What was the most terrifying moment of your life? The one that caused your heart to beat 300 times a minute then suddenly stop.
When I was a crew chief in the U.S.A.F., I would supervise as nuclear weapons were loaded onto a B-52D bomber. One day a maintenance stand collapsed as one was being loaded. the airman made a grab for the rear of the bomb, but what he got was the cotter pin that “safetied” it. I remember every sixteenth of a second it took for that thing to hit the ground, and to this day NO sound is louder than the clang it made as it hit the ground. I had nuclear nightmares for months after that.
Dear Slythe:
Right now, I’m trying to decide between:
1.) The time I walked into a housemate’s room and he pointed a revolver at me.
2.) The time I slid 250 feet down the side of a limestone quarry.
3.) The time I had to talk a guy and about 14 of his friends & acquaintances from stomping me because he thought I had stolen his watch.
4.)The time the cop handed me a warning ticket and then said: “I smell marijuana. Have you been smoking some?”
5.) However, I would probably have to vote for the moment two years ago when I had gout and thought I would have to quit drinking.
When I realized I was about to be mugged. Got home late after a night with the girls; a young man pulls up beside me and starts talking to me - my first thought: he’s trying to pick me up. I looked away and kept walking. Not sure why - 6th sense I guess - but I suddenly knew I was in danger and started running. He jumped out of his car, tackled me, and I went down, hit my head on sidewalk; he grabbed my purse and took off. Bad cut on forehead; thanked God
I’d had my keys in my hand & still had them and could get inside my apartment. I’m not sure what went thru my mind as I started running - basic terror mostly. Only consolation - I’d spent most of my money & he got 10 cents for his efforts.
Two times: first, fourteen years old, out driving around (obviously unlicensed) with my younger sister, almost home when in the rearview mirror see the flashing blue lights. Completely freaking out, pulled over, only to have the cop go flying by. Whew! Next, (as a licensed driver) the day I slammed my own head in the car door. Not just shut… slammed. I saw not just stars, but quarks, meteor showers, and all other sundry galactical entities. I seriously thought I was having a stroke.
By far, it was this summer when my husband had his motorcycle (if you’ve heard this already, I’m sorry). He was out riding, and a neighbor came to get me while I was doing yardwork to tell me he had just been hit. The neighbor drove me to him (just down the road) and he was sprawled in the middle of the road, not moving a muscle…his bike was mangled about 15 feet away. The moment I saw him I was sure he was dead, and I was filled with the worst feeling I’ve ever had in my life. Strangely enough, it was followed by about the happiest moment when he looked at me and spoke. All in all, it was certainly the worst day of my life.
Some mornings it just doesn’t seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps.
Zettecity
Sorry- that should read “motorcycle accident”
Several in my memory -
I was test-flying an airplane after routine maintenance, and as I was flying it into the city airport the engine failed, with nothing but houses and high-rises below me. I managed to re-start the engine, but it was only developing about half-power, and I could only maintain a shallow descent. I cleared the buildings and made it to the airport, but it was close.
Another flying story - I was flying up to Slave Lake AB at night, and the forecast was for good, clear weather. Halfway there, we hit snow and had zero visibility. I turned around to go back, only to find that the clouds had come down all around us. I had to start a shallow descent, knowing the Swan hills were somewhere out there in the dark, and finally emerged from the clouds at about 1000’ above the ground. I followed a river into Slave Lake in heavy snow in the dark, and landed uneventfully.
I was driving a 240Z in fall, and hit a freak snowstorm. The road was clear and dry, and suddenly there was this grey wall up ahead. Before I knew it, I hit it and instantly lost control of the car. It was sliding back and forth across both lanes, and there was a semi coming the other way. I intentionally tried to steer the car off the road, and remember just seeing these big headlights fill the windshield of the car before my car shot across the road into the ditch.
I was at a friend’s house when we heard noises in the next room. One of my friends checked it out and came back. He said someone was trying to break in. He went to get a gun and we heard 2 gunshots. When my friend came back he had a bullet hole in his sleeve (it was a long loose sleeve and the bullet went through the part that was hanging loose…the bullet missed him by about 1/2 an inch).
He showed us the blood where he got the other guy (who escaped through an open window) and I couldn’t stand to hear anymore and ran out of the house in terror. I didn’t hear what happened to the guy that tried to break in. I didn’t want to know so no one told me. I don’t think I was ever that terrified!
MaryAnn
Sometimes life is so great you just gotta muss up your hair and quack like a duck!
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The World’s Highest Bungee Jump.
At least is was at the time, November 1998. Storms River, near Knysna, South Africa. 216 meters, off the highest bridge in the southern hemisphere. I was the first of our group to jump, because I was the heaviest.
I thought I was gonna die. Seriously. For about 1/2 a second I wqas quiet, then I started screaming my lungs out. The most insane mix of fear and delight I’ve ever experienced. -
Diving with white sharks.
Same holiday in South Africa, a week earlier, in Mossel Bay. Here’s the drill: descent into the rusty cage at the back of the boat. See the crew chuck large chunks of dead fish and blood into the water. Then, on cue, submerge and see an 18 foot Great White approaching the chunk of fish in front of the cage, tilting its head sideways and swollowing it, then proceeding to bump its nose against the cage, just 2 feet away from my face. If you’ve ever looked a great white shark in the eye, you’ll know this: you’re looking DEATH in the eye. -
Near fatal almost incident.
Huh ? Check out my story in this thread:
Damn, I can’t find it. It was a thread about stupid things. NOT the latest one, an older one. I got a lot of critisism in there from OpalCat regarding my driving… DAMN I’ll try and find it again, and then I’ll post it here.
Coldfire
“You know how complex women are”
- Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
I’ve had a few rough monents personally, but the only out-and-out terror was the feeling I had when my Dad called to tell me that my mom died.
Yer pal,
Satan
When I was 12 a kid came running to our house to tell us that my brother had been hit by a bus when riding his bike, my dad and I ran to the accident, my heart was pumping so fast i thought i was going to die… it wasnt my brother, it was another little blonde boy, who thankfully ended up being ok.
We are, each of us angels with only one wing;
and we can only fly by
embracing one another
I think I mentioned it allready in the farm accident thread. My mother getting mauled by a bull and me running over to her from the road, no movement or a sound being made by her, thought she was dead. Instead just a week and a half in the hospital and a long at home recovery.
Coldfire, 216 meters? Holy crap, I can’t even use a ladder without getting the willies, but over 700 feet? Wow.
“The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.” - Humphrey Bogart
Driving from Plano to Denton, I missed my exit and went to the next one to loop back around. As I was driving down the exit ramp, a truck veered across the median and nearly sideswiped me. We were both going at least 60. It probably would have been fatal. I had to pull over and sit for about five minutes before the shakes stopped and I could drive again.
My first apartment in Dallas was in a not-so-great neighborhood. A friend dropped me off after dinner, and I walked around to the stairs up to my apartment. It was dark, and very late, and absolutely no one was around. Something, some tiny little sound, caught my attention, and I whirled around to see a man about to rush me. He stopped, mumbled some comment about the weather and walked on around me to the far side of the building. I think I missed getting mugged/raped by that split-second in which I turned around and faced him. Still creeps me out to think about it.
Sola bona lingua est mortua lingua.
(A) it’s my friend’s birthday party two years ago. My buddies and I are a little likkered up. This guy and I get to talking. Some dumbass (still not sure which one) had mentioned in pleasant conversation that I study martial arts, which the guy I was talking with had overheard. “Hey, you wanna go out back and spar a little? Somethin’ kinda friendly” “Sure” says I, after some prodding. After five solid shots to the head I decide that this guy was just either looking for a fight or trying to knock out a big guy (6’5 260lbs). Neither idea really appealed to me, so I start walking back into the house. As I’m walking back in he sucker punches me in the head- I paused slightly. His girlfriend steps between us and she yells at him “Stop!! He’s going to kill you” So I manage my way back into the house, when I hear a ruckus outside, followed closely by a gunshot. Turns out the guy who wanted to “spar” was packin’. What did I do? Run-FU: the art of getting ass out of way A.K.A. Fleet foot style. Thankfully, I maintained bowel control.
(B) Ex-girlfriend calls: “My period’s late”. Almost lost bowel control with that one. Four of the longest hours ever go by “Uh, nevermind”.
Masa Gatsu Agatsu Katsu Hayabi.
True victory is victory over the self; Let that day arrive quickly.
“B” happened to me so many times already it doesn’t even scare me anymore.
I’m sure that doesn’t go for Great Whites though 
Coldfire
“You know how complex women are”
- Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
I’m no great fan of Hospitals or Doctors, to be honest. Not that I have a fear of them, I’d just rather avoid them if I can.
My Mum and I were visiting my sister, I think it was the first time I’d seen her since she’d had her baby. Anyway, as we were leaving I got an ache in my gut that rapidly grew.
Normally when you have any pain it comes in pulses or waves, or you can sit in such a position that it relieves for a while.
Well not this kind. It got worse and worse, until within a period of five minutes I was sweating bullets! I squirmed around trying to make it stop, moaning in pain, and my Mum asked “Do you want to go to the Hospital?” and I said “Yes” no hesitation. (afterward she said that that was her cue to knowing it was definitely serious)
I experienced that constant, sharp, intense pain in my gut for the next six hours straight, with no relief, no pain-killer having any effect, and worst of all, no clue as to what it was. Even the Doctors were stumped! (Great confidence builder that)
It felt like my gut was being eaten away, dissolved by something.
I thought I was going to die.
After three days in hospital, a tube shoved down my nose into my stomach, and no help at all even from the ‘specialist,’ I went home.
A month later it happened again.
This time the Emergency Room Doc recognises it as Gall Stones, but doesn’t schedule surgery because it’s not an emergency - it’s not dangerous, just unbearably painful.
I still have attacks every so often, some worse than others. They won’t schedule emergency surgery, I have to go private, which I cannot afford.
Fuck em.
“Well, roll me in eggs and flour and bake me for forty minutes!”
The scariest thing that I have ever been involved, and thankfully it looks pretty tame compared to some of these posts, was a reckless overtaking maneuver I undertook once. I was heading out of a little village in my tiny tiny Japanese car, and decided to overtake this huge truck that was also heading out. Well, unbeknowst to me, this road had a slight incline and the truck-driver was accelerating too, though not quite as quickly as me. As I got about half way along the side of the truck, and time was slowing down for me, a tractor with a hay rick pulled out on the other side of the road and it was make or break time. I just about managed to overtake that truck with the engine sceaming, and clipping the truck with my wing mirror and the hay rick with the back of the car. I stopped at the next opportunity to gather myself and was madly honked at by the truck whom I had just risked life and limb overtaking, overtaking me. I know I know, it was a foolish decison, but man was I glad that I was wearing my brown trousers that day.
It only hurts when I laugh.
I woke up on my 10th birthday, and as I was walking out of my room I was yelling excitedly “I’m double digits now”. The first thing I saw when I got out of my room was my sister bawling her eyes out and my dad trying to give my mom CPR. I have never had that feeling of such terror and dread again since.
She had had a heart attack in her sleep early in the morning. She died, and every birthday I have now is a reminder of that day. One good thing, my birthday was on Good Friday that year, and I remember before going to bed I gave her the Easter card I had made for her in school, and kissed her and told her I loved her. I don’t know what made me give it to her then, and not wait till Easter. I’ve always wondered what my gift from her was going to be that day.
BTW, my mother was overweight, and there is a history of heart problems in my family, but here’s what we were told caused the heart attack. She had been on a high protein diet where all she basically ate was red meat, (I guess an earlier version of the Atkin’s Diet). She was losing weight, but it caused her already high cholesterol (sp?) to soar.
Ty Webb: I like you Betty.
Danny Noonan: That’s Danny, sir.
Some good, scary posts here. Putting aside Absolute Terror connected with the loss of a soulmate (nothing else compares), some of my greater moments of heartstopping fear:
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Big party in New Jersey. Psychotic Ex-girlfriend. WWII vintage .45 Colt. Everyone doing cocaine, pot & gin. She starts screaming and points the gun at my temple and I shoved the flesh of my right hand (between thumb and finger) between the hammer and gun. She pulls the trigger. 1000 years pass.
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Driving the inner loop around D.C. at 2:30 AM after leaving Felix’s (martini bar) listening to music. Friend is driving 70 MPH in a brand new car. For no apparant reason (was not drunk, nothing hit the car) he slammed against the concrete median. We bounced off, across four lanes and hit the opposite guard rail. Then we bounced off, turned backwards and hit the concrete again, turned around again, hit and turned 180 degrees and ended up facing four lanes of oncoming headlights. CD never skipped a beat - heart did.
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Playing a big party at my house with my band. A bunch of yo-boys crash the party. My brother and I try to be diplomatic about un-inviting them. Didn’t work. Big fight ends with them leaving (one left airborn off the 20’ deck). Police were called by one of the guests, but by the time they arrived all was calm. Five minutes after they leave (and most of the guests) the guys return with 15 friends and weapons. They break every window in the front of the house and smash the front door down. Thinking it was just the original guys, my brother calls the cops back while I grabbed my knife and went up to “meet” my guests. The sight of fifteen guys with pipes and bats standing in my foyer among broken glass and doors dropped my heart back down to the basement. Everything stood still, I can still picture all of their faces (helped at the trial). Then all hell broke loose - all I remember is I cut someones’ wrist open and the blood shot into my eye so I couldn’t see shit. Then I was hit in the head with something large and metal (36 stitches & a broken nose), heard sirens and blacked out.