"Close Calls" Thread

[polak]

SO, I had a pretty good "wake me up" on my way to breakfast today. I was driving down Deerfoot to pick up my gf and some thing big flys out of no where and smokes my windshield, shattering it but luckily not breaking through it (I don't know if shattering is the right word? It got f***** up), hit so hard the whole car shook, small bits of glass went everywhere and my mirror flew off (very thankful this happened on the way to get my gf and not with her in that seat or she would've got smoked).



Now it happened way too quick, in too crappy of weather conditions for me to see what it was and I was not getting out on deerfoot to see but I'm thinking it was a part from a car or something as if it was a rock the size of the object I saw, I'm sure it would've gone through. I didn't see anyone pull over but I wasn't really looking to hard. To be honest I kinda didn't know what to do as there wasn't any where that was great to pull over between me and the exit I needed so I just drove to her house (it was like a minute away) as I could still see out of a good chunk of my side of the windshield.

Anyway, thats probably my closest call to a major injury. I know it's not that "close" but to me it was. What about you guys? Any incidents that shook you up a bit?

[Cheese]

So many close calls I cant remember them all. Had a big load drop out of an open box truck in front of me...on the 401 doing 130kM/hr. Fortunately I just pulled over enough that it bounced off the passenger side and took an upward trajectory bouncing/smashing off at least 6-7 cars behind me and causing a major f up on the 401. My rental car was damaged pretty good but I was lucky. The ass in the truck saw it happen and took off....luckily I had the wherewithal to get his license plate before that happened.

A few times in the early 70s driving my muscle cars at speeds I shouldn't have been driving things got out of control. Mostly had to do with the crap I smoked back then.

Owned a White Water Rafting company for 7 years. Got tossed into keepers a few times but managed to swim down and get kicked out from the bottom each time.

Had a full grown Buck come out of the forest and run in front of my car at 4am in the morning....stopped and looked at me just as I plowed into it at 70MPH. Fortunately no-one else was on the highway because by the time I stopped, turned the wipers on to clear the blood soaked front windshield and watch the Buck fly an extra fifty feet into the ditch, I was on the opposite side of the highway facing where traffic surely would have provided another shocking collision.

[CalgaryFan1988]

I have had a lot of close calls, but my most fortunate one was when I was around 12 or 13.

I was driving my dads 4wheeler (aka quad for you Albertans) up a hill in a gravel pit, rolled it from the top of the hill to the bottom (Probably 5 or 6 times). Crawled out at the bottom, the bike was on its side, I was shaking. It had a canoe rack on it and I couldn't hang on, rattled around inside the whole way down. Walked away without a scratch.

[edslunch]

Driving 100 km/h on the 401 in my crappy Hyundai years ago, hit ice and did a complete 360 in traffic before regaining control. Needless to say I took the next exit....

[WhiteTiger]

Used to work in a warehouse, driving a forklift. I was in a hurry one shift, and was carrying a heavy load of liquid in a steel box around a corner. I didn't know that the guys had washed and soaped the floor...and left it to go on break.

I take the corner way too fast, the liquid shifts, and the whole forklift slides sideways, and jams the steel box into the standard warehouse racking. I thought for sure that the racking (all 100' long and 40' high of it) was going to come crashing down on my head. Life flash before my eyes and all that.

But I must have hit it just exactly right, because all I did was crush one of the rack arms. The two pallets on that particular rack fell and made a huge mess, but nothing else did. Even the investigator the company brought in couldn't figure out how and why the entire rack didn't come crashing down around/on me.

[drewboy12]

When I was three years old, I was playing on a pile of dirt across the street from my families home where they had laid a fresh foundation for a new house. I fell into the hole, and had a piece of rebar enter my hip and exit my shoulder. Impaled me, and i went right into wet cement. Missed my heart by 1cm. Zero organ damage. literally nothing bad came of it. I was only in the hospital for a few days.

[TSXCman]

Just this Friday I was up to 85km/h on glenmore and switched lanes then BANG! Something the size of a backyard firepit stone hits my from left bumper, front left tire, all the way under the rear tire. My head smashed my car's roof and all of my compartments and trunk opened up....

Didn't even have time to get a clear look at what it was. I pulled over and inspected and only found cosmetic and plastic damage luckily. No steering issues or flat tire.

[Burninator]

Originally Posted by CalgaryFan1988

I have had a lot of close calls, but my most fortunate one was when I was around 12 or 13.

I was driving my dads 4wheeler (aka quad for you Albertans) up a hill in a gravel pit, rolled it from the top of the hill to the bottom (Probably 5 or 6 times). Crawled out at the bottom, the bike was on its side, I was shaking. It had a canoe rack on it and I couldn't hang on, rattled around inside the whole way down. Walked away without a scratch.

I think of this when you say quad.

Spoiler!

[Ben_in_Canada]

A few winters ago I was in a hurry to get some last minute xmas shopping done. (23rd Dec). I was entering Deerfoot north from 22X when I hit some ice and immediately started to spin into the other lanes. I ended up clipping another car before coming to a stop facing the wrong way. Fortunately only a little damage, no injuries but I've been very careful on entering hiways since then.
There was another incident, on a motorcycle but it wasn't a close call, I got ####ed up.

Originally Posted by WhiteTiger

Used to work in a warehouse, driving a forklift. I take the corner way too fast, the liquid shifts, and the whole forklift slides sideways, and jams the steel box into the standard warehouse racking. I thought for sure that the racking (all 100' long and 40' high of it) was going to come crashing down on my head. Life flash before my eyes and all that.

I had a buddy do this, not so lucky. All the racking and pallets came down on him and he was impaled on the controller (stand up fork) He lived but it took a long time to recover.

[V]

I should have died a couple times when I was on Mount Baldy. I used to be young and stupid, and the mountains can be a pretty unforgiving place for the young and stupid. I got lucky.

[Flabbibulin]

When I was 18 straight out of HS, I got a summer job roofing. With virtually no training on anything I was doing, and an abandonment of common sense, I proceeded to cut a piece of wood of some sort with an electrical circular saw while bracing the wood with my foot- all while standing on the 2nd floor roof of a home. The saw kicked of course and, not a word of a lie, cut through my shoe and sock from big toe to little toe, but only left the smallest of scratches on my foot. Obviously cutting off my toes would have only been the beginning, as I was standing on a roof and would have definitely been falling right off.

Anyway, I was quite shaken up for bit, but do recall coming around and then reciting Samuel L Jackson's "This is a miracle and I want you to acknowledge it" routine.

[undercoverbrother]

Being shot at while taking a poo on the side of a hill.

[psyang]

This past summer, driving back from Kelowna. There are lights at the bottom of a small hill just before entering Golden. A few miles earlier, several cars (including us) managed to pass a semi. As I just got over the hill to descend to Golden, the traffic was backed up from the light, and I had to stop. Not a screeching stop, but fairly sudden. When I stop quickly like this, I always glance at my rear view mirror, and fortunately, the cars behind me were able to stop without issue as well. I looked forward again, when that semi came barreling through on the shoulder to my right. It stopped about 2 cars ahead of us, and I could see the driver looking really shaken. The shoulder is not that wide in that section of highway, and the semi couldn't have been more than 5 feet to our right. Could have been really bad.

[Huntingwhale]

I was driving on the transcanada by Golden a couple years ago on our way to Schuswap for houseboating. We were on that curvy portion where there are a lot of rock faces without netting alongside the highway like this.



As we are driving along, I suddenly hear this incredibly loud band/smash sound from the rear of the car. The car is still driving along ok and no one knows wtf it was.

As we pull over to a rest stop, the car behind us pulls over too and tells us that a boulder came crashing down the mountain and smoked the side of my car. Luckily for us it hit my rim and other then a scratch, no harm done. One of the passengers in the car behind us said that she saw the boulder dislodge from the rock face and tumble down the mountain. Apparently they started flickering their lights and honking at me trying to get my attention. They said for about 5 seconds they watched it tumble down the mountain with my car on a head on collision for it. Luckily it smacked the side of my car. Said it was a decent size boulder about the size of a basket ball. Had it somehow landed on my windshield or in front of my car, it might not have ended so good.

[shermanator]

Almost went to Edmonton one time. That was a close call....

[Knut]

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=132703

^ This one 11 months ago.

I still have some anxiety driving on the highway by the spot where the pileup was. If the highways are in poor condition I will not be travelling to Strathmore this year.

[chalms04]

I post on the same internet forum as Typhoid Mary herself, so it's only a matter of time really.

[DoubleF]

On a warmer winter day, I once hopped out of Beddington Towne Centre which has those 15-20 feet or so awnings. I opened the door, saw a puddle and leaped over it, hearing a crash behind me where the puddle had been. Apparently a huge chunk of ice had fallen off of the awning and smashed inches to where I was less than a second before. Probably equal to the size of a car's back windshield and about a cm (maybe more) thick).

I probably would have had a concussion if that would have hit me.

[RedMileDJ]

This thread totally reminds me of 'Final Destination.'

Glad you're all alive!

[Violator]

Coming back from a job interview decided to take the back way home stopped at a stop sign made a left turn as i was going around the corner the right side of my truck dropped to the ground.Got out turns out the bolts holding my tires onto the chassis sheered off.My brother died a couple weeks earlier and I felt something when i decided to take the back roads.

Driving home after work while living in Canmore took a turn to quick skidded into oncoming traffic narrowly missing a truck and hit a guardrail if the Guardrail wasn't there i would have dropped about two hundred feet off of a cliff.