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People Who've Had Near Death Experiences Share Their Stories

People Who've Had Near Death Experiences Share Their Stories
man lies on the operating table

Most of us are lucky enough to say that we've never found ourselves in a truly "life or death" situation.

While almost everyone has had a turbulent flight, dangerous experiences on the road, or maybe a deep cut that ended up requiring stitches, we don't usually question whether or not we'll come out alive in those situations.

There are those, however, who did feel like they had come face to face with death once in their life.

As well as others who were in a potentially fatal situation without even realizing it.


Redditor ImTheGodOfAdvice was curious to hear more about the experiences of people who narrowly escaped death, with or without realizing it, leading them to ask:

"Redditors who almost died, what happened?"

Sleeping Through A Fire

"Slept through a house fire."

"Ended up with 85% burns."

"Spent 14 months on hospital during which I had pneumonia three times, lung collapsed & had a cardiac arrest."- allergic_to_fire

Dangerous Misdiagnosis

"At 25, roommate had talked me into training for a 10k trail run."

"Started vigorously training, lost some weight, got some decent conditioning, and about a week before the run, I noticed a small amount of blood in my urine."

"Went to the urgent care, they took a sample, didn’t see anything unusual and the doc chalked it up to 'jogger’s hematuria' which is somewhat common apparently."

"Doc said to pause my running for a bit and it would clear up."

"I decided to continue training and finish my run, because I had worked so hard, and would stop for a couple of weeks afterwards to heal."

"I finished my run with a decent time, about the middle of the pack."

"Quit running and waited."

"And waited. "

"Nothing was clearing up, if anything it was getting worse, and then pain started to accompany the blood."

"Then it would get darker and darker until clots would come out."

"Me being dumb was still going off the doctor’s original claim that it would clear up on its own."

"One night, we decided to go watch 'Avatar' in the theaters, and I got a large drink."

"Held the pee during the whole movie because I didn’t want to miss anything."

"After, went to the bathroom and felt dizzy, so we went home and I laid down to rest."

"Middle of the night, had to pee again, so got up, went a lot and it was so much blood it was like a murder scene."

"Finished and walking back to my room I passed out, and luckily hit my roommate’s door on my way down, waking him up."

"He got me up and we went to the ER."

"After multiple tests, a CT scan discovered a tumor in my bladder that had grown to 6 cm, and every time I relieved my bladder, the pressure burst blood vessels supplying it."

"I had 4 units of blood transfused."

"Doc says I was lucky I didn’t die right on the floor of my apartment."

"That roommate was the best man at my wedding a few years later, and is the godfather of our daughter."- ba_cam

Terrifying Car Accident

"I was 20, and on my way to work on a Saturday morning."

"I had a 95 Chevrolet Monte Carlo."

"Driving behind me was a mid 2000s Chevrolet Impala."

"He was swerving all over the road."

"He’d get right up on my rear bumper, swerve, fall behind, swerve, speed up, repeat."

"I tried to ignore him and kept driving."

"First mistake."

"Eventually he fell out of sight."

"I finally come up to the parking lot, which is just over the crest of a hill and on the left."

"I’m waiting for traffic to clear to make the left turn."

"I have my wheels turned already so I can hit the gas and get into the parking lot."

"Second mistake."

"While I’m waiting, I see something fast come up behind me in me rear view."

"It’s the Impala absolutely FLYING up at me."

"I didn’t even have time to say 'oh, sh*t' when the lights went out."

"I woke up being stretchered out of an ambulance in the worst pain of my life."

"I felt like someone was sitting on my chest as I couldn’t breathe."

"Then, lights out again."

"I wake up one more time in what I think is a hospital OR to what feels like my right armpit on fire, then out again."

"I finally regain full consciousness in a hospital bed with a chest tube in my right side, an IV in my left arm, a neck brace on, and excruciating pain in my chest, head, and neck."

"My parents were both there, and one of the first things I remember saying was 'my car’s totaled, isn’t it?'"


"The Impala driver had fallen asleep behind the wheel and pressed fully on his accelerator pedal."

"He hit the rear end of my car at an estimated 75 mph."

"Because I had my wheels turned, I was pushed into oncoming traffic where a brand new Toyota RAV-4 then smashed into my passenger door at an estimated 50 mph, causing my car to whiplash around in the opposite direction it was rolling."

"The impact was so hard, it tore my rear wheel off and sent it a quarter mile down the road."

"They found parts of my rear brakes in a tree."

"The passenger door was touching the center console."

"The front bolts for my seat had sheared out of the floor. "

"Originally, first responders thought the reclining mechanism had broken because I was laid back in the car."

"I suffered 6 broken ribs, a punctured lung, a severely sprained neck, a nasty concussion, a perforated eardrum, and various other relatively minor abrasions."

"Aside from the half-deafness in my left ear, newfound motion sickness, and occasional neck stiffness, I’d say I made a full recovery."- NobiZero

Medical Negligence

"When I got my wisdom teeth taken out I got IV sedation."

"The next day my IV arm was a little sore."

"The next day it was more sore and a little red, so I called the oral surgeon who said it was fine--just take some Advil."

"The next day it was more red and more sore, same advice from the oral surgeon."


"The next day the redness was tracking up my vein, and the oral surgeon said it was fine."

"The First Nurse on the other hand firmly said to drop whatever I was doing and go straight to the ER."

"When I got to the ER they skipped me ahead of everyone in the waiting room and straight back to put different broad spectrum antibiotics IVs in each arm, and started me on a 3rd one in pill form because I had a blood infection."

"I specifically remember them saying something to the effect of 'we don't have time to figure out WHAT it is, we just need to kill it'." - Reddit

Dangerously Ill Without Even Realizing It!

"December 2019, I bought my first business."

"I'd never owned a business before, but there I was writing checks for 50k each week and watching my bank account dwindle down to a few hundred bucks, only to hope checks would come in the following week."

"Then I did it all over again, but the next week there's a payroll due."

"It took me a couple of months to get comfortable with the routine."

"Well if you do the math, a couple of months brings us to March 2020."

"Now I'm writing checks for 50k each week, but almost no one is paying me."

"All my big customers are in NYC, and NYC is shut down."

"I am stressed AF."

"My wife says that we need to get life insurance because of the business and I think that's a pretty ok idea."

"The Life insurance company says I need to get a physical before they will insure me, so they send a nurse to do blood work."

"She tells me that my blood pressure is high and I should get it checked out."

"Normal me would be like 'Yeah, whatever'."

"But for some reason I made an appointment for a physical at a regular doctor."

"I go and they also do blood work."

"That was a Monday."

"Tuesday comes, and I get the results from the life insurance blood work."

"ALL of the kidney numbers are through the flipping roof bad."

"I call my regular doctor, and they say it has to be an error."

"No one with numbers like that would be living, nevermind being upright and coherent."

"I should come in the next day when their blood work would be back."

"So I wait until the next day."

"Go into the doctors office, and wait to be seen."

"The doctor comes in with an ashen face and asks me if I'm feeling ok because according to what she sees, my kidneys are nonfunctional."

"I spent 8 days in the hospital bringing my blood back from being basically poisonous."

"I was told I had a few days left if I didn't get to the doctor."

"I am now on dialysis 3 days a week and waiting for a kidney transplant."

"My life is completely upside down."

"Take care of yourself people."- TheGrateGooglyMoogly

Life is precious, and we should never take it for granted.

Always stay alert and keep your eyes on the road.

And if you think something might be wrong, call your doctor immediately.

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