14 People Who Lived Through the Impossible

These true stories will make you question the limits of human strength and luck. Discover the heart-stopping moments that defied all odds, and prepare to be amazed by the resilience of those who have faced the unimaginable.

• I am allergic to the cold. Like, literally. I get intense hives and swelling, I pass out, and I throw up. Doesn’t even have to be freezing. Below 45 degrees without a jacket, and I can’t do it.
  I have to carry an EpiPen with me if I drink something too cold or have a severe reaction. © person978 / Reddit

• Was once walking past a phone box that started ringing. I answered it, and it was a friend of mine who started chatting to me like everything was normal. When I looked at the number of the phone box, it was one digit different from my home number, and my friend just flat out refused to believe what I was saying! © captainbignips / Reddit

• I was diagnosed with leukemia. Then I got a bacterial growth that killed the leukemia, a real 1 in 1,000,000 chance. © InNeedOfFriend / Reddit

• I lived in Florida for the first 18 years of my life and spent most of my free time outdoors. The summer before my junior year of high school, I found myself out hiking near my home with a buddy.
  In an effort to make our day more exciting, we began to climb vertically out of the canyons. We got to the top. As I stood up, I felt the ground underneath me squirm. I had stepped on a snake. I screamed and kicked the snake that was latched onto my foot off me by reflex.
  As an Eagle Scout, I immediately recognized the red on yellow pattern as the snake slithered away and knew it was a coral snake. We rushed home, drove to the hospital, and I was seen. The doctors informed my parents that the nearest antivenin was a 3-hour helicopter ride away. The first symptom, lung failure, would occur after 2 hours.
  My parents turned off the lights. Around 2 hours after being bitten, a nurse came into our dark room. I asked the nurse, “Have there been any developments?” to her surprise. The doctors came in, shocked I was alive, told me it was a dry bite. © zildjiankill / Reddit

• I was struck by lightning while talking on a landline. Lightning struck the telephone line and traveled through the handset to my ear. My parents drove me to the ER.
  I couldn’t talk very well. My brain knew what I wanted to say, but my mouth didn’t want to say it. I had a terrible stutter.
  My doctor told me that I had had a “dose of good, old-fashioned electroshock therapy.” My speech was normal the next day. I get a terrible headache whenever a thunderstorm comes through. © Unknown author / Reddit

• I slept wrong one night and pinched a nerve in my neck so severely I lost the right side of my body, it just went silent, like it wasn’t there for months. I woke up in the worst pain I’ve ever experienced and couldn’t talk, move, or do anything. The ER doctor thought I was having a stroke.
  My doctor had never seen a case as severe as mine, and it was purely a freak accident. Recovery took months, but I have the use of my leg and hand again, with some numbness. Other than pain and spasms, I’m mostly back to normal. © Unknown author / Reddit

• I have a completely unexplained hearing loss in my left ear. I had a cyst in it when I was 6, and the surgery to remove it and fix the ear was successful.
  When I was about 12, I woke up one morning with a killer headache and ear ringing, and after 3 days, it went away, and so did my hearing. Doctors did multiple examinations and an MRI, and they said it should be totally functional, it just isn’t. 1 in a million case. © charliebucket99 / Reddit

• I was on Tinder and was talking to this guy. He was supposed to meet me for dinner. I texted him, and no answer. Then I texted him on Tinder. Said that he couldn’t make it.
  However, I got a text back from the number. It wasn’t the guy that I thought I texted. It was the actor Gerard Butler. I thought he was lying until he FaceTimed me. Nice guy. © Grkitaliaemt / Reddit

• I survived a “non-survivable” plane crash. I was on a tour of the desert in western China when I was, like, 7. My father’s friend, who hosted me and piloted the plane, didn’t survive, but somehow I got out with a concussion and apparently passed out for almost a day in the middle of the desert, in the wreckage of the crash, 50 km from the town/airport.
  The people who found me were some tree planters, and the only reason was that they were making a bet on how fast the egg would cook in the sand, and they went off the road to test it. © yusenye / Reddit

• My mom once called her friend (back in the day on the landline), and another lady answered. My mom asked if her friend was there, and the lady said, “Sure, I’ll get her.” My mom’s friend got on the phone and asked how she knew she was here.
  Turns out my mom got a number wrong when dialing, called a random house where someone was hosting a Tupperware party, and my mom’s friend just happened to be attending it!! What are the odds of that? © Unknown author / Reddit

• I was diagnosed with a rare cancer that happens in males more often than females, usually affects patients between 45 and 60, and happens in the abdomen or legs. I was a 34-year-old female, and it happened in my right arm. For the record, I’m in remission, but I couldn’t believe I defied everything. © Tigergirl1975 / Reddit

• I am a 19-year-old male. I was driving with my sister when suddenly her face turned cold. “Gavin, your eyes are yellow.” I quickly pulled down the passenger’s mirror, and to my horror, two yellow eyes radiated back at me.
  Fast-forward, I spent a month being sick; the initial diagnosis was Hepatitis A. Went back to the doctor, nothing was better (things were worse, in fact). Was sent to the ER, then to the liver transplant unit. By this point, my eyes had turned muddy orange, and my pee was the color of... a mahogany tree.
  Anyways, the team of liver doctors managed to save my liver. I was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis. Oh, and my eyes are white again :) © Unknown author / Reddit

• One day, there was a sudden windstorm while I was in an open parking lot, and a leaf flew right into my eye. It immediately started to hurt. I somehow drove home, and my eye was constantly hurting. I washed it a few times, didn’t work.
  I started to feel movement inside my eye, but couldn’t see anything in the mirror. I freaked out and started gently poking around in my eye with my index finger. A tiny little dot came out and moved a little on the tip of my finger.
  I ran to my mom, showed her, and she couldn’t see anything. It was so freaking tiny and barely moved! It hurt for an hour, and I found 2 more tiny moving freaks in my eye. I was convinced I wasn’t just “seeing things.” Then, finally, my mom took me to an eye surgeon.
  Went in as an emergency; the doc examined me and rushed me to an OR, saying I had living microorganisms inside my eye. Took about 20 minutes, and they removed all FOURTEEN of them. ALIVE! Doc said he’d never seen anything like it in his 25 years of experience. Said I was a one-in-a-million case and if I had taken a day to come in, chances were high that I would be blind. © chaipotstoryteIIer / Reddit

• [edited] People might not believe me, but this is 100% true. My girlfriend had a child, and we had no idea she was pregnant at all. She’s 5’4″ and 140lb. Not super skinny, but definitely not fat.
  She had no belly to tell it. When my son was born, I looked back, and some attitude changes made sense, and it made sense that she couldn’t run, but otherwise, she was 100% flat, never showing signs of pregnancy.
  I had just turned 21 six days previously, and she was feeling really sick throughout the day. I had some buddies over, and she felt sick. She lived with her parents at the time. She ended up going to the hospital.
  They told her she most likely had salmonella poisoning. After pulling blood, they told her she was pregnant, and a few minutes later, they told her she was in labor. Crazy thing is, three months previous, she’d gotten an iud and passed the piss test, so they put it in.
  Because I was with friends at home, I had no idea what was happening. She called me around 7:30 am, and I was in shock in the most negative way possible, and freaked out when she told me that she was in labor. We had always agreed to never have a kid. I hated this.
  I showed up. After a few hours at the hospital, I left to take a shower and eat, spent about 30 minutes in a Taco Bell freaking out, and went back to go on with my life. I love my son. © Unknown author / Reddit

Life has a strange way of throwing us into surprising encounters. These 16 stories show just how a stranger’s actions can make all the difference.