50 Ridiculously Dangerous Things People Did As Kids That Will Make You Wonder How We All Survived (2024)

Today's kids get a lot of grief for being little phone zombies, but if there's one good thing about all of their screen time, it's that it keeps them indoors and not outside doing the ridiculously dangerous things kids of previous generations did.

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Seriously, Gen Z and Gen Alpha cannot grasp how reckless kids used to be (or how reckless our parents could be when caring for us). For all the generation wars, there's one thing boomers, Gen X'ers, and millennials can all agree upon — it's a wonder that any of us are still alive.

Not long ago, BuzzFeed Community members told us about the dangerous and/or illegal things they did growing up in this hit post. Afterward, we received over 400 more submissions from readers sharing their own wild childhood stories. Here are the most memorable ones:

1. "We used to soak tennis balls in gas, light them on fire, and then play tennis at night! It was pretty cool to see that flaming ball go back and forth on the court! Looking back, I am surprised none of us ever caught on fire!"

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—anonymous

2. "After Little League baseball games, we would sit on the tailgate of my dad's station wagon and drag our spikes on the road as he drove, creating sparks. Parents would be arrested today for letting young kids do this."

—anonymous

3. "Back in the '60s, my brother and I would go into these giant sewer tunnels in Philly. We would walk for a long time, not knowing where we were going and/or where we were. When we wanted to go home, we would climb up and push up a manhole cover, climb out, and walk back home."

4. "When I was in the seventh grade, my best friend’s parents took us to an ice cream parlor for her birthday. There were too many kids to fit in their one car, so they let me and a boy ride in the trunk for the 25-minute ride there and back. We made out in the trunk, totally unaware that we’d be dead if someone rear-ended us. I must have known it was unsafe because I never mentioned it to my parents."

—anonymous

5. "As a 7 or 8-year-old kid in the late '70s, my friends and I often climbed up the steel ladder of an old, 100-foot-tall steel square water tower. The ladder didn't have a safety cage around it, nor were there any chains or barriers around the tank's perimeter. Once at the top, we'd fool around, pretending to push each other off, or just sit on the edge with our legs hanging over the side. I'm amazed that none of us ever fell."

6. "When my parents needed to have the car serviced, they would take it to the local full service station and let us stay inside the car as they raised the car on the lift about 10 feet to drain the oil, etc. It was my Dad’s way of keeping us entertained."

—anonymous

7. "In high school, we'd load five of us into a car and drive onto a frozen lake where we'd do donuts and power slides for hours."

8. "In the 11th grade in 1971, my high school teacher asked the class who had a driver's license. I responded that I did, and she asked me to take her car and drive to downtown (Dayton, Ohio) and pick up something. As I recall, this was my first solo drive, and I ran a red light in the center of town. I was not caught. Can you imagine a teacher now having a student take their car on a personal errand during school hours? I never told my parents about the trip."

—anonymous

9. "We used to play human Frogger. We lived on a six-lane street (three each way), and the speed limit was 35. You had to run all the way across without stopping; if you stopped, you lost. No one ever got hit, but there were a couple of close calls and lots of tire screeching."

10. "An old boss of mine told me how, in the ’40s, he and his brother would go to the hardware store and buy a couple of sticks of dynamite. They would then head down to the lake, jump in their rowboat, toss the sticks in, and scoop up the stunned fish!"

—anonymous

11. "We used to cross a thousand-foot railroad bridge on an active railroad without an emergency walkway. If a train came, our only escape was a hundred-foot jump into a three-foot-deep river. I still don't understand how I survived childhood 40 years later."

12. "I remember thinking it was big thrills when my friend's parents let us sit in the boat they were towing down the highway. Here's to not being dead! Jeez!"

—apathyadvanced

13. "My best friend's dad put us in the scoop of his backhoe when we were 6 years old, lifted it as high as it would go, drove us up to the only variety store around to get us a treat, and then drove us back the same way, roughly eight minutes each way."

14. "My dad had a baby seat on the back of his motorcycle. I literally grew up on the back of a bike. This was even frowned upon when he dropped me off at preschool in 1990."

—aerylbailey

15. "In north Louisiana in the early '60s, when we were about 10, we would run after or ride our bikes behind the trucks spraying insecticide for mosquitos. They were spraying DDT. Some of us are actually still alive and cancer-free!"

16. "My friends and I would drive down a winding mountain road in the back of the pickup truck. When we weren't paying attention, the driver would pull the emergency brake and turn the steering wheel sharply in an attempt to throw the passengers out onto the roadway. We did this at speeds up to 50 MPH! It's a miracle nobody ever died or got seriously hurt."

—anonymous

17. "We would have rock wars. Each side would get trash can lids (back when they were made of metal) and use them as shields. We'd then stack up piles of rocks and commence unloading on one another. Much blood was spilled — and I just might have the world record for most concussions."

18. "After Christmas, people would put their trees out on the curb to be picked up by the garbage truck. In the dark of night, my friends and I would grab one, painstakingly drag it onto the roof of a house with a wood-burning fireplace, and stick it in the chimney! Stupid and dangerous...but funny as kids!"

—anonymous

19. "On the interstate, my friend and I would pass our phone numbers to guys we thought were cute by leaning out the window of our moving car to theirs. I would hang at least half my body out the window while she kept the car steady with theirs. Good times."

20. "My brother and I would get in the passenger seats of different cars and then drive toward each other with our hands outstretched to do a high five. What a smack!"

—anonymous

21. "At 9 years old, my older brother and I would go exploring old gold mining caves. If we got lost, no one would have ever found us. This was in the early '60s."

22. "When I was 13, my friend and I picked a bucket full of blackberries, crushed and strained them, added sugar and yeast, and then stored it in our fort in the woods. By spring, we had some bad-tasting juice that would knock us and a couple of friends on our ass!"

—anonymous

23. "When we were around 10 years old, my buddies and I would hunt (non-poisonous) ringworm snakes by flipping over rocks and grabbing them before they could slither off. It never occurred to us that copperheads — which are very poisonous — lived under the same conditions!"

24. "We had an old clothes dryer that didn't dry anymore, but it did spin, so we would take turns getting in and being tumbled like clothes."

—anonymous

25. "In the early 00's, I was 14 or 15 years old. My best friend and I would tell our parents we were spending the weekend at each other's houses, but really, we were hanging out with grown-ass men. There were no cellphones, no Life360, and no way to check. We just called home around 9 p.m. to tell them goodnight and then went out and went wild. The Fast and the Furious had just come out, and we were enamored with fast cars and the cute boys who drove them. We'd meet them at the movies, the mall — wherever — tell them we were 17, and then go riding around, WAY too fast, drinking in the backseat and smoking weed...like a bunch of dumb idiots. We are now in our late 30s with daughters who are both 18 and also best friends, and I would die if they were doing the things we were doing at that age. Looking back on some of the situations we put ourselves in is HORRIFYING."

26. "When we were kids growing up in New York, if we were on the subway's uptown platform and wanted to go downtown, instead of going to a station to switch, we simply crossed four tracks of third rails (covered by thin planks) to the other side and climbed up onto the platform. Absolutely nuts, I know."

—anonymous

27. "As kids, we built a go-kart with a lawnmower engine. I test-drove it down a hill, racing toward a major roadway, when I suddenly realized we hadn't included any brakes. I drove up onto a lawn and through some hedges to stop it."

28. "My dad told me that when he was a kid, in the winter, he and his friends would wait on an overpass of a train track. When a stream engine train went under the pass, they would drop a huge snowball down right into the smoke stack. The train would cough and choke, then stall out. He said it was great fun."

—anonymous

29. "We liked to break thermometers and play with the (highly toxic) mercury. When we got caught, my mom just tossed the mercury in the trash."

30. "Class of '82 here. A couple of high school buddies and I would throw rocks at each other, not to hit the other guy, but to just barely miss him. You'd win if you didn't flinch or jump out of the way. We played this game while river tubing (no lifejackets, natch)."

—anonymous

31. "As an early teenager, my friend and I 'hopped' cars in the wintertime. Someone would distract a driver at a stop sign or corner while the others would grab onto the bumper, squat, and get pulled up the snowy street. We'd take turns all night. We were using our school shoes with leather bottoms, too, so you slid easily but of course ruined them as well. Crazy stuff."

32. "As kids in the suburbs outside Chicago, we used to hang out on the tracks of a commuter rail line that was three sets of tracks wide. The center track was only used during rush hour, and inbound and outbound trains usually used the outside tracks at about 40 mph. One day, a friend and I saw trains approaching from both directions and decided it would be cool to be on the middle track between the two trains as they passed each other. Get the picture? It worked, and it was quite the wind tunnel between the trains! We hung on to one another to prevent us from being knocked over. Both trains screeched to a halt, and men from both trains pursued us. Being kids and knowing the neighborhood, we avoided capture. It doesn't get much stupider, I suppose."

—anonymous

33. "In the '60s, we would go to construction sites and pull up surveyors' stakes from the ground. They were about the size of a Roman gladiator sword and pointed. We would put on football helmets and use garbage can lids (which were made of metal back then) as shields. Then we would have a gladiator fight!"

34. "I would take an old broomstick and tie a series of rubber bands together, then stretch them to the end of the stick and put a dart in the rubber band at the end. I'd then shoot the dart like a slingshot. Most times, it launched the dart with deadly precision. But sometimes, they would get caught in the rubber band and shoot back at my face. I never shot the deadly darts at anyone. But, thank God, I never lost an eye!"

—anonymous

35. "Growing up in Belize, we did all kinds of wild stuff, but the one that was the most fun and dangerous was piling freshly cut grass underneath this huge berry tree, then climbing to the top of the three and jumping all the way down into the grass! It was so much fun but so dangerous."

36. "We were into archery. At night, we would attach a sparkler to the end of an arrow and shoot it straight up into the air like fireworks. Sometimes, the sparkler would go out, and we had no clue where the arrow was going to come down. It was just stupid."

—anonymous

37. "We used to have BB gun fights (with eye protection) and play the North vs. the South at an old abandoned farmhouse and barn. It was not extremely dangerous, but we had a lot of fun. If you were hit by a BB, it would sting. I always won, as my BB gun had a scope."

38. "As a kid, maybe like 5, I would sit in the front seat with a cooler of beer by my legs. Then my dad would nudge me while he drove — it was the signal to pass him a beer. He'd show me how to open a beer bottle with the seat belt buckle. All this while driving on the highway in the '80s."

—anonymous

39. "When we were teenagers, there were train tracks beyond the woods behind our house. We always looked for trains carrying new cars from Detroit to the East Coast. The train cars were open back then, so you could climb onto them, stroll by the new autos, and check them out. One day, we figured out where they put the envelope with the keys for all the cars, and we would open the cars and sit in them, listening to the radios and hanging out, occasionally starting them and trying to do burnouts. We had to hurry off fast when you felt that first lurch from the train starting off again!"

40. "My brother had a bow and arrow that he would shoot straight up in the air to see how close to himself he could get the arrow to land."

—anonymous

41. "In the '60s, M-80 firecrackers were openly sold at the rural Ohio factory where they were made, so my pals and I would load up on a couple of boxes and drive around tossing them out of the window at passing vehicles, buildings, and cattle. Once I accidentally threw one at a trooper writing somebody a ticket. Luckily, his car was facing the other way, so we won the chase that followed. Even today, the memories of speeding away from the explosions and chaos make me laugh out loud."

42. "My friends and I would tie a black shirt together and spray paint a white strip down the middle to make it look like a skunk. We’d then tie a rope to the 'skunk' and pull it across the road while we watched cars swerve. The thought of a fatal accident never crossed our minds."

—anonymous

43. "I was 12 years old when my mom thought riding to Grandma’s house on my 20” bike would be a fun adventure. This was 1979. We lived in Orland Park, Illinois, and Grandma lived in Cicero, Illinois…about 25 miles away. Mom gave me a 3x5 index card with directions on one side and a hand-drawn map on the other. She also gave me some change if we needed to make a phone call. So my friend and I started off with no helmets or water, just the index card, some phone numbers, and change. No ID either. Happy ending…we made it."

44. "We used to climb up a huge tree, jump off it to a sapling below, and ride it to the ground. Sometimes it bent, sometimes it broke."

—anonymous

45. "My best friend lived on a hill in town. We would get in shopping carts at the top of the hill and race. Whoever made it the farthest won. You were guaranteed to crash into a fence, wall, or trash can every time. We would crawl out of the carts, push them back up, and race again until someone got tired of it. I’m sure my friend’s mom patched us up more than once, but I only remember the races."

46. "So many examples of stupidity in my childhood. The worst, for me anyway, was attempting to jump from the top of a wet slide to the monkey bars and being pushed off. I landed head-first on the ground, stood up, and felt like I was choking, then immediately had a seizure from major head trauma. I could have literally died. I never told my mom what really happened until a few years ago. I think I even stayed in school that day."

—bestunicorn88

47. "We'd go on the swings at the park and swing as high as we possibly could, then launch ourselves off toward the sky to see who could fly the highest/furthest. I'm lucky I didn't break any bones!"

48. "At age 15 in 1979, we used to ride modified off-road motorcycles in the desert. The dirt berm near the two-lane highway made a perfect ramp. The key was to get up enough speed to clear both lanes of pavement. Of course, doing it when cars were going by was the goal. While we were in midair, the cars would momentarily be below us à la Evel Knievel! How did we not die?"

—anonymous

49. "I — along with four or five other kids — rode to little league baseball games crammed into the back of the coach's pickup truck. We'd even go on the interstate! One time, a kid's cap blew off. Coach stopped, backed down the emergency lane, and the kid hopped out and retrieved it from the center line. Traffic was often light then. That would be surefire death on that same highway now."

50. "Being a chemistry enthusiast in my early teens (back in the late '60s), I learned how to make hydrogen and fuzes — a winning combination. At night, I would inflate large hydrogen balloons, attach the fuzes, and float them toward the local airport control tower to explode. It was good times, but it's definitely a no-no today."

—anonymous

Did you do something reckless as a kid that you can hardly believe now? Tell us in the comments below or via this anonymous form and you could be featured in a future BuzzFeed post!