The day I almost died. Or, Yesterday...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

This is freakishly coincidental:

First some background info. The street leading up to the parking lot of my office is rather narrow, with just about enough space to allow 2 medium-sized cars to pass side-by-side without touching. One side of the street is reserved for parked bikes. With no pavement, the pedestrians ensure that you won’t ever travel faster than 15km/h there.

So yesterday afternoon I was riding into the street. But right in the middle of the road was an old man - just standing there. I honked at him, but he refused to budge. I finally had to halt right in front of him before he finally moved out of my way. I was stopped for about 3 seconds before I finally rode on.

Did I mention that this little street is lined with trees? No? Well, it is. And as I reached the end of it, one of the not-insignificant branches from one of these trees suddenly broke off from its main trunk, and came crashing down to the ground. About 10 feet in front of me. I hit the brakes and came safely to a stop without any injury. Fortunately no one else was walking nearby either. A couple of parked bikes did get damaged though.

That’s when I realised that those few seconds when I had to stop at the entrance to the street probably saved my life.

Just wanted to share that.

2

So, when you looked round, was the old man still around

cue twilight zone music

3

I’m diabetic and take insulin injections.

One day, last summer, my wife and I had been doing yard work. We had come back in for a little while and she had to go to the store. She came back a few minutes later because she had forgotten her wallet.

I was comotose on the couch from a low blood sugar. If she hadn’t forgotten her wallet, she might not have made it back from the store in time to call for help.

I guess the old man hid her wallet too.

4

Nice old man, isn’t he?

5

gouda, reminds me of the time we were walking outside sachu’s house and a coconut fell off the tree just behind us and thumped onto the road.

It could have thumped us bad. Remember that ?

6

Yeah, you are lucky. It’s a not-infrequent news story around here to hear that someone died during/immediately after an ice storm, or on a windy day because a tree limb fell on them. Back in 1999 (I think, could have been 2000) a school was sued because they “forgot” to have their trees inspected as required, and a falling tree limb killed two little boys. I’m glad the old man got in your way for whatever his reason.