Anybody remember "Games People Play" on 1960? While working there in college, I got my hand caught in a pitching machine. They ran on timers and, luckily, the timer ran out before it tore my arm off. I got off with just having most of the skin scraped off the back of my hand.
When I was a toddler I fell out of a grocery cart onto the floor, and cracked my head open. I have no memories of it. I've had numerous close calls in cars. Here's my water moccassin adventure from the crime thread: I was swimming with friends in a little cove like area in Lake Travis. One of the people I was with had a boat, and she'd dropped a bunch of off to swim and then left to take a couple of other people skiing. So we're swimming, screwing around and having a good time. So I'm swimming and goofing around, go underwater, come back up and turn about ninety degrees. About five feet (I'm guessing, I wasn't as concerned with how close it was so much as how I was going to get away, much closer than I wanted to be to say the least) in front of me is a six to seven foot water moccassin swimming straight at me, flicking it's tongue in the air. Luckily I was in a place where I could stand, everyone else I was with were further out into the water where it got as deep as 35 feet. I walked backwards, away from the snake, and as I do the snake turns and swims over to the bank where it crawls into a hole and disappears. While I was backing up I remember hearing one of the people I was with yell "Aaron, throw back the football." I looked down and saw it in my hand, but had no recollection of how I got it or picking it up. Still holding the ball, I get to the person who was the closest to me, and just point. As the snake disappears into the hole, he articulates for the first time what had left me speechless to that point. There were 12 foot cliffs all around us, you could climb out of it, but there would have been no way they could have dragged me out if I had gotten bit. The boat came back about an hour later.
When I was really little, I pulled on a bedsheet only to have a hot iron fall on me. Burned about 25% of my body. Scars are small now since I've grown, at least
I was driving home from Waco a few years ago, and there was a snowstorm that iced the roads over something terrible. I was driving behind one of those big trucks that haul cars to dealerships and started to skid. I got within inches of rear-ending it before regaining control. It probably wouldn't have been a fatal collision, but it scared the hell outta me. When I was a baby, I got into some powder and had to go to the hospital from getting a bunch of it into my lungs.
When I was a newborn, I caught a case of what they called in 1972 "The Hong Kong Flu". I was hospitalized for about a month with it and during that time spent two weeks in a bubble to help my immune system. During that time, I was pretty close to death a couple of times. EDIT: I've been in multiple car wrecks, both intended and accidental. I drove Figure 8s in Jr. High so that didn't help.
Probably not causing death but I'll tell it anyway. In college, several friends from various college towns converged on New Braunfels for a camping trip on the Guadalupe. We were having a grand old time hanging out riverside with a camp fire. Well, one friend did something I caution all of you never to do, pour Coleman fuel directly on the fire from the metal container it comes in. Had we known he was ignorant in just how flammable this stuff is...we would have stopped him. We should have known based on his history of stupid accidents that he would have done this but it all happened so fast. So, what happens next is the flame immediately follows the pour up into the metal container. In a panic, friend starts doing a 360 spin several times to throw the metal container into the river(which isn't far away). While he's spin throwing, fuel which is on fire is coming from the metal container and spraying in a circular pattern hitting anything in it's path. Well, some of it landed on my legs and, like a lit marshmellow, I immediately take a run for it and jump into the river to put myself out. Unfortunately, another guy was farther away from the river and he was lit up badly on his arms. He had to be taken to the hospital and was burned badly on his arms. So, a great trip turned into a nightmare in an instant. I think we were all lucky the lit fuel didn't land on our faces, in our hair, or in our eyes. It could have been much worse as there were plenty of people around.
my parents used to own spears from their fishing days in Thailand. i grabbed one of them and proceeded to practice my spear throwing technique on a tree in our backyard. i was doing pretty good as i got a few of my throws to stick. then, somehow, the tree must have gotten pissed. on my last throw, i was knocked unconscious, then i woke up in the ER. apparently, the spear had ricocheted off the tree and projected it's way back towards my head. luckily it didn't pierce my skull but i still ahve a huge scar that's very visible when i comb my hair back.
I came very close to sliding off a very high mountain in the Himalayas a few times this summer but was luckily able to stop before I got seriously injured, and given the altitude, could well have died. I had a palpable sense of dread as I was sliding down though - please let the stick catch in the snow, please let that rock stop me from sliding Also a handhold once broke right off as I was grabbing it on the back side of a sheer drop right before I put my weight on it. Had I done so and shifted my weight a split second earlier, I have no doubt I'd have fallen several hundred feet or even a thousand feet onto rock and be dead. Mountain climibing is a really dangerous hobby and I think I might be done with it, really.
When I was 6 or 7, I got accidentally pushed into the deep water at the city pool and nearly drowned. About a year or two later during the summer, I was over a friend's house and his mom had fixed brussels sprouts for lunch. I was not a fan of the brussels sprout, so I tried swallowing it whole. Not a good idea as I started choking - luckily I was able to spit it back up. Another time when I was a senior in college (about 11 years ago), I hit black ice on the interstate and skidded off into the median. Luckily for me, the median was a ditch with grass and not concrete. I didn't even do any damage to myself or my car, but I was shook up something awful. That incident is the biggest reason why I get annoyed about people wanting snow in TN - we don't ever get it, we get ice, freezing rain, and sleet instead which makes it VERY dangerous to drive on. Also when I was in college, I was going back to MTSU one Sunday night and I ran over something on an exit ramp. I saw it but I thought the surface area was small to it. It screwed up my linkage as I could not shift at first in any gear in the down position like 2nd, 4th, and reverse. Eventually, the linkage worked its way back to normal but I saw the hole that was made when they had my car on a rack. I still remember one of the mechanics pointing it out to me and remarking, "You're very lucky as a couple of more feet, that hole would have been around the gas line and who knows what would have happened to you." Just thinking about possibly bursting into flames like that really shook me up as well. Thank God that He has been watching out for me.
I fell out of a moving car. Back when I was in kindergarten (1990), my mom was giving me a ride to school in our 1976 Buick LeSabre. I was sitting in the passenger seat and as my mom turned the corner, my door flew open (it was locked) and I fell out, landing on my back. I still remember seeing the tire narrowly miss my head. Thankfully, I also had my backpack on in the car, so when I landed on my back, the impact wasn't bad. We got rid of that POS Buick the next day.
my mom was driving late at night with my family all asleep on a trip to boston, we were i think in virgina in mountain area, my mom falls asleep at the wheel and i dont know how long she was asleep for but my dad suddenly wakes up and yells Jesus and my mom wakes up and hits the brakes, she looks out the window and are car is stopped at the edge of this mountain about to fall off... it was such a crazy experience for my parents and i thank god for protecting us
I ran off the road into a ditch and got thrown out of the passenger side window. Fortuantely, the window was open. If I had my seatbelt on, my back would have been broken. The truck almost roll on top of me. It happened back in 1990 and was scary. My son was only 3 at the time.
I met Chuck Norris in Sugar Creek when he was putting on the Chuck Norris Kick Drugs Out of America Tennis Tournament. He looked right at me and we all know how deadly that couldve been.
