Please share your life threatening experiences

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

Yikes!

I had a somewhat similar story back in 2012, when I was spending the summer in Boston. I’d taken myself on a walking tour, and was just wrapping up at the Charleston Navy Yard as some storm clouds rolled in. The nearest subway stop was about ten minutes away, across a bridge, and I figured if I walked fast I could get there before the rain. Anyway, I had an umbrella.

As I walked onto the bridge, the rain started, and I heard distant thunder. Up went the umbrella.

A third of the way across, I saw lightning strike the river about a quarter-mile from me. And I felt an electric shock through my umbrella like static electricity. I looked at the bridge I was standing on, a massive construction of steel that towered above me.

And I hauled ass across that bridge. Put down my umbrella, not that that would make any difference. Tore past groups of tourists taking selfies on the bridge, figuring if they were fried that was their lookout. Sloshed through a torrential puddle and got soaked up to my shins. Made it to the subway.

I’ve never before or since felt a shock like that from being in a storm, but it freaked me out.

62

I was on my motorcycle at the intersection of a divided four lane street. I was wanting to turn left, and as a big dump truck approached, I contemplating going, but waited. After he passed, I spun out in a puddle of oil, right where he would have been unable to avoid creaming me.

63

Dirt bike accident when I was 11yo. An over the handles bars crash. The rear tire caught me when the bike and I landed and as the rear tire was was still spinning. The tire dragged my head in and the fender scalped me. I was wearing a helmet but ended up with 130 stitches. Thanksgiving day that was.

Another time, when I was young, I used and old Massey Ferguson farm tractor to mow our 5 acres. You put gas in the top, under the hood. Well, those old 5 gallon Jerry can’s and a funnel always left a bunch of spilled gas. On the tractor and on me.

This tractors ignition switch was shot, and you had to start it by placing a screwdriver across a contact point on the starter solenoid and the engine block (if memory serves). Well, that always causes quite the spark show. And I and the tractor where dripping with gas. Somehow, nothing caught fire. I was very, very lucky.

64

My first take was that other than some medical problems, nothing really dangerous. Well if you included utter stupidity there was one, err maybe more. Then I recalled:

I’d just found my baggage at the Mexico City Airport. Some guy asks “Taxi? What hotel?”, “Hilton” I answered. He picks up my bags and heads out. I followed assuming we were going to a cab. But, the guy crosses the taxi lanes and heads across the street outside the airport. He’s got my luggage and is quite a ways in the lead. I assume It’s some kind of gypsy cab scheme like in Miami and follow.

When I catch up with him he has opened the door to a car (just a car not a cab) and motioned me inside. I hop in. At last I have time to consider the situation. I’m sitting in a car on a dark alley in Mexico City and three guys outside are taking turns talking on a pay phone. They are the only people I can see. They hang up the phone and we wait. After five minutes or so the phone rings and there is an animated conversation. The guy hangs up the phone. One of the others gets in the drivers seat and we drive off.

There’s no conversation, but after a while we arrive at the Hilton. He gets my luggage out of the trunk, takes twenty dollars American without comment and he’s gone. I don’t know if they were just stealing luggage, or if it was a failed kidnap opportunity or if I was the wrong guy or if that’s just the way they do it in Mexico City.

65

How does it feel to know that you’re the one tourist that day who wasn’t worth kidnapping?

;~}

66

Relieved

67

I don’t have any really good stories. When I was a baby, I got RSV and was really sick. I got better though. When I was in junior high, I gave myself a concussion, knocked myself out, and the school just plopped me in a wheelchair and just sent me to the nurse even though I was unconscious. They really should have called an ambulance for that. I’ve broken many bones but they’ve mostly been stupid things.

I think the time I was closest to death was when I have my first major depressive episode. I was in really bad shape. I was in college and was barely skating by in class and with my multiple jobs. My friends saw how poorly I was doing and staged a sort of intervention for me to get help. I responded by going home and threatening to kill myself. I got close to actually trying. My friends call the cops on me. Then, I finally got help.

68

I was up on my new roof a year and a half ago. I was near the weather top for the power line and so was being careful not to get too near it. But god help me, I started to sway a little and almost reached out to steady myself with the power line. I don’t think my arm moved more than an inch before common sense kicked in, but still, it left me with a bit of a queasy feeling of fear of what I almost did.

69

My actual life threatening experiences weren’t very interesting, so something lighter –

I was in a Land Rover that rolled. Turned sideways on a steep slope, to much weight too high, and tipped over on it’s side. If it had kept going, we would have been squashed (they don’t have much upper body strength), but it didn’t keep rolling, because – too much weight too high. The roof racks bent but held, and we settled on our side. Anyway:

As we were rolling, I looked at the window, and thought, “I’m going to go through the glass, and when I go through the glass, I’m going to get cut”. And we rolled, and I’m there lying at the bottom of the crowd, and I can feel the warm blood running down my neck, and the people get off of the top of me and out the door (now at the top), and driver looks back down into the truck, and asks “are you OK?”, and I look up at him, and I see

The carton of warm milk dripping down on me.

And I say “Yes”, and I get up and crawl up and out.

70

I was helping my farmer buddy. We’d arranged to get a number of bales of hay from another local farmer; about three pickup trucks’ worth. Buddy’s Wife is driving her pickup, Buddy is driving his pickup, and I should have been driving the farm pickup, but it just wouldn’t start that morning, so we’d make an extra trip in an operating pickup, after we got two trucks’ worth and unloaded them. At any rate, I’m riding shotgun in Buddy’s pickup.

We got most of our hay, and were convoying back to the farm, with Buddy’s Wife in the lead. We’re approaching a railroad crossing, with lights and bells going, but as it’s a rural road, no gates. The train blows its whistle, and Buddy’s Wife doesn’t stop. The train leans on the whistle, and Buddy’s Wife isn’t stopping. Buddy says, “Spoons, unbuckle your seat belt and open the door.” I do, and with his right arm, he throws me out into the ditch from the moving truck.

Buddy managed to stop safely (maybe three feet shy of the moving train), and Buddy’s Wife made it with about six feet to spare, and keeps on going. Me, I had a few scratches and bruises, but was otherwise okay. Nice deep grass in that ditch.

Later, we did the “post mortem.” Buddy’s Wife had the radio loud, was fiddling with the radio, did not see or hear the railroad signals, and just kept on keeping on. That earned her a lecture from Buddy and me about rail crossings.

If worst came to worst, Buddy’s plan was extremely dangerous, which is why he threw me out of the truck. He said that if she was on the track crossing, he would gun it, rear-end her, and get her across, and hope he would be okay. Since the train was approaching from the right (the shotgun side, where I was), he was saving my life, while putting his in jeopardy. He is a great friend, and has been for decades. “No greater love,” indeed.

71

Definitely talk to a lawyer AND to your doctor. The other lawyers might try to argue that your pain is from 3 years ago - but if you do have any lingering symptoms you could make a case for the accident aggravating an injury that had already been healed.

I suspect you’re right about the supervisor sweet-talking the cops into not ticketing the driver. Scary that they are basically DELIBERATELY endangering kids.

72

Hey, for a guy of 14 or 15, one week without pleasuring yourself feels like an eternity.

73

I skip every other Tuesday as a flex.

74

About 20 years ago, I was working the night shift. A guy walked into my office, demanded my wallet, and bashed my head in with a mallet.

I remember getting hit twice before I blacked out. The doctors stitched up half a dozen lacerations in my scalp. The detective who investigated the case was of the opinion that the robber did not intend to leave a witness behind. Fortunately, a co-worker happened to drop by to chat, and he found me and called the police and ambulance.

The doctors diagnosed “depressed skull fracture with subdural hematoma”. They cut open my head, vacuumed the blood clots out of my brain, and put in a titanium plate to hold the pieces of my skull in place.

[John Astin] But I’m feeling much better now. [/John Astin]