List close calls in you life when you almost got killed or died.

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Aug 22, 2009
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Pittsburgh,PA U.S.A.
I will start with one.

When I was a kid, about 7 years old, I do not remember the exact age, I was given a Red-Rider BB gun for Christmas, exactly like the one in the movie "a Christmas Story", and this was a couple of decades before the movie was made. My father removed the part that holds the BB's and the barrel for the BB's. So it just made a loud air blast every time I fired it, but I was a kid and I liked it and played with it a lot. The butt of the gun was hollow plastic with a plastic back plate glued on the back of it and when it was made but not much glue was put on it to hold it on, and after a while the back butt plate fell off and was lost. I still used it often. The alley in back of out house is on a hill and one day I was running down that alley and the tip of my shoe hit something as I ran and tripped me. I was falling forward and it looked like I would fall on my face, so I put the butt of the gun under my right arm pit and used the rifle as a crutch with the front of it against the ground as I fell down. The back of the butt was now only an open piece of molded plastic without the back but plate, and it took two slices of flesh out of my right arm pit. I fell, and got up and was bleeding some and the artery for my right arm was hanging out from my right arm pit. I went in the house and both of my parents were home (my dad had worked a night shift in the steel mill) and I told them that I was hurt. My dad rushed me in the car to a doctors office only two blocks away, and he had my dad rush me to a hospital and phoned the hospital to tell the emergency room I was coming in.

The doctors said that if that artery that was hanging out from my arm pit had broke there would have been no way to stop the bleeding and I would have bleed out and died. Just lucky that the plastic butt of that gun did not cut another fraction of an inch deeper. That was a close one.
 
I don't fully remember it, but it involves Afghanistan and a well-placed mortar round. I suffered a traumatic brain injury and was unconscious for a while (hence why I don't remember what really happened, just what I've read in reports). My back was hurt pretty bad with 2 herniated discs, scoliosis, and stenosis resulting in a few operations over the years. It also left me with a bum knee. The 2 guys sitting next to me didn't make it. I still have dreams about them from time to time. One of them was an old friend of mine that went through basic training with me.
 
Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
I don't fully remember it, but it involves Afghanistan and a well-placed mortar round. I suffered a traumatic brain injury and was unconscious for a while (hence why I don't remember what really happened, just what I've read in reports). My back was hurt pretty bad with 2 herniated discs, scoliosis, and stenosis resulting in a few operations over the years. It also left me with a bum knee. The 2 guys sitting next to me didn't make it. I still have dreams about them from time to time. One of them was an old friend of mine that I went through basic training with me.


You just won this thread, for sure.

Thank you for serving.
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Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
I don't fully remember it, but it involves Afghanistan and a well-placed mortar round. I suffered a traumatic brain injury and was unconscious for a while (hence why I don't remember what really happened, just what I've read in reports). My back was hurt pretty bad with 2 herniated discs, scoliosis, and stenosis resulting in a few operations over the years. It also left me with a bum knee. The 2 guys sitting next to me didn't make it. I still have dreams about them from time to time. One of them was an old friend of mine that I went through basic training with me.


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5-6 years ago late at night a Moron in a lifted truck going north on southbound lane of I-44 in Oklahoma. Luckily I was paying FULL attention to the road and was able to swerve away from the truck.



Dave
 
11/10/2002
I was deer hunting with another person. It was late on a Sunday evening. Legal shooting hours were over. I left my stand and proceeded to my ATV. Suddenly, I saw a huge flash and felt fire burning through my body. I had been shot from 50 yards away from a 30.06 round. I had no idea where I was hit and was pretty sure that I would die. The round entered my upper right abdomen. It blew out a kidney, damaged my liver and a piece of rib punched a hole in my diaphragm. I was hospitalized for six weeks and had numerous procedures for two years after that.
 
Bottom of an Indiana stone quarry in 38F water in a dry suit that had had a seam failure.
Could not get enough buoyancy to ascend and everyone else had gone their own way as experienced and comfortable divers often do.
Fortunately I had spent many hours in the water at this site and knew where I was as well as the contours. I could make my way up to the surface. I was only a little less than neutrally buoyant so I could move and I had plenty of air with the steel 95 I was wearing. It was also fortunate that the bottom was only fifty feet depth.
I surfaced near the dock where we had entered and there was a group there to pull me out.
They laid me on my back and unzipped the suit, dumping out the water. I sat in front of the furnace in a motor home shivering uncontrollably for some time, but I was okay. I never got over my dislike of dry suits after that and wasn't really that pleased to wear one to begin with, although I did do a dive through the ice wearing one a couple of years later in a pond in Kentucky. A dry suit is really comfortable in very cold water, assuming it doesn't flood, as they almost never do.
Full face mask with integrated reg is very nice in cold water as well.
 
Driving with mom on a 2 lane road when a car coming from the opposite direction decided to pass a another, didn't care that I was coming. Weird thing is, I remember I somewhat calmly just moved to the right onto the dirt shoulder, the car whizzed by, and then moved back over into my lane, like it was a normal occurrence. 50/50 chance I made the right choice since the other driver had NO care in the world. Mom made a huge gasp and then put her head in her hands for a minute.

In '89, I had a collapsed lung. It took three attempts to get it sealed, the third being opening up my rib cage to staple off the lung. The docs were very worried about an infection setting in at this point, but nothing happened. I went downhill skiing about three months later...only on the easier runs.
 
Me at 25 on a Kawi ZX11 in a decreasing radius uphill turn going about 100 in the Montana/ Idaho Mountains.

Vs..

A dually towing a horse trailer in my lane with trailer brakes locked up.

The outcome was going to end up poorly for me taking either of my 2 available choices.
I chose to go off-road vs. eat the trailer. Snapped my leg in 2 below the knee.

I almost made it going so far to the edge of the lane watching the front walk ever closer to the edge of the pavement and the instant it walked off the edge all control vanished and I was a pawn of the physics a mere rag doll along for the ride.

If I ate the trailer I probably would have died right there.

It was 19 years of riding 10 years on the street with no serious accident prior to that aside some standard motocross injuries. The amount of tomfoolery I got away with up to that point was staggering in retrospect and I started slowing down after that.


UD
 
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I had a close call due to my own stupidity: I was replacing the fuel pump on a buddies S10 Blazer, it was in the parking lot of his work facing nose down a slight decline. I decided it was fine to lift it using a scissor lift with absolutely no wheel chocks or jack stand.

I was laying under the truck at an angle, picture face under trailer hitch and legs out the left rear wheel opening (I had the wheel off). I was trying to get the filler neck hose back on the tank, and was kind of shaking the truck, and down it came. I barely saw the jack go and made myself as flat as possible. Lucky for me, the diff. pumpkin hit the pavement, followed by the brake drum landing JUST below my foot, pinching the sole of my shoe.

The hitch landed about an inch from my face. My buddy saw the whole thing and came running out, thinking I was dead. I just screamed at him to crank the jack back up, and slid out the second I had room.

I didn't have a scratch on me. Smoked about 5 cigs in a row after that little experience!
 
Crashed my motorcycle at 120 mph all was good,,, Spun out twice one night from black ice .I did 4 360's the first time and 3 360s the second time, on a run from Redwood city Calif to Central Islip New York.All was good. When I was 10 years old my cousin who was 9 years older than I shot at something moving in the barn with a bb gun and the bb stuck under my skin so I popped it out like a pimple and told on my cousin to my Aunt, After the fact I came to realize telling on my cousin wasn't the best idea. Another good one was I had a flat bottom drag boat so my friend and I were doing 8,000 rpm wot and the boat caught air and i thought I was going to die the boat was air born and about 706 angle* to the water ,for some reason the boat didn't flip over and all was good.
 
Originally Posted by MParr
11/10/2002
I was deer hunting with another person. It was late on a Sunday evening. Legal shooting hours were over. I left my stand and proceeded to my ATV. Suddenly, I saw a huge flash and felt fire burning through my body. I had been shot from 50 yards away from a 30.06 round. I had no idea where I was hit and was pretty sure that I would die. The round entered my upper right abdomen. It blew out a kidney, damaged my liver and a piece of rib punched a hole in my diaphragm. I was hospitalized for six weeks and had numerous procedures for two years after that.

Yikes . I am glad you are here,
 
Originally Posted by RDY4WAR
I don't fully remember it, but it involves Afghanistan and a well-placed mortar round. I suffered a traumatic brain injury and was unconscious for a while (hence why I don't remember what really happened, just what I've read in reports). My back was hurt pretty bad with 2 herniated discs, scoliosis, and stenosis resulting in a few operations over the years. It also left me with a bum knee. The 2 guys sitting next to me didn't make it. I still have dreams about them from time to time. One of them was an old friend of mine that went through basic training with me.

Glad you are here !
 
Too many to list ... life is dangerous. Even if you are careful not to kill yourself by accident, someone else will do it for you.
 
Sheesh. Some serious stuff. Mortars, rifle round to the kidney. That is some serious stuff.

My only near death was choking on a vitamin that got stuck in my throat and I had to self-Heimlich myself.
 
At around 14 I was in a YMCA overnight camp and was in one of the groups for older kids. Most of the time we were in canoe trips on the Connecticut River (but farther upstream and in other states in runs through). One time we came to a dam and needed to portage the dam. No place to get out on the left side but the way down was on left side. The counselors had us get out on the right side, carry our canoes over a railroad bridge that was almost on top of the dam and then walk down the left side. We did as they told us to. About 15 minutes after the last canoe was finished being carried over the railroad bridge a train came on the bridge. If would have been a disaster if anyone was on the bridge carrying a canoe.
 
Four years ago, I had a head on collision driving a PriusC vs a Dodge Ram 4x4.

I was going about 25 mph, and out of nowhere, the truck @ 85 mph missed a curve in the road, jumped the curb, flew off the embankment, went airborne for 40 feet, and nearly landed on top of me.

He hit me at enough of an angle that the point of contact on both vehicles was the passenger side front wheel wells. It tore the entire wheel and brake assembly off the Ram. All that energy concentrated in strong points on both vehicles, to dissipate. The collision occurred in about the only manner that it could have, in order for me to survive.

I was driven both forward and sideways with tremendous force. There was no airbag deployment. The seat belt did some good. I nearly went through the front windshield on the front passenger side. It almost took a two inch wide 4 inch long chunk out of my skull.

The ambulance people stopped me from bleeding out. Heck, I should have gotten squished, or paralyzed, or developed chronic pain. Three hours later, I walked out of the triage center with twelve staples in the top of my head. It was back to work the next day, with a slight limp to my step. As they say in rodeo, get right back up on the horse. LOL.

...And RDY4WAR,
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1996 on the highway doing 70 with a load of marble chips in my F350 and a semi in front of me locks up the brakes on a small bridge, jack knifes and takes out the concrete side and flips off the bridge. I lock up the brakes and slide into the grey cloud of smoke and end up with half my front left tire hanging off said bridge when I finally stopped.

2000 a drunk driver rear ended me at a stop light and pushed me into cross traffic. Totaled the F350. Had complications from the resulting hip surgery.

2013 Firefighting and had a roof collapse on me. Took 3 people to dig me out. EMS service charged me 400 for the transport to ER. Didnt find out till a couple years later when the collection notice appeared to screw up a car loan.
 
Originally Posted by 14Accent


I didn't have a scratch on me. Smoked about 5 cigs in a row after that little experience!


Dude, that would have been the perfect time to give them up! Glad you survived it!
 
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