Reading these stories is truly riveting. Thanks for a great thread.
As a matter of fact, I’ve been keeping track of my brushes with death:
[ul][li]At a very young age, I snooped around under the sink, found a bottle of amber liquid, and took a swig. The doc says I’m the only kid he ever heard of who drank Chlordane and survived.[/li][li]Flipped my Chevy Citation while going 80mph on a country road. Quite a mess.[/li][li]Wrecked my bicycle and hit my head (no helmet). My brother was there to pick me up off the road, and he says I was a babbling idiot for the rest of the day. I still have amnesia and do not recall the event at all (just waking up to find wicked scars and a terrible headache).[/li][li]Fell in the pool before I learned how to swim. No adults or anyone around - just me. I panicked, did the normal thrashing, and sank. Looked up and realized that the surface was only 3" above my head when I stood up. Thank GOD I had the reasoning to jump up and down until I got back to the side. Though natural tendancy is to bob into deeper water, thankfully I wasn’t too far from the side.[/li][li]Also was pushed into the lake before I knew how to swim, but that was in a crowd of people so someone pulled me out - guess it didn’t really count.[/li][li]Fourth grade science lab, talking about what are good conductors and bad conductors. Armed us kids with a 1.5v battery, light, and two wires to test things that would conduct the electricity and what wouldn’t. Mad that the light wasn’t bright enough, I stuck the wires in the electrical socket.[/li][li]Chem lab, working with glass tubing, forced it the wrong way. Several witnesses swear I put that broken glass tube right through my jugular. Guess they were wrong.[/li][*]Down with some sort of bronchial infection, I remember the point at which I realized that the air I was able to effectively breathe was less than what I needed. It’s really true: when you can’t breathe, nothing else matters.[/ul] Guess I haven’t used up my 9 lives quite yet.
I was 18 at the time, and driving my parent’s car. Flying down a small country road at 70 mph. Unfortuneately it had just rained.
While I’m playing with the radio I drift into the left lane. I notice a car headed directly towards me, and panic. I lock up the brakes, and attempt to swerved into my own lane. The car goes into a slide. It’s then that I notice the telephone pole. I remember my Drivers- Ed classes, especially those movies on head on collisions.
I turn the wheel more to the right, and realize, " Hey, I’m not wearing a seat belt. I’m going to Die ". At this point everything goes Super SloMo. I notice the tree approximately 10 feet to the right of the pole. Now I have a telephone pole, and a tree to hit, you just don’t get choices like that normally.
Suddenly the drivers side front tire blows. This forces the car to fish tail worse. The rear bumper hits the phone pole, changeing the trajectory. Unbelieveably, the car makes an arc around both the tree and the telephone pole, while digging a trench in the some family’s yard .At last the car comes to a stop. There is No rear bumper on the car. It rests in the yard. The blown tire is mostly gone, it was the rim which dug the trench.
I fall out of the car, as the home’s owner comes out to see what is going on. I babble incoherently about missing the tree and the pole. He only laughs and says if he knew I was coming he would have opened the basement door. They had those kind of doors you see on old farmhouses, that are built flush with the lawn. As I babble stupidly, I notice the last thing I missed hitting.
Their gas meter, I must have missed it by a good couple of feet.
I now have to call my parents. I realize that death might have been the easier choice. Their new car is badly damaged,and looks loverly inside. I happened to have 2 bushels of Roma Tomatoes in the back seat. So, the interior looks like some kind of experiment featuring gorillas and whiskey gone terribly wrong.
They took it well, right up to the point where they asked me to move out.
I don’t really remember this, but my mom tells me it about once every 6 months.
When I was about two, my parents, brother and I were staying at a hotel while we were on vacation. My mom took me down to the pool for a swim in the kiddie pool. It was all well and good until we were leaving the pool area which forced us to walk by the big pool.
It was designed by some idiot who thought it would be a good idea to have squares sticking out at each of the corners of the pool. (Does that make sense? should I draw a picture?)
Anyway, my mom didn’t realize the pool was designed that way and I plopped right into the deep end.
She dove in and tried to push me out, but there was nothing for her to push off from…she eventually got me out only to find a woman sitting on a chair, looking at us from behind a magazine. Can you believe that? I always get so mad when I hear that story. I mean, I was a really cute kid (still am) anyone would have wanted to help save a cute two year old kid who was drowning, right???:mad:
I was traversing a 35-40 degree slope without being tied in to a rope, slipped on the ice (no crampons), and slid about 50 meters, unable to arrest myself (no ice ax), and slid right off a cliff edge, to land on the trunk of a large tree that was growing out of the side of the cliff face, about three meters below the edge. That tree was the only feature between the cliff edge and the rocks below (WAY below) - had I not hit it, it would have been all over.
At age 2 grandparents found me face down in a fish pond.
At age 13 the car that my grandfather and I were in was hit by a panel truck traveling over 60 MPH. The front of the truck hit on my side, spun the car around throwing me out (no seat belts in those days) and then hit my side again bending the door double. My grandfather was killed and I was in hospital only a couple of days.
At age 19 a bunch of us were hiking. We came to the bottom of a cliff and climbed up it. At the top, the guy in front of me said he didn’t know how to make it up the last few feet. I told him to grab a tree and swing out, over and up. He did it, no problem. I swung out and the limb I was holding broke off. I fell backwards about 30 feet. Luckily there was a slope at the bottom, so I didn’t hit flat solid ground. Had cut on head that needed one stitch.
At age 50 something. Foggy night, missed stop sign and hit bank head on. Thank God, this time I had a seat belt. The back of the car went almost straight up and I remember hanging there with my nose just inches from the windshield I would have gone thru.
Shortly afterwards. Doctor sent me to have MRI because my back bothered me. When the results came back he said “Your back will be OK, but you’ve got another problem”. I had an aneurysm of the aorta.
While I was recovering from the operation, Conway Twitty died from the same thing and I’m sure I would have if my back wasn’t giving me trouble.
A couple of years later. I went to the hospital not feeling good. I had a heart attack that night. I highly recommend that if you are going to have one, do it in a hospital.
i was taking a path train from manhattan to hoboken a few weeks ago and we were somewhere under the hudson when all of a sudden the train stopped. and trains stop a lot. but usually when they do, their engines don’t shut off. in an instant it was dead quiet. and we passengers were all just sitting around, waiting. then a light went out.
and i wasn’t all that scared, just more worried that something had happened, like september 11th. and some people are cracking jokes, we’re all just sort of waiting for a few minutes. i’m sitting very near the end of the car when the door opens and a guy comes in. and as he enters, so does smoke.
and in an instant everyone in the car was up and jetting to the other end of the car. i heard something about a fire. and i was just thinking in my head, ‘this isn’t what i wanted.’
it turned out to be a track fire that was close enough to bring us smoke but far enough away that it wasn’t an immediate threat. and so soon after that we started moving again. i was never so happy to get off a train in my life.
Back when I stilled lived in Hollywoood Fla, I suded to walk on the broadwalk along the beach , thats what it’s called not the boardwalk but the broadwalk. I noticed a guy pass by me a couple times wearing jeans t shirt and construction boots jogging. He made eye contact with me and smiled. I smiled back. He was cute, blond and bearded. Later I am cutting through a wooded brushy area to where my car is parked. Alll of a sudden the guy with the construction boots leaps out of the woods and grabs my arm. The guys looks angry and my arm is slimey with suntan lotion and I am able to twist away and run like mad for my car and luckily had my keys ready and got inside quickly. No he didn’t chase after me, but I was very shaken and confused as to his intentions. FF a few days later and its the Miami Gran Prix and the news is flashing the picture of a girl who has disappeared while working at the race. A few more days and they have a suspect picture. Yeah its the blonde bearded guy in the construction boots! Only he was on a cross country kidnapping and killing spree by then which ended in a shoot out and his death somewhere in the the midwest. His name was Chris something and he had a girl captive with him that he used to lure other girls. Then he killed them. I feel I was very lucky I was not one of his victims.
My stories sound a little lame after all of yours guys, but hey, it scared the hell out of me!
First, I was maybe 15, I was in the South West of France. My girlfriend and I decided to go for a swim in the river. We find out that there is a current on one side that acts like a slide, and gets you right on the other side a little lower. It is very much fun as we get flat on our backs and just let the flow carry us over pretty fast. Until… my girlfriend goes and gets a little deported to her right and here is a giant whirlpool make of different currents. (It really looked like flushing the toilet!). She gets swiped away, and I go after her…
Well she gets off as I grab her arm and pull her, and here I am now in the whirlpool… It sucks me under pretty hard… Then I realize… that I can stand up… there was a bank made of gravel and rocks, and I just stood up!
But you know what, I will never never make “fun” of people drowning in 4 feet of water, because I swear it can happen to any of us!
Second, I must have been 16 or 17, hydroplanning in a car with a friend driving. The car was just spinning out of control, around and around again… until I see the car going right towards trees… By the mean time we blow all four tires hitting the middle cement sidewalks bouncing on each side (pinball effect)…It happened very fast but, as some said, I saw it all in SlowMo… I can see the trees get closer and closer, and all I could think about is “Is the seat belt going to take the impact?”. My friend was yelling swears and half crying and I just yelled back at him, “RELAX!” as I thought we were going to get pretty injured but kept an unbelievable cool… I never thought I’d die tho…
The car came to a gentle stop maybe 2 feet away from the trees.
I was in a very depressed way back during the second semester of my freshman year at college, & I neglected my body, allowing myself to develop a decibitus ulcer (a bed sore, basically) on back of my right thigh. It was, I think, a sort of passive suicide attempt.
I have no sensation in the area because of my Spina Bifida, so there was no pain - unfortunately. If there had been, it wouldn’t have taken my mother catching a glimpse of it to get me to the emergency room. The only reason she had a chance to see it was because I’d come home from the dorm for winter break.
The injury had become severely infected by that time - I’d been sick with a fever & a cough for a week. I went into the hospital & had surgery to repair it, but the infection was severe & stubborn. I remained in the hospital for one month: I had a fever of 101 degrees or higher (more like 103, 104) every day for that month. About a third of my hair fell out.
It was explained to me, after I recovered, that the doctors had told my folks that it was a good thing they’d brought me in when they did: If I’d have gone without treatment for another couple of weeks, I certainly could have died.
I’ve never been really close to death, but at age 12 I thought I was going to die.
I’d fallen off the handlebars of a friend’s bike and managed to land on my chest and face. It knocked the wind out of me, and briefly paralysed my diaphragm(?), or whatever muscles I used to inhale. I still clearly remember thinking, after trying and failing to draw a breath several times, “I’m gonna die now.”
A year ago. I was making my 8th skydive, third freefall. I was unstable as a exited the aircraft. The dive plan (I was a student skydiver at the time) called for me to pull my ripcord at 5 seconds, which I did. Unfortunately, I was on my back at the time. I had what is called a “step through,” where I tumbled through the suspension lines of my deploying parachute. I has hanging upside down from a (thank god) working parachute, with one ankle wrapped up in the suspension lines and both of my arms wrapped up in the risers, the nylon webbing that connects the parachute to the harness. Fortunately I was able to wiggle out and land the parachute. Othewise I would have landed solidly on my head, which probably would have been fatal. If that parachute had malfunctioned during opening, the risers wrapped around my arms would have prevented me from deploying the reserve parachute. I took three weeks off, came back, and retried the jump. 65 skydives later, here I am
About 6 months ago. I was driving back from a great day of skydiving. It was after dark and I had left the tollway to avoid paying a ridiculous toll. I was doing about 50 mph on the inside lane of a 4-lane divided highway when I saw somebody dart out in front of me. I had barely swerved and hadn’t even got my foot onto the brake pedal when I hit him. He came through the windshield right in front me before bouncing back out into the street. My face was cut up, my knuckles were shredded, my mouth was full of glass, and I was standing in the street on the phone with 911, trying not to freak out. Turns out that the guy was way drunk, at .24 BAC, and had crossed the oncoming lanes of traffic, climbed the median, and ran out in front of me. He lived, somehow, and I lived, so that’s all that really matters. The scary part is that I usually do about 75 through there, and that night I had just happened to catch a stop light that I was accelerating away from when the accident happened. If I had been going full speed…
It was a couple of years back, when I was in school.
Just gotten home after a tiring day at school. After getting into the apartment, the first thing I did was to sleep on the sofa. Then I realise it was hot and stuffy - my mother had the habit of closing all the windows when she went off to work.
Well, as if I care. Dreamlands beckon me and I am slipping there when some sixth sense, or paranonia woke me up and I proceed to the kitchen to check the stove
As a teenager, out in a pub with my good friend, accepted a ride home from another patron, of her acquaintance.
In a two seater car, me on my friends lap, a Karman Ghia, I think, no engine in the front, anyway.
One moment the radio was playing a little too loudly, it was a little crowded, I was trying to get comfortable. I had my chin resting on this tiny dashboard and tiny front window at the same time. Some squirming around, my friend leans across in front of me, and, it happened.
The driver, the acquaintance, failed to see that traffic on the expressway had come to a stop. He didn’t even touch his brakes.
I was the only one conscious after the accident. My friend never regained consciousness, was disconnected from life support two days later and died.
One split second was the difference between my life and my best friends.
30 years have passed since then and these events still have impact for me.
I’m new here & this is my first post. This is a very compelling subject for me. I’ve had guns shoved in my mouth, I’ve been bitten by a rattlesnake. The one I want to tell is as follows.
On April 3rd,2000 I was out barhopping on my old Triumph motorcycle. When I left the last place my bike stalled & I pulled off the road to re-start it. Problem was I was in Cameron LA & I couldn’t get very far off the road because of the deep ditch.
I put her on the stand & leaned to the right to prime the carb &, next thing I knew, I was face down next to her.
I had been hit by a 2000 1 ton Dodge Ram. It took a big chunk of meat out of the back of my knee & twisted my leg around backwards just above the ankle. The bones came out the front of my leg.
The thing is, it didn’t even knock my bike off the kickstand.
If he’d been over four more inches, I would have been UNDER them duallies.
It took 67 staples, assorted stitches, two surgerys, a steel rod & two screws to put me back together.
And,yes I still ride. But these days it’s a new Harley.
I was about 10 years old, being driven by my father to the Western Washington State Fair (“The Puyallup”, for the locals) in his Volvo. The car had just been in for transmission service, we’d had it back about 24 hours. This was quite a few years ago, so the speed limit was 70 on the not-very-busy interconnecting freeway. After a little while the car began making some funny laboring noises and my dad had trouble keeping up. Our speed slowly dropped to 50 or 55 until something in the transmission broke and the (rear) drive wheels locked solid. We whipped around a bit more than 180 degrees until the tires hit the (thankfully) grass median and dug in, propelling us in a series of backwards end-over-end flips with a few twists mixed in. Somewhere along the way the rear window popped out in one piece, to be retrieved later unbroken and still in the rubber surround. The car came to rest on the driver’s side, with me half-sitting half-lying on my dad. I was able to squeeze over the seat backs and out the hole where the back window used to be, but my dad was too big and his seat no longer reclined, so a couple of passers-by helped push the car over on its wheels again so he could get out the working passenger door. By the way, it’s apparently true what they say about Volvos; the structural members through the roof would seem to have kept it from buckling or bending in any meaningful way.
Neither of us was wearing a seat belt.
Neither of us got a scratch.
My (10-year-old) reaction: “Wow, that was better than any rides they have at the fair, Dad.” :smack:
Some years back I sailed regularly. On one particular occasion I was out on the water in a Laser II, a two-man dinghy just over 14’ long. Laser IIs are fun because, like many similar boats, they have a trapeze. This is a wire connecting the head of the mast to the the crewman’s abdomen by way of a rather uncomfortable harness, and it allows said crewman to lie horizontally over the water, standing on the gunnel to keep the boat from heeling.
It keeps the boat from heeling, that is, until a particularly stong gust of wind comes along and the boat capsizes. This is usually not a problem, except that it left me standing vertically on the side of the boat, being pulled forward by the wire. I slid straight between the boat and the sail, into the water, and came up under the sail with that damn wire pulling me the wrong way – up into instead of out from under the sail. My highly buoyant life jacket wasn’t helping the situation much, either.
Staring up at the light filtering through white canvas, cool salt water all around, I felt a certain peace in the world, much like I imagine Ophelia felt in her last moments. Then I panicked.
It took me a moment to get a grip on myself and figure out which way was air.
