What's the closest you've come to death?

#41

I almost drowned in a lake when I was a kid. I couldn’t swim and fell off an inflatable matress (no idea what’s it called in english), mostly because my sister flipped it over, but my dad pulled me out.

I’ve also had a couple of close calls on my bike. Though I’ve got nothing on my friend who actually got hit by the E.R. (ambulance) van in a junction in front of my eyes. When we saw he was fine we laughed our asses off. The best part is, the van didn’t even stop. In the drivers defence, it did look more like my friend planted himself in the side of the van, not the other way around.

#42

Inflatable raft :slight_smile:

Haha, nor are most of the things in this thread. Falling, being near a car, the things that are bound to happen along 75+ life expectancies. [COLOR=‘Gray’](I like mine, because the saving was not an attempt of mine to stay alive, and I was within a pre-preschooler’s inhale of getting lungs full of water.)
Mister 2-Meter Skullplant, though, was pretty fortunate to land at a fair angle.

I’m going to tell another.
At seventeen, my father, a neighbour’s son of similar age, and I, were fixing a fence knocked down by a hurricane. We set a few new posts in concrete, to replace those that snapped, and righted the existing fence.
While resurrecting this fence, there was an instance where I had to brace a post…my father had to support a horizontal beam…and the neighbour was tasked with using a sledgehammer to ram this beam into place with an existing fence. It was a tight fit.
Now, it wasn’t actually a sledgehammer, but the sledge end of a full-size maul (whose other end is an axehead).

So, supporting this beam, obviously angled toward the hammering to prevent it from moving back, there was an instance where the hammerer missed the end of the wooden beam. The maul rushed ferociously toward my helpless crotch - - the unluckiest geometry. At the last moment, a sledgehammer’s head actually contacting my pants, the hammering neighbour managed to cancel the maul’s force, and kept its Newtons from ramming my apples. [COLOR=‘Black’]Physics joke!!!

This wasn’t actually close to killing me, but it was close to rendering me incapable of reproduction, and without the ability to reproduce, natural selection dictates I may as well be dead.

#43

I defy death everyday by simply continuing to live until the next day.

#44

The closest I’ve come is probably when the branch I was standing on while climbing a tree as a kid broke. Luckily I was able to grab another branch.
Not really a very exciting tale :frowning:

#45

Right after birth I tried to choke myself with my own umbilical cord.

Today I sometimes come into dangerous situations when exploring some abandonded factories, houses etc. to take fotos. Especially wooden floors become very unstable over the years, and it happened several times the floor collapsed under my feet. Last year I was exploring an old mansion in middle west germany and about a month later a pal from that city told me the building collapsed and three people were burried.

Oh, and it’s often a real adventure to drive on the Autobahn. Many people turn into crazies when entering it and especially eastern european truckers seem to hate my car and always want to crash into me, with high speed of course.

#46

I like to exaggerate, but for fun I’m gonna assemble the less terrifying vehicle stories out-of-context. Then you can see if any of them fit the ticket :slight_smile:

:wink:

#47

Most of the time’s I almost died had to do with water, but swiming is stil one of my favorite things to do.

One time (I don’t remember this, but my mom, step father, and gradparents say it happened) when I was like 1 or 2, We were visity=ing my grandparents, who had one of those cement pools that are in the ground (I dunno what they’re called exactly, if anything other than a pool), and I was walking around it, and fell in.

Another time when I was like, 10 I think, me, my brothers, and best friend, were at a lake. I walked out into it, and after about 5 feet, it just dropped, and I was pulled under about 30 feet. it took me about a minute to resurface (which was alot, especially since at the time I couldn’t hold my breath for more than 45 second) because I was weak and the water was very strong. When I finally crawled out, coughing, my friend and brother rushed over to me, and one was like, “I saw you go under but i thought you were playin’ around!”.

About a year later I was visiting my grandparents again (who lived at the same house still) and me and a friend were swimming. I accidently swallowed some water under water and resurfaced to breath. As soon as I took a huge breath through my nose, said friend jumped off the water slide and accidently landed on me, causing a hell of a lot of water to go up my nose, and him landing on my head made me black out for about 10 seconds. I came up, walked outside the gated off pool area, puked, washed my nose off, and dove back into the pool.

I was in a car accident a few years ago. All i really remember from that was the image of a pickup truck, seatbelts, and my feet being cold from the hospital floor.
I was one time at a skatepark and was on a half-pipe. I lost my balance on the way up, went up about 10 feet above the top of the half-pipe (whcih was about 20 feet above ground, so around 35-40 feet high total, came back down, landed on my back, (which to my surprise only snapped my favorite finger on my left hand) and my skateboard came down, the nose/tail came down and missed my face by about 6 inches, causing the wood in the half-pipe to depress by an inch. If that were my skull, I would have died of internal bleeding in my brain cavity (I think that’s what it’s called.)

I was in the middle of a drive-by outside my apartment complex when I was 9 and almost hit. We moved the next week.
After moving from those apartments, we were gonna go back to get our other car but decided against it as it was running like crap anyway. Someone apparently reported it stolen and they found a bomb in it.

Ahhh… Life…

#48

My friend said I couldn’t fit a whole hand grenade in my mouth.

He also let me take out the pin so it was easier.

#49

this one time i almost fell off the swing at school

#50

And I said I was as strong as Superman so my friend shot me in the eye.

#51

Well that was stupid.

#52

when I was 5 I’ve put a marble ball inside my mouth and when I got up it slipped into my throat, it was stuck there for about 15 minutes, I still don’t know how I managed to survive for that long, I still remember when my mom rushed me into a nearby clinic and I still remember how I kept passing out from minute to a minute and hearing the doctors saying that if they didn’t slit my neck and actually do a quick operation I’ll Die, I’ve kept vomiting blood from both my mouth and nose, and thanks to a neighbor after many attempts of getting the ball out he succeeded, and I think that ball has damaged my throat and to this day I still have minor “throat-pain” from time to time.

#53

Nah man, you’ve gotta ditch the spoon too for maximum symmetry.

#54

As kids, my cousin and me often went playing in the woods around our hometown, which happens to be one of the major, if not the largest, military bases in Lower Saxony, the small town (20000 people) surrounded by 5 major barracks and featuring a famous tank museum and a military science facility.

On the outskirts of the town, no matter what direction you take, you come near or even across military training grounds. Time and again the fences which are meant to keep civilians out get damaged by the local wildlife.

My cousin and I used to find it adventurous to find holes in the fences, disregarding the “restricted area - live firing!” signs and go search the training grounds for unused training ammunition that we took home with us to make fireworks out of them. Yes, we WERE that stupid. One day, we unknowingly entered an area that was marked for artillery target practice.
We were busy searching the grass for assault rifle cartridges when we heard a distant “boom!” and then the cracking sound of an artillery shell closing in. It hit the ground about 100 meters from us, the deafening noise and shockwave scaring us shitless!

We ran without pause all the way back to his home (which was closest, but still about 1km away) and hid in the cellar for nearly an hour, trying to recover from the shock.

Today, it makes me tremble remembering that practically, we had been running around a minefield full of unexploded shells and playing with ammunition that could have got us killed or disfigured thousands of times. One false move would have been sufficient.

#55

I got shot with a .22 rifle

The round hit me on the right side of the head, right where your eyebrow starts. We had to dig the lead round out of my head. If it hit me a few centimeters lower, it would have torn threw my eye and bounced around inside my head, causing all sorts of damage. At the very LEAST i would have been blind in one eye, but the range wasn’t all that far and had enough power to wedge itself in my bone! Haha, lucky are what eh!?

#56

I would consider you VERY lucky to be honest…

#57

That explains the derp-girl, thunder… I’m sorry I mocked you before, I didn’t know it was that serious.

#58

Anyone else get the feeling that every post Danson does is a story of his life?

#59

I havent got any near death experiences… Yet. But actually one of my friends got driven over by a lawnmover. He got away from it with a scar covering the whole back of his right leg… Ouch

#60

That’s a lie.

He also posts about relevant stuff such as sex, boobs, porn and chicks.

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