How many times have you almost died?

[troutman]

The amazing thing is - all of our anscestors lived long enough to have children. We are all part of an amazing string of luck, going back millions of years.

1. nearly drowned as an infant

2. driver feel asleep late at night in Wisconsin, and we nearly went in the ditch

3. driver spun out on ice in Nor Cal, and did 360 in to the ditch

4. got swept away in the Bow River fishing one day - very luck my waders did not fill with water - a wading belt may have saved my life

5. spent one night at the Maryland Hotel in Winnipeg

[TheyCallMeBruce]

8 times. If I'm a cat, I only have 1 left

1. When i was 5 I almost drowned in the ocean when I fell off my floatable toy. My dad's friend saved my life.
2. When I was a teen, my friend decided to throw a knife into the air and run without telling me. It came down and hit me on the head, but thank God it wasn't the sharp end.
3. My cousins and I had a stash of fireworks stored in our shed. We were playing fireworks war with the neighbours children when suddenly one of the fireworks they shot at us flew into the stash. We got out just as the stash ignited, blowing up the shed. My ears were slightly burnt.
4. I was a part of the Cadets in Malaysia. We were learning to use real guns when my buddy beside me accidentally discharged his. The bullet wizzed by my stomach (it was a scary feeling).
5. I came inches from being hit by a falling TV from an apartment highrise. I was held up only maybe 4 or 5 steps because I decided to wait for a friend. Had I continued, it would have hit me.
6. My dad's friend (his kid's also my friend) was driving us to the movies he swerved to avoid a motorcyclist. The car almost plunged into the river as a quarter of the car was hanging over the rail.
7. I got stabbed in the arm. A guy came up to me and stabbed me and I wasn't even aware of his intentions, but had I not moved my arm at the last minute, he would have stabbed a vital organ.
8. I was almost hit by a semi that couldn't stop due to icy conditions. For whatever blind luck, as he was sliding toward me at a high speed coming from the opposite side, another truck went out of control coming from the side and end up hitting the truck out of the way.

[brownie]

Originally Posted by SaskaBushFire

Every time I drive with my friend Ricky..

Is that you Bubbles????

[Ford Prefect]

Originally Posted by troutman

The amazing thing is - all of our anscestors lived long enough to have children. We are all part of an amazing string of luck, going back millions of years.

No kidding. When you think about what the odds are of all the anscestors that had to avoid winning a Darwin Award in order for each of us to be here, and then add to that the odds of a certain sperm being that one sperm that was successful in outswimming all of the others and fertilizing that one specific egg, all that at one specific moment in history ... it makes the odds of winning a lottery seem like a sure bet. And then we all go out and take life for granted, do stupid things that put our lives at risk, and figure the universe is our entitlement. Surely we have a higher destiny than to just trash our planet and move on. Whatever, I'll just go have a shot of tequila.

[HalifaxDrunk]

When I was 5, I was sleeping and my tonsils swelled up and cut off my breathing. It was around 2:30 am, our Yellow Lab was whimpering and woke up my parents (I like to believe she heard me wheezing and went for help not that she just needed to go pee). Our next door neighbor was a paramedic with the Fire Department; he took care of me and then rushed me to the hospital where they removed my tonsils. If my parents didn't wake up they said I would have suffocated.

I was riding my bike when I was about 7. My brother and I were behind the junior high school (where teenagers went to drink) a path went down into the woods. This was a very steep decline and about 1/4 the way down my chain broke. This was before hand brakes so I was out of control. I got the "speed wobbles" and crashed into a 3 foot high boulder. I flew over it and landed arms and face first into a field of broken beer bottles. I looked like a porcupine (only have one scar on the left side of my nose) but very luckily no major veins cut.

During High School my buddy and I were walking along a snowy road when 2 cars smashed into each. We went to help and while I was talking to the driver of one of the cars (he was pinned in his seat). Another car skidded off the road, I was watching the car come right at me but I couldn't move very fast on the ice. I just barley got out of the way as it slammed sideways right where I was standing. Those were a few very scary seconds.

[Sample00]

thanks Nehkara, I appreciate the comment!

[Flames_Gimp]

last year i decided to cross on a red...there was a car coming but i missed judged his speed... well he had no lights on, it was at night.... i kid you not, it was so close i mean i cleared the cars bumper by 2 inches.... the guy didnt even slow down, was doin about 80km.

[FFR]

Twice for me...except neither are car related. I am a diver and well once...probably 5 years ago, I was doing a rather complicated dive off the 7m platform (second from the top) and I came out completely wrong and landed flat on my back. All I remember is that I couldn't feel or move a thing and I just started sinking. It was absolutely terrifying. Lifeguards pulled me out and I went to the hospital...turned out I just severely bruised my entire back and did something or other to my spinal cord. Nothing life altering in the end. To those people who say they think dying by drowning is the best...well you might be insane becuase it's the most terrifying feeling I have ever experienced.

Second was also diving related. If anyone has been to Linsday Park you would know that the 1m (low springboards) on one side of the pool are very close to the edge, well one time I go to do my dive and somehow in the air I forget whats going on and pretty much crashland into the pool in a ball. As I hit the water, I feel the wall of the pool brush my arm and then I crash into the little ledge about 5 feet under water. Two or Three inches to the right and I would have crashed headfirst into the side of the pool. I to this day, have never used that board again.

[shane_c]

Only once that I can think of.....
Was driving on the highway from Cape Breton to Halifax and it was not a divided highway. It was 2 lanes going in the direction that I was going and I pulled out to pass several 18 wheelers. The sign must have fallen down on the other side of the road showing that the passing lane was ending, and obviously I couldn't see the sign on the other side of the 18 wheeler. Next thing I know the dashed line starts turning solid and I'm about 1/2 way up on this truck and he starts merging over. I was driving my modified 96 Mustang GT, thank god, and slammed it into 3rd gear at about 120km/h and blew by the truck and just got in before I would have been facing head on traffic.

[pope04]

When I was nineteen, I was heading west at dusk on the 1A higway. I was probably doing the speed limit or slightly above, and I saw a car approaching the highway from the north off of a secondary road. I was expecting him to stop but, probably because it was getting pretty dark, he didn't see my headlight and gunned 'er to cross the highway. I had to swerve, and my pantleg ticked the guy's bumper. I was probably doing 60-65 mph, and I doubt I would be typing this if I hadn't swerved.

[Calgaryborn]

I was working as a ground grunt for a tree trimming company about
fifteen years ago and went into a tap off of a 25 KV line on a really
raining day. It had actually been raining for a month. I was topping
little evergreens with a fifteen foot pole pruner. The pole pruner was suppose to be dielectric safe but the CU kept the new currently tested pole pruner in its shipping package and used a dirty untested pole pruner. That way if B.C. Hydro inspected him he could show a clean dry pruner to them. Well anyways, I was trying to top this taller tree and pulled it into the power line. I was hit with 14400 volts and probably would be dead but because the tree was under tension it sprung the pruner out of my hand like an arrow.The in ital jolt should have killed me anyways. I found myself lying on the ground unaware of how long I had been there.

The tree's top was caught in the line and where the bend was in the tree it was smoking with a little puff of fire every now and then. The fuse should have blown but Hydro tends to put heavy fuses in out in the sticks. It saves call outs. I ran and got my CU and we threw blocks of wood at the tree and anything else we could find until it dislodged. B.C. Hydro was none the wiser.

Later that afternoon I was pushing a tree away from the line someone had cut and the snag I was bracing against contacted the line. Luckily a water logged tree a few miles down the line had fallen over and knocked the power out so I was safe but, of course we didn't know that at the time.

[Cube Inmate]

Originally Posted by Ford Prefect

Reading this threat reinforces what I learned from my own experiences ... the human body is much like those old Timex commercials. It can take a lickin' and keep on tickin'. That, and a lot of us have dumb ass luck.

Well, the thread titled "how many times have you actually died?" didn't get a lot of responses, so I'm not sure you've come to a valid conclusion.

[DuffMan]

about 2 months ago, while driving up a residential street that I had done hundreds of times before, A cement truck ran a stop sign, right in my path, about 3 steamboats before I got there. Not sure even if it had been empty, if it would have made a difference.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

*ahem* tonight http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=37258

[icarus]

Originally Posted by TheyCallMeBruce

8 times. If I'm a cat, I only have 1 left

That one left is the one you currently are on. If I were you I would not go out of doors.

[spydermal]

When I was in grade nine we took a ski trip to the mountains the weekend after I bought a brand new jacket. Me and my friends decided to go on a really powdery run with our ****ty snow blades, and if you have ever used snow blades deep powder is not your friend. Half way down the run, I got caught on a branch and fell right on a stick. The stick ripped right through the middle of my jacket missing my stomach. I think that’s my closest call. Oh, and I fell though the ice on the Red Deer River in grade 8.

[Kjesse]

I was 4, maybe 5 years old, in a motel, 2nd floor, mid summer, very hot, window open. I decide to sit on the windowsill. My parents yell at me to get off there, because I could fall backwards to the concrete.

I reply, "I won't fall", and kick my legs up to prove it. Just then, lose my balance, and fall backward headfirst to the ground.

My uncle (coincidentally my Godfather) dives from the bed he was sitting on and caught me by the ankle.

Scary stuff. I would have died for sure if he hadn't grabbed me.

[Sylvanfan]

Well in reading this thread I've reinforced my beliefs as to why woman on average live longer than men.

I've had a couple other incidents that were 100% my own fault where I easily could have suffered worse injuries perhaps even fatal and didn't. How many of you have tried to fly a an inner tube off the back of a boat like a kite only to have the rope slip and fling you out of the boat? Lucky for me it I managed to avoid getting the thing wrapped around me and was able to swim back to surface. Thats something woman just don't do to themselves.

[jolinar of malkshor]

I was driving home from work one day on the highway, about 430pm.....doing the regular 110kph. About half a mile down the road in the on coming traffic lane there are two vehicles....1 behind another. The vehicle behind the first one starts to pull out like it is going to pass....I am thinking to myself....good lord man....what are you doing, there is no way you can pass that guy.

So I am about to pull far over to the right because this truck in not moving back into his own lane. He is slowing moving further into my lane. He keeps moving further and further into my lane and the other vehicle just keeps cruzing along. So I am thinking to myself...what they hell. Do I pull way over to the right or do I stay where I am becuase he just keeps moving left....by this time he is now on the shoulder of my lane and I go flying in between both vehicles. There is no room on either side, maybe a foot in each direction. I couldn't believe what was happening....the first vehicle isn't moving over to his right to allow me to avoid the other car. Any how, I look in my rear view mirror and the guy continues to drive off the should of the road.....the opposite shoulder of what lane he is suppose to be in. Dirt and dust go flying and the guy narrowly misses a power pole. I stop my car and pull off to the right....I have a huge shoot of adrenaline in my system and I wanted to see what the hell that other guys was going to do.

He finally stops his truck and waits in the ditch a moment and then drives out and down the road he goes. I am thinking this guys if either drunk or high, so I do a U..ee and go after the guy....I didn't want this to happen to someone else. I catch up to him and wave him over. He stops.....I get out of my car and go up to his truck. It is a young kid...probably 16 or 17. I was mad.....I say "what the hell are you doing....you almost killed both of us....are you ****ing drunk"? He is shaking and says no....no....I fell asleep....I just got off a long shift......I am so sorry." I say to the guy "well hell are you ok to drive, maybe I should call your parents to come pick you up." No sire....I am ok......I am really sorry.....I am awake now. Which I believe as he probably almost had a heart attack.

From that day on.....I realized how everytime I get into a vehicle....what happens to me is only 50% in my control.....it is kind of scary if you think about it.

[Flamesguy_SJ]

This past summer a few friends and I had a welcome home party for a buddy who had spent 5 weeks volunteering in Nicaragua (sp?). Needless to say I was absolutely hammered, and passed out around 1:30am. Woke up at 8:30am still drunk, and everyone decided it'd be a great idea to go out on my friend's boat in the river and tube for a bit (and I'm not a very good swimmer at the best of times). I can remember it being my turn to go out on the tube, and I remember the first 5-10 minutes of it, and then it goes blank. Apparently, the tube suddenly flipped and the girl sitting behind me ended up cracking me in the back of the head with her elbow. The next thing I knew, I was being carried off the boat and onto the little dock by the house. No doubt in my mind the thing that saved me was my life-jacket.