"It Would've Been Us Had Those People Not Cut In Line:" 28 People Who Cheated Death And Survived Nearly Fatal Experiences

Recently, I asked BuzzFeed readers who survived near-death experiences to share their stories. I was expecting some pretty wild submissions, but honestly, the stories I received ranged from jaw-dropping to straight-up miraculous. So, without further ado, here are 28 of the unbelievable close-call stories they shared:

1. "50 years ago, we were in line for tickets to a boat tour. The boat was a WWII PT boat that'd been converted. Someone cut in front of my mom and got the last tickets, so we didn't make it on. Later that day, the boat caught fire in the inlet and we saw all the people on board being rescued back at the dock. Nobody died, but it was a close call, and it would've been us had those people not cut in line."

—Anonymous

2. "When I was 11 or 12, I was playing hide and seek with my cousins outside. I desperately wanted to win, so I took the trash out of the trash can, jumped in, and put the trash back on top of me so I would not be seen if it was opened. I sat in there for around a half hour before I got tired of waiting. I opened the trash can to see that the trash truck had pulled up, and the claw that grabs the bins was almost around the trash can. I never heard it pull up. If I had waited just half a minute more, I would've been slammed into a trash truck and compressed in the machine. You should have seen the looks on the trash guys' faces!"

— lazygamer141

3. "In 2022, my three kids and I lived in an apartment with a gas stove. We got home one night, completely exhausted. When we entered the apartment, something immediately felt off. We continued to settle in — my kids distracted, playing with slime — and it still didn't feel right. I couldn't place what it was. I asked the kids if they smelled something, and they all said no. I couldn't shake the feeling that I smelled gas, so I told my kids to go outside while I checked around."

"I ran to the kitchen, opened the back door for ventilation, and I turned to look at the stove, only to see that the pilot was out. Gas had been filling the apartment for who knows how long.

My kids didn’t smell gas. I can’t smell anything at all — I had COVID in the summer of 2021, and I lost my sense of smell and taste. I still can't smell, so I was amazed that I could pick up on the smell of gas. Shocked, I went into the fridge and started to try and smell things to see if my ability was returning. Nothing.

Here we are in 2024, and I have yet to regain my sense of smell and taste. So, I ask you this: how did I know about the gas?"

—Jen, Texas, USA

4. This happened to my mom. Her mom (my grandmother) was very adventurous and loved to just drive to random places in the middle of the night. One day, they accidentally drove off a cliff. Well, they would’ve fully driven off of it had my grandma not wedged the car in between two trees at the last moment. They were stranded but luckily found a tow truck and were able to get home safely. This story still blows my mind every time my mom tells it."

— brackenleaf54

5. "Years ago, we had an old refrigerator in our basement garage. It kept blowing the fuse, so we decided to sell it for scrap. Being my mother’s child, I decided to clean it before the man came to get it. It had rained the night before, and the garage floor was wet. I was barefooted. When I grabbed the handle, my fingers wrapped themselves around it, and I felt a surge of electricity running through me. It felt like it had a vise grip around my heart. I was screaming and trying so hard to pull my hand away from the handle that I slipped on the wet floor. As I fell, I remember thinking that my hand would come loose. It didn’t. The refrigerator fell with me!"

"There was a table in front of the fridge that kept it from landing on top of me. As I was lying on the wet ground, literally thrashing around, I heard my mom’s voice loud and clear, saying, 'Tracy! Kick your arm!’ I did what she said, and I was free from the beast! I had blisters on my hand and a spot on my foot where the electricity ran out of my body. This happened all in a manner of seconds!

I should also mention that, at the time of the incident, my mother had been dead for over two years."

—Tracy Garmon, Cumming, GA

6. "It was my 21st bday. My friends had arranged a house party and agreed to pick me up at my apartment. We pre-gamed a little bit, and one of my friends brought a friend, and she didn’t indulge. I chose to ride with her to the party, thinking it'd be safest. We were going down the highway and needed to merge to make the exit to another highway. The other driver wouldn’t let us in, and the friend merged anyway. To miss the other driver, she swerved. The exit to the other highway was an overpass with no guardrails. After her over-correction, we fell off the overpass."

"Somehow, in the moment, everything felt like it slowed down. I remembered a training in driver's ed that said not to tense up if you’re about to crash. That thought ran through my head, and I believe it saved my life. When we landed and hit a pillar about 50 ft below the overpass, I rolled out of the car with a cut on my knee. The airbags didn’t deploy, and the speed gauge was stopped at 85mph. She survived somehow with a broken back, two breaks in each leg, and severe head trauma. That moment of clarity probably saved my life, or at the very least, saved me from being in the ICU."

—Anonymous

7. "At a national park located on the island of Maui in Hawaii , there is a dormant volcano named Haleakalā. There are bike ride tours that you can get while on vacation. I was 12, with my sister (13), and dad. We woke up early for the morning tour, and it was so beautiful. We were so high on the top of the mountain that — being a kid — I thought we could touch the clouds. Anyway, the tour company provided the bikes for us to go down the mountain on. I grabbed one, and it was perfect. The tour guide said I couldn't use it, though, as it was a kid's bike and someone my age should use an adult bike. I put it down and grabbed another one, but I couldn’t get a grasp of the bike. Unlike the kid's bike, it was a hand break, which I wasn’t used to. It was too big for me, but I carried on."

"Since I couldn’t control the massive bike, I was wobbly and kept putting down my foot to readjust. Everyone was a little ways ahead of me, and I kept yelling back that I couldn't do it and I couldn't work the bike. I got so worried about trying to ride the bike that I hadn't realized I'd wobbled too close to the edge of the path. It was a road that was shared with cars, so there were no railings on the road to stop cars or bikes from falling. I rode my bike right over the edge.

My dad and sister said they turned back to see me disappear, and my dad ran to see where I fell off. My sister tells me every time we talk about it that there was only one bush on the side of that mountain, and me and the bike just happened to land on it. I was fine, not a scratch on me or the bike, and I know that a guardian angel protected me that day.

After hugging, crying, and laughing, my dad asked if I wanted to try riding it again. I said no thanks. The bike tour had a car that followed everyone down the mountain, and I happily enjoyed the ride down in the passenger seat of their truck."

—Anonymous

8. "I was in a crosswalk, crossing in front of a car that was waiting to turn left. I was almost completely to the other side of the street when a car sped through the intersection so close to me, they swiped my butt cheeks with the hood of the car. Thankfully, I wasn't injured and was just left a bit shocked. Please check for pedestrians before blowing through a crosswalk!"

— puffytheplatypus

9. "I was driving my Classic Jeep Cherokee across Florida to visit a relative. It began to drizzle, which made the road slick. As I was turning onto I-95, I felt the Jeep begin to slide, and I lost control of it. It then began to tip and proceeded to flip over three times, until it hit an embankment next to the highway. It felt like I was in a giant blender. As the Jeep was flipping, I could hear the windows imploding. When it finally stopped, it was right-side up, but the doors wouldn’t open. I was in shock and moving slowly, but I didn’t seem to have any serious injuries. Two men stopped their car and came to assist me out of the sunroof because the engine was smoking. They called 911."

"The Jeep looked like Godzilla stepped on it! All the windows were blown out, the body was squished down, all four wheels were bent in, the tires were blown off, and the hood was in a v-shape. A highway patrol cruiser pulled up shortly before the ambulance. I was standing on the roadside. The EMTs pushed past me to run to the Jeep. I had to call them back to tell them I was the driver. They couldn’t believe it! I had glass in my hair, and a few very minor cuts, but that was all. The Jeep was totaled, but I walked away!"

—Anonymous

10. "When I was 13 or so, my brothers and I had a treehouse in the woods, which was accessible by a ladder. One day, I was coming up the trail when I heard what sounded like someone setting off fireworks in the treehouse. I climbed up the ladder to find my brother up there with a neighbor kid. Just as I reached the top of the ladder, there was an unholy BANG! and something whistled past my right ear at high velocity."

"What happened was they had an aluminum tube — which was the leg they removed from a lawn chair — and they'd crimped it off at one end and were dropping fireworks into the tube, then dropping a marble in on top of it and firing it like a bullet straight up into the air, mortar-style. Except this particular time, the firework split the aluminum tube wide open, and the marble went rocketing out sideways, just narrowly missing my head."

—Eric K, Clio, MI

11. "My husband's two adult brothers lived in an apartment with their mother. One day, a man who lived across the hall was cleaning out his damn elephant gun, and it went off, ripping a hole through his door, my brother-in-law's door, and lodging into the back of their apartment. Luckily, they were both upstairs when this happened, and their mom was at work. This was in the middle of the day. If they had been anywhere in the line of fire, they would have been decimated. Even years after, you could still see the parts of the door and wall where the apartment maintenance tried to repair it. The guy who fired it faced no consequences."

— casualgoblin56

12. "When I was 12 years old, I went to a local amusement park called Belmont Park. My friend convinced me to join him on one of those rides that spins around and rotates up in the air under umbrellas. I freaked out just as we were getting onto the ride, and my friend convinced me to stand in line again and watch the ride so I could get my nerves up. As we were watching, the ride spun around and started rotating up into the air. When one side had rotated up, one of the chairs broke off and hit the ramp. As the guy running the ride stopped it, the broken cart was at the top of the rotation. We watched as it hung there, then fell off onto one of the chairs below it. Unfortunately, the two riders in the cart that we'd been about to get onto died, and the other two who the chair fell onto were seriously injured. That day was freaky and life-changing."

—Allan A

13. "I was 16 and taking a friend to the mall to shop for a purse because they were on sale for $10. My mom let me use her van. On the way there, I took the wrong exit (this was my first trip without my parents after getting my license) and was trying to get back on the highway when I hit a slick spot in the road. It was raining, and there was an oil patch. I slid into the grass and spun in multiple circles. I tried to drive out of the ditch, but I couldn't. My friend couldn't open her door, either. I got out and saw the issue — the back end of the can was about 10 feet in the air, suspended over a ravine. It was hanging by the running board (a metal step) under the van door that was caught on a concrete concrete from where the highway overpass connected to the ravine."

"I told my friend to very carefully slide out the driver's side door. We were lucky, though. My mom had gotten in a wreck the week before and if the running board had caved in the door. If that dent hadn't been there, we would have landed in the raven."

— abourque

14. "I was on vacation in the mountains with my mom, and it had snowed A LOT. I went outside to dump some potato peelings we had left over for the wildlife, and as I closed the door to the cabin, a huge pine tree I had just been standing/walking under broke. I watched it fall right into the path of my footprints in the snow. Had I taken only a few seconds more, I would have been severely wounded. Turns out, the tree also broke a gas line, causing an explosion risk. Fortunately, though, we and the turtle we had rescued on the way all survived. Vacations are not always relaxing."

— adhazelett

15. "I was in my car and had driven up on a vehicle that crashed into a telephone pole. I stopped when I noticed a woman at the front of the car, stumbling about. As I approached to help, I put my arm around her shoulder. At that moment, she stumbled backward, and we both fell into oncoming traffic. As I hit the pavement, all I could see and hear were bright lights and screeching tires. By the time the approaching car stopped, my head was under the bumper and next to the front tire. Turns out the lady was drunk. So much for good samaritans."

—Martyn, Indiana, USA

16. "Back in sixth-grade gym class, I was accidentally hit in the head with a baseball bat. The biggest guy in my grade miraculously hit a single and caught my forehead in his backswing. My neurologist later confirmed that had the kid whiffed the ball, the force of impact would have killed me. As it was, I suffered skull fractures, a brain contusion, memory loss, and permanent anxiety disorder."

— saraho4a20298d2

17. "Back in June of 2014, I’d been dating my now-husband for almost a year. We were invited on a camping and canoeing trip out near the Ozarks with a big group of friends. There was a lot of beer involved on the river that day. Unfortunately, two things worked against me. First, neither my now-husband nor I had been in a canoe in over a decade. And second, that area had experienced a lot of rain recently, so the river was extra high and extra fast that weekend."

"We were fine — several beers in, but having fun. We came up to a sharp bend in the river, and a large tree had fallen right where that bend was located. We tried to correct ourselves to turn with the river quickly but didn’t make it. Our canoe capsized, and while my husband went flying over the fallen tree, I got sucked under it. Every time I tried to come up for air, I met the bottom of the canoe, which was sinking to the bottom of the river as all of the water rapidly rushed under the tree from the vacuum it had created. Every attempt I made to sink down to the river bottom and launch myself upward was fruitless — I never met air; only my hands did.

This went on for what felt like minutes but was probably only 30 seconds tops. As I started getting dizzy and realized I was losing oxygen, I felt a strong hand grab my arm and yank me up to the surface. It turns out some man had seen the entire event unfold and was trying to swim to me as fast as he could when he didn’t see me resurface. My now-husband had been swept about 300 yards downriver and was shouting my name the entire time. Thank goodness for the one sober guy out there that day who kept his eyes open, or I may have met my demise at the bottom of that river. I’ve not been on a river — or in a canoe — since."

—KF0504

18. "I was returning home to Wisconsin from a trip to Lake Superior and stopped in Michigan to gas up my motorcycle. As there is a helmet law in Michigan but not in Wisconsin, I thought about taking it off, as I was about to cross the border. It was getting close to evening, and the bugs were out in full, so I decided to keep the helmet on for the bug shield. Suddenly, I saw a car exiting from a shopping center at a high rate of speed and I knew he was not going to stop. As he sped in front of me, my bike hit the side of his car, and I flew onto the top of the car, bounced off the hood, and hit the ground on the left side of my face."

"I was certain I was dead, as there was little chance that a blow that hard to the face was survivable, especially for a 100-pound woman like me. I then heard voices and remembered I was wearing a helmet, so maybe I wasn't dead after all. The driver of the car never stopped, and my motorcycle was destroyed, but I was able to walk away with just some cracked ribs and torn tendons in my thumbs. I now wear a helmet, always."

—Debra, Wisconsin, USA

19. "I was doing some last-minute Christmas shopping in a shop on Queen Street. As I exited, I had every intention of turning right and heading towards George Square, but when I came out of the shop, the pavement was really packed. There was scaffolding up, and lots of people, and I couldn't be bothered to fight my way through it, so I turned left and headed into St Enochs Centre. Five minutes later, an out-of-control bin lorry mounted the pavement, killing six people and injuring fifteen others. If I had turned right, I would have been in the direct path of it. I narrowly avoided the 2014 Glasgow bin lorry crash."

— ghulgh

20. "I am 51 years old now, but this took place during my freshman year of high school. I took the late bus home in the dead of winter one night, as it was too dark out to walk. The bus pulled over with its lights flashing for me to get off. As I was exiting, I felt the bus driver pull me back by my backpack. I fell back and hit the floor in just enough time to see a car speed by, right by the door. She saved my life, and at the time, I was so stunned I never told anyone!"

— ntdteach

21. "My dad was a mechanic and taught me a lot about cars. One thing he always emphasized was to be safe at all times when working on cars. 'Avoid shortcuts, son. Remember to think twice before taking a shortcut,' he'd always say. Another frequent piece of advice was to 'never get under a car with only a bumper jack.' I committed that cardinal sin, and one day while visiting him, I decided to change my oil using a bumper jack. No one else was home that day, and no one knew I was there for a visit. While I was under the car, his home phone started ringing. After about 20 rings, I scooted from under the vehicle and answered the phone. No one was on the other end."

"When I returned to the car, I knew that I should stop and use his floor jack, but for whatever reason, I decided for a second time not to go through the trouble of doing the repair safely and correctly. When I got back under the car, the phone started to ring again . I ignored the rings at first but finally slid from under the car and walked to the porch and into the house to answer it. Again, no answer on the other end. Though I was frustrated, a funny feeling came over me. Things began to happen in slow motion for some strange reason.

As I hung up the phone the second time, the car slipped off the bumper jack and came crashing to the ground. If I had ignored the second ring, I would have been crushed in the chest and possibly died. I believe a guardian angel called me twice that day. I almost did not answer, but I am so glad I did. I was only 16 at the time. My mistake that day could have cost me my life."

—Alex T

22. "Ten years ago, I was working for a company as a voice/data/video technician. A co-worker and I were at a department store that was undergoing remodeling. It was nearing the end of the project, and one of the last things we had to do was re-install cash registers on the store's new counters. My co-worker was caught in traffic that morning, so it was up to me to move these huge, heavy machines up to the counter alone. After moving these things by myself, I fell to the floor in extreme pain. My back was killing me. That next morning, I literally crawled into a hospital ER, begging for help."

"The staff performed numerous tests and loaded me with pain killers, but I was still in agony. They decided to give me an MRI to find the source. That evening, while I was lying in the hospital bed, a doctor who I'd never met came in to see me. He revealed that the MRI indicated I had a form of cancer known as Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. Fortunately, because I came in after that job, it was caught early enough. After six phases of chemo, the cancer was gone. I still have back issues, but the cancer didn’t kill me."

—Anonymous

23. "When I was in junior high in the early '70s, several of the students — including me — had to cross a busy four-lane street to walk home. On this day, cars in the first three lanes stopped to let us cross. We walked into the street, and without thinking, I stepped into the last lane just as a car came barreling toward us. I jumped backward as I heard the screeching brakes, causing my gym bag to swing in front of me. The car slammed into the bag, missing me by inches. My heart was pounding the rest of the way home."

— jcs3d

24. "I was getting ready to go out surfing and put my board down on some grass in this beach's parking lot to wax it up. I was kneeling down with the board on the grass when I realized I had forgotten my wax. So, I went to my car to get it. I normally don't forget it, but I was lucky that this time I did. I was just gone a few seconds, but when I turned to go back to my board, there was a car on top of it. It turns out someone had parked their car but didn't put the parking brake on. The car rolled backward, ricocheted off another car, and then rolled onto my surfboard. If I hadn't forgotten the wax, I probably would have died, as I did not hear the car coming because there was no engine noise. It was pure luck."

—Anonymous

25. "In 1979, I was a freshman in high school. My sister and I went to a professional hockey game. We had just sat down in our seats behind the goal. At the time, the nets were not as high as they are now. I was looking to my left, chatting with my sister, when suddenly, a puck flew through the air right at me. I was hit on the right side of my head, just above my ear. If I hadn't been hunched over chatting, I would have been struck in my eye or temple. People around me were handing us tissues and napkins to stop the bleeding. I ended up needing 15 stitches. The coach came to first aid, gave me a puck, and said the one that hit me had been going 100 mph."

—Anonymous, Colorado Springs, USA

26. "I had two such instances. The first: When I was a child, my family rented snowmobiles. Instead of having keys, the owner had rigged up some kind of cord to start the engine, kind of like an old lawn mower. It was the style at the time to wear a long scarf around one's neck, and that’s how I was wearing mine that day. I got on my snowmobile and started off, only to feel a strong snap. My scarf had become caught in the engine and whipped off my coat so quickly, it melted my coat. Had the scarf been tied, it would have broken my neck or decapitated me for sure."

"The second occurred when white water rafting with my husband. It wasn't my first-time white water rafting, so I felt confident. After some difficult rapids, we paddled to the side of the river to swim. As I went into a small rapid to body-surf through it, I got a huge mouthful of water and was dragged into a larger rapid, unable to catch my breath. I was drowning, and the harder I tried to get out, the worse it got. I began to panic. My husband saw my face and could tell I was panicked. He swam over and grabbed me. He didn’t realize how bad it was, though. As he pulled me close to shore, he let go, and I began to go backward into the current again. I had enough breath then to yell for help, and he grabbed me. After a few minutes, when I thought I had recovered, I got back into the raft. It seemed like all was well, but a month later, I developed nasty pneumonia, probably because of the water I’d breathed in."

—Anonymous

27. "I'd been let go from a job, was extremely broke, and had a job interview lined up. I would've taken a bus to get to it as it was the cheaper option, but for whatever reason, I decided to just stay home that day. My interview was on March 22, 2017, in London at 1:15 p.m. The Westminster Bridge Attack happened at 1:40 that day. I would've walked across that bridge on the way back home, probably around that time."

— demlar

28. Lastly, "Three friends and I were on our way to go white water rafting in a remote area in New England. We decided to take my (very tall) friend’s four-runner, which sits pretty high off the ground. About halfway through the long drive, she mentioned she was tired, so I offered to take over. Later, while going about 80mph in the passing lane on a remote highway in complete blackness, a moose appeared directly in front of me, square in the middle of my lane. I was the only one who saw it, seconds before I smashed into it. I only had time to scream and duck. I held on to the steering wheel and tucked my head down between my arms while I slammed on the brakes. Had I had time to brake prior to impact, the vehicle wouldn’t have had the velocity or angle to propel the moose up and over the car, and we all would have been dead. Because I didn’t, the moose 'sardine canned' off the roof of the four-runner, peeling it back."

"A huge section jutted down right where my head would have been if I hadn't ducked. It cut me on the top of my head and gave me a concussion. I am about six inches shorter than my friend who owned the car, and had she been driving, even if she ducked, she would have been decapitated.

We ended upright in a huge grassy ravined median, a few feet from dozens of trees. I couldn’t get out, and there was no cell service, so two friends ran up to the road to wave for help. The first vehicle they waved down was an off-duty ambulance, which happened to be driving by. They tended to us until the state police and EMS got there. I’d say we were pretty lucky that night. The moose died, the car was totaled, and no one could believe the four of us walked away with nothing more than a concussion, scratches, tetanus shots, and moose poop in our hair."

—Chelsea P, Maine, USA

Have you ever had a near-death experience like these? If so — and if you feel comfortable sharing – tell us about it in the comments below or via this anonymous form , and it may be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community post.

Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.