Posted on 07/06/2013 7:15:44 PM PDT by MNDude
It seems almost everyone has a story of how they almost drowned, almost drove off a cliff, or narrowly dodged a bullet. What is your story of the closest you came to dying?
Similar story:
I was working on an amateur radio amplifier back in 1992. Unplugged it from the 220v power source but forgot to discharge the high voltage capacitors before working on it.
Took the covers off of it and reached inside to start cleaning up a blown (up) capacitor that made a big mess inside the amplifier.
My arm barely touched one of the coils in the amplifier. I remember my entire body "seizing up" then waking up some time later across the room with a bump on my head and a hole in the plaster (yes, plaster!) where my head hit and went through to the plaster lathing.
That's pretty much all I remember about the entire incident, although I think I did see a white flash. Not sure, but think I did.
Fast forward to today: I have yet another amateur radio amplifier (2,000 Watts) sitting on the bench that needs some work. It's been unplugged for two days now with the power switch turned on to drain the caps. I think I'll wait another day or two before reaching in and ..........
Living with a brain tumor that was impinging on my carotid arteries and optic nerves.
Is there a video of this whole experience?
Me?
Pffttt !!!!!
You.
You’re the survivor.
Xo
you and my son :)
God was truly sitting on my should that night, saving me for something else... After I got out of the hospital, I went to Tamiami Gun Shop and bought a '74 Colt Trooper MK III .357 Magnum. Still have it in pristine condition, in my Cannon Dbl-Door Gunsafe.
OK, one more. Learned to ride at 41 years old. First time riding down a +35 mph road, in fact a 60 mph one, a rock carrying truck going the other way hits a bump. A rock about 1” in diameter pops out and slams me in the center of my forehead. Combined speed of that rock? About 100 mph.
If I hadn’t had my helmet on, I’d have been killed. As it was, almost knocked me of my ride.
Forgot that one. LOL.
1). Plane crash Alaska 1979
2). Heart Attack 12/08/2004 (Had to shock me back)
3). anaphylaxis shock - emt’s said I had a pulse of “30 over nuthin’ (08/17/2005) Nurse said I was 2 seconds from death...
4). Staph infection wrapped at base of spine. (Dec 2005-Feb 2006). I wasn’t supposed to live thru that one (per Doctor)
5). I don’t really count this one but it makes for great story-telling. Tornado hit home 03/02/2011 - damage minimal....however had another heart attack that day.
1. 5 years old, I was running around the corner of the house chasing my sister when our dog jumped in front of me. I tripped over him and flew forehead first into a short concrete wall topped with slate. I lost a large percentage of my blood as I lay there waiting for the ambulance, maybe thirty or forty minutes. My parents told me the EMTs had said not to bother driving so fast to the hospital. My mother said otherwise.
2. In my early 20's I'd some root canal work done followed by a prescription of Darvon. I went out of town that weekend to party. Me, a couple of Darvon and a fifth of vodka, no mixer. Sometime that evening I just stopped cold, I wasn't feeling sick but really pretty good, but felt compelled to vomit everything out of my stomach. I finished puking in the hotel hallway, put the bottle on the floor and went to bed. Looking back I'm convinced had I not vomited I would have gone to sleep with a lethal dose.
3. maybe in another thread
Biggest laugh I’ve ever had on FR...
That actually happened to my little brother: he was chasing his little brother with murder in his eyes and, as he ran past mom…
The other day I was thinking of just what I’ve been through in the past six years. UGH. A LOT. but i just don’t think about it much. Except for my son, I do think about him.
Thanks Vendome. May we both always be survivors.
Was lucky, had an engine fail in an airplane (not pilot error), and was able to find an airport! Didn’t have time to be scared.
After reading through all these posts, I have concluded that we are a bunch of very lucky SOB’s!
My brushes pale, but they include things like having the whooping cough as a wee lad, having an errant driver run a stop sign in front of my motorcycle with me barely missing the front bumper as my bike laid down, skidded across the intersection and up over the curb. And then there was the time when I hit a cow in an early ‘80’s Camaro....dead cow, totaled car and me with a few scratches.
Marksmanship Qualification.
The Security Forces Armorer gave me a dangerously filthy weapon.
I fired a few rounds and my weapon made a very strange sound.
I ran may standard clearing procedures twice but it still failed to function.
The CATMs official checked it out and handed it back but it still wouldn’t work.
Another CATMs guy checked it out, stopped for a moment and looked through the barrel. It was blocked with a bullet that failed to clear the muzzle. They cleared the obstruction and handed it back.
I heard one say to the other that is should have fired. The other said if it had fired it would have taken my face off.
I don’t know what God has in mind for me; but, apparently I’ll still need a face.
So my brother is getting ready to take a strapping from my Mom.
She tells him to bend over and before he does, he turns to my Mom and flashing a grin says “You know, it could be worse”
“How?” my Mom asks
“I could be pregnant and it would be terrible for you to have a 16 year old son with a child on the way. What would people say?”
My Mom laughed so hard, the kind where you lose all sensation in your hands and she dropped the strap, still laughing and all of us right with her.
Everytime any if us looked at each other during dinner we’d just laugh.
Too funny.
Some awesome stories, especially from our FRiends who served. Thanks for starting this thread.
Given many of these stories, I really do believe there is no way some of us would be here except for God’s grace.
Did she fill your room with goats?
Drowned in a river once. Passed through the thrashing/body panic stage, lungs started to fill. Started to relax and total calm came over me.I had enough momentum to finally break surface and gasped just enough air into my lungs to not die or lose consciousness. Purging water out of your lungs hurts like the dickens. Thankfully- the family didn’t see it happen and I never told them until many years later, else I’d have been banned from the river- which was the only thing to do anywhere near there in the summertime.
Had a bypass on an emergency basis. Had it within 24 hours of being diagnosed with heart disease. They couldn’t start my heart again and almost gave up on me. Had a pulmonary edema on waking up, so— drowning again. LOL!
Just two that leap to mind. Oh yeah- mask failure at Combat Engineer school at Lejeune with a ridiculous over-concentration of CS in a sea hut. There were 6 or 8 tabs going on burners and several CS grenades hissing away in buckets. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face and only a dim glow from the sunlight outside visible from 4 feet inside the door. The mechanism that allows you to exhale through the M-17 mask but closes to force the inhalation through the filters failed. Got out and away, lungs froze completely for several minutes. Some other guys saw me on the ground and dragged me away by my deuce gear.
I completed the infil course graduation exercise that night.
Oh yeah-104 degree fever (Cat Scratch fever) for a week. Finally *walked* to the hospital in 100 degree heat wave. Wasn’t thinking too clearly at that point.
35 miles an hour downhill standing on the pedals of a ten-speed when I was in high school. Something locked up the bike- I never found out what. Flew more than ten feet and landed solidly on my head on the pavement. There was this awful interval where there was no pain, but I knew it was coming. And then it did. Neighbor who was a nurse saw it happen and got me home. Wasn’t taken to the hospital, I was just told not to go to sleep for a while.
There are more- not sure I want to remember them anymore- LOL!
I guess that by that point they figure they have too much invested in us. Thank G-d for the sunken costs fallacy!
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