It didn't seem dangerous at the time, but...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

What’s the most dangerous thing you have ever done, without realizing how dangerous it was?

One blustery winter day when I was 7 years old, I missed the schoolbus. I couldn’t find the neighbor who was babysitting me anywhere, and I was terrified of waking up her sleeping husband, so I did the only logical thing.

I walked out to the shed, checked the air in my bicycle tires like a responsible cyclist would, and proceeded to bike down interstate 127 in the middle of a screaming blizzard. After about two hours struggling along the icy freeway dodging honking semi trucks, I turned off what I thought was the exit to my school, and ended up very lost and very cold in short order. I did not, of course, want to admit I was lost, so I ended up circling the block several times before I realized I had perhaps misjudged the highway exit I needed.

So I thought I might try to find a telephone to get in touch with Mom. I knocked on a random door and some older gentleman opened up and ushered me into his home. I couldn’t get ahold of Mom, so the guy agreed to drive me to my after-school babysitter’s.

This totally random stranger loaded my bicycle into his trunk, bundled me into his car and drove me to the babysitter’s, but nobody answered. So eventually he ended up just taking me to school. I walked into the principal’s office around 12pm, nearly six hours after I’d missed the bus.

My mother did not find out about my little adventure until she came to pick me up after work, and she nearly had a heart attack.

‘‘But Mom,’’ I insisted, ‘‘I checked the air in my tires!’’

A close second would be summer camp in South Carolina in the 8th grade. We were climbing a mountain as a group–mostly you could get up by hiking, but sometimes you had to use ropes to assist. We got to the top where a bunch of people were hanging out underneath layers of tiny waterfalls.

Me and a couple other kids sort of wandered away from the main area, along the river, which required grabbing onto tree branches overhead and swinging around obstacles in order to avoid falling in. We ended up standing on this giant rock dead center in the river, about 10 feet away from the edge of a massive waterfall sheer drop.

At the time, it never occurred to me how unbelievably tragic that could have turned with just one slip. The counselors never even noticed we were missing, and looking back, I didn’t realize we had gone ‘‘out of bounds’’ at all.
Okay, your turn!

2

Honestly, I would have to say it was all the times that, while intoxicated, I let other intoxicated people drive me around.

When I think of that now, especially in the context of being a parent, I’m appalled.

3

In a similar vein, I worked a shift at a hospital during a snowstorm (such as we have them here in North Carolina) and the roads closed. A 12 hour shiftturned into a 36 hour shift, and I drove home 30 miles, on semi-icy, semi-watery roads, dangerously exhausted. I fell asleep at a stoplight and a * stop sign * before getting back home.

4

When I was 17 years old, I was an exchange student in Germany. I did a lot of stupid things during that time, but the thing that strikes me now as really stupid and quite dangerous occurred during an organised exchange students’ bus trip around the former East Germany. One highlight on the tour was supposed to be our day and night in Berlin. Turns out we were staying in Werder-Havel, about 45-50km southwest of Berlin (head to Potsdam and keep going), in a crappy old former East German hotel.

A group of about 10 of us decided that this was crap, so we planned to catch a bus into Berlin and go clubbing. By 8:30pm the bus hadn’t turned up, so we decided to hitchhike into Berlin. Four of us managed to hitch a ride with a guy who drove us into Berlin, and got lost in some dodgy area. I was sitting in the front passenger seat thinking, “I am going to die”. We finally got to the Ku’Damm by about 11pm and partied for all of about 45 minutes before we were tired and broke. I had (I thought) about DM10 left in my pocket for bus/train fares, but when we got outside the club, it was gone - damn pickpockets.

Somehow, we managed to scam free subway/train/trolley/bus rides all the way from Berlin to Potsdam to Werder, and walked back into the hotel just as our tour director was leaving his room for his morning walk at 7am (yeah, it took us nearly 7 hours to get back). God only knows how we didn’t get caught, let alone end up dead!

5

When I was about six I was walking home from school. It was winter time and I was so cold I started whimpering as I was walking. I was passing an auto garage and one of the men inside heard me crying. He told me to come in the garage and he stood me under one of the large heaters they had on the ceiling. Even though I warmed up I did not want to go back out into the cold. It was really bitter outside.

One of the men convinced another man to drive me home and he did. I was a latch key kid so there was no one home at the time.

Thinking back now it was a really dangerous thing to do. I knew I was never suppose to talk to strangers much less get in a car with them I was just so cold.

I got in big trouble for it too as my parents saw the tire tracks in the snow and asked me who had been to the house and I told them what happened.

I got a spanking and grounded for it. I was mad at them for the longest time for not understanding that I was cold and could barely walk anymore.

Now having kids of my own I know it was just the fear that they reacted to.

6

Aged about six, after watching a James Bond movie in which he slides down a cable between two buildings using an umbrella, me and a buddy decided to recreate the feat. We climbed about twenty feet up a tree in his yard and tied a long piece of electrical cable to the trunk, then climbed up another tree a few dozen yards away and tied the other end a little bit lower. Then I went back up the first tree, hooked an umbrella over the cable, and jumped off the branch.

It was exceedingly lucky for me that the electrical flex immediately stretched under my weight, which meant I was only about ten feet from the ground when the umbrella lost purchase and I fell to the ground. I landed on soft ground and sustained only minor bruising. I didn’t tell my mum!

7

At 3 or 4, I sat with the neighbor’s little girl, rolling a ball back & forth between us, on a golden summer day; when the sun was so warm, pure & beautiful that I recall it fondly until this day.

Then my Dad dragged me back home, paddling me all the way.
Did I neglect to mention that the two of us were sitting in the middle of the street, & had left our respective homes without parental permission?

8

I was the number six guy on a six-man stick exiting a UH-1 at 3,000 feet over a very small LZ at fort Benning. At night. The Colonel exited first, I was last. The number five guy was making his first jump out of Airborne School.

He got confused and went the wrong way, so I followed him. It was obvious he was going to go into the trees. I yelled at him and got him into the proper position to avoid damage. It was at about that moment I notice I was knee-deep in trees myself.

The thing you do not realize about landing in trees it that you are bouncing down from branch to branch at the same time you are bouncing forward from tree to tree. At one point I know I was flat on my back thinking “Gosh, this is going to hurt.”

That is almost the end of the story. I stopped falling about five or six feet off the ground. As nice a way to stop as you could imagine. I popped my quick-releases and gently fell to a rather steep hill and began to roll.

THen I had to cut down the darn tree to recover my canopy.

So much for being the cool experienced jumper.

9

About 13 years after the fact, my older brother mentioned to my mom that “remember that one time when I got home and had a puncture wound in my face from a stick? Well…” Turns out his friend accidentally shot him in the face with a BB gun. Well, the BB was lodged in his skin so he naturally found the most obvious solution to the problem: go into the neighbor’s garage and use his rusty old screwdriver to pry it out. Duh.

Luckily for him, there were no ill effects.

10

I went home with a complete stranger I met in a club in a foreign country without telling any of my friends where I was going. I got into a car with him and his two friends I hadn’t met.
Luckily for me he was a nice guy and nothing bad happened to me. But it was stupid and dangerous and definitely could have ended badly.

11

A few years back (1983?) I was working on a 3600 acre ranch near Boulder, Wyoming. I volunteered for the task of cleaning out the old blacksmith’s shop which had been piled about rib high with 120 years of accumulated junk.

On the third day I reached the floor and a few days later found a wooden box about 18" long, 12" wide and 8" deep. There had originally been something printed on the top and sides in red and black ink, but none of it was legible. The box weighed in around 15 pounds or so, and was securely nailed shut. Not wanting to deal with it at that time I “tossed” it outside into a stack of stuff I intended to sort through later.

As the days wore on, I kept encountering that stupid box. I repeatedly “tossed” it out my way. I repeatedly “tossed” stuff at it. I repeatedly “tossed” stuff on top of it. All of this “tossing” is an important part of the story. Please read on …

After about 2 weeks, I finally had a clear floor throughout the shop, and started the chore of sorting through the junk and separating the restorable tools and implements and returning them to a newly organized and clean shop.

It became apparent to me that I needed to find out what was in that nuisance box to see if it was junk or something that should be kept. So, I “tossed” it into the shop, “tossed” it up on the bench, and proceeded to take a pry bar to the box. After a few minutes, it became apparent that the pry bar was not going to work, so I got chisel and a three pound hammer and started pounding on the box to get it open.

After a few minutes of pounding on the thing, it became apparent that that wasn’t working too well either. So I broke out the grinder and cut through the nails and finally got it open a crack. A white powdery substance began leaking out. Back to the pry bar. A few more minutes found me staring at the prize:

Twenty Two Sticks of Dynamite. Very Old Dynamite.* Very deteriorated Dynamite. With a white powdery substance leaking from and covering the sticks.

Hmmm. Called the sheriff. Deputy walked in, looked, turned pale and ran. Let’s not mince words here. 100 yards in under 5 seconds kinda ran. Pale as a sheet.

I stood there, looking at his dust trail, looking at the Dynamite, looking back at the dust trail, back and forth trying to decide what I should do. After about a minute, I decided to join the deputy and find out what his problem was. He told me. I decided that that part of Wyoming was a little to close to me. I ran.

Bomb squad arrived. Suited up, peered inside through a window. Went to discuss a plan of action. Box was removed, very, very carefully, by two technicians with very long grabber poles and placed (vvvveeerrrryyy cccaaareeeeffffffuuullyyyyy) on a remote controlled motorized wagon.

The plan was to move the Dynamite well out into the pasture (about a quarter mile out into the pasture …) and detonate it with a shot from a rifle.

It didn’t make it that far. The little wagon hit a little bump about 75 feet from where it started. The little wagon tilted a little bit, then rolled just a little bit onto its side. The little box fell just a little bit. About 6 inches. A little hole in the ground ensued.

28’ in diameter. 7’ deep. Concussion knocked everybody down. Even those who were prepared for it. Much debris falling from sky. Two Sheriff’s deputies injured. One required hospitalization for two weeks. Four Sheriff’s vehicles damaged, including the bomb squad’s van. One horse killed outright, another died 2 days later as a result of injuries. Three outbuildings destroyed. Personally, I sustained four minor shrapnel wounds, and couldn’t hear much of anything for a week.

Didn’t need to worry about finishing the clean-up of the blacksmith shop - it fall down go boom too.

Have I ever done something dangerous without knowing it at the time???

I tossed that box, without a care (read: carelessly!), at least twenty times over a two week period, sometimes as far as fifteen feet; not to mention all the stuff I tossed at it and on top of it! I beat on it with a three pound hammer! I took a grinder to the nails! Sparks! Smoking wood! Got the damn thing so hot the wood nearly caught fire!

I have not one clue why I have the ability to share this story with you.

Lucy

*The 74 year old ranch owner later told me that she remembered when her father purchased that case of Dynamite, back when she was 6 years old. About 1903. They had a problem with beavers damming up the irrigation ditches.

12

Holy smokes, Lucy! Your story is some kind of crazy miracle. Glad you lived to tell it!

13

Near as I can figure it, it was just pure dumb luck.

This is probably the only time in my life where what I didn’t know didn’t hurt me. :smiley:

Lucy

14

Reminds me of the end of Rock-A-Bye Bear.

15

I picked up a tiny snake. It was so cute! I think it was a garter snake, but I honestly have no idea.

16

When I was a child my family used to summer vacation on Sanibel Island. It was quite rustic compared to what it must be now. It was the late 1960s. My mom drove us to a park with a little fishing pier and we were enjoying our selves catching the crabs that were scurrying around underneath the little dock.

Mom took off to visit the supermarket and left my brother and me (we were probably 8 and 9 years old). She came back just a couple of minutes later but we were having fun and begged to stay. She said OK and agreed to leave us there and come back for us later.

Almost immediately we realized that we were very thirsty and there was no fresh water around. We were also very, very hot and there was no shade anywhere. We started out walking along the street that we knew that mom would take to pick us up thinking that we’d meet her along the way and hasten our arrival at home but the pavement was too hot and we weren’t wearing shoes.

So, we did the only logical thing we could think of. We grabbed our bucket of crabs and headed down the beach in the direction of the cabin where we were staying. It took us about 4 hours to get there so it must’ve been a couple of miles at least. By that time my mother was frantic and had called the police. She was down at the police station when we arrived at the cabin and my older sister declared that we were in a boat load of trouble.

At the time walking back to the cabin seemed the better option that waiting for mom to arrive but who knows what might’ve happened along the way.

17

I do believe Lucy wins. Yikes!

18

When I was about 12, my parents and sister went to visit my other, recently-married sister in New Jersey. We took a day trip into Manhattan one of the days we were there. We were walking through the throngs of people on the sidewalk when I suddenly realized the rest of my family was nowhere in sight. They had crossed the street at some point but my eyes were focused on the Chrysler Building, and I kept going. I remembered my Girl Scout training and just stopped in my tracks. I knew we’d never find each other if we were both on the move. Sure enough, a few minutes later, my mom found me, and I think her relief at doing so won out over her urge to blast me.

I think about all the ways this story could have ended badly. If my family hadn’t found me and I’d managed to hook up with a police officer, I couldn’t have told him a thing that would have helped reunite me with my family. I did not know the name of the town in NJ where my sister lived, much less the phone number of her apartment.

19

Yeah, I think Lucy has it!

My story - I was 21 years old, skiing in Austria with my 18 year old cousin. We were very cocky - obviously just at that ‘indestructable’ stage. Right at the end of the holiday we got bored of black runs and decided to head up to the top of the mountain for some off-piste action. We went up. And up. And up, through the clouds into a blizzard. At one point we commented on the odd orange flashing lights by each lift. It was about 2pm by the time we got there and there was noone else in sight.

We started the descent over what appeared to be the side of a cliff. I remember going first, trying to turn and immediately sinking up to my chest in snow. My cousin came down and helped me back up, then we skied on until we needed to turn again (about 20 feet) and both sank. We struggled down that mountain like that for about 3 hours, getting colder and more exhausted all the while. I can still remember the relief when we finally reached the horrific black run that we’d only done once. By then it was getting dark and we could hardly move. It took another hour or so to make it to the bottom.

Right at the bottom of the run we saw the sign next to those lights we’d seen on the way up. Roughly translated it read: ‘Off-piste dangerous. High risk of avalanche when light is flashing’.

Still wonder how we (especially me) managed to make it down. I know there were plenty of times when it was either stop or struggle on - but in the days before mobile phones noone knew we were up there. I also wonder how on earth we didn’t start an avalanche and put ourselves and others in danger…

20

IANABomb Squad Technician, but I’ve been somewhat ‘enlightened’ by them, and I’ve got orders to EOD School next August (so I’ve been doing a little pre-reading), so everything I can comment on is just an educated guess:

But, as I understand it, explosives are like fire. Fire has a “triangle” that requires two of three of the following legs: Heat, Fuel, Oxygen. Explosives has: Heat, Shock, Friction.

My guess is that with all of the pounding, throwing, tossing, compession, etc. you had enough of one leg, but miraculously didn’t have enough of the second. It’s not science, but I think it’s an act of whatever flavor of Divine Ice Cream* that kept you from acting in building that second leg.

Thankfully, The Powers That Be didn’t have you whacking on the nails with the end of the blowtorch. Again, IANABST . . . yet, and it’s all an educated guess. But I am thankful you are alive and well! I’ve heard half a dozen similar stories up in North Dakota and Montana.

Tripler
Note*: Divine Ice Cream – 31 flavors of religion, but your favorite flavor doesn’t matter . . . you just recognize there’s an Almighty Soda Jerk doin’ the scoopin’.