The CLOSEST you've ever been to death, without actually getting injured?

[AvsJoe]

What is the absolute closes you have EVER been to death, without actually being injured in the process?

Well, there goes the story of the time my right lung stopped working, because permanent damage was done.

I've got a few other examples.

1. Tornado
I was a kid, couldn't tell you what age. Somewhere between 6 and 9. My dad was driving us from London, Ontario to Windsor, Ontario during the summer, but we got caught in a traffic jam (Canada's Highway 401 is notorious for those). Guess what that stretch of land is also notorious for in the summer? That's right, that is the only spot in Canada that frequently has tornadoes. And sure enough, a tiny, but still frightening, tornado touched down maybe a kilometre from us (F-0 or F-1, certainly not an F-6). It did it's tornado thing for a few minutes, never getting closer to the traffic jam, and disappeared. Still, I was less than a kilometre from a tornado and lived to tell the tale.

2. Truck and Whiteout
This one's a short one. I was walking home from work little over 2 years ago in Calgary, Alberta during a snowstorm. This one was particularly bad; you could barely make out the building across the street in the whiteout. Well, I'm not blind, but I'm far from 20/20, so I didn't notice I was crossing an intersection at a red light. Luckily, the driver of the moving-truck-sized vehicle had better vision because he hit the brakes and, you know, didn't paste me to the road. If he hadn't noticed me, or if the road was icy rather than snowy, I may not have lived to tell the tale.

3. GT Snow Racer
Another story from when I was a wee lad. 6-ish. I was racing my brother down a large, snowy hill in our GT Snow Racers. Don't ask me what the hell they are but for some reason I never forgot the name of them. Anyway, our mom had roped off an area that we shouldn't cross so we could stay safe during our races. I decided, for whatever reason, to cross that line. I don't remember the picnic table; my next memory was looking in a mirror and seeing stitches millimetres beside my left eye. I doubt that crash would have killed me if I went into the picnic table eye-first, but who knows; our bodies can be both amazingly resilient and amazingly fragile.

I'm sure there are other times I've come even closer to death without ever realizing it, I jump off cliffs during the summer after all. But these are the three (well, four if you count the lung) stories that I am aware of and remember clearly.

 

[ronald1840]

First day having fun excersizing my 150cc scooter driving abilities a little while back. I was driving on the highway cause I found a new way to get to downtown faster than navigating throughout the neighborhoods. I wasn't exactly sure on how the "right of way" rules worked when it comes to large 18 wheeler trucks so bad rookie mistake on my part. In what seemed a lane by myself I had my helmet and full gear on as I sped up a bit to cross infront of...well

I looked back and had this sense of terror that I never felt before seeing that I wasn't invincible and could actually die pretty fast and easy. Taking my eyes off the road to look behind me was a mistake because I didn't give attention to my speed and where the exit coming up that I meant to turn into was exactly. At around 53mph I ran and hit the exit corner sign and flew way ahead off my bike onto the street around the corner as that truck horn blared in my ear. It took me a good while to get up and I'm glad traffic stop as a nice dude got out his truck to make sure I was alive. The score remains

Luckeh Me: 1
Karma: 0 (until she gets pissed again)

 

[derelict]

Nearly fell out of a tour helicopter over Panama City Beach in ...oh I think it was '93. No doors and beaded seat covers on the thing. Still, it was pretty awesome aside of the butt clencher. Sadly (and not surprisingly) the company that did the 'rides' went bust, apparently. Can't find anything about them online.

 

[lacktheknack]

http://www.ttc.umd.edu/gallery2/d/39453-2/raging_rapids.jpg

http://www.dreamstime.com/teen-on-a-fallen-tree-bridge-thumb8288983.jpg

http://fanart.lionking.org/Artists/Not_Quite_Normal/SimbaFallOhNoes.png

Yeah. That was a bad day.

ALSO! At my previous job at a grocery store. Big box of grapes. Black Widow crawls out. Customer stamps it. Not a good day.

 

[ace_of_something]

Oh yeah.

When I was about 8 or 9 we moved out of the farmhouse we lived in. That night, literally a few hours after we'd moved everything we own and our whole family out of the house.

A motherfucking tornado destroyed it.
I shared a room with 2 of my brothers in the attic in that old house it happened when our whole family definitely would have been sleeping. Thing was we lived about 1/2 a mile away because we built a new fancier house still on our property. Some of the debris from our old house flung so far it actually landed in the yard of our new house.

 

[Sudenak]

I once had a tiny bit of dirt get stuck in a hangnail. It got infected, and the next day an infected line of blood started running up my arm. Three hours later it was up to my shoulder; doctors operated and said I would have died if it reached my heart. And that woulda been in an hour.

So I was an hour from death :3

 

[StackOfBones]

I was in Iraq, a rocket landed a few feet away from me...but didn't detonate.

 

[GeneralFungi]

When I was 3, I was in a car accident. I don't remember much about it myself besides some gruesome images in the hospital, but according to my mother, I had stopped breathing for almost a minute. Someone was about to preform mouth to mouth, but they heard me bawling all of a sudden and breathed a sigh of relief.

The funny thing about that accident, is that according to the people that saved me, if my seat belt for my car-seat was properly strapped in, I probably wouldn't be alive now. It's a scary though.

Also, reckless drivers on my child-hood biking road. It didn't get very much traffic at all, but the few people who ever did use that road just punched the gas despite the speed limit. I nearly got run over. You SLOW DOWN when you see a kid biking from half a mile away!

 

[taciturnCandid]

Taking enough pain pills to kill an elephant. And then forcing myself to puke it up immediately. Suddenly realized what i was doing was stupid and that I didn't want to die quite yet.

 

[cookyy2k]

Nasty lung infection when I was 15, ended up in hospital unconscious with temperature of 105f(40.5c)!

 

[Leemaster777]

Lets see...

A few months ago, I was walking out of my house, and I thought I saw something fly past my face. I looked back at the door, but couldn't see anything. Then I looked up. There were not one but TWO hornet's nests attached to the overhang in front of my front door. I'm VERY allergic to bee stings. If one of them had stung me, both hives would have likely swarmed me. I can think of few deaths more horrible than that.

Also, about half a year ago, I nearly got into a car crash when someone ran a green light in a rainstorm. Not as interesting as the hornet story, though.

 

[TheTim]

Me and my friends were in a car going to watch the fights, and when we crossed an intersection, a drunk driver blew through and t-boned the car that was ass riding us. I was on the driver side in the back.

 

[The Afrodactyl]

Crossing a road and a guy in a van comes tearing around the corner at a stupid speed without looking. I head my headphones in, so I didn't hear him coming.

The van was so close to hitting me it actually took a layer of skin off of the end of my nose.

:EDIT:
I forgot about two very severe head injuries as a 3 year old child that lead to me having two symmetrical scars either side of my head.

 

[Ice Car]

Once, a few years ago, I was walking across the crosswalk and a car almost ran me over. I ran out of the way just in time.

Very recently, on this day [http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/119887979.html] I witnessed the person speeding and crash a car into a pole. At HIGH speeds. Just so happens that I had JUST walked across the crosswalk and would have been killed by possibly both of the cars impacting me, possibly into the pole.

The whole incident that day was like Grand Theft Hawaii. You carjack a crappy car, get chased by police and crash. You and your partner continue on foot with A FUCKING SHOTGUN and try to carjack another car. He then gets chased by police and tried to kill him with the shotgun, and instead dies right there. The other successfully carjacks after punching the driver in the face, and proceeds in a high speed chase, causing multiple accidents (Including the one I witnessed and was almost killed by) before crashing again. Insanity. Oh, and by the way, after witnessing said crash, I counter at least 15 police cars chasing that one guy.

 

[AetherWolf]

Got stuck under a flipped-over canoe in the middle of the lake...

Not much, but it's all I got. :/

 

[Not-here-anymore]

-Nearly fell off the side of several different steep cliffs that would have been lethal, around 6-7 times. (It was more of a "if the traction on my shoes/snowshoes gives way now, I'll die" type situation to be fair)

Actually fell off the side of a steep cliff that really should have been lethal. Thankfully I landed in the one large pile of snow that was available to me, rather than the large piles of rocks around it.

Though at the time you don't really realise the near-deathness of it. I was more pissed (at the time) that my skis didn't manage to fall with me, and were hence gone, despite the fact that I could see them.

 

[gbemery]

A couple of years ago I was driving home and was stopped at a traffic light. When it turned green and I wasn't able to see to the left (i drive a car and a huge truck was in the turning lane which blocked my view of cross traffic) I started to pull out I drive about 4 feet then slam on the brakes as a semi truck ran the red light going 60mph. Had I just hit the gas like i normally do when the light turns green I would have been t-boned by the semi and doubt I would have walked away or worse lived.

 

[SeriousIssues]

Well, lame ones, but still.

Swallowed a massive fruit roll-up hole.

Nasty ski spill.

Got a lego brick candy lodged in my windpipe for a few days up until it disolved.

Some drowning here and there.

And then I was riding my bike up from a store a few miles away from my house and was attempting to turn across a busy road to a back entrance of my neighborhood, the Lexus nearly hit my front tire.

 

[4484448444844484]

I got in an argument with a friend over wood chopping technique which ended up with him holding the handle to an axe and me holding the sharp part. If he had let go and I had been pulling at the same time that could have ended badly. I ended up with just a sliced finger though; didn't even need stitches.