[–] Fairle 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Wow, I have a lot of these. Haha. I guess I tell the scariest one.
I don't remember my exact age, but I was small. Probably around 8 or 9. My family used to be big into tubing and we went to a river where a wall had been built with a small opening on the side that tubers could ride down like a small water ride. It spat you out pretty roughly onto the other side (which was pretty deep, maybe 10 feet or so). Nothing about it was particularly dangerous...unless your were tiny and got caught underneath the undertow (that's probably not the correct term, the current coming from the opening was extremely strong and went all the way to the other side of the river).
I had never tubed alone before, always in someone's lap, so I begged my mother to allow me to go by myself. I was given a tube that in hindsight had been to big and too thin to really hold me in, so right as I hit the bottom of the slide I flipped and was pushed to the bottom of the river. I remember hitting my head on rocks and blacking out. When I came to, the undertow had me pinned down and I felt like I was doing somersaults. I tried swimming but that only made me lose my bearing of what was up or down and I kept crashing into rocks on to bottom of the river. I remember my only thoughts being "I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die" like a page of script on a screen. I relaxed and eventually could tell I was floating up. I bumped my head against something soft, then a hand grabbed the back of my suit and hoisted me up. I had come up underneath some random guy and I could hear my mother on the other side screaming and screaming. The guy held onto me until a cousin who had dove in swam up to us, grabbed me and took me to shore.
It must have not phased me all that much since I never tubed in anyone's lap again after that.
[–] Reow [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
I tried swimming but that only made me lose my bearing of what was up or down and I kept crashing into rocks on to bottom of the river.
This was one of the things I really remember / relate to, from when I almost drowned in the ocean after being caught in a rip. As I was swimming back to shore, I had waves crash on me and push me under, and I felt like I was in one of those front-load washing machines (being somersaulted repeatedly). When it first happened, I tried to swim to the surface and found I was swimming to the seabed instead. After that when it happened again, I just held my breath, relaxed, and went with it. That also sucked somewhat, because there was an undercurrent and I got dragged out more. I was eventually lucky enough to get a series of clean breaks and learn when to exert effort and when not to.
[–] UncontrollableSphere 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
Mine was an everyday sort of thing.
Was out shopping. Jaywalked through stopped traffic on one side of the road, and only looked in the oncoming direction on the other side. Turns out a guy was going 80kph in the wrong lane and missed me by an inch or two. The only reason he didn't hit me is because another car saw him coming and slammed on the horn, and that stopped me in my tracks.
Now I look both ways, all the time.
[–] verificationist 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
I've never been too close to death. But I was once robbed in broad daylight in a street full of people. The robber was quite intimidating and unsettling, especially because he seemed not to care if he had to stab me in front of everyone. He was also extremely psychologically perceptive, in the uncanny sort of way.
[–] airbreather02 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago (edited ago)
Years ago I used to work as a delivery driver. I drove a full sized van delivering auto parts. One morning I was on my usual route, I'm on the inside lane of a four lane road. A car coming very fast in the other direction did a fast lane change, lost control and hit me head on. Both vehicles were totalled, the driver of the other car went through the windshield (no seatbelt). He lived and was convicted of dangerous driving, was an 18 year old playing rally racer with his dad's car. I had cuts, bruises, whiplash etc. The seatbelt saved my life. The police estimated an 85 mph combined speed of impact.
I also used to work as a faller (cutting down trees). I was working cutting down a bunch of trees. There was a hinged fir snag (a dead tree, with the trunk broken but still attached part way up) in the opening I was knocking down these other trees. You always have an escape route, which is opposite the tree's direction of fall and away at an angle in case the trunk comes straight back. When I started to fall the snag it fell 180 degrees the opposite way I intended it to fall. I dropped my saw and ran in the direction of my intended escape route. As the snag was fall the rest of the trunk broke free of the hinge and came down and hit me in the back of the head and neck.
I didn't know where I was for 10-15 minutes. I drove myself about 25 miles back to town to the hospital. The local doctor and x-ray tech at the hospital (in my small town) said it was just "soft tissue" injury. Two weeks later I got a letter in the mail to go the medical clinic to discuss the results of my x-rays, that were sent to the specialist in the meantime. It turned out my neck (C6) was broken in two places. So I was literally walking around with a broken neck for two weeks without knowing it. I actually went back to work the next day after this tree had fallen on me even though I could barely move my neck. Pretty stupid (and lucky) in hindsight.
[–] airbreather02 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
You are so right, I am very fortunate. It's a reminder of how precious life is, and how can it can be over in a second.
[–] [deleted] 1 point 1 point 2 points (+2|-1) ago (edited ago)
[–] Reow [S] 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
FYI - I'm pretty agnostic, but I'd say there is more than likely a God after all the shit I've been through.
I'm similar to this myself - I don't believe in a god, per se, and I'm not superstitious, but I feel like with the number of times I've survived death I must have a guardian angel or destiny or something.
[–] Samyaza 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
On mobile so sorry for the format. I got 3 stories. The first one is one my parents tell me. When I was 2 I would try to eat random thing. Well I decided to eat change, for what reason I don't know, but a couple of quarters turned sideways and blocked my air passage. My mom found me unresponsive and started to give me CPR as my dad called the ambulance. I regained consciousness in the ambulance. No idea if I stopped breathing or not. Second time was because of a good allergy I randomly developed. I had been a sickly child allergic the practically everything. But after years of allergy shots I was able to be a normal kid. Well one day me and my family were out eating at a seafood restaurant. I ordered my favorite food which was shellfish, shrimp to be exact. Turns out I randomly developed a shrimp and my throat closed up rather quickly. I passed out a woke up in the hospital. Apparently I stopped breathing for a little bit. Last story. I was in the back of a friends car cruising around at night down some back country roads. We had been getting high and decided it would be nice. Well a deer ran in front of the car. My friend swerved to miss it and as he did so his axle broke. We ended up rolling a good distance a d down a hill into a field. We were beaten and bruised but could still walk around. We looked at where we landed and if we had gone a for more we would have landed on some thick metal posts. Fun times.