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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/23/2008 8:05:31 PM | Actually, I suspect the dog incident has more to do with any alleged warpage than your bike accident. ... just sayin'
Thanks Robert, but methinks it could be both experiences.
I was combing my hair and I think one fell out.
Hell...everytime I comb mine, I lose at least 50 but am happy to report that I have a full head of hair despite of it, but my 4 grey eyebrow hairs (and I only have about 12 of them) that remind me that I'm getting old, thus closer to death. | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/23/2008 9:32:24 PM |
they had spent over an hour scraping and prying my wedged limbs and body out from the pile of what used to be my White 2009 Honda Civic
Are 2009 models out yet??? Is that a typo on the model year? I didn't think these models were out yet.
That is a traumatic experience. Glad you are ok.  | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/23/2008 10:54:58 PM | Ironworkers have a creedo which says something along the lines of: If you survive ten years, then you didn't do your job properly. I was no punk. I was adventurous and willing to break an arm to get the job done. I didn't care how many tons of metal the crane was swinging at me; I stood my ground and brought it to rest to its home. I knew that I was amongst the elite on the job site and I was expected to execute my ironworker skill without failure. One day I got complacent.
We were standing up a pipe rack in a Shell cogen plant. The bent (two columns connected by a beam) was flown in backwards. I had already laid a forty foot ladder against the pipe stand and cut it loose from the crane. The ground crew informed me that the bent was backward. We needed to turn it around. As the bent was already anchored down, I commenced to rigging the bent for flight.
Well, my coworkers unanchored the bent I was sitting on.I'm thirty feet off the ground and this bent starts to tilt over with me on top of it. I rode it. My uncle looked on in fear as the bent kicked over from ten o' clock to two o' clock. All the while I was hanging on for dear life and signaling the crane to raise the boom. I got out of that one alive, but my uncle called my dad and told him to find religion. Ironworkers don't have religion. | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/24/2008 1:54:09 PM | I got into an argument with a roommate back in the early 90's.
His idea of a response to threat of the police being called by me was to pull out a .22 revolver, point it at my head, and pull the trigger.
Luckily he was 10 feet away, and a lousy shot.
The scrape left behind by the bullet on the inside edge of the door frame behind me was about six inches to the right of my ear at the time.
It took six months of hell in court to put him away...
But, in the end, he was sentenced to 10 1/2 years for "attempted voluntary manslaughter."
Now, this sort of thing didn't happen in the neighborhood where I grew up...
--No knives or guns were EVER brandished at my high-school and girls didn't get into fist-fights.
Gangs were "over there" in other people's houses and on other people's streets...
Violence was unheard of (although I am sure some would have happened behind closed doors!).
I try not to argue with psychopaths anymore... (No, really!)
<--learned to TRUST that little voice
I try not to cut people off in traffic anymore (I am from L.A., after all), and try to remember to stop and smell ALL of the flowers
--even the not-so-pretty ones, as often as possible!
Other times:
Missed the party where a good friend and two of her friends were shot dead, execution style, on their knees by one of their boyfriends and his friends... (**stards are doing Life!)
Swallowed a bottle of Flintstone's Chewable Vitamins with IRON at two... (vomited)
Various driving "close-calls..."(whew!)
Just a month ago, I tried to burn a string off of my non-flame retardant, fluffy robe (read the label, DUH!) and was a bit surprised when the light, fuzzy cotton became awash in flame...
(stripped naked on the balcony and stomped it out --no burns, saved the robe) 
<--avid label reader... NOW.
Lots of "close-calls" otherwise... Too many to list! 
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/24/2008 8:29:32 PM |
(stripped naked on the balcony and stomped it out --no burns, saved the robe)
<--avid label reader... NOW.
I always said you were hot. | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/24/2008 10:28:29 PM | I haven't really had too many brushes with death. And reading some of the harrowing experiences posted on these boards, I'm counting my lucky stars. There was this one time, though, when I was fourteen. My father, brother and I were visiting the Grand Canyon. A storm was rolling in, and the air was so thick with electricity that you could hear the air crackle around you. We took turns standing on an outcropping and holding one finger up. You'd get a buzzing sound, and you could feel the electricity forming in the air around you. Combine that with the beauty of the canyon, that we were on the very edge of the drop, and that the oncoming storm had driven everyone else inside. It was an amazing and beautiful experience.
Of course, once we got back to the hotel, we realized we had been acting as human lightning rods. We were very lucky we did not get struck. I suppose the little sparks were tiny lightning strikes, in a way. Would have qualified us for the Darwin awards.
But, boy, was it beautiful out there. | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/25/2008 3:41:25 AM | Years ago I had a little part-time job where every night I would go to a handicapped woman's house and help her get ready for bed. At exactly 7:oo pm every evening I would be waiting to cross an intermediate highway just outside my apt. bldg. On this particular night an older neighbor lady called me. It always stuck in my mind that she was a Christian Scientist, who was rather reserved and not much for a whole lot of phone chatter, but on this particular night I could not get her off the phone. At exactly the moment I would have been standing to cross that highway I heard a terrible crash.
When I went outside a car had crashed into a tree, flipped, and burst into flames. Miraculously everyone in the car got out in time with the help of some good samaritans and survived. (The driver a young kid actually got out on his own and ran off and left everyone else.) However I would not have survived had I been waiting in that spot to get across.
There is at least one more time that I survived a near death experience. For some reason all of a sudden I don't have the energy right now to write about that one. | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/25/2008 4:53:56 PM | Well, I'm a motorcyclist so you can say that I get exposed to alot more risks than the average person. I've wrecked at about 45 mph before and went bouncing down the middle of the street. I only had small scratch on my thumb from that one. I've also been up in the hills playing and had some idiot in a full-size F350 dually pickup truck come roaring around a corner halfway into my lane before. I just ducked a bit and avoided meeting his bumper.
All in all, not too close I would suppose.. | |
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fidm
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Joined: 4/25/2008
Msg: 62 | |
| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/25/2008 9:48:09 PM | Not only I came close to but I died in 1968 and was "sent back" here. It is wonderful to go through it as I cannot wait for the time He will call me back.
By grace
Bernard | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/26/2008 4:52:15 AM | About fifteen years ago a series of fortunate coincidences saved my life.
For days I had been feeling weak and on one particular day I could barely get up for anything. I thought I had the flu or something. A neighbor who was from England and was doing cancer research for his Ph.D, ( I mention this because I always wondered if his work made him see something that someone else would not have) came to borrow something from me. He gave me a funny look and said "you really don't look well." I told him that I was worried about my dog and didn't want to leave him if for some reason the doctor sent me to the hospital. (I know this sounds silly now.) He was adamant that I should see a doctor and told me to let my dog stay with him until I returned. He ended up taking care of my dog for three weeks.
I called the doctor's office and had to beg for an appointment for that day. At the time I had an HMO and it took forever to get appointments. (After my illness I changed to BC/BS. The HMO and all their shitty policies about getting appts. almost killed me.) At the time I lived alone and finally decided to call an ex-boyfriend to give me a ride to the doctor's office. He had to help me get dressed and cleaned up...I was so weak.
At the doctor's office she checked me out, but said she felt I was having a reaction to an antibiotic I had been taking, and was about to give me another medicine and send me home, when I threw-up in the exam room. She gave me a funny look and called for an ambulance.
At the hospital the overworked emergency room nurse was really pissy to me because I couldn't take my clothes off. They examined me and took some blood samples. When the results came back I could see a change in the nurse's demeanor...she looked sad. A young doctor came in and asked me if I had any family in the area. When I asked why he said: " call your family and tell them to come." He explained that I had a rare blood disorder that only happens to one person in a million. He told me they didn't know what causes it but they do know how to treat it. They asked me had I eaten raw fish like sushi, or raw meat like steak tartare, which I had not. Later I had other theories about how I contracted the disease. One involves being trapped on an Amtrak train for 16 hours with no ventilation a few days before. I often wondered if I caught a virus or something from the ventilation system like what happened with the folks who caught Legionnaire's disease years ago.
When I asked if I would die he said "we will do the best we can." No one expected me to survive. As the days went by in intensive care I learned that they had never seen anyone as sick as I survive this disease. Interns were in and out because this was a rare opportunity to see a disease that they may never again see in their lifetime. They told me if I had stayed home one more day I would have died. They also told me that a lot of patients die because they go to smaller hospitals or come from rural areas of Maine or Vermont and by the time they diagnose the disease and get them down to Boston for treatment, it is too late. I prayed...a lot.
Somehow I beat the odds. Not only did I recover but I never had a relapse as they had expected. I've stayed in touch with the student from England all these years and tease him every now and then about the time he saved my life. | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/26/2008 8:44:18 AM | | Yep there were a few cops with guns I never got shot though they would just give me 40 whacks upside the head with their pr-24s..One fella pointed a .38 at my head pulled the trigger twice empty chambers the 3rd time I ducked it fired while he freaked out thinking he shot, I pulled a .22 tear gas gun from my back pocket shoved it in his ear real hard and fired it...He wasn't so lucky but he didn't die...Geez the things kids do to each other...There were acouple near drownings, car wrecks, including my best friend as a kid we were all doing acid in his 65 Chevy Nova 2 when he decided to play "Beat the fu*kin train" He always did this I would not doubt it if he still does it...We litterally flew over the tracks but it was so close weather it was the air or the train itself scraping the back of the car well never know as all four of us were screaming at the tops of our fu*kin heads, like Steve Martin and John Candy, in Planes, Trains and auto mobiles....There were many other times getting robbed, living on the streets, getting into the wrong car hitchiking jumping out of a couple of them. Yes I lead a pretty crazy life when I was a young man.. | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/26/2008 10:01:19 AM | There were acouple near drownings, car wrecks...There were many other times getting robbed, living on the streets, getting into the wrong car hitchiking jumping out of a couple of them
ummm...can I get a million dollar insurance policy under your name with me as the beneficiary?? | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/26/2008 8:32:03 PM | | My mother had one on all us kids for years I think it pissed her off I kept living through sh*t considering what she and her boyfriend did to a couple of us kids..Applying for disablity in our names and getting it..I turned her in many years later and she had to pay a pretty penny back....I think she was considering hiring hit men I'm not kidding she had to pay several hundred thousand dollars back.. | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/27/2008 12:36:32 AM | I also almost drowned when I was 11, but managed through miraculous presence of mind to save myself. I still don't like being in over my head in water.
My entire family barely missed being killed in an earthquake caused mudslide in Yellowstone in 1959. In that event we stopped and ate at a picnic table downstream below an earthen dam. We were going to stay the night there, but my dad had a bad feeling about it. He instead chose to drive all the way home that night. Shortly after arriving home there was an earthquake and the earthen dam collapsed and killed about 20 people. We would have been among them if it had not been for my father's trust in his intuition.
I also came close to being killed in a car accident in 1978. None of us were wearing seatbelts because it wasn't the law to wear them. Miraculously all the doors opened and we were thrown from the car through the doors and not through the windows.
I was asleep in the back seat before the accident and the force woke me up. I was pinned against the door for about a couple of seconds. It felt like those carnival rides where you cannot move because of the centrifugal effect. That was during the first swerve when the car first went off the road. I immediately thought we were all going to die and I decided that I wanted to die peacefully and not traumatically. As soon as the car came back up onto the road and was headed across the road in another direction and the force was lessoned, I laid back down and made myself pass out. I wasn't much aware of what was happening really outside the car while I was conscious. The cops told me later about the path of the car. I guess we then went off the road on the other side and then came back up and crossed the road again before rolling end over end four times. I was out by this time and don't have any recollection. I was thrown over a barbed wire fence and landed face down in a creek. The water woke me up. If I had been in shock I would have drowned no doubt. I stood up with no memory of why I was there. I was a bit baffled until I looked around and saw the other victims. I then climbed over the barbed wire fence I had been thrown over and walked up to the road. I have never been able to hurdle anything as fast as I did that barbed wire fence. Adrenaline is an amazing thing. I practically sailed over it in spite of my injuries.
I had been thrown the farthest but was the least injured with compression fractures to the spine, but didn't stay long in the hospital. I refused all painkillers and sedatives and asked to be released in the morning. (I hate hospitals.) Unfortunately, my father-in-law was killed and my husband and his mother were both in critical condition for some time. The worst part of the accident is not the accident it's the aftermath and trauma you have to heal through.
The doctor told me that my relaxing may have saved me from greater injury. Though if I have control over a situation I would try to save myself from injury. The key here was that there was no choice. I couldn't do anything so I thought it better to just accept my fate.
Later I talked with a diver about that experience and he said that acceptance of death is quite common when people perceive they have no choice. He said that this is true among drowning victims who feel they cannot possibly save themselves. He also told me that often time the less a drowning victim struggles and the more they resign themselves the easier it is sometimes to revive them because struggling deprives the brain of the limited oxygen that is available. Drowning in colder water also helps to increase revival rates provided there is someone close by who can resuscitate the victim. I've kept this in mind. If ever I perceive that there is no choice again, I am going with the flow and not fighting it.
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/28/2008 1:09:44 PM | | According to my mom, I came really, really close several times when I was little, from dashing into the street. | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/28/2008 3:46:04 PM | | i was at a party gone very wrong and ended up with alchol poisoning, hypothremia, and pneumonia. i was eventually found. my body temp was 88 degrees by the time i got to the hospital. i had a full recovery but the doctors said if i was out there for another hour i would of died. laying there before anyone found me i remember i couldnt move becuase my body was practically frozen. it was puring rain and i was staring up in the the sky watching everything fade. i can honstly say that was the most peaceful moment of my life. i still took it as a second chance at life that i recovered and completly straightened out my life since then. | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/29/2008 11:10:50 AM | When i was rock climbing. I climbed up onto a large boulder about 60 feet up the rock face and when I got my footing, it gave way. I had enough time to step onto another rock. Ironically, the next time I went up to the same spot, I found the dead body of a guy who wasn't as lucky as I. Needless to say, he was a mess.
George | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/29/2008 12:22:06 PM | I've come pretty close. I've done some crazy things.
I'm not the kind of guy who'd step on Superman's cape, but my dog might have defacated on his lawn afew times... BY ACCIDENT OF COURSE~!!! | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 5/30/2008 10:12:15 AM | Oh, I almost forgot!
My family went to visit the family farm back east....
I was about six months old, and on an blanket on the floor of the kitchen with my great-grandmother and my mom...
They had thought that they had hidden away all of the firearms they kept for snakes, etc... (since it was out in the middle of nowhere) when my three year-old brother came in and shouted, "Put 'em up!" and blew a big hole in the wall behind us.
The rifle was bigger than he was, so he missed, and my great-grandmother snatched the rifle away from him while my mother sat there, stunned.
I was too young to remember any of it. | |
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| How close have you come to dying?
Posted: 6/2/2008 7:22:29 PM | i lost count at 9................technically i shouldnt even be here now,but fate keeps me here!
i was electricuted,in a hostage situation,car accident,i drowned..........almost froze in the Atlantic Ocean,almost froze in the eastern woodlands,the list goes on and on....and Kudos to you all still here | |
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