What is the closest you have come to death?

[mjhaverkamp]

Well probably back in 1976, I was 16 and had my drivers license, Mom and Dad let me take the 1971 Plymouth Fury III out, went to a party, was drinking, while driving home from a party out in the country the road zigged and I zagged, rolled car three times and hit an embankment, never should have walked away from that accident, did not get a scratch, I have done some other dumb *** things since then but I do thank the Lord he was watching over me that night. To make things worse we were poor, that was the only car we had, somehow we got through it, my parents were amazing, sure do mss them.

[Hogman7290]

Two timer here. Heart attack in my early thirties and in 2014 had a stroke.


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[tigerscowboy]

80mph sliding a motorcycle under a semi-trailer. Didn't quite clear it. Head hit the front jack supports. All my fault and grinded it out. Skin loss was the toughest.

Neurosurgery to remove 1.2cm tumor. This was a life changer. Issues continue.

[BigDraw]

1988, new job and brand new company car ( Ford Taurus), driving down a hill in the rain and a school bus decided to turn across my lane into a parking lot, my car went completely under the bus, I remember thinking I would lay down to avoid decapitation, didn’t work out that well. I was knocked unconscious, gratefully, because my car ruptured the fuel tank on the bus and my car remained running. It took 110 minutes to remove me from the wreckage, I woke up up 2days later.
2014 drank beer with a buddy one night, peed blood the next day, they found bladder cancer and the mri they took of my bladder shower another problem, I was also diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, I was told the mortality rate is 93%. 6 surgeries later and I am happy to tell folks, That Drinking Beer Saved my Life! };O

[Chew]

Five deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Fallujah is a whole other story. Life is a gift! Live it that way!

Thank you brother.

Semper Fi

[PondPopper]

One September, back in my 20's(1985-86), as I was wading In chest deep water(almost over my waders)in a local reservoir along the Brazos River, while Teal hunting with a couple of friends, when I stepped up on a huge log to gain a little height.. I stood there for about 10-15 seconds and the log suddenly took off. All I remember was going under, dropping my shotgun, and as a came up to the surface a huge, powerful tail, grazing me in the side of the head as my buddy was firing 12 gauge rounds 2 feet above and over my head into the head of a monster 12'+ gator.. It was a little sketchy..

True story..

[Native Texan]

Waiting behind another car at a red light. Light turns green, car in front turns left and I proceed to cross the intersection. Loaded dump truck blows through the red light clipping the front bumper of my VW bug and spinning me around 360 degrees. I was unharmed but the car that turned left before me was not as lucky.

Wading a reservoir at Anahuac NWR and slipped into a hyacinth covered canal...way over my head. Weighted down by shells and waders full of water I was headed for the bottom but my shotgun hung on the hyacinths and allowed me to pull myself to the surface.

[Acameron52]

Man what a thread!

[Hooverfb]

Towards the end of my stint in the steel mill, ladle busted open on the bottom just after i got done cleaning the loading track area. Molten steel shooting out put a hole in the shovel i was carrying. Easily could have been my head give or take a few steps.

[Milkfisher]

I was working a delivery route that had me loading a truck at 4:30AM 6 days a week. I had a 45 minute drive to get to work so 2:45-3:00AM wake up call caught up to me one morning when I fell asleep behind the wheel. I ran off the road and center punched an oak tree that measured 40” across at the base. I woke up when I hit the curb just in time to stomp on the brakes. I would have been much better off staying asleep for impact. When I locked down on the breaks I basically locked all of the joints on the right side of my body in line from my toes to my shoulders. It jacked me up. Tore all the ligaments/tendons in every toe on my right foot, crouched the lower joint in my ankle. Broke my right hip, split my right knee cap in half, broke 3 ribs on my right side, and fractured my right shoulder.

They cut me from the car and careflighted me to the hospital where I spent the rest of the day in surgery. A week later I went home, 4 months later I walked again for the first time and I went back to work after 9 months. I took about 6 years to be able to walk without a limp and my right ankle and toes are still fubar. God was certainly watching over me.

[Pullersboy]

IED too close for comfort in Al Basra, Iraq in 2003. Been shot at numerous times, including my current line of work. Also had a couple of close calls behind the wheel when I was young and stupid.

[krtnorris]

My bow exploded and I took 60 stitches to the head.

[D u s t y]

Firework explosion, sent me to parkland with 67% coverage in burns. Several deep wounds and I did flat line But they brought me back. Spent 2 months in there and I don’t wish that pain on my worst enemy. Took 7 months to walk with out a cane, almost 2.5 to run again.
Life is short, enjoy it while you can.

[RifleBowPistol]

The closest I ever actually came to death, was after I shot a javelina, with my first 44 Mag. revolver, when I was about 15 years old. When I was 14, I finally got to where I was pretty good with a hand gun. I had been shooting rifles and shot guns since I was about six and by the time I was 10, I was a very good shot with a rifle, but horrible with a pistol. Somewhere around 13 years old, I suddenly figured out how to shoot a pistol and then worked very hard to get good with a pistol. I bought a Super Blackhawk when I was 14, for $150, I cut a lot of grass to be able to buy that gun. When I was 15, I wanted to use the Super Blackhawk for hunting.

For quite a while, I had hunted hard to find a hog, to try and shoot with my pistol. I finally found a javelina. So I snuck up on it, took aim and shot it, killed it cleanly. I was very excited, grabbed my knife, went over to gut the animal. Started cutting away, but hit a spot the knife would not cut through easily. That knife I kept extremely sharp. It would slice through flesh very easily. It had cut through the javelina extremely easily, but I hit one spot, it just would not easily slice through. So I pulled the skin up and took a swipe at it. The knife chopped through the skin with ease. Turns out, there was a thin piece of cartilage I did not see, that is why the knife was not slicing through the hide like it was paper. When I took the swipe, it went through the hide and cartilage like it was nothing. I felt the knife, bump the inside of my left thigh, I did not think anything of it. Kept on working on the javelina.
A family friend was there, he gave me a look, like that had to hurt. I said, yea, that could have been bad. His response was, no, it is bad. I said, it just lightly touched my leg, it did not do any damage. He said, no, it did more than you realize. At that time I looked down and saw a hole in my jeans, then noticed some blood. My thought was, my mother is going to be mad at me for messing up a good pair of jeans. But still did not think I had much more than a mild cut.

Well, after the third time David told me, that I had really done some damage, I stopped what I was doing and really looked at my leg. At that time, I could seen down about 3" or so, into my leg. Then I finally realized I had more than just a mild flesh wound. I tried to stand up and found out very quickly, that I had cut deep into a muscle in my leg. I hurt like hell trying to stand up. David, said, he had some needles and thread and could possibly stitch my leg up. We got in the truck and went back to camp. Then started looking for bandages, alcohol, peroxide, ect.

I sat down in a chair, so David could look at the wound. He said the wound was too deep and too much damage, he did not want to stitch it up. I kept telling him to just stitch it up, he refused to. By this time I was bleeding pretty badly all over the place. David told my step father that I need to get to a hospital quickly. I was not worried, not a big deal, I was just bleeding and making a mess all over the place and it hurt like hell to stand up, but I could stand and walk, so I did.

Before we left the camp house, I saw David grab about four heavy blankets, I had no idea what he grabbed those for. As we were walking to the truck everything went black, at the time I was looking down and did not know what was going on. Then I looked up and just saw a dark blob in front of me, where the truck was. Then everything went completely black and I could feel myself falling, tried to yell out, but nothing came out. I was completely out, before I hit the ground.

At the time this happened, it was around 103 degree, in the middle of the day, south of Falfurrias. They loaded me into the truck and off to the hospital. At some point after the put me in the truck, I got extremely cold. When they turned on the A/C, the air coming out of the vent, had to be 120 degrees, since the truck had been sitting most of day and it was black truck. But the air coming out of those vents, felt like it was -40 degrees with 40 mph wind blowing. I started shaking uncontrollably, my teeth were chattering very badly. Everything was still black, all I knew was that I cold, felt like I was going to freeze to death. Lucky for me, David knew a lot more than I did. He wrapped me up in those four blankets he grabbed from the camp house. Eventually I warmed up some, because I quit feeling extremely cold, but I also was not aware of anything else.

The next point I was aware of anything, was when we got to the hospital. As we were pulling into the parking lot, I was semi conscious. I could hear what I thought was a spilled 44 oz. drink sloshing around on the passenger's side floor board. Then we parked and someone opened the door. I heard the liquid running out of the door onto the ground. Kept thinking I am going to have a really sticky mess to clean up later. They got me into the hospital, I came to, they took me straight to a operating room. I remember the doctor saying my leg was not that bad. That the last guy that was in there, almost cut his leg completely off, with a chainsaw.

The doctor gave me multiple locals, then started digging his finger around in my leg, that did not feel good at all, very uncomfortable, not a sharp pain, just a heavy, strong dull pain. He kept digging clotted blood from my leg and slinging it in a pan. He told me, that I came very close to cutting a artery in my leg. I told him I was pretty sure I did cut that artery. He said had I done so, I would already be dead. Then he stitched up my leg, one stitch down in my leg and then about five on the surface. Shortly afterwards, the blood started flowing again. The doctor looked at my leg, then me with a puzzled look. Then cut the stitches open and went back in my leg. Dug around, opened it up, looked around, then put another stick in the muscle. Then closed up the wound again. And again, the blood flowed. He looked at me with a look of disbelief. I said, I am telling you, I cut that artery, just not all the way through the artery. I am sure I saw a artery cut and pumping blood on one of the occasions I was looking down inside my leg.

So he cut the stitches again, went back in my leg, cut the other two stitches down inside my leg. Then really started digging around. Then his eyes got big and he gave me a look of complete disbelief. He stitched up the artery, then the muscle and then closed up the wound. That time, the blood did not flow afterwards. I thanked him, I was so glad that my leg had finally stopped bleeding. Before, nothing would stop the bleeding. We could slow down how much leaked out of my leg, but I knew, that what was not leaking out, was bleeding internally.

When I finally got off of the table, the whole operating room floor, was covered in blood or bloody foot prints. Turns out the liquid sloshing around on the floor of the truck was blood. It had filled the passengers side floor board and then ran out over the door seal. The blood was at least an 1 inch deep. When I woke up the next morning, I looked down at my leg. I was not sure at that time, if I had a bad dream or if it was all real. When I looked at my leg, my whole left leg was bright purple. I got kind of scared, at first. But then convinced myself, it was just a result of a lot of internal bleeding. I felt like I had been run over by a truck or had been beat from head to toe with by a bunch of guys with base ball bats. I was moving pretty slow for the next couple of days.

I know, if it had not been for David knowing what he did, I would not have made it to the hospital. Before that day, I had thought David was pretty cool for being a old guy, probably in his mid to late 40s. But after that day, I realized he was quite smart and had the ability to keep calm in bad situations. He knew how bad my situation was, I had no idea. He kept calm and did not listen to my crap about him stitching up my leg.

A couple of years after David saved my life, he rolled his truck, one night. There was another guy in the truck with him that night. From what I have been told that guy stayed in the truck all night with David and listened to him bleeding to death. From what I understand, he died early that next morning, inside his truck, with that guy still in the truck. Afterwards, that guy finally crawled out of the truck and crawled up to the road for help. I was not there, just know what I have been told. I do know he died from bleeding to death. From what I was told, it took a long time for him to bleed to death. I was very upset when I heard the news.

I think that anyone that spends time outdoors, should learn as much first aid as possible. You never know, when you may need that info to save someone else's life or your own.

[CJ776]

Canoe trip with Dad for Indian Guides as a young pup. Thought it was funny to PO dad and flip canoe multiple times. After taking a few whacks in the back of the head from Dad we;re good for a few hours and then we accidentally unintentionally flip. We bail and are floating down river going around a U in the river. All good pretty calm river.... I decide to cut the U bend short and steer towards a little shortcut where water bypassing U bend under a fallen tree. I think i can float on back right under fallen tree and think, before that it would be funny to sit up and grab log to talk smack to dad for a sec ha ha right.... I grab tree water pushes legs further down river, hands slipping, let out a "DAD" just before going under tree and get pinned in rock/boulder crevice. Looking up at sun through rushing water thinking, no problem I'll wiggle out of this one ha ha... 10 seconds later no movement can't get air, right below surface, start to panic thinking how much of a dumb @#$ am I? Feel massive bear paw grab me by shirt and chunk me in calm shallow. Still don't know how dad got there that fast and one arm threw me like that. Needless to say I was all quite the rest of the weekend.

Two years ago. Family owns house in French Quarter in NOLA. We use Vespas scooters to get around. fify but whatev...hauling @SS over MS river to go to Algiers courthouse to get marriage certificate. scooter pinned going 60mph wife on back, i decide to go no handles and show off to wife. Do no hands for 1-2 seconds, feel weird vibration look down at front wheel, front wheel is whobbling like a bad wheel on shopping car. grab bars almost lose it. Wife said I got white as a sheet. Don;t think she ever grasped how close we were to something real bad...