“I was attacked in a friend’s house by an ex husband. He slit her throat and slashed my face with a box cutter before hitting me over the head with a plate, knocking me out temporarily. He then lit the place on fire with us in it. I managed to wake up and drag her outside and a neighbor called the police/ambulance. They caught him 2 days later trying to commit suicide in a Ramada Inn. We both lived through it, and now he is serving a life sentence.”

“Solo hiking, ran into two men who acted nice at first, then started following me on my trail. Things escalated. They beat me up pretty bad while trying to rape me. I fought like fury. I’m fit and used to do combat sports, so I was able to do quite a bit of damage right back. I think when they realised they themselves were taking too many hits, they cut their losses and fled. I have no doubt they would’ve killed me as well as raped me if I hadn’t made it such an unholy battle for them to get me down. I was a mess, and still needed to hike back to civilization after that. I could write a fucking book about that return hike. Eventually I made it out. I don’t talk about it, like ever.”

“9 years ago, buddy got jumped at a house party. I jumped in to pull the guy off of him. Attacker ended up pulling out a knife and shanking me in the stomach before fleeing to a getaway vehicle. Police were called. Caught the guy. We were supposed to come into court to point at him and be like “he did it” but the day before he pleaded guilty. No idea what happened to the guy after that or what his punishment was but he probably didn’t learn anything from the situation.”

“A coworker of [my friend’s mom] was stalking her, obsessed. Convinced he was in love with her and nobody else deserved her, that kind of thing. Eventually he came to their office with a revolver. She was bending down to put files away, or something similar. He quickly approached her from behind and shot her in the back before immediately shooting himself in the head. She survived obviously, though the wounds were significant. Incredibly fortunate she wasn’t hit in the spine or major organs. I often wonder how different it would have played out if she had been standing, or facing him. More than likely she would be dead.”

“My drunk (ex) husband came home in the middle of the night while I was sleeping. He was pissed off at me for some unknown reason and got on top of me in bed and strangled me to the point where he thought he had killed me. When I came to he was sitting on the side of the bed crying. He had choked me so badly that I had broken blood vessels in my eyes. I never spent another night under the same roof as him and we divorced soon after.”

“A pregnant drunk lady called an ambulance. I was working with a junior colleague but a female one. The patient said she thought she was in labour and was sat on the floor legs open knees bent with a blanket over he lower part. There was a small table next to her, glass top wooden coffee table thing. My colleague asked to examine her and for some reason she got angry and insisted I examine her not my female colleague. After a bit of back and forth I knelt down and went to lift the blanket to have a look when there was a sudden crash.” (1/2)

“My colleague had put her foot through the glass table and was standing on the patients hand which had a huge knife in it. Turns out she wanted to stab a paramedic and when we turned up she chose me. My colleague saw it just in time and saved my life. Patient had already had several children who were in care and had foetal alcohol syndrome. I was asked for a statement when the next one was born and they were also taken in to care. She got away with the premeditated attempted murder on grounds of mental health.” (2/2)

“My mum was incredibly abusive. on one occasion, I was around 12 and she came into my room while I was sleeping and stabbed me in the chest with a kitchen knife, puncturing my lung (I didn’t know this at the time). obviously this woke me up and I just rolled out of bed and ran around the house screaming. someone on our road noticed the noise and called the police. just before the police arrived, she started choking me and I lost consciousness. I later woke up in the hospital and (mostly) recovered. she’s now in jail. this is not the only time that she tried, but it was the most dramatic and came the closest to actually killing me.”

“I was 15 and my dad plotted to murder me. My dad had only been back around for a few months after being homeless for a while due to his 20+ year meth addiction. He had never been violent towards me before, but I later found out he had tried to kill my mother just months prior and she brushed it off as him having a PTSD episode. I came home from school, he surprise attacked me by suffocating me with a pillow/strangling and attempted to sexually assault me.” (1/3)

“I had just gotten a boyfriend and wasn’t around as often and by the language he used when trying to assault me, it was clear this was the source of his anger. He had the TV turned up to an extreme volume so no one could hear me scream. I ended up being able to get up and run to the bathroom- the only room in our house with a lock. He grabbed the door but I found a sharp object in the bathroom and told him to back up or I’d kill him. I somehow was able to shove the door shut and lock it. He tried to get in the bathroom but couldn’t. He actually said “I’m leaving!” and open/closed the front door to try and lure me out.” (2/3)

“It was quiet for a while but then I heard him breathing outside the door. He eventually left after a few hours, taking my money I had hidden in my bedroom, and called a relative telling them I’d been in a terrible accident and he needed a ride to the hospital. He ended up running when dropped off and was missing for a year. Most terrifying year of my life. His body was found by a fisherman at his favorite lake growing up. They found high levels of meth in his system and it appeared to be a suicide. Later, when investigating the home I was attacked in, they found hammers/duct tape/knives under my mom’s mattress and looked like he very much so intended to kill me.” (3/3)

“At the beginning of October my husband was trying to buy a PS5 on letgo. He wanted to make sure it actually worked so he gave the guy our address. I told him a dozen times that he was going to get robbed. He still had the kid come over. As soon as he got there he pulled a gun, grabbed the cash and shot twice. One hit my husband in the abdomen. The second went through the stairs behind him and traveled 30-40 feet to the kitchen. I heard the commotion and ran downstairs and chased him away from the house. We got to the front gate and he pulled his gun again and shot at me. He missed my head by less than 2 inches. He was caught and is being charged as an adult (16) for 2 counts of attempted murder and a variety of other charges.”

“I was in Thailand, heading back to my apartment from a popular corner of bars in Chiang mai. I went down the same streets and alleys I always did, cutting through the center of the city to the edge of the moat by RAM Hospital. I passed by the technical college and saw a group of guys hanging on the corner, I didn’t think anything of it as I entered the final alley that would put me at the moat and my apartment. Two mopeds passed me and went into an alcove to my right, and as I passed it they zoomed out and cut me off. 4 guys hopped off their bikes and one approached and said, “where you going?” and decked me in the face. As I think, “did this motherfucker really just punch me in the face?” (1/3)

“I look up and he has his arm up and holding something, in a swinging motion, and I did the only thing I could, put my arms up to protect my face, and yell out. After several blows to my arm, I attempted to turn and run, but his buddies were there to stop me and kept cutting off my escape. After a couple minutes, could’ve been less it’s all a bit of a mess of memory, they all hopped on their bikes and dipped, I have no clue why maybe it was my yelling, and I looked down at my arm.” (2/3)

“My left arm, below the wrist, was cut halfway through, one of my bones completely exposed, marrow and everything, my hand hanging uselessly at the end, and I immediately knew I was in deep shit even though I didn’t feel a thing. I have minor medical training so I took note that no arteries were severed, but I was bleeding profusely and needed help. I went to the guesthouse nearby and asked the attendant for help, poor thing looked faint when she saw me lol. She got me in her car and took me to RAM Hospital literally 100 yards away. Turns out what the guy swung at me was a machete according to the doctor, I thought it was a cane or rod of some sort.” (3/3)

“I was at a party and was talking to a guy. My ex-boyfriend saw this, was crying, and lured me into a room where he locked the door, proceeded to beat me and then attempted to strangle me. I was screaming for my life, but no one could hear me over the music at the party. Meanwhile, another friend was searching for his coat that had his cigarettes in it.” (1/2)

“It happened to be in the room we were in. He realized the door was locked and asked the home owner to get the key to the room. When they got the door unlocked they found me being strangled by my ex, but they were able to get him off me in time. I always thank my lucky stars that friend needed a cigarette when he did – probably saved my life!” (2/2)

“Apparently when I was 3 or 4 I was in the kitchen with my mom one night, when a man came through the kitchen window and tried to stab her. My father ran in with a gun and shot at the man. He climbed back out the window, and the police never found him.” (1/3)

“Another time when I was 13 we lived in an apartment complex my father owned. At night the laundry room needed to be locked up and the change emptied. The change was close to around 100$ a night. I would normally lock up the laundry building around 10pm. It was a really rough neighborhood, so my father had a large dog, Rottweiler/Malamute mix, and he was trained to walk with me everywhere. I was a very small girl and I’m sure that dog was a big deterrent for a lot of people. Anyway, one night I go out to close down the laundry building, and my dog won’t come inside with me. He is barking up at the sky, and won’t follow any command I give.” (2/3)

“I cleaned up the building and gathered the coins, and the whole time my dog is standing by the door looking up at the sky. I lock up the door and turn to leave, and a man jumps down off the roof. He has a huge knife in his hand. He yelled something, over my dog losing his mind barking and growing, he had a crazy shit eating grin on his face. He then tried to run at me, and my dog jumped up on him. I ran back to our apartment, and my dog stayed back to fight him. I told my dad what happened and we ran back to get my dog, and find the man. My dog was stabbed 3 times, and needed to be hospitalized for days at the vet. He pulled through and lived many more years. They never found the guy.” (3/3)

“When my dad was in his early 20s he was in a band staying in a hotel with his then gf when he woke up in the middle of the night to someone trying to rape her, he pushed him off and they started to fight. He tells the story comically about they fought through the hotel out on to the street, long story short the guy ends up stabbing my dad 11 times and leaving him to die on the sidewalk. A stranger was walking his dog at 5am, calls an ambulance and keeps on his way. They come, save my old man, re-inflate his lung and he survives. Attacker gets caught and thrown in jail, find out he had gotten out of jail 2 days prior to the attack for stabbing another person to death. Fast forward a couple years again.” (1/3)

“My dads playing in a band in a bar owned by his buddy, spots the guy who stabbed him. Tells his friend who owns the bar that guys gotta go thats he guy who nearly killed me, stabber gets kicked out and was found hanging the next day in his hotel room. But wait there’s more.” (2/3)

“35 years later, my aunt moves to the city we live in and hits up some dating app or some shit and meets the officer who responded to my dads attack when he was a rookie, so a lifetime later my dad gets to shake the hand of the cop who helped save his life nearly 4 decades earlier. Shits crazy.” (3/3)

“Growing up one of my older cousins was a legit sociopath. He was on meds for ‘oppositional defiant disorder.’ Some of the pettier things he did included blowing up caterpillars and frogs with firecrackers, keeping a stockpile of knives under his bed, stealing bikes, things of that nature. Fucker even stole my Egyptian mew card. One day, when I was around 9-10 and he was 12-13, we were playing in his backyard with several other kids.” (1/2)

“For some reason he took an axe and threw it at me as hard as he could. It went right past my head and lodged in the tree behind me. No doubt in my mind he was aiming for my head and missed. To this day I still don’t know why he did it. I’ve kept my distance from him ever since. He wasn’t mad at me or anything, we were just playing.” (2/2)

“I was waiting at the bus stop, it was only me and an older woman waiting there, I had received a phone call from my partner a few moments earlier about how there had been a stabbing and that I should stay safe, a few minutes after that call a man crossed the road, walked up to me and hit me over the head with a wooden fence post. I blacked out, not sure how long it was for but I came to, on the floor with blood spilling out from my head, it’s foggy, I don’t remember his face but I know I looked up, said, “What the fuck” over and over, I somehow managed to stand up and run, I don’t think he expected me to get up and was put off guard.” (1/3)

“I know now that around 30 minutes before hitting me this man had stabbed and killed a 24 year old man, I often think about how if I hadn’t woken up in that moment I most likely would have been killed, this guy had done it before, he had the capacity to. I ran across the road, almost getting hit by a car and made it to a pharmacy where she amazing staff took care of me while we waited for an ambulance, I apologized many times for getting so much blood on their floor, I remember finding my wallet and phone in my pockets, realizing that this guy did what he did solely to hurt me made me break into tears.” (2/3)

“I made it to hospital, gave a 12 page statement to the police, they took my clothes as evidence, my favorite Balor Club shirt which was covered in my blood, I’m still mad I wore it that day. It was a long recovery, lots of hard moments, it really shakes your trust in strangers when one tries to kill you unprovoked. 2 years after there was a trial where they sent him to a mental prison, it was a long week, while there I met the mother of the man he had killed, she cried throughout every day, when I met her I completed froze, I couldn’t say anything, its the hardest thing I’ve ever done, even though I did nothing.” (3/3)