I was chased down an apartment-building hallway by a Knife-Wielding Fiend when I was in high school. Locked myself in a storage closet till he got bored and went away.
I’m married…with children.
I nearly drowned at the age of 23. My sister and I had been riding our bikes along a bike trail that followed a river. We stopped at an inlet from the river to take a little dip (we had swimsuits underneath our clothes, so not that kind of dip, mind you). Being a non-swimmer, I cautiously stayed close to the shore and didn’t go beyond the point where it was to deep to wade. Unfortunately I underestimated the power of one of the currents running through the river and got swept away by it out into the deeper part of the river. I was helplessly flailing my arms calling for help. Fortunately there were other people there and one of them threw me her life jacket, which enabled me to return safely to the shore. I don’t remember if I ever thanked her (I probably did but was likely too shook up at the time to recall much of anything else), but if nothing else I’m sure good karma has rewarded her for this.
I was walking down a a flight of wet metal steps when I my left foot slipped about 6 steps from the bottom. Everything went into slo-mo and I could hear my inner voice saying “Well this is it, what a way to go smashing your cranium into metal steps”. However I just landed at the bottom directly on my right leg (got a bit of a psrain).
While it probably wouldn’t have been a fatal accident, I definitely had the ‘It’s been a good life’ feeling going.
Closest wasn’t that freaky for me at the time, because I wasn’t that aware of it - but I’m sure it scarred my parents for life.
When I was 8 I caught chicken pox from my older sister. My parents gave me aspirin. Oops. Bad. Very bad. I developed Reye’s Syndrome (description of the disease: http://health.yahoo.com/health/encyclopedia/001565/0.html ). I don’t remember much - just being up in the middle of the night and sneaking water from the tap in my parent’s bathroom, because I was dying of thirst, and nothing would stay down. I also remember the lights shining out of the doctor’s office that night when my parents drove me over. I was incredibly blessed to have a great pediatrician - at the time, not many people knew about Reye’s Syndrome. They got me into the hospital, and I was very very lucky. Some things stick with me from that time - playing crazy 8’s with my dad in the hospital, vomiting on the bunny I got for Easter (it had a peach/pink dress - these things stick with you!), having the IV in my arm pull out and blood all over the place, and after getting out of the hospital not being allowed to have protein.
I was very very lucky to survive - when doctors read my medical history, they say that they have never met someone who had had Reye’s. Guess I beat the odds.
Susan
I’ve had two episodes of anaphylaxis, one from a bee-sting when I was about 6, one from uncertain causes when I was about 25. I didn’t have any “this is it” thoughts or feelings, but I sure remember the distinctive, hot feeling of the adrenaline hitting my veins and the bliss of being able to breathe and no longer wondering if I wouldn’t be able to draw the next breath. Of the two, the first episode was more dramatic in onset and severity and if my father hadn’t been a physician, and at home, and in possession of adrenaline and syringe at the time, then I would almost certainly have died.
I can think of two occassions that came damn close to killing me. The first time, I was maybe 13 or 14. I was riding my bike to the store and I was hauling down the street at maybe 15 or 20 MPH, when I took the turn into the strip entrance at speed. What I didn’t see was the chain hung across the unused drive entrance, which was right next to the main entrance. This chain was dark, almost black, with rust, there were no brightly-colored ribbons or anything else that would be required on such an obstacle today, and it was virtually unnoticeable. It ripped me off my bike and slammed me to the ground, knocking the wind out of me. My memory of the aftermath is a bit fuzzy, but I can only conclude that it caught me on the chest, since if it had got me by the throat at that speed, I’d surely be dead now.
The other time was sheer stupidity on my part when I was in my early 20s. I was laying on my bed, looking at a new disposable butane lighter I’d just bought. Those little warning labels they stick on them always annoyed me, and I’d always have to remove them. I’d played with various methods of removing them without leaving behind any of the sticky adhesive, and had found that certain solvents worked admirably. Unfortunately on this day, I had none. I had also discovered that warming the labels would make the easier to remove, and I had in the past used another lighter to wave a flame over the label until it it was warm enough to peel off successfully. At this point, you can probably see where this is headed, but stupidly, I didn’t. I proceeded to employ the above mentioned heating method, only my technique must have been off that day, because I created a hot spot on the lighter I was attempting to de-label, seriously weakening the plastic at that point. Not even a second after I’d extinguished the flame, the weak spot gave way, and the entire lighter emptied its gas directly into my face almost instantaneously. I shudder to think what would have been the outcome if I’d kept that flame lit that one more second…
And no, I never did that again. Ever.
Twice: when I was in high school, my friends and I thought it would be a good idea to hang around in a house that was being built. The foundation was there and the frame, but there was a gap between the foundation and the house, and 7 feet deep, with rebar jutting out.
I forgot about the gap and blithely stepped over the edge. Somehow, my reflexes kicked in and I grabbed the edge, then pulled myself up. If I hadn’t, I have been impaled on the rebar all the way at the bottom, and my friends would have had to call 911 as I bled to death. That was one of my 9 lives.
Yesterday, I was driving through the Poconos on 81N during a freak blizzard. I hit a patch of ice and totally lost controll of my car. As I saw it, I had 2 choices: go off the road to the left, into a ravine, or hit the mountain on my right. I chose the mountain. The mountain was heavily snowed over, so I hit it and slid, then turned into the slide, did a 180, and landed, gently as you please, in the right lane, unscathed. That was sheer luck, that no one was anywhere near me during the fishtailing and the bouncing off the mountain, or I’d have been dead.
Whew.
When I was twelve I had a piece of rock crumble out from under me as I stood at an overhang looking over a cliff about 150 feet high. When it broke I slid down the slope a little way and managed to grab a root or some other piece of vegetation. It took my brother and father about 15 minutes to figure out how to get to me safely, but they did. That would probably be the closest I’ve come. I’m still a little jittery about heights.
I almost fell off the Mist Trail, which leads to Vernal Falls in Yosemite Park. The path was steep irregular steps with no railing. There was loose sand on the steps, and, during the descent, my foot went out from under me. I saw the chasm in front of me, hundreds of metres deep, with foaming water and gigantic jagged boulders at the bottom. But… I only slid down a couple of steps, caught my balance, and even remained standing.
If there are such things as guardian angels, they were watching out for me that day.
As a cop, I look for chances to face death whenever possible (What can I say? I’m an adrenaline junkie!). There was one particular time that leaps to mind, though . . .
In 1986 I was a reserve police officer at the department where I know work full-time. There was a major earthquake off of Alaska and we were notified that they believed a tsunami was coming our way.
We evacuated the city, then the Chief asked for volunteers to stay in town (to prevent looting and such). Being single at the time, I volunteered and manned the dispatch office. Then I was told that a 50-foot wave had wiped out a town north of us (my city is about 2 miles wide and has a maximum elevation of 33 feet above sea level, so a 50-foot wave would wipe it off the map). So I sat alone in dispatch, wondering if it would hurt when the motel across the street came through the front wall.
In the end, a wave of about 3 feet washed up on the beach.
It didn’t turn out to be a real brush with death, but at the time I was sure I was going to die.
Working alone in my former job at a textile plant, disconnecting weaving looms to be exchanged for a newer model. Trip the circuit breaker, check the voltage, cut the power cables, trip the breaker, check the voltage, cut the wires, trip the breaker, cut the wires… oops, didn’t check the voltage and cut off the wrong breaker. Took 480V AC across the chest. Couldn’t let go. Then the current blew me away, or I fell, or something, and hit the floor like a sack of potatos.
I’ve always wondered about electro-shock therapy after that, because for the next few days, I felt so incredibly calm and lucid. My ability to think and focus on anything seemed greatly improved. I never told anyone at work 'cause I was too embarrassed by my stupidity. I tell ya, when that juice gets a grip on you, and you know it’s bad, and you’re commanding your fingers to let go, and they aren’t listening, your entire body feels like a massive leg cramp… c’est la vie, no?
A few years ago. I was a devoted (and still am) motorcylist travelling home from work. Late at night on a November evening when a most intelligent man in a gold BMW pulled out of a local pub car park in front of me.
Clipped my back wheel and sent me headlong towards a tree that was happily surrounded by big iron spikes to protect it from deer and other wildlife.
I got off, in a big way I got off. Broken arm but not a broken head.
That is the closest I came, And as close as I want to come. But I still remember heading at that tree and thinking:
‘Sh$t! Well, this is it!’
Nice ‘last words’ they would have been.
I was about 8 years old, and stuck a bobby pin in an electrical socket. The only thing I really remember about it is a lot of sparks. It was pretty cool though, since I got a police car, fire truck, and an ambulance! I didn’t get to ride any of them though…
Mine was when I nearly drowned in a swimming pool when I was ten, another was when I was 16 when I nearly got ran over by a Bus, which somebody, fooling around, pushed me into.
Lightnin’,
Sorry you almost died, but that was a thrilling read :).
BTW,
After reading the stories here, I think I’m going to minimize driving as much as I can.
Twice.
First: I was washed off the jetty by a freak wave at an ocean port. Spent ten minutes being battered against the rocks and being dragged further out to sea before a fisherman at the very end of the jetty spotted me and got lucky with a quick grab.
Second: Tension pneumothorax, compressing my heart. Ambulance ride, ten hours of emergency surgery, two days in ICU, another few days in recovery. Part of my left lung was removed in the operation. Not fun.
All of this before the age of 20. No comparable incidents in the last 13 years. Really affected my worldview.
First closest: Car accident. Seventh grade. Ford Taurus (us) was broadsided by an old sports car that had just been clocked at 110 mph. Car spun six times, skidded off the road, knocked down a tree at the side of the road, and caught fire. I was sitting in the passenger seat, which was basically where we got hit. Windshield and passenger-side windows were shattered. Car door bent in over my lap. Airbags went off. Dad and I walked away (well, I limped away on crutches because my leg got sliced open, but I’m sure as hell not gonna complain.) EMT said that it looked life if I hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt, I probably would have died.
Of course, in retrospect I wonder how that makes sense - to tell a traumatized young girl that if she’d been doing what she often did, she’d be dead?
I’ve come close twice. The first time was when I was 9. I was visiting my father in Ghana (west Africa) and caught something very nasty. I was delerious for two weeks. The other time was four years ago when I was driving in Manchester (UK) and it was raining. I was wanting to turn right and a car tried to under-take me but instead knocked me into the oncoming traffic - in this case a big 4WD vehicle. I can personally attest that time seems to go very slowly as you’re heading to your doom. I was cut out of my car. Fortunately nothing was broken.