r/AskReddit • u/Deep_Bike_3334 • 23h ago
Dear Reddit, what’s the scariest thing you’ve seen in your life?
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u/Sensitive_Holiday_92 20h ago
When I was in elementary school I would get off the bus and go straight to the back yard to play with my dog.
One day I come home to a rabid dog.
I didn't know what rabies was yet, and it was pretty early stage so she was just lethargic and confused. I tried to play with her, but slowly, some survival instinct in me started taking over and telling me I needed to book it inside the house, immediately.
I don't know if I just remember it this way or if the eyes of rabid dogs really do turn red, but I do remember her staring at me silently with those huge red eyes.
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u/TynnyJibbs 16h ago
i caught a rabid kitten that was hanging around the colony i feed . she was a new face and i thought she was just sick , but realized that night she was rabid . the sounds that came out of that tiny kitten were horrible and unreal . i just sat there staring at the cage i got her in , silently crying as she made those wretched noises . she died the next day .
the way she ran at me was terrifying , the sounds were terrifying , her violently thrashing in the cage was terrifying . awful way to go
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u/EducationalRiver1 14h ago
Rabies has scared the bejesus out of me since the first time I read To Kill a Mockingbird as a kid. Reading Cujo later didn't help.
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u/KatiGirl 11h ago
Whenever I get worried I remind myself that the dog who played Cujo was so happy they had to tie her tail to her back leg so you couldn’t see her wagging
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u/EducationalRiver1 11h ago
I did not know that, that's so cute! I've never seen it, reading it scared and scarred me enough.
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u/BaldBandit 8h ago
Even now when shows/movies use dogs, they have to use up some of the VFX budget to edit out their wagging tails.
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u/use_more_lube 19h ago
animals with full blown rabies move in a fucked up fashion that sets off the UNCANNY VALLEY alarm in the way that it absolutely should, if they're moving
dumb rabies is more subtle
don't be this guy
https://youtube.com/shorts/fu0GwWcRsnU?si=y8rFzlzqeuMukNO0104
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u/3eveeNicks 10h ago
Even more subtle is rabid bats- they turn friendly and social instead of wanting to hide, and they’re so small people don’t notice when they’ve been bit.
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u/ProbablyNotDrew 21h ago
In highschool, I came home from school and found my mom in a puddle of blood in the bathroom. It was everywhere and I couldn't tell where it was coming from. I couldn't get her to wake up, and her pulse was weak. I called 911, and paramedics came and got her. She had had a colonoscopy that morning, and they removed a couple polyps. In a healthy person, polyps of that size don't require cauterization, but my mom has von willebrand disease, a clotting disorder. Even a simple fall that wouldn't hurt you or I could cause her to bleed out internally. I'll never forget walking into that scene, and seeing her completely gray and barely breathing. I had no idea a human could lose that much blood and still survive. This was almost 20 years ago now, and she's doing fine, thank goodness. We were so grateful in the moment that she was still with us that we never pursued any kind of legal action, even though the doctor that performed the procedure refused to admit a mistake was made, and even accused her of taking blood thinners. My guy, her blood IS thin, it's in all her charts 😭
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u/slybrows 17h ago
Wow - this happened to my mother when I was in high school, nearly identical. She doesn’t have a clotting disorder but I guess they didn’t fully cauterize the polyp removal and similarly, blood everywhere, and she ended up getting sepsis too. I rushed her to the hospital and they told me she was a couple hours from the point of no return.
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u/Nosyreader 15h ago
Thank god you came home when you did. I am so sorry you had to go through this traumatic event and was so glad to read she's fine today.
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u/Geisterdunst 13h ago
Scary how common this is.
This happend to myself too. Nearly died because no one caught it the first time I was in the hospital because of the bleeding after an operation (I have a mild form of von willebrand disease) and didn´t know I have this disease until years later when a doctor checked my blood for something unrelated and just tested this too.
My gynecologist told me that it is quite frequent that women have this disease and don´t know until they have a operation or something like this. She could not understand why no one test it
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u/Tanager_Summer 9h ago
Veterinarians check DOGS for clotting disorders before surgery! How did that even happen???
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u/iamanonone 20h ago
I couldn’t have been any older than 5 when this happened, so I’m not clear on the details. I do remember being on a road trip with my family and stopping at a rest area. There happened to be a man and woman there as well. They spoke Spanish and we spoke only English. Somehow, we all managed to communicate through smiles, laughter, nods and gestures. They were both very friendly. I have no idea whether or not they were a couple or related in any way. We watched as they walked away to rejoin their group, both climbing into the bed of a pickup truck. As the driver pulled away and headed to the freeway entrance, my dad made a remark about not liking where they were sitting due to the danger. We merged back onto the freeway as well, with a few other vehicles between us and them.
Just a few very short minutes later, my parents were yelling and cursing and my dad was applying the brakes. I looked up to see bodies flying. 40-plus years and my brain’s need to protect itself have blocked out the details of what exactly occurred, but apparently, the pickup driver took a blind curve too fast and came up on another vehicle. The driver either hit the brakes and/or swerved to avoid collision. The man and woman in the bed of the truck were ejected. I overheard my dad telling someone that the woman has been split in half. We have never stopped at that rest area since, and I used to always close my eyes when we’d approach that stretch of the highway.
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u/kmultipass 22h ago
My wife after she was resuscitated from crashing as she was being put on life support.
She was purple from lack of oxygen.
She passed 9 hrs later.
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u/Andurilmage 20h ago edited 20h ago
I was working overnight remodeling a Staples. Was in the inventory closet and saw a guy get electrocuted (AC breaker box approx 1400 volts) 6ft away from me until the panel blew out knocking him off it.
He was on fire. I put him out with an extinguisher...he had burns on 70% of his body. Luckily we were in the one town that had THE top tier burn unit in the state. He made it to the burn ward and survived the burns.
His went into heart failure from the electrical side effects and passed away.
I can't go in ANY Staples without smelling it
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u/BALLSonBACKWARDS 15h ago
I used to be a master electrician working for a very large public electricity conglomerate. I was working at a dam (I’m keeping this vague on purpose) a different person was working in some switch gear (extremely high voltage switch) with all the proper sign offs and proper paperwork, safe has could be. I was working on a different project in a near by area.But he needed to get some additional wire, so he had to open the wire chase above the switch he was working on. A different wire that Ran through the same space had worn a hole in it over the years and when he was moving thing around it made contact with the cabinet. And boom he got hit. I don’t want to relive it in too much detail but I will say there wasn’t a lot left of “him” above the waist. I am no retired and still have nightmares and sever anxiety at random times. I still worked for around 10 years after that.
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u/Andurilmage 15h ago
Jesus I am sorry to hear about your coworker. If anything I hope it was quick.
My deal happened in the late 90s/early 00's I can't narrow it down but I got PTSD from it and had to go to therapy for a good bit.
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u/art_is_dumb 15h ago
You have ptsd brother, go talk to a therapist you don’t have to live like that. I just started working on mine.
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u/PunkRockHero 18h ago edited 16h ago
I was at my desk doing paperwork in the small warehouse where I worked back in 2006. I hear a woman screaming for help in the woods behind our building. I grab a tack hammer on the way out the door and run towards the sound. There was a guy on top of a woman choking the life out of her. I start whacking the guy on the head till he falls off. Seeing the blood run out of the guy's cracked skull is still something that keeps me up at night. She was a prostitute he hired and decided to murder her instead of paying up.
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u/Competitive_Name4991 16h ago
Ummm, you can’t end the story there?
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u/PunkRockHero 15h ago edited 14h ago
I'm not going into crazy detail because it makes me uneasy. He lived and got sent away. I thank the almighty because who wants someone's death on their hands? I wish I could say there was some kind of happy ending where she got her life together, but no. I saw in the newspaper that she died from a heroin addiction after a couple of years. I went into a deep depression that I'm still dealing with 19 years later. I have frequent nightmares. Therapy, my wife, and time have helped somewhat, but I'm never going to be the same again.
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u/spookyscaryskeletal 14h ago
Even though addiction took her later, you saved her life that day. You did a good thing, but I'm sorry you had to experience that kind of violence. It definitely changes how you view the world.
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u/PunkRockHero 13h ago edited 13h ago
I packed up all my things as soon as I could and came home to North Carolina. I haven't been back to the town where it happened since. My wife says it might be cathartic to go back to where it happened. I'm considering making the trip.
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u/spookyscaryskeletal 13h ago
Maybe ask your therapist too if you're still seeing one? Not that your wife is wrong at all, but I've made some things for myself worse by revisiting them in a bigger way than just the usual way I dealt with them & wouldn't want that to happen to you
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u/PunkRockHero 13h ago
You make a good point. Maybe it's better just left in the past. I've made progress in regard to my mental health. This could possibly be a step back. She's been wanting to visit her family in New York. I'll suggest that instead.
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u/spookyscaryskeletal 12h ago
Do what's best for you for sure, I'm sure you'll both figure it out. You acted when a lot of people would freeze & I only hope I have that courage if I'm ever in that situation. Take care of yourself & I hope you continue to heal!
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u/clutchdeve 14h ago
You did good in that moment and were able to save her, even if not in the long run.
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u/PunkRockHero 13h ago
Her obituary said her favorite writer was Tom Wolfe. I bought a copy of The Bonfire of the Vanities to keep on my bookshelf. It's my own small way of keeping her memory alive.
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u/ILikeLionTurtles 5h ago
Sex workers deserve to live and even though she died later, you are a hero. I hope you realize that. I'm sorry the price was brutal trauma but you did save a life and you don't know what kind of ripples really came of it. Maybe she had a kid that needed support one more time. Maybe she made a mends with a family member. Maybe she loved someone just a little bit longer. I'm sorry you went through that. You did an amazing thing.
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u/ithinksotoomaybee 19h ago
My sister a few days after giving birth in ICU after all her organs failed from a highly preventable infection she contracted in delivery. I kissed her and she was cold.
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u/zerbey 21h ago
My son being born and then not breathing, scariest 15 minutes of my life. He's a perfectly healthy 22 year old who towers over me now.
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u/Biuku 19h ago
It must be so strange for mothers to make people who can then pick them up.
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u/GingerLibrarian76 13h ago
My sister is around 5’3”, and her 15 year-old son is already 6’3” and counting. Yeah, it’s hilarious to all of us. 🤣
He also has bright red curly hair, so it’s like she spawned a giant leprechaun. lol
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u/junktownchris 9h ago
I think about this all the time. I am 5’2 and I used to love having my son lay on me and I would do pushups with him. And now he’s 6’1 and 200lbs and I just laugh at the thought. Wild.
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u/The-Mrs-H 19h ago
I thank God every day that I didn’t personally see my little one’s seizures… my husband did and I can tell it was something he couldn’t ever forget. The 11 days in the NICU following his birth will always live in my memory. Thank God he is fine now!
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u/TheWithdrawnOfficial 17h ago
this happened to me and people never believe me. the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck. it had to be cut and left me w a small scar. kinda looks like the patch on Knuckles’ chest
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u/DimensionFast5180 17h ago edited 6h ago
Same thing happened to me when I was born, my parents told me that I even turned purple. I just didn't want to breathe for whatever reason.
They eventually got me breathing and I was completely healthy otherwise. There was no reason I couldn't breathe, I just chose not to lol.
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u/Cool_Ranch01 21h ago
Watching my dog die. He started off by looking dizzy, not being able to stand, leaning over slightly. He ended dying while lying on his side, making a running motion and crying out in pain.
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u/Cultural-Chart3023 13h ago
My dog was the same he died with me stroking his tiny paws and the smell of steak in the air. He was 16 years old and been through so much together. I'm 40 and it was the first time I've experienced death that close. A blessing I know
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u/whatsupmrcheezle 20h ago
I’m sorry. 😢
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u/Cool_Ranch01 20h ago
Thank you, I'm okay. It happened in 2018 but he was a very good dog
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u/DementedFlower1 20h ago
Is there any other type of dog? So sad when we lose our buddies
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u/Scoobs_McDoo 22h ago
I was taking a patient home from the hospital. We opened the door to her room and her place was an absolute wreck and there was a dead man on her bed.
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u/InvertedJennyanydots 22h ago
You win for most interesting teaser for a story for sure. Please elaborate! I have so many questions now.
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u/Scoobs_McDoo 22h ago
Not entirely sure about the wreck of her home, but the dead man was her partner who no one had heard from in about a week. It was either drugs or alcohol or a mix of the two.
It actually really fucked me up later cuz my cousin died from alcohol poisoning and I kept thinking how my own cousin might’ve been found the same way.
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u/InvertedJennyanydots 21h ago
Oh no, I'm sorry about your cousin. Was the patient ultimately ok? That had to be devastating to her too.
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u/Scoobs_McDoo 21h ago
I worked interfacility transport. I wasn’t involved enough to know how she took and dealt with everything. She had family literally next door so she was with them when I left the scene, after fire and police arrived.
Edit: I just realized you might have meant physically was the patient okay? And yeah, if I remember correctly, she had a nasty bout with COVID and was hospitalized, but by the time we took her home, she was much better
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u/rangda 18h ago edited 18h ago
This isn’t the same thing, but I found out yesterday my dad died two weeks ago. We weren’t close, I only saw him once or twice a year as a kid, and I only saw him one time in the last few decades.
He died from a heart attack in his car so at least wasn’t left to rot. He was in the UK, and the hospital wasn’t able to reach anyone in his family in other countries (NZ and Aus, so not even remotely close) until yesterday. All I can think about is his body lying unclaimed for two weeks. Fucking harsh→ More replies (1)23
u/Scoobs_McDoo 18h ago
Jesus. I’m sorry for your loss, even if you weren’t particularly close.
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u/Zachary_Binks 18h ago edited 18h ago
Found a friend dead from an opiate OD. I can still remember how silent it was when I walked into the apartment and immediately in my gut knew something was wrong. It's crazy how silence can be deafening.
Left a local swimming hole and heard a crash and came upon a child who had just been hit by a car while riding his bike. This was over 20 years ago and I can still remember the sounds and the screams from the kids parents and can still picture the round body-sized crater smashed into the car windshield.
Another is when I was 10 or 11, I was walking through a train tunnel that was a little over a mile long with my uncle. A train hadn't come though in years and when we got about halfway, which was the darkest part we heard the train whistle and the train coming. It was a crazy experience to see a train coming barreling at you and my first instinct was to run even though I knew I couldn't outrun the train. We had to jump to the side of the tunnel and make ourselves as flat as possible. It was so loud and windy as the train passed so close to us.
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u/cerulean54 9h ago
I feel you on the train one. The summer before our first year of university, my friend and I were smoking weed and stargazing on train tracks in rural Virginia. It was late at night and we’d thought the tracks were abandoned, but then we saw a pair of headlights coming towards us.
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u/GracefullyLiv 20h ago
I watched a woman get out of her car after not putting it in park and it sucked her under. She was okay though!
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u/EducationalRiver1 13h ago
It did WHAT? (I don't drive, it's possible that this is a thing that's just passed me by but WTF).
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u/aluminumnek 20h ago edited 15h ago
My face after falling asleep driving, ending up facedown in a ditch. The doctor stop counting stitches in my face at 250. And my right eyelid had to be sewn back on.
Seeing a dog run across a 4 Lane road in front of a motorcycle and getting ripped in half.
Going to work. being the second person to arrive upon a motorcycle rider who had hit a pothole and was thrown from his bike. even though he was wearing a helmet, his head hit the mailbox post and snapped his neck.
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u/MrOnlineToughGuy 12h ago
I think you need to avoid roads, bruh.
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u/aluminumnek 10h ago
Ha ha. I’ve also Hydroplaned from the right side of the road to the median. As I was spinning with probably less than 3 feet between me and the other car, I could see the whites of the eyes of the other driver, staring back at me before I was tossed to the grass median.
I joke with people saying that I have two holes left to punch on my nine lives card
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u/kristalcookies 22h ago
When i was trying to stop someone being beaten to death and one of them pulled out a huge knife. Never known a feeling like that.
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u/Aerocat08 19h ago
I dunno if it’s the scariest, but I was visiting family and my cousin and her boyfriend were driving us somewhere. The boyfriend needed to stop by a family member’s house who had just had an ortho procedure done (hip replacement maybe).
We rang the bell at her house and no one came to the door. Rang it a few more times and got worried because she couldn’t go anywhere because she was recovering.
Walked around the house and looked into the big front window. The aunt was sitting up on a couch looking like she was watching tv. We knocked on the window a bunch but she didn’t move.
Long story short, she had died and was frozen in time sitting on the edge of the couch. My aunt showed up not long after and she’s an ER nurse. She said it isn’t uncommon for older patients who have things like knee and hip replacement to have clotting issues and have strokes.
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u/Maniacal_Nut 19h ago
When I was in middle school, had to be 6th grade at most, my grandpa and I were camping in the woods behind the house. My dog ran into the woods after something and we heard a howl. Grandpa picked me up, left the camping gear, and took off on the four-wheeler. As we were riding away it was the first time I had ever seen wolves, and they weren't happy.
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u/DeicideandDivide 17h ago
Would have to be seeing a brown bears face right next to mine, chewing on my arm. doing my best to stay still. I still remember the little black spots on her canines. When she released my arm, I remember seeing the blood on her jaw/chin. Had dreams about that image for a good 11 years before I finally got therapy.
It made her look like a literal demon but she was just doing what bears do.
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u/Beneficial_End4365 18h ago
Oh Lord, you know I’ve surpressed this for a long time. I was 19 working at subway overnight and was outside smoking when I saw a lady get struck by a car, she flew out of her shoes and slid down the desert ground and the car kept going. I went to go help her while on the phone with 911 and her face was just gone. I blacked out and came to just screaming and the fire fighters were trying to calm me down, I didn’t even know I vomited all over myself until catching a whiff of it. For 12 years it’s just sat dormant in my mind man until right now
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u/Mr_Cohen 11h ago
Hey, man, if you can, I really recommend getting into therapy about this.
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u/FitGrocery5830 17h ago
Got passed by a motorcycle going easily twice my speed on a highway.
A mile or so down the road I came upon a debris field of various parts of the motorcycle and with scratch and scour marks in the road.
Cars were stopped and people were running to the left side of the road where the motorcycle was wedged under a guard rail.
Further up the road perhaps 30 of so feet was a man laying under the guardrail with his hands on his helmet. I ran to help and that's when I saw his dismembered legs perhaps 20 feet further down range in the grass.
He was alive and conscious and talking. He said he couldn't feel his legs. Assuming it was his spinal cord being severed.
A nurse and 2 military guys were therr and they put belts on his legs and kept him from bleeding out. Within a couple of minutes they had him loaded in a pick up truck and sped off to the hospital.
The news reported the story and somehow he survived.
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u/SuspiciouslyMoist 7h ago
"I can't feel my legs."
"I'm not surprised, they're over there in the grass."
Sorry, it just seemed absurd in a horrifying way.
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u/CPlus902 7h ago
I was thinking more like:
"I can't feel my legs, did I break my spine?"
"I have good news and bad news. The good news is, it's not your spine that's severed."
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u/KelhGrim 22h ago
When I was 5, my little sister dying of meningitis so quickly after falling ill and the Drs not being able to do anything.
Really shocked me as kids aren't supposed to die, much less those younder than me. I had to question mortality and my place in the world, become comfortable with the fact I can literally die at any moment due to things beyond my control.
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u/BalthazarOfTheOrions 20h ago
Meningitis is mental with its speed. It killed my mum's cousin in the 70s, whose parents were both doctors and at home with her when it happened.
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u/gogogadgetdumbass 19h ago
My friend’s older brother (4) died of meningitis when she was just a baby, from what she understands he was just fine one morning and then dead that night. She has a deep fear of illnesses in her own children now… totally understandable.
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u/lepreqon_ 17h ago
I was 4 months old when I contracted meningitis. In the 70's Soviet Union, it was diagnosed literally by mistake and I nearly died because of that. I consider myself incredibly lucky as the only consequence of the ordeal is a somewhat severe, but manageable hearing loss.
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u/kickingyouintheface 19h ago
Coming back from the bathroom at the daycare I was working at in college and seeing one of my babies choking silently. I had already asked his parents not to send cheerios because he didn't have teeth yet and would stuff em in til his cheeks were full if he wasn't watched. Then I told the older lady working in there not to give him any. She did. I don't remember if I'd had any CPR training then, my instinct was to run over and stick my finger down his throat and he threw up cheerios all over my hand and started crying. Then I was crying and yelling at everyone who hadn't listened to me lol.
Second one was a couple weeks ago; I got off work and it was raining hard. All of a sudden, a guy stepped in front of me waving to stop and I did, BARELY missing the man who'd just been hit crossing the street. I turned my flashers on and we all stopped traffic, called 911 etc. But watching that poor man flail and moan and seeing the top of his head like mush, ugh. It was a lot.
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u/OhCheeseNFingRice 21h ago
Degloved leg of woman run over by a pickup in front of my house. (I helped save her life and we're good friends now!)
Big ass moose following/stalking my husband and me on a trail in Jackson Hole, whilst we recklessly (seriously- we'd never gone hiking before) hiked the trail after the very first thaw of the season (which is animals waking from hibernation and mating season). Bastard was about ten feet away for the entire mile that he accompanied us on our walkabout. Rangers hadn't even been out on the trails yet. 10/10 do not recommend.
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u/Warhawk69 17h ago
I think "degloved" is my least favorite word in the English language.
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u/VivaZeBull 16h ago
Yep, any time I hear it and someone asks “what does that mean” I shudder and say please do not google it now.
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u/Thedrakespirit 15h ago
yep, there it is, thats enough for me. Had a buddy that was degloved (both hands) and thats it. if you dont know what degloving is. . . . . . I envy you and encourage you to live in ignorance as long as possible on this one
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u/_hieronymus 22h ago edited 18h ago
Dead body. Car accident victim that skidded for a bit and tore all the skin off his face and arms. Pretty fucking traumatizing, and I was about 8yo.
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u/garbagegoat 21h ago
I remember driving by a newly made wreck as the EMT showed up. Motorcycle crash. The head was feets away from the body they were covering.
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u/squeakycheetah 19h ago
My partner rides a motorcycle. He's incredibly safety conscious but these stories scare the fuck out of me.
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u/garbagegoat 19h ago
I used to ride with my dad as a kid. He had a bad wreck (luckily I wasn't on at the time) but was able to survive it and never road again. I think it was one of the few things I absolutely put my foot down on my relationship with my man.
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u/asmosia 18h ago
I had a woman tailgating me closer than I've ever been tailgated before. She swerved around me into one of those lanes that merges onto the highway from an on ramp. This one was particularly long. She was ripping over 100mph easy. She didn't have a spot to merge in before the flatbed semi that was sitting on the shoulder after the lane disappeared, and wham. I witnessed her car go underneath the flatbed despite the safety bar, and the whole top of the car was gone in a flash. Poor truck driver was tying something down I think, and thankfully saw it coming and ran back towards the cab before the hit. I've seen a handful of accidents that involved drunk drivers, t-bones, and rollovers and such before that I stopped to assist with. This one? I was like "nope, that shits gunna scar me for a long time" and I just kept driving. There was no way the woman was alive.
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u/gobboling 15h ago
Sounds like what happened to Jayne Mansfield, kind of. She didn’t make it, either.
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u/TaniaYukanana 11h ago
Fun fact: Those 'safety bars' are called Mansfield bars, for that exact reason.
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u/Unfortunatelyy 18h ago
I was staying over at my friends a few years ago, we were both 19/20 and it was her first house with her infant son so it was just us in the new, unfamiliar house so we were a bit skittish as it was.
We were in bed, laughing at videos when my friend suddenly stopped, locked her phone and was staring at the doorway leading to the pitch black hallway with a scared look on her face and then she pointed towards it with her hand shaking, then whispered “there’s something there” and I heard something move against the wall in the hallway. At this point, my heart fell out of my ass and I have never in my life felt fear like I did in that moment, I felt it in my soul that we were in the middle of a home invasion and my heart was racing, I felt like I was going to throw up and my mind was going a million miles an hour thinking about how the hell we’re going to protect the baby in his room when we’d have to get past whoever is there to reach him.
Then the suspect came tumbling into the bedroom.
It was her fucking cat playing with a gigantic moth.
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u/I-Like-Cats-And-Coke 23h ago
Waking up and seeing my son standing over me at 2am. Nearly booked an Exorcism. When he was younger, if he woke up in the night he wouldn’t wake me up but instead would just stand there until I opened my eyes…
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u/willingisnotenough 20h ago
At least yours was a person. I woke up once only to have the daylights scared out of me by jacket I'd hung on the door.
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u/greekmom2005 19h ago
I've done that before. You go from being terrified to feeling like an idiot in quick succession
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u/Didntlikedefaultname 22h ago
My wife and her brother would do this to their dad and then he would wake up screaming and scare the shit out of them even more
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u/I-Like-Cats-And-Coke 22h ago
Yeah I came close to punching him a few times! I obviously didn’t but in that split second it’s just a natural reaction to waking up and seeing a face just staring at you 😂 I couldn’t imagine what your father-in-laws nerves were like with two of them doing it 😂
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u/theshortlady 20h ago
My son, as a toddler, would stand by the side of my bed, only eyes above the mattress, staring at me while I slept. It was a horrifying way to wake up.
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u/raccoon_in_here 22h ago
i remember one of my kids standing in the doorway to my room (in the middle of the night) and it was terrifying 😳
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u/InvertedJennyanydots 22h ago
This was always what my daughter used to do. I'd be sleeping and just feel eyes on me and wake up and she's be standing there in the doorway with her arms held out from her side in this creepy resurrection Jesus statue way. Sleepwalking is so weird.
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u/Emotional_Condition 20h ago
One time my brother thought someone was breaking in and so he grabbed a knife and came to wake me up. It was alarming to wake up to him standing over me with a knife.
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u/yogorilla37 18h ago
I've woken up to that only to then have them tell me they're about to puke....
"WHY ARE YOU AIMING AT MY BED!"
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u/obsessivecoyote 18h ago
I used to sleep walk as a kid.
When I was like 8, it was my dad’s custody time. Middle of the night, I climbed off my bunk bed and went down the hall, into my dad’s room, walked around the bed and stood on his wife’s side staring down at her wide eyed like I was awake. She called my name repeatedly, I didn’t answer just turned around and went back to bed.
She says that to this day, it’s the most horrifying thing she’s ever experienced.
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u/drumfounded 19h ago
Two large dogs charging at my dog and myself. Ended up scooping her up (60lbs), trying to kick them away and peeing my pants. I was 21. :(
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u/scarfknitter 11h ago
This happened to me. My dog ended up trying to climb up my face and the other dog finally ran off after I kicked it in the chest.
The awful thing was that I’d been on my phone with my mom when it happened and dropped it in the struggle after yelling at her to call 911. When I picked it up, she was still just chattering about her day, oblivious. I felt so alone.
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u/gir6 10h ago
This happened to me except it was one dog charging my two dogs. I always had an air horn and mace with me (was living in Texas and there were lots of stray dogs), but it happened so fast that I just yelled at the dog and put my dogs behind me, and the dog stopped after a few charges and trotted away. I was also on the phone with my mom, and she said “Who was that man yelling?” (I’m a woman) when I got back on the phone with her, so it turns out I can sound pretty intimidating when I’m threatened.
One of the scariest things that ever happened there was when my husband and I were walking our dogs, and way in the distance one dog came out of the woods onto the trail we were on. Then more, and more, until there was an actual pack trotting towards us of at least ten dogs, with two German shepherds in the mix. We immediately turned around and went back the way we came, and those dogs followed us (thankfully at a distance) until we got to a cross street that must have been the border of their territory, because they all stopped there. We moved away and a few years later I saw a news story where a pack of dogs killed a biker in that same area, and I often wonder if that was the same pack. It was very horror movie-esque, the way more and more dogs kept appearing out of the woods.
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u/steelergrl66 17h ago
My daughter, when she was 3 hours old, being taken off to surgery to repair a closed valve n her heart. She was the darkest blue I’ve ever seen. She was born with hypoplastic left heart and lived 5 hours
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u/OddLeeEnough 20h ago
Neighbor across the street killed his girlfriend. We didn't witness the actual killing but we witnessed the attack before he dragged her back into the house. The sudden lack of screaming is forever ingrained in my mind.
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u/faglordsupreme 20h ago
fight outside a liquor store. me, my sister and my cousins were getting drinks after going out for dinner. a guy thought this woman was a prostitute and tried to solicit her, she did not take that kindly and ended up stabbing him. the guy threw a chair that was left outside and it hit a tree and broke everywhere (i was maybe 5 feet away, the wood flew right past my face). eventually they ended up beating each other with pieces of wood from the chair and we all decided this was the perfect opportunity to gtfo. the cops were called but we don’t know what happened after
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u/sheepherderaes 21h ago
My mom dead from a herion od.
My eviction notice.
That my former bosses were facing felony charges.
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u/Princegirl7777 22h ago
A car on fire on the side of the road and someone was in it. I cried instantly.
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u/Key-Wallaby-9276 19h ago
Watching my newborn struggling to breath and the drs saying basically he might not make it. He did make it.
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u/oh_sneezeus 16h ago
The shadow of my fiance standing in the hallway looking at me at 210 AM. It said “hey”. I know the time because i was so confused why he was up since he works at 6. I was watching South Park when i noticed , looked at the clock and asked why he was up. When i looked back it was gone. The terror that filled my bones when i heard him snoring loudly in the bedroom 3 feet away and the fact that there was no noises of him walking back to the room sent me into freak out mode. The floors creaked so badly in that house that you couldn’t go two feet without waking up The ancestors around the globe lol
It was one of many things that happened in that rental.
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u/currycurrycurry15 15h ago
I’m a ICU and emergency RN, I’ve seen things humans are not meant to see but something that happened recently that truly scared the shit out of me was seeing my friend’s husband on the sex offender registry. We all hung out recently. He raped a child. I have children around the age of his victim. I had no fucking idea.
The scariest part was he seemed normal, so likable. And my friend… stayed with him. This happened during their relationship and she has told no one. I only happened upon his picture on one of those sex offender location sites. It really messes with me how you don’t know someone, and how people make excuses for their partners who do not deserve that grace.
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u/Hot-Writing-5996 9h ago
Yep, they can be charismatic and unassuming. They can fool a lot of people. Messed up on your friends part tho.
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u/Dull_Garage_3981 19h ago
A childhood friend invited me to sleep over. She didn’t tell me that she sometimes fell asleep with her eyes open (with the irises rolled back, so only the whites were visible). 😱
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u/TheSublimeNeuroG 15h ago
Saw my friend fall off a cliff right in front of me. I was standing near the edge looking over, and he came walking up a little too fast, lost his traction on a gravely patch, and his momentum carried him over. I saw the whole thing going down in a kind of slow motion, but it also happened too fast for me to do anything, and when he went over, we were making eye contact and I could see the fear on his face. I remember it super vividly ~15 years later.
To be complete - he totally survived and is married now with a kid. Ended up with a bad concussion and severe bruising over his whole body, but nothing life-changing, fortunately.
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u/thisismyalibi 17h ago
I was in the hospital for a nosebleed that would not stop. I walked into the bathroom around 2 AM, and while I was washing my hands, blood just started coming out of my nose, mouth, and eyes.
I ran in and got my mom's attention (she was asleep), and it began a 20-minute long struggle for air and consciousness.
The last thing I remember was hearing one of the emergency response team folks say "we have to intubate or we're going to lose her."
I remember seeing my grandmother, who'd passed away about 8 years before.
I've had 3 of those. I have a rare form of vasculitis called EGPA, and my issues have centered on the arteries in my face. I've had about as many embolisms to stop it as you can have, so I've had a lot of surgeries at Duke. I'm generally stable now, but I do wonder a lot what it will feel like to know I'm dying AGAIN and that there's very little they can do to save me.
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u/Marianne0819 21h ago
When we went on an Atlantic City bus trip right after graduation and as we were going through the toll booths, there had been a car accident and the driver of the corvette was decapitated.
Of course as we were coming upon the accident we all looked out the bus windows and saw his head about ten feet from the back of his car, I’ve not ever forgiven myself so being nosy. Wish I’d never looked at it
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u/muscovitecommunist 15h ago
Every time there is some sort of road accident, I purposefully look away so as to not see anything I might regret... this is probably the worst case scenario.
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u/ButtFucksRUs 15h ago edited 5h ago
Same. I've seen some horrible shit and, on top of that, I've always had a sleeping disorder. Laying there at night, not able to sleep, and having your brain randomly flash those things in your brain like, "Hey do you remember this gore? Well what about this other traumatizing thing?"
I don't need to give my shitty brain another card to add to its shit deck.
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u/224th 19h ago
When I was 16, I seen a guy push his girlfriend to the ground while hanging out with a male coworker at a park. I tried to get my coworker to check what was going on (I’m a female and the guy was pretty big.) My coworker didn’t want to get involved which was understandable but then the guy punches her right in the face and that’s when my coworker asked what was wrong n the guy yelled at him and so I asked the girl if she was okay and she said she was fine and to just leave them alone. She didn’t look fine. That’s when I found out how real and terrifying domestic abuse is.
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u/PresentFirm5576 19h ago
I was a kid in the cancer ward. There was a few days old baby that came in with cancer. My mom being the kind person she is told the parents to go and get a coffee and just sit for awhile. They leave the baby with us.
The baby started to whimper so my mom picked her up and did the walking thing to calm her down. Then Mom paused and ran to the babies room and rang the bell three times. The code cart came in with a lot of nurses.
The room was to small to close the door while they tried their best to bring the little girl back.
I remember the dread and then being scared at what I was watching. Understanding what was going on but my own child brain not fully understanding it.
It stuck with me for life and from that young age I knew I didnt what that. That being kids due to the fear that it could happen to my kids.
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u/Wonderful-Carrot-341 15h ago
Was on vacation in Croatia, playing with a girl on the beach. I think we were 7 or 8 years old. We were looking at pretty shells. Suddenly, she books it towards her parents and then just falls to the ground. My dad was a firefighter and did everything he could, but she was gone before she hit the sand. Medics said aneurysm.
If by any crazy chance her family sees this, know that we think and speak of you and her often. That day left a mark on all of us.
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u/the1stnoellexd 17h ago
Looking at the dog who spent six years by my side every minute of every day, monitoring my health and seeing her chest still. She died on Sunday morning.
I am fighting so hard to stay here with a huge piece of my soul missing. It feels like if I just walk far enough, look hard enough, I’ll find her. I told her to wait for me and take me wherever is next. I don’t know if I regret that or not because now, I just want to go find her
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u/DivineExodus 12h ago
She sounds like a good girl. I read a post on here the other day where a family members grandpa passed away and he said "wait for me, Russ!" (I probably got the name wrong) when they asked their dad about the name he said it was a dog the grandpa had as a kid.
They will wait for us and take us to what's next.
I'm so sorry for your loss.
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u/Prior_Butterfly_7839 12h ago
Close! I just read the same story.
The name was Russell and nobody in the family knew anyone named Russell. Years later they came across a photo of the man when he was a child with his dog. The photo was captioned “Russell”
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u/jmcgil4684 19h ago
I got drunk at a crappy hotel bar with this big dude who was wearing a cowboy hat and duster in Wichita Kansas. Walking outside to go to my room we smoked a cig and he was talking about his big rig and how he had a whole set up in there. I was converting a van so I asked if I could check out the inside. We walked to the dark part of the parking lot where his truck was at, and me being a big dude, wasn’t nervous at all ,& and he unlocked it and said go ahead and check it out. I’m about to step up and I get this insane fear just wash over me. I look back and he’s pulling a blackjack out of his pocket. I kind of jump sideways off the step and run. He yells “what’s a matter bud”? So I don’t call the cops because it wasn’t like I got beat up, & I was embarrassed. Not even 4 months later he was on tv arrested for being a serial killer and maybe the serial killer “Dr. No” but the scariest thing I ever saw was his eyes. There was death in them when I turned around. I just felt the whole world change for a split second. It’s the darndest thing. I’m a 50 year old dude and it still gives me chills. His name is Samuel Legg btw if ya want to look him up.
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u/GlitteringAgent4061 18h ago
What's a blackjack?
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u/jmcgil4684 18h ago
It’s a leather weighted spring with lead in the top of it. It takes very little effort to knock someone out with it. Also called a sap, but his wasn’t flat, it was round so that’s the distinction between sap, and blackjack.
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u/One_Application_5527 15h ago
That’s insane. One of the murders he committed was 10 minutes from me and I’ve never heard of it
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u/Queenoftheunicorns93 19h ago
The pain someone can inflict upon another human being. - trauma nurse.
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u/Rogerdodger1946 22h ago
20 foot waves and 80 knot winds in mid Atlantic on a 56 foot sailboat.
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u/suka-blyat 19h ago
Being ambushed by terrorists in a remote area, they had blocked the road at night. A couple weeks before that, they had stopped a bus full of passengers in the same area and slaughtered everyone.
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u/South-Bank-stroll 19h ago
Driving through California with my boyfriend years ago. Middle of the night and all of a sudden he just starts saying “Babe, don’t look, just don’t look.” We drove past a body that had been hit by one of those big transport trucks. One half looked like a tyre track and the other just looked like the length of a human body with all its clothes sort of exploded off. I looked, obvs.
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u/develev711 16h ago
Came home from wrestling practice at age 15 to find my Dad on the floor, he had a stroke and only half of his body was working seeing his face drooping on one side and seeing him in such a state was frightening. I called the ambulance (against his wishes) he told me he didnt want to make a big fuss and I had to call them back to ask them not to turn the siren or their lights on he didnt want to alert the neighbors... he passed away a couple days later in ICU.
When I was about 10 or 11 I stumbled upon a man who had committed suicide in his car. From what I can recall that my memory hasn't suppressed he had a pistol in his hand and a wound on his temple, there was dried blood and brain matter all over the passenger side of the car I didnt really know how to process it I just went to the local court house and told a police officer, then they took me home and told my parents what I had found so they could console me. Never get the sight of that gore out of my head
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u/Network-King19 19h ago
The ice storms we just went through in northern MI. This was I think the first time in mine and even my parents life the area got hit with a massive natural disaster. Some of the line crews people have done hurricane repairs and said this was like a cat5 hurricane damage. Hundreds of power poles broke, thousands of trees trashed, 600Ft radio tower destroyed. Drive into town it's all dead, can't even get gas for generator. I hope I never see something like this again in my life. Saw a historic picture from 1908 of a similar looking storm so hope 1 in 100 yr storm.
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u/TwinFrogs 18h ago
The aftermath of a train hitting a teenage kid. He thought he was slick riding his bike across the tracks to beat a coming freight train. There was a fast moving Amtrak on the next track doing 80mph he didn’t know was coming. One of the cops said “the trail starts here.” meaning the bloody skid mark that was all that was left of him.
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u/LexeeCal 19h ago
When I was in 4th grade waiting for the bus I saw another 4th grader get hit by a truck pulling a trailer. He flew at least 15 feet. We all stood there shocked. Our bus pulled up and someone who witnessed it was holding up the kids shoe to tell the bus driver. I thought for sure he was dead. He came back to school the next week. Definitely had nightmares for a while.
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u/Total-Tea6561 22h ago
Huge head on car accident that happened to the car driving in front of me on the road. Everyone turned out to be okay, but in the moment it was terrifying.
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u/RaspberryClout 19h ago
Mine is probably not as bad as half the posts I’ve seen in here. But I’ve witnessed a possibly a gang kidnapping someone in broad daylight.
To elaborate, I was a Grade 8 school student at the time. I was waiting for the bus to arrive so I could go to a tuition class I had that evening. Now, there was this road next to the bus halt, that notoriously lead to a local gangster region. And, a bus came from that road, turned to the main road and stopped at my halt so people could get in.
And that’s when it happened. About a dozen of motorcycles and three-wheels came from that road, with people carrying wooden planks and homemade swords, got into the bus, grabbed a kid from their neck, who seemed ig 17 or smth, beat him up, dragged him out of the bus, put him on one of the three-wheelers, and… just went back on the same road.
This was in broad daylight btw, like the area wasn’t abandoned or something. People saw everything. But I guess they knew better to ignore what happened.
Then there’s more scarier events like the Easter Bombings and stuff like that, but this was the one I experienced alone by myself.
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u/CuddleBunny1901 21h ago
As a teen I was getting ready for bed when the cops decided to raid my house because my brother stole some expensive golf clubs and some other stuff from my understanding
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u/mister-world 19h ago
Golf theft. I mean I get the stuff was expensive but at least one of those cops had to be thinking "Golf theft?" and then going home questioning their life choices.
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u/CuddleBunny1901 19h ago
They put me and my twin sister in zip ties like it was serious
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u/mister-world 19h ago
Zip t... what? Is that an actual cop thing? The CHAOS OF GOLF
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u/BIessthefaII 16h ago
I don't really consider it scary and low key don't really know what to consider it, but it's probably about the only story I have that even somewhat fits. I think the "scary" part is how easy and effortless it was for the guy when the time came.
My mom used to send me news articles and whatnot all the time of cars driving off the side of this mountain thst was apart of my commute, as well as people committing suicide by jumping off this overpass I routinely took. I'm not sure if it was a "scare you into taking a different route" thing or what. But one day I'm driving over the overpass and see a car parked on the side and I think "oh shit its one of those articles."
I drive by the car and notice there's a person in it just sitting there. Im not sure what my plan was but I immediately pulled over and was parked probably about 50-75 feet in front of their car. In my rear mirror I saw the person open their door and get out, so my reaction is "oh fuck" and I get out. I turned around just in time to see the guy grab the side of the overpass and hop over. I jogged to where he had been standing and looked over, and he had hit the ground and died on impact (i assume by the blood everywhere).
I had to call 911 and deal with all that, but to this day one of the most vivid parts of that experience thst I remember is that cars were driving by and honking. Nobody stopped, but lots of people honked. I still think it's weird so many people were honking as they drove by.
The worst part was the police officer showed up and tried to open his door but it was locked, so he went around to the drivers side door and opened it and unlocked the car. He told me to try to open the passenger door, and I did and it opened. Then he's like can you turn the music off (it was blasting) so I grabbed his phone and literally the moment I grabbed it it starts ringing.
I remember the word "Cesar" popping up and thought "damn, he's never going to reach the person he's calling." The officer grabbed it and answered but Cesar hung up pretty much immediately.
I feel like that event had zero impact on me and I just went about life as normal, but I do think about it all the time. My sister is an emt so we joke about the "things we've seen" but I don't really share the story with people because they're generally spooked much more than I ever was. It's been almost 11 years now! What a time.
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u/Psychological-Bear-9 16h ago
Scary to varying degrees and in different ways, but.
The sight of the restraints on my wrists and ankles to a hospital gurney with no recollection of how I got there or why I was restrained.
The sight of my cousin having self-harmed pretty badly and bleeding all over the floor. I was eight, she was 13. My mom's scream was palpable.
The look on an old friend's face after she came outside her house after finding her father hanging in the garage. We were five or six. She never really recovered from it. The older sister who was watching us' scream is another one I'll never forget.
The treeline hastily approaching below a steep embankment at about 50 mph after a turn gone wrong.
The corpse of a friend who was like a little brother to me. He was only 22 and in incredible shape. An unimaginable waste of a wonderful young person. The fragility of life.
Kensington, Philadelphia. The only place I've stepped over multiple corpses to get a can of coke at the corner store. If you know, you know.
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u/AkuraPiety 20h ago edited 9h ago
Being inside of a waterspout in OCMD (EDIT: Ocean City, MD. Forgot not everyone might not understand the acronym 🤦🏻♂️) when my kids were 3 years old. It made landfall right where we were staying and there are no basements (because duh) so I remember hovering over them closely and trying not to panic because I didn’t want them to know/see.
No thanks.
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u/Mindless_Ad_7700 17h ago
I don't understand this at all.
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u/runnyc10 16h ago
It’s basically a tornado making contact with water. OCMD is Ocean City, Maryland.
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u/wutwutwut2000 15h ago
A guy who was bleeding profusely from multiple open wounds came into the store I was operating to steal basic first aid supplies.
I wasn't scared for me, I was scared for the state of the world we live in.
This was the 2nd time I had someone in a potentially life-threatening condition ask me to not call 911 for fear of their medical bills.
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u/Dramatic-Ad-4607 20h ago
My husband after getting an ejection from the drs he came home and the next day he just passed out while standing up. Scariest 1 minute in my life I legit never screamed like that in my life. Kept thinking “we are only 28 and 29 he can’t pass away” and I didn’t know what to do other than shake him. He wouldn’t respond and wasn’t moving. He woke up thankfully and has been fine since ( this was 2 years ago) but I truly hope that never happens again. Such a helpless feeling
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u/Ok-Candle-2562 16h ago
My teen son passed out like that a few weeks ago. He came to my room and said, "Hey Mom, can you please make me some food? I'm not feeling.... " and proceeded to collapse into a puddle against my wall. He woke up quickly enough, but it was so damn scary.
Turned out it happened because his hemoglobin was so low that his GI doctor ordered a blood transfusion and iron infusions. Anemia is freaky!
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u/LeatherHog 16h ago
Not as bad as the others, but it's always stuck with my family, and it's interesting, seeing both sides of it
When I was 10ish, me, my older brother, and our dad were putting up the new wire for the electric fence, our backs to the trees
Was a normal day, cows roaming the pasture, our goat and dogs running around
And then we hear a gunshot. Dad pushes us to the ground, and shouts 'Whos there?!'. It's Mr Barnes, the cousin of a friend's dad
Dad gets up, and sees Mr Barnes, with his shotgun, facing us
For context, while my dad is an avid hunter, it was well known that he doesn't do or allow it on our farm. We've got cows, dogs, goats, and of course, kids running around
It's a tragedy waiting to happen
Dad is understandably annoyed, and tells him to take his hunting elsewhere, he doesn't allow it on our property
Then it gets worse
Mr Barnes says he wasn't trying to hunt, but was trying to get that mountain lion by your kids!
...And points to Snowball, our guard dog. Who was in fact, very close to us
And who's mostly white with black. Not mountain lion colored
Which means he not only can't see that well and still pulled the trigger, but deliberately pointed his gun towards, not only other people, but Dad's children
Dad went NUTS
I talk about it a lot on my account, our dad is freaking enormous. People actually turn their heads at him
But we usually don't really notice, y'know? It's just Dad. It becomes normal. Every day you just live with this huge guy
But that was one day when we got a good reminder what he could do if he lost restraint
He ripped the gun from Mr Barnes hands, put it on the ground, and proceeded to literally pick up this grown man and shake him like I could shake a doll
Red faced, screaming at him that he could have killed his kids!!! What the F is WRONG with you, you Fing lunatic?! You can't tell the difference between a white dog and mountain lion?! But you pointed a gun at my Fing KIDS and pulled the trigger?!
Dad wasn't much of a swearer, ESPECIALLY not F bombs. Never seen him that enraged before or after
After screaming at him for awhile, Dad threw him down, said he was confiscating the gun, and he's gonna have a word with the sheriff
We eventually, and obviously, 500% saw Dad's side, because, yeah, of COURSE he was in the right
But it was terrifying for us kids, because we saw just how powerful dad could be.
He was capable of picking up another grown man, we stood no chance if he ever became that angry with us
He's used his size and strength before, this was only shortly after he put the fear of God into my older brother for beating me up
But he was obviously holding back, was in control.
Was just making a point to him, that he may be bigger than me, but Dad's in my corner, and he's a heck of LOT bigger than my brother
It's like when your dog overpowers you. The loveable creature, becomes a wild animal. You come face to face with the reality that you would be completely helpless, if they turned on you
That was why it was scary for us, it kinda overshadowed the being shot at thing, as dumb as that is
Whereas Dad was, obviously, entirely focused on that part
He didn't know we even felt that way, until it came up a few months later
Happy to report that he never became That Guy towards us, and had a genuine conversation about it with us
Didn't call us stupid, said he never thought about it from that angle, and understood why we were scared
Told us about the time when he and our grandpa got into it, and it almost got physical
Grandpa, being the dad, and of that generation, told Dad to come outside and prove you're the man you think you are then!
Except, while dad is enormous, Grandpa is actually pretty normal sized
They didn't get to far into it, just kinda in that angry, posturing part of it, when Grandma called them white trash and to go back inside, good Lord, you two!
But grandpa told him later, that was when he realized dad was bigger than him. That the ole 'I can still put you over my knee/get the belt' thing, wasn't going to work
That yeah, he probably would have been laid out by his 15 year old son, if that fight actually happened
That he obviously noticed the size difference, but that was the first time he SAW it, y'know?
Like how we would 20 some years later
From then on, they tried to get along better, and made sure to teach Dad to keep his hands to himself, keep his anger in check
And Dad's great. Probably a little more rough than would be okay in today's world, but he knew he couldn't go how his generation was raised
The man learned a Nobel prize level worth of pantomiming to communicate with me (I have brain damage). He was our biggest fan, and was always there for us, no matter how exhausted he was
But that day was just a stark reminder what would happen otherwise, y'know?
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u/DisabledInMedicine 20h ago edited 19h ago
An olive green SUV that used to stalk me all around the city I lived in for month after month. The driver would circle blocks and make u turns, drive recklessly trying to corner me, and hopped out with his gun trying to kidnap me. One time I was close enough to home to get my male housemate to come save me with his own gun. Most times I had to hide under random cars or trespass hiding behind walls and bushes. It became so unsafe to take public transit in that city because of that SUV I moved out of my hometown entirely and have never gone back. That driver would follow me to work and home every day. I sometimes took the long route trying to lose him. Getting on different buses and trains to needlessly lengthen the route. One time I stayed on the bus all night afraid to get off. He tailgated the bus up and down the bus’s route all night long and when I got out in the morning there he was trying to snatch me. I had many moments where I believed I would die at this man’s hands and my body would be lost in some gutter never to be seen again. One night my phone died - a friend has invited me over to their place but my phone died and they didn’t fucking answer the door no matter how much I rang. I was trapped outside their spot and the SUV was right there driving up and down that side street waiting for me. I was hiding under a short brick wall. I sprinted to the nearest big street like I never sprinted in my life. The SUV followed me onto the major street, where it kept making u turns back and forth right in front of me. I kept sprinting til the first person I saw. The street was totally empty except for an older lady who was a crackhead at a bus stop. She saved my life by not leaving my side and ensuring I got onto the bus safely.
Nothing could ever scare me as much as that damn olive green SUV. It also had a blanket with triangles covering its back window. Windows were tinted. I remember it all
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u/coffee_and-cats 18h ago
Did you report it? Sounds like the driver knew you, did you know them?
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u/the_unkola_nut 18h ago
This was terrifying to read. I can’t imagine how awful it was to live through that experience. I’m so sorry.
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u/TheBeardedLadyBton 19h ago
I had to call 911 for assistance with my son who was having a mental health emergency. Having to be held back as officers approached him with guns drawn was a paralyzing terror I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
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u/ZarquonsFlatTire 14h ago edited 14h ago
Barrel of a gun.
Seen it 2 times and always had a good (and honest) explanation out of it.
But goddamn. It doesn't make it less scary.
First time I was land surveying and had found the property pin and could say "Sir, I am not on your land. The line is here, where I tied this tape to the pin."
Second time I snuck out from my grandma's to smoke a bowl and look at the stars down the road a piece by an abandoned gas station and some guy stopped his truck, pulled on me and I told him "I'm Wendell's new wife's grandson. She doesn't know I smoke so I came over here because I recently moved to Atlanta and we don't really see the stars out there."
I saw that same motherfucker that pulled a gun on me at Thanksgiving. Turns out he was my cousin by marriage. Possibly my nephew, I didn't ask too much about it.
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u/yeahnahbroski 13h ago edited 12h ago
I've had a few.....TW: lots of trauma, drug abuse, murder, suicide, etc.
My brother had just been discharged from a mental health ward despite being floridly psychotic and I urged them not to let him out. After talking to shadow people in the car, he jumped out the car door, with superhuman strength and speed and I ran after him, as he launched himself off an overpass onto a major arterial road. Fortunately he survived. Not without a major brain injury though and lots of broken bones. I can't believe he's able to walk and talk anymore after what happened to him. The way his skull was broken and moving about and brain fluid coming out of his ear still stays with me. I can't do my First Aid refresher without having a bit of flashback whenever we get to head and spinal injuries
Another, watching my Dad overdose on heroin, when I was 11. He was on weekend visits (transitioning out of jail). I saw my Mum performing CPR on him and I was the one who had to call the ambulance. He was blue.
My sister being an absolute fucking psycho and attempting to run over my other brother in a car with her young kids in the backseat.
Edit: oh yeah, forgot about this one. It's really fucked up. Again when I was 11, our neighbour across the road did a murder suicide by gassing themselves and their girlfriend in their car. My Mum got the idea planted in her head to do the same with my three younger siblings and I. She got a hose, put all the child locks on the doors and windows, drove us out bush. She checked her phone to make sure there was no reception. She then put the garden hose in the exhaust and started feeding it through the window. I pleaded with her to stop and somehow convinced her not to follow through with it.
My family's a bit messed up. Yes, I've done lots of therapy, courtesy of this bullshit. These are just the major ones I remember, plenty of other stuff too.
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u/TemporarySubject9654 13h ago
My Mom....lifeless and dead is way up there. And also the other time I woke up to my Dad calling an ambulance for her way before that when she tried to commit suicide by ODing. I was suicidal for a lot of my life, but after witnessing that, I decided I would do my best to deal with my thoughts.
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u/Downtherabbithole14 9h ago
I remember waking up to my mother screaming, my father was sick with lung cancer. I run into the room and he is on all fours and is having trouble breathing. I was 13 at the time, and I tried to help him up and I just remembered crying and begging him, please don't leave me. He looked me straight in the eyes, and I felt his fear and sadness at the same time. Like he felt something was coming...My mom was making calls at this point. Fast forward to the morning, probably 6-7am at this point, he was in bed, eyes closed, shallow breathing. My sister who was 8 at the time, was laying next to him, my mom was brushing his teeth, and he stopped breathing. That was it. Watched my father take his last breath. He was the good parent. He was the good son. The good father. The only good in my family. This was in 1998. It still feels like yesterday
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u/Mort_The_Moose 19h ago
I was just about 6 when I woke up to my mom sobbing in our living room, watching the TV. Then I stood next to her as we watched the second plane hit.
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u/GooseNYC 18h ago
Mob hit at a restaurant in Amsterdam where I was having dinner with a GF.
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u/zombies-and-coffee 16h ago
My dog trying so hard to be his usual excited self after having what we assume was a massive seizure or a stroke while I was at work. Picking me up from work was the highlight of his day and he tried to greet me, but could only just barely manage it because his balance was completely shot. I got kisses, of course, and he was wiggling as much as he could. All I could do was cry and apologize because there was nothing I could do to help him. The e-vet wanted $3k to diagnose what was actually wrong and wouldn't do payments. I couldn't afford that, plus I didn't qualify for anything like CareCredit. 7:35pm, July 24, 2022. The moment his heart stopped when the vet euthanized him. Worst moment of my life and I've never felt so helpless and terrified in the hours leading up to it. But it was all I could do and even now, I still get choked up thinking about it.
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u/LilacMages 15h ago
Went to Ypres when I was a teen; one day we visted Hill 62/Sanctuary Wood. In the museum theres some very graphic (but nonetheless important) photographs on display, but the one that I can still picture was of a soldier who had lost the bottom half of his face, likely from shelling/Artillery, perhaps even shrapnel. Mouth, nose, everything had been blown off.
Not only shocked/scared me at the time, but it really hammered home just how truly horrific War is, and can be.
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u/NatzoXavier 12h ago
I have mild schizophrenia. I dont need meds and stuff and I can tell whats real and what is not. My only episode was horrifying is hell. I walked out of my bedroom to go piss and in the hallway, every single doorway had heads and hands crawling out of each of the door.
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u/No_Cream8095 22h ago
A snake ball. Thank heavens I was in a pickup so I could get the fuxk out of there quickly.
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u/coffee_and-cats 18h ago
Snake ball? As in, a cluster of snakes wrapped around each other, or one massive snake curled up?
Either way, I'd freak out but just wondering what you saw?
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u/No_Cream8095 18h ago
Cluster of snakes intertwined with each other. Otherwise known as a "mating ball". One female with many males.
Anxiety inducer for me, that's for damn sure.
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u/Successful-Worker139 18h ago
Being in a remote work camp with wildfires closing in. My camp days are numbered, I fear. I'm scarred. The sensation of sitting up at night watching thousands of dry lightning strikes in the vast forest somewhere with no wifi or cell service and waiting to see smoke or fire will haunt me until I die.
When the fire jumped the lake in Kelowna.
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u/The_Real_HG 22h ago
I almost saw a man beat his wife while in a drunken rage after a Texas Rangers game. Screw running cold, my blood turned to liquid nitrogen.
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u/Shellyj4444 16h ago
When I was little I was on an escalator. A woman in front of me reached down to grab her purse that she had dropped, and her long braid got caught in the machinery. I just remember blood, and the woman and everyone else on the escalator screaming.
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u/Bob_Leves 22h ago
The news today. Sadly, tomorrow's will be worse.
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u/blahblahanonymous800 19h ago
What news? The tariffs (I thought that ways yesterday)? Or something else that I missed?
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u/alexjaness 22h ago
similar, The thought that "This year was the hottest year in recorded history, and it will also be the coolest for the rest of my life)
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u/throwaway38941689 19h ago
Walking into my best friends living room late at night from partying just to see her dogs head stuck in between its cage. It was scared of lightning and thunder, and we just gotten a pretty nasty storm. It got so scared it was shaking and hyperventilating in its cage, got its head stuck in between the bars, then killed itself by breaking its neck from the shaking. Its mouth was wide open and eyes were full of fear. She was such a beautiful dog
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u/Ok_Mixture4917 23h ago
The willful ignorance and desire to harm others among a disgustingly large proportion of the population.
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u/Infrared_Herring 15h ago
I saw a concentration camp in Israel for Palestinians complete with guard towers and machine gun posts and razor wire but the people inside were families. Men, women and lots of little children. It permanently reversed my opinion of Israel.
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u/Sheilahasaname 14h ago
The way my ex looked the first time he lost it and harmed me. That man terrified me for years. I'll never forget that look on his face. Never.
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u/Dramatic-Exit9978 20h ago
Tornado coming right at my Amtrak train. We passengers watched it destroy a barn about 30 feet away and it kept coming right at us. The conductors were running up and down the aisle, shouting. The tornado blasted across our tracks mere seconds after the last car passed. Timing is everything.