what's a silly way you almost died?

plummeted through a glass table during thanksgiving after standing up too fast and bled like a motherfucker

I had alcohol poisoning that lead to a seizure. I was in a induced coma for a few days, put my mom through hell rest her soul. I'm lucky I didn't suffer any long term damage from that incident. Thankfully I'm sober now, even though I relapsed a couple months ago, I usually get real long terms of sobriety in between little hits when I fall off the wagon usually because of a life incident.

I think it would break the site rules if I said mine as it counts as self harm

Can the stupidity be someone else's?

Picture a standard 4-lane-street intersection with all the usual traffic lights. The arrows indicate the flow of traffic, regular north american right-hand-driving rules. #1 in the diagram is me, making a right turn from the rightmost lane. I had a green light and thus the right-of-way. Every north american driver knows the rules of that situation, right? Slow to a safe turning speed given the road conditions, make sure there's no pedestrians anywhere they shouldn't be, then complete the turn.

#2 on that diagram is a taxi driver who made a U-turn against a red light directly into the lane I was turning in to, and at a much higher speed than he should have. He came within about two meters of slamming the front of his car directly into my driver's side door, which would certainly have resulted in major injury and possibly death. The prick had the gall to be offended by my blaring the horn at him and looking directly at him and obviously screaming at him despite him not being able to hear my voice.

Driving my moped when a ChildCrusher9000 pickup truck decided we could share a lane

climbed up a several hundred-foot rock to see a sunset, slipped and almost uncontrollably fell on the way back down, had to get rescued by firefighters and almost a search-and-rescue helicopter that came for me after dangling from a couple handholds for 45 minutes

Pressed Oxys

Did theater tech at my high school, safety wasn't taken seriously so we didn't wear harnesses when we were up in the rafters of a fairly large auditorium. Factor in my struggles with thoughts of suicide and the school might've had themselves a nasty little situation

BUT my parents probably would've had a baller lawsuit. Missed opportunities...

Made the mistake of walking my dog in a neighborhood full of insanely impractical pickup trucks with grills that are 5 feet off the ground. Almost got ran over.

When I was a child, my mother decided to take me and my brother canoeing. It was chill at first, but then the dam upstream released some water or something and the current picked up. We came to a fork in the river and my mom wasn't sure which way to go and we chose the wrong way - a part of the stream filled with trees and a drop at the end.

My mom thinks I got knocked out of the canoe by one of the trees, but I actually just jumped out and held on to the canoe cause I was scared. Lost my grip on the canoe and somehow got pinned to a tree by the current while underwater. The river was too deep for me to stand on the bottom, I was just stuck and kind of drowning. Only reason I got out is cause my mom grabbed me while she was floating past, I think she also jumped out at some point. Managed to make it past the drop as well, it wasn't as steep as it seemed. Stayed away from rapids for most of my life after that lol.

I pretty frequently climb on rocks and shit around very fast moving large rivers by myself in places where maybe 5 people pass by on a busy day.

as i was typing a comment just now i remembered i left the electric stovetop on high. i have one of these moments every day at least.

i was like 12 and we were on a family vacation and i decided to climb this waterfall for some reason. it was at least 20 feet high. when I was like a foot from the top, i slipped and started to fall, but i suddenly stopped falling and looked up to see my dad holding me by the straps of my life jacket. my dad saw me when i was close to the top and walked to the top (there were stairs) in case i fell. that would have been like falling out a second story window and could’ve easily been fatal or very badly injurious, especially since id fall right on a rock surface. im still impressed by my dads parental sixth sense

1. In the days before YouTube, I changed the brake pads on my car based on instructions in a Chilton's manual. I may have also been slightly drunk while I did it. I Dunning-Krugered those fuckers right on. Three out of the four pad sets were fine, but the outer pad on the front driver's side wheel wasn't seated all the way into the caliper and must have slipped at some point. I remember driving on those pads for weeks and thinking the car felt rough/pulled to the right whenever I would brake, and then I noticed one day that the pad in question was just kind of dangling from one side of the clip. I don't remember if I took it to a professional after that or fixed my own fuckup.
2. The day after Halloween one year, I decided it would be funny to turn one of our Jack-o-lanterns into an improvised incendiary device. Improvised flamethrowers are a bit of a family tradition, so nothing new there... However, rather than reaching for the carburetor/choke/throttle body cleaner, I went for the first spray can that I could reach: brake cleaner. In case you're not aware, igniting brake cleaner is a Very Bad Idea because the fumes are basically a choking agent that can and will kill you if you get a big enough whiff of it. Luckily, I must have been far enough back with my barbecue grill lighter that I didn't inhale any of the stuff. Moral of the story: when making an improvised rapid wasp nest remover, use carb and choke cleaner spray, not brake cleaner.
3. Ran with scissors once. Once.

When I was an elementary school kid me and my classmates were all hopped up and excited being on a rare field trip that took us a mall that was so fancy it was three stories (we all came from a rural farm community, attending a religious school) and we all decided to race down the stairs that ran parallel with the escalators.

I 100% lost control of myself within the first three steps going down, gravity yanked me mightily and I remember moving my legs rapidly without my brain giving my body permission to do so and some how stayed on my feet all the way down as I practically skated down those stairs. I still have such vivid memory decades later of it practically being an out of body experience. I easily beat everyone down the stairs because I had, for all intents and purposes, thrown myself down them. If I had missed just one step as my legs desperately pumped, I guarantee I would have at least absolutely injured myself horribly, if not flat out died on those hard steps with metal railings that went on for two stories straight down to the ground.

Didn't look when crossing with a green light as a kid and someone zoomed through the intersection. Someone stopped me from crossing.

Oh another silly one as a kid, I don't think my life was in serious danger but I had an allergic reaction to penicillin and waited until morning because I didn't want to wake up my grandparents.

Set a shoebox full of fireworks on fire and tossed it into a little old metal garbage can

Basically made an IED

Lucky the shrapnel didn't hit me since it mostly went up and out

When I was a teen, I fell off a gazebo overlooking a valley area in a park, about a 10-12 meter drop. About 30-40 feet for the Americans. I hit the bottom feet first and crumpled which was apparently the right thing to do, as I ended up rolling and not getting hurt at all.

When I was an ignorant teenager, I idled the car in the garage with the garage door closed, I think I was waiting for someone.

My dad found me in time, before I could pass out, but it was starting to affect me. I remember feeling drunk and wondering why I was getting so emotional listening to the music that was playing in the car.

Cutting a very big branch with a pole saw while standing too close. Came down a couple inches from my nose. Makes me feel sympathy for people who die in mundane dumbass accidents.

My brother got me with the cinnamon challenge when I knew he was a piece of shit already.

I spent most of a shift using a platform lift and only at the end did I realize I forgot to fasten the legs of the harness.

The chest fastener would have slightly helped before I (likely would have) slipped through.

RUnning across a street that was deadlocked traffic for blocks and some jackass was barreling down the middle lane. Literally pushed myself off their car with my hands as they flew past me. Scariest shit in my life

Back when I used to do far more drugs, I woke up one morning and checked social media to see I'd been tagged in some photos from the night before. Thing was, I didn't remember the night before. And among the photos is one of me standing on the ledge of a massive crane at a construction site downtown.

I reached out to the person who tagged me, and they told me about some of the stuff we'd gotten up to, including a list of drugs we'd taken. Then I began to remember some of the drugs I had taken before I met up with them, and I remembered throwing up on my way home.

So I was, at one point in my life, so fucked up as to be functioning on autopilot while wandering around a construction site late at night, and somehow didn't die.

holding a very, very large knife. The family dog has the zoomies. She slams into my legs and I hit the deck, landing with the knife blade pointed upwards, one inch away from my ribs

In my 20s I was walking across the street in a foreign country where traffic drives on the other side of the road. I didn't check correctly and was a few inches away from being cleaned up by a bus.

In my teens I fell through the skylight on my old family home's shed and fortunately landed on the bikes, rather than landing on the gardening tools like shears and secateurs.

Eighteen years old, drunk and 'urban exploring' (breaking into a construction site) late one Friday night. I dropped a giant, temporary wall on myself. It was too heavy to lift, and it was crushing me down into brick rubble. All I could think was that I would be found dead there by the workers on Monday morning. I have no idea how I was able to squeeze myself out of there.

I was on a snowmobile and a cliff arrived sooner than expected. My grip just barely strong enough for the brakes as the front dangled over the edge

Appendix burst, they said a an hour or two more and I would have been dead. My mom told me it was food poisoning and I should go back to bed.

demo'ing at an unsafe workplace, and a wall fell around me buster keaton style

Went sailing during a mistral with my little sister when I was 14 or 15. Was stuck out on the waves for hours after the boat capsized. My dad had popped off to give my uncle a lift somewhere and when he came back the dingy and us two kids where nowhere to be found.

It was pretty intense. Me and my sister were exhausted from trying to right the boat, which would constantly catch the wind and then just go back over again.

Eventually the French Navy came and rescued us. They also recovered the dingy and me and my dad managed to get it back the next day after going down the coast asking every harbour master if they had a recovered dingy on their books.

i ran down the grand canyon

Something I've done a lot of times is scratch my forehead or eye while holding a knife in my hand. I don't know why I do that, I just do it without thinking. If my hand slipped or something I would take my eye out

Went underprepared into a mountain somewhere in the caucasus. Didn't have the right shoes, no sticks, and didn't expect big, sharp rocks hidden under a thin layer of snow. If I had injured my ankles(very possible) I would have had to crawl back to civilisation. There would have been no rescue. Also some local told us that the hike was very easy. In the end I let my companion finish the hardest part of the hike himself and waited for him, and got back without injury.

Another time I was on a short hike with some lowland people in Kyrgystan, and when the weather started to turn, and snow flurries started to appear. I almost begged them to turn around, we were at 3500 metres above sea level, and I knew enough to not risk anything. They laughed and went on. They thought that there was no danger, and that bothing could happen. We did turn back early at least, and 2 to 3 hours later the flurries turned into a storm, that would have been very dangerous if we had still been outside, especially for people with 0 hiking experience(like my two compagnions). Those two never realized the danger we were in and I hope they never go on a mountain again.

I did a lot of dangerous mountaineering stunts while foraging for mushrooms as a child. Falling to your death is a common end around here for people who collect mushrooms, so I am [n good company. Did teach me how to navigate horrible terrain tough.

not exactly "near death" but i used to do very irresponsible shit like a lot of coke and alcohol at the same time and once i swam pretty deep in the sea in barcelona while really drunk

not looking left and right before crossing the street one time

Tried to walk across a small frozen stream in the middle of the woods when I was like 8-10 years old, fell through and got sucked into the mud.

Thankfully my cousin was there to pull me out but it took like 5ish minutes to fully get me out. Both of my boots were stuck in the mud and came off my feet as I was pulled out.

We then had to walk back to my cousins house, which was like 20 minutes of walking away, through the woods in like a foot of snow. By the time we made it back I was verging on frostbite. So maybe not fully near death but definitely bad.

Almost ate mushrooms my partner who was new to mushrooming had picked without checking them myself. But I did check and they were one of those that look a lot like a very good edible mushroom, but will kill you.

F'd around and found out on the sea ice as a kid. Thankfully wasn't alone.

Also have one of those near death lifting experiences. This was a loaded hack squat that someone has secured poorly that fell on the floor right as I walked past it. The super sharp edge went right past my head.

One morning almost late for work in a shitty old Golf and low road visibility I decided that passing a long truck is a good idea. Out of the rain & fog came another car, all three of us just fitted on the road and nobody died. Never drove like that again.

In my village we used to do this thing as teens when someone with a moped (always tuned way past what it should go) would push others on a bicycle. One day we decided to do this in a way where one is pushed by the foot of the moped driver and other hangs in the back on their shoulder. Of course we fell. I almost landed in a way that would have snapped my neck, didn't walk normally for days I was so sore and my moms bike came home in the shape of an S.

Also did a lot of stupid dare stuff as a kid. Probably was close to death far more often than I realize.

These days I am overly cautious.

Drank a bottle of poppy tea that I thought looked kinda weird. 6 hours later I was vomiting and fucked up and next day in the hospital. Ended up with an extremely bad case of pancreatitis. I had a drinking problem at the time I'm sure didn't help but I don't find it to be coincidence that it happened directly after this poppy tea mix.

Ended up in the hospital for 11 days lol.

Permanently Deleted

At one point in my life I was doing a lot of intravenous oxycodone et al. I loved pushing my limits and was very good at it, apparently. At one point, and this wouldn't be the last time but was probably the first, I put about 130mg of oxycodone into one needle. I remember getting tunnel vision and a rushing sound in my ears. I woke up several hours later. A few months later I decided to look into those symptoms. Basically early onset overdose. Those were interesting times for me.

most of the ways I've almost died are drug related and kinda boring.

but once I was up in the mountains with some people I knew, we were out in front of a cabin, and I blacked out for a few seconds (long story). I come to, and all the other people are facing me, and I'm facing them. I can see (and they can't!) that a black bear and her cub were about 5 feet away from us. I yell bear and try to make myself all big, and then we all slowly backed our way into the cabin.

we probably weren't going to get mauled, but it sure felt like it.

i have had daily suicidal ideations for most of my life and in the past i have nearly intentionally driven into oncoming traffic

Permanently Deleted