Times when you thought serious injury or death was imminent

In My Humble Opinion
1

This morning, I began commuting again by subway, something I haven’t done in a little over a year. As I walked into the station, I began thinking about an incident that happened to me maybe three years ago (which I posted about, I’m sure, but haven’t looked for the thread) where I took a misstep on the subway platform and managed to get my lower leg wedged between the subway car and the platform. I got scraped up pretty badly, but thanks to (I believe) an attentive engineer, the subway did not take off while my leg was down there (and it did take me a little time to extract myself).

It was in those brief seconds that I had some fairly horrifying visions of my leg about to be torn off at the knee – something that still makes me uncomfortable to think about even years later. But, obviously, I escaped serious injury.

Have you ever been in a position where you had good reason to believe you were about to be killed or maimed? Please explain.

2

Found my original thread, by the way. I seemed to have much more of a sense of humor about it at the time than I do now. No idea why.

3

A deer ran out in front of my car on the interstate (I was probably doing 60 or 65mph at the time). I didn’t really have time to react, but I was certain that I was in for a world of hurt. The deer hit my front bumper, rolled up my hood, and, thankfully, had made it far enough across the road that most of its body mass hit the “A-pillar” on the passenger side, which threw it off the car. My windshield was cashed, but it never made it into the car.

4

I work for a fire alarm company. One afternoon I had to change out a smoke detector on a gymnasium ceiling. I set a rickety, wooden 14 foot stepladder up on four five gallon buckets. When I got to the top, I realized that I was still unable to reach the detector. I set another bucket on the top of the ladder (the part that says “NOT A STEP”) and stood on that while I changed out the detector. As I was climbing down, I realized just how stupid this was and what could have gone wrong.

5

My ex-husband attacked me one day. He had his hands around my throat and was banging my head on the floor, and although I still had breath to scream, I was starting to realize that if no one came to my aid, I was very likely living the last moments of my life.

Someone came.

6

:frowning:

You know, that’s the kind of thing I was looking for in this thread, but…wow.

7

Several scenarios come to mind for me.

When I was relatively young, maybe 8 or so, my cousin was driving us to the park or something when he lost control of the car, maybe an animal or something, but he over steered and almost went off the road and over compensated and he swerved into oncoming traffic and narrowly missed another car before being able to get back into the lane and recover. I was scared of any speed over about 30 MPH for about a month after that.

One was when I was 18 and, making a long story short, a few friends of mine and I were attacked by a much larger group of armed guys. I actually made it out unscathed with my best friend taking all their hits, but he only ended up with a minor concussion. Oddly enough, it was the ones that attacked us that ended up the worst off. Either way, my mind was in survival mode for that whole experience as I was trying to defend my friend.

Another was when I was working as a mover and I was on the bottom end carrying a piano down stairs. It was raining out, so the home owner decided to put a towel on the floor to keep us from tracking mud in. However, a towel on a hardwood floor might as well be ice, and I lost my footing falling face first onto the floor and the piano dropped onto the stairs. It thumped down a couple stairs but stopped on the last one, inches from my head. If it hadn’t, well, that probably would have killed me.

Another long story short, there was a situation in which a couple drunk guys with a shotgun and another questionably sober group (high on pot, I imagine) of which at least one had a handgun and were arguing. I ended up being in the unfortunate position of having to diffuse the situation since calling the cops about a gun stand-off was apparently not enough of an emergency to respond any sooner than 2 hours later. That was pretty damn scary.
Hmm… that’s all I can think of now.

8

Closest I came was walking across a railroad bridge, high above a very shallow, rock-bottomed stream. I was most of the way across when I heard a train whistle. I started running for the near side, then saw the train and realized that I wouldn’t make it, so I turned around and started running the other way. And soon realized that I wouldn’t make that either. Jumping wasn’t an option.

Fortunately, there was enough room to lean out away from the tracks

9

Reprinted from a previous thread:

Early June, 2000. Returning from motorcycle trip to west coast, my ex-girlfriend and I passed through Rocky Mountain National Park, maybe 100 miles north of Denver, Colorado. Somewhere near the highest point on Trail Ridge Road - at about 12,000 feet - we parked at a trailhead, and started hiking. The trail climbs steeply from the parking lot, but only for about 200 yards. after traversing about 1/2 mile of flat, open terrain, we arrived at a pile of massive boulders that was maybe 20 feet high. We scrambled up to the top, making us the highest thing for maybe 15 miles in any direction, and providing spectacular views of the surrounding mountains. It was pretty cloudy and windy, and my ex was complaining about her hair refusing to behave itself.

With pictures taken and the view enjoyed, we started climbing down off the rocks. It was at this point that my hair began to crackle. This was something I had never felt before, but the instant I felt it, I put it all together:

-clouds
-ex’s fluffy hair
-my crackling hair
-highest thing for miles around

Oh fuck, this place is about to get hit by lightning!!!

I finished scrambling down off the rocks and told her we had to leave NOW, and of course that’s when the dilemma came up. Do we haul ass across a half-mile of open, flat terrain, or hunker down here in lightning-safety position (squat, heels together, hands over ears)? Oh shit, what do we do!?!?

We started jogging back toward the bike. The trail was marked at regular intervals with snow poles, basically two-inch-thick wood posts about 8 feet high. As we passed by each one I could hear them crackling, too.

In the end we made it back to the bike without incident, but we had spent maybe ten minutes in mortal fear of being struck crispy-dead at any moment. I hope I never feel that kind of fear again.

10

I was 17, and on a Boy Scout camping trip in New Mexico. While my friend and I were sleeping in our tent, a bear came over. I woke up from him stepping on the corner of the tent, along with my ankle, bending the pole and causing some light scratch marks and a large bruise on my leg. I thought a branch fell from the tree at first, then I hear the rustling as it moved around the tent to my friend’s side. I woke up my friend, said I thought a bear was outside, and we should make noise to scare it off, as we were taught to do. Before we started to yell, his head whipped back toward me and he was bleeding from four large gash marks on the side of his face. The bear walked around some more, batted at my side of the tent, the front, back to my friend’s side (at this point were were huddled as best we could in the dead center while I held one of my t-shirts on his face.) We were yelling, screaming for help, and eventually once everyone else in the campsite was awake and screaming it left.

11

My plane crash. I expected to die and was quite surprised when I didn’t. I was in quite a bit of pain, however. :wink:

My failed rescue attempt. I knew the situation was risky, but then it got worse.

12

When I was 12, I was climbing a tree and grabbed a branch that was dead. It snapped and I tumbled down headfirst. All I could think as the world whizzed past upside down was, “I’m going to land right on the top of my head and I’m going to get really badly hurt. I hope I don’t break my neck.” Somehow, I managed to hit the ground at a slight angle so most of the blow went to the back of my neck and top of my shoulder. I was so relieved when I realized I could still move and everything.

This one is kind of stupid, but a couple years later I got constipated and had the worst stomach cramps of my life. It felt like my intestines had ruptured. It went away after about 5 minutes but in that time I was really scared and learned that screaming at the top of your lungs brings Mom and Dad running really fast.

13

I was 16, and was stopped at a “T” intersection, where you had to turn left or right. In either direction, the road rose up into a low hill, just high enough that you couldn’t see over it. I was going to turn left. I looked right, no one coming. I looked left, no one coming. I glanced right again as I was about to make my turn, and there was a car that had just crested the hill and was coming down. Whew! Good thing I checked! I waited until it had passed me and started to pull into the intersection behind it… without looking back left again. While the car had been coming down the hill to my right, a semi with two fully-loaded beds of gravel was coming down on my left. I glanced over just in time to see the grill bearing down on me, and thought, “Oh, crap - I’m going to be hit.” In that split second, I was sure I was in for a world of hurt, and possibly death.

And then I got hit. My car - an 80’s station wagon - was spun around a couple of times, my head knocked out the driver’s side window (which was rolled halfway down), the front axle was broken in half, the engine block was mangled, and the dashboard got pushed back a good foot. Fortunately, I was in the habit of driving with my arms and legs well extended, or I surely would have been crushed by the steering wheel, or had my legs broken. The impact also bent the frame so the driver’s side door was jammed - well, not “shut” exactly, but firmly in place, so they had to use the Jaws of Life to get me out.

Despite my car being crushed and tossed like a soda can, I somehow came out with nothing more than a tiny cut on my forehead, and a few minute shards of glass in my hands and legs. People at the scene later told me they were sure they were witnessing my death. At school the next day, everyone kept saying, “But… I heard you were in a huge accident!” I knew at the time that I was very, very lucky, but I don’t think I fully appreciated how lucky until I got a little older. Back then, I thought, “Wow, I could have died!” Later, I came to realize, by all rights, I should have died.

14

I somehow missed this thread the first time around. At the risk of hijacking my own thread, was her body ever found?

I don’t know what I would have done in your situation, but I commend you.

15

When I was in my early 20s I was working on a live electrical panel. The faceplate of the panel wasn’t on hinges, but rather it was screwed to the wall. I had taken the screws out and since wires were attached to the faceplate I had supported it with my chest while reaching into the panel to make some modifications.

The faceplate was grounded and was laying across my chest. I somehow managed to touch a 240V line with my right hand. The shortest path to ground was up my arm and out through my chest into the grounded faceplate.

You know those funny cartoon shock scenes where the person being shocked gets momentarily paralyzed and can’t let go of the source? That was me. For about probably two or three seconds I was frozen with 240V and probably 20 Amps of current from my fingertips to my chest.

This was at work, in a hospital!

I managed to free myself and then stood there almost passing out thinking my heart was going to go into arrest at any second. After calming down and regaining composure I finished up and put the faceplate back in place. I was sweating profusely and quite shaken by the whole scene.

I lived.

I never told anyone, out of embarrassment.

I don’t like working on live circuits anymore.

16

Wow, this reminds me of a lot

  1. Hiking in the Rockies near Silverthorne, CO. Way above treeline on the rock slope with 3 friends, storm came rolling in, lightning was hitting very close by. I had to kick and drag one friend down the mountain to safety; not much time to think of myself.

  2. Driving through the mountains of NM in my pickup with the GF. Came around a corner, and an elk was suddenly in front of me. Hit the brakes, was not gonna stop, released the brakes just a tad, sharp steer to the left to the limit of my traction, and then a correct back to the right and missed him by a foot.

  3. Driving to the airport over a mountain pass in NM. Icy road. Came around a right hand corner headed downhill, tire hit the dirt on the side of the road and the truck came unstuck. The words, ‘undamped oscillation’ popped in my head, as I steered out of one skid and into another, right to the bottom of a sharp left hand hairpin. Luckily, I caught a tree all down the passenger side of the truck that utterly dampened the skid and shot me back on the road. $4000 in damages, and I had a hard time with slick conditions for a while

  4. Let’s talk motorcycles. I’ve logged about 70,000 miles via bike now, and while I am older and somewhat more tame now, I once was not. The first bike was a Yamaha XT600 dual sport. Rode up the Santa Fe ski hill with a friend, misjudged a corner, and I came off on the mountain side of the road, in the bar ditch. Huge 4x4 drain was just in front of me, with a mount of dirt leading up to it… bike ran up the mound, became completely airborne, and landed oh-so-gently back onto the road with me still rolling. Looked trick, but I was just along for the ride. Another time, I came into town over the mountain all cold and whatnot, and saw one of those ‘your speed is’ signs. Gunned it, then realized it was on a very sharp left hand corner. Slowed as much as I could, came right off the road and over a mound of dirt. Down the other side, hit the bottom HARD, racked myself on the tank, popped up onto a service road, took a meek left and was back on the roadway. What?! A final bike story. Went out riding with a couple of friends. They wanted to go -fast-. One guy was doing over 150. We lost him ahead of us, leaving just myself and this girl riding a CBR 600. We were riding 30mph twisties at about 60, when we happened into a decreasing radius corner (ie, it gets sharper as you go). She panicked, target fixated on the dirt shoulder, and I watched her go off the bike all superman like and the bike tumble away. I suddenly discovered I had barely slowed down and I didn’t yet posses the ability to ride this corner. Stood up the bike, got on the brakes hard. As I came off into the dirt, I eased up the brakes and rode it. I stopped 20 foot shy of an arroyo, bike still running and upright.

  5. More ‘things on the road’. Driving back from Albuquerque one night, driving my friend’s car with her half dozing on the passenger seat when suddenly a large black dog appeared in front of me. No time for brakes, I steered hard left and around him. My friend screamed the entire time.

  6. Somewhat recently. Driving in Colorado with a couple of friends (including the one from 5!), night time, in the mountains. I knew the deer was out there somewhere, I was scanning as best I could. Finally, it showed up. Barely had enough room to steer in front of it between the shoulder and the median to avoid it. Less screaming this time around. It was a relief to finally find a deer, as nothing is more stressful than miles of not-deer when you know they are there.

  7. A complete farce. I was caving in NM, and I was far ahead of the rest of the group, having almost run through this weaving lava tube. The ceiling started to come down and choke off to the floor, leaving a muddy belly crawl to the opening on the other side. I sat down before it, turned off my light, and just waited for my friends. About 20 seconds afterwards, quiet in the dark, I could heard something wet and slithering nearby, and right about then, the cave crickets kicked back into gear. My monkey brain went into fight-or-flight and I almost clawed my way straight up before I was able to throttle myself and calm down. The noise was a mess of earthworms in the muddy crawl, it was just so quiet you could hear them. I’ve never before or since that time been that freaked out in a cave. Such a strange panic to have experienced.

So, my take away from all this is that in a time of crisis, I tend to evaluate and react right away, and consider what had happened afterwards. I’m sure that is a pretty neat thing, seeing as I am still here, but sometimes I wonder why I get in so many messes :wink: Further, a quick hand on the steering wheel beats the brake pedal any day.

17

Thanks. No, no body yet. I don’t expect it to be found.

18

It was during my first trip to Iraq. We were flying along in my helicopter one night, pretty low, when all of a sudden I hear from one of my crew, “CLIMB CLIMB CLIMB!” He sounded like a little girl. Not making fun of him: his voice was just that high, which is not a good sign.

Being the good pilot my pilot climbed like he was told. I looked down and I could seen electrical wire right below me. Not telephone wires you see on the side of the road but those thick monsters you see on mountains and shit. Those things will kill you dead. They swipe helicopters out of the school. I could have reached out and touched them, we were so close.

The funny thing is, after that all happened my only thought was, “I want french toast for breakfast.” It wasn’t until I was about to deploy again when it really hit me just how close I was to dying. My roommate had to talk me down from freaking out.

19

The front stoop of my house is a single step higher than the front walk – sort of a concrete platform, if you will. One day a few winters ago, I got home from work and saw a package at the front door and, after pulling my car into the garage, went to retrieve it. It was a somewhat large box, maybe 2’ cubed (containing frozen steaks, a Christmas gift from my wife’s boss, in case you’re wondering). Instead of going in the front door, I decided to walk back around and enter through the already-unlocked garage door. With the box in my arms preventing me from looking down, I stepped down from the stoop onto the sidewalk – and onto a patch of ice, my feet suddenly shooting out from under me.

What followed was an odd moment of clarity. In the following 2/3 of a second of so, I was acutely aware of what was happening. In my head, it was very exaggerated and cartoon-like, almost comical: I pictured myself rising horizontally into the air, pausing, then crashing straight downward. What wasn’t funny, though, was that I knew with utter certainty that the back of my head was about to have an unpleasant encounter with the raised concrete stoop. Basal skull fracture seemed inevitable. I even managed to form a thought in the form of a complete sentence: “What a stupid way to die.”

Then I landed, hard, on my back. Somehow, my head missed the step by a couple of inches. I lay there stunned for a while before realizing that I was not injured, and gingerly got to my feet. I was sore for a few days, but suffered no lasting effects. But for that brief instant, I was pretty damn sure my time was up. Scary.

20

I also had an episode on an icy road. I had just driven through about 200 miles of blizzard on I-40 in New Mexico until it cleared around the Texas border. I tried to make up time by going about 80 mph until I hit an interstate bridge in Amarillo that was a solid block of “black” ice. I discovered that I will not go gentle into that good night – apparently I’ll go clawing and screaming.

My car did about 3 revolutions with the g-forces forcing me against the driver side door, all the while knowing with absolute certainty that I would go flying off the 500 foot tall bridge (probably closer to 30 feet, really). I finally hit a pylon at the opposite end of the bridge and blew a tire. I remember changing the tire in the freezing cold, semis zooming past me while I whimpered. I later pulled into a truck stop for a cup of coffee while I got my shit together. Any idea I might have had about how macho I was fled that night.

I still have a bit of a bridge phobia that I still haven’t shaken after over 25 years.