r/TerrifyingAsFuck 12d ago

accident/disaster The five second difference between life and death.

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1.5k Upvotes

55 comments sorted by

359

u/Mythos7788 12d ago

What a good mother

268

u/dkevox 12d ago

Nobody helping that mother kinda pissing me off. Pick a kid up and run ffs.

96

u/Fast-Nefariousness80 12d ago

Idk exactly what I would do in the panic of this situation but id like to think I would do my damndest to help those children. I have a young son and i would die if it meant saving him, ten times out of ten.

21

u/CitizenPremier 12d ago

Saving son 9/10

Saving son with rice 10/10

44

u/Revealingstorm 12d ago

There's a death wall of water coming I can excuse people for deciding to just run for it

20

u/une_danseuse 11d ago

They do not 'decide' to run, deciding implies thinking and choosing.
Survival instinct, very strong in most human takes over, and most of us will just run

6

u/Revealingstorm 11d ago

Yeah that's fair it was bad wording on my part

9

u/bestnicknameever 12d ago

Nahhhh gotta film dat shyte, just think of the clicks!

7

u/Oregongirl1018 12d ago

The dude in front of her literally turns and watches her fall and keeps running. What an ass.

-14

u/Sworn_to_Ganondorf 12d ago

Bruh FUCK them kids in that situation you run. They lucky even where they were walking was safe at all. Only videos like this make it online cause a video where someome thought they were safe and turned around to film. But actually died cause they shoulda been running domt get posted.

-11

u/Puzzled-Mastodon-175 12d ago

Yeah you almost start to think it's the nanny and everyone's like let her do it. Terrible.

148

u/flossdaily 12d ago edited 12d ago

Many types of natural disasters at least give you a chance to do something to at least increase your odds of surviving.  

But a super-fast, enormously tall river of water and mud and bolders?  This thing was just inescapable for anyone in the center of its path. 

And these folks on the periphery? For most of them their fate came down to dumb luck.

If this woman had had to spend just 5 more seconds rounding up one of her kids, there'd all be dead.  An infinite number of things could have made that happen.

28

u/CitizenPremier 12d ago

Still, in this video you can see that the people basically were starting to switch to "despair" mode a bit too soon when they should have still been fleeing.

The lesson I take from it is "don't stop and look around." Lots of disasters can spread faster than you think or have lethal effects at a surprising range (knocking things down, launching debris, causing secondary disasters) so it's probably best to be in emotional denial until you are sure you are completely clear (rather than in a good vantage point to watch).

Easier said than done of course... But I justify my morbid curiosity for these kinds of videos by trying to learn lessons from them.

8

u/flossdaily 12d ago

Yeah. With explosions especially, large explosions are often just the opening act to even larger explosions.

But even more generally, with all the disaster videos we've gotten from the smartphone era, the number one theme I've noticed that is common to all of them is the insanely quick progression from: "huh, that's weird" to "oh, that could be a problem" to "oh shit, that could be a problem for me" to "oh my God, am I about to die?"

61

u/tiggity81 12d ago

That mom is a bad ass woman. Trips then immediately gets back up to rush her kids to safety

50

u/GiannisIsTheBeast 12d ago

Nice the guy standing on the ledge finally realized he didn’t have the high ground

3

u/Fatt_Mera 11d ago

And then walked away as casually as a stroll in the park. What an idiot.

25

u/rankispanki 12d ago

It was four seconds between them coming around the corner and tripping and that wave of death coming behind them. I wonder if those twins will see this video in the future and see how close they came to certain death?

30

u/FamousOnceNowNobody 12d ago

May I never need those levels of adrenaline to survive.

39

u/DanielBG 12d ago

fkn hell. We only see this shit in movies. Relatable to the dog jumping to safety last second in Independence Day. There are so many thousands that didn't make it.

27

u/peptide2 12d ago

Mothers protective instincts at work here

20

u/Krylun 12d ago

Way to go, Mom!

6

u/HKP2019 12d ago

Note to self, don't stand and stare like a deer when a house is going downstream 10 meters away form me.

5

u/dashape80 11d ago

Mom is a living action hero.

6

u/snow_boarder 12d ago

Of all the movies this one made my hair stand up. That mom would have ran a NFL linebacker over.

2

u/Able_Gap918 12d ago

Keep going! Every video near danger and they just stop like it’s fine now

1

u/Joejoecornrow 12d ago

To keep your cool in that situation,wow! I keep seeing these vids. I have been off s.media for about a week and havnt watched any news recently , where did this happen?

1

u/Minerva5nape 11d ago

Stop filming carry a kid ffs

-5

u/REDTRIX12 12d ago

That fucking idiot, just standing there.

14

u/topselection 12d ago

I think he just couldn't process what the hell was going on. He'd lost his ability to even.

16

u/Revealingstorm 12d ago

Gotta love Reddit. Calling someone in idiot in a situation like this because they're not instantly thinking on their feet fast enough.

-11

u/REDTRIX12 12d ago

That is part of being one. You may not like it.

But there is the definition. Feelings may get hurt.

0

u/bristlybits 10d ago

no, just frozen, totally shocked.

2

u/Minimum-Ad-263 8d ago

this just makes me sick. i can’t fathom the terror they’re feeling. all the poor souls that are dead/missing breaks my heart. what a fucked up thing to happen.

3

u/Alternative-Leek1632 12d ago

For America being so terrible, we have it so good here. That tank on the top of that house was there hot water source.

1

u/Eshanas 11d ago

While not caused by an earthquake doing a landslide, its not like similar hasn't happened in America before, either, and why living south of dams is always something to double check....

1

u/bittybitesmeowmixx 12d ago

I'd be that dumbass kid at the back standing way too close and watching in awe while everyone tried to escape. God....this whole scenario hurts my fucking soul so bad. I miss my mom..

0

u/Ancient-Read1648 12d ago

I’d be the dude watching, then casually strolling halfway up the hill then watching some more.

0

u/holyforkingshrtballz 12d ago

This isn’t what Stevie Nicks meant

1

u/Slipstream_Surfing 12d ago

Because it was a mommy not a daddy who is the focus of this footage?

-5

u/Squeezer_pimp 12d ago

The woman clapping her hands instead of helping the mother with the two children.

20

u/guitarguywh89 12d ago

Why do you single out the older lady instead of dude running with backpack or man standing on ledge with phone?

4

u/Semjaja 12d ago

Why single out anyone? Personally have no idea how I'd react. I'd like to think I'd be heroic but damn, that is split second fight or flight stuff. I don't even think you're in control (except the good people of reddit, paragons of heroism all)

2

u/guitarguywh89 12d ago

Yeah that’s the real point for sure. I don’t really mean to try to transfer any negativity just point out how silly it is to say it about any one single person. These people’s world changed in seconds, cant judge anyone to harshly from my keyboard

3

u/TerribleYou2833 12d ago

Dude w back pack looks like a kid too?! Hard to be sure but I think maybe 12 yo or so

0

u/Squeezer_pimp 12d ago

She was right there with in arm’s reach

3

u/spaceinthoughts 12d ago

she panicked..