What was your closest brush with death?

[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?

[rlmorel]

I did have another experience when I was about nine. Back in the sixties, my family lived in Yokosuka Japan, and the terrain was honeycombed with lots of tunnels from WWII. Even though they had been sealed, kids can be inventive, and my brother and I figured out how to get into one of those tunnels.

My dad had a large battery you could sling over your shoulder, and a handheld spotlight you could plug into it. It was brighter than hell. So we went into this tunnel, and closed how we got in so nobody could notice we were in there.

We explored really far into this tunnel, and weren’t really keeping track of the twists and turns, but I suppose we could have figured it out on the return.

So here we are, deep into this tunnel, and all of a sudden my brother drops the spotlight and it goes out.

And it doesn’t come back on. We sat there for about ten minutes in the pitch black, completely and totally blind trying to figure out why the light wouldn’t come on. I distinctly remember my panic level beginning to rise when the light didn’t come back on immediately.

We didn’t have a backup light, and we didn’t even have any matches. I remember my heart starting to pound, as the panic began to rise in our speech, the realization of the situation we had put ourselves in.

Eventually, we realized the problem wasn’t with the light, but with the cigarette lighter power connecter on the shoulder slung battery. We had to pull it out and reseat it a few times, and eventually the light came on.

We both knew that we would have never been found in time. I suppose some kind of huge search of the base would have taken place, but we were sneaky enough going in and covering our tracks we might have sealed our own fate.

[The Cajun]

I saw my field of view begin to shrink, just like they say in textbooks. It was like my peripheral vision was going black....

Very true on that, almost tunnel vision.
Was working on a piece of equipment *hot* when the ground/return opened up.
Power circuit was being completed through me by the heat gun I was holding in the other hand.
Walked back away from the workbench until the heat gun unplugged breaking the circuit.
Could NOT let go of either the equipment or heat gun.

Good learning experience about just relying on one ground when working on something hot. :)

[SovereignVA]

I have a tiny scar on my upper arm from the time my brother dropped an eight-foot 2x8 from his treehouse twenty feet up. I was standing underneath the tree talking to Mom, and the plank just barely scraped me.

[al baby]

I stayed at a Holiday inn once

[Our man in washington]

Ruptured appendix—probably was ruptured for two days when my then-girlfriend convinced me I should see a doctor. Close call.

Incidentally, my then-girlfriend took care of me as I got back to health. Shortly after that, I decided she should no longer be my girlfriend. Or rather, not just my girlfriend.

We’ve been married for seven wonderful years.

[driftdiver]

I followed the instructions of a cop in the underground SAC HQ when they accidentally set off the alarm on the missile code safe. Another cop almost proved the ‘use of deadly force authorized’ status with his 12 ga.

[redangus]

Driving home to Indianapolis on I70 in 1983 in my Dodge Colt. I pulled out to pass a semi, my guess is he didn’t see me. He pulled into the left lane and ran me off the road at 70mph. As I drove in the median I was quickly approaching a bridge abutment. He must have spotted me because he pulled back into the right lane which allowed me to pull back on the pavement just short of the bridge. At the time I was totally focused on the task at hand, but when we got my wife and I couldn’t do anything except look at each other in disbelief before we could even start talking about it.

[contrarian]

Republic of Viet Nam, flight engineer of CH-47 helicopter on mission to recover shot-down Huey gunship. Took a burst through the Aft Main Transmission and went down. 6 and 1/2 hours later in firefight while rescue came and got me and the rest of the crew. Company was having our wake when we got back because they had been told we went down no survivors. Yeah, I can’t believe I did that. I have utmost respect for all the current military who have to labor under the purvey of the marxist...God Bless America anyway.

[gfbtbb]

Now that sucked.
Mine was three idiots topside with a trencher looking for a cable way and found the PTO line instead. We all got a dose of N2O4 at about 3PPM. A hard rain falling was the only thing that saved any of us.

[piytar]

Also, regulator went out when scuba diving. At 110 feet. Octopus didn’t work so well either (rented gear).

[ctdonath2]

Been there done that.

Open heart surgery.

Long ago I took a CPR course. Instructor was adamant: your heart stops, you’re dead. Period. Oh, between CPR and intracardiac adrenaline shots they might be able to bring you back from the dead, but heart stops = dead. That stuck with me.

I knew my bicuspid aortic valve (congenital heart defect, incomplete leaky valve) would some day need replacing. Visiting a new cardiologist, he inspected me quietly, too quietly, too long, asked “do you have any other symptoms?” “Uh...no...generally feel fine...” “You need a pacemaker. Now. And a new valve while we’re in there.” A month later he admitted wondering why I was still alive. The deteriorating valve had all but knocked out half the “circuitry” in my heart, and those last remaining nerve cells were about to go - taking me with them.

10 days later (not an easy process to arrange on short notice) I was in the OR, my wife of 5 years waiting outside, 3 month old daughter not knowing. “Mrs. D? Your husband is doing fine. They’re stopping his heart now.”

Yes, I was on artificial cardiac & respiration ... but my heart was stopped, and for a rather long time (hour or so), and remember the CPR instructor’s words. Near death experience? Depending on how you squint at it, I’ve been dead.

I’ve always been a calm person. Now, more so. When you’ve been dead, not much else seems important enough to get uptight about.

[mrsmith]

Fell asleep driving across Alligator Alley, woke up to see an oncoming car right in front of me.
Don’t know how I woke or how it missed us.

[gfbtbb]

Obviously you made the right choice in women.

[Pan_Yan]

Couple of times on a sub. One time during a scram recovery the generator governor clanked on line just as the battery counter rolled to zero. In another there was a problem with the depth sensor. We pulled out of a steep dive at a full bell less than the length of the boat from the bottom. There were a few more.

[Carriage Hill]

Walking out of a high-end restaurant in upscale West Palm Bch, with my fiancee, and being robbed and shot by two junkies lying in wait for an ambush. Being in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Still carry the .32cal next to my spine, inside left hip:

[Steely Tom]

I was driving home after dark one night, a long dark road. Suddenly this voice inside my head told me I was about to die. I wasn’t afraid, didn’t panic, but I did slow down. When I reached the point around a curve that dropped sharply toward the river, a car was speeding across a two-lane bridge in my lane passing slow cars. If I’d not slowed down when I heard that “small still voice” I would have been close, or on, that bridge and probably would have met that car head on in my lane.

Your story reminds me very much of an experience I had when I was in my early 20s, a very inexperienced driver. I had my first car.

I was driving in the winter, very cold and windy, but daytime. Ahead of me was a phenomenon I had never seen before: a white-out. Big open field to the left side of the road, strong wind blowing left-to-right. A solid wall of white in front of me. I'm driving toward this wall, thinking "hmm, look at that, I wonder what I should do?"

So I drive into the wall, and I'm immediately surrounded by a snowstorm. I take my foot off the gas, but I'm still going pretty fast.

At that moment, I swear, I hear breaking glass. I mean, like when you drop a glass bottle on the floor. I had the radio on and the heater turned up all the way. That sound was definitely coming from inside my head.

So I begin to apply the brakes as hard as I dare to. Sure enough, about five seconds later, I see dark shadows in front... it's a big, multi-car collision. Smashed cars pointing in every direction.

I don't think it was really a near-death experience though. No one was hurt, let alone killed. It was kind of a multi-car fender-bender.

Although if I had plowed into it at 40 mph, it could have been a near-death experience for someone else, I suppose.

[gov_bean_ counter]

Swallowed a leaf when I was but a wee one. Lodged in my throat. Coughed it up in the hospital.

[rlmorel]

LOL...I feel completely silly after reading some of these stories, but...I guess you can get yourself killed just as dead being a stupid, careless or unlucky civilian as you can being in a military helicopter spiraling towards a hostile LZ.

Thanks for your service, FRiend. Glad you made it...:)

[Freestate316]

Several come to mind-3 car accidents, drug overdoses, a scaffold collapse, and a near drowning.One I will never forget: in 1982 I was living in Loma Linda, California. I had applied for the graveyard shift at the two Circle Ks in town. I got hired at the one store. The next day, the manager of the other store called me and offered me the job. I told him that the other store had just hired me. About a month later, a county deputy came in around 2 AM looking pretty shaken up. I asked him if he was ok. He told me he had just come from the other store. There had been a robbery, and the clerk had been executed.

[IrishPennant]

Svetlana....’nuff said.