When something crazy happens in life, it’s hard to believe it’s really happening. There’s a surreal aspect to these moments where it almost feels dream-like, especially if it’s something very shocking.

I’m sure a lot of you have had these experiences before. Perhaps it was a death, or a phone call about sometimes awful happening, or maybe an accident of some kind.

Here are some true stories from AskReddit users for you to check out.

1. That’s gotta be wild.

“The first time I walked up to a plane I’d rented for the day, signed off, did a preflight, got in and took off.

I legally took an airplane out for a spin, and noone was monitoring me. It just seemed like an insane thing.”

2. All kinds of bad news.

“That would probably be having a conference call with my boss and HR telling me I was one of 50 people being laid off due to restructuring, while my (now ex-) wife was in the other room packing her things to move out of the house.”

3. Good thing you were there.

“I live in an apartment with a balcony overlooking a canal. One evening my partner and I were out on the balcony having a smoke, there was nobody around except for a drunk guy stumbling down the path along the canal.

My partner commented that he’d fall in if he wasn’t careful, and sure enough, he did. We immediately called an ambulance and my partner ran outside to look for help – the guy was twice our size and if we’d tried to help by ourselves, we all would have drowned.

Emergency services arrived in less than ten minutes and pulled him out. He lived. Still gives me shivers to think about what would have happened if we hadn’t been outside.”

4. Keep fighting!

“Diagnosed with an incurable cancer at 33.

I was given 2 months to live. One year later almost and I’m still kicking it. As sick as I was, I’m glad I’m standing here being the bad ass I am. My prognosis is much better now.

I won’t beat this, but it’s really given me a push to live life and love big.”

5. Scandalous.

“I got a message one day from a stranger that said “there’s something we need to talk about that is important to both of us”.

The stranger called me. “Hi. You don’t know me, but I think it’s important that you know that my husband is sleeping with your wife. I know this, because he left his Facebook logged into our computer at home, and I see everything they have been chatting about for months.” BOOM. Life upended.

I was good to my wife. Really good. Then my life exploded. Children were involved, and families destroyed on all sides. That was the start of the worst year of my life. Over the next 6 months, I lost 40 pounds of weight and probably shortened my life by 10 years due to stress.

Bonus points: it turns out that in my appointed position with the local government, I had given the guy an award the year before for his service to children.

Good news: it’s all good now. It was bound to happen, as I learned later she was a serial cheater before me, so it’s not like it wasn’t going to happen at some point. I am with a great person now, and family life is great.”

6. That is scary.

“Head on collision with my motorcycle and a sewage drain. I had 1 second to decide to super man off the front.

The I cant believe this is happening right now moment came when I was mid air.”

7. In the ocean.

“I got caught in a rip-tide, a current that drags you deep into the ocean away from shore. I’ve never experienced one, so I fought the current and swam against it.

I’m a poor swimmer, so I ended up exhausting myself. I’m out in the ocean with two of my friends when I realised Im too exhausted to float.

I remember that thought going through my head and was 100% prepared and expecting to die. I turned to them and said “guys don’t panic but I have about 30 seconds left”

Thank God a surfer saw me stuggling and helped my friends throw me on his board. A lifeguard boat came a few minutes later.”

8. Awful.

“My best friend was murdered.

I found out from a phone call from a detective. It really hit me when I saw her picture on the news that evening.”

9. Very sad.

“When I was 14, just playing the newly released Arkham City, the doorbell rang and the police came to our house in order to tell us our dad died in a car accident.

Just ran into my room to have the loudest and longest holler of my entire life.”

10. Not normal.

“I was 9, my mother and step father had gotten into a fight and she decided that everything that caused them to argue had to go, including me.

She got the rifle and chased me, I hid for hours until she lost interest. As I hid in the barn, I was wondering if this was a normal thing or not.”

11. Rising water.

“Watching the water slowly creep into my house during Hurricane Matthew…I had taken every measure to block the doors with sandbags etc…it was in vain as the water came in through my foundation.

Scariest experience of my life and not knowing how to answer my 8 year old son when he asked “mom, are we gonna be ok?””

12. Shooter.

“A while ago at my college we were put on lockdown for a potential gunman on campus. When they announced over the loud speakers “There is a gunman on campus, shelter in place.” I had a surreal “I can’t believe this is happening right now moment.” Its always something that you think will never actually happen to you.

Thankfully there was never any actually danger on campus ( just a potential threat ) ,but sending those texts to my family/ friends is something that I never wanted to do. The scariest 2.5 hrs of my life was not knowing whether someone was gonna come into my lecture hall to shoot it up.”

13. Detoxing.

“Alcohol detox.

After 20 years as an alc*holic and trying many many times to quit on my own, I finally decided to get help. I went to a doctor that does surgical implants of naltrexone, which eliminates the craving for alcohol. The idea is that if you can get rid of the cravings, you have a chance of staying sober long enough (like a year) to kick the habit.

Before they do that though, they do a rapid detox session where you stay in a room on an IV drip for like 8 hours. I remember sitting in there with my wife and just thinking I never thought I’d fall this far. I was really and truly and the bottom. I was hopeless and truly suicidal.

But the implants helped me stay sober, I got into weekly therapy to deal with the CSA, and I got my antidepressants dialed in. I also started exercising regularly and eating healthy.

Now I’m 2.5 years sober, and I’ve largely healed the emotional trauma from the CSA. I’ve also lost a bunch of weight and finally have a decently muscular physique going. The depression (which was later identified as bipolar type 2) is under control as long as I stay vigilant. Life is actually looking pretty good now.”

14. Earthquake.

“The February 2010 8.8 earthquake in Santiago, Chile. I was on the 9th floor of a high rise building, my wife about 5 months pregnant at the time.

At first, I didn’t think much of it. When I had moved to Santiago a few years prior, I’d felt the first tremor I’d ever felt in my life, a little 3.1 rumbler that barely shook the bookcase, but to me felt like the birth pangs of the great apocalypse.

I walked around all day long with a fevered excitement asking everybody I saw what they thought of the morning’s earthquake. Nobody else had apparently even felt it, despite my insistence that the US Geological Survey’s website did in fact prove that it happened.

“This is Chile, we don’t get out of bed for anything under a 6.”

So when my wife had nudged me awake upon feeling the first perceptible waves of the coming megaquake, I calmly informed her that “It’s not big deal honey, go back to sleep, nobody gets out of bed for anything under a 6.”

A couple of seconds later the plaster began raining down from above and I knew this one meant business. We scurried out of bed and began fumbling around with the door handle like fish attempting to pick the lock.

After we got it open, I realized I’d left my cigarettes inside (I used to be a smoker), so before the door slammed shut I risked digits to hold it open, dash back in, and grab my stumps, only later in the aftermath realizing that I’d left the keys on top of the microwave.

Once we got out into the hallway to make it to the staircase, the horror of the quake began in earnest. The building was literally jumping up and down, the floor felt like walking through marshmallow like the stairs in Nightmare on Elm Street, it was the only time in my life I was ever honestly convinced that I was going to die.

My wife tells a tale—and I have no recollection of this—that once we reached the end of the hall, she froze and grabbed onto the wall, refusing to move. Apparently I grabbed her, threw her over my shoulder, and carried her down 9 flights of stairs, bearing in mind she was 5 months pregnant.

I’m not going to say it happened, as her perception of the events could be equally as skewed by all the excitement and fear as my own, but that would classify as the “I can’t believe this is happening moment”, because I literally can’t believe it actually happened.”

Wow. Life sure can change in an instant, huh?

Now we’d like to hear from the readers out there.

In the comments, please share a true story with us where you could hardly believe what was happening.

We’d love to hear from you!

The post People Talk About True-Life Incidents They Could Hardly Believe Were Happening to Them appeared first on UberFacts.

When dramatic things happen in life, it seems like time moves in slow motion. I’m talking about car accidents, fights, or any other kind of disturbing incidents.

It’s hard to describe, but it almost feels like what you’re experiencing isn’t even real and you say to yourself, “I can’t believe this is really happening right now!”

I think almost everyone has had an experience like this at some point in their life.

Let’s take a look at these true stories from folks on AskReddit.

1. Bad news.

“The night before Valentine’s Day a few years ago I caught my husband texting a woman I didn’t know about hanging out when I would be away. After some back and forth non-sense that he was being a wingman to his friend, I said “You have 24 hours to get a story straight”.

Of course by the next day I did internet research and realized he was lying anyway.

He comes home from work on Valentine’s Day with flowers. Tells me that he’s been talking to this girl for two years. Mind you, in those two years we had other non-cheating issues and he swore up and down he was working on himself. I knew he could lie, but never thought it would be about another woman.

After I heard “two years”, I took his shared debit card, wrote him a check for a couple hundred dollars and said get out. (Before you judge, We resolved the finances later. He was unemployed and couldn’t hold a job to save his life and the house was mine. He got a fair settlement)

My friends came over and ate the lobster dinner I ordered for Valentine’s Day.

I’m glad it happened. Made me a better and happier person to get away from him. I still hate Valentines Day though.”

2. Scary stuff.

“I was in Rio, my mother had just given some money to a homeless dude. Few after that a wild burglar appears. Holding a knife against her chest, she gave him her purse and he run away.

The homeless dude then stood up and said something like “she’s a nice woman, do not steal from her”. They started arguing and the purse came flying, sommersaults and all, back to her arms.”

3. Hardest day of my life.

“Taking a phone call from my twin from the hospital to say her husband didn’t make it – (after she’d found him unresponsive in VF and had done CPR on him while waiting for paramedics … )

All the time her kids were at my house (I was looking after them) but she didn’t want me to tell them as she wanted to tell them herself. Hardest day of my life, a million times harder for her. Some days I still can’t believe he’s gone.”

4. At the lake.

“I was swimming at a lake last summer.

My sister has 7 kids so I was helping her keep an eye on them. A little boy was bouncing up and down beside me. I thought the kids next to him were with him. Then I realized they swam away and he was by himself. But he wasn’t play jumping. He was trying to stay above water.

After 4 seconds of him going under and seeing that he actually wasn’t tall enough to be in the 4 foot water, I reached over and grabbed him. Kid almost drowned. Turns out he was about 3 years old. He puked up a bunch of water all over me and I held that strangers kid in a hug so tight. The parents were 20 feet away with their backs turned.

It took me a good 10 minutes to find them after standing there in the lake screaming for them and asking random people if that was their kid. Could not stop shaking with the realization this kid could’ve died and I just saved him. I had to leave after that and haven’t been back to that lake since.

People, watch your kids please. Tons of kids die every year. Takes one minute of distraction.”

5. A good day.

“When my lawyer called me to tell me I won custody of my three kids, then an hour later my ex calls looking for her child support check and I got to tell her I won.”

6. A bad accident.

“I woke up from what felt like a dream; kind of like when you are half asleep and someone is talking to you and you know that they’re there, but your mind is somewhere else.

I was woken up to a man asking me what my name was and my first thought was “well that’s a pretty good question isn’t it!”. I wasn’t quite sure what my name was, I was still in a dream like state where I couldn’t really grasp the physical world.

Then he asked me what day it was, to which I thought “I couldn’t tell you what day it was most days of the week”… and then it clicked, it was Christmas Day, the guy waking me up was a paramedic getting ready to load me into a helicopter. My face was so broken that I couldn’t open my eyes or make any sound more than a moan, but I wasn’t in pain.

My next thought was “damage control, I got fucked up somehow (still don’t remember what happened 12 years later) but I was being taken care of, and I still have all my teeth” (first thing I did when I realized I was in bad shape was lick all my teeth to see if they were there).

The moment where I thought “I can’t believe this is my life right now” happened once I landed at the hospital.

I always would think, when watching shows such as ER and the like, that it must be embarrassing to be injured and have a room full of people strip all your clothes off.

So there I was laying on a table which felt like cold like metal, in a neck brace, uncomfortable, butt ass naked, with people evidently scurrying around me. I chuckled to myself in my head how crazy it was that I was now that person naked in a hospital, but I didn’t care at all, I was just comforted that I was being taken care of.

Ski patrol told me I got knocked out and slid 200 yards years, face down, unconscious. No one saw the accidentent because so few people were riding on Christmas day, but they could tell by the tracks that I had left. I don’t remember what happened at all however.

Needless to say I wear a helmet when I ride now, which, everyone should regardless of skill level.”

7. A life saver.

“Checking a regular guest out of my hotel when I realized he was having a stroke. Mumbling, repeating himself, couldn’t even sign his name.

Called 911 so an ambulance could get him to a hospital. The moment it really hit was the next day when his wife called and said I saved his life.

Like dude, I work at a hotel. This was not something I ever expected to hear.”

8. Reality check!

“When the nurse handed us our first child ready to take her home, I looked at my wife and immediately thought, “Shit, we have to keep this thing alive”

9. All alone.

“I broke down in the mountains late at night back before cell phones. I had my flashers on and my hood up and was standing outside trying to figure out what to do.

2 cops and a tow truck drove by without helping me! Hours later a group of teenagers finally pulled over and offered to drive me to a phone to call for help.”

10. Good thing you were there.

“I was working at a group home with people who have physical and mental disabilities. We were all eating lunch when a client suddenly was choking.

He turned blue and I thought, “shit, here we go.” I performed the heimlich and he stopped choking and started to breathe. That was scary.”

11. Terrible.

“I found my husband unresponsive and called 911, did CPR, paramedics came and took over. After 30 minutes they told me he was gone and there was nothing they could do. Tons of friends and family came over right away.

For some reason it only hit me when one of our good friends told me not to worry about food or lawn care as she was setting up a food train/lawn care for me. That was the “oh shit this is really happening” moment for me.”

12. On the road.

“When I woke up with my head lodged in between the car seat and the wall of the car after being hit by a drunk driver. I was asleep in the very back of my Toyota Sienna while my mom was driving and I wasn’t wearing a seat belt during the time of the accident.

Luckily for me, I managed to get away with just a scar to my forehead EVEN THOUGH I was flung across the car after being struck. I’m still flabbergasted I got away with just the scar…”

13. Unexpected.

“I was in the hospital for my dad after he got into a fender bender. Everything was going fine (he only had a sore neck and some minor scratches) up until the doctor came in, shut the curtain behind her and told him “we found some spots on your lungs when we scanned you”.

Completely unexpected and heartbreaking.”

Now we want to hear from all of you out there!

In the comments, tell us your “I can’t believe this is really happening” stories.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The post People Talk About Their True “I Can’t Believe This Is Happening Right Now” Stories appeared first on UberFacts.