32 People Recall The Most Horrifying Thing They Ever Witnessed
1. Her eyelids were burnt off with her right eye popping out of her face looking like a squished grape.
I’m a career firefighter with 6 years on the job. I went my entire probationary year without fighting a single fire, then in my second year on the job I finally popped my cherry with a fully involved house fire with an occupant trapped inside. We get to the house and a kid who I went to high school with is on the front lawn screaming frantically and pointing at the house, turns out it’s his mom’s house and she’s trapped inside. We put the fire out and pull her out the house and place her on the front lawn, mind you she was a black woman but when I looked at her half of her body was burnt white, which was weird, and her eyelids were burnt off with her right eye popping out of her face looking like a squished grape, all the while her son is 3 feet away looking at a mound of flesh that used to be his mother…shitty shitty day.
2. She delicately grasped a small ball of shit and popped it into her mouth. And then she called me a cunt.
I attended a call to a woman on the floor. She suffered from dementia and was lying on the floor of her bathroom about 1 foot from her toilet. She had been there for two days without eating.
Firstly, she had urinated everywhere and was soaked in it. She had also shat herself and was caked in that, on her hands and around her midriff.
Whilst talking to her and politely asking her if she wouldn’t mind getting up so we could take her to hospital she delicately grasped a small ball of shit and popped it into her mouth. And then she called me a cunt.
3. The smell and the sight of a man’s face falling into his hands.
We had a furnace burp a ball of flame when I worked at a steel mill. Six guys got burned, three severely. Two were my immediate coworkers. They came into the office on fire, and after we doused the flames, we had to put burn packs on them while we waited for paramedics. The smell and the sight of a man’s face falling into his hands…I started looking for a new job that day.
4. The top part of his head explodes and I just stand there.
I grew up in the Crenshaw area of LA right on the border between Crenshaw and Compton. I was one of 3 other white kids in the neighborhood. When my dad came to this country in 1960, it was not a bad area. By 1988 however it was horrible. I grew up near the dividing line between the CMG’s (Crenshaw Mafia Gang), who were Bloods and the SSC (South Side Crips) who were Crips. A lot of gang warfare, equivalent to living on the Gaza Strip. Shootings, ghetto birds (police helicopters) and drive-bys. I had no gang loyalty, but knew members of both gangs and, surprisingly being white, they were cool with me. I stayed out of their way and they left me alone.
One Saturday my friend Kenny (Obvious South Park joke) had spent the night. We got up and I had about $10 dollars from my allowance so we decided to walk to the corner store and live like kings on Slurpees, garbage pail kids and candy. As I enter the store first I see two of the CMG’s standing outside listening to music. I go in to the store while Kenny finishes tying his shoe. Soon he comes in and right as I turn around to see what we should get, the top part of his head explodes and I just stand there. It felt like minutes, but it was like a second before some old bum tackled me and covered me from the bullets. When I sat up the guy said I was bleeding from the mouth. Police and ambulance came soon and I found out that a fragment from Kenny’s skull and pierced my lower lip and was stuck in there. I still have a tiny scar from it.
Needless to say about six months later we moved to a safer neighborhood before moving out of state entirely. I saw therapists and had counseling, but the image of Kenny’s head exploding will always be with me.
That’s the most fucked up thing I witnessed.
5. His shoes flew 25 feet in separate directions when he got hit.
Kids outside a 7-Eleven were seeing if they could dodge cars on a busy street on their bikes aka pedaling out right in front of them. This lady hit a kid, he erupts with this ungodly wet smack as he hit the windshield. The fucked-up part? His shoes flew 25 feet in separate directions when he got hit. I couldn’t understand how his shoes flew so far, standing there in shock. Now he has severe brain damage and I haven’t seen him since. I can never unsee those shoes.
6. I spent 3 hours picking up miniature body parts.
This dude blew himself up outside our little outpost in Afghanistan. In the process he killed about 20+ school children walking to school. I was the only medic there that day. I spent 3 hours picking up miniature body parts. I remember running past a little kidney caught in the C-wire and feeling like I looked at it for hours. I also remember seeing our dog dead near the blast site. it was an awful day.
That night I couldn’t sleep and went up to the roof to smoke. Through my night vision I could see two dogs fighting over a kids leg.
There is security camera footage of this going down.
It took me years to come to terms with what happened that day.
7. Being hunted on the street.
Being hunted on the street. Watching as four guys coordinated to surround me from three separate directions with big smiles on their faces in anticipation of the pleasure they were about to feel by jumping me. Didn’t want my money, just wanted to beat me because race. The looks on their faces are something I’ll never forget.
I’ve seen a lot of screwed up stuff, but that one sticks the most.
Edit: There’s not much more to the story. I fought them off, more or less, with only minor injuries, mostly by wrapping an arm around a small nearby tree so I didn’t go down and getting one of them in a headlock to use as a shield. I was a bruised piece of mess after, but I didn’t care about the “fight,” it was how it went down and again, those looks. I was just walking home from work as usual in the late afternoon and when I saw the first guy ahead of me, smiling, I smiled back. Then I noticed a guy crossing the street towards me, also smiling. Then I looked behind me (reflex, I grew up urban) and saw the other two and knew what time it was. That’s when I grabbed the tree, dropped my bag nearby and threw my wallet out, foolishly thinking it was a robbery. I don’t think I really understood what what going on until the racial commentary along with “bash his fucking face in” kinda stuff was said. That’s when I knew it wasn’t a robbery, That they had selected me to hurt, on purpose, just because of skin color.
I’m adding that it’s not important what my race or theirs was. Racism is racism is racism and being mixed I’ve seen it come from many different directions and it looks the same no matter who’s delivering it. My bruises were purple, and my blood was red, just like everybody else.
8. His last words were, “Maybe next time, my family will want me.”
I saw a 14-year-old purposefully OD on heroin. I kept trying to keep him awake while the paramedics came. His last words were, “Maybe next time, my family will want me.”
At a party, I watched a guy get high on dust, scream, “I’m superman!” jump out of a window, and break his neck.
9. I overheard that had one tested positive, followed by a guttural outcry of shock and sadness.
Sitting in the lobby of an HIV testing clinic in 2002, the gay couple getting results back before me were escorted into a private office and (due to very thin walls) I overheard that had one tested positive, followed by a guttural outcry of shock and sadness. I was 19 at the time and somewhat unaware that it wasn’t a 100% death sentence, but still rattled me to the core when thinking about how life had just changed drastically for one or both of them. I could only stare at the floor as they left the office and I awaited my name to be called.
10. ‘Daddy, why are you showing me your penis?’
I stopped by a McDonald’s washroom while I was on the road. I was using the urinal when I heard a little girl’s voice in the stall next to me. ‘Daddy, why are you showing me your penis?’ I saw two sets of children’s legs at the bottom of the stall.
I immediately got out of there and informed a manager of what I heard before leaving. If what I thought was going on there is true. That is the most fucked-up thing that’s ever happened.
11. She had just jumped off the building and killed herself.
When I was living in Ukraine, I came home one day and there was a woman laying on the ground outside my apartment building. As I got closer to her, I was surprised that she didn’t move at all. I finally realized that the grass and dirt were all indented where she was laying and that she had just jumped off the building and killed herself. The police came by latter and asked everyone in the building what they knew about it, but as an American in the Ukraine I avoided them.
12. Saw a kid’s forehead peeled open after a failed backflip off the diving board
So many to name.
1.) Saw a kid’s forehead peeled open after a failed backflip off the diving board. Down to the bone, it was disgusting.
2.) Watched my friend kill herself by OD, being unable to stop her (Skype) and then watching in horror as the medics showed up (I was too stunned to turn off Skype) and carry her off.
3.) In 3rd grade my friend tried to do the monkey bars backwards. He fell and his arm snapped in three places.
4.) Watched my dad’s friend crash his motorcycle and lose a leg.
5.) Watched a high school football game in which a player returning a kickoff was paralyzed from the waist down in a brutal hit.
TL;DR: I’ve seen some things…
13. His knee was peeled open like an orange. You could see everything, right down to the bone.
I was probably twelve and we were at the grocery store. This little kid came running towards the registers at max speed. He plowed right into the railing that separated the last register from the entrance to the store. He fell back, landing on his ass.
His knee was peeled open like an orange. You could see everything, right down to the bone. I distinctly remember someone holding a paper towel below the wound, as if to catch the blood, without actually covering it or applying pressure.
14. Blood was just pouring out of him after about 15 seconds of this, but he stayed on his feet.
About 15 years ago I was working in a less developed country, and I saw one guy stab another guy to death with a pocket knife with about a 4 inch blade in an argument after they got into a car accident.
The WTF thing is that, unlike the movies, a person doesn’t just go down after the first stab. The victim was on his feet, hands in the air, saying the equivalent of “it’s OK, it’s OK” to his attacker while he was getting stabbed. Over and over and over. I think he must have gotten stabbed about 40 times on his left side – arm, chest, face, and especially in the neck. Blood was just pouring out of him after about 15 seconds of this, but he stayed on his feet.
There were a lot of gawkers, but nobody intervened. We were in a car on the opposite side of the street maybe 50 feet away. Eventually a cab driver on the near side stopped his car, ran out and grabbed the victim and put him in the back seat and drove off – presumably to a hospital. I can’t imagine the guy survived after several dozen deep puncture wounds to his chest, neck, and head like that.
The scariest thing was the look in the eyes of the attacker. He was just insane, like a rabid animal. No possible reasoning with someone in that state. He murdered an unarmed man over a fender bender in front of 200 witnesses, and I’m 99.99% sure he was executed for that crime. Probably part of the motivation was racial. The attacker was Arab and the victim was black African. Such an utterly mindless waste of two lives.
Like so many other folks are saying here, you can’t unsee these things. They really stick with you, and for days afterward you play a thousand scenarios over in your mind of how you might have acted differently, what you might have done, to change things.
15. They smashed through the windscreen and their head came off.
A decapitation. I was walking across an overpass bridge and a car accident happened on the highway below me where a car just veered into oncoming traffic. I don’t know if the person wasn’t wearing a seat belt or something but they smashed through the windscreen and their head came off. That was pretty disturbing for 14-year-old me to watch!
16. The guy was laying in the road missing an arm and leg, which were smashed into the asphalt.
I saw the aftermath of a very bad motorcycle accident as a kid. The guy was laying in the road missing an arm and leg, which were smashed into the asphalt and spread out over 20 feet like some giant disgusting water color painting. I’ll never ride a motorcycle.
17. I saw a homeless man get stabbed at least 20 times.
I saw a homeless man get stabbed at least 20 times in downtown San Jose as I was leaving a bar one Saturday night. It was surreal and very scary. The stabber was a woman, who seemed homeless herself, and after stabbing him she ran towards me screaming for help. My guess was the guy she stabbed needed help a bit more. I took off.
18. My grandma trying to kill herself.
My grandma trying to kill herself.
19. As I stepped out of the crushed vehicle, instead of helping the locals laughed and took pictures.
Was in a car crash on holiday. As I stepped out of the crushed vehicle, instead of helping the locals laughed and took pictures.
20. I witnessed my first exorcism.
In the summer of 2012 I went to Costa Rica to help put on a bible camp for teens. I witnessed my first exorcism. There was a girl speaking in tongues with her eyes rolled back in her head, arms and legs flailing. I stared, but everyone else went on as normal as a pastor and several others held her down.
21. Just imagine, your big brother who used to be athletic, strong and handsome is now a skeleton of his old self.
I’m a bit late but my big brother had a brain tumor years ago. It was because of brain cancer. We thought it was gone but it came back with a vengeance and he was bedridden about four months ago. When I got up to see him (about two months ago), I was in shock. I looked up to this guy my whole life, he was my big bro. He was in so much pain he could barely talk. He couldn’t move, so when I was there for a bit I had to do things like wipe his ass and put the pee jug on his dick etc. Just imagine, your big brother who used to be athletic, strong and handsome is now a skeleton of his old self. Almost no weight, can’t move by himself. At least he still had his sense of humor when he could muster up the strength to talk :). Makes you appreciate how frail life is tho.
22. As her brains are splattered all over the place, the ambulance stops to help her.
Old lady crosses the street and is hit by ambulance. As her brains are splattered all over the place, the ambulance stops to help her and call another one to get to where they were going.
23. You never want to see some giant nail cracking a man’s skull as he lays flinching on the ground.
Being poor you need to get any kind of job, so me and my friend became construction workers. I battle depression and I feel that so was my friend. He would show up to work with hangovers almost always. I would back him up when he needed. Basically one day I saw him balancing on the roof of a port-o-potty and then he slipped and fell headfirst onto a nail sticking out of some plywood. You never want to see some giant nail cracking a man’s skull as he lays flinching on the ground.
24. An inmate cut out his own testicles and flung them at a man.
An inmate cut out his own testicles and flung them at a man.
An inmate cut his fingers off in the meat grinder.
An inmate cut off another inmate’s face.
An inmate stomped another inmate to death, his ribcage was so fucked up that you could still see things moving in the soup when they pulled him out.
An inmate put things into his penis until it got infected and started rotting off… that is a smell you never forget, they had to start cutting off bits of dick.
An inmate cutting his arms and pulling things out.
Poo Critters
25. A guy with a throat ripped open.
Turin Italy, my hometown. A guy with a throat ripped open. He was walking up a street holding his throat, trying not to lose too much blood. The sound he was emitting wasn’t fun either. Hope he made it.
26. His entire abdomen was sliced open, had no organs in him or anything.
Rented a lake house in Michigan, I was on the porch drinking my coffee when I see what looks like a body in the river. I stopped it with a stick and called the cops. His entire abdomen was sliced open, had no organs in him or anything, he was completely open down the middle, and wearing a blindfold. Cops and ambulance came, took the body and began to question me. I told them what I saw, and I found out what happened when the finished the investigation a month later. Turns out the poor guy was drugged by his boyfriend and killed him to sell his organs, hence why he had no liver, intestines, or kidneys.
27. The back half of the cat was flattened onto the road and you could see it screaming in pain.
I was driving home late at night after working a swing shift. The guy in front of me hit a cat. The back half of the cat was flattened onto the road and you could see it screaming in pain. That fucking image still haunts my dreams almost 20 years later.
28. Worst part, apart from blood, was the sound.
Saw a guy stab his chest with scissors. He wasn’t screaming or anything.
Worst part, apart from blood, was the sound. Just this tsssssssss sound like a balloon losing air of something.
He survived.
29. I do remember that she was so jaundiced that her skin looked orange and the way she jerked violently.
My mother got HIV/AIDS from IV drug use. Towards the end of her life, when I was 12, she was in a VA nursing home; I lived with her in her room for about two weeks over the summer. (The Dallas VA hospital’s nursing home has a really nice courtyard, or did back then).
In any case, one day she had a seizure. I don’t remember much about it except running to get the staff and being horrified by how slowly they responded (now I realize that she was terminal and had a DNR/DNI, most likely). I do remember that she was so jaundiced that her skin looked orange and the way she jerked violently.
She passed about a month afterward. I’m now 31 and, frankly, kind of regretting recalling that memory right now.
30. His skin was melted like candle wax. It was basically just dripping down his face.
Watched a drunk friend purposefully hit a butane canister with an axe to make matters worse we had a few lit fires and candles around. Resulting explosion was really big and nobody was close enough to stop him. Seemed like everything went into slow motion and at first I honestly thought he was dead as he was lying there completely silent but then the screaming started and I knew he wasn’t.
His skin was melted like candle wax. It was basically just dripping down his face. Here were 4 of us including me and him and we were drinking and chilling in a forest in the middle of nowhere. We basically had to get him back to the closest persons house which was a few miles away then phone an ambulance luckily between the three of us we managed it.
Anyway he recovered and from what I know the excuse he told his parents was some nonsense about how he rescued a little kid before they blew themselves up and basically tried to make out he was a hero and saved this imaginary kids life amazingly they bought that.
Really it’s the dumbest thing I’ve witnessed a usually quite smart person do I’ve no idea why he thought it was a good idea can only think the alcohol made him irrational or something.
31. The cross fell completely on him, splattering his brain across the floor.
I responded to a call where a janitor was dusting/cleaning a quite large stone cross in the middle of the church. He had been up on a ladder dusting/cleaning, when he slipped off the ladder and proceeded to try to hang on to the cross to keep from falling. Unfortunately the weight of the around 200-lb man was too much to support. The cross fell towards him landing on his left arm, with a part of the horizontal stone of the cross, pushing his muscles and tendons out of his wrist like a squeezed toothpaste tube. Then the cross fell completely on him, splattering his brain across the floor. Quite disturbing, and definitely the most horrific and gore-filled call I had ever witnessed.
32. The back of his head was all bashed in and you could see his brain a bit.
I was waiting in the emergency room when I was around 6 with my great aunt who was very sick. Some guy came in on a stretcher, the back of his head was all bashed in and you could see his brain a bit. Somehow he was still alive.