Life can be a game of seconds and a game of inches.

And you gotta be careful, because everything can change in an instant…and not always for the better.

Have you ever seen someone ruin their life in just a few seconds?

AskReddit users shared their stories.

1. Life derailed.

“I had a friend in university, a student of jazz vocalist, who had an incredibly bright future ahead of her.

Mid-way into her first year / freshman year, she was out with some friends in a theatre on stage and for fun, they were swinging her or just fooling around.

I believe they somehow dropped her or lost grip. She hit her head hard. Got a bad concussion. Had to drop-out of school.

She now has chronic head pain, and is living back at home. She tried to return back to school, but could barely last through two classes, if even, before her pain would get too bad.

I’ve lost touch with her so I’m not entirely sure what she’s doing now. But, my gosh, just her life entirely derailed because of that one silly accident.”

2. Terrible.

“Kid in his teens tried jumping off a Leading Light at high tide to impress his mates and girlfriend, hit a concrete wave breaker back first.

Shattered part of his spine and is now in a permanent vegetive state.”

3. Ugh.

“One of my high school classmates (a kicker on the football team) was at a party at a friend’s house on the very last day of school in his senior year.

The house was on a lake, and he decided to run off the end of the pier and jump head-first into the lake.

The water was a foot deep.

He never walked again.”

4. Big trouble.

“A woman failed her drug test at a court and I watched her run across a parking lot with drug court employees on her heels.

She hopped into someone’s SUV and shoved the driver out of the vehicle.

The drug court employees stood in front of the SUV with their hands on the hood to stop her, and she revved the engine and then knocked them with the car before reversing and driving away over a sidewalk.”

5. Bad accident.

“A girl tried to run from a bar to the bar at across the street.

She waited for the car to pass and then ran for it, directly in front of the motorcycle following the car that she didn’t see.

He tried to swerve and laid it down but still caught her with it. Last I heard they both survived, but were likely to have permanent mobility/mental faculty issues.

Two lives radically altered because she didn’t want to wait another 1-5 minutes for traffic to clear.”

6. Oops.

“Un-muted zoom call.

Trash talking a manager.

HR posted a “thank you X for your years of service” email pretty much the next day.”

7. Bad luck.

“I used to work at subway, one of our regular customers was this really chill dude who just always looked tired, I found out he worked for a steel mill.

He used to come in about 1-2 times a week and he was a really cool guy, moved to Hawaii for a few years, lived in Spain and then Italy and then came back to our small hometown to work his hard as f*ck blue collar job, but d*mn if he didn’t love that job and his work buddies.

All of a sudden he stopped coming in for like 4 weeks, I didn’t think too much of it, people get sick of subway, it’s sh*tty food. But he finally came in and his arm was covered like he broke it.

He was carrying a sheet of steel improperly (don’t ask me the proper way to carry it, that’s just what he told me), when a gust of wind hit it and blew it out of his hands. The corner of the sheet cut him bone deep from his elbow to his wrist. He is so lucky he didn’t bleed out. He lost 70% of the function in his arm and couldn’t work another day as a blue collar worker.

To say he was mentally devastated is an understatement. He was in a deep depression for a long time but he went to his physical therapy and then got a job as a site manager for the same company that he worked for during his accident.

This man has forever earned my respect for his tenacity to do what he loves.”

8. Fire hazard.

“Had a friend that thought he could jump over a bonfire, he almost made it but fell back into the fire, his arm going into the embers.

Ended up with 3rd degree burns on over a fourth of his body.

I think he’s doing pretty okay now but that one dumb decision will affect the rest of his life.”

9. You don’t have to tweet everything.

“Tweeted that they had hit a cyclist when driving to work.

By the time she had got to work the company had sacked her for bringing the company into disrepute.”

10. Stupid mistake.

“Camping trip with friends when we were around 17 y/o. One kid hammered in his tent pegs, then just tossed the hammer at someone else’s tent for no apparent reason.

A girl was in the tent and caught full power of the hammer toss to her mouth. Shattered several teeth in her mouth, which she then choked on. She died choking on her own shattered teeth while alone and bleeding out of her face in a tent, with no idea of what caused her injury.

Campsite in the middle of nowhere. It took over an hour for help to come. Kid got arrested and got suspended sentence for involuntary manslaughter.”

11. Brutal.

“I had a mate trying to show off his new car.

He was heading down our road, half of him out the window, using who knows what to reach the pedals. Later on that day, his car was shown on tv, the first thing I heard was “They are still looking for the other half. ”

His funeral was closed casket, and I never looked any further into it. I just hope he passed on quickly.”

12. That’s not good.

“Waiting outside a club one rainy night.

Some young lady decided to take one of the cop cars out front for a spin after getting tossed out.

She ended up crashing into one of those concrete barricade things blocking the side door.”

How about you?

Have YOU seen someone ruin their life in just a few seconds?

If so, please share your stories with us in the comments. Thanks!