What Was Your Near Brush With Death

[ChemEngineer]

A local radio station was asking callers to tell of their nearest brush with death. Most all were male because we are so very stupid and think we are invincible as well as just generally cool.
Here is my closest brush.

I picked up a business associate at Santa Monica Airport in a Cessna 152 to fly us both to Northern California for a white water river rafting trip. Four or five uneventful days later, I flew us back and while landing at Santa Monica to drop him off, I noticed a ground layer of fog coming in from the ocean.
Chris had been instrument rated but was not current. He said "Just request a special VFR and you'll be okay."

The controller read instructions, frequencies and headings for me to follow and said "Read them back."
I forgot my pencil and paper! Panicked, I could not read them back so he started all over and repeated himself as the ground layer continued to roll in. I still could not read them back but he said, "Go ahead and take off." I was tired from getting up early, tired from rowing a paddle boat in white water, and nervous about ground layer not to mention not knowing instructions and frequencies.

Socked in on takeoff and liftoff, my artificial horizon started tilting, badly. I turned the control yoke, the wrong way. Mind... not... working..... Remembering the plane will fly itself, I took my feet off the rudder pedals. Wrong control release. Should have taken my hands off the yoke. About to spiral into the ground under IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions), from which only 4% of non-instrument rated pilots survive, I recalled the low altitude of the ground layer and pulled back hard on the yoke.

Airspeed plummeted quickly and just before stalling, I broke out of ground layer fog, pushed the yoke down, and flew to Orange County Airport. Being stressed impairs your judgment and that is compounded by being tired. I was always good in practice under a hood, but not stressed because I had the instructor seated next to me, and I was not tired.

After doing everything wrong, I did one thing right, and that just barely, but it was enough. I beat 96% odds to write this.

What you got?

 

[Unkotare]

Which one?

 

[Sunsettommy]

About year 2010 I was rebuilding a section of 3" PVC pipe in connection with the first valve (from the water supply connection) I which I had replaced the old one with a new one I cut into the 220 30 Amp power line that goes to the Irrigation timer which was along the bottom edge of the 3" PVC pipe about 12'" deep in the ground which I was looking closer to see why there was a lot of sparkly light in the trench it was melting my metal saw blade that I was running but somehow didn't kill me instantly a jigsaw blade with a big hole melted out of it to where about half the width of the blade was simply GONE!

I stopped got out of the trench shaken because I should be dead there, reported it to the Supervisor who relayed it to the electrical department and soon it was everywhere in the city employee system.

The electricians were shaken and pissed off since the power line was illegally installed and way oversized for the irrigation timer that they ran a trench and 1" schedule 40 electrical PVC through the park to where the power connection was and 3' down as required by law even installed a ground fault interrupter device there to make it difficult for anyone to be zapped now at the 120v and probably 10-amp level.

 

[d0gbreath]

About year 2010 I was rebuilding a section of 3" PVC pipe in connection with the first valve (from the water supply connection) I which I had replaced the old one with a new one I cut into the 220 30 Amp power line that goes to the Irrigation timer which was along the bottom edge of the 3" PVC pipe about 12'" deep in the ground which I was looking closer to see why there was a lot of sparkly light in the trench it was melting my metal saw blade that I was running but somehow didn't kill me instantly a jigsaw blade with a big hole melted out of it to where about half the width of the blade was simply GONE!

I stopped got out of the trench shaken because I should be dead there, reported it to the Supervisor who relayed it to the electrical department and soon it was everywhere in the city employee system.

The electricians were shaken and pissed off since the power line was illegally installed and way oversized for the irrigation timer that they ran a trench and 1" schedule 40 electrical PVC through the park to where the power connection was and 3' down as required by law even installed a ground fault interrupter device there to make it difficult for anyone to be zapped now at the 120v and probably 10-amp level.

220V, while a hell of a shock, tends to knock you away, not make you hold on like the 120V which is way more dangerous.

 

[Unkotare]

220V, while a hell of a shock, tends to knock you away, not make you hold on like the 120V which is way more dangerous.

I got thrown clear across the room from a stupid electrical F-up once.

 

[Sunsettommy]

220V, while a hell of a shock, tends to knock you away, not make you hold on like the 120V which is way more dangerous.

Not with 220 Volts and THIRTY Amps!

 

[Ridgerunner]

What you got?

A early 70's reality show that featured little ole me...

I joined the Army 3 days later...

 

[JOSweetHeart]

I was inside of a car right when it was hit by lightning on July 2, 2002. My 20th birthday was two days earlier. I was told that if the gas line had been hit, I wouldn't be here now.

God bless you always!!!

Holly

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Which one?

Thats what I was thinking.
Between close car wrecks,motorcycle wrecks and several other stupid things I did as a youngster it's hard to say.

 

[westwall]

A local radio station was asking callers to tell of their nearest brush with death. Most all were male because we are so very stupid and think we are invincible as well as just generally cool.
Here is my closest brush.

I picked up a business associate at Santa Monica Airport in a Cessna 152 to fly us both to Northern California for a white water river rafting trip. Four or five uneventful days later, I flew us back and while landing at Santa Monica to drop him off, I noticed a ground layer of fog coming in from the ocean.
Chris had been instrument rated but was not current. He said "Just request a special VFR and you'll be okay."

The controller read instructions, frequencies and headings for me to follow and said "Read them back."
I forgot my pencil and paper! Panicked, I could not read them back so he started all over and repeated himself as the ground layer continued to roll in. I still could not read them back but he said, "Go ahead and take off." I was tired from getting up early, tired from rowing a paddle boat in white water, and nervous about ground layer not to mention not knowing instructions and frequencies.

Socked in on takeoff and liftoff, my artificial horizon started tilting, badly. I turned the control yoke, the wrong way. Mind... not... working..... Remembering the plane will fly itself, I took my feet off the rudder pedals. Wrong control release. Should have taken my hands off the yoke. About to spiral into the ground under IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions), from which only 4% of non-instrument rated pilots survive, I recalled the low altitude of the ground layer and pulled back hard on the yoke.

Airspeed plummeted quickly and just before stalling, I broke out of ground layer fog, pushed the yoke down, and flew to Orange County Airport. Being stressed impairs your judgment and that is compounded by being tired. I was always good in practice under a hood, but not stressed because I had the instructor seated next to me, and I was not tired.

After doing everything wrong, I did one thing right, and that just barely, but it was enough. I beat 96% odds to write this.

What you got?

I was flying a friends Pilatus PC-6 Turboporter up onto the Tasman Glacier back in 1985, '86. We had dropped off the gear for the researchers and I took off into a nice clear blue sky. Climbing through 3,000 agl we hit a downdraft that dropped us 2500 feet, instantly. I was watching a boulder that I could see real clear because it was clear of snow and ice and used it to maintain my angle of attack (I had no time for instrument scanning) and was able to climb out thanks to the 600 horse power we had.

 

[whitehall]

I had a serious bladder infection and my PSA numbers were sky high for my age. I thought prostate cancer but my urologist said "let me worry about it" over the summer. Yeah right. The infection went away and the PSA numbers went back to normal. "Live like you were dy'in"....Tim McGraw

 

[ChemEngineer]

I have scuba dived Catalina Island many times. This trip was on my friend's 28' Skipjack so we had no compressor to refill tanks. I had to make do with just one. Years earlier, I snapped the neck strap on to my regulator which NOBODY did at that time. It holds the regular near your head if you spit the mouthpiece out. To conserve my only tank of air, I was skin diving for abalone and forgot about my tank on my back. After 90 minutes, I started kicking back toward the anchored boat and there was a huge stand of kelp ahead of me. So I submerged 12 feet, kicked under it leisurely for quite a distance until I noticed I had stopped. Hung up on kelp. Turning to the surface, I had to have some air right now. Kelp held me down 4 feet deep. Panic! I was stuck, and completely out of air!
THEN I remembered the tank on my back, the neck strap I put on the regulator that nobody else did, so it was not dangling out of sight and out of reach. Whap, puff and I'm recharged.

Had I not installed the goofy neck strap years ago, I could not have found my regulator quickly enough and would have drowned four feet below the surface. Contingency planning is a beautiful thing. (Many thousands of hours of bottom time.)

 

[progressive hunter]

which one??

when I was working at a trailer shop I walked around a corner and some dufuss that worked there was using a half full 55 gal drum of isopropyl alcohol for a saw horse to cut a 3" angle iron with a cutting torch,,
after screaming at him to stop and back up where he just argued with me, another older guy that worked there walked around the corner wonder WTF I told him what happened and he turned white knowing like me that we couldnt run fast enough if it ignited,
I left him to explain it to the dufuss and went to sit on the toilet for a while

 

[EvilCat Breath]

I've had quite a few.
One.
My boyfriend had come up with some issue on his pilot's license and he had to make a qualifying flight. He knew a pilot to certify him, my boyfriend, myself, the other pilot and his girlfriend decided that the flight would be from Long Beach to Yuma, to Las Vegas, stay overnight and back to Long Beach.

While Flying over the desert, this more experienced pilot produced a few doobies. He and my stupid ass boyfriend thought it a good idea to smoke dope. Then they thought it a good idea to see if the rented Bonanza could do aerobatics. That plane shuddered so badly, I thought it would disintegrate. And it was blazingly hot even at elevation. The sudden dives and climbs caused rapid changes in air pressure. The other girl's nose exploded like a shotgun. Blood sprayed everywhere. She was screaming, the two dopers found it all screamingly funny. I took off my t-shirt and held it against this girl's nose. If we crashed, I hoped there were no survivors in that desolate land. I opted out of continuing when we landed in Yuma.

Two.
I was used to death threats caused by some case or other. I never took any of them seriously. Until, sound asleep in the middle of the night, I was rudely awakened by a huge explosion. I ran out of my apartment to see my car in tiny pieces over two blocks. The car bomb went off prematurely.

 

[ChemEngineer]

We rented a houseboat on Lake Powell, Utah for two families and children.
I saw an enticing cliff and asked my friend, Dr. Inaba, to stop the boat.
I swam 150 yards to shore, walked up the cliffs and looked down.
Boats on the lake stopped to watch me dive.
Looking down, the water was pretty clear but I had no idea of the depth. Probably 10 feet or more. (Maybe not.)
Idiot that I was then, I dived in head first. Fifty feet easy.
The water hit my head like a 2 x 4. It hurt but I didn't hit bottom, luckily.
So I'm alive today despite my incredible stupidity, again.
Men. Really dumb not sometimes, but often.

 

[Persuader]

I was down in Panana circa l965 serving in the 508th Abn stationed at Ft. Kobbe....yeh I am a old guy.... I was in a jeep wreck....the medics were transporting me to Gorgas Hospital in the Canal Zone....as we were crossing the Bridge of the America's...I was wondering if I was going to die---I knew I was hurt real bad....then I felt a cool and very pleasant breeze across my face and suddenly I was in the presence of golden figures who seemed to be judging me....I got a very clear message---this is not your time to die.

By the time we got to Gorgas Hospital I was quite happy....I knew I would not die....at least on that day.

After 2 major operations and a couple of months recuperation in the dispensary at Ft. Clayton, Canal Zone I recovered completely and was discharged ....went back to college and was taking some sort of class in Ancient Middle Eastern religions or something of that nature....there was a picture of Ancient Sumerian gods on a page in the text book....it was startling. They looked exactly like the golden figures I saw whilst being transported across The Bridge of the Americas which is over the Panama Canal on the Pacific side.

Make of it what you will....as Hamlet said to Horatio...............".there are more things in heaven and earth than are Dreamt of in your philosophy."

Also my Mother told me when I got home she knew the exact moment that the wreck happened that something bad had happend and she told me the exact words I spoke at that time.

 

[Flash]

Disregard the shit in Vietnam. That should not count in a thread like this.

My Mom told me that as an infant I had pneumonia. She said I was very close to death. This was in 1947. Only a couple of months earlier did the hospital get the newly distributed antibiotics. The doctor told my Mom that had I been admitted before the antibiotics were available I would have died.

Another time about three years ago could have been a disaster.

My wife and I were to drive from Central Florida to visit our son in Atlanta.

We left early in the morning but my wife forgot to take her cell phone so a mile or so down the road we turned back to get it. The delay cost us 15 minutes.

Later in the day we were on the bypass around Macon. There had been a tremendous accident involving a semi and several vehicles. There were several deaths and injuries.

The accident happened at almost 15 minutes before we got there. Had we not turned around to get her cellphone we probably would have been there just about the time the accident happened. We could have been some of the casualties.

 

[The Duke]

A local radio station was asking callers to tell of their nearest brush with death. Most all were male because we are so very stupid and think we are invincible as well as just generally cool.
Here is my closest brush.

I picked up a business associate at Santa Monica Airport in a Cessna 152 to fly us both to Northern California for a white water river rafting trip. Four or five uneventful days later, I flew us back and while landing at Santa Monica to drop him off, I noticed a ground layer of fog coming in from the ocean.
Chris had been instrument rated but was not current. He said "Just request a special VFR and you'll be okay."

The controller read instructions, frequencies and headings for me to follow and said "Read them back."
I forgot my pencil and paper! Panicked, I could not read them back so he started all over and repeated himself as the ground layer continued to roll in. I still could not read them back but he said, "Go ahead and take off." I was tired from getting up early, tired from rowing a paddle boat in white water, and nervous about ground layer not to mention not knowing instructions and frequencies.

Socked in on takeoff and liftoff, my artificial horizon started tilting, badly. I turned the control yoke, the wrong way. Mind... not... working..... Remembering the plane will fly itself, I took my feet off the rudder pedals. Wrong control release. Should have taken my hands off the yoke. About to spiral into the ground under IMC (Instrument Meteorological Conditions), from which only 4% of non-instrument rated pilots survive, I recalled the low altitude of the ground layer and pulled back hard on the yoke.

Airspeed plummeted quickly and just before stalling, I broke out of ground layer fog, pushed the yoke down, and flew to Orange County Airport. Being stressed impairs your judgment and that is compounded by being tired. I was always good in practice under a hood, but not stressed because I had the instructor seated next to me, and I was not tired.

After doing everything wrong, I did one thing right, and that just barely, but it was enough. I beat 96% odds to write this.

What you got?

The night I ran up to a bat fight and had a gun pointed at my face. We got shot at, ran from the cops, too. Everybody split up and got away, owait, I think the 3 kids in back didn't.