“What Is The Most Terrifying Thing To Happen To You In A Well-Lit And Populated Place?”: 30 People Tell Some Terrifying Stories

"Sitting on a bus on my way to school one morning in my catholic school-girl uniform (knee-length skirt with opaque tights and button-down shirt) when I notice that I can feel the back of the hand and knuckles of the guy next to me on the outside of my upper thigh. He had his arms folded with his jean jacket over them. I thought nothing of it and moved to give some space between us. Our bumpy ride continues and I'm engrossed in my book. I feel his hand again and so I move again. The bus became more crowded and then I feel his palm grab and rub my thigh. I was shocked. I don't know if it was a flight response or that my brain clicked into autopilot because I booked it off the bus - probably both.

"I told my friends who were on the bus with me. Another friend spoke up and said she had had a similar experience a few weeks ago. I drew a picture of the guy as best I could (his profile was very memorable) and we filed a report with the police.

"Months go by. I was standing on the same public bus, chatting with friends. I see a student from my school from a younger year sitting alone in the back of the bus, and I see the jean jacket guy sit right next to her!

"I don't know where it all came from, but I was so empowered in that moment. I f*cking screamed at him. I can't even really recall what I said. Something to the effect of, 'Hey you. Get the f*ck off this bus. You grabbed my leg. You grabbed her leg (pointing to my friend). And something tells me you'd like to grab this girl's leg too. Get the f*ck out of here, you f*cking pervert. I reported you to the police and I'll tell them you're here again so they can catch you.'"

"He BOOKED it off the bus and we never saw him again. I followed up with the cops, but I have no idea whatever came of it (probably nothing). I'm pretty proud of 16-year-old me, speaking up like that though - first time."

Was taking my kids for a walk in the park near our apartment once when a guy and a woman came out of the tree line suddenly and the guy said to give him my wallet and anything else in my pockets. He had some weird screwdriver / knife thing and I pushed my daughter, my eldest child, behind me. I was going to do the same for my son but the woman grabbed his other arm for some reason and my heart felt like it was going to explode for some reason, I suddenly forgot about self preservation and jumped forwards and broke the woman's nose. I felt a sharp pain under my ribs and looked to see that the man had just shanked me, but at this point two other guys who had been jogging were running up and shouting.

The police that patrolled the park showed up not long after that. I was sitting and trying not to bleed to death, the man had ran off and his screwdriver was still in me. The woman was on the ground crying and shouting because I had also knocked the top front of her teeth loose / out. The two joggers were originally asking the woman if I was the assaulter but the situation cleared up soon. I got taken to the hospital and questioned about the incident, there was a while when it looked like I was going to be charged with battery for the woman since it turns out she actually had a decently well off family, was just an addict. They tried to sue me but it was thrown out and she was sentenced for attempted kidnapping.

I had a tube in my chest for two weeks after my surgery to remove the shank, but it all cleared up after that. Just glad my kids are safe.

**EDIT**: I am male. Sorry for not clarifying. The mother of my children passed away several years ago.

When I was really young, a guy stopped me when I was leaving school and asked if I liked PlayStation and Nintendo. I told him I did, and that I really liked final fantasy and he said "what a coincidence, I have that with a TV in my van. wanna come play?"

I told him I had to ask my mom first, and to stay here. I ran home and called my mom to ask, and she told me to lock the door, get in the basement, and don't open the door for anyone. She explained what was happening to me when she got home and once I knew, I was pretty freaked out.

I was a Senior in High School and was dropping my girlfriend off at her house. She lived in a pretty ghetto area, and I was from the "nice" part of town. As I was saying bye to her, her neighbor from across the street walked over to us and started yelling at me. This guy was our age and I guess she knew him as well. He started yelling at me for some reason, so I started walking towards him to do who knows what, when he said "I have a gun and I'm gonna f*****g kill you". At this I just stop in my tracks trying to determine if he's being serious. And then my girlfriend stalks past me, walks up to him and slaps him in the face as hard as she can and yells "get the f**k out of here Junior and go home!". I stood there thinking "Holy s**t, she just owned that guy". That was 15 years ago and we're now expecting our third kid :)

I was standing on a bus during London's morning rush. It was an absolute crush - nowhere to move. I felt a boner press into the back of me, so I shouted for the driver to stop the bus. He promptly ignored me.

I had absolutely nowhere to go. I was trapped. And then this man reached under my skirt and tried to stick his fingers up my [private parts], so I kept shouting what was happening. Nobody on the bus did anything. The driver wouldn't stop, so I struggled with this man who, by that time, was holding me by my crotch and licking me.

So at the next stop - Warren Street - the doors open and I ran. This man chased me until he caught me and put me in a bear hug and kept telling me he was going to rape me then and there in broad daylight. I threatened to stab him in the eye with my keys (in my hand and pressing into his eye) and he backed off.

I kept shouting for people to call the police (I didn't have a mobile at the time) and people just kept walking past.

So I ran to work. The police thankfully took me very seriously. They said that the CCTV systems on the bus weren't working at the time, so it would be difficult to identify my assailant.

A week later, this same bus was bombed in 7/7. I wasn't on it because I was terrified that some man would do this again. That certainly isn't to say that I would have been on that exact bus at that exact time it was blown up, but I also know that the CCTV wasn't working, making it harder for the police to identify the bomber.

It was the absolute helplessness I felt, whereby every person around me watched, but didn't do anything. Hundreds of people - passersby, the bus driver, my fellow passengers on the bus all pretended that it wasn't happening. The terror of what happened in that instant didn't stick around (thankfully,) but the mistrust of the bystander effect keeps me on my guard 11 years later.

It also means that whenever I see people in trouble, I make a point of helping instead of standing idly by. I will not allow anything like this to happen to anybody else. It has gotten me in sticky situations, but I don't want another person feeling the helplessness that I did.

When I was twelve years old I was beaten up in a crowded bus station at rush hour by a boy several years older than me for absolutely no reason whatsoever. It was a completely unprovoked attack and I was trapped against a one-way door. The adults standing around waiting for their buses to go home from work did absolutely nothing to help me or to stop me from being attacked.

The hospital. Called 911 because my mom had a seizure. At hospital in the ridiculous bright light and the dr comes in and says they found a brain tumor. Texted my sister immediately and then moments later I could hear her sobbing in the waiting area from a where I was.
The beginning of the end.

I accompanied my dad to the hospital while he was undergoing a routine procedure. They put him under for an hour to do a laryngoscopy. I kicked back in the cheery, well-lit lobby with my tablet, playing a game.

I was engrossed in the game, but about ten minutes later I realized the place had gone eerily silent. I looked up and there were no nurses or staff anywhere. I was the only person in what had been a room with a half-dozen people going back and forth. Looking around, I suddenly noticed a red light flashing over one of the doors.

My heart dropped out of my chest. My hands went icy and numb. I started counting the doors. The red light was flashing over my dad's door. I walked slowly down the hallway, trying not to make a sound. I didn't want to disturb anyone. I didn't want to miss any sounds. I didn't want to know what was happening in the room I was walking toward. I felt like a scared seven-year-old.

A nurse came out and he grabbed me on the shoulder. "Hey," he said casually, "we're working with your dad right now but I need to have you wait in the lobby right now, okay?"

"Okay. What's going on?" My voice was small and timid and high and I hated hearing it, hated feeling helpless.

"Oh, we'll be out to talk to you in just a second. Sorry, but I gotta go." He slipped back into the room and the unearthly silence came back. So, I walked back to the lobby and sat down.

A chaplain came by a bit later, as I was sitting motionless. My dad had a heart attack while under. He went into a coma, but they got his heart beating again. As I went in to see him, nurses and doctors filtered out of the room. Blood spatters on the sheets and floor. My dad quiet, wired into a half-dozen machines. About 15 minutes later, when my mom arrived to answer my urgent texts and calls, the lobby had a couple of families in there chatting happily, and the staff was back to its business. We pulled his life support four days later, after learning he was irrevocably brain-dead.

The world can change so fast. Your life can get turned upside-down. Your life can end. And for the people around you, it can just be another day. They go on without even noticing the pain inside you. That was the moment in my life this truth was most starkly plain. Nothing has ever been more terrifying.

A guy tried to drag me to his room when I was sick and confused at a con. Pulled me right through the lobby.

The only reason I didn't end up in his room is because I couldn't think of how to get away, so I just sat right down in the middle of the lobby and he couldn't pick me back up again.
No one helped.

My friends came back from pulling the car around and found me sitting there. Thankfully they helped me into the car and that was that.

When I was 3, someone tried to kidnap me from a shopping centre. I had been standing next to my mum when some random guy grabbed me by the wrist and started making a fast move to the exit. Even nearly 30 years later I can still remember this vividly, from what he looked like to being too scared to say anything as I was being led out whilst frantically trying to look for my mum. Luckily enough mum had spotted me and screamed as we we're next to the exit and he let me go and ran out. I had nightmares about the man with the yucky eyes for years after this.

A couple of years ago I was jogging in the centre of my town as usual, when I realized I was being followed by some guy I had never seen.

He kept trying to talk to me, and at some point he grabbed me from behind and went full molester on me. I shook free then started screaming, knocking on the hood of a car passing by. He ran away, never to be found.

I couldn't jog for over a year.

Edit to add: obligatory rip my inbox, also thanks for the encouraging replies (I resumed jogging after a year or so by the way).

Would also like to remind everyone in a situation of possibile assault to run away, make a lot of noise, run towards houses/people/cars so you can get someone's attention and be helped. Scream "fire!" if need be, people may ignore calls for help but usually respond in case of fire. And, lastly, report the incident to the authorities.

Was walking down the sidewalk on a busy city street holding my 4-year old son's hand. He suddenly shouted "Yay!" and pulled away from me to jump, two feet, in the water at the curb. Just then a bus was pulling over to the bus stop in front of us. I opened my mouth to scream but no sound came out. I lunged forward-- too late, but the observant bus driver did a quick "yank-and-back" on her steering wheel and the bus went exactly around my son, no room to spare, and still pulled into the bus stop. I pulled my son back to the sidewalk, started started crying and yelling at him, which scared him, so he cried, then I hugged him so relieved he was still alive. By the time I looked up, the bus was gone.
What scared me the most was that no one else noticed, and it was over in two minutes. Those 120 seconds could have changed my life forever... but since no one else witnessed it it was like it didn't happen. How many other times has stuff like this happened?
THANK YOU bus driver, wherever you are. You had to be watching far in advance... "look there's a squirrelly kid up there, I better be ready in case he... s**t!".

I was 10 or maybe 12 years old. My mom took me to the mall so she could go to the Target. There was a baseball card/comic book store right next to the Target and while she shopped I got to go look at the collectibles. While I was looking at the cards in the case, a guy came in. He looked around for a minute, then approached me and asked if I liked baseball cards. I said that I did and he said he had a Babe Ruth card in his van and asked if I would like to see it. We were right at the counter and the clerk was right there, but I got a real creepy vibe from this guy. I said no and left the store to go back to Target and find my mom. I looked behind me as I walked into Target and, sure enough, he was following me. I was starting to get a little scared, so I turned into the women's underwear aisle, thinking he wouldn't follow me. He kept after me until I finally found my mom. I never told her about it because I didn't want to scare her. At the time I thought maybe he wanted to steal my $10 but now I'm pretty sure he wanted more than $10.

TL;DR Creepster tried to get me in the mall

I went to my local library which is very large. I was in the reference section which is a bit secluded looking for books about writing. I noticed a shady looking man following me up and down the aisles. I got a little nervous because I was pretty far from the desk or anyone else that I could see. Once he saw me notice him and that I was walking faster r ran at me and slammed me into a shelf, smelling my neck and grabbing a fistful of my hair. He reeked of alcohol. I screamed. Lots of people came running. Security and the police were called. I was later told by their security liaison that perhaps if I had dressed differently it wouldn't have happened (tank top, shorts). I was so dazed I just stared at him and the female officer said "are you f*****g kidding me?" It was so scary and surreal.

i was in a local swimming pool and a ~~friend~~ mentioned how he thought i could fit into the storage locker. i jumped in and he locked it behind me. i learned a few things that day.

1 i can indeed fit into some storage lockers.

2 this person was not my friend.

3 strangers won't help you if your ~~friend~~ says you are fine even if you are crying for help.

4 putting the vents at the bottom of a locker is real dumb.

Side note: it really disgusts and saddens me how many of these stories are women being molested/sexually assaulted by men in broad daylight and no one does anything about it. Wow.

Anyway, I almost got killed by a city bus when I was like 13. I guess I wasn't paying attention. My friend reached out and yanked me back **hard** and the bus flew right in from of me. It was so close I felt the wind from it, didn't even have time to react. My life could have been completely different if he wasn't there.

i few years ago I was at a bowling center on a busy day. When we were about to leave we heard a big bang.

A man had thrown the heaviest bowling ball on a woman's head. Later I read that he did it on purpose and the women had severe brain damage. And was lucky to be alive. The man got sentenced to 18 months in prison.

edit: someone noted to me that I forgot forced psychological evaluation and the 7.5k reimbursement he had to pay

Back when I used to wear a hijab, I got on a really crowded train with a friend after a day of shopping. Some a*****e grabbed my head and tried to rip it off whilst hurling abuse at me. My friend managed to get the guy to let go but everyone else just watched. I was only 17 and it scared the c**p out of me for a long time.

When I was in 5th grade, I had a seizure in the middle of class. When I woke up on the floor, kids were running around me and laughing, and the teacher was yelling at me to get back in my desk and stop trying to get attention. Everything hurt and I was completely out of it for the rest of the day, and I didn't understand anything about what happened, or just how big of a sh*tlord the teacher was, until a couple of years later.

Recently went to Dolphin Cove to take care of my number one bucket list item, swim with sharks. I went with my best friend. Her and I are in our 40's and cute enough in our own right. Our shark trainer flirted with us but we thought nothing of it. Once we were in the water, we had to sit on a bench. He maneuvered the shark on our lap. Part of the program was the trainer guiding our hands to feel the shark. He put both of our hands on his very erect p*nis. We again kind of blew it off thinking it was an accident. Then he told us to spread our legs so we could hold and balance the shark on our legs. He slid his hand up our thighs and got his fingers under both of our bottoms before we stopped him. We both felt violated and it ruined my very top bucket list item experience for me. It horrifies and frightens me to think of how often he's done that with other women and kids.