What is the closest you have come to death?

[AngryAmish]

Tell us your death-defying moments. 107 fever? In the middle of an old school Bloods v. Crips shootout in the 80s?

Me, I ran in front of a train when I was in junior high. I was crossing the tracks because I was late for dinner. It was about twenty feet away going 50 mph or so. I jumped out of the way as he blew the horn.

Missed me by about 5 feet.

How about you?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

1. Smashed my head against a windshield, in the shotgun seat. Head-on collision. No seatbelt.

It was that kind of glass that has a layer of plastic in the middle and deforms. (What's it called?) If it was tempered glass, my head would be the deformed one instead of the glass.

[DS1]

7. Yes, I passed an accident the other day where the shotgun passenger

must have also been not wearing a seatbelt. You could easily make out their right forearm and wrist joint pushing the glass out

[SeattleGirl]

2. Almost died three times before I was 3 months old, from a staph

infection. Was in the hospital, in isolation. My parents couldn't touch me with their bare hands. They had to get dressed head to toe in hospital gear, and wear gloves to touch me at all.

I must be a tough bird, because 51 years later, I'm still here.

[HuskerDU]

3. My mom saved my life!

I had a butterscotch in my mouth and was running around the store- the candy got stuck in my wind passage and I couldn't breath. She performed the hymlic manuver (sorry about the horrible spelling) and after 3 tries the candy shot out and I was saved.

Don't run around with hard candy in your mouth kids!

[driver8]

37. I almost choked on a butterscotch, also! My cousin and I were

watching cartoons and I had a butterscotch in my mouth. I started to laugh at something on television and sucked the candy right into my wind passage. My Mom managed to dislodge the candy and saved me.

That was pretty scary. I also got a jaw breaker stuck in my windpipe while I was the only person at home. I bent over and somehow managed to pop the damn thing out. That was the last time I ever ate a jaw breaker.

[laylah]

4. Giving birth

to my first one. Hemorrhaged, lost 5 units of blood. I remember Doc telling the (then) husband I wasn't going to make it. Of course, me being me, I thought "You are NOT the boss of me!". All joking aside, it was pretty scary.

[MrScorpio]

5. I've down 3 360's in my lifetime

1980 I-94 Detroit Mi

1984 Guadalupe St Austin Tx

1996 E-40 Belgium


All three times I narrowing avoided collision

All three times I did a 3 point turn and drove away

[1gobluedem]

6. Large brain tumor

But I had no symptoms except a hearing loss so I ignored it for awhile. Turns out that even though this kind of tumor is benign, if they aren't removed they will continue to grow, eventually choking off the blood supply to the brain and killing you. The size mine was I should have been having seizures, blackouts, and headaches but I wasn't. The doctor told me that if I'd waited until I had those symptoms it would've been too late.

As it was I was in surgery for 11.5 hours and they still didn't get it all but it's now surrounded by scar tissue and can't grow anymore. My hearing and balance nerves were removed too as well as my whole inner ear structure. The only thing they could save was the balance nerve.

It beats being dead though.

[Rambis]

8. I was between Amy Winehouse and a beer once

whew!
Now I am off to fish in the great state of MN so flame me all you want as I will not be around to respond!
Cheers!

[Broken_Hero]

9. fell out of a car, going 50+mph...I was

4yrs old......

My best friends exwife, cutting into traffic in Anchorage, during the xmas rush, we almost got creamed by a big red SUV...we were in a little grey cavalier.....she didn't even know/see that red SUV...My heart jumped out of my chest, and slapped me in the eyeballz(I don't know how she didn't see it)...I never was in the same car with her again...ever.

[SteppingRazor]

10. Oh jeez. What a laundry list I'd have to make.

Between my ridiculously self-destructive behavior over a large portion of my life and my uncanny ability to be in precisely the wrong place at exactly the wrong time, I've dodged more bullets than Sgt. York.

[Broken_Hero]

15. ......................

Ha, spill the beans!

:hide: :hi:

[Connonym]

11. asthma attack brought on by diesel fumes

I was in the hospital for three days. Not being able to breathe is pretty scary.

[QMPMom]

12. Giving birth. Twice. I do not handle delivering babies very well.

Both were c-sections - one an emergency, the next a planned one.

I was knocked out cold for the first one and four days later they told me how close I came to making our newborn daughter a half-orphan.

With the second one, our son, I was wide awake with an epidural and heard the obstetrician and anesthesiologist arguing over whether I was going to the ICU after the delivery was over. I knew it was bad but truly didn't know how bad until later, in the recovery room, when the anesthesiologist came in and gave me a big smacking kiss on the lips and told me how beautiful I looked laying there. Alive. They didn't end up sending me to the ICU.

We wanted four children, but, with the horrible childbirth experiences I had, the OB said, "NO MORE!"

[fudge stripe cookays]

13. Two years ago...

I had a ruptured chocolate ovary (an endometrial condition). I had all this crap that had backed up from my girlie parts, wrapped around my ovary, choked it off, and then burst.

The pain was horrific. But as is common to my family, I didn't want to overreact. I figured it was just gas.

We finally went to the emergency room when I began vomiting. They did lots of tests and told me there were definite irregularities in there, and mentioned the C word. When they went in to do the laparoscopy, they found all the nastiness and just took the ovary out. The doctor told me if I'd waited much longer there would have been REAL problems (infection, etc).

[flvegan]

14. 40 mph sideways into a telephone pole in my Mustang

My side of the car. Hit right at the windshield pillar. 6 more inches aft, it'd split the car (and me) in half.

I walked away. Bleeding, but walking.

[mulsh]

16. two weeks ago, blood pressuer 285/210

unable to breathe. called the paramedics & got whisked to the hospital where the blood pressure again was 285/210, diognosed with congenital heart failure. strange thing that happened is that when I closed my eyes and started meditation my blood pressure lowered way down to a safer 165-140/120-80 range in a matter of minutes. one of the ER docs noticed this and started asking what meds I'd been given. just nitro from the emt's I spoke up and told him I was doing a meditation trick I learned when I was 16, I am 50. he came to my room the next day and I showed him how I did it.

2 emts told me they though I was about to die before we left my house. the head er doc also mentioned to me the following day that I came very near to diein the ER. I'm much better now.

the closest I came to dieing before this was when I was 16 & broke 5 vertebrae, fractured my skull in 3 places and cracked some ribs in an auto accident. that's when I learned the meditation technique to quickly calm myself. helped with my recover. probably help me this time too.

[grace0418]

21. Good grief. I'm glad you're okay.

I sure would like to know that meditation trick. Is it something you can describe?

[The Straight Story]

17. When GD was down today, nearly died laughing at the lounge threads

:)

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

18. Swam Out In The Ocean In February In An Attempt To Commit Suicide.

The plan was to keep swimming until I couldn't swim any further, thereby not being able to make it back to shore and drowning. I was committed and prepared for that.

Problem is, as committed as I was, I couldn't override the cold. It was so painful. So cold.

So cold to the degree that all the thoughts of strength and necessity as to why I was doing what I was doing ceased. They were completely overridden not by fear, but literally by an immediate mental demand of "Holy fuck it's cold. Get me outta here!". And that's just what my mind did. Though I actually had swam out a good bit, I started swimming back to shore as fast as I could to get the fuck out of the cold. Again, not out of fear, as I was committed to doing what I set out to do, but out of sheer hatred of the cold. Then I went back in my car (which I was living in at the time) and just sat there, warming up yet reflecting. At that moment, a strength overcame me that I had never before felt. In fact, I had a new voice in my head. An inner guide. A voice of sheer strength and objectivity. It is with me to this day and all prior to that day is almost a blur. It's like I had a complete mental awakening. I even remember sitting in the car, freezing, mentally penning a poem in regards to my new found strength. I cannot recall it all anymore, but I will always remember the opening line. It was: "I swear that I will never forget the power of my mind. To know that I'm a step ahead; to know I'm one of a kind".

Though I wasn't overly injured (though cold like no cold before) I still consider it the closest I came to death because after all the mental preparations I had made, never did I think that the cold itself could so easily override all other mental function. I wasn't supposed to be back at shore. I was supposed to cease to exist that very night. Weird thing is, in a way the old me did cease to exist that night. Kinda weird. Ahhhh well, it's all good.

Oh, and the other closest would be when I fractured my skull on the rocks of a fishing pier after having slipped. Man, if ya coulda seen the blood shootin out of my head LOL


(Edited because I put December when it was in February. Not sure why I typed December lol)

[grace0418]

22. Holy cats. Thank maude for the cold.

And thank maude you got back safe. :hug:

[MrCoffee]

19. 2 .38 slugs in the fence about a foot and a half away from my face

i was working in the kitchen of a restaurant, and a couple of guys got thrown out of the bar. after the place closed, i was taking out the trash, and they came around the back of the building and shot at me.

[zanne]

20. Heart attack and bypass surgery.

At the age of 38, I was visiting my husband who had just had major back surgery in the local hospital when I had excruciating pain in my back. I went to the ER and found out I had had a heart attack. A week later I had bypass surgery (Six bypasses). I was a walking time bomb and I had no idea. Then my husband and I were both out of work for at least six months and had to declare bankruptcy. Ah, memories.

[Critters2]

23. Viral pneumonia in first grade

Stopped breathing once, had to be resuscitated. Another time (same bout with pneumonia), fever spiked, went into delirium and convulsions. I missed a half a year of school, but pulled through.

[NMDemDist2]

24. almost stroked out detoxing from alcohol

at 8 days sober my blood pressure was 235/185

I am very very lucky I didn't have a stroke and die or swallow my tongue during one of the convulsions

then there was the time I got caught in a recirculating pool whitewater rafting

and the other time I slipped and cracked my head on a rock doing a portage but luckily had my helmet on so I only saw stars instead of knocking myself out and ending up downstream drowned

all in all, I've been pretty lucky or had an angel on my shoulder O8)

PS, take this as a public service announcement, if you have been drinking heavily for years, don't try to quit cold turkey without consulting your doctor

[SPKrazy]

25. I had some high fevers

dozed off at the wheel after an all night drinking thing

I came out of an alcohol induced blackout driving the wrong way down a 4 lane highway

I had a perforated esophagus from having it dilated and spent a few days in the hospital, the doc said he almost killed me.

Good thing for demerol 'cause i didn't remember much of that stay

dunno what else at the moment

[bicentennial_baby]

26. Face into windshield at 30 mph...No seatbelt

This was in '87. Riding home from school with Dad, girl rode out in front of our car on her bike. Dad's options were a) hit girl, b) go into oncoming traffic, c) drive into tree. He chose tree. Luckily I had my leg up on the dash, and a snapped femur saved me from death. Spent 6 weeks in traction. My Dad spent 4 months in hospital with two shattered legs, all ribs broken, face shattered, collapsed lung, etc.

And then, the little bitch tried to sue for nerve damage to her wrist :eyes:

[KitchenWitch]

27. Almost hemorrhaged to death after the birth of my daughter.

Funny thing is, my doctor would not let the hospital send me home when they thought my labor was not progressing. Had I been sent home, I would be ashes.

[Thirtieschild]

28. Age 11 - emergency appendectomy

Appendix already leaking, would have burst within the hour. Nurse told me I was going to die. This was 1946, the beginning of the baby boom, hospital so crowded the only bed was in the labor room. Woke up to women screaming.

[pokerfan]

29. Almost got squashed like a bug

Farming them hills can be dangerous.

Almost thirty years, I was home from college for the summer waiting for harvest where I can make some tuition money.

Well, a wheat fire breaks out over near my Dad's cousin's farm and we head over to help fight it.

My cousin had a water rig something like this:



Only imagine that it's 1978 and the truck is a fifty-something Ford.

My Dad is driving and I'm standing on the bed (driver's side) manning the hose. My back is to the water tank and I'm hosing down a perimeter as we soak an area in front of the fire.

We're climbing a hill that's not even all that steep and of course the Ford ain't running on all eight for whatever reason, and couldn't get up that hill. So my dad backs and turns to the left to get turned around. When we get sideways, the water in the tank sloshes to the downhill (right) side. One of the chains holding the tank breaks, right beside me and the tank shifts, pulling me off balance. I still remember looking to my right over the cab and seeing the world begin to turn.

The truck was beginning to roll! I had no time to step neatly off to the high side, it was happening too fast and I was too off balance. So I just jumped. That's the last thing I remember.

When I came to, my dad was calling for me. He was hoping to find me on the high side above the wreckage. Anyway, I'm about ten feet below the truck which is now upside down.

My dad and I meet up and he's bleeding from getting knocked around the inside of the cab. The truck had rolled one and a half times! Had it gone around once more instead of stopping where it did, it would have caught up to where I was laying unconscious.

Near as we could figure out, I must have jumped at just the right moment and the bed of the truck must have helped to fling me downhill we figured at least fifty feet!

I remember Dad asking me, "What's wrong with your arm?"

"Nothing," I replied.

"Then why are you holding it like that?"

That's when I realized my arm was broken, I was cradling it and that I was in shock.

My dad said that that incident gave him nightmares the rest of his life.

[Nikia]

30. My heart stopped beating for 20 seconds

When they were going to do a medical test on me. They had me hooked up to monitors. I got scared (as always) when they were about to put the needle in. Then my heart stopped beating. The technician ran to get the doctor. When the doctor felt for a pulse, the monitors showed a resume of heart beat. I did not go unconscious and I did not have an out of body experience. I wonder though if this has happened to me before. I have actually lost consciousness having blood taken.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

34. Walked past a steel streetlight pole seconds before it was knocked

down by a truck.

If I had been a couple of seconds slower, the streetlight pole would have landed on top of me. As it is, the top of it landed about ten feet behind me.

It took about half an hour to calm down after that. :scared:

[huskerlaw]

31. Almost got hit by a car

I was walking across a 6 lane road (in the crosswalk, with a walk sign) with a friend. It was a winter night, so it was pitch black aside from the street lights, and we were both wearing dark coats. A car turned the corner at a high rate of speed and I didn't see it coming. My friend did, thankfully, and she grabbed the back of my coat and pulled me away from the car.

The side view mirror left a nice bruise on my arm.

[Mutley]

32. I was nearly run off the road by a tractor trailer

whose driver was trying to careen across two lanes of traffic on I-95 just outside Baltimore. We were both driving about 80mph/128kph. Thank goodness for excellent brakes.

[IDemo]

33. diabetic coma for a week at the age of 5

[carly denise pt deux]

35. driving down the highway, forgot something at home, turned around to go back

about 10 seconds later and 1/8 of a mile down the highway, a girl driving at a high speed in a car decided to commit suicide, she hit a tanker full speed, it could have been me.

[stuntcat]

36. traumatic brain injury

near death/coma/months in hospitals..
Now I have a weird death obsession, well it's kinda a joke, but I do dream about a reaper sometimes I run after him and chase him away :headbang:

[driver8]

38. An electrical outlet blew up in front of me.

I was in college having a few beers with some friends at the campus bar. For some reason (I have never figured this out), they had electrical outlets in the floor. I had been leaning forward in my chair talking to a friend and as I leaned back, flames shot up about 4 feet in the air -- right where my face had just been. I don't know if someone had spilled something down the outlet or what...but it scared the shit out of me.

The bar manager came back and started yelling at me like I did something wrong. My friend stood up and let him have it, saying that we should sue his ass for negligence, etc...(typical drunk college student talk). The manager got so shook up that our drinks were free for the rest of the night!!

[Shine]

39. I'm a hospice volunteer, so I've been close to Death many times

but not specifically mine. :D

:hi:

actually, come to think of it, I was almost electrocuted once by water and electricity mixing. I was a college student, alone in our rental house, in the bathroom, when the sink faucet malfunctioned and I couldn't turn it off b/c I was getting shocks from the water. There was an electrical outlet right next to the sink and the water was shooting up and drenching it and it wasn't a good scene. I think I was pretty lucky.

[last_texas_dem]

40. Once, when driving home from a class

I drove my car off of the road to avoid getting crushed by an eighteen wheeler. It was in the right lane, I was in the left, and when it started moving over, the driver apparently hadn't seen me. My only option was to get crushed or get off the road. I ended up bailing out into the grassy meridian, but got within a few feet (probably five or six) of hitting a car on the other side of the highway, moving in the other direction. Eventually, I ended up spinning and became bogged down in the mud in the meridian. It wouldn't have been guaranteed death either way (getting hit by the eighteen wheeler or hitting the car on the other side of the highway head-on) but both cases would have been much closer to it than I would like to get!

[crim son]

41. I guess it was when I fell into a pool as a small child.

I've always been completely unable to swim and that time I sunk like a stone. My younger sister jumped in and saved my butt, bless her.

[DarkTirade]

45. I did that too once, but there was a lifeguard on duty with quick reflexes, so I just sank to the

bottom, looked around for a few seconds, then found myself being pulled back up to the surface. :) Not exactly a near-death experience.

[Xipe Totec]

42. Swept our to sea in a rip tide.

Had to claw my way back to shore along the rocky edge of the jetties in an angry sea. By the time I reached shore I was exhausted and using the last ounce of strength in my body.

I have never shared that incident with another human being face-to-face, not even my parents.

[pokerfan]

46. I hope you didn't fight the tide

but swam parallel to the shore instead.

[Xipe Totec]

50. Clawed my way along the jetties

until I reached the shore. Too weak to climb onto the rocks.

[Cabcere]

43. Not my own, but...

When I was 14, my dad suffered a massive pulmonary embolism that blocked off all of one lung and half of the other. :scared: To this day I can remember him lying at the top of the stairs, sweating rivers, gasping for breath and turning the most horrible purplish-gray color I have ever seen. The next day at school I was called to the office first thing in the morning...I thought my dad was gone, but it was just the secretary (who lived next door to us, and knew what had happened the night before) checking to see if I was OK. The doctors said my dad shouldn't have survived, but somehow he beat the odds, thank God. :hug: I couldn't even talk about the whole incident for about five years after the fact, and I still break out in a cold sweat when people talk about blood clots. :scared: It was not a fun time.

[DarkTirade]

44. Long story short... rainy season here in Florida. Rain coming down so hard that we couldn't see

more than a few feet in front of us. Three or four cars WITH THEIR LIGHTS OFF suddenly merged in front of us, going at least 20 or 30 miles slower than we were. We literally could not see them until we were only a few feet away. So the driver of the car I was in swerved and hit the brakes... causing us to do a 360 across the entire highway. From right lane all the way over to the median. Thankfully the SUV (that probably had three times our mass) in the lane next to us had better brakes and traction than we did, otherwise we'd have been roadkill.

[LaurenG]

47. I've had a few things come up.

They were all just spontaneous and weird, not one of those things you'd expect.

The day princess Diana died and actually at almost the exact same time, my husband and I were driving to Olympia Washington from Denver and had a weird accident.

We were talking about a sign that said we were crossing the 47th parallel (maybe it said 45th) in Idaho, near Glenn's Ferry, when we were suddenly driving on the median of the highway. I asked my husband the driver, how we got in the grassy median but he didn't know. We had slowed to around 45 mph (according to the police) when we were pulling back onto the road. The car suddenly acted as if it had been over corrected and flipped onto it's side and spun across the highway, still on it's side, over to the far side, hit a small bush, flipped over the bush, and landed on it's wheels.

When the police came they did all the measuring, checked our car for intoxicating substances, had the ambulance attendants check us out and called a tow truck.

The paramedics said we were fine and the police officer was amused as he told us how often people wreck at that stretch of road. They had no explanation for it, as most people aren't speeding, the road isn't winding or steep and the wind doesn't blow hard enough to push cars off the road.

We ended up having the two tires on the drivers re-inflated and the beads replaced and drove on to Oregon before stopping for the night.

I also went to the doctor for a backache in the early eighties and the nurse mistakenly gave me 30 mg of morphine instead of what was ordered. I was in the car heading to my mom's to rest when she came bolting across the parking lot and told my husband to come back inside. He came back quickly and sped me to the hospital. He told me as we were driving there that he had about 7 more minutes to get me to the hospital before I died. I started laughing as the drug was making me not care about the pain in my back or the seriousness of the condition. Obviously, he got me there in time.

[NewWaveChick1981]

48. Twice.

First time was a car accident (not my fault). We were broadsided by a driver who ran a stop sign. If she had not hit the door post between the front door and back door on the driver's side (my side) and instead hit the driver's door, I would have been toast. That would have happened if I had been driving just a little slower. :scared: As it was, I had soft tissue injuries to my shoulder, and my boyfriend (now my husband) had a rotator cuff tear in his right arm and developed carpal tunnel and radial tunnel syndromes from his injuries. The cop on the scene told us we were extremely lucky.

The other time was just last week. On my way to work, Moran Boy (had a Bush/Cheney '04 sticker on his bumper) darted out in front of me when there was nobody behind me at all. :grr: I had to slam on my brakes and missed his rear bumper by only a couple of inches. Oh, and HE was the one who honked at ME. :mad: If I had not been paying attention, that could have been horrible because I was going the speed limit (45 mph) and he was rapidly accelerating coming out of the side street.

[buddhamama]

49. the only experience i wish to speak of

is being hit by a car at the age nine.

[Burma Jones]

51. Whitewater Rafting on the New River

We hit a hydraulic, tipped over and the bail bucket wrapped around my ankle and dragged me under the boat while my head bounced against the rocks in the river........

Beginning Rapid Runners need to have a guide, you know......