Closest you have been to death?



Nearly choked to death on an ice pop wrapper as a kid. bit the top off it and went to spit the plastic out my mouth and at that exact moment there was a gust of wind so the plastic swept right back into my throat. Couldnt reach it for about 30 seconds and just managed to pull it out before I blacked out.
 
Was dragged off my bike by a wagons trailer at age 12, pulled the bike under but I went sideways onto the path... f***ing hell that's 3 for me before I was 21 now, I'm going to stop as I'm spooking myself and feeling very mortal. Looks like God liked an idiot
 
Had convulsions as baby with a crazy high body temperature, my heart stopped a couple of times.

A few squeaky arse moments as an adult too, wrapped a car around a tree on Dairy Lane in the 90's, a pillars squashed flat and roof touching my mate and myself head.

Stomach ulcers a couple of times, didn't go to the doctors for ages the first time and lost 3 stone, was weak as fuck. 2nd time dropped my guts out my arse and needed blue lighting for blood loss and an op to fix the bleeding, literally hours from death the rate the blood was coming out.
 
The Hesford Diet said:
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?"
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WOW !
I know you'd not been well, (understatement of the decade) but that's incredible.
You've been very lucky to make it through the night, after contracting encephalitis, sepsis, and suffered paralysis, and yet you're still here to tell your tale.
The first thing I would have done, after discharging myself from rehab, was to put the lottery on.

Best of luck to you THD.
 
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Slow joe said:
No mate never seen him since. It was the policeman who knocked on my door and told me of his sentence.
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Suppose you shouldn’t expect anything different from a piece of shit, but if he was really blaming the drugs then he should’ve reached out. Let’s hope he took some medicine from someone a lot tougher than him when he went down
 
Very nearly came off the Grand National down Blackpool back in the 80's before seat harnesses were installed. I hung over the front of the carriage for about a minute before finally getting sat back down, it was terrifying. Seems like such a harmless ride but a lot of poeple perished on it over the years.
 
Cousin pushed me on to the lines at Seaburn station, lucky the old station master seen what happened, jumped down and threw me up on to the platform, then he ducked under it as the train came in, he got some kind of award for his bravery from what I can remember, I was only about 7 at the time.
 
Stray Cat said:
Every time I closed my eyes I could see them. They were just people going about their business but they weren’t nurses or anything. They were just regular people.....children too. I’d be watching them and thinking “why don’t they get out of my room when I’m trying to sleep?” It was relentless and then after a couple of days I didn’t see them anymore. The strongest medication I was on was paracetamol. It wasn’t scary.

Can you feel them in your head still? I can.
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No but I can feel where he drilled through skull.
 
Struck by lightning twice. Once in the shower during a hurricane in the Colombian Andes, second in the commander's seat of a Spartan CVR(T) in West Germany.

Couple of months ago I had a bite of beautiful roast beef. Suddenly I was having a lovely warm, soft dream. Until my wife smacked my back and dislodged it. I was looking extremely closely at my meal, almost face in it.

She still hasn't forgiven me for hurting her thumb with my back. But to be fair she still hasn't forgiven me for turning up in Hussar uniform with sabre and upstaging her on her wedding day 38 years ago.
 
Charmless Man said:
I was forced to become a very strong swimmer after that but to this day i still dont like pools much.

Prefer the sea/lakes/rivers despite them being objectively more dangerous.
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That’s one thing I did with the kids that I look back on and think it was worth it. Every Saturday morning swimming.
 
Although I very seldom ever think about it, me and mate on the frozen lake by lakeside club at gilley law.
Ice broke and mate managed to scramble out, I slipped under ice for a moment but managed to bob back up and mate grabbed me.
Must have been a very close call, though didn't really think anything of it at the time.

Was kicked unconscious in 1992
 
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Battered in Liverpool of all places. Broken cheekbone was the worst of it. The police arrived during the event and I remember the relief. Clearly remember lying on the floor being kicked in the face thinking 'if they don't stop I'm going to be in big trouble. Went to trial, I gave evidence. Both of them got 6 months.
 
Shot blasting a 32 inch internal pipe on a bogey. Long lance into the pipe as I was walking backwards with the torch ensuring the blasting was cleaning the pipe.
The bogey axle gripped by boot between the central rail strut and proceeded to drag me under it.
If it wasn't for having rigger boots on I would've been crushed to death and nobody would've heard my screams before death such was the noise intensity.
I managed to lose the rigger boot and free myself.
I still have flash backs over it and it was about 30 years ago.

Sea coaling and being dragged up a bank with a full load via thick cable.
The cable snapped and smashed out the windscreen of the wagon I was being towed in. The glass went all over me but took the full sting out of the cable lash. It was like a feeling of being hit by some kind of missile.

Breaking up wagon parts for scrap. You know those brake coil things on a massive wagon, like air brake things?
I was stood with a mate who was smashing the aluminium off it, obviously not knowing there was a compressed coiled spring inside. The outer casing shattered and this coil spring literally whizzed under my nose and about 100 feet (guess) into the air. If that had went under my chin I think I'd have been dead and in a total facial mess or severely disfigured and wished I was.

It landed back down after a few seconds about 10 feet away from us.


Another time we were stripping bearings from a machine to replace them. The bearing casing was rusted into the housing and we used a bearing puller. More strain and more strain as we turned the puller, then bang the bearing shattered with what seemed like a high powered ball bearing gun going off.
I heard the bearings hit all sides of the factory wall sheeting about 200 feet away (guess again) before puncturing through some parts like bullets.
The silly part was there were 3 of us stood around this bearing and not one of us took a hit. I still don't know how to this day.
 
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Had a tear in my stomach lining and lost four pints of blood. (I thought I had a cold). Same thing happened ten years later but not as serious, I guess because I recognised the symptoms.
Apparently nearly drowned at Finchale Abbey as a bairn but can't really remember.
Closest I came to death was when Billy Whitehurst heard me call him Billy Shitearse in Finos. Luckily John Kay made a joke of it and saved my life.
 

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