What Terrible Accidents Did You Narrowly Avoid? (r/AskReddit)

I once had an elevator dropped ten plus floors rapidly before deciding it would work properly what random Horace has the universe subjected you to only to say JK lol right before the point of no return when I was 10 I was on a helicopter visiting an island off the southeast coast of England everything was going smoothly until the helicopter turned onto its side and proceeded to nosedive for a good 10 seconds towards the sea needless to say this had everyone screaming and scared shitless the helicopter suddenly levels often the pilot comes onto the PA system and says sorry people could have sworn I spotted a dolphin won't happen again I now hate helicopters I'm a private pilot one time I was nearing the air quarter land I hit the switch to put the landing gear down and only two lights showed up indicating that the two main gear were down but the nose gear was not coming down so if all else fails I would either have to raise the gear and do a belly landing or do a landing with only two gear which would be even more dangerous but first I went back away from the air core to try to work out the problem if possible I tried raising the gear and reloading it same thing two lights but no nose gear because the gear comes down from the force of gravity I tried pulling a few GS to force it down nothing I tried wiggling the rudder since the turning mechanism is connected to the nose gear nothing maybe a few more GS nothing finally I remembered what the instructor had told me in passing when I was getting checked out in the particular aircraft the lights for the gear are interchangeable so that if one is burnt out you can switch them around but so I went to switch them just in case the nose gear light was burnt out as soon as I touched the light to change it it came on in the end the light wasn't all the way in the socket and that's what the problem was I did the low pass over the tower so they could visually check just to be sure landed successfully in the end five long had a fear of heights and at one point in my life I set out to conquer it completely I had been on high ropes courses in the past and done some actual climbing and rappelling here and there but the fear persisted I took a course on climbing to bolster my courage it was during one of the last days of the class were roughly fifty feet up on the 60-foot climbing tower I came to realize I was loosing my grip and lacked the dexterity and strength to recover I called out to my ballet that I was falling shortly after I dropped but nothing caught my ballet had lost the ropes I knew enough to fall with my legs slightly spread knees slightly bent and arms up but he didn't matter I hit the ground and there was nothing I could do prevent my knees from buckling my ass hit the ground and then suddenly I bounced back up the Rope gave a few more weak bounces and I was left suspended with my feet dangling inches above the ground I could point my toes and just touch the instructor somehow got a hold of the ropes and set the belay I never got back on the tower one of my buddies stepped on a pressure plate that was wired to an ie D while on patrol in Afghanistan he felt his foot sink down and froze and nothing happened when EOD the army version of the bomb squad finally arrived they looked at the ID and couldn't figure out any reason why it hadn't gone off the EOD tech just said to my friend yeah you should be dead dude I once studied abroad in Cyprus and during Thanksgiving break I decided to go to Spain for the week no one else wanted to go so I went alone it was incredible I saw Madrid Toledo Sevilla Grenada and Barcelona in that order I was supposed to take a bus back to Madrid to catch my flight back to Cyprus the next day when I got to the bus station with all my luggage to take the last bus of the night at around midnight I noticed my wallet had been stolen I had it when I got on the subway so between getting on the subway and 10 minutes later when I got off and walked to the bus station someone took it from me my cash debit card and credit card were all stolen I had no way of making purchases my prepaid phone was out of minutes I was effectively homeless in a foreign country I went into the nearest bar where I told the bartender my story he drove me back to his place after his shift ended at 3 a.m. he looked up the next available train and gave me 150 euros or around $200 to pay for the Train subway tickets and food he drove me to the train station I got on the train and made my flight the next day I have since wired him back his money if it weren't for his kindness I would be living on the street in Barcelona begging for change I was once young and fairly my friends and i looooved to play in construction sites many of the neighborhoods in the area I grew up in were just being developed anyway we are freaking around and see these dump trucks dumping lots of black dirt topsoil furlongs so we're playing on the dirt piles being little monsters when a truck backs up and dumps a full truckload of dirt right on me even as a little nerd I understood the immediate overpowering screaming urge to GTFO now now now now I was running scrambling falling on this moving dirt pile trying to reach the edge before it buried me completely which it did I thought the classic line this is how I died weird just my hand was sticking out when the dirt stopped pouring I immediately felt my friends hands calling the dirt away and it couldn't have been more than a few seconds that have felt like an eternity I now understand the reason why people get trampled and whatnot and disasters I don't like to think about it but I probably would have pushed my own mother out of the way I was so overcome with a singular thought survived when I was about 15 I took a trip to VT with grandparents and my similarly aged cousin we decide to go to one of those scenic overlooks that is nearby turns out to be a 50 feet tall waterfall scenic overlooks not being our thing my cousin and I decide to ditch the geezers and climb around behind the fall and check out the view from the top we make it up there and grab onto a tree waving our arms madly and catching the attention of the old folks at the same moment they glanced up my cousin slips toward the falls I grabbed him but end up losing my footing and falling into the water myself as the rushing water carries me towards what I assume to be imminent death my right foot gets caught between a couple large rocks and the water pushes me upright I find myself standing not 15 feet from the edge of the falls grandparents in plain sight I start yelling as them to take my picture at that point I was almost literally crapping my pants I don't know if anyone else has seen their grandmother screaming in utter terror but I honestly hope not my cousin pulled me out with a large branch a few moments later and we were in serious crap after the crisis averted stage we joined them grandparents on the wooden overlook clearly visible from that side of the Falls was a giant sign on which all the names of the people who died from falling off said waterfall were printed I once fell through the ice when I was around 11 years old and didn't know how to swim I flailed around wildly and started screaming at the top of my lungs then I noticed that the water was only about nipple deep still it was a cold freakin walk home I'm surprised I didn't get hypothermia about 10 years ago I went for a routine STD screening because I am responsible and crap the doc comes out with that horrible bad news face that they all seemed to get and just stands in front of me for a minute's clearing his throat and looking uncomfortable he starts to say something twice while looking at the chart I'm afraid that well well it isn't goo ahem he clasps the chart in front of him and appears ready to say something i gon set it quickly and make out HIV mentioned a few times suddenly a nurse kind of jogs out of the office takes the chart from the doctor and hands him another one gives me a smile and then walks back inside the doctor looks at the new chart grins like a kid given the day off school and says cheerily well looks like you are all clean a friend of mine and I were kayaking in the Gulf of Mexico and thought we were about to be eaten by sharks we saw like six dorsal fins approaching and it wasn't until they were about ten feet away that we realized they were dolphins I once was run off the highway by a woman driving a minivan and simultaneously doing her makeup I drove for a while in the grassy median zone before being able to jerk back on the highway when I looked at the lady again she looked sad and apologetic sort of like a puppy when it knows it's chewed your favorite sandals doesn't change the fact that she almost killed me I had a stroke at 22 in September but no permanent damage real funny universe went to see the movie twister in theatre during the part of the movie where the f5 tornado is destroying everything five ceiling tiles fell into some empty seats thankfully and rain started cascading violently from the hole I have to say it made the movie far more intense the storm that hit the theater wasn't a tornado but for some reason the high winds and a bad roof caused the collapse taking a trip through the mountains with the wife no aches in the biggest pose car we'd ever owned we were about four hours from home going through a small town when the brakes fail thankfully the car was a five-speed manual so I start shifting down to slow down spotted an auto parts store while coasting judge the just right and pulled in and parked using the building to finally stop the car with a very gentle tap I then proceeded to Jack the rear of the car up and investigate the rear brakes were completely shot including the wheel cylinders went in the store bought what I needed for repairs new brake shoes cylinder rebuild kits and some brake fluid I then proceeded to do a brake job on my car with nothing more than a Leatherman and a full-size flat tip screwdriver was back on the road within the hour years ago I was taking a break from kayaking swimming in a river with a bunch of people all around me I was next to a big pipe running under the water actually called pipeline still not sure the exact reason for the pipe but I was slowly being pulled to the left not thinking much of it I let it only when all of the sudden I'm completely submerged being sucked down into it but a random metal rod jabbed into my chest I hang on to it for dear life with one hand and with the other reach out of the pipe to feel around and actually find a handle to pull myself out when I got out and sat on top of the pipe I looked around I noticed everything was crystal clear and no one had even noticed I almost died right then quite the thrill in Iraq an IE D had gone off on the lead vehicle of the convoy once the medivac was called in another marine and I went to check the kill zone in the area around the LZ after a few minutes of looking for wires detonators ATC I realised I was standing on a sand back in the median of the road I had walked on about seven other sandbags it was the remains of the ie D that hit the lead vehicle it was a daisy chain where only one went off I was walking on them real pucker factor only thing I can think of is a 5.7 earthquake in a building rated for 6.0 when I was 16 I started taking birth control pills a month later right before spring break my left hand starts to turn purple and gets in Sora doubly painful at the hospital after many tests they find I have a blood clot from the dang birth control they perform an angiogram to search for any more clots in the process they discover a freak genetic deformity I had had extra rib bones growing off of my spine and they were pushing on my main artery under my clavicle resulting in two aneurysms one on each side after a handful of surgeries discarding rib bones and removing the aneurysms they tell me I am lucky to be alive the best Spring Break ever coming back home from Iraq after my second tour we stopped in Newfoundland in January blizzard-like conditions we are taking off and as soon as we get off the ground the plane falls back onto the runway pilot comes over the net and says well that was a little weird we're going to pull off and make sure everything is okay rev up the engines in the went around for another try I figured after a 16-month tour surviving multiple Aida attacks countless firefights this is where I died in Canada obviously I made it back okay but still flying scares me one time the brakes went out in a fifteen year old car I used to them of course I was speeding in the light turned yellow I hit the brakes they didn't work but then they locked up I did a massive 180 going all the way across the intersection coming a complete stop perpendicular to a car staring the driver in the face I laughed turned around and drove slowly the rest of the way home got stranded in the Salt Lake Airport once looking at her twenty three hour wait for my flight home to Boston due to snowfall suddenly after repeatedly asking the clerk to find us an alternate route one open up that would get us out of Salt Lake and give us an eight-hour layover in Vegas instead I went from my worst airport moment ever to my greatest in the span of an hour that Clarke is my hero the Vegas to Boston flight ended up having us fly very near major storms in Texas and Oklahoma the pilot lets us know there's going to be turbulence I somehow find it in me to fall asleep I wake up with a massive thud from turbulence and about a second later the plane begins to fall I go weightless my seat belt keeps me strapped in my wife lets out a scream so do others I think this is it this is how it happens then we regain control the whole event lasted about five seconds turbulence backs off a few minutes later and we make it to Boston safe and sound I used to work in a fiberglass testing lab around buckets and buckets of the most flammable crap you can imagine gasoline ethanol methanol etc there were open 5-gallon buckets of the stuff everywhere on the floor and the walls were jammed with cabinets holding dozens of metal canisters of explosive liquids in storage the job was dull by the vent hood we kept an old radio plugged into the hood spotless outlet and it was our so entertainment one day a guy wheeled past's in his chair and caught the radio cord five of us watched the radio still plugged in bouncing Teeter on the rim of a full five-gallon bucket of xylene then slowly Pilbara wet away from the rim and the floor a couple of millimeters to the left and we would have been vaporized my supervisor Jerry one of the lease flappable people ever looked at us and said calmly were gonna need to tape that to the wall my GF and I were driving to Vegas from San Francisco via Death Valley in a rental car we were visiting the country anyway we were 30 miles into Death Valley at around 6:00 p.m. when I realized we probably wouldn't have enough gas to make it to the next gas station which was roughly 100 miles away so after driving for another half hour or so the blinking lights came on indicating we were on reserve fuel my GF starts freaking out cos our cellphones have no service and there wasn't anyone who we knew to call anyway so we stopped at the deserted RV park in the middle of Death Valley to try get some help all the while genuinely fearing running into a bunch of crazy hobos and getting robbed kidnapped murdered so anyway the place is devoid of people so we continued driving on reserve towards Beatty NV eventually the cult grinds to a halt and we end up having to pull over to get help we try flagging down cars for 45 minutes to no avail until finally some truck that passes are suddenly pulls over and backs up to us by explain our predicaments to him and begged him to drive us to B T and back by this time it was dark and the guy a friendly looking Latino dude senses we were really desperate and does us a favor when we actually got to the gas station in bTW my GF was so relieved she started crying I proceeded to buy a two gallon water incan and filled it up with gas later the guy drives us all the way back roughly 40 miles there and back Tamar car at this point I was so grateful I offered him 200 bucks to which he flat-out refused and even offered to tell us to bTW in case we ran out of gas again we managed to get to Vegas in the end after being on the road for about 14 hours but this incident really shook us but also reminded us that there truly are good Samaritans out there I was driving this 12-year old car with an old starter that work maybe one stroke five all the time also I am aware this isn't the best plan I was saving up to get it fixed at the time I pulled the car out to make a left over a highway push the car in second and suddenly had stalled out I was sitting there watching the cars come at me while trying the starter with my right hand every time the dang thing refuses to start once twice three times those cars are slowing down but there's no way they're going to come to a full stop in time four times Frick that cars going to hit the driver's side where I am five six all right I'm dead I'm dead that's it but may as well try again seven just when it hit the point of no return at the seventh try the cars engine came to life I threw the car in reverse and put the gas to the floor the oncoming car in the left lane had pulled partially into the left lane of oncoming traffic dodge my front bumper by no more than an inch still going about thirty I was on an AVC two propeller clean flying back to the carrier with the mail there are no windows in the cargo section of this plane suddenly in mid-flight I'm blinded with bright daylight and roaring wind all around me in a split second I'm in the crash position out of reflex I open my eyes and see the sunlight on the floor with bits of newspaper and dust being thrown around by the wind I hear the engines start to wind down and feel like the seat belt is the only thing keeping from floating out of the seat as the plane starts to plummet this lasts for a few seconds but then the plane levels out and the air crew guys are moving around me one of them asks me if I'm okay if it hit me it turns out an overhead escape hatch had come unlatched and landed in the row of seats in front of me here's Bob Ross holding a baby raccoon to brighten your day if you enjoyed the video subscribe and comment if you are new to the channel you can subscribe I publish new videos every day until then check out another video or don't either way have a great day you magnificent people

Channel: Updoot Studios

Views: 102,943

Rating: 4.8713746 out of 5

Keywords: #updootst, updoot, updoot reddit, updoot everything, reddit on tap, toadfilms, pewdiepie, reddit, askreddit, funny reddit, reddit stories, top posts, reddit top posts, reddit cringe, comedy, reddit compilation, /r, r/, r/askreddit, top posts of r/, askreddit reading, best reddit posts, top posts of all time, people of reddit, askreddit question, ask reddit, subreddit, sub, terrible accidents, barely avoided, near miss, random horrors, accidents, narrow avoid

Id: R4bt_zrZNuM

Length: 19min 5sec (1145 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 12 2019