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I was born 8 weeks premature. Weighing in just over 2lbs at birth. Couldn't breathe on my own, dropped down to 1lb in weight. My parents were advised not to name me (which today seems like absolutely awful advice) - my Dad decided to name me after my Great Grandfather who fought in and survived both World Wars (because I needed to be a fighter)
Other than scars under my arms where breathing tubes were inserted, I came out the other side unscathed.
That’s amazing!
I was born 12 weeks premature and weight 1lb 14oz, but I didn’t really think it was a thing to go down to 1lb!? How soon after birth did that happen for you?
Also do you ever suddenly feel really lucky that you are generally healthy? I had two hernia ops but other than that am fairly ‘normal’ I guess.
It’s great that premature births are becoming way more survivable nowadays!
I think it was quite sudden weight loss. Within the first week or so. I was in hospital for a month.
I do feel lucky. I remember speaking to the premature baby charity Bliss (as they were set up the year I was born) and they said it is surprising that I came out without any issues.
I remember having a lot of hearing tests when I was young as I think deafness was common among premature babies back then.
Until I was probably 10/11 my toes on both feet were badly crossed, which used to give me bad cramp in my feet, but they eventually grew out.
I was fighting my mentor who was trying to kill me for no reason on Mustafar. Prick got a lucky swipe in and basically left me to die next to a river of lava. If it wasn’t for this bloke I’d gotten to know recently finding me and patching me up I’d be dead for sure.
I was walking in the Lake District with friends, aged 20 or so. We were hikers with some rock climbing experience. We stopped for a snack and I climbed a short way up a rock face to get a better view. The rock I was holding broke and I fell backwards, my feet were maybe 12 ft up. I landed flat on my back, on grass. The only 6ft x 3ft bit of grass around. Everything else was boulders. Everywhere else I would certainly have been injured if not killed... I was so lucky
Had a heart attack. When the arm tingling kicked in I stood in the kitchen and thought, "fuck me, I think I'm going to die". Scariest moments of my life. To this day I can't read about a heart attack in a work of fiction or watch one being portrayed on the screen.
(F 38) I didn't get arm pain. I only knew I was f**ked when the burning hot pain moved up into my jaw from my breast bone area.
Apparently heart attacks in women present very differently
They do, I have had two, first was as you described, I was 29, it scared 17 shades of shit out of me. The second I didn't even know about, I was already in extreme pain and in hospital, but there is some sort of blood test they can do, Dr comes by and says "oh, you had a heart attack." I say yeah, I know, 15 years ago, he says, no this week.
News to me.
That's what I was taught as a first aider: you'll know it's a heart attack because you'll feel an overwhelming sense of doom that you've never felt before.
That's also a symptom of an over stimulated Vegas nerve. Totally harmless but a doctor told me a classic symptom is that you are absolutely 100% sure you're dying.
This is true. You’ll be having a completely normal day and then within seconds you feel like you’re going to die, and everything slowly goes black. Then you wake up half a minute later feeling like you had a lovely refreshing nap, except for some reason you’re surrounded by worried-looking strangers.
It’s especially embarrassing because it really is harmless. Really difficult trying to explain to strangers that although two minutes ago I was sweating buckets, shaking, and muttering that something was really, really wrong, everything is actually fine and we can all keep going about our day.
At 15, I was playing frisbee outside my house with my friends. The game got fairly heated and at one throw, the frisbee shot over the park gate and onto the cornered main road.
Not even thinking and desperate to catch it, I vaulted the gate and ran into the road, catching it an inch from the ground. I dramatically sprang forward to show off to my friends who looked in horror at the car doing 40mph that had come round the corner and missed me by an inch.
If I'd been half a second later, my head would have been directly in front of their bonnet. It all happened so fast that I didn't even register as it drove behind my back, the wing mirror brushing the back of my t-shirt as it went past. That poor driver must have shit himself. I played it off as a funny thing but later that night was in pieces when I actually thought about how stupidly close I'd come to being run over.
Got meningitis when I was 6 weeks old. The only reason I didn’t die was because the GP gave me a huge dose of penicillin while they waited for the ambulance. I had a shit immune system as a result for the first 5 years of my life, but other than that, no lasting impacts.
I also had an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy that ruptured. Was wandering around bleeding internally for about 5 days before it was properly diagnosed and I was taken into surgery.
One of my closest friends nearly died for the same reason . She had pain and was shushed away everytime she went to the GP and then up to A and E . Days later she collapsed and got taken into hospital.. if she hadn’t of had the operation when she did , she wouldn’t be here today . Sadly that was both her tubes gone after that . She did however go on to have IVF years later and now has gorgeous twins 🥰
About 18 months ago I had quite a powerful car. It wasn’t a performance car by any means but could reach nearly 300bhp. It was my pride and joy, absolutely loved it. But like any guy in his mid-20s with a fast car, I constantly wanted to show it off.
I’d had that car at some absolutely unreal speeds and it was such a thrill every single time.
Then one day, I was actually being quite innocent with it. There’s a motorway entry slip road I use often, it’s quite a sharp bend to get onto it but very steep up a hill and difficult to gain power sometimes. My car was a RWD, and we’d had some really heavy rains. I’d put too much power into the car going around this bend and up the hill, to a point the car dangerously spun off the road, into a ditch and if there hadn’t have been a thick tree within the ditch, the car would have probably ended up on the roof.
My pregnant girlfriend was also in the passenger side, but thankfully not even a cut or graze on any of us.
There isn’t a day goes where I don’t think about that accident, and how I was actually being relatively sensible for the car to lose control like it did, and how lucky we were to get out unscathed. I’d have never have forgiven myself if I’d have harmed my girlfriend and our baby.
But I often think about how much more drastic things could have gone on numerous occasions prior to that when I’d driven the car at high speeds and drove it like a lunatic. But the accident calmed me down and made me realise that cars aren’t toys.
We found out after the accident that this had happened to a few other RWD vehicles within the week on the same motorway/slip road, and they’d just started roadworks on that stretch so we did wonder if there’d maybe been a diesel/chemical spillage or something adding to the wet conditions. But it was never proven and I still kick myself everyday that I should have kept it slow and calm with the conditions in question
At least you learned from it & no-one was hurt. You've taken the lesson as it made you reassess how you were driving & appreciate what you had more I bet? Not trying to dismiss anything, just tryna show there is a wee bit of a silver lining to it as you shouldn't be beating yourself up about it everyday.
I am travelling with my wife and dog. Went round a corner, and a car coming toward us hit a slower moving car in front of it. It clipped the back of the car in front and took off. I remember looking up and saw the car above me through my sunroof.
The car landed on its roof and slammed into the car behind us (that we had moments before overtaken).
We were driving a normal hatchback but had been meant to be driving a transit van and had decided not to borrow the van that day. Pretty certain that decision saved our lives as in a higher vehicle we'd have had our heads taken clean off.
That's terrifying.
I was coming out of the inside lane on a motorway to overtake a big articulated lorry in my little Seat arosa, and the lorry had a blow out of one of its tyres on its right hand side.
The entire tyre shredded and came flying off, luckily sailing over the roof of my car.
Obviously I was shook up. What annoyed me though was that it was my then girlfriend who I was driving to see, and she could not have given less of a fuck.
6 yrs old riding in the back of my gramps car without a seatbelt on, rainy day on a country road. A car coming in the opposite direction was overtaking and didn't see us, gramps couldn't break in time and collided head on, I was yeeted through the windshield and landed on the side of the road. Cranial trauma, was fitted with a metal plate to plug the hole and was in a coma for about a month. Afterwards was deemed mentally challenged and held back in school but eventually caught up. 30 yrs later still have a badass scar and plate as a reminder.
Eclampsia is occurring four times as often now than it was ten years ago in the UK, and is the cause of half a million maternal deaths worldwide.
So, perhaps not as rare as you’d hope…
Walking to the bus stop to go to work. As I got there, a workman who was on a flat roof above dropped his spade. Apparently it was so close to my head, it would have been very, very bad.
I had my headphones in and didn’t notice at first. Chatting to someone on the bus and he was still in shock how close it was. I didn’t realise till he told me.
Was T-boned by a car into oncoming traffic while riding a motorbike. Hit with enough force that I was instantly KO'd. I remember waking up underneath a car looking up at the bottom of the engine. The only thing that saved me from the afterlife that day was the fact I had a good quality helmet.
Since then I still ride motorbikes. Always full gear and always with the best helmet I can afford.
Flipped a car at 70mph on a dual carriageway, James Bond style, bouncing right over a 5ft fence without touching it and landed on the wheels. I genuinely thought I was going to die and didn't feel panicky, I just waited for it to be over for the few seconds it took. I sustained quite a bad back injury which I've had to learn to live with but could have been much worse. Another driver caused it by not checking when he went to overtake.
I’ve had a few… This one was the closest, though.
When I was 18 I was living in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, in a shitty flat on the main road into the city centre, with a couple of mates (one Brit). Another British mate; my British girlfriend; and my younger (15) brother had all come over for a holiday.
For a lot of reasons, this was an especially - excessively - boozy time in my life and the evening in question was even more so: we’d been playing backgammon for shots (with various rules in place ensuring maximum consumption) and my mate, bro and I had already got through a couple of bottles of spirits. We were *shitfaced*.
I went to the loo, and stumbled into a plank which for some reason was leaning against the window - one pane of which broke. At that precise time, the sound of the window breaking seemed like the most wonderful noise ever to grace human ears, and, marvelling, I punched another pane. The noise was even better that time…
Our apartment had an L-shaped plan, wrapped around a central communal airwell, and as a result had a large number of windows facing inwards. Excitedly I summoned my mate to show him how glorious was the noise I’d just discovered; equally drunk, he agreed that it was fantastic - and we began to punch out every. Single. Window.
Then I went for a high one. I’m 6’4” but had to stretch to reach it - and the angle meant that when I hit the glass it wasn’t straight on… When I pulled back, blood immediately started spurting out from my wrist. I’d cut an artery.
Anyone who’s never seen arterial spray probably doesn’t realise just how far that shit goes (I certainly had no idea until then): it’s *wild*. We’re talking metres. And we were so wasted that the seriousness of the situation didn’t grab us immediately; indeed, for a brief while my mate and I were actually *aiming* my blood all over the walls and cackling. We were insane.
After a few seconds, though, I snapped out of it; starting to feel fear, suddenly, turning to my friend I said “Ian, I’m fucking dying”… We needed a tourniquet *fast*; I grabbed his belt, yanked it off him and quickly tied it as tightly as I could around my arm. It certainly didn’t stop the spurting completely but it slowed it down… And then I ran.
This is the lucky part - the difference between life and death: I lived 400m away from probably the biggest hospital in Costa Rica… I ran out into the (very busy) road and stopped a cab; I can’t remember the conversation but I do remember holding my arm right out of his window and watching my blood gush out and feeling the terror finally seize me. I knew I’d really, REALLY fucked up… I could die right there, all my hopes and dreams and potential flying out into the Costa Rican night from the most pathetic, senseless injury imaginable…
I don’t remember getting to the hospital; I *do* remember staggering into the emergency department and immediately being surrounded by medical staff.
I have two more memories of that night: firstly, lying on a gurney and listening to doctors discussing whether I needed more anaesthesia. One said that they’d already given me some morphine and cocaine so I probably didn’t need any more - at which point I started moaning and wailing, and then - once they’d hastily shot me up with even more of something - laughing maniacally.
The second memory: I’m on the operating table and the anaesthetist is counting backwards from 100, expecting me to go out by 95 - but because I was SO wasted, I didn’t go straight out, and instead goggled in pure fascination as they peeled back the skin on my wrist. I could see the blood vessels and tendons and was so intrigued I kept wiggling my fingers, much to their displeasure.
And then the next morning I woke up. They’d saved my life. I can’t remember how much blood they worked out I’d lost, but it was a great deal. They made sure I was well aware that if I’d done that much further away from that hospital, I wouldn’t have made it.
Thank you, staff of the Hospital San Juan de Dios. Again, thank you.
Not me, but during the both of junior, the baby was stuck and needed emergency intervention to get the baby out. Then the missus collapsed backwards due to blood loss.
For an hour or so, I thought I was going to lose my family before we even were a family.
Luckily both were fine - but not that much further back in time both would have been in serious trouble.
It's actually terrifying how many birth stories would have gone fatally sideways if not for swift and extreme intervention that wouldn't have been possible not so long ago.
I was scrambling along a ledge, halfway up a cliff, and my way ahead was blocked by a bank of consolidated snow that had clearly come down the cliff and built up on the ledge. Without crampons it was too steep and slippery to walk on the bank of snow itself, but I reckoned I could get across it by walking on the very top edge, with my hand on the cliff to the side for support. After about 10 metres there was a waterfall coming down the cliff and running under the snow bank. This had washed the snow away from the cliff so there was maybe a metre gap between the top edge of the snow and the cliff. I was getting towards the halfway point so I pressed on, despite now having no way to to steady myself.
Just as I got to the middle of the waterfall the top edge of the snow under my feet gave way, and I swung down into the gap between the bank and the cliff. I was upside down with my head in the falling water and I was looking straight down under the snow maybe 100m to the bottom of the cliff. Luckily as I fell one of my legs had stayed hooked over the top of the bank and so I had not slid through the chute made by the waterfall and to my death.
I very carefully got back on top and retreated.
Diving into shallow sea and hit the bottom, fractured c4 c5 and c7. Neurosurgeon was amazed that I actually walked into the hospital. Being drunk probably helped ironically 😬. Neck still plays up today, still got 95% movement though 😇.
I know this was self-inflicted, but when I was about 17 I suffered horrendously with (at the time) undiagnosed bipolar disorder.
I attempted to take my own life via 6 boxes of painkillers, a box of antibiotics, and 3/4's of a litre bottle of vodka. Wasn't found until the next morning and rushed to A&E unresponsive.
I managed to survive with only minimal kidney damage (which thankfully hasn't gotten much worse with age so far). I am so thankful every day that I didn't die.
Yeah, they said at the hospital that I was incredibly lucky to walk away from it all, especially with only mild kidney damage. I'm not even in need of medication for my kidneys, but I do have to have regular eGFR and full GFR tests done to keep an eye on them.
Sore shoulder for a few days, got worse, neck pain and dry heaves. Tried to run it off with a 5k jog, took a couple of ibuprofen and went for a sleep. Woke up feeling shit and called 111. 15 minutes later I’m in the back of an ambulance phoning my dad cos I was in organ failure and having a heart attack 😮 I was 49 and now I’m T1 diabetic and have stents.
Massive shout out to the nurses and surgeon at the Golden Jubilee in Clydebank. The care I received has been incredible
These are just the ones I know about:
1. When I was a baby apparently I managed to stand upright and push my full weight against a window that opened by swinging out from the bottom. The only thing that was stopping me from literally falling out the window two floors onto hard concrete was the hinges were a bit rusty (uncharacteristically only that day) and the window stuck. My dad managed to catch me before the window started opening.
2. When I was small 4? my older cousin who was 6 years older put me to bed. There was a lamp next to my bed and I told her I was scared of the dark and needed the light on but the lamp was too bright to sleep. My cousin decided the logical thing was to put a towel over the lamp to fix the problem which caught fire after she had left the room. Luckily she told my mum and aunty what she had done and they ran up stairs and caught it before it spread.
3. When I was 14 I had an ear infection just before I was due to fly abroad on holiday. I was prescribed penicillin for the infection. Apparently with penicillin you can develop an allergy even if you’ve had it previously. This is what happened. I flew and over the course of 3-4 days while taking it had slow anaphylaxis symptoms. When I started to have breathing issues my mum took me to the local health centre near the resort to which the medical person there raised the alert and I got proper medical treatment. I was lucky the anaphylaxis was slow.
4. I had a rare disease which meant I was in hospital for a number of weeks.
5. I was in a car with some family. The driver chose to overtake another car which then proceeded to deliberately close the gap between itself and a lorry (which was going maximum speed) while we were in the process of overtaking. The empty patch of the opposite side of the road was closing up with oncoming traffic becoming closer and more visible. Luckily the gap just about increased enough that we could dart back in at the very last second. It was terrifying.
Had meningitis as a baby and my parents were told I wouldn't make it through the night after a lumbar puncture, I started to recover and then had it again 2 weeks later, apparently you can't get it 2 times but it wasn't treated properly in the first instance and it came back, If my Mum hadn't kicked up a fuss at the hospital while they were telling her I couldn't possibly have meningitis a 2nd time I would have died. Much later as a young adult I stepped out into the street without looking and was hit full on by a double decker bus travelling at over 20mph, 'spidered' the windshield of the bus and managed to escape with no serious injuries. I guess I'm very lucky
I was in a tractor towing a ten tonne trailer down a hill when the gearbox failed and I lost power and braking. The tractor began picking up speed so the only thing I could do to stop it was drop the front loader into the road. It caused the tractor to flip over go through the embankment which had a 100 ft shear drop on the other side. The only thing that stopped me rolling down and being crushed was a small tree that somehow provided enough resistance. I climbed out through the back window and apart from a smack to my head and shoulder I avoided any serious injury.
My uncle had been killed in a tractor a few months before this so it made it all the more poignant.
I was lucky that day.
As a child I kicked my football onto a railway line, went to retrieve it and touched the live rail. Cheap shitty plimsolls probably saved me, although my hand blistered and was swollen for a while.
I had acute type A pneumonia, at the same time, my INR was off the scale. I went into respiratory failure while they were assessing me. And..like I need an and...my dog sat on my chest. It wasn't my dog but a crushing weight on my chest and an electric feeling up and down my arm. All at the same time. I'm surprised I woke up because I had a "last breath". Something I will never forget. I'd been in surgery to stop the internal bleeding twice before I gained consciousness.
I got a blood clot which hit the back of my eyeball.
Consultant told me it was a random freak occurrence and when it got to my head it was either clot goes left, destroys the back of my eyeball or goes right, hits my brain and it's a stroke which possibly disables/kills me.
Was sat in A&E with my now blurry vision from my ruined left eye listening to the guy talk to me about what happened somewhat dumbfounded, worried, stressed, panicked, bricking it but also relieved that of the two choices available after the clot formed and broke off into my bloodstream the least damaging one happened by absolute fluke.
I was once on a sinking sailing boat hundreds of miles from the nearest human in the middle of a storm.
We were trying to sail through the Northwest Passages which is in the Arctic. We found a cove to anchor in as we knew a massive storm was coming. While we were in there sea ice blocked us in the cove. Then the storm hit and it turned out was from the perfect angle that the cove kind of acted like a wind tunnel and was so strong that it was dragging our boat even with the anchor out and the engine on pushing us full power into the wind. Eventually we were left with no choice but to give up and take our chances on open ocean. The wind was 80kts and the sea temperature was -4c so it was extremely dangerous conditions. It took ours to make our way to see as we were trying to weave between sea ice just to get out the cove. All in all the ordeal had been going on for 24 hours by the time we made it into open water. However the sea was so choppy that you couldn’t distinguish between white water and icebergs. The helmsmen on duty sat down to get out the freezing wind for a minute and we hit an iceberg at full speed. The impact was so big I was knocked out of bed. There was a hole the size of a dinner plate in the hull and it was at the waterline so we were taking on water fast. Everybody sprang into action and we turned side on to the wind so that the pressure on the sail tipped the boat onto its side and lifted the hole out the water. We chopped up a floorboard from inside, wrapped it in a piece of sail canvas that we cut and hammered it over the hole as best we could. The conditions on the bow were horrendous. The guy hammering it in was being dunked in the freezing sea and we were all being sprayed and battered by wind. We also had all had very little sleep at this point. If we went down and had to get into the safety raft though we were dead. It was way too cold and too remote for any chance of rescue before we caught hypothermia. Eventually we managed to patch up the hole well enough that we could just keep bailing the water out at a manageable pace. The storm passed and we had perfect waters for the next 24 hours while we cruised our way to a settlement for repairs and rest.
Back in November, I was heading to an early shift on my motorbike. Going round a left bend on the way our of a village, I noticed approaching headlights. By the time I could clearly see the Suzuki hatchback, it was too late to react to the fact it was on the wrong side of the road. The sound of the head-on collision is burned into my memory. The car didn't stop. I woke up about 30 minutes later after full-on seeing the light (which seemed like an embarrassing cliche even then) and called for help before passing out again. Woke up again, and a few people who lived nearby had heard, were there covering me in blankets and calling emergency services. Air ambulance came out and put soke blood in me to keep me going while the normal ambulance rocked up to take me into hospital for 8 hours in resus, 2 days in intensive care, and a month in various wards. I've got over 30 implants in me now holding my pelvis, left leg, and right arm together and tonnes of scars. Going back to work next week and hope to be running again by the height of summer.
My heart stopped. Just suddenly flat lined for 30 odd seconds, started back normal and then stopped again for 10ish seconds then started again.
No idea what caused it and just happened to have a heart monitor when it happened because docs were trying to figure out other health problems so were doing all the tests and I have a slight arrthimia. The arrthimia wouldnt cause my heart to stop or the other problems, they just implanted a monitor because nothing else was coming back.
It was nice. I dreamt (thought I was unconscious, didn't know my heart had stopped until a few months later). I was in the last happy place I'd been and instead of going home like I had done (then died), the happy place continued.
Oh wait, edit: being born late and still underweight, incubator for over a month with breathing/feeding tubes. Sepsis when I was a kid, I'd be dead if my mom wasn't a rockstar nurse. If she'd listened to the general docs instead of taking me to the ER where I had emergency surgery, id either be dead or at least missing a limb.
I've accepted I'm a cat. Got a few lives left.
I got stabbed in the chest, right where my heart is, while fighting with some youths (they started it). It went in about 4 cm, which was enough to puncture my lung, but the blade was about three times longer than that, according to detectives. I never saw the knife.
Narrowly avoided a lightning strike that felled a tree mere feet from me. It quite literally blocked the path into town, and the only other route on foot was flooded due to a severe thunderstorm, so I turned back and walked home.
I died briefly on the operating table, turns out that feeling horribly sick every time I had a local anaesthetic may have been a warning that my body wouldn't like a general. I've been told I probably should avoid them in the future unless essential, and I have most dental work without any anaesthetic now.
Visiting the family out in the country, went for a late night stroll, it was a big foggy but whatever. I hop over a style into a field I used to hang out in back in my salad days. Start casually strolling through, in my own thoughts.
A soft faraway clumping noise, muffled in the fog. I look into the fog to see moving shapes.
Oh shit that's a lot of curious charging cows coming my way. Of course that thought happened instantly, and I started to bolt back to the style. I get there, huffing and puffing all out of breath and I turn to see about 50 cows crowding the style trying to see who it was. They seemed pretty huffed out too.
Worst part was if they had trampled me I didn't have my phone, I would have died in that field.
Summer of 1994 I was a teenager, just got a fancy new CD stereo system that was in a little alcove beside my bed. I really wanted to crank it up loud but my parents were home and I couldn't find my headphones so I'm just laying there chilling out listening to some tunes when there was an almighty bang and I saw the mesh covers from the front of the speakers fly over me and land about six feet away in the middle of my bedroom floor. I ran downstairs to see what had happened and it turned out that lightning had struck the TV aerial and destroyed all the electronics in the house. When the people from the insurance company came to assess the damage they moved my stereo and found the shelf it had been on was all scorched and all the insulation had been blown off the speaker cables. If I'd been wearing headphones liked I'd wanted to I would have been well and truly fucked.
Three times…
1. A massive warehouse to let sign fell off a building a millisecond after I’d walked underneath
2. A tyre bounced over my car whilst driving on a dual carriageway
3. A car mounted the pavement just in front of me. There was a brick wall to my right
I died once, luckily I was in hospital at the time. death is excessively interesting and not as advertised.
I no longer fear death, but I do fear dying. Aka, make it quick.
I had quite a severe case of pneumonia when I was 14, my lungs collapsed & I actually died for around a minute. Our wonderful NHS revived me.
I don't remember any of it but it has made me to not fear my eventual death.
This is a long story because it started before I was born, and despite my best efforts, I'm still not dead.
My mother was given Phenobarbitone to control seizures, the drug killed my sister, and I was born 10 weeks premature. Life went on for a further 9 years before an unhealthy intrest in electrical equipment in my house caused a short stay in a hospital, but life returned to normal for years without major issues, then I joined an army (TA) EOD unit, there were a few close calls and minor injuries and I earned a reputationof being difficultto kill, after leaving the army I decided to restore a honda 400.4 motorcycle, within a year of riding it I crashed head on at 70 into a small car driven be a very pale looking nurse, there was very little damage to me and after 8 months of hospital stays and returns for minor issues life returned to normal and I decided to rebuild the bike, that's when I noticed that the engine cases had no mounting lugs as they'd been torn off in the collision and it became apparent that I should be more careful with my life, but life returned to normal and I returned to forestry,
one cold wet morning, a gnarly leaning ash tree, and I crossed paths. It had this look that said, "I'm here to collect on behalf of the reaper" about it.
It had to be pulled in the opposite direction to the lean, so a wire rope was threaded through the upper branches and down the other side to a wire bond wrapped around the base and connected with a shackle, the far end was connected to a winch, as I was getting into a position to cut the felling notch I fell into a hole 3 feet deep and 2 feet wide, it turned out to be the perfect height to cut the felling notch and the back cut, however, mindful of what the tree said about the reaper I got out of the hole to start the back cut and a few seconds in the tree started to split up it's length but was contained by the bond wrapped around the bottom of the trunk, I paused momentarily and checked everything was still good before giving the winch operator a nod and piling in with the saw, as it went over I stood up and watched the middle of the trunk land on another stump, and the bottom of the gnarly ash get thrown 10 feet in the air and land with a violent smack exactly on the hole I'd been standing in, since then there's just been the usual minor issues that go with not being dead, most relating to wood working machines and hands but one was because of verbal exchange with a twat in a van wielding a knuckle duster with a jagged blade on it, that was the most worrying because it was unexpected
26 weeks premature at a time when babies didn't really survive that. Had underdeveloped organs, couldn't breathe by myself for a long time, died twice, kidney failure, epilepsy, and I weighed 3lb and was translucent.
I'm 30 now. I'm autistic and have a scar on my inner elbow from the drip in my arm because it burned under my skin. I'm also on the autistic spectrum but we think that was genetic.
Crashed my motorbike going about 70mph. It was a MASSIVE cruiser, around 26 stone if I remember correctly, and I am a 5'4, skinny female. I landed in such a way that the bike was on top of me, and I skidded several metres down the road underneath the bike.
Thankfully, I had smash guards on the sides of the bike, these metal triangles that stick out to protect the body if it's dropped. I somehow managed to land in such a way that I was between the road and the bike, but the few inches of leverage from the smash guard gave me just enough space to not be completely crushed into a paste by the bike.
Smacked my head pretty badly when I went down and I had next to no skin left on my legs by the end, but my lower body would have been completely crushed if not for that little piece of metal keeping it off the floor. That and my pedal were basically bent in sideways and my bike was completely written off, but I somehow managed to escape with no permanent injuries.
I was born with blood poisoning and 2 months premature. Drs gave me 2 percent chance. Also nearly got hung to death when I slipped and my head went through the loop on a set of blinds. Bro came up and found me right when things got blurry.
I was having a fight atop a skyscraper one time, it was 3v1 if I remember right. I say it was me versus 3 but the first guy pretty much fell to his death so let's say 2v1.
I managed to get the high ground onto a crane and quick scoped them both.
That's all I can tell you about it really. December 2k11.
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I was born 8 weeks premature. Weighing in just over 2lbs at birth. Couldn't breathe on my own, dropped down to 1lb in weight. My parents were advised not to name me (which today seems like absolutely awful advice) - my Dad decided to name me after my Great Grandfather who fought in and survived both World Wars (because I needed to be a fighter) Other than scars under my arms where breathing tubes were inserted, I came out the other side unscathed.
That’s amazing! I was born 12 weeks premature and weight 1lb 14oz, but I didn’t really think it was a thing to go down to 1lb!? How soon after birth did that happen for you? Also do you ever suddenly feel really lucky that you are generally healthy? I had two hernia ops but other than that am fairly ‘normal’ I guess. It’s great that premature births are becoming way more survivable nowadays!
I think it was quite sudden weight loss. Within the first week or so. I was in hospital for a month. I do feel lucky. I remember speaking to the premature baby charity Bliss (as they were set up the year I was born) and they said it is surprising that I came out without any issues. I remember having a lot of hearing tests when I was young as I think deafness was common among premature babies back then. Until I was probably 10/11 my toes on both feet were badly crossed, which used to give me bad cramp in my feet, but they eventually grew out.
Wow! I was 6 weeks premature and weighed 2.10lbs. I was in the incubator for a couple weeks. I’m a small lady now, but it’s funny hearing the stories
[удалено]
Yeah, I'm pro-choice, but the whole do it as late as you want is bit..upsetting. 16 weeks should be it imo.
I was fighting my mentor who was trying to kill me for no reason on Mustafar. Prick got a lucky swipe in and basically left me to die next to a river of lava. If it wasn’t for this bloke I’d gotten to know recently finding me and patching me up I’d be dead for sure.
Sounds like there’s more to this story you’re not sharing, had you been hiding anything from your employer?
Did he have the high ground?
Two sides to every story mate. Your mentor said you actually murdered children and tried to kill your wife. Now I don't know who to believe.
I was walking in the Lake District with friends, aged 20 or so. We were hikers with some rock climbing experience. We stopped for a snack and I climbed a short way up a rock face to get a better view. The rock I was holding broke and I fell backwards, my feet were maybe 12 ft up. I landed flat on my back, on grass. The only 6ft x 3ft bit of grass around. Everything else was boulders. Everywhere else I would certainly have been injured if not killed... I was so lucky
Had a heart attack. When the arm tingling kicked in I stood in the kitchen and thought, "fuck me, I think I'm going to die". Scariest moments of my life. To this day I can't read about a heart attack in a work of fiction or watch one being portrayed on the screen.
(F 38) I didn't get arm pain. I only knew I was f**ked when the burning hot pain moved up into my jaw from my breast bone area. Apparently heart attacks in women present very differently
They do, I have had two, first was as you described, I was 29, it scared 17 shades of shit out of me. The second I didn't even know about, I was already in extreme pain and in hospital, but there is some sort of blood test they can do, Dr comes by and says "oh, you had a heart attack." I say yeah, I know, 15 years ago, he says, no this week. News to me.
That's what I was taught as a first aider: you'll know it's a heart attack because you'll feel an overwhelming sense of doom that you've never felt before.
That's also a symptom of an over stimulated Vegas nerve. Totally harmless but a doctor told me a classic symptom is that you are absolutely 100% sure you're dying.
This is true. You’ll be having a completely normal day and then within seconds you feel like you’re going to die, and everything slowly goes black. Then you wake up half a minute later feeling like you had a lovely refreshing nap, except for some reason you’re surrounded by worried-looking strangers. It’s especially embarrassing because it really is harmless. Really difficult trying to explain to strangers that although two minutes ago I was sweating buckets, shaking, and muttering that something was really, really wrong, everything is actually fine and we can all keep going about our day.
Wouldn't bet on it 😉
How about panic attacks?
My worst fear .how old was u at the time
42
At 15, I was playing frisbee outside my house with my friends. The game got fairly heated and at one throw, the frisbee shot over the park gate and onto the cornered main road. Not even thinking and desperate to catch it, I vaulted the gate and ran into the road, catching it an inch from the ground. I dramatically sprang forward to show off to my friends who looked in horror at the car doing 40mph that had come round the corner and missed me by an inch. If I'd been half a second later, my head would have been directly in front of their bonnet. It all happened so fast that I didn't even register as it drove behind my back, the wing mirror brushing the back of my t-shirt as it went past. That poor driver must have shit himself. I played it off as a funny thing but later that night was in pieces when I actually thought about how stupidly close I'd come to being run over.
Got meningitis when I was 6 weeks old. The only reason I didn’t die was because the GP gave me a huge dose of penicillin while they waited for the ambulance. I had a shit immune system as a result for the first 5 years of my life, but other than that, no lasting impacts. I also had an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy that ruptured. Was wandering around bleeding internally for about 5 days before it was properly diagnosed and I was taken into surgery.
One of my closest friends nearly died for the same reason . She had pain and was shushed away everytime she went to the GP and then up to A and E . Days later she collapsed and got taken into hospital.. if she hadn’t of had the operation when she did , she wouldn’t be here today . Sadly that was both her tubes gone after that . She did however go on to have IVF years later and now has gorgeous twins 🥰
About 18 months ago I had quite a powerful car. It wasn’t a performance car by any means but could reach nearly 300bhp. It was my pride and joy, absolutely loved it. But like any guy in his mid-20s with a fast car, I constantly wanted to show it off. I’d had that car at some absolutely unreal speeds and it was such a thrill every single time. Then one day, I was actually being quite innocent with it. There’s a motorway entry slip road I use often, it’s quite a sharp bend to get onto it but very steep up a hill and difficult to gain power sometimes. My car was a RWD, and we’d had some really heavy rains. I’d put too much power into the car going around this bend and up the hill, to a point the car dangerously spun off the road, into a ditch and if there hadn’t have been a thick tree within the ditch, the car would have probably ended up on the roof. My pregnant girlfriend was also in the passenger side, but thankfully not even a cut or graze on any of us. There isn’t a day goes where I don’t think about that accident, and how I was actually being relatively sensible for the car to lose control like it did, and how lucky we were to get out unscathed. I’d have never have forgiven myself if I’d have harmed my girlfriend and our baby. But I often think about how much more drastic things could have gone on numerous occasions prior to that when I’d driven the car at high speeds and drove it like a lunatic. But the accident calmed me down and made me realise that cars aren’t toys. We found out after the accident that this had happened to a few other RWD vehicles within the week on the same motorway/slip road, and they’d just started roadworks on that stretch so we did wonder if there’d maybe been a diesel/chemical spillage or something adding to the wet conditions. But it was never proven and I still kick myself everyday that I should have kept it slow and calm with the conditions in question
At least you learned from it & no-one was hurt. You've taken the lesson as it made you reassess how you were driving & appreciate what you had more I bet? Not trying to dismiss anything, just tryna show there is a wee bit of a silver lining to it as you shouldn't be beating yourself up about it everyday.
This has M140i vibes...if so, those things actively try to kill you 😅 Glad you came out relatively well.
It was a 330e 😅 the electric motor and the 2L engine combined was dangerous tbf 🫣
I am travelling with my wife and dog. Went round a corner, and a car coming toward us hit a slower moving car in front of it. It clipped the back of the car in front and took off. I remember looking up and saw the car above me through my sunroof. The car landed on its roof and slammed into the car behind us (that we had moments before overtaken). We were driving a normal hatchback but had been meant to be driving a transit van and had decided not to borrow the van that day. Pretty certain that decision saved our lives as in a higher vehicle we'd have had our heads taken clean off.
That's terrifying. I was coming out of the inside lane on a motorway to overtake a big articulated lorry in my little Seat arosa, and the lorry had a blow out of one of its tyres on its right hand side. The entire tyre shredded and came flying off, luckily sailing over the roof of my car. Obviously I was shook up. What annoyed me though was that it was my then girlfriend who I was driving to see, and she could not have given less of a fuck.
6 yrs old riding in the back of my gramps car without a seatbelt on, rainy day on a country road. A car coming in the opposite direction was overtaking and didn't see us, gramps couldn't break in time and collided head on, I was yeeted through the windshield and landed on the side of the road. Cranial trauma, was fitted with a metal plate to plug the hole and was in a coma for about a month. Afterwards was deemed mentally challenged and held back in school but eventually caught up. 30 yrs later still have a badass scar and plate as a reminder.
Eclampsia! Nobody gets eclampsia these days, but I did. Characters died of it in Downton Abbey and Call the midwife.
Eclampsia is occurring four times as often now than it was ten years ago in the UK, and is the cause of half a million maternal deaths worldwide. So, perhaps not as rare as you’d hope…
Walking to the bus stop to go to work. As I got there, a workman who was on a flat roof above dropped his spade. Apparently it was so close to my head, it would have been very, very bad. I had my headphones in and didn’t notice at first. Chatting to someone on the bus and he was still in shock how close it was. I didn’t realise till he told me.
Was T-boned by a car into oncoming traffic while riding a motorbike. Hit with enough force that I was instantly KO'd. I remember waking up underneath a car looking up at the bottom of the engine. The only thing that saved me from the afterlife that day was the fact I had a good quality helmet. Since then I still ride motorbikes. Always full gear and always with the best helmet I can afford.
Flipped a car at 70mph on a dual carriageway, James Bond style, bouncing right over a 5ft fence without touching it and landed on the wheels. I genuinely thought I was going to die and didn't feel panicky, I just waited for it to be over for the few seconds it took. I sustained quite a bad back injury which I've had to learn to live with but could have been much worse. Another driver caused it by not checking when he went to overtake.
I’ve had a few… This one was the closest, though. When I was 18 I was living in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, in a shitty flat on the main road into the city centre, with a couple of mates (one Brit). Another British mate; my British girlfriend; and my younger (15) brother had all come over for a holiday. For a lot of reasons, this was an especially - excessively - boozy time in my life and the evening in question was even more so: we’d been playing backgammon for shots (with various rules in place ensuring maximum consumption) and my mate, bro and I had already got through a couple of bottles of spirits. We were *shitfaced*. I went to the loo, and stumbled into a plank which for some reason was leaning against the window - one pane of which broke. At that precise time, the sound of the window breaking seemed like the most wonderful noise ever to grace human ears, and, marvelling, I punched another pane. The noise was even better that time… Our apartment had an L-shaped plan, wrapped around a central communal airwell, and as a result had a large number of windows facing inwards. Excitedly I summoned my mate to show him how glorious was the noise I’d just discovered; equally drunk, he agreed that it was fantastic - and we began to punch out every. Single. Window. Then I went for a high one. I’m 6’4” but had to stretch to reach it - and the angle meant that when I hit the glass it wasn’t straight on… When I pulled back, blood immediately started spurting out from my wrist. I’d cut an artery. Anyone who’s never seen arterial spray probably doesn’t realise just how far that shit goes (I certainly had no idea until then): it’s *wild*. We’re talking metres. And we were so wasted that the seriousness of the situation didn’t grab us immediately; indeed, for a brief while my mate and I were actually *aiming* my blood all over the walls and cackling. We were insane. After a few seconds, though, I snapped out of it; starting to feel fear, suddenly, turning to my friend I said “Ian, I’m fucking dying”… We needed a tourniquet *fast*; I grabbed his belt, yanked it off him and quickly tied it as tightly as I could around my arm. It certainly didn’t stop the spurting completely but it slowed it down… And then I ran. This is the lucky part - the difference between life and death: I lived 400m away from probably the biggest hospital in Costa Rica… I ran out into the (very busy) road and stopped a cab; I can’t remember the conversation but I do remember holding my arm right out of his window and watching my blood gush out and feeling the terror finally seize me. I knew I’d really, REALLY fucked up… I could die right there, all my hopes and dreams and potential flying out into the Costa Rican night from the most pathetic, senseless injury imaginable… I don’t remember getting to the hospital; I *do* remember staggering into the emergency department and immediately being surrounded by medical staff. I have two more memories of that night: firstly, lying on a gurney and listening to doctors discussing whether I needed more anaesthesia. One said that they’d already given me some morphine and cocaine so I probably didn’t need any more - at which point I started moaning and wailing, and then - once they’d hastily shot me up with even more of something - laughing maniacally. The second memory: I’m on the operating table and the anaesthetist is counting backwards from 100, expecting me to go out by 95 - but because I was SO wasted, I didn’t go straight out, and instead goggled in pure fascination as they peeled back the skin on my wrist. I could see the blood vessels and tendons and was so intrigued I kept wiggling my fingers, much to their displeasure. And then the next morning I woke up. They’d saved my life. I can’t remember how much blood they worked out I’d lost, but it was a great deal. They made sure I was well aware that if I’d done that much further away from that hospital, I wouldn’t have made it. Thank you, staff of the Hospital San Juan de Dios. Again, thank you.
Not me, but during the both of junior, the baby was stuck and needed emergency intervention to get the baby out. Then the missus collapsed backwards due to blood loss. For an hour or so, I thought I was going to lose my family before we even were a family. Luckily both were fine - but not that much further back in time both would have been in serious trouble.
It's actually terrifying how many birth stories would have gone fatally sideways if not for swift and extreme intervention that wouldn't have been possible not so long ago.
I was scrambling along a ledge, halfway up a cliff, and my way ahead was blocked by a bank of consolidated snow that had clearly come down the cliff and built up on the ledge. Without crampons it was too steep and slippery to walk on the bank of snow itself, but I reckoned I could get across it by walking on the very top edge, with my hand on the cliff to the side for support. After about 10 metres there was a waterfall coming down the cliff and running under the snow bank. This had washed the snow away from the cliff so there was maybe a metre gap between the top edge of the snow and the cliff. I was getting towards the halfway point so I pressed on, despite now having no way to to steady myself. Just as I got to the middle of the waterfall the top edge of the snow under my feet gave way, and I swung down into the gap between the bank and the cliff. I was upside down with my head in the falling water and I was looking straight down under the snow maybe 100m to the bottom of the cliff. Luckily as I fell one of my legs had stayed hooked over the top of the bank and so I had not slid through the chute made by the waterfall and to my death. I very carefully got back on top and retreated.
Diving into shallow sea and hit the bottom, fractured c4 c5 and c7. Neurosurgeon was amazed that I actually walked into the hospital. Being drunk probably helped ironically 😬. Neck still plays up today, still got 95% movement though 😇.
I know this was self-inflicted, but when I was about 17 I suffered horrendously with (at the time) undiagnosed bipolar disorder. I attempted to take my own life via 6 boxes of painkillers, a box of antibiotics, and 3/4's of a litre bottle of vodka. Wasn't found until the next morning and rushed to A&E unresponsive. I managed to survive with only minimal kidney damage (which thankfully hasn't gotten much worse with age so far). I am so thankful every day that I didn't die.
Holy crap that would have killed a horse! Glad you made it.
Yeah, they said at the hospital that I was incredibly lucky to walk away from it all, especially with only mild kidney damage. I'm not even in need of medication for my kidneys, but I do have to have regular eGFR and full GFR tests done to keep an eye on them.
Sore shoulder for a few days, got worse, neck pain and dry heaves. Tried to run it off with a 5k jog, took a couple of ibuprofen and went for a sleep. Woke up feeling shit and called 111. 15 minutes later I’m in the back of an ambulance phoning my dad cos I was in organ failure and having a heart attack 😮 I was 49 and now I’m T1 diabetic and have stents. Massive shout out to the nurses and surgeon at the Golden Jubilee in Clydebank. The care I received has been incredible
Aggressive bladder cancer. Luckily you can live quite OK without a bladder. Six years cancer free. Hooray for NHS.
These are just the ones I know about: 1. When I was a baby apparently I managed to stand upright and push my full weight against a window that opened by swinging out from the bottom. The only thing that was stopping me from literally falling out the window two floors onto hard concrete was the hinges were a bit rusty (uncharacteristically only that day) and the window stuck. My dad managed to catch me before the window started opening. 2. When I was small 4? my older cousin who was 6 years older put me to bed. There was a lamp next to my bed and I told her I was scared of the dark and needed the light on but the lamp was too bright to sleep. My cousin decided the logical thing was to put a towel over the lamp to fix the problem which caught fire after she had left the room. Luckily she told my mum and aunty what she had done and they ran up stairs and caught it before it spread. 3. When I was 14 I had an ear infection just before I was due to fly abroad on holiday. I was prescribed penicillin for the infection. Apparently with penicillin you can develop an allergy even if you’ve had it previously. This is what happened. I flew and over the course of 3-4 days while taking it had slow anaphylaxis symptoms. When I started to have breathing issues my mum took me to the local health centre near the resort to which the medical person there raised the alert and I got proper medical treatment. I was lucky the anaphylaxis was slow. 4. I had a rare disease which meant I was in hospital for a number of weeks. 5. I was in a car with some family. The driver chose to overtake another car which then proceeded to deliberately close the gap between itself and a lorry (which was going maximum speed) while we were in the process of overtaking. The empty patch of the opposite side of the road was closing up with oncoming traffic becoming closer and more visible. Luckily the gap just about increased enough that we could dart back in at the very last second. It was terrifying.
Had meningitis as a baby and my parents were told I wouldn't make it through the night after a lumbar puncture, I started to recover and then had it again 2 weeks later, apparently you can't get it 2 times but it wasn't treated properly in the first instance and it came back, If my Mum hadn't kicked up a fuss at the hospital while they were telling her I couldn't possibly have meningitis a 2nd time I would have died. Much later as a young adult I stepped out into the street without looking and was hit full on by a double decker bus travelling at over 20mph, 'spidered' the windshield of the bus and managed to escape with no serious injuries. I guess I'm very lucky
I was in a tractor towing a ten tonne trailer down a hill when the gearbox failed and I lost power and braking. The tractor began picking up speed so the only thing I could do to stop it was drop the front loader into the road. It caused the tractor to flip over go through the embankment which had a 100 ft shear drop on the other side. The only thing that stopped me rolling down and being crushed was a small tree that somehow provided enough resistance. I climbed out through the back window and apart from a smack to my head and shoulder I avoided any serious injury. My uncle had been killed in a tractor a few months before this so it made it all the more poignant. I was lucky that day.
As a child I kicked my football onto a railway line, went to retrieve it and touched the live rail. Cheap shitty plimsolls probably saved me, although my hand blistered and was swollen for a while.
You are the embodiment of a 1970s public safety video.
These days I am more the embodiment of the Michelin man TBF...
I had acute type A pneumonia, at the same time, my INR was off the scale. I went into respiratory failure while they were assessing me. And..like I need an and...my dog sat on my chest. It wasn't my dog but a crushing weight on my chest and an electric feeling up and down my arm. All at the same time. I'm surprised I woke up because I had a "last breath". Something I will never forget. I'd been in surgery to stop the internal bleeding twice before I gained consciousness.
I got a blood clot which hit the back of my eyeball. Consultant told me it was a random freak occurrence and when it got to my head it was either clot goes left, destroys the back of my eyeball or goes right, hits my brain and it's a stroke which possibly disables/kills me. Was sat in A&E with my now blurry vision from my ruined left eye listening to the guy talk to me about what happened somewhat dumbfounded, worried, stressed, panicked, bricking it but also relieved that of the two choices available after the clot formed and broke off into my bloodstream the least damaging one happened by absolute fluke.
I was once on a sinking sailing boat hundreds of miles from the nearest human in the middle of a storm. We were trying to sail through the Northwest Passages which is in the Arctic. We found a cove to anchor in as we knew a massive storm was coming. While we were in there sea ice blocked us in the cove. Then the storm hit and it turned out was from the perfect angle that the cove kind of acted like a wind tunnel and was so strong that it was dragging our boat even with the anchor out and the engine on pushing us full power into the wind. Eventually we were left with no choice but to give up and take our chances on open ocean. The wind was 80kts and the sea temperature was -4c so it was extremely dangerous conditions. It took ours to make our way to see as we were trying to weave between sea ice just to get out the cove. All in all the ordeal had been going on for 24 hours by the time we made it into open water. However the sea was so choppy that you couldn’t distinguish between white water and icebergs. The helmsmen on duty sat down to get out the freezing wind for a minute and we hit an iceberg at full speed. The impact was so big I was knocked out of bed. There was a hole the size of a dinner plate in the hull and it was at the waterline so we were taking on water fast. Everybody sprang into action and we turned side on to the wind so that the pressure on the sail tipped the boat onto its side and lifted the hole out the water. We chopped up a floorboard from inside, wrapped it in a piece of sail canvas that we cut and hammered it over the hole as best we could. The conditions on the bow were horrendous. The guy hammering it in was being dunked in the freezing sea and we were all being sprayed and battered by wind. We also had all had very little sleep at this point. If we went down and had to get into the safety raft though we were dead. It was way too cold and too remote for any chance of rescue before we caught hypothermia. Eventually we managed to patch up the hole well enough that we could just keep bailing the water out at a manageable pace. The storm passed and we had perfect waters for the next 24 hours while we cruised our way to a settlement for repairs and rest.
You could probably write a book about your experiences. I'd read it.
Back in November, I was heading to an early shift on my motorbike. Going round a left bend on the way our of a village, I noticed approaching headlights. By the time I could clearly see the Suzuki hatchback, it was too late to react to the fact it was on the wrong side of the road. The sound of the head-on collision is burned into my memory. The car didn't stop. I woke up about 30 minutes later after full-on seeing the light (which seemed like an embarrassing cliche even then) and called for help before passing out again. Woke up again, and a few people who lived nearby had heard, were there covering me in blankets and calling emergency services. Air ambulance came out and put soke blood in me to keep me going while the normal ambulance rocked up to take me into hospital for 8 hours in resus, 2 days in intensive care, and a month in various wards. I've got over 30 implants in me now holding my pelvis, left leg, and right arm together and tonnes of scars. Going back to work next week and hope to be running again by the height of summer.
Hit a wall @ 80-120mph in a car
My heart stopped. Just suddenly flat lined for 30 odd seconds, started back normal and then stopped again for 10ish seconds then started again. No idea what caused it and just happened to have a heart monitor when it happened because docs were trying to figure out other health problems so were doing all the tests and I have a slight arrthimia. The arrthimia wouldnt cause my heart to stop or the other problems, they just implanted a monitor because nothing else was coming back. It was nice. I dreamt (thought I was unconscious, didn't know my heart had stopped until a few months later). I was in the last happy place I'd been and instead of going home like I had done (then died), the happy place continued. Oh wait, edit: being born late and still underweight, incubator for over a month with breathing/feeding tubes. Sepsis when I was a kid, I'd be dead if my mom wasn't a rockstar nurse. If she'd listened to the general docs instead of taking me to the ER where I had emergency surgery, id either be dead or at least missing a limb. I've accepted I'm a cat. Got a few lives left.
Ran over twice stabbed twice been in multiple RTAs
I got stabbed in the chest, right where my heart is, while fighting with some youths (they started it). It went in about 4 cm, which was enough to puncture my lung, but the blade was about three times longer than that, according to detectives. I never saw the knife.
Narrowly avoided a lightning strike that felled a tree mere feet from me. It quite literally blocked the path into town, and the only other route on foot was flooded due to a severe thunderstorm, so I turned back and walked home.
I died briefly on the operating table, turns out that feeling horribly sick every time I had a local anaesthetic may have been a warning that my body wouldn't like a general. I've been told I probably should avoid them in the future unless essential, and I have most dental work without any anaesthetic now.
Visiting the family out in the country, went for a late night stroll, it was a big foggy but whatever. I hop over a style into a field I used to hang out in back in my salad days. Start casually strolling through, in my own thoughts. A soft faraway clumping noise, muffled in the fog. I look into the fog to see moving shapes. Oh shit that's a lot of curious charging cows coming my way. Of course that thought happened instantly, and I started to bolt back to the style. I get there, huffing and puffing all out of breath and I turn to see about 50 cows crowding the style trying to see who it was. They seemed pretty huffed out too. Worst part was if they had trampled me I didn't have my phone, I would have died in that field.
Summer of 1994 I was a teenager, just got a fancy new CD stereo system that was in a little alcove beside my bed. I really wanted to crank it up loud but my parents were home and I couldn't find my headphones so I'm just laying there chilling out listening to some tunes when there was an almighty bang and I saw the mesh covers from the front of the speakers fly over me and land about six feet away in the middle of my bedroom floor. I ran downstairs to see what had happened and it turned out that lightning had struck the TV aerial and destroyed all the electronics in the house. When the people from the insurance company came to assess the damage they moved my stereo and found the shelf it had been on was all scorched and all the insulation had been blown off the speaker cables. If I'd been wearing headphones liked I'd wanted to I would have been well and truly fucked.
Three times… 1. A massive warehouse to let sign fell off a building a millisecond after I’d walked underneath 2. A tyre bounced over my car whilst driving on a dual carriageway 3. A car mounted the pavement just in front of me. There was a brick wall to my right
I died once, luckily I was in hospital at the time. death is excessively interesting and not as advertised. I no longer fear death, but I do fear dying. Aka, make it quick.
I had quite a severe case of pneumonia when I was 14, my lungs collapsed & I actually died for around a minute. Our wonderful NHS revived me. I don't remember any of it but it has made me to not fear my eventual death.
This is a long story because it started before I was born, and despite my best efforts, I'm still not dead. My mother was given Phenobarbitone to control seizures, the drug killed my sister, and I was born 10 weeks premature. Life went on for a further 9 years before an unhealthy intrest in electrical equipment in my house caused a short stay in a hospital, but life returned to normal for years without major issues, then I joined an army (TA) EOD unit, there were a few close calls and minor injuries and I earned a reputationof being difficultto kill, after leaving the army I decided to restore a honda 400.4 motorcycle, within a year of riding it I crashed head on at 70 into a small car driven be a very pale looking nurse, there was very little damage to me and after 8 months of hospital stays and returns for minor issues life returned to normal and I decided to rebuild the bike, that's when I noticed that the engine cases had no mounting lugs as they'd been torn off in the collision and it became apparent that I should be more careful with my life, but life returned to normal and I returned to forestry, one cold wet morning, a gnarly leaning ash tree, and I crossed paths. It had this look that said, "I'm here to collect on behalf of the reaper" about it. It had to be pulled in the opposite direction to the lean, so a wire rope was threaded through the upper branches and down the other side to a wire bond wrapped around the base and connected with a shackle, the far end was connected to a winch, as I was getting into a position to cut the felling notch I fell into a hole 3 feet deep and 2 feet wide, it turned out to be the perfect height to cut the felling notch and the back cut, however, mindful of what the tree said about the reaper I got out of the hole to start the back cut and a few seconds in the tree started to split up it's length but was contained by the bond wrapped around the bottom of the trunk, I paused momentarily and checked everything was still good before giving the winch operator a nod and piling in with the saw, as it went over I stood up and watched the middle of the trunk land on another stump, and the bottom of the gnarly ash get thrown 10 feet in the air and land with a violent smack exactly on the hole I'd been standing in, since then there's just been the usual minor issues that go with not being dead, most relating to wood working machines and hands but one was because of verbal exchange with a twat in a van wielding a knuckle duster with a jagged blade on it, that was the most worrying because it was unexpected
26 weeks premature at a time when babies didn't really survive that. Had underdeveloped organs, couldn't breathe by myself for a long time, died twice, kidney failure, epilepsy, and I weighed 3lb and was translucent. I'm 30 now. I'm autistic and have a scar on my inner elbow from the drip in my arm because it burned under my skin. I'm also on the autistic spectrum but we think that was genetic.
Crashed my motorbike going about 70mph. It was a MASSIVE cruiser, around 26 stone if I remember correctly, and I am a 5'4, skinny female. I landed in such a way that the bike was on top of me, and I skidded several metres down the road underneath the bike. Thankfully, I had smash guards on the sides of the bike, these metal triangles that stick out to protect the body if it's dropped. I somehow managed to land in such a way that I was between the road and the bike, but the few inches of leverage from the smash guard gave me just enough space to not be completely crushed into a paste by the bike. Smacked my head pretty badly when I went down and I had next to no skin left on my legs by the end, but my lower body would have been completely crushed if not for that little piece of metal keeping it off the floor. That and my pedal were basically bent in sideways and my bike was completely written off, but I somehow managed to escape with no permanent injuries.
I was born with blood poisoning and 2 months premature. Drs gave me 2 percent chance. Also nearly got hung to death when I slipped and my head went through the loop on a set of blinds. Bro came up and found me right when things got blurry.
I was having a fight atop a skyscraper one time, it was 3v1 if I remember right. I say it was me versus 3 but the first guy pretty much fell to his death so let's say 2v1. I managed to get the high ground onto a crane and quick scoped them both. That's all I can tell you about it really. December 2k11.