About 25 years ago when I was still in college I thought it would be cool to get a motorcycle. I rode it around for about a year with no problems until one day I was riding down this mountain road near where I lived and a deer ran out in front of my bike and I swerved to avoid it, I flew off my bike and into a ditch on the side of the road and was knocked out, my bike fell off the other side of the road and down a sheer cliff face. It was not obvious anyone has ever been there or that there was an accident. I laid there for almost a two days until people started looking for me after missing work. When I came to my legs were messed up, I had broken an ankle, elbow and wrist and couldn’t move. I sat there for hours convinced I was going to die. I was pretty upset about it but after a while the anxiety washed away and I just went completely numb. My next memory was waking up in a hospital.
Thank god I was wearing a helmet.
How about you?
A couple of years ago my (now ex, for urelated reasons) partner got ahold of some molly. I was pretty new to drugs, but trusted her to keep me safe. We tested a small portion of it, and it came back clean. That night we took it with us to some club and did some lines in the bathroom.
Unfortunately, I was unaware that the chemicals in those test kits have expiration dates, and no one had ever explained the chocolate chip cookie effect to me. Either we just missed the chunk that had fentanyl in it, or those expired tests just weren’t accurate, but either way I ended up overdosing.
I’m told my heart stopped for about ten minutes. Fortunately for me, the boyfriend of one of the performers had narcan with him. I had collapsed in front of the bar, and woke up laying in the parking lot with a bunch of strangers crowding around me. My partner ended up bundling me into the car and driving me home. I’m pretty sure I ended up with some brain damage. Years later though, I feel like I’m pretty much recovered, fortunately.
Kid me was pretty stupid. My mom, sister, and I went on a trip to Hawaii with my mom’s coworker. At that time, I was really bad at swimming. One of the beach trips we went to snorkel. I was left unsupervised for a while and ended up following a sea turtle way too far out. I ended up getting water in the breathing tube, and I panicked. I think I was flailing around for about two minutes going up and down the surface of the water until my mom’s coworker noticed and dragged me back to shore. Was pretty sure I would’ve just drowned if no one noticed.
Got SIBO from a liver or gallbladder issue. Went through 1 to 4 bottles a month of antibiotics. 2 for 2 weeks then next 2 weeks 2 different ones. Done that 15 times. Was given 4 to 8 weeks max to live losing 2 to 4 pounds a week at 105 pounds. Still not sure how I beat it. I’m still struggling but doing a bit better. Hospitals are shit, most Dr.s are shit. Health is wealth!
Found out I’m allergic to a medicine after being administered via IV in one shot, luckily for me I was already at the hospital and the nurses figured out what was happening.
A few, 7yo appendicitis which ruptured in surgery. 15yo Fell from 3 story high scaffolding and landed on my back. 11yo an adult repeatedly slammed my head onto a wooden floor: maybe not a near death but I had thought that that was the end. 18yo big hill at night friends figgered we would ghost it, brakes off keys out of the ignition, find break don’t work and scrabbling to put keys in ignition… I was drunk so I don’t remember much else but we all survived car had a dent on the bumper.
I have two from when I was a kid. Once I was waiting at a traffic light with my mom. The light turns green and I jump out onto a street without looking. Not even half a second later a car whizzes by just centimeters in front of me. It went by so fast I have no doubt it would have killed me had it hit. That was probably 20 years ago and I still always look both ways even when the light is green.
Another one was at the beach. I couldn’t swim (still can’t) so I was walking parallel to the shore in water up to my shoulders. At one point there was a drainage pipe or something and the current from it seems to have eroded the bottom, so as I’m walking the ground suddenly goes out from under me and I feel like I’m getting pulled deeper in the sea. Luckily my mom was nearby and pulled me out pretty quickly. I don’t like going deeper than waist height into the sea since then.
I also had a more recent scary moment, which wasn’t really near death, but could have easily been very bad if there was an oncoming car. Get good tyres and don’t fuck around in the rain, kids: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXTThHtUqLk
Heart stopped beating. I could feel the lack of oxygen despite breathing like mad. Thought “Fuck, tomorrow my mom is going to find me dead in my bed” (I still was a student living close enough to university to commute). Luckily, one of the built-in safety mechanisms kicked in and my heart restarted. Spent some weeks in hospital after that so they could find me a better medication than the one I was using.
Heart stopped beating? That’s a thing? Jesus
Presumably OP had some kind of condition, given that they were already on (non-working) meds.
I mean I’ve heard of heart attacks but never just neurologically stopping beating. I’m not a doctor or anything though
Cardiac arrest is heart stop beating (e.g. damar Hamlin? The Bills dude the other year). This is when you see a flatline.
Heart attack or myocardial infarction means the arteries that keep your heart oxygenated get blocked, cardiac tissue after the blockage of that then starts dying. The heart is still beating (or trying to beat).
Heart attacks are also not no more beating, if you didn’t know that. It’s when the heart muscles don’t get enough blood and the essentially start to suffocate.
If it stops beating for any of a large number of reasons, that’s cardiac arrest, which used to be the definition of death.
man dies, freaks out, and comes back to life
That is a thing if the medication you get does not really work out for you. I remember waking up one night a week before that where I started the blood pressure recorder, and it measured a heartbeat of 26 BPM. And that was when I was actually out of the valley and had enough energy to press the button.
If you don’t mind me asking, what are you diagnosed with?
High blood pressure. I initially got beta-blockers, which my heart didn’t like that much.
Intense, glad you’re still around!
Yes, me too. Not a good experience, I’ll rate it 1/10, not recommendable.
And yes, quite some of your life passes before your eyes in those seconds. It is indeed very intense.
I put a gun to my head, ready to end it all.
Woke up in a hospital. No drugs involved.
I drove myself there. The gun was in the glove compartment. Apparently, I self admitted through ED.
I remember NOTHING from gun to my head to waking up in the hospital.
Not sure if that qualifies as near death, but I think I was.
I am better now. That was years ago, I came close again recently, but this time I have answers about myself and a place to start.
I’m glad you are here friend
You need to be proud of yourself. That’s a big thing
Glad you’re still here with us!
Makes me think about that line where Bruce Banner says “the other guy spit it out”, referring to the Hulk when he tried the same thing with the gun in his mouth.
Sounds pretty fricken near death to me.
Almost choked to death on potato. Fell to the ground, which loosened potato.
How could brother potato do this to you
Similar to you, but I can’t remember if it was a potato.
Like others, ive had things go down the wrong pipe before; everyone has. But this time it was completely blocked; no air in or out.
I live alone, so it was the scariest moment of my life. By the time I was able to dislodge it enough to breath by slamming my diaphragm down against the edge of a counter enough times, my eyesight had already begun to go dark.
Thought for sure that that was it for me right there.
Choking is the most terrifying and most unfair imo. I have a lot of siblings and every single one of them has had a choking scare.
This. My mother is has ptsd just from witnessing me and my siblings choke on stupid shit.
I really recommend people learn how to perform a tracheostomy in the event that the subject can’t dislodge the object. Heimlich maneuver first and CPR if they lose consciousness, but if all else fails, sharp tube object, and spike the divot above the sternum.
Bumped my head with another kid in 6th grade at recess. When we went back in for reading time I realised I couldn’t read and had a headache, so I told my teacher and went up to the front office. I remember sitting down waiting for my mum to pick me up, then next thing I know I’m laying down in a hospital bed. Apparently I got a really bad concussion and went crazy and I don’t remember a thing, I’m glad I don’t lol.
Wow, that is really scary. It is kind of funny/sad how delicate our heads are and they just kind of hang there on top of everything exposed
I know right, it wasn’t even that hard of a hit. Apparently it was just in a sensitive spot
There was an icy patch on the playground one day and people were taking turns sliding on it. One kid fellover and I went down after him and my stomach fell on his upturned shoe. All the wind rushed out of me and everything went black for a few seconds until I woke up on the ground
A bunch.
Two while snowboarding. First time I hit some rocks that were hidden in fresh snow. When I checked my helmet, a rock had pierced it in the back of my head. It was easily a fatal hit had I not had my helmet on. The second time I accidentally rode off a cliff (took the wrong line). I landed on my back in powder but a snapped branch was sticking up two inches below my left arm pit. Had I fallen four inches to the left, it would have impaled me through the heart.
I lost count how many while surfing. Lost a surfer I was trying to rescue and almost drowned myself.
Oddly, never while downhill skateboard racing.
Twice while riding a motorcycle.
Once in a car. A pickup hydroplaned on the interstate right ahead of me. It went in the ditch, overcorrected and came right at my door at speed. I turned my wheel into it so it wouldn’t t-bone me but instead I missed it entirely and all I got was mud on my car and in my underware.
Blockage in three of my four main heart arteries. Two were 99% blocked. It required four emergency stents in my heart. I should be dead for sure from that one but a little voice in my head told me to skip the boat trip and go to the ER because I felt “funny”.
Stage 3 cancer. Beat it but lost my singing voice. Fuck cancer.
Damn someone has been dancing with the devil.
When they say “live life to the fullest” they never mention that doing so will absolutely put you at greater risk of an untimely death. Worth it though.
Lol, god damn, dude has 9 lives
Not anymore he hasn’t
I count 8 lives used. Next hole punch gets a free death.
Rode a horse.
Woke up in a hospital.
Discovered I’m like insanely allergic to horses; airway was completely fucked.
Someone hit me with an epi-pen after recognizing the signs - good chance I’d be dead otherwise. Unsure if it was a staff member or just a random person who happened to be carrying an epi-pen; I was pretty little when it happened, and only vaguely recall getting up on the horse and nothing after, but I’m told I just randomly went all dead-weight and flopped off and face planted in the dirt.
Thanks, random stranger with epi!
Wow, that is something I never considered as possible. I guess I’m glad I’m terrified of horses. I should carry those around just in case I see this happening even though I don’t have allergies
This is funniest one.
Overdose (Xanax and Alcohol)
I was meeting a friend from out of the state and got a bit big for my britches trying to show off how cool I was and made some poor judgment.
Somehow ended back in my apartment with a bunch of medics checking me out, I don’t even remember getting home from the bar.
First and only time ever using Xanax
Yeah, I had a similar but less severe experience with my first and last time trying xanax. I started to flip out a bit but definitely not remembering what was going on. I ended up picking a fight with a friend of mine who punched me in the face to get me to stop wiling then dragged me into my home and put me in my bed. I never thanked anyone for punching me in the face before or since lol
This must be how kids feel when they fall asleep in the car and wake up the next morning in bed. “Huh? Did I die and teleport here?”
Thrice, all a long time ago:
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Driving back alone from a group camping trip. Got stuck in a freak snowstorm in the mountains, without chains. Stalled and started sliding back towards a really deep ravine. Hit the brakes, but it kept skidding through the sleet. Had the car door open, ready to bail. The car came to a stop, barely inches from the edge.
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Walked out of the shower in a towel. Faced a tweaker with a gun standing in my apartment. Demanded my wallet. Took out the cash. Wasn’t much. He paused, trying to decide what to do next. I really wasn’t sure which way it would go. He left.
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Flight instructor had checked off on doing a solo, then left town. Was nervous, but he had told me to put in the flight hours in his absence. Practicing short take-off/landings and go-arounds. Little single-engine trainer. On the first touch-and-go, I forgot to take off full flaps, which meant maximum drag on the wings. Got barely 1000 ft above ground, then the engine began to sputter. The plane stalled, and started a slow-mo, nose-down spin toward the ground. I remember stopping breathing. Then the brain kicked in. Figured it out. Recovered from the spin way too close to the ground. The most sphincter-clenching, stupidest moment of my life.
I have next to no experience but from the few times I went on those planes I can say the G forces are much more then you expect. It’s not just “oh cool I feel lighter”, it’s " oh god I’m falling to my inevitable death"
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According to my brain, every time I have to interact with a stranger.
I… I just died in your arms tonight…
“Oh ffs Farid, you can’t keep doing this! You’re getting too heavy!”Appreciate the Cutting Crew reference. But I can and I will.
“Should we call an ambulance?”
“No, call his mother to yell at him.”– No, don’t call my mother, she’ll be so mad! She told me that if I die I shouldn’t come back home for dinner…
she’d kill you
Or worse… expelled.
“Do we… do we call an Ambulance?”
“No, we call his sister who will pick him up and yell at him.”
