You were using humor as a coping mechanism.
You’re welcome. Your bill is in the mail.
I will pay you in chicken and waffles next time you’re out this way. And I’ll try to ignore the fact that you’re a smart ass.
I will probably fail. 
I was hiking at Clifton Gorge in Ohio when I slipped and started skidding on my stomach down toward the gorge. I actually saw my life start to flash before my eyes, but then I reached out for anything to grab and my hand found a small tree, so I stopped. It was scary. (duh)
Also, years ago an ex-boyfriend was not happy that I was breaking up with him and held me at gunpoint for about an hour, the gun to my head the entire time. That was . . . not fun. Obviously, I survived.
Most people know this: My stomach perforated in 2005 and I was pretty sure I would not come back out of the hospital. Even days after - while I was in ICU - I was pretty sure I would not live.
Although my doc constantly told me I was going to live, he *also *told my mother that he had “outside help” when he saved my life that night.
When I kind of teased him about his remark to my Mom (I said, “That’s a lot of pressure. I mean man, if God took time out of his busy schedule to save my life, he’s going to expect me to be nice and shit.”) my doc looked off into the distance and said: *10 1/2 hours on the operating table, and every time I thought you were done, you just kept on living.
:eek: Every Time?* That has the uncomfortable sound of - well more than once, eh?
On a more mundane note: I took a header down the steps over the summer and had many milliseconds to think: This could certainly end badly.
This is why I will never, ever walk across one of those bridges. (I’m picturing that scene from Stand By Me as I write this.)
I have related this before, but it was five years ago, so a retell is in order:
Two I’ve posted here before:
1)My fiance’ (at the time) and I were driving back to south Florida on Thanksgiving night going down I-75. It’s a pitch dark interstate that’s fairly empty and cars typically travel 85-90mph. It was around midnight and we came over a slight hill to see traffic backed up to a standstill (some semi had overturned) somewhere near Punta Gorda.
So we take our place at the end of the sitting line. It then occurs to me “shit, if someone comes over that hill behind me and isn’t paying attention this may not be good.” No sooner than I thought that and looked in my rear view mirror did a car crest the hill doing the full 85-90mph. I was tapping the brake lights like mad and it must have quickly got the guys attention. He hit his brakes but too abruptly and locked them up. So now I hear this god-awful screeching of tires as I’m still watching in my rear-view mirror a car fish tailing down the interstate coming right at us probably at 60-70mph. All I could tell my fiance’ who couldn’t see what was happening was “fuck, fuck, fuck, hold on, hold on, hold on” and thought “if this doesn’t kill us we’re still going to get really messed up.”
I gripped the wheel as tightly as I could bracing for impact when the car suddenly shot by me on the left (in a blur) and slid off the road through the grass into a shallow ditch and eventually came to a stop a hundred yards away.
The guy was fine, drove out of the ditch, back down the road side and took his place in line behind me.
2)When I lived across the street from the Atlantic in Florida. Even though I was terrified of drowning when I was a kid I eventually got over it and when I moved here as an adult I loved to swim in the ocean. Especially when there were big waves. Good exercise, lots of fun.
So I get home from work one day and the waves were a good size. I run across the street and immediately swim out about 50 yards. I’m having fun in the waves till I notice there are some awful currents running parallel to the shore and out to sea (not a rip tide). So, I start swimming back to the beach, …but I can’t get there. Between the currents and the way the waves were breaking I couldn’t make it. So, I tread water a bit, and go for it again. Can’t do it. This goes on for about 15 minutes. After a couple more trys I’m getting winded and start scanning the beach for help. Nobody there except a couple of Canadian seniors who would be of no help. So, I start getting that feeling of “oh god, I am so f*cked.”
One last time I give it all I’ve got, fighting the current, gaining 5 yards, losing 4, not stopping since I know there won’t be another chance, arms and legs burning, deeep breaths. Finally, I reach the shore and just layed on the sand for 20 minutes totally exhausted like I’ve just been through 12 rounds of boxing. No one around.
I dragged myself back to my flat, collapsed on the floor, and held my head thinking “jesus, what did I just do?” for a couple of hours. I didn’t go back in the water for about 3 months and after that never went alone.
Had a few close calls but there was one that gave me three distinct feelings of likely death or nasty injury within a couple of minutes.
Student skydiver on a short (10 sec) freefall.
Scary moment #1 was a total malfunction of the main canopy. Very short moment of “Oh crap” followed by immediate implementation of emergency drill (feet and knees together, arch hard, look at reserve ripcord handle, grab and pull with both hands, back into hard arch). This led to…
Very sharp stop (120mph to almost 0mph in 1-2 seconds) which knocked the wind out of me. Looked up to see scary moment #2 - partial malfunction of the old-style round reserve. Couldn’t clear the malfunction (partial inversion with a lineover for those who know what I’m talking about) so I landed a slowly spinning round in a farmer’s field. This led to…
Scary moment #3 - the impact was about equivalent to a 15 foot drop and I did a great parachute landing fall, however it’s a very hard slap as you hit the ground. For a few seconds I sat there dazed, convinced that some vital internal organ had ruptured.
Well christ. After reading this thread, I’m never leaving the house again (assuming I make it home tonight).
Falling off my horse.
I was coming up to a jump, I got into a bad position (leaned way far forward), horse stopped (because I was leaned way far forward), and I didn’t. :rolleyes:
I’ve fallen before and falling with a refusal isn’t uncommon, but this time I was really launched. And it seemed to take forever.
Seriously, it likely took just a millisecond in real time, but I felt like Wile E. Coyote running off a cliff and just hanging there. It seemed I was airborne for an eternity. I distinctly remember seeing that I was very high off the ground, moving forward at a great rate of speed, and I had no wings. It was like gravity was toying with me: letting me stay up for just long enough to know how bad it was.
Then I hit the ground and after that brief “yay! I’m alive” moment, I had the awful realization that the pain was coming but hadn’t hit my brain yet. That anticipation is the worst! I remember thinking “now this is going to hurt a lot.”
Luckily, I just had some bruises and sprains, although I half expected to get up and be an accordion like Wile E Coyote.
When I:
fell through the ice a mile out on Anchor Bay
went through the window of a 66’ Chevy
found myself on the receiving end of a separated wife’s rifle
found myself in the house with a burglar who had my gun
jumped from a tree that split as I was topping it
almost lost my hand to a chain saw
nearly fell asleep at the wheel as a 16 year old
did several spin outs on the track and road
had the big bike accident on 11/01/96 requiring 12 surgeries
was hit by a 56’ Pontiac while playing football in the street as a kid
I think there are more plus non-civilian ones. I’m resigned to the fact that I’m probably not going to die of the flu.
I’ve told the story here before, but a DVT for unknown reasons resulted in a pulmonary embolism. As I was fainting, I felt (honestly) I was losing control of my bladder and bowels and that that meant I was surely dying.
But I woke back up and I hadn’t lost control, but I felt really shit. So I staggered off to my car (yeah, dumb), drove almost to work (dumber) changed my mind and drove to the hospital.
The second time I was passing out, about six yards from the ER doors, I was really sure that was the end. But then it wasn’t. Then I totally decided I was fine and this was fixable, but when my husband showed up the doctor told him to prepare for the worst.
So that was weird.
Never leaving the houseagain!? Jesus, I’m never leaving my bed again. Holy crud, I have to change my drawers just reading this thread. It’s confirmed: I am a mollycoddled little candy-ass compared to you guys.
As a kid in NYC I had several close calls with buses and cars. I had a knife pulled on me a couple times by other kids, and I got into several serious fights as well. Like CalMeacham I too tried to cross a railroad bridge, only to hear a train while I was halfway across. I was able to run full out and make it safely to the side just in time.
Many years ago I spent some time camping and hiking in the Pacific Northwest(and I spent just over a week in Alaska towards the end of the trip) with a very Xtreme-Survivalist-type friend of mine. He was the kind of guy that was disgusted by weekend hikers and felt a rifle and a bedroll was just about all a Real Man needed. I of course brought along a bit more than that, but we did live a very Spartan existence. I fell several times and tumbled down different areas for distances long enough to think “I’m going to break my neck”. Growing up in the city allowed to run around unsupervised, I learned over the years how to fall, brace for impact, and all of that good stuff, so I was never really shaken up after the fact.
The only time I truly felt I was going to die out there in the middle of nowhere was during a very bad snowstorm that had hit unexpectedly. You can’t make a fire, you can’t cook a meal, you can’t leave and jump in your car to head back to civilization, all you can do is huddle up and pray it lets up before you freeze to death. This of course was the kind of thing my friend lived for, the kind of danger that invigorated him. Think of Lt. Dan on the shrimp boat during the rainstorm in Forest Gump. Now imagine spending several months with him.
Al Bundy, are you able to get life insurance?:dubious:
Can’t compete with some of the misadventures here, but I did have an interesting experience a few years ago on my first (and only) attempt at paragliding…
Signed up for a day with a qualified trainer, the classroom was a high volcanic cinder cone out on the flat desert. Nice, symmetrical shape so you could take off from any side depending on which way the air was moving.
The trainer wasn’t big on the ground school thing…he gave a 10-minute talk, did a demo flight, then harnessed us up. We had radio headphones inside our helmets so he could talk us through our first flights. I did a couple of short easy sails off the lower slopes of the cone. No trouble, this was fun!
The instructor said I was ready for a more challenging flight. He hauled me up to the top of the cinder cone, strapped me into a bigger sail with more lift. I waited to catch a thermal, made the downhill dash, the wing caught the air. The steep hillside fell away beneath me and I was off! For a few seconds, then I fell out of the sky. All at once. (the only thing we could figure afterwards was some kind of a freak downdraft). I don’t know how high I was when I lost the air, probably only about 30 feet or so, but brother that looks like a long way when you’re falling. I distinctly remember making two observations. The first was “oh, this is bad”. The second was hearing the instructor screaming OHSHITOSHITOHSHIT!!! in my headphones.
I hit on the downslope, missed the boulders, landed on a scree of gravel that had the approximate effect of ball bearings, went zipping down the hill face first. Managed to flip over onto my back and lunge around so I was leading with my feet instead of my face. Finally ran out of momentum near the bottom of the hill. I just lay there for a spell…I didn’t hurt anywhere (that came later), but I was in absolutely no hurry to try to get up. A miniature rockslide alerted me to the rapid arrival of the trainer and a couple of other students, and I decided I’d better sit up before they started trying to do CPR or something equally disagreeable.
To my great relief, I was mostly OK…bruised and scraped, and my shirt was shredded from the long slide down the rockpile, but no major damage. I rested awhile then actually took a couple more flights, just to prove I hadn’t lost my nerve. The instructor wasn’t crazy about it, but I soothed him and promised I wasn’t contemplating suing him. He finally relented, and even complimented me on my fall…said it was one of the most spectacular crashes he’d seen in many years of running his school.
SS
I’ll never hold a candle to you Al, but I know I could keep up during the first half of the first pitcher of beer. In chronological:
*The time I jumped off the top of a brick out-door grill onto a bunch of cinderblocks so as not to be “it”.
*The time my old man bounced me off the ground so hard the band on my wrist watch snapped.
*The time I tried to cross a RR trestle in January and slid off of the embankment and onto the sidewalk 15-20 feet below.
*The time I fell/rolled off of a garage roof.
*The time I freehand rock climbed in the rain. And slipped. (I’ll Never fess up to where That scar is…)
*The time I stepped into a covered hole and impaled my leg on a pipe.
*The time my sisters VW bug caught in fire with me in it.
*The time I drove through the circular driveway of the Bagwan Rashneesh cult compound on a dare and actually got chased by guys in red robes with 2x4s. (FTR- They run faster in sandals than you’d think)
*The time I was trying to break up a college brawl & I got side-kicked to the head (that concussion lasted almost a week)
*The time the drunken off-duty cop pulled a gun on me because he wanted to impress some women riding in my car.
*The time I drove on the wrong side of a cement divider & had to speed up to get around it before the bus coming straight at me hit me head-on.
*The time I blew a rear tire & ended up stalled and facing the wrong way in the fast lane of a highway in the rain at night.
*The time I fell down a small cliff, breaking both elbows & my right wrist. And Drove Home.
(Say, does pneumonia count? Nothing quite says ‘uh-oh’ like blood coughed onto a kleenex)
But don’t worry. If Garp is right, I’m perfectly safe. I’ve been fully pre-disastered. 
I already responded with my electrical scare, but here’s another.
In college I had a couple of drinking buddies who rented an apartment in town, within walking distance of my parents’ place. I was fortunate enough to be able to go to community college and live at home at the same time.
One night, after many, many rounds of beer, vodka and joints, I decided to venture home. I had to work the next day. My parents were out of town.
I don’t remember even leaving the apartment. I do remember waking up on a stretcher in the hallway of the hospital. At which point I jumped off the stretcher and decided I needed to go home. The kind folks at the hospital wouldn’t let me do that and I fought (verbally) with them for about half an hour because I was employed (as a student) with the other hospital in town and DEMANDED I go there instead.
So. I had “fallen” down the stairs at my friend’s apartment. I had fractured my skull. I was totally oblivious to my injuries and just wanted to go home, go to bed, and go to work the next day.
The next day was hell. I awoke in the Intensive Care Unit in the hospital for which I was employed. My first awakening action was to walk to a shower area and puke my guts out all over the floor.
I spent 5 days in intensive care and another three weeks recuperating on prescription Tylenol. Not too impressive for my bosses, who visited me daily in the ICU.
After weeks of thinking about this “accident” I became convinced that I was pushed down the stairs as a “lark.” I have memories of this but they are clouded and vague. Still, it’s not my style to fall so clumsily down a flight of stairs. I’m convinced my “friend” did it to me and covered it up.
I was flying a glider (Schweizer 1-26) and got low. I set up to land in a pasture but found enough lift to make it back to the airport. (Val-air soaring north of Durango, CO)
I had to make a straight-in approach over a row of poplar trees at the north end of the runway.
Things were looking pretty good, when I suddenly realized it was far too quiet. I was on the edge of stalling, so I pushed the nose down. Which of course put me on course with the poplar trees. At that moment I was pretty sure there was going to be a crash, and I was going to have the best view.
I saw a small gap between the poplars and some cottonwoods, and made for it. I don’t think it was a wingspan wide, but wide enough for me to slide my low wing through as I headed back to the runway.
I cleared the glider operations hut by 6 feet or less and made a smooth touchdown. Rolled to a stop, climed out of the glider, and started shaking.
After dragging the glider back to the tie-down area, and securing it, I went up to the operations hut to pay for my tow.
Paula, the line girl saw me and asked, “Was that you flyin’ that little yeller glider?”
“Uh…yeah, that was me.”
“Dang. I saw you drop below those trees, and I thought ‘Wow, I’ve never seen a glider crash before’”
“Uh, I kinda thought that too…thought I’d have a good view of it too.”
Somehow I managed to finagle my way into a date with her that evening. If I could two-step as well as I flew that glider through that slot in the tree line, there might be more to this story.
Gosh your lives are exciting. Nothing much ever happens to me - mine are pretty tame.
Most recent: snorkelling in Cuba. They’d taken us out in a boat and I didn’t feel great about the spot they’d picked to anchor, they’d chosen it for the divers on the boat not for us, but we swam towards the shore and had a great time. For too long. I was tired by the time we started swimming back out towards the boat, and the waves had picked up. I got a good wash straight down my snorkel, choked soundly, and couldn’t get a breath between waves or empty the tube. I was too far from the shore to swim back, and too far from the boat to keep going, and I couldn’t stop choking because every time I breathed in it was more water. I freaked out a little and thought, “I’m going to die. I’m going to drown here now.” And then I decided not to, calmed myself down and flipped onto my back on top of a big wave - long enough to clear my lungs and take one breath - then managed to clear the snorkel and keep going back to the boat. But then I couldn’t climb the ladder because the waves were too big and my legs were too shaky. No-one had seen what happened, so they didn’t understand why I was just clinging to the bottom of the ladder retching.
Next: driving home, leaving one motorway to join another along a slip road with a fifty limit, but because it’s quite a short, smooth curve between the two roads, people don’t usually slow down much from the 70+ they were doing. I had slowed, fortunately, because the guy in front of the guy in front of me suddenly slammed on his brakes. I have no idea why. The guy in front of me managed to stop, but there was no way I was going to. Fortunately I was able to pull onto the hard shoulder and stopped partly next to the guy in front. So far, a little shaky. Then I looked behind me and saw the car towing a caravan which had been behind me, fishtailing up towards us. He couldn’t take the shoulder as I was in the way, he couldn’t stop, and there was heavy and fast-moving traffic on the other lanes of the motorway. Somehow he managed to pull out into the traffic, caravan swinging wildly, across all three lanes and then made it back across to stop in front of the original moron who’d slammed his brakes on. I have no idea how he managed to control that caravan and not hit anything or overturn, but I distinctly remember when I saw him in my mirror thinking, “he’s going to hit me. I should relax as much as possible,” and deliberately going dead weight in my seat.
Finally, when I was about eighteen I was meeting my brother at a restaurant. It was on the corner of a busy junction which always has standing traffic waiting for the light. I crossed through the traffic, then looked to the left (in England) and saw nothing coming. From there my memory goes blank for a few seconds, but my brother was standing on the corner watching me approach and he tells me that a little behind me, a guy seemed to get sick of waiting in the queue and decided to drive as fast as he could up the wrong side of the road to get through the junction. I had only looked in the correct direction with a mere cursory glance in the wrong direction, before he started moving, so I was in the middle of the road when he came at me at maximum acceleration. He screamed to a stop within inches of me as my brother stood there thinking he was about to see me killed. My memory pops back in at the point where I’m standing in the middle of the road with my hand on the front of the car, ready to try to vault over it.
I forgot (conveniently) the one that actually was my own fault: I took my bike through what I swore at the time and still recall as an amber light, though in retrospect I think I was just zoned out and following the car in front of me. The reason it can’t have been amber is that if it had been I wouldn’t have been hit by the motorbike which had just started across the junction. He saw me and laid the bike down to try to avoid hitting me, to no avail: he hit the front wheel of my bike and I ended up spinning across the tarmac. My poor father was called out by an actor who lived in the village, who came rushing into the house without knocking and announced dramatically, “Teacake’s been in an accident and has been taken into the Post Office”, leading to the obvious conclusion that I was probably dead or seriously injured. Daddy was on the phone to my little old Irish grandmother at the time, who immediately began praying for me. Sadly when he got to the post office and found me alive and not really badly hurt, just shaken and a bit bloody, the biker with his leathers all scuffed and his bike badly damaged, and the cops there, my granny went out of his mind. When finally they remembered and called her back to tell her, she’d been on her knees by the phone saying decades of the rosary for about six hours!