#1
#2
All my other jumps had been from 3000 ft. This one was from 5000 ft bc another jumper had paid extra to go higher. If not for him, I would have splattered.
While there’s no magical countdown to tell us when our final moment will arrive, we can generally steer clear of risks that might shorten our lifespan—whether that’s smoking, excessive drinking, or participating in extreme sports. Still, even with precautions, hitting that 80-year mark isn’t guaranteed. After all, staying sheltered and missing out on life’s thrills isn’t the best way to truly live.
So, just how dangerous can some activities be? To find out, Bored Panda reached out to u/MightyKittenEmpire2, one of the Redditors who shared his near-death experience. On his fifth skydiving attempt, things took a dramatic turn when his parachute failed to deploy. As he plummeted from 5,000 feet, it wasn’t until he reached 400 feet that it finally opened.
Throughout the fall, u/MightyKittenEmpire2 remained focused on his training. “There’s a multi-step procedure to deploy the reserve chute that I had practiced over 200 times,” he shared. “It was a chant that, 40 years later, I can no longer remember.” However, knowing the steps doesn’t mean you can fully control the situation. “My feet were tangled in the cords, leaving me hanging upside down, and the partially deployed main chute caused me to spin rapidly,” he explained. “I was laser-focused on the process, with no time to think about anything else.”
#3
I went home and was still in excruciating pain. I am talking pain worse than any broken bone or other type of experience I have EVER had. Eventually, I went back and insisted they check my appendix, they did another scan, and eventually got them to bring in a surgeon. The surgeon didn't do much more than put his finger on my abdomen and ask me about the pain before he told them to prep me for surgery.
As it turned out, my appendix was almost ready to rupture, and I had a bowel obstruction. Either of those things could have [ended] me.
Remember folks, always advocate for your own health. Medical professionals make mistakes at work the same as any of us.
#4
Now whenever I see a missing ring near water I report it immediately.
#5
“Eventually, one leg got free, which reversed my spin,” he continued. “That meant I had to throw the reserve in the opposite direction, so I adjusted my position. Just as I restarted the procedure, the other leg fell out, causing the spin to reverse again. So, I had to begin the reserve procedure all over again. That’s when the main chute finally popped open.”
“I thought I had yelled and cursed the whole way down,” admitted u/MightyKittenEmpire2. “I vividly remembered doing just that. But a news crew filmed me from the ground, there to capture a jump competition later that day. Their footage showed me repeatedly mumbling the chant to deploy the reserve. My training kicked in.”
Despite the harrowing experience, u/MightyKittenEmpire2 wasn’t deterred from skydiving again. “I made one more jump to prove to myself I could overcome my fears,” he said. “It went well. As a poor college student, I decided I didn’t have enough money to get good, and being bad wasn’t a viable long-term plan.”
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#8
We got pushed 40-50 feet or more into a gas station, coming within 3 feet of a gas pump. I was knocked unconscious and woke up roughly 15 minutes later , in a daze unsure what had happened. When I came to, I just remember being hunched over, and first thing I noticed was my jaw didn’t feel right. I moved it left to right and it just made the worst popping sounds. I remember looking up and seeing police lights flashing everywhere.
They ended up using the jaws of life to get me out. Ended up breaking both my mandibles in my jaw, my left clavicle, 3 places in my pelvis and my collar bone. Couldn’t walk for 3 months. Jaw was wired shut.
Ended up making a full recovery and living a normal life. I was 19 at the time, even enlisted in the navy the following year. 41 today and suffer from some joint ailments and dull aches and pains but that’s about it. Happy to answer any questions. Oh and everyone survived miraculously. .
Now, if you’ve ever considered trying skydiving, you might feel a little apprehensive after reading this. That’s completely understandable! However, it’s worth noting that while the idea of skydiving may sound dangerous, the likelihood of something going wrong is quite low.
According to the British Parachute Association, once a skydiver is fully trained, the average injury rate is just 0.25 injuries per 1,000 jumps (or 1 in 4,000), and the fatality rate is under 0.6 per 100,000 jumps (around 1 in 168,000). In the United States, the US Parachute Association reports an average of about 18 skydiving deaths per year over the last decade, with an estimated 3.9 million jumps in 2022 and around 20 related fatalities.
While these statistics classify skydiving as a high-risk sport, they put things into perspective—jumping with a parachute is actually much safer than driving a car. According to Esurance, your odds of getting into a car accident are about 1 in 366 for every 1,000 miles driven. For many of us, driving is a daily activity, and that’s something to consider.
Ultimately, whether we find ourselves in a life-threatening event often comes down to statistics. As for whether it was fate or luck that saved u/MightyKittenEmpire2, we may never know for sure, but he refers to it as a fortunate happenstance.
#9
I pulled up, put my window down and started to put the DVD through my window. I hit the frame and it knocked the DVD out of my hand on to the ground. I jumped out to pick it up without putting my truck in park.
My door hit one of the steel poles protecting that bin from idiots, but not this one.
My door trapped my head between it and my truck. Car isn't in park, so it's moving forward and crushing my head. I could feel the bones moving in my skull.
The girl in my truck couldn't see what was going on clearly. She was laughing.
I got my foot inside and hit the brake. Shifted into reverse, and freed my head. Had a good dent for a couple of weeks.
I hate to think about panicking and hitting the gas that day.
#10
Stranger drugged me at a bar; but I OD'd. Ended up in cardiac arrest.
My "friend" waited 3.5 hours to call EMS, because she thought I was being "dramatic and drunk."
She also failed to perform CPR on me correctly (on my clavicle) after telling me 6mos prior I was stupid and didn't know CPR (been in medical care for 10 years, and cpr trained since I was 16) and that she was smarter than me despite never taking a single cpr class.
She had the audacity to act like she saved my life after all was said and done.
I was lucky her 16 year old brother was at the apartment when she finally managed to get me upstairs and throw me on the couch. He called EMS the 3rd time I collapsed. (She let me fall down 2 flights of stairs, THREE TIMES)
I woke up several days later on life support with a busted nose, two black eyes, a busted mouth, fractured clavicle, fractured leg, and tendons torn in my arm.
She thought I couldn't remember anything, but I remember bits and peices; enough to know how much of an a-hole she is.
Tldr; Be careful of who your friends are. Turns out she was a super jealous and insecure person who didn't care about me at all, and envied me to the point she wanted to see me burn.
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#13
Pretext - I was 9y/o and at a family reunion and a family member had an Akita. This dog had already snapped at multiple kids and had bitten their daughter’s hand, requiring stitches.
I was outside playing with my cousin, I came inside because I was hot and my mom looks over at me from a basement bar she is sitting at with her siblings and parents, and she offers to get me water. I declined the water and right after I said “no thanks”, the dog lunged at me from a couple feet away and I happened to look down at it as the movement startled me. Me looking down meant that it only got part of my neck, the rest was my jaw. If I hadn’t looked down I would likely have died as the dog would have gotten my neck. Anyways, I started bleeding profusely and my mom was obviously in shock. Thankfully, two family members are nurses, and my uncle was a veteran and had critical life saving skills. So they were able to keep me going until I got to the nearest hospital where I was operated on to stitch me up and repair damages to my tissue and jaw bone. The bite was, per the surgeon, “too close for comfort to my carotid artery”.
Later on my wounds got infected and one of the K-9 tooth wounds popped with infection. Literally popped. I have a massive scar where it popped because it made the wound so much bigger. So then I had an extended stay in the hospital while they treated that issue.
Also the hospital had a therapy dog going around one of the days I was there and for some reason nobody passed along the memo to not bring it in my room.
#14
So anyway, I fell out on that rapid. My shoulder hit a rock hard enough to tear the skin off. I heard the guide yell “oh s**t” right as I got pulled under. I don’t know how long I was under for, but it seemed like forever and everything slowed down. When I came back up the guide had his paddle stretched out just barely out of reach. We both stretched a little further and I grabbed the paddle and got pulled back into the raft. Apparently, earlier that week someone had died on that rapid after falling out.
#15
My family and I were on a little trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, driving around the forest area, admiring the white waters. After a moment, my dad pulled over at a spot where there was just a little bit of road with just enough room to walk along the edge. My mom and dad got out with their phones, They told me if I got out I would fall, so I took that as a challenge of course. I was on the side where, if I opened the door and stepped out, I would have plummeted into rocks, sticks, and a s**t ton of old trash, PLUS a strong current below.
But, being a stupid pubescent 13-year-old, I decided to test my luck. Same second I stepped out I cartoonishly plummeted. I managed to grab onto a strong root with my right hand and dug my nails into the dirt with the other, desperately trying to hold on. My dad noticed instantly and bolted over to my dumba*s and angrily gripped my wrist lifting me up like a crazed gorilla.
What was insane was that he was at least four feet away, but he reached me in like half a second. The most impressive part is at the time, my dad was morbidly obese, yet he moved faster than I had ever seen a human move. He saved my life that day.
Not too crazy of a story but just felt like sharing.
TL;DR
I was a dumba*s and stepped out of my car and nearly plummeted to a rocky and sharp river with a current.
#16
Thin guy with stringy blond hair pulled over in his, I kid you not, white van to ask for help looking for his pet. I absolutely believed him because he knew the animal's name. Perfect 5 year old logic.
He got close enough to hand me $2 to reward my help, and something shook loose in my brain and I booked it home. My dad was FURIOUS. He flushed the money down the toilet and then disappeared for a couple of hours. He never brought it up again.
Honestly, if he hadn't flushed the money I might not even remember the incident. Now, at 41 years old, it scares the absolute s**t out of me. I still remember that guys hair. In my memory, he looks exactly like Funboy from The Crow.
Anyway. Those after school specials were a goddamned documentary apparently, and I was almost on a milk carton. Good times.
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#18
I was on a dark country road.
I think about that now and a pit forms in my stomach. Such an idiot.
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