Shocking revelations from people who narrowly survived near-fatal encounters

Daily Mail​

13-07-2025

From being swept away by powerful riptides to narrowly dodging falling trees, people are sharing the terrifying moments they nearly came face-to-face with death.
It began after someone asked on Reddit, 'People who escaped death by complete luck. What happened?'
The post received over 1,600 comments from users who were eager to tell their stories.
One person recounted how they narrowly avoided being hit by a driver who had lost consciousness while they were out on their moped.
They said: 'I was 16 in Bermuda, riding my moped into town when I came up to a bus stopped at a red light.
'I came to a stop, and then, as is tradition, I scooted around the bus to be at the front of the traffic.
'No more than 10 seconds later, a second bus plowed into the back of the first bus at 30-40 mph.
'I would have been pancaked, no question, had I not moved. Apparently, the second bus driver had a medical event and lost consciousness.
'I just sat on the side of the road for 30 minutes afterward and looked at the trees, contemplating my mortality.'
Another person revealed a shooting took place at the mall they worked at but they had been running late that day so they weren't there.
They detailed: 'Worked at my local mall while in college. I've always prided myself on never being late.
'I was going in early to go to my bank, which was at the main entrance. A series of ridiculous events began, and I found myself running late, which really frustrated me.
'Again, it rarely, if ever, happened. I drove quickly to find police cars flying past me. As I approached the mall, I saw the cops swarming the main entrance, where I was headed.
'Turns out, a woman had entered the main entrance with a rifle and began shooting as she entered, and continued as she walked through the mall. She killed three and wounded seven, some critically.
'No doubt I would have been in the line of fire had I not been late. She spent decades in jail and was recently released.'
Someone else recalled a harrowing and life threatening incident that occurred when they were younger.
'A street light collapsed on me (my neck) and onto the face of the girl in front of me on a 5th-grade field trip,' they wrote.
'I was surprisingly fine, while the girl in front of me got helicoptered out. She made a full recovery, though!'
One user shared the time they had a tree fall on them.
'I was two steps away from being crushed by the trunk. Paramedics made sure to tell me that while I was sitting there with a flap of skin hanging off my scalp,' they said.
'Like, thanks, dude, for pointing out I almost died while I was already in shock.'
Another person recalled almost dying after they decided to play in a power station as a child.
'Back in the year 2000, seven-year-old me and my friends were outside exploring. That day's location happened to be a power station,' they shared.
'An older nine-year-old boy lost his life on top of a machine. The electricity burned a hole through him.
'I lost both my hands trying to climb up and help him. Amputated below my elbows.
'Electricity went through both my arms and exited in my armpit on one side and my neck on the other side. It never went through my chest, or I'd be dead, too.'
Someone else shared a near-kidnapping story that occurred when they were 10 years old.
'When I was a naive 10-year-old, a guy in a s***ty car asked me to hop in and help him find his lost puppy,' they recalled.
'My dumb**s was about to get in when my little brother happened to ride by on a bike and started screaming. He probably saved my life that day.'
Another warned about swimming at the beach, as they wrote: 'Was swimming at an Australian beach, stupidly not between the flags, got smacked by a rogue wave and was stuck in a riptide. I was knocked out cold and pretty much drowned.
'Still, to this day, I don't know how I got to shore, when I woke I was up on the wet sand of the beach and had 5 jellyfish around me.'
A different user shared their near-death experience that happened at work: 'Sudden cardiac [arrest] at work. A co-worker gave me CPR and paramedics got my heart beating again. Five percent survival rate. I ate a lot more ice cream once I was healthy, again.'
One commenter wrote: 'I was in the passenger seat of my dad's small sports car (low to the ground) when a crowbar came off a work truck in front of us and flew into the windshield of our car.
'Somehow it stopped a few inches away from my face, and I luckily happened to be looking down, which meant all the glass that would have ended up on my face was all in my hair instead.
'I always think about how lucky I was, I can't explain why that crowbar stopped half in and half out of the car. Crazy to think that if it didn't stop, it would have hit me square in the forehead.'
Someone else revealed their close encounter with serial killer Ted Bundy.
'My frat bro's mom was in the Chi Omega house at FSU in 1979. Ted Bundy broke into the house while they were sleeping and killed the two girls in the room across the hall from hers and seriously beat up two other women,' they wrote.