10 Horrifying Final Destination-Like Accidents

The Final Destination franchise built its legacy on one terrifying idea: you can’t cheat death—and when it comes for you, it arrives in the most unexpected and brutal ways imaginable. While the films are known for their over-the-top, often laughably absurd death scenes, they also tap into a primal fear: that ordinary objects and everyday routines can suddenly become deadly.

It’s comforting to think that the elaborate accidents in those movies are pure fiction. But real life has a way of being just as shocking—and sometimes, even more horrifying.

From freak medical mishaps and roadside disasters to tragic twists of fate involving lawnmowers, log trucks, and even sunbeds, these ten real-life incidents prove that truth can be far scarier than fiction.

Related: 10 Common Activities That Turned into Tragic Freak Accidents

10 Knives in the Dishwasher

In May 2003, 31-year-old Jane McDonald was busy in the kitchen of her friend’s Airdrie home in North Lanarkshire. The dishwasher door was open as she worked. Unfortunately, Jane somehow slipped and fell into the dishwasher. She likely would have survived the fall if she hadn’t landed on a knife that was lying upright in the appliance.

This terrible incident came six years after 12-year-old Mark Rockingham reached across the dishwasher at his home in Kettering, Northamptonshire, to a cupboard. He lost his balance and fell onto the open dishwasher. The knife sticking out of the appliance punctured the boy’s chest, severing an artery. He was taken to the hospital but died hours later.

In another strange accident, 23-year-old Kirsty Scott was on her way to her job in Perth in December 2011 when she slipped on an icy path, fell, and impaled herself on a spiked fence. She was trapped on the fence for half an hour, a 5-inch (12.7-centimeter) spike deeply lodged in her throat, before neighbors found her and called emergency services. Fortunately, she survived the horrific accident.^[1]

9 MRI Machines Can Become the Stuff of Nightmares

When six-year-old Michael Colombini fell at his home in Croton-on-Hudson in July 2001, his parents immediately rushed him to the hospital. While he didn’t sustain serious injuries, doctors discovered Michael had a benign brain tumor. The tumor was successfully removed the same day.

A week later, Westchester Medical Center prepared an MRI machine so the doctors could examine up-to-date scans of Michael’s brain. Michael was sedated during the scan, and while he was still inside the machine, a nurse brought in a metal oxygen canister.

Before the oxygen could be administered to Michael, the incredibly powerful magnetic field sucked the canister into the MRI machine’s chamber. The canister struck Michael on the head, causing a severe skull fracture and brain hemorrhage. Michael died of his injuries two days later.^[2]

8 Pinch Points Can Cause Instant Death

Many who watched Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025) have been instantly cured of their desire to ascend a tall skyscraper and dine at the restaurant at the very top.

On April 14, 2017, the Holt family had no qualms about doing exactly that. They took an elevator to the top of the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel in Atlanta, where they sat down for lunch in the Sun Dial restaurant. The Sun Dial rotates to give patrons in its wooden booths a magical panoramic view of the city. For the Holts, it was a wonderful outing—until it wasn’t.

After paying for their meal, the Holts’ five-year-old son Charles walked a few steps in front of them as they were leaving the restaurant. The restaurant was still slowly rotating, and Charles somehow became caught between one of the wooden booths and a moving wall. This “pinch point” had no emergency stop button to halt the rotating floor.

The Holts and several restaurant staff members tried desperately to extricate Charles. After the floor was stopped, the boy fell into his father’s arms. He had suffered a severe head injury and was rushed to the nearest hospital, where he died a few hours later.^[3]

7 Total Morselization of the Body

In December 2005, Chad Swank was standing inside the basket of a cherry picker outside a house in Loveland, Colorado. He was trimming dead tree branches while his boss, Brian Morse, was on the ground, feeding each branch that fell into a wood chipper.

Chad and Brian had been working together for around six years at that point and had a good routine going. However, before Chad cut down the next branch, he looked down to ensure the area below him was clear. That’s when he saw Brian lying on the hopper of the wood chipper.

Confused, Chad shut off the chainsaw to ask Brian what he was doing. It was then that he realized the wood chipper was still running at full speed—and Brian was being pulled inside it. In a panic, Chad jumped from the basket, which was around 15 feet (4.5 m) up. He ran to the chipper, but there was nothing he could do.

Investigators later said they believed Brian’s glove got caught in the chipper and he couldn’t pull his hand free. The coroner identified Brian through fingerprints and listed his official cause of death as “total morselization of the body.”^[4]

6 Watch Out for Those Logs

The Final Destination scene that tends to stick in viewers’ minds the most is the infamous log truck accident scene. Log truck memes went into overdrive on social media as soon as Bloodlines was announced.

In July 2023, a 25-year-old woman was driving too closely behind a semi-tractor stacked with wooden logs on State Road 200 in Nassau County. Because she failed to maintain a safe distance, she hit the trailer with the front of her SUV at a traffic light. The logs on the trailer smashed through the driver’s side of the car, crushing the woman. She was rushed to the University of Florida Health and pronounced dead shortly afterward.

During the same week, another logging truck accident happened in Georgia. Two logging trucks were traveling on E. Oglethorpe Boulevard when one truck rear-ended the other. The driver of the rear truck was trapped in his cab by dislodged logs. Fortunately, he was eventually removed and taken to the hospital with severe injuries.^[5]

5 Never Park Beneath a Fast Food Restaurant Sign

In April 2009, 49-year-old Diana Durre and her husband Mark drove to the Taco Bell in North Platte, Nebraska. They had a dog in the backseat that they were potentially going to sell to a couple from Wyoming. Diana and the couple agreed to meet “underneath the big Taco Bell sign,” so that’s where Diana parked.

Unfortunately, it was a particularly windy day in North Platte, with gusts reaching up to 40 miles per hour (64.4 km/h). The Taco Bell sign creaked ominously overhead until the pole onto which it was mounted snapped in half. The entire structure came crashing down right onto Diana’s car.

Diana was instantly crushed to death. Her husband and the dog managed to survive. When the dog’s prospective owners arrived, they witnessed the horrific scene just before Diana was pronounced dead by responding paramedics.^[6]

4 Always Watch Where You’re Going

Around 9:30 a.m. on March 3, 2025, 55-year-old Jorge Conzales was riding a commercial lawnmower on the Northwest Vista College campus in San Antonio. Jorge was an experienced groundskeeping contractor, but on that day, he somehow didn’t see a ledge in front of him and drove the mower over it.

As the mower tumbled down, Jorge fell off and landed in a drainage ditch below. In a cruel twist, the mower landed on top of him. Police arrived shortly after emergency responders, who were already trying to save Jorge’s life. Sadly, they could not resuscitate him.

Lawnmower accidents are very common in the U.S. Even worse, around 10,000 children are injured by lawnmowers every year, often resulting in amputation.

In October 2024, 3-year-old Anthony “Baby T” Dunn was riding a lawnmower with his grandfather. The little boy unexpectedly jumped off and was run over. His father and grandfather lifted the mower off him and used a belt as a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Baby T survived but lost a foot and part of his other leg.^[7]

3 They Never Saw It Coming

CLIFFDIVER is a pop-punk band from Tulsa that released its first album in 2022. But the members made headlines in 2023 for more than just music when a freak accident left bassist Tyler Rogers with a chain link embedded in his neck.

The band was scheduled to perform in Las Vegas on May 26, 2023, and the trip there would be the first in their new tour van. Just an hour outside of Tulsa, they were traveling on Interstate 44 when they heard a loud boom. Instantly, the front of the van filled with dust and shards of glass.

Tyler, who was driving, was knocked unconscious. Drummer Elliot Cooper grabbed the wheel just in time to prevent the van from leaving the road. Guitarist Matt Ehler noticed blood pouring from Tyler’s head and neck.

The band pulled over and called 911. Paramedics revived Tyler and found a large steel chain lodged deeply in his neck. A sheriff later explained that the chain likely came from a snapped load-bearing strap on a passing truck. Tyler’s carotid was punctured, and he suffered jugular lacerations and a fractured neck. Miraculously, he will make a full recovery.^[8]

2 Falling Into a Sunbed

In 2014, 17-year-old Grant Adams was working hard as an apprentice bricklayer. He had just bought his first car, had a baby on the way, and was looking forward to his 18th birthday.

Tragically, Grant would never see that milestone. One day in June, he got out of bed and tripped over a shoe at his South Shields home. He lost his balance and fell into an upright sunbed. The impact shattered the UV tubes, and the shards pierced his jugular vein. He then stumbled down the stairs after pulling the glass from his neck.

Grant’s mother found him at the bottom of the stairs, lying in a pool of blood. She and her boyfriend tried to stop the bleeding while calling for help. Grant was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent a five-hour operation. He died the following evening.^[9]

1 Decapitation Can Happen in an Instant

The last accident on this list might remind you of more than a gruesome Final Destination movie death.

In August 2004, 21-year-old John Kemper Hutcherson got drunk and then got behind the wheel of his truck. His best friend, 23-year-old Francis Daniel Brohm, was riding in the passenger seat. As John drove home, he ran off the road and sideswiped a telephone pole support wire. Francis, who was leaning out the window, was instantly decapitated.

John kept driving, arriving home still covered in blood and passing out in bed. The headless body remained in the truck. It wasn’t discovered until a neighbor spotted it and called the police. Francis’s head was later found in the bushes near the pole. Strangely, the only visible damage to the truck was a broken side mirror.^[10]