Weirdest, strangest, scariest thing you've ever seen

I've seen some grisly scenes on the interstate here. Once, after crash between a car and a motorcycle, the motorcycle driver was sprawled, face-down and motionless, on the pavement. He was surrounded by five or six people waiting for emergency personnel to arrive. Never found out if he survived, but it didn't look good.

And recently, I was driving home at night and saw a car pulled over on the shoulder, on fire. But the flames weren't coming from under the hood -- they were coming from the passenger compartment, as if someone poured gasoline on the interior and put a match to it. Nobody else -- cops, firefighters, other cars -- was around. Anyone inside wouldn't have survived. Called 911 and gave the location, and was told someone already was on the way.

 

Chefs football takes.

 

You mean you don't want to trade your entire draft for RG3 and Trent Richardson?

 

Me too. I've seen this scene more than once on my drive home on the interstate. First time, I was just stopped as the four lanes on my side of the highway were down to one at about 1 a.m. As we slowly move forward, I am stopped just as I get to the front of the line by an officer so he can let an emergency vehicle come into my lane. As I wait, I look to my left, and there is a shoeless foot sticking out from under the yellow tarp. The bike was about 200 yards down the road. Not long after that, I was not far from that same spot, and came up just after a crash. One vehicle was on its roof in one of the lanes. We were being directed through the mess by some bystanders, because no emergency vehicles had arrived yet. Looked to my left, and up against the wall face down and with his rear end sticking up in the air a bit was the guy who had been on the bike that was now about 100 yards down the road. Pretty sure he was dead, and it had apparently been a group of friends traveling together ... some of them were about to fight whoever "caused" the crash, and one of the apparently dead biker's friends was sitting next to him with his hand resting on his back. That one shook me up a bit.

 

I was at the UVA/UNC football game when the referee fell straight back to the turf with a massive heart attack. What made it so odd was for some reason I was looking in that direction right as it happened and he just went straight back, stiff as a board, arms out to his sides. The stadium almost immediately fell silent. It felt almost instantaneous. We later found out his heart stopped four times, three of them on the field.

 

Probably the time our security guard - a man who, while I wasn't exactly friends with, I had several conversations with when I should have been doing work – suffer a massive stroke in front of me.

It was also pretty weird when I saw his replacement's mug shot in the paper after he'd been arrested for possession of child pornography. He was a few years younger than me, maybe 21 or 22 and the victim was 16. If felt slightly less creepy at that point but it was still surreal.

 

Having that happen is something I've always dreaded.
Our part-time janitor at the office is 92. When I used to have to be in the office every morning at 6:30, I'd be the first one in and he'd already be there cleaning up. I was always fearing the day when I arrived and found him dead. Thankfully, it never happened.
The guy is amazing. He'll still climb up on ladders to change out the light bulbs and does a pretty good job. Doesn't seem a day over 70, or even 60 with his energy level. One of those folks whose job is probably keeping him alive.

 

You made me think of another.

I spent a lot of time at my friend's house as a kid, though my teens (to the point I didn't ask my dad for permission when I slept over once I got to be a certain age) and when I was 14 or so, I walked into the bathroom and found his great-grandmother - an Alheizer's patient - laying down in the bathtub. She had wandered in there and fell backward. It wasn't bloody and she was fully clothed but I certainly did not expect to see it.

I had to go wake my friend's grandfather (he was raised by his grandparents) and tell him. Turned out it was the last time she was ever not in bed or strapped to her chair.

Also, same house, my friend's uncle tore an ACL while we were playing basketball. Wasn't all the gruesome, really, it's just the first time I ever witnessed a major injury and considering it happened in a collision with me....

 

I had something similar happen. I used to have a weekly pick-up basketball game with a group of friends. I collided with one of the guys as he was going for a layup and when he went down, he got his arm caught under him at an odd angle. Ended up with a nasty fracture that required surgery.

 

During one of our summer camps when I was about 9 years old, a bunch of us were playing indoor "soccer" because it was raining. It wasn't a gym made for such a thing. It was the building that housed equipment, the bathrooms and such for our youth football league. There were doors everywhere, and we were using a couple of them as the "goals." One of the kids, who was somewhat a friend for years down the line, stumbled and caught the corner of the open (heavy) wooden door with his forehead. To this day I have never seen so much blood. I had to step outside until they got him out of there. Apropos of nothing, a couple years later, I hocked a big, bloody loogie in nearly the same spot (next to the water fountain) after I broke my nose in said football league.

 

When I was probably 6 or 7, our neighbors had a dalmatian. Our yards were separated by a chain link fence, so I could see into their yard, and I played out there a lot.
One day, a rabbit came running through the yard and the dalmatian decided it was time for lunch. He chased it down and killed it while I watched. I remember seeing a lot of blood, but not being overly freaked out by it. It was more like, "Hey mom, Fido's eating a rabbit."
I don't recall the dalmatian being around much longer after that, though.

 

Hoo boy! This reminded me of the horrifying scene involving my sister's dog. The dog is a pretty large shepherd mix, and it guards the yard fiercely. It has killed numerous animals, but this one? Yeesh.
Sis and I were sitting on the closed-in deck while she smoked, and we heard something unusual in the yard. Rufus had knocked another possum off the fence and was alternately tossing it in the air and audibly crushing its ribs. So I go out to investigate, and before I even get close I can hear high-pitched squealing. The friggin thing was in the fairly late stages of pregnancy, the dog had ripped it open and the baby possums were squirming around screaming/crying for mommy. I pleaded with the dog to stop, though I despise those nasty creatures. Nothing I could do but scoop the mess up with a shovel and deposit it in cardboard box, leaving the little ones to die. (What? I don't have an incubator!) Left it out for the trash guys, but they mysteriously didn't pick it up the first day. They eventually hauled it away, though.