Warning: This post contains descriptions of serious injuries, accidental deaths, and suicidal ideation, which some readers may find distressing.
Sometimes, all it takes is a split second for a moment to turn into something you'll remember for the rest of your life. And sometimes, that moment isn't necessarily positive — it could be a careless mistake, a freak accident, or even a straight decision that went HORRIBLY wrong.
Over on Reddit, people are sharing the moments when they almost accidentally killed someone, and wow, these stories are genuinely horrifying. Here are some of the most chilling stories:
1. "I was driving home after dark and realized several hundred feet later that there had been a person with a dark hat and clothes walking on the line of the road. Inches from my mirror. At 75 mph. I made a loop, put on my emergency flashers, and slowly drove by again to find him now SITTING damn near in the road. I called the cops and parked with my emergency lights so people would hopefully get out of the lane to go around me. Dude just sat there in my headlights until the cops showed up. It turns out his wife had died. He was hoping to get hit and had been sitting there sobbing when I showed up the second time. He stopped at my window and thanked me for making sure nobody hit him. I hope he's doing better now."
—[deleted]
2. "I was probably 5, running around my grandma as we walked through the mall. My grandma told me to settle down and stop running back and forth. I then ran into an older woman who had been walking in front of me. She tripped over me and fell backward somehow. I freaked out, ran back, and hid behind a column. A group gathered around the woman, and my grandma started helping her. She was unconscious, and blood was flowing from under her head. After the EMTs showed up, my grandma came back and got down on my level and said something like, 'That's not your fault. It was just an accident. It's going to be OK.' I think she felt bad because earlier she had said something like, 'Stop horsing around, or someone could get hurt.' Anyway, about a week later, I overheard her telling my mom that the woman from the mall had died. She had seen her obituary in the paper."
"25 years later, I can still hear the thud of her head hitting the ground and see all of the blood flowing from behind her head and the way it darkened her white hair. I hate it. I hate that some kid probably lost her grandma because I was being careless."
3. "I played rugby as a kid. I tackled a guy that was probably half my size. He landed on his neck, and he broke his neck. Luckily, he made a full recovery. When he landed and went 'out,' I thought I had killed someone. I stopped rugby shortly after. It never felt the same."
4. "One time when I was a kid, a friend and I went exploring in the woods in the middle of winter. We came across this frozen creek and this little frozen waterfall. It was about 6 feet tall, so we did what any boys did at our age: We each took a long piss off it. When he was taking a piss, I thought it would be funny to kick him in the butt. I did, and he stumbled forward and fell off the waterfall. Thankfully, he corrected himself in the air and landed hard on his ass. He was fine apart from a sore, piss-soaked ass, but that could have ended much worse."
—[deleted]
5. "During recess in preschool, we were playing hide-and-seek on the play set. There was a bridge that we could pass under if we crouched, but there were fairly large screw bottoms sticking out above our heads. I found a kid hiding under that bridge, snuck up behind him, and scared him. He jumped straight up, and one of the screws went through his skull. I don't remember much about what happened next, but flash forward about 5 years, and I see him with his mom at the store. He had a gigantic bald spot/scar where the screw hit, and he had an intellectual disability. He didn't before the accident."
—[deleted]
"I don't think I'd be able to live with the guilt."
6. "Some asswipe and his family decided that they were going to jaywalk at an intersection with a blind turn, so I had absolutely no idea they were there. I had a green arrow, so I just went and turned because that means I have the right of way, and I get to turn first. And then, out of nowhere, right in front of me, was this guy with his 5 children crossing the street when the crossing sign said not to. He flipped me off like it was my fault that I almost plowed over his entire family because they were jaywalking."
7. "My friends and I were making a video. In the video, we were racing cars. As a joke, one friend was up ahead in the middle, with his shirt tied up like one of those race girls who start a race. We planned to pretend to hit him with one of the cars. We didn't discuss speed or what we wanted the scene to look like, but just that we would hit him, 'but not hard.' At about 15 miles an hour, he jumped and hit the hood, rolling up the windshield onto the top of the truck. I slammed the brakes, and he shot off onto the ground."
"Holy shit, I'm crying at the thought that your friend was just cool with getting hit by a car, without even discussing the shit first! Why would you be cool with just flat-out getting hit by a car? LMAO."
8. "For my senior homecoming, my small private school rented a venue in the middle of nowhere. I wasn't a super competent driver and easily missed road signs in the dark. I printed out the directions ahead of time and read them over a few times. Then I had them in my car just in case, and this was just a couple months after Apple Maps had come out (and was still giving directions to go the wrong way down one-ways), but I also had my date navigating with my phone. We were right around where the place should've been, 40 minutes from home, and I saw what I thought was the turn, but I wasn't sure because the road name was different. I was asking my date, and she said, 'I'm not sure, I don't know.' Then the light turned yellow, and she went, 'No, this is it, turn left NOW...' which I did..."
"Unfortunately, the oncoming truck my panic brain thought was stopping was actually speeding up to catch the light. We got T-boned HARD on my date's side. We got incredibly lucky that no one was seriously injured, but I still have flashbacks to how easily I could have killed my date that night."
—[deleted]
"Always ignore last-second instructions from the navigator. It's never a hassle to miss a turn; you just pull a U-turn somewhere safe and come back.
It's really hard to undo a crash."
9. "When I was in the sixth grade, I was walking down a street with other students from my school to go home. Down this street, you have to cross the metro train tracks that are marked by the small gates and the railroad crossing signs with the automated bells signaling an oncoming train. I'd never hear it because I always had my earphones on, blasting heavy metal. So one day, I speed-walked past a couple of classmates and reached the gate before them. I noticed they would still be pretty close behind me, and I wanted to be nice, so I held the little door open with my back toward the tracks. For some reason, they just stood there looking at me, but I thought they were just being polite, so I motioned for them to go on in before me. That's when the rush of the train sped right on towards its next stop. Needless to say, I walked a little faster that day and always kept my eyes open for trains passing by.
10. "I was working in a local bistro, and somehow, a mug dropped off a shelf into the soup. I flipped the lid on the chafer, and it broke at the bottom with nobody noticing. The lid remained on, and no soup splashed out. The next cup I went to scoop had a nice shard of razor-sharp porcelain in it."
"That's some Final Destination type shit..."
11. "When I was really young, we were at the beach, and it was one of those beaches where, instead of sand, it was covered in smooth white rocks. I figured out that you could break them open and look at the pretty insides by throwing them really high. After a while, my parents thought it was enough and told me to stop. I didn't think it was enough because I just found a perfectly round rock, and I was gonna open that bastard. I threw it REAL high and watched it arc towards my 2-year-old little brother, who was, for some reason, incapable of walking but a pro at running. It hit him right on top of his head. He's fine."
12. "When I was in middle school, I was snacking on a chocolate bar with almonds in it. I was being generous and offered my friend next to me a piece, which she inhaled. After a few minutes, she started freaking out that her mouth and throat were swelling, and she couldn't breathe. Turns out, she was extremely allergic to almonds. The ambulance was called; she was rushed to the hospital, and I became known as the girl that almost killed someone."
13. "I was driving tired overnight with my mother and three siblings on a family road trip. I got lost in the Wyoming mountains outside of Yellowstone. It was completely pitch black, with no road signs. I finally decided to pull off to the side of the road when I realized I'd been 'micronapping.' I woke up the next morning, close to the guardrail over a 1000-foot drop. I rethought some of the trip schedule after that to avoid overnight drives through mountain ranges."
"I would have gone home. Trip's over. We survived; that was fun, guys."
14. "When I was 18, I rolled my car three times off the road, down a ditch, and wrapped around a tree. I was dumb to speed while there was ice on the road. My friend decided to sit in the back behind me so she could sleep and lie down if she got tired. The entire passenger side was crushed while the driver's side was unscathed. She walked away with some cuts from the glass after crawling out. I got what I deserved. I have chronic back problems now, plus a severe concussion that still fucks me up 6 years later. It has also led to lapses into drug problems to try to cope with the day-to-day pain and confusion."
15. "When I was about 9, my dad was fixing the dishwasher. I was asking him about some nonsense, and I was a fidgety kid. I flipped the switch that starts the dishwasher, and some moving parts began whirring about half an inch from his hand. It could have ground his hand off, and he could have bled out on the kitchen floor. I never saw him as shaken as he was in that moment. He also made sure to cut the power whenever he did anything like that for the rest of his life."
16. "I drive by a middle school every day on my commute home. I was driving slowly, 20 mph, the school zone speed, but there were these three kids on the sidewalk ahead of me. Suddenly, two of the kids pushed the third into the street. He tripped over the sidewalk and fell flat in the road. I had to slam on the brakes and swerve to avoid him. The poor kid had the worst friends on the planet; these little motherfuckers were ready to kill their friend, using my car as an accomplice. I'm still upset about it."
—[deleted]
17. "I was spending the night at my boyfriend's apartment. He worked overnight at a company where his job was to watch over the computers; he could not leave the premises in case of computer failure until his shift was over. That night, I heard someone at the door at 2 a.m. Now, my boyfriend had a couple of guns. We'd been shooting before. So I crept into the walk-in closet and grabbed one of the guns. I was just trying to figure out if it was loaded when I realized that the person in the apartment was my boyfriend. He'd been unexpectedly relieved early. There's no doubt in my mind I would have shot him if the timing had been only slightly different."
"I'm glad you didn't murder him. You should confirm your target before you use deadly force to prevent precisely this kind of thing."
18. "I used to live near some big cliffs, and one day during the summer, I walked there when I was bored. The cliffs were about 50 meters high, and angled in a way that you could barely see where the ocean touched the floor — basically a blind spot of beach that you couldn't see from the top of the cliff. I wanted to see how far out into the ocean I could throw a rock (because I was a bored teenager; that is why). I found a round(ish) rock next to me about twice the size of a baseball that I decided to throw. Instead of going into the water, it fell into the blind spot, and I heard it hit the rocky beach. Two seconds later, a man (probably in his mid-50s) came out from the blind spot and said: 'You hit someone in the head, YOU IDIOT!'"
"I panicked and ran away, but just 3 minutes later, I was so overwhelmed with emotions (and being raised with Christian morals) that I couldn't live with myself, so I walked back to apologize.
Apparently, it was a tourist family, and their younger daughter was bleeding from the head. I fell on my knees and apologized for what I had done. Then they recounted the story from their point of view.
They were just chilling on the beach when suddenly, a large rock hit the rocky beach next to them. A smaller rock had been flung up and hit their youngest daughter in the forehead. Had that rock hit just one meter away, her head would've been crushed.
They initially thought that it was a piece of the cliff that had broken off, but when they saw how round it was, they realized that it must have been someone who threw it off deliberately, so their father looked up and saw me.
I cried and apologized once more before giving them the equivalent of 10 dollars (it was the only money I had on me at the time). And that's why you should be careful before doing dumb things near a cliff. THE END."
19. "My friends and I were making a video. In the video, we were racing cars. As a joke, one friend was up ahead in the middle, with his shirt tied up, like one of those race girls who start a race. We planned to pretend to hit him with one of the cars. We didn’t discuss speed or what we wanted the scene to look like, but just that we would hit him, 'but not hard.' At about 15 miles an hour, he jumped and hit the hood, rolling up the windshield onto the top of the truck. I slammed the brakes, and he shot off onto the ground."
20. "My wife is from South Korea. I bought her some catfish nuggets. It turns out she is extremely allergic to freshwater fish, which she had never been exposed to before. Almost immediately after eating a few pieces, her eyes swelled shut, and her breathing became extremely labored. A massive migraine set in. Her body temperature was so high that she was beet red from head to toe. I could only see one factor involved: the catfish. I stuck my fingers down her throat, and she heaved them up all over me. The symptoms subsided. She was miserable for a couple of days, but she recovered."
21. "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, I remember one. When we were kids, my younger brother would snore. It wasn't very loud, but it was enough to irritate me. Because of this, I pinched his nose every time he snored, and he always woke up after a few seconds. Months later, I told my mom about it, and I realized I was just suffocating my brother for snoring. I look back on that time sometimes and wonder what the fuck I was even thinking."
22. "I scared my friend once, and she fainted. She gets scared very easily, but I didn't know that until after I scared her. I got paranoid that I had murdered her."
—[deleted]
23. "I was fucking around with some pals at a summer camp one time. We were chatting about ways we'd assassinate the Big Bad in an upcoming Dungeons & Dragons session. I decided on the ol' sneak-up-on-him-and-snap-his-neck approach. Being the master of example I am, and a dumb kid, I decided to try it out. I heard my friend's neck snap. Instant panic. He said to me, 'Damn, that was actually kinda scary. Good chiropractic technique, though.' If I had continued for a third of a second more, he would be dead. So that's why I don't show by example anymore."
24. And lastly, to end on a lighter note: "I was driving with my wife on our first date. I must have been so mesmerized by her sitting in my car and eating with me that I had lost all situational awareness. I didn't realize that I had driven through a red light and almost gotten us T-boned until we were well away from the intersection."
"That's a sweet story! But only because nothing happened, of course."
—5381
Have you ever almost killed someone? Let us know in the comments or use the form below to be anonymous:
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
Dial 988 in the United States to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The 988 Lifeline is available 24/7/365. Your conversations are free and confidential. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org. The Trevor Project, which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ youth, is 1-866-488-7386.
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