Close Calls?

[DragonKami]

Have you ever had any fatal close calls? It can be a long story or a tiny one. It doesn't have to be just one. Here is an example (One of mine.)

 

One time I was riding my bike on the sidewalk with my bro. I was still learning how to ride. My bro came up on side of me while I was riding and then he rode up forward, when I tried to follow. I swerved onto the street and crashed with my legs wrapped up in the bike. This was before I went to the gym so I couldn't get it off easy. I was trying

to get it off when a red van started coming down the road. And since I was small and down on the road he didn't see me. I was struggling to get it off, and just got out and pulled my bike up on the sidewalk just in time to get out of the way. (I remember it like it was yesterday )

[MoonShark]

I have a similar story - involving a bike, anyway. It was my second year at college and I usually biked to school because it was faster. However, one day I was biking along, taking a different route than normal, and my bike's handlebars slipped from their socket. No steering, I started wavering into the street (the street had cars parked on both sides and two narrow lanes for traffic). A tour bus was passing by at that moment and I thought for a long, terrifying moment that I would be sliding under its wheels. However, I threw myself in the other direction and managed to wobble back - still without steering, to the side, where I sort of collapsed against a parked truck, trying desperately to keep my balance and not scratch the truck's paint (it was a nice truck).

 

I had had the handles come loose before and had simply tightened the bolt then. However, after this scare I went to the bike shop immediately and the guy there fixed it for me for free with a little gritty paste stuff that's held the handle tightly in place since his repair. However, I am still nervous about riding that bike....

[Spottedleaf]

This was when my sister was driving on the internet to go to our nanas house. She was changing lanes when suddenly a red truck zoomed by at like 80mph to get in the lane she was getting in to pass us. So we were stuck in between 2 lanes for a couple of seconds. This was just like last month so pretty recent. Ive never ever been in a car wreck or crash before. My dad was with us when it happened because my sister doesnt have her license its just a permit. I am actually like 6 years away from getting a permit

[blah]

I once slipped and fell on an icy road - and the car that was coming towards me couldn't brake properly because of the ice. Seriously, there was a lot of ice.

 

The driver and I stared at each other, both completely panicking and only at the last moment I managed to scramble out of the way on all fours.

 

Looking back on it now it is hilarious, but it could've ended so much worse.

[Starscream]

I got one that scares me more than actually being hit by a car (I have had two car strikes at low speed)... because I know it would have been lethal.

 

I was on foot, crossing the road to the supermarket. It was autumn and the sun was low on the horrid, basically it would blind cars coming toward it. But the car came from the sun... which made it kinda scary.

 

I never walk with earbuds in because I rely on my hearing to tell me what traffic is doing. So I am crossing in front of the stopped cars but I hear a fast moving vehical. I stop just at the edge of the one stopped car, look to my left and into the sun, suddenly this car came out of the blinding light, blew past me, dodged a turning car that had the green and carried on.

 

Without a doubt had I not stopped I'd have been struck, as it was, I was about a foot, give or take from the speeding red-light running car. And that terrified me.

[OtomeKristinOtaku]

When I was small I ran across the street and got hit by a cab. My parents told me that one of my ears fell off But I'm fine now and the ear got sewed back on

[DustyBelle]

I have a sensitivity to aspirin that makes me not clot correctly after ingested minute quantities as much as 2 weeks before. I found this out when I was 30ish. I had had major problems twice before. As a two year old I had been severely sick with the normal old fashioned diseases of childhood including tonselitus and strep throat. The doctors tended to give one aspirin in the 1950's. I had my tonsils removed, a normal thing back then, and then had to have a series of blood transfusions because my blot wouldn't clot. I also developed an infection and was given penicillin which apparently I am allergic to. It didn't scare me , but my parents and doctor at age 2.

 

At 29 I had a normal vaginal delivery. The blood loss was enough to require transfusions. I got to stay for quite some time hogging the operation room. It took 6 hours for the flow to decrease to a degree where the doctors described it as unusually heavy rather than life threatening. Yes, It was indeed scary.

 

I think a lot of us have had some kind of a close call with death.

[Obscure_Trash]

I've:

-Walked off a cliff

-Strapped myself to a kneeboard that flipped over and got caught under it in the water

-Had a tick where the bull's eye showed up (not fatal but lyme disease suuuuucks so glad my mom caught it)

-Caught pnemonia when I was young (diagnosed with asthma at 4 - caught because my mom checked me when I was sleeping and noticed I was barely breathing; I missed 30+ days of Kindergarten due to asthma and spent who knows how many nights in the hospital due to attacks)

 

Nothing painful or gory luckily.

[Spottedleaf]

I had 2 asthma attacks this past school year. If it wasnt for the weekends I wouldve missed a total of 9 days of school but because of them I missed 5 total. I had one on September and another in May. I was coughing so much I could hardly breathe. Im out of school for the summer now though.

[Syiren]

I have a few close calls. One is like some of yours, though it was my friend that almost paid the price. We were walking from the convenient store after getting some soda for the ordered pizza and were headed back to her house. She was just ahead of me and we were about to cross when this car quickly turns the corner like a bat outta hell and nearly plows right into her. I pulled her back just before the car rushed by. The jerk was speeding and then had the nerve to honk his horn at us. WE had the right of way. My friend constantly told me that I saved her life that night. I just tried to calm her nerves and said "I just didn't want to lose the sodas." lol, that worked. ^^

 

 

My close call was pretty scary. I was walking home from the library, (this was just a few months ago) and I was on the phone with my mom who was telling me she was down the street helping her cousin paint when I noticed someone walking very fast behind me. I remember seeing him in the library parking lot, but thought nothing of it at the time. I cross the road at a slanted angle and not on a cross walk, preferring to be on my own sidewalk and let the guy pass. (I dunno why, I just got a bad feeling) Turns out I was right to be cautious because he followed my path step for step and he was trying to catch up to me. I looked back over my shoulder and knew I didn't recognize him. I was still on the phone and asked my mom to come out and meet me. She asked why and I said "There's someone Following me!" I said that part a bit loud, trying to keep the panic in my voice down. I saw my mother come out of my cousin's house and the next thing I see over my shoulder is that guy cut off at a run around another building and out of sight. So I KNOW he was following me and trying to...I don't even want to think about what he wanted to do. I've carried a pocket knife on me ever since. I'm just glad he didn't find out where I live. Then again, let him try to get in my room. He'll meet my friend, Mr. Aluminum Bat. That is, if he can get past the dog.

[Spottedleaf]

Ive had asthma since I was 4 as well - Socks

[DragonKami]

-Strapped myself to a knee board that flipped over and got caught under it in the water

That Happened to me before, each wave it hit me in the head and pushed me down under.

 

One time I cut myself on a rusty dog cage, and it bled more than any other cut, gash or anything I ever had.

 

I also can't swim AT ALL it seems every vacation I go on I almost drown to death. My big bro Mike saved me last time. But I won't give up, even if it mean almost drowning every time!

[Pixel.G]

I'm not sure if these would count but they could have ended up badly, lol -

 

This time last year, I went to the school's clinic since I had a fever. The nurse did some checkups and when she put that doctor-thingy-that they wear around their neck to my chest, she found out my heartbeat was very irregular. When my mom picked me up, they told her about it and the next day she brought me to our family's doctor for a checkup. They told us that I had to be hospitalized for a week so they can monitor my heart and run tests. After months of tests, we got good news that was heart wasn't physically enlarging (which could have been terrible, and expensive for the treatment).

 

I also had a horrible asthma attack when I was in the Netherlands visiting my cousins for spring (darn pollen). I could not stop coughing at all and had such a hard time breathing that my eyes were watering. I rarely get asthma attacks, so I didn't bring my inhalation medicine but luckily my cousin had them (she's asthmatic, like me) so after taking those, I could actually inhale more.

 

[InugamiZERO]

I've had a good number of close calls in my life

too many asthma attacks to count

same for near miss of cars on foot and push bike, and a lot more in the past year since I got my motorcycle license (I obey the road laws its cost me $910 so far and I've got 5 more months on my P's, I'm not losing it)

too many jerks believe they have a right to just pull out in front of us or run us off the road and if they kill one of us all they need to say is "sorry mate I didn't see you"

one nearly killed me at a roundabout, he even had the gall to yell and swear at me as if it was my fault but the great part was a cop car was right behind me

[Isuzu]

This happened a few years ago when I was coming home from school.

I was waiting to cross the street when this one car stopped and the driver signaled that I can cross. Then when I set foot on the crossing he drove off at full speed pretty much missing me by a few inches all while laughing. Even now I still can't figure out why he thought that was a good joke.

[Spottedleaf]

I agree that that was an evil trick, Isuzu.

[casprrr]

On Thursday evening, April 13, 2006, I was at Colonial Lanes in Iowa City, bowling on my Thursday night league. Two of my teammates served as volunteer firefighters for the Hills (IA) Fire Department, which serves the southern Johnson County area. Thunderstorms had been building throughout the afternoon, and by early evening, the NWS Quad Cities office had issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for the area. Soon it was upgraded to a Tornado Warning. The television was tuned to one of the local stations, which was reporting on the storm and showing radar with a distinct hook echo. I remember that we stopped bowling, some people took shelter in the restrooms, but along with a few others I ventured outside. Some very large hail was falling (roughly tennis ball size) and my car got a few dents as a result. I brought one of the large hail stones inside to show the others. To the northeast I could see the tornado, about 1 to 2 miles away.

 

Going back inside, my firefighter teammates' handheld scanners were buzzing with calls from the Johnson County dispatcher, and they wondered if they should leave to help where needed or stay to finish bowling. They stayed, bowling eventually resumed, and as I recall we won all four games. I know that I bowled well.

 

One of the things I remember most about the storm was that after the tornado had passed and we were done bowling, the sky was alive with constant lightning. It seemed that at any instant, lightning was flashing from one direction or the other, mostly cloud to cloud lightning but no loud thunder.

There was bad storm damage from the tornado that passed less than a mile north of the me, so I would have to say that this counts as one of my close calls.

 

April 13, 2006 Storm Survey Results

 

 

 

 

 

[Spottedleaf]

Ive only been through one tornado in my life and I was 2. I posted a story on it in poem style. It is in the Multimedia section. Anyways, Was it scary?

 

Also I will take the survey in a second.

 

EDIT: never mind about the survey. I thoguht it was a survey. didnt know it was just results.

Edited June 22, 2014 by Spottedleaf

[sh20000sh]

When I was six, I had asthma. I quit kindergarten since that day. It made me alone for two monthes. I think that period made me individual. Edited June 22, 2014 by sh20000sh

[MedievalMystic]

I posted this here before..somewhere...

 

This was months ago and it was weird. My oldest son and I were coming home from visiting my mom at the hospital. I was sitting at a red light getting ready to make a left turn, coming off the freeway. The light turned green and I started to go and was looking to the left. Out of nowhere, my foot slammed on the brake. I didn't realize I was going to do that until it happened. It's like my foot had a mind of it's own and moved without thought from me and that is one hell of a weird feeling. My son was like 'What are you doing?' and I said 'I don't know!' or something like that. This slamming on the break and conversation took place in about 2 seconds flat. Then came the white car, blowing through the red light at about 45-50 mph. I never saw it until it crossed in front of me, coming from the right. I was looking toward the left with my face turned and couldn't have seen it. I remember feeling shocked when it blew by out of nowhere. Had my foot not decided to take action without my conscious knowledge, we would have kept going and that white car would have slammed right into the right side of my car going that fast, probably resulting in serious injury or death, most likely to my son who was in the passengers seat, or the driver, or all three of us. I've never had a body part move on me like that without me knowing it was going to. That was so freaky. I can't describe it. But I'm glad it happened.

[DragonGirl10188]

Oh my god, MedievalMystic, that's creepy yet cool at the same time o-o

 

Not sure if this counts as a 'fatal close call', but a few months ago I had a cold. I was out in the kitchen with my dad, pouring some really freezing cold water and I got half way through the glass before realising we had juice. So, being the genius I was, I gulped all the water down in one go so I could pour some juice. I remember I told my dad I felt something like a spike in the back of my head, then I suddenly blacked out. I woke up 5 seconds later, screaming, and my dad said I had just fainted.

 

Amazingly, my cat's bowl was located right in front of me, and I hit the soft rubber instead of the hard slate floor. Sure, I had a massive cold, headache and an egg on my head, but at least I didn't hit the slate and get brain damage, like the doctor said I would have.

 

Thank god I have a cat.

[MichiyoSaitou]

I had two.

 

The first one was on October 30th, 1998. The day I was born. (My first sister and mother told me what I am about to write about that day.) So, at around eight in the morning, my first sister woke up. She was twelve and a half at that time, in sixth grade. My second sister was eleven and a half and in fifth grade; she had already gone to school when my first sister woke up. And my last sister was a year old.

 

She needed to hurry up for school, so she went downstairs to the kitchen. When she got there, she was shocked; there was blood everywhere, my last sister was crying, and mum was nowhere to be seen. Being scared, she called mum, who did not answer. That is when she noticed that there was blood leading upstairs to the bathroom. She was worried that something might have happened to mum, so she sped upstairs. She found mother in the bathtub, which was filled with blood, smoking a cigarette. Mum told her that her water broke and that she was having a hemorrhage, so my sister immediately called my father to have him come from work and pick mum up to bring her to the hospital. Useless; dad did not answer. She wanted to call a taxi, but there were no money in the house.

 

That is when mum told her to go and get her and my second sister's dad, maybe he was at the tavern he usually drank at (he is a drunkard, so he could normally be seen at said tavern). It was early in the morning, but perhaps luck was on our side and he was there.

 

My sister stormed out of the house and got to the tavern as quickly as possible. Her father was there! She told him what happened, that mum was bleeding a lot, and asked him for money for the taxi. He did not hesitate a second; he encouraged her to hurry up so mother could give birth safely and so mum and I would not die.

 

And then she left. She got home and called a taxi. They waited for a few minutes and then the taxi showed up. Mum got in with the money and instructed him to go to the maternity fast. The taxi driver was very rapid and got mum there in no time, although several hours had passed since she began hemorrhaging.

 

When the taxi got there, its driver did not charge my mum anything for the ride and told her to leave so she could give birth (it was obvious that it was a critical situation).

 

There were also complications: the placenta was 'glued' to the womb or something, so I could not get out of my mother's womb normally. That is why I had to be born through Cesarean.

 

And in the end, between 12:30 PM and 1:30 PM (most likely around 1 PM), I was born. Later we found out that not only was the situation critical due to the complications and the hemorrhage, but also if we had been a few minutes later, both mum and I (or at least mum) would have died. My first sister did not go to school that day, but who cares for school when your mother is dying by childbirth, when your youngest sister has troubles being born and is in danger of death, and when your second youngest sister (who was a baby as well) has nobody to take care of her?

 

 

And the second one, quite not as intense though.

 

On March 22nd I was going to my English courses like I did every Saturday. I was happy and with my head up in the clouds, I was excited and looking forward to seeing my friends. I had big news to tell them; that I am moving to England in summer! As it was an English course, you can guess that moving to England is the dream of everyone there.

 

And so I walked to the location I was supposed to arrive at in like ten minutes. However, I spotted two of my friends on the other side. Being the happy-go-lucky girl I am, I did not look (it was quite a remote street) and ran toward them. What I did not know, though, was that there was a car on the way. My friends screamed 'Don't come!' and I did not understand why, so I continued thoughtlessly.

 

The car missed me by few milimetres, if I simply walked to them instead of ran I would have been hit. I did not realise it on the moment and hugged my friends as if nothing would have happened. That is when they told me that there was a car coming when I tried to pass and that I was almost ran over.

Edited June 22, 2014 by MichiyoSaitou

[Fightandspawn]

VERY dramatic but true story ahead- Read at your own risk!

 

Ok, I was out climbing with my bro and two of my sisters (I was ten, btw) and my bro walked up the easy way so he could attach the safety stuff (didn't get to see it) anyway, I was climbing up (a 200 foot cliff btw) when I felt myself danglng. I look up and see the rope has thinned considerably, and that I was being kept alive by three quarters of an inch of standard rope. It snapped, but 15 feet down there was a tree, which saved my life. I was able to climb down it. Safely.

 

IRONY: I saved myself, in another way, because me and the other neighborhood weaselpunks (that was what the adults called us) stopped a man from cutting down the tree, which was our favorite tree to climb. I gave everybody in my little tribe the news (I was neighborhood leader) and my bestie said "I knew it was a good idea to stop them from cutting down the tree"

 

PS: We had our group from when I was 5 (became leader at 9) until I was 14.

 

PPS: what you just read sounds untrue, but I assure you, this all happened.

 

 

[Dawnwing]

I was driving one night in the winter, and the roads were clear, though white with salt. I was going around a curve when there was a sudden drift of several-inches deep snow, and the instant I hit that, I lost control.

 

I remember realizing that I might be dead in seconds - it's a truly terrifying experience and you really do unconsciously think you're invincible until you reach a near-death experience. I ended up going off the road, getting spun around the way I came, flipped onto the roof of the car (dunno if I had spun before or after that), and hit a tree, which buried itself halfway through the trunk of the car. This car was old enough that there were no airbags, too.

It turned out that I had landed perfectly placed in a gap between two bunches of trees - if I had been to either side I would have hit more trees and probably died, if I had missed the tree I hit, I would have continued sliding and hit the small house close to the road, and if I had spun any differently, I could very well have been killed by that one tree. I ended up being completely uninjured except for some minor scratches on my hands from climbing through the shattered back window, and some whiplash and dizzy spells that went away after my mom found, in her hospital's library, an easy at-home treatment for it that I followed for a bit.

[Annatjie]

I was, like, twelve and playing league tennis late on a Saturday afternoon and I had a can of Coke with me on court. When we came off and I took a sip of it there was a bee inside it and it stung me, which doesn't sound too bad except that I'm really allergic and previously had a severe anaphylactic reaction (like itching, swelling, difficulty breathing, and fainting - scared to think what comes after that one though). By then, everyone on my team had already left and I was there alone waiting for my parents to finish up their own game at other courts and no matter how many times I phoned both of them they didn't pick up. Luckily it turned out that my mum (who's a doctor to boot) had already been driving to the courts where I'd played and got me not too long after and fixed me up.