[Closed] Near death experiences

This morning I mentioned that my wife's brand new top looked like something from the 1960s 🙁

I've just heard her car pulling into the drive

https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/oh-lord-im-in-trouble-help-me-speeding-advice/

I say pulling, I mean obviously arriving on two wheels in a cloud of rubber and brake lining.

Standing on a (less than perfectly stable) scaffold when a large stone saw bounced out the cut I was making... The adrenaline rush was rather big.

A car doing on ramp ---> outside lane on the M9, from behind a truck in the slow lane in about 3 seconds = multiple spinning cars and debris rattling down on my car. I ended up stopped in the fast lane, about 1m from a car facing the wrong way, with truck sliding up the inside of me... No damage to me or car.

serious one - we had an electric rechargeable pallet truck / mini forklift at my old work. You had to plug it in to the mains to recharge, and the lead was so short to get it to a socket was a real PITA. So the maintenance guy hit the idea of cutting the lead so it didn't need coiling away, and then putting a new socket on the end. Yes, socket - the female bit. So now to get it to charge you needed a charging lead with a plug at each end. One of which you put in the mains, the other one muggins without thinking picked up one day.

Not twice.

I've also been doored while riding too close to parked cars. That won't happen twice either.

I’ve also been doored while riding too close to parked cars.

I used the word 'doored' in  a game of upwords the other day, with my folks.  They challenged me but it is actually in the dictionary.

So now to get it to charge you needed a charging lead with a plug at each end.

Ruddy stupid and dangerous thing to make.

So OP how did you manage to do that. Forgot to let the air out first?

Knew a guy who did similar and it went through his jaw! 😐

Erm - driving probably a bit too quickly on a deserted A-Road early one Sunday morning and I was surprised by flames licking around my ankles and coming up the windscreen from behind the dash. Managed to pull over, first sign of flame to completely burnt out shell, probably less than 5 minutes.

Crashing as Afan and losing a lot of blood out of the back out my elbow whilst I lay there waiting for be Ambo to find me, I didn’t realise how much danger I was in until much later, but it was a LOT of blood lost.

Ruddy stupid and dangerous thing to make.

My thoughts exactly. Immediately after - 'Ow!' and 'Why am I sat over here when previously I was stood over there'

Missing the "hidden dip" whilst making an ambitious overtake many years ago, luckily for me someone more local anticipated my stupidity & slowed quickly enough to give me a gap to pull back into as i doubt the crash protection in a little Daewoo would have been up to much at a closing speed of 100mph

JHJ our slate kitchen floor still bares the scars of a similar rapid ejection!

18 years old on an expedition with a friend in Norway crossing a glacier. Stupidly heavy rucsac on with a box of water purity testing kit (the purpose of the exped) strapped to the top making weight circa 30kg. I slipped traversing a snow bank and found myself sliding towards a glacial lake with just enough melted around the edge for me to be able to drop into the water. No ice axe to self arrest and gathering speed fast and couldn't get out of the rucsac. I ended up using one hand to force the other into the neve snow to slow myself. Eventually came to a halt approximately 300ft below where I'd started and less than 20 from the drop into the water. Thought I was a gonner. Pretty beaten up and the ice burn on that hand was horrible. I still have numbness and the odd painful tingle nearly 30 years later.

Ouch that could have been nasty. I'm lucky / unlucky to see all the stored energy related injuries in our company so have a healthy respect for servicing my forks and aim them away!

Another stoopid youth overtaking story for me - NY moors in a mini, 4 up, following my mates on a motorbike

They overtook a group of cars and the guy on pillion waved us out.  I'd been winding it up in a low gear, catching the back of line and was at the perfect point, so I took his "word" for it and overtook.  It was a lorry in the dip; I'm almost shitting myself remembering it now

Glastonbury 2000

Glastonbury 2000

Word (muttered wearing a thousand-yard stare)

Breaking down in a 1970's jingly Toyota taxi in a shanty town in Mombasa. Que locals trying to pull me and my mate out of the car while the rest of them were rocking the s##t out of it. Luckily the driver had a big stick and beat them off and then got the car started again.....I miss my days in the Royal Navy!

Watching a car transporter on the other side of the M40 take out the central crash barrier and head straight towards me, seemingly in slow motion. It stopped before it reached me blocking all 3 lanes and I snuck through on the hard shoulder still braking.

Id been to Heathrow to meet an American advertiser and lunch him before transporting him to his flight from Gatwick. Driving down the M40 from Stokenchurch cut towards Oxford in the afternoon sun I see the car in front of me wander left towards the slower cars in the inside lane. I'm already braking when he realises what's happening, over compensates and rocks across the centre lane and smacks the car in the outside lane into the barrier and then bounces back across me and into the car on the inside lane. The road in front of me is clear so I just gradually slow down looking in my rear view mirror at bonnets flying into the air and cArs crunching everywhere.

Also multiple smacks around me on the M4 on the years I commuted 80 miles a day into London on it.

And the drifting offshore from Sotavento with a broken UJ in a force 7 (inshore).

The rest was just sharks, helicopters and angry Cuban soldiers. (Different stories though...)

beat them off…..I miss my days in the Royal Navy!

I misjudged a high speed overtake on my motorbike.  Just missed a lorry coming the other way with a closing speed of 100mph plus.

Or riding down the m6 in heavy traffic in the outside lane.  I got fed up of the cr behind tailgating so moved over into the middle lane.  the car that was behind me ran into the car that was  in front of me a few mins later while they were alongside

that's a good looking dog!

Louise.....

In a supermarket one time, somebody dropped what must have been 98% pure methane. Gasping for air but each inhale just caused more vomit inducing stench to be breathed in.

headfirst through the windscreen of a car  after hitting it head on , on  my motorbike

Did not walk properly for about 12 months and surprised i ever ran or cycled [ about 2 years]

I had a near sex experience once.

1 . My own curiosity with a Hilti Gun the cartridges and trigger ....  waking up in theater to the sound of the explosive charge being removed from my wrist some 1mm from the artery . still no feeling in my left hand middle finger tip .

2. Falling from my fence neighbors side at 16  while trying to collect ball from next door slipped on fence and landed  on wooden spike cracked 5 ribs and impaled myself through the lung .  another stint in hospital .

3. Delivering in Manchester a few years ago a  a black Merc pulls out right in front of the wagon  of course reasonable course of action is to sound horn and loose rag . until 3 people leave the car all of Oriental origin one carrying a blade  have a quiet word with me  whilst I say sorry a lot !

4.  Passenger in a wagon while driver decides the right course of action is to jump the lights on the Bradford inner right road with Walkfield road  at 50mph in a 7.5 ton wagon ..  Telegraph and Argos reported the wagon slid 175 metres on its side down Wakefield rd .. with my back hovering where the passenger window used to be ..   only my leg being wrapped around the gear stick stopped me having tarmac rash  ...

Nickname  Lucky !

|n the roof space of a grain dryer replacing a conveyor, we all just clambered up and were bolting it back in, there was rape seed all over the place, like oily ball bearings, was all going well until either my feet or arse slipped, next thing I remember was catching a wooden handrail on some stairs with both hands and sliding down, that was something like 20ft, just to the side of the ledge as another 15-20ft to concrete and not waking up.

Then there was the day I realised I wasn't tied in on stanage a fair way up, hell of a one handed tie in on a finger crimp and a couple of little edges before a cautious reversal to the floor

Had the full oobe at the dentist under gas. Didn't nearly die though. Did nearly reverse into the river levern at 50ish mph after being cut up and hitting the central reservation. Happily hit a tree instead.

Aged 9-10, me and a few mates used to have tree climbing competitions against one another.  One of these involved traversing the perimeter of the local vicarage wood without touching the ground.  Being a competitive little so-and-so I set about training one afternoon ...

Was about halfway round and 20-25 feet up when I messed a transition, fell upside down and plummeted - in that odd slow motion way - towards the ground.   Somehow my left ankle caught a v-shaped branch and I remained hanging while trying to fathom my next move.

I’ve remembered the sensation ever since and have always looked upon it as one of my nine lives.

Pedalling up a hill once, lit up like a Xmas tree, & a Renault 5 went past in the opposite direction at about 50mph about 6ft away, spinning around.

On it's roof.

Didn't we do this recently? I remember a lot of it being unreadable 🙁

Oh, and a Kalashnikov to the head by an intruder in a ski mask. I'm fairly sure it was going to be okay but it had me twitching at any clicking sounds for a long time afterwards

Wow! Some pretty scary experiences there.

a few of mine..

1. Crossing the road when I was about 10, hit by a car that braked in time for me to just land softly on the bonnet. My mum was in the verandah watching all the time.

2. Fell 8ft sideways and cracked my ribs on piping below on the ship. In those few seconds I fell my whole life literally flashed before me. The strangest experience.

3. Skidded and flipped  the car on the Dempster in the middle of nowhere in the Arctic. How we survived that one is a miracle.

December 23rd, 2013, day of the predicted biblical weather storm. Woke up, looked through windows, looked fine so decided to cycle to work on my old Tricross Singlecross. Rounded the big sweeping bend just before Northam Bridge doing ~20mph, to discover a rubbish collection lorry stationary in my lane less than 10 metres ahead of me. Pulled the brake levers, almost nothing happens, I swear a lot...

And then come to with a paramedic over me ~30mins later, with upper jaw and those teeth still in there resembling a jigsaw puzzle, right hand broken twice.

The only bloody day in nearly 12 years I've seen them stopped within a mile of that spot before and since, four days after I turned 40. I've lost count the number of times I wish I'd been sensible and got the bus that day!

Erm a few involving mountains blizzards and crevasses

Been electrocuted several times but it's always a shock *cough*

Funnily enough the one that sticks in my mind is meeting my doppelganger while simultaneously overtaking a line of cars . We both had the fastest bike you could buy and both of us never dreamt that some other **** would try to overtake on the same stretch of road. I remember focussing on a piece of road as wide as the white line and trying to ignore our closing speed of 200 mph

Riding through and off on our club ride. I just moved to the outside and bang! Huge pothole took out my club mate to my left. He was not so lucky 🙁

A collision with a car three years ago today lost half an hour of my life.

So OP how did you manage to do that. Forgot to let the air out first?

Knew a guy who did similar and it went through his jaw!

Ouch... I can well imagine, it was like a frickin crossbow bolt.

I pushed down the valve core and to the best of my knowledge had let all the air out, though that said, I had tried modifying them to reduce the travel, so it could be that air was trapped by my custom spacer.

Looked in the mirror after I'd posted this and there was a tiny spot of blood on my forehead, so it must've literally skimmed my face.

Worked out alright in the end though, there's some classic stories here...

Another overtaking one - though not me overtaking! Came around a corner in the Scottish highlands to find a car overtaking coming towards me. Hard on the brakes, but clearly wasn't going to work so put the left wheels onto the verge and managed to get 3 across the road with my right wheels still on the tarmac. Drove another mile or so down the road before stopping to get somebody else to drive while I sat in the back shaking.

I've had some humdingers, probably the most dramatic being a crash on "Road of Death" the supposed most dangerous road in the world in Bolivia, bombing down at about 35-40mph with a dodgy German guide trying to catch the US group who had proper bikes and were being made to ride cautiously but who had an hours head start, the rear wheel of the cheap Trek hardtail i was on disintegrated, spokes every where, and i woke up with feet dangling over the edge of what must have been a 150m drop.

I had dislocated shoulder downwards with such force i had pulled head of humerus off, skinned left arm, leg and side of face and stuck brake lever into groin, which was bleeding heavily, the little support minibus didn't have a single first-aid item on board so had 8 hour drive in it back up the road to La Paz to a clinic there, lost a few pints of blood and had no painkillers. They finally operated on shoulder putting some screws in, but when i got home to UK, had to have surgery redone as it had been done so badly.

At 18 and not long into army career, i was passenger seat of Landy when it got hit side on by a milk tanker at about 40mph, mate who was driving lost right leg below knee and 20 years later still has counselling, i walked away with severe whiplash and a headache, thankful for roll bars.

Most comedy one was doing a bit of rock climbing in Todra Gorge in Morocco with a mate, pulled myself up to a ledge and at eye-level was a snake basking on the ledge about 2 in from my nose, no idea if it was harmful or not, i didn't stop to ask, then almost fell off as my legs went to jelly, much to the amusement of my mate who was wetting himself with laughter, git..

Lying in a hospital bed feeling very poorly. Lovely lady doctor comes to my bed, pulls the curtains round and says "we can't look after you on this ward any longer. We've had a meeting about your case and we've got you a bed in intensive care."

That was a shocker.

Cocked pistol at the back of the head by paramilitaries in Guatemala. Talked myself out of it. Threw pants in bin afterwards.

Falling between fishing boats on a stormy night when tied up on a pier. Capn’ Bob pulled me out by my head as they came crashing together. Cheers Bob!

Turning right off a dual carriageway (40mph one) - saw a police chase coming towards me. Car being chased veered into my side of the road and went through the 'right hand' filter lane just as I was crossing the line. Missed me by millimetres.

Getting knocked off my bike and breaking my spine was as close to 'life changing' injuries I had. Took a while to realise how lucky I was - immobilised in hospital for 6.5 weeks. Opted for conservative treatment rather than rods in my back. It proved to be the right choice - despite the pain, it's not caused by the metalwork and I have good spine movement, despite a chunk missing from the L1. Very lucky to walk and ride again.

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3. Skidded and flipped  the car on the Dempster in the middle of nowhere in the Arctic. How we survived that one is a miracle.

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Wow, how did you manage that tuskaloosa?? I went up there a few years back, and with it being gravel for 1200km, it didn't feel like the kind of road you go fast enough to flip a car on... And what did the car rental company say?!

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edit: not sure I like being called in a div in the html code... 😀

Two weeks ago I rode my road bike into the back of a parked car at something approaching 20mph and went head first through the rear window. I was lucky in that my head hit the one bit of the car that breaks on impact. Had I hit the door frame I reckon I'd have broken my neck.

Jeez dazh, hope you're healing OK

Rich

19 yrs old  16 x 7.62 rounds through a window 1 hit me Belfast 1983

4 years ago massive tumour in my chest Surgeon said it was the biggest he had found not connected to any vital organ.

Walking along the pavement when a brick fell from scaffolding three stories above me.  Missed me by about 18 inches.

19 yrs old  16 x 7.62 rounds through a window 1 hit me

I've been meaning to ask you, what is in the briefcase?

Walking along the pavement when a brick fell from scaffolding three stories above me.  Missed me by about 18 inches.

That reminds me of the one time I've rock climbed on Ben Nevis (done lots of winter stuff). We'd walked up with bivy kit for a couple of days' climbing and were sat at the foot of Carn Dearg Buttress having a quick bite to eat before deciding on which route to do. My mate and I were sat about two metres apart with various bits of gear laying on the ground between us. All of a sudden there's a thrrrrmmm sound followed by a bang. We look at each other in a sort of "what the hell was that?" way and continue to get ready. It was then I noticed my cooking pans: the thrumming sound was a stone falling from high on the buttress and it had scored a direct hit on the pans. Even if we had been wearing helmets they wouldn't have stood a chance against the energy this had.

Wow, how did you manage that tuskaloosa?? I went up there a few years back, and with it being gravel for 1200km, it didn’t feel like the kind of road you go fast enough to flip a car on… And what did the car rental company say?!

I hit a really loose patch of gravel on a bend at abt 70mph...  Car was our own - an old Honda Civic..miss that car though a real workhorse (saw a few big road trips back then)

Found the old pics, well give up trying to post pics on the new forum

https://imgur.com/EnpUdQH

I've had a few climbing in the Alps, the worst was caving though:

Abseiled into a big engine shaft with loads of tackle attached. (The shaft had broken into a cave system when it was sunk - presumably early C.20). For some reason I re-belayed the line to a tree beyond the wall surrounding the shaft (Line was tied off to some scaffold poles we had dropped across the shaft).

I abbed-in and about 100' down hit bad air, probably CO2 (I could by then see bin bags and carcasses another 50' or so below in the bottom of the shaft, that the local guardian of the countryside, Farmer Palmer had been dumping).

I changed over to rope walking gear to start ascending, but slipped into unconsciousness due to exertion and lack of O2. As I drifted off I remember thinking 'Well, that's all been rather nice, what a shame it has to end'. I was well f*cked - no possibility of rescue I reckoned. It was very peaceful (and gives me great hope that the end of life experience will generally be good - assuming one is not being ripped apart by lions or something)

Fortunately the two lads at the surface were quick thinkers. They drove my trannie van into the field, untied the rope from the tree, and tied it to the back door step of the van, put a jammer on the scaffold tubes to act as a pulley and to hold the rope, then drove backwards and forwards across the field, pulling me up in stages out of the shaft.

I was a bit bashed up as my face had scraped up the side of the shaft as I was being pulled out (I thought I'd gone blind, my eye sockets were full of congealed blood), but no ill effects/ brain damage (none discernible over and above all the skunk we used to smoke in those days anyway).

It affected me quite a lot for the first few years, less so now.

****! You win.