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

Well it was more terrifying than actually maybe death threatening. There were a few times:

1) I had to have stitches under my chin because for SOME REASON I slipped and fell on a playground bridge thing. I was really young so I don't really remember it.

2) About a year later, in pre-school, the bathroom ran out of paper towels. I had to go outside to the sink where everyone washed their hands for lunch at, and I was staring at the mirror and running. Well I was really short so my eyebrow hit the paper-towel dispenser. If I had grown a bit taller, it would have hit my eye. Dang am I glad that I was short.

3) I was late to a class, and there were a lot of cars parked outside the main parking lot so we had to park on a hill. The side I came out of the car was on the higher, slanted part of the hill. I opened the door, and for some reason thought it was a good idea to reach in again and grab my bag. Well, who would have guessed that the door would slowly slam shut on my hand? Ah that's exactly what happened. I had to miss class and go to the emergency clinic after that. About four years later and I still have the scar.

Lesson learned: Don't put your hands in your pockets on an icey day at the park. Don't look at the mirror and run full speed at a paper-towel dispenser. DON'T REACH FOR YOUR BAG WHEN THE CAR IS PARKED ON A HILL.

Honestly though, I still think I'm pretty lucky...

Country road, beautiful day, out for a ride on my 650 BSA motorcycle, my brother behind me on a 750 chopper. Pick up truck comig in the opposite lane, ladder in the back, rope on the ladder making a big lasso in my lane. I lay as flat as I could on the bike, whew, made it and my brother did too.

Was walking across down a road through a field down the street from a ski resort with some friends. Snow was 2-3 feet and came right up to the top of the concrete barriers that lined both side of the road. I thought it would be fun to vault head first over said barriers into the fresh snow. Since I had snowboard boots on, I didn’t get a very good foothold and slipped before I could get my weight over. What I didn’t see beforehand was this was the only place in the road that had train tracks about 40-50 feet straight down, didn’t see the gap because of the snow buildup. I still get chills.

When I was about 4 I went into the deep end of a pool and fell in. Couldn’t swim, was screaming my head of, and kept getting water in my mouth as I tried getting a breath. My dad saved though and was ok after that, other that being a little scared of the pool for a few days. (No my parents did not take a 4 year old to pool with out a floatation device, I had just taken it off to go to the bathroom)

As a 16-year old, I was driving home from work alone in my parents' SUV. Traffic was always crazy at that time of day, so it was difficult for me to turn from our office complex's parking lot onto the main road. I finally found an opening, and the driver I was turning in front of immediately began accelerating as I started turning. They slammed on the brakes, honked their horn over and over, and flipped me off over and over, presumably because they made it look like I had cut them off. This went on for about five minutes.

Traffic didn't thin out until we reached an area of the road with only two lanes going each way. On the other side of oncoming traffic, there was a sheer canyon wall. On the passenger's side of my lane, there was a hundred-or-so foot vertical drop-off with a flimsy-looking guard rail. The road rager started drifting into my lane, as if they were trying to push me off the cliff. I tried slowing down so that I could change lanes to be farther from the cliff, but he just followed me and kept driving extremely dangerously. I was too scared to even look at him; the only thing I had going for me was I was driving a large Suburban and he was in a smaller pickup truck.

I managed to pull off the highway at the next off-ramp and was relieved that he didn't follow me. I was certain I was going to go careening off the edge of the cliff. It took me probably ten or twenty minutes to regain my composure enough to get back on the road.

I kind of have three, so... tell me which one was more dangerous. The first one: I crashed my car into my garage and I ACTUALLY THOUGHT I WAS TO DIE. But somehow, the car and me had not a single scratch. The second one: I was walking down the sidewalk and I heard footsteps and I had the feeling someone was watching me, and beginning to stalk me. I just booked it my house and locked the door. The third one: (my mom told me this) I was asleep, it was around 1am, and this guy in a gray hoodie jumped over our fence and went to open our door. My dog, decided that this was a robber/murderer (which he probably was), and barked and barked until he leaped back over the fence and sprinted away.

I was driving in the winter and hit a patch of black ice on the highway. My car skidded to a stop between the concrete barrier keeping people from going over the edge and down a drop and a gasoline truck. I was wedged in there so tightly it broke my side mirror.

Driving on a 2-lane road with trees on both sides to my place of work and a driver coming towards me overtaking some trucks. Luckily I knew that if I speeded up I could turn into someone's driveway to escape a head on collision. I saw the girl in the oncoming car screaming in terror when I managed to swerve into that driveway, seconds before we would have collided. It was early and there were no cars behind me so both of us lived to tell the tale.

It was about midnight, I was walking home, and had to cross a street. There was a yellow car coming from my left, but it was quite far and very slow. I thought I could easily cross the street before it came even near. But as I took a few steps to cross the street the driver suddenly gave full speed and roaaared towards me. It was such an insane moment, it was as if time had slowed down and I was watching myself in slow motion. I jumped forward with all I had and the car drove past almost hitting me, my hair flew from its wind and I fell on my hands having just escaped death or serious injury at least. I don't know why he did that, was he a mad man, was he drunk, no idea. I just sat there on the street and some young people came to help.For a few days after that, I would often just sit and stare at the wall, trying to make sense and to move on.

Likely kidney failure due to sulfa reaction. I came down with low-grade fever. Went home and fell into a stupor. My lower legs started hurting badly so that it was very painful to walk. I had my 4yo with me alone. I remember laying on the couch and vaguely realizing if there were a fire, I wouldn't move.

I started to feel a little more with it, and realized it was time to take another pill - that maybe it was the infection causing me to feel so sick and I really needed it. I did it, and could barely get myself to take the tiniest sip of water with it - just couldn't drink more than that. Fell into an even worse stupor. My son started asking what was wrong.

3-4 hours later, I came to a little again. Told my son if I fell asleep to call 911. I was so out of it, it was the best I could do. I thought about taking a pill, thinking the infection would kill me, then realized it was the sulfa that must be killing me.

At that point I couldn't walk my legs hurt so much. Turns out they were swollen.

Went to the nurse practitioner the next day feeling much better, but still bad. Had to sit and scoot down the stairs due to the pain. She laughs and says, "Well, don't take sulfa again" and sent me on my way.

It was only 10 years later when I looked it up and realized it had to be kidney failure. My son could have died since I wasn't watching him. I could have died. The nurse practitioner should have done more than laugh, though I was better in a couple more days.

I had a car accident a few years ago. I was on my way home from work. The road was wet and in a very bad condition. It had been reported very often, that it needed to be fixed.
A tire got in a pothole and the car drifted to the side of the road, where the hill went down very steep. I nearly crashed down into the trees and would have died for sure, but managed to turn the steering wheel, but crashed into the upside hill on the other side. The car overturned and I ended upside down. I broke my Lumbar vertebra and O was lucky the second time. A little bit more and I would have been paralyzed. Had to stay in the hospital for several weeks. But I'm alive and can walk.
Fun fact: The road got fixed a few weeks later.

Years ago I used to ride my bike to the train, and take the train into town for work. One day I left home a little late and as I was coming into the station there was a train coming into the station heading south, and my train would be coming in a minute heading north (on the far side of the tracks). I realized that if I waited, I'd miss my train and be late for work. So I sped up... The incoming train honked and people on the platform saw what I was going try to do. They started yelling. I shot across the tracks and the incoming train missed me by maybe a foot. It took a long time for my heart to stop racing. Someone came up and yelled at me. It was one of the stupidest things I've ever done. But I survived.

When I almost committed suicide when I fell into a deep depression.

I was traveling with my dad (I was like 10) on kayaks down the Colorado river. He was stopping every once in a while to empty his kayak because it had a small hole. I was jealous because he got to pee, too. Eventually, the banks became overgrown and he couldn't empty it anymore. He told me his kayak was going to sink, and to go over to a dock on our left and wait for him. His kayak's front end went straight up in the air and followed the back end down. I walked into a bar on the Arizona side and they told me I couldn't be in there. Once my dad had joined me I had hot chocolate (yay) but they told us had we kept going we would have hit the sluice gate less than a 1/2 mile ahead.

When I was 18 or 19 I volunteered for the closing shifts at work cuz I liked to sleep in, which meant I usually got home around midnight. I lived with my BF and his grandpa, and grandpa slept on the couch by the front door, so he liked to lock a sliding bolt on the inside of the door to feel safer. Every night when I got home I would knock and he would get up and let me in.
One night I was driving home and noticed a car behind me was making every turn I made. We lived out in the middle of nowhere so it really was odd, but I just thought it was a coincidence. The closer we got to our house the more suspicious I became, but I still was thinking I was just being paranoid. So I pull into the long driveway of our house and the car follows me up and pulls up right next to mine. I get out and bend down to look in the passenger window thinking maybe this is a friend of my boyfriend, but I don’t recognize him. He gets out of his car and says “Hi Donna” (my name is Abby). I told him he had the wrong person, but he said no, he didn’t, and that he had been looking for me. Now I sort of had the mindset at the time that it was better for me to be uncomfortable than to be rude so even though this was raising the hair on the back of my neck I still was trying to be polite to him and explain the mistake. Then he started to come around toward where I was still standing in between the two cars. As he made the turn around the back of his car I saw he was holding a screw driver and I just freaked out, politeness be damned, and ran for my life up the walkway to the front door. For whatever reason, this night grandpa had not locked the door, which had never happened in the year and a half I’d lived there. So thank god, I was able to fling the door open and as I turned around to slam the door I saw the guy was RIGHT behind me, just about in the doorway. I locked the sliding bolt and ran to our room where my boyfriend was and frantically told him about what happened. He went to the door and opened it and this fool was still on the porch, trying to peek into the window next to the door. My BF asked what the hell he was doing and the guy looks startled and backs up a little and says “oh, I was looking for the Motel 6. This isn’t it, sorry.” Again, we lived out in the middle of NOwhere and there wasn’t even a porch light on so this was the most unbelievable thing ever. He turns around and starts jogging back to his car awkwardly because he had his hand, the one the screw driver was in, in his pocket.
I am still certain, 15 years later, that if the door had been locked or if waited one more seconds to start running, I would have been killed that night.

Okay, not too close to death, but I lost a decent amount of blood. I was about four-five years of age, and my brother was at a baseball game, I went to play at a park, now, the thing about this park is that it’s very close to a ice skating rink, and they had a fence near their dirty ice deposit. There was also a small hole, big enough to crawl through, I was shaking the fence, and I guess I broke it loose from the dirt, because it shot up and slashed my knee. I had not idea for a few seconds, then I saw the blood, I knew I had to get to my family, who were roughly 150-200 yards away, I just kinda limped my way there, I had lost a decent amount of blood, to add a small amount of description, my leg was red to the ankle, my brother saw me, grabbed me, and jogged to my mother and father, I was waking about as slow as a limping smol bean could, so I likely would’ve gotten this infected if I slipped and hit the dirt as I was still a ways away. Sorry for the length, but anyways, I have a scar on my knee.

Tldr: played with fence, got cut, bled a lot, and got a scar

Not me, but while doing a ropes course, a friend climbed up the pole (around 15-20m tall) to the zipline to finish the course. They didn't wait to be clipped into the safety harness, so they essentially freeclimbed it. Luckily, they didn't fall, otherwise that would've been a nasty way to end the summer.

I must’ve been 10 years old or so, me and my sister were invited to a friends house to go swimming. We were having so much fun, I really love being in the water. We were doing different flips underwater when I thought I’d try to swim through the ladder steps and flip, add some extra flair I guess?Problem was, the spaces of the ladder were much smaller than I anticipated and I got stuck. I was underwater drowning and quietly panicking. Thankfully my friends dad was keeping an eye on us and pulled the ladder up from the pool and I was ok. Scary as heck