Car accident. Car was totalled but I only had a broken rib. Gogo Toyota.
Alcohol poisoning on several occasions. The math says my blood alcohol level was around .5 according to my weight, the time drinking, and amount drunk.
I was around 10 minutes behind the largest car accident in our state. A truck’s brakes failed during rush hour and plowed into the cars ahead. Something like 14 cars were involved and 5 people died, many of the cars exploding in flames. I was returning from my destination, so I was on the other side of the freeway, but I had been on that side 10 minutes ago.
I found a gun when I was ~8 years old. I really wanted to fire it, but I didn’t have the courage. I put it back where I found it, and a few days later it was gone. I think it might have belonged to a gangster or something, because the handle had tape on it.
Another car accident: I was around 6 years old, getting into a parked car. Another car (woman dropped a cigarette, was trying to pick it up) slammed into our car, slamming the door on my leg. A few seconds earlier and it would have been my head.
Gas station 1: I was working at a gas station, and my co-worker wanted to prove to me that gasoline wouldn’t catch on fire if you dropped a match in it, as it would be put out by the gas before the vapors could catch on fire. He set the bucket on fire, and it started spreading when he tried to put it out. I grabbed a fire extinguisher and put everything out.
Gas station 2: About 30 minutes after my shift ended, one of our regular customers came in to get a soda, and left his sports car idling near a pump. It exploded into flame, but luckily the cashier hit the emergency stop before making a run for it. I had already gone home, but it was close.
While working at a movie theater, we found a fanny pack that had a pound of crystal meth, crack cocaine, and a handgun in it. Luckily, the guy who owned it didn’t come back that night, but the next day when I wasn’t working. I heard the day manager locked himself in the office until the police arrived.
The closest I came was back in 2006. I took an allergy medication that had a HUGE amount of Ephedrine in it and it caused a horrible reaction. It raised my blood pressure so high that I had a ‘mini-stroke’ – lost my ability to speak and had trouble moving my arms and legs. After treatment I was back to normal in a few days. SCARY!!!
I was less than a year old. It was a hot summer day, and so the windows were open when Mom put me to bed. But it cooled off dramatically overnight. Mom got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and noticed a cold draft coming from my room. I was already turning blue. Were it not for Mom’s overactive bladder, I probably wouldn’t be here today.
I was a Marine in a rifle company in Vietnam, twice wounded. There were a number of times when men within arms reach were killed or badly wounded.
After getting out of the service I got into rock and mountain climbing for some 20 years.
For the past several years I’ve been doing some 10,000 miles a year on my motorcycle. While I’m a safe and sane car driver, when I get on my bike I run way too fast, am aggressive in corners, and pass at the least opportunity.
Three or four years ago when depression was a bigger problem than it is now I got to wondering how much attention drivers in town were paying. So to test this I’d just step off the sidewalk and start crossing the street. There were a couple of close calls.
It always scares me and sometimes it scares me a lot. To the point of being sick. But sometime shortly after the event I always get the feeling that I’ve never felt more alive.
Aspirin overdose when I was very young. Still love the taste, though. They need to make aspirin flavoured tic tacs.
Few near misses crossing roads, mainly involving drivers who decided they didn’t need to stop for a red light.
Scariest involved me being a good pedestrian and pushing the button to cross, then waiting for the green man. Red light came on, a double decker stopped and the green man lit up. I started to cross and just as I’d passed in front of that first bus another double decker just blew through the red light causing me to jump back and swear exessively. Missed me by a couple of feet.
Realised I was running towards the top of ‘the old quarry’ and grabbed a bush to do a sharp turn. I saw the 40 metre drop beneath my feet before I swung back onto solid ground. 11 years old.
Ex-boyfriend, if he couldn’t have me yadayada - rope burn scars for a year and the police doctor swore he’d only seen damage like that on corpses before. 22 years old
I ride a bike, legally, so almost every day some car turns in front of me or drifts too close or just decides that I shouldn’t be sharing the road.
Died twice on 2 different operating tables, but they brought me back. [and no tunnels, lights or intrusive family or friends, and I didn’t get the ability to do anything psychic. Movies and books lie :D]
I popped a 210/190 BP last summer. I could have stroked out if it had gone untreated. I did get admitted to Yale-New Haven pretty quickly and had the operation postponed until we could get me stabilized. Not sure if you want to consider this as being close to death or not.
Fell 30 meters/90 feet while skiing and broke my back and neck in 3 places. Lots of quality hospital and rehab time was involved, but other than being packed in snow for about 45 minutes while they packed me out making me tremendously cold I wasn’t overly close to death unless they perhaps dropped me again. [but they were amazingly good at extracting me. Only complaint was my brand new castle skis didn’t survive the fall. And they cut off my clothing. But I can forgive that, it was ugly.]
Numerous falls while steeplechasing and evilly chasing poor little foxes. I could have gotten stepped on more severely that I did over the years. Assorted broken bones, bruises, cuts, scrapes and scratches. One case of poison oak.
Twice being pointed loaded guns by criminals. I reacted incredibly calm both times, but after the incident ended I couldn’t stop shaking for several minutes.
A large truck “parked” after a corner. I slammed the brakes (no ABS) and was going to hit it big time. A second before that I remembered all the auto magazines and TV show so I went off the brakes and was able to steer clear. good thing my wife and kids were sleeping so, for them it only a minor scare.
A one-ton rock nearly fell on me when I was stupidly playing at the bottom of a (shale!) cliff. This fall obviously destabilized the entire cliff face, so coming back from the hike I threw a pebble at the cliff face from across the creek, and the entire front foot of the cliff face fell down. Covered me in a dust cloud for a minute or so a la 9/11.
Driving in the Adirondacks in winter, the road was nearly completely ice-free, but at the top of a high pass I had a bad feeling as I was approaching the top of the road just before a right turn and so I slowed down to below 25 mph even though the limit is 35 in good weather. Good thing too, because a large patch of ice crossing the entire road was revealed to me. I decided to try to move forward without turning until I passed it, but as I was doing that, a truck came from the other direction so I was forced to turn and I spun out.
For some reason my car followed the curve of the road rather than going off the cliff, so I didn’t even leave the road despite doing a more than 360 degree spin.
Driving a 4WD truck down a snowy hill - carefully, honest! - it started to skid towards a chasm. Managed to get it under control just in time.
Driving the freeway on the way to work one extremely snowy morning, almost white out conditions, everyone it being careful. Suddenly the car in front of me dove to the shoulder and, right in front of me, are headlights, facing me. Not good. Fortunately I’d started to slow down when the guy in front of me bailed so I was able to stop in time, and also the guy behind me had a brain, so there was no accident. The car facing the wrong way had a woman in it who had just spun out, and then apparently lost her mind because she was just sitting there. The guy who went to the shoulder in front of me had to go move the car for her.
Driving south on the 15 thru Salt Lake City and maybe two cars in front of me a dually pickup lost control some how, swept across four lanes, slammed into a car in the fast lane and flew into a cement wall. By some miracle, everyone managed to stop without hitting each other.
This one is me probably saving someone elses life - I’m driving over Snoqualmie Pass at night, it’s snowing a bit and there are four-five foot piles of snow on either side of the road. I think I see something odd in one of these piles, so I stop and back up. Yup, a woman had driven her Cadillac head on into the pile, and the snow had pretty much covered up the part of the car that wasn’t already snow bound. She’s just sitting there, running the engine to keep warm, no thought about what she is going to do when she runs out of gas, at 2 am, on a mountain pass…
For the average person, perhaps. But I know people who work on high-rise construction, elevators, hazardous chemicals, hazardous bacteria labs, etc. who probably get close to death a lot more often than the average person.
I pulled a cup of boiling water from a table all over myself when I was 2 years old. I don’t remember much of it, but I had to spend a few months in the hospital.
After giving birth to my third child, I was hemorrhaging pretty bad. I remember them taking my son away and then rushing my bed down the hall to the operating room. Then I passed out. I woke up feeling woozy, but alright. Thanks to everyone who donates blood!!
I’ve been on heart-lung bypass several times. No pulse, no breath, and colder than room temperature, but for the most part we were pretty sure it was a temporary condition.
And they cut off my clothing. But I can forgive that, it was ugly.]