20 Stories Of People Surviving Because Of Someone Else’s Sacrifice

There’s nothing like a near-death experience to remind us of our mortality. It’s a shocking experience that can leave an indelible mark on one’s life forever. It’s an even more vivid moment if someone selflessly or accidentally sacrifices themselves to save your life.  Recently a Reddit post went viral when someone asked, “Redditors who had their lives saved by someone that gave up theirs, what's the story?” Scroll to read the recounts from ordinary folks who survived a harrowing escape from death through another’s actions. 

#1

Image source: PrisAustin, Spenser Sembrat / Unsplash (not the actual photo) Not to me, but a family friend. There were 2 adults(barely, like 18 and 19) and 3 kids in the back ages 2, 6 and 7. They were driving back from the store to a family gathering and a drunk driver hit them, i don't know how but the guy in copilot jump back and protected the kids from the impact, he passed away but the 3 kids were fine, the driver died too, the drunk guy fled. So when cops came to scene they found the little kids on the dead guys arms.

#2

Image source: AngelGuideIndi, Getty Images / Unsplash (not the actual photo) Not quite sure if this counts but almost 7 years ago I was into some hard s**t and my best friend did it with me. Not sure why, he was sick with a couple different long term illnesses, so we both know it wasn't good for him (hell it's not good in general, don't do d***s kids) but I was a stupid kid and we did everything together. One night my life kinda imploded on itself and we doped up more than we ever had before. I was about to do another round when he tried talking me down. I made some excuse about not wanting my s**t to go to waste, which was b******t I could've saved it for later. So he offered to use it up so that it wouldn't go to waste. If I had taken that I'd have likely died of an overdose. He actually did, found out when I woke up. I've been sober ever since. He tried so hard to save me for so many years, I hope he knows that he really did.

#3

Image source: MustangLover22, Alexander Grey / Unsplash (not the actual photo) This sorta doesn't count, but I'll tell it anyway. I was born at 24 weeks and 3 days through emergency c-section and weighed 1 pound half oz, and was 11 inches long. I stayed in the nicu for about 3 months. Around the time i was born, my dad's dad was in the hospital across the street dying of colon cancer. I was born in march. One night in april my dad got the phone call that his dad was dying. So he went up there. After my grandfather died, my dad told my mom he wanted to go see me. When they got there, my ventilator (machine helping me breathe) was gone. They were understandbly freaked out, and asked a nurse what happened. Apparently i pulled the tube out. The tube that was taped to my throat. After the 3rd time of me pulling it out, the doctors left it out to see what would happen, and i started breathing on my own. My dad said "Around what time did this happen?" And the time the nurse said, was the exact moment that my grandfather died. So my family has always said that when my grandfather was taking his last breath, I was taking my first breath, on my own.

#4

Image source: Mister_IceBlister, finding_trevor finding_trevor: 4 years ago to the day a boy committed s**cide and his parents decided to donate his organs. 4 years ago tomorrow I received his heart. Mister_IceBlisterReport: 3, almost 4 years ago, my boyfriend committed s**cide and his family immediately donated every part of him, eyes, skin, organs, bones... And I was of course grateful that they made the right choice, but bitter that I never got to see his body because he was taken apart so quickly. For some reason, even though I've heard amazing stories about body part donations, THIS was the comment that I think has given me peace

#5

Image source: linjaes, cottonbro studio / Pexels (not the actual photo) My dad gave up his life in the sense that he constantly works himself to the bone to provide for our family. He gave up all his hobbies so that he could give us education, shelter, and food. He doesn’t complain and he doesn’t ask for much.

#6

Image source: LaMadreDelCantante, Riley Edwards / Unsplash (not the actual photo) My cousin was driving his daughter to a new state for her new teaching job when his car was hit by a semi. The daughter was trapped in the car, which was ON FIRE, but somehow her dad broke through a blocked door and dragged her out. Later in the hospital he was found to have a severed spine and main artery. He didn't make it. She's (physically) fine. I don't know if dragging her out made a difference as to whether he would have lived or not, but I know he would have done it either way and he definitely saved her life, so I feel like it counts.

#7

Image source: louloulovesmakeup1, Tiiu Sild / Wikipedia (not the actual photo) I knew a guy who was a complete a*s. Anyways he has a pancreas and liver transplant. Did a complete 180. Got married had 3 beautiful daughters and became such a great guy. Since I've signed my organ donor card. I'm convinced it was someone's spirit in those organs that changed him.

#8

Image source: BadgerUltimatum, Emad El Byed / Unsplash (not the actual photo) Not exactly on topic but I'm named after my father's friend and he died in a b*mbing during the troubles, he had seen the b*mb and ran back to save the little old lady that owned the place. She got a scar along her cheek and he slammed into the wall and killed by the blast. I need to remember to live better to do him justice.

#9

Image source: 0tterpop, Alain Brissy / flickr (not the actual photo) I was in an armed robbery. He pointed the gun at me and my boyfriend tackled him taking three to the chest and one to the head. The kid panicked and fled. He is now doing 30 years and I was the sole witness at his trial.

#10

Image source: NicaNocturnal, Videas / Pexels (not the actual photo) Not me, but my grandmother. She was in a c****************p in WWII with her family, and the day before her and her bunks were to be gassed, a soldier from the Latvian version of the SS allowed the group to escape in the night. When my dad tried to find info about the soldier when doing his genealogy research, he found out that the soldier was shot for that.

#11

Image source: Lone_Digger123, Manuel Sardo / Unsplash (not the actual photo) I was up at a friends place and they went to a large funeral of someone I didn't know and this is the story: Three or four daughters were swimming and got swept out by the tide. One by one the father rescued them. He managed to rescue all of them but drowned saving his last child. The worst part of the story is that one of them had their birthday that day.

#12

Image source: Goose_whitehead, Marc Serota / Unsplash (not the actual photo) I have an old coach who's wife grew up in Vietnam. She once told me a story about a time she was playing soccer with some friends from her village around the age of 10. The ball got kicked out of bounds into some brush on the edge of the field that they were playing in. As her and one of her friends raced to the ball, her friend was faster and reached the ball first. As she came to a halt in front of the ball she stepped on an old land mine, completely vanishing out from in front of my coaches wife.

#13

Image source: HorizontalTwo08, Specna Arms / Unsplash (not the actual photo) Not me but some old Vietnam veteran at my local VFW was saying his life was saved by an 18 year old that got drafted. He said he wouldn’t be here today if the kid didn’t insist on heading into a tunnel first. I think that’s right. May have gotten me veterans mixed up.

#14

Image source: Nyfregja, Solen Feyissa / Unsplash (not the actual photo) Not sure it counts, but I'm only alive because a coworker of my mom lost her kid due to sudden infant death. So then my mom insisted on having me tested for everything, and the doctors said it wasn't needed because I was carried to full term and there was little risk. Well, until after the tests, I turned out to stop breathing in my sleep quite a lot. I've had to sleep on a special monitor for a while, which made an alarm go off whenever I stopped breathing. So the alarm woke me up, I started crying, for which you need to breathe. And all due to that one baby who died shortly before I was born.

#15

Image source: bipbopmobip, Pramod Tiwari / Unsplash (not the actual photo) Not me but my great grandfather who lived in ireland it was around a type of war (im not sure) and soldiers patroleed after curfew and would shoot who ever was out no questions asked Micheal (my ggd) was out after curfew with his brother christian they had been seen and were being chased and Micheal slipped and christian grabbed his brother and then they both climbed up but christian got shot in the leg and ended up deliberately stopping and trying to buy time and get in a question or something and micheal watched them shoot him (they were young so this was traumatizing) he managed to escape and even fought in WWII. he died 7 or 8 years ago he would have turned 101 this year Fun fact: he was born the same year as world war one ended Edit: I fixed up some details.

#16

Image source: VihiOnReddit, Rumman Amin / Unsplash (not the actual photo) This doesn't really count I guess, but here goes. I was around 3 or 4 and my neighbor (4 years older than me) and I were playing with these plastic 'guns' that had big plastic balls as bullets. We ended up getting one of the balls stuck on top of the closet, so we both climbed the shelves to get it back. The closet ended up tilting and falling on us. My neighbor put her knee up which prevented the closet from squashing my head. She messed up her knee pretty badly, but thanks to that I only got hit near my left eye and had to get stitches.

#17

Image source: terminallyamused, Getty Images / Unsplash (not the actual photo) I have two. They aren't me, if that's alright (seeing a lot of others in this technically-not-me category so I'm going for it), but they both stuck to me pretty hard. 1. My uncle died trying to protect a couple who was being robbed in a restaurant. Some gangbangers came in and started to harass the people in the restaurant and guns were pulled. My uncle knew one of the guys since high school and figured he could talk him down from hurting anyone else. No one else got hurt except him. Never got to know him but heard he was an exceptionally cool dude. 2. My teacher in kindergarten was diagnosed with cancer at a point it was aggressively treatable, but also found out she was pregnant. She needed to get an abortion before she could start any cancer treatments but she didn't want to have the abortion; the cancer was terminal by the time the baby arrived, and she left behind her husband and three children. What hit me especially hard with my teacher is that my family remembered her becoming more easily agitated and stressed at the end of the school year, and we found out after her death, from her teacher's aid from that year, that it was around the time she was diagnosed with the cancer and choosing to have the baby over her own life. My mom got into several arguments with her for being too "insensitive" and mean to her students towards the end of the school year; teacher never told her or anyone about her condition.

#18

Image source: anon, Kirtan Nakrani / Unsplash (not the actual photo) I had two friends till year 5 who were my only friends at the time. We were walking down the street, in India, to get to the shops when two people showed up and tried to grab me. They both pushed me back and they were stabbed. I don't really remember much, but my parents have recently revealed that I was also stabbed, my brain shut down for a bit and lost quite a bit of my memory from before I was 10, but they both died in hospital.

#19

Image source: 19dingus19, Enrique Ortega Miranda / Unsplash (not the actual photo) Not me, but a friend of a friend I had many years back. I'll call the kid Zeke. Zeke and a buddy were by our old intermediate school and hanging out by a drainage pond in the surrounding wetlands, no idea what its for or what it's used for but basically it's a super strong whirl pool that will take you under without a second thought. Zeke, from what I recall (forgive me, this was 12-13 years ago) was dared to jump in the whirl pool, he did, and he basically got taken under immediately. Zeke bobbing above and under the water started screaming for help. Two men (teachers who were father and son) who frequently walked their dogs around the school premises noticed this and rushed to save this kids life. They both jumped in and got Zeke back to land, unfortunately both of them that day were taken by this aggresive water and died. I'm not so sure how zeke took it, I was never real close to him in school and the relationship we did have was pretty much pass and repass. From what I observed though, it would suggest he took it pretty hard and never totally got over it. Of course anyone would understand why.

#20

Image source: Moosh101, Getty Images / Unsplash (not the actual photo) Only somewhat related, but my mom had a miscarriage before having me. If that baby had lived, I wouldn't exist. Dammit, baby. This is all your fault.