Lemmyns of Lemmy, what was your scariest moment of your life?

Last year I was hit by a pickup truck while riding my bicycle to work. My spouse is really hard to get ahold of when she is at work because she is a chef and keeps her phone off. The ambulance driver took my phone and called her work as they pulled me inside.

They told me my hip, ribs and foot were broken and I was bleeding internally. The room got all white and fuzzy. I felt like I was floating above the bed. The whole thing was pretty terrifying but oddly calming at the same time? I can’t explain it.

That’s when I saw her peek her head into the room. It instantly changed my entire mindset about the situation and I kept telling myself I can’t die in front of her.

Not sure if it helped but here I am, almost a year later. I’ve ditched the wheelchair and I use a cane sometimes when I need to be on my feet for long periods, but I’m like 85% back to normal.

Exploring an easy cave with a friend. Nothing tricky at all, just one way through, standing room all the way, about 1m wide, ankle deep water flowing through the whole way (walking against the flow).

As we went, the water very slowly became harder to press forwards against. The change was so gradual we were second-guessing it the entire time until it got really strong. We figured it was better to walk against it than with it - at this point it was rushing against our legs, and the thought of slipping and being swept through, bouncing off of the walls, was not great. It felt much easier to keep our footing facing the flow, and also it seemed like we were much closer to the end than the beginning (the cave had an exit at both ends, it was basically a small fork of a river that cut through a hill).

So we pressed on, until we got to a point that should have been a small scramble up a few bits of rock - except now there was a massive flow of water hitting us at chest level as we tried to climb it. We were both completely unable to push against it and get up. We were also now convinced that the cave was filling up with water so we had to get out - which now meant turning around and doing the whole length again but with the water hitting the back of our legs the whole way.

Oh and the water was freezing, coming off of some snowy mountains. So for about an hour, we held onto the sides of the cave and slowly tried to move steadily through, while by this point I had almost no feeling in my frozen feet to help with keeping my footing. It was like guesswork every step.

By the time we got out, the water had risen by almost a metre I'd say. Not much but the extra force was insane, and the feeling of a cave filling up with water behind you was not easily ignored. Anyway, turns out there was heavy rainfall way up river from us, always check the forecast and think beyond where you are when dealing with rivers and caves!

Posing as a buyer to recover my ex-gf's stolen laptop from when our flat was burgled. The sellers were a family and one of them was a clear drug addict, and they kept a huge dog in a cage in the middle of their apartment.

Fortunately they were stupid and I got all the evidence needed, and the police did raid them and recover our stuff (and many other peoples' from other burglaries, and also tens of thousands of pounds worth of drugs).

But that feeling of being scared they'd recognise me somehow once i was inside their flat, and looking at the laptop trying to get the serial number, etc. and hiding my shaking hands - all with a huge dog in a cage a few feet away - was crazy.

Scariest moment for myself was many years ago hiding curled into a tiny ball behind my sofa while my (then) boyfriend stood just inches from me muttering "kill the bitch, kill the bitch". Still not sure how he didn't see me as I wasn't really hidden from view at all, the sofa was in the middle of a large room and I was just huddling under a towel that was hanging over the back. I think it's just possible that fear can make you invisible (I know rationally that's not the case, I think it's more of a comforting pseudo-belief). I've felt greater fear since then, but that was for someone else's life, not mine.

My oldest being born blueish-purple. It was a harrowing few minutes.

Edit: Sorry I'm not from lemmy.world, but still wanted to answer, hope you don't mind.

When I was in China, my older brother was mad at me about something and was chasing me throughout the apartment so I got scared and I ran away from home to find my mother at her workplace. I sneaked on a bus (bus drivers didn't really care, probably though I was the kid of whoever was in front of me) and went to my mother's workplace. When I got there, I couldn't find her, so after just waited for like half an hour before catching another bus back home. When I got off the bus I saw bunch of cops looking for me at a plaza near my home and my mom saw me and so the missing person search was concluded. My grandmother who was at home had called my mom and told her I ran out of the house so thats why the cops were there and it's why she left early from work. So after that my mom took me to a restaurant to calm me down and I had some dumplings there. But my mom still said if I were not found, she wouldn't blame my brother, which just made me feel so worthless. That's probably one of the major events that cause me to be depressed af today.