Closest you have been to death?

houst69 said:
Would be interested to hear everyone’s?

Mine was when I had a seizure in my sleep last year due to low blood sugar.
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Similar for me.
I collapsed and was unconscious and unresponsive, due to severe hypoglycemia.
I'd felt ropey for the previous few days, and put it down to having a bug.
I remember getting out of bed, but it felt like I was dreaming, and the next thing I knew, was when I was in an ambulance being rushed to hospital.
After four days of MRI and CT scans, countless blood tests and brain scans, I was allowed back home.
I was told, if I hadn't been found in time, I wouldn't be alive today.
I have adrenal damage and still have to go back to hospital for quarterly scans and blood tests and am on medication now, but it's a tiny price to pay, in order to keep an eye on my wellbeing.
 


Stepped in front of a car age eight. Thankfully he hit the brakes. I can still see the driver's face.
Jumped off a castle wall drunk for a laugh - I thought it was a five foot drop - it was sheer 200ft, Brambles saved me.
Thrown from a car which bounced right over me.
Decided to walk to my digs in the Tederloin area of San Francisco (against all advice) literally blind drunk at one in the morning bouncing from lamp post to wall.

Life is good. :D
 
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I got knocked over as a kid. I remember being hit at a canny speed, flipping onto the windscreen and then being shunted about 30 yards down the road. At the hospital they couldn't find anything seriously wrong with me other than the obvious cuts n bruises. Me Da said there was a little Asian junior doctor who just wouldn't give up pestering the consultant to do one more test and he reluctantly gave in. Next thing all hell breaks loose and it turns out my liver is split in half and if not fixed pronto young Falconhoof is no more!!!

I lived by the way....
 
Croup when I was about 2, in an induced coma on a ventilator, fed through a tube for a week. Apparently the first thing I did when I came around was steal a doughnut from my uncle!

Also had a car crash at 21 which was a write-off but I didn't feel that close to death, not compared to a near-miss a few years later in France where I genuinely did think that was it. I misjudged the distance joining a main road and forced a truck to slam his brakes on to avoid wiping me out. f***ing miracle that he didn't hit me, and the car behind him didn't smash into the back of him. No injuries but my god. Terrifying how a mistake like that can have such grave consequences.
 
Stepped in front of a car going 30 mph outside of Newcastle Central Station one Saturday night. Came around in the middle of the road with police and ambulance around me. Fortunately I was totally pissed and must have been like a rag doll when hit. Had nothing more than a bump on the side of my head. No bruises or anything on my legs or side. The driver got done for being over the limit, but it was totally my fault. I had been drinking Red Stripe Crucial Brew all night, which probably saved my life.
 
I remember pedalling my bike along a main road, and was aware that a bus was behind me, and as the bus got closer, I started to panic and as I rode faster, the bike was wobbling about, and I came off the bike.
The bike went away to my left and as I was laid in the road, the bus was unable to stop in time and drove over the top of me, but the wheels of the bus actually missed me by inches.
The bus eventually stopped a short distance up the road, and I was hauled up off the road by a passing motorist, and was crying my eyes out.
My undamaged bike was put in a car, and I was given a lift home.
I was eight years old at the time, and it took me months, before I was confident enough to get back on the bike again.
 
Horley Chorley said:
I remember pedalling my bike along a main road, and was aware that a bus was behind me, and as the bus got closer, I started to panic and as I rode faster, the bike was wobbling about, and I came off the bike.
The bike went away to my left and as I was laid in the road, the bus was unable to stop in time and drove over the top of me, but the wheels of the bus actually missed me by inches.
The bus eventually stopped a short distance up the road, and I was hauled up off the road by a passing motorist, and was crying my eyes out.
My undamaged bike was put in a car, and I was given a lift home.
I was eight years old at the time, and it took me months, before I was confident enough to get back on the bike again.
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That's awful mate. Shows how times have changed. My 8 year does not play out by herself. Different world we grew up in mate. Having said that, have a lovely scar over me left eye from bouncing off an oak floor when pissed and rupturing an artery. I'm 46 and should know better. Do now; it was 3 years ago. Moved on a bit.
 
Riding my bike around the barnes petrol station I was bounced off the bonnet of a BMW driven by an Arab with the car coming to rest just ower me face, few broken bones, my entire back was bruised, the car bonnet was dented to fuck - luckily I landed on my head first and as I lay in the road when he got out his car I said "are you f***ing blind you stupid cúnt?" About 1990, received £2500 in compo - f***ing peanuts for the pain my body now has to go through.
 
Was walking along a kerb aged about 8, slipped and fell into the road where a lass in her fiesta was driving, my head was in line with her front tyre. Thankfully she slammed her brakes on and as I opened my eyes I could see underneath the front of the car, I turned to the left and the tyre was about 6 inch off my bonce.

Been a few other times where I’ve nearly bought it but that was the closest.
 
Fred Basset said:
That's awful mate. Shows how times have changed. My 8 year does not play out by herself. Different world we grew up in mate. Having said that, have a lovely scar over me left eye from bouncing off an oak floor when pissed and rupturing an artery. I'm 46 and should know better. Do now; it was 3 years ago. Moved on a bit.
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It happened in 1971 when I was eight years old.
I was with my mates at the time and we'd been to my Grans, and were riding our bikes home, and I was at the back of the group and panicked when i noticed the bus was behind me.
Miraculously, I was totally unharmed apart from a few small cuts and scrapes when I fell onto the road.
The telling off I got from my Mam, for riding on the busy main road, was worse than the fall, but the whole thing and the realisation of how close I'd come to being killed, scared the shit out of me and I had nightmares for ages, afterwards.

I completely agree, about it being a much different, and far less safe world, nowadays.
 
I got hit by a car when I was 8. I don't ever think of that as being close to death though. Had a face like the Terminator (stabbed down one side) for a few weeks though.

Got caught up in a riptide a few years back. That was scary and potentially very dangerous.

I was choking on patatas bravas a couple of years ago too. Wouldn't budge from my throat for, I dunno, 50 seconds or more whilst I was trying to motion to my friend that I was choking. Tried pouring beer in my mouth to try and wash it down but nothing was happening. A combination of that and beating myself eventually freed the potato (as no fucker helped). Would have been a pathetic way to die.
 
Just under three years ago. Contracted Encephalitis (a virus that attacks the brain). The body was fighting the virus so hard that I then contracted Sepsis (not sure how that works but is apparently quite common for the body to do that).

I was oblivious to it. I had a terrible pain on my left hip and could barely walk. I was working nights and at the end of one shift I realised I was slurring my speech. I put it down to tiredness and maybe the onset of a non-serious viral infection. A good sleep and I'd be fine.

The following evening was a bit of a blur. I'd watched Scotland get hammered in a World Cup qualifier. Next thing I knew I was in a dingy, dimly room with grey paint on the walls and a gadgie in a bed next to me being wheeled away, having just died.

I was in intensive care, paralysed from the neck down, having gone into cardiac arrest at home and taken to hospital by air ambulance. I had apparently died but paramedics at my home and then on the air ambulance made sure I'd continue to suffer with Sunderland.

Initial prognosis was that I wouldn't walk again and would need care for the rest of my life. If I survived. They had to change my bedding at least 4 times through the night. It was pretty grim, that first night and the outlook.

I simply wasn't having that. I was in intensive care and critical care but had no idea how serious it was. It never occurred to me that I was gravely ill. I was simply going to get myself better and carry on.

A month later I left the infirmary to be transferred to a rehabilitation home. I lasted 48 hours because I was the youngest there by 20 years and the food was abominable. Their 5pm 'activity' was making a sandwich. I discharged myself, went home, then on the Monday went down the pub at lunchtime to see my work buddies thanks to crutches and a number 17 bus.

Looking back now I have no idea how I sirvived. The consultant said in over 30 years, he'd never known anyone to have those three conditions simultaneously and live. Let's just say Leicester City's odds to win the title were decidedly stingy in comparison.

It may have something to do, ironically, with my ignorance. I didn't know Sepsis was a serious condition, and thought encephalitis had to be a much less serious form of meningitis because I'd never heard of it. By not knowing about either illness, I had no fear of dying from them. I look back and smile now, though, and think "How the fuck did you not die?"
 
My best mate and I planned a week long trip to Ypres and the Somme battlefields. We drove down from Durham to Dover and his car broke down near Canterbury so we missed the ferry, and lost the first day while it was repaired.

Not wanting to miss anything, when we got to Dover we paid a bit extra and changed our itinery to sail home a day later.

Our original booking would have been on the ill-fated crossing of The Herald of Free Enterprise.

Weird thing was, we didnt realise it at the time. The car radio was all in French so we didnt use it, and the first we knew of any issue was when we got to Zeebrugge and the port was closed. Information from the shipping company at the time was very vague, and we genuinely had no idea that the incident in the port involved the boat we should have been on. (No internet in those days and neither of us understood french radio!)

Ended up having to drive to some port in Holland and crossing from there to Harwich completely unaware of anything. We didnt have a mobile or anything then so we didnt even call home!

We got back to the UK and he rang his mam and she was so relieved because she was convinced we were on the HoFE.
Only then did it dawn on us that we had told everyone at home about the delay going out, but neither of us told anyone about the fact we had added an extra day to compensate.

I
chunkylover53 said:
Live in London so been stabbed about 300 times
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(In a Monty Python-esque voice)
Youve been lucky. I went to London once and was stabbed 64 times between getting off the train at Kings Cross and getting on the underground
 
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Slow joe said:
Got beaten up from a random attack on Xmas Eve 2003. It's had a devestating effect on my life and the main reason for my depression and anxiety. I won't post details of the attack but the nurse told me when I eventually came round that it's the worst injuries she's ever seen from someone beaten up and surviving. The lad who done it got 6 months and served 3 🙄
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Should have got six years and serve six years minimum!
Slow joe said:
I used to go to school with the lad. I'm 5ft 5 and he's about 6ft 4, he was high on drugs and claimed he couldn't remember any of it. Basically he knew he could chin me so he just did for the hell of it. I've still got 5 metal plates in my jaw and you can physically feel 2 of them.
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He’ll get his one fine day!
Simoneinzaghi said:
If you were my son it would be done regardless if you wanted it or not.
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Only right!
 
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Hodgie1979 said:
Dont sweat it mate but karma will hopefully kick him in the bollocks and some.
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It tends too. Strangely I was also randomly attacked on Xmas eve, when I was 17. (cracked me from behind) Wasn't life threatening but it left me with a blood clot swelling in my cheek that took months to go.
Lad hung his self in Armly jail a couple of years later. Was glad to hear it at the time but I feel bad about thinking that now.
Hardyman's Yugo said:
Hit by a golf ball when I was 14, I was stood to one side in the rough and the guy pulled the ball hard to the left. Hit me under the arm on the muscle at the back of the armpit, very lucky

Hit black ice doing about 60 mph one Xmas day about 10 years ago. Spun in a complete circle and ended up in a hedge on the opposite side of the road. Not even a scratch on the car.
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Bloody hell how weird is this, exact same experience but again Xmas eve night. York bypass, fortunately it was empty due to everyone leaving the cars to drink. Car spun round twice at 80 and ended up parked dead straight on the hard shoulder about 20 yards from a flyover
 
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