Please share your life threatening experiences

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

I have other life threatening stories involving vehicles (both human powered and gasoline powered). I was driving on a snowy highway and hit my brakes (I was 16 and probably a little heavy footed), did a 180 and somehow didn’t go off the highway or get hit by vehicles going both directions. Had to clean out my shorts.

@Joey_P I’m still amazed at this. Watching both those videos - how the hell did he not know (Narrator: He knew)? And, assuming that is a public school bus, how do you allow that dipshit back behind the wheel?

42

In the 1980’s I worked alone in a medical office. A notorious serial rapist broke into the building and raped me at gunpoint. When he asked me for the office safe’s combination and I said I didn’t know it, he told me “You’d better remember it or you’re dead.” I honestly expected his gun to go off at any second. He was later caught and sentenced to 406 years in prison.

43

That’s horrifying. I’m so sorry that happened to you.

44

When I was a young teen (13? 14?) I met up with some other young teen girls from a local BBS for a sleepover at the youngest girl’s house, somewhere in Cleveland. The three of us decided to walk quite far across the city to meet up with a couple adult guys from the BBS, of course without telling the host parent because of course he wouldn’t have let us go.

The way I remember it, the adult guys did not want to rape or kill us (and one of their girlfriends was there) and we ended up calling the host parent to pick us up because it was too damn hot to walk home.

Thank fucking god it worked out the way it did. Makes me shudder to think of how incredibly dumb we were.

45

Mine was more serious than yours, but not nearly as bad as @running_coach’s. I had just finished my first submarine patrol and four of us were going to bike from Charleston to Boston (I was only going half-way because of other obligations). We headed out of Charleston over the Cooper River Bridge. There was a narrow sidewalk, about a foot above the roadbed, along one side of the bridge, that had a low railing and a 100+ foot drop immediately to the left and oncoming traffic immediately to the right. Two of us decided to cross that way. The other two of us didn’t like that at all, particularly with saddle bags widening our load. We decided to cross the other side to ride on the road, with traffic, since there were two lanes going that way and light traffic at that hour. As we rode up the incline, with Dave leading, I saw a couple of trucks coming up behind me (I don’t normally ride with mirrors, but wanted the extra visibility with the saddle bags). The first came up and passed in the left lane. The next came up and then the world exploded. When I became aware of my surroundings, the bike and one of my shoes were at least 20’ up the road, and I was sitting on the curb and a couple of people were starting to check me over. It turned out they were an off-duty nurse and and off-duty paramedic who both happened to be driving by. They said when they stopped, that I was already sitting up on the side of the road, but I have no recollection of how I got there.

The driver kept going and hit my friend Dave, catching his wheel under the trailer and dragging him and the bike most of the way over the bridge until somebody flagged him down. Dave (seemingly) escaped with scrapes and bruises.

The gooseneck punched a hole in my skull just below my helmet and ripped a gash across my nose and cheek, narrowly missing my eye. After more than thirty years, the nerve damage is mostly recovered. When I got to the trauma unit, they told my my right radius was fractured. I told them my arm wasn’t broken, but my heel felt like it had been annihilated. When they brought me the surgical release forms, I decided to sign with my right because I can’t write at all with my left; at that point, I could feel things weren’t copacetic in there, but I was still overwhelmed with pain in my heel.

Three days later, I was released from the hospital after they had wired my skull back together and plated my radius. Another day later, I could drive a stick shift as I never had more than an ace bandage and gauze wrapping my forearm. I was on crutches for a month due to the bruised heel. A month later, it was determined that I had a T8 compression fracture. The Navy, in its infinite wisdom, decided I was fit for duty and sent me back back on patrol a month after that. Dave turned out to have two cracked vertebrae low in his back. He never went to sea again.

The driver later told people that he’d seen bikes in the road, but there wasn’t anybody on them!? Even if true, WTF did he feel compelled to drive over them? I later learned he had a reputation as a Folly Island pot-head.

46

Oh, and about five years ago, I had an MI and had to be resuscitated twice.

47

One of the officers on the USS Spadefish was 6’6" - apparently he sort of slept curled up in his rack, and joked about the permanent bruise on his forehead from hitting stuff.

I personally knew at least one guy on the Spadefish, if I knew nothing about him, I would call him one of those huge beefy Nebraska farm boys, he was well over 6’ and at least 250 pounds, he was a nuke rom what I remember.

Made a great contrast to my first husband, he was 5’7 and thin, built like a weasel, he could crawl into amazingly small spaces.

In HM13 they had a mechanic who was on waver for being short, they joked about being able to stuff him into the engine without removing the cowling =)

48

I have had a few brushes with death - mostly illness related, though I did get slammed into a wall corner by an ex-fiance that left me with a dent in my skull and a 2 week vacation in an induced coma.

My most recent one was going in for a routine colonoscopy and them discovering one of the causes of my digestive issues was not gallbladder as we thought originally, but a tumor that was the end 15 centimeters including rectum and anus full depth and all the way around constricting my outflow diameter to about half an inch diameter. Yup, it went from a clear no polyp scoping to that in 5 years … it went away with chemo and radiation, but 2 years later it came back and showed up in 3 months after my previous sigmoidoscopy the size of a golf ball. It grew under chemo, at the half way point we decided to go in and chop out the end 20 cm of guts and have me poo in a bag.

Actually, my quality of life is better than it has been for 6 or 7 years - my A1C is hovering around 5.6-5.8, the only time I get diarrhea now is if I get ambushed by palm oil or too much fried food, and I don’t ever have to worry about that sudden need to find a bathroom - if I do end up with diarrhea, it just means emptying the bag sooner than normal instead of worrying about sharting =)

Though I did actually discover a tumor in my breast while doing a self exam, and got it out fast enough that it was just about a heaping tablespoon of tissue, the radiation was much worse than the butt radiation [I still have a butt tan, and half a brazillian from the radiation, and my armpit has the best tan I have had in my life though it is now getting better from having pretty much all the skin bubble and slough from radiation burns.]

49

Thank you, abcdefghij. I’m sorry about your experience as well.

50

Once I was robbed at gunpoint.
When I was 14 or 15 or so I was on a scout campout in the mountains. I took the wrong trail or something and got lost. I ended up at a small lake/pond. I was taught that if I got lost to stay where I was and call for help. After about three or four hours a couple was hiking on a trail within earshot of where I was and rescued me.
The thing is that a couple of minutes before I was found I prayed and made a deal with God that if he saved me I would stop, uh, pleasuring myself. I really believed that was why I was found. And I felt bad when I broke my end of my promise. I wondered if I would be punished.

51

Later that day?

52

Just so we’re clear… you weren’t in the act of pleasuring yourself during prayer… right?

53

No, it wasn’t during my prayer. And I think I lasted a week or so.

54

On the golf team in high school (we were really bad). Standing behind my friend as he teed off, and shanked it. He hit a concrete culvert, the ball came straight back and hit me just at the top of my breastbone, bruising it. Half an inch higher and I’m pretty sure it would have crushed my windpipe and killed me.

A few years earlier, tobogganing on the (now apparently closed) golf course at Fort Ridgely State Park. Set a record for distance that day, and the six(?) of us sailed across a road into some bushes and had a car pass right behind us. We mustn’t have been the only ones that had done that - the next time we went sledding there that road had been closed.

55

Working in a convenience store way back in West Texas after high school, I was robbed at gunpoint three times. Once by a regular customer, so I thought I was a goner that time since I could identify him easily. He and his girlfriend had been coming in for six weeks. Turns out he was behind the rash of robberies throughout the area during that time.

I had dengue fever in northern Thailand in 1989. Was stuck alone in my house and could barely move. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer working out of the provincial agriculture office and was scheduled to go out to the districts, so my colleagues did not miss me. They just thought I was away. I recall a temperature of 104 before I had to stop taking it due to it hurting too much to shake the thermometer. Just rode it out. After a day or two, I started getting better.

EDIT: Don’t know why it shows I’m responding to Left_Hand_of_Dorkness. I must have hit the wrong Reply button.

56

I won’t go into all of them but the one that scared me the most. I was out in a field practicing my archery. There was a large group of dogs in a pen that backed up the the property that were barking at me. They didn’t look real secure but I figured they are probably just barking. When I got about 100 yards away from them they all just jumper over the fence and ran at me. It looked like to pure bred pit bulls and the others were some kind of junkyard type mixes. I knew better than to run so I just stood and faced them waving my bow at them to hold them off. Most of them stayed back about 10 ft but one of the pits kept rushing me. And I had a tug of war with him over my bow. The thought of getting ripped to shreds by dogs really scared me. They followed me for about 100 yards and then just turned around and walked off. I guess they had a boundary I was not aware of.

57

I was climbing with a group of friends and we were top rope belaying , so the climber would rappel down to the bottom of the cliff, and the belayer would be at the top with the rope though a stitch plate and be anchored into a rock.
I was belaying someone up and when they got to the top disconnected myself from the anchor ready to go down. Someone called to me so I leaned over the cliff edge as stupidly I was mentally thinking inwas still anchored in. Luckily someone grabbed me but I was that close to pitching over a cliff.

Another time one drilling rig I was getting up to the drill floor in a hurry and cutting across the floor , one of the roughnecks held up the palm of their hand and waved at me, I waved back, proceeded on and got a glancing blow from a huge piece of pipe being swung back against some othe pipe . If I had been a second slower it would have been almost a pink mist kind of accident. I was so focused on getting somewhere I just failed rule number one to look around, and yeah the roughneck was not waving but holding up his hand to stay " stop there ya moron"

58

Don’t think I was very close to death, but I had the bejesus scared out of me a few minutes ago.

Mr. Rilch is out somewhere. We are having a storm, probably the outer band of Hurricane Fred. Anyway, the power went out and the generator did not come back on. Texted Mr. Rilch, who cursed himself for not resetting the generator after the last power outage. Told me what to do, and said he’d stay on the phone with me while I went outside. “And bring an umbrella,” he said. I guess so the inside of the genny wouldn’t get wet.

“Okay, I’m taking the lid off.” FLASH in my right peripheral vision. BOOM, immediately, not after one-one thousand, two-one thousand. Just short of simultaneous. AAAAIIIIIEEEEEE! Toss the umbrella, because my lizard brain says “Lightning rod, do not hold.”

“What, what? You burn yourself?” Of course, Mr. Rilch couldn’t see the lightning, and barely heard the thunder. Long story short, hearing his voice kept me focused for the few seconds it took to flip the correct switch, put the lid back on, grab the umbrella* and run for the house. Obviously, the power is back on if I’m posting this.

Again, not really life-threatening. I didn’t hear the sizzle or smell electricity, nothing like that. Still, wow. I’m sipping a tequila sunrise. Because I don’t have the ingredients for a Hurricane! :tropical_drink:

*It’s a good-quality umbrella. It was his father’s, and is still in good shape. So I didn’t want it to get carried away by the wind. I held it horizontally, like a lance.

59

In the Marine Corps, we were on a helo carrier during an exercise with the South Koreans. Full-on battalion + amphibious landing.

Being the helo company, we were taking turns getting on CH-46s from the deck of the ship. When the stick I was in was ready to go out, a Navy crew member held us up at the door so they could refuel the bird.

We finally got in and took off. I always tried to make it a point to be one of the last ones on (if possible) so I’d be right by the big cargo ramp in the back. Easier egress if you go down in the water.

Well anyway, we took off and as soon as we cleared the deck, all I saw was the deck of the ship disappearing up…I thought hey, cool, we’re going in low over the water.

Then we gained a little altitude, enough to see the deck of the ship again, and the entire deck crew was either on the rails or getting to the rails to watch us.

Found out once we got back that after a hot refuel, there may be some issues with pressure in the fuel line. So we were damn close to going in to the ocean. May or may not have died, but that’s probably as dramatically as close as I have come.

60

I have asthma, so I spent some time in the hospital when I was a child. The first time I remember, I was so small I was in a crib with an oxygen tent that went over the whole crib. The little girl in the next crib over pulled my oxygen hose out. The nurse had just left and was walking away from me. I yelled, but she didn’t hear me. The next thing I remember, I was out of the crib and the nurse was sponging me off with cool water. I don’t think the hospital told my parents. :astonished:

There was another time when I could have died or been badly injured, but I’ll save that story for another time. I’ve also had some scary weather-related experiences—driving in a really bad lightning storm and driving on the interstate in an ice storm when trees were falling all around me. Both times I’d gone too far to turn around, so I kept going.