- 6 months ago
The Final Destination movies are famous for their shocking and unexpected chain reactions. But sometimes, real life has moments that feel eerily similar. 😱
In this countdown, we explore 20 real-life incidents that remind us of Final Destination, where strange coincidences and unbelievable twists shocked everyone involved.
📜 This video is for educational and documentary purposes only, focusing on unusual events and unbelievable stories — not graphic details.
👉 Which of these stories surprised you the most? Share your thoughts in the comments!
🔔 Follow WatchMojo.World for more unbelievable countdowns and real-life stories.
In this countdown, we explore 20 real-life incidents that remind us of Final Destination, where strange coincidences and unbelievable twists shocked everyone involved.
📜 This video is for educational and documentary purposes only, focusing on unusual events and unbelievable stories — not graphic details.
👉 Which of these stories surprised you the most? Share your thoughts in the comments!
🔔 Follow WatchMojo.World for more unbelievable countdowns and real-life stories.
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Short filmTranscript
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.
00:33No, I'm just... I've just never been this high up before.
00:39It's 1969, and during the grand opening of the futuristic Skyview, 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.
01:28Alright, 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 rollercoaster
02:07The rollercoaster 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 rollercoaster 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 rollercoaster called Chimera actually did derail.
02:46One of its cars veered off, fell several feet away, and two people died from the accident.
02:51As freaky as Wendy's vision is, it proves that the unthinkable can happen.
02:55But then again, this is not the only case of rollercoaster 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, you'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.
04:36The 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 gonna 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?
05:09In 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.
05:33Still, 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.
06:31You 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,
06:41which came after he read a strange real-life story in the newspaper.
06:45According to this story,
06:46a 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,
06:56it's eerily similar to a real-life plane crash.
06:59In 1996, TWA Flight 800 exploded mid-air just 12 minutes after takeoff,
07:05killing all 230 passengers on board.
07:08It's mass chaos.
07:10And from all of this wreckage,
07:12they 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,
07:24only 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,
07:31he kept pushing limits like swimming dangerous rivers.
07:34But nothing fatal happened.
07:35In 1926, during a publicity tour in New Zealand,
07:38fate came knocking on his door.
07:40While walking down the street,
07:42Leach slipped on an orange peel,
07:44injured his leg,
07:44and got a nasty infection.
07:46Doctors planned an amputation,
07:48but it was too late as he died from complications.
07:50As sad as it is,
07:52isn't it peak Final Destination energy?
07:54Something tiny kicks off a domino effect,
07:56and before you know it,
07:57someone is being impaled or electrocuted.
08:00MRI machine
08:01Just as Stephanie warned,
08:03death was coming for everyone in her family.
08:06Her cousin Eric narrowly survives one freak accident in his tattoo shop
08:09and thinks he's in the clear.
08:11But death is not done.
08:13While near an MRI machine,
08:14it powers up behind him.
08:16This is the only way we can do this.
08:20Soon, his phone is sucked in,
08:22boosting the magnet to dangerous levels.
08:24In a horrifying twist,
08:26his piercings are ripped out
08:27just before he's yanked into the machine.
08:29It is painful to watch,
08:30but something just as brutal happened in real life.
08:34In New York,
08:35Keith McAllister was wearing a large gold chain
08:37while his wife was getting her knee scanned.
08:38The MRI machine forcefully pulled him,
08:41and he died the next day from the traumatic injuries.
08:44Investigators say a 61-year-old man
08:46wearing a large metal chain
08:48was hospitalized following a freak accident.
08:51Pool Drains
08:52In The Final Destination,
08:55Hunt chases his lucky quarter
08:56into the deep end of a swimming pool,
08:58where he gets his bottom stuck against a powerful drain.
09:01With nowhere to go,
09:02the pressure gauge reaches a high enough number
09:04to suck his intestines out
09:06and regurgitate them all over the deck.
09:12There have been many true cases of swimmers
09:14being stuck against pool drains,
09:16though most end in rescue.
09:18A freak accident and rescue at the public pool.
09:21But just two years before the film's release,
09:24a young girl in Minneapolis
09:25sat on a powerful public pool drain
09:27and suffered a similar fate to Hunt.
09:29Though she initially survived,
09:31she would not make it through a series of surgeries.
09:33A body can actually seal off these covers
09:36and large forces could hold a bather down to the drain.
09:41As a result of this tragedy,
09:43Congress passed legislation to ban drain covers
09:45that don't meet anti-entrapment safety standards.
09:48Tanning Beds
09:49Horror films have long used tanning beds
09:52as a plot device to convey
09:53the purported dangers of vanity,
09:55or the literal danger of skin cancer.
09:58Vapid teens Ashley and Ashlyn
09:59find themselves trapped in a fiery tomb
10:01after a series of unfortunate events
10:03sets their beds ablaze.
10:10While there have been many instances
10:12of tanning beds causing major fires at salons,
10:15they fortunately happened
10:17while the businesses were closed.
10:18That is, except for one case.
10:20When firefighters arrived,
10:22the tanning bed was fully engulfed in flames.
10:24In 2014, a woman catching a tan
10:27found herself flying too close to the sun.
10:29After hearing a spark and seeing smoke,
10:31the bed caught fire.
10:33Fortunately, the woman was not locked in
10:35like the girls in the movie,
10:36so she jumped out as the sprinkler system kicked on
10:39and survived the calamity unharmed.
10:42Nail guns
10:43After Ian is saved in Final Destination 3,
10:46the Reaper quickly moves on
10:48by unloading a full clip of nails
10:49from a modified nail gun
10:51into the back of Aaron's head.
10:52Actual pneumatic nail guns
10:56do not operate quite like the one in the movie,
10:59but at least 10 construction site incidents
11:01have resulted in fatalities
11:02according to OSHA databases.
11:04In 2023,
11:06a truly Final Destination-esque situation unfolded
11:09when a nail gun erroneously ejected two nails.
11:12One ricocheted off the other,
11:14which was sent upwards
11:15through the tongue of a carpenter's apprentice.
11:17The man miraculously survived,
11:19but a 33-year-old laborer would lose his life
11:22in a freakish workplace disaster
11:24that took place in 2013.
11:26The sequential trigger of the nail gun he was using
11:28had been swapped out for a contact one,
11:30causing him to misfire directly into his eye
11:33while holding up a wall.
11:35Kitchen knives
11:36Kitchen knives are a common tool used in homicides,
11:39but have been the cause
11:40of some truly grotesque mishaps as well.
11:43In the first movie,
11:44Val reaches for a rag,
11:46which happens to be draped over a knife rack.
11:48The entire thing tumbles over,
11:50sending a blade directly into her chest.
11:53The Rube Goldberg-like scene is pretty convoluted,
11:57however, not entirely unrealistic.
12:00In 2025,
12:01a boy in Australia tripped and fell backward
12:03onto an open dishwasher,
12:05landing on a steak knife.
12:07He fortunately survived the ordeal,
12:09but four years prior,
12:10a man carrying a plate of food up the stairs
12:12tripped and landed directly on his knife,
12:15which cut his carotid artery
12:16and caused him to bleed out.
12:18Elevator doors
12:19There is an eerie number of ways
12:21an elevator can kill you.
12:23A rapid descent,
12:24a tumble down the shaft,
12:25or being crushed while entering or exiting
12:27have all caused casualties.
12:29But there's nothing quite as horrific
12:31as the Final Destination 2 moment
12:33where Nora's head is caught
12:34in between the doors and popped off.
12:36Even more terrifying,
12:46this exact scenario has actually played out multiple times.
12:50Back in 1995,
12:51a man holding an elevator open
12:53for another passenger in the Bronx
12:54was beheaded in a bizarre mishap.
12:56In 2003,
12:57a surgical resident's shoulders were pinned
12:59by a malfunctioning door
13:00and his head was severed.
13:02Even as recently as 2019,
13:05a woman in India
13:05had her headphones tangled
13:07in a factory lift's outer structure,
13:09leading to a grisly scene.
13:11Escalators
13:12Like elevators,
13:14there's a notable sinking feeling
13:15many of us get
13:16when 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,
13:23Lori gets sucked into the gears
13:24during a mall disaster.
13:26So basically,
13:27everyone's worst nightmare come true.
13:29Help me!
13:30Help me!
13:31Help!
13:32No!
13:33Don't let me go!
13:34Don't let me go!
13:37And this nightmare
13:38did in fact come true in 2015.
13:41A mother in Beijing
13:42noticed a hole
13:42that suddenly appeared
13:43at the top of an escalator shaft
13:45when she and her son
13:46were reaching the summit.
13:47Though she managed
13:48to shove her boy to safety,
13:49she was tragically swallowed
13:51by the machine,
13:52much like Lori.
13:53The mall stayed open,
13:54customers unaware
13:55of the horror
13:56on the seventh floor.
13:58Jim Waits.
13:59It's safe to say
14:00the stack machine
14:01featured in Final Destination 3
14:02doesn't really exist.
14:04It was specifically designed
14:05to crush Lewis's skull
14:07during an intense workout.
14:11Though this piece of engineering
14:12is fabricated,
14:14it's clear that Jim Waits
14:15are still extremely dangerous.
14:17Most fatal accidents
14:18occur without spotters present
14:20or on account
14:21of improper technique.
14:22In 2017,
14:24a trainer was pinned down
14:25in his home
14:25by a weightlifting machine
14:26that toppled over.
14:28The pressure on his throat
14:29led to a fatal heart attack.
14:31In 2025,
14:32a man performing calf raises
14:34while using a Smith machine
14:35slipped,
14:36causing the plastic step
14:37beneath him to tilt
14:38and the bar above his head
14:39to crash down on his neck.
14:40Gas Grills.
14:42A good old backyard barbecue
14:43should smell like hamburgers
14:45and hot dogs,
14:45not singed flesh.
14:47At the very end
14:48of Final Destination 2,
14:49minor character Brian
14:51is blown to bits
14:52by a propane tank.
14:57This final twist
14:59is played off
14:59in a comedic manner
15:00to remind our protagonists
15:02that death
15:02is still making its rounds.
15:04However,
15:05it's no laughing matter
15:06when these types of incidents
15:07take place in real life.
15:08These detonations
15:09aren't really powerful enough
15:11to send limbs
15:12flying through the air,
15:13so we can shock
15:14the Final Destination scene
15:15up to dramatic effect.
15:17With that being said,
15:18there have been
15:19a number of
15:19grill-related freak accidents.
15:21At a church community event,
15:23a dangerously high amount
15:24of propane
15:25had accumulated
15:26around the burner
15:26just before a volunteer
15:28sparked it.
15:29This explosion
15:29forced the grill door
15:30to open so violently
15:31that it struck
15:32and killed the men instantly.
15:34Aerial lifts.
15:36Most cherry-picker-related deaths
15:37occur when the attendant
15:38in the bucket
15:39falls out
15:40or is struck
15:40by a passing truck.
15:42Yet,
15:42despite being planted
15:43firmly on the ground,
15:44Bad Boy Ian
15:45is splattered
15:46by a cherry-picker
15:46towering over him
15:47in Final Destination 3.
15:51One year
15:52after the film's release,
15:54this anomaly
15:54actually occurred
15:55at a construction site.
15:57The victim
15:57was working
15:58on several
15:58counterbalance valves
15:59at the base
16:00of a telescopic lift
16:01while it was
16:01in an extended position.
16:02The boom
16:03suddenly collapsed,
16:04crushing him below.
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16:22Logging trucks.
16:23Perhaps the most
16:24universally fear-inducing
16:26moment of the franchise,
16:27the pileup
16:28in Final Destination 2
16:29is seared
16:30into viewers' brains.
16:31And for good reason.
16:32These types of accidents
16:38are all too common.
16:39An unsecured load
16:40of lumber toppling
16:41onto an open highway
16:42is a terrifying scenario.
16:44The movie's
16:44log-through-the-windshield
16:45moment has unfolded
16:47numerous times,
16:48more often as a result
16:49of a driver
16:49rear-ending a timber lorry.
16:51This occurred
16:51as recently as 2024,
16:54when a man
16:54in North Carolina
16:55was fatally impaled
16:56in the abdomen
16:57as a result of the crash.
16:58A similar incident
16:59took place the same year,
17:01claiming the lives
17:01of a couple
17:02in North Dakota.
17:03So it looks like
17:04this generational trauma
17:06sadly won't heal
17:07anytime soon.
17:08Which of these
17:09real-life accidents
17:10freaked you out the most?
17:11Let us know
17:12in the comments.
17:13Okay, those kids
17:13on Flight 180
17:15died in accidents
17:16in the order
17:16they would have died
17:17if they'd have stayed
17:17on the plane.
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