What's your close call?

[greatBLU]

Watch this:
http://www.break.com/index/ral...almost-loses-head.html

The dude is about 3 inches away from getting impaled and all he says is "ugh oh".

It got me thinking about some close calls that I've had. I think you guys might have some good ones.

Mine: I was coming back from snowboarding, heading down Big Bear mountain at about 9:00 at night. It wasn't freezing yet but there was some run off so we were driving cautiously in case of ice.

Sure enough we come around a corner and right at the apex of the turn we hit ice at 35 mph in a Ford Explorer. This immediately sent the car sliding towards a guard rail that had a 100 foot drop. My buddy swings it and we end up sliding to a stop. We most likely would have hit the rail and gone over.

 

[darkxshade]

Twice in the game of Russian Roulette:

The first time, I loaded a revolver with all 6 bullets, pointed the gun at myself and pulled the trigger.
The second time, I loaded a desert eagle with a full mag, pointed the gun at myself and pulled the trigger with the safety off.

 

[mxyzptlk]

When I was a kid one day my friends and I had found a rabbit in the park and we wanted to bring it home. we caught it, but when we got to the parking lot it got loose and ran and hid under a car. I was reaching under the car trying to get it, when someone in the car started it and started backing up really quickly. Some man, a complete stranger, I don't think I ever saw his face, grabbed me and picked me up at the last moment before the tire crushed my stupid little brain.

edit: in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I'm going to assume that I was the man who saved me and that at some point in the future I will be given the option to go back in time and save myself even though it will lead to the eventual destruction of the universe because of some kind of pair of ducks.

 

[Kirby]

Took a turn to fast in my car, hit some gravel, and just about hit a house or an oak tree stump.

 

[shortylickens]

A few times in Kosovo, but I learned to get past it. And its not nearly as bad as friends of mine coming back from the middle-east dead or deformed. So I learned to appreciate what I have.

 

[purbeast0]

i was hit by a car on my 4th birthday and dragged by my head under the front bumper of the car for 90 feet. i was flown by helicopter to childrens hospital in washington DC.

i was in the hospital for a long time and ended up only breaking my femur on my right leg, and had a ton of scars and still have a ton on my forehead.

on the bright side, nancy reagan came to visit us at childrens hospital, and i was the only kid who wouldn't come out of my room to go visit her in the room she was in, so she personally came into my room. there was an article written about it in the washington post and my mom still has it in my baby book heh. she actually showed it to me on mothers day this year.

 

[lxskllr]

While walking next to a highway, I had a flatbed truck lock up it's brakes and slide past me in a cloud of smoke.

I had a runaway truck come within 4' of where I was standing. It took out a 10" pump, and went into the river.

I slipped off a bridge form, and caught myself with 2" to spare of having a piece of rebar go through my neck.

I was 12' down in a hole without a hardhat, and crane swung it's boom around, and snagged a length of 5/8" cable and it fell on my head.

When I was young I was crossing a busy road, and miscounted the lanes. I thought I was clear, and took off running. I slammed into the side of a car which was going about 40mph.

 

[randay]

kick the bucket

 

[Perknose]

"Kicked the bucket" not "bit the bucket", OP.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: Perknose
"Kicked the bucket" not "bit the bucket", OP.

:laugh:

I guess OP got a little hungry

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: Perknose
"Kicked the bucket" not "bit the bucket", OP.

Kick the dust, bit the bucket, flat as an arrow, and straight as a pancake :^D

 

[hiromizu]

I've never bit a bucket before. Dunno why I should.

 

[MotF Bane]

Probably something dumb in my car, like finding out just how high the limiter is set on an occupied highway, or hitting black ice and skidding halfway around the highway offramp.

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
While walking next to a highway, I had a flatbed truck lock up it's brakes and slide past me in a cloud of smoke.

I had a runaway truck come within 4' of where I was standing. It took out a 10" pump, and went into the river.

I slipped off a bridge form, and caught myself with 2" to spare of having a piece of rebar go through my neck.

I was 12' down in a hole without a hardhat, and crane swung it's boom around, and snagged a length of 5/8" cable and it fell on my head.

When I was young I was crossing a busy road, and miscounted the lanes. I thought I was clear, and took off running. I slammed into the side of a car which was going about 40mph.

I've seen many people die in construction accidents. I hate it...it fucks up production...

The worst I was ever personally involved in was (as a young dumb apprentice) I was running a small hydraulic crane with the carpenters putting up forms. Not far away, a crew was rigging in the boom for a BIG crane. (250+ tons) When they had it all rigged in, the operator boomed it up and swung it over me. About that time, the boom folded in half and it came crashing down on the crane I was operating.
Turns out, the ironworkers had been out drinking the night before and somehow missed adding in a penant cable to the mid-section of the boom. (large support cables)

It took the emergency crews about 4 hours to cut the boom sections away so the paramedics could get to me, and then cut me free so they could transport me to the hospital.

Overall, I came out of it pretty well. Broken arm, couple of broken ribs, concussion, minor lacerations and abrasions. One of the carpenters I was working with was killed instantly.

While in Vietnam, I was shot at rather frequently. (the bastards!) I experienced a few close calls, (nasty sounding "bees" when the bullets start flying close) but only one hit. I took a small piece of shrapnel in my left knee. Motherfucker knocked my feet out from under me like I had been hit by a truck.
Corpsman dug out the shrapnel, cleaned it, threw some stitches in it...and off we went. We didn't get back to "civilization" for 2 more weeks...but we accomplished what we set out to do...and the knee healed just fine.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Distracted my dad at a stop sign, almost didn't stop and an 18-wheeler came rolling by.

 

[Kirby]

Originally posted by: BoomerD

Originally posted by: lxskllr
While walking next to a highway, I had a flatbed truck lock up it's brakes and slide past me in a cloud of smoke.

I had a runaway truck come within 4' of where I was standing. It took out a 10" pump, and went into the river.

I slipped off a bridge form, and caught myself with 2" to spare of having a piece of rebar go through my neck.

I was 12' down in a hole without a hardhat, and crane swung it's boom around, and snagged a length of 5/8" cable and it fell on my head.

When I was young I was crossing a busy road, and miscounted the lanes. I thought I was clear, and took off running. I slammed into the side of a car which was going about 40mph.

I've seen many people die in construction accidents. I hate it...it fucks up production...

The worst I was ever personally involved in was (as a young dumb apprentice) I was running a small hydraulic crane with the carpenters putting up forms. Not far away, a crew was rigging in the boom for a BIG crane. (250+ tons) When they had it all rigged in, the operator boomed it up and swung it over me. About that time, the boom folded in half and it came crashing down on the crane I was operating.
Turns out, the ironworkers had been out drinking the night before and somehow missed adding in a penant cable to the mid-section of the boom. (large support cables)

It took the emergency crews about 4 hours to cut the boom sections away so the paramedics could get to me, and then cut me free so they could transport me to the hospital.

Overall, I came out of it pretty well. Broken arm, couple of broken ribs, concussion, minor lacerations and abrasions. One of the carpenters I was working with was killed instantly.

While in Vietnam, I was shot at rather frequently. (the bastards!) I experienced a few close calls, (nasty sounding "bees" when the bullets start flying close) but only one hit. I took a small piece of shrapnel in my left knee. Motherfucker knocked my feet out from under me like I had been hit by a truck.
Corpsman dug out the shrapnel, cleaned it, threw some stitches in it...and off we went. We didn't get back to "civilization" for 2 more weeks...but we accomplished what we set out to do...and the knee healed just fine.

My dad worked construction and there are some accidents he won't talk about. The most details I've got from my mom is something falling (crane hoisting a latch maybe) and crushing a guy.

 

[nageov3t]

was almost in a car accident going 60 mph last weekend. wasn't paying attention, ran a red light on a highway.

thank god I got my brakes replaced last winter.

and thank god there were no cops around

 

[shopbruin]

The hubs (at the time BF) and I were driving near downtown LA, trying to find the Macy's furniture outlet. We weren't that familiar with the area and this was way before GPS became popular. We were trying to read street signs when I went "HEY RED LIGHT STOP!"

The hubs stopped the car (mine at the time 98 Honda Civic) as he sees a Ford Explorer come barrelling through the intersection. I would have been mushed.

And I for some reason do not remember this. He tells me the story and I have no recollection of that part of the day - I remember looking for street signs and eventually getting to the store, getting inside, and finding a couch.

 

[Zedtom]

I was swimming in the Salt River in Arizona and swallowed some water. I overreacted and started flailing around and couldn't grab onto the slick rocks in the narrow canyon. There were people standing only a few feet above me, but they couldn't grab on to me to pull me up. Finally some guy reached down and grabbed a chain with a medallion that I was wearing around my neck. He hoisted me up and grabbed my shoulders to lift me up out of the water. They got me breathing again and I felt grateful and embarrassed.

 

[rgwalt]

Originally posted by: nkgreen

Originally posted by: BoomerD

Originally posted by: lxskllr
While walking next to a highway, I had a flatbed truck lock up it's brakes and slide past me in a cloud of smoke.

I had a runaway truck come within 4' of where I was standing. It took out a 10" pump, and went into the river.

I slipped off a bridge form, and caught myself with 2" to spare of having a piece of rebar go through my neck.

I was 12' down in a hole without a hardhat, and crane swung it's boom around, and snagged a length of 5/8" cable and it fell on my head.

When I was young I was crossing a busy road, and miscounted the lanes. I thought I was clear, and took off running. I slammed into the side of a car which was going about 40mph.

I've seen many people die in construction accidents. I hate it...it fucks up production...

The worst I was ever personally involved in was (as a young dumb apprentice) I was running a small hydraulic crane with the carpenters putting up forms. Not far away, a crew was rigging in the boom for a BIG crane. (250+ tons) When they had it all rigged in, the operator boomed it up and swung it over me. About that time, the boom folded in half and it came crashing down on the crane I was operating.
Turns out, the ironworkers had been out drinking the night before and somehow missed adding in a penant cable to the mid-section of the boom. (large support cables)

It took the emergency crews about 4 hours to cut the boom sections away so the paramedics could get to me, and then cut me free so they could transport me to the hospital.

Overall, I came out of it pretty well. Broken arm, couple of broken ribs, concussion, minor lacerations and abrasions. One of the carpenters I was working with was killed instantly.

While in Vietnam, I was shot at rather frequently. (the bastards!) I experienced a few close calls, (nasty sounding "bees" when the bullets start flying close) but only one hit. I took a small piece of shrapnel in my left knee. Motherfucker knocked my feet out from under me like I had been hit by a truck.
Corpsman dug out the shrapnel, cleaned it, threw some stitches in it...and off we went. We didn't get back to "civilization" for 2 more weeks...but we accomplished what we set out to do...and the knee healed just fine.

My dad worked construction and there are some accidents he won't talk about. The most details I've got from my mom is something falling (crane hoisting a latch maybe) and crushing a guy.

The saddest part about these accidents is that they were all 100% preventable. Wear your PPE, check, double check, and triple check your gear, body placement, work, machinary, etc.

 

[Chronoshock]

Was in the passenger side of my friend's car. He was following someone else since he didn't know the way, but he lost them when he got stuck behind traffic. In an attempt to catch up he floored it and we entered a tunnel at 90, only to find stand still traffic. He slammed on the brakes, but we ended up hitting the back of a minivan at at least 40-50 mph. The passenger side airbag was defective and immediately burst, spraying me with white powder. If I hadn't worn my seatbelt, I'd probably be severely injured or dead.

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: rgwalt

The saddest part about these accidents is that they were all 100% preventable. Wear your PPE, check, double check, and triple check your gear, body placement, work, machinary, etc.

Yep. MOST construction accidents are caused by human error and are 100% preventable...Once in a while, SHIT HAPPENS and can't be otherwise accounted for...but those cases are rare.

 

[rh71]

hurt during hockey - felt I was blacking out while driving home... all I remembered was making a turn onto a smaller road... managed to pull the parking brake somehow before I went out completely... I realized this after I had woken up minutes later, in the middle of the road, peeing myself. Practically crawled back to my dorm room... and after talking to the medical center nurse, she convinced me to go check it out since abdominal pains aren't usually good.

Friends drove me to the hospital where I found I ruptured my spleen and was bleeding internally. Transfusion & surgery ensued. If I hadn't called and tried to sleep it off, it would've been good night fo'sho.

 

[imported_Imp]

Hit by car as a kid, that's about it. May have died from infection a few times, but seems like I pulled through fine.

 

[Orignal Earl]

Back in the day I had a job switching rail cars around a plant where we repaired them. I was riding on the end of about 10 cars with the pettibone on the other end. When you start to get close to cars you are going to couple up with, you count down on a radio to the pettibone, 2 cars (lengths) 1 car.. half a car, 10 ( feet) 5..
I had noticed the couplers were not going to match up so I radioed the pettibone to stop. I jumped off and walked over and lifted the other cars coupler up to match. I figured it was good and moved off to the side and turned around. ( a matter of seconds)
The line of cars came together. Buddy had been dozing a bit and had let them roll ahead.
I would of been caught in between the couplers.

I hear you don't die until they split the cars apart