Randerolf

One. I could be dead right now.

I work at a high-end steakhouse and tonight one of our VIPs was in late schmoozing donors for one of his favorite causes. He didn’t get in until about 10:55 pm. Fast forward past a few bottles of wine, three courses of food, and bill that makes you wonder if it’s in dollars or pesos – the guests are gone and I’m ready to go home. It’s early in the morning. But the dishwasher wants me to watch him take out the trash and make sure everything is cool. The bartender and I go to the backdoor. We talk a bit. The dish washer is there. Everything is not cool. A guy is by the dumpster out back for no real reason. He sees us staring at him, so he gets in his car and pulls away and we get this feeling – man, we’ve been closed for hours.

Maybe he’s not gone. Just out of sight.

After some hesitation, the dishwasher looks outside. The man was out of view. His car is barely viewable past some landscaping, 70 degrees from the door. Waiting. We call the cops. We wait. We leave. Randerolf does not die. In the 3 years that I have worked there, the place has had two armed robberies. I was never there for either occurrence. Guns in the face. More cameras. More lights. No fatalities.

I’m glad to be typing this. There has been a fever of homicides in my city and am glad not to end up in tomorrow’s paper.

Two.

My best friend was in town from collage to see his visiting brother who is in the navy. Dinner was nice. He decides to gas up at night near his childhood home, before making the hour and a half trip back to school. He pays at the pump and gasses up, but meanwhile the station is being robbed. The guy walks outside and tells my friend to give him his wallet. He is shocked; he is looking into the muzzle of a gun. Instinct kicks in. He tells him to fuck off and they fight over the gun. My friend over powers him and wrestles the weapon away, but the guy knocks the firearm away. They dive for it. They struggle for it. Bullets fly. Fighting. The guy runs away. To the getaway car. One bullet grazed my friend’s side. One went through his arm.

Only now – and after many surgeries, therapies, and doctor’s visits -is he approaching previously held functionality of his hand.

Have you ever been near death? Near violence? What happened and how has it changed you (assuming it has)? Did it change any of your beliefs?

Charlatan

The closest I've been to death is watching someone die on the operating table. That wasn't violent it was just urgent.

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"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

spectre

I've been near death more times than I care to think about. Most were due to health problems when I was in my teens. The rest have made it difficult for me to be comfortable around other people unless I really trust them.

Glad to hear you made it through everything okay.

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No goddamn slave
I will be different" ~ Machine Head

Halx

When I was just getting used to my driver's license, I took a lot of risks. I never once got into an accident, but thats just as well. If I had, it would have been the first and last.

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Manic_Skafe

I almost died today.

I usually skateboard or walk the mile or so to my job and after what couldn't have been more than a second spent turning the volume up on my mp3 player I found a fast approaching hunk of off-white painted metal approaching all too quickly to my right.

I've dealt with crazy New York traffic my entire life and so almost being hit usually has little to no effect on me but today I was rather terrified simply because I did nothing as the car got closer and closer. If it weren't for the momentum I had already built up I'd have probably been frozen to the spot and as a result flattened by the car.

Luckily enough, the car slowed and I was cruising with enough speed to avoid a collision and pass the car by a few inches.

As a result of the situation I've decided to sign up for driving lessons tomorrow.

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Mister Coaster

I've had guns pulled on me 3 times. Once was in 7th grade, I was at a "friends" house and after making a rather substantial mess, we decided to leave. All the other guys had been smoking pot, I had "just said no." He pulled the gun and told us to clean up the mess, which we did. After that experience I took my first hit.

The other was in high school, we had those motorized water guns in the car and after squirting some friends in another car, the police pulled us over "felony stop" style. 3 or 4 cars, all guns drawn, patted us down. I suppose it was just to scare us. It worked.

The last one was cops again. Same group of friends, we were playing paintball, but not on an actual paintball range, it was just off the side of a dirt road. Same deal, cops came roaring up, jumped out with guns drawn.

I suppose I was never really close to death, but the best I can think of.

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ratbastid

I'm pulling onto a freeway onramp. Ahead of me a double-axle pickup truck (one of those 10-wheel jobs) is accelerating to freeway speed. I pull out my phone and mash lurkette's speed-dial button until it starts dialing. I look up to see my pickup truck friend basically stopped in the onramp traffic lane, five yards in front of me. At this point, I'm doing probably 40, with my foot still on the gas. For a fraction of a second, I'm thinking statistics. In my modern, airbag-equipped car, in a 40-mph collision with a much larger vehicle, odds are I'll survive with very, very serious injuries. I wrench the wheel to the left, my car screams and lurches. My front right corner misses his bumper by what feels like inches. When lurkette answers the phone I've nearly got my heartbeat and breathing under control....

ngdawg

Working at a convenience store. Sunday night, close to closing time. Two guys walk in, ask for cigarettes. As I turn around to get them, a knife pokes my back. I drop the cigs with an 'oh, shit' and they lead me to the back. The smaller one is waving the knife in my face, saying maybe he should just kill me now so I don't scream. I tell him I won't scream, just take what you want and get the hell out. The big guy is trying to open the register and calls out asking how. I tell him hit 'no sale', he takes the cash and they leave.
In the half hour of talking to the cops afterwards, I smoked a full pack of cigs. They were never caught, to my knowledge.
It was my second brush with death that month.
The first one, driving home in the rain from work in a rental while my previously wrecked car was being repaired, I tried to negotiate a curve, but the car didn't respond. It started to go straight instead, then fishtailed. Suddenly it spun out of control, up over the median curb, back down into the road. I let go of the steering wheel, told myself 'This is it' and sat back waiting for death. A final hit into the curb and the car stopped. I got out and just started looking at the car. Stupid tie-rod had disconnected. Back then, NJ had DMV cops and one came by, calling out that I couldn't leave the car there. I explained I just wrecked and he came over and we pushed the car to the side. A tow-truck pulled up, the driver explaining he'd gotten a call about an accident. Seems the tractor-trailer that I just barely missed hitting called him.
I don't care much for the month of March now....

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mixedmedia

I was almost kidnapped as a child in a department store in Atlanta called Treasure Island. I was 5 years old. In those days, it was thought safe to leave your kids on the coloring book aisle while you grabbed a few things. Well, this man came up to me and told me that my mom wanted to see me. We walked around and didn't see her so he told me that she had said for him to take me home. Being totally oblivious I followed him out to the parking lot. He told me to wait on the sidewalk outside the store which I did. When he pulled around front he slowed down a little and then sped away. I guess he got scared. I started crying immediately because I thought I had been left at the store. This old couple found me and took me back inside where they paged my mother. I feel like I escaped death that day. I've always thought about him - who he was, what happened to him, why he was spooked - it's such a mystery. And always a little disturbing to think about it.

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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Ourcrazymodern?

In a foolish quest to get into my third floor apartment from the outside, I took a fall and broke all sorts of bones. If the lady downstairs hadn't heard me hit the ground I probably would have died. "Are you alright?" she asked as I stared at my no-longer-functional walking equipment. "I don't think so," I said. The EMTs were summoned, and several surgeries later...
Suffice it to say I'm still getting around. Once upon a time I would've certainly been dead.

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cj2112

On the 91 freeway in Anaheim on a Friday evening about 7 p.m. I was riding my Yamaha XT350 motorcycle. I was sideswiped by a car and managed to slide on top of the bike for quite some distance. I watched four other cars behind me start spinning in their effort not to run me over. I walked away form that one with a couple spots of road rash.

Stoney Point in Chatsworth CA. is a rock climbing park. The backside of the park has a cliff that is approximately 40 ft. high w/ a 15 or so ft. overhang. I was rappelling there with no belay (safety line). As i leaned back to begin my rappel my feel slipped I fell head first about 20 feet before I reacted and stopped myself. I wound up upside down looking at the ground beneath me.

I've had guns drawn on me by civilians and police alike, and on one occasion had four officers with guns pointed at me at point blank range and saying "If you so much as take a god damn breath, I am going to blow your motherfucking head off"....good times

These are just a couple examples of common occurrences in my life when I was a youth. I am quite surprised that out of the group I ran around with as a youth, that most of us lived through it. I am certain that if I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't survive it.

flat5

I've mentioned before in this forum that I was shot in the ass during a riot.
It did not get any responce the last time either.

kurty[B]

New Year's Eve in Fallujah. I was in my trailer reading a book, 15 minutes before the New Year a rocket and two mortars land 150 yards from my trailer. Talk about a life changing experience.

A few months later, in a helicopter flying over Ramadi. Flares pop into the air, helicopter takes evasive maneuvers and the gunners on board go to town. You could see flashes of light off the building tops. By that point, I had become so used to that life that I was exhilarated to see the gunners going at it, rather than worrying about stray bullets through the hull of the helicopter.

I had a few experiences in middle school with uneducated teenagers thinking they were cool with their parent's handguns, but these don't compare to the above experiences.

I've gotten to the point where I realize death can be down the road, or around the corner. When it happens, it happens. I'll make the most of life until it happens.

The_Jazz

When I was 9 months old, I crawled into the pantry and knocked over a glass 2-liter bottle of ginger ale. It exploded and sent glass shrapnel through my right cheak. I almost bled to death on the way to the hospital.

When I was 15, I was crossing a busy street on my bike (to buy my mom a birthday gift, no less) and got hit by a woman driving with her 2 kids. Only because I saw her coming at the last possible moment did I manage to start going off the back of the bike before she hit the front wheel. As it was, the pedal slammed into my knee and I got knocked about 10'. The doctor that sewed me up tried to prepare me for the fact that I was probably going to miss my sophomore year of cross country - thankfully he was wrong.

Two years ago I attended a race car driving school at Laguna Seca in central CA. It was raining one afternoon while I was driving a Formula Dodge around the track. I'd been going for a while and gotten into a lull a bit when I lost traction in a turn and skidded into the back of a bridge abutment going backwards. The guy driving the pace car had me about 90 mph goiing into the turn, but I was probably going about 60 mph when I hit. Thankfully I walked away without even really being sore, but when I went backwards, I thought for sure I was going to die.

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TexanAvenger

Twice now I've had guys pull a knife on me and tell me to hand over my wallet, both during high school in downtown Raleigh on my way to take the city bus. Twice I pulled out my own and was lucky enough to have the guys be more desperate than actually menacing and backed down when there was the possibility of more than a threat.

It changed my mom's thoughts... but not so much mine. I was carrying it because I'm highly distrustful.

Every other time I've encountered death has been on a more emotional level, meaning pain for me... but not a change in belief or actions.

shesus

Wow, so many people having close calls. This is why I believe that when it is time, it is your time. If it's not, it's a close call such as the ones listed above.

I've seen horrific car accidents that I would have been involved in if I had been driving a little bit faster or slower. I teach in a very high crime area and have been in this neighborhood for a couple years now. People have been shot behind the school and crimes are rampant all around it. So I guess I am in a 'danger' zone.

I don't get too emotional about these situations though. I'm not afraid of death which is different from wanting to die. It just means that I know when it is time, it will happen one way or another.

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Randerolf

Rubber bullet or real one (I assume)? How's the ass? What was the cause of the riot?

flat5

I was walking home through the Filmore district at night. After they passed me, three guys turned around and said "you're what we are looking for, mother fucker." Bam. I ran around the corner and lied down. I saw a passing cop car and yelled to them. They approached me with their weapons drawn, at me. etc...

I have to think it was a 22 short. It went into the right buttock and stopped at whatever is there. muscle or bone, I don't know. The hospital left the bullet in me. They said it would make a bigger hole by removing it. This was General Hospital in San Francisco, 1967, I believe.

I learned some important things that night.
(1) Working people don't give a fuck. I was put on a cart with a plasma drip.
After a few hours my arm really was hurting and I could not go to sleep.
I must have asked 5 passing nurses over a period of 5 or more hours for a pain killer. They all said the same thing. They could not give me one.
Finally one of them said, "you have to ask for a doctor".

(2) I forgot what else I learned.

dlish

i drowned in the river when i was 6. i didnt know how to swim, and i walked into a hole that was deeper than my head. my twin brother and cousin were literally 1m away. my dad was 'watching us' from the shoreline. he was talking to a friend, when the guy said to him, look theres a kid drowning. dad goes, nah thats just my son playing with his brother. the guy then said, no seriously he drowning. so dad runs down the sand into the water and runs in to pull me out. in the meantime i was swallowing water by the bucketload, was going up and down, and screaming 'mum' when i could, but everytime i tried, id swallow another mouthful of river water.. i could see dad running in clothes and all, and he was about 10 meteres away when i finally went down for the last time all i could see when dark brown murky water..and then i feel an arm lunge for my forearm. at first he didnt get the first go, but then managed to grab hold of it and pull me up.

u pulled me up and i started throwing up and coughing up the water id taken in the process. i started crying, as a 5 year old would..but dad firmly told me that your a man and men dont cry and stop crying. so i stopped.

i was called dracula for a while after that cos when i came out i had 2 lines of mud coming down each side of my mouth.

its 24 years ago now, but i still remember it like it was yesterday. some things are so vivid it freaks me out till today.

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An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
- Filthy

flat5

..

abaya

Jaysus CHRIST... are you serious? No offense to your dad whatsoever, but... I want to kick men in the balls when they say shit like that to their sons (or daughters!). That is just messed up. You nearly drowned. Your DAD should've been the one crying... maybe that's why he reacted the way he did.

Anyway, moving on to my near-death stories. Yeah, at least twice I know I could've died if my reaction time had been a few seconds slower.

First time was when I was dogsledding in remote Greenland in February. The Inuit guide took us over a frozen bay and I saw the snow/ice underneath us getting dark as we passed over it, meaning that water was seeping up from below rather quickly. I felt like the ice would crack any second. Then we arrived at the target, a massive glacier facing the bay... I walked up to the edge to touch it (looking up, it was a straight wall of ice) and suddenly my foot was going through the ice below and it was soaked. I sprung away to the more solid area and swore profusely, since I had just imagined myself falling bodily into the arctic water and dying the way my father did. There was an hour's sledride through sub-freezing temperatures to get any kind of help (it was a village, days from any kind of modern medicine, with just a resident nurse)... I would have died on the way back. As it was, I nearly thought I'd get frostbite on my foot, but I kept moving my toes as much as I could until we got back. Fuckin' eh, the Inuit know what they are doing. I don't.

Second time was while driving on I-5 over a snowy mountain pass at 3am, friend asleep in the backseat... it was all lanes in one direction, but some idiot had gotten on the freeway going the wrong way, and I was the only one on the road at that time. I was buzzing along, singing to the radio, and all of a sudden there are these headlights in my face... on a 1-way interstate highway!!! I freaked out and swerved in time... that guy nearly killed us all.

There have likely been other times, especially as a kid... I was a real thrill-seeker, always wanting the adrenaline rush and being a daredevil. I preferred to play with the boys. But I did some pretty stupid stuff. I hope my kids are a little less adventurous than I was.

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And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Carno

One time I crossed the street without looking both ways!

dlish

i was put in swimming class one week later. then later i became a kickass swimmer when i started squad training 6 days a week till the age of 18. i had hopes of representing australia..or lebanon (dual citizenship..dont you love em), but i stopped too early...thats one regret i have... i could be Ian Thorpe right now...but this aint the right thread



nah my dads a gentle giant..but he's always the firm type, but the most humble person ive met... he said he and mum didnt sleep for a week after that incident.

i think my twin would have been more devastated had i gone. he was merely a metre away and had i died he would have blamed himself for being there but not doing anything about it.


i have a 2nd story...

i had just lost my job, it was a nice friday afternoon, im driving home like a maniac cos im pissed off, going over the sydney harbour bridge where 7 lanes merge into 3. it had just started to drizzle a few minutes earlier after hardly any rain for a few weeks, so the roads become slippery. i see this lady on the extreme left lane coming down the ramp..im in the 2nd lane from the right on a steep decline... i look at here and think..nah she's not goin to cross another 5 lanes, she'll stop soon...but she keeps coming..uh uh..shes not gonna come across, she cant be that stupid.. she edges closer....really..shes close now, but theres no way she'll come over here.. im doin 110km/hr (thats about 70mph for you americans :P) ..so i decide to slow down...she keeps merging across.. i touch the brakes lightly.. i just lose control..my car spins out of control and ends up in the extreme right lane about 50metres from when i touched the brakes... everything went slow motion from when i hit the brakes. i couldnt control anything let alone my fate..all i could think of was beeping my horn at her, so i did as i was spinning.. i did 900 degree turn. thats 2.5 revolutions and up facing cars behind me. i was delirious and furious. i was scared, just outraged that some incompetant bitch could have ruined my life. thinking i was in reverse cos i was facing traffic i put the car in reverse..then realised what i did, i put it in drive and followed the bitch. my legs still aching from the adrenalin rush i chased the bitch. she didnt even bother stopping. i saw her see me, but she didnt have the nerve to see if i was ok. so when i caught up to her i couldnt get close enough to let my profanities rip at her. i ended up losing her in the traffic (it was 5pm on a friday afternoon going into the city).

miraculously i didnt have ANY cars in the immediate lane or behind me, but it was quite a close call.

im sure ive got a few more, but it'll come to me.

__________________
An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
- Filthy