Near-Death Experiences

[prongs43]

I'm sure almost everyone has had at least one. I myself have almost died six times. So I've started this thread for people to come discuss their near-death experiences, no matter how close or how bizzare. Here are mine:

1 and 2. There were two times I almost choked.

3. Almost drowned in a wave pool. Passed out.

4. Almost drowned on a canoeing trip for Boy Scouts. There's a story behind it that I won't go into, but an interesting fact is that the Scout Leader denied it ever happened.

5. Chased by an escaped emu. I wouldn't normally count this, but I was 6 years old and very small, so if it caught up with me...

6. E. Coli. Also the result of a Boy Scouts trip.


So there's mine. And I apologize in advance if this was done before, I did a search and couldn't find anything.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Tackled by 40 people in a game resembling Rugby...but without rules. I weigh 130lbs...the average of the people hitting me was about 210 (yay defensive line of almost 30 guys, and then the rest of the team).

It's only luck that saved me from a broken neck, back, or anything else. As it was, I lost consciousness for a good 20 minutes (although I apparently was still moving around and talking...I just don't remember it at all) and was disoriented for the better part of three weeks.

But we won, so...:smallbiggrin:

[Mauve Shirt]

I had a seizure and almost walked out of a moving car...does that count?

[Desidus]

Totaled my motorcycle... 8 days ago. Some guy in an F-150 cut me off, I hit the brakes (there was a car beside me), and got clipped from behind by a van (that didn't stop). Bike went out from under me and I did a nice fly by on the truck that cut me off (he was going at about 5mph and making a wide turn thus the cutting off), landed/stopped skidding in the middle of an intersection, about 100 feet after going airborn.

My saving graces were:

1) I was off the motorcycle when it hit the truck

2) I had just come from the track and had all my track gear on except my leather pants (which I wish I had had on now)

3) The people behind me didn't run me over

4) The only traffic at the intersection was going in the same direction as me

5) I high-sided the bike (was in front of it on the fall) instead of low-siding it (being behind it). Had I low-sided the bike I would have hit it or the truck or both.

Some pictures to show some of the damage to the bike (no body shots, road rash is not forum friendly):

After some cleaning up of the accident and putting everything in one place
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b159/XtremeX19/BikeCrash2.jpg

Another angle and a little more cleaning, but not much more
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b159/XtremeX19/BikeCrash3.jpg

[Bitzeralisis]

You people must have dangerous lives. I sit in front of the computer all day. Silly risk takers, putting their lives on the line every day! *falls on ground, half dead from sleep-deprivation and twitching due to dehydration and near-blindness. Computer explodes for no reason. Plane crashes into house, nuke crashes through window, earthquake, tornado, hurricane, gas leak. Boom.*
Seriously, if you thought any of those things actually happened, then you're not very logical. If you found this text, then you are evil. Now go back to your room and stop highlighting random text.
Never mind. :smalltongue:

[Silence]

I went mountain climbing in Maine once. Really tall mountains. We got up to the top where it overlooked miles upon miles of beautiful mountains. It was at least a mile straight down. No rails.

I tripped.

Ho. Lee. She. It.

I was inches away from falling to my death. Adrenaline:blood ratio hit about 3:1.

[SquirrelKing]

I had one that I don't remember: apparently I came rather close to dying shortly after being born due to an extreme allergic reaction to codeine (to which I'm still allergic).

Beyond that, I can think of two:

1. When I was around 11 or 12ish, I was riding my bike, doing jumps off of a rather steep hill that was in front of my house. On one trip down the hill, I didn't notice a car coming up the hill and at the last moment, I veered away to avoid running into it. The bad news? I veered full speed into our mailbox. Clotheslined me, knocked me out, all sorts of bruises and cuts, not to mention the mother of all bloody noses.

2. Again, when I was younger, we had a deck that was somewhat high off the ground; I'd say a little more than half a story to a house, as it was set on a hill. Anywho, for whatever reason, the railing was only around knee-high. I and my childhood friend, Corey, were playing on the deck, and he lunged at me, so I backed up quickly. The back of my knee caught on the railing, and I fell backwards to the ground over the railing. I landed on the back of my neck, my body straight upwards with my head folded forward, chin touching my chest. Thankfully, I wasn't paralyzed or anything, but ever since, every once in a while I'll turn my head just so and an awful pain will shoot through my entire body.

Just thinking of those two incidents tells me a couple things: 1) that I am somewhat lucky that worse didn't happen, especially after number two, and 2) I want that sort of invincibility again! I miss it!! :D

[Haruki-kun]

I crashed once.... well, I wasn't driving, I was on the car. It wasn't a really terrible crash.... because we were all WEARING OUR SEATBELTS.

Remember to wear them, kids! (And some adults would do well to remember it, too. :smallannoyed:)

[skywalker]

When I was 18 months old, I ate a very, very tiny piece of cashew brittle and found out I was allergic to nuts. It took four shots of adrenaline in the ER to keep me alive. Since then, I'm not sure if I've had any near-death experiences... Nothing that jumps out at me and says "Dude, you could've died just now."

[Serpentine]

Hmm...

I think it was me, and not my sister, who scared mum before I was born. She was pregnant with me, and she went on a rollercoaster. I stopped kicking for several days. She was rather worried.

Car crash when I was little. Dad driving, sister behind him asleep, mum in front passenger, me behind her. Heavy rain after a long dry spell - means a lot of newly-moistened oil on the road - and driving slightly too fast. Went off the road barely missing numerous trees (an inch to the left and mum and I would've been gone). Dad put his hand on mum's and said "we'll be alright", fully believing it. First clearing we got to, rolled over 3 times - sister woke up on the second), landed right-way-up. I think we couldn't open the doors, I vaguely remember people having to pull them off. Mum was the only one to be injured, with a small cut that needed a few stitches on her forehead.

I think my parents told me that when I was really little I almost drowned. CPR-needing almost drowned. I was near the pool, they turned around, turned back and I was under the water gazing up at them.

Nearly got taken out by a rip.

Crashed my friend's car on a really winding road with metal barriers between you and a very long, steep, tree- and rock-filled incline. Fortunately I was going reasonably slow (though not as slow as I should have been) and was turning (though not as quickly and smoothly as I should have been) and so didn't break through the barrier.

I would like to second the "seatbelts are good" motion.

Umm... Think that's about it.

[Player_Zero]

Nah... Never been close to death.

Fit as a gold fiddle, too...

I'm also made of gold. With a heart of stone.

[Crow]

1. Took a 9mm round in the body armor. Dude fired a burst and I heard a crack (meaning a round passed close to my head), and then afterwards my chest was throbbing (I didn't notice until the situation was resolved), and there was a bullet lodged in the armor coving my upper chest.

2. Later that same day, almost choked on a fish bone. Required the heimlich (sp?).

3. When I was a youth, went draining on a rainy day. Almost drowned.

[Dallas-Dakota]

(o.0 Don't let Bor see this thread, he'l be here for a loooong time then.:smallfrown:)

Err, one time when I was six, sitting behind the passenger seat in a van. Seatbelt off. And suddenly the door next to slided open.
Need to say that : Driving fast + open door + no seatbelt = not good.
Luckily I grabbed the passenger seat with one hand and closed the door with the other.

[Tom_Violence]

I once got hit by a bus and then my head fell off. Honest.

[BizzaroStormy]

1: Dad tried to kill me as an infant.(poison)

2: Wanged my head really bad on a pipe.

[Dallas-Dakota]

And there was that one time in france where I was playing when I was 9 or something. I got a huge rock on my forehead. Couldn't see with one eye and it was all bleedy and such. A frickin' hole in my head it was....

[Maxymiuk]

Let's see...

There was that time at the tender age of 3 when I've stuck a nail into an electrical socket. No permanent damage... I think.

Later that year I went head over heels down a flight of stairs. No injury sustained, oddly enough.

At the age of ten or so I just managed to catch myself from falling out of a bunk bed headfirst into the edge of a desk. Reason I was falling out? Had a nightmare and woke up just as I was flinging myself out over the railing.

Also, that was the age I got chased by a pack of very aggressive dogs. Fortunately, my bicycle-fu was strong.

Age... twelve? Let's go with that. I found out I'm allergic to some type of pesticide after eating a vegetable I didn't wash. By the time my parents got me to the emergency room my head was twice its normal size.

Age fourteen I got a nasty infection of the urinary tract. As in, if I got to the hospital an hour later I'd be dead kind of nasty.

That's all that comes to mind off the top of my head. Now if we were talking about all the times I "merely" got moderately or severely injured...

And the funniest thing is that I'm still one of the healthier people I know.

[Serpentine]

Oh, falling down stairs counts?
Socks + polished wooden stairs + spiral staircase = very scared godparents.

A friend of mine was seriously unlucky (or extraordinary lucky, depending on your point of view). I can't remember even a fraction of what happened to him, but what I can remember includes:
Electrocution on a generator (later he brushed his hand against a doorway and burnt a hole in his shirt).
Crashed a small aeroplane.
Urinary tract infection or something else sufficiently serious to warrant having a tube shoved up his doodle.
Appendicitis (I think, or something else that needed the removal of some organ).

[Dallas-Dakota]

If falling down stairs count, I'l be here for some time................................
Bad history with narrow stairs and elevators.....
In that aspect, I'm rather like a hobbit...

[Spiryt]

Well, I felt from larger heights few times, been too far from shore on the lake when I was small, but generally nothing life threatening.

Althhough hearing "Smells like teen spirit" in techno version is always risk of choking, or maybe stroke.

[Emperor Ing]

walking across an intersection, red light directing traffic parralel you, but you're not sure when it will turn green.
Look at the driver you're walking perpendicular to. On her cell phone, not even ACKNOWLEDGING your existence!
Holy crap, i've never been more frightened.
cuz if that light turned green....*splat*

[Kaelaroth]

1. Almost drowned as a little kid. Bunch of us playing in the swimming pool, happy as can be, till someone knocked me off my float, and all the other kids blocked the surface above me. Luckily, one of my friends at the time grabbed my hand and pulled me out.
2. As a child I hallucinatd that the light was green, and walked out onto a busy road, but was dragged back just in time.
3. Have nearly been hit by buses about fifty billion times.
4. Was knocked down a staircase after being hit by a large weight-filled bag in the bag. Amazingly, even though I wasn't expecting to be hit, or fall, and was therefore completely unawares, I sustained no injury.

[Paladin29]

Only once, when i was twelve I fell in a cliff (or precipice, i don´t know what is the exact word in english), but there was a little tree that grows exactly two meters behind the point I fell, that save my life, the weird thing is that this tree was the only in hundreds of meters...

[Saurous]

If falling down stairs count, I'l be here for some time................................
Bad history with narrow stairs and elevators.....
In that aspect, I'm rather like a hobbit...

Short, hairy, and fun to throw down stairwells? :smalltongue:

Anyways, only one comes to mind. I remember when I was about four or maybe five, and playing on a swing set in the local playground. Well, at one point, my grip failed at the height of my arc, and I flew through the air and landed head-first on either a big rock, or the edge of a sandbox. Either way, it frickin' hurt, and I was out cold for a while. At least I didn't break my little four-year-old neck on impact.

[CurlyKitGirl]

Weeeeeell, once when I was just a babby I nearly choked on something or other and needed the babby heimlich.
When I was six my old dog Casper saved my life when a drunk driver (at three in the afternoon) swerved right into our parking space where I was playing. If he hadn't pulled me out (by his teeth no less) I'd be severely paralysed at best, dead at worst.
And just a few years ago my neighbours' dog went for the puppy and tried to kill him. I got in the way and the dog tried to claw his way through me (my back was to him) to get to the dog.
Fortunately he barely got through my coat, jumper and t-shirt so only some minor scratches and bite marks. All healed now. Strangely that dog stll isn't been put down.

My brother's been worse though.
When he was eighteen month old he managed to climb over the babby gate and into the kitchen. He pulled the entire kettle of hot water all over himself. It landed on his right shoulder and upper torso and he still has the scars now.
And when he couldn't have been more than three or four he got scarlet fever (or some kind of really bad fever) that nearly killed him. At fleepin' eleven pm she had her five or six year old daughter running all over the neighbourhood begging for the use of a phone to get an ambulance.
Now this being a neighbourhood with lots of drug users/srunks and families with children you'd expect one of th families to be nice. But not one person let me use their phone.
Mum ended up breaking his fever by soaking him in a bathfull of cold water all night.

[r23r5]

4 times( at least)- Eating something with peanuts in it all times, I have a severe peanut allergy. (I was under four years old every time so it wasn't my fault!)
I also almost broke my neck playing hockey, twice, if that counts.

[Fri]

I dont know if this count.

Once involved in a jeep vs train crash. I'm in the jeep. Eyewitness said that the jeep does some wacky somersault for a few meters or something like that. My brother got in a coma for a week. I sat beside him.

Why I don't know if this count?

Because I didn't even got a single scratch. Honestly. My only injury was sore chest and my lips bleed because I bit it.

[Fri]

Weeeeeell, once when I was just a babby I nearly choked on something or other and needed the babby heimlich.
When I was six my old dog Casper saved my life when a drunk driver (at three in the afternoon) swerved right into our parking space where I was playing. If he hadn't pulled me out (by his teeth no less) I'd be severely paralysed at best, dead at worst.

And just a few years ago my neighbours' dog went for the puppy and tried to kill him. I got in the way and the dog tried to claw his way through me (my back was to him) to get to the dog.
Fortunately he barely got through my coat, jumper and t-shirt so only some minor scratches and bite marks. All healed now. Strangely that dog stll isn't been put down.


Your experience with dog remind me on a sad stories that was featured some days ago on our local newspaper. A baby died when his parent wasn't home for working and his nanny was too busy doing other chores. It seems that the family dog played with him and killed him.

[rubakhin]

I nearly drowned when I was two or three. I can remember it quite well and consider it one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Probably explains the death wish.

I ODed once on subutex, or it made a bad reaction with some other drug I had taken that night, never really found out. Got horribly sick. I honestly thought I was dying.

I don't know if this counts, but I used to get panic attacks when I was young, about ten or twelve, and during my panic attacks I'd have this delusion that someone was coming to murder me, that they had poisoned me or I had accidentally poisoned myself and I was going to die.

Once, I think I was twelve - maybe the same year I was having all those panic attacks - I decided to throw myself in front of a truck. No reason for it. I was just walking alone on the road, when I saw a truck coming, and I thought something like, "Wouldn't it be interesting to die?" and I just did it. To this day I cannot explain why, it was completely impulsive. I didn't get hurt because it was going very slowly - it was a back road - I didn't get scared or regret it or anything, but I did feel bad for freaking the driver out.

I also tried to kill myself twice. The first time I slit my wrists, and the second time I slit my wrists again, took pills, and tried to cut my own throat out. I am, apparently, Rasputin.

There were also a couple more times that I didn't mention, more violent times, but I consider them a bit too heavy for the board. Oh, and I nearly choked because I was eating an atomic fireball in a rocking chair. I was a very stupid child.

[Rincewind]

Once I was this close to dying.. But the bullet hit the man beside me.
I didn't die.

[Jazzpirate]

I got hit by a car a couple of years ago when I was riding my bike at night, without a light, in black clothing, in the rain, with headphones and a raincape that didn't allow to to turn my head. Pretty stupid in retrospective...

What saved me was a.) That the guy went less than half the speed he was allowed to b.) I was riding standing up, so I rolled over the car instead of getting pushed away like the bike did.
The car was totally damaged, the bike too, I got out with a broken wrist. I had to tape a pick on my hand for the next six weeks to play guitar :D

[Victor Thorian]

Well. When I was born I had body temprature problems. Overheating, to be exact. I don't exactly know what happened but mother tells me that everyone thought I would die. As a result of this I'm immune to many kinds of antibiotics. I'm glad that I was born in Germany.

Then there was this time when my father almost ran over my head with a tractor. I was riding with him and somehow I managed to fall down, my head just under the bigger wheel. I don't know what made him stop though. He says he didn't notice.

Later on, when dad was a in the army, I hit a flag pole when running and nearly cracked my skull. I don't remember any of these, of course.

Anyway, around age 15 or so I was poisoned from some food. Since we weren't near any sort of civilization I couldn't get any serious help. The doctors later said I had a very strong body. duh.

I got shocked by home electricity this year two times. within the same week. that gave me some heart pains, but it's a wonderful feeling, the current passing through you. I don't know if it's a near death experience though. It didn't feel like one.

[Winterwind]

When I was 10 I was on holidays with my family on the Canaries, and when we went out into the Atlantic to swim, some wave came that was strong enough to completely flip me around and make me hit the ocean ground with my head. I blacked out.
Fortunately, my father was close enough to grab me and pull me out.

[Serpentine]

My cousin was once riding on the front of a ute, when he slipped off but got the flesh of his leg caught on the bullbar or something like that. Was dragged right under the front, I can't remember the details but I'd guess that he probably would've been run right over except for being caught by the leg. That itself nearly killed him, though, I think, with the better part of the muscle torn right off. He has really impressive scars all down his calf now (I believe the present story is "shark attack" :smallwink:).

[Jack Squat]

In second grade, a guy came flying around a corner in my neighborhood when I was crossing the street. Realistically, I was probably a foot or two from the front of the grill when I managed to get out of the way, but it sure seemed a lot closer.

A few years ago, I was wakeboarding and some jackasses were in the back of their boat, drunk, letting their young (under 10 years old) kid drive. I wiped out, boat kept coming towards me. Wasn't hit, as my parents whipped our boat infront of their boat, and the kid did see them.

Other times wakeboarding, jet skis get a little too close because they think it's fun to try and jump our boats wakes...while I'm being towed behind.

Never been hit, guess I'm lucky for that.

[CrazedGoblin]

i dunno if it could of been near death or not but i was sitting on a railing and platinum jester here in his INFINATE wisdom decided to pull me off the bar but i didnt just fall off i held on and swung round under the bar i grazed the very top of my head on concrete and continued round until i fell off landing on my shoulder, so ye if i was any taller crack i would of face palmed the solid concrete floor. :smallbiggrin:

[Shraik]

Well, Closest i can think of is that I almost walked into a car. A friend grabbed me by the collar and pulled me back. I don't pay attention when walking through parking lots. I should.

Though my dad had two very close experiences around when my sister was born. One of them some dude feel asleep while driving and hit my dad. My dad's car flipped over or into the divider on its side. He had to crawl out of the car. No idea what happened to the other dude.
Then one of my dad's clients hit him with a cement brick, in the head, while my dad was going to his car.

[Ilena]

Im not sure if this would really count but ... i was horse back riding last year at a place called aldergrove park, and we were just going up a hill at a canter, he started to buck (and if you have ever seen rodeo bucking horses he kinda does that just worse ;P) and went i came off i hit a tree that was beside the trail, i wasnt really hurt at all, just bruised and pulled my inner leg muscles, but went i looked at where i collided there was a broken branch sticking at least 1 inch out of the tree, if i was a tad more to the left, it could have punkered my lung or heart when i hit,

Also when i was younger ... around 6ish i think, i got hit in the head with a sharp pointed rock, was bleedin quite bad, still have the scar, other then those 2 ive been pretty safe ... and reading some of the other ones on here ... i think you people are lucky as hell and crazy :P

[dish]

Then one of my dad's clients hit him with a cement brick, in the head, while my dad was going to his car.

Umm, what kinds of clients does your father have exactly?

[Serpentine]

The guy who ran the youth group when I was in high school, Steve, had a distressingly close call once. A man (whom he later discovered was an old friend or acquaintance or something of his ex-wife (who accused him of molesting their children) who was related to the stabbing of his friend and housemate some years previously) knocked on his door asking if he could use his phone or something. When Steve let him in and turned his back, he started laying into him with... a metal bar I think. Something very hard. He said that he was lying there bleeding and he realised that if he didn't do something soon, while he was still able to, he'd be beaten to death, so... I'm not sure exactly what he did, but he managed to throw the guy off enough that he could get out the door and run next door for help. While he was gone, the bastard turned on his dogs, and ended up killing the sweetest little black dog you could imagine :smallfrown: I think Steve himself came out with quite a few stitches and bruises and I think something brain-related - cross-eyedness or memory loss or something like that.

[Ilena]

The guy who ran the youth group when I was in high school, Steve, had a distressingly close call once. A man (whom he later discovered was an old friend or acquaintance or something of his ex-wife (who accused him of molesting their children) who was related to the stabbing of his friend and housemate some years previously) knocked on his door asking if he could use his phone or something. When Steve let him in and turned his back, he started laying into him with... a metal bar I think. Something very hard. He said that he was lying there bleeding and he realised that if he didn't do something soon, while he was still able to, he'd be beaten to death, so... I'm not sure exactly what he did, but he managed to throw the guy off enough that he could get out the door and run next door for help. While he was gone, the bastard turned on his dogs, and ended up killing the sweetest little black dog you could imagine :smallfrown: I think Steve himself came out with quite a few stitches and bruises and I think something brain-related - cross-eyedness or memory loss or something like that.

why would he let him in!? Although i am kinda paranoid of people ... i mean yesterday i pulled over just up the hill from my house because i thought someone was following me, but the van kept going and turned down another street, then this red car behind him pulled in behind me ... and i was like wtf ... i think he thought i was a drug dealer ... he looked the type ..

[_Zoot_]

My Mum told me that i once saved my brother from drowning, but i think that he was just over reacting to falling of his floty thing

[Serpentine]

why would he let him in!? Although i am kinda paranoid of people ... i mean yesterday i pulled over just up the hill from my house because i thought someone was following me, but the van kept going and turned down another street, then this red car behind him pulled in behind me ... and i was like wtf ... i think he thought i was a drug dealer ... he looked the type ..Small country town, people leave their doors unlocked, everyone knows everyone else and the people you don't know are probably just visitors, etc. etc. Think you might, indeed, be a bit paranoid :smalltongue:

[Griever]

Really nothing for me to add other than this May's events:

Everything going fine on May 14th (4 days after my 18th birthday), then suddenly the world starts spinning, my limbs go numb, I vomit up everything and can't do much of anything but crawl around and moan.

Taken to emergency room, my body temperature is somewhere between 83 to 86 degrees (28 to 30 degrees celsius) with of a bloodpressure of about 40 over 30 (normal human bloodpressure being 120/80). Doctor tells my family I need to have a temporary pacemaker put in right this moment or I will die, and I might still die. At some point I lose consciousness before they do the surgery and have a pretty great sleep that night. They put in the permanent two days later.

So not a scary near-death, I was pretty calm throughout it, with almost a bored impatience to see what was going to happen.

[Ilena]

Ya, sounds like a small town :P but hey paranoia keeps one alive :P although i do tend to think that people who are driving behind me and follow me for more then 3 turns are following me and not going wherever they are going until they turn off :P seen too many movies with a car shadowing another car i guess :P

[Ilena]

Really nothing for me to add other than this May's events:

Everything going fine on May 14th (4 days after my 18th birthday), then suddenly the world starts spinning, my limbs go numb, I vomit up everything and can't do much of anything but crawl around and moan.

Taken to emergency room, my body temperature is somewhere between 83 to 86 degrees (28 to 30 degrees celsius) with of a bloodpressure of about 40 over 30 (normal human bloodpressure being 120/80). Doctor tells my family I need to have a temporary pacemaker put in right this moment or I will die, and I might still die. At some point I lose consciousness before they do the surgery and have a pretty great sleep that night. They put in the permanent two days later.

So not a scary near-death, I was pretty calm throughout it, with almost a bored impatience to see what was going to happen.


so you have a pacemaker permanently now?

[blackfox]

I've had my fair share of illness in my life but I don't think I've ever had anything life-threatening... 104.5 fever when I was 7 or 8... 103.something when I was 13. Hallucinating is fun. :smallyuk:

When I was in middle school I went up in the mountains with my friends a lot, and we would hike up this one trail to the cliffs at the top, which we would climb. Unroped. I almost fell twice... I think once when I was 11, which would have been a 20 foot fall to the rock ledge, and once when I was 13, which would have been a 70 foot fall to the ground.

I was in a car crash about a month ago with a bunch of my friends, we were all in a Toyota Sequoia and the other guys were in a Chrysler 300. We were coming up to a red light and the Chrysler came out of a gas station on the right side of the road and cut across three lanes of traffic to turn left, those idiots, and T-boned us in the front passenger side. I think they actually hit the axle. Both cars were totaled, the Chrysler had its entire front smashed up and about half the car fell off when they towed it, and the Sequoia had structural damage even though it didn't look very destroyed. And amazingly, there were no serious injuries... I got bruised by the seatbelt, etc., and my friend had a minor concussion.

[TwoBitWriter]

My father is a Civil War Reenactor. He was on a Confederate Artillery crew. Usually they just use the standard Lanyard pull (much much safer) to set off the cannon.
For some reason, when I was about 3 or so, they were using a fuse. The problem with the fuse is that once you light it you can't stop it unless you manage to cut it. Once the fuse is in the gun itself, there is NO stopping the round from being fired. Now, they don't fire any shells, but a half-pound to a pound of gunpowder going off would have enough concussive force to seriously injure or kill a grown man. Imagine what would happen to a three year old...

Well, after they lit the fuse I decided I wanted to say hi to my daddy and ran out into the field, right in front of the gun barrell, after the fuse went inside.
As my mother tells it, she had never seen my father move so fast. He dove at me and threw to ground and covered me just as the gun went off. He wasn't hurt, though I was deafened for a short while and it was feared that it would be permanent.

That crew never used fuses again, even for demonstrations.

Oh, and as a child I had severe Asthma, which nearly killed me a couple of times.

[Ilena]

My father is a Civil War Reenactor. He was on a Confederate Artillery crew. Usually they just use the standard Lanyard pull (much much safer) to set off the cannon.
For some reason, when I was about 3 or so, they were using a fuse. The problem with the fuse is that once you light it you can't stop it unless you manage to cut it. Once the fuse is in the gun itself, there is NO stopping the round from being fired. Now, they don't fire any shells, but a half-pound to a pound of gunpowder going off would have enough concussive force to seriously injure or kill a grown man. Imagine what would happen to a three year old...

Well, after they lit the fuse I decided I wanted to say hi to my daddy and ran out into the field, right in front of the gun barrell, after the fuse went inside.
As my mother tells it, she had never seen my father move so fast. He dove at me and threw to ground and covered me just as the gun went off. He wasn't hurt, though I was deafened for a short while and it was feared that it would be permanent.

That crew never used fuses again, even for demonstrations.

Oh, and as a child I had severe Asthma, which nearly killed me a couple of times.

its what perents do for their children, my principle of my school once broke an automatic door (that it would take something like 500ish pounds of force to break) to save her child who was about to be crushed, afterword she wasnt even able to move it,

[Griever]

so you have a pacemaker permanently now?

Yes, yes I do.

[Ilena]

Well that kinda sucks :S but at least you seem to be healthy and everything, just remember to get the batterys charged! :P

did they figure out what caused your heart to do that?

also in your sig, you have a quote by captain sheridon, is that captain john sheridon? from b5?

[Griever]

Well that kinda sucks :S but at least you seem to be healthy and everything, just remember to get the batterys charged! :P

did they figure out what caused your heart to do that?

also in your sig, you have a quote by captain sheridon, is that captain john sheridon? from b5?

Complete Heart Block, most likely from birth. The body has natural pacemakers that can keep the heart up to speed for awhile, but as you grow older, they do not function as well, which was mirrored by my loss of energy over the last decade until finally half my heart was barely beating.

And yes, Captain John Sheridon, Babylon 5, when he was talking to that reporter guy.

[Occasional Sage]

I found a downed power line once, with my shins. Didn't realize it was there until I tripped over it.

Saving grace: no power in the line at the time.

[Archonic Energy]

*performs rite of ash-kante or something... (he'll get it)*

I'm suprised that "Our Friend" hasn't made an apperence...
more that no-one has had a near rincewind experience!

as for me...
as i child i apparantly nearly walked off a cliff...

[Ilena]

*performs rite of ash-kante or something... (he'll get it)*

I'm suprised that "Our Friend" hasn't made an apperence...
more that no-one has had a near rincewind experience!

as for me...
as i child i apparantly nearly walked off a cliff...

apparantly? you mean you dont know you walked off a cliff? :P sounds wierd

[Castaras]

I was...5, I think. Me and my family had gone to Cornwall to see the eclipse (Or lack thereof, as it turned out).

There was a swimming pool at our house. Now, me being my naive and young self, I'd only been to one swimming pool (shallow) so thought all swimming pools were like that. I knew that this swimming pool I was fine with, and wouldn't have my head go under the water if I stood in it.

So here's this new swimming pool. Running in I go. *splash* *blub blub blub* *halp!* *nearly drowned* *pulled out*

It's amazing I still like water and stuff.

[Generic Archer]

I could be here a while...
lets start from the beginning (of the ones i remember)

aged probably about 6: disappeared while cross-country skiing, found my way to the destination just before a search team went out... funnily enough i walked in like nothing had happened

aged somewhere 6-8: a light had a blown globe, i didn't know this and just knew it wasn't working, so i touched the contacts... nothing, so i pushed them in, it was working, 240v straight through my arm

thats all i can remember until aged 18 i completely lost it on a dirt road doing 80km/h and very nearly (like 1/2 a meter) hit another car head on. that was not fun

[Shraik]

Umm, what kinds of clients does your father have exactly?

This happened while I was little or before I was born, so I think he was just a little nuts this one.

And Now, the other day I got badly hurt at the beach. I was hit by the break of a wave, Hurricane Aftermath and Full moon. The Wave hit me, and I flew foreward. I landed on my face, my head pulled back, and my body kept going forward. I sprained a muscle in my neck, and came out of the water and almost passed out because of an extremely large amount of pressure i Felt in my forehead. I was bleeding and it hurt to move anything for a while, but now I'm alright(just have a bit of a scar from the fall)

[reorith]

i played russian roulette on friday with a .38 special. 148 grains of possibility and i lived to tell the tale. i guess that means i lost.

[Phae Nymna]

I've pondered suicide a lot. Even planned a reliable, painless(ish), and non-messy method involving a bottle of laudanum (I collect crap like that.) and some demerol. I made a tiny line down my forearm once with a knife, but then changed my mind, and I once came very close to jumping into the way of an SUV moving at like 80 mph. My thoughts about it have become increasingly more prevalent, bu my will to act on it has not.

Aside from that, I've had very few (if any) near-death experiences.
I did however have to shake a black widow off of my arm when I was about 8, and I nearly drowned when I was 6 then remembered how to swim. The closest accident or unhappy coincidence (coincidentally, he wants to kill me) came when and eighth grade American Football player threw me (5'11'', 211 lbs.) into someone else and managed to give me a concussion through my helmet. The nearly deadly part came that afternoon when I blacked out for a few seconds and woke up lying in the road. Luckily, there was no one around to a) notice me or b)run me over/mug me.

Living in New Orleans though, there is a chance that I could die any time I walk to or from school as I take a LOT of back routes. When I'm old enough, I plan to get a pistol to keep round the house in a safe, but for the time being, I'm saving for a sword cane. Those things are COOL. My own mum was once robbed at knife-point on a busy street in New Orleans and no one helped to protect her even though at least 3 people could see her from down the block. I ask you: What beats a mugger with a balisong or a switch? a 23" stiletto that a guy just pulled out of a cane, that's what. :smallamused:

Oh, and one time I had to ride really close to the edge of a road with a 7-9" drop off into a 3' deep ditch and I jerked right because the SUV passing me turned left when they had plenty of space. So, I went crashing into the ditch onto gravel, scraping my arm and bruising my back, and in the process of violently dismounting, I slashed the back of my left ankle on my gears. OW. Then, of course, the SUV (FUV more like it.) kept going as I lay in the ditch with my achilles nicked and my ankle gushing blood. (Gushing is a hyperbole kids!) THEN I had to limp home with a shoe and a bike in my hands and a scarlet, dripping sock on my foot. :smallannoyed: One rag tourniquet a tube of neosporin and a bandaid later, I was back to reading my book in peace.

[MR.PIXIE]

One day I was walking through some tall grass when i hear a hissing/rustiling
sound. I look down and see a rattle snake:smalleek:After my heart finaly stops jumping around i pull out my cell phone to make a video ( since my friends would'nt beleave me). while filming I walk around side of it,
it side windes back in front of me. i move the phone closer to try to get a close up of its face, it pulls away fast and starts rattling. i try to circle
around it while in a steve erwin voice I say "ge' a load o' this beuties rattles"
and try to zoom in. it strikes:smalleek: Coming with in an inch of my abdomin.
i jump back and drop my phone. it stops rattling, i move twords it, it rattles some more. Even though i see that the phone landed on the snake, whith out thinking i pick it up. It strikes again missing my hand by an inch. then (still filming) I move to the side of it and it slips away fast into a bush.
I show my friends the video, they think its cool. I show my dad the video,he grounds me for a week for my stupidity.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I can't remember any near-death experiences. of course, that's not saying much, but...

[Thiel]

I once fell from a three stories high scaffolding. Amazingly, I didn't get a scratch.
When I was younger I had a very serious attack of asthma. I think I received enough Prednisone to last me a lifetime. (According to the doctor, they gave me somewhere around 30 times the amount in my seizure kit.)

[Lupy]

I have others I don't care to talk about (2 of them, both times we were very young and the other person [different each time] didn't know how much they were hurting me).

1) On a boy scout trip I was walking to the bathroom and a 4 foot long copperhead slithered over my foot. I almost stepped on it.

2) While walking on top of North Carolina's second tallest waterfall (on a scout trip): There was this tiny rapid about four feet from the edge, ehich was otherwise dry where we were, that everyone else stepped in. I stepped in, was too light, and slipped towards the edge, luckily another scout grabbed me just in time.

Time I almost killed someone by accident:
My friends (on a scout trip!) and I had dammed up a river and were throwing away some rocks, sitting on a ledge 4 feet above the granite river bottom. We were throwing the rocks when Cam leaned out a little more to look at a fish or something and I clobbered him (with a rock I threw just before he leaned) in the side of the head with a good sized rock. He fell forward over the edge but out Asistant Senior Scoutmaster grabbed his shirt and pulled him back up. He was bleeding from the temple but otherwise unharmed.

[Iudex Fatarum]

I should be dead by now, let me count the reasons why

1. In 7th grade I had two people try to strangle me. The funny part is that only one of them did I hit to get away, the other I fell on.
2. I've fallen asleep at the wheel of my car and almost went over the edge of the road down a steep incline into a river (thank goodness for waking up) (for those who disapprove of driving that tired, so do I, hence me never working 20 hours a week 3rd shift and taking 12 graduate level credit hours of morning classes ever again)
3. The car accident I was in. I was passenger in a Nissan Maxima, we were at a full stop at a read light with 3 cars in front of us. Ford F-350 going 60 plows into our back end. No injuries but totaled our car and if I hadn't been wearing SEATBELT I would have most likely gone through windshield and died. The sad part is there wasn't even paint damage on the ford.
4. Driving over a bridge to and from school every day is bad in west michigan, I've spun my car out twice and one time (after starting to live in dorms) I went home for sunday dinner and later found out that in that day we had almost 2 feat of snow and there was a no-drive warning. (As in Don't drive anywhere unless its an emergency) That trip I spun sideways more than 4 times even in my 4-wheel drive jeep cherokee.

I'm a bad driver :smallamused: can you tell?

5. Ok I wasn't that close, but CNN just did a news report near where I am living currently. A bus about a block from my house got blown up on monday morning :smallsmile: I had nothing to do with it and was safely asleep in my apartment. Well, until all the emergency vehicles started showing up with sirens blaring. :smallmad: (grumble grumble why couldn't they have blown it up at like noon instead of 7:00)

[MR.PIXIE]

One day I was walking through some tall grass when i hear a hissing/rustiling
sound. I look down and see a rattle snake:smalleek:After my heart finaly stops jumping around i pull out my cell phone to make a video ( since my friends would'nt beleave me). while filming I walk around side of it,
it side windes back in front of me. i move the phone closer to try to get a close up of its face, it pulls away fast and starts rattling. i try to circle
around it while in a steve erwin voice I say "ge' a load o' this beuties rattles"
and try to zoom in. it strikes:smalleek: Coming with in an inch of my abdomin.
i jump back and drop my phone. it stops rattling, i move twords it, it rattles some more. Even though i see that the phone landed on the snake, whith out thinking i pick it up. It strikes again missing my hand by an inch. then (still filming) I move to the side of it and it slips away fast into a bush.
I show my friends the video, they think its cool. I show my dad the video,he grounds me for a week for my stupidity.
Now that i think of it it was pretty dumb

[Dallas-Dakota]

Snakes rattling is a warning.

A warning for you to run away as fast as you can.

[MR.PIXIE]

I knew that.

[Space-Is-Curved]

Well, I haven't had many near death experiences, but I've had many experiences that I thought were near death at the time. I just spent a week at a camp in Georgia learning how to whitewater kayak. We spent two days in a lake and three in rivers. The instructors were cool guys who loved what they were doing, but they would add "or you'll die" after every. single. instruction. It was supposed to stress the importance of not panicking and not hurting yourself.

Well, I was lucky and never got hurt, but some of my friends weren't. One kid flip in the lake and was supposed to wait for a rescue (for those of you who don't know, you're basically strapped into a kayak and it's a lot easier to fix a flip with a rescue than by unstrapping and bailing. Assuming, of course, someone is there to rescue you.) We didn't have time to learn how to roll back over, so it was wait for a rescue or bail. Well, the rescuer came a little too late for his tastes, so he decided to bail. Unfortunately, he forgot that he was strapped in. He was pushing for a good amount of time. After maybe thirty seconds, he figured out what was wrong and unstrapped himself and came sputtering to the surface. He was terrified.

The worst and best part was the Nantahala river, which is a very calm river in a raft, but a terrifying river to a first time kayaker. The water was frigid (I mean it made one kid throw up it was so cold) and there was fog limiting visibility to thirty meters at the most, sometimes as little as ten. One kid flipped in a shallow rapid and got his chin cut up bad on a rock because he didn't tuck right. He needed stitches. Then another good friend of mine flipped and smashed his arm on a rock. It was dislocated, but popped back in, and had a deep contusion. We had to leave the river early.

I flipped once that day and thought I was going to die. Instead, I just bailed and spent ten minutes trying to empty the water out of my kayak on a rock in the river. It was cold. I can't wait to do it again. :smallsmile:

[reorith]

Snakes rattling is a warning.

A warning for you to run away as fast as you can.

did you know, in new mexico, you are required to kill a rattlesnake without a rattle if you encounter it?

[de-trick]

well here we go lets see if I can remember now....think think think think

....

well when i was born I had the cord around my neck
...

when I was a toddler I was playing with my dog and pulled his tail and he bite me in the face and my parents were in the other room, good thing i cried and they heard me

......

when I was 6 or so I was fishing with my dad and we we're filleting fish well he was I was watching and a hornet was buzzing around him and he waved the knife to shoo it away and he got me right between the eyes.
...

when I was like 9 I got hit on my pedal bike by a speeding car, and the force i was hit by sent me like half a block


......

I almost drowned in the swimming pool cause I never knew that the last like 10 ft cubed was deep and went down so deep that fast, I dived in the shallower area and thought it maybe be a inch deeper so when I jumped in the deep end I thought I could touch bottom, well I did but not with my head above water

...

I got stabbed in school in the hand by a friend, I didn't want to get him in trouble so I didn't say he stabbed me with a knife (he was pretending to stab me and I put my hand out to stop him and yeah I got stabbed in the hand)

[Atomsized]

From when i was born to now, i have always had this problem of almost falling down the stairs, I think i'm up to 9 times now.......

The last time was because I was getting used to my new glasses though. I swore they impaired my depth perception.

[Murska]

Couple years ago, I was taking a shortcut to school in winter with one of my friends. Well, there was this quite steep, short cliff-thing and it was all snowy and under the snow there were pebbles. But hey, I'd gone up it many many times and never had any trouble so yeah, we climbed it. My friend got up first, and tossed a snowball from up there. It hit my hand just as I was lifting my other hand off from the cliff, and made me lose my balance, falling down. Well, I had a short blackout and when I woke, I noticed I was lying on a wooden plank directly in between of two sharp rocks while my friend was almost panicing and sliding down the cliff.

I was quite scared after understanding the situation, but it became a running gag in school in a while since, ya know, nobody ever admits he's scared for any reason, ever. :smallwink:


when I was a toddler I was playing with my dog and pulled his tail and he bite me in the face and my parents were in the other room, good thing i cried and they heard me


Well, when I was a toddler, our old dog, an Irish Wolfhound, got pissed at me pulling it's tail and took my whole head into it's mouth! My parents were shocked, to say the least. Luckily it didn't bite. :smalleek:

EDIT: Oh right, and then there was the time when I was running toward my home and just before running from a forest onto a road, my friend behind me shouted something at me. Well, I turned my face, still running... And hit the SIDE of a moving car! The car stopped, and the owner got angry at me cuz I could have scratched his car. :/

[Serpentine]

Ah yes, not near-death but possibly near-disability. The lake where I used to live during high school was empty a lot of the time, and had great mud. Some friends and I were playing in one... mud... pool that had a few downed trees in it. There was one log half-sunken in the mud, and there was another that stuck out horizontally parallel and slightly to the side of it about a metre above the surface of the mud. We were jumping from the upper log into the mud. I lost my balance standing on the high log and started falling backwards. I would've landed spine-first on the lower log, but I turned around just in time and I think landed with my feet in the mud or somesuch.

Also when the weir was low, Miki our Japanese exchange student, Amy the dog and I were canoeing down the river that's exposed by the lack of lakewater. There was a log sticking out of the water towards us, like this: == \ (== = boat, \ = log, but it was on a steeper angle). We managed to run straight into it, and the canoe got jammed under it and started to get forced down by the water flow. Can't remember how but we managed to dislodge ourselves, fortunately.

[Ilena]

Damn them logs, they be tryin to kill ye! Anyway ...

Last year i was riding my horse, same place he bucked before in the post i wrote on pg 2, this time we were riding for ... say about 5 mins, we tried to canter up a hill, the first hill accually, and he just started bucking and bucking, and i came off and was flying through the air, landed right on hard gravel trail, i mean hard as in pavement hard, i was basicly rolling around on the ground in pain from that, could not flex my leg at all, the thing is i only landed on my side with my hip landing first, if i was turned a bit more i could have landed on my head or neck, and of course i was not wearing a helmet :P, Dikota then after bucking me off ... went running through thick brush, how he got out without a scratch on i dont know, then ran out onto the road .... took me a week before i was able to stand on that leg, thought i fractured it ... but didnt do a thing, oh well at least that was the last time he bucked because at that point we took ourselves to a trainer and have been happy ever since :P

Maybe not near death but when im driving people tend to be trying to kill me, pulling out infront of me, coming into my lane ... dam near hit by a single akle truck in a roundabout who had no reason to be coming into my lane, other then that i guess ive been pretty safe ... odd how my horse is the one who has just about killed me more then anything :P

[Vampiric]

I have three, and two were before I even had memory!

1. I was born two months early - c-sec'd and put in a incubator, after nearly giving my mum a coronary.

2. While in said incubator, I turned blue cos I stopped breathing. Doctors had to cut my throat open to get me breathing again - I still have the scar :smallsmile:

not really near-death, but near-serious-injury-avoidance

3. About three years ago, I guess, me, my best mate, and two other friends were stood around the computer looking at photos and stuff, and I feel slightly dizzy and black out.
I've been told that a) I said 'sorry' as I started to fall.
b) I would've hit my head on the corner of the metal frame that the monitor was sat on, had my best mate not caught me inches from it.
c) I wouldn't have needed to be caught if the friend stood in front of me hadn't moved, thinking I was stepping forward, instead of falling :smalltongue:

[Spiryt]

I don't know if this counts, but I used to get panic attacks when I was young, about ten or twelve, and during my panic attacks I'd have this delusion that someone was coming to murder me, that they had poisoned me or I had accidentally poisoned myself and I was going to die.


Dude, you have reminded me...

When I also was about 12 I was terribly affraid of dying, going to hell and hell knows (:smallamused:) what else.

I just realised that everyday I'm sleeping in the same house with much stronger and smarter people by me. And that they will kill me somehow. From some reason.

It was completely irrational of course, but it was strong and scary.

Around that time I watched War Games (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/). Then I couldn't sleep at night, beacuse I was 143% sure that I will die this night. Why? Dunno, it's rather hard to call War Games Scary.

Weird. Makes me really wonder if my mind works right.

[Jade_Tarem]

Somewhat funny one.

My father was in the Boy Scouts (as was I, later) and went to summer camp. At said camp, he took a nature course for a nature merit badge (Mammal studies, I think) and his camp counselor had the scouts go looking for tracks to make plaster casts of, suggesting they look by the river. Of course, he had been out the previous night stamping animal tracks by the river bank, but they didn't know that.

My dad was the last one to arrive. All of the animal tracks nearby were taken so he took his plaster kit and headed down river. He kept going for a long time, and finally found some decent looking animal tracks. He set up his plaster kit, and began waiting for it to dry. He began to hear a strange noise.

Ffffwtt.
Ffffwtt.
Ffffwtt.
Ffffwtt.Ffffwtt.
FfffwtTHUNK

He looked up from his plaster kit to see an arrow sticking out of the tree near his head. He looked towards the source - and realized that he was both downhill from the camp archery range and behind the targets, and the Boy Scouts working on archery, displaying true BSA marksmanship, were missing rather badly and arrows were raining down around him. He never did tell me if he collected his plaster cast as he ran...

[Ilena]

Lol thats amazing ... although my friends shoot arrows at each other and so forth TRYING to hit each other .. just so they can practice dodging .. i have weird friends ... and we have attacked each other with daggers and swords and so forth (mostly wooden, but sometimes the real thing) so ya .. suprisingly noone has accually been hurt doing any of this ...

[Kool-Aid]

Wow...now that I think about it I've had a few, let me try to remember as many as I can.

1. I've choked, and required the heimlech numerous times(at least 3 that I can remember), funniest was in a chinese resteraunt where almost no one spoke english, after my aunt got the chicken out of my throat and I spat it on the floor, you should have seen the waitress's face :smallbiggrin: She then ran away screeming something in chinese.

2. We had this one lightswitch that didn't have a panel on it for about a week, and you had to reach behind the computer desk to get to it. I must've electrocuted myself somewhere between 6-9 times. Also got elctrocuted unplugging my pinball machine, it then proceded to combust.

3. I once was in class in mid-late June, it had to be about 98 degrees out, the teacher was wearing a sweater, and I think the heat may have been on. I then passed out onto the floor slipping out of my desk like a wet noodle. It could have been either a seizure (supposedly my eyes rolled into my head and my jaw was shaking) or heat exaustion (which I think is more likely, the guy had REALLY shaky hands.)

When I woke up I screamed due to the fact there was a strange sweaty shakey guy above me, and I also had believed I was dead for a second because I was looking directly at the lights. The guy says that I'm going to be fine, I had a seizure and I said "Well I'm glad I'm not dead, because if this is heaven I want to go back."

4. I almost got hit TWICE in the head by golf balls in the same day, and by to different people, they went right by my face but I managed to dodge both of them, how I did I have no idea. For a second everything seemed like it was going in slow motion.

[An Enemy Spy]

I was riding on Quad in the Olympic Mountains once and almost fell down a 400 foot slope but luckily I crashed into a tree.

[Zanthur]

Mine is pretty simple. Got my neck ripped out my a dog. Not too fun. It was my dad's dog (it was a Chow Chow), and my dad was about to take it out to kill it, but Animal Control got to it first. It was about 1/8 inch from my jugular vein. I'm fine now, but have a decent sized scar on my neck. Kinda irritating because I get people asking about it, but I just say "dog bite" and move on.