The closest I've ever come to death

[Enderw24]

Spring break, freshman year in college. My roommate invited me to his house in California. Eagerly I accepted because one, I didn’t want to stick around my home and two, well, it was California. We decided, being the wacky crazy 19 year olds that we were, that we’d go up to Las Vegas and break into a casino to play a little cards.
We should have realized the Gods were against us when one of us got onto the wrong highway, not noticing that we were going North rather than Northeast. An hour and a half away from Sacramento, I finally figured out something was wrong. God we felt stupid. Day 1 shot.
Undaunted, we awoke bright and early the next day to pursue our dream of viewing the glamorous strip. This time, we made it. We met another one of our roommates who was living with his grandmother during Spring Break. Together, we tackled the MGM, fake IDs in hand. All three of us made it in, amazingly enough. Though I should have again realized the Gods were not favoring us when all three of our underaged asses proceded to lose. Poker, Blackjack, stupid freaking Wheel of Fortune. We lost at them all.
Heck, there’s a funny story involving us getting caught by security guards and being banned from the casino. Maybe I’ll tell all my amusing cop stories one day. Anyway, suffice it to say, luck was not on our side.
That’s not an excuse for what was to happen, merely literary license. I blame myself for what’s to come.
We’re driving home. It’s dark and late. Approaching 3:00AM. We stop off at a gas station a good 40 miles outside LA to refill and grab a snack or two. Roommate asks if I want him to drive the rest of the way. I say no, I’m fine. I was a bit tired, but it didn’t seem significant.
We’re driving along. The road drones on and on and on. I’m in the passing lane on the freeway, going a good 70 MPH. Staring ahead at the road beyond, counting the time until I’m back in bed.
The next thing I know, I feel this knock upside the drivers side door. Suddenly I realize three things at once. 1) I’m no longer in the passing lane, I’m on the side of the road having just hit the concrete median seperating the two sides of the highway. 2) I’m going quite a bit slower than I was just a moment before 3) The reason I was going so slow is that it’s hard to keep the my foot on the accelerator after I’ve fallen asleep at the wheel.
In a daze, half awake but fully understanding what I had done, I turned to my roommate and told him I was sorry. I told him, without even looking at the damage, that I would pay for it all, apologizing again.
He asked if I was all right.
Maybe that should have been the first words out of my mouth too, but they weren’t.
Miraculously, we were both OK. Miraculously, there wasn’t a scratch on the car. Miraculously, there was a median, or that I turned into the medium rather than straight off the road the other way or that there wasn’t another car on the highway that I could have slammed into at speeds that would crush a car.
Nothing happened…except the single stupidest thing I could have possibly done in my life.

On the way home, my roommate now driving, we saw another car on the side of the road. This one was totalled. Windows were smashed in, sides crumpled like tin foil, the hood a rippling sheet of metal. My roommate muttered “Oh God.” I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, though I’ve never asked him, that we both had the same thought running through our mind: that could have been us. Not a scratch anywhere from me falling asleep at the wheel, but that could have been us.

Why am I posting this? I don’t know. It’s certainly not mundane, but it seemed like something I needed to share.

Anyone here have a near death experience?

[Dr_Paprika]

Driving in Boston was about the closest I’ve come to death. But your story makes that seem kind of mundane.

[Ad_Noctum]

one of them is that I was at my friends house, and after splitting a cube (24 cans) of Mtn Dew and a 2 liter of Surge between the 3 of us, we were a bit riled… so we though, Hell!- this would be an awesome prank! let’s ring the front doorbell, and then ring the back! his dad will NEVER know it was us!
so we go outside. Play hackey for a few seconds. and ring the Doorbell. (NOTE::::: unbeknownst to me, the back yard is COMPLETELY terraced. The Patio is a large U shape, with at the bottom of the “u” is the door, and the lawn is on either side. The lawn drops a straight 8 feet.)
we RING the doorbell and begin to Runa round the corner. I ran into the grass, off of the lawn, and ran off the edge. I blacked out mid-fall, and awoke about a half a minute later wondering where the Hell I was. Look around, and I was completely unharmed, aside from being alittle shooken up… don’t laugh, you would be too if you fell 8 feet onto a concrete patio…

[elbows]

I was a foolish 19 yr old, out at a bar with a girlfriend, accepted a ride home from a friend we met there, he’d had one too many.

Three of us in a two seater. I was sitting on my friends lap, we were laughing and joking the radio was on.

He went through a red light and drove into stopped traffic ahead.

The engine was in the rear of this car, did I mention that?

Seconds before impact, I was squirming about, and had rested my chin on the tiny dash and the window at the same time. But it wasn’t terribly comfortable and I started to squirm again, so did my friend who I was sitting on, she leaned across in front of me, that’s when we struck.

I was the only one concious after the crash, I remember standing on the side of the highway screaming at my friends to get out of the car convinced it was about to blow up.

It was snowing, hard, I was screaming through both my hands which were clenched to my face in horror. I remember turning into the headlights of a bus, the next vehicle to arrive, as I took my hands down from my face I heard a funny sound and looked down. In the lights of the bus I could see my own blood spilled on the road. (nose bleed)

I remember being in the hospital and telling the police who interviewed me how lucky I was.

My friend died two days later in hospital from the head injury she sustained.

The driver lost his liscence for a few months (it was over 20 years ago).