ElantraGT2001

5. Karen Wetterhahn



‘The story of Karen Wetterhahn. ‘Essentially, she was a chemistry professor at Dartmouth. She was working with an organic mercury compound that was relatively unknown at the time. A drop spilled on her gloved hand. No big deal usually. Turns out dimethyl mercury penetrates latex gloves really quickly, and a drop on the hand is a death sentence. She slipped into a coma about 6 months later and then died. The really terrifying part is the description of her coma. ‘One of her former students described it as not being “… the kind of coma I’d expected… She was thrashing about. Her husband saw tears rolling down her face. I asked if she was in pain. The doctors said it didn’t appear that her brain could even register pain.”‘ - larsendt





4. Scuba dive



'This was a few years ago on a night scuba dive. There were 8 of us in the group including our dive master and his assistant. We had just finished our dive and were gathered up in a circle ready to ascend and get out of the water when my dive master freezes. He takes his flashlight and pointing it outside our circle of divers he catches something circling us with the beam. Turns out it was a 12 foot long great white shark. ‘At this point half of the group are trying to keep the shark illuminated as it circles us and remarkably everyone stayed calm. The only things going through my mind were iterations of these two thoughts, “don’t look like a yummy delicious fatty seal, and that I hope I taste terrible.” ‘My dive master gets our attention and slowly puts his thumb up and then makes an upward motion. We all begin to ascend and the shark kept with us until we were maybe 10 feet from the surface. Then it turned off into the darkness and was gone. I did not go back into the ocean for about a week after that.’ - Caboose2701





3. Babysitter



So one day, this girl was called over to babysit. She did it a lot for these people, so it was routine for her. Anyways, she was told to put the kids to bed at 9, and she did. After she put the [kids] to bed, she started watching TV and doing homework, waiting for the parents to come home. But then, she started hearing some noises coming out of the basement, like pans falling and stuff. ‘She just ignored it, and thought it was the washing machine or something. Anyways, a little later, she starts hearing the noises again. She decides to call the police, and tell them she was hearing noises coming out of the basement at the house she’s babysitting at. ‘The lady at the station told her there’s a patroller in her area, and that he’ll be at the house in about 20 minutes. Anyways, in about 5 minutes, she hears a knock on the door. She answers, and it’s a full swat team. She asked, “I thought they were just sending a patroller..” and one of the guys told her “after you hung up the phone, we heard a second phone on the line hang up”. ‘Ended up there was a man in the basement, listening to the conversation. The lady in the station waited and heard him hang up, then immediately sent the swat team to help. They went downstairs and caught him.’ – bondmaxbondrock



2. Bike ride



‘I was about 15 minutes from finishing the night shift at work when there was a massive crash on one of the windows in the office so I get up and go to check it out. Someone has thrown quite a sizable rock through one of the windows on the front of the building. ‘This is made especially weird because I’m working in the industrial district at 11:30 at night with none of the other businesses open. I go back to my desk, put a quick call through to security to let them know and decide to head home. ‘As I’m leaving the building I’m freaking myself out about it more and more and end up running to my car, getting in and taking off. I’m almost home and I’ve started to calm down a bit when I realise that I didn’t unlock my car when I got in. It had been unlocked the whole time. I do a quick check with my hand in the backseat for any possible murderers that might be hanging around there but there’s nothing there. ‘Fast forward 30 minutes: I’ve called a friend of mine who says he is out drinking so I decide I’m going to join him. I jump on my bicycle and start riding over. I’m doodling along the road on my bike, it’s a nice night and I’m in no big rush, just enjoying the moonlight when I hear someone riding behind me. I straighten up and stick to one side of the road. He passes me really slowly and, when he is right beside me, he shoots me a smile I can describe as purely f*****g insane. I kind of flinch and am taken aback as he rides on. That’s when I realise. He is riding my mom’s bike. ‘Needless to say, I sprint home. When I get there, sure enough her bike is missing and one of my car’s doors is open. The back left one. I was driving, and had no need to open that door.’ – cranklowza





1. Vacation



‘I was on vacation in Ithaca with my boyfriend at the time. We had literally, I’m talking 10 minutes, just gotten into town and stopped at a suspension bridge near Cornell’s campus. I’m terrified of heights and, so, my boyfriend was coaxing me step by step over the bridge. It was gorgeous and we stopped at the middle to take a picture. ‘On the side we had come from there was a parking lot with steps leading to the bottom of the gorge but on the far side there were hiking paths with no barrier. A woman walked past us and offered to take a picture for us. ‘We declined and she smiled and walked quickly to the far side of the bridge where she smoothly jumped off into the gorge. There was not a second of hesitation, it was almost like she expected the path to keep going. The sound of a person hitting the ground from a jump like that sticks with you.’ - spectre_alabama