Last night some friends and I started talking about dangerous situations we've been in, especially things that happened when we were kids: accidents that almost happened, dangerous and potentially fatal outcomes that were just barely avoided, and situations that we never even knew were dangerous until later. The stories were both creepy and fun, and I thought it'd be fun to post mine here (even though they were nothing compared to what's almost happened to a couple of my friends) and find out if other forumers have similar experiences to share.
My first one involves a close encounter with dangerous wildlife.
When I was a kid I was fascinated by snakes, spiders and similar critters that other people find scary or repulsive. We have two snake species where I live: one is a poisonous adder, the other is a harmless relative of the garter snake. They are usually easy to tell apart, unless it's dark or the snake is swimming.
I was around six years old I think, playing on the small beach at our summer house, when I noticed a snake swimming nearby. I was a huge book nerd even at that age, and knew almost everything about snakes. I knew, for example, that the natural habitat of the non-poisonous snake is near water, and that they like to bury their eggs in beaches and riverbanks, and that they are excellent swimmers. Unfortunately, knowing these facts gave rise to some pretty fallacious reasoning: because the harmless snakes live near water and can swim, then the poisonous ones do not live near water and cannot swim. Why? Because they're the yin to the other snake's yang or something. Kids have strange logic. In any case, I figured the swimming snake I saw must be of the harmless variety, and I wanted to catch it.
If I had just chased after the snake in the water, my mother would probably have glanced up from her book and stopped the madness. Instead, I decided the best way to catch the snake would be to stalk it quietly until it stops and then grab it. As it happened, the snake swam up to the beach and crawled under a small pile of rocks just behind my mother's back. I closed in, noticed the tail of the snake still sticking out from under the pile, promptly grabbed it, and pulled the snake out into the sunlight.
The first thing I noticed about the thing trashing about in my arms was how strong and slippery it was: I couldn't get a solid grip on it. Then I noticed the distinctive sawtooth pattern on its back; the hallmark of the poisonous adder.
"MOM!" I screamed, and the snake fell from my hands, immediately vanishing under the rocks again.
My mother looked up from her book. "What is it, honey?"
But even in my shock I had some sense left.
"Nothing", I said.
---
My other brush with potentially life-threatening danger was a lot less exciting, but much more of a shock. I must have been five years old or so. It was winter, with lots of snow, and my mother and I were taking a walk around our home town. We stopped at a corner, waiting to cross the street. I had a long woolen muffler wrapped around my neck, its ends flapping in the wind. My mom thought I was standing too close to the traffic and reached out to pull me back a bit, and right then a truck roared past, really fast, and the muffler got caught in its back bumper somehow.
The way the muffler was tied, it
should have dragged me with it; it probably would have broken my neck. Instead, it just came loose. I barely felt it. One moment it was around my neck, the next it was billowing behind a speeding truck, with me and my mother staring at it in shock. Then she picked me up and started crying, and I had no idea the muffler was
that important to her.
It took years before I really understood just how dangerous that situation was. It's been over twenty years, and my mother still has nightmares about it.
---
Sorry about making them so long. Got kind of carried away there.
Posts
Next thing I know, I look up, and there is a car moving across the median from the opposing side of traffic straight at us. There was kind of a pit inbetween the two sides of the highway, and when it hit the ramped part it must have flipped about twice. I remember seeing one of its tires go flying in the air just in front of us.
Thanks to my friend's quick reactions we avoided both the car and the flying tire. Man, that was fucking scary though.
Luckily I had a passenger in the car who was able to take the wheel, and I went limp enough that I wasn't putting any pressure on the gas pedal.
When I came to I was still behind the wheel but completely disoriented, I couldn't remember where I was or what I was doing. Apparently I started cursing like a Tourette's patient, too, which I don't really remember. (I remember saying, "What the fuck just happened?" but that's about it.)
So, yeah, that was pretty freaky.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Given that we were easily going 80 and that my seatbelt was broken, it was miraculous that the worst that happened was an almost imperceptible rearrangement of my face. My mom can't really talk about it, because it upsets her too much.
I suffered a concussion and nothing more, though I do still have a huge flattened dent in my skull. Thanks a lot, butterfingers roofer, now I can't shave my head without looking like a lumpy potato.
The MP made a few calls on his radio and I was shortly thereafter reunited with my alarmed parents. My mother tells me that I could easily have been kidnapped and grown up working in a sweatshop.
--
This one doesn't have my own life in danger, but any moment where your pounding heart is louder than your thoughts ought to count!
Years later, I'm 13 living in Italy, visiting Florence with the family. I now have a 3 year old brother (never put together the age similarity until writing this post!) who decides historic fountain statues are incredibly boring and runs off into the crowded town square. Having helped taken care of the little brat for 3 years, I feel like I had the same emotional response my parents felt when we couldnt find him. The three of us tear off in different directions to search this very large, very crowded town square.
We had to have searched for at least 5 whole minutes (I would argue the longer you spend searching for a child, the less likely it is to find him/her) before I found him near a restaurant, looking quite confused. To this day, my mother does not recall what happened at the fountain. I think it scared her so bad, she repressed the memory.
I stick one end of each wire into the electrical socket and turn it on. I see my brother's radio player sitting around, so I get the plug and touch it to the other end of the live wire.
I hear a loud poof, see a purple flash and my mother comes in yelling at me for doing something so stupid.
Amazingly, that night she bought me a chocolate because she felt bad for yelling at me (I deserved it).
It was senior year of high school. I was driving home from a soccer game, and I looked down for a second to adjust my CD player. When I looked back up, the car in front of me had stopped to make a left turn, so I tried to swerve around it on the right. I didn't. Ended up hitting the car on the back right bumper at about 35 - 40 MPH, sending it into the oncoming lane of traffic. If cars had been coming at that moment, the kids in the other car would have been seriously hurt, if not dead. I hate even thinking about what could have happened.
As it turns out, everyone came out of the incident with no more than a sore neck. Still one of the scariest nights of my fucking life.
Best part of that mess was one of the kids in the other car had bought chili at the soccer game. When I got out of my car, the chili was splattered against the passenger side window. And the CD I was skipping through was OK Computer. I think when I crashed it was on The Tourist.
Well, while going along, have fun and such I take come on one of the dips. No worries, I can go just fast enough to get a nice little jump coming out as I have before. As I came out of the ditch, I leaned back too far and went too fast. So up in the air I went, and off the 3 wheeler I fell. I lost sight of the vehicle, so I don't know exactly how it fell and landed, but it was a few feet in front of me upside down and facing forward. Nothing all that dangers, but certainly would have been a very big ouch.
This next one happened early last december, just before the end of the fall semester of college. I was on my way home around 9:30 or so from a late class, and it had been snowing for most the day. On the way home, I find that the roads are starting to become slightly slick, so quickly breaking at stop lights and so forth are not a good plan. Luckily nothing happened with not stopping at stop light and such.
However, just after you exit downtown here , going north, the road takes a turn left and than another right as it goes from a one way street to join back with the other half of 287. As I am going along this turn, at around 35mph or so, nothing overly scarey, I lose traction and my car begins to turn too far. I don't exactly remember it very well, just kind of remember the general idea of what happened. I am at one moment facing the left side of the road, and I remember very well facing the right way as there were some christmas decorations up on the right side as there are every year. After swerving once to the left and than to the right, I simply straigten out and go on my merry way. The first thought I remember having after this happened was, "That was fucking awesome!"
I bet it had Keanu Reeves on it or something.
Sticky situation, and I don't know how I came out alive, but I did. Since then I broke up with Mary and found someone else.
So wait, you were with your girlfriend for two months and while in that relationship you hit on another girl?
Just trying to clarify the situation.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
;-)
... I suck at directions. Thinking back, I think I took too lefts and then a right, and I ended up on a cross country trail. Which was fine, only I never learned how to do cross country skiing and it is really, really exhausting. Oh, and I lost the path. I ended up wandering off the ski property, to some sort of factory building where some woman was getting off of work. I asked her for directions back, which basically consisted of "climb back up that hill you came down from, you silly child." So, I climbed back up. Partway up, I tire out, and for a good five minutes I wonder if it would be so bad to just lie down in the snow and go to sleep, which probably would have resulted in me dying of hypothermia.
I decided not to, and finally remembered to take off my skis, and started climbing up. I get to the top of the hill, and am eager to finally ski down. However, I realize that I am at the very peak, and that I'm about to go down the path with bumps (moguls). I spend a few hovering moments wondering if I should, and if I could make it. Then, I spend a few moments wondering if I could just slide down on my butt. At this time I still had glasses, and as they had been more or less constantly fogged, I decided to wipe them. Good thing, as I finally noticed the giant "DO NOT ATTEMPT blah blah COULD BE FATAL."
...So I climbed up a little higher, to where the emergency station was, and told them I couldn't get down. Embarrassing, but hey, I got to ride a snowmobile down. And I didn't die!
By the time I met up with my family it was sunset, and they were wondering where the hell I was. They aren't the kind to panic, though, so we just went for some hot chocolate and called it a day.
The other time was just this winter, when my boyfriend was driving us back to our university campus. He's from Louisiana and is not very experienced with icy roads, and we very foolishly thought it'd be safe to head back when it was snowing. The car was pretty light, and when we started hitting ice patches, it would start sliding a lot. During a particularly bad slide on the highway, right as I was saying "Be careful," he hit the brakes hard. And like... like hitting the brakes hard on a patch of ice, we went into a spin.
The car did a full 180, the engine died, and we sat there facing oncoming traffic.
My life didn't flash before my eyes-- I thankfully stayed calm and focused and so did my boyfriend, and I instructed him to turn the car back on, and carefully turn the car back straight. Fortunately, huge snow-plow trucks were behind us and they knew what the heck they were doing; they stopped and blocked off traffic, preventing anyone from possibly crashing into us.
Got back to campus, boyfriend confesses that if I'd have freaked he'd have freaked, and I read about the huge pileup accident with multiple deaths near campus that had taken place at roughly the same time as our mishap the next morning.
Switch: SW-7603-3284-4227
My ACNH Wishlists | My ACNH Catalog
I was really drunk.
So I walked up the other way of the queue to the entrance where I remembered they had a little office thing with a person inside. I asked them to help me find my parents. So we're standing at the top of this huge queue that goes down towards where you hop in the boats, and the guy announces over the PA system "Has anyone lost a little boy?" or something to that effect. About halfway down the queue I hear my mother yelp as she discovers I'm not behind her like I was 5 minutes ago. So everyone in the queue is now looking at me, and the entire queue parts like Moses and the Red Sea as I walked down to be re-united with the family. I think my mother wasn't sure whether to be angry at me for me "wandering off", or proud of me that I went and found and adult and essentially did what she taught me to do when I get lost.
Second story takes place on Hwy 6 in Ontario, Canada. I lived in Waterloo, Ontario at the time, and my parents lived in Hamilton. Hwy 6 is notorious for being dangerous in bad weather, but since I had driven this route so many times, I never really thought too much about it. Until one night where I had my first and only accident. I remember reaching the top of a hill in my car (a rear wheel drive Nissan 240SX), and then suddenly feeling very light. I had hit a patch of really icey road and was slowly moving into the opposite lane.
Now, my brain raced with instructions from driver's ed, and other tidbits of information my father supplied me with: "Steer into the skid", "Don't touch the brakes", "Don't Panic". So I first did the 3rd item on the list, and then the 1st. No use. I was still heading directly for some headlights. I finally said "fuck it", and started pumping the brakes (the 240SX didn't have anti-lock brakes). The car turned away from on coming traffic, but unfortunately spun into the ditch on the right side of the road. I sat there in total shock for about a minute, then saw more headlights from the direction I came. 2 more cars hit the icey patch and went into the ditch with me, thankfully not hitting me in the process.
As I took stock of where I was, and made sure I wasn't bleeding (all that happened was my cell phone that was on the dash flew and hit me in the face), I noticed one the other drivers was getting out of their car and walking around assessing the damage. So I got out of my car to a) make sure they're okay and b) tell them to get the fuck back away from the road. Sure enough, as soon as the words had left my mouth, another car careened off the road, and hit the car with the driver who hadn't gotten out.
At this time, I'm really worried. That's 4 cars now in the ditch because of this icey patch. So the new ditch dweller gets out of his car, and we all descend on the other car whose driver is not outside. Turns out he's okay and we all get our asses away from the ditch and wait for the tow trucks to come.
Still, seeing the 4th car nail the other car with the driver still in it, I thought I was going to see my first dead body outside of a hospital/funeral home.
I almost drowned to death when I was 3, I was a late bloomer in terms of swimming ability, and I was at a family christmas party and I was sitting by the pool when I just rolled in for some reason, naturally I sank to the bottom because I was in pure shock, but luckily my sister came in to save me quite clearly.
So I'm placed on the side of the pool and everyone starts congratulating my sister, so naturally as I'm still in shock because I was deathly scared of water, I fall back in but no one notices this time. Apparently I was at the bottom of the pool for 3 or something mins. It's my earliest memory.
----
I don't know quite how to explain this one, but my dad used to be the caretaker of the State Sports Centre in Sydney and we lived on site, this was where the 2000 olympics were. But back in the day that area was all abattoirs and rifle ranges, in the morning a guy my dad works with comes and opens all the boom gates, but he didn't hook one up properly one morning, so it swings half way close.
This is 1997 so we pull out of the drive way and start going to head to school, we are the only people living within 6 or so kms. So my mum starts punching out of the carpark and the boom gate that was left swinging open smashes through our windshield, I moved my head at the last minute and had I not I would be decapitated, or at least had my face smashed so that it wasn't even a recognisable chunk of flesh anymore.
I think I was 10 or 11. Me and my friends were building a dam in a tiny stream a mile or so from our house. I crouched at the waterline, and stood up just as my mate tried to throw a fist-sized rock over me. It kind of glanced off my head, didn't even hurt that much, but we got into a fight over it and I headed home. On the way home I touched my head, and when I looked at my hand it was red with blood. Then I felt blood trickling onto my face and down my neck, at which point I panicked and start crying. There was a lot of blood: by the time I got home my shirt was completely red with it. I must have looked like Carrie in, er, Carrie.
What I've never understood is how nobody came up to me to see if they can help. A crying kid walking through the suburb, covered in blood, and mothers with their kids playing in the park all around me just stare or pretend not to notice. I probably did look and sound like some apparition from hell, but still.
In any case, when my parents eventually took me to the doctor, he was unable to find the wound where all the blood came from. It must have been a really tiny scratch that just happened to hit a vein. Head wounds can be like that, apparently.
So yeah. Not dangerous at all (it turned out), just a strange experience.
When I was running across the street, a huge truck was going down the street and I didn't even notice. It was able to stop in time and I was in so much pain from the bees that I only stopped for a spilt second.
--
I'm probably 14 now and I'm walking around the neighborhood with our slut and she's asking random people if they have weed (for herself, I don't smoke). Some guy she asks say "Yeah, I'm meeting my friend to go smoke." So, she decides to wait with him and I stick around. After about thirty minutes, I'm getting sick of waiting.and start talking about leaving and the guy isn't having any of it.
So, he walks behind me and puts a knife to my back and begins saying shit in my ear, I was more pissed than scared but I now realize how easily that could've went wrong. After about ten more minutes, I finally get her to get up and we leave.
--
My friend (the one who stepped on the bees nest!) are now 18 and we're driving home from another friends, after a long night of M: tG and one of his tires blew. Neither of us have a cell phone and had no clue how to change the tire with the tools at hand (which I'm told later, was possible) so we start making the mile trek to the Mass Pike entrance. About half way there, we're walking over small tunnel that's over the street he lives off of. He decided to climb down, as he didn't want to walk all the way down the highway.
So, we start climbing down and when I'm at the edge, I kind of lost control of my body and almost fell forward. For two months after that, I would have flashbacks of almost falling over. It freaked me out.
--
It's funny I would find this thread today, as I was just thinking about these situations last night...
So, I had this crappy 87 Chevy Nova as my first car, which I bought from my brother for $300. It had a funky habit of fogging right the hell up as you drove it in the winter despite what you did to it prior to driving.
So anyway, one morning I'm outside early clearing the snow off of my car and running the defroster when a friend of mine saunters by. I offer to give her a ride to school, as I'm heading in early to take a make-up test. We leave, but as we're going down the street the windshield steadily becomes opaque. So, being a stupid kid, I decide that the "Ace Venture" head-out-the-window method of driving is the best apporach I could take at this time.
I arrive at a T-intersection and carefully judge my turn and then proceed to make it, and just as I'm rounding a corner the is a very loud crunch and the car shakes somewhat violently. I look out my rolled down window to see a goddamn orange semi passing me, whose tire I just hit with the corner of my car, smashing my headlight. However, as my itty bitty car didn't even register to him, he just kept on driving, so I do the same.
As we're driving down the road by the middle school, my friend informs me that a cop is following me. I look up in the rear-view mirror and there are indeed red and blue lights, and I'm pretty sure I'm screwed at this point because I just left the scene of an accident.
So my friend heads off to school and as I prepare for whatever is going to happen here, and the cop comes up to me and starts yelling about how I'm "driving unsafely". As it turns out, he didn't see me make contact with the semi, just saw me driving with my head out the window. I get a citation for "clear view to the front" and am allowed to go about my merry way.
The next day I am in choir practice and get a summons by the principal. As we walk to his office I inquire what this is about. He tells me that there are two detectives who wish to speak with me. (What?). I begin to be visably nervous. I understand that we live in a small town, but why would they send detectives to investigate a minor traffic accident.
I go into the interrogation room and they show me their badges. They say "We assume you know what this is about?". I respond "Is it about what happened yesterday?" They eye me curiously. "Well, what happened yesterday?" Don't confess to anything, I think. "I was cited for clear view to the front." They glance at each other and start laughing. "Oh no! You're not in any trouble. We're hear about the Gregalunas homicide"
A dude had killed both his parents in a double homicide earlier that year. I don't know the guy, and if he were standing right next to me I wouldn't even know it was him, so I'm not really sure why my name got pulled in for questioning.
Anyways, when I was a paratrooper we had two C-130s prepared for a airborne excercise. I was pushed to the second aircraft and completed my jump. The ones in the first aircraft never did as an engine caught fire and had to make an emergency landing. All my buddies on that aircraft truly thought they were gonna die.
I was in the big safari truck and we had just run across about 15+ elephants who were charging at us and trumpeting - really unhappy with us. But that wasn't the scary part. About five minutes later we were at the river's edge and could see the other group in their boat. While we were watching, a Hippopotamus surfaced directly under their boat. They were lifted out of the water and came down really hard - nearly capsizing. Between the Hippos and the Crocodiles in the river none of them would have made it out if the boat had gone over.
I was also chased by a warthog later that day, but that's more funny than scary.
A couple of months ago I foolishly signed up to work with this yard maintenance company aerating people's lawns. This involves a 200+ pound machine that pokes holes in your grass. The douches running the show didn't show us how the throttle worked, so on my first lawn (this being Toronto your average lawn is a postage stamp you can easily pee the length of) the machine takes off dragging me behind it, and I have about half a second for my brain to tell my hands to let go for it to cut out - which it does just in time, mere inches away from the customer's car. The damage would likely have been in the thousands of dollars. Even though that was my first and last day working there, the thought of it still gives me the shivers.
One day when I was walking to school, I always have to cross this street that is really busy in the morning. One day the lights go red and its my turn to cross, but I was fooling around with my mp3player for like a second and as I'm about to go onto the street there goes a truck speeding by running the red light. If I hadn't been on my mp3player and was my speedy self like I'm usually am, I would hate to wonder what would of happen.
A small incident I saw happen once was in school, during lunch I think in the halls. A senior was holding a girl horizontally and spinning her around, real fast. Like real real fast that it was dangerous as hell. He almost ended up bashing her head into the wall. Kids are fucking stupid sometimes. If her feet didnt hit the wall the next spin would of resulted with her head against it.
3DS: 2852-6809-9411
It was not smart.
One of the schools in our new league was notorious for gang violence and was located in the heart of the Orange County 'ghetto' known as Santa Ana. It was during an 'away' game there that I made the mistake of not being aware of my surroundings. I completed one of my matches and proceeded to the boys locker room to get a soda out of the vending machine. I entered the empty locker room through the long dank hallway, found the machine and popped out a 'Cactus Cooler'. As I turned around to leave through the only door an ominous stampeding sound echoed from outside and filled the cavernous locker room. Apparently football practice had just ended and a herd of some of the most enormous high school kids I had ever seen entered the building. They instantly smelled the fear that was emanated from my weakly 120lb frame and surrounded me. Thirty GIGANTIC menacing guys all glared at me and simply stared me down for what seemed like an eternity (but in actuality was probably like 10 seconds). One of the guys looked me straight in the eyes and growled to me "whachya claim?"
Mustering up all the courage I could I replied in a semi-confident manner, "I don't claim anything, I'm just here for a tennis match". Then I just started babbling about how we were in their league now, and that I was from Ocean View High School and that I was here for an away match. I even tried to reason with them by showing them my school emblem on my tennis uniform. The tension was high and I swear I think some of the guys actually started to crack their knuckles.
All of a sudden out of nowhere this short stocky guy magically walks out from the wall of fists and muscles and yells,
"hey! this guys from Ocean View, my homies go to Ocean View! Dude, he's cool man, he's from Ocean View"
For some reason this guy had a ton of clout with the other guys because all of a sudden the tension immediately lifted and all the other guys started nodding their heads as if he proclaimed I was Moses or something. Just like that, the sea of guys parted and they let me pass unharmed out to the hallway. I walked as confidently as I could to the door and as soon as I turned the corner I ran like a little boy as fast as my spindly legs could take me back to the tennis courts.
I guess my coach saw the fear still apparent on my face and asked me what happened. I explained to him how he narrowly missed having an empty seat on his bus where my ass should have been all because I had gone to get a soda by myself. The funniest thing was my coach then called a 'team meeting' and loudly declared that the 'buddy-rule' was now in effect and that no one was suppose to go anywhere without a friend. In hindsight I don't really see what good the buddy-rule would have done in a situation like that except get two unsuspecting kids almost beat up instead of one.
The next year we had to go to that same high school for another 'away' match and everything went without incident until the ride home. Seniors were allowed to drive to the 'away' games instead of having to take the bus. I had driven my rusty old Ford Aerostar and promised to drive a few of teammates back home. As we were leaving the parking lot, I pulled out too far on the offramp from the parking lot to the main road. Due to the slope of the transition ramp, when I checked my rear view mirror all I could see was the clouds and the bright blue sky. I thought, 'all clear', threw the car into reverse and pressed on the throttle. All of a sudden we hear a loud crunching noise and the minivan heaves.
I check my rear view mirror again and I don't see anything so I then check my side view mirror. In my side view mirror I see a tiny door open and then see this MASSIVE 350lb guy step out of his little hatchback. His car literally lifted up as he stepped out of his car. My friend in the back seat then informs me that he see 3 more 'gangsta-looking' guys in the car that this grizzly bear came out from. All my friends slink down in their seats as far as they could and try to console me that they have "my back" if we have to throw down. This is not comforting seeing as how the combined weight of the four of us barely match the weight of the driver and that none of us had ever been in a fight before. I quickly made the 'sign of the cross' then stepped outside to meet my fate.
As soon as I stepped outside, the guy immediately asked me if I was ok. I was shocked by his concern for my well-being and stammered out some sounds to indicate that I was fine. He had been inspecting his car so I asked him if there was any damage to his car. He said that everything looked fine but then he then pointed to my rear bumper and said "yeah my cars fine but i think you f**ked up your bumper homes". I told him that the crack was ok and that I was glad that nothing was wrong with his car. He then smiled, got back in his car, and wished me a safe ride home. I waved goodbye to him and his "gangsta" friends and I got back in my car to see the astonished look on my friend's faces. We drove back home in shock and awkwardly joked that if things came down to a rumble we'd have easily taken those guys. Needless to say, I haven't made an effort to visited that area in 10 years since it happened and I probably won't test my fate again.
Looking for a Hardcore Fantasy Extraction Shooter? - Dark and Darker
I was driving home from school, enjoying the cancellation of my afternoon class on a beautiful fall day, and cruising a little faster than I should have been down a hilly country road. I popped up over a hill, and halfway down the other side was an old guy in a big truck getting ready to turn across my lane. I looked at him, he looked at me, and then he turned anyway. Luckily I had just watched a show about stunt driving the night before, and the driver's advice was still fresh in my mind: I turned into the truck to avoid bouncing into oncoming traffic, aimed for a wheel, and relaxed my body. I had braked, but hit the guy still going about 50 mph. I hit the rear half of his truck so hard the rear axle broke off and ended up in the ditch a few feet from the truck. It wasn't until after things had calmed down that I realized that not only was this thing a flatbed F-350 that would have decapitated me had I hit it in the middle, but it was carrying a 300-gallon plastic fuel tank on top. Full.
Amazingly, neither of us was seriously injured; he was unhurt and I ended up with a fractured wrist and some moderate burns, both from the airbag going off. The farmer he was delivering fuel to (Alfalfa Dave, a local vegetable seller) ran outside with the phone in his hand, and asked "How many people were involved?" He relayed to the dispatcher that there were two of us, and then asked the most important question of all: "Pepsi or Coke?" He ran into the house and came out with three Cokes, and hung out with us while we waited for the authorities to show up. He even thanked us for demolishing his picnic table, as he wanted a new one but his wife wouldn't allow it until he sold the old one (which was why it was at the roadside).
So yeah, a wreck that by most accounts should have killed me netted me a free Coke and a good story, and the insurance company bought me my beloved Subaru.
Last summer, lightning struck the garage of my boyfriend's house and wiped out two TVs, a computer, a bunch of electrical outlets, and the electrical system of the car in the driveway. It also knocked down part of the ceiling, and fucked up the driveway and part of the backyard. Later we discovered that the lightning had gone directly through a can of fuel in the garage, which luckily was completely empty and bone dry. His brother, grandma, and dog were all home at the time, and if that can had been full....
Travelling at a healthy 55/60 mph I notice a tractor pull into the road a good distance in front of me. 'Thats fine' I think to myself, 'I'll pop out and round him and away, hes barely moving' so I move into the opposite lane of traffic to overtake.
I got to the rear wheel of the tractor when I noticed a 4x4 coming towards me
'Balls, this is the end of me then' I think to myself as my life flashes before my eyes, but I manage to pull into the normal traffic lane, missing both the 4x4 and the tractor by about 3 or 4 inches. As I pulled away I also noticed that I had forgotten to do up the chinstrap on my helmet, so if I had crashed I would have come to an extremely messy and headless end.
I'm just waiting for death to catch up with me now
Exactly.
So, for a little while back in high school, I had an (unofficial) job on weekends--I would go with my father to the hospital where he worked and sort a huge stack of X-ray charts for him. It was fairly easy work and the (unofficial) pay was good (also, I guess it let him work on patients vs. filing crap away). We'd do this on Saturday mornings, so I would come in with him at 8 and leave around 3.
One weekend, we came in and there was a man arguing at the front door with a couple of ER doctors; they were explaining that there was nothing they could have done, and he was not having it. After he left, my father found out that the man's father had been brought in after collapsing. The cause was a massive aortic aneurysm; anyone familiar with the condition knows that if it's not caught before it ruptures, it's more or less over. So the doctors were certainly telling the truth.
Now, here's the hospital layout.
Everything is wide-open visible to each other, the reception desks can see into the hallway.
That particular week, I was slow with the filing and my father had a lot of patients. Finally, at about 5 minutes to 5pm his replacement was there and we were ready to go. As we went into the parking lot, I noticed a white car pulling in and the same man from that morning getting out. He was in the process of opening his trunk as we left.
On our way home, he then proceeded to enter the hospital and go on a shooting spree in the ER, killing two doctors. He then went across the way and shot the person who had replaced my father.
Eventually, the guy was found holed up in a hotel and offed himself.
So...yes. Close call.
Games: Ad Astra Per Phalla | Choose Your Own Phalla
This camp was amazing. There we learned marksmanship and archery, horsemanship, working with leather (I still have a belt that I made when I was 13) as well as rappelling and white water rafting. Then, after those activities we'd all get together and play a massive game of capture the flag or animals (Where there'd be a couple predators and a fuckton of prey - the predators had a certain amount of time to wipe out the predators) among other games that encourage boys to tackle each other at full speed.
Anyway, predictably this story takes place when I went white water rafting. I'd gone before, same river, same guides. I was fifteen, so this was my third trip down the Red Deer river. Only this year there was massive runoff and the river was flooded. It was nothing at all like my previous two trip. Calm areas were now boiling gauntlets. What used to be intense rapids were now glassy calm.
For the most part.
Near the end of the trip there is a rapid called the double edge. Two massive flat rocks lay angled up out of the river, creating a double haystack. After the second rock is a massive hole in the river, creating a fifteen foot waterfall and subsequent wave. It is the most intense and exciting part of the trip and I eagerly anticipate going through it every time. But with the flooding the double edge is a monster. A greedy, ravenous, roaring monster of a rapid.
But we're going to run it anyway.
The rafts we were riding on were twelve man rafts, large and self-bailing. With 12 bodies in it it's buoyancy still holds it right on top of the water as if there was nothing in it. I only say this so that you realize that over 1500 pounds of guides and teenagers have virtually no effect on this raft.
So there we are, barreling downstream towards the double edge. I can already hear it, a deep crashing sound of furious water. The raft is moving fast, the rafters paddling only just enough to keep it on course. The front of the raft lifts as we move over the first rock, then bounces as we hit the second. The hole opens up in front of us and my heart slams into my throat as we drop.
Fifteen foot vertical drop - it feels like being on a roller coaster as it accelerates. An impact and a jerking sensation rocks the raft as we hit bottom and straighten out. Every time before, the raft has enough forward momentum to simply punch through the wave and continue downstream but not this time. This time the sheer forces at work stop us dead.
It is like nothing I've ever experienced before. Frothing water completely surrounding me, surrounding the raft, holding it immobile. I can see the mouths of the people around me working as they yell or scream but no sound is heard. Nothing can be heard over the roar of the water. The only direction that isn't a wall of white and green is straight up and it feels like we're miles beneath the surface. Then suddenly the raft kicks and the bends in half. Snapping back, it moves forward, loosened and now being pushed by the force of water that held it in place. I am sent plunging into the water, buried beneath the monster.
I look up and can see the raft above me. Sunlight creates shafts in the water, illuminating the kicking forms of rafters who have already surfaced. I am moving faster than they are. I am still at the bottom of the river, carried by current, unable to surface.
The next thing I remember is surfacing a couple hundred meters in front of the raft. I don't know how long I was under water for, only that I was the last one up. I swim to shore and collapse on the sopping wet grass. My entire body begins to shake. I can feel the adrenaline leaving my system as I calm down. As the raft approaches I struggle back in and help everyone pull the raft to shore.
It is the closest to death I have ever been and the most alive I have ever felt. That is the single most significant memory of my life.
When I was hit by a car, I was damned lucky my skull didn't crack and brain matter wasn't splattered on the road.
If anyone wants a story, I can poast it here. I think I have it saved. Grammar's not good on it.
It wasn't unusual for us to be out there on our own. And being young boys, we'd occasionally try something that was less than wise. One day, we decided to use the metal railing (for the ladder in the deep end) to do handstand-flips into the pool. We'd run up, put our hands on the rail, then flip end-over-end into the pool. One time, I didn't let go soon enough, and I rammed my head onto the concrete edge of the pool, falling into the water after that. As soon as my head hit that concrete, I thought "this is it, I'm gonna lose consciousness, my brother can't get me out of the pool, and I'm dying." Luckily I DIDN'T lose consciousness, and just had a sore noggin for a few hours.