Near death experiences !!

[rustang]

Anybody else have any near death experiences?

About 5 years ago, I was sitting stopped on a bridge that was having construction done ahead. All of the cars ahead of me were in single file (one lane closed), I was the last in the line. As I sat thereI thought I saw something in the rear view mirror, as I looked into the mirrors I saw the front of a semi truck coming through the back windshield !!! He was doing about 70 mph, he was either asleep at the wheel or on drugs, when he hit me. The front of the semi started riding up the back of my vehicle, which was pretty much crushed and gone, onto the top on the driver side. The impact ripped the bolts of the driver seat out and I was thrown backwards (seat and all) partway into the rear seat. The semi dropped off the side and the impact propelled me fowards adn sideways into the side of the bridge. I finally came to a stop and could smell all of the smells of a wreck, burned rubber, oil, gas... I was laying on my back and looking out of what used to be the back of my car and wondering if I was still alive.. I remember all of the people running towards me and talking to me, but I couldn't really hear what they were saying. They sounded like the teacher on Charlie Brown. All I could think of were my kids and I was overwhelmed at the thought of them having to bury me. A greater power was looking over me as I survived the accident with no life threatening injuries. I had 3 fractured vertabrae, internal bleeding from the seat belt, and some pretty serious damage to the muscles/nerves in my right shoulder region. It took 2 years of phyical therapy to get most of the use of my right arm back, I have to have radio frequency nerve blocks surgically placed into my cervical spine every 10 months and still have, at times severe, pain in my abdominal area.

On the bright side: I am alive and functional and very happy to be able to be a father to my girls

On the bizarre side: The guy that hit me was on the run from the police , he was a convicted murderer that somehow was inadvertently released and burglarized a home, raped and killed the wife and thought he had killed the husband who lived. He was using a false identity and was only given a ticket at the time. He was caught we he was subpoened (sp) to be depositioned for my lawsuit. His employer had no idea who he really was, he ran again and his ex-wife tipped off the police where he was. He is now serivg consecutive life sentences in a Nebraska prison.....

Lets hear your story...

[Scooter64]

Wow rustang, thats an incredible story. You're lucky to be here!

My story is not nearly as intense, but it sure did scare the bejeezus out of me. We have a place close by that has many rock formations and caves (it's called Panama Rocks). We were hiking and climbing the rocks in one area that had sheer drop offs of about 75 feet. As I was ascending and almost at the top, the person ahead of me exclaims "watch that spot there, it's slippery". Too late, I slipped and fell straight down about 6 feet landing on a ledge square on my patootie, with my legs hanging off the edge. If I would have been about 1 foot over it would have been about a 75 foot fall to certain death on the rocks below.

[joeychitwood]

While scuba diving off the north shore of Little Cayman Island, I had checked my equipment, and as always, had turned my air valve on all the way, then back 1/4 turn. Apparently a boat crew member then turned the valve off, then open by 1/4 turn by mistake just before I started a wall dive.

The partially open regulator was able to provide a flow of air during my rapid descent, but at about 100 feet, when the valve needed to provide more than three times the air volume per breath because of the pressure, the valve failed.

I tried to take my next breath, and no air came through the mouthpiece. I had no idea why, but I was living on one breath of air under 100 feet of sea water. I grabbed the fin of my divemaster and made the "Out of Air" hand signal. He quickly reached behind me and turned the valve on all the way, and the air flow was restored. I completed a beautiful wall dive, but the thought remained in my head that I could have died had I been too far away from either my dive buddy (my spouse) or the divemaster.

[bogg]

omg crazy stories ummm one time my powerhead froze and nuked my tank I almost had a near death experience.

[rustang]

I am getting ready to get SCUBA certified, so Joeys story is very frightening. I just read an about a diver who's valve in his BC stuck open and shot him to the surface. I don't rember his depth, but he had to visit the chamber. He had some pretty serious nitrogen / blood issues along with some pretty damaged eardrums, but he lived. He said he was not going to be able to dive for at least a year.. I have been down to 55 ft, I think that is as far as I want to go. Besides any deeper than that and I will have to spend more money on bigger strobes....

[joeychitwood]

I'd advise that you take as many certification courses as you can, should you like scuba diving. The more you know, the better off you are. Despite the fact that there are 100 ways to get hurt or dead in diving, it is a remarkably safe sport. The key is proper training.

I have my Divemaster rating and have done some wreck and tech diving in Truk, Micronesia to 185 feet with long deco stops. My favorite dives are the 50 foot reef dives in Cozumel. Relaxing, relatively safe and spectacular corals and fish.

[waterlily]

Rustang, I can't come close to your experience, but I can come pretty close to Joey's. My husband and I were diving near Ft.Lauderdale and we were down 75 feet. I was well trained with an entire semester PADI class at college, but I had never gone that deep before so I didn't realize how fast I was consuming air. I ran out, but I wasn't really scared because my husband (then boyfriend) was with me and he had an extra regulator. I just gave him the signal, he handed me the regulator, and we made a slow ascent. I was kind of embarassed to hand my tank back with no air left.

[Yukon]

Knowing absolutely nothing about diving - are you saying you have to somehow control your breathing, or you run out of air?

[joeychitwood]

Originally posted by Yukon
Knowing absolutely nothing about diving - are you saying you have to somehow control your breathing, or you run out of air?

There is a tendency for new or inexperienced divers to suck their tanks empty because of excitement, over-exertion, anxiety or deconditioning. As a diver becomes more experienced, he or she uses less air, expends less energy and controls the respiratory rate, much like in a meditative state.

It is important to leave at least 500 pounds of air in your tank when you surface in case you need to fill your BC or breathe from the tanks due to high surface waves or the need to re-submerge to avoid an oncoming boat which doesn't see you on the surface.

[waterlily]

Plus, the air is more compressed the deeper you go, so you consume more with every breath the deeper you are. That's why I went dry - I hadn't gone that deep before and was used to the 30 ft. dives in the Keys where I used way less air in the same period of time.

[Yukon]

Okay. That makes sense. I remember my brother-in-law, who is a diver, telling of how sometimes other divers have to "calm a new diver down" when underwater. This must be what he meant. One of the strangest things I have seen is a show on Discovery Channel about cave diving. This small group of people drove a jeep into a jungle, where there was no road, with a "map" , . When they couldn't drive any further, they hiked in another couple of miles or so, found the "X spot" on the map, got down on their hands and knees, and started digging through the leaves to find the hole (entrance). Gearing up, they all proceeded to jump in the hole, which was a long narrow passage to the cave. Talk about dangerous. I got claustrophobic just watching it.

[taku]

(I broke it up into paragraphs to make it easier to read )

I had a near death experience on 3 years ago along with my father, boyfriend, and cousin. My dad is a pilot so he flew the four of us from Orlando over to Cedar Key (north of Tampa) to have lunch, then fly home. We did all the standard safety checks in the 172 prior to takeoff and everything was smooth as we approached Cedar Key's runway. A 152 landed right in front of us (no air traffic control, it's a very short vacant runway) and we came in and touched down. Dad applied the brakes but all that happened was the plane shook vigorously everytime he applied brakes.

We couldn't stop so he gave her full throttle trying to take off again but we couldn't gain back enough speed and IIRC with the weight we needed about 65mph but we were only about 54-56mph. The end of the runway is just some bushes and weeds and then about a 5 ft drop into the gulf of mexico. He had to lift off at the end of the runway but after climbing about 5-10ft in the air we just started sinking towards the gulf due to lack of airspeed. My dad just said "we're not going to make it". No one said anything else. About 2 seconds later the back wheels hit the water first and (what we found out later) was dad applied full rudder and he tilted the plane over to it's left side quick so instantly the left wing caught in the water and we spun up in the air and cartwheeled across the water somewhere between 4-6 times (from the witness report of the pilot who landed in front of us).

What was interesting about the cartwheeling was of course we were all belted in, but it really didn't feel all that violent. I mean you'd expect it to be thrashing around giving whiplash or something but it wasn't. Anyways we landed upside down on an oysterbar/sandbar thing and we were all conscious and weren't hurt. The tail was out of the water in the nasty mucky black sandbar thing, and the prop was submerged along with the interior gauge cluster up front but the rest of the cabin was dry. We had to bust out the windows to get out though because the frame was bent and the doors wouldn't open. Funny, just before we were leaving Orlando Executive Airport my dad made a joke about proper procedure of cracking the doors open prior to impact because the frame would bend!

Long story somewhat longer, Cedar Key Fire/Rescue arrived just a couple minutes later and couldn't believe we were all fine but said if we had crashed a couple hours later, that oyster bar would have been completely submerged ... yea and we probably would have drown. We were so lucky and I'm so thankful my dads Naval pilot / private pilot experience taught him how to fly defensively in that type of situation! If we would have gone straight out into the gulf we would have drown for sure.

I haven't flown since but in April my boyfriend and I are planning to fly to Vegas for a weekend. I figure what are the chances I'll encounter another plane crash in my lifetime! *knocks on wood* And my dad still loves flying, he even has an amphib kit plane in his brand new hanger which he's going to begin working on shortly hehe.. I think I'll pass for a while

[N8MAN1068]

I've got a similar experience like rustang
Years ago, me and some friends were going down to UVA from fredericksburg. Since my friend didn't know the route, and i had a camaro, he let me drive his car(4dr dodge shadow). it was raining...
a car stopped in front of us, so i slowed down and stopped a good half-full car length behind the guy...he took his time making that turn. All of a sudden, everything got dark, except for a bright light coming from the rearview mirror. A friend in the backseat turned around and yelled 'OH SH**!', then it seemed like time stopped and all i could hear was WOOSSSSSH BAM!
When we got hit, we got hit so hard that the car flew fwd and rear ended the other car, even though i was standing on the breaks. we got hit so hard, my face bounced off the steering wheel even after the airbag deployed.
When i came to, i thought i was dead. i could hear nothing except this loud ringing. Everything around me was a cloudy white, and there was this bright light in my eyes. It seemed like eternity. Thing, everything faded in fast..suddenly i heard 'I CANT GET OUT! THE BACK DOOR IS JAMMED!....SMOKE! SMOKE! GET OUT OF THE CAR, IT'S GONNA BLOW!'....after i heard that, suddenly i found myself running down the road.
I cant remember undoing my seatbelt, getting out of the car, or my friends climbing over me to get out. The other car hit us so hard, that the trunk crumpled under the car and wrinkled the doors shut.
Now, every time i drive past that place, i have a moment of silence.

[O'Man]

It's long . . .

Six of us were fishing about 125 miles east-southeast of Atlantic City out in the deep. The weather forecast was for 2-4 foot seas. After lots of fun, and a nice white marlin, we got hit with what the National Weather Service calls a “local anomaly�. Suddenly there was lots of very hard rain, thunder, lightening and waterspouts. The wind kicked up and made the outriggers groan, and then the groan became a scream. The visibility went to just several yards and we ran over lobster gear. I cannot describe how happy I was when the gear stopped banging on the hull and popped up as we pulled away. The mere thought of winding up stern-anchored in that storm still gives me the shakes.

The 2-4 foot seas turned into 2-4 stories, and when the sun went down it got even lonelier. It was so rough that the autopilot was useless. Two of us, the owner & I, were experienced boaters so we took turns holding the wheel. Because it was so rough, we could only deal with holding the wheel for short time periods. It was a major effort just to stay on board, let alone steer. The engine room filled with water repeatedly and I found myself swimming in the cockpit waiting for the boat to pop back up so I could put my feet back on something solid. Swimming in a rain suit is not easy. Speaking of rain suits, being with grown men peeing in them because it is too dangerous to let go of what you are holding so you can relieve yourself is no fun. We attempted to call the coast guard and give them our position and coarse so if we went down they would know where to start looking, but the radio antenna did not clear the waves so we couldn’t get out.

Around 4:00 AM, we got to the inlet. It was so rough and windy it took 3 attempts to clear the inlet and get inside. In the process, we hit a wave so hard that the CRT for the radar exploded. The next day we discovered the additional . . . 2 broken motor mounts, 3 breaks in the tower, a shattered fish door, a caved in fish box and lots of assorted broken stuff on this 44 foot fishing boat. Five sleepless days later, we had me in atrial fibrillation getting my heart stopped and restarted. It took the students at the hospital a couple of attempts to make it so they stopped loosing me. My reward was lots of itchy burns on my chest from the paddles, and although before the procedure my heart was diagnosed as being normal, but out of rhythm, later they said my left ventricle was damaged.

As for the rest of the crew, they made their promises while they considered their mortality. Within 2 months we had one become born-again, two got divorced because they promised themselves that they would fix what was wrong in their lives. The guys, who were seasick and unable to function, let alone understand the gravity of the situation, seem best; but to the best of my knowledge, neither has been back out to sea.

[Desert Fox]

Wow guys (and gals)! Great stories! So glad to read all of you are here to tell your tales.

Here's mine...

[Hoggn]

I got caught cheating by my last girlfriend... Let me tell you it was a near death experience.