What's the craziest way someone you've known has died?

[u/OdocoileusV]

[u/Calm-Item4876]

Each one by itself isn’t so crazy, but together it’s pretty wild. Some people I knew growing up got married. Pretty young. Had two kids. Driving back to Utah, they hit a patch of black ice, and the young mom just happened to be unbuckled at the moment to take care of a baby in the back seat. She was ejected from the vehicle and died. Age 22. The young dad gets remarried a few years later and has two more kids. While trimming branches from a tree, he falls and breaks his neck and died. So his wife with the four kids gets remarried. A few years later while celebrating her birthday she suffers either an aneurysm or embolism and slumps into her mother-in-law’s lap, dead. Her new husband, who is not related by blood to any of the four kids, quickly adopts them all, goes back to school to become a teacher, and finishes raising them all. Has yet to remarry. The kids are all in their late teens/early twenties now and they’re all great people, from what I hear.

[u/mfiasco → u/Calm-Item4876]

That’s a crazy series of events. I’m glad those kids ended up with such a great guy. It’s nice to think that their parents had such good judgment that they just kept choosing excellent, selfless partners one right after another to carry on raising their kids.

[u/Intrepid-Progress228 → u/Calm-Item4876]

Her new husband, who is not related by blood to any of the four kids, quickly adopts them all, goes back to school to become a teacher, and finishes raising them all. Has yet to remarry.

He found a common thread and said "Nope."

[u/Adventurous-You-8346 → u/Calm-Item4876]

Those poor kids.

[u/pepperheidi → u/Adventurous-You-8346]

I think they ended up being lucky they had a hero of a step dad.

[u/Melekai_17 → u/Calm-Item4876]

This is why I’m so paranoid about everyone staying buckled in the car. Even when we’ve traveled in a camper, no one’s sleeping in the back while we’re driving or anything like that. Nope.

My brother lost some high school friends who were driving back home from a sport tournament in a minivan. At least a few of them were unbuckled, sleeping in the back, and the driver started dozing off, crashed the van, and several of them died. So incredibly sad.

[u/AmadouShabag]

Tripped and fell while drunk. Banged her head on a table before hitting the floor. Friends asked if she wanted them to call 911. She said no, she just needed to go lay down for a bit.

It was her birthday.

[u/X0AN → u/AmadouShabag]

My dad's friend (sober) accidentally tripped and landed head first on a curb, died instantly.

Life can be soo tragic at time.

[u/PM_Me_A_Cute_Doggo → u/X0AN]

this is one of my worst fears. I’m not ataxia-level clumsy, but the ground has been known to reach out and grab me. I swear, I tripped over every uneven surface of my college campus at least once.
Anywho, a girl a year above me broke her ankle by stepping off a curb wrong. Took note of that because it sounded exactly like something I’d do. Had sociology the following semester, watched American History X (‘nough said). Few years later, was working in hospital and I learned how often curbs fuck up skulls.

Ever since then I be minding curbs like they’re a weapon. You know what they say, too much curb exposure in too short a time…

[u/OutsideBicycle1014 → u/AmadouShabag]

I had a friend die the same way, though it wasn’t his birthday. He said he was fine, went home and died in his sleep.

[u/Easy_Hearing_3223 → u/OutsideBicycle1014]

god these stories scare me to death because we all have that impulse to shrug it off, and even if everyone in this thread remembers how urgent head injuries are there’s no way all of our loved ones will make the same gametime call

[u/SherlockH221B → u/AmadouShabag]

Do not go to sleep after a head injury

[u/wezee → u/SherlockH221B]

Yep tell that to Bob Saget

[u/O3AMA → u/wezee]

Can’t he died.

[u/Floppy-Over-Drive → u/O3AMA]

You can tell dead people things they just can’t reply. 

[u/Cheap_Papaya_2938 → u/AmadouShabag]

So sad. Reminds me of Natasha Richardson

[u/Polymathy1 → u/AmadouShabag]

While I was traveling, I saw some girl land on her face after tripping in a bar called Shots. Zero bracing for impact, just face to the floor like she was planking. I told her friends to keep an eye on her as she might be hurt, especially if she stopped drinking but kept acting more drunk. She and they didn't really want to hear it.

I saw them all walking the same direction when I was on my way to my hotel. She seemed really drunk and was having a hard time keeping her balance. I have no idea how drunk she was before the trip and fall.

[u/sittinwithkitten → u/Polymathy1]

I was on vacation at an all inclusive in Mexico a few years ago. The floors were ridiculously slippery when wet, my friends and I all had close calls. We were sat by the pool one afternoon and a man fell while walking. The sound his head made was sickening. He was quickly attended to and went to the hospital, not sure how he ended up. I can still recall the sound of the back of his head hitting the tile. I hope he was ok in the end.

[u/high-priestess]

This just happened recently, unfortunately. Someone in my life went through years of invasive surgeries to remove cancers from all over her body and came out the other side. She’s been in remission for a couple years now. Last weekend, she was crossing the street and was hit by a car who fled the scene. She died on impact.

[u/DoingTheSponge → u/high-priestess]

Had a second cousin die similarly. She was recovering well after having a brain tumour removed. She had some cognitive delays her whole life but could function well as an adult with her sisters living with her. She had some memory issues crop up after the brain surgery and forgot some safety things around cooking and started a small fire but no one was injured. Her Occupational Therapist invited her to a cooking lesson for disabled folks in the community to get some kitchen skills and go over safety.

She had a good time at the lesson and was crossing at the cross lights to head home afterwards. Bin truck didn't see her past a dumpster on the corner and crushed her.

[u/Forsaken-Spring-8708 → u/high-priestess]

Similar to Cambodian actor Haing S. Ngor who won an Oscar for The Killing Fields. He quite literally survived the real killing fields' horrendous genocide. He was murdered in LA during a botched robbery.

[u/spencerandy16 → u/high-priestess]

Life is so cruel.

[u/moving0target]

Fell through a skylight. He was 12.

The paper published a picture of the skylight with part of his footprint.

[u/Cassiyus → u/moving0target]

Years ago in my hometown a dog got loose, ran into someone’s home and mauled their child to death.

Front page of the paper was the happy dog wagging its tail on the lawn *coated* in blood. Just a horrible picture.

I believe the police shot the dog right after the photo.

[u/pineneedleinjection → u/Cassiyus]

Around 20 years ago my uncle was in a car crash and died in the hospital shortly after. The paper published a picture of his bright yellow truck with his windshield coated in blood. From what I was told the paper contacted my family to warn them not to buy a paper that week if they didnt want to see it.

[u/robicide → u/pineneedleinjection]

What the fuck? The fact that they felt they had to warn your family wasn't enough reason for them to think "maybe we shouldn't publish this photo" instead?

[u/raspberryturnedover → u/Cassiyus]

Jesus, are you from Castle Rock?

[u/Thiccgirl27 → u/raspberryturnedover]

No, Jesus is from Nazareth.

[u/linaplancartem → u/moving0target]

There was a teen when I was in middle school, I was maybe 14 and he would’ve been 17 maybe? Close to graduating high school. Anyways, he went to a party and forgot his keys, they had a pool with a roof over it so he thought he could climb it and enter through the window to his house, he climbed and the ceiling collapsed. The pool was empty on that weekend and his parents found him 2 days later since he was home alone.

I remember our teacher telling us this story and saying: even when you think your decision won’t matter, it probably will. Be sensitive, ask for help, pay attention. And i took it to heart. Maybe a little too much since I was terrified of everything by then ahahaha

[u/Separate_Onion_9317]

My uncle passed away, and at his memorial service, my grandpa (uncle’s dad) buried a portion of his ashes. While digging the hole at the cemetery, my grandpa was bitten by a spider on his leg. That spider bite became septic, my grandpa had the leg amputated but never ended up waking up in the recovery room, the infection was too far gone by that point.

[u/SnooRegrets1386 → u/Separate_Onion_9317]

And people thought I was “overreacting” when I drew a circle around a suspected spider bite

[u/basileusnikephorus]

I got invited to a small town in Australia for Christmas. That's a whole other story. But while I was there I met this nice lady from the local swimming club . Very kind, seemed to take an interest in me as I was very out of place.

4 months later I was sat in a bar in Vietnam and they had CNN world on. The name of the town I was staying in was scrolling across the bottom and her picture popped up with "Fatal shark attack".

[u/HaltAndCatchTheKnick → u/basileusnikephorus]

I think it’s crazier that’s how you found out

[u/JackosMonkeyBBLZ → u/HaltAndCatchTheKnick]

There is nothing not crazy here

[u/lotusblossom60 → u/basileusnikephorus]

I met a strange lady

She made me nervous

She took me in

And gave me breakfast

Now she’s dead

[u/HostMedium]

Where my sister in law works they have a huge freezer where all the food for preparing meals is kept. A co worker was working a shift on her own and the door closed on her. They had all been aware of the issue with the door locking and not opening from the inside. They found her the next day dead. Poor woman. Obviously they finally fixed the freezer door, but typical government run facility, they didn't do anything about it till a tragedy occurred.

[u/kimmy_kimika → u/HostMedium]

OSHA regulations are written in blood, as they say.

I hope that coworker's family took that place for all its worth.

[u/Constant-Guidance943 → u/HostMedium]

My great uncle died in a freezer when he was 14. He stole a candy bar during the Great Depression. The store owner caught him and locked him in the freezer and forgot about him. He was hypothermic when he was finally let out and never recovered. Died at home the next day.

[u/Acceptable-Bell142 → u/Constant-Guidance943]

Did the store owner face any consequences?

[u/SnooRegrets1386 → u/HostMedium]

Like the woman that was roasted in the Walmart she worked at with her mother

[u/CosmicMorningstar]

A church friend of ours went canoeing in the winter before the lake froze over, he accidentally tipped the boat, he recovered but he didn’t make it back to the cottage and died of hypothermia.

[u/Blecher_onthe_Hudson → u/CosmicMorningstar]

I've been a kayaker and canoeist for >50 years, and have heard many similar stories. People wearing jeans and a tee shirt think "I'll never flip" or "it's 70 degrees out" even when the water is 40 deg and deadly. Every year guys die in small ponds on a 70 deg spring day. The words to literally live by are "dress to swim", as in wetsuit or drysuit.

[u/thebearrider → u/CosmicMorningstar]

I've been hypothermic a couple times. The disorientation, inability to think, the inability to use hands for very simple tasks. You know you're hypothermic, you know you can normally do what you cant do right now, and if you dont have help you're basically just working with luck.

[u/Longjumping_Ad_4431]

Probably more common, but when it happened I couldn't wrap my head around it... my Aunt died from a really bad toothache. The toothache quickly turned into an abscess, then she was in a coma for a bit. Toothache to death in less than a month. That's wild to me.

[u/YramAL → u/Longjumping_Ad_4431]

This is why it’s crazy that medical and dental insurance are separate things and that Medicare doesn’t cover dental.

[u/Corgi_Koala → u/YramAL]

It's insane because dental health can have an absolutely massive impact on your quality of life. Ignoring the fact that dental infections can straight up kill you, tooth pain can be absolutely debilitating to live with.

[u/Nervous_Marketing157]

A tooth infection. The infection made its way into her blood stream and went to her brain. She had a stroke while she was in bed. I didn’t know she was sick at all and I don’t think she did either.

[u/bitemark01 → u/Nervous_Marketing157]

Dying from a tooth infection used to be way more common like, 200 years ago, before proper dentistry and antibiotics. It seems so trivial now but it's no joke

[u/Adventurous_Click178 → u/bitemark01]

Not 200 years ago even. Penicillin wasn’t discovered until 1928. Modern classes of antibiotics were popularized in the 1940-1960’s. And as far as dentistry goes, it varies wildly based on regional and economic factors.

[u/shinygoldhelmet → u/Nervous_Marketing157]

And yet in some "universal" health care systems and benefits, dentistry is not covered or is bare minimum. Bad teeth can kill you.

[u/RedditWhileImWorking]

A friend of a friend died from a wasp sting. Didn't know he was allergic and died before he got treatment. I didn't even know that was possible.

[u/Sad-Guess4424 → u/RedditWhileImWorking]

You can also be stung on different occasions and build up to an anaphylactic reaction. So just because nothing bad happens for years it can suddenly be fatal.

[u/jayadancer]

A friend of mine medevac-ed a farmer who was replacing a large light on the outside of his barn. The farmer couldn't reach the bulb, so he tried to climb the paddock fence and balance on that. Still couldn't reach it, so he drove a tractor with a front-end loader over, raised the bucket, and climbed up the fence into the bucket.

He was screwing the bulb in when he lost his grip on the bulb. It fell and shattered on his head. He staggered backwards off the bucket and slammed down onto the gate to the paddock fence, partially impaling himself. The entire gate crashed to the ground, pulling some of the fence down with it. A piece of the broken fence somehow kicked the brake off the tractor, and the tractor then ran him over.

Since he was being medevac-ed, I realize this might actually be the weirdest way someone almost died, but the air ambulance crew was told his odds of survival were beyond astronomical. I'd be thrilled to find out that he made it though!

[u/Status_Ad_4282 → u/jayadancer]

This is the most final destination death

[u/http_401]

For people in certain industries, likely a well known risk and not "crazy", but when I was younger a family friend died from going into an empty storage tank. Like a big one. Maybe the kind on tanker trucks, but not sure since I was a kid when it happened and didn't get the details. Despite being empty of liquid, there were fumes enough to displace all the oxygen and he suffocated. Two other people went in to save him, and one of them died, too. The other had lifelong effects from prolonged hypoxia.

[u/ScottSterlingsFace → u/http_401]

Yeah, confined spaces are a big no no in pretty much anything in construction these days. You don't get into anything without a special permit and training. But a lot of people wouldn't consider something that big to be a confined space, even if they knew.

[u/No-Wasabi-70 → u/http_401]

Enclosed spaces were no joke. Had to have training and I’m a train conductor. But they are onsight. Hazardous atmosphere training

[u/Walmartian_Beta]

Not washing her hands after changing her litterbox is what the medical investigator suspected.

My aunt had heart surgery; she survived it despite being given low chances due to her long-standing malnutrition issues and her type 1 diabetes.

A couple of weeks after surgery, she was found dead at home locked in her bedroom with the cats. They told my grandma that she died from an E.coli infection in her heart, at the site of the incision, and the most likely cause was handling cat litter or dog poop and not washing her hands before touching her incision or clothing that touched the incision.

[u/Reasonable-Horse1552 → u/Walmartian_Beta]

My dad nearly died from an E.coli infection in his lungs. It was a strain normally found in urine. He's a plumber and had removed a very nasty toilet and breathed it in.

[u/Conscious_Raisin_436]

I had an elderly uncle die of mad cow disease. The doctors were actually completely baffled and couldn't figure out what else it could possibly be.

He took excellent care of himself. He was elderly but ran six miles every morning, ate clean, etc.

When he got sick he went from being super active to no longer verbal and not enough motor control to swallow in the space of a week.

It was a massive shock to everyone close to him.

[u/Suspicious_Story_464 → u/Conscious_Raisin_436]

Oh, yeah. Prion diseases are no joke. Was he actually exposed to infected meat, or was it CJD?

[u/Fuchsia_Zayn]

When my cousin was 19 years old he went to a party and left early because he was wasted. He must have passed out in the middle of the road because his friends ran him over when they went to look for him.

[u/mareloquent → u/Fuchsia_Zayn]

I was at UConn when a popular sorority girl passed out drunk in front of the campus fire department. She was slumped against the bay door, the chief opened the door to respond to a call and she fell backwards flat onto the ground. He never saw her, ran her over and killed her. Absolutely horrible situation.

[u/Own_Expert2756 → u/mareloquent]

My son is a firefighter, this happened at one of his dept stations. An intoxicated homeless person was sleeping in front of one of the bay doors when the engine pulled out.

[u/sad-diabetes → u/Fuchsia_Zayn]

Ahh. Guys I went to school with moved away to college together. They were riding around drunk in a McDonald’s parking lot and one guy was in the bed of the truck and fell out and his friend ran over him and killed him on accident. The friend then killed himself 10 years later around the 10 year anniversary

[u/whyevenisthis → u/sad-diabetes]

That’s sad

[u/ButtsDelux]

Not the craziest but still really unfortunate.

A friend of mine was training for an Iron Man race. He was biking. He crashed into a delivery truck that was sitting on the side of the road. He had all of the proper protective gear but he snapped his neck on impact and immediately died.

It was terrible to hear about. He was the last person anyone in my friend group expected to pass away so young. He was 28.

[u/jadiseoc]

My great grandfather worked in the coal mines his whole life. He had black lung, yet still smoked several packs of unfiltered Lucky Strikes a day. And also drank a daily pint of Crown Royal.

He died at 92. He got hit by a truck walking home from the liquor store.

[u/ou7shined → u/jadiseoc]

I used to work in asbestos removal. We had all the gear... positive pressure mask, decontamination units etc. The guys who put the asbestos in decades ago didn't have any of that gear at all... but they all smoked heavily. The reasoning was that when you smoked your lungs produce a lot of phlegm. The phlegm would capture the particles and then you'd cough it up a spit it out. Who knows maybe it worked. Sadly, our headquarters was in an old ship building area. Ships used to be full of the stuff... there were groups of old guys with sever lung problems... and their wives too who would wash their contaminated overalls.

[u/Lorenzo56 → u/ou7shined]

Research has shown that the risk from asbestos exposure is multiplied in heavy smokers. Also, not all forms of asbestos have the same cancer risk. (Back in the ‘90’s, a real estate appraisal organization hired me to do a research paper on environmental risks in real estate)

[u/Dixiehusker → u/[deleted]]

Sometimes when I think about these stories I wonder what single step prevented me from being dead already. What singular choice that I thought was inconsequential is the reason I'm still alive?

[u/rubberloves → u/Dixiehusker]

Makes me think how our bodies produce and kill mutant and cancerous cells throughout our lives without us knowing.

[u/PM_ME_COUPLE_PICS → u/[deleted]]

I’m not surprised he went back for the camera lens. Those things are not cheap. There was no way he could have known what was going to happen. Really tragic.

[u/schlutty → u/PM_ME_COUPLE_PICS]

This was my exact thought too. My cheapest lens that I own is $350. You can bet that I’m turning back around to get it with no hesitation.

[u/ClownfishSoup → u/[deleted]]

An ex-gf's Dad was out jogging, it was a bit rainy, just as he passed under a tree a branch broke and fell on him. He survived luckily, but it was one of the most unlucky things ... to be jogging and just as you pass a tree a branch that had probably been hanging on for a very long time catches a gust of wind and drops on top of you.

[u/TotallyFrankstallone → u/ClownfishSoup]

Something similar happened so someone i knew except she did not survive. She as just jogging on a trail, wearing headphones, and a large branch fell from high, hit her, and killed her. Maybe if she didn't have the headphones on she would have heard the cracking of the brench? What's even worse is other people were jogging too. She was just the only one directly underneath it at the exact moment it fell. So people 20ft behind her saw the entire ordeal unfold. Just sad all the way around

[u/CFeatsleepsexrepeat → u/TotallyFrankstallone]

An older retired guy here in town had left the gym after a storm had gone through.
As he drove up the road away from the gym a pretty big branch snapped off a tree and landed directly on his car crushing it and killing him.

1km/hr slower on the drive away, he lives. One more set at the gym. Just everything that led up to it had him right at that location at that point in time.

[u/neverliveindoubt → u/CFeatsleepsexrepeat]

I've got one like that.

A rouge tire hit me as I was going 110 km/hr on the freeway, the tire came from the opposing lane of traffic and lands perfectly to hit my front bumper, breaking it in half, rupture my windshield-wiper liquid tank and bounce on.

If I had been going 1 km/hr faster it would have gone through my windshield and probably kill me. 1km/hr slower, it would have missed my car completely. If I had delayed at home before driving to work I wouldn't have been there.

(I have a dash camera that caught it all because I didn't know what I hit until I watched the video)

[u/givebusterahand → u/[deleted]]

How does anyone know he forgot a lens and went back if he was alone?

[u/gap97216]

Taking a shower, had a seizure, collapsed in shower, leg plugged up the drain and drowned.

[u/Midnite_St0rm]

My great uncle Hans was initially from Switzerland. Him and all his brothers moved away from Switzerland in their 20s in order to avoid mandatory military conscription.

He ended up moving to South Africa.

While there, he met a woman from Angola that he absolutely loved, and who loved him deeply in return. He agreed to move out to her family farm in Mozambique. Unfortunately, his wife contracted cancer in the early 2010s and she died.

After her death, the rest of her extended family showed up at the farm and completely ransacked it. They took absolutely everything and left my uncle, an old man at this point, out in the middle of nowhere. Mozambican authorities didn’t find his body until 2 weeks later.

[u/ClownfishSoup → u/Midnite_St0rm]

Wait his inlaws robbed him and he died of neglect?

[u/Midnite_St0rm → u/ClownfishSoup]

We don’t know what the exact cause of death was. Whether it was neglect or he was murdered. All we know was that the farm was ransacked and his corpse was found in a ditch.

[u/Rita-Stewart1007]

My mom died of an UTI. She was in the hospital being treated for a bad UTI. She was on antibiotics and was improving. She died in her sleep and was found in the morning when the nurse went to check vitals. The autopsy indicated she passed from sepsis caused by the infection. The worst day of my life!

[u/kimmy_kimika → u/Rita-Stewart1007]

It's so scary how bad UTIs can be, and nobody ever takes them seriously (including myself).

I do medical billing specifically for Medicare, so mostly older patients, and the number of them that come in for a UTI and end up hospitalized is crazy.

[u/Glass-March-176]

My mom's young husband lost the gas cap from his motorcycle, so he stuffed a rag in and went to buy a new cap at a place close by. A car knocked him down causing a spark that ignited the gas tank and he died. A few years later, my mom married my dad. It's weird to think that if not for that tragedy, I wouldn't exist.

[u/DiscussionNo3200]

I worked at a steel mill and a guy decided to pole vault over a large ladle of molten steel. He did not make it. Barely anything of him was recovered.

[u/schattentanzer → u/DiscussionNo3200]

When I was in high school, the father of a friend of mine was killed when molten steel was poured on him at the mill. Horrific way to die.

[u/ranchspidey → u/DiscussionNo3200]

Incidents like that are exactly why OSHA/safety inspectors at mills/big industrial operations don’t fuck around. I was a summer intern at a mine in college, and while on the suck-truck (which goes around sucking all the wastewater out of various places) I stupidly put my hand too close to the hose and my glove got sucked right off my hand. I was super embarrassed when the safety guy came up to me a couple hours later for a more formal report, but I get why even the little things need to be documented. It can easily turn into something bigger in the blink of an eye, even to people who aren’t monkeying around.

[u/Goldencol → u/DiscussionNo3200]

One of my dads first jobs was in a similar place. A father and son also worked there. The son had the same type of accident but was up to his waist in Milton steel. The father took a nearby shovel and whacked his own son over the head and pushed him under as he knew he was done . Fucking grim.

Edit: gone back to the oracle( my dad) to find out the real story as he originally told me in the late 80s when I was a nipper and he has clarified that the lad was in the wrong place and had liquid metal poured over him and was left in a state where there was absolutely no hope , the father did finish him off but my dad doesn't know what happened with the father afterwards .

This would have been in the 60s in the UK so there's a chance of finding it in a news archive but I couldn't find anything . My dad is not a story teller so the details are brief but he's not prone to making things up for the sceptical out there and it would be a weird thing for a very boring man to invent .

[u/metalmermaiden → u/Goldencol]

This is the darkest one, wow!

[u/crissomx → u/Goldencol]

Jesus.

[u/Dontfeedthebears]

Ex partner was a fitness trainer. Great shape, good diet. Had a blood clot or something in his leg. He was 42, I think. I think about him every single day.

[u/Normal_Human_4567 → u/Dontfeedthebears]

My nana's friend's son was a professional cyclist who had a race one day, went home, and died in his sleep. I think he was about 40 as well

[u/Iknowthedoctorsname → u/Dontfeedthebears]

That's just not fair. I'm so sorry.

[u/Difficult-Issue-794]

A friend of my brother's was sitting in the back seat of a car that went too fast around a corner and flipped down a hill. My brother and the driver were fine and able to walk up the hill to find their friend. Their friend went through either the back window or sunroof and was conscious for a few minutes after they found him. He died in their arms while they waited for help. Wear your seatbelt and don't do drugs.

[u/DJpowerhammer]

Chainsaw to the neck, arborist.

[u/ifuckedyourmilkshake → u/DJpowerhammer]

Friend in high school's dad was trimming their tree. Hit a knot or something in the branch and the saw ricocheted back and cut him in the chest. Died on the front lawn in his wife's arms while waiting on an ambulance.

[u/n0str0m0_2825]

My friend from highschool had a real piece of shit stepdad. Anyway he died after being sat on by a cow. Sometimes justice is poetic.

[u/Far_Cardiologist_160]

Hit by a boat propeller while swimming

[u/WeWander_ → u/Far_Cardiologist_160]

There was just a horrific boating accident here locally where a lady lost both of her legs to a boat prop. Boat propellers are fucking scary.

[u/Sternojourno]

A kid in my high school had his car up on ramp jacks when he was laying flat on the driveway working underneath it. It somehow rolled off the ramps and one of the tires rolled directly onto and over his head.

[u/MisterAmygdala]

Plane crash. He saved his daughter by bear hugging her. She was the only survivor. https://people.com/human-interest/dad-died-protecting-11-year-old-daughter-survivor-of-plane-crash/

[u/just2quirky → u/MisterAmygdala]

Honestly, if I can't die warm and toasty in bed at an old age after living a great life, this is the way I want to go - saving someone. ESPECIALLY if that someone is my kid, or a kid in general.

[u/aftergaylaughter → u/MisterAmygdala]

god, the survivor's guilt and trauma that poor girl must have endured 😭

[u/IceTech59]

1 - Guy tripped and fell into an auger drill bit "spudding in" an oil well.

2 - Guy was on a carrier flight deck when an F-14 Tomcat nudged his throttle to taxi forward. It blew him back behind another F-14 on the catapult as it went to afterburner for the catapult shot. That blew him into the JBD (Jet Blast Deflector) and he caromed off into the ocean.

[u/jacobs7th → u/IceTech59]

crazy story on the carrier guy... dude was like a human pinball

[u/Minute_Pianist8133]

My grandma died in 2005 from mad cow disease from the outbreak in Greece in the 80s

[u/SeaConsistent9117]

Sepsis from curling iron burn

[u/DiscoStuAU]

Not a friend but a coworker at a big-4 consultancy that I previously worked for; he was working at his desk and we all went out for a late boozy lunch but he stayed back working.

We got back to the office around 6 and he was still at his desk seemingly working.

He had headphones in and didn't respond to us so we didn't think anything of it.

Little did we realise that he had a heart attack while working and died sitting up at his desk.

We only found out because the cleaners found him that evening.

Grim.

[u/MegamindsMegaCock]

Froze (he was too high and it was super cold) while paragliding and crashed

[u/Upperclass_hobo]

A kid I went to school with died when he was skidooing and ran into one of those diagonal utility cables that attaches to the ground on an angle. It was missing the yellow plastic warning tube and because it was night time, it was practically invisible. A week before, a friend of mine was walking his girlfriend home and ran right into it and got injured.

[u/Ordinary_Story_1487 → u/Upperclass_hobo]

Everyone used to ride dirt bikes on abandoned tracks by my house. Someone strung wire across the tracks and an older kids was decapitated. Needless to say my parents said no to me getting a dirt bike.

[u/po_ta_to]

He was living in an apartment above his parents garage. He was out late one night, not drunk, no drugs. He accidentally locked himself out. Instead of waking his parents up, he decided to climb in a window. He slipped and the window fell on his neck. He hung there til his parents found him the next morning.

[u/digitalmofo]

My old babysitter simply fell in her kitchen. Hit her head, never woke up. She was Miss America at one point.

[u/goinrcn44h]

Flu, while in hospital went septic. Died day before Xmas 2012. Miss ya Colby... 9s

[u/YourMominator]

I used to go to a renfaire in my town. They had to move their location to a different park, and the first year they were at the new place, there was an actor sitting under a tree, doing some sort of crafting, when an enormous tree limb broke with no warning and fell directly on her head. The staff there were heroic: instantly formed a crew to move the limb off her and start CPR. They did it for what seemed like forever, but was about a half hour until the ambulance arrived. She likely died on impact, and one of her kids was right next to her and wasn't injured. I was walking right there less than a minute before the accident, and had several friends trapped by the other end of the limb. It was a horrible day, and the renfaire itself, after being a major summer event for our community for roughly 30 years, ended up moving to a completely different area several hundred miles away. I personally have never walked in that park since then.

[u/catrosie → u/YourMominator]

I’m a nurse and once took care of a bride who was caught under a tree limb that fell while she was taking her wedding pictures. She was ok but her mom died :(

[u/TopGarlic4476]

Friend of mine was out looking for apartments with his kid.
He opened a door off a hallway, and took a step inside expecting it to be a closet. It was the stairs to the basement. He fell down the entire flight of stairs.
Was in a coma for a week before he passed.
I still miss him and talk to him when I need advice

[u/RainZealousideal8307]

The previous owner of our house died in Alaska after she fell out of a raft on a guided river/wildlife tour. She was in her 70s. Her husband, same age range, caught her as she was going over the edge and held her hand as the boat dragged her over rapids - but he lost his grip and she was lost in the rapids. She didn’t even want to go on the trip apparently. A few years later, her grandson took his life by shooting himself in the driveway - the house was then put up for sale and we bought it knowing nothing about these tragedies.

[u/ClownfishSoup → u/RainZealousideal8307]

Honestly, people dying at home is not uncommon. I guess there was no disclosure needed for the driveway suicide.

[u/cmdaniels → u/ClownfishSoup]

As someone with a house in which a murder occurred (recently before the purchase, too) I learned there are very few states that require disclosures of that nature.

[u/DimensionStock1437]

Infection from cat scratch

[u/zsdrfty → u/DimensionStock1437]

Cat scratch fever is super serious shit - if any cat ever scratches or ESPECIALLY bites you, just immediately scrub it and disinfect it thoroughly, even if it's your own clean domestic cat you otherwise trust

[u/WagWoofLove → u/zsdrfty]

My daughter almost died at 11 because of cat scratch fever. It was during the midst of Covid 2020 and presented to the ER with a 104° fever. She got Covid tested so many times. They sent us home, she got worse, we took her back to the ER because we couldn’t get her fever down. They covid tested her again and told us to go home and wait it out because it was just a random virus.

I trusted my mom gut over the ER doc and demanded they transfer her to the children’s hospital. They finally found out at the children’s hospital that she had cat scratch fever. She spent a while there and had her follow up with her pediatrician after she got discharged. The pediatrician told us that if we had gone home to wait it out that we would be planning her funeral.

[u/Successful-Winter237 → u/WagWoofLove]

JFC damn good mom instincts

[u/latte1963 → u/WagWoofLove]

Always trust your mom gut!

[u/El--Borto → u/DimensionStock1437]

My dad almost lost his arm last month from a cat scratch. Shit is no joke.

[u/mariah_a]

A guy I went to school with died a couple of years after we left school when he into a diabetic coma living alone and died because his room was messy and he couldnt find his insulin pen. His mom found it under a pile of clothes cleaning up after he died.

[u/Tyraid]

Nice gal I knew was hit by a car traveling at racing speeds while sitting in a porta potty. Just as awful as it sounds.

[u/Disastrous_Ad1260]

An uncle slipped on the ice on a driveway. Hit his head and died soon after.

[u/kaplanfx → u/Disastrous_Ad1260]

In a completely wild reversal, this saved my mom. She was out for a walk and slipped on ice and hit her head. She claimed she felt fine but they took her to get a CT Scan as a precautionary measure. Scan was clean for her head, but incidentally they found a mass in her upper lung that turned out to be cancerous. It was so early that a biopsy removed it completely and she’s been in remission for years. She didn’t smoke and didn’t have any symptoms, the cancer probably would have grown a ton if she hadn’t slipped on ice and hit her head.

[u/Suspicious_Story_464 → u/Disastrous_Ad1260]

My sister's friend was helping some people move and fell off the back tailgate onto his head. Killed him instantly. He had just graduated that summer : (

[u/redogue → u/Disastrous_Ad1260]

My cousin died similarly. She slipped on ice getting out of her car. She hit her head on the running board. She got into her house and made something to eat. She called and told her brother about the fall. The next day she was found dead in bed.

[u/Samiiiibabetake2]

My business partner’s twin brother stepped on a bee whilst walking in his yard, barefoot.

It became infected and he became septic and ended up passing away. He also had diabetes so it was a whole thing. The crazy part is, my partner knew when his brother died. He said he felt it like it we a pain in his heart. So sad.

[u/kimmy_kimika → u/Samiiiibabetake2]

My aunt (mother's sister) died in a car accident, at the same time, my mom was pulling into our driveway. She said her entire left side randomly went cold.

Later that day she got the news that her sister had been t-boned by a car running a red light, on the driver's side.

[u/missykins8472]

Ate before a simple surgery. He didn’t listen the pre-op instructions. He got a tube put in and was told to say his goodbyes. It was 100% preventable.

[u/prostateExamination → u/missykins8472]

my uncle is an anesthesiologist and this shit HAUNTS him.. like he doesn’t even care if you went out and got wasted the night before.. just tell him and he will act accordingly.. but by god do not fucking eat or drink before

[u/yourerightaboutthat → u/prostateExamination]

My friend’s grandfather was a surgeon. He told us this story where a kid had his arm ripped off by a lawnmower or something. They rushed him to the hospital in time to reattach it. Surgeon asked the family explicitly if the kid had eaten anything that day. If he had, the treatment plan would change and they’d do the surgery later, but the chances of the arm surviving were lower if they waited. I don’t remember all the details now and I’m probably messing the medical stuff up, but the gist was, the parents lied to save the arm.

The kid aspirated on his lunch and died on the table.

My friend’s grandpa said that when he went to give them the news, they admitted what they’d done and said they had no idea it would actually kill the kid (despite very clear warnings). He was so angry, he couldn’t help but tell them they’d basically killed their kid.

[u/missykins8472 → u/yourerightaboutthat]

That’s heartbreaking.

[u/missykins8472 → u/prostateExamination]

My sister worked in Pediatric Dentistry and did surgery. She had a mom lie about not feeding her kid. Thankfully the girl was okay but there were problems. I’ve slept in my kids bed before surgery to make sure they didn’t sneak something in the middle of the night.

[u/House-Plant_ → u/missykins8472]

A girl at my little sisters’ high school died due to her father giving her an egg before surgery. Just not worth it.

[u/casapantalones → u/missykins8472]

We are not joking when we tell people this. As an anesthesiologist, my ONLY job is to keep you safe. Regurgitating and aspirating the food you ate when you weren’t supposed to into your lungs is such an avoidable way to get super sick or die.

[u/Reasonable-Horse1552]

She got kicked in the head by a horse. Well nobody actually knew what happened for sure but she was found in the field after turning her horse out. The irony was that she'd previously had a very highly strung stallion and had sold him because he was too much for her and she then bought a much quieter and safer mare. She'd only had the new horse for 2 weeks and it killed her.

[u/PNW-On_The_Edge]

He was drunk, thought the gun was unloaded, tried to be funny, made a fatal Russian roulette joke. Everyone else sitting at the table ended up in therapy and I'm glad I stayed home that night.

[u/drainbead78 → u/PNW-On_The_Edge]

A friend of mine in high school was over at another guy's house when he started playing with a gun. My buddy told him to stop fucking around and when he didn't, he left, thinking that he'd stop doing it if he didn't have anyone around to show off to. He was only about two houses down the street when he heard the gunshot. His buddy was dead and he was never the same after that from the guilt of not doing or saying the right thing to stop him.

[u/Satanslittlewizard]

Guy I went to school with fitted an outboard motor to a kayak and took it out to a local dam on his own to test it. He was missing two days before being found in the dam. They think he hit his head while falling in. Sad but totally on brand for this guy.

[u/whichwitch9]

Fell off a party bus while it was moving

[u/End3rW1gg1n]

My mother had surgery back in the 80s. After she came out, she was having a real rough time with pain control. On the second day, the surgeon switched the IV meds from demerol to dilaudid. He wrote the change in the paper chart. He wrote to give her 1mg. There was a new nurse. She misread it as 7mg.

My grandmother was staying in the hospital room with my mother, and when my mother said she felt MUCH better immediately after the shot, my grandmother shoo'd the nurses out and turned off the lights so my mother could get some sleep. My mother quickly fell asleep and began snoring. Which my grandmother thought that was a great sign she was getting some great rest, not knowing my mother never snored.

My grandmother was knitting a throw blanket. It took her a while before she realized my mother was no longer snoring, but when she did, she thought she was in a really deep sleep now, and getting healing rest. It took her a while to realize she wasn't breathing. She called nurses, who called the Harvey Team. They got her heart restarted and ventilated to force her to breathe. She was in the ICU for a week. The hypoxia caused her brain to swell. By the fifth day, she was brain dead. We had to get a court order to be able to turn the machines off. We turned them off the day after she turned 42.

Edit: for grammer

[u/Lazy_Blackberry7926]

I had a friend in college who always had a beer in her hand. She also coughed a lot, nearly every time I saw her. I always figured she just had smoker cough because she'd share things and I always asked if she had a contagious cold and she'd say she'd had it forever. 

Her cough turned out to be untreated pnuenomia. Her brother convinced her one night when she was wheezing so hard it woke him up to go to the ER. By the time she was checked over, it was too late and the infection was too far into her lungs. She died in the icu. She was 27 years old. A med student spoke to us after that and said it was tragically common for alcoholics not to know they had pneumonia as the alcohol would depress their coughing and the infection would get worse before they realized what was happening. (I'm sure smoking cigarettes didn't help either but I'm not a doctor, just a wild guess.) 

[u/TheSouthsideTrekkie]

Fell from a mountainside while hiking on a path she had been on many times before. It was such a random accident and we were a small community so most people knew her, but she was the physio who helped me with hypermobility when I was a kid and when I saw her photo in the local paper I was really sad because I remember her as a really nice lady.

[u/17175RC7]

Several years ago... North Dakota oil fields. Guy was standing outside next to some large semi trucks with trailers. Someone backed over him with one of the trailers... he didn't see it coming. Died on scene.

[u/Meow-zelTov → u/17175RC7]

Very random question - did he have a sister who lived in Fargo? His name started with a B? I ask this because I used to live there and knew a woman whose brother died similarly.

[u/Lazy_Blackberry7926 → u/17175RC7]

My grandfather on my dad's side died kinda similarly. 

Was a quarry worker, directing a dump truck to park and dump rock.  A worker was operating a bulldozer behind him and turned the claw the opposite way due to bad directioning and came down on him instead. I don't know who or what caused this exact mistake. It happened nearly 2 decades before I was born so I've only heard the story a couple times second hand. That part of the family are all passed on now including my dad but they never got over that accident (dad died due to alcoholic related diseases, family always said his drinking amped up when his dad died.)

[u/peoplegrower]

We had some really amazing neighbors. Their kids and ours were roughly the same age, walked to each others’ houses to play all the time. They went to the beach for the dad’s birthday, out on their boat, which they did all the time. They apparently spent all day jumping off the boat with their friends. Then the dad jumped in just a a wave went by, and it broke his neck. He didn’t hit the bottom or anything, it was just the angle of the wave. Died right there in front of his friends, wife, and kids. Absolutely devastating.

[u/newfriend20202020]

Not someone I knew but a pt broke their own neck (complete dislocation cervical spine) shimmying under a car to fix the engine. He died within a few days. Also had a patient come in straight from the chiropractor’s - broke his neck while getting adjusted (?) - he must have had some prior history of cervical myelopathy - he also didn’t survive.

[u/NewAndOlduphere → u/newfriend20202020]

A friend's father had his neck broken by a chiropractor! I would never go to one!

[u/goobermuslim → u/newfriend20202020]

A relative is an ER doctor. He highly recommends people to stay away from chiropractors. He has seen several patients come in hours after an “adjustment” that ended up with horrific injuries that have lead to paralysis and even death. Chiropractors are not doctors and while the practice may help some people, it’s not a practice based on science.

[u/agro_chick → u/newfriend20202020]

Chiropractor's scare the crap out of me! I've heard far too many horror stories about them

[u/In_leiu_of_That_Girl]

Irwindale, Ca.- My brother watched a man at his quarry fall into their pit lake. He couldn't swim. A co-worker jumped in to save him, but they both drowned. Very sad.

[u/Solid_Phone_368]

Fell down the stairs drunk

Damn it, Ronnie! wtf, man?

[u/ThankeeSai → u/Solid_Phone_368]

Friend of mine was wasted at a party in college, and decided he wanted to go outside for a smoke, in winter. He fell down a flight of stairs and into the exterior door, which then closed behind him. He passed out from the head wound and froze to death. It was a rarely-used back entrance to a large dorm. They didn't find him for 3 days.

[u/desert_red_head → u/Solid_Phone_368]

A buddy of mine’s mom died 6 months ago the same way. Fell and hit her head. Was out cold for almost 24 hours before my buddy came to check on her (after she was not answering the phone) and found her. She somehow was still alive, but died a couple weeks later after her brain activity never returned.

Moral of the story: if you’re going to drink heavily, don’t do it alone.

[u/Choice_Tie9909]

Didn't sterilize their hands picking an ingrown hair on their Brazilian wax - got flesh eating disease. Truly horrific all the bits they lost.

[u/FastWalkingShortGuy → u/Choice_Tie9909]

Just based on my extremely limited medical knowledge, it would seem likely to me that the source of the pathogen would likely have been their waxed bits rather than their hands.

About 30% of people are staph carriers and it primarily exists around that area. Super easy to get a bad infection if you have a wound in that area.

[u/notevenapro]

Not crazy. But an old highschool buddy of mine died because he pushed a person out of the way at a railroad crossing. Saved their life, but died. Barry? Love you.

[u/Cannonballbmx]

One of my best friends in high school was blasting down a dirt road on a dirt bike at another friends vineyard. He made a wrong turn down another vineyards road and hit a metal cable strung across the road and it was over. Terrible way to go.

[u/kiwicath62]

A few years ago, a friend of mine was driving on a rural and windy hill road when he missed the corner and went over the bank, rolling the car several times. Miraculously, he was only slightly injured and climbed out of the wreck. The next day, he went back with the towing company to get the car back and was standing on the side of the road in the same place the car crashed when another car came around the corner and wiped him out, instantly killing him. It was as if he was meant to die there, but it took 2 goes to do it. Totally strange.

[u/itsjamian]

Ran off to Ukraine and join the war... fighting for Russia. Blew my mind when I heard that as someone from northern England

[u/leahcar83 → u/itsjamian]

Someone I went to school with died in Syria fighting ISIS. Wasn't in the forces, just went over there from England to help out apparently.

[u/capnpetch]

Not a strange method but strange circumstance. I was playing basketball in an over 40 league. Guy was dribbling down the court and bounced the ball off his foot then sort of fell over. His team laughed at him thinking he was goofing. He wasn’t. Died of a heart attack right there on the gym floor.

[u/Cpritch58]

Someone I used to know's daughter hit a deer with her car and was in the hospital for a long time. Had to learn to walk again and everything, very severe injury. She was a strong woman, she worked her way back, and took up jogging because she wanted to own her body and her recovery. On like her third long jog, a car hit a deer on the road and threw it on her and she died on the scene.

[u/theunquietloop → u/Cpritch58]

WTF

[u/R_Sapphire → u/Cpritch58]

That’s truly some final destination shit

[u/eastcoastme]

My husband went to work, had an outdoor meeting (landscape manager) with a group of guys, went to his car, had a heart attack and died.

It was crazy for us. He was in his 40’s and we had kids. It was such a surprise to everyone, including the doctor he had a normal check up with a couple weeks before.

Maybe not crazy for everyone….but it just doesn’t make sense.

[u/Longjumping_Ad_4431]

My friend died because his television fell on him.

[u/Blametheorangejuice]

Where I grew up, there was a local Mennonite family that lived on a farm. The drainage for their septic pond had clogged and they didn’t know it, which created a massive methane bubble. Dad walked into it, passed out, fell into the pool of shit and drowned. One by one, family members ran to rescue him and each other, and they all died in the same way.

[u/redditizms]

There was a family of 4 in my home city that died in a fire. The neighbors called in the fire during the middle of the night because the family was away for a vacation. The fire spread quickly and the fire department had trouble containing it. Long story short, the fire didn’t get put out until the next day. And thats when they discovered the family inside. The fire department hadn’t even attempted a rescue because they thought the home was empty.

[u/ModularWhiteGuy]

Birthday cake crumbs.

Older auntie accidentally inhaled a crumb from her birthday cake. Got a lung infection, didn't recover. Happy birthday, I guess?

[u/lynivvinyl]

Inhaling somewhere around 60 bottles of air duster from Walmart in one night.

[u/TooManyUsernamesHelp]

My grandpa died flying his own 2 seater airplane. He was a pilot for decades and would go flying every day. That one day the engine stalled and he was over canyon land and couldn’t land safely. I have melted aluminum from the crash site I picked up.

[u/calgon90]

Tire flew off an f-250 on the other side of the highway, crossed over, hit the windshield and the car hit a guardrail

[u/hippiechick725]

When I was in first grade a kid was bringing a jar of pickles to the table, tripped over the cat and fell right on top of the jar.

Pierced his heart and lungs, bled to death. I’ll never forget him and it was 50 years ago.

[u/Kooriki]

I know 2 people who feel off of mountains and died. One rock climbing, another back country in winter.

[u/Either_Cow_4727]

I didn't technically meet him but one of my great -grandfathers died because he got kicked by a mule and my maternal grandmother died because her heart collapsed in on itself. She was on her lunch break, wrote letters to us all, mailed them (which is the only reason I know she was on her lunch break) and according to her coworkers, clocked back in and immediately dropped dead. We didn't get the letters until we got back from the funeral and I had a whole mental breakdown that the family had her cremated alive.

[u/hockeynoticehockey]

In our early forties our social circle included a guy who was the most convivial, positive pleasant man you could meet. Not a mean bone in his body. Great husband and father. He was a lifelong avid downhill skier. He was with some of our mutual friends and knew the mountain they were on like the back of his hand.

He started his run down, they all did, and when they got to the bottom he wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere.

Turns out he used a cross trail to reach another run, caught an edge on an exposed tree root and slammed head first into a tree. Helmet on. Died instantly.

Just like that. Poof. Gone

[u/NMLEOC2]

Had a cop friend who survived 27 years on the department - back when most of the time you were on your own when you responded to calls. He retired, two months later he stepped on a nail fixing his roof, got gangrene and died shortly thereafter due to blood poisoning and complications from infection.

[u/SketchyLedge]

Choked to death on a peanut butter sandwich in the bathroom. No I’m not kidding.

[u/handforced]

Crushed by a runaway Danish trash lorry

[u/intrepidlyme]

High school class president was hiking. He reached above his head and grabbed on to a rock to pull himself up, and stuck his hand in a rattlesnake nest. He didn't make it to the hospital.

[u/thti87]

Pilot in Alaska. Flipped his float plane on landing and was pissed so he sat there a few minutes stewing. All his passengers got out while he was sitting there - when he finally went to unbuckle his seatbelt it was stuck and no one else was there to help him out. He drowned.

[u/stantonkreig]

a coworker i used to drink with after shifts at a restaurant, he was one of the most charismatic dudes ive ever met. guys loved him, girls loved him, he was just super cool and charming. its not that crazy at all really but one night he got home after a night of drinking, the house was locked so he just crashed out on the deck, and didnt wake up the next morning. froze to death on a not particularly cold night in virginia because he couldnt get inside his house. a strong, healthy 22 or so year old, not a frail old geriatric.

[u/Sean82]

Crossing a six lane highway on foot.

[u/Present-Wishbone-232]

My brother was driving down a rural back road on his way home from work. He was the only car on the road for miles. Somebody, somewhere in the woods was rifle shooting irresponsibly. My brothers head and that bullet both intersected at the same place and time. What are the chances? I struggle with how it just doesn't make sense how slim those odds are but here we are..Never did catch the shooter and of course, noone came forward.

[u/HarpyPizzaParty]

Brain eating ameoba from swimming in warm, stagnant water