the closest you have ever been to death?

ugafan

ugafan

Looking for a woman
for me it was friday. :cheesy: here are 15 simple steps for anyone that would like to duplicate this medical emergency...

1. experience abdominal pain.
2. go to ER.
3. receive highly powerful pain medicine through IV.
4. nurse wheels you up to the next floor for ultrasound.
5. sit unattended in the hallway waiting to be seen for ultrasound.
6. have difficulty swallowing as throat dries up.
7. alert a passerby wearing scrubs about this difficulty.
8. man in scrubs gets a nurse.
9. your breathing becomes more difficult as your throat swells.
10. nurse checks you out and then gets machine to give you oxygen.
11. nurse tells you not to panic and "try to breathe" as she runs off to get help.
12. nurse returns with a couple of doctors.
13. doctors diagnose you as having a severe allergic reaction to medicine.
14. go back to ER and get pumped with other drugs to reverse the effects.
15. live.

some notes:
- anaphylaxis is really, really scary. try to avoid it if possible.
- it's never a good sign when a medical professional is encouraging you to breathe.
- it's also not good when you have two doctors looking at your blood pressure monitor and one of the doctors says in a serious tone "look at his heart rate".
- i found out later that the medicine i'm allergic to is a commonly used narcotic.. for pain relief in horses.
- the abdominal pain was kind of rising and falling in waves. when i received the medicine it was at a low point so i told the nurse not to give me a full dose. if i didn't say something, i would have received twice as much.
- the cause of the abdominal pain? they said my organs looked fine and the pain was likely due to a buildup of gas. damn you taco bell.
- on the bright side, it would have been somewhat comedic if being gassy was what started the chain of events that led to my death. :thumbsup:

anyone else have a close call that you want to share?
 
holy sh*t.

i was told 2 months ago while getting a physical for my new job that there was traces of blood in my urine. bet that's my kidneys. i do drink quite a bit. hmm.
 
1.
Once I was in a mountaineering course as a 17 years old. We had al lot of fun and weren't always paying the attention that was needed. So at that day we didn't follow the route the first climber set out for us and we ended up in a situation where three guys were at the point of 'if I move, I'll fall down' and one of us at the point of 'I will fall down right now if I don't change my position now'. That became a strange and scary thing. The one nearly falling down repositioned and took the others out of balance back and forth. Then we all fell down. The 15 years old girl that was securing us by rope at a distance (horizontal distance!) held us, after we had bounced around downward. I litteraly ended up 'sitting' at a cliff with 'nothing' beneath me, hanging in the rope. The other guy had landed flat on his back on a rock.

Besides a lot of supperficial hemorrhages, scratched skinn an blood (looked worst than it was), hurt ego and nausea from the impact we all got away with it.

But we still had to climb all the way down before we could start processing what had happened.

If the girl hadn't been able to hold the three of us or if we had fallen slightly different I would not have been typing this...

2.
And when I was even smaller I once put my thumb on two contacts inside an electical device I had taken apart with the power still connected. That was not the near death thing though: before I put my thumb on, I considered 'testing' it with my tongue (because that was the way I checked small powercells sometimes: you could feel the electricity running through your tongue). I was standing leaned against the heating radiator (big iron thing) while pondering about this. Then I thought, well I'll first check with my thumb... What a blast that was. A little later I realized what would have happened if I would have checked it with my mouth... then I got realy scared. And when I think of it now, it still gives my sweaty hands.

Other than that I am quite a responsible guy.

Groet,
Jasper
 
I usually don't confess things like this.... but...anyway.....

When I was 8 or 9 and after watching mary poppins... I went up to the roof of my house armed with a blanket forming the shape of a parachute. by now I suppose that you know which were my intentions..... I was about to jump (or to fly) when I realized what was about to happen! talk about films changing children lives....
 
The closest I've ever been to death was that time I strangled a drifter with my bare hands... but he deserved it...

This part is true > I crashed my bike in the process of slowing down from 175 and couldn't successfully make a 35 turn at 60.





...lousy damn drifter.
 
First time, I was 6-7. I was a very curious child, had to know everything about everything. Wanted to see how electricity tasted. Yes, I stuck my tongue in an outlet. I remember everything going "white" and waking up to a dark room (late evening). I did this in the afternoon during commercials from cartoons

Next, when I was in the service (Ugafan I can REALLY relate to anaphylaxsis) I was having all 4 wisdom teeth being removed and they gave me Marcaine. I felt like I was slipping away and I heard all the bells and alarms before I blacked out. Woke up in the ER with a sore chest and intubated. I found out I cannot have any 'caine derivatives.

Third time is when I was a FF for SBCO Fire. Responding to a TC in Lytle Creek Canyon, and it was pitch black. Walking with my flashlight trying to find the reported vehicle (the engine had to stop short due to powerlines down) While walking, my feet felt very strange and buzzing. I looked down and I was standing on a high tension line.

4th- Inside a building while still with SBCO Fire, mopping up a structure fire. The fire was pretty much out, so we had our SCBA's off. The air started to get tasty, meaning we had some active fire somewhere. The crew on the roof radio'ed that it was in the attic and proceeded to open up a line into the ventilation hole (we were still inside at the time) and collapsed the roof on top of us. Spent a couple days in the ol' hospital after that one.

I have a few more, but I won't bore y'all. Not to mention all the death I have seen as a FF/EMT/Medic and Corpsman. The human body can be a frail thing, when put up against weapons, vehicles, stupidity. I wonder what will be my "next" brush with my buddy Death. I wish he would stop teasing me, it's getting old.
 
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Was shooting development tape for something involving airplanes. I sat at the end of the runway for a nice zoom out/tilt up overhead shot. The pilot must've thought I wanted him really close because bystanders said he was less than a foot above my head.

Not sure my family would've understood how or why I got hit by an experimental jet going 135mph. This also happened the day after I filmed a foot chase between law enforcement and a drug smuggler...


P.S. this thread is becoming the ultimate pissing contest. Just saying :D
 
Taylor Rudd said:
P.S. this thread is becoming the ultimate pissing contest. Just saying :D
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You too? You were lucky! When the jet passed over me, his nose wheel caught my camera strap and picked me up off the ground and we flew around for 20 minutes. Got some great footage before I passed out because of the altitude. I fell off and landed on top of the Empire State building, where I woke up. Being woozy from hypoxia, I lost my balance and fell off from the observation deck, and hurtled to me certain death, but lo and behold, a truck carrying mattresses happened to pass just at the right time........
 
I've lived a fairly safe life...the closest I've come from a hypothetical standpoint is when I was a teenager in Chicago driving home late one night and approached an intersection that marked the end of the freeway. This intersection was notorious for causing accidents when sleepy truckers slammed into cars stopped at the light. I was about a half a mile away from it when a fireball erupted in front of me, a gas tanker exploding as it rammed into a bunch of vehicles stopped there. If I had been half a minute faster I probably would've been stopped at that light and been toast.
 
My and a few friends were climbing a mountain in the rockies, and at the very top, on the way down, the ground broke out and I started sliding down the shale, and I was about 8 feet away from a MASSIVE cliff and my friend tried to jump in front of me to stop me and we both ended up sliding and we miraculously stopped about 3 feet from the cliff. I don't even know how we stopped, we just did. I cut up my hands trying to plant them into the shale and now I have a big scar on my hand.

A month later I was stopped at a red light at midnight on the second fastest highway in Calgary when a drunk guy in a stolen car hit me going 140 km/h. My car slid almost 40 feet and the trunk of my car was about a foot from my head.

The worst part was that my insurance didn't cover getting hit by someone without insurance and I lost a lot of film equipment as well as a car.
 
This is a great idea for the next fest... Near-Death Fest! You guys could all reenact your experiences!

The closest I've ever come (knock on wood) is when I was free climbing a cliff face, lost it and fell 50 feet down. Luckily, I fell through tree limbs that helped to slow my fall before hitting the ground and rolling down the embankment another 150 feet where I was finally stopped by a big tree trunk. I don't remember much about the fall, just trying to grab anything I could...the thud of the impact...losing my breath...then sky, rock, sky, rock, sky, rock...guess I passed out and woke-up with a few friends staring at me. Only 3 broken ribs, a badly sprained ankle and a boat load of cuts & such. Looked like a prize fighter.

The guys were happy because they didn't have to carry me down the mountain...it's a story we always relive when we get together.
 
Twice for me.

1. I was on my GSXR1000 on a two lane highway 5 mile straight shot. I was up to 183MPH when a dump truck crossed the yellow line. I dipped to the left and another car was in the lane, I dipped to the right and missed death by inches. I never rode that fast again.

2. Back in my hustling days, me and my man were picking up half a brick in NJ and as soon as we closed the door to the car, bullets started swiss cheesing the ride. We ducked down and peeled off hitting 2 cars in the process. When I popped up there were 2 bullet holes in my head rest and 1 hole in the seat where my man was. A bullet when through my pant leg and into the seat. God was looking out for me, we both should have been dead. and I haven't hustled since. This was 1991 I believe.
 
The closest I have ever been to Death was the time I had to sit next to him at a political fundraiser. Dude didn't look good. Overworked.
 
MattinSTL said:
One time I nearly pissed my brains out.
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:cheesy: Lol

I flipped a Jeep end over end 4 times in Mexico. Could have been No Bueno. Walked away with a Concussion and a cut on my head.

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I was surfing in some gnarly big ass **** once; surf report said it was 15' to 20' . One second I was catching the wave of my life, the next, I was caught inside the break and hammered by about 5 waves; burying me into the water, I ditched my board so I could go under.

I know one thing, one more wave and I would be done. I was near passing out from holding my breath for so long.


-


I was married for 9 years to the wrong person. That's probably the scariest one.
 
Incoming 155mm artillery round that came in "short" during a training misson while I was in the Marines.

I had to change my shorts.
 
Had my zipper on my wetsuit open on a huge day on the Oregon coast. Went through the whole drowning thing and washed up on the beach in 2 inches of water. I was 16 so I puked all the water out, rested, ate a burger and went back out. I just knew I had to go again or I'd be afraid.
I told my dad when I got home and my mom when I was 30!
 
Struck a pothole on a Baja California highway, blew two tires and rolled a pickup truck at +/- 70 MPH. Three out of four aboard walked away with superficial injuries; the fourth required air medevac to San Diego.

Was struck while lane splitting by a Pontiac-driving doofus on the East I-10. Totaled his car, totaled my bike. Walked away with bruising and road rash.

Returning to North Hollywood via Laurel Canyon northbound after a particularly memorable date, crested the hill way too fast, over-corrected right, entered an uncontrolled spin and wound up against the southbound curb facing uphill. Fortunately it was 0200 so there wasn't any other traffic.

Discovered that I had a broken brake line after a static parachute jump so cut to the reserve chute. Well, okay, I was never really close to death but there's that six- to eight-week period of free fall between cutting away from your main and the opening of the reserve canopy during which you sure feel like it.
 
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