Closest you have been to death?



Car accident where I had to swerve and ended up driving head first into a metal bollard. Pushed itself a fair way through the front end / engine. I nearly kebabbed myself.
The car was written off, although by the most extreme coincidence, I drove past it in a suburb of Birmingham just a couple of months ago.
 
Whilst working under the North Sea at Wearmouth Colliery in the 90s, I was painting something up aheight on the griders in a roadway which was about 12 foot high. At one point I picked up my tin of paint from the roadway floor and took a few steps then heard a huge crash as a large slab of sandstone about 4 foot long and 2 foot thick came away from the roof and landed exactly on the spot where my pant tin had been. It would have crushed me no bother if I'd been under it.

Another near miss was a few years ago when a Luton box van ran the red lights in the rain at the traffic lights crossroads in Fencehouses and hit me side on, right on my drivers side. He was going that fast he rammed my car 30 yards up the road until it wedged against the fence opposite the Golden Fry. I got out relatively unscathed apart from a bit glass in my eye and a few cuts and bruises. I'm convinced what saved me was a faulty traffic light on the opposite side of the junction to me. The orange light was out so I missed the kick by a couple of seconds when it turned to green. If I'd been a yard further on the van would have hit me direct on my shoulder.
 
Born 7 weeks early in 1987 and was given 50/50.

Got a blood test once and had no Potassium left in my blood and the nurse did question how I was alive let alone still walking about. Felt pretty poorly though.
 
I've suffered with asthma and now copd for many years. A major trigger for my asthma is the hair of short-haired cats. I'd never had a full-blown attack, just breathing discomfort, which I relieved with an inhaler. In 1998 our lass came in the house with a kitten she had been given by the landlord of one of the pubs she used to visit for her job. I told her we couldn't keep it 'cos of my asthma but we agreed to see if I could normalise it with a cat in the house.

All went ok for a couple of weeks until one night I awoke to find I could hardly breathe, really struggling for breath. I tried my inhaler a few times, no relief. I tried different body positions to open my lungs, eventually ending up on all fours on the floor, still no relief. This caused me to get really worried and we got in our lass' car to go to Shields General Hospital. On the way my breathing got even worse and I was fighting off a panic attack. I started to get really dizzy as we got to the hospital and our lass parked where the ambulances come in. As I stumbled into the reception area I was losing consciousness and slumped onto a chair wheezing and gasping. A nurse came rushing over and our lass explained I was having an asthma attack. I was immediately put into a wheelchair and rushed into a room where a nebuliser was clamped onto my face for about 90 minutes. Thankfully this provided some relief and I could just breathe again.

I enjoyed a two week stay in hospital with twice-daily nebuliser sessions before I recovered sufficiently to go home. When I got there the cat was gone. His name was Lucky!
 
This very moment in time.
I was having trouble swallowing so last Tuesday I had camera down to see what the problem was. Sadly they found a cancerous tumour just about blocking my oesophagus and a small satellite tumour. I had a CT scan Thursday morning and I'm going to receive a phone call on Tuesday after a meeting with cancer specialists. I suppose I'll learn my fate with this phone call but I have my endoscopy report and have to admit it's pretty f*****g grim.
Enjoy life while you can folks, wine, women and song. Most importantly don't waste time on hate.
 
This very moment in time.
I was having trouble swallowing so last Tuesday I had camera down to see what the problem was. Sadly they found a cancerous tumour just about blocking my oesophagus and a small satellite tumour. I had a CT scan Thursday morning and I'm going to receive a phone call on Tuesday after a meeting with cancer specialists. I suppose I'll learn my fate with this phone call but I have my endoscopy report and have to admit it's pretty f*****g grim.
Enjoy life while you can folks, wine, women and song. Most importantly don't waste time on hate.

Terrible news for you.
Hope things turn out as good as they can for you
 
Not me but the missus. Yesterday she borrowed my van to go to the shops, when she got back she said she just brushed against a fence and the paintwork on the side of the door got marked but there is no damage. I wasn't that bothered until I looked, the front wing, door, sliding door, side panel and rear wheel arch are all bent and scratched, bless her she even bought some universal cleaning wipes to try and hide the damage. She came close, very close.
 
Making an extension drill.
Leaning over the vice brazing the drill into the extension when...BANG!!! The drill shot out like a bullet and took a chunk of concrete out of the roof. How it missed my head I'll never know.
 

Back
Top