Have You Ever Almost Died

[peter12]

Originally Posted by fotze

I once was hemmoraging on the inside and started expelling litres of blood out of the rear, but it turns out I just don't digest Beets very well.

Hahaha, I remember this story. I have the same hypochondriac reaction to those things as well.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by 4X4

You actually slept through driving off the road? Haha. My ex g/f would pound the floor if I was watching TV on volume level 1 while she was trying to sleep. I think I love you.

I sleep very heavily. I woke up to realize that my car had stopped.
Then I was like WTF where am I?

Think it comes from sharing a room with my brother when we were kids.
He'd play on his nintendo late into the night and I'd still be able to sleep.

Takes forever for me to get up in the morning to go to work.

[Wookie]

Originally Posted by 4X4

WTF were you doing 100 on 12th? By "cut off" do you mean that someone changed lanes 100m in front of you? Heh heh...

Being a dumb 16 - 17 year old that almost killed himself and others

Someone made a left hand turn from the farthest right hand lane, so they turned across 4 lanes... that said, I shouldn't have been going that fast and...

[Dion]

As a wee lad we were at Grampas farm in Manitoba. There was this frozen pond that us 3 kids were told to stay away from. Me, didn't like rules back then so i decided to check what all the fuss was about in regards to the pond. My brother decided to tag along figuring i'd get all the blame if something happened. Anyhoo stupid me decided to test the ice and all so i decided it would be safe if i stuck to the edge. 2 feet on, the ice breaks and down i start to go. I got lucky as my brither grabbed the hood of my jacket and prevented me from slipping all the way in. I kicked and he pulled and i managed to crawl out.

We ran back to the farm house with me all wet and shivering. To make a long story short i got my bottom paddled real good and lost my desert and tv priviladges for a month.

[Wookie]

I've def. had the post knee shakes - after two of the mentioned close calls. It's amazing how your legs almost buckle...

[FlamesKickAss]

I was DD one night and was driving a friend home who lives off of 72nd ave, and we had just gone past 52nd on 22x and there was headlights coming at me in my lane. I was looking down at the radio i think and the lights just caught my eye and I swerved into the shoulder. I was happy it was summer time so the pavement was dry. I had to stop and wait because I was shaking so bad.

This other time I was driving my buddy and his girlfriend and we missed the sunshine turn ( we had never been there before and didn't see the sign) so we took the highway 95 towards radium and when we got to the continental divide realized we went the wrong way. Coming back down the hill just south of the trans canada I lost control and did 4 complete turns before I got control back.

[Reaper]

Originally Posted by Flames_Gimp

in 2000 was traveling on a flight to Minnesota for wheelchair hockey tourney..upon final approach, all of a sudden full thrust and pulling up, I guess there was a stalled plane on the runway or something, our landing was aborted at the last second..

heard from the pilot after that if he had to abort 2 seconds later, would have been too late.

It was 2001 and we would have gone down in history for only being the third fatality crash by a Northwest Airlines Jetliner.

Didn't the g-forces feel awesome in the near stall- pull up manuever?

[BlAcKNoVa]

I can't remember this incident but my parents said I had a very bad case of food poisoning when I was really young. Was in the hospital for a couple weeks I think they said.

Been hit by a car (thankfully not driving that fast) while on my bike in my early teens. Came out of that with a badly strained wrist only.

Not much else besides the one time a couple years ago when some loser sped across a red light and almost creamed my brother and I while we walked across the intersection to work.

[jam26]

I partied pretty hard in my early 20s and in hindsight, I think I came pretty close to death on a few occasions. Looking back, I shiver at the thought of it.

[kermitology]

A few weeks ago I was sitting on the floor of the airplane I was doing some radar work on. I had put a paper clip into what I thought was aircraft ground. I was sitting in such a way that my entire back was touching a metal rail.

Turns out I put the paper clip into one phase of 400Hz 115V. I went to pull it out and thank the maker my arm was also touching the same rail. My arm seized up and the other guy I was working with shut down power so I could stop gripping the paper clip.

Not as bad as some of the other stories but I scared myself silly..

I also stuck some keys in a power socket AND put the DC end of an AC adapter in my mouth. I'm sorta dumb with electricity for an electrical engineer

[stang]

Originally Posted by peter12

First time in Europe, I crossed a street in downtown Dublin. They have these tiny streets which they run these huge double decker buses around on. I looked the wrong way and stepped out into what I thought was a clear road. Some kind Dubliner grabbed my hoodie just as I stepped out and the side of a bus almost creased my nose. If I had finished my step my brains would have been splattered all over the road.

I thanked the guy, but didn't really realize how close it was until a few minutes later, when I started shaking like crazy.

I was in Germany/austria/ switzerland (cant really remember the exact place because we toured all over there) and we were in a bus going down one fo thsoe narrow winding cobblestone roads, and as we tooka wide corner we actually RAN over a bicycle that was chained up to a post on the corner.

Didnt even stop...

As for my near death experience, I used to have a 94 Eagle Talon in High School, and after school I was running a little late for work (which was literally 6 blocks frmo my house) I ran out to my car and took off, and like 4 houses down I got into a head on with a 1977 ford 3/4 ton.

For some reason that was the first time I ever put my seatbelt on without someone telling me too.

Totalled my car off, I went home called work, and then just sat there and looked out the window at my totalled car and just shaked

[Stormchaser]

I was hit in a head on. It was freezing cold that day and I religously wear my seatbelt. It was so cold that my little mazda pickup was hardly producing heat and i opted to go seatbeltless and get a little closer to my heat vents. I was doing 80K approaching the canyon meadows overpass and this Oldmobile 88 or something big like that lost control going North and lept the median at 80K+. My last thoughts were..."he's gonna hit me" Its true when you hear.."it happens so quick"

When I came to I was still inside the vehicle. What saved me was my legs being trapped underneath the dashboard. The whole dashboard was in pieces and I clawed my legs out from it. My face/chin cut my steering wheel in half (that was impressive really!!) and my head made a great design in the windshield. (i picked glass pieces out of my head for weeks)

After recovering in the hospital it wasn't until I went to retrieve some items from my truck that I began to realize how lucky I was to be alive.

[OutOfTheCube]

One time while I was rafting we were going over the megaton rapids right at the end. The ones that if you fall in will swirl you around until death pretty much. Keep in mind I'm miserable in water too. There's two of them, and after the first one there's about a fifteen foot calm section and then the other one.

I got launched out of the raft on the first one, narrowly missed getting sucked back into it, then my buddy pulled me back into the raft before we hit the second one. It was pretty scary.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by fotze

Ho do things like that end? Do you get some sort of settlement from the other driver? I would think you should.

Yeah, usually you do but it is a hard way to make a living.

Case in hand. Our daughter used to have a motorbike. She wore full mask and neck helmet, all the proper footgear, whatever, took that course at McMahon stadium, the whole gammit, was a great driver.

She was going west on Glenmore Tr, was on top of the overpass at Crowchild Tr, going to make a left hand turn and head south into Lakeview to visit a friend. There are two left turn lanes there, she was in the inside left turn lane waiting for the light to turn green.

The light turns green, both lanes proceed to turn left. Well, someone in an old clunker of a station wagon, heading north on Crowchild Tr at 80 kmp, runs his red light and plows into our daughter. Usually is not good to be thrown from your bike but it was lucky for her. He hit her bike with such a force that it went under the car beside her in the other left hand turn lane and took out its oil tank. She would not have survived if she was not thrown from her bike. To make matters worse, the driver took off, hit and run.

Well, many people in the other cars at the scene of the accident got the license number of his vehicle. He was found around 2 hours later, 21 year old kid, almost 3 times over the limit for alcohol, had panicked and taken off.

Our daughter had a concussion, her full helmet and neck guard saved her, the helmet was cracked though. She of course had massive bruises and swelling on the left hand side of her body where she was hit. Miraculously, not one broken bone, no internal bleeding, not even any cut on her body that required stitches. She was in the hospital overnight, then released the next day into our care. Too soon in retrospect, the pain for the first week would have been managed better in a hospital setting I think.

She had to move home for 3 months, she could not walk without assistance and had to learn how to use her left foot again. She had quite a bad sprain on that left ankle and on her left wrist too. She had damage to her retina which resulted in blurred vision. That cleared up after around 8 months. It is not really gone, but the eye retrains itself and learns how to compensate. She only gets blurred vision now if too long on the computer, but that is rare.

She required a year of physiotherapy. The leg healed up almost like before. She has a spot where you can feel some hard flesh, scarring below skin. The only way that has affected her is with snowboarding. She can not do that now. It must somehow use the muscle by that scarring and it hurts real bad if she snowboards. Other downhill skiing, backcountry skiing, heli or cat skiing, no problem.

Her shoulder never did completely heal. She required surgery, both to fix her tendons, ligaments etc and her rotater cuff, was done arthroscopically, one small stitch in front, one small stitch in back. She had that done in Banff, the same doctor who does all the ski injuries for the Canadian Ski Team. She had to move back home for a period of time for recovery then too.

The kid completely owned up to his mistake. Luckily his insurance company honored his policy. All of our daughter's medical bills were paid for, up front. And because he plead guilty, she avoided a nasty court case as well. The kid had his license taken away for something like 5 years and had 300 hours of community service, has apparently turned his life around and is a model citizen.

Yeah, our daughter got a settlement, but like I said, is a hard way to make a living.

[FFR]

I used to be involved in competitive diving. Anyways, we were at the pool (Lindsay Park aka Talisman Center) and I was on one of the 1m (low boards) that was quite close to the wall. I was doing a twisting dive and as I took off from the end of the board, my mind went blank and I forgot what I was supposed to do...I did some weird half twist and I remember someone screaming and I remember seeing the wall of the pool flying towards my head. Luckly I managed to miss the concrete edge of the pool with my head and just scraped the side of my head on the pool. Took out some hair and gave me a nasty cut...most terrifying thing tht has ever happened to me. I never used that diving board again.

Another moment, though not quite as scary, was again at diving. Was on the 5m platform (second platform) and doing a dive for the first time. Took off on the end and waited to hear my coach call me out (tell me when to kick out of the tuck). I never heard him so I kicked out where it felt right. I landed flat on my back in the water. Couldn't feel or move my arms or legs. Lifeguards had to pull me out.

[Stormchaser]

Originally Posted by fotze

Ho do things like that end? Do you get some sort of settlement from the other driver? I would think you should.

I did receive a settlement from this but I can now look forward to arthritis in both knees....somehow the two don't even out.

On the other side of the coin...my scar on the underside of my chin is a hit with the ladies!

[Stormchaser]

Lets just say that my settlement would be just enough to buy a really cheap vehicle........

Workers Compensation isn't always the greatest way to go.....

however, looking back on it now I'm one step close to wearing plaid pants and suspenders, smoking a cigar writing to the city every month!

[Dan02]

only twice, the second one was the day I got out of the hospital after spending a week for the first one.

[Itse]

I drive a cab for a living, so I've propably had more than a couple close calls, being that I sometimes have to drive very tired and in pretty extreme weather, but no serious accidents yet. Then again, I drive a Mercedez and I always wear my seatbelt, so I'd have to crash pretty bad or get really unlucky to actually get killed. Anyway, nothing car-related comes to mind, I guess I'm just used to that stuff.

I do remember one time when I was about 20 I was walking through the center of Helsinki talking with a friend about something (I seem to remember it was either blues or existencial crisis), and suddenly he just grabs me hard by the shoulder to stop me. Had he not done that, I would've walked straight under a tram. Weird feeling, didn't even have time to get scared.

Another very memorable incident was when I was about 15-17, and coming home from school. A huge snowstorm had started while I was at school, and so it was no surprise the bus was pretty late (15-20 minutes by the time I got on and propably almost half an hour when I got off). Getting off the bus the wind was blowing snow around so hard I remember checking that at times I couldn't literally see my hand two feet away from my face and there were no sounds whatsoever (except propably for the wind). But at times I could see fine, it wasn't a long walk, I was dressed well enough, and I knew every inch of the way so I wasn't worried. Then I remember the snow suddenly blowing even harder than usual, everything going totally white and there was this weird muffled sound a little like rumpling paper.

The road home went about a hundred meters alongside a long four-story building, and as the wind eased for a second, I saw that all hundred meters of that road was covered with the top of that building next to it.

I had already heard earlier that the same storm had blown some ceilings off somewhere, so I wasn't actually that surprised, propably just looked at it like "well that's something I've never seen before", and just started walking right past the debris. Then I remember someone running from somewhere and screaming that I should get out of there, and that more stuff could still fall from the roof. I didn't really get scared then either, and it took me a few minutes to realize that if that bus had been a minute or two less late, I would've been right under that roof when it hit the road, and it very propably could've killed me. Weirdest feeling ever, really, as it was all very surreal, with all the silence and snow, and basicly no people anywhere (no surprise in that weather), and then I just got home and told my parents that "you know what? The roof just came off that building right next to us, it's right on that road I walk home every day", and I guess I was so casual about it that they never really thought about it twice. (The top of our building got blown off too in that storm actually. But it was really no biggie, since with the way the roof was built you really couldn't tell something was wrong except from the fact that the wind sounded different.)

[WesternCanadaKing]

Two instances really come to mind, both of them happening within a few days of eachother.

I was in England visiting a friend last summer and we were biking around the village that he lives in near Windsor. I was following him on the main road and he made a right at this intersection to go up a hill towards the countryside, and he stopped and waited for me. Without thinking I just made a hard turn to follow him, and a speeding car missed me by mere inches. The wind from the car knocked me off balance, thats how close it was to me. Had I turned half a second earlier I would've been dead. Or had the nice English people not decided to drive on the left side of the road I would've been dead. Really shook me up.

Similar incident on the same trip, I was visiting a different friend up in Coventry and looked the wrong way while crossing the road because I was so used to cars being on the other side. My friend grabs me and literally throws me back as a double decker bus goes whizzing past, its horn blaring, again missing me by a couple inches.

Just driving around England in general is about one of the most frightening things on earth.