16 Final Thoughts From People Who Saw The Light

1. “Bleeding out after Tonsillectomy scars came off. As I was lying in the ambulance on the way to the hospital my thoughts were of my then-fiancee, saying her name three times and telling myself to hang on for her.”

2. “When I almost drowned while scuba diving, oddly enough, my most prominent thought while in utter panic was also WHAT THE F**K?! I wouldn’t have guessed it but now I think maybe it is the most popular reaction when almost dying unexpectedly lol..”

3. “Mine was that in the moment I thought I knew I was going to die, that ..nothing really mattered aside from my kids being taken care of. Debt, owed and owing, things I hadn't done, places I hadn't seen, none of that mattered. For that short time, it was an incredibly freeing experience, until I realized I was going to make it. Then it also slowly crept back in, the stress, the weight of it all. But I learned at that point, that really, very little in life actually matters, in a good way.”

4. “I thought I had more time…to tell people I loved and appreciated them. That is no longer going to be my last thought – proud to say.”

5. “I had the most fleeting thought that it would be sad for my parents for me to die on Christmas.”

6. “I think this water is too deep”. I was 7 or 8 and was walking in the bay and didn’t know how to swim. Walked to a spot where it was over my head and everything went black. I woke up to a lifeguard performing CPR.”

7. “Where is he.” For context, I was in the hospital and my husband was rushing to get there but he didn’t make it in time. I was rushed to surgery and he was there when I woke up thankfully”

8. “I told my wife “I love you” and then the doctor asked me if I took a whole or just a baby aspirin and I said “tell her I love her” and fell over dead. 12 minutes later they got my heart beating. 19 days later when I woke up, my wife was right there holding my hand.”,

9. “I recently fell twenty-three feet onto rocks. I was climbing a lighthouse built in the 1700s and was being a little more reckless than I should have when I decided to climb the staircase leading to the top. The stairs could support my weight, but the roof collapsed, dropping me down and collapsing on top of me. As the stairs detached from the ceiling, my “last” thought was “well this is a stupid f**king way to die.”

10. “Of course, this would f**king happen.” Choking on lots of blood after a vein in my throat was cut and burst after surgery. They were panicking because no surgeons were there to seal it.”

11. “No last thoughts. Last thing I remember is sitting on the couch watching Friday with my brother and laughing my ass off. Then I had a stroke and woke up a week later in the ICU. Wouldn’t have been a bad way to go out, actually.”

12. “I was having a heart issue/medication complication which I would find out at the hospital later. I could feel my heart pounding out of my chest but I kept getting weaker and weaker. I fell to my knees and pulled out my phone to dial 911. I kept thinking “is this really happening? F**k, this is really happening.”

13. “A streetlight fell on the roof of my car after I skidded off an exit ramp and hit it head-on. I didn’t realize that they are intentionally constructed to be lightweight and hollow for instances such as this – I don’t run into lampposts much. My thought as I saw it slowly tilt forward until it came down on my car was literally “Well, I guess I’m going to die”. Then I just waited to for it happen. I didn’t have much time to process anything else. I was relieved when it merely dented my roof and unceremoniously rolled off my car and landed in the grass beside me.”

14. “I was on a commercial jet that caught fire during takeoff. The cabin filled with smoke, the pilot didn’t say a word, and the plane suddenly pitched forward as if we were going to nosedive in. I was weirdly calm and just thought “Wow, I’m going to find out what it’s like to die in an airplane crash.”

15. “Oh this is gonna f**king suck” as a car missed me by inches.”

16. “I have a calculus exam in four hours, I should be sleeping” while my body shut down from hypothermia.”