Who says that good horror stories must involve supernatural encounters with ghosts, aliens, or occults? Sometimes, absolute horror involves real-life disasters, close calls, and harrowing events in one’s life. These may not be your typical formula of making a scary story, but believe me, they’re as terrifying as is. Keep your lights on because these stories will surely keep you awake tonight.
#1 Night Drive
My mom was driving, and a guy ran out in the road, so she stopped so she couldn’t hit him.
It was nighttime, so it was pretty dark out, and 3 other men emerged from the forest around, all trying to use the door handles of her car to get in. She locked them luckily and gassed it to the nearest town.
Remember to always lock your car after you start it, because if it wasn’t unlocked who knows what would’ve happened to her. —Oxidias
#2 Train Disaster
Neishabur train disaster is something that reminds me how death can come at any moment.
A train with 51 wagons of sulfur, fertilizer, petrol, and cotton wool somehow broke loose and rolled down the track about twenty kilometers until it derailed in the town of Khayyam, Iran. There were no humans on board.
Chemical leaks ensued and authorities tried to extinguish whatever fires broke out.
At one point, the whole thing explodes. And it really explodes. The whole town of Khayyam is literally demolished, 3 nearby towns are badly damaged and it was heard 70 km away. The wreckage continued to explode for several days. Around 300 people died and more than that injured.
An earthquake of 3.6 on the Richter scale was produced. —Chiruadr
#3 Head Turner
My friend’s boss bought an Audi A4 convertible, back when they were new and interesting. One of the talking points was the pop-up roll hoops that were hidden unless you rolled it.
A few months after buying it he got to test those roll hoops out, as he lost control and skidded down a steep bank about 10m (~35ft) deep.
The roll hoops did their job, and he survived with just cuts and scratches from the bushes he’d plowed through. The car ended up the right way up and he got out, walked back up the bank to the side of the road, then got on the phone to the police to report the accident. While he was standing there a driver from a car that had seen the accident came over to speak to him.
Approaching from behind the other driver asked if he was okay. My friend’s boss turned around to reply and dropped dead. His neck had been fractured but was in one piece right up until he turned his head when it severed his spinal cord. —BigBadAl
#4 A Visitor From the Past
Before my Dad died, he once told me a story from when he was in Vietnam in the 1960s. He told me about a mission where he and one other American with five CIDG strikers (South Vietnamese villagers turned fighters) were tasked to emplace seismic ground sensors along a trail network deep in the jungle.
He said they were about two days into the mission when he and two of the strikers split off from the main group to go watch a nearby trail intersection. He said the jungle was pretty quite that day, just the sounds of birds and bugs and an occasional monkey. He said they had been watching the trail intersection for about three or four hours and were deciding on whether to move further down the trail or to turn back and link up with the rest of the patrol.
Before leaving the cover of the brush my Dad said he checked the trail ahead of them one last time and prepared his men to move. Now here is where the story gets interesting and he told this part with absolute dead seriousness. He said just as he started to step out onto the trail he sees a light-skinned Black Union Cavalry Soldier in full battle gear laying alongside the trail just shy of the intersection.
My Dad said the Union Soldier had two pistols, a Spencer rifle, and a short curved club at his hip. As my Dad was trying to process what he was seeing, the Soldier looked directly at him and smiled. Then the Soldier slowly placed a finger up to his lips as if to tell him to be silent and then motioned my Dad back off the trail. My Dad said he signaled for his men to remain hidden and he recalled that as he slipped back into the jungle on one side of the trail, the Union Soldier did the same on his side of the trail. Less than 10 seconds later he said the lead element of a group of NVA (North Vietnamese Army Soldiers) walked right through the trail intersection some 30 feet away.
My Dad estimated that the group was comprised of some 70 – 80 Soldiers equipped with automatic rifles, light machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. He has no doubt that his entire team would have been wiped out on the spot. He said as soon as the enemy Soldiers had passed, he and his team beat feet out of there as fast and as quietly as they could and rejoined with the rest of the patrol. He reported the enemy Soldiers his team had encountered but decided not to say anything about the Soldier he had seen.
Dad kept this secret for many many years; only telling me just before he passed and earlier only telling his Grandmother on her death bed in the 1970s. He said when he told his Grandmother, she smiled and without opening her eyes told him, “you saw Old Red Tom”. Red Tom was my Great Great Grandfather. He was a half Black/half Creek free man who was a scout for the Union Army during the Civil War and later served with the U.S. Cavalry in the American West. He was known for carrying two pistols, a Spencer rifle, and a Creek warclub into battle. —Cayde_7even
#5 Surviving Trauma
A female friend in college disappeared from a party at another university in the city town 25ish miles north of our school. She had arrived with another friend who I believe had driven. At some point she split off to play corn hole or something and was later inexplicably gone. Phone calls went to voicemail, police were called, but she was simply missing.
About 10 days later she was found by a homeless man who witnessed her crawling up to a bus stop in the city, begging for help. She had broken a leg and an arm, and was in very bad shape.
At the party, quite a large one at that, she had her drink secretly drugged and was then led off by a group of men into their vehicle.
She was taken to an apartment where she was drugged, repeatedly raped, and locked in a small room with a bucket to use as a bathroom. At one point after being injected with heroin and raped, she somehow managed to convince one of her captors to allow her to use the actual bathroom to clean herself up. This bathroom had a small window to the outside, and with the shower running, she managed to squeeze out and fell from the third story into a large hedge/bush. From there she crawled from the apartment complex to the road and bus stop, where the homeless man saw her and called the police. Many cars stopped upon seeing her, making her captives unable to recapture her.
Three men were later arrested for the crime after surveillance cameras allowed police to locate the apartment which she jumped from. She returned to our university almost two years later, graduated, and became a nurse. She was obviously traumatized, never “partied” again, carried a gun everywhere she could, and somehow moved on with life. It was a terrifying tale none of us ever forgot. She was an 18-year-old freshman when the incident happened. —KrombopulosDelphiki
#6 Gut Feeling
When my aunt was about 16 she was working at a grocery store and had a boss in his mid-twenties. One day he called the house and was begging her to sneak out and hang out with him. She was considering it because it was her boss and she didn’t want to say no. My mom, who is two years younger than her, always gets these incredibly spot-on “gut feelings”. She had one that night and begged my aunt not to go out with him.
Thankfully she listened to my mom and told him no which made him really angry. He ended up going out that night and meeting another girl. He took her out to some cliffs and raped her and pushed her off. Somehow she lived through this and was able to get him sent to prison. I feel so sorry for that girl and so thankful for my mom and her gut feelings.
Always trust your gut. —pessimisticoptimista
#7 Piercing Pain
Not as scary as some of the stories here, but I was pretty horrified when my dad told me the story.
There are some really big houses in the woods in my hometown. One of the owners went out drinking with his buddies and realized he forgot the key to the gate when he got home. So he decided to just climb the gate. While climbing in his drunken state he slips and his leg gets pierced by one of the spikes on the gate.
He was hanging there but too afraid to call for his wife. Since he was sure she would just open the automatic gate from inside the house and since it was one of those gates that slides to the side it would just rip his leg off if she did.
He was hanging there the entire night until his wife woke up, saw him and called the fire department. My dad (who is one of the firefighters that showed up) said they had to saw off the spike to get him off.
Just imagine hanging from your own gate all night not being able to call for help. —TheLegendOfMaaike
#8 Not So Normal
I spent my first 10 years in New Delhi. Back then, we would find dead women (burnt with acid or set on fire) and it used to be so “normal”. Like oh look, another one of those dowry cases where her family didn’t pay the husband enough money so they killed her.
Many years later I revisited those memories and realized how insane that actually was! I’d totally forgotten about all that. —saywat30
#9 Mysterious Call
100% true as it happened to me. It’s probably more spooky than scary. I’ll let you be the judge….
Many years ago, before there were cell phones we had these things called pagers strapped to our hips. Someone would page you with their phone number and you would call them back when you got to a phone. As an “on-call technician” working in the Audio Visual field, my pager would go off all the freaking time. Like most people who used pagers, our clients knew that if you followed up your number with a 911, that would indicate to the technician to stop what they were doing and call right away. Although I was always busy I rarely if ever got 911s.
One afternoon traveling from Orlando to Saint Petersburg via Interstate 4, my pager goes off with a number I don’t recognize, followed by 911. I find the first exit and pull into a little truck stop looking place outside of Plant City, to use the payphone. This takes maybe 3 minutes tops. I walk in, ask for some change, and head to the wall where there are 4 payphones to choose from. I pop my quarter in and dial the number displayed on my trusty pager.
It rings…….. and rings…… and rings……. and rings. I’m thinking to myself WTF ?!?! Who would page me with a 911 and not answer their phone? it’s just about then that I notice another ringing sound in addition to the one in my ear….. I pull the handset from my ear and two phones over on the wall another payphone is ringing, but with an incoming call. I hang up my handset and the ringing stops on the other phone.
I walk a few paces over, pick up the handset and look at the phone number printed above the buttons, I look at the number on my pager, I look at the number on the phone, I look at the number on my pager again, I look at the phone AGAIN….. except for the 911 they are identical. I kinda lose my breath for a second and then I make my way over to the girl at the counter and ask if she saw anyone use the payphone. She said I was the only person in the store in the last hour. The whole episode probably took 15 minutes, but man, I was freaked out! The hair on the back of my neck was standing straight up and I just wanted out of there!
I get about 10 miles down the highway and come upon a scene that looked like a bomb went off…….4 car pile-ups involving a tractor-trailer hauling a load of steel that had come loose, State Troopers and Paramedics just arriving. I pulled over to the side and helped the best I could, but it was all pretty much over once it began. I have no idea why I got that page or from whom or what but I’m convinced that if I hadn’t, I would not be alive to write this today. —SuperDugg
#10 Blood and Liquor
I worked for U-Haul when I was 18 and it was located in front of a club that was known for being really sketchy. I came in to open one morning and it was common for people to knock on the door hoping to get in early and get their truck.
On this day, I hear frantic knocking on the door. I’m there alone still so it kind of startled me. I look and there’s a woman, completely naked, covered in what looks like blood. I called the cops and grabbed one of the moving blankets and went outside to cover her up. She smelled really bad and was a mess. Ended up being blood and her own sh*t she was covered in.
Found out later she was drugged at the club that night/early morning, raped, and left blacked out in the alley. It was just a f****d up and surreal situation to be involved in. —uoYredruM
#11 Motel Incident
i was in a crappy motel. the room had bedbugs. i was too exhausted to go to the front desk. i just needed to make it until the morning. i slept in the tub. hours later i hear someone breaking through the window. i had a big knife with me and ran out into the room to find a man halfway through my window. we stared for awhile at each other in shock. i think we both were scared. then he says,” is this your room?” im like,” yes, this is my room man!” more staring. then he slowly starts backing out while cursing me for leaving my window unlocked and not expecting him to break in.
The motel on watt ave, Sacramento. —handofthelemur
#12 Gasping For Air
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/lack-of-oxygen-killed-4-at-b-c-mine-report-1.582325
This guy goes into a small building and dies. Later, an investigator shows up and sees the body, calls 911, and then dies. Paramedics show up to help them, then die.
The reason? Oxygen levels at head height were normal. Oxygen levels went bent over was basically 0. Bending over in this room killed 4 people by asphyxiation.
They could breathe. The air they were breathing contained no oxygen. The human body can’t tell the difference. —casualblair
#13 Man Gone Mad
An old janitor from high school, a friendly Ecuadorian man who went by Ping.
Worked at the school for 20+ years and nobody had a problem with him. I guess his wife was leaving him and in the process of moving out
He caught her in bed with her new man. The next day, in the middle of town, he opened fire on her, the man, and then killed himself before any cops had time to respond. —ThadiasMcCoy
#14 Keep Off The Tracks
My friend tripped and fell onto the tracks, landing his face onto the 3rd rail. We kinda stood there in absolute shock because we thought he was dead, but then he said, “can I move? Will I be electrocuted?” We told him to move instantly and he did, we got him off the tracks, and no less than 2 minutes later a train went zipping by. I think the 3rd rail turned on seconds after his face came off of it. I know that’s not scary to a lot of people, but to me, it was because I would have lost a close friend back when I was about 12. —tacolikesweed
#15 A Cutthroat Situation
A guy i worked with was riding his dirt bike through the woods and somebody hung a cable between two trees. My buddy caught his throat on it and saw the dude steal his dirt bike. Woke up in the hospital with a lacerated throat and a broken larynx. Pretty crazy what somebody will do for something so cheap. —Beatleborg22
#16 A Survivor’s Tale
The story of Mary Vincent always stands out to me.
In 1978, 15-year-old Mary was hitchhiking. A man named Lawrence Singleton picked her up.
He brutally raped her and eventually made her get out of the car. She planned to run, but he noticed and cut both her arms off. He threw her into a ditch/ravine and left her to die.
She packed her stumps with mud to stop the bleeding and spent all night crawling out.
She eventually makes it to the highway and starts walking, naked and covered in blood. The first car that saw her sped away in fear. The second car was a couple on their honeymoon. They picked her up and she survived.
Edited to add: I was in a rush when I wrote this, so you should definitely read more into the story, it’s crazy. From the horrific act itself to the court proceedings, to the fact that he hardly served any time. —-spookyxghost-
#17 Home Invasion
I’ve posted this before, but mine: When I was a baby, my dad played on a softball team. Typical social team, out for beers and pizza after with the guys, family event-type-thing. My parents were good friends with 2 of the other couples, both of them had young kids as well.
On this occasion, the other 2 couples had left their kids at one of their houses, with a babysitter they were splitting. They invited my parents back to the house to have some more beers that night, but I was being fussy and my mom nixed the idea (though they would 100% have normally gone back to hang out)
Well, it turned out my fussiness on that day saved our lives. When the other parents got back to the house, they walked in on a home invasion. Two men had broken in, tied up the kids and the babysitter (and her boyfriend), and were waiting for the parents. Took the parents hostage as well, and made the dads drive with them to banks/a grocery store where one dad was manager and clear out accounts/a safe.
They then came back to the house and slaughtered both families, the babysitter, and her boyfriend. Kids included.
They caught the 2 guys later on. My dad attended the trials and said it was the first time he had ever had thoughts of supporting the death penalty. It still gives me chills to know how close we came to getting killed that day, too. —WhoIsYerWan
#18 Escaping a Serial Killer
Carol DaRonch was at a shopping mall in Salt Lake City in 1974 when she was approached by a man claiming to be a police officer. He said that someone had tried to break into her car and asked her to come with him. He then said he would drive her to the police station and she got into his car.
However, this guy was not a police officer and he did not drive her to the police station but rather, pulled into a parking lot. He then cuffed her, pulled out a gun, and threatened to kill her if she resisted. Only, he messed up. He meant to cuff both of her wrists but only managed to cuff one.
She escaped and fought him off despite being hit over the head several times. Her kidnapper was Ted Bundy. He killed another woman just four hours later.
Her escape also helped identify Bundy and she is part of the reason he was eventually arrested. —peacock1090
#19 Almost Got Burned Alive
I used to run the boilers in a DOE building. Apparently, at some point in the eighties, three people were murdered over-involvement in a big VCR theft- VCRs meant for the school system had apparently been stolen out of this warehouse, it was an inside job, something went wrong- the head custodian was found shot to death, and later the bodies of the other two were reported buried in Monticello- but word is, they had first been incinerated.
In the boilers, I was in charge of operating and maintaining. There were three operational boilers, and one that wasn’t in service- no clue which one was supposedly used, but when you’re firing them up, you’re typically the only person in the building- not a single day went by that I fired them up and didn’t wonder which one was used. But that wasn’t what gave me the real Heebie jeebies.
You have to clean the interior of these boilers really well, otherwise, the fire won’t transfer heat to the water very efficiently- especially with #6 oil, these boilers would build up a lot of soot. You have to suit up in a Tyvek suit, wear a mask, and climb right into the firebox- I found myself staring down the business end of that burner many times, wondering what that panic would feel like. (I’m reasonably sure these people were dead before getting put in the boiler though.) Once, I was actually in one boiler while another one was running- the valve that isolated my boiler from the main steam line wasn’t holding, and by the time I realized how warm it was getting, it was enough to panic- trying to lift myself up and belly crawl through the small opening, the metal was almost too hot to keep my hands on for long. Definitely a creepy experience, considering the history of that boiler room. —blind30
#20 The Man Downstairs
Years ago when I was 8 my family lived in this big weird house kind of on the edge of a small town. The school district was in the middle of a big restructuring so even though we were only a couple of grades apart my brother and I went to different schools and took different buses. This left me as the last person to leave in the morning and the first person to get home in the afternoon, which meant it was my job to make sure all the lights were off and the door was locked.
One morning I noticed the basement door was open and the light was on so before I left I turned off the light and closed the door. When I got home that afternoon the light was on and the door was open again. I just assumed that I’d forgotten to actually take care of it when I noticed it in the morning so I went over to turn off the light and close the door. When I got to the top of the basement stairs I looked and there was a big shadowy male figure towards the bottom of the staircase. I freaked out, slammed the door and pushed a bunch of boxes against it, and then went and hid in my closet. For months I didn’t tell my family because I was positive what I had seen was a ghost and didn’t think anyone would believe me.
Then about a year after that incident, my mom and her boyfriend realized that small amounts of money had been going missing for months (totaling around $800-900, but never more than $60 at once). So we all walked around the house with flashlights trying to figure out how they could have gotten in. Turns out some creep was climbing in through a small hole in the outside of the house, shimmying through a crawl space, then coming up into the house through the basement. Realizing I had been alone in the house with him on at least one occasion was one of the worst, most terrifying moments I’ve ever had. —wesailtheharderships
#21 Invisible Killer
An acquaintance of mine sent his son to triathlon camp in Texas.
A week later, his son came back from camp. The next day, the son was complaining of a headache. Four days later, he was dead. Healthy, happy, fit 12 year old one week, dead the next.
Turns out the lake had Naegleria fowleri, the brain-eating amoeba. Nothing scares me as irrationally as already being dead and waiting for your body to catch on. —persondude27
#22 Wrong-Way Driver
This is a hometown story that stayed with me. It happened literally right around the corner from where I grew up, maybe a two-minute drive away.
Judy Kirby murdered six children and one adult by intentionally driving the wrong way on a divided highway in an attempt to commit suicide. She had been hospitalized for depression, but had also just ended a relationship with her ex-husband’s brother and was by some reports involved in drug trafficking and fearing an imminent arrest.
She picked up her sister’s son, who was celebrating his tenth birthday that day. She then loaded her three children into the car, supposedly to pick up a gift for the nephew. Instead, she went missing with the carload of kids. A short time later, calls started coming in to 911 about a car going the wrong way down the highway at a high rate of speed. They made it about 90 seconds before a head-on collision with another vehicle, driven by a father with two children and another child along for the ride.
The crash annihilated both vehicles. The only survivors were Kirby herself, and the child who was along for the ride in the other car. There were pieces of children all over the highway. She was sentenced to 215 years in prison. —chrisw1984
#23 Hearing Voices
Told this here before but once more:
My friend had this neighbor who was a retired mechanic. They lived on some properties with large front lawns and long driveways. His neighbor had a couple of derelict cars parked up near his garage that he took parts from occasionally.
This neighbor of his started hearing noises while sitting in his living room, coming from his front yard. Every time he’d go to the window, there would be nothing there. He assumed it was a raccoon or a coyote or whatever. He kept hearing the noise so he’d go outside to look around but would find nothing. He’d put out traps and occasionally catch something, yet the noise persisted.
Soon, he started claiming that he was hearing voices coming from the front yard, like whispering. He’d go outside and look around the perimeter of his property but would find nothing. It was persistent so he’d started calling the cops. Every time the cops came and looked around and would find nothing. So they told him he needed to stop calling them for this, and perhaps get a security camera or whatever.
So this guy thought he was losing his mind. One summer evening he couldn’t sleep, so he went to the back patio to smoke a cigarette. Suddenly, he heard voices coming from the front of his house. He put his cig out and snuck around to the front and got there just in time to see the doors to his derelict conversion van silently shut.
He ran back to the backyard and went inside his home and called the police to tell them what he had seen. The police arrived and approached cold (i.e. without lights/sirens) and when they approached the van, the doors swung open and a bunch of people ran out in every direction. Upon searching the van, the cops found syringes and paraphernalia and determined that people were shooting up in there. —br0b1wan
#24 Sharp Turn
My dad and some friends got drunk and went for a drive on some back roads and were going as fast as the truck would go as teenagers. My dad was slightly less drunk than the others and eventually demanded they let him get out. They pulled over and he and one other girl got out. He and the girl started walking to town while the other three sped off in the opposite direction.
Well, less than a mile up the road from where they got out is an extremely sharp turn, which they missed and hit a tree going pretty close to triple digits (miles per hour). Two of them died on impact and the only reason the third survived is that they crashed in front of a house that two doctors lived in. The survivor was paralyzed and lost his leg and part of his arm and was in the hospital for eight months before dying. This was in the ‘60s so medical care wasn’t what it is today.
When I first got my permit my dad took me to that corner to explain the importance of safe driving. It gave me goosebumps about how close he was to being in the truck. He said that the dad of the driver got what remained of the truck to be hung up in the center of town for months after to be a warning to all. —justthatoboist
#25 18 Years of Undeserved Freedom
John List killed his whole family-wife, mother, daughter, and two sons. He meticulously planned the whole thing – canceling all delivery services, excusing the kids from school, and even turning the air conditioning as low as possible to preserve the bodies for as long as possible.
After he killed them all, he placed the bodies in sleeping bags and lined them up. He then wrote a letter to his pastor explaining why he had to kill them. He then leaves and isn’t heard from again.
18 years later he’s remarried and doing the same job as before but this time he doesn’t have any children. He’s finally arrested after a tip was given to the FBI.
Crazy thing is that because he planned it so well, the bodies weren’t discovered until a month after the murders so he had a huge head start and essentially started a new life in the same career and was heavily involved in a new church down in Virginia. Took 18 years to capture him. —mcsmith610
#26 Close Call
In my town in the early ‘90s, there was a notorious killer that had all of BC, Canada on watch. My wife’s mother (years and years before I knew them) had been home alone while her husband was in England doing tree surgeon work (arborist)
She was in her laundry room when a man walked up from her basement, completely scaring her, she freaked out and said what the hell are you doing here?
He said he was friends with her husband and was just coming to see if he was here, apparently he told him he could just walk in. Which she knew was bulls**t.
She was smart enough to tell him that he was just at the store and would be back any minute. He said he would wait outside for him, as soon as he left she called the police, but he was long gone by the time they got here.
Two weeks later, the killer was caught, his mugshot put on the TV and it was the guy in her house. The guy’s name was Terry Driver. —sixesand7s
#27 An Ungodly Visitor
Happened to me, and I have posted about it before. I was around 11 years old and I woke up in the middle of the night to a man straddled on top of me with his hand over my mouth and nose. He told me to roll over and not scream. I rolled onto the floor and tried to scream bloody murder ( I say tried cause when you are truly terrified it can take a second to find your voice) my mom heard me screaming and came in and fought with the guy, he was at least 6′ she was 5’3″ and scared him enough with the fighting and screaming that he took off out the window he had come in through. Never did catch him. —mstibbs13
#28 Too Much Kindness Is Bad
Was working the evening shift at a gas station. A man comes in all disoriented. I go to help him out. he has a gash on his head and doesn’t know where he was. I couldn’t see any crashes around so assumed he had fallen or something. Normally we are supposed to stay inside the glass shielded register area whenever anyone is in the store. I, being a nice human being, went to help while calling the police/EMS. They got there and checked him out. They thought his head may have been fractured. Took him to the ER. I went back to work. Cops stopped back by for some coffee a few hours later. They told me the guy got hit by a baseball bat trying to break into a little girl’s bedroom and was wanted for rape and murder in two other states. I never left the register area at night again. —[deleted]
#29 Last Call
Marcelo Oliveira Gama from Pexels
Tough to pick just one because there is true evil in humanity out there. Stuff like the blood eagle ritual is pretty awful.
But in terms of really scary…probably stuff that just kind of happens by accident. Like the story of Kyle Plush. Just awful. He was in a minivan that has one of those back seats that you can push backward to lay flat in the trunk for extra storage space. He went to grab something in the trunk, leaning over the seat, and it tipped backward and pinned him, upside down, against the back of the car in a position such that he couldn’t get himself out.
He called the police TWICE. The second time he called and gave them a very clear description of the car.
“Plush called 911 again at around 3:35 p.m. Police said this time he provided a description of the vehicle as he desperately pleaded for help but couldn’t hear the dispatcher. Isaac said the information didn’t get relayed to officers at the scene.
“This is not a joke,” the teen said over 911. “I’m almost dead.”
He asked the dispatcher to “tell my mom I love her if I die.”
Just a horrible, random accident that could have happened to anybody. This kid didn’t go looking for trouble like he didn’t try and go down a chimney or go caving like other people who have gotten stuck and suffocated. He was just reaching for something in his trunk, got pinned, and then was not found in time. Nightmarish for the kid and his family. —beepborpimajorp
#30 The Laundry Incident
Years ago my now husband worked for an industrial laundry company in their head office when a PR disaster happened that also mentally screwed up a number of people.
Their company collected the laundry from large hospitals and medical type businesses eg care homes etc and cleaned them – you can imagine the sort of heavy-duty cleaning, bleaching, boiling etc needed to remove those sort of biological contaminants.
One day a laundry cart went through the usual bleaching, boiling cycle before it dropped out into a conveyor belt to be sorted for drying/pressing when there was a horrid scream.
A small newborn baby’s body had been discovered tangled up amongst the sheets, it had been “cooked”. The laundry workers were distraught, the whole place had to be shut down, police called and the laundry was tracked back to the hospital to discover what happened.
It turns out a (thankfully in some ways) stillborn baby had been left in the cot waiting to be taken down to the hospital mortuary after the parents had said their goodbyes and covered it with a blanket but somehow one of the nurses hadn’t realized (just on shift was the best guess) so just grabbed up all the linen out the cot and off the bed in the delivery room with the body bundled inside and emptied it into the laundry hamper/trolley thing. The other nurses/parents assumed the baby had been collected by the mortuary to be stored awaiting their funeral decisions.
The laundry was found not to be to blame but the parents were devastated and the hospital took a lot of flack. The poor laundry workers who discovered the body ended up being given counseling before eventually quitting. The laundry did amend its practice to individually emptying each laundry hamper into the industrial machines instead of just tipping them in to stop anything like that from happening again. —bizarrecoincidences