“Climbed onto one of those underpasses that allow river water to flow through when I was like 5. Got swept in the current and taken down the river. The only reason I survived is my dad saw my long hair barely under the current and jumped in to save me.”

“Dove into a pool and broke my neck at the C2 level (hangman fracture it’s called). I was so drunk I thought I just pulled a muscle or something so I kept partying. There are pictures of me with a bag of frozen peas on my neck grilling, taking a shot from an ice luge, etc. all while my fucking neck was BROKEN. Once the disc popped out because I was PLAYING CHICKEN WITH SOMEONE ON MY SHOULDERS IN THE SAME POOL HOURS LATER, that’s when I realized that maybe something was wrong. One emergency spinal fusion surgery, 5 days in the hospital, 3 months bedridden, medical discharge from the Army (RIP that career) and I’m good as new. I totally should be dead or paralyzed.”

“Swallowing a Chuck E. Cheese coin.”

“Pissing off of a cliff, wasted on Jack Daniels. My girlfriend at the time pulled me back by my sweatshirt, or that would’ve been it.”

“Many years ago I owned a pub. I went upstairs to the house area to find all the lights were off. I flicked the trip switches to turn the lights back on; which they did. I then heard running water from my co-owners fish tank in the lounge, turns out the protein skimmer had flipped over and was spilling water over the wall socket. Instinctively (and very stupidly), went to turn off the plug and as soon as I touched it got sent flying over the back of the sofa. Don’t know how I’m still alive to this day.”

“As teenagers, we used to smoke pot in the garage in the car with it running for hours. No idea how we didn’t kill everyone in the house multiple times over.”

“Carrying a toilet by myself after having painted the bathroom. Got caught up in the drop cloth and fell on the toilet smashing it and a piece of the porcelain cut into my knee. My father was there with me and immediately took me to the hospital as the bleeding was pretty decent. The doctor told me that the piece missed an artery by 1/4″ and that if I had been a smaller man I’d have bled out before I made it to the hospital. Being a very large man (6’2” and 350 lbs at the time) saved my life.”

“I found an AC cord with exposed wires as a kid. It didn’t connect to any device; it was probably just a spare part. Being a child at that time, I thought I could ‘eat electricity’ so I plugged it in and just chomped the wires. Naturally, I was exposed to 220 volts of electricity, and it was strong enough that I couldn’t pull away. I passed out after what felt like five minutes. When I woke up, I already had a discoloration on my tongue so it was probably not a dream.”

“I nearly fell into a fucking volcano leaning on a rope fence.”

“Driving over an IED in Iraq that’s battery had gone bad in the heat. If the battery was live I wouldn’t be.”

“Tubing behind a speedboat. Pulled myself too far forward. It submarined and popped up in the air. I was flung forward and got tangled in the towrope.”

“Retensioning a garage door spring and the tension tool popped out. The door crashed with enough force to crack the pavement.

“When I was a kid I went to stick my head out of a train window, enjoy the view, get a bit of a breeze in my face. My head was honestly about 1 centimeter from going out the window when another train went past the other way. We all laughed about it at the time, but with hindsight, it should have been like that scene from The Young Ones.”

“One time when I was young and carefree I was riding a motorcycle for maybe the second time, like 30 mph, and just had some wires in my brain misfire. I was like, ‘I wonder what would happen if I crossed my arms and held the left handlebar with my right hand, the right with my left?’ I’ll tell you what happened. I just narrowly missed oncoming traffic and smacked right into a wall.”

“I fell down my friend’s basement stairs when I was 8 (hit my head on the concrete floor) and ended up being airlifted to a major city hospital after being knocked out and still screaming. Ended up waking up a couple of days later and found out I was missing a tooth and I was told that as they were putting a breathing tube in, it knocked my tooth down my throat which scared the docs more. But I was super happy cause I played melee for the first time in the game room and ate jello for meals. Turns out that I was actually in a comatose state and gradually got worse over 48 hours until I had 0 brain activity for about 6 minutes. So I guess I did die, but I didn’t find out from my family till afterward, because who tells an 8-year-old that they died.”

“My dad got trashed and tried to jump over the fence at Yankee Stadium with his friends. He failed and an iron spike punctured him. He remembers being rushed to the hospital and bleeding everywhere. Everyone thought he was going to die of blood loss. Didn’t die but he also made several more stupid mistakes such as riding a motorcycle without a helmet and breaking several ribs etc. Honestly, he is still stupid and I’m surprised he hasn’t died yet.”

“I stumbled through a bush which had a 1-meter drop after it where I fell down. I landed on my back at the only place down there which didn’t have an iron pole sticking out of the ground.”

“Playing with the laundry chute in my childhood home when I was around 5 years old. My cousins and I took turns dropping things down the chute while someone else stood at the bottom and dodged them. For the most part it was things like washcloths, stuffed animals, a clothing item, etc. Just so happened that when I stood under the chute, my cousin dropped a 5 lb dumbbell down and I, expecting something harmless, didn’t get out of the way. That ended the game real quick. I now part my hair in a way that hides the bald spot scar on my head.”

“Not wearing a helmet while on a bicycle and stupidly turning left just as a car overtook me. Somehow I only got a neat scar through my eyebrow and some torn up kneecaps from it. But the look on my mother’s face when she picked me up from the hospital … That made me realize how profoundly stupid I was that day.”

“Passed out in the woods after running from the cops. I was at a party in college and decided I was done, so I started walking home. Got like half a mile from campus when a cop pulled over to talk to me (It was like 3 a.m. and my drunk ass can’t walk in a straight line on the sidewalk). My instant drunk reaction to seeing the blue lights was to bolt into the woods at full speed. Naturally, I can’t see what obstacles are in my way, so at some point, I tried to either climb a fence or run through thorn bushes. Eventually, I ran head first into a tree and fell down. I had probably the most absurd thought I’ve ever had. ‘If I hold my breath, the cops can’t see where I am.’ So I did that and passed out while lying on my back in the woods.”