"Close Calls" Thread

[JiriHrdina]

Years ago was coming back from Bragg Creek late at night.

I was booking it along at highway speeds and noticed a semi wanting to turn left across the highway in front of me. At the last moment, when I was far too close to him to brake, he started to turn basically blocking the highway.

Knowing I was going far too fast to try to stop, I swerved to my left as much as I could, which basically meant going partway into oncoming traffic - where there was another large truck coming through.

As I saw this unfold - I figured I was done. I didn't think there was enough room between the two trucks for me to get through - but somehow I "threaded the needle" and came out the other side. I quickly pulled over and it took me about 15 minutes to re-gain my composure.

To this date I hate making that drive.

I have no idea what the guy was thinking.

[bc-chris]

my closest call was a couple years ago.... a rim slid off the flatdeck of a semi and took my truck out pretty bad. i talked about it in the original wrgmg thread, which i can't find using the search function.

here's a post i made about it on a truck forum i'm on...

http://www.fullsizechevy.com/forum/p...ml#post5598825

[Inferno]

I can remember in highschool almost getting hit by a car because I wasn't paying attention. It stopped just in time to where it just lifted me onto the hood. The girl was pretty shook up she almost hit me and I felt like an ass.

I also remember me and my dad coming home from a hockey game one night and almost running into a car who didn't have the right of way and cut in front of us. Both of us weren't wearing our seatbelt and could have very well went through the windshield.

[JiriHrdina]

Oh here's an idiotic one that is more recent. It wasn't "that close" but closer than it should have been.
I work at an office where I have to walk across train tracks. There aren't a ton of trains that go through - a couple each day.
Walking to my car one afternoon I was absorbed in my iPhone and crossed the tracks. A couple feet later I heard a large sounds and looked back to see a train crossing just behind me.
I had crossed right in front of it without realizing it was there.
That's how people get hit by trains. Pure stupidity.

[Drury18]

Just before my 18th birthday I was out golfing with some family and hit a ball into the ravine. The family member had parked the golf cart at the top of a small hill and I guess didn't put the parking brake on. I was at the bottom of the hill and at the edge of the ravine looking for my ball and I think I heard something, turned around just in time to see the cart hit me, knock me into the ravine and pin me underwater. Thankfully, the velocity of it kept the cart moving when it hit the water so it rolled off my shoulder and I ended up being able to sit up and get out of the water.

A testament to how much shock and adrenaline can mask serious injury, I actually got up out of the ravine and finished the round of golf walking without a problem. Woke up the next morning to a purple left side of my upper body which I found out years later was a separated shoulder and broken ribs. To this day, I can pop my shoulder in and out of it's socket at will and have some sort of bursitis like injury in the side of my rib cage that aches when it gets cold or going to snow. I also have a floating rib, but that doesn't do much.

[Dion]

Before the Aldersyde (near Okotoks) overpass was built drivers had to merge onto HW #2 from a secondary road. Many people were killed while trying to merge and as a result the overpass was built

On a cold and snowy November night, myself and my mother were headed to Calgary for a family function. My mother was driving at the time as i had a sprained ankle. As we approached the intersection, she asked me if it was safe to merge. For whatever reason I badly misjudged the headlights of a vehicle coming from the south. As we merged the headlights of a pickup truck were approaching quite rapidly and a collision seemed imminent.

I don't remember much after that except for my mother holding onto the steering wheel and bracing for impact. The truck, for whatever reason doesn't hit the brakes but instead passes on the left hand shoulder (back end fish tailing on the icy shoulder) before merging back onto the highway. About the same time a cattle liner blares his horn as he passes us on the right.

I have no clue as to why the driver passed on the left shoulder. If it had been any other driver I have no doubt there would have been a collision and both of us would have been dead. Had mother swerved to the right line, the cattle liner would have smoked us. Her freezing saved our lives

I still have nightmares about that night and why I said it was safe to merge. Guess it wasn't our time.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by 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.

Wow, that's intense. How did you get out of there?

My closest call involves heavy drinking and Canadian winters. "Hey, I'll just rest here for a second..."

Many years ago I (very drunkenly) took my roommate's dog for a walk after a party and decided to have a bit of a "nap" on a park bench and let the dog run around in the park for a while. It was about -30, so luckily for me, the dog (a very rowdy Labrador) didn't like that for long and he started barking at me and pushing me and woke me up.

Good dog! Good dog!

I would have been frozen solid long before the sun came up. Geez, what a dummy.

[Nage Waza]

Almost got taken hostage, had to run while peeing.

[Displaced Flames fan]

Similar to your story Polak....

Was driving my first new truck down the freeway in Wichita when I heard and "felt" a loud bang. I looked in my rearview mirror and couldn't see anything at first...then I noticed that the driver's side body from the front of the bed to behind the wheel well was bashed in. When I stopped and got out it looked worse. It looked like I had been T-Boned by a car.

As I looked at the truck closer I could see some rubs on the pain where whatever hit the truck had obviously 'slid' down the body before really making impact. Then I found wood splinter embedded in the bottom of my rear view mirror and in the door seal rubber.

So, my investigation found that a pallet, laden or otherwise, came accross the freeway airborne and made contact with my truck right where the driver door window meets the door.

I thought about the physics of the entire thing and how a fraction of a second was the difference between that thing coming through my window and taking my head off.