[Duck]

It's interesting that even though you know it won't harm you, it's still scary to think about how close you've come at times to dying. Maybe it would be just as scary to think about each others' stories? Of course, more than one story is ok^^

Spoiler

I was snowboarding in Jackson Hole, WY, and got separated from my friend who is a local. I've never been there, and this is THE place not to go off on your own. I was looking backward to see if I could keep my trail like a thin line, and I noticed going past some yellow tape. I wasn't really paying attention because I was more excited that the fog was clearing and the snow was getting softer. I turned onto my heel edge to slow down and looked forward. It turned out to be a 160 foot cliff.

The problem with being on your heel edge in soft snow is that you can't climb back uphill. I had to do a jump turn to get on my toes but I lost a couple feet to do this and I was only a few feet from the drop. I tried to climb back up but was sliding to the edge. I was able to scoop myself up back to the tape but what if I waited another split second to look forward...

[Forseti]

I fell from my bicycle onto the main road and a car just sped past right beside my head. That was a real wtf and i could've been dead with a crushed head right at that moment.

This post has been edited by Forseti: 19 November 2009 - 01:51 AM

[Gyli]

Um, for me the closest I've coming to dying is when I went in for surgery and during surgery I stopped breathing and woke up in intensive care I was still dazed from the medicine that I didn't know where I was and tried yanking off the oxygen mask that was giving oxygen to my body. I had to be held down by staff until they told me the situation I was in.

There was also a time when very young I had a severe asthma attack and the doctor's told my parents that I only had 20 minutes to live and there wasn't anything they could do anymore (Load of BS eh? Here I am)

And finally there was when I had apendicitis and the symptoms didn't appear until later on and I had to be rushed to the hospital and transfered in a ambulance to a different hospital and had to have immediate surgery since it was on the verge of bursting and killing me (according to the doctors.) And this couldn't kill me, but the way the nurses handled me may as been being close to death..such cold manly hands on females there and not a single one of them cute.

There are others times I've come close to death, but three examples are enough moral of the story is I was a walking luck machine in my childhood.

[Evicerator]

Well in my younger dumber days I used to like driving fast. REALLY fast.

I was coming home from The North American International Auto Show and while in the parking structure my best friend was talking **** about how his truck was faster "blah blah blah" so I told him we would race back to my place and winner bought dinner for all (my g/f and a few friends where with us.) We loaded up vehicles and took off.

What he didn't know that I knew was that all GM trucks are "governed" electronically at 99mph. I'd had my car (at the time it was a '99 Grand AM) to it's "governed" limit of a buck 19. So it wasn't even a matter of acceleration that mattered, but top speed.

So charging down I-75 he tore off in front of me until he hit that magical "governor" and I flew past at around 115. Traffic was light so doing these speeds was doable. Till a moron (pot calling the kettle black, but this is my story, so eat one...) hops onto the freeway and just dashes across all oif the lanes without a turn signal.

I made two very large mistakes (youth has this effect...) I was in the middle of a large curve on the outter most (largest part of the curve, opposite of how it's supposed to be done at high speeds. Think opposite of NASCAR.) and I hit my brake.

This resulted in my back end coming loose from behind and the car litterally went into a sideways spin, ala drifitng-style. Had I known what I know now I think I coulda saved it (with strategic E-brake yank and wheel turning, but hind sight's always 20-20.)

Needless to say I hit the inner median once the curve ended at close to 90MPH. The car hit the median so hard that it ricocheted off of the wall and with the remaining force, traveled back across the 5 lanes of freeway. I don't remember much of the initial impact or traveling back across the highway to the other side, but my friend described it as "the scariest thing I have ever seen, you shoulda died." Because of the literal spin out at those speeds, the tires sent up and instant smoke screen across the highway and I was almost hit by several cars during the whole thing.

Thankfully at the end of the day only one car was totaled, I had a head injury and the two other passengers I was carrying had no injuries, miraculously.

[Nikki]

hmm I'm not sure that I have many. Only one comes to mind...

I was riding my bike down a bridge, now it was one of those that sort of criss crosses as it goes down, so like it goes down straight, then turns left and goes down more so its coming back on itself if you get me. Well I was riding down one and my brakes cut, I hit the balcony and flipped over the edge, luckily my leg got stuck on railing and my brother and friends all pulled me up. I may not have died if I did go over, but I'm guessing I prolly would have landed head first so chances are I would have. >o<

[Sefie]

I've got a kidney disease when I was 15 years old.. A side effect of this disease was that my body started to 'produce' water (called edema), which filled my lungs. So I was drowning from the inside... my lungs hurt like hell and I couldn't breath normally anymore.. I can't describe the pain and how much I've been afraid of dying.

Now it's all fine and my kidneys are healthy again ..and I hope I won't get this disease ever again.

[Mindel]

I was riding my bike during a visit to my brother's house, and I was crossing the street, perfectly legal green light and everything, and this bus driver decides his red light is not important, so he speeds past it.

Of course I don't remember much since I got knocked out, but my brother told me he hit my bike and I went flying, in turn getting hit by another car, then landed on my head, hard. He said he thought I had died since I was laying in my own blood, but I survived, the only scar of it being a chipped tooth.

Another time was when I was much younger and my friend had bought some BB guns. I was around 7, so I said "Hey, imagine if I just like blew my brains out right now?"
I lifted the gun to my head and pulled the trigger, and I was seriously convinced it was out of ammo since I was trying to shoot it before but I was getting nothing, but turns out it just wasn't my day and I shot myself in the head, and the bullet got lodged into my skull. It's gone now but yeah that wasn't much fun.

[sidion]

Sefie, on 19 November 2009 - 10:29 AM, said:

I've got a kidney disease when I was 15 years old.. A side effect of this disease was that my body started to 'produce' water (called edema), which filled my lungs. So I was drowning from the inside... my lungs hurt like hell and I couldn't breath normally anymore.. I can't describe the pain and how much I've been afraid of dying.

Now it's all fine and my kidneys are healthy again ..and I hope I won't get this disease ever again.

That sounds rough lucky you're healthy now.

For me there's been several times.
I was hit by a car while roller blading as it was exiting a driveway too fast and ended up in the street. Luckily it was early in the morning and there weren't many cars so I only suffered a concussion and sprained wrist. I suppose if traffic had been flowing like it normally does I would have been killed.
During a fight my friends and I were swarmed and would have been stabbed to death if not for a group of jamaican dudes who basically saved our asses. Got bloodied and cut and it left me shaken that **** had gone south so fast.
I rode down a no-ride trail hill on a mountain bike with no brakes. Wiped out with the bike and missed a tree branch that had been jutting out from a dead trunk which would have impaled me. Suffered nerve damage on my right calf and lost the wheel and bent the bike frame on my buddy's bike.
The thing is every time I think of those times they feel so surreal like I wasn't there. It's a weird feeling but I suppose everyone feels and thinks differently about this kind of thing.

[Infares]

• Was born with multiple herniations in my diaphragm. Almost died to gangrene.
• Stepfather shot his .44 inches above my head to impress his friends. Promptly urinated myself and ran.
• Couple times almost got hit by cars as a child.
• Couple near misses with cliffs (See Duck's story).

[Omen]

I got struck by lightning...

No seriously hear me out. I was flying back home from Paris, France to the UK when we flew through a thunder storm.
As we were flying through the thunder cloud just after take off, we could all hear the static building up over the roar of the jet engines.
The all of a sudden our plane was struck by lightning. This massive bang, louder than anything I'd ever heard before and a blinding purple light... and we lost all electrical power and one of the engines.
We dropped so fast it was like being on a roller coaster for a good 15 seconds drop. At that time I thought... OMG I am really going to die here.
Then somehow everything came back online apart from the lights inside the plane, and the plane was pulling out of the dive.
A message came over from the pilot saying the obvious... and then that the plane is completely fine but we have lost one engine and the interior lights.
We detoured to exeter airport, where the planes engineers were based and thats that. Just a 30 mins delay lol.

Scary times.

[Infares]

Omen, on 19 November 2009 - 01:29 PM, said:

We detoured to exeter airport, where the planes engineers were based and thats that. Just a 30 mins delay lol.

...Which presented a great opportunity for you and the other passengers to change into some fresh undergarments.

[_pops]

Only near death incident that ever happened to me was when I was being delivered. My umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck twice and I wasn't breathing. Luckily the doctors cut my cord and everything seemed to be fine.

I wonder if I suffered any brain damage...

[Inuisonu]

Um...I was going with my brother and cousin to a new Hindu temple. We were on an Interstate with a very light drizzle happening. There was a little traffic. With the rain, everyone was going about 60 (5 under the limit). We passed under a bridge for one of the exits and the car bumped over this one little niche in the pavement. Next thing we know, we are spinning counter clockwise. I'm sitting in the back right seat of a 2 door Honda Civic and I suddenly see the center barrier coming at me from the right side (we were in the left most late; driving on the right side of the highways in USA). I dive onto the seat, even with the seatbelt. Fortunately, my brother and his friend had rotated the tires about a week before and he turned the wheel the correct direction to keep the car spinning a full 360°, and got control when we were facing forward again. He immediately pulled left and got onto the shoulder to stop. That was probably the most out-of-my-control moment to something that might've severely injured or killed me.

[Fina]

The closest I've ever come was because of my own overconfidence and stupidity.

I was in the 4th or 5th grade at the time and I was going to the elementary school with my mother to pick up my sister after class. While waiting I decided to play on the swings. I hadn't been on those swings in years, and since I was bigger now everything else seemed much smaller.

The swing set was part of a playground that was enclosed behind a spiked iron fence. I was swining pretty high and thought to myself "Hey, if I let go I bet I can jump straight over the fence!"

Of course, I completely disregarded the fact that if I did I could have landed on the pavement or the roof of a car in the parking lot...or of course, the fence itself.

So I let go and went flying straight towards the spiked fence. I ended up landing only an inch or two away from the fence. I broke my arm from the fall, but luckily I didn't get my head impaled on one of the spikes.

[xoras]

Heres my story of the closest one.
It was 3 years ago and it was raining, very bad weather but i was out in a cave. pretty big cave i was down there with a couple of friends. It was early in the morning outside it was all dark because the sun didnt go up yet.
We was just chilling but suddenly we all stopped and a giant thing (it seemed like) came towards us.
Every one of us was very afraid, what a heck was this?
so this giant thing "spider" start to attack us down in korroloka tunnel and after that i had 1 hp and 0 mp

Or this one is even better first time in valkurm running for the life to selbina with a train of gobs after you :)

[Omen]

Infares, on 19 November 2009 - 01:48 PM, said:

...Which presented a great opportunity for you and the other passengers to change into some fresh undergarments.

You could say that lol... but due to the fact that all the passengers were British. they spent their 30 mins phoning in work to say they were going to be late and just non-stop moaning lol.

[Penji]

It was Feb. 21 2005. It involved a bottle of Jim Beam, a rental car, a pole filled with concrete, and a river.........

[Infares]

Omen, on 19 November 2009 - 06:03 PM, said:

You could say that lol... but due to the fact that all the passengers were British. they spent their 30 mins phoning in work to say they were going to be late and just non-stop moaning lol.

So by this I'm to assume that British people don't wear undergarments, then?

[RamenThief7]

I had one particularly creepy instance...

When I was younger, one day I was riding my bike and I was crossing a road. The "walk" sign was shining brightly, and I was gliding with joy...until a f###ing car decided to try to turn right and rammed right into me. By the way, where I live, it's legal for a car to turn right on red if there's no sign saying otherwise and if there's no one coming from the left. However, the driver failed to notice the bicyclist...

Had he gone a little faster, I would've lost a leg or possibly just even died. I lived, and the driver learned one very important lesson: BIKERS CAN TRAVEL VERY FAST, DON'T ASSUME YOU CAN OUTSPEED THEM BECAUSE YOU'RE IN A CAR.

[Dex]

While traveling in Brazil over the years (I've spent a total of 2.5 years in Brazil) I was hit by a motorcycle. I was struck by a motorcycle going 45 mph, or so, and had the sense to jump straight into the air about 1 second before impact. Instead of going under the tires or being dragged I was merely launch about 15 feet into a barbed wire fence along the side of the road. Bump on the head and a few stitches later it was relatively no big deal.

Another experience involved choking until I blacked out. I don't like to talk about it but it's fair to say that being alive for me is nothing short of a miracle. The sensation of choking is really disturbing and it's a slow, uncomfortable process of panic and primal fear. I survived it though with virtually no side effects, either emotional or physical. Every now and then I have a dream where I'm choking again, but it's been long enough I just sort of laugh at myself now.