Closest you have been to death?



Choked on a lolly as a kid, slipped off the stick.

Luckily I was at my mates house, and his Mam was a nurse. The old 'heimlich' wasn't working so she just resorted to the hands down the throat and yark it out.

I don't remember much of it apart from my throat killing and coughing up blood for a while after.

I was about 30 seconds from snuffing it.
 
Quite a few also
Closest was in Yosemite.. nice ride thru.. until a motorhome came right over my side of the road.. very close. Just managed to avoid it
Had a similar in crete on this old klr250 ,riding on the mountain dust tracks all day.Got a bit used to having them to ourselves and to be fair I was on the wrong side of one .Farmer came round the corner in his pick up on this hillside .I managed to squeeze between him to my right and the hill to my left .gulp !
 
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.
Please never work with me
 
IED hit on my wagon 2009 - all good though
Caught in a mortar stomp 2006
Numerous shot ats
Patrolled into old Russian minefied 2006
Helo malfunction 2003 Kuwait
Helo glitch 2005 North Sea
Loads really, can’t evem remember half of them

what's your nickname 'lucky' ...?
 
Severe dehydration / alcohol poisoning.
Kept trying to push through it, but everything I ate or drank over an 8hour period just came back up.
Went for a walk at the shopping centre (this is in vegas by the way), and my face went numb, and I slid down a wall onto the floor and started convulsing.
Pretty scary tbh.

That, and being distracted at 70mph on the A19 in the 90's, and didn't realise there was stationary traffic that I was about to plow into. Last second I veered into the other lane without checking (no time), and by pure luck, I avoided the accident. Considering the car I was in (a knackered, ancient Micra), I would have been in big trouble.
 
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

Must have been some bloody big bramble bush!!
 
I was born with hydrocaphalus and had to have a hole drilled in my head and fluid drained from my brain.

Was kicked to fuck by five lads once. They apparently stamped all over my head and throat (foot prints on my windpipe etc) to try and finish me off. I looked (even more) like John Merrick for weeks.
 
My ex wife's uncle was working in a warehouse and one of the lads got crushed against the wall by a forklift. He said his body literally went pop and bits blew everywhere, he had to have counselling for 3 years but has never came to terms with it, this was over 20 years ago. The bloke who did it couldnt live with the trauma and killed himself. Tragic all round.
I couldn’t walk for two years and still have problems after 30 years. I had to study for a degree to start again, six years after losing two years work in Thatcher’s time. I was starting to black out when the truck was stopped. Lucky but still here.
 
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.

Self preservation mate. I was in hospital for two weeks with a life-changing condition and it honestly didn't occur to me once that the problems would be lie-long, despite being told this multiple times by the doctors. It was there years ago and I'm still expecting the problems I have to go away.
 

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