my friends and i went over to the old abandoned Drive-in theatre, to climb the 200 ft. screen. we got to the top(there was a ladder on the back), and started goofing around. i peed off the top (hey, us guys do that kind of thing).
oh, i forgot to mention, the “walkway” was in fact three 2 inch pipes, you walked on one, and held onto the others. so we’re goofing around, and i pretend to push my friend, thus taking both my hands off of the hand holds. i didn’t realize it at first, but i was falling.
my primitive mind took over, and i caught the pole that i had been standing on, my sholder popped out of joint, and i fell some more. about halfway down, i hit one of the cross members, breaking four of my ribs. about 25 feet from the ground, i managed to grab a handfull of tree, slowing me down quite a bit. i hit the ground, and broke my foot in three places.
i spent 6 months in casts, and quite some time in physical therapy.
my second brush with death was when we went back (after i got better, i wanted to conquer it), and climbed it again. i didn’t fall this time, but the owner of the land was a rather old, leathery, redneck. he shot at us (after we came down), hit my friend, and his buddy peppered us with duck shot.
needless to say, we never returned to the Drive-in.
About 25 years ago, I was a passenger in the front seat of a Corvair. A big station wagon blew a stop sign in front of us an we t-boned him. I saw it coming and braced myself against the floor and dashboard. Then the slow motion, soundless episode began. I pivoted up right out of the seat and through the windshield. Next thing I knew, I was being hurtled through some sort of tunnel. I popped out what seemed to be the other end, and I was a young child again. A small boy, in the summertime, in a beautiful field. Blue skies, birds, butterflies, soft breeze. After a time, I was flying through the tunnel again, and when I emerged this time, I was floating about 20 feet above the scene of the accident. I saw myself lying on the sidewalk, bleeding with several people standing over me. Then, without warning, bam! I was lying on the sidewalk, looking up at the people standing over me.
yeah, that slow motion thing is weird! the intire falling episode seemd to take about 5 minutes, but as my friends later told me, (after i woke up) it only took about four seconds. (yes, one of them was counting, don’t ask me why)
I had a dreadful asthma attack about three years ago and came about as close to dying as one can without actually going ahead and doing it. I called 911, stayed conscious long enough to see the paramedic make sure my kitten was inside and lock the front door, then stopped breathing. I woke up five days later, having spent the intervening days on a ventilator.
But obviously I did start breathing again eventually and the kitten is asleep on the monitor right now, a big ol’ cat.
Hey eggo, are you a night owl??
And you’re not still doing high wire acts anymore are you??
My dad, when he would get drunk would often point his rifle at each of our heads( there were six kids) and tell us how we wouldn’t live through the night, I still suffer from insomnia as if I were still waiting for the gunshot.
The last time was on our way from a funeral we had attended in Memphis, we were on our way, a la caravanning, through Murfreesboro (sp)Tn. My husband was driving in a car behind me, when he suddenly disappeared from sight. I honked at the U Haul carrying my oldest son, my husband’s brother and his brother-in-law. We all pulled over to the emergency lane. Their two wives seeing the U haul pull over, they pulled over too. My youngest son, Billy was four at the time and he was in his car seat. Kenny, my BIL, came to ask what the problem was, when I saw a white camaro pulling up behind me. Sudden terror struck me, I KNEW we were in for bigtime trouble. Kenny turned his back, protectively guarding my door. These two HUGE guys got out and the one went for my door saying they were taking me, and the car. (I am STILL shaking typing this!! Billy is NOW fifteen!) My oldest son decides to get in on this, he is eight years old, I yell through the windshield to get back in that truck and he shakes his head, until I am screaming, half out of panic, and protectiveness for him. I can see the three men still in the camaro and they appear to be searching under the front seat for something which draws the attention of the two munsters, so they go back to their own car, and Kenny tells me to ‘floor it to the next exit’ Which I do, and getting there, I just start crying and I weirdly want to KILL my husband!! I would later ask DJ why he got out of the truck where he was safe, and he says, ‘I knew you might die, and I wanted to die with you.’ To THIS day, I still can’t drive through that city.
yes, i am quite a night owl. and yes, i do enjoy climbing very tall objects, only now i jump off of them (with a parachute now) it’s quite exhilarating.
I was on a campout with my scout troop and we were playing football near a running river. Well the football (which was mine), was kicked into the river. I took off my socks and shoes and walked in to get it, well I fell and started going down the river. Luckily I grabbed a rock and was able to get to the edge. Now I don’t know if I would have died, but I don’t know how far I would have floated down the river either. It was so cold and I was so freaked out, that I didn’t even know where I was. I didn’t go into shock, but I was close. Well it was a freaky experience.
“I have a lot of good ideas, problem is most of them suck.” -George Carlin
OK, I’m gonna quote myself from an old thread. It is called “How Competitive Are you?”. Although I wasn’t injured or anything, I very likely could have died. It was a matter of tenths of seconds. Here goes:
(Hope the search engine will produce some results soon… I’m trying for 5 minutes already…)
Damn search engine doesn’t fire up… I’ll try later. Just to warm you guys up: it involves a high speed race on a public road and some road maintenance equipment. It was very stupid of me, and I could have killed myself. Curious?
14 years ago I found out I was allergic to penicillin. I had been on it for a throat infection and it hadnt cleared up so the doctor gave me another round. I took the first one and within a very short period of time, I couldnt breathe. My friends rushed me to the hospital where a short while later my heart stopped.
It was the weirdest feeling, I remember hearing someone ask my friends who my next of kin was. I remember that as I was coming to several hours later, there were lots of tubes and my mom and dad were there and my mom was crying.
My parents told me later that I had been screaming for Colin, a friend I grew up with who had died two years before that in a car accident.
We are, each of us angels with only one wing,and we can only fly by embracing one another
My and my older brother were once playing around the house… We used to play with cap guns. My big bro pointed my Dad’s real six-shooter at me without knowing it. Almost pulled the trigger before he realized it was way too heavy to be a toy. He did not tell me about this until years later… I just thought I had won for once!
Also, we spun out on a frozen New Mexico interstate once, almost hit a pole, and then went into the ditch. In a mini-van! I was scared out of my shorts and cars and 18-wheelers were flying everywhere. Could have been curtains for us.
When I was 11, I had an allergic reaction to erythromycin. Hives all over, my throat starting to close up, but I’d had hives before, and didn’t realize this was more serious. My mother was at work, and my brother and I were home alone.
Luckily, my mother called, recognized my symptoms (she’s a nurse), and called a neighbor to take me to the hospital, but if she hadn’t, or had called an hour or so later, my reaction could very well have progressed to fatal.
When I was 17, I used to drive a bobtail truck and deliver diesel to oil drilling rigs out in Oklahoma. (A bobtail truck is smaller than a semi… think the size of a dumptruck, but with a 2,000 gallon tank on the back.) There was no radio and I was singing “Oh my darling, Clementine” at the top of my lungs, when I came over a hill (most of the roads in rural Oklahoma are barely wide eneough for 2 cars) and imagine my surprise when I discovered that a little Datsun Pickup truck was STOPPED in the middle of the road! I tried to swerve around him to the left into the lane for oncoming traffic. One of the most dangerous things about hauling liquid is that it sloshes around, and that’s exactly what happened! As soon as I swerved left, 2,000 gallons of diesel sloshed in the tank and skidded me onto the shoulder of the road (more of a ditch, really). After over correcting and basically doing the same thing again, pushing me onto the opposite side of the road. I was finally able to stop the truck. Not a scratch.
The guy driving the pickup, didn’t even check to see if I was alright, or anything. He hopped back in his truck and scooted on down the road. I have NEVER been that scared.
Same job, same summer, I was in a pickup delivering six 55 gallon drum of oil to a rig. Along the way there was this bridge called the Packsaddle bridge that was one lane only. It was about a half a mile long. Every other time I crossed the bridge, and I saw someone at the other end, one of us would back up and let the other driver go first. Kind of a ‘who got there first’ thing. One time that didn’t happen. I was in my pickup and a big tow truck was coming towards me. Neither one of us felt like we should be the one backing off. So here we are, I was tootling along at about 70 miles an hour on a bridge that wasn’t really wide enough for two vehicles. It was like a big game of Chicken. He appeared to be going just as fast. I was so far to the right, I thought I was going to scrape the side of the rail. When we passed each other, some part of his truck bashed my side mirror in and shattered it and my door window into a zillion pieces. That was a little too close for comfort.
In a controlled environment, I would have to say when I had heart surgery to detect an extra electrical node. Always a fun day when doctors have to induce a heart attack to find a problem.
Out in the real world, it would involve camping in high school. My 3 friends and I were hiking back down the trail to head home. About a quarter of a mile up the trail and to the right, we saw a bear basically sitting in a field, alternating between munching on food and staring around. It looked like a wide enough berth, so we decided to stay on the trail and just casually saunter past the bear (remember, we are still in that invincible high school guy mode here.) Little did we know that this mama bear’s cub happened to be playing on the other side of the trail.
As we passed the mom, we finally noticed the cub come tearing out of the woods in front of us heading towards the mom. She looks up, sees us, and immediately got up and did the whole snarling, growling, and chasing bit. We started running down the trail and climbed the highest trees we could find. The mom chased us a bit, watched us climb and then took the cub and made her way back into the woods.
Voted Rookie of the Year in MPSIMs and the Pit, along with Best One-liners.
And I don’t plan on keeping this as my sig for long, just until the winning buzz wears off.
I fell off the roof of a two story apartment building while messing around when I was 12. Slow-Mo all the way down. I still remember flapping my arms to try to slow the descent. Funny thing is, I landed on my feet, rolled back on to my ass and didn’t hurt a thing!
“So, for once in my life, let me get what I want.
Lord knows, it would be the first time.”
Mikey, Mikey Mikey…and here I thought what my mother said about it making you go blind was bad enough…but death??? I am not sure I would go that far.
the closest I have ever come to death was during the birth of my daughter…and I wasn’t even aware of it until afterward, when the doctor was telling me that I really shouldn’t have any more children. Guess it was very difficult, I am glad I was asleep for the worst part.
I really try to be good but it just isn’t in my nature!
Not as dramatic as most of these, but 3 years ago I had pneumonia. Staggering to the hospital (I was too stupid to realize how sick I was)I thought I was going to die, then thought I was being overly dramatic. Got to the hospital, sat down and thought “O.K. this is what it feels like to die.” then I passed out.
Teacher, my red crayon tastes funny – Ralph Wiggum
Five times that I can think of:
[ul][li](Age 2) Drinking something from under the kitchen sink. I don’t remember it, but I had my stomach pumped at the hospital.[/li][li](Age 5) Accidentally being pushed into an irrigation canal, a 20 X 15 foot one, full of muddy river water. Someone pulled me out right away, but I still remember falling in, then having my vision occluded by the dirty water.[/li][li](Age 13) Being in a car that was broadsided by a stoned motorcyclist. If my sister hadn’t been showing me some dresses she’d just bought in San Diego, we both would’ve been showered with flying glass. (The motorcyclist died and my other sister who was driving was charged with manslaughter [reduced to reckless driving]).[/li]
Any southern Californian might be familiar with the site: the Temecula exit off of I-15.
[li](Age 26) Rolling my car on a winding road. My car stopped perfectly placed bumper-to-bumper (upside-down) between two trees. Not a scratch on me, but I could’ve very easily been killed.[/li][li](Age 27) My appendix rupturing. The doctors couldn’t isolate my problem as the pain was dull and centered, not low and sharp. Finally, I was in delerium and a night nurse persuaded the doctors to do something.[/ul][/li]
Wrong thinking is punished, right thinking is just as swiftly rewarded. You’ll find it an effective combination.
and the kitten is asleep on the monitor right now, a big ol’ cat.
Funny thing is, I landed on my feet, rolled back on to my ass and didn’t hurt a thing!