21 People Who’ve Seen Some Shit Share The Most Gruesome Thing They’ve Ever Encountered In Real Life
1. Hit Crossing Four Lanes Of Traffic
“I was commuting home on the freeway one night when I came upon a fatal accident. A young woman’s car had broken down and she’d pulled off to the side of the freeway on the left shoulder. She then had attempted to dash across four lanes of traffic to call for help and wait for someone to show up. She got hit by a car about halfway across.
This must have happened just before I got there, because the police and ambulance hadn’t arrived. Someone was stopped right behind her to block oncoming traffic from running over her corpse.
I drove past, and was shocked by how she had just been alive but now looked like a mannequin. She was young and wore a skirt and her hair was all sprawled around her head. I couldn’t help wondering if there was someone expecting her at home. I felt a weird, sad sort of sorrow for whoever might be blithely unaware that the worst sort of news was coming their way. For some reason I imagined a dog waiting for a dinner that would likely be fed to him late and by a stranger, and how he’d be confused but eventually forget all about her. Somehow that made me saddest of all.
Weird stuff goes through your head when you see a thing like that.”
2. A Woman Tried To Grab her handbag off the train tracks
“When I was 16, in the second year of my apprenticeship as a painter, I saw a girl jump down on the train tracks to pick up a dropped handbag at the station I was working at. A guy bent down and grabbed her by the hand to pull her back up and next minute a high speed train flashed through and killed her in front of my eyes.
On the side of the track was her lower torso and the upper half of her was like a field of pink mushrooms up the track. There was very little blood.
As I was a railway worker, I got down on the track and covered the lower half of her body and with a painters drop sheet to hide it from all the gawkers trying to get a look.
I will never forget three other things.. the look on the poor drivers face as he was walking back the 1km+ it took the train to stop, the police officer carrying her skull and hair back and the birds eating the bits of her body as people were desperately trying to clean it up.
I was made to go back to work straight after, mum wanted me to quit the next day.”
3. Dozing On The Hwy And Went Through The Windshield Head First
“Around 10 years ago, I was driving south to visit my father. He lived in a small town in the state of Victoria, Australia. It was a 4.5 – 5 hour drive, most of it on highways. It can get a bit tedious driving for so long, and we often have ‘Black Spot’ areas, where accidents are more frequent. Sometimes it’s because people just zone out or literally fall asleep from the monotony. This was a trip that I made about 4 times a year, so I knew the drive pretty well.
This time, I was driving behind an older car, about 100m behind. Anyway, the guy at the wheel must have dozed off. He drifted into oncoming traffic. Fortunately, he woke up before he hit anyone. Unfortunately, he overcorrected… he slammed into a drainage ditch on our side of the road, and ended up launching his car into the air… and into a gum tree. He hit the tree about head height. He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt either. The only reason I know, is because I stopped to see if he was alright, and call the police.
He most definitely wasn’t alright. He had gone completely through the windscreen, and smashed into the tree headfirst. His skull was entirely smashed in… but he wasn’t dead. He was still… kind of talking, moving his arms and legs…
When the police and ambulance arrived, they were more concerned with whether I was alright. I honestly don’t remember much of the rest of that weekend.”
4. Everyone Knew What Was About To Happen And Froze
“When I was a kid (11 years old if I’m not mistaken), I saw an old woman get ran over by a tram.
Where I live the tram follows the entire coastline next to the roads so there are tonnes of crossings. Now, everybody living here or having spent enough time here knows about the trams passing by frequently and knows to watch out for them since they’re surprisingly silent. One day I was following the same road the tram follows when I seen an elderly couple crossing the tracks, each with a bike in hand. They start walking across and you can see the tram coming from behind the corner, rather fast. His wife tries to cross as well but bike gets stuck in the track or something, she falls trying to free it and the tram has no time to stop.
There were at least a dozen bystanders but nobody close enough to help. Just about everyone realized what was about to happen at the same time everybody froze, some people screamed but absolutely nothing could be done for her.
The tram hit her as she was still down so she didn’t get hit/pushed away. She just disappeared under the wheels with the most sickening sound I’ve ever heard in my life. People ran to help but even I, as a small boy, could see there was no way that was possible. The tram was moved, ambulances called, a tent was placed.. I had nightmares about the whole event for at least a year but the only thing I really still remember is the look on that old man’s face once I could see him again. He was broken, in shock, on his knees on the road calling her name. I don’t thing I’ve ever seen so much pain in someone’s eyes ever again. Seeing this haunts me a whole lot more then the sight of the old woman’s remains and the accident itself.”
5. “She was very young and very beautiful”
“I saw a lady on a train station who had just choked to death. I walked into the scene after the paramedics had tried to save her. They’d cut open her throat and there was blood everywhere.
She was very young and very beautiful. It was a strange contrast.
I was shaking for hours afterwards and I’m still not over it. I don’t know how paramedics have the strength to do this every day. They are amazing.”
6. Two Planes Crash Over The Everglades
“Bodies from a plane crash+bodies in an autopsy lab.
Two small planes had crashed into each other over the everglades (maybe 2006 or 2007), and the 4 bodies were submerged under water before they were found. I was interning at a local police department at the time, and the crime scene examiner had some photos (of a separate incident) to drop off to the local medical examiner. I asked if I could go with him (hoping I’d get observe a real autopsy).
When we got there, he told me to wait in the office, which was all clear glass windows looking directly into the laboratory. The medical examiner and his assistants were inside, moving bodies from table to table, cutting organs out and throwing them on scales, weighing them, placing them aside, making notes, etc. It was almost more akin to working with dead animal carcasses than human bodies—no sadness, no emotion, just doing your job weighing human body parts.
The bodies were obviously not entirely intact—the one in front of me was basically a mangled, decapitated upper torso with limbs, still wearing his blue and white checkered t-shirt and gold watch. His skin was a mix of black, blue and charred, but you could still make out patches of hair on his arm. What was left of his body was also visibly swollen from being submerged for so long. They hadn’t started working on him yet, and his body was right in front of my window.
The other bodies from the crash looked just as gruesome and I was literally in a state of shock. I went in thinking I’d see neat, nude, cleaned bodies ready for examination. This, however, looked like something you’d see in a hollywood movie or a horror house. My first initial thought was ‘This can’t be real. Maybe these are just students, practicing.’
When the crime scene investigator came back in to get me so we could leave, I stupidly uttered ‘…Is…that…real?’ I guess it was more than my brain could process at the time, and I was honestly thinking ‘This is all just make believe.’
There were also a few bodies in the room that weren’t from the plane crash. Seeing the way our bodies are handled postmortem—so mechanically—really brings you to question your own mortality.”
7. Wife Kills Herself Out Of Grief
“This happened when I was maybe 7 years old. I was hanging out in my friend’s apartment playing a new game on ps2, it was called Bouncer I think… anyway, so we are playing the game when all of a sudden his AC unit rips out of his window making this horrendous sound. We look outside and see a lady split in half on and iron fence. She had jumped off the roof of the building, about 25 stories high, hit his air conditioner on the way down and split on the fence. I heard through the grapevine that she killed herself because her husband was on death’s door with some kind of cancer but after her suicide he made a full recovery and lived for many more years.”
8. He Was Playing With His Own Tendons
“My girlfriends sister works as a police officer in Chorley in the UK, She came home one day and was shaking because she had been called out to a disturbance call. When she walked in there was a man sitting in the corner staring at the door she came through, practically looking through her.
The guy was destroyed on meth and had carved the skin off his wrists and was playing with the tendons in his arm to move his fingers.”
9. Cab Versus Rickshaw
“Going home back in company cab after night shift. It was 5am and dark. The cab is full (7 people+ driver). The driver is speeding on empty roads. Me and a female colleague are right in the back, talking
The radio is blaring music. The driver tries to overtake a car and at the same time looks down to change the radio channel. Hits an oncoming auto-rickshaw (a tuk-tuk) head on
We feel a mild jolt and the windows break a bit. The auto-rickshaw is flattened like a pan cake. We get out. There is a blood soaked body right behind us on the road. There is another under the rear wheel. The driver backs the vehicle from over the person and moves it to the side. There is another body inside the auto-rickshaw (probably the driver). All three dead on the spot. Not a scratch on the people in the cab
The employees are standing by the road side while a crowd gathers. Our driver calls up a friend who comes in 5 minutes in another cab, tells us ‘I am off’ and leaves us by the side of the road in the dark. A huge crowd of angry auto rickshaw drivers gather. I tell my colleague to remove her office ID and walk a bit ahead. The crowd is angry and soon pelting stones. We called a cab and left. I heard that they were stopping and burning vehicles which had our company logo on it for a few hours afterwards.”
10. Decades Of Marriage Ended By A BMW Driver
“A while back, I made a deal with a friend to meet him in front of the city zoo to go for a ride with our motorbikes. While waiting, parked on the curb, I saw the traffic stop both ways at a pedestrian crossing, to let an old couple cross the street. Grandpa and grandma, of the typical nice old people variety, nice winter coats, caps and all, crossed. The two car lanes are flanked by two tram lanes. An idiot in a BMW SUV came tearing around the stopped traffic along the tram lane, doing probably close to 100km/h, plowing straight into the couple. Sent the grandpa flying, and knocked the grandma down. The old man was pretty obviously killed immediately, or at least severely injured and unconscious. The old lady kept on trying to sit up, crying and wailing inconsolably. People rushed over, including me, helped, putting them into the recovery position, called for the ambulance and the police, for what little good it did. No excess blood, no gore, just one of the most emotionally crushing things I ever saw in my life. Imagine a whole life together, all the challenges surmounted, marriage that survived decades, wars, political systems rising and falling, all the trials of life, all erased on a warm summer autumn night, at the squeeze of the gas pedal, by a fool who would not wait for half a minute. Their nice, tidy, neat clothes all torn and destroyed, everything ending in pain and horror, face down on dirty asphalt.
Not much of a tough biker that night – I had tears flowing down my face, and I think my heart broke audibly.”
11. A Seadoo And A Boat Play CHicken
“Seen a few things. Guys were playing chicken with a seadoo and boat. Guy in the boat ran over the guy on the seadoo. Blades diced him well and it was a nice sight for all us kids. Junior high a kid jumped down from closed bleachers and got his arm hooked on a volleyball net hook. Opened his arm from his elbow to his wrist with bone and muscle in sight.”
12. A Horrific First Memory
“My first memory as a child.
I remember my mom reading me bedtime stories when the front door downstairs slams shut. My drunk father enters, so my mom walks down the stairs. She confronts him, I hear yelling. But soon my mom comes back to read the story, I believe it was Bambi. After a few minutes, my father is in the doorway carrying a case of beer. My mom goes to take him downstairs after I pretend to be asleep. I hear my parents on the landing, yelling, then hear a loud thud. I crawl to the top of the stairs, covered in a blanket, out of sight, peeking through a gape in our railing. I see my mom at the middle landing, head covered in blood, eyes looking right into mine. My father is beating her with the case of beer and pulling her hair, beating her head into the wall and railing. I proceed to watch my father drag my mother down the stairs, covered in blood as she tried to run up them crying. She kept telling me she was sorry, my father didn’t notice my presence.”
13. It sounded like a plank of wood being snapped
“9th grade football game. One of my teammates broke his leg and ankle in the pile.
All we heard was what sounded like a 4×8 plank of wood being snapped. We heard him screaming at the bottom of the pile and we all scattered. He was reaching for his leg but then he passed out screaming.
We could see his tibia and fibula sticking out of his skin and his ankle was broken so badly that the skin ripped open and we could see all of his tarsal bones. Leg was bent to hell and his foot was turned 90 degrees laterally.
Took him 17 surgeries to be able to walk again. Never played a second of competitive sports ever again. He cried everyday at lunch until he moved his junior year of high school.
I can still hear him screaming sometimes when I think about it. It’s gut wrenching.”
14. Flesh eating disease with NSFL photos
“Ohh damn, I’ve got pictures of it because it happened to me!
NSFW Pictures
In September I had necrotizing fasciitis, also known as flesh eating disease, via a pilonidal cyst on my tailbone. It was cut out of my lower back, and I had a massive skin graft harvested from my leg and stapled to my back in October. I have photos of the whole progression and I find it fascinating.
15. A Kangaroo Jumps Into An Electric Fence
“I was working on an uncle’s farm in the outback. He has miles of electric/barbed wire to keep his cattle fenced in. One day we went to check on the cattle and a big red kangaroo came flying down the hill away from us in fright. It ran straight into the wire. If you know how fast roos can go, you can imagine the shredded body we came back to. The worst part thought was that IT WAS STILL ALIVE, barely but faintly kicking. Because the fences all needed to be in top condition to stop big cattle from escaping we have to wait for the mangled kangaroo to be slowly electrocuted and cooked to death before prying it out with some sticks. We later repaired the fence. The smell sticks with me.
We were about an hours drive from the farmhouse and didn’t bring the gun, so we just let it die by itself.”
16. Mowing The Lawn
“My father once happened upon a little nest of rabbit kits while mowing the lawn. Their startle response meant that some of them hopped up into the blades. Half of them were fine, but the other half were so badly injured, my dad had to put them out of their misery and pick them up. I was outside with him when it happened. He just quietly went to the porch and smoked a cigarette after. I asked him how he was and he said he was fine ‘but that was fucked up.'”
17. Cats will eat you if they’re hungry enough
“I used to do remediation work which occasionally included cleaning up delayed death finds and suicides. One was an old woman who had committed suicide, but wasn’t called in for a couple weeks. She died on the toilet (strange place to end it) and part of her had liquefied into the toilet, and some into the floor tile’s grout. We used wire brushes on the grout. It was pretty awful. What was really fascinating and disgusting, though, was that her cats, without food for those two weeks, began eating little parts of her. We found little chewed-on rotted chunks of her in different corners in the house. I still love my cats, even if I know they’ll eat me.”
18. Vending Machine Takes Her Money And Then Slices Her Arm Open
“During 2005, I did my military service in Sweden. I was in my uniform, on the train on my way to service after having had a week off. It was a two hour journey I usually spent with music, just sticking to myself. When I got to the train station, I waited with the soldiers from my group and we’d all get on the transportation to the actual site. The last few hours before I was ‘on’ were always peaceful and quiet, except for this one time. I was sat in a part of the train where there usually was never any seat reservations, as the tickets we’d get rarely had them, and I had a piece of the car to myself – there’s a double seat where I was sat, and a single seat opposite it, right next to the few stairs down to the level where you get off. That level also has a toilet, and a coffee/soda machine. This particular time, the soda machine ate a woman’s money without giving out a drink. She was frustrated, slapped the machine on its side, and then let her arm slide down it, defeated. What she didn’t notice was a very sharp piece of metal that was sticking out, and she cut a nice gash a couple inches long, across her lower arm. Blood was pouring everywhere. I witnessed all this, and being in uniform and equipped with a bandage in my right leg pocket (as always), I couldn’t not act.
I sprung from my seat, assessed the bleeding, deemed it to be severe, and applied the bandage as a tourniquet, all according to protocol. I told a fellow passenger to contact the conductor, and to call the emergency number. I asked her if the tourniquet hurt. She said yes. I said good, and made sure the blood flow to her injury had stopped and that there was limited capillary refill – as I was trained for treating injuries tactically. We were some 10-15 minutes away from the next station where the ambulance would be waiting, so I talked to her about where she was from and everyday stuff to keep her calm. The people working on the train were way too freaked out about the whole thing to help and I was running on instinct. When the EMTs boarded the train at the next stop to take care of this woman I told them what I did, at what time I applied the tourniquet, and her general status (relatively calm, communicative, probably not in shock but I was not a trained medical professional). They told me I did good; apparently I looked like I needed the reassurance. When everything was said and done and the woman was off the train and the train started moving again, I sort of came to. I was sitting where I’d been the whole time I was helping her. There was blood everywhere. The floor had splatters and tracks from where people who were walking to and fro had dragged the blood with their shoes, but then I realized that my entire lap was covered with blood from where I had grabbed her arm and held it across my chest while I was tightening the tourniquet, and applying the bandage over the wound. I rode the next 45 minutes in silence, sat in the same position. When I arrived at my place of service I told the lieutenant that I needed to use the washing machine for my pants (I only had the pants I was wearing) and a new bandage for my right leg pocket from the store room. At this time, it was their time to be horrified and I had mostly processed all of it, but it did look like I had slaughtered a pig.”
19. She Asked If She Was Okay…She Wasn’t
“Not me but my brother. Over 20 years ago he used to work as a pizza delivery guy in rural North Carolina. Someone in a Camaro blazed past him on a two-lane back woods road, way over the limit. Less than a minute later he pulls up behind the Camaro and a larger sedan that had just been in a head-on collision. Both cars were unrecognizable. He was second on the scene, the first guy was running to a nearby house to call 911.
The driver of the Camaro was dead – according to my brother they were ‘squished.’ The driver of the sedan was still alive, a lady, but she had the steering column punched through her chest. She looked at my brother, asked if she was okay, and after he told her ‘no,’ she closed her eyes and died in front of him.
He stuck around for the police report, went home (his boss got a message relayed from the police station), called me up at 3am and sobbed out the whole story to me. After about an hour he calmed down, and we’ve never spoken of it since.”
20. It Was Like A surgeon had made the perfect cut
“I am a State Trooper and a member of my agency’s Crash Investigation Team which basically means when someone dies in a car crash they call me. I’ve worked a lot of fatal crashes. One that sticks out is an SUV vs. A tractor/trailer where the vehicles were heading in opposite directions on a two-lane highway. The SUV drifted over the center line (don’t smoke meth and drive) and the metal fender over one of the rear tires on the semi’s tanker-trailer sliced through the ‘A Pillar’ on the SUV and hit the driver in the head.
It hit the guy in such a way that there was an extremely clean slice and it looked like a surgeon intentionally took out a quarter section of the guys head. From the bridge of his nose and left, and from the bottom of his eye socket and up was gone from front to back. The guys brain went flying and so I could see clear down into the inside of his head down to where his spine started. I could see the back of his right eye and what the mouth and nose look like from behind.
Half of his brain came to rest directly in front of his car and was steaming on the cold, snowy road when I got there. We didnt find the other half until I moved my car to let the tow truck through and when I stepped out of my car again I thought I stepped in a decent sized pile of cow shit.
Not the saddest or most bloody crash I’ve had but definitely one that made me say, ‘Holy shit, you have to see this’ to my partners.”
21. The Dead Cyclist On The Highway
“So I didn’t know what it was at the time but after the fact, realized the blood, chunks, and gore I’d driven through were from a man killed when a semi hit him as he rode a bike on the highway in the dark.
The accident is determined to have happened near 4 a.m. when a semi truck driver called in he thought he’d hit a deer. Police responded and the driver nor officer saw anything that appeared amiss. That section of highway is already frequently traveled but more so that day because there was a football game that folks from out of town often come to see. So cars were already coming in during the dark as well and running over the remains, further mashing them down.
So I drive through the area after it’s light out, see huge areas of blood and chunks on the road. So many chunks my car felt like it was driving over gravel for a few seconds till the ground went smooth again. I presumed, as had many others, that it was remains of a deer. When they get hit by a semi, they really get torn apart and scattered.
It wasn’t till later police realized what was going on and a medical examiner had to demand to close the area to collect what was left. There were only small pieces, some clothing fragments, and teeth left by then :(
