Near death experiences are the sorts of things that stick with us for the rest of our lives. Our mortality is a topic that is hard to ignore one way or another, but it’s even more “intense” if the situation also claimed someone else’s life. For all the stories of heroes, self-sacrifice and so on, encountering it in the flesh is a very different matter.
Someone asked "[People] who had their lives saved by someone that gave up theirs, what's the story?” and netizens shared their examples. So settle in as you read through, upvote your favorites and post your own examples in the comments below.
#1
My cousin was driving his daughter to a new state for her new teaching job when his car was hit by a semi. The daughter was trapped in the car, which was ON FIRE, but somehow her dad broke through a blocked door and dragged her out. Later in the hospital he was found to have a severed spine and main artery. He didn't make it. She's (physically) fine. I don't know if dragging her out made a difference as to whether he would have lived or not, but I know he would have done it either way and he definitely saved her life, so I feel like it counts.
Image credits: LaMadreDelCantante
#2
I was in an armed robbery. He pointed the gun at me and my boyfriend tackled him taking three to the chest and one to the head. The kid panicked and fled. He is now doing 30 years and I was the sole witness at his trial.
Image credits: 0tterpop
#3
Not to me, but a family friend. There were 2 adults(barely, like 18 and 19) and 3 kids in the back ages 2, 6 and 7. They were driving back from the store to a family gathering and a drunk driver hit them, i don't know how but the guy in copilot jump back and protected the kids from the impact, he passed away but the 3 kids were fine, the driver died too, the drunk guy fled. So when cops came to scene they found the little kids on the dead guys arms.
Image credits: PrisAustin
#4
I was up at a friends place and they went to a large funeral of someone I didn't know and this is the story:
Three or four daughters were swimming and got swept out by the tide. One by one the father rescued them. He managed to rescue all of them but drowned saving his last child.
The worst part of the story is that one of them had their birthday that day.
Image credits: Lone_Digger123
#5
This sorta doesn't count, but I'll tell it anyway. I was born at 24 weeks and 3 days through emergency c-section and weighed 1 pound half oz, and was 11 inches long. I stayed in the nicu for about 3 months. Around the time i was born, my dad's dad was in the hospital across the street dying of colon cancer. I was born in march. One night in april my dad got the phone call that his dad was dying. So he went up there. After my grandfather died, my dad told my mom he wanted to go see me. When they got there, my ventilator (machine helping me breathe) was gone. They were understandbly freaked out, and asked a nurse what happened. Apparently i pulled the tube out. The tube that was taped to my throat. After the 3rd time of me pulling it out, the doctors left it out to see what would happen, and i started breathing on my own. My dad said "Around what time did this happen?" And the time the nurse said, was the exact moment that my grandfather died. So my family has always said that when my grandfather was taking his last breath, I was taking my first breath, on my own.
Image credits: MustangLover22
#6
I knew a guy who was a complete a*s. Anyways he has a pancreas and liver transplant. Did a complete 180. Got married had 3 beautiful daughters and became such a great guy.
Since I've signed my organ donor card.
I'm convinced it was someone's spirit in those organs that changed him.
Image credits: louloulovesmakeup1
#7
Not exactly on topic but I'm named after my father's friend and he died in a b*mbing during the troubles, he had seen the b*mb and ran back to save the little old lady that owned the place.
She got a scar along her cheek and he slammed into the wall and killed by the blast.
I need to remember to live better to do him justice.
Image credits: BadgerUltimatum
#8
Not me, but my grandmother.
She was in a c****************p in WWII with her family, and the day before her and her bunks were to be gassed, a soldier from the Latvian version of the SS allowed the group to escape in the night.
When my dad tried to find info about the soldier when doing his genealogy research, he found out that the soldier was shot for that.
Image credits: NicaNocturnal
#9
finding_trevor:
4 years ago to the day a boy committed s**cide and his parents decided to donate his organs. 4 years ago tomorrow I received his heart.
Mister_IceBlisterReport:
3, almost 4 years ago, my boyfriend committed s**cide and his family immediately donated every part of him, eyes, skin, organs, bones... And I was of course grateful that they made the right choice, but bitter that I never got to see his body because he was taken apart so quickly. For some reason, even though I've heard amazing stories about body part donations, THIS was the comment that I think has given me peace
Image credits: Mister_IceBlister
#10
Not me, but a friend of a friend I had many years back. I'll call the kid Zeke. Zeke and a buddy were by our old intermediate school and hanging out by a drainage pond in the surrounding wetlands, no idea what its for or what it's used for but basically it's a super strong whirl pool that will take you under without a second thought. Zeke, from what I recall (forgive me, this was 12-13 years ago) was dared to jump in the whirl pool, he did, and he basically got taken under immediately. Zeke bobbing above and under the water started screaming for help. Two men (teachers who were father and son) who frequently walked their dogs around the school premises noticed this and rushed to save this kids life. They both jumped in and got Zeke back to land, unfortunately both of them that day were taken by this aggresive water and died.
I'm not so sure how zeke took it, I was never real close to him in school and the relationship we did have was pretty much pass and repass. From what I observed though, it would suggest he took it pretty hard and never totally got over it. Of course anyone would understand why.
Image credits: 19dingus19
#11
My dad gave up his life in the sense that he constantly works himself to the bone to provide for our family. He gave up all his hobbies so that he could give us education, shelter, and food. He doesn’t complain and he doesn’t ask for much.
Image credits: linjaes
#12
I have an old coach who's wife grew up in Vietnam. She once told me a story about a time she was playing soccer with some friends from her village around the age of 10. The ball got kicked out of bounds into some brush on the edge of the field that they were playing in. As her and one of her friends raced to the ball, her friend was faster and reached the ball first. As she came to a halt in front of the ball she stepped on an old land mine, completely vanishing out from in front of my coaches wife.
Image credits: Goose_whitehead
#13
I have two. They aren't me, if that's alright (seeing a lot of others in this technically-not-me category so I'm going for it), but they both stuck to me pretty hard.
1. My uncle died trying to protect a couple who was being robbed in a restaurant. Some gangbangers came in and started to harass the people in the restaurant and guns were pulled. My uncle knew one of the guys since high school and figured he could talk him down from hurting anyone else. No one else got hurt except him. Never got to know him but heard he was an exceptionally cool dude.
2. My teacher in kindergarten was diagnosed with cancer at a point it was aggressively treatable, but also found out she was pregnant. She needed to get an abortion before she could start any cancer treatments but she didn't want to have the abortion; the cancer was terminal by the time the baby arrived, and she left behind her husband and three children.
What hit me especially hard with my teacher is that my family remembered her becoming more easily agitated and stressed at the end of the school year, and we found out after her death, from her teacher's aid from that year, that it was around the time she was diagnosed with the cancer and choosing to have the baby over her own life. My mom got into several arguments with her for being too "insensitive" and mean to her students towards the end of the school year; teacher never told her or anyone about her condition.
Image credits: terminallyamused
#14
Not me but my great grandfather who lived in ireland it was around a type of war (im not sure) and soldiers patroleed after curfew and would shoot who ever was out no questions asked
Micheal (my ggd) was out after curfew with his brother christian they had been seen and were being chased and Micheal slipped and christian grabbed his brother and then they both climbed up but christian got shot in the leg and ended up deliberately stopping and trying to buy time and get in a question or something and micheal watched them shoot him (they were young so this was traumatizing) he managed to escape and even fought in WWII.
he died 7 or 8 years ago he would have turned 101 this year
Fun fact: he was born the same year as world war one ended
Edit: I fixed up some details.
Image credits: bipbopmobip
#15
Not me but some old Vietnam veteran at my local VFW was saying his life was saved by an 18 year old that got drafted. He said he wouldn’t be here today if the kid didn’t insist on heading into a tunnel first.
I think that’s right. May have gotten me veterans mixed up.
Image credits: HorizontalTwo08
#16
This doesn't really count I guess, but here goes.
I was around 3 or 4 and my neighbor (4 years older than me) and I were playing with these plastic 'guns' that had big plastic balls as bullets. We ended up getting one of the balls stuck on top of the closet, so we both climbed the shelves to get it back. The closet ended up tilting and falling on us. My neighbor put her knee up which prevented the closet from squashing my head. She messed up her knee pretty badly, but thanks to that I only got hit near my left eye and had to get stitches.
Image credits: VihiOnReddit
#17
Only somewhat related, but my mom had a miscarriage before having me. If that baby had lived, I wouldn't exist.
Dammit, baby. This is all your fault.
Image credits: Moosh101
#18
Not quite sure if this counts but almost 7 years ago I was into some hard s**t and my best friend did it with me. Not sure why, he was sick with a couple different long term illnesses, so we both know it wasn't good for him (hell it's not good in general, don't do d***s kids) but I was a stupid kid and we did everything together. One night my life kinda imploded on itself and we doped up more than we ever had before. I was about to do another round when he tried talking me down. I made some excuse about not wanting my s**t to go to waste, which was b******t I could've saved it for later. So he offered to use it up so that it wouldn't go to waste. If I had taken that I'd have likely died of an overdose. He actually did, found out when I woke up. I've been sober ever since. He tried so hard to save me for so many years, I hope he knows that he really did.
Image credits: AngelGuideIndi
#19
I had two friends till year 5 who were my only friends at the time. We were walking down the street, in India, to get to the shops when two people showed up and tried to grab me. They both pushed me back and they were stabbed. I don't really remember much, but my parents have recently revealed that I was also stabbed, my brain shut down for a bit and lost quite a bit of my memory from before I was 10, but they both died in hospital.
Image credits: anon
#20
Not sure it counts, but I'm only alive because a coworker of my mom lost her kid due to sudden infant death. So then my mom insisted on having me tested for everything, and the doctors said it wasn't needed because I was carried to full term and there was little risk. Well, until after the tests, I turned out to stop breathing in my sleep quite a lot. I've had to sleep on a special monitor for a while, which made an alarm go off whenever I stopped breathing. So the alarm woke me up, I started crying, for which you need to breathe. And all due to that one baby who died shortly before I was born.
Image credits: Nyfregja
#21
Hey, sorry if the wording is weird. English isn’t exactly my sting suit. Also there’s probably a few typos.
I’m not sure if this counts but my mom would talk about when she grew up on the Navajo Reservation. One story has always been clear in my mind because I’ve visited where this happened. So one day there was a school dance and she was running a bit late, but that was okay because the school was like right behind he house and between her hour and her neighbor’s there was an ally way with a gate. Well turned out it wasn’t okay at all because when she was going through the “ally way” there was a guy up against the wall and fence. Since this is the reservation my mom just thought “Okay it’s probably someone who’s drunk or something like that”. Well the thought stopped when she noticed that his gaze was on her and wasn’t moving off her at all. After the eyes my mom noticed something reflect the moon light, then she noticed what this guy was holding. It was a knife. My mom walked past him with no real trouble but once she past the gate she sprinted to the school. My grandfather was the principal there and was over looking the entrance to greet all the students, obviously my mom told him everything. My grandfather called the police but they found nothing, so the night went on until the end of the dance. While people were leaving this kid went up to by grandpa and he just seemed basically completely waste and was grabbing his stomach. This kid has also had the reputation of being a trouble maker. Grandfather approach this kid getting ready to bring hell until the kid fell into him. The kid removed his hand from his stomach to reveal that his forearm and the stomach area of his shirt was drenched in blood. He was sent to the hospital but didn’t make it. My mom said with full certainty that without him she probably would have been the one stabbed.
Image credits: 4D2Blues
#22
Not me, but a close family friend. They were on a safari in Africa, my friends younger brother was trapped in a gorge. His father ran down and safely got him up to higher ground but was trampled by a herd of wildebeests in the process.
Image credits: pretend_shower
