Lifestyle

<h2>Much like taxes, death is coming for us all. No matter your age or how much kale you snarf, you never really know which moment will be your last.</h2><p>No one really knows what it really feels like to face your own mortality, unless you&#39;ve lived through it, but of course, we&#39;re all curious about these near-death experiences. So when a Reddit user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/v52iah/what_moment_made_you_think_yup_im_dead_but_you/?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=ios_app&amp;utm_name=iossmf">asked</a>, &quot;What moment made you think &quot;Yup, I&#39;m dead,&quot; but you survived?&quot; the internet delivered.</p><h2>These spine-tingling tales will leave you grateful for every breath you take. </h2><p> </p><p>1.<a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/m4dch3mist/">m4dch3mist</a></p><blockquote> <p>Saw a car jump a light and cut in front of me on my motorcycle and I had a millisecond to decide if I was hitting it head-on or dropping the bike and getting run over. I chose the latter and after it happened I tried to stand up, but couldn&#39;t feel my legs anymore. But hey, I lived.</p> </blockquote><p>2. <a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Saiyanman007/">Saiyanman007</a></p><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I was 11. I had just developed asthma and my mother refused to quit chain smoking in the house. One night I have a severe attack. I&#39;m trying to use my rescue inhaler and its not working. Each time I try to inhale it just goes right out my nose. I panic.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I vividly remember my mother smoking a cigarette as the panic is giving way to hypoxia. She&#39;s screaming at me to use my inhaler. Right before losing consciousness I realized that was it, I&#39;m dead. There wasn&#39;t a whole lot of life to flash before my eyes. A sense of calm and peace settled over me as I collapsed.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>My parents did CPR on me until the paramedics arrived. I woke up in ICU days later with a tube down my throat. The doctors were surprised I survived. My mother never smoked in the house again after that. The car was still fair game for her though.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p>3.<a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/shadowball46/">shadowball46</a></p><blockquote> <p>I was choking on food, almost a full blockage, and couldn&#39;t get any air in. After several attempts to get it out, it sunk in that it was really lodged in my throat and I was screwed. Started to feel dizzy and everything moved slowly.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I remember thinking what an embarrassing way to die and that I didn&#39;t want my kid to be watching (it was at breakfast). I started dialing 911 when my husband came up behind me and started first aid. He got the blockage out and I started vomiting everywhere. It was very intense.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I still went to get checked by a doctor to make sure my lungs were clear because I felt dizzy for hours after and my throat was raw. Took a day or so to heal. He 100% saved my life!</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p>4.<a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Apprehensive-Donkey3/">Apprehensive-Donkey3</a></p><blockquote> <p>Had a car crash into my house and hit me when I was a child. I was sitting on the couch at the time and it hit me, drove through the next wall into the garage, then came to rest on top of my lap, pinning me down to the couch with its full weight. I won&#39;t go into too much detail about my injuries: suffice it to say that it was pretty gory.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>It took over an hour for the emergency responders to get me out from underneath it. That hour is foggy at best. I remember so much pain, and at some point, I felt this overwhelming sense of peace about the situation. Like, I instinctually knew that all I had to do was let go and the pain would stop.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I started to let go, and I began slipping away. The pain stopped, the world slowed, and everything started to fade to black. It felt like I was floating on water, and all the fear and agony were taken far away from me.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I snapped back into myself to the sound of a firefighter yelling at me to stay awake. Immediately the pain returned and I was fully &quot;here&quot; again. Didn&#39;t hit me until much later in life that I was interrupted in the middle of the death process.</p> </blockquote><p>5. <a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/FormerUniform/">FormerUniform</a></p><blockquote> <p>I just got hit by a car going 50 mph and broke 15 bones. I&#39;m laying in the hospital right now typing with one hand. I found out a few days ago that I remained conscious enough to call 9-1-1 myself even though I don&#39;t recall doing that. Pretty much the only reason I&#39;m alive is because I didn&#39;t injure my head.</p> </blockquote><p>6. <a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Shes_dead_Jim/">Shes_dead_Jim</a></p><blockquote> <p>Car accident. We hit a patch of ice and went over a guardrail and off a 40-foot cliff. I knew was dead the moment I pulled my leg free from the piece of door stabbing through it and the blood came out like a faucet. I figured I could at least climb back to the road for help before I passed out so I did.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I flagged down a passing truck and passed out and died in the ambulance before they brought me back.The firefighters used my blood trail to find my friend&#39;s car which saved his life. So mission accomplished</p> </blockquote><p>7. <a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Most-Cow-2474/">Most-Cow-2474</a></p><blockquote> <p>I was a director of one of the largest museums in the United States and walked out on stage to give a pretty controversial presentation. I was already pretty nervous. There&rsquo;s a loud bang from the center of my head, I don&rsquo;t feel my body drop but I can tell I&rsquo;ve hit the floor, my vision blurs and turns red, and in the 3 seconds after the bang, I come to the conclusion that I&rsquo;ve been shot and have seconds to live. I&rsquo;m a very large man and as I&rsquo;m fading out, I see my friend, the 90lb(40kg) museum nurse trying to pull me up.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I was in shock and the pain didn&rsquo;t really faze me, but damn did it hurt. Indescribable agony that in just two seconds made death seem like mercy. I accepted very calmly that my nurse friend&rsquo;s face was the last thing I&rsquo;d ever see and faded out. I got to &ldquo;die&rdquo; a dramatic death and live to tell about it.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I woke up 4 hours later in a hospital after an emergency surgery. I hadn&rsquo;t been shot after all. I somehow had an abscessed wisdom tooth that had become highly infected and the abscess exploded upwards into my head, splitting the tooth from tip to jaw and breaking my left maxilla.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>It erupted with such force that my eyes bled and the pain knocked me out. While I was out, my wisdom tooth was pulled without anesthetic and the infection drained. I get phantom twitches just thinking about it.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p>8.<a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MajorWuss/">MajorWuss</a></p><blockquote> <p>I didn&#39;t die but I thought I did when a semi-truck ran over the front of my friend&#39;s Geo Metro. I barely saw it coming and said &quot;oh fuck&quot;. Until that moment we were singing Justin Timberlake songs. I woke up in what I thought was my bed (an airbag) and I couldn&#39;t breathe. People were at the window talking but I didn&#39;t understand them.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I couldn&#39;t figure out how I was looking out a car window from my bed. I realized I had been in an accident and I dislodged my knee from between the door and dash. My friend asked if I was okay. His face was covered in blood because his head hit the windshield. I shook my head no because I couldn&#39;t breathe. I crawled out of the door (no idea how it opened) and across the street. Nobody knew I couldn&#39;t breathe so I just figured I would die for the second time.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I curled in a ball and suddenly something clicked and I took a breath. Sounds began to come into focus. Some guy with a broken Slavic accent was asking if he could have the rims off the car. I was dumbfounded.</p> </blockquote><p>9.<a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/spaceman_danger/">spaceman_danger</a></p><blockquote> <p>Briefly trapped under the raft while in rapids white water rafting. Didn&rsquo;t get the breath I thought I would when my head hit the bottom of the raft. Thought I was a goner. A second later I was to the side of the raft and only mostly still freaking out.</p> </blockquote><p>10.<a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/AD_Skinner_no_shirt/">AD_Skinner_no_shirt</a></p><blockquote> <p>House explosion, 3 years old Edmonton, AB. I vividly remember standing next to a stove that someone was fixing in the basement apartment of my Dads friend&#39;s house (who we were visiting) and the next thing I was opening my eyes in the daylight outside.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I completely blacked out while the gas stove exploded and I landed clean in the driveway. My dad and mom were on the front page of the Edmonton Journal in 1993. I remember distinctly thinking the brightness was heaven and that I had died and fell into heaven- my baby sister had died several weeks prior to SIDS and my mother and father had to explain where she had gone and I thought I was in heaven but it was the sky.</p> </blockquote><p>11. <a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Adddicus/">Adddicus</a></p><blockquote> <p>While transferring work locations, I was staying with a cousin of mine at the new location. Her psychotic, alcoholic, drug-addled, vicious ex-boyfriend (whom she had just kicked out of her house) was stalking her. He saw me move in, assumed I was the new boyfriend, and lay in wait for me outside her house one night, where he jumped me from behind and slit my throat.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>Despite losing massive amounts of blood, I didn&#39;t die. I didn&#39;t even feel that bad, so while he was trying to break into her house (presumably to kill her too), I grabbed a baseball bat from the trunk of my car and beat him until I passed out.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>When I woke up, I wasn&#39;t thinking all that clearly, so I went inside, cleaned myself up and drove to the hospital. My cousin wasn&#39;t even home at the time, she had gone into the city with her mother for the weekend to see a show and go shopping.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>My attacker and I ended up in the same ICU. I had rendered him a quadriplegic. There was a great deal of civil and criminal legal bullshit to deal with, but in the end, I was cleared of any wrongdoing, and he was put on probation for ten years.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>As he was no longer able to so much as brush his own teeth, his lawyer (provided by his wealthy family) convinced the judge/DA that he was no longer a threat to anyone, and the state would be spared the burden of providing him the round the clock care he needed if he wasn&#39;t sent to prison.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I was left in massive debt which took me many years to pay off. I did sue him for the injuries I sustained, but despite being a trust fund baby from a wealthy family, he himself was indigent. He&#39;d blown his trust fund on drugs, booze, and gambling, and had nothing. His family provided him with everything, including his lawyer. He died about the same time his probation ended</p> </blockquote><p>12.<a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Freshrendar/">Freshrendar</a></p><blockquote> <p>Hit a moose with a small car at highway speed. I thought this is it I&rsquo;m dead. Opened my eyes after and the roof was folded in an inch or two from my face. Not a scratch on me. And nobody could find the moose, probably died in the forest somewhere from internal injuries.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p>13.<a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/DropNationalism/">DropNationalism</a></p><blockquote> <p>When I pulled the knife out of my chest and then I saw the bubbles. Had a collapsed lung and the knife nicked the pericardium. As I walked out of ICU 6 days later, the head of the trauma department told me a centimeter in any direction and they wouldn&#39;t have saved me. He then called me a walking miracle. I&#39;ll take it</p> </blockquote><p>14.<a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/koest37231225/">koest37231225</a></p><blockquote> <p>My ex-boyfriend from many years ago was physically abusive. One of the last times I was around him, he choked me out so hard and so long that I thought that was it. I could feel the last bit of oxygen slipping out from my lungs and my vision narrowing.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Fortunately, his dad came into the room right as I was losing consciousness, pulled him off me and then beat the daylight outta him. I packed up my stuff and my cat that night and drove the 800 miles back home to my parents. I only had to see him in court after that.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p>15. <a data-testid="comment_author_link" href="https://www.reddit.com/user/pyretta138/">pyretta138</a></p><blockquote> <p>I was kidnapped. A guy approached me at a gas station in the middle of the night (I has just gotten off work) and asked for a ride. I said no (obviously) and he pulled out a massive knife and insisted.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Of course, I agreed at that point because I wasn&#39;t trying to get stabbed and asked where he wanted to go. He directed me to a sketchy motel in the bad part of town holding the knife on me the whole way. As we were pulling into the parking lot I thought for sure this was how I was going to die.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>He got out of the car first and suddenly 2 guys came out of nowhere like fucking crackhead guardian angels and jumped the guy who had kidnapped me. From the little I heard he must have owed them money. I didn&#39;t stick around to find out. I hauled ass out of that parking lot with the passenger door of my car wide open. I still can&#39;t believe I lived through that.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

15 people share the terrifying stories of when they almost died.

Much like taxes, death is coming for us all. No matter your age or how much kale you snarf, you never really know which moment will be your last.No one really knows what it really feels like to face your own mortality, unless you&#39;ve lived through it, but of course, we&#39;re all curious about these near-death experiences. So when a Reddit user asked, &quot;What moment made you think &quot;Yup, I&#39;m dead,&quot; but you survived?&quot; the internet delivered.These spine-tingling tales will leave you grateful for every breath you take.  1.m4dch3mist Saw a car jump a light and cut in front of me on my motorcycle and I had a millisecond to decide if I was hitting it head-on or dropping the bike and getting run over. I chose the latter and after it happened I tried to stand up, but couldn&#39;t feel my legs anymore. But hey, I lived. 2. Saiyanman007 I was 11. I had just developed asthma and my mother refused to quit chain smoking in the house. One night I have a severe attack. I&#39;m trying to use my rescue inhaler and its not working. Each time I try to inhale it just goes right out my nose. I panic.  I vividly remember my mother smoking a cigarette as the panic is giving way to hypoxia. She&#39;s screaming at me to use my inhaler. Right before losing consciousness I realized that was it, I&#39;m dead. There wasn&#39;t a whole lot of life to flash before my eyes. A sense of calm and peace settled over me as I collapsed.  My parents did CPR on me until the paramedics arrived. I woke up in ICU days later with a tube down my throat. The doctors were surprised I survived. My mother never smoked in the house again after that. The car was still fair game for her though. 3.shadowball46 I was choking on food, almost a full blockage, and couldn&#39;t get any air in. After several attempts to get it out, it sunk in that it was really lodged in my throat and I was screwed. Started to feel dizzy and everything moved slowly.  I remember thinking what an embarrassing way to die and that I didn&#39;t want my kid to be watching (it was at breakfast). I started dialing 911 when my husband came up behind me and started first aid. He got the blockage out and I started vomiting everywhere. It was very intense.  I still went to get checked by a doctor to make sure my lungs were clear because I felt dizzy for hours after and my throat was raw. Took a day or so to heal. He 100% saved my life! 4.Apprehensive-Donkey3 Had a car crash into my house and hit me when I was a child. I was sitting on the couch at the time and it hit me, drove through the next wall into the garage, then came to rest on top of my lap, pinning me down to the couch with its full weight. I won&#39;t go into too much detail about my injuries: suffice it to say that it was pretty gory.  It took over an hour for the emergency responders to get me out from underneath it. That hour is foggy at best. I remember so much pain, and at some point, I felt this overwhelming sense of peace about the situation. Like, I instinctually knew that all I had to do was let go and the pain would stop.  I started to let go, and I began slipping away. The pain stopped, the world slowed, and everything started to fade to black. It felt like I was floating on water, and all the fear and agony were taken far away from me.  I snapped back into myself to the sound of a firefighter yelling at me to stay awake. Immediately the pain returned and I was fully &quot;here&quot; again. Didn&#39;t hit me until much later in life that I was interrupted in the middle of the death process. 5. FormerUniform I just got hit by a car going 50 mph and broke 15 bones. I&#39;m laying in the hospital right now typing with one hand. I found out a few days ago that I remained conscious enough to call 9-1-1 myself even though I don&#39;t recall doing that. Pretty much the only reason I&#39;m alive is because I didn&#39;t injure my head. 6. Shes_dead_Jim Car accident. We hit a patch of ice and went over a guardrail and off a 40-foot cliff. I knew was dead the moment I pulled my leg free from the piece of door stabbing through it and the blood came out like a faucet. I figured I could at least climb back to the road for help before I passed out so I did.  I flagged down a passing truck and passed out and died in the ambulance before they brought me back.The firefighters used my blood trail to find my friend&#39;s car which saved his life. So mission accomplished 7. Most-Cow-2474 I was a director of one of the largest museums in the United States and walked out on stage to give a pretty controversial presentation. I was already pretty nervous. There&rsquo;s a loud bang from the center of my head, I don&rsquo;t feel my body drop but I can tell I&rsquo;ve hit the floor, my vision blurs and turns red, and in the 3 seconds after the bang, I come to the conclusion that I&rsquo;ve been shot and have seconds to live. I&rsquo;m a very large man and as I&rsquo;m fading out, I see my friend, the 90lb(40kg) museum nurse trying to pull me up.  I was in shock and the pain didn&rsquo;t really faze me, but damn did it hurt. Indescribable agony that in just two seconds made death seem like mercy. I accepted very calmly that my nurse friend&rsquo;s face was the last thing I&rsquo;d ever see and faded out. I got to &ldquo;die&rdquo; a dramatic death and live to tell about it.  I woke up 4 hours later in a hospital after an emergency surgery. I hadn&rsquo;t been shot after all. I somehow had an abscessed wisdom tooth that had become highly infected and the abscess exploded upwards into my head, splitting the tooth from tip to jaw and breaking my left maxilla.  It erupted with such force that my eyes bled and the pain knocked me out. While I was out, my wisdom tooth was pulled without anesthetic and the infection drained. I get phantom twitches just thinking about it. 8.MajorWuss I didn&#39;t die but I thought I did when a semi-truck ran over the front of my friend&#39;s Geo Metro. I barely saw it coming and said &quot;oh fuck&quot;. Until that moment we were singing Justin Timberlake songs. I woke up in what I thought was my bed (an airbag) and I couldn&#39;t breathe. People were at the window talking but I didn&#39;t understand them.  I couldn&#39;t figure out how I was looking out a car window from my bed. I realized I had been in an accident and I dislodged my knee from between the door and dash. My friend asked if I was okay. His face was covered in blood because his head hit the windshield. I shook my head no because I couldn&#39;t breathe. I crawled out of the door (no idea how it opened) and across the street. Nobody knew I couldn&#39;t breathe so I just figured I would die for the second time.  I curled in a ball and suddenly something clicked and I took a breath. Sounds began to come into focus. Some guy with a broken Slavic accent was asking if he could have the rims off the car. I was dumbfounded. 9.spaceman_danger Briefly trapped under the raft while in rapids white water rafting. Didn&rsquo;t get the breath I thought I would when my head hit the bottom of the raft. Thought I was a goner. A second later I was to the side of the raft and only mostly still freaking out. 10.AD_Skinner_no_shirt House explosion, 3 years old Edmonton, AB. I vividly remember standing next to a stove that someone was fixing in the basement apartment of my Dads friend&#39;s house (who we were visiting) and the next thing I was opening my eyes in the daylight outside.  I completely blacked out while the gas stove exploded and I landed clean in the driveway. My dad and mom were on the front page of the Edmonton Journal in 1993. I remember distinctly thinking the brightness was heaven and that I had died and fell into heaven- my baby sister had died several weeks prior to SIDS and my mother and father had to explain where she had gone and I thought I was in heaven but it was the sky. 11. Adddicus While transferring work locations, I was staying with a cousin of mine at the new location. Her psychotic, alcoholic, drug-addled, vicious ex-boyfriend (whom she had just kicked out of her house) was stalking her. He saw me move in, assumed I was the new boyfriend, and lay in wait for me outside her house one night, where he jumped me from behind and slit my throat.  Despite losing massive amounts of blood, I didn&#39;t die. I didn&#39;t even feel that bad, so while he was trying to break into her house (presumably to kill her too), I grabbed a baseball bat from the trunk of my car and beat him until I passed out.  When I woke up, I wasn&#39;t thinking all that clearly, so I went inside, cleaned myself up and drove to the hospital. My cousin wasn&#39;t even home at the time, she had gone into the city with her mother for the weekend to see a show and go shopping.  My attacker and I ended up in the same ICU. I had rendered him a quadriplegic. There was a great deal of civil and criminal legal bullshit to deal with, but in the end, I was cleared of any wrongdoing, and he was put on probation for ten years.  As he was no longer able to so much as brush his own teeth, his lawyer (provided by his wealthy family) convinced the judge/DA that he was no longer a threat to anyone, and the state would be spared the burden of providing him the round the clock care he needed if he wasn&#39;t sent to prison.  I was left in massive debt which took me many years to pay off. I did sue him for the injuries I sustained, but despite being a trust fund baby from a wealthy family, he himself was indigent. He&#39;d blown his trust fund on drugs, booze, and gambling, and had nothing. His family provided him with everything, including his lawyer. He died about the same time his probation ended 12.Freshrendar Hit a moose with a small car at highway speed. I thought this is it I&rsquo;m dead. Opened my eyes after and the roof was folded in an inch or two from my face. Not a scratch on me. And nobody could find the moose, probably died in the forest somewhere from internal injuries. 13.DropNationalism When I pulled the knife out of my chest and then I saw the bubbles. Had a collapsed lung and the knife nicked the pericardium. As I walked out of ICU 6 days later, the head of the trauma department told me a centimeter in any direction and they wouldn&#39;t have saved me. He then called me a walking miracle. I&#39;ll take it 14.koest37231225 My ex-boyfriend from many years ago was physically abusive. One of the last times I was around him, he choked me out so hard and so long that I thought that was it. I could feel the last bit of oxygen slipping out from my lungs and my vision narrowing.  Fortunately, his dad came into the room right as I was losing consciousness, pulled him off me and then beat the daylight outta him. I packed up my stuff and my cat that night and drove the 800 miles back home to my parents. I only had to see him in court after that. 15. pyretta138 I was kidnapped. A guy approached me at a gas station in the middle of the night (I has just gotten off work) and asked for a ride. I said no (obviously) and he pulled out a massive knife and insisted.  Of course, I agreed at that point because I wasn&#39;t trying to get stabbed and asked where he wanted to go. He directed me to a sketchy motel in the bad part of town holding the knife on me the whole way. As we were pulling into the parking lot I thought for sure this was how I was going to die.  He got out of the car first and suddenly 2 guys came out of nowhere like fucking crackhead guardian angels and jumped the guy who had kidnapped me. From the little I heard he must have owed them money. I didn&#39;t stick around to find out. I hauled ass out of that parking lot with the passenger door of my car wide open. I still can&#39;t believe I lived through that. 

Much like taxes, death is coming for us all. No matter your age or how much kale you snarf, you never really know which moment will be your last.  No one really knows what it really feels like to face your own mortality, unless you&#39;ve...