“Nobody Dies From A Shot To The Stomach”: 30 People Discuss Their Crazy Near-Death Experiences

My partner tried to strangle me. I was already seeing black and a few stars in the black universe on my way to death. Then the police rang the door bell and he stopped. The neighbour a 11-13 old boy called the police, he had his room directly at the house close by and he could see through the window. He saved my life and the life of my unborn baby.

Worked as a bouncer and had a few drunkards who got violent. I got very good at dodging thrown bottles. One day I get the usual call to come and give someone the walk of shame. Well, I grab his shoulder and start walking him out and before I realise something’s happened he stabbed me in the thigh and was about to go for my throat before he got glassed by a patron. A few stitches and a funny walk for a few weeks and I was fine but that guy always got free drinks. His only problem with glassing the dude was “well now I’ve got no beer, that’s a bit sad”.

I was kidnapped, beaten, and had a gun held to my head while in the vehicle. I just agreed with everything he said, apologized for who knows what, and promised to do whatever he said and to not call the police. He let me out of the car at my workplace and I immediately went in and called the police. I felt stupid for years afterward but now I realized whatever I did to live through that was the correct thing to do at the time.

Was 16 my friends and I were out in the woods with a .22 rifle and some cans and Zombie targets. I finished my lil magazine and handed the rifle to a buddy. Went out to set up the cans and targets back up and a shot whizzed passed my left ear within 2 inches.

Walked up to him grabbed rifle and punched him straight in the face. He was ostracized from the group not long after that.

When I was 7 years old I was locked (master lock, key was with one of em) in a dog kennel I barely fit into by my mom's bfs kids. They took the kennel out to the above ground pool and held it on the edge joking like they were going to drop it. They ended up doing just that and I was under in seconds. The plate at the bottom of the kennel made it hard for them to pull it back out so they had to turn it on its side and then pull it out. They didn't bother setting me down though, they just dropped me. I remember the feeling of my hands crammed through the holes in the kennel with grass between them. I heard some arguing and what I assume was fighting, the old brother came to my rescue and let me out. I slept in his room for the rest of the summer till I went home to my dads.

My ex beat the s**t out of me. My neighbors called the cops. Cops called his parole officer. I was rushed to the hospital with a fractured skull and a broken arm. They let him out of jail 2 days later. And within 2 months he was off parole and disappeared. It’s been almost 13 years but I’m still terrified he’s going to catch up to me one day.

I was coming home from my restaurant job at like 2 am. I stopped at a sketchy Walgreens to grab some snacks. I was getting into my car when a dude ran up behind me yelling “my friend! My friend! please you must help me!” So startled, I turned and saw a large man in front of me, he had thick Haitian accent. He started frantically explaining that he had just arrived from Haiti and desperately needed a ride to his friends house to reunite with his family.
FYI the giant earthquake in Haiti had just happened. Normally I try and help everyone I can but this dude was giving me weird vibes, like he was on a lot of d***s. I politely declined and he got aggressive and I ended up just hopping into my car driving quickly away. The next morning I saw on the news he had convinced two young girls to give him a ride. He pulled out a knife and forced them to drive about a hundred miles away. He then made them park on a side road somewhere and started stabbing them. One died and the other ran away and got help. He got shot by the police trying to get away.

Got shot in the abdomen during a house invasion. Was bleeding out and the only thing that kept me alive was focusing on my breath and my buddy smacking me across the face and telling me "nobody dies from a shot to the stomach".

Obviously lying to me, but it helped keep me focused.

And I guess the doctors too when I made it to the hospital.

My mom tried to push my stroller in front of a train but my dad saved me.

When I was 18, my ex boyfriend stalked me and basically ambushed me in a municipal parking lot in my small hometown as I was unlocking my car to get in and go home. He punched me in the face twice and I decided to just be compliant and go with him. It was broad daylight and there were other people in the parking lot, but either they didn’t notice or didn’t want to assist. I won’t go into minute details here unless some really wants to understand the ins and outs of why someone you know might do this to you, but he brought me to his parents house where he SAed me and stabbed me 27 times over a period of 4 hours. I survived by not speaking a single word to him the entire time and not reacting to anything that he did to me. I innately knew he wanted to cause me pain and I disconnected myself from the pain and emotion purposely so not to give him anything at all. He eventually stopped and fled and just left me there. When I was sure he was gone, I got dressed the best I could and started walking on the road where a guy I went to high school with previously (we had both already graduated) picked me up and drove me to a friends house in town (I lived in a rural Wisconsin town.) I stayed at her house for over a day before she convinced me to go to the hospital. I was afraid my parents would be angry with me, which was why I was hesitant. They cleaned and debrided my wounds best they could but because I had been walking around like that for so long they couldn’t do much more than that for me. My wounds didn’t go deep enough to hurt my internal organs, but many did cut into my muscle layers. Yes. I had extensive scarring over my torso for a large part of my life until I was able to have cosmetic surgery to remove a lot of my damaged skin and muscle in my chest and abdomen when I was in my 30s.

Nothing happened to my stalker. Stalking laws were not something that were a common thing in 1990. No charges were pressed. My attacker stayed low for a few years in Minneapolis and then moved back to my hometown area where he married a couple of times and had 5 daughters. About 15 years ago he reached out to me on FB and wanted to be “friends.”

My father didn’t want any charges pressed and felt that I had gotten what I deserved for dating the guy in the first place. My mother went along with what he wanted. We never spoke about what happened to me ever again. It was up to me to work through on my own. My dad is dead now and my mom has apologized to me in her own way. I don’t speak with her about it to this day because she feels so guilty and horrible and I honestly do not want to do more to her that would make her feel that way. She somehow felt controlled by my dad for many years until she divorced him after 35 years of marriage. I have gone to therapy in the last 15 years of my life and it helped, but most everything I’ve done to survive and live has been based on spending a lot of my time being honest and introspective of myself. Trying to become as much of an expert on myself as I can. That started the minute that I got into the car with him and we headed out to his parents house and it hasn’t stopped since.

I survived by not giving my attacker what he wanted, despite being compliant with what he asked.

I got stabbed in the chest a few years ago, during a fight with some bike thieves. Didn't notice at the time, and escaped the fight and rode the bike away. Then I checked myself and discovered lots of blood. Went to nearby shop and sat down inside, put my finger in the hole and called the ambulance. I had a punctured lung and blood in the plureal cavity, but I was otherwise ok. The lad that did it went to prison.

Cartel tried to kidnap me and my parents in Mexico. We were in a rented Mexican car, and are American, but are obvious Hispanic, my step dad being white with blue eyes, so the only white person.
I was expecting a decision from a top law school program, and was hellbent on coming back home.
Three trucks blocked us in, but the one on the driver side didn’t pull up far enough to block us in all the way. Masked men got out of the vehicles and surrounded us with assault rifles, banging on the glass trying to shatter it.
I began yelling at the masked men, telling them you’re going to regret this. My parents were frozen, and I started yelling at mom to put the car into drive, pop the curb, and not look back. She did, and we got away luckily. In America we are taught to comply, but my instincts told me otherwise in Mexico, and I’m so glad I listened to it.
I got into the program, and I realized the little powerless girl in my childhood became a fearless, fast thinking bada*s. 😂.

When i was around 10 years old my abusive father decided i need to learn how to swim. He just threw me into the lake. I was struggling and he did nothing. I lost consciousnes and almost drowned. Random adult guy saved me from drowning. My father twisted the story to make it seem like he lost me out of his sight when i clearly remember him standing near, watching as i sank down. Im still scared of deep water, im almost 30 and i cant swim, i never tried again after that experience.

I was at a summer camp when I was in my early teens. It was at a small school since it wasn't used during the summer anyways. An older kid who I often got into fights with was strangling me against a wall. But on the other side of the wall was a classroom, and I could hear people in it. So I when I couldn't get him off me, I repeatedly banged my fist against the wall as hard as I could. It didn't take long for a counselor to investigate, and they pulled him off of me.

Was basically a functional light d**g addict when I was a teenager. An acquaintance and I were held against our will and she didn't make it, I did, it took 3 days.

It was a normal day, went out with a "friend" and two acquaintances, to a relatively normal house but our drinking water was d***ged. Ended up at the other "friends" house. I realized once we got inside that there were no doorknobs, windows were nailed shut, etc. Phones and clothes were taken, the other girl was far more gone and already working the streets (I never did) so they'd take her out and bring her back. Was beaten up pretty badly, d***ged out of my mind, etc. Stopped fighting back. They didn't take me out of the house except to lock me in a shed sometimes. I pretended to be more d***ged than I really was and listened to what the guys talked about. It was where to leave our bodies.

One day she and the other two were out doing what she did, the guy watching the house (and me) fell asleep. He'd been strung out for days and had just failed at a suicide attempt in front of me so it was a DEEP sleep. They hadn't locked me in the shed that day, but left me in the main house as I'd become compliant and learned to act more d***ged than I really was. Got my phone out from under the guy (they were trying to make it look like I left of my own accord/ throw off friends and family) charged it for 10 minutes while I found someone else's clothes and shoes, ripped out most of my fingernails getting a window open. Ran until I couldn't breathe, called for help.

And got clean. Over a decade ago. The other girl was never seen again.

I [made love] with a girl I met at work. She apparently had a boyfriend that found out about her infidelity. He was stalking me for months that followed. One night, I looked outside my window and saw the guy standing in the shadows beside my house. I didn't leave out of fear for quite some time. The guy was later executed for several unrelated deaths he caused. I would have been one of them had I not seen him hiding that night.

When I was an early teenager, I went to a friend's house whose older sister was having a party. It had alcohol, but very limited. Her parents were home and we mostly played video games and cards. But, more people than expected showed up, including some people who had already graduated.

This one guy was a former high school jock loser who started in on making fun of me/hitting on me. The parents asked him to leave and he did, making a bit of a fuss but eventually walking out.

I was all upset and crying and wanted to go home, but home was a mile-ish walk through some woods and dark roads, so her parents told me they would drive me home in a bit when the party was over.

I was still upset and I was very dumb, so after a bit, I snuck out and walked home.

A few hundred yards from my house, someone hit me with something(I was told it was a baseball bat) and stabbed me in the stomach several times. I do not remember any of this, nor do I remember someone finding me bleeding in a ditch and taking me to a hospital.

If I had been there for much more time, I probably would have bled out and died in a ditch.

My ex boyfriend was abusive the entire time we were together, but it culminated in him trying to strangle me with an electric cord.
Our elderly neighbor randomly knocked on our door because she needed help shoveling her driveway (snow,) right as I was starting to lose consciousness.
He was a police officer so he had an appearance to keep up and immediately switched his mask back to answer and go help her.

I found out later when my ex left for his overnight shift that she had long suspected something bad was happening because she would see me with bruises and gotten a bad feeling out of nowhere that night, and that is why she came over to “ask for help.”
She called her son to take me to the hospital and that was when I was finally able to leave him.
I will always consider her my guardian angel.


**Sidenote for anyone reading this: if a partner ever makes you feel unsafe- LEAVE. Make a safety plan and gtfo. They will always do it again and it will always get worse.**


Edit: Wow thank you for all of the awards & kind responses! If you relate to this experience I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart & hope you are safe.

For further context- I was 16 years old and he was 26. I had been kicked out of my house (whole different story,) and he “swept in,” and “saved” me.
I (naively & ironically,) thought I would be safe from my abusive family situation with a police officer.
This situation was indeed reported by ER staff as I was a minor and did eventually give his name.
This happened in a small-ish township where the whole department were his coworkers.
Many charges were technically filed but he was never actually arrested and everything was dropped after alibis were provided by his coworkers & a general coverup was done.
I made a post on a DV sub about the situation awhile ago that included snippets of some of the reports as proof but it kinda blew up and I deleted it out of fear he’d somehow find it.

I was granted a short RO basically as a “stfu,” measure but he would still have other officers bother me around town and harass me with fake numbers so nothing could ever be directly linked to him. Then the second it expired he began physically stalking me again.
It has been many years. I have since moved over halfway across the country, changed my legal name, changed my number at least a dozen times, and if you were to look my name up online it’s like I don’t exist.
He still will pop up occasionally with a random letter or spam texts from fake numbers as a little “Hey I’m still here and watching you,” I guess.
It doesn’t affect me much anymore- as crazy as that may sound. You become numb to it. I’ve basically had to accept that he will probably never fully leave me alone.


Moral of the story is again: LEAVE and don’t look back. No matter what gender you and the abuser are, no matter what ages, no matter “how bad,” the abuse is-*no. matter. what.*.

My brother (8) was choking me (7) out and wouldn't stop even as I struggled and hit him and tried to get away. He covered my mouth and held my nose, and I was blacking out. I took my nails and DUG THEM into his arms so hard I drew blood and caused deep, lasting gooves. He snapped out of it let go and I scurried away into the bathroom and locked myself in.

My parents later punished me severely for "being dramatic" about it. They didn't see his eyes while he was holding me down and strangling me. Totally calm, emotionless. Dead eyes. They KNEW he had heavy behavioral issues before that. They still chose to believe I was just being a drama queen.

When I was 14 I went to a local fair with a couple of friends. There were some older guys there causing trouble. Some people I knew were going to try and fight them. I didn't want any part in it and left. On my way back the ones I knew ran past me.

One of the older guys was chasing them, stopped Infront of me and asked if I was with them. I said no, he called me a lying c**t and hit me. I fell over and he started kicking me, then his mates joined in.

I woke up about 10 minutes later, head was pounding, I couldn't see properly, couldn't breathe properly and was dizzy for 3 weeks.

One of them threw a brick at the back of my head while I was on the ground. Apparently he had tried to lift a stack of bricks still cemented together to drop on me but couldn't pick it up. Only reason I'm alive is because he wasn't strong enough.

That was 22 years ago and I'm still part deaf in my left ear, have a spot on my head that hurts if I press it and get nervous if my backs not against a wall when I'm out.