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

[shogunblade]

When I was nine, I went fishing with my sister and dad, then when the fish weren't biting, My sister and I took up swimming. I was trying to learn how to swim, and due to a point where I used a floating log to help me get so far, I ended up going under the water.

I thought my Golden Retriever would have swam over and saved me A'la Lassie. I guess that only works with Border Collies, as this dog just swam around. My head went under the water and next thing I could see was blue. My Dad came about thirty seconds or so.

That was a very difficult thing to type. Haven't had to remember it for almost 12 years.

The second time I think has relevancy would be the time I was cutting firewood with my dad and I stood in the wrong place, The tree came down and hit the entire left side of my body, I moved out of the way just as the log hit my forehead, all the way down to my left arm. Needless to say, The left half of my head and body were throbbing for a solid half an hour.

It's about as good as it gets for me.

 

[emeraldrafael]

April 29th - Death pulls out all the stops. Driving (Illegally, but meh, the cops in my town dont have enough time to chase me) and an SUV almost t-bones me on the driver's side. I swerve, hits the back, sends me spinning and I stall out near train tracks. Open the door (not paying attention, go to step out, then remembers hat so bends to get it, train rips off door). Safely get out on the otherside of the car, car almost hits me. Flip over the hood, car rips off that door. Sit and sigh, figuring I need to just stay put, and someone drives into the back, knocking me off hood of car and the car over me, spend 40 minutes under it while the tow truck comes to get it off. Finally go home, think i'm safe, Carbon Monoxide leak.

You wanna talk about luck.

You might wanna look up a film series called "Final Destination" if that is all indeed true.

It is, and I've seen them all (not really proud of that, but just cause). My friends tell me that I should go out for one of those movies, but I'm not made for movies.

 

[OutforEC]

Overseas in Iraq, a group of us were getting ready to head to dinner. Now, mealtime is one of the few instances when we were extremely punctual, since getting there late and the decent stuff is usually gone. Well, we ended up having to wait because one of the guys couldn't find his headgear, and everyone was bitching at him pretty badly. All of a sudden we heard an explosion, much closer than they usually sounded, and as it turns out a stray mortar round landed on the path that we walked to the dining facility, absolutely devastating the area. If we would've been on time, we wouldn't have been too worried about dinner ever again.

 

[Hollock]

Around 3 weeks ago I went out with a friend's friend to go candlepin bowling (this is my first outing with other people since the release of Harry Potter). One of them started driving. About 30 seconds into the trip the driver decided to dodge an imaginary squirrel and swerved through four lanes of traffic during rush hour on the busiest street in my town. We continued off the road barely missing the oncoming cars He then almost had us smash into a telephone pole (by the way we were going about 45 miles per hour). We almost hit a woman, a big sign, and would have rolled back into traffic if we didn't crash into an island. They then got pissed that the lady called the cops "the ***** (they couldn't understand that the woman might have been a little scared. And [sub] apparently if she were white she wouldn't have called the cops[/sub])" they said. We then had to wait for 45 minutes for the cops to come, we didn't get in trouble and got another car to go bowling. The new driver was getting shot in the head with a nerf gun the rest of the way, because they weren't shaken at all after 5 minutes. But in good news, I'm never going out with those guys again... and we missed the squirrel!

 

[Cpu46]

I almost drowned was when I was about 7 or 8 years old. I was at the local YMCA pool and was messing around with my cousin who, despite being two years younger, was actually a better swimmer than me at the time. He also was a bit ignorant of the fact that not everyone had his lung capacity. We were horsing around and I find him on my back with his legs wrapped around my stomach. He somehow sweeps my legs out from under me while affixed to my back (He later got on the high school wrestling team, go figure). I am now under water with my cousin vice gripping my stomach with his legs and treading water with his arms, so I didn't even have the bottom of the pool to brace myself with. I struggled at first then relaxed so I didn't use up all my air. He eventually let go but by then I was seeing spots in front of my eyes. Broke through the surface probably a few seconds before I ran out of air. Turns out when I stopped struggling my cousin panicked and though I had passed out. Needless to say, I was done with the pool for a while. Smacked my cousin upside the head after that.


EDIT:

Oh yea, I remember a month ago I was pulling my car (well its the family car I just drive it to college)out of the driveway on my way back to college when suddenly I hear three pops and the car sinks to the front left side. Come to find out the giant spring that supports the wheel had snapped and punctured the wheel in several places. Our car nut neighbor comes out and tells us that had this happened at any decent speed the car probably would have spun out. The roads between my house and college have a 60mph speed limit and are pretty much in the middle of nowhere. He said at that speed the car would have flipped.

 

[Pips]

I've had a few...
Fell out of an attic as a child - bounced, not even a bruise.

Got pulled under by a strong undertow, nearly drowned less than six feet from the beach, which would have just sucked.

Fell off a balcony, hit a stair rail on the way down, thought I'd broken my spine, but walked away fine after a few minutes.

Had a near miss with a truck on the motorway in Tunisia. My sister screamed so loud my mother went temporarily deaf in one ear.

Nearly went straight off a cliff whilst green-roading, because we couldn't see the edge.

Fell off a cliff - fell/slid ten feet down, then caught some grass before I fell over the sheer drop fifty feet onto the rocks. Bricks were shat.

I got hurt, so maybe it doesn't count, but last month I crashed my motorbike. I remember hitting the curb and thinking "I'm dead". I wrote off my bike, broke my helmet and dislocated and smashed my shoulder, which is still broken. NOT a good day.

 

[thedarkfreak]

Walked across my front yard to my car, right after I got in, the giant tree in the yard fell over right where I had walked. Told people at work, "I almost died today!"

 

[kinggingerman]

I put a piece of bread into the toaster and after 2 minutes a small piece broke off the bread and it caught fire. I naturally panicked and for some strange reason I reacted by attempting to get the bread out with a metal knife I was holding..........Fortunatly only the fuse blew out instead of frying me. To this day I still dont know what was going through my head considering I'm not usually a complete moron

 

[Dragonpit]

I was riding with my family in Canada. Our truck suddenly spun out on a busy freeway. Fortunately, we only wound up on the side of the road in the snow. We were able to get going again right away.

 

[Deroo]

good topic, well ive had a few actually

A couple of drowning incidents (one when I was about 8 I decided to go into the deep end of a friends pool, suffice to say I went straight under for about half a minute to a minute and ended up being rescued by the friends dad clothes and all) but I was fine afterwards...

Went down to a lake with a few friends and after a lot of swimming and a few drinks I almost went under and was just so physically exhausted I had to push myself to keep swimming (I was sure I would have been gone if I hadnt had kept going)

And another one at a beach got caught in a rip that kept pushing me further out and I was exhausted and deeper into the ocean and waves kept coming, what must have felt like a good 5-10 minutes later finally was able to get out of it and besides a case of dehydration I was a ok

When I was about 2-3 my mum was busy using a rolling pin to make food and had the window open on the 2nd story house and I went straight out the window and bounced..

Thats all I can think of right now.

 

[Cpu46]

Then there was that time I nearly electrocuted myself with a faulty extension cord - I was eleven, trying to unplug something from it. I was holding the socket in my right hand and pulling the plug with my left. As I pulled, the whole plastic casing of the socket somehow slid away, leaving thumb and index finger firmly grasping the live wires. I managed to let go somehow, I was shaking so badly I couldn't stand for about ten minutes. Quite a shocking experience.

Having taken an electrical engineering course I can tell you that you probably had between 5-10 milliAmps coursing through your body probably leaning more towards 10. 5mA is the highest harmless amount. Any higher than 10mA and it is impossible to let go. 100mA can paralyze your respiratory muscles and leaves nasty burns both inside and outside your body. 2A kills you instantly.

Your story reminded me of one my mother told me. She worked as a receptionist at a hospital in Marquette MI, an area where a lot of city college kids would go on break. A lot of drownings, hypothermia, and water related accidents but one of them was a kid who decided to climb a power pole. He got to the top, wrapped his legs around the pole, reached up and either accidentally or ignorantly grabbed onto the wires. Dead on arrival. Apparently he died as soon as his body completed the circuit but his muscles wouldn't let go due to the electricity. He didn't fall until his hands burnt off and released him from the circuit, at which point he fell 20 feet to the ground in front of his friends.... Less of a near death experience and more of a shocking reminder that Amperage kills.

[sub]I apologize for the above pun, it was unintentional and all I hope is that no lives were lost in the resulting facepalms and headdesks[/sub]

 

[Vanbael]

I was in a roll over accident, it was winter and my dad was driving the truck on the interstate when we hit an icy bridge. We went off into the center ditch between the highways and the snow was too much resistance for the tires and thanks to glorious physics we flipped over (insert extensive momentum stuff here). Anyways, the thing was that if the truck hadn't flipped over, I would be crushed by the guard rail of the oncoming highway probably suffering a fatal head injury or maybe some sever fractures. Instead, the roll over only strained one of my neck muscles and I was out of it easy.

 

[Saulkar]

2 incidents.

The first lightning struck an inderterminable distance from me and arced. It felt like a punch to the chest and I was temporarily blinded but otherwise I was left unharmed.

The second time I was snowboarding at Asessippi ad nearly hit a tree before I through myself onto my butt and slid up to it. Looking up I saw a sharp branch sticking out above my head. I would have been skewered had I not dropped to slow myself down.

 

[darksakul]

Without being injured? That differently slims it down a bit. For you other people, anything medical that could kill you is for most part an injury. Bodily systems taking damage or shutting down is considered injuries.

I had some near death experiences, but they all involved some sort of injury. Heat stoke injury and massive dehydration. Also an Life threading infection. Do not ask, I am not giving details.

Let see Almost being run over by a 18 wheeler tractor trailer. Some one tried to mug me at gun point. Lucky for me the gun isn't loaded and the would me mugger held that gun like a wimp (I got out of it by pistol whipping the guy with his own gun). Oh and that one time someone almost poisoned me (by the way being poisoned is technically an injury).

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

When I was 2 I climbed a book-shelf, fell off into a laundry basket, and the fully load book shelf came down on top of the basket, partly crushing the basket and almost killing the hell out of me. I've also to many close calls involving cars and speed boat motors.

 

[superbatranger]

I guess being mugged would count. The guy could have easily stabbed me to death.

 

[DemonicVixen]

How did you contract TSS and if you didnt go to hospital then how did you get rid of it??

According to several sources on google and other medical stuff, it does NOT go away on its own and in almost 50% of cases its fatal. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001676/
The diagnosis is based on several criteria: fever, low blood pressure, a rash that peels after 1-2 weeks, and problems with the function of at least three organs.

If your mother is a head nurse then she should have been ashamed of herself not taking you to hospital if she knew you had that. Just because she is a nurse that doesnt give her the right to treat you at home without other medical care. Had you died she could lose her license and job.

No, i dont claim to know anything about TSS, but being a girl who naturally has periods, its more common for us to get it via tampons etc, so naturally i've studied this disease for a long time.

Uh, thanks for insulting my mom and her professionalism. You are claiming to know about this condition btw.(enough to claim you know enough to say what should and shouldn't be done for someone in that situation). I was improving by the time I got to her (this was about 4 hours away with negligent basketball coaches) she was prepared to get me help if I got more serious. I'm obviously fine, so she made the right call. I think my fever had dropped to 100F (this was over 10 years ago) by the time I was home.

Its my coaches who should be ashamed of themselves for leaving me to drive home, seeing how sick I was. They would have actually been on the hook for my death, since I begged these adults (some I'd known most of my life) to take me home; but they wouldn't for insurance reasons. Oh the irony.

There are many levels of sepsis. One of of them killed my grandmother actually. She had some kind of abdominal rupture. I never had a peeling rash; but I was weak for a few days and got bad dizzy spells (with hot flashes) for about 4 years after.

Yes, I got it from bacterial build up from tampon usage. I didn't use them for years after.

Like i said hun, i was in no way insulting your mother, but im pretty sure if you look up TSS you'll see that it DOES NOT improve on its own and when you said you never went to hosptial. any nurse if that is the case, should have gotten you checked out IMMEDIATELY even my mate's mum who is also a nurse would have done that and DID when she suspected her daughter had it (turned out just to be a bug). She'd never risk spreading infections or any underlying problem by saying "oh well i know what i'm doing so i'll do it myself". HENCE why I DO NOT CLAIM TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT TSS because everything i've learnt i've READ ONLINE! I couldnt see if you were male or female from your profile so that was why I asked how you contracted it.
Thinking about it, how can you be sure you didnt just have any other kind of infection? You said yourself there are many kinds. Most the websites say that the rash is the one way to tell if its TSS or not, and you've just said you didnt get that? The symptoms you describe go on for ANY infection. Even if you prove it was due to the tampon usage (which can only happen if you leave them in too long continuously), then it still doesnt mean it was TSS. I've never heard of a case that just vanishes on its own (ps, I did do sex ed at school and TSS did come up into that along with the facts of treatment), and the articles online prove that also....

So no offence to you or your mother, but i'm still confused. To be truthful, i've never had any friends etc who've ever contracted it, so never had first hand experiance. I can only go off what I READ ONLINE like I said. I might and probably could be wrong. But with so much online saying "no its not possible" then sorry, but you can see why i'm questioning it

 

[Hive Mind]

I overdosed on my antidepressants and spend a month in hospital.

 

[MrSnugglesworth]

I was at the beach with my dad and brother, when I got swept up in the water. I was under for about 30 seconds and when I came up, I was about a quarter mile down the beach and about 300 feet out.

As a kid, it didn't really scare me that much (It was a very shallow beach, it was only up to my neck at 300 feet. I was about 4'5) but my dad was freaking out.