About two years ago (In fact, two years this Wednesday), the local creek about two kilometers from my house was severely flooded due to a massive rainstorm. It was practically at flash-flood level. I was extremely depressed at the time, my ex-girlfriend was about to dump me, I was doing badly at school, I had only one good friend. I basically felt like I had no hope whatsoever, and saw no reason to continue living. So I walked down to the creek, and jumped in.
I was swept about a kilometer from where I jumped in. Finally, after I was dragged under a tree, and my glasses were knocked off, I realized I had made a mistake. So I pass by another small tree, and cling to it as hard as I can. It took every last ounce of my strength to get me out of the creek. I finally got back to my bike, and rode home, soaking wet. It was a long time before I told my parents about this.
In case you’re curious, life has improved vastly since this.
So what’s the closest you’ve come to buying the farm?
I waited to secure my camera gear for about 10 minutes before heading downtown on September 11th. I was in an ambulance that had just picked me up so I could help out, and 8 blocks away when the 1st Tower fell.
Had I been in an ambulance 10 minutes earlier, I would have been sitting next to the North Tower at the Staging Area, waiting for an assignment…when they fell.
When I was about 4 or so, my friend across the street came over to get me to go see his new snow fort. For some reason I was behind him a good ways, and when I ran out into the road, there was a car coming. Naturally I slipped on the icy street, right in front of the car. I remember laying in the road and looking up at the bumper a few inches from my face, thinking, “Mom’s really gonna kill me now.” She didn’t, but I never did see that snow fort.
Well, when I was about 13 I was broadsided by a car while riding my bike. I rolled up and over the windshield, flipped over in the air and landed on my hands and knees in the street. But that wasn’t the brush with death part. That was when I looked up and saw the bumper of the NEXT car squeal to a stop about 3 feet from me.
I have felt pretty close to death on the two occasions I have tried to overtake in totally inappropriate places, once having to go head to head with a police car.
I also came off on a slippery bend once, going just that little bit too fast for the tyres to keep hold. Did lots of swerving about, went thru a wall and into a tree - walked away from that one, but if a car had been coming the other way…
I also got broadsided by a car once, but I interestingly didn’t get hurt. It was kinda weird. But that’s not my brush with death.
When I was about 8 years old I was in tae kwon do class in this big gym. Well they had electrical sockets on both ends, and I was with some kid waiting for the class to start. I guess there was a hairclip on the floor or something, cuz I picked it up and started playing with it. He dared me to stick it into the electrical socket, so I did. That’s all I remember from it, but apparently I went flying. The doctor said that if I had been holding it with both hands, I would’ve created a circuit and fried. As it was, I just had these weird symbols on all the fingers of my hand that looked exactly like the symbol of the Flash. I thought I was faster and everything. While I almost died, it was certainly one of the coolest things to ever happen to me.
I was about 12, and I was on Erythromycin. My Mom was working, and I started feeling reaaally tired and was coughing a lot. My mom, who is an RN, called from work, and when my brother described my symptoms, she immediately called our next door neighbor to take me to the ER. Turns out I was having an anaphylactic reaction, and would have died if I had not got to medical attention.
Tornado. April 9, 1998. I was on the Red Cross missing persons list for over 48 hours (so I’m told) but I was in shock and couldn’t get out. But they found me!
There was a crazy sniper shooting people at my university. I ran towards her to take away the gun and she levelled it at my chest and pulled the trigger. This was a Mauser, a German military rifle (WWI I think) intended to go through the first two people and still kill the third. Thankfully she had been reloading and had forgotten to close the bolt. Lucky me.
Ruptured my liver on a bike handlebar and lost two-thirds of it. There were side events like a bent spine and a collapsed lung, and recovery included pleurisy and losing my appendix, but the liver was the main event.
I don’t know what the stats are today, but in 1963 that was usuallly not a survivable condition.
I was burned in a chemical plant accident and twisted my guts up on the steering wheel in a car wreck once, but I think the liver deal was the closest I’ve ever been to flatline.
Early in my horsey career I was lucky enough to clinic with a serious dressage rider. On the morning of the clinic, my horse threw a shoe. My trainer came up with a substitute, a horse that had landed at our stables on “spec,” meaning he would be schooled and entered in competition in hopes that someone would notice his potential and buy him.
The clinic was hellish work for the two of us – very intense, physically and mentally exhausting. When it was over we left the indoor ring to cool out in a grass arena. My friend went to fetch a sweat sheet for the animal, and I decided to unbuckle and remove my helmet – but something told me to leave it on. A moment later the horse literally did a handstand, throwing me over his head. I hit the ground and heard a cinderblock meet asphalt. Everything turned to fuzz. Up came a curtain of black, from my feet to my knees to my hips to my head. I thought, As deaths go, this isn’t bad. It’s not painful. Going to sleep now.
I woke up in the arms of a stablehand. So much for moving an injured person: This guy had carried me to the tack room. He took off my hunt cap; the velvet cover was torn and the shell was cracked. The stablehand said he had seen the whole thing. After dumping me, he said, the horse twisted and AIMED for my skull with a rear hoof. (That was the cinderblock-on-asphalt sound.) A helmetless head would have turned to utter mush.
I wound up with a concussion. I never knew what became of the horse; he was gone a week later.
I was in a minor airplane crash once. It was during a flight lesson, and the instructor kind of screwed up while demonstrating what not to do while landing. Ironic, eh?
Anyway, it wasn’t that big a deal, but try to tell that to my adrenal glands.
It would have been better if they hadn’t mucked up a perfectly good disaster with a uninspiring love story.
Anyway, when I was about 22, I was spelunking (exploring caves) with some friends. About a half-mile in, pitch black, I suddenly slipped on some mud that was as slippery as ice and skidded forward a few feet. I could tell that I was starting to fall into a hole, so I just spread my arms and legs as wide as I could, dropping everything, including my flashlight. I caught myself on the rocks only a couple of feet down and a couple of other guys were able to reach down and pull me up. Then, they shined their flashlights down the hole. It was straight down, about 50 feet with jagged limestone rocks on all sides.
I had a misdiagnosed blockage in my intestine. By the time I finally found a doctor that understood I was sick and needed surgery, I wasn’t even keeping down water and I had developed chronic peritonitis and extreme dehydration.
Surgery involved taking out 6 ft of intestine (give or take) and doing lots of reconstructive work. After surgery, in ICU my b/p dropped to 40/20 because of my dehydration. I don’t remember much, but when the nurses around you are carefully NOT trying to freak out - you worry!
I ended up spending 9 weeks in the hospital. Half of that time, it was pretty much a deathwatch. I had to relearn how to walk and basically live again.
One of the most life altering events in my life. I learned how strong (or stubborn) I could be when I had to be.
