21 People Describe The Scariest Experiences They Probably Will Never Be Able To Forget

When I was eleven years old, my neighbor was using a bulldozer to clear out some of the wooded area on his property. For context, we lived in a waaaay rural area; while the property lines were touching at the back end of the property, it would have taken twenty minutes to walk from our driveway to their driveway.

In this said wooded area, where our neighbors generally said we were allowed to play, I had constructed/cleared a little hiding place in a hollow in the ground surrounded by a big stump and some fallen trees.

The day of the bulldozing, I was watching from the edge of the wooded area when I suddenly had the STUPIDEST idea of my life: wouldn’t it be so much easier to watch from the hiding place? So I walked over and climbed in while my neighbor was facing another direction. I watched from a large peephole as he disappeared behind the big stump that was the largest portion of wall in my hiding place.

Wait… why didn’t he appear on the other side?

The stump started moving toward me at what seemed like light speed. To my horror, my feet were immediately caught underneath the clay clumped in the roots. I fell on my back, screaming. No one was going to hear me while the bulldozer was going, though. I screamed and tried to shake bushes around me to catch my neighbor’s attention, but he didn’t notice. The stump creeped further and further up my leg, sometimes stopping as the dozer repositioned, but always resuming its terrifying movement. It couldn’t have taken that long, but it felt like hours.

I knew I was going to die. I would die buried under earth and debris and no one would know what happened to me.

When the stump reached my waist, a miracle happened. It stopped moving! The bulldozer shut off, and suddenly I could hear my own screaming! So could everyone else, as my neighbor ran over, my sisters and mom sprinted down from our house, and for some reason my dog Cookie was licking my face.

Three hours, twenty volunteer firefighters, two jaws of life, and an ambulance later, I found out why I was alive. My scruffy little schnauzer Cookie, the hero that she was, had come to save me. I’m tearing up just typing this. I guess she heard me screaming or had already been close or something, but she jumped on top of the stump and stared down that bulldozer, barking at it like it was a mountain lion that was ready to eat me. Of course my neighbor didn’t want to hurt her, so he cut off the machine and finally heard me shrieking for help.

My injuries ended up not being too bad, considering. Leg broken in a couple places, several surgeries, in a wheelchair for a few months. Cookie and I made the front page in every city in the county, and two different feed companies awarded her a year’s supply of dog food. My sweet puppy is no longer with us, but she’ll always be the best dog I could ever have. I miss you girl, and thank you.

tl;dr My neighbor accidentally pushed a thousand-pound stump on top of me, and my dog saved my life.

It's happening right now. My wife is in the ICU with pneumonia on top of a year+ long battle with cancer. Sedated, on a ventilator and barely clinging to life, her heart could just give out at any time and that's it. I'm literally sitting in her room all night fully expecting to lose her sometime tonight or in the next couple days. Ive been through some scary moments in my life, but in a completely different way, this is by far the scariest night of my life. 

My husband calling me to tell me his brother took his parents' lives and that I needed to get the dogs and myself out of the house immediately in case his brother was on his way to our house. I was incredibly fortunate that a neighbor let me hide the dogs in her garage and come in until my husband gave me the all clear to go home.

Giving birth to my son, they put him on my chest for about 5 seconds then snatched him up and an entire team of medical types crowded around him working in complete silence. He wasn't breathing. I got to see him for all of 3 seconds, and only heard a couple of weak cries before they rushed him to the NICU. Two hours later they came up to tell us he was on a ventilator and not doing great, they suspected a heart defect and were going to helicopter him to the closest children's hospital (about 90 miles away). We did not get to see him for five hours and it was a couple days before we could hold him. I gave birth at midnight, so all of this was happening in the late late hours.

A couple of relatively common issues had happened, both of which on their own need immediate attention but are not difficult to deal with, but the resolution of one caused serious problems because of the second. His heart is fine. He's a perfectly happy healthy preschooler now who is squirting bath water into the tub faucet and laughing hysterically.

My mom was in ICU for a month when I was 18. She'd come out of ICU and been moved to a regular room and she seemed to be getting better. I had a scholarship to college and she told me to go. I did and I didn't want to go. This was my one shot, you know? But I wanted to stay and be there for her, but she told me to go, so I did. Second day of classes I got a call at 5am. She'd arrested. She had no living will so they brought her back and she was on life support but had no brain activity. I had to sign the papers to turn off the machines. I was 18 and she was my only family. I'm 51 now and I'm tearing up as I write this. I k*lled my mother. Yes, yes, I know, brain dead. They did scans, the neurologist advised me, I've had counseling. But at the end of the day, I signed papers, they turned off machines, and my mother died. And then I was alone. Make a living will. Don't ever put your children or spouse through what I went through.

I grew up thinking my house was haunted.
Weird s**t would happen all of the time. I’d walk into rooms and lights would turn on. I’d go to the kitchen in the middle of the night and cupboards would be open. I’d hear footsteps upstairs when I was home alone. I’d feel the ghost sit down on the bed while I was trying to sleep… ya know, typical “haunting” stuff that would freak any kid out.
Then I had a stalker that started getting weird when I was in my late teens.

Turns out it was much, much worse than I could have imagined.

The stalker was actually a peeping Tom that had been watching me since I was (possibly as young as) 7. As it turns out, there was no ghost and the house wasn’t haunted. The psycho was breaking in when I was home alone and f*****g with me (as a little kid!). As I got older, he got more bold. He’d come in at night when my parents were home and even sit on my bed while I was trying to sleep.

Pretty sure he found where my mom stashed the extra key and just made a copy. Never caught the guy, cops said it was “just some high school boy making jokes.”

I’ve had lots of therapy.

When I was a teenager I had an irregular heart rhythm, and required a medication called adenosine.

Adenosine is usually given via infusion just once or twice, in hospital under careful monitoring, and the side effects include an 'impending sense of doom'. This side effect relates to your heart beat temporarily stopping. This fires signals to your brain, telling you it's time to panic. Or you've reached the end.

'Impending sense of doom' doesn't begin to describe it. I was told in advance, but nothing prepares you for it. I went from sitting on the hospital bed, just finished a sandwich and thinking about my year 11 exam, to suddenly being certain that I was going to die here. I've never felt so sure of anything - I couldn't move or speak, and my mind suddenly raced very fast, to the extent I couldn't keep up with my own thoughts. It was similar to what you hear about your life flashing before your eyes. My brain was drowning, and telling me to find more oxygen - even though I was breathing fine. I was suddenly sure this was a nightmare, that this hospital was fake and all the doctors and nurses were actors, and I was poisoned.

Then it was over in seconds. I haven't had a single heart problem since.

My ex husband pressed a loaded pistol to my forehead and screamed at me because he thought I had cheated on him. I hadn't, but my emotional state was in such a bad condition that all I could think was, just pull the damn trigger, I know I haven't cheated and at least if I'm dead I won't have to be this unhappy anymore. It was not the first nor the last time he hurt me, but I got out eventually after being thrown down stairs, across rooms, threatened with a knife, punched, choked, burned with cigarettes and manipulated to make me think it was my fault. Screw that a*****e.

My son had his first seizure while I was driving. He was in the back seat and I heard a noise. I looked in the rearview mirror and he was convulsing with blood running out of his mouth. Then he collapsed, I thought he had died. To this day, I don't know how I was able to get off the freeway, call 911 and check his pulse. He was 7 years seizure free on Nov. 29, but that one day changed my life forever.

Please no negative comments about this. It’s irritating when I get asked did I think to catch the ball. I got hit in the left eye at a baseball game by a line drive. It was going at 100 mph. It was to late to think is that the ball coming at my face because it is small and at the speed hard to see. I was looking for it as soon as I heard it leave the bat. I didn’t realize how much of an impact it had on my face until I sat down. I was standing up after the 8 inning stretch when it hit me. I was going to walk it off like a black eye but as soon as I sat down I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t see out of my left eye. The rush around me from my boyfriend (now my husband) and from others around me was frightening. I ended up losing my eye. Adjusting wasn’t hard because of the support system around me.

My ex bf breaking into my house when I was asleep. Ambushed me in bed, r*ped me, beat me unconscious...woke up naked on the road, someone had luckily seen me and stopped, they were checking my pulse. His plan was to leave me there so someone else would k*ll me (accidentally.) Still in therapy dealing with PTSD.

I was visiting some family in Edmonton years and years ago and they use to have this big fair full of rides and attractions. I wish I could remember the name sorry. All the rides were your standard carnival rides, the gravitron, tilt-a-whirl, log flume, etc. I had gone to many of these traveling fairs in my time and had a good time so thought nothing of it. After going on a few rides and having fun I decided to go on that ride that is the boat the goes back and forth before going all the way around. So at the beginning everything seemed fine. However at a certain point when going back the safety bar that was suppose to hold me in place just fell forward. It had not locked in and the ride was underway. The ride started heading the other way and the safety bar fell back on to me again. I pulled it as hard towards myself hoping to lock it into place. Yet when we started heading back the bar just flopped completely open again. I was s******g myself. I literally thought I was going to fall out of this ride and die. All those carnival horror stories were true I was fearing. I just wrapped my arms around the bar and held myself with my hands. If worst happened I would dangle from the bar I thought. Fortunately after a rocky ride it came to an end and I was safe with maybe only leaving my seat a few inches. I immediately ran to one of the workers after I got off and told them. The ride was shut down for 30 minutes after and I was done having fun for the night. The only other time I've been that scared since was the few times I've had sleep paralysis .

When my daughter was about two, and was choking on something. I tilted her upside down and beat her back, nothing came up. She was making zero noise, fully suffocating. I was a complete mess, thought she was going to die in my arms. No sooner than I was out the door to jump in my van for the hospital she started whining and coughing. Best sound of my life. Took her to her pediatrician right away. They sent us to hospital for xray to see if object had been swallowed or possibly rearranged in her trachea. Got home and there was a bloody nickel on kitchen floor where incident occured. The whole thing probably lasted 20 seconds of her not breathing, but it felt like nightmare slow motion. This event actually pushed me to pursuing an EMT career. I completed EMT Basic, ended up deciding it wasn't the field for me. But the schooling was a great course of first aid I will carry forever, and I learned CPR and heimlech which I feel every single caregiver should learn.

I was put in jail by some corrupt cops saying that my kid wasn't my kid. He put me in there for welfare fraud, as I was getting food stamps for us both.

I had to spend MONTHS in jail as I couldn't afford bond and I refused to settle, demanding a jury trial as my kid is my kid.

This is all while I'm trying to get treatment for a major tumor, which set me back for months. After that, I couldn't afford both the tumor treatment and a place to live, so I was homeless after jail.

I'm still feeling the effects from that a decade later.

 
Scary, just a few weeks ago I got robbed at gunpoint by three guys that came up behind me. It was 9PM and right in front of my house. Even when I complied and gave them my cash, they still punched and kicked me afterwards. My focus was on trying to make sure they didn't get my keys either to my house, where my wife and kids were at the time, or my truck that I was unloading. They did get my phone though and dumped it off a bridge. The police found it, but it was smashed to hell, but they did get prints off of it and there is a warrant out for one of the guys. Still scary that they know where I live.

I have walked in on my best friend's corpse after a s*icide.

My baby's crib caught fire in the middle of the night. Some people's literal worst nightmare.

Edit: My baby was in it and he was severely burnt and spent a month intubated and in a medically-induced coma. He is 5 now and is ok though!

The fire was a freak accident. His humidifier caught fire, smoldered for a little while and drained the oxygen in the room before the smoke alarm went off. When we opened the door to his room if flooded with oxygen creating a backdraft and launched a fireball at his crib.

I'd just finished a night shift, I'd only been asleep for a few hours band I got woken up by my mother frantically hammering on my front door. Open it to be told I needed to get to the hospital PDFQ as my wife had been taken in at 30 weeks pregnant, she'd had a placental abruption while out and about and was being rushed for an emergency C Section. The surgeon who operated told us after the fact that 5 minutes later and both her and my son would have been dead.

That whole day, man..... Best and worst day of my f*****g life.

Firefight while i was in the forces. At the time you just kind of shut off and run on instinct/training. But once it's all over, you look down and see you've pissed yourself, your mind runs through it again and again. That s**t stays with you for years. 15 years later and fireworks still f**k me up.

I got caught in a rockslide and fell off a cliff while backpacking. Early Spring, things were starting to melt, we were hiking on a ridge and looking for a way down the side, maybe a 60 - 70 degree loose scree slope, to a stream about 500 feet below. I was in the lead, heading down at an angle, rocks kicked out from under my feet, and I fell backwards onto my butt. All of sudden, the entire slope around me began to move en mass, like an island of broken up rocks with me sitting in the middle. I rode it down the hill, bouncing off stuff and trying to stop myself and dig in but no luck, just picking up speed. At the bottom, the hill dropped off to a 40 ft cliff, and I was launched off with the slide. I landed in a pile of debris and loose stuff that previously came down, including a lot of loose snow, which mostly absorbed the energy. I was mostly OK, muddy, lots of scratches and bruises, a separated shoulder and broken tail bone, but I was able to walk out. My one memory is being in mid air, time standing still, and looking to my left at a stove-size boulder likewise suspended in the air, about 6 feet away. Any good size rock would have killed me.