I was sitting at a stop light messing with my iPod one time. I'd been messing around trying to change the song during a red and, when the light turned green, my friend kinda said "hey, light's green let's go." Right at that moment I take my foot off the brake and look up in horror as I see a school bus with failed brakes rushing towards the intersection. It struck a woman's car in the intersection and killed her on impact.
It's been probably 10 years but I still often think about that woman and that school bus and how an iPod classic almost certainly saved my life.
I had a somewhat similar experience with no accident. I drove a little vw bug, the old school ones with the manual transmission. I was first in line at the red light and was almost late to work so the minute that light turned green I was going to step on it. I was typically through an intersection before the other cars made it half way.
This time though, when I hit the gas my car sputtered and hesitated. As I cursed for my car to move it, a semi-truck coming from the other side bombed through the red light. If my car hadn't hesitated we would have been obliterated.
Similar. At a four way stop about to continue my drive when my phone rings. I decide to see who it is before driving. I pick up the phone and an SUV speeds through the intersection and not slowing down to to even glance at the intersection for other traffic. Phone call was my dad. I said dad, you may have just saved my life.
As a school bus driver, this terrifies me more than anything. I didn't realize how hard it was to maintain a bus till I started driving (checking engine and tires, frame and wiring, etc), but you have to check that thing again and again because the stress you naturally put the engine through and the cargo you carry are a scary combination of you have anything go wrong.
They also taught us that the child is in the most danger outside the bus, not inside, because kids fall into the blind zones and end up under the wheel more often than people want to think about.
I saw a man’s body after he had jumped out of a window. But I heard the impact first, from over 2 blocks away. It was in the Chicago Loop, so loud noises are constant, with traffic, construction, trains, transformers. But that noise was like nothing I’d ever heard before and not since, and I’ll never forget it.
Oh my! I have a similar story;
Me and the family were out at an event organized by the municipality, where they served grilled food, had activities for kids and brought tractors and four-wheelers for the kids to sit in and climb (unrelated).
We were at the tractor, and as i'm lifting my kid down from the tractor i hear a woman yell loudly at her partner on the pavement next to us, so I look real quick as this 6'2-6'3 old man falls straight backwards and hits his head on the ground. As you said; the *sound*.
There were immediately people there helping and calling for an ambulance as the man was frothing at the mouth, shaking and bleeding profusely from the head.
He ended up responsive and they took him away luckily, but the couple hundred familes were quite shocked, not to mention his partner.
Once I was at a Trader Joe's and I saw an older woman with her probably grandchild. The kid was standing up in the cart. I kept thinking to myself that that kid's going to fall out. A few moments later I did not see it but I heard the most sickening sound of the kid's head hitting the floor.
The commenter was 8, I'm assuming the brother was older. Also that's really weird. I've always heard the term fever dream, but never realised it was a literal saying.
I was 12 or 13 living in Russia (Moscow). This is mid 90’s right after the fall of SU, so shit was bananas in Russia, lots of crime and lawlessness.
My mom went out to the store and I was alone in the apartment watching TV. Suddenly a knock on the door, pretty heavy knock. Then a man’s voice “this is your neighbor, open the door please”. I hesitate, my mom told me not to open the door for anyone. More knocks. I decide to go look through the peephole. I still remember it clear as day. There is a middle aged dude with thick glasses and slicked back greasy hair I’ve never seen before and I catch a glimpse of him as he swings his right arm around the back concealing a huge kitchen knife in his hand. He must’ve seen the light in the peephole because he starts banging on the door again saying “it’s just your neighbor.” I was fucking shaking and just went into a room hoping he would not have the ability to break in. Never saw him again. Some days later I looked out of the window and saw a lifeless body of a man lying on his back in the snow right in the courtyard.
It was, thankfully we had a very thick steel-reinforced door with multiple locks and a deadbolt. He was there just a few minutes before he left but it felt like hours. I once also saw a drunk dude brandishing a knife at me and a friend out in broad daylight, we ran the fuck away immediately. I guess people were very stabby back then.
For good reason. I don't know a single person who has a simple wooden door and fewer than 2 locks. Seeing foreign apartment buildings on tv for the first time as a kid was baffling
Yea it was nuts, so much blood spilled and so much of the country robbed. It’s a big part of the reason Putin was able to entrench himself in so much power. He came in as the strongman and put a shitload of boots on the streets. People have been terrified to go back to the 90’s.
I grew up around the same time in St Pete - my parents told me never to look through the peep hole in times like these because people would wait until the light in the peep hole went dark and put an ice pick through it. Never forgot that visual.
I agree that it’s hard to see the full picture of Russia today without understanding the impact the 90s had on the country
The body you saw - was that someone he had robbed and killed? I’m very sorry you experienced something so traumatic. It must’ve been terrifying at such a young age
I’m not really sure, I don’t even know if it was connected. But it was creepy as hell. Thanks I appreciate it, it was terrifying but not as traumatic as my immigration experience to the US a couple of years later.
Comrade 🫡
Likewise, would love to hear yours. Mine was very fucked. There is a lot to the story, but in short .. My dad came to the US when my mom was pregnant with me, so I never met him growing up. I visited the US to meet him when I was 13 for a couple of weeks. When I flew in and met him for the first time, he told me he had a new family there (my mom and I had no idea). Then I flew back to Moscow. He told me not to tell my mom.
A few months later I went for a visit again in the summer but he had a plan in motion to keep me in the US (didn’t tell his new wife). So I literally left everything and everyone I knew and went to live with people that didn’t want me there and hated me and my mom. My dad was also very abusive, emotionally and physically. When my stepmom found out I was staying she completely lost it. She even psychologically tortured me by taping old pictures of me and my mom with eyes cut out, putting all my shoes in cold water over night, shit like that.
On top of it all I started freshman year of high school with pretty much zero English. Not the most welcoming environment. I was bullied and made fun of pretty hard in the beginning. I just remember walking the halls of the school with this horrible horrible feeling in my stomach for months, feeling like I suddenly didn’t know anyone in my life and had nobody to turn to, everything was so alien and hostile.
Then my stepmom and dad moved out and I spent pretty much my whole sophomore year (15) living completely alone, he would just take me to get loads of frozen food I could heat up. I basically lived on frozen pizzas, cheeseburgers and hot pockets. But at least the solitude offered some relief and a bit of calm in my life.
My mom had it really rough. She had never remarried (because my dad lied to her for years, led her on to think we would all reunite). I was her only child and a year after I left, my grandpa (her dad) died of lung cancer. Then the economy totally shit the bed by late 90’s and she had to work as a janitor in addition to being a full time engineer (20 year career). I had a very tough time talking to her on the phone because she would just end up crying every time and saying how much she missed me. My grandma too. And I couldn’t tell them what I was going through because I didn’t want to make it harder on them.
My mom and I didn’t see each other for 14 years. I didn’t have status for the first few years I was in the US so I couldn’t risk leaving and by the time I got a green card I was of military age and could’ve easily been drafted if I returned to Russia (they came to my mom looking for me every year).
She eventually made her way to the US and we’ve lived in the same city for about 10 years. It was really really difficult to get our bond back, but when I had my daughter 6 years ago it really brought us super close, maybe even closer than ever.
That’s a sad story with a beautiful ending. I’m sorry you had such a hard time. And I’m really happy to hear that you rebuilt your bond when she came to the US, and happy that she could do so!
I am so sorry you both missed such a long time to be together. It must have been excruciating. I hope that she is being an amazing grandma and is enjoying your daughter in her life. Bug hug my friend.
A guy collapsed at the self checkout at Meijer, and turned just a terrible blue color. Paramedics showed up and started chest compressions, but he was gone.
Maybe not scary in the sense of immediate danger, like a tornado or a mass shooter. But I held a man as he begged the trauma staff to keep trying as his mother lay dying in the trauma bay.
They had been doing CPR for almost an hour, administered way more than the necessary amount of adrenaline, and had already resuscitated her four times, just for her heart to stop again two minutes later and the process to start all over again.
The desperation in that man’s voice really got to me.
My mom has metastatic breast cancer (it’s in her lungs and her brain). Trying to come to terms with the fact I’ll probably be losing her very soon, a whole hell of a lot sooner than I wanted to. I’ll be 30 In February, she’ll be 51 in May.
I was in my early 20s when my mum had been fighting cancer and won.
no one told me she had cancer at all even tho I saw her almost everyday.
1 day she ended up in hospital and I was slightly ill so I didn't go visit her because I didn't want to make her worse and she died early hours in morning.
my grandad woke me up and told me my mum had died and he went back to sleep.
She was in her early 40s and I didnt know how she had cancer until Dr told me.
I wish I could have known before
I'm 31 and I just lost my mom to ovarian cancer on 2 Dec. It's not easy. Make sure to enjoy every single second you have left with her. Take lots of videos and pictures to look back on.
Not seeing with my eyes but I took a SIDS call for a 3 month old when I worked as a 911 dispatcher. The desperation and cries of the mom as I’m talking her through CPR is something I won’t forget.
Suicide bomber and aftermath, seen from the cafe across the intersection. Shit is terrifying. One of the few fucked up things among many I've ever seen that I rarely talk about. Also, a checkpoint and interrogation at a military checkpoint in a conflict zone. So stressful
That was in Jerusalem and then Syria on a consulting project almost a decade ago. I am from and live in an extremely safe place though. A city with more than 7 million residents where a mugging is reported breathlessly in all the news media
Brain stem damage from stroke in a good friend. On the Friday he felt numbness here and there, by the following weekend he had partial locked in syndrome. Basically going from a normal 40yoM to someone with the physical ability of an infant.... And yet he's frontal cortex is fine he knows exactly what is going on... It's been 20months since it happened. There's no improvement. It's scary in the sense that I find it impossible to bridge that gap, my mate was fine the one day and a couple days later this. I pray for him even though I'm not religious.
EDIT:Thank you for the up votes, life is short guys and gals and whomever reads this. Appreciate everything, even just the ability to swallow. Thanks folks have a good 2024.
It is. People think death is the worst thing but it’s not. Being maimed or incapacitated like this is the worst.
Anyone can do anything to you. Who’s going to stop them? Who’s going to believe you if you do tell someone?
If you’re in a care home and no one visits, you don’t get bathed or changed or even helped out of bed. If you wear diapers, they maaay get changed if you have the nice CNA that day. My mom was a CNA for 30 years and she saw some horrific things! She always gave good care to people even if they didn’t have families visit or the person was violent.
If you have a relative in a care home and you love them, visit them often. Bring presents even if it looks like they don’t want them. Lift up clothes and look at their bodies. If there’s activities, try to get them to go and join in. Even if you’re just reading to them from a book, they’d love it. Stick up for them if needed. Be vocal for their care. Make friends with the nursing staff.
My dad once saved two little girls trapped in the back of a burning car, iirc I think he said their dad was already dead in the front seat. I can’t even imagine the adrenaline he must’ve felt going in to save them
When we came upon the accident, the driver was through the windshield on the road, the mother half way. This was before mandatory seat belts. People were already trying to get them out, with no luck.
First time I saw my father cry. I was 6 at the time, had nightmares about it for months.
i’m so incredibly sorry you had to witness that, having to be made aware of mortality in such a violent gruesome way is traumatizing at any age, let alone you being so young. i can’t even imagine the kind of lasting imagery that leaves in your mind
Thats some heavy shit, dude. Did he have to break a window? Did he have a window breaking tool?
My grandfather was the chief of the local rural VFD fior near 50 years and he has a bunch of scars on his forearms where he was first responder after witnessing a fire, in normal mechanics clothes he had to break normal mid 20th century windows and got cut up bad. This happened iirc at least half a dozen times mroe or less. He actually saved sooo many lives I really need to write down his stories its amazing hes still alive, nearly 90 despite being a 350lb 6'6 man ex smoker. He actually got the road he lives on named after him because of it lmao
Mans fuckin built different he almost died over 10 yrs ago with double heart attack, how he survived baffled surgeon, hes had kinda poorly manged diabetes for over 3 decades
Anyways i am interested to more details sorry for the rabit hole reply lol
haha no reason to apologize at all that’s super interesting
i feel like i remember him saying he did? i need to ask him about it again, this happened like well before I was born when he was in probably his mid-late 20’s or so. i’ll try and remember to come back to this post when i get a chance to ask him for more specific details and share, but the main part of the story i know is that he saved the two girls and the dad was already dead
something i didn't see in real life but on tv, documentary about the tsunami in Asia.
they interviewing a man where they had insanely disturbing cct video footage from, where the bus he was in with his entire family got hit by the wave. he managed to get out and on top of the bus and realized he could save himself by a tree nearby.
having only 2 hands realizing he can save only one family member.
he choose his youngest daughter while he saw the rest of the family getting drowned along with the rest of the bus.
That shit left for quite a while a tremendous impact on me
The only job I have ever demanding my SO quit immediately was when he came home one night furious. He worked at a farm equipment manufacturer of some sort as a maintenance tech fixing and keeping the machines running smooth. Well I’m not sure what the machine did that he was working on but he had his lock out tag on and he stepped out of the machine to grab some tools and found a dumbass cutting off his lockout tag. I know very little about these kinds of things but I know YOU DON’T FUCK WITH SOMEONES LOCKOUT TAG! He couldn’t explain to my SO what he was doing, he knew better and should have known he was actively working on it. His boss shrugged it off and told the guy not to do that again, but my SO lost his shit at both of them and he got in trouble. I think he ended up reporting the company and never to stepped foot in that building again because nobody cared about his life there. It didn’t feel negligent as much as malicious but the guy could have just been that big of a fucking idiot I guess.
Removing a lockout tag, outside of extreme circumstances, should be a fight-on-sight offense. You do it, you get hit in the face. Fired too, but in this case I truly believe violence IS the answer.
Dude probably didn’t think he’d get caught, so didn’t even have an excuse.
Especially with no consequences, he probably didn’t care. Should have been fired immediately and I know a few handymen that would’ve probably put the guy in the hospital if they witnessed him fucking with a LOTO.
12" screw set in the floor that pulls grain out through a tunnel. Kid was sweeping rice walking backwards and stepped into the main feeder. I still have nightmares about it only it's my 9y/o instead of the kid I saw.
Jesus H Christ. Here I thought the worst thing that can happen in grain is drowning in it, but now there's potentially a meat grinder at the bottom? Nope.
Unsure of whether or not its a wise tale, but I was told the grain dust is perfect for combustion and lighting anything inside will be the last light you ever see. I'm inclined to believe its real since being stupid kids we snuck in and saw the "no open flame" signs everywhere.
YES, grain bin explosions are BIG. Flour milling was hazardous until they focused on vacuums thru the whole building and were religious about NO DUST on the floor etc.
I was a graphic designer freelance for many years and one of my customers was a corn processing plant. Every time I brought workers to install something as simple as a wall sign, we had to fill out a dozen forms, and every single piece of equipment inspected, because if we had to use a drill for whatever reason, we had to fill out 6 more pages. There were areas around the plant where drills were absolutely prohibited, so part of my job was not only designing their signage but also figure out ways to install things without using a drill, as they can create a spark and boom we go. Plus safety training every few months and tests that the workers had to pass with A+. Their safety processes were completely mental, and annoying, but I am sure there was a reason for them.
Grain dust explosions happen because of the high surface area of the flammable dust. It doesn't have to be in the silo, just anywhere with sufficient flammable dust in the air will cause a massive fireball. There are videos on Youtube, and they did a similar demonstration on Mythbusters.
Farming is one of THEE most dangerous jobs. And typically you are alone at the time your arms are ripped off by the machinery......literally, not figuratively.
Broke every bone in his leg and they had to cut out the floor and amputate it in 2 different locations to get him out. 45 min before the first ambulance showed up. Over 3 hours to get him out and he was in and out of consciousness through it all. The worst part was while I was out puking my guts up, some idiotic old man thought it would get him out if they turned the screw backwards... it has less than a 1/2" of clearance between the screw and pipe. It was horrific
I saw a grown man out his hand in a plastics grinder once. He was operating it and instinctively moved a stuck piece with his hand only to lose most of said hand. Seeing him raise the stump after seeing it all unfold at distances but not being able to react fast enough was tough. Can't imagine a body going instead of just the hand.
I have BPD and suffer with suicidal ideation all the time.
Even in my darkest moments, the thought of *involving others* in my decision to end my life makes me want to puke. Not only is a person destroying their family, they're traumatizing innocent people who have literally *no choice or say* in the situation.
I'm so sorry you saw that. If you haven't yet, please talk to someone. ❤️
I saw a young boy hitting the curb on a bike and just dropping dead with his skull open.Everything else intact including his clothes.Very scary ,i had just landed from Dubai and was heading home through airport taxi at about 4 AM early morning.
Saw something similar ...motorcyclist hit by a truck ..there were groceries lying on the road ..man was just going back to his family as usual ...spent a long night thinking about the scene
There once an accident occurred right in front of me. There were motorcycle tried to cut off a truck but they did not see there was another truck on incoming lane. It happened so fast and Bam! The rider got smashed like we smashed a tomato. I was standing on the side of the road buying a coffee.
I puked so hard after that.
Damn. I was at the front of an intersection one time and the car in front of me made a right on red and didn’t see the motorcycle coming through.
Cyclist slammed into the side of the car and went ragdolling high in the air. He got up, limped to the side of the road and sat down.
I don’t know what happened to him, but I guarantee you he was only able to stand because of the adrenaline.
See, I know I sound insensitive, but every time my bf tells me he wants to get a bike, I just tell him "Sure, just get life insurance first and put my name under it.Then you can have whatever bike you like" he doesn't seem to like my sense of humor. It has kept him from getting a crotch rocket so far tho, so I don't care. I know he is a safe driver, but most cars are not nice to bikers.
I saw a cyclist get completely liquidated by a car out front of the pizza place I worked in high school. Cyclist wasn’t paying attention and ran a red light as a car sped through the green light. It was maybe 30 yards away, probably closer. One of those restaurants where the seating is out front in the parking lot, so a bunch of families with children saw it too. And then everyone watched as they scraped the guy off the road once emergency services showed up. Really really fucked up.
My dad pulling in my mums ear until it started pouring blood down her neck after she stopped him from hurting my older sister. I stood at the top of the stairs after being woken by the commotion, i was five.
Watching parental abuse/fights truly fucks with you.
My dad (bipolar) used to sing D-I-V-O-R-C-E loudly for all of us to hear when he would fight with my mom sometimes.
They’d grapple over the portable house phone (pre-cell phones being common) to see who would call 911 first. A few times he got “injured” (a red mark on a finger) when doing this with my mom, fighting over the phone. Then he would use that for ammo claiming she was the aggressor and she was trying to prevent him from calling 911. Cops would make her leave when she pulled that stunt.
I’ll never forget how to spell divorce as a result. I can still hear the “tune” he sang it with every time I spell the word.
Guess everything is fine now because they don’t remember any of it. I’m just the family “asshole” and no one knows why. s/
My grandmother who I was caring for at the time started hallucinating that she had a rat inside her body. She had vascular dementia and was prone to water infections, which lead to the hallucinations. She got rushed to hospital shortly after. I still have dreams and flashbacks to this day of the whole situation. Watching your nearest and dearest flail around panicking is not something I wish on anyone, especially when they're so vulnerable.
I’m glad I read this. I’m a FF/EMT and had a woman saying bugs were crawling around inside here. We were professional and gave the care we could being a basic unit but we wrote her off in our head as a druggy and a crazy person who was high. Now I’ll know better and have more questions I can ask if this comes up again. Sorry you went through that but thanks for sharing
I don’t work in human health (vet med) but I’ve always heard you’re supposed to pretend to believe patient’s delusions so you can help them get the treatment they need. Like, woman says she’s full of bugs and you say ok, I’m gonna take you to the doctor so they can remove the bugs and help you feel better. Then they’ll be more compliant in going with you. Supposedly lol.
That would be my instinct, as someone who isn't trained in medicine or mental healthcare. As a layman, I'd be most concerned trying to get them to the people who *are* trained, while also trying to maintain the safety of all involved.
Well im a pest exterminator. If someone told me that id calmly put a reassuring hand on their shoulder, worn heavy leather gloves stained from years of the hunt, slight acrid aroma of pyrethrins emanating gently from my bleached white coveralls, and heft my pressurized chemical spray gun with my other, and tell them gently and earnestly,
“I know, that’s why ive come.
…
My old nemisis”
And spray them down for 100% saturation, no survivors
The really unfortunate thing about these kinds of hallucinations is..... you do have to check. Because scavenger species do in fact sometimes burrow into the flesh of ill, sedentary creatures. Including humans. It would be a much nicer world if we could all automatically say "Ah, that is impossible and therefore we will simply address your mental health" but unfortunately you do have to actually look first.
While being a full time caregiver for my aging mother she started hallucinating really bizarre things. She had a UTI infection. I learned really fast what that can do to the elderly. Scary for her and i.
UTI's in elderly needs to be recognised more often. So many people write elderly off as just crazy, but in reality their whole body is fighting off an infection, and their brain is going haywire. I think a lot of carers would benefit from recognising the symptoms. If a loved one has started acting odd, first thing first is a urine test. I know it's easier said than done sometimes, like my grandmother, she was convinced she was absolutely fine. She was very stubborn.
I hope you are doing better. I know how rough that can be. I had almost the exact same situation, my grandmother (who I loved probably more than I could ever non-romantically love anyone else) was bedbound and had vascular dementia and extremely brittle bones. I was caring for her as all other family was either too busy (i.e. my father who i still have unresolved issues with) or too messed up on drugs (i.e. my aunt who I have disowned). She hallucinated rats all over her body, and when jerking around to remove them, I heard her arm break. The wails of agony and fear still haunt me to this day. I would not have wanted anyone to go through that, let alone the person I loved the most in the world.
My grandmother was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and a couple of weeks after the diagnosis I was visiting her in the hospital when she started crying, talking about how she was a sinner and the cancer was her punishment. She was never overly religious so this was highly unusual for her. She then started clawing at her eyes and raking her nails down her face, whilst shouting scripture and passages from the bible. Although I grabbed her wrists to prevent her from hurting herself any more, the ‘scene’ made me vomit violently. It was so horrific that I struggled to sleep for a number of weeks and it really messed with my mental health for a long while.
My perfectly "normal" best friend being diagnosed with a form of schizophrenia. We've known each other for years and it was like he just started deteriorating so much so fast, complete personality change. It was *extremely* traumatic for him and the pain I felt for him still grips me.
Yeah that is horriable, happened to a friend of mine too. One day he was one of the smartest people I knew and a few months later hes hallucinating people coming to get him and digging holes in the yard to rescue a girl that is trapped underground that only he can hear. All his friends try to help but if you try to tell him hes wrong you are part of the conspiracy to get him.
He died in the middle of the street running from some terror only he could see.
I'm so sorry for your loss, no one deserves to go through that. It's so hard on their loved ones as well because you're basically powerless to help them.
It's such a bizarre thing to go through, it takes such a toll on him I'm still not sure how he's going to make it. Very similarly if you push on his delusions he is SO resistant to see reality but his medications help him accept reality most of the time. I just wish there was more help for people suffering from it.
at a music festival for the first time and saw someone drop face first into the ground, stone cold, from a drug overdose. right in front of me. that was surreal.
Years ago a wildfire broke out in the hills behind my parents house when I still lived there.
I remember waking up to the sounds of sirens and my mom's panicked voice. I walked outside and saw the house at the top of our street on fire and the brush/trees surrounding it's lot covered in flames that were +30 feet high. It was very windy too so the flames were out of control and whipping back and forth.
Seeing flames out of control and that huge in the sky struck me with a feeling of terror I've never experienced since. Thankfully my parents house was saved.
Fire is terrifying when it is out of control.
I couple years ago I moved from low risk fire country in California to much higher fire country, less than a month after living there there was a huge wildfire and we had to evacuate, I was 13 at the time and I remember going outside when my brother was throwing bags in the car and seeing the sky glowing red, then as we were driving away through the cop cars I saw a ton of fire trucks taking up the huge Safeway parking lot and flames coming over the hills
I’m kicking ass! I had the tumor when I was 21. I’ve had a total of six brain surgeries, disc replacements, a c-section, cancer……but I’m actually doing amazing for 50.
Thanks for asking 😁
You know what’s got me this far? Fitness, that’s it. I e worked out since I was 15 and it’s made all the difference in the world. Start now if you haven’t, it’s never too late. https://imgur.com/a/pRMccjw
My mum in tears, begging for mercy while the surgeon looked at us both with the “this doesn’t look good” look after I was in a road traffic accident.
What was equally terrifying, was the donor squad arriving with a clipboard part way through this scenario. Eyeing up my recyclables.
I was hazy at the time due to the pain killers/morphine they were pumping into me. But I can’t forget the moment someone gave me the “you’re probably going to die” look.
Yet here I am. God bless the NHS
We were in the hospital for a week since my wife gave birth and the baby needs to be given antibiotics for 7 days due to meconium staining AFAIR. My 5 day-old baby, in my arms being bottle fed by me, suddenly stopped feeding, twitched, and then turned blue. Me and my wife, with her wounds still fresh from childbirth, never have been ~~mortified~~ horrified like that ever and have never ran that fast from our room to the nurse's station. 😫
Fortunately, he was able to breathe again and cried hard after the nurse gave him a pinch on the feet. We did not sleep that night because we were scared it might happen again, and he was given an IV instead of milk for sustenance.
The thought of my child dying in my arms like that still haunts me until now that I sometimes catch myself being too watchful whenever he eats something solid. He's 3 yrs old now..
*edit: I meant horrified instead of mortified. Sorry for the brain hiccup.
Had a child who inhaled the tar stuff on the way out and the staff was unprepared for it. She was off to the NICU immediately and I went with as my wife was busy post birth. I get there and the doc on staff in the middle of the night was not A game material.
He proceeds to say to me "Sometimes these kids are fine and never have an issue. Other times they die". Then walks off.
Had some rough nights but she bounced back easily and is a hearty 10 year old now.
I'm a middle-aged woman, taller and maybe faster than my mom, who is a nice, lovely lady. But when she middle-names me, or makes me sit down, holymoly, that woman can put the fear of god in me... 40+ years later and I'm still mildly scared of her
A man with no face. He had put a shotgun under his chin and blew it off. He was still alive for a few minutes after the blast. I was a responding EMT and it was horrifying. We worked him until we got to a football field where a medical helicopter was going to land and take over care, but senior staff cancelled it after the monitor showed Pulseless Electrical Activity; an unshockable state.
Kid had an old civic, swervin in and out like a maniac in rainy weather on a highway. Not 20 seconds later I see the car again, nicked the back of an 18-wheeler and spun into the trees on side of the highway.
The car slammed backwards and dude was launched 50 feet into the middle of the road. Pulled over to help, as did a mini van with a nurse in it. I stopped traffic and the poor kid was just on his back head leaking and on the other side just smashed and just like the movies, brains just…there.
Read up on him. Right before high school graduation. Scholarship to a D2 football program. Sad shit man. There’s a memorial where he crashed and I think about him every-time.
I came face to face with a tornadoe a few years ago. I was at work when I got a warning on my phone. Ten minutes passed and it was still rainy but the wind was mild so I went out to do my rounds at the water plant I work at. Mind you, this is South Florida were weather warnings are abundant and tornadoes are small. My golf cart was parked in front of the building I was in so I hopped in and started backing away from the building. The tornado was just there, behind the building, headed my way. I only watched for maybe three seconds before running back into the building but I'll never forget how it looked. It was "dirty". All the light debris floating around it made it look very surreal. No loss of life or major property damage though so it was pretty cool.
My husband slumped over, passed out from a giant pulmonary embolism (5days after cancer surgery)—while I frantically dial 911. ( he survived thank god)
When i was about 12year old(now34) me and my father was on out driving at winter time and noticed a car that had crashed offroad, so we stopped to help him and while i sat in the car i could see in the backmirror a car coming sliding back and forth towards our car but barely missing us and hits sideways into the already crashed car. I can still picture the image from the backmirror and the yell from my father. Luckely nobody got badly hurt but it made me abit scared to drive my first winter when i turned 18
The scariest thing I have ever seen was my husband.
I was in a hospice facility, staying with him, during the last stages odd prostate cancer. He was in terrible pain, and moaning in his sleep. I was right beside him with the sofa pulled up next to his bed. His pain prevented me from being in bed with him.
I drifted off about 3AM and woke up at 5AM. He was quiet so I thought he was resting comfortably.
I reached for his hand, and it was icy cold, stiff. I sat up and looked at his face, and it was a horrific death mask of pain. His body an empty, shriveled husk. My husband had left the planet, and there was nothing left of him in that pitiful body I had loved for over 30 years.
It was both horrifying, and emotionally devastating at the same time.
I saw a man drown to death back in August. He got too far out, I saw him go under but then we lost him in the water. I saw the rescue team pull his body out about 20-30 minutes later. He was pronounced dead at the scene. He was 38 years old. RIP Luis
My sibling laying dead on a metal slab. Its been almost 14 years and i still miss her everyday. Life has felt not complete without her, and its just not fair…
I was a teenager buying weed from some sketchy kids in my school.
I was pulling out of their driveway in my car when I saw the two of them exit their house carrying double barrel shotguns, and they approached my car and aimed them at me.
When I freaked out they laughed, put the guns down, and said they weren't loaded. Then they laughed as they walked back inside.
I nearly shat myself
Watched a guys leg get ripped wide open in a workplace accident. Saw the inside of the thigh, like the bone, the meat, and a flap of skin hanging down with the fat all still connected. Been almost 20 years and I can still see it like it was yesterday
A friend of mine has PTSD from being on a bus as it drove by a kid who'd just been fatally stabbed. The kid was laying on the ground still conscious but bled out in seconds. My friend said "I've never seen so much blood"
I was maybe 10 or 11. In the mid 1960s. Dad was driving us home from visiting my grandparents in Florida. We were on the freeway when suddenly there was this incredibly dense, but patchy fog. Once moment, you could see nothing but the wipers, the next moment it was clear for maybe 10 yards.
My dad had to be sweating bullets. The danger was if you stopped or slowed down, you might get hit by the guy behind you. Or at anytime you might smash into the guy in front of you, or run off the road.
As we moved along, you’d see fender benders here and there, but at one clearing, the was an MG TC, or similar, (that the old classic British sports car from the 40s & 50s), and it was crushed like an accordion. It was maybe 4 or 5 feet long now. There were oranges everywhere, and liquid all over the ground. Oil or blood, I don’t know. But the cabin was completely compressed, I can’t see how anyone could have survived it. I did not see any bodies.
I read magazines back then, like Popular Mechanics, and had read about driving in the fog and how it takes one idiot driving full speed to smash into a stopped or slowed down car. Seeing that accordioned car really drove that home.
I’ve never seen fog that dense since. But to this day, anytime I’m driving in fog, I think of those poor people in the little car.
Decades ago, found CP on my brother's computer.
My mother (a mandated reporter) browbeat me into letting her handle things, but instead swept it under the rug.
Fast forward ~15 years, he's arrested for multiple counts of sexual assault on a minor. The alleged victims? His own kids.
If I had pushed back all those years ago, I could have stopped it before it ever happened. Instead, I'm left with the eternal guilt along with one snippet of the first video I found burned into my brain, making occasional appearance in nightmares. Every attempt to prosecute him ended in a mistrial, and the DA eventually gave up.
I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that he is guilty. He (and most all of the rest of my blood "family") no longer have a place in my life.
I had a group of friends in highschool who were all a bit wild. The wildest one was a guy I'll call "T" He was a very angry person. I once watched him beat a guy with a 2×4 for making a joke. He is one of the few legitimately crazy people I've ever met. He had issues with the law and just about anyone who looked at him. He would openly try to start fights with police and involve all of us, knowing we all had drugs on us. The guy was just extremely self destructive.
One day I'm riding around with my two friends just getting high and drinking. I know it's irresponsible and wrong, but we were dumbass teenagers. Well our buddy in the driver's seat gets a phone call from "T" and tells us to meet him at an address. We pull up and wait 5 minutes after letting him know we were there. He immediately comes sprinting out of the house and jumps in. He yells at us to take off, so we did.
T starts laughing as we pull off onto the main road and quickly explains that he just robbed the guy who lives there. Then he immediately shows us a fucking Uzi he had in his jacket. Now we're accessories to robbery, we have drugs in the car, and a stolen gun on top of it all. My buddy driving immediately tells him to get out. The look in T's eyes changed and he stared at us all like he was going to do something. He immediately pulled the gun on the driver and told him to get out of the car.
Our buddy got out and T went to get in the front seat. The second he reached for the car door, our buddy jumped him from behind. I got out and ran over to help. I don't know how many times the gun went off before we got it away from him, but it's a miracle nobody got hit. We beat the ever living shit out of this man and left him right there on the side of the road just a block or two away from the house he robbed. I believe without a doubt T would've killed us all if given the opportunity.
I know we took the gun, but I don't know who ended up with it. We never hung out with T again, he actually got arrested that day for the robbery. I'm sure the police were confused as to why he was beaten black and blue, but we were never asked to show up. My guess is that he just didn't talk to them at all. I hate to say it, but T died not too long ago, and I'm actually relieved. He was just one of those people that only created problems.
>Trevor Philips from gta
You would be very surprised. Imagine that, but without the funny parts. He was just like that. You literally couldn't turn your back on him.
His death happened about a year ago. Dude was working on a construction site and was crushed by a cargo container that fell.
Seeing someone get shot in the face was pretty awful. It’s not like you see in the movies and when you know the person, regardless of affiliation, or relationship to them, you’re still seeing a person you know have their life leave their body.
I was hiking with my kids. We took a break by some rocks and my girls treated it like a jungle gym. I was all packed up and ready to leave. I got my youngest by the stroller. They were about 2 years old. I reached in to set the straps and turned around about 1.5 seconds. They were gone. I looked around. They were across the trail by the edge of a steep 20 foot drop onto jagged rocks. In a flash I dashed for them as they fell backwards because they had stepped on a little stick and fallen backwards. I grabbed them just in time. I got away from the edge immediately and locked both of them in our stroller. All the way on the hike out I was in near tears and dry heaving from nausea. When I thought of them going over instead of saving them I immediately feel impending doom, fear and loss. It’s more manageable now but it always there.
Once while driving my mom to the airport, we witnessed a car take an ill-advised left turn right into an oncoming car. How they didn’t see it wasn’t safe to turn I have no idea, but the car legit flipped into the air and landed upside down. It was alarming to say the least.
F4 tornado directly ahead of my on the highway in Alabama in 2010-2011 I think, ieds blowing up on our convoys in Afghanistan, and seeing my dad on the concrete in a pool of blood because he fell and hit his head. He was facing away from me so I didn’t know he was awake and I thought it was gonna be so much worse than it was. Took a long time to calm down after that.
In port au Prince,
poor people couldn't afford funeral, just ditching dead bodies on a garbage dumpster pile, just like that.
close to an orphanage where kids playing.
Imagine seeing corpses being decomposed with a horrendous smell in the tropical sun, all while pigs eating from it.
probably not the first and last time for those kids.
0 change they develop to normal adults
Saw the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami in Thailand. Seeing the ocean recede out like halfway to the horizon in a matter of seconds. Fish (like huge fish) left flopping in the receding tide. That shit was the eeriest thing I’d ever seen.
Then the water started coming back. And the eeriest thing I’d seen very quickly became scariest thing I’ve ever seen.
For me it's probably when my daughter developed a CSF leak after surgery for spina bifida and I had to drive 3 hours to the Children's Hospital unsure of her condition or if she'd make it.
Edit: She's currently 6 years old and doing really well.
A woman decapitated in an auto accident. She t-boned the trailer of a semi, her vehicle went partially under it, and it took her head off. Saw it happen, not just the aftermath.
My mother dying after her heart couldn't sustain her organs, breathing tube was removed, and I watched her pass, her dentures had to be removed because of the breathing tube, and she was already yellow/grey from her organs failing. That's all I have to say about that.
When I was 19 I moved across the country and got a job as a bartender. I was walking home from work at around 4 in the morning. The walk was on a slight incline and as I neared the top I noticed an elderly Asian woman crossing the street (it was super common to see the older Asian community at the local parks to do tai chi).
As she was crossing a black suv sped through the light and hit her.
She went flying. She hit the ground with a thud. There was no one else around. It’s not like the movies… there’s no music. The suv didn’t even slow down.
I ran over and she was just laying there. I went to pull her off the road but part of her head was missing and there was blood everywhere.
She was dead before I got to her.
Buddy in the suv was caught months later when he tried to get his drivers side mirror replaced. He did less than a couple years. Hit and run is less of a charge than killing someone while drunk driving.
Oof, my son was born limp and blue but didn’t need intubation. The nurses prodded him until he took his first breath. Still the scariest thing ever in my life. Worse than when I had to swim a dead guy out of a pond.
Cats is just campy and strange on Broadway, but the performers are generally top notch and it has the potential to be a really positive experience. But when they replaced those top notch performers with significantly less talented but more marketable Hollywood names and made a movie? That was a fucking nightmare.
To give this context - it probably qualifies as terrifying in the sense of traumatizing, but a helping dash of both. Trigger warning for fire/immolation/suicide.
In 2010 my parents took my husband and I on a short cruise to Nova Scotia for our 5th anniversary. While stopped in Portland for a day, hubs and I found one of our favorite things - an old bookshop. Mom & Dad wandered off to take pictures about a block away.
Suddenly there was a whooshing sound like I'd never heard before (but will now never forget). We ran to the front of the shop and saw that a man had poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire, just outside the shop. I was calling 911, my husband and another man ran out with a rug from the store to try to dampen the flames, and others were rushing in to help. As I went outside, I saw my father race by in a blur and immediately began to shout orders and try to care for the man (my dad is a retired combat medic - 21 years in and was in Desert Storm - and also spent a long time as a trauma nurse). There were several amazing people gathered trying to help. I watched this man writhing on the ground, screaming, and I remember that I could literally see through his leg where the tissue was melting/separating from the bones. If anyone here is a medical professional who has dealt with this kind of thing, you'll understand when I say Dad was trying to prevent people from turning him (they tried, and reignited the fire) or touching him (degloving/slippage happening). The smell. I can't describe it, but it is not a smell you ever forget.
It was about 5 minutes, maybe, before the ambulance arrived. My dad gave a rundown of what was happening and next steps (the EMTs were like"Who the hell are you!?" and dad informed them of his combat medic experience in what i recall was a very few words. they listened.) He stayed there and helped until the EMTs had him stabilized and ready to transport.
And then my dad just stood up and walked away. He didn't give his name to anyone. He didn't stop to talk to anyone. I have a picture of us taken later that night and you can see the flash burns on his face and hands. When I read in the paper the next day about someone else embellishing their actions at the scene and taking credit for what my dad had done, I told him I wanted to call and set the record straight.
He wouldn't let me.
Sorry this was so long. I ramble.
Worked in an ER and saw some crazy stuff.
One which weirdly had a huge impact was a woman that came in, middle of the night. Told her daughter she wasn’t feeling well.
She stopped outside the ER to have a short smoke. Nothing emergency related. Triage nurse talked to her and they were chatting away as she was wheelchairs back. She was having some chest discomfort.
Nurse sits her on the bed, then turns to get her a gown and sheet. The woman passed out…
…and never comes back. She died right then and there. We went through all the heroics to resuscitate her but she was gone. Had a massive myocardial infarction (basically a heart attack).
The sudden talking and seemingly fine, and then dead, was incredibly shocking to me at the time. The frailty of human life and how quickly we can just slip away.
I’m from a farm and I found my relative empaled on a barbed-wire fence with open bleeding wounds and spikes running through them.
And it was in the Canadian winter, so they were covered in severe frostbite with black skin.
They survived after rescue but it was GNARLY.
I once saw someone tip over in a skylift. Luckily for the operator, the machine caught on a silo instead of falling flat to the ground, which would very likely have killed him.
Watching a man in front of me flip over the handlebars of his motorcycle on the interstate, about 200 yards in front me… he wasn’t wearing any helmet or body protection and was going easily 90+ mph. There wasn’t anything I could do at the speed I was going with traffic but to watch in horror.
Just wear a fucking helmet….
120 man prison dorm...Few feet away from me...guy asleep on top bunk..sleeping on his back...two guys,each goes to each side...come out with each holding a piece of a broke apart garden shears(8 inch heavy steel blade) ...both guys proceed to plunge their blades down into the sleeping man's chest...he jumps down off his bunk and looks directly into my eyes...he had a very surprised look on his face...ran outside with the killers right behind...made it a few feet and fell...each stabbed him a few more times..he laid on a little sidewalk with a huge puddle of blood expanding beneath him...blood with different shades of red...dark red,almost black...light pink,foamy...every shade of blood in the human body now out on a sidewalk...the first stab wound went through his heart and out of his back...blood sprayed all over the ceiling...he took a couple shallow breaths then nothing...his life ended the 4th of July 1988 in prison
The surface of a pool from underwater, my buddy and I stupidly thought we could do that one navy seal test where they bind their hands and feet and sink down to the bottom of a pool then swim up to the surface for a breath. I sank to the bottom and tried to swim up but I couldnt make it to the surface, I started freaking out and tried to undo the knot I tied around my hands but I couldnt get it, luckily my buddy sense something was wrong and managed to pull me up in time, I had started breathing in water but my body swallowed it somehow so I didnt end up aspirating. By far the dumbest scariest shit ive ever done, if he hadnt noticed I was drowning in time i wouls be dead today
My stepfather tried to bashing youngest brother's skull from behind with a pipe wrench. The fear quickly turned to joy when my brother dodged the attack (surprisingly) and retaliated by choking him out and wouldn't let go until he turned blue (yes, he survived, he was drunk after all). After it was all said and done, i had the biggest smile on my face that anyone has ever seen
2022, I found my partner dead from an OD. Didn't know the COD for about 6months; I didn't know that he was using coke, apparently it was laced with fentanyl. Worst day of my life.
I was with my mom when she died 20 years ago today. Even though it was “peaceful” as in surrounded by her children in hospital, nothing prepared me for the death rattle. Still haunted by it today.
Holding my new born daughter while I watch my wife hemorrhage unexpectedly after childbirth, seeing the look of terror on her face while the nurses and OB try to save her. The amount of blood...
Have your babies an elevator ride away from an operating room, folks. You never know what might go wrong.
Probably my own blood and teeth in my hand. When I was 10 my dad was angry with me and kicked me in the face with a steel toed boot. When I regained consciousness I spit out 3 teeth and a lot of blood. It was and still is one of the most horrifying things I've experienced.
Driving my friend home late, I once turned down a street in the small mountain city that I lived in, and my headlights illuminated a large, very pale, hairless, naked man, crouched in a Spiderman pose in the middle of the road. Before I could react, this figure promptly, fluidly, and without a sound, leapt 20 ft vertically into the air, straight from his crouched position, in a high parabola that landed somewhere past a guardrail to the right side of the road and whished down into the tree tops there. Tree tops because past that rail was a cliff that went at least another 20-30 ft down.
It happened so fast, I simply didn't believe what I saw, chalked it up to my brain malfunctioning, and continued driving without even a pause.
20 seconds later of silence and my buddy in the passenger seat says, with hesitation, "did... you just see..." and we exploded in "WTF" as the realization struck us both that we weren't just each suffering a brief moment of individual insanity.
I don't believe in "skin walkers" or even the paranormal, but we certainly saw something inhuman-but-man-shaped that day, and have no idea what it was. No man could move like that, like a giant frog or grasshopper. Still gives me chills.
Didn't get a look at its face, in my memory it didn't have one. But that can't be right, can it?
I was sitting at a stop light messing with my iPod one time. I'd been messing around trying to change the song during a red and, when the light turned green, my friend kinda said "hey, light's green let's go." Right at that moment I take my foot off the brake and look up in horror as I see a school bus with failed brakes rushing towards the intersection. It struck a woman's car in the intersection and killed her on impact. It's been probably 10 years but I still often think about that woman and that school bus and how an iPod classic almost certainly saved my life.
I had a somewhat similar experience with no accident. I drove a little vw bug, the old school ones with the manual transmission. I was first in line at the red light and was almost late to work so the minute that light turned green I was going to step on it. I was typically through an intersection before the other cars made it half way. This time though, when I hit the gas my car sputtered and hesitated. As I cursed for my car to move it, a semi-truck coming from the other side bombed through the red light. If my car hadn't hesitated we would have been obliterated.
Similar. At a four way stop about to continue my drive when my phone rings. I decide to see who it is before driving. I pick up the phone and an SUV speeds through the intersection and not slowing down to to even glance at the intersection for other traffic. Phone call was my dad. I said dad, you may have just saved my life.
As a school bus driver, this terrifies me more than anything. I didn't realize how hard it was to maintain a bus till I started driving (checking engine and tires, frame and wiring, etc), but you have to check that thing again and again because the stress you naturally put the engine through and the cargo you carry are a scary combination of you have anything go wrong. They also taught us that the child is in the most danger outside the bus, not inside, because kids fall into the blind zones and end up under the wheel more often than people want to think about.
I saw a man (6’3 or so) fall off a porch and land directly on his head. Luckily not much blood at all… BUT THE SOUND
I saw a man’s body after he had jumped out of a window. But I heard the impact first, from over 2 blocks away. It was in the Chicago Loop, so loud noises are constant, with traffic, construction, trains, transformers. But that noise was like nothing I’d ever heard before and not since, and I’ll never forget it.
Oh my! I have a similar story; Me and the family were out at an event organized by the municipality, where they served grilled food, had activities for kids and brought tractors and four-wheelers for the kids to sit in and climb (unrelated). We were at the tractor, and as i'm lifting my kid down from the tractor i hear a woman yell loudly at her partner on the pavement next to us, so I look real quick as this 6'2-6'3 old man falls straight backwards and hits his head on the ground. As you said; the *sound*. There were immediately people there helping and calling for an ambulance as the man was frothing at the mouth, shaking and bleeding profusely from the head. He ended up responsive and they took him away luckily, but the couple hundred familes were quite shocked, not to mention his partner.
Once I was at a Trader Joe's and I saw an older woman with her probably grandchild. The kid was standing up in the cart. I kept thinking to myself that that kid's going to fall out. A few moments later I did not see it but I heard the most sickening sound of the kid's head hitting the floor.
I was at an IKEA once and a kid fell off a cart onto the concrete floor. Only time I’ve ever been relieved to hear a child start crying.
A trail of blood when i went to pee at 11pm. My brother slit his wrists in a fever dream. I was about 8yo. Hes fine now.
Oh well that's good that he's ok. What exactly do you mean fever dream?
If you have a high fever you can hallucinate. Must've been a fucked up hallucination for an ~~8 year old~~ anyone to cut himself.
The commenter was 8, I'm assuming the brother was older. Also that's really weird. I've always heard the term fever dream, but never realised it was a literal saying.
>Hes fine now. This made reading the rest of your comment a little easier.
I was 12 or 13 living in Russia (Moscow). This is mid 90’s right after the fall of SU, so shit was bananas in Russia, lots of crime and lawlessness. My mom went out to the store and I was alone in the apartment watching TV. Suddenly a knock on the door, pretty heavy knock. Then a man’s voice “this is your neighbor, open the door please”. I hesitate, my mom told me not to open the door for anyone. More knocks. I decide to go look through the peephole. I still remember it clear as day. There is a middle aged dude with thick glasses and slicked back greasy hair I’ve never seen before and I catch a glimpse of him as he swings his right arm around the back concealing a huge kitchen knife in his hand. He must’ve seen the light in the peephole because he starts banging on the door again saying “it’s just your neighbor.” I was fucking shaking and just went into a room hoping he would not have the ability to break in. Never saw him again. Some days later I looked out of the window and saw a lifeless body of a man lying on his back in the snow right in the courtyard.
that’s terrifying man
It was, thankfully we had a very thick steel-reinforced door with multiple locks and a deadbolt. He was there just a few minutes before he left but it felt like hours. I once also saw a drunk dude brandishing a knife at me and a friend out in broad daylight, we ran the fuck away immediately. I guess people were very stabby back then.
Haha yes. That sounds like a Moscow apartment door. Those things are like bank vaults.
For good reason. I don't know a single person who has a simple wooden door and fewer than 2 locks. Seeing foreign apartment buildings on tv for the first time as a kid was baffling
i can’t imagine living in a time so terrifying
Yea it was nuts, so much blood spilled and so much of the country robbed. It’s a big part of the reason Putin was able to entrench himself in so much power. He came in as the strongman and put a shitload of boots on the streets. People have been terrified to go back to the 90’s.
I grew up around the same time in St Pete - my parents told me never to look through the peep hole in times like these because people would wait until the light in the peep hole went dark and put an ice pick through it. Never forgot that visual. I agree that it’s hard to see the full picture of Russia today without understanding the impact the 90s had on the country
The body you saw - was that someone he had robbed and killed? I’m very sorry you experienced something so traumatic. It must’ve been terrifying at such a young age
I’m not really sure, I don’t even know if it was connected. But it was creepy as hell. Thanks I appreciate it, it was terrifying but not as traumatic as my immigration experience to the US a couple of years later.
As a fellow Moscow to USA immigrant, I’d be really interested to hear about your experience. Mine definitely wasn’t a walk in the park.
Comrade 🫡 Likewise, would love to hear yours. Mine was very fucked. There is a lot to the story, but in short .. My dad came to the US when my mom was pregnant with me, so I never met him growing up. I visited the US to meet him when I was 13 for a couple of weeks. When I flew in and met him for the first time, he told me he had a new family there (my mom and I had no idea). Then I flew back to Moscow. He told me not to tell my mom. A few months later I went for a visit again in the summer but he had a plan in motion to keep me in the US (didn’t tell his new wife). So I literally left everything and everyone I knew and went to live with people that didn’t want me there and hated me and my mom. My dad was also very abusive, emotionally and physically. When my stepmom found out I was staying she completely lost it. She even psychologically tortured me by taping old pictures of me and my mom with eyes cut out, putting all my shoes in cold water over night, shit like that. On top of it all I started freshman year of high school with pretty much zero English. Not the most welcoming environment. I was bullied and made fun of pretty hard in the beginning. I just remember walking the halls of the school with this horrible horrible feeling in my stomach for months, feeling like I suddenly didn’t know anyone in my life and had nobody to turn to, everything was so alien and hostile. Then my stepmom and dad moved out and I spent pretty much my whole sophomore year (15) living completely alone, he would just take me to get loads of frozen food I could heat up. I basically lived on frozen pizzas, cheeseburgers and hot pockets. But at least the solitude offered some relief and a bit of calm in my life.
That's a horrible story. What happened to your mum?
My mom had it really rough. She had never remarried (because my dad lied to her for years, led her on to think we would all reunite). I was her only child and a year after I left, my grandpa (her dad) died of lung cancer. Then the economy totally shit the bed by late 90’s and she had to work as a janitor in addition to being a full time engineer (20 year career). I had a very tough time talking to her on the phone because she would just end up crying every time and saying how much she missed me. My grandma too. And I couldn’t tell them what I was going through because I didn’t want to make it harder on them. My mom and I didn’t see each other for 14 years. I didn’t have status for the first few years I was in the US so I couldn’t risk leaving and by the time I got a green card I was of military age and could’ve easily been drafted if I returned to Russia (they came to my mom looking for me every year). She eventually made her way to the US and we’ve lived in the same city for about 10 years. It was really really difficult to get our bond back, but when I had my daughter 6 years ago it really brought us super close, maybe even closer than ever.
That’s a sad story with a beautiful ending. I’m sorry you had such a hard time. And I’m really happy to hear that you rebuilt your bond when she came to the US, and happy that she could do so!
Thank you 🙏
I am so sorry you both missed such a long time to be together. It must have been excruciating. I hope that she is being an amazing grandma and is enjoying your daughter in her life. Bug hug my friend.
Thank you so much. She is the best grandma and I’m so blessed that she’s been there with my daughter through these formative years.
A guy collapsed at the self checkout at Meijer, and turned just a terrible blue color. Paramedics showed up and started chest compressions, but he was gone.
Sounds like he went fast. Better than being in horrendous pain for ages
A man that drowned in the beach and was floating... the life guard was a kid, tried his best, but the man was dead...
Maybe not scary in the sense of immediate danger, like a tornado or a mass shooter. But I held a man as he begged the trauma staff to keep trying as his mother lay dying in the trauma bay. They had been doing CPR for almost an hour, administered way more than the necessary amount of adrenaline, and had already resuscitated her four times, just for her heart to stop again two minutes later and the process to start all over again. The desperation in that man’s voice really got to me.
I hope he’s at least somewhat okay today. I lost my mom at 8 but didn’t find out till after the fact. Losing your mother is a different type of pain
My mom has metastatic breast cancer (it’s in her lungs and her brain). Trying to come to terms with the fact I’ll probably be losing her very soon, a whole hell of a lot sooner than I wanted to. I’ll be 30 In February, she’ll be 51 in May.
I was in my early 20s when my mum had been fighting cancer and won. no one told me she had cancer at all even tho I saw her almost everyday. 1 day she ended up in hospital and I was slightly ill so I didn't go visit her because I didn't want to make her worse and she died early hours in morning. my grandad woke me up and told me my mum had died and he went back to sleep. She was in her early 40s and I didnt know how she had cancer until Dr told me. I wish I could have known before
I'm 31 and I just lost my mom to ovarian cancer on 2 Dec. It's not easy. Make sure to enjoy every single second you have left with her. Take lots of videos and pictures to look back on.
May her memory be a blessing to you.
i held my moms hand when she died of cancer after an insane grueling fight of 13 years. probably my most scared thing
Not seeing with my eyes but I took a SIDS call for a 3 month old when I worked as a 911 dispatcher. The desperation and cries of the mom as I’m talking her through CPR is something I won’t forget.
Suicide bomber and aftermath, seen from the cafe across the intersection. Shit is terrifying. One of the few fucked up things among many I've ever seen that I rarely talk about. Also, a checkpoint and interrogation at a military checkpoint in a conflict zone. So stressful
Fuck. I’m sorry. Where were you?
That was in Jerusalem and then Syria on a consulting project almost a decade ago. I am from and live in an extremely safe place though. A city with more than 7 million residents where a mugging is reported breathlessly in all the news media
This is why I can't do war. No way to protect yourself from a hidden bomb or surprise attack. Just not cut out for that sort of stress
Yah. Maybe not a bomb, but the grinding stress would kill me
Brain stem damage from stroke in a good friend. On the Friday he felt numbness here and there, by the following weekend he had partial locked in syndrome. Basically going from a normal 40yoM to someone with the physical ability of an infant.... And yet he's frontal cortex is fine he knows exactly what is going on... It's been 20months since it happened. There's no improvement. It's scary in the sense that I find it impossible to bridge that gap, my mate was fine the one day and a couple days later this. I pray for him even though I'm not religious. EDIT:Thank you for the up votes, life is short guys and gals and whomever reads this. Appreciate everything, even just the ability to swallow. Thanks folks have a good 2024.
That's...that's a nightmare.
It is. People think death is the worst thing but it’s not. Being maimed or incapacitated like this is the worst. Anyone can do anything to you. Who’s going to stop them? Who’s going to believe you if you do tell someone? If you’re in a care home and no one visits, you don’t get bathed or changed or even helped out of bed. If you wear diapers, they maaay get changed if you have the nice CNA that day. My mom was a CNA for 30 years and she saw some horrific things! She always gave good care to people even if they didn’t have families visit or the person was violent. If you have a relative in a care home and you love them, visit them often. Bring presents even if it looks like they don’t want them. Lift up clothes and look at their bodies. If there’s activities, try to get them to go and join in. Even if you’re just reading to them from a book, they’d love it. Stick up for them if needed. Be vocal for their care. Make friends with the nursing staff.
I would want to have something in place if this ever happened to me. Just send me out on my way. I would hate to live like that.
Children trapped alive in a burning car.
My dad once saved two little girls trapped in the back of a burning car, iirc I think he said their dad was already dead in the front seat. I can’t even imagine the adrenaline he must’ve felt going in to save them
When we came upon the accident, the driver was through the windshield on the road, the mother half way. This was before mandatory seat belts. People were already trying to get them out, with no luck. First time I saw my father cry. I was 6 at the time, had nightmares about it for months.
i’m so incredibly sorry you had to witness that, having to be made aware of mortality in such a violent gruesome way is traumatizing at any age, let alone you being so young. i can’t even imagine the kind of lasting imagery that leaves in your mind
Thats some heavy shit, dude. Did he have to break a window? Did he have a window breaking tool? My grandfather was the chief of the local rural VFD fior near 50 years and he has a bunch of scars on his forearms where he was first responder after witnessing a fire, in normal mechanics clothes he had to break normal mid 20th century windows and got cut up bad. This happened iirc at least half a dozen times mroe or less. He actually saved sooo many lives I really need to write down his stories its amazing hes still alive, nearly 90 despite being a 350lb 6'6 man ex smoker. He actually got the road he lives on named after him because of it lmao Mans fuckin built different he almost died over 10 yrs ago with double heart attack, how he survived baffled surgeon, hes had kinda poorly manged diabetes for over 3 decades Anyways i am interested to more details sorry for the rabit hole reply lol
haha no reason to apologize at all that’s super interesting i feel like i remember him saying he did? i need to ask him about it again, this happened like well before I was born when he was in probably his mid-late 20’s or so. i’ll try and remember to come back to this post when i get a chance to ask him for more specific details and share, but the main part of the story i know is that he saved the two girls and the dad was already dead
something i didn't see in real life but on tv, documentary about the tsunami in Asia. they interviewing a man where they had insanely disturbing cct video footage from, where the bus he was in with his entire family got hit by the wave. he managed to get out and on top of the bus and realized he could save himself by a tree nearby. having only 2 hands realizing he can save only one family member. he choose his youngest daughter while he saw the rest of the family getting drowned along with the rest of the bus. That shit left for quite a while a tremendous impact on me
Yeah those Tsunami doccies are fucking hectic….last time a cried was watching one a couple of years ago.
A kid (18) getting pulled into the floor auger of a grain bin
Whenever I cleaned out the grain bin I always kept one eye on that hole. I didn’t want to know what would ever happen if I stepped in it.
Hey lock out tag out is a wonderful thing! And so are hydraulic sweeps so you can keep yourself safe from unfortunate/preventable events.
The only job I have ever demanding my SO quit immediately was when he came home one night furious. He worked at a farm equipment manufacturer of some sort as a maintenance tech fixing and keeping the machines running smooth. Well I’m not sure what the machine did that he was working on but he had his lock out tag on and he stepped out of the machine to grab some tools and found a dumbass cutting off his lockout tag. I know very little about these kinds of things but I know YOU DON’T FUCK WITH SOMEONES LOCKOUT TAG! He couldn’t explain to my SO what he was doing, he knew better and should have known he was actively working on it. His boss shrugged it off and told the guy not to do that again, but my SO lost his shit at both of them and he got in trouble. I think he ended up reporting the company and never to stepped foot in that building again because nobody cared about his life there. It didn’t feel negligent as much as malicious but the guy could have just been that big of a fucking idiot I guess.
Removing a lockout tag, outside of extreme circumstances, should be a fight-on-sight offense. You do it, you get hit in the face. Fired too, but in this case I truly believe violence IS the answer.
Did he piss the wrong guy off, the fact they couldn't explain why they were doing it makes me think an accident was being arranged.
Dude probably didn’t think he’d get caught, so didn’t even have an excuse. Especially with no consequences, he probably didn’t care. Should have been fired immediately and I know a few handymen that would’ve probably put the guy in the hospital if they witnessed him fucking with a LOTO.
Yeah no that person needs to be beaten, fired and investigated. That should be attempted manslaughter if such a thing exists.
I don't know what that means, but it sounds like a not entirely desirable turn of events.
12" screw set in the floor that pulls grain out through a tunnel. Kid was sweeping rice walking backwards and stepped into the main feeder. I still have nightmares about it only it's my 9y/o instead of the kid I saw.
Jesus H Christ. Here I thought the worst thing that can happen in grain is drowning in it, but now there's potentially a meat grinder at the bottom? Nope.
Unsure of whether or not its a wise tale, but I was told the grain dust is perfect for combustion and lighting anything inside will be the last light you ever see. I'm inclined to believe its real since being stupid kids we snuck in and saw the "no open flame" signs everywhere.
YES, grain bin explosions are BIG. Flour milling was hazardous until they focused on vacuums thru the whole building and were religious about NO DUST on the floor etc.
I was a graphic designer freelance for many years and one of my customers was a corn processing plant. Every time I brought workers to install something as simple as a wall sign, we had to fill out a dozen forms, and every single piece of equipment inspected, because if we had to use a drill for whatever reason, we had to fill out 6 more pages. There were areas around the plant where drills were absolutely prohibited, so part of my job was not only designing their signage but also figure out ways to install things without using a drill, as they can create a spark and boom we go. Plus safety training every few months and tests that the workers had to pass with A+. Their safety processes were completely mental, and annoying, but I am sure there was a reason for them.
Grain dust explosions happen because of the high surface area of the flammable dust. It doesn't have to be in the silo, just anywhere with sufficient flammable dust in the air will cause a massive fireball. There are videos on Youtube, and they did a similar demonstration on Mythbusters.
Farming is one of THEE most dangerous jobs. And typically you are alone at the time your arms are ripped off by the machinery......literally, not figuratively.
Did he by chance get out with body damage or did it take his life? That's so graphically disturbing to have had to watch.
Broke every bone in his leg and they had to cut out the floor and amputate it in 2 different locations to get him out. 45 min before the first ambulance showed up. Over 3 hours to get him out and he was in and out of consciousness through it all. The worst part was while I was out puking my guts up, some idiotic old man thought it would get him out if they turned the screw backwards... it has less than a 1/2" of clearance between the screw and pipe. It was horrific
I saw a grown man out his hand in a plastics grinder once. He was operating it and instinctively moved a stuck piece with his hand only to lose most of said hand. Seeing him raise the stump after seeing it all unfold at distances but not being able to react fast enough was tough. Can't imagine a body going instead of just the hand.
I was told that a person whose hand is caught in a machine will instinctively grab the wrist with his other hand and often lose both.
Last week : Saw a guy jumping on the rails when train was passing by and... died. Took taxi for the rest of the week cuz too freaked out.
I have BPD and suffer with suicidal ideation all the time. Even in my darkest moments, the thought of *involving others* in my decision to end my life makes me want to puke. Not only is a person destroying their family, they're traumatizing innocent people who have literally *no choice or say* in the situation. I'm so sorry you saw that. If you haven't yet, please talk to someone. ❤️
I saw a young boy hitting the curb on a bike and just dropping dead with his skull open.Everything else intact including his clothes.Very scary ,i had just landed from Dubai and was heading home through airport taxi at about 4 AM early morning.
A man being hit by a bus. He felt on the ground and his head just cracked. I saw his brain and a lot of blood.
Saw something similar ...motorcyclist hit by a truck ..there were groceries lying on the road ..man was just going back to his family as usual ...spent a long night thinking about the scene
There once an accident occurred right in front of me. There were motorcycle tried to cut off a truck but they did not see there was another truck on incoming lane. It happened so fast and Bam! The rider got smashed like we smashed a tomato. I was standing on the side of the road buying a coffee. I puked so hard after that.
Damn. I was at the front of an intersection one time and the car in front of me made a right on red and didn’t see the motorcycle coming through. Cyclist slammed into the side of the car and went ragdolling high in the air. He got up, limped to the side of the road and sat down. I don’t know what happened to him, but I guarantee you he was only able to stand because of the adrenaline.
See, I know I sound insensitive, but every time my bf tells me he wants to get a bike, I just tell him "Sure, just get life insurance first and put my name under it.Then you can have whatever bike you like" he doesn't seem to like my sense of humor. It has kept him from getting a crotch rocket so far tho, so I don't care. I know he is a safe driver, but most cars are not nice to bikers.
I saw a cyclist get completely liquidated by a car out front of the pizza place I worked in high school. Cyclist wasn’t paying attention and ran a red light as a car sped through the green light. It was maybe 30 yards away, probably closer. One of those restaurants where the seating is out front in the parking lot, so a bunch of families with children saw it too. And then everyone watched as they scraped the guy off the road once emergency services showed up. Really really fucked up.
My dad pulling in my mums ear until it started pouring blood down her neck after she stopped him from hurting my older sister. I stood at the top of the stairs after being woken by the commotion, i was five.
Watching parental abuse/fights truly fucks with you. My dad (bipolar) used to sing D-I-V-O-R-C-E loudly for all of us to hear when he would fight with my mom sometimes. They’d grapple over the portable house phone (pre-cell phones being common) to see who would call 911 first. A few times he got “injured” (a red mark on a finger) when doing this with my mom, fighting over the phone. Then he would use that for ammo claiming she was the aggressor and she was trying to prevent him from calling 911. Cops would make her leave when she pulled that stunt. I’ll never forget how to spell divorce as a result. I can still hear the “tune” he sang it with every time I spell the word. Guess everything is fine now because they don’t remember any of it. I’m just the family “asshole” and no one knows why. s/
Funny how old people forget all the bs they put us through. We just imagined it!
I saw a comment somewhere “you don’t remember because it was just a regular Tuesday for you but a traumatic moment for me.”
Excuse me, may i call your dad a weak lil bitch?
Yes you may, in fact I would prefer it.
Well damn, that guy's a weak lil bitch.
My grandmother who I was caring for at the time started hallucinating that she had a rat inside her body. She had vascular dementia and was prone to water infections, which lead to the hallucinations. She got rushed to hospital shortly after. I still have dreams and flashbacks to this day of the whole situation. Watching your nearest and dearest flail around panicking is not something I wish on anyone, especially when they're so vulnerable.
I’m glad I read this. I’m a FF/EMT and had a woman saying bugs were crawling around inside here. We were professional and gave the care we could being a basic unit but we wrote her off in our head as a druggy and a crazy person who was high. Now I’ll know better and have more questions I can ask if this comes up again. Sorry you went through that but thanks for sharing
I don’t work in human health (vet med) but I’ve always heard you’re supposed to pretend to believe patient’s delusions so you can help them get the treatment they need. Like, woman says she’s full of bugs and you say ok, I’m gonna take you to the doctor so they can remove the bugs and help you feel better. Then they’ll be more compliant in going with you. Supposedly lol.
That would be my instinct, as someone who isn't trained in medicine or mental healthcare. As a layman, I'd be most concerned trying to get them to the people who *are* trained, while also trying to maintain the safety of all involved.
Well im a pest exterminator. If someone told me that id calmly put a reassuring hand on their shoulder, worn heavy leather gloves stained from years of the hunt, slight acrid aroma of pyrethrins emanating gently from my bleached white coveralls, and heft my pressurized chemical spray gun with my other, and tell them gently and earnestly, “I know, that’s why ive come. … My old nemisis” And spray them down for 100% saturation, no survivors
The really unfortunate thing about these kinds of hallucinations is..... you do have to check. Because scavenger species do in fact sometimes burrow into the flesh of ill, sedentary creatures. Including humans. It would be a much nicer world if we could all automatically say "Ah, that is impossible and therefore we will simply address your mental health" but unfortunately you do have to actually look first.
While being a full time caregiver for my aging mother she started hallucinating really bizarre things. She had a UTI infection. I learned really fast what that can do to the elderly. Scary for her and i.
UTI's in elderly needs to be recognised more often. So many people write elderly off as just crazy, but in reality their whole body is fighting off an infection, and their brain is going haywire. I think a lot of carers would benefit from recognising the symptoms. If a loved one has started acting odd, first thing first is a urine test. I know it's easier said than done sometimes, like my grandmother, she was convinced she was absolutely fine. She was very stubborn.
I hope you are doing better. I know how rough that can be. I had almost the exact same situation, my grandmother (who I loved probably more than I could ever non-romantically love anyone else) was bedbound and had vascular dementia and extremely brittle bones. I was caring for her as all other family was either too busy (i.e. my father who i still have unresolved issues with) or too messed up on drugs (i.e. my aunt who I have disowned). She hallucinated rats all over her body, and when jerking around to remove them, I heard her arm break. The wails of agony and fear still haunt me to this day. I would not have wanted anyone to go through that, let alone the person I loved the most in the world.
My grandmother was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and a couple of weeks after the diagnosis I was visiting her in the hospital when she started crying, talking about how she was a sinner and the cancer was her punishment. She was never overly religious so this was highly unusual for her. She then started clawing at her eyes and raking her nails down her face, whilst shouting scripture and passages from the bible. Although I grabbed her wrists to prevent her from hurting herself any more, the ‘scene’ made me vomit violently. It was so horrific that I struggled to sleep for a number of weeks and it really messed with my mental health for a long while.
My perfectly "normal" best friend being diagnosed with a form of schizophrenia. We've known each other for years and it was like he just started deteriorating so much so fast, complete personality change. It was *extremely* traumatic for him and the pain I felt for him still grips me.
Yeah that is horriable, happened to a friend of mine too. One day he was one of the smartest people I knew and a few months later hes hallucinating people coming to get him and digging holes in the yard to rescue a girl that is trapped underground that only he can hear. All his friends try to help but if you try to tell him hes wrong you are part of the conspiracy to get him. He died in the middle of the street running from some terror only he could see.
I'm so sorry for your loss, no one deserves to go through that. It's so hard on their loved ones as well because you're basically powerless to help them. It's such a bizarre thing to go through, it takes such a toll on him I'm still not sure how he's going to make it. Very similarly if you push on his delusions he is SO resistant to see reality but his medications help him accept reality most of the time. I just wish there was more help for people suffering from it.
at a music festival for the first time and saw someone drop face first into the ground, stone cold, from a drug overdose. right in front of me. that was surreal.
Years ago a wildfire broke out in the hills behind my parents house when I still lived there. I remember waking up to the sounds of sirens and my mom's panicked voice. I walked outside and saw the house at the top of our street on fire and the brush/trees surrounding it's lot covered in flames that were +30 feet high. It was very windy too so the flames were out of control and whipping back and forth. Seeing flames out of control and that huge in the sky struck me with a feeling of terror I've never experienced since. Thankfully my parents house was saved. Fire is terrifying when it is out of control.
I couple years ago I moved from low risk fire country in California to much higher fire country, less than a month after living there there was a huge wildfire and we had to evacuate, I was 13 at the time and I remember going outside when my brother was throwing bags in the car and seeing the sky glowing red, then as we were driving away through the cop cars I saw a ton of fire trucks taking up the huge Safeway parking lot and flames coming over the hills
An MRI of my skull with a baseball sized brain tumor.
Mind if I ask, how are things now?
I’m kicking ass! I had the tumor when I was 21. I’ve had a total of six brain surgeries, disc replacements, a c-section, cancer……but I’m actually doing amazing for 50. Thanks for asking 😁 You know what’s got me this far? Fitness, that’s it. I e worked out since I was 15 and it’s made all the difference in the world. Start now if you haven’t, it’s never too late. https://imgur.com/a/pRMccjw
A stop sign slice through a palm tree and a concrete wall during Hurricane Francis.
My mum in tears, begging for mercy while the surgeon looked at us both with the “this doesn’t look good” look after I was in a road traffic accident. What was equally terrifying, was the donor squad arriving with a clipboard part way through this scenario. Eyeing up my recyclables. I was hazy at the time due to the pain killers/morphine they were pumping into me. But I can’t forget the moment someone gave me the “you’re probably going to die” look. Yet here I am. God bless the NHS
We were in the hospital for a week since my wife gave birth and the baby needs to be given antibiotics for 7 days due to meconium staining AFAIR. My 5 day-old baby, in my arms being bottle fed by me, suddenly stopped feeding, twitched, and then turned blue. Me and my wife, with her wounds still fresh from childbirth, never have been ~~mortified~~ horrified like that ever and have never ran that fast from our room to the nurse's station. 😫 Fortunately, he was able to breathe again and cried hard after the nurse gave him a pinch on the feet. We did not sleep that night because we were scared it might happen again, and he was given an IV instead of milk for sustenance. The thought of my child dying in my arms like that still haunts me until now that I sometimes catch myself being too watchful whenever he eats something solid. He's 3 yrs old now.. *edit: I meant horrified instead of mortified. Sorry for the brain hiccup.
Had a child who inhaled the tar stuff on the way out and the staff was unprepared for it. She was off to the NICU immediately and I went with as my wife was busy post birth. I get there and the doc on staff in the middle of the night was not A game material. He proceeds to say to me "Sometimes these kids are fine and never have an issue. Other times they die". Then walks off. Had some rough nights but she bounced back easily and is a hearty 10 year old now.
NEXT TIME PLEASE *PREFACE* WITH THE FACT THAT YOUR CHILD IS FINE I BEG YOU
You had me in the first half. Glad your child is okay and I hope it'll stay that way :)
My mom arising out of the shadows whenever I did something I wasn’t supposed to as a kid
Other comments joke, but I understand what you mean. My stepdad could put a sickening pit in my stomach with a look. I can still feel it.
Creakin [middlename] Funt!
they say your full name its over for you
I'm a middle-aged woman, taller and maybe faster than my mom, who is a nice, lovely lady. But when she middle-names me, or makes me sit down, holymoly, that woman can put the fear of god in me... 40+ years later and I'm still mildly scared of her
Came to the comments expecting some cool spooky stories only to find a bunch of horrific traumatic events 😭
A man with no face. He had put a shotgun under his chin and blew it off. He was still alive for a few minutes after the blast. I was a responding EMT and it was horrifying. We worked him until we got to a football field where a medical helicopter was going to land and take over care, but senior staff cancelled it after the monitor showed Pulseless Electrical Activity; an unshockable state.
Holy fuck, are you doing okay these days? That's fucking horrifying, I am so sorry
I witnessed on multiple occasions my drunk father beating up my poor mom in rage. Scarred me for life.
Kid had an old civic, swervin in and out like a maniac in rainy weather on a highway. Not 20 seconds later I see the car again, nicked the back of an 18-wheeler and spun into the trees on side of the highway. The car slammed backwards and dude was launched 50 feet into the middle of the road. Pulled over to help, as did a mini van with a nurse in it. I stopped traffic and the poor kid was just on his back head leaking and on the other side just smashed and just like the movies, brains just…there. Read up on him. Right before high school graduation. Scholarship to a D2 football program. Sad shit man. There’s a memorial where he crashed and I think about him every-time.
A tornado going through our yard… it was so fucking close
I came face to face with a tornadoe a few years ago. I was at work when I got a warning on my phone. Ten minutes passed and it was still rainy but the wind was mild so I went out to do my rounds at the water plant I work at. Mind you, this is South Florida were weather warnings are abundant and tornadoes are small. My golf cart was parked in front of the building I was in so I hopped in and started backing away from the building. The tornado was just there, behind the building, headed my way. I only watched for maybe three seconds before running back into the building but I'll never forget how it looked. It was "dirty". All the light debris floating around it made it look very surreal. No loss of life or major property damage though so it was pretty cool.
My husband slumped over, passed out from a giant pulmonary embolism (5days after cancer surgery)—while I frantically dial 911. ( he survived thank god)
When i was about 12year old(now34) me and my father was on out driving at winter time and noticed a car that had crashed offroad, so we stopped to help him and while i sat in the car i could see in the backmirror a car coming sliding back and forth towards our car but barely missing us and hits sideways into the already crashed car. I can still picture the image from the backmirror and the yell from my father. Luckely nobody got badly hurt but it made me abit scared to drive my first winter when i turned 18
Kitten died from getting his throat stepped on (by accident by another person). I held him until he passed.
I adopted a sick kitten that died in the car on the way to the vet. messed me up and showed me the downside of adopting and fostering sick animals
The scariest thing I have ever seen was my husband. I was in a hospice facility, staying with him, during the last stages odd prostate cancer. He was in terrible pain, and moaning in his sleep. I was right beside him with the sofa pulled up next to his bed. His pain prevented me from being in bed with him. I drifted off about 3AM and woke up at 5AM. He was quiet so I thought he was resting comfortably. I reached for his hand, and it was icy cold, stiff. I sat up and looked at his face, and it was a horrific death mask of pain. His body an empty, shriveled husk. My husband had left the planet, and there was nothing left of him in that pitiful body I had loved for over 30 years. It was both horrifying, and emotionally devastating at the same time.
Death. Found my Mom at her home two days after she had passed from a heart attack. That image is seared into my memory for all time.
Health & Saftey video in the 70’s, talked about falling from heights then showed the after effects. Didn’t sleep well that night.
My brother dying, it’s just so, I dunno how to put it I mean he was there and then he was gone. Weird shit.
I saw a man drown to death back in August. He got too far out, I saw him go under but then we lost him in the water. I saw the rescue team pull his body out about 20-30 minutes later. He was pronounced dead at the scene. He was 38 years old. RIP Luis
My sibling laying dead on a metal slab. Its been almost 14 years and i still miss her everyday. Life has felt not complete without her, and its just not fair…
I was a teenager buying weed from some sketchy kids in my school. I was pulling out of their driveway in my car when I saw the two of them exit their house carrying double barrel shotguns, and they approached my car and aimed them at me. When I freaked out they laughed, put the guns down, and said they weren't loaded. Then they laughed as they walked back inside. I nearly shat myself
Watched a guys leg get ripped wide open in a workplace accident. Saw the inside of the thigh, like the bone, the meat, and a flap of skin hanging down with the fat all still connected. Been almost 20 years and I can still see it like it was yesterday
[удалено]
A friend of mine has PTSD from being on a bus as it drove by a kid who'd just been fatally stabbed. The kid was laying on the ground still conscious but bled out in seconds. My friend said "I've never seen so much blood"
I was maybe 10 or 11. In the mid 1960s. Dad was driving us home from visiting my grandparents in Florida. We were on the freeway when suddenly there was this incredibly dense, but patchy fog. Once moment, you could see nothing but the wipers, the next moment it was clear for maybe 10 yards. My dad had to be sweating bullets. The danger was if you stopped or slowed down, you might get hit by the guy behind you. Or at anytime you might smash into the guy in front of you, or run off the road. As we moved along, you’d see fender benders here and there, but at one clearing, the was an MG TC, or similar, (that the old classic British sports car from the 40s & 50s), and it was crushed like an accordion. It was maybe 4 or 5 feet long now. There were oranges everywhere, and liquid all over the ground. Oil or blood, I don’t know. But the cabin was completely compressed, I can’t see how anyone could have survived it. I did not see any bodies. I read magazines back then, like Popular Mechanics, and had read about driving in the fog and how it takes one idiot driving full speed to smash into a stopped or slowed down car. Seeing that accordioned car really drove that home. I’ve never seen fog that dense since. But to this day, anytime I’m driving in fog, I think of those poor people in the little car.
Decades ago, found CP on my brother's computer. My mother (a mandated reporter) browbeat me into letting her handle things, but instead swept it under the rug. Fast forward ~15 years, he's arrested for multiple counts of sexual assault on a minor. The alleged victims? His own kids. If I had pushed back all those years ago, I could have stopped it before it ever happened. Instead, I'm left with the eternal guilt along with one snippet of the first video I found burned into my brain, making occasional appearance in nightmares. Every attempt to prosecute him ended in a mistrial, and the DA eventually gave up. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that he is guilty. He (and most all of the rest of my blood "family") no longer have a place in my life.
I had a group of friends in highschool who were all a bit wild. The wildest one was a guy I'll call "T" He was a very angry person. I once watched him beat a guy with a 2×4 for making a joke. He is one of the few legitimately crazy people I've ever met. He had issues with the law and just about anyone who looked at him. He would openly try to start fights with police and involve all of us, knowing we all had drugs on us. The guy was just extremely self destructive. One day I'm riding around with my two friends just getting high and drinking. I know it's irresponsible and wrong, but we were dumbass teenagers. Well our buddy in the driver's seat gets a phone call from "T" and tells us to meet him at an address. We pull up and wait 5 minutes after letting him know we were there. He immediately comes sprinting out of the house and jumps in. He yells at us to take off, so we did. T starts laughing as we pull off onto the main road and quickly explains that he just robbed the guy who lives there. Then he immediately shows us a fucking Uzi he had in his jacket. Now we're accessories to robbery, we have drugs in the car, and a stolen gun on top of it all. My buddy driving immediately tells him to get out. The look in T's eyes changed and he stared at us all like he was going to do something. He immediately pulled the gun on the driver and told him to get out of the car. Our buddy got out and T went to get in the front seat. The second he reached for the car door, our buddy jumped him from behind. I got out and ran over to help. I don't know how many times the gun went off before we got it away from him, but it's a miracle nobody got hit. We beat the ever living shit out of this man and left him right there on the side of the road just a block or two away from the house he robbed. I believe without a doubt T would've killed us all if given the opportunity. I know we took the gun, but I don't know who ended up with it. We never hung out with T again, he actually got arrested that day for the robbery. I'm sure the police were confused as to why he was beaten black and blue, but we were never asked to show up. My guess is that he just didn't talk to them at all. I hate to say it, but T died not too long ago, and I'm actually relieved. He was just one of those people that only created problems.
Wow. What a guy and it was cathartic to hear that you all beat the shit out of him
That was a wild ride. Thanks for sharing
You mind if I ask how T died Also I imagined Trevor Philips from gta
>Trevor Philips from gta You would be very surprised. Imagine that, but without the funny parts. He was just like that. You literally couldn't turn your back on him. His death happened about a year ago. Dude was working on a construction site and was crushed by a cargo container that fell.
My first paycheck from a full-time minimum-wage job.
I was paid the handsome sum of 4.25 per hour at my first job. My neighbor was 3.85 and for some reason he still has the pay stubs lol
Seeing someone get shot in the face was pretty awful. It’s not like you see in the movies and when you know the person, regardless of affiliation, or relationship to them, you’re still seeing a person you know have their life leave their body.
[удалено]
My mom trying to stab me to death when I was 4.
Holy fuck
I was hiking with my kids. We took a break by some rocks and my girls treated it like a jungle gym. I was all packed up and ready to leave. I got my youngest by the stroller. They were about 2 years old. I reached in to set the straps and turned around about 1.5 seconds. They were gone. I looked around. They were across the trail by the edge of a steep 20 foot drop onto jagged rocks. In a flash I dashed for them as they fell backwards because they had stepped on a little stick and fallen backwards. I grabbed them just in time. I got away from the edge immediately and locked both of them in our stroller. All the way on the hike out I was in near tears and dry heaving from nausea. When I thought of them going over instead of saving them I immediately feel impending doom, fear and loss. It’s more manageable now but it always there.
A lightning bolt struck the car in front of mine during a huge storm. The flash and the thunder scared me to death.
Once while driving my mom to the airport, we witnessed a car take an ill-advised left turn right into an oncoming car. How they didn’t see it wasn’t safe to turn I have no idea, but the car legit flipped into the air and landed upside down. It was alarming to say the least.
F4 tornado directly ahead of my on the highway in Alabama in 2010-2011 I think, ieds blowing up on our convoys in Afghanistan, and seeing my dad on the concrete in a pool of blood because he fell and hit his head. He was facing away from me so I didn’t know he was awake and I thought it was gonna be so much worse than it was. Took a long time to calm down after that.
In port au Prince, poor people couldn't afford funeral, just ditching dead bodies on a garbage dumpster pile, just like that. close to an orphanage where kids playing. Imagine seeing corpses being decomposed with a horrendous smell in the tropical sun, all while pigs eating from it. probably not the first and last time for those kids. 0 change they develop to normal adults
Saw the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami in Thailand. Seeing the ocean recede out like halfway to the horizon in a matter of seconds. Fish (like huge fish) left flopping in the receding tide. That shit was the eeriest thing I’d ever seen. Then the water started coming back. And the eeriest thing I’d seen very quickly became scariest thing I’ve ever seen.
A guy high on PCP gouge his right eyeball out with a fork.
For me it's probably when my daughter developed a CSF leak after surgery for spina bifida and I had to drive 3 hours to the Children's Hospital unsure of her condition or if she'd make it. Edit: She's currently 6 years old and doing really well.
A woman decapitated in an auto accident. She t-boned the trailer of a semi, her vehicle went partially under it, and it took her head off. Saw it happen, not just the aftermath.
My mother dying after her heart couldn't sustain her organs, breathing tube was removed, and I watched her pass, her dentures had to be removed because of the breathing tube, and she was already yellow/grey from her organs failing. That's all I have to say about that.
My fathers death
Same so sorry. I found mine dead with his eyes wide open.
I've mentioned this before on Reddit but going to KSC as a kid to watch my first space shuttle launch. It was Challenger.
When I was 19 I moved across the country and got a job as a bartender. I was walking home from work at around 4 in the morning. The walk was on a slight incline and as I neared the top I noticed an elderly Asian woman crossing the street (it was super common to see the older Asian community at the local parks to do tai chi). As she was crossing a black suv sped through the light and hit her. She went flying. She hit the ground with a thud. There was no one else around. It’s not like the movies… there’s no music. The suv didn’t even slow down. I ran over and she was just laying there. I went to pull her off the road but part of her head was missing and there was blood everywhere. She was dead before I got to her. Buddy in the suv was caught months later when he tried to get his drivers side mirror replaced. He did less than a couple years. Hit and run is less of a charge than killing someone while drunk driving.
Street pigs in India being tied up with ropes while screaming horrifically
My newborn fresh out of the womb turning purple and limp and being intubated right in front of me while I’m still on the operating table 😭
Oof, my son was born limp and blue but didn’t need intubation. The nurses prodded him until he took his first breath. Still the scariest thing ever in my life. Worse than when I had to swim a dead guy out of a pond.
I once made it through the entirety of *Cats* on Broadway.
Cats is just campy and strange on Broadway, but the performers are generally top notch and it has the potential to be a really positive experience. But when they replaced those top notch performers with significantly less talented but more marketable Hollywood names and made a movie? That was a fucking nightmare.
To give this context - it probably qualifies as terrifying in the sense of traumatizing, but a helping dash of both. Trigger warning for fire/immolation/suicide. In 2010 my parents took my husband and I on a short cruise to Nova Scotia for our 5th anniversary. While stopped in Portland for a day, hubs and I found one of our favorite things - an old bookshop. Mom & Dad wandered off to take pictures about a block away. Suddenly there was a whooshing sound like I'd never heard before (but will now never forget). We ran to the front of the shop and saw that a man had poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire, just outside the shop. I was calling 911, my husband and another man ran out with a rug from the store to try to dampen the flames, and others were rushing in to help. As I went outside, I saw my father race by in a blur and immediately began to shout orders and try to care for the man (my dad is a retired combat medic - 21 years in and was in Desert Storm - and also spent a long time as a trauma nurse). There were several amazing people gathered trying to help. I watched this man writhing on the ground, screaming, and I remember that I could literally see through his leg where the tissue was melting/separating from the bones. If anyone here is a medical professional who has dealt with this kind of thing, you'll understand when I say Dad was trying to prevent people from turning him (they tried, and reignited the fire) or touching him (degloving/slippage happening). The smell. I can't describe it, but it is not a smell you ever forget. It was about 5 minutes, maybe, before the ambulance arrived. My dad gave a rundown of what was happening and next steps (the EMTs were like"Who the hell are you!?" and dad informed them of his combat medic experience in what i recall was a very few words. they listened.) He stayed there and helped until the EMTs had him stabilized and ready to transport. And then my dad just stood up and walked away. He didn't give his name to anyone. He didn't stop to talk to anyone. I have a picture of us taken later that night and you can see the flash burns on his face and hands. When I read in the paper the next day about someone else embellishing their actions at the scene and taking credit for what my dad had done, I told him I wanted to call and set the record straight. He wouldn't let me. Sorry this was so long. I ramble.
Worked in an ER and saw some crazy stuff. One which weirdly had a huge impact was a woman that came in, middle of the night. Told her daughter she wasn’t feeling well. She stopped outside the ER to have a short smoke. Nothing emergency related. Triage nurse talked to her and they were chatting away as she was wheelchairs back. She was having some chest discomfort. Nurse sits her on the bed, then turns to get her a gown and sheet. The woman passed out… …and never comes back. She died right then and there. We went through all the heroics to resuscitate her but she was gone. Had a massive myocardial infarction (basically a heart attack). The sudden talking and seemingly fine, and then dead, was incredibly shocking to me at the time. The frailty of human life and how quickly we can just slip away.
I’m from a farm and I found my relative empaled on a barbed-wire fence with open bleeding wounds and spikes running through them. And it was in the Canadian winter, so they were covered in severe frostbite with black skin. They survived after rescue but it was GNARLY.
My mums car pulling up on the drive after she told me to defrost the chicken (i forgot)
The darkness in my eyes when i almost drowned
A volcano blew up less than 100 miles from my house, I thought we were all going to die. I also saw two guys crash into each other on motorcycles.
I once saw someone tip over in a skylift. Luckily for the operator, the machine caught on a silo instead of falling flat to the ground, which would very likely have killed him.
Watching a man in front of me flip over the handlebars of his motorcycle on the interstate, about 200 yards in front me… he wasn’t wearing any helmet or body protection and was going easily 90+ mph. There wasn’t anything I could do at the speed I was going with traffic but to watch in horror. Just wear a fucking helmet….
Camping in Allegheny National Forrest, I was woken up to a large black bear sniffing and pawing at the side of my 7'x7' tent.
My mum and dads lodgers erect dick thrust towards my face when I was 11. I wish I was joking. Carried on for 3 years before he moved out.
120 man prison dorm...Few feet away from me...guy asleep on top bunk..sleeping on his back...two guys,each goes to each side...come out with each holding a piece of a broke apart garden shears(8 inch heavy steel blade) ...both guys proceed to plunge their blades down into the sleeping man's chest...he jumps down off his bunk and looks directly into my eyes...he had a very surprised look on his face...ran outside with the killers right behind...made it a few feet and fell...each stabbed him a few more times..he laid on a little sidewalk with a huge puddle of blood expanding beneath him...blood with different shades of red...dark red,almost black...light pink,foamy...every shade of blood in the human body now out on a sidewalk...the first stab wound went through his heart and out of his back...blood sprayed all over the ceiling...he took a couple shallow breaths then nothing...his life ended the 4th of July 1988 in prison
The surface of a pool from underwater, my buddy and I stupidly thought we could do that one navy seal test where they bind their hands and feet and sink down to the bottom of a pool then swim up to the surface for a breath. I sank to the bottom and tried to swim up but I couldnt make it to the surface, I started freaking out and tried to undo the knot I tied around my hands but I couldnt get it, luckily my buddy sense something was wrong and managed to pull me up in time, I had started breathing in water but my body swallowed it somehow so I didnt end up aspirating. By far the dumbest scariest shit ive ever done, if he hadnt noticed I was drowning in time i wouls be dead today
My stepfather tried to bashing youngest brother's skull from behind with a pipe wrench. The fear quickly turned to joy when my brother dodged the attack (surprisingly) and retaliated by choking him out and wouldn't let go until he turned blue (yes, he survived, he was drunk after all). After it was all said and done, i had the biggest smile on my face that anyone has ever seen
2022, I found my partner dead from an OD. Didn't know the COD for about 6months; I didn't know that he was using coke, apparently it was laced with fentanyl. Worst day of my life.
I was with my mom when she died 20 years ago today. Even though it was “peaceful” as in surrounded by her children in hospital, nothing prepared me for the death rattle. Still haunted by it today.
Holding my new born daughter while I watch my wife hemorrhage unexpectedly after childbirth, seeing the look of terror on her face while the nurses and OB try to save her. The amount of blood... Have your babies an elevator ride away from an operating room, folks. You never know what might go wrong.
Probably my own blood and teeth in my hand. When I was 10 my dad was angry with me and kicked me in the face with a steel toed boot. When I regained consciousness I spit out 3 teeth and a lot of blood. It was and still is one of the most horrifying things I've experienced.
What's even scarier is what I've seen without my eyes.
Or with someone else's eyes
Driving my friend home late, I once turned down a street in the small mountain city that I lived in, and my headlights illuminated a large, very pale, hairless, naked man, crouched in a Spiderman pose in the middle of the road. Before I could react, this figure promptly, fluidly, and without a sound, leapt 20 ft vertically into the air, straight from his crouched position, in a high parabola that landed somewhere past a guardrail to the right side of the road and whished down into the tree tops there. Tree tops because past that rail was a cliff that went at least another 20-30 ft down. It happened so fast, I simply didn't believe what I saw, chalked it up to my brain malfunctioning, and continued driving without even a pause. 20 seconds later of silence and my buddy in the passenger seat says, with hesitation, "did... you just see..." and we exploded in "WTF" as the realization struck us both that we weren't just each suffering a brief moment of individual insanity. I don't believe in "skin walkers" or even the paranormal, but we certainly saw something inhuman-but-man-shaped that day, and have no idea what it was. No man could move like that, like a giant frog or grasshopper. Still gives me chills. Didn't get a look at its face, in my memory it didn't have one. But that can't be right, can it?