Close Calls

[Dagger Dias]

Have you ever had a close call, where you just narrowly escape from suffering a severe injury or even death? I had one just this morning and it inspired me to make this thread.

I was sitting at my computer checking emails and had just fed the dogs. Not even 5 minutes after I fed them, the weirdest thing happened. The light in my kitchen fell off the ceiling and onto the floor. I caught it out of the corner of my eye, thinking "what the HELL!?". The dogs were barking like crazy and I called the maintenance guy immediately once I made sure they were not hurt. Luckily they were safely in their cage on the other side of the room. My wife was at work, so she's fine too. Had she or I been in there when it fell we could have been badly injured and it could have killed the dogs if they were in there. It's a really large light. It scared me a little, the light was still on when this happened so I ran over to make sure a fire did not start, although I was more concerned about the dogs' well being than anything.

There was a ton of dust on the floor, along with parts of the frame and a couple of scratches that I reported to the landlord. There was also a hole in the ceiling with broken wires. The bulbs themselves did not break, thankfully. That would have been extremely difficult to clean up. She came by to have a look at it while the maintenance guy fixed it and claimed that nothing like this has ever happened before in any of the buildings she has managed. What makes the incident even more interesting is that my mother in law had told me to be really careful yesterday due to her having had a really bad dream about me that she wouldn't share the details of. I thought I'd end up falling off a ladder in the back room at work or something, never would I have guessed that I'd be a few minutes off from having a huge light fall onto me. My wife called me freaking out when she got the news, luckily no one was hurt and I might get some money off my rent due to this happening.


So how about the rest of you....


Do you have any close call incident stories you'd like to share? How did these incidents impact you? Was it scary, why or why not?


Discuss!

 

[PlayTheGame]

I have an extremely appropriate story that fits perfectly.

A few years ago, my friend and I were going on a trip. We had a plane to catch early the next morning, so I was spending the night at his house. We went out that night (I forget where), but around midnight we were driving back to his house (he was driving, I was in the passenger seat). It was raining really bad, he was a relatively inexperienced driver, and he was going about 75mph in a 45mph zone right near his house. In fact, we were on the road his house was on, but it was a very windy road.

Keep in mind, it was extremely rainy, it was a small sedan, and we WEREN'T wearing seatbelts. On top of this, my friend was eating a donut he had just gotten... we were SO stupid. Typing this story out kinda makes me ashamed how dumb all of this was. But anyway, so we're speeding down that road, and he's sort of drifting into the middle of the road. All of a sudden, another car comes around the bend (still a distance away), and he immediately tries to push the wheel to the right to get back into our lane. Only, he overcompensates, and all of a sudden we're in the shoulder of the lane. Immediately he overcompensates again to the left, and we're back in the way of the other lane and the oncoming car, which is much closer now. Finally, he overcompensates back to the right, this time much harder, and we veer of the road. He had completely lost control of the car due to the wet roads in a matter of seconds.

On our way off the road, the car is literally doing 360's. The car was spinning around and around from the momentum of us going so fast. This was a tree-covered area, and there were telephone poles every 20 yards or so. SOMEHOW we managed to avoid them going off the road. Hitting one of those at the speed we were going, with no seatbelts... probably death. Next, we began hitting small trees (the small ones that look to be still growing), knocking them over. Mind you, this is all happening over the course of seconds, and as we keep spinning and knocking down trees, I'm literally thinking in my mind, "When are we gonna hit the tree that doesn't give way?" Everything seemed to be going in slow motion because I have such a vivid memory of every millisecond of it due to the adrenaline rush.

Our spinning car finally hits yet another smaller tree, this time backing up over it completely, trapping the tree under the car, with the car rasied up a bit on a small angle. This tree had somehow caught us and stopped us. My friend and I didn't have a single bruise on us. I don't know how. I still think we're dead to this day. As soon as the incident was over, he broke down crying, and I was shaking so bad. His house was just down the road, so we walked back and told his mom what had happened. Triple A came and had to carefully remove the car off of the tree, which took a long time. The car wasn't really damaged, but it had a lot of scrapes and dents on it. We probably didn't get to sleep until like 4 or 5 am, with our flight at about 9am that morning.

In order to explain it to his mom, I told him to lie about it in order to save his own skin, which he did. Instead of telling her that he was speeding in the rain while eating, he told her that the car in the opposite lane had accidentally swerved at us, resulting in us spinning off the road to avoid the car.

Definitely the closest I've ever come to death. No seatbelts, a car crash, running over a tree, missing telephone poles, spinning around and around, it was all so crazy.

Sometimes I still don't wear a seatbelt. Yes, I am an idiot.

 

[Loveless]

Hmm a few things come to mind.
When I was 12 I was about 4 weeks away from having stage 4 cancer (terminal), this was after I'd had a medical checkup 3 months earlier and been told I had flu. Looking back I should have sued them.
A couple of times I've nearly been hit by cars not indicating a turn though the only time I actually got hit was my own fault. Wasn't thinking, didn't hear it, reacted just in time to get out of the way and just got my kidney bruised by the wingmirror.
Oh when I was 10 I was interested in how things works, stuck my fingers in the light socket in the microwave (I didn't know it was a light socket, you couldn't see it) and got an electric shock. Thankfully the microwave was off, it could have been worse.

 

[LSN80]

I almost drove off a cliff once. Seriously.

When I was 19, I was in my sophomore year in college, and played basketball. In the middle of an afternoon game, I was elbowed in the head by a guy with the thickest arms I'd ever seen. He knocked me down, but more importantly, he briefly knocked me out. This was before concussion prevention was all the rage, so I persuaded my coach I was fine, and he put me back in the game.

However, following the game, I was feeling dizzy, and slurring my words. My girlfriend was at the game, and in her worry, she took me to the hospital. SUre enough, I had a concussion, and was ordered not to drive for three days. My girl got me back to my apartment, dropped off my car, and repeated the orders to me, very strictly. But what's that saying about "youth being wasted on the young"? Yeah, this guy.

I had plans with a friend that night to go get wings, and he didn't have a car. It was a weekly tradition, and it was always just the two of us catching up. So like a dumbass, I didn't cancel, and picked him up as usual. We were fine getting there, but getting some food in me made me feel weak, woozy, and my vision began to blur/ We didn't want to stay and B.S. that night,but I didn't let him drive either. Second mistake. What my friend did do was suggest a shorter way back to his place. Bad call in the dark.

Anyway,the shortcut was a poorly-lit road, and he wasn't paying attention to my driving. I suppose in retrospect it wasn't really his job. But we got to a place where you turn or go straight, and I just continued to go straight. Unfortunately, with my vision blurred, going straight meant heading into a grassy area, wich eventually lead to a drop of about 50 feet. I didn't notice, but my friend did at the last minute, and yelled at me to stop. I slammed on the breaks, and we were literally 10 yards from the cliff. If he hadn't called out, it would have been severe injury or death for both of us.

Do I need to mention I followed the doctors orders and then some? I didn't drive for a week after that.

 

[Paralyzer Z]

I have a rather whimsical story to tell.

When my brother and I were about 5 and 6 years old respectively, we were obsessed with the movie A bug's life . If you are not aware of the premises of the film. it's about a battle between bugs in the most simplistic fashion. The protagonist is an ant so as little children are in general are engrossed by a heroes, we wanted to see a real life ant be a savior. So we go to our backyard and begin to observe the tiny little ants with eager anticipation that they would fight each other. We squandered about a half hour doing that until a grasshopper showed up and went along with the ants to travel among them.

Since the antagonist of A bug's life was a grasshopper we assumed he was trying to kill them, and that they needed a bold rescuing by us. So we got some water, and proceeded to dump it onto the grasshopper while he stalked among his prey. However we calculated the wrong amount of water and it ended up forcing the ants onto the cold hard and unforgiving steel fence. We did this for about 15 minutes before we surrendered to our new-found opinion that ants aren't very enticing nor exciting. We went inside our house to get changed when I feel a ticklish sensation in my leg. While it had been amazingly imperceptible to me prior to going in the house, the ants had retaliated and gotten inside our clothes. Next thing I know there are an abundance of ants crawling around carelessly on both of us. My mom went ballistic with fear that they were going to bite us to the point of the eradication of our lives.

Surprisingly none of the ants bit us and appeared rather curious when we got rid of them. After that I learned that bugs have the potential to be lethal in some cases. Big things could come in small packages.

 

[JWGunslinger]

I've actually had a few that freaked me out, I'm a pretty safe guy most of the time but sometimes I just get hit with some bad luck. Well for starters I used to never get sick, when things would come around and everyone caught them I was the one laughing at them for catching it and proclaiming I was immune to illness. Then the beginning of my senior year I got hit hard with swine flu and pnemonia which on their own were bad but managable, however if you have both you're kinda screwed(all the folks who died in Mexico had this). So it hit me very hard, I spent alot of time in the hospital and when I was at home in the month that I had it I maybe got up from laying down 5 times. It drains the life out of you and if I hadnt gone to the hospital for treatment I might not be here today, I spent a month stuck in bed looking like I was in a coma and I lost 38 lbs.

Another one was driving home from Lake Tahoe with my fiance, it's a very long boring drive and we had to wake up early to leave since we were visiting my uncle's timeshare and they make you clear out like a hotel by 8. But we were about half way home in the far left lane and without realizing I started to doze off and all of a sudden we drifted off the road about 5 feet into the grass. You'd better believe that woke my ass up and I drove the rest of the way home freaked out as shit and wide awake. It wasn't what happened that scared me actually but the thought that something could have happened to her and that scared the daylights out of me.

 

[¡Roján!]

I've had a good few near-life scares. I've had electric shocks from direct sockets, set my arm on fire and I've even been caught in the wrong side of a riot. None, however have been scarier or more life-threatening than when I fell off a cliff on a quadbike. Yeah, LSN, suck it.

It all started on a family holiday down to Greece. After tiring of the swimming pool and beach scene, we all decided to go quadbiking on one lazy Sunday afternoon when there was nothing else to do. Little by little, all the girls started chickening out as soon as we learnt it was a nature trail that lasted 3 hours. It ended up being only me, my uncle and my cousin having the gall to conquer the so called ''Danger Trail''. After much prepping, training and signing of many wavers we embarked on the trail. My cousin first, my uncle second and trusty ol' me last. After passing by many rivers and mundane hills we all got a little bored. We decided to veer off the track and make our own little adventure. After going around 40 mph, flying pasts trees, I lost the other two. I knew the direction they were in but, I couldn't quite find out where they were. Barely being able to hear their revving engines, I decided to throttle the hell out the quad on their direction. I ventured into the real heart of the forest. Weaving my way past trees, I came to a dead end of sorts. Not wanting to stop and potentially get lost in a huge forest, I went straight through the bushel of bushes in front of me. Little did I know that on the other side was a huge cliff face. Before I could say ''221B Baker Street'' I was half way up the 90m steep as hell cliff, grinding to a halt after the engine could take no more. I could feel the engine struggling, so in an effort to save myself, I jumped from the quad and consequently falling 30m down a jagged cliff face into thorny bushes. By this time, I was knocked the fuck out after hitting my head on many rocks. That's not even the worst part. After slowly coming back to my senses, I saw a rolling Yamaha quad bike coming to wards me jumping from surface to surface. I instinctively threw up my foot saving me from sure death.

I was found around 2 hours later, under the quad bike bleeding heavily. Needless to say, I was rushed to hospital. There was no real damage to em and I was out of the hospital within an hour. I had no concussion or anything of the sort and just have one little scar to show for it. Also, it turns out I wasn't unconscious for 2 hours, I just fell asleep. If that's not bad-ass, I don't know what is. Also, all that crap you here about seeing your life flash before your eyes is so fake, it's unreal. I closed my eyes and hoped for the best. That's the normal reaction, I'm sure.

 

[Daniel]

No. Nothing of note, anyway. I was in a car that began slipping on the motorway due to bad weather. That was bad. Or so mum tells me. I was only five. I've fallen off a wheelie bin, resulting in small piece of my ear lobe being forever gone. Not so much a close call than a bloody mess. I've fallen over, countless times. I was run over by a car going at least five miles per hour. I have been known to do that thing where you're walking, then your foot bends and hurts a little bit. Fuck, I stub my toes all the fucking time. But I'm guessing stubbing toes isn't the kind of thing you're looking for?

Sucks, right? Well, it doesn't suck, but it certainly makes this post a bit pointless. I'm not sure why I haven't had a "close call". It's not like I live a completely closeted life. I've been in a plane and I've been on a boat. I've been in a car numerous times, and it's never crashed. I can't quite put my finger on the reason. Luck? Luck mixed with being cautious, maybe. I always look both ways when crossing the road.

 

[Fizzy]

Shit man, you guys have these badass stories of survival and shit and mine is totally anti-climatic. I've never really had a near death experience. Never been in a car accident, never have fallen off a cliff, but there was one moment when I was a bit startled.

I was eating a calzone and watching Sportscenter. This happened about two years ago, by the way. For those of you who don't know what a calzone is, it's just a turnover stuffed with Mozzarella and Ricotta cheese. So, i'm about halfway through and I bite off a little more Mozzarella than I can chew. Instead of using common sense and taking a bit out of my mouth, I attempt to chew and swallow the cheese. Turns out I didn't chew a portion enough and it became stuck in my throat and I began choking. Luckily, i'm such a badass, I calmly yet quickly went over my options. I stuck my fingers down my throat and pulled the cheese out. Totally stupid decision which really made me feel like a jackass, but it's the only story that fits.

 

[FitFinlay4Life]

Hmmm, a couple for consideration.

A decade ago I went to Gumbit in Turkey with two friends. We arrived at our hotel very early in the morning and immediately started on the beer and continued through the full day before heading out that evening on a holiday rep lead bar crawl. Tiredness and alcohol were taking their effect, so I decided to park the bravado and get a taxi back to my hotel. I remember getting into the front seat of the taxi and it driving off... I regained consciousness the next morning in a dirt carpark with a good bruise on the back of my head and the money gone out of my jeans (luckily, I hadn't taken much out). Good job I have a reasonable sense of direction and I walked back to my hotel in about 45minutes. The three of us kept a very close eye on each other and the Kerry girls we met the rest of our time there.

I enjoy a good Saturday night out and a full carload of us attended a nightclub about 20miles from my home. It was a good night and I did my customary sleeping routine on the way home (as I'd been up working from before 5am that morning). The driver hadn't been drinking but for reasons we've never worked out he decided that he would join me for a nap. Unfortunately, we were going around a corner with a field on the opposite side and a 10 foot drop into it's sloping surface. The car smashed through the fence, plummeted into the field and rolled over a number of times. Amazingly, no one was majorly injured, despite the fact that I was the only one wearing my belt. I ended up with two staples to close a cut in my head that wasn't caused by the accident but releasing my belt (the car came to rest upside down), two of the backseat passengers experienced mild whiplash and the driver received a split lip when he came running round the car squealing straight into a right hook from an extremely irate mate.

My next incident is kind of weird. During one summer when I was at University, I worked for a company that produced preprepared vegetables. One particular week they received a large emergency order and one of the girls and I performed a 36hour shift and were actually chased at the end because we were willing to keep going. I volunteered to leave her home, despite her living 5miles in the opposite direction from my own home and we laughed and joked about things for the 10minute trip. This is were it gets freaky, I remember her getting out and driving off for home... and that's it. I woke up the next morning when my alarm went off to go to work. My mum informed me that I came in, said something about how tired I was and went straight to bed. When I arrived at work, the firms truck driver informed me that I was some kind of ignoramus. This confused me and I asked why? He told me that he had been driving up the road behind me the previous day, flashing his lights and beeping the horn and that I hadn't responded at all. The fact of the matter is that I drove the 10miles home and remembered nothing of it, nor did I remember speaking to my mother. I was on complete autopilot, the lights might have been on but there was definitely nobody home. To bring home how dangerous it was and how lucky I'd been, a couple of years later a nurse fell asleep while driving home on the same road and hit a roundabout doing 70mph, laughing her car 20feet into the air as it rotated, clearing a high metal fence but landing roof first of the garage 15yards from the fence killing her instantly. If I was a religious man, I believe the term is "There, but for the grace of God, go I!"

The closest I've come to death though would be when I was driving home from a friends house one night. Earlier that day, the rubber grip that was attached to the clutch had come off and I had set it on the passenger seat to reattach later. There was heavy rain that evening and I never foresaw what was to come. As I was driving back down the country road he lived just off, my cowboy boot slipped off the clutch and trapped under the brake. I glanced down to free my foot and drifted across the road onto the grass verge which filled my tyre threads with mud and caused my car to broadside down the road before finally gripping and jumping through a wooden fence. One of the planks punched through my window, through my denim jacket, through my tee-shirt and glanced off the top off my collar bone. It was literally inches from going into my neck and throat.

Asides from these, the rest of my near death experiences have all been driving near misses, mostly through my work with Royal Mail were I regularly experienced idiot boy racers fling round single car width country lanes like they're auditioning for the Circuit of Ireland Rally. It really is true the saying that it's not your own driving that is most likely to get you killed on the roads, it's being alert for the idiocy of the other road users!

Whether you have or have not experienced a near death situation, I believe people should remember that nobody is here any length of time in the grand scheme of things. If you live by the ideal of here for a good time, not a long time; longevity is a bonus.

 

[Kenny Powers]

I wouldn't call mine near death experiences but I have come out of situations without a bruise on me when I could have easily been seriously injured or killed. One examples is when I skied on the Swiss Alps a few years ago. This was the first time I have skied since I was a kid and I still couldn't stand on those things. If your skiing in Switzerland there really isn't any bunny slopes or expert black diamond ones.

There are either WTF slopes or WTH slopes. Some of my friends that had snowboards that were novices like myself either stayed below or uses their board as a sled. I went up of course and fell several times just to slow down. I eventually landed head first into a ditch of snow that was about six feet deep. It was more embarrassing then anything since I was talking to a girl and skiing with her right before it happened. Luckily the local people there were very nice and stopped to help clumsy American tourists like myself. They helped dig me out of the snow.

I have fallen down many hills as a kid avoiding injuries. A few times I have had alcohol poisoning. Threw up for days thinking I would need my stomach pumped. When I was at work I actually wasn't paying attention and ended driving a up armored HUM V into a ditch. I was sober at least, but it was dark and I was in the woods. I feel like a real life Homer Simpson. I've caused so many incidents due to my own stupidity.

 

[Khalifa]

Well yes and no for me. Yes because something could of seriously bad happened and no because nothing at all happened. I will just tell them anyway.

So you see, I am not the best driver out there. I sometimes lose concentration because i'm thinking to far ahead. One time I was taking a mate home and we decided to stop off at Maccas. After pulling out of Maccas I was taking the route home and I accidently drove through a red light. It's like I didn't even know there were traffic lights there. Not one car was on any side of the traffic lights so I got really lucky because it was red from when I pulled out of Maccas - when I went through the light. I didn't have any alcohol or substances either, it was just a lack of concentration on my behalf.

Another thing that happened was, again I was driving some mates home. I decided to pull into the fuel station so they can get some food because they were pretty drunk. They got there food and I was coming out of this T junction. Instead of going on the right side of the road (left side for Australians) I went straight over the the right lane and started driving like it was normal. I didn't realise I was driving on the wrong side of the road until my mates yelled at me and I saw cars coming towards us. Lucky I got away quick enough or we would have been dead. Yet again I had no substances or alcohol. Just thinking to far ahead again.

 

[The Rob]

I drank White Spirit once and nearly died from that. Wasn't my finest hour, it's fair to say.

I was 6, had just come home from school on a hot summer's day and we had a painter in the back garden painting the walls. I was thirsty so therefore wanted a drink but couldn't find any Lemonade. Mum was on the phone to my Gran at this point and I think the painter most of gone for a piss or something, it all happened very quickly. So I go outside and I see this bottle with clear liquid in it. I thought "that'll do" so took a swig. Turns out it was White Spirit and I remember thinking "this water tastes funny...". So I went inside and said to Mum who was still on the phone "Mum I don't like that funny water outside", at which point she gets worried, puts down the phone and I show her the bottle. Naturally she starts freaking out, gets on the phone to my Dad (who was on duty as a traffic officer at the time). She meets him half way on the way to the local hospital and all I remember is being sat in the backseat as my Dad is weaving in and out of traffic, sirens on and everything, desperately trying to get me to hospital. Being as young as I was, I didn't understand just how bad a situation it was. Got to hospital and they basically force fed me gallons and gallons of milk to try and sort me out and thankfully it did, plus I didn't drink quite enough white spirit to kill me and incredibly I avoided any liver damage too. A MASSIVE close-call if I do say so myself.

 

[Diet Soda]

Almost got taken out by some prat in a 4x4 speeding through a red light the other day. Bricks were shat.