How many times have you almost died?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

Ooooooh, that one. Well before my time, but I have heard and read stories…

Closest I remember coming to shuffling spectacularly off this mortal coil was crossing the street (with the light) in DC after a night of drinking, and a car comes whipping around the corner trying to get out of an altercation at another bar to which the police had been summoned.

Ended up with my knees kissing the bumper and my hands on the hood, staring straight into the driver’s eyes. He had an expression like I had no excuse whatsoever to exist.

Fuckin’ hate that guy, whoever he is.

42

4/22/17; ADD: (as a direct result caused by the 2/16/17 Acute kidney Failure occasioned by cumulative consumption of prescribed morphine consumed as prescribed)

Pulse 37.1. That, as with the 1996 hemorrhage, results in “vegatative state”. At least is was not presistent.
Held and bullied/threatened for 7 days on Psych Hold (a truly charming Act (CA 1550) with equally charming implementation at the hands of UofC)

I laid there for 7 days offering relevant instruction on political History of the European invasion of CA, suicide, Habeas Corpus, and spouting “reasonable determination of the existence of an actionable plan to harm self or others”.
I had the nursing staff bring their snacks into the run to offer chats, support.
Absolutely embarrassing for UCD.

Yes, it took about 10-15 minutes to spring myself from the trap in 2005 - by appearing before a Superior Court Judge and destroying the MD’s Petition (overt treachery).

I warned UCD they would lose; they chose to bludgeon/hound me into “confessing” that I require psych “Assistance”.
Yeah, THAT is going to work.
As a parting shot, the browbeat my poor (trauma-stricken) roomie into searching/destroying existing meds supplies - including current Fentanyl Patch (trans-dermal). Fentanyl is a nasty drug; I cannot imagine extracting it from the patch without destroying it.
NO, I do NOT want instruction, thank you.

43

Once. But I came very close to death. I ruptured my aorta in a car accident and had to be Medi-Vac’d to a hospital 60+ miles away. I suffered a spinal cord injury as a result of the emergency surgery to save my life. But I maaaaaade it! :sunglasses:

44

Fell off a scooter at age seven and suffered a major concussion.

Banged the back of my head on a short wooden fence at school while playing keep-away on icy asphalt. I was twelve. Another major concussion.

Had my blood pressure spike after delivering a breech (buttocks first with his feet at his head).

Hemoraged after delivering a 10lb2oz baby with a piece of his placenta torn off and retained. Took about six units to get me straightened out

Car and bike accidents, stupidity in small boats, hand to hand disrupts with my ex and, oh yeah, coming back from the store to find my very loaded father waving an equally loaded .38. I don’t think he was after me, particularly, he was just clearing out the party that was
Going on. He just happened to be in the living room doorway when I came in the back door and I was in a direct line of fire. I turned and ran. Went across to the gas station and called the cops. They came and removed the gun but left dad at home. I guess a couple of the partyiers stayed because about an hour later someone showed up at the gas station and said he’d cleaned out the rest of them with a butcher knife. I didn’t go home for a week or so. I was sixteen.

It’s been an interesting life, so far!

45

My older brother slept on one bed and my younger brother and I slept in bunk beds. I was on the top. Older brother was reading by candle light, with the candle propped up on his tennis shoe. I woke up in the middle of the night coughing and my eyes hurting. The light was so bright I couldn’t stand to look at it until after I went and got some water. The fire was spreading a not too far from his bed and sheets. The carpet and plywood subflooring had a good 30 inch hole.

We put it out with water and my father woke up when he heard my brother say “Don’t tell Dad.”

My father was quite abusive and would throw us around the room, often with us hitting the wall, furniture or floor head first. I’ve talked to people who are involved with child abuse cases and they said that’s fairly common for (usually) father who kill their kids. My mother was certainly afraid he would kill one of us one day. The time he had the gun out was particularly scary. I completely froze and was unable to think, act, or move. I know other people who go through experiences like that and either they default to fear, but some to overboard with reckless behavior since they figure nothing could harm them.

A couple of close calls on motorcycles at freeway speeds, including a female driver following her husband/boyfriends bike. He overtook me in my lane and she followed right through where I would be had I not noticed and swerved out of the lane.

46

I murdered my twin sibling in utero. It was touch and go there for a while.

47

Ah, come on - a “nasty injury” is not ANYWHERE close to “immanent death”.

I have 3 or four closure scars on skull (heavy skull, hard surfaces, rambunctious boy - jumped off porch, found rock at age two).
Four thoracic/abdominal surgical scars.

Traumatic scare on Boy Scout tower - acrophobia to this day, 50+ years later.

Want the Entire, Unabridged Litany? Too bad - much too subduing to contemplate.

Aren’t we supposed to wait until we’re 70 before competing on medical/healthcare woes?

48

Once, I guess, but it wasn’t nearly as exciting as some of the previous posts. When I was six I had my tonsils and adenoids removed and I hemmorhaged big time. I don’t recall all the details, I remember being very scared. In hindsight, I recall seeing the look on my dad’s face at one point and thinking he was scared too, but other than that one moment he and my mom ever let on.

49

Twice – Spring break in college, I almost drowned off South Padre Island while swimming and drinking at the same time (caught in a riptide). I was missing from my friends for about an hour, and by the time I dragged myself back to their spot on the beach (the tide had pulled me about a mile down the beach) they were already discussing which one of them would have to tell my parents I had drowned.

Second time – in the Navy, an at sea collision. Middle of the night on a surfaced submarine, wasting time because we were early to our expected arrival at Bahrain. Puttering around in the Persian Gulf, with inexperienced (and poorly skilled) officers on watch, they dithered upon sighting an approaching Turkish freighter until it ran over the submarine (subs are hard to see on the surface, especially at night). We were locked together for about an hour, metal to metal, until we finally ripped ourselves free – somehow no one was badly hurt, and both vessels could limp into port. We spent a month in Bahrain for repairs. But if it had gone slightly differently, and the freighter had been holed and started to sink with us still stuck to it, then it’s very possible we would have all died.

50

I had a bad case of malaria when I lived in Africa, even though I was taking prophylactic antibiotics. High fever, chills, lethargy for a couple of weeks.

Also in Africa, I went swimming in the ocean in an area with strong currents. In what seemed like the blink of an eye I was a lot farther from the shore than I should have been. I slowly worked my way back to shore.

51

This past winter, in the middle of the night, our carbon monoxide detector went off, ultimately saving my husband and me. Long story short, our 20 year old furnace had a crack in the pipe and was exhausting into our basement instead of the outside. The Duke Energy guy said the reading in the basement was off the charts and the main level where we sleep was “incompatible with life.” :eek:

Gas worker also told us a story of an older lady who didn’t have a carbon monoxide detector because she probably didn’t think she needed one, not having natural gas service. Even her car was a hybrid. One day, she pulled into the attached garage and forgot to turn off her engine. Being electric, it was so quiet that she probably didn’t realize it. In the middle of the night, the battery ran out…and the car helpfully switched over to gas.

They found her the next afternoon, dead.

Get carbon monoxide detectors, people!

52

I just recently got to add to my list of “Yeah, I coulda died there” moments. Yay.

A couple weeks ago, our daycrew had prepped the landing gear on one of our S-92 helicopters (photo for reference & scale; I don’t work on the RTAF S-92s) for an inspection. Every 24 months, we have to jack the aircraft completely off the ground, and remove/inspect/reinstall the hinge pins that the landing gear struts pivot on. To do this, the hydraulic actuators that extend and retract the landing gear (and, crucially, keep the landing gear down and locked while it’s supporting the aircraft on the ground) have to be partially removed as well. What they **didn’t **tell those of us on nightcrew was that they had almost completely removed the bolts that secure the landing gear actuators to the landing gear struts, *and *didn’t put jacks under the aircraft to support the weight. We found out when we got under the aircraft to continue preparations to jack the aircraft for the inspection, and one of our crew happened to look up and see the bolt almost completely removed. Once we got jacks under the aircraft and recovered from the shock of the discovery, we determined that all three landing gear were being restrained from collapse by approximately 1/16" of the bolt’s threads.

Needless to say, the last couple weeks at work have been tough; all trust between the shifts was destroyed that night.

53

I once had a massive uterine hemorrhage at work. If it had happened when I was home alone, I would have bled to death. Fortunately, someone at work rushed me to the hospital.

54

This past January, I had a heart attack at the age of 46. Fortunately, I was at work when it happened - I’m an RN in the med/surg unit of a hospital.

I had actually started having chest pain before I left the house. Not knowing what it was, I ignored it and went to work. I mentioned to maybe one or two people that I wasn’t feeling well, but I soldiered on - no nurse wants to shirk his duties or leave his co-workers in the lurch.

Apparently I looked even worse than I felt - pale, diaphoretic, the whole nine. Someone had the wisdom to summon the charge nurse, who immediately hustled me down to the ER over my protests. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. Despite the stabbing, crushing, burning pain in my chest I truly don’t think it ever crossed my mind I was having a heart attack. I mean, who expects that at the age of 46, when you’ve been perfectly healthy your whole life? Nurses really do make the worst patients.

In the ER they did an EKG, which showed I was in a full-blown STEMI. After that, everything was a whirlwind as doctors and nurses swarmed around me doing I-don’t-even-know-what. Next thing I knew, I was rushed into the cath lab, where a catheter was inserted into the right side of my groin and threaded up to my heart, where a stent was placed.

Turns out my right coronary artery was 90% blocked, and I was minutes, if not seconds, away from dying. As the cardiologist put it, “Death was knocking, but we didn’t open the door.”

If I hadn’t been at work that night, I surely would have died. Like I said, it didn’t occur to me I was having a heart attack; I assumed that whatever it was would pass. I wouldn’t have gone to the hospital or called 911; I probably would have just gone to bed and never woken up.

55

(Bold mine.)

Oh, I have got to hear the story of how you fell off a cliff while swordfighting.

My contributions:

Nearly drowned in a swimming pool when I was 7 or so.
Fell out of a tree and hit my head on concrete when I was 10 or so. (“So that’s what happened!”)
Suffered a grand mal seizure and briefly stopped breathing, at the age of 26.

56

Sure. Which time?

:smiley:

57

Okay, apologies for the cheeky reply earlier. It was in the wee hours, and I was too sleepy for storytelling. And, full disclosure, the swords in question were padded “boffer” swords.

That said, I actually do have two experiences that the description could apply to; it’s just that in the more entertaining story, the “cliff” was more of a low bluff, and while the fall was potentially dangerous, it wasn’t really all that far. I’ll share both, anyway.

Some years back, I was a dastardly villain. Naturally, I was soon beset by crusading do-gooders bent on kicking my usurping ass to the curb, restoring the “rightful king”, yada yada. Fortunately, they were using padded weapons, because this was a LARP. Unfortunately, due to some confusion involving a basselope and an extra doppelganger, I ended up facing a dozen of them at once, rather than only the six I was supposed to fight.

I led them on a merry chase, using the terrain against them, escaping, popping up unexpectedly, and being as generally nyeh-heh-heh as possible. However, they eventually cornered me; I had a steep drop behind me, which ran off into a sheer drop farther down. They, however, couldn’t see it through the tall grass and other foliage, so they were still pressing me hard. I had a sword in each hand, fending off four attackers, and I decided it was time for a dramatic death scene.

Well, I got more drama than I bargained for, because as I shifted my rear foot back to take a knee, it caught in the hem of my cloak, which had gotten snagged on some branches. I was already shaky on my feet from fatigue, and the sudden tug at my neck and an entangled foot were enough for me to trip and fall backwards. I rolled about ten feet down a really steep slope, then off the edge into a straight drop of another nine or ten feet. I had no idea which way was up, but by chance, I rotated upright at the last moment and landed with my feet under me. Legs flexed, my butt bounced off the ground, and by the time my shocked friends reached the edge and looked down, I was standing, waving to indicate that I was okay.

So, it was a dumb accident that could have left me with my neck broken or my skull smashed on a rock. (The other players’ account was very different–what they saw was the guy who’d been taunting and eluding them fling himself off the precipice with a swirl of his cloak, only to land on his feet and raise his sword to them in challenge. I liked their version much better than mine, which involved a bruised tailbone and very sore legs and feet.)
The other time was similar, but with a higher cliff, more pain, and (oddly) less drama. I was one of the good guys that time, fighting one-on-one against a golem. (Give me a break, it was at 9,000 feet–I didn’t have the wind to take on a horde up there.) The fight had taken us pretty close to the edge of a serious drop, but we were being careful (we thought) to stay far enough away from the lip. I could have fallen completely flat, straight toward the edge, and I would have barely been able to reach it with the tip of my sword. Neither of us knew, however, that the edge had been seriously undercut by recent storms. It crumbled under me, and I was suddenly sliding, along with quite a lot of dirt and rock. It was about a 45’ drop, and probably the only thing that saved me was that, in trying to find something to hold onto, I managed to swing myself against the rock face before I slid into open air, and I stayed in contact with it most of the way down. It was too steep for me to stop myself, but it was also rough, and I kept hitting rock outcroppings and cracks that slowed me down. I still hit the ground hard enough that I grayed out for a moment.

When my eyes cleared, I found myself lying in a pile of rubble, feeling like every bruise and abrasion I’d had in my life had come back for an encore. Then a few more joined the party as I realized that more rocks could come down at any time, and I scrabbled my way clear. I was pissing blood and almost too sore to move the next day, but somehow managed to not break any bones.

These days, I make sure my fights all take place in nice, flat, low places. The worst I have to worry about here is falling on a cactus. (And no, despite my obvious accident-proneness, I have not actually fallen on a cactus. :p)

58

Awesome.

59

Dozens and dozens and dozens.

More than 30 before I got to eight grade? Maybe another 30 before I graduated HS? At least 30 in college (many were driving related. I started to have some nick-names starting around then).
There were Many after college… some from bad jobs (never work in collections, never do your own Repos).

60

What I’ve learned from this thread:

  1. Learn to swim.

  2. Stay cozy, away from any wilderness.
    So, fellow death-defiers, did the experience change your life at all?

I’ve cheated the reaper a few times, and after one adventure (hypothermia – unconscious on a frozen lake), I remember saying to a rescuer: “I came so close to death, I feel like I should either improve my life, or live it to the fullest. But I just want to have pizza and watch TV like any Sunday night.”