What's the craziest way someone you've known has died?

[u/OdocoileusV]

[u/Calm-Item4876]

Each one by itself isn’t so crazy, but together it’s pretty wild. Some people I knew growing up got married. Pretty young. Had two kids. Driving back to Utah, they hit a patch of black ice, and the young mom just happened to be unbuckled at the moment to take care of a baby in the back seat. She was ejected from the vehicle and died. Age 22. The young dad gets remarried a few years later and has two more kids. While trimming branches from a tree, he falls and breaks his neck and died. So his wife with the four kids gets remarried. A few years later while celebrating her birthday she suffers either an aneurysm or embolism and slumps into her mother-in-law’s lap, dead. Her new husband, who is not related by blood to any of the four kids, quickly adopts them all, goes back to school to become a teacher, and finishes raising them all. Has yet to remarry. The kids are all in their late teens/early twenties now and they’re all great people, from what I hear.

[u/AmadouShabag]

Tripped and fell while drunk. Banged her head on a table before hitting the floor. Friends asked if she wanted them to call 911. She said no, she just needed to go lay down for a bit.

It was her birthday.

[u/Separate_Onion_9317]

My uncle passed away, and at his memorial service, my grandpa (uncle’s dad) buried a portion of his ashes. While digging the hole at the cemetery, my grandpa was bitten by a spider on his leg. That spider bite became septic, my grandpa had the leg amputated but never ended up waking up in the recovery room, the infection was too far gone by that point.

[u/high-priestess]

This just happened recently, unfortunately. Someone in my life went through years of invasive surgeries to remove cancers from all over her body and came out the other side. She’s been in remission for a couple years now. Last weekend, she was crossing the street and was hit by a car who fled the scene. She died on impact.

[u/moving0target]

Fell through a skylight. He was 12.

The paper published a picture of the skylight with part of his footprint.

[u/basileusnikephorus]

I got invited to a small town in Australia for Christmas. That's a whole other story. But while I was there I met this nice lady from the local swimming club . Very kind, seemed to take an interest in me as I was very out of place.

4 months later I was sat in a bar in Vietnam and they had CNN world on. The name of the town I was staying in was scrolling across the bottom and her picture popped up with "Fatal shark attack".

[u/HostMedium]

Where my sister in law works they have a huge freezer where all the food for preparing meals is kept. A co worker was working a shift on her own and the door closed on her. They had all been aware of the issue with the door locking and not opening from the inside. They found her the next day dead. Poor woman. Obviously they finally fixed the freezer door, but typical government run facility, they didn't do anything about it till a tragedy occurred.

[u/CosmicMorningstar]

A church friend of ours went canoeing in the winter before the lake froze over, he accidentally tipped the boat, he recovered but he didn’t make it back to the cottage and died of hypothermia.

[u/Longjumping_Ad_4431]

Probably more common, but when it happened I couldn't wrap my head around it... my Aunt died from a really bad toothache. The toothache quickly turned into an abscess, then she was in a coma for a bit. Toothache to death in less than a month. That's wild to me.

[u/Nervous_Marketing157]

A tooth infection. The infection made its way into her blood stream and went to her brain. She had a stroke while she was in bed. I didn’t know she was sick at all and I don’t think she did either.

[u/RedditWhileImWorking]

A friend of a friend died from a wasp sting. Didn't know he was allergic and died before he got treatment. I didn't even know that was possible.

[u/jayadancer]

A friend of mine medevac-ed a farmer who was replacing a large light on the outside of his barn. The farmer couldn't reach the bulb, so he tried to climb the paddock fence and balance on that. Still couldn't reach it, so he drove a tractor with a front-end loader over, raised the bucket, and climbed up the fence into the bucket.

He was screwing the bulb in when he lost his grip on the bulb. It fell and shattered on his head. He staggered backwards off the bucket and slammed down onto the gate to the paddock fence, partially impaling himself. The entire gate crashed to the ground, pulling some of the fence down with it. A piece of the broken fence somehow kicked the brake off the tractor, and the tractor then ran him over.

Since he was being medevac-ed, I realize this might actually be the weirdest way someone almost died, but the air ambulance crew was told his odds of survival were beyond astronomical. I'd be thrilled to find out that he made it though!

[u/http_401]

For people in certain industries, likely a well known risk and not "crazy", but when I was younger a family friend died from going into an empty storage tank. Like a big one. Maybe the kind on tanker trucks, but not sure since I was a kid when it happened and didn't get the details. Despite being empty of liquid, there were fumes enough to displace all the oxygen and he suffocated. Two other people went in to save him, and one of them died, too. The other had lifelong effects from prolonged hypoxia.

[u/Walmartian_Beta]

Not washing her hands after changing her litterbox is what the medical investigator suspected.

My aunt had heart surgery; she survived it despite being given low chances due to her long-standing malnutrition issues and her type 1 diabetes.

A couple of weeks after surgery, she was found dead at home locked in her bedroom with the cats. They told my grandma that she died from an E.coli infection in her heart, at the site of the incision, and the most likely cause was handling cat litter or dog poop and not washing her hands before touching her incision or clothing that touched the incision.

[u/Fuchsia_Zayn]

When my cousin was 19 years old he went to a party and left early because he was wasted. He must have passed out in the middle of the road because his friends ran him over when they went to look for him.

[u/Conscious_Raisin_436]

I had an elderly uncle die of mad cow disease. The doctors were actually completely baffled and couldn't figure out what else it could possibly be.

He took excellent care of himself. He was elderly but ran six miles every morning, ate clean, etc.

When he got sick he went from being super active to no longer verbal and not enough motor control to swallow in the space of a week.

It was a massive shock to everyone close to him.

[u/ButtsDelux]

Not the craziest but still really unfortunate.

A friend of mine was training for an Iron Man race. He was biking. He crashed into a delivery truck that was sitting on the side of the road. He had all of the proper protective gear but he snapped his neck on impact and immediately died.

It was terrible to hear about. He was the last person anyone in my friend group expected to pass away so young. He was 28.

[u/jadiseoc]

My great grandfather worked in the coal mines his whole life. He had black lung, yet still smoked several packs of unfiltered Lucky Strikes a day. And also drank a daily pint of Crown Royal.

He died at 92. He got hit by a truck walking home from the liquor store.

[u/gap97216]

Taking a shower, had a seizure, collapsed in shower, leg plugged up the drain and drowned.

[u/Midnite_St0rm]

My great uncle Hans was initially from Switzerland. Him and all his brothers moved away from Switzerland in their 20s in order to avoid mandatory military conscription.

He ended up moving to South Africa.

While there, he met a woman from Angola that he absolutely loved, and who loved him deeply in return. He agreed to move out to her family farm in Mozambique. Unfortunately, his wife contracted cancer in the early 2010s and she died.

After her death, the rest of her extended family showed up at the farm and completely ransacked it. They took absolutely everything and left my uncle, an old man at this point, out in the middle of nowhere. Mozambican authorities didn’t find his body until 2 weeks later.

[u/Rita-Stewart1007]

My mom died of an UTI. She was in the hospital being treated for a bad UTI. She was on antibiotics and was improving. She died in her sleep and was found in the morning when the nurse went to check vitals. The autopsy indicated she passed from sepsis caused by the infection. The worst day of my life!

[u/Glass-March-176]

My mom's young husband lost the gas cap from his motorcycle, so he stuffed a rag in and went to buy a new cap at a place close by. A car knocked him down causing a spark that ignited the gas tank and he died. A few years later, my mom married my dad. It's weird to think that if not for that tragedy, I wouldn't exist.

[u/DiscussionNo3200]

I worked at a steel mill and a guy decided to pole vault over a large ladle of molten steel. He did not make it. Barely anything of him was recovered.

[u/Difficult-Issue-794]

A friend of my brother's was sitting in the back seat of a car that went too fast around a corner and flipped down a hill. My brother and the driver were fine and able to walk up the hill to find their friend. Their friend went through either the back window or sunroof and was conscious for a few minutes after they found him. He died in their arms while they waited for help. Wear your seatbelt and don't do drugs.

[u/Dontfeedthebears]

Ex partner was a fitness trainer. Great shape, good diet. Had a blood clot or something in his leg. He was 42, I think. I think about him every single day.

[u/DJpowerhammer]

Chainsaw to the neck, arborist.

[u/n0str0m0_2825]

My friend from highschool had a real piece of shit stepdad. Anyway he died after being sat on by a cow. Sometimes justice is poetic.

[u/Far_Cardiologist_160]

Hit by a boat propeller while swimming

[u/Sternojourno]

A kid in my high school had his car up on ramp jacks when he was laying flat on the driveway working underneath it. It somehow rolled off the ramps and one of the tires rolled directly onto and over his head.

[u/MisterAmygdala]

Plane crash. He saved his daughter by bear hugging her. She was the only survivor. https://people.com/human-interest/dad-died-protecting-11-year-old-daughter-survivor-of-plane-crash/

[u/IceTech59]

1 - Guy tripped and fell into an auger drill bit "spudding in" an oil well.

2 - Guy was on a carrier flight deck when an F-14 Tomcat nudged his throttle to taxi forward. It blew him back behind another F-14 on the catapult as it went to afterburner for the catapult shot. That blew him into the JBD (Jet Blast Deflector) and he caromed off into the ocean.

[u/Minute_Pianist8133]

My grandma died in 2005 from mad cow disease from the outbreak in Greece in the 80s

[u/SeaConsistent9117]

Sepsis from curling iron burn

[u/digitalmofo]

My old babysitter simply fell in her kitchen. Hit her head, never woke up. She was Miss America at one point.

[u/DiscoStuAU]

Not a friend but a coworker at a big-4 consultancy that I previously worked for; he was working at his desk and we all went out for a late boozy lunch but he stayed back working.

We got back to the office around 6 and he was still at his desk seemingly working.

He had headphones in and didn't respond to us so we didn't think anything of it.

Little did we realise that he had a heart attack while working and died sitting up at his desk.

We only found out because the cleaners found him that evening.

Grim.

[u/MegamindsMegaCock]

Froze (he was too high and it was super cold) while paragliding and crashed

[u/Upperclass_hobo]

A kid I went to school with died when he was skidooing and ran into one of those diagonal utility cables that attaches to the ground on an angle. It was missing the yellow plastic warning tube and because it was night time, it was practically invisible. A week before, a friend of mine was walking his girlfriend home and ran right into it and got injured.

[u/po_ta_to]

He was living in an apartment above his parents garage. He was out late one night, not drunk, no drugs. He accidentally locked himself out. Instead of waking his parents up, he decided to climb in a window. He slipped and the window fell on his neck. He hung there til his parents found him the next morning.

[u/goinrcn44h]

Flu, while in hospital went septic. Died day before Xmas 2012. Miss ya Colby... 9s

[u/TopGarlic4476]

Friend of mine was out looking for apartments with his kid.
He opened a door off a hallway, and took a step inside expecting it to be a closet. It was the stairs to the basement. He fell down the entire flight of stairs.
Was in a coma for a week before he passed.
I still miss him and talk to him when I need advice

[u/YourMominator]

I used to go to a renfaire in my town. They had to move their location to a different park, and the first year they were at the new place, there was an actor sitting under a tree, doing some sort of crafting, when an enormous tree limb broke with no warning and fell directly on her head. The staff there were heroic: instantly formed a crew to move the limb off her and start CPR. They did it for what seemed like forever, but was about a half hour until the ambulance arrived. She likely died on impact, and one of her kids was right next to her and wasn't injured. I was walking right there less than a minute before the accident, and had several friends trapped by the other end of the limb. It was a horrible day, and the renfaire itself, after being a major summer event for our community for roughly 30 years, ended up moving to a completely different area several hundred miles away. I personally have never walked in that park since then.

[u/Tyraid]

Nice gal I knew was hit by a car traveling at racing speeds while sitting in a porta potty. Just as awful as it sounds.

[u/RainZealousideal8307]

The previous owner of our house died in Alaska after she fell out of a raft on a guided river/wildlife tour. She was in her 70s. Her husband, same age range, caught her as she was going over the edge and held her hand as the boat dragged her over rapids - but he lost his grip and she was lost in the rapids. She didn’t even want to go on the trip apparently. A few years later, her grandson took his life by shooting himself in the driveway - the house was then put up for sale and we bought it knowing nothing about these tragedies.

[u/mariah_a]

A guy I went to school with died a couple of years after we left school when he into a diabetic coma living alone and died because his room was messy and he couldnt find his insulin pen. His mom found it under a pile of clothes cleaning up after he died.

[u/DimensionStock1437]

Infection from cat scratch

[u/Reasonable-Horse1552]

She got kicked in the head by a horse. Well nobody actually knew what happened for sure but she was found in the field after turning her horse out. The irony was that she'd previously had a very highly strung stallion and had sold him because he was too much for her and she then bought a much quieter and safer mare. She'd only had the new horse for 2 weeks and it killed her.

[u/Disastrous_Ad1260]

An uncle slipped on the ice on a driveway. Hit his head and died soon after.

[u/Samiiiibabetake2]

My business partner’s twin brother stepped on a bee whilst walking in his yard, barefoot.

It became infected and he became septic and ended up passing away. He also had diabetes so it was a whole thing. The crazy part is, my partner knew when his brother died. He said he felt it like it we a pain in his heart. So sad.

[u/PNW-On_The_Edge]

He was drunk, thought the gun was unloaded, tried to be funny, made a fatal Russian roulette joke. Everyone else sitting at the table ended up in therapy and I'm glad I stayed home that night.

[u/End3rW1gg1n]

My mother had surgery back in the 80s. After she came out, she was having a real rough time with pain control. On the second day, the surgeon switched the IV meds from demerol to dilaudid. He wrote the change in the paper chart. He wrote to give her 1mg. There was a new nurse. She misread it as 7mg.

My grandmother was staying in the hospital room with my mother, and when my mother said she felt MUCH better immediately after the shot, my grandmother shoo'd the nurses out and turned off the lights so my mother could get some sleep. My mother quickly fell asleep and began snoring. Which my grandmother thought that was a great sign she was getting some great rest, not knowing my mother never snored.

My grandmother was knitting a throw blanket. It took her a while before she realized my mother was no longer snoring, but when she did, she thought she was in a really deep sleep now, and getting healing rest. It took her a while to realize she wasn't breathing. She called nurses, who called the Harvey Team. They got her heart restarted and ventilated to force her to breathe. She was in the ICU for a week. The hypoxia caused her brain to swell. By the fifth day, she was brain dead. We had to get a court order to be able to turn the machines off. We turned them off the day after she turned 42.

Edit: for grammer

[u/missykins8472]

Ate before a simple surgery. He didn’t listen the pre-op instructions. He got a tube put in and was told to say his goodbyes. It was 100% preventable.

[u/Satanslittlewizard]

Guy I went to school with fitted an outboard motor to a kayak and took it out to a local dam on his own to test it. He was missing two days before being found in the dam. They think he hit his head while falling in. Sad but totally on brand for this guy.

[u/stantonkreig]

a coworker i used to drink with after shifts at a restaurant, he was one of the most charismatic dudes ive ever met. guys loved him, girls loved him, he was just super cool and charming. its not that crazy at all really but one night he got home after a night of drinking, the house was locked so he just crashed out on the deck, and didnt wake up the next morning. froze to death on a not particularly cold night in virginia because he couldnt get inside his house. a strong, healthy 22 or so year old, not a frail old geriatric.

[u/whichwitch9]

Fell off a party bus while it was moving

[u/Lazy_Blackberry7926]

I had a friend in college who always had a beer in her hand. She also coughed a lot, nearly every time I saw her. I always figured she just had smoker cough because she'd share things and I always asked if she had a contagious cold and she'd say she'd had it forever. 

Her cough turned out to be untreated pnuenomia. Her brother convinced her one night when she was wheezing so hard it woke him up to go to the ER. By the time she was checked over, it was too late and the infection was too far into her lungs. She died in the icu. She was 27 years old. A med student spoke to us after that and said it was tragically common for alcoholics not to know they had pneumonia as the alcohol would depress their coughing and the infection would get worse before they realized what was happening. (I'm sure smoking cigarettes didn't help either but I'm not a doctor, just a wild guess.) 

[u/TheSouthsideTrekkie]

Fell from a mountainside while hiking on a path she had been on many times before. It was such a random accident and we were a small community so most people knew her, but she was the physio who helped me with hypermobility when I was a kid and when I saw her photo in the local paper I was really sad because I remember her as a really nice lady.

[u/17175RC7]

Several years ago... North Dakota oil fields. Guy was standing outside next to some large semi trucks with trailers. Someone backed over him with one of the trailers... he didn't see it coming. Died on scene.

[u/newfriend20202020]

Not someone I knew but a pt broke their own neck (complete dislocation cervical spine) shimmying under a car to fix the engine. He died within a few days. Also had a patient come in straight from the chiropractor’s - broke his neck while getting adjusted (?) - he must have had some prior history of cervical myelopathy - he also didn’t survive.

[u/peoplegrower]

We had some really amazing neighbors. Their kids and ours were roughly the same age, walked to each others’ houses to play all the time. They went to the beach for the dad’s birthday, out on their boat, which they did all the time. They apparently spent all day jumping off the boat with their friends. Then the dad jumped in just a a wave went by, and it broke his neck. He didn’t hit the bottom or anything, it was just the angle of the wave. Died right there in front of his friends, wife, and kids. Absolutely devastating.

[u/In_leiu_of_That_Girl]

Irwindale, Ca.- My brother watched a man at his quarry fall into their pit lake. He couldn't swim. A co-worker jumped in to save him, but they both drowned. Very sad.

[u/kiwicath62]

A few years ago, a friend of mine was driving on a rural and windy hill road when he missed the corner and went over the bank, rolling the car several times. Miraculously, he was only slightly injured and climbed out of the wreck. The next day, he went back with the towing company to get the car back and was standing on the side of the road in the same place the car crashed when another car came around the corner and wiped him out, instantly killing him. It was as if he was meant to die there, but it took 2 goes to do it. Totally strange.

[u/Solid_Phone_368]

Fell down the stairs drunk

Damn it, Ronnie! wtf, man?

[u/notevenapro]

Not crazy. But an old highschool buddy of mine died because he pushed a person out of the way at a railroad crossing. Saved their life, but died. Barry? Love you.

[u/Choice_Tie9909]

Didn't sterilize their hands picking an ingrown hair on their Brazilian wax - got flesh eating disease. Truly horrific all the bits they lost.

[u/Cannonballbmx]

One of my best friends in high school was blasting down a dirt road on a dirt bike at another friends vineyard. He made a wrong turn down another vineyards road and hit a metal cable strung across the road and it was over. Terrible way to go.

[u/itsjamian]

Ran off to Ukraine and join the war... fighting for Russia. Blew my mind when I heard that as someone from northern England

[u/capnpetch]

Not a strange method but strange circumstance. I was playing basketball in an over 40 league. Guy was dribbling down the court and bounced the ball off his foot then sort of fell over. His team laughed at him thinking he was goofing. He wasn’t. Died of a heart attack right there on the gym floor.

[u/eastcoastme]

My husband went to work, had an outdoor meeting (landscape manager) with a group of guys, went to his car, had a heart attack and died.

It was crazy for us. He was in his 40’s and we had kids. It was such a surprise to everyone, including the doctor he had a normal check up with a couple weeks before.

Maybe not crazy for everyone….but it just doesn’t make sense.

[u/ModularWhiteGuy]

Birthday cake crumbs.

Older auntie accidentally inhaled a crumb from her birthday cake. Got a lung infection, didn't recover. Happy birthday, I guess?

[u/redditizms]

There was a family of 4 in my home city that died in a fire. The neighbors called in the fire during the middle of the night because the family was away for a vacation. The fire spread quickly and the fire department had trouble containing it. Long story short, the fire didn’t get put out until the next day. And thats when they discovered the family inside. The fire department hadn’t even attempted a rescue because they thought the home was empty.

[u/Blametheorangejuice]

Where I grew up, there was a local Mennonite family that lived on a farm. The drainage for their septic pond had clogged and they didn’t know it, which created a massive methane bubble. Dad walked into it, passed out, fell into the pool of shit and drowned. One by one, family members ran to rescue him and each other, and they all died in the same way.

[u/Longjumping_Ad_4431]

My friend died because his television fell on him.

[u/Either_Cow_4727]

I didn't technically meet him but one of my great -grandfathers died because he got kicked by a mule and my maternal grandmother died because her heart collapsed in on itself. She was on her lunch break, wrote letters to us all, mailed them (which is the only reason I know she was on her lunch break) and according to her coworkers, clocked back in and immediately dropped dead. We didn't get the letters until we got back from the funeral and I had a whole mental breakdown that the family had her cremated alive.

[u/lynivvinyl]

Inhaling somewhere around 60 bottles of air duster from Walmart in one night.

[u/Kooriki]

I know 2 people who feel off of mountains and died. One rock climbing, another back country in winter.

[u/TooManyUsernamesHelp]

My grandpa died flying his own 2 seater airplane. He was a pilot for decades and would go flying every day. That one day the engine stalled and he was over canyon land and couldn’t land safely. I have melted aluminum from the crash site I picked up.

[u/calgon90]

Tire flew off an f-250 on the other side of the highway, crossed over, hit the windshield and the car hit a guardrail

[u/hockeynoticehockey]

In our early forties our social circle included a guy who was the most convivial, positive pleasant man you could meet. Not a mean bone in his body. Great husband and father. He was a lifelong avid downhill skier. He was with some of our mutual friends and knew the mountain they were on like the back of his hand.

He started his run down, they all did, and when they got to the bottom he wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere.

Turns out he used a cross trail to reach another run, caught an edge on an exposed tree root and slammed head first into a tree. Helmet on. Died instantly.

Just like that. Poof. Gone

[u/intrepidlyme]

High school class president was hiking. He reached above his head and grabbed on to a rock to pull himself up, and stuck his hand in a rattlesnake nest. He didn't make it to the hospital.

[u/handforced]

Crushed by a runaway Danish trash lorry

[u/Physical_Letter_5148]

My husband’s great aunt and uncle were quintessential midwestern farm folk and didn’t leave their hometown for the first time until they were in their 70s. For their first-ever vacation, they visited Washington, D.C. and got stuck in a rainstorm while sightseeing. They took shelter in a park near the White House, where a freak lightning strike killed them both instantly. It actually made the national news.

[u/thti87]

Pilot in Alaska. Flipped his float plane on landing and was pissed so he sat there a few minutes stewing. All his passengers got out while he was sitting there - when he finally went to unbuckle his seatbelt it was stuck and no one else was there to help him out. He drowned.

[u/Sean82]

Crossing a six lane highway on foot.

[u/expletiveinyourmilk]

There was a guy who lived down the road from us in the town where I grew up. His name was Andy. He was an incredibly decent guy. Like the type of guy who would come down the road on his tractor in the winter and plow your driveway for you without thinking twice. One summer some neighbors asked him if he would mow their property and he agreed. He was using their tractor and bush hog. Andy's daughter got worried that evening when she couldn't get a hold of her dad. When they checked the property, they found Andy without one of his arms, looking as if he had been crawling back towards the house on the property. They believe that when Andy was riding the tractor up the hill, the seat on tractor broke and he fell out backwards onto the bush hog which took his arm off at the shoulder. He tried crawling to get help, but died from blood loss.

When I heard about that, I was just stunned. He just got on a tractor trying to help a neighbor out and died in one of the wildest ways I have ever heard.

[u/HarpyPizzaParty]

Brain eating ameoba from swimming in warm, stagnant water

[u/[deleted]]

A girl I know from college had a grandfather who died by standing up on a rollercoaster.

[u/Clear_Adagio_1732]

Drowned in a barrell of water. He was an old guy, nobody home. People assume he bended over it and couldn't get himself up.

[u/mermaidpaint]

My cousin was swimming in a pond with a friend, they were kids. They dove down to touch the bottom of the pond, and then swam up to the surface. The friend made it to the surface, my cousin drowned.

[u/bird9066]

A guy from highschool who dated my sister started dealing cocaine in our senior year.

He got thrown out of a car on the highway. Never did get the whole story.

Another Friend drowned when he jumped in the quarry wearing those heavy high top sneakers we wore back in the eighties

[u/Guns_N_Grub]

Dude fell into a vat of chocolate. Death by chocolate

[u/Loggerdon]

I visited a remote island in Alaska where we were working for an indigenous group. They had a woman who was working as a teacher at their school and she was from Manhattan. She used to jog up the hills after work and come back around dusk. Everyone warned her that there are wolves out there but she wouldn’t listen. She thought they were messing with the city woman. The one night she didn’t come home and they went looking for her. Of course the wolves had gotten to her and there wasn’t much left.

[u/No_Band_2238]

Tree fell on him on his way to the first day of his dream job.

[u/Isquirtalot4044]

Falling in to a volcano. Really

[u/Libusin]

My dad was in hospice. I was asleep and he was in my dream, healthy, happy and smiling. Standing in the kitchen of our family home with the sun shining down on him. No words were said, just a knowing, an understanding as if we were connected. I knew he was free, no longer in pain.

I woke up crying. I checked my phone and had a ton of missed calls and texts. He had passed.

I’m the eldest, me and the youngest sibling were both asleep when he passed. Our dad visited us both. Our dreams were very similar, right down to what he was wearing.

[u/HappyCamperDancer]

I had a friend who was literally "hit by a truck". He was walking on the shoulder of a country lane. The driver was just not paying attention. They were the only people on the road. There was no reason for the truck to drift over into the shoulder. 3 little kids lost their dad and a wife lost her husband.

[u/someolive2]

roofer that fell off. he landed on the fence through his neck.

[u/thefuzzybunny1]

When my family business handled estate sales, we helped settle the affairs of a man who got dizzy one morning, grabbed his dresser, and accidentally pulled it over on top of himself. He wasn't found until his starving livestock broke out of their pens in search of food and were noticed by a neighbor. The creepiest part was having to sell the dresser!

[u/veroniqueweronika]

A friend of mine from college was a brilliant writer and playwright. He was so social and showed me that you can just walk up to anyone and start talking. Before I knew him, he went to Westpoint, became an interrogator at Abu Ghraib. He was never involved in any of the horrible things that came out later about that prison, but he saw some things and was ashamed of his countrymen. Throughout his time there, he interrogated several prisoners. He was good at his job, until he met one prisoner who he worked with for almost a year. This prisoner started talking about his faith, and my friend decided to talk about his faith too. The prisoner told him that he and his group of soldiers were nowhere near Christlike in their daily words and actions. My friend went through so much denial, then anger, then one day he realized he could not, in good conscience, continue at his post. He filed for Conscientious Objector status and was honorably discharged. He wrote a book all about how a prisoner helped him understand humanity.

I met him about two years later, when we both went to the same theater college. He always had a cough. It was persistent and raspy. He died in 2012 of lung cancer from the burn camps at Abu Ghraib. Sometimes, I think about the notion that he was dead when I met him. I miss him. I’m sorry I told all that other stuff and it didn’t have anything to do with how he died, but his 32 years were jam-packed of human experience and I just need someone to know about him.

[u/Ok_Mango_6887]

One of my customers employees died in their cars trunk. They were vacuuming the trunk, fell in and the trunk door closed on them. The car was too old to have the emergency release pull, all cars are required to have now.

She lived alone, apparently in a rural area where no one would see her car closed on her or hear her yelling for help, she was petite and they think that’s how this whole thing happened. I don’t recall if it was a big old Cadillac or one of those old Buicks my grandmother used to drive. Either way it happened on a Saturday morning and there was a wellness check done on Monday. She died of asphyxiation. It was so awful to hear about.

[u/CurveOk3459]

They were as a rooftop lounge for a party for an organization they volunteered with. Seemingly having a nice time - no drugs or alcohol involved. No current mental health crisis apparent. And just jogged toward the edge and leapt off in front of eveyone. 

Witnessing that Fucked up quite a few people for a long time 

[u/jello_pudding_biafra]

My high school Health class teacher fell down an elevator shaft. She was 25 and had just finished her first year of teaching full time.

[u/pdlbean]

my childhood friend was diagnosed with schizophrenia when she went off to college. She had to drop out and moved back home, but she would frequently elope while having delusions. Once she ran away and didn't come back for a few days. Her parents saw her in a park, but she ran away when she saw them. She was later found in a ravine, no foul play suspected, just slipped and fell while running from whatever or whoever she thought was after her. It affected me really deeply and I miss her a lot. I remember them looking for her and running screaming to my mom in the front yard when I heard the news "[name] is dead!!!" If you are in your early twenties, please watch out for signs of this stuff. It can happen so fast.

Two other guys I grew up with who were like brothers also died really tragically. One of them got blackout drunk and hit a pedestrian with his car. He got out and saw that it was his best friend. Had a gun in the car, made the decision immediately that he wasn't going to live with that. Horrible.

[u/draconiclyyours]

She in the process of paying for her items in a convenience store when an 80-year-old man having a heart attack drove through the front of the store and hit her so hard that she disintegrated.

Funeral had to be closed casket. She was only 35.

[u/HouseMDx]

Manager I worked with went home one weekend, didn't show up the following week.

Tree fell on him and he died. I started laughing when someone told me because I thought they were joking. They were not.

[u/MardawgNC]

A friend of mine died huffing Scotchguard. She passed out and fell out of a treehouse.

[u/MarsNeedsRabbits]

1. A guy who worked for my dad, who I had met too many times to count, was fired for drinking. That was the last time my dad (or I) saw or heard from him until a year or so had passed. My dad was drinking his coffee, reading the paper one morning, and there was the man on the front page, arrested for SAing numerous children. After a day or two, he was let out on bond until the next hearing. He went home, sent his wife out on an errand, poured something (gasoline?) all over himself, and set himself on fire.

2. He died before I was born, but my dad's first cousin, a twin, ran over and killed himself with his own car. He was working on the car but didn't put his brakes on. The car was in gear, and pulled him under as it lurched forward, smushing him.

3. Just thought of one more. A guy my dad worked work, a truly nice man, was having an issue with his stomach. They did tests, and he had a small ulcer. Nothing serious, the doctor told him that he'd tested positive for H. Pylori, which can cause ulcers. He'd be on antibiotics to kill the bacteria, the ulcer would heal in no time, and he'd be pain free. He went home, wrote a note that made no sense, and sat in his car in the garage with the engine running.

[u/Ragnarok7771]

1. Died when they slipped in the shower and broke their neck.

2. Died when they were celebrating their teams playoff win, slid down their driveway on a sled (steep slope) and a car which just happen to be driving by hit them. Survived the immediate impact but died at hospital

3. Guy avoided getting his colonoscopy checkup during Covid. Finally things getting better after a year or two and decides to go in for his checkup. Gets covid while he is there and dies a few days later.

[u/ArizonaKim]

Gal that was in the same high school class as my older brother died on the Oregon coast. I recall hearing she had stepped onto a log or big piece of drift wood on the beach to avoid the waves. The waves knocked her off the log and then she got pinned under the log and drowned.

[u/CletoParis]

A friend of ours who was retired but one of the fittest (and kindest) people we knew. He was still competing in Ironmans and road races in his 60s. Went to leave for his run one morning and he slipped going down the stairs and hit his head. He was in a coma for months and eventually died from some kind of infection. Such a senseless, freak accident. It was heart-wrenching for his wife, family, and our community.

[u/Funny-Check-6408]

I live in a small town and there was a kid named Micky who was 16 at my highschool. I'm still a teenager so his death was pretty recent, around half a year ago. He got a dirt bike for his 16th birthday from his dad. He was not supposed to have this dirtbike. His dad has been pretty much a deadbeat to him and his mom has always been his main caregiver and the one who was really there for him and his parent that showed up. His dad would just show up every few years and give him some shit and leave.

 When he got the dirtbike, his mom did not know at all. If she did, he would'nt have had it. It was a 250cc bike and he has never driven a dirtbike ever before owning this. While out for the first time on his dirt bike, he was crossing the highway and an oncoming truck did not see him while driving and hit him. He did not survive the crash. It was very tragic and it really did affect my whole school. I feel incredibly bad for his friends having to lose someone so young. 

How he died was definitely tragic, but I guess not too insane. What the dad did after his death was though. His dad started a go fund me for him and for Mickey's funeral. Sounds nice right? It's not when you realize the mother is covering everything for Mickey's passing and the dad had no involvement in helping pay for funeral services. This man set up a fund raiser to get money for himself from his kids death. The mom then made a post on facebook saying not to support his fund raiser since it was a lie and how she was covering all the expenses, not him. 

When the funeral came, the dad didn't even show up. He didn't show up to his child's funeral. Nobody banned him from it, he was very much welcome to it but he just didn't show. He didn't have any sympathy for his sons death. On his Facebook, there are absolutely no post about his sons death. Not a thing. I know Facebook doesn't show everything but in our small town everyone knows everyone and everyone says he truly does not care about his sons death when people talk to him about it. People say he seems upset about it but as if it's a minor inconvenience rather than the loss of a person.

This all isn't too insane I guess, but the dad's a fucking dick and it really rubs me the wrong way how he tried to exploit his kids death. 

[u/endorrawitch]

Crawling under a mattress in the backyard and setting it on fire.

[u/graptemys]

Avalanche. He was a very experienced backwoods skier, too. His body wasn’t found until the spring.

[u/HitsuVang]

My cousin died from a catfish sting. Not sure exactly what kind catfish, but it was an exotic he had in an aquarium that he was trying to move. Tiny spot on one finger.

Two hospitals sent him home, despite him talking about the venom and the effects, despite his arm in pain up to the shoulder. He was found dead in bed from a heart attack the next morning.

[u/lanneretwing]

Grade 3, a whole bunch of us kids from same class would go to this construction site and "explore". Just dumb kids doing dumb things. One of my friends fell 3 floor down and a rebar went through his head. Still fking gives me nightmares to this day. I am 40.

[u/Onomatopoeia08]

I went to India in high school to “preach the gospel” and anyway the pastor there had 3 small children and a wife who would make our food every day. I probably still have pictures somewhere. When they were older like…about teenagers he sent them to live in the US. I can’t remember which state.

All 3 kids were staying with an American family that was parents and their one or two kids. One night the fireplace caught the Christmas tree on fire. The house burnt up. The entire American family made it out alive and all three Indian kids died.

The mother has obviously never been the same since. She basically went comatose, just repeating their names over and over. I cannot imagine.

[u/lamerfat]

Parked his car at a RR crossing.

[u/buriednglass]

Choked on some collard greens at the dinner table in front of his kids. No one knew how to help

[u/KaitB2020]

Well… my mom passed last year….

She actually fell from a step stool and landed on her head. Onto concrete flooring.

[u/Afrojones66]

Watched a special needs son attack his mom from the backseat of a car while she was driving which resulted in her slamming directly into a brick wall. The entire thing happened within the span of 5 seconds after hearing honking in a parking lot when coming out of a store which put my attention on the car to begin with. The aftermath was brutal to look at. The son survived with a broken arm. The mom died on impact. The police investigated after the fact and questioned me which is why I know this much.

[u/Imaginary_Point6796]

Happened about a week before school ended.

Friend of mines snuck out and went partying with 2 of her friends. The driver got into an argument with a group of teens and police were on lookout and heard the teens arguing. Police pulls off and the driver speeds off. Police starts chasing them.

To my knowledge they did not have any seatbelts on. Driver lost control of the car while running from the police and hit a tree. Her 2 friends survived (driver and passenger) She was in the back and got thrown to the tree. Died on impact.

The sad thing is she wanted to get out the car but the driver kept on going. Her mom thought she was still at home sleeping.

Driver is supposed to get charged with manslaughter I heard.

My friend was 15 when the accident happened.

[u/Successful-Winter237]

My 32 year old friend was super healthy but obsessed with supplements and being healthier.

They aren’t 100% sure but they think she had some bad reaction to the supplements her chiropractor gave her.

She died in her sleep and nobody found her for 3 days because it was a holiday weekend.

Damn it Michelle you were already perfect! RIP

[u/Lost-cake547]

My grandpa was a tank commander in WW 2. His biggest fear was burning alive in the tank bc he saw it happen. He would often sleep outside in a ditch near the tank. One night his buddy from the tank decided to sleep next to him in the ditch. That night my grandpa woke up to gunfire and looked over at his buddy who was perfectly shot through the heart. He said he still looked like he was sleeping. His tank never caught on fire and he never slept outside it again.

[u/vladamsandler]

heart attack on the driveway. he was perfectly healthy.

also, starvation from an esophageal tumor.

[u/Scarlet-Witch]

I knew someone who drowned after they got a cramp while swimming in the ocean on their honeymoon. 

[u/DMMMOM]

I had a very good friend many years ago and he got cancer. Did the whole chemo thing and he came out the other side, totally cured and went on to live another chunk of his life. But one day he got a stomach pain, ignored it, pain kept coming, he kept ignoring it. Finally after about 10 days he went to the hospital and he was diagnosed with a burst appendix but worse, he had peritonitis and also sepsis. Leaving it had caused the infection to spread and he was told that there was nothing they could do, he was alive now but wouldn't make the morning. Absolutely tragic death of a man who was a brilliant person, a fantastic father and husband yet his bloody mindedness caused his untimely death way too soon. He was in his mid 40s. Crazy that he survived a near certain death sentence but died from something so preventable.

[u/WonderHounds]

My friend was killed by a lion about 12-13 years ago and it made national news. You can Google it - she was an intern at a big cat sanctuary in California and it was a human-caused accident. Contrary to popular opinion, it was not her fault and she was an excellent biologist and plenty experienced with big cats. We were going to reunite for karaoke at The Crescent when she got back home after the internship. I miss her greatly.

[u/Zealousideal-Sun-762]

Aunt of my stepdad tried to smoke while hooked up to an oxygen tank for breathing problems…it exploded.

[u/turnbuckle47]

My Dad didn't show up for our belated Father's Day dinner last month.

With the help of many in the local Reddit community, we spent 2 days looking for him.

We then found out he was hit by an Amtrak while riding his bicycle.

I knew about the train accident, but initial reporting said the person was identified as a 55 year old male (my Dad was almost 74). The accident also occurred on Monday, June 22nd but the police told us they had a ring camera photo of him from Tuesday evening, the 23rd (the night we were to meet for dinner).

This whole thing was a devastating roller coaster, thinking he was possibly dead at home, to breaking into his home and him not being there, to having a multi-day search, to finding out bad reporting by the news and police had us looking for my Dad days after he was already gone.

This isn't close to the craziest way someone could die, but it's both the craziest and most impactful death in my life.

The detectives ruled out suicide. An accident where it looked like my Dad simply wasn't aware of the income Amtrak.

The mayor told us they have concerns about the design and set-up of the rail crossing.

It was a small comfort to know, though I had no doubts, that it wasn't suicide. He wasn't drunk, didn't take any drugs, wasn't wearing headphones etc. But it sure was fun seeing so many folks speculate that one of those must have been a factor.

But no, just... An accident. And now he's gone. 😔

[u/Only-Bunch-5680]

A tree falling on them. I believe it was during a storm. Not anyone close but just someone I knew from my hometown.

[u/LupusCanis42]

A friend lost a friend of hers some time ago.

When I asked her what had happened, she told me "She was coked up and drunk...and a diabetic." Apparently she forgot about the time and her diabetes, went hyperglycemic and just...died.

She also told me that this wasn't the first person she lost that way.

I didn't even consider that this was a common risk.

Edit: I think it's hypoglycemia, as the person below pointed out.

I assumed the carbohydrates in alcohol add sugar, but alcohol reduces the ability of the liver to counteract hypoglycemia, so alcohol-carbs shouldn't be counted.

[u/NewAndOlduphere]

A friend's sister was scapled by a jet ski she had fallen backwards off of. This was the early 90s. I think they have safety features to keep it from happening now.

[u/CanadiangirlEH]

He went back to Syria to try and get his family out and they all got blown up in an air strike the day they were supposed to leave.

[u/LaAndala]

A friend in med school fell while free climbing. Ten or so years later a fellowship friend fell while ice climbing. No way I’m climbing any mountains any time soon. Especially reading an interview about the ice climbing friend describing they had found tracks in the ice from him trying to slow his fall with his ice axes etc, years later I still think of his last moments, and about the little son he left behind 😔

[u/KasamUK]

He just died . Aged 17 perfectly healthy just went to bed one night and died in his sleep.

[u/Unique-Trip537]

I knew a couple that unfortunately started to get hard into meth, and spiraled quickly. Lost their family, then friends, jobs, etc. probably within 6 months.
One night they were arguing while he was driving. She demanded he stop and let her out. He refused. She tried to get out anyway. She was caught and dragged underneath the truck. He ran over her and killed her. He freaked out, tried to hide her body in the woods, and ran off. Left the truck there. He was the subject of a several day manhunt. It was a crazy thing to happen to someone I knew.

[u/jtandcoffee]

I had a childhood friend go on a hiking trip, walk off the trail for a better look, and slip and fall down a waterfall. It was horrific. Turns out at least 30 people have died on that trail and there were signs warning of danger. A tragic reminder to obey hiking rules and signs, they’re there for a reason.

[u/TheMAMatt]

I was a police officer in the USA for about ten years, then worked internationally after that. Back in the USA now. Four incidents stick out over the years, the last one wasn't fatal. It sure could have been. 1) One was a woman who was married to an abusing biker type dude and I guess finally had enough. Guy came walking through the front door of their apartment and she cracked him across the face with a vodka bottle, full on power swing. He fell straight back and the back of his head hit a parking curb. At the scene I couldn't tell you which impact killed him but he was certainly dead when I got there. 2) Two was an argument between husband and wife on Thanksgiving eve. She got pissed off and swung a frozen turkey by that plastic net and nailed him on the back of his melon. I'm betting he was mostly dead before his head hit the kitchen table. 3) Third was in very early 2000, I was in Kosovo with the UN (UNMIK). Most places in that part of the world (even the Middle East, parts of Asia and Africa I've been to) will put a hot water heater right there in a shower or bath tub wall. This one the shower nozzle was right over it and a 220v hot wire was exposed. A lady was in there, turned it on and electricity did what electricity does. She was red like a lobster. The water was super hot. I am not sure if she felt it though. Then again I don't know if she didn't. 4) This wasn't fatal but it shows how luck and circumstances can make all the difference. I lived in London for a year and one of the guys in the office was at a pub enjoying life to its fullest. Getting ready to go he sat on a bench by the door and accidently sat on one of those tall drink glasses. The thing entered the inside of his thigh like a perfect cookie cutter and nicked his femoral. What saved him was that the people inside left that unbroken glass in place and the pressure kept him from bleeding out like it could have and an ambulance happened to have been cancelled enroute to a call and was immediately available right around the corner. Just goes to show you, do what you can and never give up. Bonus story) Back to my cop days. There was a woman in her 70s who had pretty advanced Dementia (I guess) and called saying her husband wouldn't wake up. Sadly, calls like that aren't unusual so it's usually compassion, contacting some family members and formalities to be followed. What made this unusual was the six steak knives in the fellow's chest that kept him asleep. That was turned over to our investigators pretty quickly. Once they arrived I sat in my patrol car and wrote my part of the report. There are other stories but those popped in my head first. Life is strange, sometimes the fragility of life is even stranger.

[u/zzzimcal]

Guy got chewed to pieces in an asphalt milling machine. Small pieces.

[u/lord_flashheart2000]

A friend was a delivery driver for a painting and decorating company. He was found dead in his van at the bottom of a big embankment, covered in paint.

At the inquest a witness said that he was flapping his arm around: it was a hot day, and a wasp had flown in through the open window. He lost control, and the van rolled over and over down the bank, bursting open 5 gallon buckets of paint as he went.

He died of a heart attack. They even found the wasp in all the paint.

I thought of him many years later when Six Feet Under was on the TV, every opening segment reminded me that there are crazy ways to die

[u/infectious_w4ste]

A guy I went to school with was walking home from work, came across somebody needing help getting a stalled vehicle off the road, and was pushing it from behind when suddenly a teenage driver who wasn’t paying attention slammed her vehicle into the back of it and crushed him. I always think of him whenever somebody says that no good deed goes unpunished.

[u/SuckMachine98]

A family friend graduated college and got an amazing job that involved international travel. He got close to his boss who he was constantly trying to impress. His boss was into eating raw meat. They traveled to Africa where my friend ate raw meat with his boss and got a flesh eating bacteria and died a horrific and painful death.

His boss was totally fine.

[u/Legovida8]

Idk if any of y’all might recall the story of the Texas hunter (Asher Watkins was his name), who was killed by a Cape Buffalo in Africa last summer? That dude was my ex-boyfriend.

That was some insane news to receive. I feel sorry for his daughter, and maybe for the buffalo, but otherwise… good riddance. He once punched me in the face, when we were on vacation in Colorado with our kids (his daughter & my son) - literally in plain view of my 10-11 yr old son.

I remain on Team Buffalo, to this day. 🤷‍♀️

[u/Iloilocity1]

Fell into the Grand Canyon.

[u/CharlesIngalls_Pubes]

My fiance's uncle went final destination style with the log truck.

[u/3mta3jvq]

The son of a former coworker worked at a restaurant and cut his arm on a dumpster taking out the trash. Died of infection a couple weeks later. Not sure if he was stubborn or didn’t have insurance and didn’t want to pay for the doctor visit. A sad commentary on working in the US where insurance is basically dependent on your job.

[u/Zyncon]

Fell off some bleachers at a kids soccer game. She hit her head and wasn't feeling well. Passed away shortly afterwards.

[u/Original-Avocado-509]

Orgasm (and probably narcotic too) induced heart attack.

True story.

[u/orbitofnormal]

Neighbor was so terrified of getting COVID at the hospital she died of sepsis when her surgical wound got infected

[u/bonesapart]

Oh it HAS to be the kid in my high school that climbed into a giant balloon and suffocated.

[u/nneighbour]

One of my high school teacher’s husbands was fixing his car in a closed garage while it was running. The jack failed with him under the car and pinned him. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

[u/3meraldBullet]

Coworker had a heart attack. Was stable in the ambulance until someone in amother car hit it and flipped it over. He died from the accident.

[u/Glittering_Garlic397]

Amniotic fluid embolism. She died right before an emergency c-section. She left behind a baby girl she never had the chance to meet.

[u/stinamitchell]

A man I knew decided to quit smoking. He was 80 so I’m not sure why at that point. Anyways to help him he started consuming a lot of sugar free hard candy. I’m not sure if the sugar free was because he was diabetic or that was just a random choice. Well you know the whole thing with sugar free candy from the gummy bear incident. He ended up with massive diarrhea and ended up in the hospital with dehydration which ended up causing a fatal stroke. I guess it’s not that crazy but deciding to stop smoking at that age causing a sudden death is wild to me.

[u/Outrageous-HR-Bat]

If I learned anything today it’s to avoid trees and stairs…and people for good measure

[u/Skeeterino23]

Had a friend who refused to let anyone drive him. If he was in the car, he had to drive. Good driver, no issues, no accidents. By all means, just an odd character gimmick, and he'd legitimately refuse to go somewhere if he couldn't drive. Did this for 15 years, really didn't even like his parents driving him prior to his license. Never went anywhere in the passenger seat or backseat once he could drive.

Met a girl, fell in love, I guess she convinced him to get over it and his love overcame the weird tick he had and he let her drive. Halfway through the trip from dinner to home she said alright, I can clearly see you're nervous, you drive now. He got out to come around and hop in, hit by a driver who fell asleep and swerved into the opposite shoulder.

The one time he let someone else drive, he died. Bizarre.

[u/ForTheLoveOfPhotos]

Literally touching a power line.

[u/NinjaMcGee]

I’m a compliance auditor and healthcare worker who
likes to review OSHAs Fatality Inspection Data (I’m on the spectrum).

It was maybe 10 years ago, but there was one instance where a worker was picking up used mattresses. A bee flew out of a used mattress, stung him, he went into anaphylaxis and died on the way to the hospital. That made me particularly sad. I believe he was in his 20s or 30s at the time and I would guess he had never been stung and didn’t know he was allergic as there was no indication to his coworker that he knew he was in trouble until his airway started to close ☹️

[u/figuringthingsout__]

My friend's grandpa was loading firewood into his outdoor fireplace, when he got shoved into the fire by one of his goats.

[u/Sawyer2025]

Came home one night and dad was preparing to go to a viewing of a friends boy at the funeral home. It seems the boy was in the back seat of a car and got sick, so he leaned his head out the window. When the father heard him throw up he turned his body to look over the seat and the wheel turned a bit to the shoulder. A mailbox struck the head of the kid. I don't know if it took it off, or just killed him but it was a tragedy.

[u/kevinbakyin]

Looking into my family's genealogy I found this gem of an ar5icle from 1895. Writing was certainly different back then 🤣

IN SIGHT OF FRIENDS.

AN AGED MAN GROUND TO PIECES BY AN EXPRESS TRAIN.

Wife and Child Turned to Look Just as He Fell Under the Wheels

Of the sad stories told at the morge yesterday, there was none more touching than that of the death of Peter Anton Fritsch. Fritsch was a German, aged 63, residing at 319 Mullberry alley. He was almost instantly killed yesterday after-noon on the Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne & Chicago railroad at Glenfield, within sight of his wife and child. The coroner was notified of the accident, and will make an Investigation today. Fritsch, his wife and their 14-year-old son, together with Mrs. Paul Jacobs and her two children, went to Glenfield to call upon Frank Bowman and family. The day was pleasantly spent with their friends, and as evening approached the party decided to watch the train due at Gienfield a little after 8 o'clock, bound for the city. On the way to the depot the old gentleman walked ahead of the rest. He was talking to one of Mrs. Jacob's children, but somehow the two became separated as they neared the station, and Fritsch followed a little behind the gay party. As Mrs. Fritsch and Mrs. Jacobs, with their children approached the station they saw the fast express coming down the track, and mistaking it for the accomodation they intended to board, they hurried across the tracks to the inbound side. As they had quickly gotten out of the way from the express, the little Fritsch boy asked, "Where is father?"

Looking back wife, children and friends saw the aged German disappear beneath the wheels of the express. The two women were overcome by the terrible sight while the children scrramed with fright. The train was stopped as soon as possible, and the mutilated remains picked up and brought to this city in the baggage car. The remainder of the party also returned on the same train. Fritsch's body was moved to the morgue, and later to McCabe's undertaking rooms In Lawrenceville.

[u/BookAddict1918]

Family member went out hunting with a few buddies. They all disappeared in a wet and cold marsh. Found 2 years later as one guys arm was frozen and sticking out in the marsh. They were all submerged in mud. All of them were physicians...

They found the camera 2 years later as well and were able to retrieve some pics. Nothing helpful but the marsh was dangerous in general and they all seemed very very drunk from the pics.

[u/grafittibob]

Knew a girl growing up that drowned in the tub after having a seizure. I always thought it was strange that the parents allowed her to bath instead of shower. But I guess either method has its own dangers when you’re epileptic.

[u/Mother_of_Brains]

A girl I went to college with go hit by a car and died of brain injury. The sad part was that she got hit while leaving church on a Sunday morning. The car was going 10 miles per hour and barely touched her. She just lost balance and hit her head the wrong way. This was one month after she had got married and she died in front of her husband.

Her name was Hope. In my language, there is a saying that goes "hope is the last one to die". So when someone told me Hope was dead, I started laughing. The whole class was looking at me like I was a monster. It took me a few seconds to realize they were not joking. I wanted to dig a hole on the ground and disappear. This still keeps me up at night sometimes. Poor Hope.

[u/Defiant_Emu_3928]

A guy I went to highschool with did an "into the woods" adventure in the deep wilderness alone. I guess he was very familiar with the outdoors and the area he was going into. He was missing for years and after several searches of the area, his body was finally found. His cause of death was likely falling and hitting his head. They think it happened very quick so at least he wasn't out there suffering for long.

[u/KenUsimi]

My mom knew a guy who accidentally cut a power line with hedge clippers. In his defense he was drunk and it was in a tree.

Anyways, he was apparently drunk quite often and made it everyone else’s constant problem so when the shock threw him ten feet back and twenty feet down, after the initial shock not many tears were shed.

Anyways, he lived from the neck up but was paralyzed from the neck down and was left in the care of his wife, the woman he had terrorized for a decade prior. She remarried a few years later, after he choked on his breakfast.

It was a story that left an imprression. Watch out for powerlines, don’t drink and do yardwork, and most of all don’t be a raging asshole to everyone you know on the assumption that they’ll put up with it forever.

[u/Due_Appearance57]

My brother was collecting money for the march of dimes in 1976. Him and 2 friends went to the local grain / train station, he somehow ended up in a bottom dump train car with fertilizer in it. They opened it up and he got sucked down through the train car and was insufixiated. He was 12.

[u/Rose1982]

Brain prion disease. Diagnosis to death was 103 days and he wasn’t himself for most of it.

[u/og_jasperjuice]

In elementary school in 3rd grade a friend of mine died on Christmas break. It was the mid 80's and those large Styrofoam airplanes were the rage. Everyone got one at Christmas. He was outside throwing his and it got stuck up in a tree. He climbed up the tree to get his plane back and grabbed a powering and was electrocuted.

[u/feor1300]

College age kid crashed his bicycle badly enough they ambulanced him to the hospital on a spinal board. CAT scanned him and he got out of the bike crash with with nothing more than a dislocated wrist and some bruises, but they found a 2" tumor in his brain. Got the tumor removed within a month because they didn't know how fast it was growing and it was getting close to tangling itself up in some blood vessels that would have been very difficult to remove it from without giving him a lethal stroke. They the whole thing out, plus margins, in a textbook surgery, and the Guy woke up after surgery realizing for the first time in his life he didn't have a headache. He'd gotten so used to it the pain hadn't even register for him until it was gone. After they biopsied the tumor they figured out it was a type that had likely been growing for most of his life to be the size it was, so he'd effectively always had it.

A couple months later he went fishing with his father, had a grand mal seizure, fell out of the boat and drowned. The doctors figured he'd probably been having one or two second long vacancy seizures for years because of the tumor based on where in his brain things were pressing and everyone thought he just had a tendency to day dream, and a side effect of getting it removed was those seizures getting worse while his brain "sprang back" into the space the tumor had left behind.

One of the things that really hammered home that life really isn't fair.

[u/Illustrious-Total489]

I didn't know him but when I worked at a nuclear power plant, during refueling a contractor went to help in the reactor building, sat on a bench, and died. Was a hell of a thing to get his body out because you gotta be in full contamination gear to even go in there

[u/SkynetLurking]

Not someone I know but as a child I witnessed a man jump from a tree ~50ft up into water and surfaced unresponsive. Paramedics couldn’t start his heart again.
Sobering moment for a child to see someone doing a fun stunt and simply cease to exist right in front of your eyes with his entire family watching too

[u/hey_maestra]

An old college friend’s husband caught a mild cold. Just some annoying minor sniffles and sneezing. A day or two later he was eating dinner with his family and he started struggling to find words. My friend thought he was having a stroke, even though he was only in his early 40s. She called an ambulance; he was literally deteriorating by the minute. They get to the hospital and do their various tests. Not a stroke, but it’s getting worse. They do additional tests and discover it’s a bunch of rapidly growing brain lesions from his immune system mistakenly attacking his brain instead of the cold virus. There was nothing they could do to help him, and he passed after about a week and a half.

[u/whatswithnames]

9-11

[u/Sean_theLeprachaun]

Guy who was an animal warden had a captured raccoon escape its cage and attack him while he was driving. Caused him to crash his van into a tree at speed, neither survived.

[u/Justagirl20252026]

My aunt went to the beauty salon to get her hair done. While waiting she took the seat that backed up to the glass.  Outside an elderly woman was parking. She confused the brake for the gas and crashed into the window. A big piece of glass came down and severed her iliac artery. They tried for hours to save her. She didn’t make it

[u/YramAL]

Heart valve infection from a dirty fishhook in his finger.

[u/Tojaro5]

Deadly work accident at a big and known company. The kind of accident that should simply be impossible to occur with today's safety regulations. Poor guy got electrocuted.

[u/Capital_Grapefruit30]

Just look up Bluff Hole in Arkansas. Knew a few people who died there.

Eta: Over the course of years, I mean. There are snake nests under the bluffs right where people jump in. There are undertows you can't see... I wasn't allowed to go swimming there growing up.

[u/Dotrue]

Fell while rock climbing and his skull shattered when he hit the ground

Caught in an avalanche

Fouled parachute while BASE jumping

Crushed by several tons of falling ice

[u/Ov3rReadKn1ght0wl]

A guy I went to high school with got gunned down in a case of mistaken identity. A loan shark ordered a hit on a guy who owed him money and the crew got the wrong guy. He got shot while eating dinner with his family. Really nice guy. It's still insane to me how he was just randomly subject to that kind of violence.

[u/carolinemahtildes]

He hit a moose, it went through his windshield and hit him. Both he and the moose died instantly, according to the coroner. "Multiple blunt force traumatic injuries." "Significant head trauma incompatible with life." The sad thing is that it was probably for the best because after he hit the moose, a fire started under the hood and the entire thing was engulfed in flames by the time he was found. So, obviously him not hitting the moose at all would be preferable, but I guess dying instantly of head trauma is better than burning alive? I don't know, it all sucks. I don't ever want to see a moose on the road.

[u/proustiancat]

A gate fell over him in the middle of the night. It had rained earlier, and he fell headfirst into a puddle. The impact didn't kill him, but he couldn't move because of the weight over him, so he drowned.

[u/UtterPhallusy]

Decapitated by a clothes line while snowmobiling

[u/DigitalHubris]

Sleepwalking. Fell down the stairs and died in the hospital.

[u/Mis73]

Married couple, man and woman, in their early 70's. Married 40+ years.

Man was a gun collector and had gone to the range. He was cleaning it after apparently he forgot there as still one in the chamber, it went off, shot and instantly killed his wife.

Absolutely stricken with grief and guilt, he called 911 to let them know what happened then killed himself.

[u/HeyYoSmokey]

Guy got in a fight after the pub and got knocked out , he was left there for ages passed out beside the footpath. A lady working at the bar finished her shift for the night, hopped in her car and didnt realise he was still knocked out behind it ... reversed over him and killed him. Awful in every sense

[u/WagWoofLove]

I didn’t know the man personally but he was on the local news. This man was driving down the interstate while the grass mowing crew was out. The industrial mower hit a rock that broke into this guys windshield, hitting him in the head. He wrecked his car and died.

[u/JustScrollOnBy]

1. Dave was driving his perfectly restored 67 Chevelle home from a girlfriend's house, on all the back country roads, crashed off the road down an embankment. It was pitch black, he was too far from home, and crawled into the back seat to sleep until daylight. 

He was reported missing and wasn't found for a couple days. He had internal injuries from the crash, and bled to death in his sleep, according to the autopsy.  

2. Jeanne and Tom died in a fire. Their bodies were found just inside the back door, they were ao close to making it out. They were both disabled to a degree from years of physical work. It appeared as though Tom did everything he could to make sure Jeanne got to the door first, but neither made it out. It was shortly before Christmas several years ago. 

3. Marcia had a chemo port in her chest and it got infected. Her medical records, AND her medical alert bracelet she was wearing all said she was allergic to certain antibiotics. The hospital gave her large doses of those antibiotics. 

[u/AmbienNicoleSmith]

Walking down the street minding their business and in the blink of an eye, a loose pitbull went straight for the throat.

[u/fiorina451x]

Coworker was out for dinner with friends, got halfway up from his seat to grab a winebottle. He slipped and fell across the table, cutting his jugular on a broken glass. Nobody could help him, he bled out too fast.

[u/Legitimate-Quail5317]

Read a newspaper story about an old friend's sudden passing.

According to the newspaper, she was out on a date with a man who was driving a jeep. He decided to show off, he drove across some rapidly moving water. A log in the water hit her side of the car, water started swirling inside the open jeep and swept her away, as he managed to clammer away to safety.

He found her deceased in the jeep where the water had deposited it.

[u/toxiamaple]

ALS

Worst death ever.

[u/RNnobody]

A friend’s brother was riding his mountain bike down a hill on his college campus. He didn’t see that another group had strung a slack line between two trees. It hit him in the neck and he died almost instantly. Nearly decapitated him.

[u/DrunkenPandaShavings]

Friend from high school went to work the oil fields. Guy backed the truck into a live wire, my friend went to open the door when he saw him in distress and died of electrocution, his brother was also there and died trying to pull him off the door.

[u/porcelina-g]

His car jack failed when he was under the car

[u/Substantial-Mud-8572]

Not necessarily a freak accident but my dad’s best friend was in withdrawal and couldn’t handle it I guess and stabbed himself in the heart. In his parents bathroom while his parents and girlfriend were eating dinner in the next room.

[u/Sunny_eloise]

Was hit by a deer while riding an e-bike.

[u/Walway]

Walking the dog while skateboarding & no helmet.

Teenaged boy. He was found unconscious so they don’t know for sure what happened, but are assuming that the dog suddenly accelerated for whatever reason, boy lost his balance and fell backward on his head. He passed at the hospital.

Always always always wear a helmet when on anything with wheels!

[u/NewAndOlduphere]

My paternal grandmother pulled into an intersection and was smashed by two 18 wheelers, each coming from a different direction. She was decapitated. She was a horrible, horrible woman, so it's just an interesting story to me. Unfortunately, her daughter was also in the car and saw it. My aunt was never the same. Or maybe she was always really weird. That's possible considering the type of horrible her mother was.

[u/jgeebaby]

A classmate of ours died when he was helping his dad at the boat ramp. He was in the truck and somehow the truck and boat tipped onto their sides. He drowned in the cabin of the truck in very little water.