[M_Six]

Too many to count. But the one that scared me the most was in an OH-58 Kiowa (scout helicopter) coming in for refueling at a temporary fuel depot at some National Guard site in Texas. The pilot came in a bit hot and tried to pull too much power to get us stopped. The low rotor RPM alert sounded and we started sinking fast and heading right at a 5000 gallon fuel bladder, maybe 5ft off the ground. The pilot nosed it over and got us moving forward into cleaner air and was just able to clear the bladder and pull up for a go around. Death by fire is my greatest fear and I thought that was going to be it.

When I was a kid I was walking across a huge field with scrub brush about my height all around me. I kept hearing a firecracker-like noise off in the distance and then very loud bees buzzing by my head. I couldn't figure out what it was. Then as I passed behind a boulder I saw some glass bottles on the boulder shatter right when I heard the bees again. That's when it dawned on me that it was bullets flying by that I heard. Needless to say, I hightailed it out of there.

[ddk632]

Definitely some good ones.

My one and only story where I know had I not lucked out with good reflexes, I would have been boiled to death.

I did a photography trip to Iceland in 2008, for about 10 days. Last day, I had returned my rental car and rental cell phone, and headed up to do some more shooting and then dip into an Icelandic hot spring with a temporary car rental from the place where I was staying. This hot spring was one that a tour guide had showed me as "where the locals go".

It was 3am and light enough to read without a flash light (long days in summer in Iceland, but still plenty freezing cold all around). This place was an hour's drive outside of Reykjavik (the only major city where there would be a proper hospital). My temporary rental car for the night was a stick shift.

I parked the car and hiked about 40 minutes to the hot spring. Tested the water temp, it was like a jacuzzi. Not scolding hot. Problem is, the steamed mud floor underneath is extremely hot. Unfortunately an earthquake in the area 2 days prior had softened up the ground, which I didn't realize (obviously) at the time.

As I stepped in, my weight broke through the mud causing my leg to fall through the mud floor of the hot spring up to almost my knee. I had an instant grab and climb out reaction, so I was in there for maybe 1 second (I really have no idea, it was all very surreal as it happened!).

If I had gone in any deeper and/or would not have grabbed on to be able to pull myself out, I would never have been able to climb out. I was by myself and no one was around to help. In short, I would certainly have literally boiled myself to death if not for that first split second reaction.

Within minutes, my skin started bubbling up on my entire lower left leg, parts of my right foot, and on my hands where I pushed off the floor and sides of the hot spring to get out.

I had to hop on one foot the 40 minute hike back to my car and then, in agonizing pain on my LEFT leg, got to the car and realized ... It's a f*%king stick shift. I had burned my clutch leg! My leg was burning up badly with skin coming off, and every shift was painful as hell on the one hour drive to Reykjavik.

In order to cool off, I would open the car door (while driving like 60mph) and stick my leg out, then after a few minutes the entire car and my whole body (except the leg) would be freezing. So I would close the door, warm up, then the pain and burning of the leg came back within a minute or so .... Kept this up the entire drive back.

Of course I didn't know where the hospital was, and it was probably near 5am by this time. As I got into the city, there were a few cars on the road.

So imagine this: you're an Icelander driving to work, and some guy catches up, with his door open, leg sticking out, yelling something at you in English, with a horrified look on his face! The first car, the driver just gave me a crazed look and took off!

I finally flagged a guy down who realized I was in real pain, and he had me follow him to the hospital. On the way, I get pulled over by a cop, because I am driving with my door open and leg sticking out, occasionwlly screaming obscenities...

I explained what happened, and the cop says, ok leave your car here, I will take you to the hospital in my police car. So I get in the back, and am still in agonizing pain, so I am opening the back door of the police car to cool my leg off!!! The cop kept saying, "do you have to do that? We are almost there!" To which I responded, "you have NO IDEA how much this hurts, man!"

Lucky for me the hospital in Iceland had a dedicated burn unit, and knew how to treat the injury. I had second degree burns on my left foot (bottom and top), most of left leg up to the knee, right foot and hands. Apparently 2nd degree can be more painful than 3rd degree because the nerve endings don't get destroyed, thus you feel all of the pain. I don't with it on anyone to experience, ever.

This was my last night in Iceland before an international flight home the next day. I almost got kept in the hospital but they cleared me to go and fly home. With tons of morphine in my body and some pain killers for the ride home.

Best part is once home I made an appointment at the burn center in Miami, but not for a few days due to their schedule. I ran out of pain killers and drank a whole bottle of vodka with my buddy to ease the pain. Explained to the docs all this, and in my official injury report, it states "self-medicated with Vodka".

...

Amazingly I didn't require any skin grafts, was healed up pretty quickly, and today you would never know by looking at my leg that this ever happened.

Moral of the story. Don't go to a hot spring after an earthquake!

[CJ421]

Great stories.

In my old Subaru, accelerating up a hill; didn't realize how fast I was going. The car crested the hill and started skidding off towards a telephone pole, somehow I saved it.

Spun on the track in my 335 going 80mph, just missed a tire wall.

Skiing - too many times to count, many involved jumping into the air and getting too close to [big] trees. I wear a helmet all the time.

Getting my mom a vacuum cleaner for Mother's day.

[Uber V8]

DK632 Wow, funny and interesting story there. I'm still picturing someone driving with a foot out the door while cursing hahaha

Originally Posted by CJ421

In my old Subaru, accelerating up a hill; didn't realize how fast I was going. The car crested the hill and started skidding off towards a telephone pole, somehow I saved it.

Spun on the track in my 335 going 80mph, just missed a tire wall.

Skiing - too many times to count, many involved jumping into the air and getting too close to [big] trees. I wear a helmet all the time.

Getting my mom a vacuum cleaner for Mother's day.

Guess it wasn't a Dyson?

[ddk632]

Originally Posted by FwdFtl

DK632 Wow, funny and interesting story there. I'm still picturing someone driving with a foot out the door while cursing hahaha

Haha, yeah it's funny when I tell the story... It wasn't funny at the time, although I was joking around and in good spirits once I got to the hospital and begged for extra morphine!

[Templar]

Bombs over Baghdad. Quite literally.

[Inspired]

You guys got some pretty good stories. I feel like a outcast since I never had any life threatening moments.

The only time I can remember is when I was a kid and played basketball, someone elbowed me right on the throat while grabbing a rebound and I couldn't breathe for a minute.

Another time in Hawaii, I was parasailing and my harness got loose. I was slowly slipping out and had to held on. I would of fell 50 feet into the water.

[F1Venom]

When I was five, I choked on three BB gun pellets but I coughed them up.

Last year, I was coming out of a covered garage in the downtown area and was ready to turn left to head home (had to cross oncoming traffic first before I could get to the median and then my lane). Well the problem was that the exit was at around a 20 degree angle and there were cars parked all the way down the side of the street so my view of any incoming traffic was null. It was dark too and the cars would come in waves so I tried listening for when they'd pass by (I even got out of the car to check). As soon as I figured they were stopped at a light, I decided to gun it. Of course I knew that there could've been a random car that was just by itself but I decided to risk it as I had no other options. Well just as my luck went, a GMC SUV was maybe four cars away from where I was when I mashed the gas pedal and I was perhaps half a second away from being t-boned. I don't know how, but he must've braked in time and my 2005 Cadillac CTS-V must've been just fast enough where we evaded each other.

All I saw when emerging was his lights and I heard his horn. In my mind I literally saw my life flash before my eyes but I managed to just gun it and escape alive. I was pretty shook up on the way home and the sudden rush of adrenaline was nuts.
Here's the Exit and as you can see these stupid parking meters allow cars to park there and block the view of incoming traffic.

[CJ421]

Originally Posted by FwdFtl

Guess it wasn't a Dyson?

Nope, an Oreck lol

Still working to my knowledge.

[dreamingat30fps]

About 2 years ago was at Lake Tahoe for a friends wedding. My buddies decided to rent some jet skies. It was in like the 50s outside (which might as well be -10 for me) and who knows how cold the water was but felt like ice hitting your face. Anyways we are out there for a while and then I decide to let one of my buddies ride with me since his time was up. Anyways freaking guy is doing who knows what back there and we take a spill. As soon as I hit that water I could not breathe. It was like all the air was sucked out of me. I was trying to swim towards the jet ski but I felt like i was drowning even though I wasnt underwater (we had life vests). Anyways I finally somehow make it back and get on the damn thing and so does my buddy. At this point I thought I almost died. I'm just sitting there trying to recoupe and bam we fall in again.

All this happened out of sight of the people on shore including the jet ski rental people so we were pretty much sol. Ok so it wasn't Deadliest Catch, but might as well have been for me!

[stimpy]

Few years back I was at the bar with my buddy and my ex (gf at the time) and while my buddy and I were paying the tab my ex went out to have a smoke. When my buddy and I walked out we saw some thugs (Mexican by nationality) trying to get my ex to leave with them. She told them no and walked away.

Ex and I get in my car and pull out of the bar and the first light we hit is red. I'm shootin the shit with my ex who's in the passenger seat about what just happened and then someone says something to me so I look to my left and those thugs pulled up in the car next to me and one has a gun pointing at my head maybe a foot away.

I freeze (red light, traffic going across me) he says some stuff I don't remember and they drive off.

Still gives me shivers to this day.

[bosstones]

Hmmm...

1. I've been hit by two cars as a kid (actually...I hit one of them when I was on my bike....went flying over the hood and into another car).

2. At summer camp, we were throwing left over food cans into the bonfire we built at night. Watching flaming pears and other suger-laden canned fruit fly in the air was funny.....until the next morning and we saw what the commercial version of shrapnel can do to things. I've surprised none of us were hit by anything other than the contents of a can of creamed mushroom.

3. In college, I was able to competitively hang with everyone up to 240lbs when sparring (I was ~ 180). The next person up in weight was 295lbs so I said 'why not?'. The guy wrestled his whole life and could shoot in FAST. I think we were in a clinch and he took a single but we slipped on the mat and I ended up on the back of my head/neck and he fell on me. There was a loud snap. I proceeded to choke him out due to his momentary pause.

4. When Seymour died (re: Jurassic Bark).

[Echo M3]

Some great stories, all. That Iceland story particularly made my skin crawl - burn wounds are horrendous.

Here's my contribution - I posted this a few years back.

"Had a pretty terrifying moment today. While out on a drive , I pulled over to pick up something from a friend's house. The road in front of his house is somewhat steep, and I didn't want to shut the engine off for a 30 second errand, so I put the car in neutral and pulled the handbrake up.

I got out of the car, and started walking towards his door, when all hell broke loose. I heard a tire noise, and when I looked behind, my car was rolling back down the hill. I sprinted as hard as I could, and by some miracle managed to get to the driver's side, open the door, and jab my foot on the brake. Let me tell you guys, there's nothing quite like flying down a hill at 20 miles an hour with your weight hanging on the door frame.

When I got the car stopped, I took a peek, and confirmed that the handbrake was in fact in the 'up and locked' position, and the handbrake light was on.

Cheers"

EDIT: One detail I left out at the time - my friend's road was alongside a ravine. If I hadn't hit the brakes in time, the car (with my body attached) would have flown over the side at the next bend into a river, 40-50 feet below. I can't believe how idiotic I was at the time - I could have easily injured myself or worse.

[E90Mario]

Unfortunately more times than I have fingers. Mostly in 2005 when the politician assassinations and car bombings started to happen in Lebanon. The infamous Rafiq Hariri assassination was less than half a mile from my highschool, everything shook the sky was filled with black smoke. The attempted assassination of Marwan Hamadeh (family friend, and politician) was a few hundred feet of where I was playing soccer separated by a wall.

The 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War in Lebanon was a crazy experience since we had to evacuate the city to go up to the mountains while the airport runway and all bridges were being struck by israeli planes.



The most action i've had since I moved back to the States is Walmart on black friday

[E39lolz]

On the boat ride coming over to Miami from Cuba

[amanda hor$t]

most recently was about a week ago. thought i had appendicitis, was on the couch for over a day. then it went away.

[Mr Tonka]

Not really close to dying, but had a few scrapes.

Was shot at from some punks trying to get into a gang. Had 2 bullet holes in my car on a sunday afternoon on the main road going through the city. We were running from a car full of guys hitting about 100mph when the bullets hit the car. Car immediatly started to stumble when the bullets hit and we thought we were done. Then i realized we were in 4th gear bouncing off of rev limiter. Put it in 5th and started pulling away....

Was mtn biking in Gainesville FL for the day. Was in the woods and came across this drop that went nearly straight down for about 12' and ramped out a little bit only to drop straight down for another 12' - 15'. My buddies quickly checked out of the challenge. I on the other hand was riding around the top of that drop chanting that pain was only temporary. Finally found the balls to go and went down flawlessly. To my dismay my buddies didn't see it happen and nor did they believe me. So.... i went up to do it again. I mean if i did it once i can do it again right?.?.? Don't know what actually went wrong but the guys said my bike landed flat on it's side with my right foot still in the pedal. Left thigh landed on an above ground root. The left side of the bars went 8" into the ground and my chest missed landing on them by less than an inch. The right side of the bars actually ended up between my right arm and chest. Right thigh landed on the frame of the bike. Thought i had deflated my lungs and broke my femur. It was a flat pancake landing and the impact of my thigh on the root broke the skin. Didn't ride anymore that day. Long painful ride home. Back of my knee was black and purple the next day due to hyper extension. Still have a lump on my thigh where the root hit. This was 20 years ago.

[Arben72]

I've had probably to many close encounters. I missed a head on collision by about a meter with a clk both going 80 miles per hour. I've had a gang of 30-40 people try to block me in a dead end of a road with concrete and wooden barriers in some shit country I'm currently in. I've also been on the wrong side of a gun twice.

[pgviper]

I wouldn't say that this was a near death experience but it was a sequence of events that would have most likely ended in one.

Anyway, I go to visit family every year on Gozo and usually we go on a boat trip with a bunch of friends around the island and have a bbq. Always a great day! Anyway my friends and I are always looking for new dive sites (free diving, I go down no more than 30-35 feet) or cliff jumps that are usually not accessible by foot. For lunch time we went to this cove

http://www.gozodive.com/wp-content/u...80205_0009.jpg

If you swim out of the cove towards the ocean there is a famous dive spot called cathedral cave. Its essentially a massive cathedral only accessible via an underwater tunnel. Its about 15-20 feet long and at its deepest only about 10 feet deep.

http://aphs.worldnomads.com/dannygoe...hedralcave.jpg

Usuallly its just my friends and I that go but this time my dad decides to come. He usually doesn't like it when we do stupid shit so I guess he had a bit of an inkling that we were about to. We swim out towards the ocean (pretty choppy) with just masks and flippers (500-600m swim) and we get to the entrance of the cave. Now I have gone actual scuba diving in this cave before so I have an idea of how long it is but nobody else has. We swim to the bottom (approx 25 ft down) to just take a look at the distance and everything looks doable however at this point I start to feel a crackle in my ear for some reason, I say f**k it. My dad on the other hand starts calling us idiots and freaking out saying that there is too much of a current blah blah blah. In the end only one of us goes in, takes a look and comes back out. I'm competitive so I want to but don't really care because I have already been in there. We swim back to the boat. When back at the boat, my next dive down, only about 10 feet down, I do a flip/twist for camera and I perforate my eardrum.

If you have never perforated your eardrum, at this point you have absolutely 0 sense of balance. I'm only about 10 ft down but can't tell which way is up/down/left/right etc... Instinct says to follow the bubbles which I do to make it to the surface again. Next hardest part was making it to the boat and climbing the ladder. It seemed like forever because climbing a ladder with a perforated eardrum is close to impossible. All youc an do is hold on as tight as possible and just focus on where to place your feet/hands because you have no sense of balance.

Cliffnotes: went to go free diving through an underwater tunnel. Ear problem. Ended up not doing it. Very next dive down for the hell of it, perforated ear drum. If this were to happen in middle of water, away from boat and in tunnel or cave, I most likely would have drowned.

[canukgtp]

Wow some pretty crazy stories, makes my life seem kinda dull hahaha...

The only one I've got is while racing sailboats a couple summers ago, bent down to pick something up and the girl who was at the wheel wasn't paying attention to the wind, had an accidental jibe and the boom nearly took my head off...it hurt for 2 weeks!

If I had been standing up straight it would have snapped my neck, good thing I have a hard head lol!

[Mr Tonka]

This wasn't me but a friends horrible experience. It's a crazy story, so i have to tell it.

A few my friend (John) and his cousin (Chris) and his cousins friend (Dave) were 75 miles off the gulf coast free diving some large fish.

Chris was down for a little bit and John was getting in the water to begin his dive. As he did he passed Chris at about 15 ft from the surface. When John got to a depth of about 60 ft he stopped to have a look around. When he did a spear gun drifted past him. Surprised, he looked above him. To his horror he saw Chris at a depth of 40 ft or so drifting away from him quickly. He began to swim after him but there was no way he would catch him.

So thinking he was already dead and certainly would be if no one could get to him he did the only thing he could. He aimed his spear gun at his cousin and fired thinking if nothing else his family would have a body to bury. He saw that he hit Chris so he dropped his weights and spear gun and headed for the surface.

When he surfaced he yelled to Dave to start reeling in his gun that Chris was on it. Dave couldn't figure that out in his head and unfortunately he didn't start reeling in the gun until John was at the boat. Once Chris got to the surface they pulled him onboard. He was wearing a white rash guard which was immediately shades of red and pink due to him bleeding out of his eyes, ears and nose. They started doing CPR on him and trying to revive him.

Miraculously, he showed signs of life. Dave had already radioed the coastguard who dispatched a helicopter immediately. They then began headed towards the Coastguard base to meet the helicopter. He was in and out headed towards shore but never was able to speak or acknowledge anyone on the boat.

After what must have seemed like an eternity, they saw the Coastguard chopper and moved Chris to the bow of the boat. The chopper picked him up and took him to the nearest trauma center.

This kid was a victim of shallow water black out and was under water with no air other than what was in his lungs for upwards of 5 minutes before he blacked out with what couldn't have been more than 10 ft to get to the surface. After his black out he was under water for an estimated 5 to 6 minutes. Another 25 to 30 minutes before the they got him on the chopper. And as to him being speared, John's spear hit him in of his fins!

2 days later, in the hospital he was asking when he can get back into the water. He suffered no lasting effects from the accident.

[Uber V8]

^^ Sounds like a miracle! Glad he didn't have any brain damage my goodness.

One part I don't get and may never understand, is the people that go back to the same thing that nearly killed them.

Guy gets mauled by shark and leg bitten off, goes back to ocean with one leg and get other leg bitten off!