| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| darwin |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 12:19:57
This question was submitted to Kathryn for her question thread but it was either promoted or demoted to being its own thread (at Kathryn's urging).
Have you ever had a near death experience? Tell us about it. |
| 35 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| prozacrat |
Posted - 06/05/2005 : 14:26:47
It wasn't very fun to say the least. Incidentally enough, yesterday afternoon I found myself in Fargo, ND, going down a one way and a car was coming down the wrong way directly in front of us. We both stopped twenty to thirty feet away from each other, so it wasn't a terribly big scare, but it was enough to make me say "Knock it off already!" Then, later last night that movie Final Destination was on TV, and I related to it a little bit, because the people in it cheated death and it came back for them, and because they're shitty actors. |
| Surfer Rosa |
Posted - 06/04/2005 : 01:00:13
Prozacrat your story sounds like one of my worst nightmares. |
| prozacrat |
Posted - 06/03/2005 : 09:26:26
Therein lies the joke. I had a hit, you had a miss. *rimshot*
I kill me. |
| VoVat |
Posted - 06/03/2005 : 07:16:07
Actually just miss that time. Fortunately.
I was all out of luck, like a duck that died. I was all out of juice, like a moose denied. |
| prozacrat |
Posted - 06/03/2005 : 00:24:15
quote:
Originally posted by VoVat
I wouldn't exactly say it was a near-death experience, but I was once riding in my mom's car when she accidentally tried to get on a highway via an off-ramp. Fortunately, she could drive over the median to the on-ramp before a car going in the other direction could hit us.
I was all out of luck, like a duck that died. I was all out of juice, like a moose denied.
Yeah, those kind of situations are hit and miss. 
Pa. |
| VoVat |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 16:11:27
I wouldn't exactly say it was a near-death experience, but I was once riding in my mom's car when she accidentally tried to get on a highway via an off-ramp. Fortunately, she could drive over the median to the on-ramp before a car going in the other direction could hit us.
I was all out of luck, like a duck that died. I was all out of juice, like a moose denied. |
| floop |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 14:30:19
quote:
Originally posted by prozacrat
I think I told this story a while ago, but since it's applicable...
A little over a year and a half ago my girlfriend and I were driving home and were on the interstate (going rougly 65-70mph) Neither of us remember anything more than that, but what investigators put together was the following: We were approaching an overpass and got into the left lane to make way for a car that was merging. At the same time, an incredibly drunk driver was racing south in the same northbound lane we were in. We hit head on on the overpass and our car spun back into the right lane, perpendicular to the interstate where we got t-boned by the car that was merging. At some point the cars stopped moving. Neither of us remember any of this. We both passed out, and have no memory of anything past us getting on the interstate. I was, however, talking to my cousin/bandmate on my cell phone at the time, gushing about the new wah pedal I had just purchased that day. Apparently upon impact my phone flew from my hands and was imbedded in the windshield in front of my face. My cousin listened for about the next fifteen minutes. He heard me and my girlfriend wake up. He heard my girlfriend screaming. (I don't blame her. Both her femurs were snapped and her legs were bent up over themselves.) He heard the rescue crews say they needed the Jaws Of Life because the dashboard was in her lap. My cousin was four hours away and couldn't do anything. For a few minutes after the accident he didn't hear anything, which really scared him. Fortunately we were just unconscious. It turns out that rescue crews arrived rather quickly, but they were all trying to get the drunk driver loose, who had gotten his hand caught in his car door. He was making a big fuss. Nobody bothered checking what was left of our car because everybody thought there was no way anybody would survive. Our car was just a crumpled little wad of metal. But the woman who t-boned us managed to limp over to our car and point out to the medics that we were alive. That's when they got some people to come help us. My roommate happened to drive by right after it happened (which was odd, because we live an hour away from where it occured) and he said he felt bad for whoever got killed in the really messed up car, thinking, as well, that nobody could have survived it. I talked to the EMTs and the highway patrolmen later on, and all of them expected to be pulling corpses from the car. Somehow we survived, though. Had we been hit a few yards in either direction and we would have flown past the guard rail down a 40 foot embankment. My girlfriend broke both her femurs, fractured her pelvis and shattered her tailbone, ruptured her spleen and liver, and collapsed her left lung. She spent two weeks in the hospital, and a month in a wheelchair. She had made a pretty much complete recovery within a few months, at which point she was crowned Ms. Brookings (the city in which we reside), so that was pretty neat. My injuries were far more minor. A contusion on my right lung, a broken rib, and a broken collar bone. I broke my #2 rib on the right side, and had I broken my #1 rib, less than an inch away, I would have severed a major artery and bled to death within seconds. So that's pretty cool that I didn't. However, despite several surgeries, my collarbone has still refused to heal, due to a number of unlucky circumstances. I just got back from the Mayo Clinic last week, and the procedure they can do to fix it is too risky at this point, and they want to just see how normal I can live with a broken collarbone. (I'm right handed, too.) The drunk driver was uninsured, so that makes everything a bit more difficult to deal with, but despite all that, I still consider myself living on borrowed time, so I can't complain about that. Your whole life takes on a kind of surreal tone when you KNOW you should be dead, but you aren't.
Jesus! |
| prozacrat |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 08:41:41
I guess mine involves an ex, if it's any consolation. |
| Carolynanna |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 08:38:13
I had one involving an ex that was too close to talk about.
__________
This is the war and not the warning. |
| prozacrat |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 08:31:59
No. He did six months in prison and lost his license for a while. He has to make some payments to Amy for a while, since she was so badly hurt. I guess I could have seen some sort of compensation, but everybody assumed after the accident that I'd be just fine. I don't think I was even brought up during his trial. Sorta funny in a way, since I'm the one with permanent damage. |
| Llamadance |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 08:24:02
Sheesh prozacrat, the two of you are very lucky. Glad you made it. I assume the drunk driver is somewhere in the lower levels of hell having his arse pounded 24/7?
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We know what we are
Absolutely barking stars |
| prozacrat |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 07:47:51
Thanks. It's much appreciated. I'm gonna go cuddle with my kitty. |
| kathryn |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 07:42:05
I've said it before and I'm glad to say it again, I'm so glad you're here, Dietr.
 I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| prozacrat |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 07:41:55
Sorry. I just looked at my post. Damn, I'm long-winded. Sorry. |
| prozacrat |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 07:41:03
I think I told this story a while ago, but since it's applicable...
A little over a year and a half ago my girlfriend and I were driving home and were on the interstate (going rougly 65-70mph) Neither of us remember anything more than that, but what investigators put together was the following: We were approaching an overpass and got into the left lane to make way for a car that was merging. At the same time, an incredibly drunk driver was racing south in the same northbound lane we were in. We hit head on on the overpass and our car spun back into the right lane, perpendicular to the interstate where we got t-boned by the car that was merging. At some point the cars stopped moving. Neither of us remember any of this. We both passed out, and have no memory of anything past us getting on the interstate. I was, however, talking to my cousin/bandmate on my cell phone at the time, gushing about the new wah pedal I had just purchased that day. Apparently upon impact my phone flew from my hands and was imbedded in the windshield in front of my face. My cousin listened for about the next fifteen minutes. He heard me and my girlfriend wake up. He heard my girlfriend screaming. (I don't blame her. Both her femurs were snapped and her legs were bent up over themselves.) He heard the rescue crews say they needed the Jaws Of Life because the dashboard was in her lap. My cousin was four hours away and couldn't do anything. For a few minutes after the accident he didn't hear anything, which really scared him. Fortunately we were just unconscious. It turns out that rescue crews arrived rather quickly, but they were all trying to get the drunk driver loose, who had gotten his hand caught in his car door. He was making a big fuss. Nobody bothered checking what was left of our car because everybody thought there was no way anybody would survive. Our car was just a crumpled little wad of metal. But the woman who t-boned us managed to limp over to our car and point out to the medics that we were alive. That's when they got some people to come help us. My roommate happened to drive by right after it happened (which was odd, because we live an hour away from where it occured) and he said he felt bad for whoever got killed in the really messed up car, thinking, as well, that nobody could have survived it. I talked to the EMTs and the highway patrolmen later on, and all of them expected to be pulling corpses from the car. Somehow we survived, though. Had we been hit a few yards in either direction and we would have flown past the guard rail down a 40 foot embankment. My girlfriend broke both her femurs, fractured her pelvis and shattered her tailbone, ruptured her spleen and liver, and collapsed her left lung. She spent two weeks in the hospital, and a month in a wheelchair. She had made a pretty much complete recovery within a few months, at which point she was crowned Ms. Brookings (the city in which we reside), so that was pretty neat. My injuries were far more minor. A contusion on my right lung, a broken rib, and a broken collar bone. I broke my #2 rib on the right side, and had I broken my #1 rib, less than an inch away, I would have severed a major artery and bled to death within seconds. So that's pretty cool that I didn't. However, despite several surgeries, my collarbone has still refused to heal, due to a number of unlucky circumstances. I just got back from the Mayo Clinic last week, and the procedure they can do to fix it is too risky at this point, and they want to just see how normal I can live with a broken collarbone. (I'm right handed, too.) The drunk driver was uninsured, so that makes everything a bit more difficult to deal with, but despite all that, I still consider myself living on borrowed time, so I can't complain about that. Your whole life takes on a kind of surreal tone when you KNOW you should be dead, but you aren't. |
| Cheeseman1000 |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 02:10:30
quote:
Originally posted by darwin
quote:
Originally posted by starmekitten
I got hit by a car but it wasn't all that serious
I hope that I will live to see you undress
Way to kill a story. Come on! Were you on a crosswalk? Did you land on the hood? Did you curse the driver and threaten their life?
Crosswalk? Hood? Speak English!
What's a computer?
Eat Y'self Fitter! |
| Llamadance |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 01:59:55
When I was about 18/19 I was driving my parents mini metro through to Glasgow. If I remember rightly I wasn't going the usual route and was looking about a bit more than usual. So I was doing about 55-60mph in the fast lane of the dual carriageway looking out of the window to my right. I then focused back on the traffic in front of me, only to realise that they'd all bloody stopped.
I slammed on the brakes, but unfortunately it had been raining a bit, so the car aquaplaned. I hit the central reservation, and the next thing I know, the car is sitting on the central reservation, but facing in the opposite direction. I sort of shook myself, started the car up again and did a u-turn back on to the road. Only damage to the car was a burst tyre which I changed.
So very lucky that I didn't cross the central reservation(which was only slightly wider than the car) into the oncoming traffic. Also, where I hit the central reservation, there was no crash barrier - about a hundred yard gap. If I'd hit that I'd have bounced back into the traffic in my carriageway.
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We know what we are
Absolutely barking stars |
| Surfer Rosa |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 01:59:12
Was woken up late one night by car horn/hooting (ooh look at me with my trans atlantic explaining) which turned out to be a friend of mine and one of my housemates returning from a night out . They'd noticed 2 men jump over the wall to the house we were living in. Kate had the genius idea (instead of getting out of the car) to just stick her brights on and hoot like mad till they jumped back over and ran off into the night. Later that night we heard a series of gunshots and thought nothing of it (living in the dodgy bohemian area that we did). The next morning we heard on the news that a couple had been killed by 2 intruders - when Kate described the 2 men to the police (who had killed the 2 men later that night), they said they were the same men and that we'd been damn lucky. |
| shineoftheever |
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 01:41:56
quote:
Originally posted by toeknee
My dad told me something that happened to him in the 60s. He was going to get a flight to Spain but changed his mind at the last minute and the airline gave his ticket to someone else (he didn't know who). The plane crashed in the Pyrenees and everyone died.
I don't think at the time I appreciated just how close to death he was.
i have two kind of like that.
first one, as a courier driving about ten years a go i was on a somewhat popular truck route that had three lanes each way and as a general rule i would always drive in the middle lane to avoid left turners and wide righters, i came to a light and i was second in line but i was few carlengths back, for some reason i pulled into the left turn lane which had a car turning left, i thought to my self "why did i do that? what was i thinking?" when a 1-ton came snorting around the corner and rear-ended the car that had been in front of me and sent it flying into the intersection, total write-offs, and most likely serious injury(i didn't stick around).
second one, me and a buddy planned to meet at the bar and then go to the late showing of donnie brasco, we had a couple pints, settled our tab and got up to leave and we just kinda stopped, looked at each other and said "do you really wanna go?", "naw, fuck it, it starts in 15, we;ll probably end up sitting in the front row, let's just have a couple more beers". that night a gunmen entered the theatre we were going to go to and shot a guy in the second row. |
| slaveish |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 19:47:22
I once was riding my bike really fast, cutting across a one-way street in the wrong direction for about a half block (I used to do this all the time) and I didn't see this woman crossing the street with her baby in a stroller. I skimmed the edge of the stroller and the kid's shoe went flying. the mom freaked out at me, and the baby started crying. I just kept apologizing over and over. Really, I think the baby was crying more because of the mother than me. this isn't a near death story. this is a collision causing a shoe to fly off story. but when I was 9 or 10 I was at the neighborhood pool and amy evans sat on my shoulders while I was under water. I couldn't push her off and I started panicking. I thought I was going to drown, but finally I gave her one hard push and she fell off. but I was probably closer to death the several times I drove drunk when I was in my late teens. or the time I rode home several hours while the driver and everyone else in the car was on acid. or the time... |
| Sir Rockabye |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 19:09:58
I've never been very close to death. Probably the worst was last summer when I got stung by a bee. I wasn't aware that I was allergic, but apparently I am. Got a pretty decent anaphylactic reaction. Wasn't really near death, but I suppose had I been out in the woods, or somewhere isolated where I wasn't able to recieve medical attention, I could have been a lot worse off.
You run all kinds of red lights except the ones on the street.
When you run out of exits you can always count sheep. |
| floop |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 18:41:50
come to think of it, it might have been KNIGHT RIDER. now i can't remember.
either way, i'm sure that neither Mr. T nor KIT would have approved |
| VoVat |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 18:38:25
quote:
and, remembering an episode from the A-Team, where a child runaway made money by purposly getting hit by cars and then asking for money from the drivers, i thought for a moment, "maybe i could blackmail this person into giving me some money"
But would Mr. T have approved? I doubt it!
I was all out of luck, like a duck that died. I was all out of juice, like a moose denied. |
| kathryn |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 14:45:40
And they say TV isn't helpful to children!
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| floop |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 14:44:52
kept shoes on, no helmet
i did yell at the driver though. and, remembering an episode from the A-Team, where a child runaway made money by purposly getting hit by cars and then asking for money from the drivers, i thought for a moment, "maybe i could blackmail this person into giving me some money" |
| kathryn |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 14:42:50
Were you wearing a helmet?
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| darwin |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 14:42:19
Did you lose your shoes? |
| floop |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 14:41:36
i got hit by a car on my skateboard when i was 10, but didn't almost die |
| darwin |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 14:39:38
Not boring. Thanks. It's odd how people's shoes fly off when they're hit by a car. |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 14:36:30
I already posted it.
but for you darwin, because you're pretty.
I was crossing the road round the corner from my friends house going to visit her after work, the road had recently been changed from single to double lane and I hadn't noticed. Saw the red light and the static traffic and crossed just up from the lights, the car came into my side and I went up on the hood, hit the side of my head/face on the window slid off and landed with a bump a few foot further down. I was pretty pissed off so grabbed my shoe which had flown off and stormed round to my friends house. Told her mum what had happened and she ran round to check on the (wrong end of middle aged female) driver, she ran round the corner and shouted "It's ok! Tre's fine!" at which point the driver broke into tears and wailed "I didn't hit a tree I hit a little girl..."
I was bruised for weeks, all up my right side, my leg and arm and face looked like I had been beaten up. Called my dad to tell him what happened, his response "fucking idiot"
see... boring.
my shoe was a yellow converse trainer, I feel the need to point this out everytime I tell people this because I loved those shoes.
I hope that I will live to see you undress |
| darwin |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 14:30:00
quote:
Originally posted by starmekitten
I got hit by a car but it wasn't all that serious
I hope that I will live to see you undress
Way to kill a story. Come on! Were you on a crosswalk? Did you land on the hood? Did you curse the driver and threaten their life? |
| starmekitten |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 14:28:20
I got hit by a car but it wasn't all that serious
I hope that I will live to see you undress |
| floop |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 14:27:33
quote:
Originally posted by kathryn
I got your respect right here, floop, right here. *makes obscene gesture*
Now let's be quiet and listen. I can't believe toeknee's dad went through
that. Talk about freaky!
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics
note to self: resume ignoring kathryn's posts |
| kathryn |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 14:26:13
I got your respect right here, floop, right here. *makes obscene gesture*
Now let's be quiet and listen. I can't believe toeknee's dad went through
that. Talk about freaky!
I still believe in the excellent joy of the Catholics |
| floop |
Posted - 06/01/2005 : 14:23:28
YOU started it. i share a tramatic experience about my life and you turn it into yet another Long Beach related attempt at humor.
where is the respect, i ask? |
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