Warning: This post includes descriptions of violence.
Redditor u/Halloween-365 asked, “How have you cheated death?” and the responses were startling because each person’s survival from a life-threatening situation was so unique. Here are some of the responses:
Note: Some entries have been edited for length/clarity.
1.“I had a screening for something else, and my doctor found very early-stage cancer at age 34. It was removed painlessly and completely in the afternoon. Itâs a cancer that usually affects people over 60 and doesnât have symptoms until itâs too late. If I didnât have this other screening, I likely would have died a painful death from it in 10-ish years. When the doctor first called to give me the results, he said it was divine intervention and never gave me the results of the test I came in for.”
2.“I was on the waiting list for only six days before receiving a life-saving organ. The waiting time is usually more than six months, and I had less than a month to live. The doctors suggested to my wife that she say her goodbyes and prepare for the worst because I was obviously not going to make it. And now I’m writing this.”
â u/abovemyleague
3.“Congenital heart defect (WPW) completely unknown until 35 years old. I was playing board games with a small group when my vision narrowed until I came to looking up at EMTs. They had taken turns doing CPR for 14 minutes until medical arrived and shocked me three times to bring me back. One surgery and defib install later, everything is pretty much normal with cheap meds. Had I been driving or at home alone, that would have been it. Those four guys don’t pay for beers ever when we go out.”
4.“I was in the back seat of my friend’s car without a seatbelt on when he got t-boned by a dude blowing a red light. Got bounced around a bit, but otherwise okay. I have worn my seatbelt on every car ride since that day in 2005.”
â u/Dahhhkness
5.“I was a C-17 Loadmaster, and back in 2003, we flew a mission out of Baghdad, and our plane got hit by an SA-14 at about 1200 feet. I just happened to be sitting behind the pilot in the Left ACM seat, and I got to stare at a giant blow torch erupting out of the top of our number two engine and flowing over the wing, where the fuel tanks were full. I fully expected the wing to explode any second until we were on the ground and the fire trucks were spraying us down.”
6.“When I was still a fetus, my mother suffered a heavy injury to her stomach, causing the death of my twin, but I survived somehow. The doctors basically told her she must stay bedridden for the rest of the pregnancy or else she would lose me, too. So my grandma got her an SNES [Super Nintendo Entertainment System], and she just played video games all day. I still have that SNES.”
â u/Raemnant
7.“I was hit by a drunk driver while I was riding my bike at 13. If I hadn’t been wearing my helmet, I would’ve died. The helmet was cracked all the way through on the back. Safety equipment has never been a joke to me since. If any of my nieces or nephews call me, saying they need a new helmet, they’ll have one.”
8.“I (unknowingly) had a UTI; never really had one before, but I was always told the symptoms were things like dark urine, pissing blood, and being itchy. I had NONE of them. I was trying to ‘tough guy’ it out, but I had pain in my stomach for at least five days, so I decided to go to Urgent Care because I couldn’t eat or walk anymore. They thought my appendix had fucking blown, so they sent me to the ER, but it was a UTI about ~24 hours away from going septic and infecting other organs. I felt pretty fuckin’ stupid, but at the same time, I had no symptoms other than pain. Shits scary.”
9.“I passed out while drunk/high after going to the bathroom and broke a toilet with the back of my head. Woke up in a pool of blood and ended up with ~30 staples in the back of my head. I showed a doctor a picture of the bathroom scene once, and he looked visibly shook.”
10.“I got pushed into the other side of the highway by an 18-wheeler that suddenly merged into my lane. I still have nightmares seeing the oncoming cars.”
11.“Put in a CD at a stoplight, and the stereo kept spitting it back out. In my focus to get it to work, I didn’t see the light turn green. Just as the guy behind me honked, a car ran the red light at full speed and hit the cars that went beside me when the light turned green. The guy behind me didn’t move, even when the traffic cleared.”
12.“I was in a brutal car accident. My son was 5 at the time in the back seat. Our vehicle was hit three times like a ping pong ball during rush hour and pushed over three lanes into oncoming traffic. When we finally stopped, we had narrowly evaded being sandwiched between two transport trucks. My right arm was crushed and is now all titanium, but otherwise, we made it out alive â my son without a scratch thanks to a properly installed car seat. Hours later, I went into another portal and hopped up on a cocktail of ketamine, morphine, etc. I am convinced I entered the edge of life/death as it was a surreal experience.”
â u/turtle-bird
13.“My mum’s cat saved my life. I was sleeping on my mum’s couch after a breakup. The cat got sick, and the vet determined it was carbon monoxide poisoning from the front room gas fireplace.”
14.“My cousin and I were sitting on the back of a houseboat when we were little. All the adults were inside, as adults did in the ’80s. After a while, we stumbled inside instead of falling asleep at the back of the boat. We had carbon monoxide poisoning and had to be rushed to the hospital. Our grandpa bought a new boat motor the next day.”
â u/MissMaryEli
15.“My bio father punched my mom in the stomach nine weeks before I was due. A few days later, she was feeling just ‘a little’ off and called her doctor, who told her to go to the hospital. It turns out the placenta had ruptured, and the surgeon said we both wouldâve died that day had she just decided to sleep it off instead. One very emergency C-section later, and we both made it, if not a little undercooked.”
â u/BeepCheeper
16.“Survived a bear attack, survived being lost at sea for four days (on a fishing boat, ran out of gas, no land in sight), walked away from falling out of a two-story window when I was like 4 or 5, walked away from crashing my motorcycle into a guardrail, walked away from my friend’s 300zx TT crashing through trees and splitting in half…think that’s about it.”
Greenreynolds / Getty Images/iStockphoto, Jay Fleming / Getty Images
â u/ShipisSinking
17.“5 years ago, I went tandem skydiving. After about 30 seconds, the dude pulled the parachute, but it wasn’t opening. After pulling on the ropes a bit, he got his knife and cut the chute, then pulled the second one. By the time the second one was fully inflated, we were almost on the ground and landed somewhere in a field instead of the small airport we were supposed to land. They had to pick us up by car. Save to say, I’m never going skydiving again.”
â u/nothzera
18.“No shit, there I was: Afghanistan. 15 minutes till midnight. Me and another guy were standing outside on guard duty. Every two hours, you’re supposed to get in the Humvee and run the engine so the battery didn’t die due to the onboard computer that was always on. Two minutes after we get in, we are doing the radio checks, etc., and BOOM! RPG hits exactly where we were standing (I’m sure they were aiming for the Humvee). Oh what a night….”
19.“I was riding a motorbike at 60mph (national speed limit road). An oncoming car overtook a car on a blind bend and forced me off the road. The moment my bike hit the grass, I decided to jump off it as I was heading for a stone wall and knew that I would never be able to get control of the bike once it was off a tarmac road. The bike pummeled into the wall, and I hit the floor with force. My leathers and helmet saved me from a much worse fate, but I think if I’d hit the oncoming car or the wall, I’d have been dead instantly. I was on my way to stay with friends, and my aerosol deodorant exploded in my rucksack, and my visor completely detached from my helmet.”
â u/gregofdeath
20.And lastly, “My high school school resource officers (SRO) stopped a school shooting with literally less than seconds to spare. I was walking past the kid as he was at his locker, pulling the gun. I saw the student get tackled. If the SRO had not stopped the student, I would likely have been first since we were the only students in that hallway.”
If you or somebody you know cheated death and survived, share the story for a chance to be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community post, or use this Google form if you wish to remain anonymous.
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger as a result of domestic violence, call 911. For anonymous, confidential help, you can call the 24/7 National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or chat with an advocate via the website.
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