That sounds like your version of quicksand! Ewwwwwww!
Every year, there are a few deaths in the upper Midwest from people being overcome by manure pit fumes, or they got caught in an avalanche in a grain bin, often because they didn’t wear safety equipment.
I’m sorry to see this.
What happened to the other man?
I had a near miss like this on Kearny Villa Road in San Diego. Fortunately I saw the tire coming at me from far enough away that I was able to take evasive action. It took about 3 bounces before flying past about 6 feet from my window. Very disconcerting.
Forgot about this one until @blondebear’s prompt …
Way back when I was ~30 in USAF a squadron mate was driving the interstate between Las Vegas & Salt Lake City. Mountainous terrain, 2 lanes each way at different elevations with a couple hundred yards of open slope between.
Late at night a car coming the other way on the uphill side lost control and came careening down the mountainside median. Hit my pal’s car just about square in the left front corner.
This was almost a decade before widespread cell phones, so the emergency response out in the boonies was very slow in coming.
His pregnant wife in the passenger seat is injured but not severely & the baby is born normally a few months later.
He lost a leg and a big hunk of his brain. Died a year later never having left a hospital.
Damned shame. He was one of the best guys I ever met. He was about 26 when it happened. Almost no traffic either way. Room for 100 cars to go careening down that hill between each car going the other way. And he gets centerpunched.
Dammit Dan, you didn’t deserve that. Neither did Lisa. Fate sucks.
The jumper died at the scene. My BiL was taken off life support a couple days later. My sister, who was driving, had no physical injury.
Linky asks for a subscription without displaying any part of the article.
Here’s one I found on a free site:
Another unusual way of dying, Why Tree Wells Are So Deadly For Skiers And Snowboarders | Cowboy State Daily . We’ve had two fatalities in the last 3 years at my area.
On a slightly more positive note, I work with a grizzly bear attack survivor and once met a guy who lived through being attacked by a shark. Man survives grizzly bear attack in Montana wilderness
When I was at university a few of us went to see Witness with Harrison Ford.
After we left the theatre one of my friends asked why I was so quiet.
I said, “A guy I knew died in a grain bin like that guy in the movie.”
Dead silence. I could tell my city-born friends had thought it was theatrical exaggeration.
Eleven years ago, the entire neighborhood of Steelhead Haven, near Oso, Washington, 50 miles north of Seattle, was wiped out in a landslide. 49 homes were destroyed and 43 people died. The hillside next to it collapsed after heavy rains the previous 45 days. It’s the deadliest landslide in US history. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for anyone who saw it coming.
Many of them may have died from the overpressure/concussion of the air before the landslide hit.
One of the casualties was a woman who was driving to a horse stable where she had a weekend job, and her father was determined to find her. He did; she was facing forwards and the radio was tuned to her favorite station. She also did not have a fearful look on her face, indicating that at least she did not see or feel it coming. Her family also said that her biggest fear was that she would contract, and die from, some horrible, painful, incurable disease, and she was spared that possible fate.
A minister my family was acquainted with, was driving from Kansas City to Salina, Kansas with his wife and three kids. They had been there for medical tests on the younger boy. A car going in the opposite direction hit a deer which was hurled over the median and struck their car. Two of the kids and the mom were killed.
I do see your point. But my takeaway is that when it is rainy and stormy, on this particular road (Brotherhood Way) there are two lanes and the tree branches typically extend over the right lane but not the left. So we can take the left lane instead.
Another takeaway is to be aware of when there are trees and branches above you.
Just be aware, is all for now. Usually if walking below a branch the sound of it breaking will travel faster than the falling branch. You have barely a second to react, but if you react you might be able to lessen the injury.
About the tire, yeah that’s bizarre but our eyeballs can scan for items flying over the lane divider. Again you’d only have a split second to react but if that pickup truck driver served just a foot to his right he’d probably still be alive.
A car going the wrong way on the freeway could likely have a closing speed of 130 mph with your vehicle. Seeing an oncoming car on such a freeway would likely make a person freeze and not believe (if even for a split second) what their eyeballs are telling them. But if you can process that visual information and serve out of the way, it might just save your life.
In some level these may seem ridiculous, but if we can increase our situational awareness even just a little bit, that might be the difference between death, and a serious injury you can recover from.
The point of this thread is yes, if it’s truly a bizarre and random event and it is truly your time to go, then you’re gonna go. But another point is to also be aware of how these things can possibly happen, and what if anything can be done about it.
That’s what I did with motorcycling. 250,000 miles, most of those miles during commute hours in the crazy SF Bay Area traffic. And no accidents. Whenever I heard of an accident I’d inquire about it and see what I can learn and apply to my own riding.
For me it’s about situational awareness.
I have two.
My first job out of college I had a coworker who was terrified of lightning. She had lost her uncle to a lightning strike. He was napping near an open window during a storm.
My great-uncle died trying to stop a truck. He had parked his truck on a slight slope, and he got out to get coffee. He noticed that it started moving, so he ran back to the truck to stop it. He was climbing into the truck when the truck when past a utility pole and slammed the door on his body, which was half in / half out of the truck. He made it to the hospital, but died soon afterwards.
The truck was not someplace that he could have just let it roll, but I don’t remember more details than that as it was 40 years ago.
Yes, they are-- unaired, unmounted tires are heavier than most people expect, but I’m betting this was a mounted tire, and wheels are f*cking heavy. Compressed air is also heavier than the air around it.
Haha, yeah.
I did have a helmet on. A Bell 3/4, so not full. The accident was a perfect combination of bad all coming together at once.
I see people in shorts and flip-flops riding motorcycles and I question their sanity.
I have always driven as though any given driver will do the absolutely dumbest fucking thing one can imagine at any given moment. I believe it’s a good strategy, and has saved my ass on more than one occasion.
Pretty much the approach my grandfather taught me when I was learning to drive. He figured one should just assume other drivers are crazy, stupid, and actively hostile. Especially where I live now (he never lived here), it works.
Or drunk or high.
That too, he would have agreed. I certainly agree with you on that.
A guy my sister worked with was in the drive-thru at a fast food place in Chicago in the winter. He was leaning out of his car window to get his food and a big icicle fell off the building’s roof and hit his head. He didn’t die, but had serious permanent brain injury.