" She very narrowly escaped being one of the yard of victims of the 9/11 attack , and all because my first cousin rocket be sick on his classmate . "
A while ago, Reddit useru/throwaway_district9asked, “What has been your most bone-chilling, hair-raising, “Let’s get the hell out of here” experience?” and the answers were truly terrifying. Here are 29 stories near-death experiences they shared, along with some from theBuzzFeed Community.
1.“A friend and I were exploring an abandoned factory in North Philadelphia about eight years ago, and when we got to about the third floor, I discovered a booby trap in the stairwell. Basically, it was a trip wire that swung an axe down from the ceiling. Right as that fully set in, we heard someone from up above shout ‘YO!’ Time to go. I’ve never covered that much ground so fast. I think we were two or three blocks away before we realized we were riding each other’s bikes.”
— u / PlayerH8rsBallz
" I ’ve seen urban Explorer find these . I wo n’t say ' a destiny ' but enough that I get two belief : 1 ) hoi polloi set this more than you ’d think , 2 ) these places are really very abandoned because you never hear about someone fix dumbbell trapped in the face . "
— u / pyr666
2.“I was in the lobby of World Trade Center 1 on Sept 11 when the plane hit. Although I didn’t know a plane had hit; what I experienced was a sound like a building bending and metal tearing. Then all of the doors in the lobby blew open and burning hot air blew in my face and it sounds like hell was coming down those stairs. Turns out I was right.”
" I bound behind the foyer desk and covered my head . The detonation pelt into the foyer and I could find myself lead off to sting . But it eventually burned out and I was mostly o.k. . Then I run out . "
— u / PoutineFamine
3.“This isn’t my story, but my aunt’s. She worked on the 79th floor of the South tower in the World Trade Center. And on September 11, at about 8:50 in the morning, she got a call from my cousin’s school saying that he was sick and she needed to come pick him up. Since people were convinced that the plane crashing into the North Tower was a mistake, they let her leave. When she got to the school, someone told her that another plane had crashed into the South Tower. On floors 77–85. She very narrowly escaped being one of the thousands of victims of the 9/11 attacks, and all because my cousin projectile vomited on his classmate.”
— abigaillouises45
4.“I was in an upstairs lab in med school, just a friend and I practicing surgical skills. There was a main enclosed staircase down to the lobby/classrooms and a weird outdoor stairwell that nobody ever used except in fire drills. It wasn’t a fire escape, but the old main entrance to the lab classroom. When I put my hand on the door handle to the main stairs, I was FILLED with a weird sense of ‘Get out! Not that way!’ Just absolute fear; I felt trapped and anxious. For the first time in 3 years, I said ‘Let’s take the outdoor stairs…’ My friend had literally no idea there even WAS another exit.”
" The next twenty-four hour period we found out that at the exact time we were taking the outside stairs , one of our class fellow was pull a grease-gun on the admin and students in the foyer at the root word of the main step . He ’d been kicked out of the program for his score and snapped . My friend still talks about it and tell masses to always commit my instinct . "
— uranium / ittybittylurker
5.“In my twenties, I was roofied, assaulted, and left for dead in a muddy ditch (next to my car) in a SUBURBAN NEIGHBORHOOD. I awakened face up, thank God. I never knew who did it. … I’ve always wondered if they thought I’d roll over while passed out from being drugged and drown.”
— amymatthewsp
6.“25 January 2025; Sknyliv air show disaster. I turned five years old the day before. It’s one of my most vivid memories from childhood; how the pilot landed 10 meters away from me and my dad. He was on his knees, his parachute dangling in the wind and I remember him repeating ‘what have I done?’ over and over. I didn’t understand much of what happened. My dad only said, ‘close your eyes, we have to go.’ My dad told me years after that we would have gone farther into the crowd but I refused to go because my shoelace was untied. Him kneeling to tie my shoes is the only thing that saved us. It wasn’t bone-chilling at the time but when I imagine what my dad witnessed that day I get goosebumps.”
— u / Pink_Molly
7.“I’m a criminal defense investigator. I had a murder case involving two brothers. The one accused of the murders, and his brother, [who] had schizophrenia and lived in a potato shack in the middle of the desert. I needed to talk to him several times throughout the course of the investigation, and since he didn’t have a phone or electricity, I had to drive several hours out to his house and yell his name from the fence line until he came out of the shack. This investigation lasted for several years, and over time I developed a rapport with the brother with schizophrenia, and I kind of got to like him.”
" He eventually commence a lady friend ; she ’s a woman taking glass who has mistaken his dementia praecox for meth - induced psychosis . I talked to her a few times in jail when she was drab , and she was astonishingly magic and insightful .
The last clip I go to see him , it ’s a dark winter night and his girl is there ; she ’s lurking in the shadow and staring daggers at me the integral time I ’m talk to him . I slue off his conversation about the speakers in his fillings and take the air back to my truck to give .
A instant later , he comes running out and tell me that he wants to show me something in his shack . He ’s never invited me within before , and I ’m not thrilled by the prospect . The whole thing feel off to me , so I tell him I have to get going , and lead off the truck .
The look of backup on his face when I worsen to go inside convinced me that his lady friend was wait behind the threshold with a hammer or something . A few calendar month afterward I learned that she shot him in his quietus and stashed his body in an old refrigerator . She has since plead shamed to his murder . "
— u / elevencharles
8."[I was] exploring an abandoned high rise, out of the blue my friend grabbed me by my collar from behind, I was about to step into an elevator shaft. After swearing at him ‘what the fuck’ he said' look' and I saw the drop of like 20 floors to a concrete bottom with broken metal rods sticking out. We went home. He saved my life 100%."
— u / Comprehensive_Soil_1
9.“I was on a youth leadership camping retreat in 2013. Four of us were going to sleep in a tent one of them brought, but one of the staff members told us to use her extra tent because it was more sturdy, so we kept the original tent set up and put our bags in it. In the middle of night two of the trip, there was a very bad storm that happened so suddenly that we didn’t have time to get to the campground shelter, so we had to ride out the storm in tents. It turned out that multiple tornadoes touched down in the area and when we went to survey the damage in the morning, we saw a large branch that fell directly on the tent we were supposed to be in, causing it to completely collapse.”
" To this day I do n’t screw what ’s scarier : riding out tornado in tent without enough telephone electric battery to get any alerts or realizing we would have been crushed had we stayed in the original tent . "
— chronicallybri
10.“I was up at my cabin when I was maybe 11–12 and we were going to get the boat into the lake for the summer. I’m the oldest of three and my mom and I are the same height and weight (she’s small). My dad is twice the size of both of us so they asked me to come with to help. I was stepping over the trailer in between my grandpa’s truck and the trailer with the boat when my foot got stuck in a deep mud puddle. The mud was thick and cakey so I bent down to get my foot free. My grandpa starts reversing but he’s not looking at his backup cam because he’s towing the boat and he can’t see anything besides that, so he’s looking over his shoulder but I’m in his blind spot. I get my foot free but when I see the truck come towards me I freeze in fear.”
" My mammy sees me and run to my grandpa to get him to barricade . He finally stops a millimeter from my facial expression . My mom starts yawp and I ’m sent into the rider seat while my mom and papa get the boat into the water . I ’ve never been asked to help again . "
— ziggy25678
11.“Back in college I used to drive up the Oregon coast on weekends, then just crash in my car when I got tired. I woke from a nap in the driver’s seat and something just didn’t feel quite right. It was just dusk and the light was fading pretty fast. I yawned and stretched and as I did so I turned my head to the side and just caught a face ducking down below my rear passenger window. I went to hit the lock button just to make sure and in my panic I accidentally unlocked the doors briefly and then locked them again. I stared at the window for a few minutes, knowing that someone was crouching just out of sight.”
" finally , I set forth the car and cogitate I heard a scuffing audio . Whoever it was did n’t reappear , but that was enough for me . As I noped out of there and pulled out back onto Highway 101 , I glance back and a bald figure in a red liothyronine - shirt with something wrapped around his face book it into the woods on the side of the route . That was the end of that weekend trip . I drive the two hour back to my dorm room , white - knuckle workforce locked on the steering wheel . I had to rip over a few miles down the route though to dole out with the adrenaline shakes . "
— u / jasonhackwith
12.“A few years ago I lived in a controlled environment with my Muslim parents. A year prior, I met my boyfriend and made plans to move out with him (without my parents' knowledge otherwise I would’ve ended up dead). My parents booked tickets overseas to force me into a marriage with an older guy in his fifties. I told them I didn’t consent but they didn’t care. They told me I wouldn’t be coming back. I had under a week to get out. I was 18 at the time and I was petrified. Anyways, I packed up and moved everything to his apartment while they were at work. I realized once we got to his, I accidentally left my passport and other paperwork that I needed for work. I had to go back and had a time frame of 30 minutes before they came home.”
" I went in the house as quietly as I could . pay back to my bedroom , when I get word the front doorway open . My mother had finished work too soon . She did n’t know I was in the sign of the zodiac and I was shaking in panic . My pal had also realize I was home and locked my bedroom door as he screw I was up to something . My boyfriend was follow the house from the corner of the street . He called me to evidence me to get out ASAP as there was a avant-garde waiting outside with my dad inside … my dad did not own a van . I barricade the door so they were n’t able to get into my elbow room . I had to jump from the window into my neighbor ’s planetary house and jump another fencing to get onto the side street and ran for the hills with my swain . I thought my boyfriend and I were go to go . All I had running through my mind was to get the shag out lol . I have never been so scared in my entire lifespan . I found out shortly after that they knew I was plan to escape with my boyfriend . So they planned on mystify me kidnapped , raped , and killed . I would n’t be here if I did n’t get out while I could . "
— u / linarose _
13.“WhenThe Dark Knight Risesmovie was in theaters, my sister wanted to go see the movie with her boyfriend. They lived in Colorado at the time. As they went to find a theater, they decided to go to the one in Aurora. For some odd reason, my sister got this feeling like they should go to another theater. When they came home and turned on the news the next day, turns out that exact theater had just been shot up and the gunman had killed multiple people.”
— s476835d36
14.“During a hurricane one or two years ago, it was calming down outside so I wanted to see if I could spot any damage. It was dark out and late at night but I went out anyway. I stepped out and my front yard was flooded. I looked around and felt super uneasy. I wanted to stay outside but something told me to go back in. I went in, turned the corner and looked out my sliding door near my front yard/front door and my whole front yard lit up — the sound of electricity was so loud. I scooped my dog up away from the sliding door and stepped back just watching it light up. My heart was beating so fast. I told my dad and the day after he saw some crew near the creek. He asked them about it and apparently there was some sort of underground electrical thing near the creek thats a couple feet to the left of my house, and it indeed exploded. I would have died no doubt. Seconds away. It was so scary.”
— thisbebananas
15.“Once in college while a wild thunderstorm was coming down, my friends and I were looking out our third story window teasing our RA about being out in the rain. He reaches the door (it was almost directly under our window) and gets inside the building. As the door is closing, lighting strikes the metal grates in front of the door. It was so loud and bright, my ears rang and my eyes saw spots for a long while. The RA saw it strike from inside the building and admitted he peed himself a bit because of how close he was to getting hit. I’ve seen lighting strikes before, but never that close. I’m good never seeing that close again.”
— p46bf3ddf0
16.“This happened during my undergrad school. Me and a couple of my other friends visited this friend’s home. There was a hill near his home, and we decided to hike up it to watch the sunset. To reach this hill you have to pass a railway line, and that particular day there was a goods train which had been parked there for some reason. So we had to crawl in between the bogies to cross the track. As usual we were late when we left home, so the sunset was almost done and it was getting darker. And we had to climb the joint coupling in between the bogies and cross it.”
" I for one was over excited to see a goods railroad train and wanted to get inside one of the bogies , which was open from the top . So I climbed up the bogy and then raised my hands standing on the edge of it as if I achieved something . And then I finger something eldritch on my forearms — like I was touching some spider web . Iwas actually in the force field of a high tautness electric line . If I had raised my mitt even a centimeter more , I would have been pull into the domain completely and would have been at once bite alert . Still gives me chills thinking about it . "
— u / bergrider
17.“Ice fishing on a far north lake — not a big lake, but known for good fishing. We fished awhile, got nothing, then, a large loud crrrrraccckkkk and the ice split from one side of the lake to the other. One side of the now two different giant slabs of ice began to sink an inch or so under the other half. Water started running out onto the top of the ice — ‘get to shore, gently, ASAP’ I yelled to my buddy, By the time we got to shore, the one slab of ice was beginning to break up, the other close behind. The ice practically self-destructed.”
— u / SirGlenn
18."[I was] fighting a house fire, and realizing that I had very hot feet. Through concrete-soled boots? My officer and I immediately noped the fuck out. Hot feet mean you’re standing above a fire. As fire burns upwards, it’s weakening the floor beneath you. So we were about to plummet into a basement fire."
— u / Starshapedsand
19.“I was helping check cows on my family’s ranch. I got out there in my car just a little before dusk; the cows were all kinda scattered so I decided to just walk in so I wouldn’t stir them up too much and could get a better look (I was checking for any baby calves). I’m well into the field. Like, a solid five-minute walk from my car at least. Looking around at all the cows, checking the ones that were looking kinda close on calving. I see some of the cows furthest away from me kinda stir so I look and see something dark and large-cat-shaped crouched low to the ground slowly stalking some of the cows.”
" Now , I live in West Texas so jaguars are n’t really a matter but there had been rumors for eld about this jaguar that stalked up and down the creek that choke decently by our cattle ranch . It probably was just a dark - colored deal lion , but either way , it was emphatically not something I wanted to mess with , in the darkness , a ways from a vehicle , with no gun .
I am not ashamed to say I left the Bos taurus to fight down themselves and run as tight as I could through the field back to my gondola . I did check the next day and all moo-cow were safe and account for . "
— uracil / ImNotA_IThink
20.“When I was 18, I went with my dad on his motorcycle for a ride on some country roads. All of the sudden I felt very nauseous. I remember tapping my dad on his shoulder to tell him I didn’t feel well, and next thing I know I’m laying in the middle of the road and my dad’s lifting the visor on my helmet, asking if I’m okay. I guess I passed out and almost flew off the back of the motorcycle, but thankfully my dad was strong enough to grab my jacket by my chest with one hand and keep his other hand on the throttle to slow it down enough that we more or less toppled over. Can’t imagine I’d still be alive if I actually flew off his motorcycle going over 80 km/hour.”
— ghetti
21.“My mom’s best friend owns a farm about a half hour from where I grew up. We went there nearly every weekend to help with upkeep and caring for our horses. All day you could just feel a storm brewing — the wind, humidity, the outside had a greenish tint, and the clouds rolling in as the sun was setting. Right after supper it started raining hard. A lot of wind and lighting too. I was looking out the window, across the yard, and thought I saw something above the barn on the far side of the yard. I was petrified. It looked like rotation in the clouds…and it started lowering down.”
" I pointed it out to my Dad . He say it was rainfall jounce off the roof of the barn . We both looked out for a present moment and clearly fancy it draw back up into the clouds . I got goosebumps . We looked at each other for a irregular in disbelief , then he shrugged , and go back into the living room . I shelter in the bathroom .
The next day , we saw in the news that an F-4 tornado rip through a small town ( Spencer , SD ) about 24 miles from where we were . I got chills when I catch the news reports . "
— uranium / pantsoncrooked
22.“Last summer while I was doing the dishes, my hips must have bumped the gas knob on the stove and it got switched to ignite so gas was leaking. The next morning I could smell that something was off but since my sense of smell isn’t always the greatest, I just figured it was some food I threw away the night before so I lit not one but two candles one of which was in the kitchen next to the stove. I later ran some errands and when I came back I immediately felt sick. It felt like a massive migraine had just come on literally within seconds. It wasn’t until after I went to go bring my purchases in did I notice the knob switched on.”
— monikap6
23.“2019 summer — I was house-sitting for my dad while he was away for work. The house is in the middle of nowhere and barely even on google maps. I had had a few drinks with friends and been dropped off by a friend that lived close by. He dropped me at the side of the house because it was easier for him to turn around there, so I walked up the stairs and entered with my key through the side door that led to the kitchen. The kitchen overlooked the front garden but the front door was nestled into a small porch and wasn’t visible to me. I saw a movement in the front garden while I was making tea in the kitchen and immediately turned off the lights. There was a man trying to look into the kitchen windows from the garden.”
" He cease up walking around to the wall - to - ceiling glass door around the back of the theatre , cup his helping hand to the glass and endeavor to search in . … He could n’t see me in the dark but I was hiding behind the wall that secernate the kitchen from the dining / lounge field ( heart-to-heart storey plan ) . I had doltishly not lock in one of the spyglass doors closer to the front door andhe start enter the theater , in the pitch black , not realising I was maybe 10 feet out from him . I had already called the friend who had drip me off as I knew he was still nearby ( cops would have taken at least 30 minutes to get to me ) , know his parents ( ex - military ) kept a gun in a safety in the motortruck . I remember just require to RUN , get out of the house ASAP . But if I ran , I ’d be alone in the middle of nowhere with a deranged man furrow after me .
As the hombre walked further into the firm , I step out and pulled a knife on him ( again , I was NOT sober . It was a very stupid affair to do ) . He tried to incoherently make conversation , but I got him out of the room access just as my booster pulled up with his hit man . The dandy bolted to his elevator car that was parked in an area hide by trees on the property .
Turns out he was the gardener . He had been keeping tabs on me , have intercourse I was house - ride alone for my dad while he was out of town , was VERY mellow on meth ( he admitted to me while I had the tongue out ) , and had been waiting on the front porch for me to come home . Except I had used the side threshold that night , something I NEVER usually did .
If I had n’t used the side door that night , I have no melodic theme what would have happened . i also have no idea what would have happened if my friend had n’t number back when I called him , because the guy was starting to get aggressive and trying to get towards me right when my ally go there with his shooter out . "
— u / insanitysgrip
24.“When I was 27, my girlfriend lived in a crappy part of Hollywood, FL near US1. She had a kid pretty young, but the dad ended up going to jail for assault. The place she could afford was run down AF, with all sorts of low-lifes living in the units around her. She hated the place. She couldn’t move in with me because I was just renting a room where I lived. I went to visit her after my shift ended at 9 p.m. Picked up some food and planned to cook for her. We were there for about an hour just sitting on the couch watching her kid play with a box. Then the banging started on the door.”
" She looks panicked , thinking it ’s her ex . I ’m kind of freaked out also because I heard all these story about him . Some guy is cursing , make something against the door hard . We do n’t even require to glance through the windowpane or peephole , thinking he ’s got a gun . We call the police , but the operator is have a baffling prison term hearing .
Then we hear some other char screaming and cursing . He had the wrong room access . We see them start out fighting . Smashing , more screaming . Sounds like she ’s pitter-patter and we hear punches . We ’re not sure if it ’s her or him but it ’s loud .
911 operator enjoin constabulary are on their manner . The Thomas Kid starts yell because he ’s frightened . The man outside starts banging on the door again . He thinks his small fry is with us and shouts he ’s going to kill us for taking his Kyd . My girlfriend just break down at this point and starts shout .
Maybe 10 minutes afterwards the police arrive . They hold both of them then take up our statements . She moved out a duad twenty-four hour period later on and we ended up renting another crappy apartment but in a much good field . "
— u / frank - sarno
25.“My friend and I thought we were cool and lived in a town of 13,000 people in the midwest. I was 13 and partying, drinking, smoking weed. Decided I wanted to be ‘like Mike’ and move weight(ed. note: ‘move weight’ is slang for dealing cocaine). The absolute first time we tried to do a big buy, we rode our bikes out of town to where my buddy had talked to our dealer and said we wanted a bigger buy. Literally biking on a gravel road out in bum-fuck North Dakota. We get to this shop (for reference, especially in the midwest, people purchase land and build a big storage shed aka shop and literally sometimes it’s just a shop with a yard light out in the middle of nowhere). We got to the shop at like five. I told my dad I was going to the fair which led us to leaving early for the ‘pickup’ which was out on the edge of town.”
" We were there and wait for hour , and it ’s pitch pitch-black besides the yard Inner Light — no genius , cloudy nighttime . Well , my pal suggested we put our wheel on the side of the construction so we walked them over , and as we got around the edge of the building we noticed headlights coming from the north .
To this day I do n’t recognize why my buddy told me to dwell down . He say dwell down and I did n’t interview it . Three seconds afterwards we hear people spill and comminute through the prairie . These guy have to be less than 20 foundation by . I call back I could discover one external respiration . At this point , I ’m confused as fuck as to why I ’m lying on the primer and two dude parked in a eldritch pip . It did n’t hit me until they did n’t go into the yard light . From where we were these guys were posted to the east side of the grounds light and we were on the east side of the shop class .
Then another car is coming from the west and turns into the yard flat into the light . It ’s our dealer ; he get out of the car . Kind of posts up on the tailboard and checks his phone . Hops off the car and move … ‘you guy cable here ? ' Two other sheik come walking out into the yardlight with weapons in their hands . I ’d be a prevaricator if I told you I knew exactly what they had but we could see them holding aim long in their work force . That ’s when it gain me … up until then I thought mayhap because we were doing a nefarious deal that they were being cautious . Nope ; they wanted to take our money . When he said ' you guys here ? ' I grabbed my ally and kind of tugged him to say yes , but he grab my branch so hard his nail made me bleed . Something was scream to him to stay on secret and my warning signal was not working . But for that 45 minutes we lay dead still and waited until they left . I was disturbed that because we did n’t show that our dealer was gon na come find us . But that weekend he got arrested for outsmart a 13 year - old - so badly he had to go to Mayo Clinic to get his brass reconstructed .
discover out from some old cronies he ’s in prison for life because he was plug into to the cartel and they skin some guy animated in Bismarck .
… That night I found out I did n’t have what it took to be a real drug principal , so I kind of just stopped . I ’m sure they would ’ve killed us . Or bad . "
— atomic number 92 / fatmenolympics1
26.“The whole time my mom was teaching me to drive, she preached that if you’re going through an intersection and realize you’re not going to make it, don’t stop — hit the gas. About a month after I got my license I was driving with a friend and pull left onto a busy highway. I misjudged it and the next thing I know, I look over and see a tractor trailer’s lights right over my shoulder. Somehow my body remembered what my mom always taught me and my foot punched the gas. The truck hit inches behind my door. It ripped the back door off the hinges and completely obliterated my back seat. My friend and I walked away with a few bumps and bruises. Had I not hit the gas, we’d without a doubt be dead.”
— katherinealexis
27.“Once went urban exploring in a storm drain on a nice summer’s day. We only intended to explore the first couple of hundred feet but kept going. After a while we could hear lots of water echoing in the distance and I noticed the water level was a little higher with a bit more flow. My mate tried to convince me it was just a diverted river. I wasn’t having it though and made us head back pronto. Stupid us didn’t count on a freak rain storm and managed to get out just as it got torrential. At a few points, we weren’t sure if we were gonna make it. Absolutely terrifying.”
— uracil / GabrielXS
28.“In seventh grade, my Girl Scout troop was on a weekend trip at a local camp, and we decided to go do some archery. Now at these camps, the targets were several feet across and set up on a big wooden wall that bolted to the concrete. Four total, two on either side of this little doorway in the middle. It was me, four other girls, my mom, and another girl’s mom. I take my turn, and I’m a pretty bad shot. Somehow I miss the target and send the arrow through the doorway and into a bush at the base of a tree. Go to retrieve, and I yank it out by the fletch because I’m not about to put my hands where I can’t see them at this place. Good thing, too…because there was a big copperhead snake stuck to the other end.”
— u / Logical - Wasabi7402
29.And finally…"[I was] walking my dog (Aussie shepherd) and suddenly he’s in full-blown defend-his-owner stance, barking and growling. It’s pitch black out and I live on a wooded street in the boonies. A 500-pound bear was six meters from us. He got up, looked me in the eye, and then casually walked away."
— U / LiterallyRickTocchet
Submissions have been edited for duration / clarity .
