# What is the closest you've ever come to death? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 10, 2000, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893 "2000-03-10T05:08:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![bda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5e9695/32.png) [@bda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bda)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2000, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893/41 "2000-03-16T10:39:00Z")
true . . the speedometer was buried(past 140mph)when we hit it right in the ass . . it laid there dazed . . struggled to its feet and limped off, im sure with at least 1 broken leg. it may have died later . . i dont know. ---
**Author:** ![G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c67d28/32.png) [@G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.B.H.Hornswoggler)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2000, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893/42 "2000-03-16T13:48:00Z")
Philadelphia (where you only \*wish[/] you’re dead!) * * * …but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans! ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2000, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893/43 "2000-03-17T06:58:00Z")
I was driving to high school and a guy in a white van in oncoming traffic sneezed and momentarily lost control of his vehicle and swerved right in front of me, about two car lengths ahead. Being a fairly new driver, I froze at the wheel. The other driver recovered and missed hitting me head on. I can still picture his face to this day, 16 years later. * * * I’m living so beyond my income that we may almost said to be living apart -e e cummings ---
**Author:** ![Coldfire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2000, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893/44 "2000-03-17T01:39:00Z")
Well, the search engine works again, so here’s the story I promised earlier in this thread. I posted it on Oktober 1, 1999, and it just struck me reading this how much my English has improved since then - this board is a great way of enhancing ones language skills! Anyway, my brush with death (from [http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/001525.html](http://boards.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/001525.html) ): > [@](#): > > NOTE: this story is quite long, but I assure you it’s a THRILLER. > > I’m VERY competitive. > > In fact I’m so competitive I nearly killed myself a couple of years ago, must have been 1994. > > Here goes. I’m driving my father’s car (1993 Mitsubishi Galant) on a Dutch highway at around 8 pm on a summer evening. Just having covered a 80 km/h stretch, I finally arrive at the point where the speed limit goes up to 120 km/h (some 75 miles). I accelerate - meanwhile being passed in the left lane by a sporty looking Opel Astra (a car I despise, see also this thread [http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/001506.html](http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/001506.html) !!), doing something clearly over the speed limit. “I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be outrun by this crap PoS Opel thing !”, I rationally think. > > So I floor the car. This was actually quite a powerful car, capable of some 210 km/h (a bit over 130 mph). After a while, I catch up with the Opel (it’s called a Vauxhall in England, an Opel in mainland Europe, Opel’s GM but I don’t no what it’s called in north america). I’m doing maybe 3 km/h more than him - after a bit of slipstreaming, I move over to the left lane to overtake him. Smiling at the other driver, I move past him, doing well over 200 km/h. > > I look forward again, and the sight nearly makes me shit myself. > > Maybe 200 meters away, there’s one of those road construction trailers, you know, the ones with the blinking arrows on them directing you to the other lane. I got so caught up in racing, I completely missed all the warning signs I must have passed already at that point!! > > I could have easily braked and moved over behind the Opel, but something inside me decides I just HAVE to get in front of this guy. And he isn’t backing down either… I already feel the cat-eye strips going underneath my tires (a later inquiry revealed that standard policy is to start those strips 30 meters before the actual trailer - a distance covered in 0.5 seconds at 200 km/h !) when I throw the car onto the right lane, just avoiding the trailer. > > When I look back in my mirror, I can’t see the Opel’s headlights - that’s how close he is less than 1.5 meters, I estimate)!! > > So, I didn’t hit the trailer, nor the Opel. The story’s not over yet though. Now we’re on a single lane (the left one’s under construction as stated, and there’s only a narrow emergency shoulder to the right [say 2 meters wide]), braking heavily. I spot a family sedan in front of me, bicycles on the roof, camping trailer attached to it. It’s doing maybe 70 km/h, and I’m still way over 150 km/h. There’s no way I’m gonna make this. > > So I pass him over the emergency shoulder on the right - 20 centimetres of space to either side of the car at a speed of over 130 km/h at that point. The guy was scared to death. > > After that, I decelerated enough and carried on at a normal speed. When the left lane opened again, the Opel Astra passed me and looked at me like I came from another planet. > > I stopped the car in a roadside parking lot to see if there REALLY wasn’t any damage. There wasn’t. I had been EXTREMELY lucky, and so had all the other people involved been. > > This must have been the single most stupid thing I ever did out of competitiveness. It almost got me killed, and I can assure you all it changed my way of driving completely. The road is not a racing circuit. I know this now. > > Which is why the abovementioned link (oh hell, here it is again then: [http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/001506.html](http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum4/HTML/001506.html) ) is such an irony. > > Thanks for your time, I hope you found it entertaining as well as educating. > > Cheers, > > Coldfire So there. Stupid enough for ya? I’m not proud of it, but hey, it DOES answer the OP. * * * **Coldfire** _Voted **Poster Most Likely To Post Drunk** _ * * * _ **"You know how complex women are"** _ - Neil Peart, **Rush** (1993) ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2000, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893/45 "2000-03-18T15:06:00Z")
Not quite measuring up to the standards set forth, but… 1. About age 4 we went to a new neighbors to swim in their pool. I’d never been swimming before, and didn’t know how, but excitement got the better of me. I sprinted through the gate and went straight into the deep end, wearing shirt and shoes. Dad fished me out before I realized what I had done. We soon got swimming lessons after that. 2. About age 7 I was at a community pool playing with strangers. It was a wading pool. One of the kids pulled my feet out from under me and pinned me under water for what felt like eternity. Scared me really bad, though I probably wasn’t in as much danger as I felt. 3. About age 10 my brother, sister, and I were exploring an aunt’s farm in Oklahoma. It was cold and we found a pond with ice on the surface. We thought it would be fun to walk on the ice. After “testing” the surface by throwing a large limb onto it, my sister and I trudged out onto the ice. Halfway across we noticed the ice was sort of cracking. We rushed to get to the edge, as the ice broke. Brother pulled us both out, so all three of us were drenched in freezing weather with a quarter mile hike back to the house. Cold, crying, scared, miserable, we made it back. I seem to have a thing for water. 1. At age 18 or so I went with my brother on a trip to visit my sister away from home - just the two of us driving without the parents. On the way back, I was driving and got really tired, and dozed off behind the wheel. I woke up as the car was sliding into the median and I was braking. Scary. Been lucky the couple times I’ve dozed off behind the wheel that nothing bad has happened. ---
**Author:** ![purrplebear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/90ced4/32.png) [@purrplebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purrplebear)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2000, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893/46 "2000-03-18T16:50:00Z")
Wow! I don’t know if any of my experiences come to the level of several of these, but they impacted my life a great deal. Age 3, Albaturkeypotpie, NM(hey, it’s what we CALLED it, ok?): my older brother and I decide to taste the stuff in the drainage ditch near our trailer. Turns out it was lye, and we had to have our stomaches pumped, were very ill for days. Age 3,at the rim of the Grand Canyon: I thought that the whole world was level ground, or something, I wanted a closer look at the canyon, so I slipped under the guard rail and leaned over, too far as it turns out. Next thing I know, I’m dangling over the canyon, feeling nothing but air around me, and hearing my Dad yell for help. Let’s just say, it’s a darn good thing that my Dad had a rope tied around my waist, with the other end attached to him(they knew I had no fear of anything). I was hanging by that thin thread out over the Grand canyon for about 3-4 minutes, but I still didn’t get it, and was having fun with the view I had. Age 6, somewhere in Germany, on a mountain side: my Mom’s little VW Switchback’s brakes quit working while we’re driving around this mountain. On our left is the mountain, and on our right is a 2ft high stone wall, and then nothing but the cliff, and a looooong way down. She’s frantically trying to keep from going over the cliff, and trying to somehow stop the car, and my 2 brothers and I were bouncing all over the place(no one wore seatbelts those days) and we end up taking out some guys car parked right next to the wall, finally coming to a stop. We later see that we not only took out this guy’s car, but his car had broken through the wall, and was partially out over the edge. If that car hadn’t been there to slow us down, we would have gone right over. The weirdest part was my little brother, gets up from the floor of the back of the Switchback and starts laughing his head off(he was 2.5 at the time) and asks if we can do that again, it was FUN! I thought my Mom was going to kill him right then and there! Age 7, on the beach in Chile, across from our house: My older brother and I got caught in a riptide some 15ft from shore(no, I don’t know how we got out that far) and were being slowly sucked under. A stray german shepard rushed into the ocean, swam to us, and pulled us out of danger, my brother first, then came back for me. He was our guardian angel that day, so we kept him for many years. Our swimsuits were ruined from his teeth, but that was a very small price to pay for our lives. Mom and Dad never again let us go to the beach without Scraps(my Mom named him, give me a break). Age 21, in San Antonio: After suffering through a day at work, and then off to night classes at SAC Jr College, I went home, and realized that I was getting sicker by the minute, and starting to have some SERIOUS stomach pains. I called my SIL back up, (she’d just dropped me off, we had classes together) and asked her to take me to the hospital. After spending the worst night ever, almost, in the ER, getting poked and prodded and no one could decide what was wrong with me,they decided to go ahead and take out my appendix. It was a good thing they did, I was told later that if they had waited 2-3 more hours, it would’ve ruptured, and I could have died, it was so badly infected. To top that wonderful experience off, I came down with Strep Throat the next day, so I spent a week in the hospital. Age 23, in Omaha, Ne: I had had a very difficult pregnancy and was pre-eclamptic, blood pressure out of control, and so ill I didn’t even realize how bad I was. The doctor finally agreed to do an emergency c-section since my body refused to go into labor in spite of the drugs, and the baby was 3weeks late. I found out days later that I had started to go into convulsions and almost died on them, before they could get my precious son out. Age 25, in Omaha: This time, I had different problems with the pregnancy, but still very serious ones. I was told by every doc I saw that if I wanted to live to raise these 2 kids, I’d better NEVER get pregnant again. I got so ill so fast at the end, again, I almost died before they did the emergence c-section. I love my kids dearly, wouldn’t trade them for the world, but I can’t ever go through that again. Age 26, later that same year my daughter was born, now in San Antonio:After fighting one kidney infection after another all year long, it was discovered that I had kidney stones(skipping over the pain that knocked me to the ground). And, 3 surgeries later, almost losing my kidney, and spending a month in the hospital, I was deemed healthy enough to go home, provided someone else(MIL) would continue to keep the kids, now 3yrs, and 10mo’s old for another 3 weeks, minimum. Again, the doctor told me I could’ve have died from the complications I had. ## There are a few others, but I’ll save those for another day, that’s enough for now. Don’t make me come down there. God ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2000, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893/47 "2000-03-18T17:41:00Z")
Oh good, another let’s-talk-about-ourselves thread! Can you read this thread and not think we’ve got some lucky (or unlucky, take your choice) posters here? I’ve had a few, but the closest call was probably when I stuck a bicycle hanlebar through my liver at age 10. The accident did some other stuff (bent spine, collapsed lung), but the liver was the main event. They removed 2/3s of it. I don’t know what survival stats are for ruptured livers nowadays, but in 1963 it was a grim picture. I spent two weeks in ICU with all kinds of tubes running in and out of me (I particularly remember a heart catheter that went in at my ankle) and another three months in the hospital after that. About a month into it I got my first solid food - guess what it was? I’ve never been able to eat liver since. As I said, there were a few others; by the time I was 22, I’d spent 13 months of my life hospitalized (only one overnight since in another 24 years). ---
**Author:** ![eggo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@eggo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eggo)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2000, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893/48 "2000-03-18T20:04:00Z")
oh man! you’ve got to be kidding me! they actualy served you liver? such sensitive doctors back then… * * * eggo My Web Page:[SMITE](http://www.angelfire.com/yt/smite) _WARNING_ it may offend you. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2000, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893/49 "2000-03-18T20:15:00Z")
[Hijack] Coldfire wrote in response to BDA: > [@](#): > > Hang on now. You’re telling me you hit a deer at 233 km/h (just to let the other metric people know), and the deer WALKED AWAY?? What are they FEEDING these things, > anyway Did you hit it head on? If so, you’re indeed lucky to live. Althought the speed involved sounds a bit iffy to me, I might be able to clarify something. The deer over here in the US are large. About the size of a pony, as a visual. The kind of deer that I’ve seen over in Germany that I think you are thinking of, are about the size of a medium sized dog. There are many a tales of some poor slob nailing a deer while driving home from work/the bar/whatever at 2am and the deer crashes right through the windshield. After the car stops ( either by the driver or a ditch or tree) and the driver realizes he isn’t dead,and frees himself from the mess, the stun deer comes back to life and kicks like a muther to get out of the car and back into the woods hardly the worst for the wear. (ohh, that was a run on sentance) There’s something like 38,000 car/deer accidents here in Michigan alone last year. [/hijack] * * * I’m living so beyond my income that we may almost said to be living apart -e e cummings ---
**Author:** ![EnigmaOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@EnigmaOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EnigmaOne)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2000, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893/50 "2000-03-18T23:00:00Z")
Back in '85 I took up the leisure pursuit of laser experimentation, creating a decently stocked lab in the garage. I was working on my latest project, a 3-meter bore length carbon dioxide laser, when one of the cooling jacket hoses began to leak slightly…something I didn’t notice as the leak was below the workbench top. I was ready to fire the thing up for the first time–gas mixture was right, carbon blocks positioned down range…thinking about everything but my personal safety…walked around to the back of the workbench to adjust the position of the high voltage leads. There was water on the floor, and the leads were hot. 48-freaking-thousand-volts! I remember seeing a flash that seemed to come from the inside of my eyes–really strange…you “see” it but don’t see it. Hard to describe. Other than that, I don’t remember anything else. At any rate, I went through the window behind me into the back yard–not that impressive as it was a low window. The workbench got thrown over somehow and ruined a lot of expensive hardware. The crashing of me going through the window brought my next-door neighbor over–I later found out that he thought that someone was breaking into the house. The whole of the unconscious experience for me was just a sizzling sound–might as well have been cooking bacon for all that was worth. No lights, no visions, just coming to with some ugly cuss slapping me silly. I figured out who he was before hitting him back, and we pieced together what must have happened. The garage floor was a mess of shattered quartz glass in a pool of water. I don’t work alone with high voltage-pumped lasers anymore. * * * – **Kalél** [TheHungerSite.com](http://www.thehungersite.com) “If ignorance is bliss, you must be orgasmic.” “Well, there was that thing with the Cheese-Wiz…but I’m feeling **much** better now!” – John Astin, Night Court ---
**Author:** ![bda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/5e9695/32.png) [@bda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bda)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2000, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893/51 "2000-03-19T02:01:00Z")
shirley ujest . . believe me . . i wasnt driving . . my friends cousin was . . i was in the back seat and very nervously watching the needle rise. check out late 70’s camaro’s/trans am’s speedometers . . they register 140 . . and we were past that. ---
**Author:** ![BoBettie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@BoBettie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BoBettie)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2000, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893/52 "2000-03-19T02:15:00Z")
I think my closest call with the Grim Reaper was when I almost choked to death. I was driving home from work in my little white pick-up truck, eating Spree candies and singing. I accidently inhaled one of them, (they’re about the size of a nickle, but fatter) and was choking. Only it wasn’t like coughing and coughing choking, it was just plain “I can’t move air into my lungs” choking. I pulled over and tried to cough it up with absolutely no luck. It was too far to walk to a house. After about 30 seconds, I started feeling lightheaded and dizzy. I got out of the truck, and was scared at how weak and panicky I felt. I seriously started thinking “Holy Shit. I’m gonna die- right here- from eating fucking candy”. I got my wits back and got to the back of the truck by the bumper. I pushed myself into the bumper with everything I had right in the “Heimlick” spot, and sure enough after two tries it came up. I’ll never forget how scary that was, and I likely would not have known to try that had I not taken a CPR class about a month prior. Very scary stuff. Zette * * * “If I had to live your life, I’d be begging to have someone pop out both my eyes. Just in case I came across a mirror.” - android209 (in the Pit) [Zettecity](http://www.angelfire.com/ny3/zettecity/index.html) Voted “Most Empathetic”- can you believe that? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-closest-youve-ever-come-to-death/14893.md?page=2)