Closest? Hard to say. At about age 19 I was in a head-on collision and, if I hadn’t been wearing my seat belt, I wouldn’t be telling you about it right now. But I always wear my seat belt.
Mom says that when I was about 2-3 I got into my grandfather’s epilepsy pills and ate them. I was taken to the emergency room and given Syrup of Ipecac.
I guess our 10th anniversary, where we were hit head-on, would be the closest; we were wearing seatbelts and walked away from it.
A couple years later I attempted to die of pre-eclampsia but the doctors wouldn’t let me.
When I was really little, I went ‘missing’ and after a brief search was found up the hill in my backyard, at the edge of the pool, looking down at my reflection in the water.
A few years later, I went swimming without my floaties, and dropped straight to the bottom, rescued by my big sister. Damn, pools are dangerous.
When I was about 13, I was riding my dirtbike alone in the back yard (pool long since disassembled) and locked up the front brakes down a small hill. Went right over the top and hit my head on a rock, hard. I did have a helmet on, so I was just a bit dazed, rather than dead.
I was upside down and backwards when I was born (1960) and they didn’t think either my mother or I would survive it. I think there were other complications but that’s the gist of it. She got a nice scar out of it.
Been shot at, but only got hit with the ricochet because the shooter was aiming for my head. I was working for a used car dealership and had gotten dropped off to pick up a four year old Ford Taurus that only had 40,000 miles on it that had to get the tranny replaced. The damn car’s engine threw a rod about ten minutes after I picked it up and broke down in the WRONG neighborhood. Comfortable pieces of shit those cars were. It was 20 something years ago, so I didn’t have a cell phone, I had to get out and walk back to the dealership. When I got there I was bleeding but but it wasn’t life threatening. The police wouldn’t respond, so we hung up on 911, and called back. The police sent three ambulances and a fire engine when the owner of the dealership called back and let them know he was calling the local FOX affiliate’s news tip line and letting them know that Dallas’ finest weren’t interested in attempted murder in Pleasant Grove. It was a good thing all those people showed the hell up though, because the guy that was shooting at me was headed up the street to the local elementary school with the gun when they found him. I assume he was aiming for my head because the bullets ripped by both sides of my face into the tree branches when I hit the ground. Maybe he wasn’t aiming for my head.
I got beat up by the cops of a different department, the one next door to the first ones. The beating wasn’t bad except for the fire ant pile my face got shoved into. Kind of allergic to them. I never was told why I was pulled over or even given a ticket. Just a “ten cop cars pull you over outside a Mickey D’s, block part of the road, draw a bunch of guns and shit on a guy, make him get out of the car, then scream at him for being out side the car, beat his and his buddies ass on the side of the road, then take off” maneuver they used to do to people. I wasn’t the only guy, but I might have been the only white guy they pulled that shit with that I know. Someone at the McDonald’s called the police on the police beating me up, because the manager and all of the people ran outside to assist when the cops took off.
I got hit once in the back with a crow bar, and if I hadn’t had been naturally turning around to see what the noise was behind me, I would have been dead. I didn’t take the straight shot of the impact, sort of rolled out of it. The guy was trying to rob me I guess. I hurt him pretty bad by the time the sheriff of my little town showed up. I’m not sure that guy can walk anymore. I hope he can, I just snapped when I got hit with it and took it away from him. I really fucked up that guy and feel terrible about it. I would have been in jail if it weren’t for the grainy VHS security camera outside the place I was working.
When I was a kid some doctor gave me two medications that interact with each other and cause brain damage. I can’t remember what it was for or what they were, but if the pharmacist didn’t chase my mother down in a parking lot after she left the pharmacy, I wouldn’t have taken them and who knows what would have happened. I was like 5 years old at the time and was sick a lot. I had spinal meningitis around that time.
I’m actually surprised I’m still alive. I’m not quite 40 yet though. I had several dreams that I would die when I was 43, but I don’t remember how, just that I was 43. I have made peace with it if its the way its gotta be for me, and I have a little while to go.
I bounced off the front and sides of an 18-wheeler going down the highway many years ago. Got away with a chipped tooth.
Since then I’ve only risked – uh, make that experienced – serious and permanent injury but my life was not at risk.
Something else.
I slipped on a patch of ice on my front walk and went down hard on my back. I came less than an inch away from hitting the back of my head on the front porch step, which almost certainly would have resulted in a basal skull fracture.