Thanks, The 3rd anniversary of that drowning was just last month. 
Twice that I know of.
Twice. I almost didn’t survive my birth. And I don’t ever talk about the other time…I only learned recently that my mom’s psychiatrist told her I’d probably have PTSD afterwards (I was 8 at the time) and was pleased I didn’t.
Two car accidents and almost drowned as a child.
More times than I care to count.
Severe allergic reaction to penicillin when I was 2. Fast acting doctors kept it from being a fatal reaction.
Cousin dropped a steel pipe on my head when I was about 6 months old. Less than a half inch lower and it would have impaled me through the right eye.
Car stalled on the railroad tracks when I was 1, with a fast approaching train. Parents managed to get it going and off the tracks just in time. There was less than a foot of space between the bumper and engine.
Nearly drowned when I was 4. Dad, step mom, and grandma were swimming on one side of the boat. I wandered to the other side out of sight, then slipped out of my life jacket. I sunk to the bottom, and kept struggling back to the surface. Luckily another boat came by and the people in it helped me.
A birth defect with my heart led to cardiac arrest when I was 15.
Ruptured appendix when I was 19. Toxins were in my body so long that I nearly died from that. Subsequent infections afterward almost got me as well.
Had a knife held to my throat when I was 6. The psycho threatened to slit my throat if I didn’t lick his shoe. Passing cop intervened before things got too bad.
Nearly electrocuted on a couple of occasions. Exposed wiring, metal, and water were involved.
Threw a can of butane in a fire. A foot closer to the fire and I would have been engulfed in the resulting fireball. On another occasion I threw a can of hairspray into a fire. When it exploded, the can rocketed by my head, missing it by inches.
Probably other incidents I’m forgetting.
I’ve been shocked any number of times. Nitpick: It is only possible to be electrocuted once as “electrocution” is a portmanteau of “electric” and “execution.”
Two weeks ago, I was on the edge of death in post-op. I don’t know the details yet, but apparently I got too much dilaudid and stopped breathing.
Checks username.
Makes sense.
I don’t remember how many times it’s happened, but I’ve occasionally had asthma attacks that were probably life-threatening (thankfully got to the hospital in time.)
Hard to say. I’ve been involved in three separate spin-outs in cars and none of them were cheery. One I was the driver, two were as a passenger and those latter two were full 360s. Two were across multiple lanes of traffic, one was on a curve on an icey overpass - I suspect death was a real possibility in any of them, but I have no idea how close I might have came.
And there was that time I ran through a plate glass door wearing only underwear. That was messy. Oh and a fairly severe case of Scarlet Fever as a child, where they apparently had to cool me off with ice when my fever spiked.
So 0-5 maybe, I can’t really judge.
One time I reacted to a bee sting for the first time and thought I nearly died, but my wife says that all that happened was that my blood pressure had simply dropped precipitously. I asked where was the point between extremely low blood pressure and death, but she calls me a baby and points out that I’m alive now, thanks to her having a dream in which an alien yelled at her for not having a bite kit a few days before. She got a bottle of household ammonia and chewable Benadryl (“It’s absorbed faster.”) and I lived to bore you endlessly.
Another time I was dead drunk, may have had a seizure, fell down some stairs, and cracked my skull. I looked dead. She sent down a kid to check my pulse but she couldn’t find it because my children are inept. The paramedics found it, though.
So, actually dead, or dead enough to satisfy my wife, I guess never. Except maybe that time during the Klondike Gold Rush, but that’s likely to have not happened. Well, the Gold Rush happened because there’s a Wikipedia entry about it, but it does not mention my role or death.
Oh, thanks for reminding me. We were running along a 1-foot wide ledge when a boulder about 3 feet across broke loose under my weight and fell straight down 30 feet, flattened some trees and continuing down the steep hill. If I hadn’t chanced to find a handhold immediately prior, I can’t imagine how I would have survived.
Odd. My heart beat real fast for a few minutes afterward as I thought about it, but I’ve practically forgotten about it. There’ve been a number like that and probably more I’ve forgotten, but none of them was anything like being stabbed. So I’m not sure whether to vote 0 or 10.
Once. It didn’t take. I got hit in the crosswalk on Market St. in the City. I remember stepping off the curb then waking up in the middle of the intersection. I remember hearing someone say " holy
Shit he’s getting up!" Then I promptly pissed my pants and collapsed. Woke up again to EMTS working on me…not being able to breathe… begging them “Dont let me die man please don’t let me die!” Waking up again in the hospital. 3 broken ribs, multiple scrapes contusions, collapsed lung and a nice cranial hematoma. Dude didn’t even stop. I’m sure he thought he’d killed me. My only consolation was the knowledge I must have really fucked up his car.
Great screen name/post!
As for me (in chronological order):
Very bad case of scarlet fever.
Fell off basement steps head-first onto a concrete floor (no wall or rail).
Crazed biker on LSD held a loaded gun to my head.
Undiagnosed ruptured appendix, leading to severe peritonitis and botched surgery.
Came damn close to rolling a car off a cliff on the island of Guadeloupe.
Heart attack at the bottom of the first hill, on the Cyclone at Coney Island.
Almost died from heat stroke and exhaustion, hiking alone in a remote canyon in Utah (123º).
Waking up with a blood glucose reading of 30.
Bear in mind I’m somewhat older that most of you.
I spent a few weeks teetering back and forth on the verge of death from illness. I was conscious enough to know that I was quite likely to die in the immediate future. I did believe that I would definitely die soon.
Then, slowly and surprisingly, I started to get better.
Aboard an aging Aeroflot plane halfway between Moscow and Atyrau when the pilot announced there was a hydraulic leak and we needed to land right away. After a very quick descent and bumpy landing at a poorly lit military airfield, we got off the plane and waited in the cold for someone to open the terminal.
A brief bit of excitement in a otherwise uneventful life.
Who are you, Rasputin?
I said 0, but in reading recalled it’s 2 - near death at birth, knot in my cord and only survived because my mum was pumped full of oxygen to try to keep my sats up.
Fell into a pool when I was 3 or so, and didn’t fight it, still remember sinking and thinking how pretty it all was. Mum saw me from across the garden and threw herself in to grab me out.
None that I can recall.
I have wondered if I would have survived childbirth without modern medical intervention, but I’m not entirely convinced that modern medical intervention didn’t cause the problems in the first place.
I was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer truck. I was stopped and he was going 45 or 50. Luckily he didn’t hit me dead center, so it sort of flicked my car out of the way (and into another car) while he went on to take out 4 more cars. If he’d been another foot or to to his right I’m sure my little Subaru would have been a much shorter car.
My dad has a much more dramatic one. He has a huge scar on his thigh where, 60 years ago, he was working as a carpenter’s helper and was severely shocked by a running circular saw with the blade cover removed. He dropped it on his thigh. He actually saw his femur and the doctor told him that his femoral artery was exposed. So I came within a fraction of an inch of never existing at all.
Just the once, got pulled into a strong river current as a child and got rescued by my dad.
I’ve had a few bad car accidents, but never life threatening.