Wow, reading over some of these…we’re really all lucky. Mine dims in comparison to some of the tales here, though.
When I was three, on November 8, 1988, I bit into a vacuum cleaner cord while the vacuum cleaner was operating.
I was a twice wounded Marine in Vietnam.
There were several occasions when men where killed or wounded within arms reach of me. I’ve had rounds hit my pack when I was laying on the ground.
My personal closest was August 25, 1969. If 36 years later you still remember the date, it had to make an impression
I did a lot of climbing for 20 years or so and there were lots of times when I found myself in way, way over my head. I nearly missed 3-4 snow avalanches, minutes or less. I’ve been lost in blizzards in the mountains.
In the early 90s I worked for a Trona mine near Green River, WY. I was doing an underground time study for them. One the the prime rules of being in a mine is that you never (it’s a firing offense in addition to being a dumb thing to do) get in any area where the roof hasn’t been bolted. Every little bit they would make a 15x15ish notch on the side of the tunnel. I needed a place to stand where I would be out of the way but could still watch the continous miner and the ore carts, so I stepped into one of them. After a few minutes I noticed it wasn’t bolted and moved. About 5 minutes later the roof came down inside the notch.
When I was three years old, a life guard pulled me off the bottom of a public pool. That was pretty close.
Then there was the time when I was 12, riding a Styrofoam boogie board in the surf in California. A surfer on a 9 foot fiberglass board (this was the mid '60’s, boards were bigger then) tried to catch the same wave as me, and collided with my head. I was knocked unconscious in the water, and had to be pulled out. That was pretty close.
Then there was the hang-gliding incident. I was flying a new launch, about 1500 feet down to the landing zone. I had never landed there before, but talked to some other pilots, and thought I had a handle on it. I was supposed to land in a sandy wash, but when I got there, the wind had shifted 180 degrees, so I was landing downwind. I overshot the sand, and sailed at 40 miles an hour into a gorge full of boulders the size of Volkswagens. At the last second, I spotted a big willow bush that looked nice and soft, so I cranked the glider over and stalled it right into the bush. When I woke up, I was hanging in my harness in the willow bush, and my glider was busted where my helmet smacked a 3 inch aluminum crossbar and snapped it. I had a concussion, but considering the alternatives, I think that was my closest call.
Unless you count surviving testicular cancer, that was scary.
My close call was in June 2004. I was riding my bicycle to work when I was hit by a pick-up/horse trailer. I almost died at the scene from blood loss and shock.( I needed 89 units of blood over the 2 days until the bleeding stopped.) Also if the driver had been just a few inches more to the right,I would have probably been killed outright.
I’m allergic to shellfish. One 4th of July weekend I eat dumplings at a Chinese restaurant in New Jersey with my family. After I eat the first one whole, I bite the second one in half. There is pink meat in side. Shrimp. F**k. I take 3 benedryl and go to sleep. I awake when the vomiting and shitting starts. This goes on for 4 days. I tried to drink as many liquids as possible but I guess I was never able to keep up. The 5th day I awake and feel better, so Hi Ho Hi Ho it’s back to work I go. I make it 15 minutes into my trip, just after I turn off the main highway onto a twisty-turny back road, my vision starts to get blurry. I try to shake it off, but my vision keeps getting worse and whiting out. Somehow I managed to make it to the gas station after a minute or two of only being able to see the dashboard. I pull into a spot and call my wife. She comes and picks me up and takes me to the ER. As soon as the nurse attempted to draw blood from me, I finally passed out. I woke up as all the doctors and nurses ran into the room saying “I just fell asleep.” My wife was crying. 2 IV bags later and I’m good to go. Lord knows what would have happened if there had been anybody else on the road that day.
Glad you made it back, SandyHook. Thanks and welcome home.
My brush with eternity was not nearly as dramatic. Just a skittery horse, a bee and a rock in the road. The bee stung the horse and my head hit the rock. I was out cold for hours. They tell me I was taken to the camp nurse (!) and the town doctor before anyone figured put that I should probably be in a ambulance headed for the hospital. When I woke up that evening I had a nasty concussion and a fractured skull.
Oh, and I didn’t need anyone to tell me that I was only unconscious and didn’t have one of those near death dealies – during that long time I was out I didn’t see a comforting white light, or any of my lost relatives. I saw the three bears.
My closest call was at birth, and my mother nearly died too. It was Easter, it was a Catholic hospital, and the nurses waited a lot longer than they should to call the doctor since they “didn’t want to disturb her on the holiday.” Which I’m sure she cared a lot about, being from India. :rolleyes: It sounds like when the hospital closed they went to work for Ivylass’ doctor.
By the time the doctor arrived it was deemed too late to do a C-section, though it was clear I was too big a baby to get out safely the usual way. My mother was losing way too much blood and my cord was compressed so they were losing my heartbeat.
You know how in the movies they ask the father, who they should save, the mother or the baby? They asked my father that. He couldn’t decide (who can?!) but the doctor decided to try something radical as a last ditch effort to save us both - have two nurses use some implements and all their weight to pry my mother’s hip bones apart :eek:
I’m here writing this post, so it obviously worked out okay. Though I find it hard to believe, no lasting damage was done to my mother’s hips, either…and her second baby weighted in at 10 pounds instead of 8!
I got picked up hitch-hiking by these guys who were, AT THE TIME, being chased by the cops. Two minutes later, the cops had caught up, and the 120 mile an hour run down the median, against traffic, and down dirt roads had begun. We eventually dead-ended in a farmyard, and one guy came very near starting a shootout.
I’d been stuck at that on-ramp for some time, fortunately some of the cops recognized me. They asked me why I’d got in, and all I could say was that I didn’t know they were being chased. What will forever bewilder me is, why’d they stop for me?
They thought you were cute? (hee)
Just reading some of these stories gives me the shivers. My own story is more of a “what might have happened” than an actual brush with death.
I was planning a trip to Scotland for last July - no direct flights to Edinburgh, so I decided I’d fly into London, chill for a day or two, then take the train to York and then Edinburgh. I had all the dates set, and I was all ready to make reservations for a London-York train. It left from Kings Cross, sometime in the morning. Unfortunately, they didn’t have plane tickets to London on the day I wanted, so my entire schedule was pushed back a few days. I would arrive in London on the day that I had originally planned to take the train to York.
That day happened to be the day of the London bombings.
It gave me nightmares for a few days. If I hadn’t been so lazy buying my plane tickets, everything would have gone as planned, and I would have been in the station at the moment the bombs went off. Who knows whether I would have been injured, died, or gotten away without a scratch, but it was still a chilling thought.
In a nutshell: being a lazy ass saved my life.
Back in '83, I was as sick as I’ve ever been with mono-hepatitis and tonsillitis, for about a month. It took me another month to recover, but during the illness itself, I wanted to die and was pretty sure death wasn’t too far away.
Just two days ago: I was on a motorcoach trip to Nevada (hi, everyone–I’m back)…Anyway, we were doing fine until some freaking idiot decided to stop–without any brake lights, mind you–not too far in front of our bus, apparently just because of a tumbleweed. Maybe he thought it might scratch his precious car. There was a delivery truck to the right of us, and only two lanes, so our driver had to swerve onto the gravel shoulder for a few seconds to avoid plowing into the moron. All I can say is Whew!
As a counterpoint, I was at a party shortly afterwards and two of the invitees only turned up to say that they were on their way to London because one of their relations had been killed.
I was under the impression that I’d told this story on the boards before, but a board search for “pythian water death” yields no results, so I guess I haven’t.
It was about two years ago, maybe less, maybe more. I was sitting around drinking water and talking to some of my friends. I don’t know what possessed me, but I tipped up the water bottle and leant my head back very far. Suddenly there was water in my nose! Mouth full, I spluttered and honked a bit, water dribbling down my face. A friend of mine looked over and laughed. “Oh, the skill!” said he. Big mistake. I started laughing - still with a large mouthful of water. I was on the point of inhaling it, but managed to calm myself down. Then began the following train of thought:
All right, I can’t breathe until I swallow.
…I’m trying to swallow and it’s not working. ???
Apparently I need more air than I’ve got in order to swallow. Crap. I think I’m turning red. Wonder what it’s like to die of suffocation?
Think, Pythian, think. Um… swallow vs. breathe… neither one looks like it’s going to work… not enough force to expel all this water… perhaps if I just gape my mouth open and let it dribble out onto the floor?
And that is exactly what I did. Let me tell you, the breath I took right then after what felt like thirty seconds of empty lungs (it was probably more like fifteen to twenty) was the sweetest I’ve ever had.
I’ve told mine before, but can’t find it.
My husband realized I was really serious about getting divorced on the day he received the first letter from my divorce lawyer. By the time I got home from work, he was drunk and ready to fight. I knew I was in trouble when he yanked the phone out of the wall. Long story short, next thing I knew he was choking me and banging my head against the concrete floor in the laundry room. My 7 year old son was screaming and crying; my 12 year old daughter was in her bedroom wearing headphones. No help was coming. I knew when my husband managed to stop my screaming, I would die.
I would not be posting this if it weren’t for the man who was in our back yard fixing the air conditioner. He ran in, pulled my husband away, and faced off with him as I fled the house with my daughter. (I couldn’t get to my son.)
Happy ending: I came back with the police. My husband attacked them and was tasered three times before they took him away. The divorce went pretty smoothly after that.
OKay - I don’t know if mine compares with that, but we’ll try.
A group pf friends and I were out at a nightclub. When the bar closed we got ready to walk down to Perkins (open all night). Just before heading off I realized I forgot something at their apartment (just across the street). One f the other girls, Janelle, decided to walk with me and we’d catch up with the others. We crossed the first half of the street with no problem and looked from the median to see if it was safe.
I wish we had waited longer.
The cars that were just coming into sight were actually drag racing and I realized in the middle of the street we weren’t going to make it. We ran for it. When my foot touched the curb I actually winced and thought I was going to feel impact. Instead I just felt the heat of the car as it passed behind me. I turned to say to Janelle “Close one.” As I turned the car hit her. She went up on the windshield and did a few cartwheels through the air before bouncing off the curb.
I ran to her and after assessing did CPR and mouth to mouth with a witness that came to help.
She died. Her neck was broken in seven places, skull fractured, her ribs, her pelvis, her legs. The only organ available to be harvested were her heart valves.
I made it because I have longer legs and ran faster.
I’ve told the nearly-crashed-my-bike-into-a-car story ad infinitum on the board, so here’s a slightly more recent one:
It’s a cold, blustery day, with a really raw, icy wind blowing, and I’m huddled shivering at the bus stop. I’ve got a book in one hand, the pages flapping in the breeze, and a ticket clutched in the other.
My nose is redder than Rudolph’s on an all-night bender and my ears have retreated to somewhere warm, like California, when the ticket falls out of my hand and flutters down into the street. Crap!
It’s my only one. I really, really need to get to school on time today. I don’t think there are any cars coming…
So I duck down, book tucked under one arm, and bend over to pick it up. The slush is freezing and I have to do a bit of rummaging around, my fingers blistering with the cold–
–and a car comes whizzing by, literally two inches from my head, and flies through the intersection.
I stumble backwards, nearly tripping over the curb, and don’t fall over by a miracle, though I’m pretty sure my face goes bloodless-white. From behind me there’s a little gasping scream from one of the older ladies, who’s seen the whole thing, and a business suit steps forward to brush off some snow and ask me if I’m okay.
Ooog. Not a good way to start a day. I think I was shaking until I got off the subway stop four stations down.
I had a near head on collision with my ecocoline June of 2001. Totalled two cars with one shot.
Both parties walked away. (YAY! X a google)
My only exceptionally minor injury was being hit on the head with a coffee mug and got conked on the back of my head by my ear. Required one staple to close it. Bit of a let down and I was happy about that.
Reading all these stories pretty much makes me never want to leave the house or touch something germy again.
Damn, Poysyn. What happened to the car’s driver?
Ah yes, well once they caught the guy (he left the scene. His passenger told him to stop, his reply. "Are you crazy? I just hit someone!) they charged him with leaving the scene of an accident and vehicular manslaughter. Couldn’t get him for DUI as he was already out of the car.
He got house arrest (church and work probation) for three years.
Sometimes the justice system sucks beans.
By my own (conservative) estimate I have probably blown through 4 of my 9 lives… mostly flukey, silly sh*t, but probably the closest happened when I was out doing some hiking/climbing and got in over my head. The foothold I was standing on gave away and I ended up hanging off a cliff by a root (much like Sgt. Snorkle in a Beetle Bailey comic) a hundred or so feet above a bunch of jagged rocks and a fairly fast flowing river.
As a side note… when I got home later I picked up the local newspaper and read a story about a high school aquaintance of mine who had been doing some cliff jumping (jump off a cliff into a deep pool), and figuring that the cliff wasn’t high enough decided to climb a tree on top of the cliff and jump from there. Unfortunately, he fell out of the tree, hit the top of the cliff and then fell off the cliff into the water below. Suprisingly, he survived. The subheadline in the newspaper said “Stupidity Cited”… which hours before nearly could have been carved on my tombstone.