What is the closest you've ever come to death?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

I was skiing merrily along on Mt. Bachelor, when I discovered a slope I hadn’t skied. Sure it was a bit steeper than I had tried before, but hey, no pain, no gain, right? Went zipping down, then realized I had picked up way more speed than I could handle. I couldn’t turn, I couldn’t even just fall over, I was so scared. When the trail curved, I went straight. I remember wiping out, then my ski hit my head and I passed out. When I woke up, one ski was snapped in half, the other was buried in the snow. My poles were both missing, along with hat and goggles. The scary part was, I was in a field of jagged, pointy stumps. My head was less than a foot away from one. I had apparently sailed right over two others to get where I was, in fact, there were drops of my blood on them. I had to hike down the hill to the ski patrol station. Didn’t go skiing again for two years. Brr.

Justin

22

I was driving from Seattle to Portland at about 2am after leaving a party early. I wasn’t drunk, but I was pissed off at my ex, and wasn’t driving well. After almost wiping out at 100 MPH, I calmed myself and started driving a much safer 70 mph. I went to turn on some driving music, and as I did, the road decided to turn. I didn’t follow suit until a second later, and my attempt only led to the car spinning out. I made a 720 before hitting the guardrail, then spun another 180 before coming to a stop. Depressingly, based on this, I discovered that my last words are likely to be “Oh Shit”.

http://www.madpoet.com
Please hit Ctrl-A
I hit Ctrl. Now what, eh?
Damn Canadians.

23

I read this 4 times and I still don’t understand it. Your husband dissappeared…where did he go? Who was in which cars? What happened? I just don’t understand any of the story and I swear I’m not drunk or anything. I read it over and over and it just doesn’t make sense to me.

–
From an actual catalog: “Disco balls create an enchanting, dazzling effect of light shafts, adding movement and glamour to any occasion”
the Abrams’ bris was certainly memorable
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

24

I read this 4 times and I still don’t understand it. Your husband dissappeared…where did he go? Who was in which cars? What happened? I just don’t understand any of the story and I swear I’m not drunk or anything. I read it over and over and it just doesn’t make sense to me.

–
From an actual catalog: “Disco balls create an enchanting, dazzling effect of light shafts, adding movement and glamour to any occasion”
the Abrams’ bris was certainly memorable
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com

25

I’m sorry if I put too many people in the story OpalCat! Duane (hubby) was driving a car with his stepmother behind me(my youngest son was with me in our car) Duane had decided to stop and get gas without honking or signaling anyone, so when I looked in the rear view mirror he just wasn’t there.

O (two sisters-in-laws)
OO(two brother-in-laws in the U Haul with DJ)
O (me and Billy)
O ( Duane and his stepmother)

I signal the U Haul over, then the BIL’s wives pull over, and Kenny asks why I pulled over and I explain that Duane split. So we are waiting to see Duane and stepmother come up, and we get Hoodlum creeps instead. I don’t know why I got picked out by the creeps, or even if they meant to bring a weapon that wasn’t found in the camaro (giving us the time to get away) to take all of us. Does that help? It was scary, and I probably jumbled the story putting all the people in it.

“Subconsciously there are many people you hate.” “Consciously,sir, consciously.” Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. “I hate them consciously.”

26

the time i was glad to have bad grades:

when i was a junior in high school, i was a theatre buff. there was an ITS (International Thesbian Socity) meeting in a town about 200 miles away, so our theatre class was taking registrations. my friend drew and i didn’t want to ride the bus there, so we were going to drive in his car.
at the last minute, the school changed the rules so that you could only go if you were passing all your classes. i was VERY pissed. i had paid the (non-refundable) $130 to go on the trip, and damnit i wanted to go. the rest of the folks went on the trip: and i stayed home.
the next week (they had left on a friday), drew walks into class with a cast covering his entire right torso. he told me that he had been broad-sided by a chevy truck going 70 mph. i felt sorry for him, first because of his injuries, and also because his car was broken in half.
it wasn’t until i went with him to get somthig out of the trunk, that i saw it. the ENTIRE right side looked like it was gone! in fact, it was crushed flat against the left side. i then realized, I WOULD HAVE BEEN SITTING IN THAT SEAT!! i have never been so glad to fail.

eggo

My Web Page:SMITE WARNING it may offend you.

27

Passed out a few years ago at work – Wally, the plant nurse, says my BP was 40 over 20. I remember a really peaceful, calm feeling, and thinking “if this is dying, it isn’t so bad.”

Then this morning, going to work, had to slam on my brakes to keep from hitting a guy coming at me in my lane – he had just passed two cars on a curve. Freaking idiot. I beeped my horn at him. (Like that’ll teach him.)

I thought about taking the ditch instead but I didn’t want to mess up my car. Wonder how many drivers would be alive today if they didn’t try to stay on the road at all costs.

28

In high school my buds and I used to take a little rubber raft through the rapids in the Spokane River at Riverside Park. It was springtime and there was lots of whitewater. We were very safety conscious (yeah, right) and even wore (inadequate) lifejackets. No surprise that one occasion a friend and I got caught in a rapid and held under by the water curling back on us. I remember thinking this was it and, curiously, that my mom was going to be really mad at me for drowning. I remember I stopped struggling, and as soon as I did I popped to the surface. I don’t know what I was doing down there but whatever it was it was wrong.

A scarier incident, because I had more control over what happened, occurred in Hawaii. I was body surfing (in my own inimitable fashion) and noticed two teenage boys were having trouble. They were caught in a riptide and didn’t know what to do. I swam over and tried to help. One of the boys was just about exhausted but the other (his brother) was okay. I told them to stop trying to swim into shore and to swim parallel to the shore until they (now we) were out of the current. We did that, me and the brother holding up the tired kid, but we misjudged how far we had to swim and tried swimming in again too soon. By this time we were all pretty whacked. At this point I knew I was going to have to decide very soon whether to let go of the kid and save myself or be a hero and drown with him. I hung in there a little longer and we finally got clear but I was way past the point where I should have left. To this day I don’t know if what I did was brave or stupid, but it came out all right in the end.

The funny thing was that, although there was no lifeguard on the beach, there were life rings and poles available at fifty-foot intervals all along the beach. No one on shore, including Mrs. Pluto, the boys’ parents and several other spectators, ever thought to use them. They just watched. I guess I wasn’t the only one not thinking too clearly in the crisis.

“You have no choice but to be impressed.”
Tony Rothman and George Sudarshan
Doubt and Certainty

29

My life has never really been in serious danger. Except maybe when my friend Krista drove us to the SATs. That was scary. But there were a couple times that I really THOUGHT my life was in danger.

  1. I’m hypoglycemic, which isn’t really a huge deal. Lots of people are hypoglycemic. But once, when I was thirteen or so, I had an actual hypoglycemic attack, which was truly frightening. Basically, I hadn’t eaten for a long time (early dinner compounded with sleeping late) and my vision went black and white. I don’t know how this happened, but very suddenly, I couldn’t see any colors. Already not thinking so clearly, I became hysterical. I started yelling that I couldn’t see and became very frightened that something serious was happening.
    When I finally ate some food, my vision came back and left me with a terrible headache.

  2. When I was in Israel, I was often a little nervous about my safety. Like the time my bus stop got blown up. But the only time I was really, really frightened was on Shavuot at the Western Wall. It’s a tradition to stay awake all night on Shavuot (Pentecost) studying, and then - this only works if you’re in Jerusalem - walk to the Wall and have morning services there. To very quickly describe a complicated situation, the Wall is considered an Orthodox synagogue, and is therefore seperated into men’s and women’s sections. Most religious Israelis are Orthodox, but outside of Israel, most people aren’t, and an egalitarian minyan was held in the plaza at the Wall. Being a activist-type person I aspire to be, I elected to join in that service.

What makes it scary is that there are ultra-Orthodox people who really really really really hate this, and felt it their duty to try to stop us from praying. This happens every year, so we had two barricades and armed guards surrounding us. The whole time, people stood round and shouted at us, spit at us, and towards the end, threw stuff at us. In the past, there have been very violent conflicts on Shavuot, and I soon began to second-guess my activism on this count. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured, and I took comfort in the guards, but it was not a particularly enjoyable experience.

Like I said, neither of these things were actually near-death experiences. But they were the closest I ever came to being seriously worried for my safety.

~Harborina

“Don’t Do It.”

30

Lets see, there were three times that come to memory that I came close to death(or serious injury) and escaped unscathed.

  1. I was about 2.5 years old and decided to find out what happens when you stick your small, little child type finger into an electric socket. Needless to say, I discovered that I was not the brightest idea that I could have come up with. (for the record I was living in Africa at the time so the voltage was somewhere around 220, not the lesser american voltage) My father saw me and pulled me out of the vicinity with what can best be described as a flying tackle. I didn’t get injured, but I had a pretty nasty shock.
  2. Yet another story involving me and electricity and being curious… This one occurred when I was about 8. I was fooling around like I usually did at that age-by which I mean taking things apart, and trying to put them back together(with my parents consent of course. I was a good boy. (especially after that whole “stereo incident”)) And I thought that a really bright thing to do would be to rewire an electrical plug by stripping the wires inside it, crossing them, and put the thing back together. Then I plugged it into a nearby wall socket. The best word I can think of to describe what happened next would be WHOOOM, as the socket promptly turned into a ball of white fire, sending me tumbling several meters out the door. This was the last time my parents let me play near the outlets.
  3. At last, one that does not involve me doing dumb things with electric sockets. In fact, this one had little to do with me at all, except that I was a passenger on the plane at the time. The plane that got lost, and started to run out of fuel. When the pilot was finally able to get into radio contact with a nearby airport, we headed directly for it. However we were flying into a rather strong headwind, and it was getting stronger. Needless to say it was in no way a sure thing that we were going to make it there before the engines quit. (I can still remember my mother telling my brother and I to help her look for roads that we could land on if we didn’t make it…) However we did make it, barely. The fuel tanks were literally seconds (ok maybe 2 or 3 minutes) away from quitting entirely(the expression “running on fumes” came up more than once) when we taxied in to the airport. (on a more humorous note, we ended up sleeping in said airport, as out visas had expired that day)

There, thats all the ones I remember at this time.

Still later, Gerald did a terrible thing to Elsie with a saucepan.

31

Fooling around at a party, trying to prevent a friend from leaving… there was no drinking, but there was plenty of silliness. I was on the “running boards” of an old VW. My friend, who had started the car but was not moving, thought that I was in danger of falling and hit the brakes. This caused the car to jerk and threw me.

I fractured my skull in 3 places. I don’t recall anything for about a day and a ahlf, altho I am told I spoke to people. They gave me the last rites, so I know it was serious - I am still mad that I dont remember that! For about a month everything tasted like burbt toast… and they warned me about the chance of developing epilepsy, which never occured. 23 years ago…

32

Mrs. Rastahomie’s is far more interesting, so I’ll tell hers:

She grew up in the middle of the woods in rural southeastern Missouri. There’s this forestry tower about a mile and a half from her house, where forest rangers go to check for forest fires and teenagers go to make out. As it turns out, this forestry tower is also a drop-off point, where drug runners in airplanes fly overhead and drop their cargo, at which point a redneck on the ground picks up the shipment and takes it on its way, the theory being that you’re not likely to attract attention if you do this sort of business quickly and in the middle of the woods.

Anyhoo, Mrs. Rastahomie and friends go to the forestry tower to hang out, when they hear the sounds of a propellar overhead. Looking up, they see a plane. Then they hear the sounds of a truck pulling up, so they walk toward it to see who it is. Next thing you know, they’re hearing gunshots and running like hell toward Mrs. Rastahomie’s house. They all made it.

33

nothing comes to mind at the moment, concerning me nearly dying, but I once got the crap scared out of me, when I thought I was going to lose my wife…
this was September of 98, the four of us (me, wife, 2 kids) were just coming out of McD’s, about to go for a little drive to look at houses for sale (we couldn’t buy, but we always look).
anyways, we’re truckin’ along, not very fast at all (this is in the city), when a woman in a Pontiac 6000 runs a STOP sign from my left. Since I had been talking to my wife at the moment, I didn’t see her (woman in car) til she was right in front of me, and I barrelled right into her front wheel, pretty much totalling my car. I finally came to a stop about 5 feet from the stop sign across the street and shut the car off cuz the throttle cable was stuck, then I turned around to check on the kids, who were shook up, but unhurt. Then I turned to my wife, and she was pale as a ghost. I started talking to her, “Are you all right?? Are you OK??” when she stopped breathing. at that exact moment, the only thing I could think was “I lost her.” Then she finally started breathing again (seemed like forever, but was just a couple seconds.)
she had just gotten the wind knocked out of her, but very badly… her right foot had been propped up on the dash when it happened, and her knee slammed into her chest, bruising her ribs badly.
But I don’t think I’ve ever been that freaked out…

I don’t suffer from insanity…
I enjoy every minute of it!

34

MAN! I don’t know if I want to put my puny stories in this thread.

  • Don’t you just love the nonchalant way she says that? I think I might have been more than a little nervous.*

Lets see now;

At 8 years old, living in a rural area of Florida, living in the only house on the block in a mainly wooded subdivision of dirt roads, I was playing along side the road when an old pick up passed me. It stopped down the block – at the corner (which was about 1/2 block away) and a guy got out. Being 8 I watched with interest as he produced a shotgun, leveled it at me and fired. I hit the dirt as shot scattered into the palmettos all around me but was not hit. The guy climbed back into his truck and pulled off. I never told my folks, figuring that they’d never believe me. (Back then, people just did not do things like that.)

I was running along a divided 4 lane highway in a mild rainstorm, doing 70 in heavy traffic, driving a small Isuzu P’up with a cap on the back full of freight I had to get to the next city. I passed a slow car on the right (two lanes) when suddenly -* the truck swerved to the left, sort of floated, ignored my frantic stomping of the brakes and cutting of the wheel and drifted around in a lazy circle – into the accompanying traffic on my left!* I saw grass and pavement spinning by, then was in the huge median swale ditch, covered with grass and things were spinning so fast that I was tossed to the right against my seat belt, the truck tilted so far to the right that the left wheels left the ground, my arms were locked like steel bars on the wheel, my feet pushing the break and clutch through the fire wall – (all of those things you’re NOT SUPPOSED to do in a wreck 'cause limbs might snap off). When I felt the truck going over, I squeezed my eyes shut, said ‘oh shit’ and thought ‘THIS is gonna HURT!’ and … the truck stopped. Upright. In the swale. In the muddy grass. After some time sitting behind the wheel, motor running, wipers going, not believing my luck, thanking God for His Intervention, wondering if my pants were freshly soiled and checking in great surprise to find NO OTHERS involved in the accident, I got out and checked the truck. I had only blown a tire right off of the rim. (Later, me and my boss inflated it to see if it had blown out, causing the wreck. It had not. I blew it when the truck tilted.) There was no other damage to the truck. Of course, like 500 cars saw me careen into the median strip, but no one stopped to help and it took me half an hour to change the tire and work my way out of the slippery grass and back onto the road and no one had even called the cops.

I was delivering papers in a rural area of dirt roads and BIG ditches – Florida is full of them. 20 feet deep and 30 wide – in a creaky Olds 98 when I swerved to avoid a rabbit while doing something like 60. I lost control of the car, hit the dirt embankment, skidded on top of it and sailed merrily along, stomping the breaks and wondering why the hell the car did not respond. Then it dawned on me that the wheels were no longer on the ground. Two were hanging above the road and two were hanging above the deep ditch. I was riding on slippery grass on the undercarriage. Then, the car started to tilt into the ditch and I started having visions of hitting the not real deep but muddy water in the bottom, possibly being trapped and drowning, thinking that this was probably going to hurt real bad, when the car gave a tremendous jolt, tossed me into the air, crashed onto the road and I brought it to a stop on the other side. I got out and looked back to find that I had hit a driveway to a house which crossed the ditch on a small bridge! The impact had tossed me back onto the road. After thanking God again, I checked my shorts for stains, had a smoke, found no damage to the car (that was actually hard to tell because the car was kind of a wreck anyhow) and finished delivering my papers. I decided that the next time a rabbit darted out in front of me on a muddy Florida road at 3 AM, after a rain storm, with big ditches anywhere in sight, I was NOT going to swerve.

One night, while traveling through Jackson, Mississippi, I happened to take a wrong turn, wound up off of the interstate and in what I eventually discovered to be a Black community. I decided NOT to stop and ask for directions but kept heading on, knowing that I’d eventually emerge somewhere near the interstate again. I saw a lot of hookers and a lot of Black people and eventually wound up in a kind of really seedy area. I passed a big caddy, where a pimp was letting his girls out (just like in the movies), passed him and barely heard a pop-pop-pop! I DID, however, notice the THUNK! when a bullet hit the trunk of my car. I got the hell out of there! When I emerged in a better section near the interstate, I stopped at a gas station and looked to find a finger sized hole to the right of my trunk lock. I looked in the trunk and was glad that I carry a lot of junk. The .9mm had penetrated the trunk, hit the lid of my tool box and imbedded itself in a chunk of 3x5 pressure treated wood I always carried to put my jack on. I reported it all to the cops, but nothing ever came of it.

I think this is enough for now.

35

MAN! I don’t know if I want to put my puny stories in this thread.

  • Don’t you just love the nonchalant way she says that? I think I might have been more than a little nervous.*

Lets see now;

At 8 years old, living in a rural area of Florida, living in the only house on the block in a mainly wooded subdivision of dirt roads, I was playing along side the road when an old pick up passed me. It stopped down the block – at the corner (which was about 1/2 block away) and a guy got out. Being 8 I watched with interest as he produced a shotgun, leveled it at me and fired. I hit the dirt as shot scattered into the palmettos all around me but was not hit. The guy climbed back into his truck and pulled off. I never told my folks, figuring that they’d never believe me. (Back then, people just did not do things like that.)

I was running along a divided 4 lane highway in a mild rainstorm, doing 70 in heavy traffic, driving a small Isuzu P’up with a cap on the back full of freight I had to get to the next city. I passed a slow car on the right (two lanes) when suddenly -* the truck swerved to the left, sort of floated, ignored my frantic stomping of the brakes and cutting of the wheel and drifted around in a lazy circle – into the accompanying traffic on my left!* I saw grass and pavement spinning by, then was in the huge median swale ditch, covered with grass and things were spinning so fast that I was tossed to the right against my seat belt, the truck tilted so far to the right that the left wheels left the ground, my arms were locked like steel bars on the wheel, my feet pushing the break and clutch through the fire wall – (all of those things you’re NOT SUPPOSED to do in a wreck 'cause limbs might snap off). When I felt the truck going over, I squeezed my eyes shut, said ‘oh shit’ and thought ‘THIS is gonna HURT!’ and … the truck stopped. Upright. In the swale. In the muddy grass. After some time sitting behind the wheel, motor running, wipers going, not believing my luck, thanking God for His Intervention, wondering if my pants were freshly soiled and checking in great surprise to find NO OTHERS involved in the accident, I got out and checked the truck. I had only blown a tire right off of the rim. (Later, me and my boss inflated it to see if it had blown out, causing the wreck. It had not. I blew it when the truck tilted.) There was no other damage to the truck. Of course, like 500 cars saw me careen into the median strip, but no one stopped to help and it took me half an hour to change the tire and work my way out of the slippery grass and back onto the road and no one had even called the cops.

I was delivering papers in a rural area of dirt roads and BIG ditches – Florida is full of them. 20 feet deep and 30 wide – in a creaky Olds 98 when I swerved to avoid a rabbit while doing something like 60. I lost control of the car, hit the dirt embankment, skidded on top of it and sailed merrily along, stomping the breaks and wondering why the hell the car did not respond. Then it dawned on me that the wheels were no longer on the ground. Two were hanging above the road and two were hanging above the deep ditch. I was riding on slippery grass on the undercarriage. Then, the car started to tilt into the ditch and I started having visions of hitting the not real deep but muddy water in the bottom, possibly being trapped and drowning, thinking that this was probably going to hurt real bad, when the car gave a tremendous jolt, tossed me into the air, crashed onto the road and I brought it to a stop on the other side. I got out and looked back to find that I had hit a driveway to a house which crossed the ditch on a small bridge! The impact had tossed me back onto the road. After thanking God again, I checked my shorts for stains, had a smoke, found no damage to the car (that was actually hard to tell because the car was kind of a wreck anyhow) and finished delivering my papers. I decided that the next time a rabbit darted out in front of me on a muddy Florida road at 3 AM, after a rain storm, with big ditches anywhere in sight, I was NOT going to swerve.

One night, while traveling through Jackson, Mississippi, I happened to take a wrong turn, wound up off of the interstate and in what I eventually discovered to be a Black community. I decided NOT to stop and ask for directions but kept heading on, knowing that I’d eventually emerge somewhere near the interstate again. I saw a lot of hookers and a lot of Black people and eventually wound up in a kind of really seedy area. I passed a big caddy, where a pimp was letting his girls out (just like in the movies), passed him and barely heard a pop-pop-pop! I DID, however, notice the THUNK! when a bullet hit the trunk of my car. I got the hell out of there! When I emerged in a better section near the interstate, I stopped at a gas station and looked to find a finger sized hole to the right of my trunk lock. I looked in the trunk and was glad that I carry a lot of junk. The .9mm had penetrated the trunk, hit the lid of my tool box and imbedded itself in a chunk of 3x5 pressure treated wood I always carried to put my jack on. I reported it all to the cops, but nothing ever came of it.

I think this is enough for now.

36

The closest I have ever come to dying…hmmm, which one do I tell, since I have had about a half dozen or so instances in my life where I came pretty close to shoving off this mortal coil. I was strangled into unconsciousness once; I had a gun pointed to my head once; I was in a car that blew a tie rod, sending the car into a 360 degree spin and then slamming it into a concrete barrier while doing 70 miles an hour; was almost a drive-by shooting victim (bullet hit the car, but missed me by about six inches); was riding passenger on a motorcycle when it wiped out on a bridge; and one time when I was supposed to go out with some friends, but ended up not going, and my friends ended up getting into a bad car accident and the driver was killed. Of course, if I count all the times that my ex-husband threatened to kill me, we could get into the hundreds of times where I could have lost my life.

Shadowfox

“The dead have risen, and they’re voting Republican!” - Bart Simpson

37

I was in the fourth grade, and I was riding doubles on a bike with one of my friends. (She was standing up, pedaling, and I was sitting on the seat.) We weren’t going very fast, but we hit some kind of bump, and I flew up and over her and landed on the back of my head.

I fractured my skull, ruptured my eardrum, and had assorted other scrapes, bumps, and bruises. The skull fracture was the real worry. It was right at the base of my skull, and I was rushed to the regional hospital (35 miles away) because they had a CAT scan and the local hospital didn’t.

I was in the hospital for four days. After the first night, I felt fine and actually enjoyed getting to eat what I wanted, watch TV, miss school, etc. My mother, however, was (understandably) a nervous wreck. Doctors always say things like this, but they told her if the impact had been a quarter-inch to the left I would have died instantly. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that I didn’t and don’t remember a lot of the events that took place in the months leading up to that accident or the accident itself. I think I also lost some hearing in that ear.

People weren’t as hyped on bike safety and helmet-wearing back then. Our family was one of the first in our town to insist on bike helmets.

38

Kyla:

ok, yeah. you win this thread. were you at the bus stop at the time?

eggo

My Web Page:SMITE WARNING it may offend you.

39
  1. slipping in the kiddie end of the public pool at age 3/4 . . i can remember looking upwards from the bottom and wondering if anyone is going to notice. strangely, i cant recall being panicked. next thing i can remember now is laying on the concrete and coughing.
  2. being in a 79 trans am when i was 18; going close to 145 mph and hitting a deer at 2am. luckily it didnt roll right thru the windsheild . . it went 10 feet airborne without rolling at all. looked just like “rudolph” taking off. no one but the deer was hurt. it landed a good across the road in a ditch . . then limped away 5 minutes later.
40

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.

Coldfire
Voted Poster Most Likely To Post Drunk

"You know how complex women are"

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)