Closest you've come to death

[Larry]

The worst drivers and pet peeves (many of which seem to involve driving) are reminding me of an inicdent earlier in my life.

I'm hoping for a thread about car accidents that you've avoided, but that title was too long, and I'm willing to allow other topics. (See, I've decided to graciously allow thread creep, which I normally will not permit, right?)

The incident I'm remembering had be driving from a visit to my parent's in DC, back home to Norfolk. I'm on I whatever, about halfway from Richmond to Norfolk.

I'm in the right lane (of two). There's a car on my left. Ahead, on the shoulder, is a boat, stopped.

As I get closer, I see that the boat, on a trailer, is being towed by a car. Ahead of that car are two more. I assume they're part of a convoy, and they stopped to chat about something.

As I'm passing car #3 (the one with the boat), doing about 60, car #1 pulls out in front of me. One car length in front of me. Doing about 5 mph. Parked car to my right, moving car on my left.

I'll always credit a film I saw in driver's ed. (We had simulators in school, where you sat behind a steering wheel and watched a movie.)

The purpose of the film was to encourage you, as a driver, to constantly be evaluating what I think of as "abort zones": Where will you go if something happens? The film had a lot of scenarios where kids would run out in front of you and things, and you were graded on whether you swerved right/swerved left/slammed on the brakes.

That film tought that, if you have to hit something, it's better to hit something that's going the same direction as you. The next best thing is something stationary, and never hit something that's oncomming.

I immediatly went into the left lane. Knowing it was occupied. Firm grip on the wheel. (I was expecting to hit the other car, and my intention was to intentionally steer into him, to try to force both of us to miss the idiot.

He saw what was happening, and went onto the left shoulder. No collision.

I've always wondered if the idiot who pulled onto an interstate, from behind cover, at 5 mph, without looking, ever knew how close he came to dieing, when he saw two cars pass him (on a two-lane road).

[dfitzo53]

Some kids were playing tennis in the courts near my dorm while I was on the way back from class. They hit the tennis ball over the fence, so I stepped out into the street to grab it. I failed to look before I leapt, and a bus whizzed by not an inch from my face.

[Tarhog]

Its 1983. I'm a sophomore in college. Coming home with a bunch of friends from drinking in Charlottesville, we come up to a train stop on a narrow two lane road. Theres no gate, just blinking lights and bells going off and a long train going by. We sat there for what seem like a long time. We'd all been hitting it pretty hard (imagine that?). My buddy is driving. We see the end of the train approaching. As the last car screams by, moving from left to right, my friend peels out across the tracks. Looking out the right rear window, I see another train, coming from the opposite direction at full speed, miss us by inches. I mean inches. The shockwave from the train pushed our rear end off the road.

Thats when I realized what kills you. What kills you is the ONE thing you didn't imagine. The one thing that never dawned on you as a possibility. We sat in that car for a good 2 minutes and not one of us said a word.

A lot of validity in what you're saying Larry - basically PREPARE for what you don't expect. I'll give you a driving tip my Dad gave me thats saved me several times, that I see people violate every day. When you are turning across traffic and have to wait, always keep your wheels straight. Most people will anticipate the turn and be sitting there with their wheels partially rotated. If you get rear ended, instead of a fender-bender, you end up getting pushing straight into oncoming traffic.

[Larry]

Y'know, dfitzo53, when that film showed a kid running in front of a car chasing a ball, the kid was a lot younger.

[GoCommiesGo]

I was out with some friends drinking one night and on the way back from the bar I had the great idea to hang out of the window. We took a sharp left at about 30mph and I went right.

I busted my two front teeth out, scraped my face and busted my knee. God willing that is the closest I will ever come.

[jpillian]

Okay, closest NON-COMBAT brush with death: During a training exercise at Ft. Hood, driving cross country in a HMMWV. I'm in the back seat behind the driver, without my seat belt on. We're only going about 10 mph, tops.

Suddenly, we hit deep rut made by a tank running perpendicular to our direction of travel. We hit it so hard (shifting the weight of the HMMWV to the left and down) that I actually fall out the door before I can even react. All I see is blue sky, dirt, and then the bottom side of the HMMWV. Inches from the back left tire.

Thank God the driver saw the blur that was me falling out -- he stomped on the brake, and I was alright. If he hadn't seen me, the normal reaction is to stomp on the gas to get over the rut, and my head would have made like a Gallagher watermelon. :doh:

Talk about a holy ****e moment!

:laugh:

[maxiumone]

Try taking a 35 MPH turn at 85 with a Tractor Trailer in the other lane Does not work to well

Cant cut the coner with an 18 wheeler heading your way

Ended up hitting a tree 6' in the air after flipping the car end over end three times

That is what I call a h*ll of a ride

[chomerics]

I've had two brushes with death.

The first one was when I was 18 years old. I was the passanger in a car and we hit a tree doing 80 on a side street. I don't remember anything about the accident. I was rushed to the hospital, and I broke all of my ribs on one side of my body. I was in tremendous pain and I kept on telling the nurse I needed some morphine for the pain. They were x-raying me and rolling me around when I had no support for my chest cavity, and the pain was excruciating. After about 12 hours of this, a doctor came in and wanted to check out some blotches of blood he saw on the x-ray. He ran a camera up my femoral artery and found a spiral tear in my aorta. Apparently, one of my ribs broke off and peirced my aorta, then spun around it. It made a spiral cut, but LUCKILY, the tear closed up. They then flew me to Mass General via helicopter and I had open heart surgery. They placed a stint in my aorta and sewed me up. It took me about 6 months to recover, but there are no long term problems associated with the stint. Needless to say, I have a scar that runs from the middle of my back at about the 8th vertibrate and runs under my arm to rught under my peck.

The second time I was 20 years old coming back from a Montreal trip. We hit a snow squal on the interstate in Vermont and spun around twice, then we were facing sideways on the highway. A Mack truck was behind us and jammed on the breaks, did not jacknife and ended up about 2 inches from the door I was sitting in. It was almost moving in slow motion, as I saw the truck when it was about 50 feet away come closer. When the truck finally came to a stop everyone in the car exhaled at the same time. It was almost comical, because all you heard was 4 people saying ahhhhh at the same time.

[Ghost of]

Was in a car with uncle and aunt late in the darkness of night. I can't remember if it was a highway or just one of those country roads that reminds you of a highway.

So we're driving and all of a sudden this jackass in a sports car goes about 35 mph IN REVERSE, spitting up gravel that hit my uncle's Mustang and was so close all I could see was this blur. We were in the farthest lane to the left and somehow the car in reverse just missed us by about 5 inches going down the middle of the road.

WTF??! At least I was in the back, maybe I would have lived--who knows.

I'm sure we all have more than just one. Hell, there have been a couple times I grabbed a rail on the steps or regained my balance before I fell backward. Could have been fatal.

Oh, not that I felt THAT close to death, but my friend and I were driving the moving truck in Idaho(on way to Washington) and this huge truck PASSES ON A DEEP CURVE GOING DOWNHILL.

Morons.

[SkinsHokieFan]

October 6th, 2001.

4:15 Sunday morning

We were driving west bound on Gallows road by Fairfax Hospital at the interchange of 495 and Gallows, in a Chevy Blazer SUV

The light was green at the intersection. As we went through the intersection a huge 12 seat van roared through the intersection exiting off of 495 and slammed into us flipping and spinning us.

My seat belt broke and I was tossed around like a rag doll in the vehicle and ended up in the back trunk area with a broken arm.

luckily that was it

[PCS]

Hmmmm. Well, right here is about as close in very real terms I've been. http://www.extremeskins.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80854&perpage=15&display=&highlight=spleen&pagenumber=3 Though I was "saved" by my girlfriend at the time in the Air Force when she pulled me away from an on coming, very fast moving car. Fell 15 feet from some scaffold and landed feet first, so that doesn't count but I think the head shot from the counter-balance of a trackhoe may have been the most recent close call. Yeah. :yawnee:

[Thiebear]

Almost drowning in Wva, pulled out by a cousin at the last second.

An incident in Southern Soviet Union involving him on a horse with a rifle and my disbelief of his skills.

Edit: We were stationed in Turkey in 88 and decided it would be cool to walk around in the Soviet Union... the guy on the horse came up over the hill firing and riding...

A fight in Philly with a big man that showed me my speed was lacking and then getting put into the drunk tank With him...

He turned out to be just as worried as me at that point...

[Pete]

Out boating on the Hudson on my friends Cigarette. We had been drinking all day, and I was about three sheets to the wind. Tom was running the boat fairly fast, and wouldn't stop so I could take a squirt, so I jumped out

:doh::doh::doh:

At over 50 notts, the water was like hitting pavement. Thank God Tom saw me jump, and swung around fast. Don't know how I managed to keep myself up for the minute or so. Bouncing across the water knocked the wind out of me, and I swallowed a good ammount of water. I was going under as Mike and Chris dove in and got my head above water, and got me back on the boat.

I wasn't right for days:doh:

[stoney26]

Driving to Myrtle Beach i stopped at south of the border to use the restroom. It was 9 pm so i pulled up to the public restrooms in the back. I had to take a number 2 so i was walking to a stall when a guy grabs my shoulder. turned around to find a .22 snub nose pointed at me. I gave him all my money. Luckly it was only like 100 bucks and he walked out with the gun still pointed at me. I was starring at him like i wanted to kill him. As he is walking out he says "say something b*****". I didnt say a word. Needless to say i didnt have to use the restroom anymore. I guess he scared the sh*t out of me. Lesson learned? DONT STOP AT THE PUBLIC BATHROOMS AT SOUTH OF THE BORDER!!

[Larry]

Originally posted by Thiebear

A fight in Philly with a big man that showed me my speed was lacking . . .

Remembering a story I think I read in a Wambaugh story.

Scene begins when (going from memory) Buckmore Phipps, the biggest, scariest cop in the station, comes into the station with Larry the Wino. . . and a black eye and swelling nose.

Seems Larry has been busted by just about every cop in the station. Larry really doesn't mind jail, it's nicer than the streets, so he routinely gets picked up on some minor charge. Every cop in the station has busted him, without any trouble. He always comes along peacefully.

And, every time Larry gets busted, as he's getting in the back of the car, he's paused, and said "You know, officer. . . I could beat you in a fair fight."

And every officer has responded with some variation of "Yeah, but if you try it, it ain't gonna be a fair fight, 'cause me and my partner, and about half the night shift, are gonna come down on you with night sticks. But you could probably beat me in a fair fight."

And, honor having been satisfied, Larry had gotten in the back seat.

Untill the one time when he got busted by Buckmore Phipps, the biggest, toughest, meanest cop in the precinct, who had leaned back, put his hands on his hips, and said "Oh, yeah? Prove it."

At which time, Larry the Wino, all 5 foot 7, 94 pounds, 52 years old, and three-time Golden Gloves lightweight champion, . . . .

The moral I've retained from that story: No matter how great a fighter you may be, there's always somebody better. (Maybe there aren't many better, but it's not zero.) And you can't tell who he is.

[Larry]

(Not wanting to poke fun at anybody, but I'm wondering how many of these stories will involve "I'd been drinking").

[SamSneed36]

I think for me it was driving down to JMU on some interstate and as i was merging from one highway to another i came off the ramp and the sign said merge lane ends in 1500 feet. Problem was there was a long line of BigRigs bumper to bumper goin 75mph in the lane to my right so I had no where to go. At around 1450 feet i saw that the lane ended when it stopped next to a bridge, so it was drive off the bridge at 75mph or take my chances and just switch lanes. I was lucky a nice trucker was watching and let me in.

[RDSKNfaithfull]

I have probablly come a lot closer than most here. My first brush was when I was 18 I was jumped by a whole club pretty much suffered a internal Hemotoma(sp?) and my face was crushed. My second was comming out of a club and was shot and car jacked :doh: I was a knucklehead when I was younger but these things made me grow up real fast and have made me a stronger and better person.

[China]

Originally posted by Larry

I'm hoping for a thread about car accidents that you've avoided,

So I'm driving back from a vacation in Florida with my family and we've been driving all day. We're on 95 in North Carolina just over the border from South Carolina. It's late and I begin looking for a good place to exit for a hotel. I see signs for a small town a little further on that looks to have several decent hotels. Before we get there I the section of 95 were on turns into a construction zone. It's dark and the construction divides the two northbound lanes. Well the construction signage was poor and it was dark so I didn't realize until it was too late that the left lane became a bypass lane and you needed to be in the right hand lane to exit. Needless to say I missed the exit I was looking for. But I did manage to get over into the right lane so I could take a later exit. I took the next one. There was no hotel. So I turn around to get back on the highway. Due to the construction the onramp and highway were both lined with Jersey barriers. Unbeknownst to me because there were no signs and it was dark, there was no merge area. I discovered this as I was about to enter the highway going about 40. Fortunately, I glanced over in time to see a semi speeding along down the highway at about 70 :ahhhhh:, and I was able to slam on my brakes just in time to avoid being T-boned by the semi. I managed to get back on the highway unscathed. After that, and the long day of driving my nerves were shot. Found an hotel at the next exit. :snore:

[iheartskins]

Here's another related thread about near death experiences...

[The Showstopper]

i was at my boys house and we took a computer monitor apart, well i decided i was goin to snip the pretty green wire sticking out....that sent a nice shoock through me..... and later on, there was a suction cup lookin thing just chillen there and i poked it with some wire cutter, and it threw me about 8 ft, and im 6 ft 280...so that was some powerful sh!t

[Heidenreich]

I've had three distinct car issues (all single car accidents)

The first one was when i was 17. I lived on a dead end street, and I had just got my license. I drove down the cul-de-sac, turned around and hydroplaned. I was flying straight for the front of my neighbors house. My only instinct was to throw the wheel the opposite way as hard as I could. The whole car violently turned in the other direction, and slammed the fence on the other end of the street. Luckily I missed the pole, and hit the chainlink. The dent in the fence is still there to this day...

Hydroplane idiocy #2 was five years later. I was going down the highway when i hit a puddle that I didn't see & took off. I know there were plenty of cars around and i somehow managed to avoid them. I went accross the highway & slammed sideways into the median. I remember hitting my head against my window and the image I saw of all the stuff on the shotgun seat flying past my face (including a snapple bottle) remains with me to this day. The car came to a stop. Luckily for everyone, the people behind me saw what was happening & stopped. I got out of the jeep, looked around, got back in the jeep, drove to the other side to the breakdown lane, turned off the jeep, and smoked about 7 cigarettes.

Number three was snow related. I was at the bar on a Sunday afternoon (watching the Redskins, of course). When Sunday night rolled around, there was about 8 inches of snow on the ground. My jeep was on it's last legs at this point, including the tires. Instead of taking the highway home, I chose the backroads, which meant I had to drive down a steep hill. Needless to say, I lost my grip, and while collecting speed down a hill, did a complete 360 before coming to a stop up a snow bank. That was probably the safest of my 3 incidents, but by god the 3 seconds in the 360 were scary as hell.

Clearly I can only drive when it's sunny out......

[autographcollector]

Originally posted by RDSKNfaithfull

I have probablly come a lot closer than most here. My first brush was when I was 18 I was jumped by a whole club pretty much suffered a internal Hemotoma(sp?) and my face was crushed. My second was comming out of a club and was shot and car jacked :doh: I was a knucklehead when I was younger but these things made me grow up real fast and have made me a stronger and better person.

Ever lose 2 ATV's???

[Pete]

Originally posted by The Showstopper

i was at my boys house and we took a computer monitor apart, well i decided i was goin to snip the pretty green wire sticking out....that sent a nice shoock through me..... and later on, there was a suction cup lookin thing just chillen there and i poked it with some wire cutter, and it threw me about 8 ft, and im 6 ft 280...so that was some powerful sh!t

I remember as a kid one Thanksgiving day the TV went on the fritz. My uncle the auto mechanic figured he would try to fix it. Same thing happened, shot him a good six away from the TV.

[BlitzFiftySix]

I was working at a Army Surplus store as a teenager. At closing time I was counting the cash drawer when my ditzy co-worker decided to point the .22 caliber rifle that was "a store model" dangerously close to my face and mock, "give me the money".

Obviously aggitated by this stupidity of someone pointing a gun in my face raised my right arm and brushed the barrell away from my face only for it go off and blow a small hole in the peg board wall just 5 feet behind my head. The blast from the barrell left a nasty powder burn on my neck.

I'd say closest I've ever come to losing my sight or being severely disfigured. I dont know if would have killed me or not.

Other than that. Had a few close calls - car accidents and near misses on a motorcycle.