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

[erbkaiser]

I was pushed onto the street by a bully when I was 8, right in front of a car. The car hit me and launched me in the air, and I landed on my face. By sheer coincidence an ambulance was driving by so I was taken to the hospital almost immediately, and other than the loss of my front teeth, a broken nose, and severe bruising on my side where the car hit me, I got away with it without major injuries. I could have easily died then. I guess I'm either extremely resilient or have a world glass guardian angel.

 

[Raddra]

When I was about 13-14 I was crossing a road at a crossing (which had stopped the traffic of course) only for an asshole who was speeding to veer around the stopped traffic and carry on over the crossing. Thankfully the [expletive] managed to stop before hitting me by about 3 inches (somehow) and I stumbled home in a post traumatic daze.

 

[SckizoBoy]

In halls at uni, in the kitchen one of the guys was chopping meat very enthusiastically with a knife of questionable quality (plastic handle). *swish* *silence* *clang* The blade flew out of the handle, hurtled past me and bounced off the wall. Me and the three other people in the kitchen paused and stopped short of shitting ourselves.

Off-topic: was declared clinically dead for roughly ten seconds as a six year old... scary.

 

[Danglybits]

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

Don't call me hun. The internet is not a medical resource. At least its not much of one. "Prove it was due to tampon usage"? Yes I left it in too long. I was stupid and kept putting off changing it. It was in for far too long. What happened lasted only a few hours, it hit when the tampon had been in pushing 10hrs. It was bacterial poisoning from tampon usage. What more do you want? So I didn't get the rash; if it wasn't TSS then what was it? My gynecologist also thought it was TSS, and that what happened was caused by my stupidity with the tampon. She would know more about what it was than my mother or WebMD.

"Never heard of a case that vanishes on its own"? Make up your mind, do you know nothing about this or do you think you're some sort of expert? What it was is hardly the fucking point really, since I was still terribly ill. I don't know how ER's work where you are but here, they would have left me until all the heart attacks and gunshots had been treated. Its not a timely thing. I would have 'waited it out' just the same.

 

[Danglybits]

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]

Woah. How long did this whole thing take? Where there people around?

 

[Darius Brogan]

Wow, they might be fairly common and all, but there are a HUGE amount of people that have almost been hit by cars...
I myself have almost been hit twice, but I used to live in a big city full of assholes...

Anywho, keep your near-death experiences coming, it makes me feel normal to know that I'm not the only person on Deaths permanent "Gonna scare the shit out of you until you're actually scheduled to die' list.

 

[Cpu46]

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]

Woah. How long did this whole thing take? Where there people around?

Well I really don't know since I got the story third or fourth hand and over 20 years after it happened. My guess is probably not too long especially if he grabbed the metal transformers at the top of the pole.

 

[Jedoro]

Anything I have that's close to a "near-miss" was by design. Like, if I'm crossing the street, I time it so I'm pretty much barely missing being hit.

 

[CRAVE CASE 55]

lets see...

At work a few weeks ago (I work for a professional lawn care service) I was cuting a lawn that only needed a push mower and boom. I hear a big snap, and the lawn mower starts cutting something. The homeowners had a extention cord runing through theyre lawn in the tall grass, and didnt mention it. Had it been plugged in I would have been friend

Ive been narowly missed by fireworks 2 times.

1. When I was 3 my drunk uncles were shooting bottle rockets on the 3th of july and one fell over and exploded in my face. Temporarily blinded me, and im deaf in my left ear still.

2. A few years ago on the forth of july my moms boyfriend had a proffesional morter that shoots up the big ones. It fell over and missed my face by less that 2 inches. the Flames burnt my face slightly and it knocked mt off the swingset I was sitting on

 

[Wayneguard]

When I was probably 10 or 11 my uncle let me shoot a .22 rifle at some pinecones by myself. So I leaned up against a tree and aimed down the scope. When I shot though, I heard a weird zinging sound. I couldn't figure it out so I kept on shooting. Every time I shot, I would hear the weird "zing". Then I realized what was going on... there was a branch right in front of the barrel and the zinging sound was the sound of the bullets flying past my left ear. So yeah... that's firearm safety for you right there.

 

[roguetrooper96]

I almost had my head cut off by an automatic car window once, oh ummm... Twice if you count the sunroof. (The sunroof was my fault though)

And some twat that should NOT even be able to know of what a driving license is came flying around a roundabout at 70MPH (He turned right while I was crossing the road on the way to my uncles house... It was a residential (Place where a lot of people live and has a low speed limit) area and I had to sprint to get out of his/her way... My emotions were rather confused at that point, I was pissed at the driver (If you could call him/her that) but I was also angry that there was one person around to view my desperate sprint, if no-one had seen it I would've thought "YEAH! That was pretty awesome!" But someone did see it and I felt rather embarrassed and I can't place why.

 

[FalloutJack]

That would be the train incident. Heh...good times.

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

Once taking a friend to his apt, we were stopped at gunpoint by some of the hood's local drug dealers. They were at "war" with a rival hood and thought we might be someone doing a drive-by. It's only because they recognized the dude I was taking home as a local that they didn't shoot us.

 

[Gladiateher]

Well some people wouldn't have considered me a person at the time but when I was two months old an insane dog mauled my mom and dug a few inches into her stomach which almost killed both of us but we turned out all right.

 

[DemonicVixen]

-snip-

Oh for goodness sake. People have to take things so bloody personal. I admitted I knew nothing about the disease aside from the internet, and I suppose your going to tell my that ALL medical websites etc are wrong? Really? I'm glad to know you can prove that just from your one experience from it which was never truly diagnosed. Ok, so it was most likely TSS just due to the tampon however that doesnt mean it wasnt just a COMMON INFECTION! I wasnt saying you were lying etc, all i was saying is that it didnt sound anything like the symptoms given aside from the general flu like symptoms you can get from a normal infection. Just because you left the tampon in doesnt mean it was TSS. It just bothers me when people claim to have had that when its really just been a normal infection which yes, could have developed into TSS later if not caught in time.
Your right, maybe your medical care is crap there if they'd leave a girl to die. I wouldnt know. I dont study the medical centres around the world so I can only assume they'd be as reasonable as ours. TSS can kill you in 24hrs if is severe enough. No hospital should just push it aside, even a gunshot wound can be less fatal.
Yes, I might have been harsh about your mother and ok, I appologise for that, but going off those who I know are parents and nurses, none of them would have sat back knowing you had had or might STILL HAVE HAD the infection. You might not have gotten rid of it, they can die down then flare back up in an instant. I wasnt saying your mother was crap at her job or whatever, I was merely pointing out she should have gotten you some form of medical care. Obviously if that wasnt possible, which you are now claiming, then i'm sorry for what I said because i'm sure she did all she could and thats fine...
I wasnt trying to be rude to you, so there is no need to be rude and sarcastic back. As I said I've never spoken to someone with TSS, but your symptoms just didnt seem to add up. I still think it could well have been just a normal infection... But whatever. You are alive, and I guess thats the point of the thread.

 

[Lesnik]

Choking on a piece of spaghetti.

My story was obviously the most hardcore.

I choked on an ice cube once. Then it melted.

THAT was hardcore.

 

[thylasos]

Ah, I was going to say getting the shit kicked out of me by smackheads in Russia, but that left me significantly worse for wear.

Any number of times I've almost been run over by twats who don't indicate, I suppose.

 

[Layzor]

My freind and I decided to climb this mountain:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rundle
one day in ealy may 2007. We did so in t-shirts without any climbing gear or phones and no food except a small packet of ferrero rocher which we at at the top. It took us 3 hours to scramble from the base to the top during which there were long periods of time in which one slip would have meant death. The way down took 7 hours as the way we came up would be too steep to go down and we had to take so many risks it was just retarded (jumping gaps, sliding down steep cliff parts, walking through rivers etc).If one of us even twisted an ankle we'd have been fucked. We ended up getting back to town a few hours after dark and walked straight into a restaurant and at pizzas.

Oh and we were in a national park in the Canadian rockies where there are bears, cougars and wolves and we are a pair of city kids with little to no climbing experience.

That night I dreamt of rocks and trees and climbing.

Glad I did it (and didn't die) but wouldn't do it again or recommend it.

 

[JustShyofGenius]

A couple of near misses on alcohol poisoning and that's about it.

 

[Verlander]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3203768/M4-National-Express-coach-crash-driver-admits-causing-death-of-three-passengers.html

I was supposed to be on this bus, but that morning swapped my ticket for an earlier journey while I was drunk.

Alcohol saves.