1. Someone overdosed during my shift at the movie theater

“I was working at my cinema clearing sessions when I had to go wake up an old man in the back row. Got closer and realized his skin was pale/blue and he was covered in his own vomit. He had overdosed and decided to go out while watching Guardians of the Galaxy.” — tuplski

2. A car accident happened right in front of my eyes

“I left work for lunch walking to a restaurant just 2 blocks away. As I rounded the corner a car accident happens right in front of me. A lady walking just 10 feet in front of me is hit and pinned between the car and a building. She was conscious and mad as hell. Despite her legs being obviously broken she let loose a stream of verbal abuse on the driver about her shoes, her dress, her phone, everything except her injuries. It was surreal.” — Depression-Unlocked

3. I found my friend’s dead body inside of his bedroom

“Junior high school. Was supposed to meet my buddy Nick at the swimming pool. He didn’t show, so I walked the three blocks to his house to yell at him. His mom let me in and I walked up to his room and opened the door. Found him hanging from a belt tied to his ceiling fan.” — Mikehideous

4. I saw a classmate’s father shoot another man straight in the face

“I grew up in a pretty small, rural community. Like, no lie, the entire county only has one stop light and 3/4’s of the streets in the county seat are one way. It’s very much an ‘everyone knows you and your business’ kind of place. So on the day in question, the high school and middle school kids were already on the bus (I was in middle school) and we were circling around the one way streets headed to the funnel of our county’s only stop light so we could eventually get to the elementary school. As we were waiting to inch closer to the light, we pulled up to the end of a small cross street that had the only 3 bars in town just in time for me to look to my left out the window to see one of my classmate’s dad shoot a man in the face with a double barrel shotgun from maybe 4ft away. Guy was standing on the sidewalk against the white wall of a small restaurant across from the bars and my friend’s dad was standing on the curb of the same bit of sidewalk. Blew his head about completely off and i will never in my life forget that man’s skull and brains dripping down that white wall on an otherwise beautiful fall afternoon.

After he shot the guy, friend’s dad just turned and sat down on the curb with gun next to him, lit a cigarette, and waited for the cops to show up. I was the only person to actually watch him pull the trigger, everyone else didn’t turn until they heard the blast. My bus driver got on the radio and called it in but couldn’t move the bus out of the way because of the stoplight bottleneck and one way streets. So a bus of about 20 middle and high school students got a front row seat to a mostly headless corpse for almost 15 minutes while we waited for emergency crews to bust through traffic to the scene and get it moving enough that our bus could finally pull away.” — Jenipherocious

5. A homeless man stabbed me in the stomach

“Some crazy hobo coming at me with a knife that I hadn’t noticed because I was looking at my phone at the time.

Just remembered my stomach being really warm, then my thighs, and the warmth just traveled to the sidewalk and that’s when I realized I was bleeding.” — 2Kou

6. I watched a plane slam into a restaurant and burst into flames

“Watched an old warbird fighter jet slam into a restaurant and burst into flames while attending an airshow. I was quite young, so I have only a couple mental images from that day, but the emotions attached to each of those images are enduring. One image, the strongest, is a sea of legs, all running in confusion. Being little, that was my perspective. The emotion was pure terror. I thought my folks had lost me (years later, they said they never lost sight of me), and the pandemonium coupled with being lost scared the heck out of me. The other image is a column of pitch black smoke. From my vantage point, it appeared to be coming from the top of the control tower. The emotion there was puzzlement, wondering why this big tall building was on fire.” — shugerbooger

7. My father-in-law cut his arm off with a chainsaw

“My father in law about cut his arm off with a small chainsaw when we were working on his ranch clearing some brush. Luckily we got him to the hospital in time. I used to ridicule guys that carried trauma kits in their vehicles but ever since then I’ve started carrying one.

On a similar note, a buddy had a Ranger catch on fire in the middle of a corn field when he was getting ready for deer season. He didn’t have a fire extinguisher on him and the field he was in was too wet and muddy to get a fire truck to so they had to let it burn out. Thankfully it was wet enough that the fire didn’t spread. Ever since then I’ve also got a fire extinguisher in all my vehicles!” — [deleted] 

8. I was robbed at gunpoint

“I was robbed at gunpoint while working at Hungry Howie’s when I was about 21. Guy came in, your normal looking guy. No bad vibes, etc… This was many years ago. I was in the lobby cleaning up. My asst. mgr. that I was training came up and took his order.

I was chit chatting with him while his order was being made. When it was done, Jeff (asst. mgr.) came up and said that’ll be $2.07. Robber pulls out a $10 and Jeff opens drawer. Robber pulls gun and points it at me.

He says, ‘Do you know what this is?’ I’m in shock, and I specifically remember thinking, ‘Yeah, it’s a gun…so what.” He says again, ‘Bitch! Do you know what this is?!?’ Then, I’m like, ‘Oh shit! It’s a GUN!!’

He grabs me, gun to my head and we go behind the counter. I open the cash drawer and empty it for him. He tells me to open the safe. I explain there’s two parts. One I can do right away, the other with the big day deposits is a time delay, etc… And will take 15 minutes. He has me open the easy one.

He makes me, Jeff and our driver Janie lay on the ground and out our hands behind our heads and close our eyes. I believe at this point were about to die. We’ve all see his face for ten minutes easily and can describe him in detail.

If you’ve never had your life flash before your eyes, let me tell you…it’s a fascinating, awe inducing experience. I get goosebumps every time I think about when it happened. It’s like having a thousand memories and memories-to-be flash in an instant in your brain, and yet you’re able to attach to each one, and to KNOW and to UNDERSTAND each one of those pictures that you’re seeing. My daughter who was only 1.5 yo and is now 26, looks just like she did in that flash.

Robber left and didn’t harm us.

What did Hungry Howie’s do to help us through this trauma? Better security systems? Locks? NOPERS.

They wanted to fire me for making it unsafe for future employees because I opened the safe. My supervisor threatened to walk out and quit if they did that. So instead, they only suspended me for two weeks.

Needless to say, as soon as I could find another job, I quit there.” — Redwingsrule6971

9. I watched a man get shot in a church parking lot

“I saw a guy get shot in a church parking lot. Probably no more than 15 yards away from me. Apparently the shooter thought the guy was a space alien.” — Sullydadoodle

10. I saw a man’s skin get ripped right off

“I was driving to work with a friend and a guy crossed the road on a pedal bike and did not see a delivery truck coming. Truck hit him – ripped his face skin right off. I’ve never have and never will see anything as scary as a face with no skin.” — Deevahs 

11. I witnessed the aftermath of a murder

“Murder. Was having a beer with a dude that hung around a bar I frequented. As backstory, there were a ton of dudes that hung out and the block slinging weed. They would ask passerbys and if you said no, they would tell you to have a nice day. Surprisingly upstanding for my mental image of dealers. After a while I knew most of them by name because I hung at the bar often enough. They even protected me when I got jumped by a random.

Anyways. I was having a beer with one of them, and he left to go do whatever is he needed to do. About 5 minutes later I went outside for a cigarette, and saw him stumble into the street clutching his chest. He’d been stabbed in the abdomen, punctured lung. Pronounced dead at the scene. It was a surreal moment. Don’t deal drugs kids.” — PreheatedDutchOven

12. I saw a dead body dumped beneath an underpass

“Dead body. Walking under an underpass one day. Normal route, quiet neighborhood.

Like of papers…. I brush a paper and, ‘Oh a leg, probably some sad homeless guy. Best let him sleep. Oh… what’s that? It’s red all over and OH SHIT.’

Some dude had been shot and dumped there the night before.” — bland12 

13. I watched a man jump in front of an oncoming train

“Witnessed a man jump in front of an oncoming train. It happened so fast and he just disappeared. There were quite a few people in the station who were in shock, some were crying. I still think about it to this day.” — WayCamper 

14. My friend was set on fire

“Starting a bonfire with friends, woods wet, fire isn’t really starting, out of lighter fluid, gallon of gas at my side. What could go wrong if I’m careful, right? Flames goes up to nozzle, so I chuck the can as far as I could, fireball lands right on my friends leg. Luckily he put it out before he got injured.” — TheOkHunt

15. The cops came knocking at my door about a missing child

“The cops knocked on my door about 11am to ask if I’d seen my neighbor’s son recently. Turns out he’d gone missing.

The image of that mom collapsing, screaming, on her front yard and the dad tearing down the street and LAUNCHING himself out of his car…that is going to stick with me for all eternity. Really brought home how life can change, permanently, in an instant.” — just_another-lurker

16. There was a shooting at the mall I was standing inside of

“I was doing last minute Valentine shopping for my wife on Valentine’s day. I was at mall in Halifax, NS. This was in 2015.

I was in the food court looking through the news and saw that police had previously just foiled a planned shooting at the mall I was currently in.

It really puts things into perspective.” — TheRedLayer

17. The membrane looked like an alien leaving my body

“I hadn’t had my period in a few months after stopping birth control, one of the many side effects. When I did finally have my period, a greyish, veiny membrane came out. I thought that maybe I had miscarried, but it was just built up lining for not having a period. It seriously looked like an alien or something out of a horror movie. It sent a shock through my body and almost felt like I had a body high for a few minutes. It gave me a new appreciation for what women who have miscarriages or do at home abortions go through.” — juniper-tree

18. We walked past an abandoned site that a serial killer could have caused

“I went hiking with three of my friends yesterday, up one of my favorite canyons here in Utah. It’s super close to the town, but usually no one goes there because the hike is pretty difficult.

This time, however, on the way up the trail we were occasionally finding things like shoes/coats/backpacks/shirts/water bottles all laying on the ground in the middle of the trail.

First couple times I was like oh whatevs someone probably just set their stuff down and went up the hill maybe.

But then we kept going and got to a good spot to rest. There was a big pile of stuff that looked like someone was maybe living there, big hiking bag, sleeping bag, tent, all in a pile under a big rock, but no one was around. We hiked further up the trail to find another backpack with several coats strewn about on the ground. The backpack was 100% full to bursting. We didn’t look inside, I didn’t want to know what was in there.

By this point I’m starting to feel a little wary. It was a lot of stuff. Like, it would take probably 10 people to haul all that shit up this steep ass trail. Or 1 person ten trips up, either way, weird. But whatever, we keep going up the trail only to find another big pile of stuff right in the middle of the trail. Looked like a military ammo case and several big back packs all completely full of something. And those things were piled on top of some other stuff in bags that I couldn’t make out. Big old pile of random stuff.

For some reason seeing this pile of stuff set off some warning signals in my brain. I came around a corner, stopped and seconds later, it suddenly became real fucking quiet. All the birds stopped chirping, all the animals became dead silent out of no where. My friend called out ‘hello, is anyone there?’ Silence. I could have been too paranoid by this weird stuff but I could feel eyes watching me from some where, creeped me the fuck out. I made the executive decision that we were going to turn around and leave. Something weird was going down in that canyon and I did not want to find out what lol.

So like, did these people get abducted by aliens, or was there a serial killer out there or what? Fucking weird man. Who hauls all this random shit up a canyon trail and just leaves it in the middle of the trail? Like what is the purpose of this?

I’m gonna go back to investigate further, but next time I’m gonna go earlier in the day and bring some weapons with me to defend myself if I need to. I’ve seen some creepy unexplained shit in that canyon a couple times before, so I don’t know…” — sevenspaces

19. I was in the subway during an explosion

“I was leaving the subway after work, when I was told by a staff member not to exit through the way I normally go. They said it so casually that I was just annoyed – but as I started coming up the stairs, a cop was standing at the top and yelling at us to go faster, that we were evacuating.

The scariest part wasn’t the cop, it was the people around me ignoring him and taking their sweet time going up the stairs. He was yelling at us the whole time, “Keep moving, get out, there’s been an explosion!, and it was like he was invisible to them. The only thought going through my mind was that I was going to die stuck behind a woman blocking the stairs with the yoga mat hanging from her backpack.

I got up to ground level and turned back to see the end of the street filled with billowing black smoke. And still, no one was reacting. I took off running away from it and found that the street had been cordoned off and I was inside the blocked off area. I just kept running past all the people that were taking pictures while the cops yelled them, and was certain that it was an attack, that someone had finally decided to come after Toronto.

It turns out to have been a hydro vault explosion due to faulty wiring. I walked home and was shaking the whole time.” — Anzi

20. I let a man use my bike — and he got hit by a truck while riding it

I was visiting NYC and my friend and I were trying to rent bikes, but they were all gone. This couple was going back to Europe the next day and they really wanted to go on a bike ride, but they only had one bike. I gave them the one I was going to rent and they were so happy. The excitement on their faces made my day.

My friend and I go to another bike rack like 1/4 of the mile away and get two bikes. As we were riding down the path we hear sirens and a shit ton of people are huddled in an area with a garbage truck like 10 feet away. Apparently the brakes on the rented bikes didn’t work and this person got hit by a garbage truck. There was a trail of blood like 10 feet long and the person on the ground was seizing very badly.

As we got closer, the guy from earlier was hysterical and the person on the ground was his wife. The same couple we made so happy by giving our bikes to them had their lives change forver in an instant. Honestly, the scene of the accident made it very clear she wasn’t going to survive. It was really bad.

That has fucked with me for awhile because that was supposed to be MY bike. I was supposed to get the bike with the non-functioning brakes. In what was an act of kindness on my part was the demise of that beautiful couple. What would have happened if I never gave my bike away? Would I have gotten hit by that garbage truck?” — Nyquilisdelicious

21. I saw a corpse eaten to pieces by animals

“When I was in high school I got a part time job at a psych hospital in an apprenticeship program for student nurses. I looked older and no one actually asked for my age or academic credentials, which admittedly was weird.

I got assigned to an outpatient site visit team. The first month I was there we went out to see a dude who had not been checking in. He was dead and thoroughly eaten by his hoarded cats. Wife was long gone and collecting his disability cheques.

Not sure it was scary, but certainly was the grossest thing I’ve seen.” — DirtyThi3f

22. I saw a man’s eye dangling out of his socket

“Came upon a car accident and went to help. Upside down car with wheels still spinning. Dude crawls out of the back seat with blood everywhere. He looks up at me and his eye is hanging out by the nerve and rolling around his cheek. Got him clear. Professionals came. I left.” — Ivotedforher 

23. I was there when an elderly man suffered from a seizure

“I saw an old man have a seizure as soon as he walked in the restaurant I was in, and his head fell under my little sisters chair.” — fishtappingmercymain

24. We watched a small car smash into a tractor trailer

“Making the long drive home from the lake house, and following behind a tractor trailer* on the highway, in the middle of nowhere way up in the Canadian Rockies . We round a bend, and out of nowhere a small car coming the other way far too fast for the bend loses control and hits the tractor trailer head on at highway speeds.

Big cloud of car parts explodes into the air, the small car spins violently into the ditch. Instinctively I jump out and run to the small car, shouting at another motorist to call 911. Get to the small car, and there’s basically nothing left of the front – the engine was sitting on the other side of the highway.

I look in what’s left of the car and can’t find the driver. Confused, I look around, and see him in the ditch. I run over, check his carotid pulse, but nothing.

I step back and it’s only then that I realize that his arm is missing. His leg is missing. His other leg is pointing completely the wrong way at the hip and is bent in a number of horrific angles.

They shut the highway down for 8 hours investigating the scene. The image of his mangled body hasn’t faded though.” — Fizzy_Electric

25. A patient threatened to kill me

“A wired patient running down a hallway naked, screaming that he was going to kill me before being stopped by a hospital guard.” — jeff_the_nurse

26. My professor had a seizure in the middle of class

“I was in class one day when my professor had a seizure. She tried to stand up but ended up falling to the ground and violently shaking. And of course I was a helpless idiot and had no idea what to do.” — Eletheia