truck.

Went into tailspin. Headed straight down embankment towards metal post.
I was an inexperienced driver at the time & panicked. Thought the truck was going to roll.

Somehow felt someone take the wheel and swerved to avoid full on collision at last minute.
I KNOW it was my grandmother who passed away the year before.