I walked into a back room freezer of a grocery store. The huge door was designed to close automatically. I knew this and went in and did what I was there to do. After 30 seconds, I couldn’t catch my breath. I thought maybe I was just working to hard so I stopped and took several huge breaths, nothing. I felt like I was drowning out of water. I had to move as quickly as I could back outside of the freezer and feel to my knees gasping when I got out. It was only afterwards I realized for some dumb reason someone kept open dry ice in a cart inside of the freezer.

Came very close (about two inches) to backing into a warehouse rack full of two ton coils of sheet metal when I didn't realise that my forklift was in reverse.

Jumping into piles of leaves as a child then when I was 28 I was visiting my mum and she had a pile of leaves in the yard so for shits and giggles I jumped into the pile of leaves to which I discovered was hiding a bear trap which my elderly mother had placed that morning to try and catch a skunk. 79 stitches and a broken arm that was almost amputated because of how bad the break was, this doubles as a PSA to only jump in leaf piles you have made yourself

Cut my inner ankle on a glass cup. For those who don’t know, an artery is there and I literally sliced through it. Almost bled out. Thankfully didn’t though!

I was at a Pink Floyd concert at the old Tampa Stadium, was going to get a beer. I got crushed against a wall, at the bottom of a stairway, when a rush of people came up the breezeway. I couldn't move or breathe, probably 100 or more people in a log jam. I'm not a big person, started to panic, looked up and a guy looked over the rail above me. He started yelling to me to reach for his hand, he leaned way over and grabbed my hand, and pulled me up. Like 8 or 9 feet, and over the rail. Took a few minutes to get a breath he had the security guy get the medic to check me over. Freaky close to a very bad ending.

I almost drowned in the sea as a kid. A current pushed me away from the shore. Lifeguards saved me and were slapping my face. I thought it was a punishment but they were resuscitating me.

Almost got my head squashed by a car due to a small pebble making me fall on the main road

I was at a Waterpark in Texas with one of those super tall, straight-down slides. They had multiple signs saying things like "DO NOT PUSH OFF BEFORE SLIDING DOWN!" me being an 18-year-old idiot and wanting to race my friend, I decided to push off. That extra push started my slow-motion, airborne flight over the slide. I was then staring 100ft down at concrete and my other friend who had his jaw open. What felt like minutes later, I smacked back down onto the slide and made my way down to the bottom. Thank God for the engineers that planned for suicidal idiots like myself.

Going down the wooden stairs at my parent's house wearing socks Slipped on the last step and banged my head on the wall Woke up ~3 hours later with a doggo by my side desperately licking my ear Never told my parents

I was at Lake Bled in Slovenia and thought I could easily swim the distance between the shore and the island in the middle with the church on it. Boy was I wrong... about halfway I started getting exhausted and had trouble staying afloat. Then my body kicked into survival mode, the adrenaline started pumping, and I Michael Phelps'd the rest of the way to the island. I ended up paying 5 Euros to have a boat take me back to shore after that harrowing experience.

While drunk, I sat down outside...to rest for a moment...on a freezing cold Winter's night. Fortunately, a passerby noticed me and encouraged me to get inside. I figure I was probably there dozing for several minutes.

I coughed. Dislocated my C1-C2 vertebrae and spent 6 months in a body halo. Idk how close to death that counts, but be careful when you cough.

Unplugging the washing machine with wet hands. My hand slipped onto the prongs while they were still partially in the outlet, and I think my heart stopped for a second before I yanked the plug free. Definitely do not recommend it.

I snorkelled too far out into the ocean, and it wasn't because it was a riptide, I just got distracted by pretty fish

I waited over a week with stomach pains in college, thinking it was gas or something. Got so bad I couldn't sleep, but still waited all night to go to Urgent Care when they opened the next morning, instead of going to the ER. They told me it was my appendix and asked if I wanted an ambulance. I didn't want to cause a scene and elected to drive to the ER. Got to the ER and vomited in their trash can. Was in surgery within 20 minutes. Was in the hospital for 2 weeks with an NG tube and Catheter. Everyone said I almost died.

I'm Italian but have been living in the UK for two years. Guess who looked at the wrong side of the road while a Bus was coming through? Every time I went back to Italy I risked my life for the same reason by getting used to driving to the left and vice versa

I didn't look before I crossed the street. Walked backward while talking to my friend who got hit by a van. I wasn't wearing my medic alert bracelet to warn the paramedics and hospital that I'm allergic to Demerol, because "it looks dumb and gets caught on my backpack, besides what are the chances I'd ever be given that?"The chances, it turns out, are pretty good if you get hit by a van going full speed hard enough to nearly rip your foot off at the ankle. I survived. 7 surgeries to patch me back up. Was comatose for a little bit. Had some blood transfusions. Massive amounts of physiotherapy. Look both ways and wear your medic alerts folks!

Drove on an interstate during a hurricane and watched all the cars around me get submerged

Grown adult and choked on mozzarella cheese. Was only alone for 20 minutes. Can't imagine the obituary

Swam under a shipyard pier at night (solid concrete above me) and lost my sense of direction. Got lucky and found my way out.

God, I completely f***ing forgot. When I was like 14 or 15 I found out about breathplay from some dumb adult comedy show we shouldn’t have been watching. I was curious and dumb so when I went to bed that night I stuck my head inside my pillowcase (with the pillow over my face) and tied it on tightly with a bathrobe cord. Of course, my dumb little fucking idiot self couldn’t get it untied again. I freaked out and was just going nuts pulling on any random bit of cord I could get my fingers into, trying to pull the pillow off, but all I was doing was compressing the knots down tighter. I remember feeling really dizzy and rapidly see-sawing between desperately sucking in hot wet breaths of carbon dioxide, and then just going completely still and feeling like I didn’t need to breathe anymore as I could just lie there peacefully… then suddenly going back to gasping for air again. Somehow I eventually wiggled enough slack out of the cord to be able to get one of the loops up over my chin so I could pull the pillow away from my mouth, and all I could do for a few minutes was just lay there and breathe. I will never forget how cold and wonderful that first breath of proper air was. Fucking dumb little shit.

Choked on a hamburger in 8th grade beside my old friend who was too busy flirting until someone else saved me

Had had experience snowboarding and went with some friends up a black diamond run. I was scared to fall so I would squat so I would have less distance to fall. The person reading this laughing so far knows this makes you go faster. So anywho, I took a tumble worse than Scarlet while going full speed and felt lightness except my hand caught what I thought was a branch. When the snow cleared my hand was wrapped up in a red safety net and I was hanging about 4 stories off the mountain. That was the most committed pullup of my life. Great times.

Choked on a life saver

Stuck my head out the car window bc I wanted to see why dogs loved it. My grandpa didn't notice, rolled up the window, and I choked. He freaked out when he heard the cat-like noises (ironic) I was making while my neck was trying to squeeze through the small opening of the window, but kept raising the window in his panic. Eventually, he got it and I was left with a red mark on my neck and no closer to understanding dogs.