When was the first time you were at the door. Mine came when I was 7 years old. A friend and I were walking along and saw some hornets coming out of a hole in the ground. Being 7 years old we attempted to throw rocks to plug the hole up, boy does that piss them off. I was stung between the eyes, and in the temple. I had a severe allergic reaction, the base dispensary only had medication and procedures on hand for adults at the time (1957). The Medic that attended to me had to find out what dosages to give me. I got to ride in one of the MASH (Power Wagon) Ambulances to the Hospital at another base a few kilometers away. The Medic that worked on me was awarded a commendation by the Air Force.

Since then I have had more brushes with death than I care to mention. Doing better than a cat.

 

amazing...

 

Man, never even been close, you need to play the lotto...lol.

 

i got sucked into whirlpool when i was 4.
i could not swim at that time, and no matter what i did i kept
sucks into the bottom.
what i still remember is that,
i was under water, looking up,
and i see the wall of water spinning around me,
then all of sudden right in the middle,
a hand comes in and grabs me, pulls me up-
that was my dad's hand.

 

While in college I went to an abandoned rock quary with some buds. Being the most "manly" I chose to dive into the green water below the 40' high cliff head first. Just before hitting the water I tensed and exhaled to stiffen my body against the impact.

BAD MOVE!

I hit the water with incredible force and went deeper than ever. My ears gave in to the pressure with excruciating pain. I opened my eyes and, unable to see anything but green, realized I didn't know which way was up. Desperate, I decided to exhale some of my prescious air to see which way the bubbles rose.

Following the bubles up, I tried to decide whether to swim with all my might realizing that i would use up the little air I had very quickly, or go slowly and "float" to the surface. Remimbering how incredibly deep I had gone, I decided to float as much as possible. Trying that an incredibly long time, I realized I couldn't hold my breath any longer and began to panic. I kicked and pulled with my arms with wild motions not knowing whether I was going up or down. Sensing that my air was totally depleted I had no choice but to exhale all that was left in my lungs. I broke the surface just as my body demanded that I inhale.

When I finally stopped coughing and got my breath again, I noticed that my "buds" were absorbed in some insignificant rock detail with their backs turned to me. They didn't have any idea what I had just experienced...

and I've never been able to explain it to them.

 

Wow. If you people who posted stories of visiting death's door ever need a hug let me know.

 

When I was about 11, I made a very stupid mistake. In scouts, we decided to visit some ice caves. These caves were located on a cliff.. now, there was a ledge off the side of a cliff that looked really stable and being the adventurous a$$wipes we were, we decided to go look. One of the leaders went down first and found a neat cave (btw this ledge was HUGE, you could have driven an S along it with no worries) So, being the dumba$$ I was, instead of climbing down, I *jumped* down. I landed on gravel and immediately began a slide for the edge. I screamed and thanks to the laws of friction I stopped about a foot from the edge before being violently yanked back by the leader. On the other side of that foot was a 200 foot drop. I literally saw my (albeit short at the time) life flash before me. Second scariest moment of my life

 

This past year, 1 week before the Dragonball run, I almost drown. I went on a bachelor party to the Occoee river to do some daytime rafting, before heading to Atlanta for night time fun. We decided to pay the extra cash, and raft the upper part also. TVA only floods this part for around 29 days a year. This is the part where the summer Olympics were held. Anyways, there is class 4/5 rapid, properly named humongus. Immediately after the rapid is what the guide called a hole. I think there are other proper terms, but I don't know them. He told us to paddle very fast into the rapid, since it would slow us down going into the hole. He explained the hole would flip us, but we didn't listen too well. When we hit the hole, we all started yelling instead of paddling, and we flipped when we hit the hole. I fell backwards and ended up under the raft. I pushed off the bottom of the river bed to get a breathe, but our raft was trapped in the hole, so I just hit the bottom of this hard plastic raft. I went back down and pushed off again, only to hit the bottom of the raft again. I was slightly paniced at this time. I went back down and pushed off again, only to hit something again. What I didn't know, was it was the raft behind us, full of the rest of our party. After the 3rd hit and no air, I knew I was dead. I was actually preparing myself to suck in all this water. At that moment, my buddies in the other raft had knocked our raft out of the way, and barely grabbed me by the arm straps of my life vest. At this point the emergency crews were coming from the sides of the bank. My guide told me he thought I was a goner. I finished the rest of the trip, but Atlanta was out of the question. Sorry for the long story, but I wanted to share also.

 

That's nothing.

Once, on a biking trip at Garner State Park (a six-hour drive from my place), my friend's and I were trying to find a way down to the river. There was no trail, and as is common with real mountain bikers, you make your own trail. And as luck would have it, it was my turn.

So I walk my bike to the edge of this small 2-foot drop and look down to inspect. Not too bad; small brushes, cacti, loose gravel... Kiddy shiet, I tell myself.

I tell my friends to watch where I go so they can follow, because I'm only going to do this thing once.

So I get a small run, land beautifully off of the the drop and proceed to haul ass down the side of the cliff. Dodging bathtub-sized boulders, my bare legs get scraped as I weave through the 8-foot weeds and small trees, kicking up gravel left and right. Oops, cactus, hard left. Understeer (not good on a two-wheeled vehicle). Recover, pedal. Pedal. Dab of the brakes to drop into a little ditch thingy from water runoff... Shiet.

Now I know why I should've clipped in. My new platform pedals work well, but there was this big felled log, see, and it was a bitch to get over... Phaaap! F*ck. I pinch flatted my rear tire.

But I couldn't slow down, the grade was too steep. And oh shit, no front brakes. A close encounter with a tree had snagged my brake lines. The hydraulic fluid was leaking all over my left hand as I pumped the brake lever. Shit.

OK, no front brakes, let's use rear brakes. I lockup the rear tire. Ooops. Not a good thing with a flat tire on loose gravel at 20mph. The tire dismounts itself and the inner tube proceeds to wedge itself between my rim and V-brakes. Shit shit. Now I'm riding on a metal rear wheel and no front brakes. Shit.

My attempts at controlling the bike are futile: My back end comes around and I fall into it. My legs tangle in the crankarms and top tube, my crank digging its teeth into my left shin. Ouch. The front fork has swiveled around 150

 

Age 7, fell off 15 ft cliff w/ my older brother, he ended up using me as a cushion. I was passed out for 3 hours, so as my family tell me.
Age 9, while playing on ice w/ same older brother, the piece broke off and was floating away. I ended up running across water about 10ft to get to safety, had many witnesses, the whole town talked about it. Can't explain this one, but visited the same site last March, it was pretty far off.
Age 20, almost drowned. Couldn't swim, but managed to swim about 50 ft, was exhausted.
May 3rd tornado, Moore, Oklahoma, I was there, drove through crazy traffic to get to my parents and girlfriend, darkness all around. Everyone was fine, my girlfriend's neighbor 5 houses down the street was completely gone, her house was damaged, but ok.
OKC bombing, I was there. Next door at Health Science Center, one of the first of many responders.
9-11 Pentagon incidence, I was there. One of the first responders.

So far, so good.