How Close have you come to Dying?

[klmmicro]

Life-flash events? A bunch...cross country off road motorcycle racing has been the cause of most of them. Nature of it all it would seem. Best was sliding off the road and over a cliff. Seems like it took an hour to fall 20 feet. Bike landed next to me and not on me.

Suffered pneumonia in my 30's and was in really bad shape. Lost 27 pounds and was down for a month. Towards the middle, pretty sure was not going to make it. Did not have the energy to really argue, so just came to a point of accepting possible fatality.

A few military events brought life into stark relief.

I sometimes wonder how many close calls zip by that we are completely unaware of. Missing a fatal car accident by a few inches or catching our footing at the top of a flight of stairs. Things we brush off and forget a few seconds after, or things we do not see at all.

[DeepFrz]

Not me but the pilot was a friend. You judge on how close they came.

The first picture was his passenger. The third is the pilot. Not a scratch but SAR dropped in with body bags.

[captainbri]

Ive been run over 3 seperate times by cars. I had a bad car accident where my car was hit and almost went over a bridge on to the hiway below.

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[SaucySailoress]

Summer 1998, doing my AFFX (Advanced FreeFall Accelerated), Jump #12 - wearing a medium sized Zeagle harness, which felt too big compared to smalls I had been wearing previously.

Pull the cord at about 5,000ft. Harness slips, sends me into a spin.

One, hundred, two hundred, three hundred, four hundred, five hundred, oh **** haven't slowed down yet. Look up, twisted. Drill - cut away and release reserve. Brain - I already spun out once doing that, if the reserve does the same, I'm ****ed. So I spin out, chute opens, I slow down. Matter of seconds, sorted.

Land safely. Instructor yells at me for pulling too late. I explain what happened. Instructor yells for not having cut away. Fuuuuck - a girl just can't win. I'm alive, but jump #13 was a little nerve wracking.

Summer 2010. Come off horse. Chip spine, which shreds spleen, which bleeds out. Wake up in ICU (with a massive haematoma) to Philippina nurses crying. ANd I mean wailing their eyes out. I tell ém not to worry, I'm alive, it's all OK. "But MICHAEL JACKSON died!" They wail. Oh well. I survived that one too (minus a kidney).

Chief Doc warns me off horse riding, skydiving, motor bike riding and kick boxing, and tells me to stick to sailing, since at least boats are predictable. I give him the look. "Well, more predictable than horses", he explains!

[DeepFrz]

I was in a car accident. Woke up with my head on the floor and my body was wrapped around the steering wheel. Car was lying on the driver's side.Couldn't breathe and remember thinking this is it and gave in. Next thing I remember was walking out the windshield opening. Had a broken ankle, a few small cuts and bruises that didn't start hurting until after the adrenaline wore off. And I did damage to my lower back that has troubled me through life. When they lifted the car up the engine and transmission dropped out. It was an older Volkswagen with the rear air cooled engine.

[Svdestiny]

Originally Posted by socaldmax

When I was 8 yrs old, growing up in Chula Vista, I was sitting on a block wall on our property that faced an alley. A guy about 20 yrs old or so broke a bottle and held it to my throat, demanding money. I didn't have any, and told him so. After a few tense seconds, he let me go and took off. It seemed like a lot longer.

When I was 12 yrs old, in Key West, FL, I was jumped in the locker room by 3 "brothers" right when a race riot started. Missed my jugular by 1/4", according to the doctor who put in 9 stitches. My mom said if I had bled any more in her car she would have killed me at the side of the road. LOL

At around 20 or 21 yrs old, I became obsessed with road racing and would practice on tight, remote mountain roads. I was averaging about 1.5 -2x the speed limit. Twice I lost control and stopped with 1 tire hanging off of a cliff. It took a few seconds to regain my composure...

At 22, I was forced off the fwy at about 65 mph and ended up flipping my VW bug about 5 or 6 times before it finally stopped. All windows were shattered, everything inside the car was scattered all over the road. Everyone who witnessed it was amazed that I got out of that without a scratch, they thought I was dead for sure.

Twice in the Navy, on my first sub. First time the helmsman miscalculated his angle and speed while diving to test depth and the boat, especially the bow compartment exceeded test depth - by a lot. We heard horrendous noises from the HY-80 pressure hull and most of us thought the next noise was going to be an immediate implosion. The Chief of the Watch's hands were white knuckled on the chicken switches (emergency blow) but the Diving Officer never gave the order. Instead, he increased bell and ordered an up angle and we drove to the surface, a lot slower than anyone liked.

The second time we experienced a short between the DC shore power cables, which no one even knew we had. All circuit breakers - DC and AC tripped, which also scrammed the nuclear reactor. We were very deep, with no power, no emergency lighting, all electrical power was lost. With triple redundant systems, that's theoretically impossible. We used hydraulics and pneumatics to maintain rudder and planes control and emergency blew to the surface. We reset the DC breakers, started the diesel with air and flashed the TGs, while the nukes restarted the reactor, possibly the fastest reactor start in naval history. We had lost air conditioning, so everyone was down to their shorts and t-shirts, all crypto was lost. We surfaced and started contacting COMSUBPAC and CINCPACFLT on open HF comms, which raised some eyebrows, that's for sure!! LOL

Within a couple of hours, everything was running, all systems restored, crypto loaded, SitReps transmitted. When we returned to port, a full scale investigation began as to how we shorted the DC shore power cables and why all of the breakers tripped. Some engineer calculated how much power was stored in the battery and told us we were extremely lucky to have survived, since the battery should have exploded, with the force of a small tactical nuke. We should have all been fish food. Fortunately it wouldn't have set off the real nukes onboard, which would have been a really interesting "training operations" story for the Navy's PR dept. to spin out. LOL

whoa, very vivid submarine stories. keep em coming, maybe start a sub thread? and thank you for your service

[Andrew B.]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

Too many times to count. So what's for dinner?

Thanks. I was attempting to count mine until I read your post.

Originally Posted by amytom

But for the grace of God...

Amen !

Every time I have visited the Vietnam memorial (The Wall) in Washington,D.C. I still can't believe my name isn't carved on it.

Thanks for the memories...

[7yrsorless]

I drowned twice in my teens in the ocean (body surfing big waves and then ended up getting pulled under..both times). Both times I came to while people where doing mouth to mouth on me and both time I made myself get back in the ocean since there's no place I love more..Plus last year one of my lungs collapsed when I had phnemonia and it was touch and go then. But honestly it all just makes me appreciate living even more.

[weavis]

Originally Posted by Andrew B.

Every time I have visited the Vietnam memorial (The Wall) in Washington,D.C. I still can't believe my name isn't carved on it.

Whats the correct spelling of your name and I will check for you......

[Andrew B.]

Originally Posted by weavis

Whats the correct spelling of your name and I will check for you......

B. L u c k y

and the Best of British to you...

[roverhi]

Twice flying in the Navy but I got $150 a month flight pay for that. Surfed down the bow wave of a container ship that obviously wasn't keeping a lookout.

[belizesailor]

Interesting that almost none of these replies involve sailboats.

Same for me, have never felt like I was about to die aboard a sailboat.

[klmmicro]

Originally Posted by belizesailor

Interesting that almost none of these replies involve sailboats.

Same for me, have never felt like I was about to die aboard a sailboat.

While I have had experiences that would be considered "hair-raising", the fear that my untimely demise was imminent on the boat has not come in to play. There are surely things that could have gone wrong that would be potentially fatal, none have attained that level of intensity.

[Kevin84]

Same as StuM. Bout a 1/2". Thickness of my vest which stopped 3 rounds from an AK-47. Outside of combat, nearly got thrown overboard when I put my boat on a sandbar.

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[Kevin84]

Forgot one. Had a sniper take a pot shot at me. If I hadn't turned when I did, my brains would have been scattered all over Afghanistan. Bullet probably missed me by a 1/4" or so.

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