- 6 weeks ago
When art imitates life, it can get downright chilling. Join us as we explore real-world accidents eerily similar to those in the "Final Destination" franchise! From freak occurrences at skyscrapers to horrifying mishaps with common objects, these true stories prove that sometimes reality is more terrifying than fiction. Which of these spine-tingling tales will make you most paranoid?
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00:00Carter, listen to me. Don't do this.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at 20 real-life accidents that mirrored the fatalities from the Final Destination franchise.
00:12As a warning, there will be spoilers.
00:14Each one of these people went on to die in some weird and messed up way, and not only that, they all died in the same order as Iris' premonition.
00:24Tall Skyscraper
00:25Keeping with its freaky tradition, Final Destination Bloodlines kicks off with a stunning disaster in a sky-high restaurant.
00:32It's a good fight.
00:33Oh, no, I'm just... I've just never been this high up before.
00:39It's 1969, and during the grand opening of the futuristic sky view, Iris has a premonition of the tower collapsing.
00:46She warns everyone, narrowly averting the tragedy.
00:49While nothing as dramatic occurred in real life, something equally tragic did happen.
00:53In 2017, a young Chris Holt was with his parents visiting The Sundial, a rotating restaurant on the 72nd floor of Atlanta's Peachtree Plaza Hotel.
01:03He wandered away and got trapped between the wall and the rotating restaurant's floor.
01:07Rescue attempts failed, and he later died.
01:10The building may not have collapsed, but after that, who wouldn't get nervous about dining way up high?
01:15Stone Altar
01:16In the Final Destination franchise, even if you manage to escape a massive disaster, death always comes back, striking in the weirdest, most elaborate ways imaginable.
01:26We're here.
01:28All right, something gave us a second chance, so let's be thankful and just try to make the most of it.
01:35Okay?
01:36Tragically, a real-life incident echoes that same chilling theme.
01:40In 2009, Gunter Link, a devout Catholic, survived being trapped in an elevator.
01:45Grateful to be alive, he went to give thanks to God.
01:48But fate had other plans.
01:50While praying at the Vinehouse Church in Vienna, he clung to the stone pillar and the stone altar collapsed and crushed him.
01:57He was found dead the next day by parishioners.
01:59What are the odds of something so eerie happening?
02:02It's honestly the kind of tragic twist you would expect in a horror movie.
02:06The Roller Coaster
02:07The roller coaster accident in Final Destination 3 hits a little close to home when you hear about a real-life incident from 2019.
02:16What's wrong?
02:21I was having that feeling like deja vu, you know, except for something that hasn't happened.
02:26In the film, Wendy boards the Devil's Flight roller coaster and suddenly has a vision that it will crash.
02:32Panicking, she convinces some friends to get off.
02:35And moments later, the crash actually happens.
02:38Now here's where it gets eerie.
02:40In 2019, at a theme park in Mexico City, a roller coaster called Chimera actually did derail.
02:46One of its cars veered off, fell several feet away, and two people died from the accident.
02:50As freaky as Wendy's vision is, it proves that the unthinkable can happen.
02:55But then again, this is not the only case of roller coaster accidents.
02:59No escape.
03:00In the very first installment, Alex has a gut-wrenching vision of Flight 180 exploding just before takeoff.
03:07It's not a joke! It's not a joke!
03:09Alex, take it easy!
03:10In a panic, he manages to save himself and some other passengers.
03:14But death is not quite done with them.
03:16In fact, the entire franchise runs on the scary pattern.
03:20Escape now, pay later.
03:21Now here's the kicker.
03:23Something just as chilling happened in real life.
03:26In 2012, sportscaster Jessica Redfield escaped a mass shooting at Toronto's Eaton Center.
03:32She even tweeted about having a sickening feeling before it happened.
03:35Tragically, weeks later, she died in a second shooting, this time in a movie theater.
03:40Actually, our lives have been upside down for almost three years.
03:43So it was a pretty easy decision to decide that we really wanted to be here during the trial.
03:49Makes you wonder if Final Destination draws from real life or is life just that twisted?
03:54Either way, it is terrifying and sad.
03:58Large Steel Chain
03:59Every fan of the franchise knows the drill.
04:02Freak accidents, chain reactions, and death lurking in the unlikeliest places.
04:06Remember the gymnast's death in Final Destination 5?
04:09I think you got this.
04:13Really?
04:14Yeah.
04:15I mean, you love it out there.
04:19Okay.
04:20You're right.
04:21She's mid-routine when chaos unfolds.
04:23A loose screw, shock in the eyes, a stumble, then bam, she loses her grip and falls to her death.
04:30Sounds wild, right?
04:32Well, real life gave us something just as bizarre in 2023.
04:35The punk band Cliff Diver was en route to the Punk Rock Bowling Festival in Vegas when all hell broke loose.
04:41Out of nowhere, a massive steel chain link from a passing semi-truck flew past the driver's seat and slammed the driver, Tyler Rogers, in the neck.
04:49Miraculously, the van didn't crash and Rogers survived.
04:53We're going to figure that out, but we're not concerned about anything besides him getting out of the hospital.
04:58Decapitation
04:59Some accidents in Final Destination might seem over the top and absurd at first glance.
05:04But then real life comes along to remind us that the truth can be just as bizarre.
05:08What are you doing?
05:10In 2004, a drunk driver in Georgia, John Kemper Hutcherson, crashed into a support wire for a telephone pole.
05:17The wire acted like a razor and, in the chaos, decapitated Francis Daniel Brom, who was leaning out the window.
05:23The drunk Hutcherson drove 12 miles home with the headless corpse and even slept in his bloody clothes.
05:29It wasn't until a neighbor spotted the corpse that authorities got involved.
05:32Still, a decapitation by a stray wire?
05:35What are the odds of that happening?
05:36It proves that the weirdest, most gruesome accidents don't just belong on screen.
05:42Wood Chipper
05:42Bizarre doesn't even begin to describe this 2005 incident that happened in Denver.
05:48Chad Swank and his longtime partner Brian Morse were working a routine tree trimming job when tragedy struck.
05:53While cutting a branch, Swank noticed that Morse was lying across the opening of the chipper.
05:58At first, he thought the machine was turned off and Morse was fixing something.
06:01But to his surprise, the chipper was still running and Morse was being pulled towards it with his feet first.
06:07Even sadder, Swank couldn't do anything to stop it.
06:10This accident reads like a Final Destination scene.
06:13Unexpected, brutal, and unsettling.
06:16We've seen everyday machines turn deadly in horror fiction.
06:19Unfortunately, they do cause real-life tragedies, too.
06:23The Cursed Flight
06:24No one can forget that iconic opening of the first film.
06:27It's the moment that kicked off a franchise built on freaky accidents.
06:30You look at me as if I caused this.
06:37I didn't cause this.
06:38That very scene was born from writer Jeffrey Reddick's idea, which came after he read a strange real-life story in the newspaper.
06:45According to this story, a mother had warned her daughter not to board a specific flight because she had a bad feeling about it.
06:51The daughter listened and that plane later crashed.
06:54While Flight 180 may be fictional, it's eerily similar to a real-life plane crash.
06:59In 1996, TWA Flight 800 exploded mid-air just 12 minutes after takeoff, killing all 230 passengers on board.
07:08It's mass chaos.
07:10And from all of this wreckage, they can actually see that this was the 747 from Flight 800.
07:18Orange Peel
07:19Imagine surviving near-death experiences like plunging over Niagara Falls in a barrel, only to be taken out by an orange peel.
07:26That's exactly what happened to the British daredevil Bobby Leach.
07:29After surviving the falls, he kept pushing limits like swimming dangerous rivers, but nothing fatal happened.
07:35In 1926, during a publicity tour in New Zealand, fate came knocking on his door.
07:40While walking down the street, Leach slipped on an orange peel, injured his leg, and got a nasty infection.
07:46Doctors planned an amputation, but it was too late as he died from complications.
07:50As sad as it is, isn't it peak Final Destination energy?
07:54Something tiny kicks off a domino effect, and before you know it, someone is being impaled or electrocuted.
08:00MRI Machine
08:01Just as Stephanie warned, death was coming for everyone in her family.
08:06Her cousin Eric narrowly survives one freak accident in his tattoo shop and thinks he's in the clear.
08:11But death is not done.
08:13While near an MRI machine, it powers up behind him.
08:16This is the only way we can do this.
08:17Soon, his phone is sucked in, boosting the magnet to dangerous levels.
08:24In a horrifying twist, his piercings are ripped out just before he's yanked into the machine.
08:29It is painful to watch, but something just as brutal happened in real life.
08:34In New York, Keith McAllister was wearing a large gold chain while his wife was getting her knee scanned.
08:38The MRI machine forcefully pulled him, and he died the next day from the traumatic injuries.
08:44Investigators say a 61-year-old man wearing a large metal chain was hospitalized following a freak accident.
08:51Pool Drains
08:52In The Final Destination, Hunt chases his lucky quarter into the deep end of a swimming pool,
08:58where he gets his bottom stuck against a powerful drain.
09:00With nowhere to go, the pressure gauge reaches a high enough number to suck his intestines out and regurgitate them all over the deck.
09:12There have been many true cases of swimmers being stuck against pool drains, though most end in rescue.
09:17A freak accident and rescue at the public pool.
09:21But just two years before the film's release,
09:24a young girl in Minneapolis sat on a powerful public pool drain and suffered a similar fate to Hunt.
09:29Though she initially survived, she would not make it through a series of surgeries.
09:34A body can actually seal off these covers, and large forces could hold a bather down to the drain.
09:41As a result of this tragedy, Congress passed legislation to ban drain covers that don't meet anti-entrapment safety standards.
09:48Tanning beds
09:49Horror films have long used tanning beds as a plot device to convey the purported dangers of vanity,
09:55or the literal danger of skin cancer.
09:57Vapid teens Ashley and Ashlyn find themselves trapped in a fiery tomb
10:01after a series of unfortunate events sets their beds ablaze.
10:10While there have been many instances of tanning beds causing major fires at salons,
10:15they fortunately happened while the businesses were closed.
10:18That is, except for one case.
10:20When firefighters arrived, the tanning bed was fully engulfed in flames.
10:24In 2014, a woman catching a tan found herself flying too close to the sun.
10:29After hearing a spark and seeing smoke, the bed caught fire.
10:33Fortunately, the woman was not locked in like the girls in the movie,
10:36so she jumped out as the sprinkler system kicked on and survived the calamity unharmed.
10:41Nail guns
10:43After Ian is saved in Final Destination 3,
10:46the Reaper quickly moves on by unloading a full clip of nails from a modified nail gun into the back of Aaron's head.
10:55Actual pneumatic nail guns do not operate quite like the one in the movie,
10:59but at least 10 construction site incidents have resulted in fatalities, according to OSHA databases.
11:04In 2023, a truly Final Destination-esque situation unfolded when a nail gun erroneously ejected two nails.
11:12One ricocheted off the other, which was sent upwards through the tongue of a carpenter's apprentice.
11:17The man miraculously survived,
11:19but a 33-year-old laborer would lose his life in a freakish workplace disaster that took place in 2013.
11:25The sequential trigger of the nail gun he was using had been swapped out for a contact one,
11:30causing him to misfire directly into his eye while holding up a wall.
11:35Kitchen knives
11:36Kitchen knives are a common tool used in homicides,
11:39but have been the cause of some truly grotesque mishaps as well.
11:43In the first movie, Val reaches for a rag, which happens to be draped over a knife rack.
11:48The entire thing tumbles over, sending a blade directly into her chest.
11:52The Rube Goldberg-like scene is pretty convoluted, however, not entirely unrealistic.
12:00In 2025, a boy in Australia tripped and fell backward onto an open dishwasher, landing on a steak knife.
12:07He fortunately survived the ordeal.
12:09But four years prior, a man carrying a plate of food up the stairs tripped and landed directly on his knife,
12:14which cut his carotid artery and caused him to bleed out.
12:18Elevator Doors
12:19There is an eerie number of ways an elevator can kill you.
12:23A rapid descent, a tumble down the shaft, or being crushed while entering or exiting have all caused casualties.
12:29But there's nothing quite as horrific as the Final Destination 2 moment,
12:33where Nora's head is caught in between the doors and popped off.
12:36Let me go!
12:37Even more terrifying, this exact scenario has actually played out multiple times.
12:50Back in 1995, a man holding an elevator open for another passenger in the Bronx was beheaded in a bizarre mishap.
12:56In 2003, a surgical resident's shoulders were pinned by a malfunctioning door and his head was severed.
13:02Even as recently as 2019, a woman in India had her headphones tangled in a factory lift's outer structure,
13:09leading to a grisly scene.
13:11Escalators
13:12Like elevators, there's a notable sinking feeling many of us get when we step on or off an escalator.
13:18What if your shoelace gets caught?
13:20What if the entire thing collapses?
13:21In The Final Destination, Lori gets sucked into the gears during a mall disaster.
13:26So basically, everyone's worst nightmare come true.
13:29Help me! Help me!
13:30Help me! Help me go!
13:37And this nightmare did in fact come true in 2015.
13:41A mother in Beijing noticed a hole that suddenly appeared at the top of an escalator shaft
13:45when she and her son were reaching the summit.
13:47Though she managed to shove her boy to safety,
13:49she was tragically swallowed by the machine, much like Lori.
13:53The mall stayed open, customers unaware of the horror on the 7th floor.
13:58Jim waits.
13:58It's safe to say the stack machine featured in Final Destination 3 doesn't really exist.
14:04It was specifically designed to crush Lewis's skull during an intense workout.
14:11Though this piece of engineering is fabricated,
14:14it's clear that gym weights are still extremely dangerous.
14:17Most fatal accidents occur without spotters present or on account of improper technique.
14:22In 2017, a trainer was pinned down in his home by a weightlifting machine that toppled over.
14:28The pressure on his throat led to a fatal heart attack.
14:31In 2025, a man performing calf raises while using a Smith machine slipped,
14:36causing the plastic step beneath him to tilt and the bar above his head to crash down on his neck.
14:40A good old backyard barbecue should smell like hamburgers and hot dogs, not singed flesh.
14:47At the very end of Final Destination 2,
14:49minor character Brian is blown to bits by a propane tank.
14:53This final twist is played off in a comedic manner to remind our protagonists that death is still making its rounds.
15:04However, it's no laughing matter when these types of incidents take place in real life.
15:09These detonations aren't really powerful enough to send limbs flying through the air,
15:13so we can shock the Final Destination scene up to dramatic effect.
15:16With that being said, there have been a number of grill-related freak accidents.
15:21At a church community event, a dangerously high amount of propane had accumulated around the burner
15:26just before a volunteer sparked it.
15:29This explosion forced the grill door to open so violently that it struck and killed the man instantly.
15:34Aerial Lifts
15:35Most cherry-picker-related deaths occur when the attendant in the bucket falls out or is struck by a passing truck.
15:41Yet despite being planted firmly on the ground,
15:44Bad Boy Ian is splattered by a cherry-picker towering over him in Final Destination 3.
15:51One year after the film's release,
15:54this anomaly actually occurred at a construction site.
15:57The victim was working on several counterbalance valves at the base of a telescopic lift while it was in an extended position.
16:03The boom suddenly collapsed, crushing him below.
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16:22Logging Trucks
16:23Perhaps the most universally fear-inducing moment of the franchise,
16:27the pile-up in Final Destination 2 is seared into viewers' brains.
16:31And for good reason.
16:32These types of accidents are all too common.
16:39An unsecured load of lumber toppling onto an open highway is a terrifying scenario.
16:44The movie's log-through-the-windshield moment has unfolded numerous times,
16:48more often as a result of a driver rear-ending a timber lorry.
16:51This occurred as recently as 2024,
16:54when a man in North Carolina was fatally impaled in the abdomen as a result of the crash.
16:58A similar incident took place the same year, claiming the lives of a couple in North Dakota.
17:03So it looks like this generational trauma sadly won't heal anytime soon.
17:08Which of these real-life accidents freaked you out the most?
17:11Let us know in the comments.
17:12Okay, those kids on Flight 180 died in accidents in the order they would have died if they had stayed on the plane.
17:28Let us know in the atmosphere.
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