Near death experiences & what you learned

I'll obviously start:

Back in 2009 I was driving in pouring down rain from FL to AL on I-10. I was young and didn't know any better, but had cruise control on in these conditions. I hydroplaned and spun around several times into the muddy, grassy median. Stopped inches from the E/B traffic as an 18 wheeler flew by.

I drove 50 mph the rest of the way and learned that cruise control is not safe to use on ponding roads at high speeds. Yall be safe, and god bless.

 

What I learned over the years from several instances is there has got to be something greater than me looking out for me at times. Have no idea how I made it through a couple times.

 

Good subject. Over the years, I've had many, and in most, I didn't realize the danger I was facing till much latter. One or two stand out. Once, some buddies and I were bodysurfing near the Mexican border on a deserted beach, no one around for miles. I got pulled into a rip tide that took me a mile down the coast and half a mile offshore. I was so exhausted from trading water, If I would have screamed, no one would have heard me, if I panicked, I would have drowned, then the big breakers just pounded me as I made it to shore, I could just barely drag myself up on the beach, My friends never knew how close I came to drowning.

 

About 10 years ago I went over the bars on my dirt bike and don’t even remember hitting the ground. The end of the handlebar hit me on the lower left side of my abdomen and my left thigh above the knee. Luckily I was wearing a chest protector as the handle bar hit just on the edge of it. Spent that night in the desert and a friend of a friend drove me home in my motor home and then to the er. Major internal bleeding and doctor said I should have bled to death in my sleep that first night. Imagine if my wife were have to woken up to that?!?! All said and done it scared the hell out of both of us and didn’t ride for over a year. Gradually I got back on a bike but it’ll never be the same. Just don’t have the confidence that I once had.

 

I crashed on a street bike at a high rate of speed. One minute I am in a long turn going way too fast. I do remember a bright white flash, and then waking up in an ambulance with the EMT yelling "BREATH" MAN, FUCKING BREATH. Eventually woke up in the hospital with my parents standing around me. It took me many months to get back on my feet. Today I am 55 years old and sometimes my bones hurt. I still get headaches for no reason at all. Life is short, don't take it for granted. Love those that love you. Take care Brothers.

 

Life is a lot eaiser if you just accept that you will die and it could very well be in a horrible painful manner. I’ve almost been killed and or gotten myself killed enough times to just not care anymore. I have a risky job and like to do risky activities for fun, death is just a fact of life. I don’t seek it out and try to mitigate the risks but it’s still going to happen one way or another.

 

On my way to the airport on Monday and notice traffic acting strangely up ahead.

Finally able to see what the cause is and get out of the way.

Some fool is driving Northbound in the Southbound fast line of the highway.

And there is a divider so I have no clue how they got on the wrong side.

I called 911 and reported the vehicle and location. They said they had received several reports already.

Your life could be ended at any instant by something totally out of your control.

One that sticks out from my youth was one time I was hunting and walking through the woods.

My foot got tangled in some vines and I fell onto a fallen tree, hitting my chest on the trunk.

Looked to my left and about 4 inches over was a 6" broken off branch sticking straight up.

If I had fallen a few inches further over it would have punctured me.

 

I had a rollover in a 2007 Corolla that happened because I fell asleep on a road with no cell service and very little traffic, like one car every 45 mins, and was lucky enough to have the tree I hit just take off my front bumper and actually help me land on all 4 wheels. I ended up driving the rest of the way to work with my head out the side window because I didn't know the next time someone would get there, and didn't necessarily want a ride with one of the locals as some are kinda sketchy. There are constant trees lining that road and somehow I didn't die going around 55 mph and rolling into a tree. I do believe God was looking out for me there. Learned I better figure out a way to keep myself awake, like doing calisthenics on the side of the road when I'm tired and think I might fall asleep.

Another time, I had gone out to a friend's ranch to go squirrel hunting. I shot at one and went over to see if I had hit it or not, and stood under the tree he was standing by. When I walked 10 or so feet away a 7 inch wide, about 15 foot long branch cracked once and I heard a loud thump. I turned around to see it laying on the ground on top of that squirrel's hole. I was alone out there and if that had broken my neck or something I may have died out there. Keep your head on a swivel when you're in the woods.

 

My wife and I were camping before we were married and in the middle of a perfectly calm summer night we were awakened by a loud POP and the thunder of a huge tree hitting the ground inches from our tent. The tree trunk was bigger than I could put my arms around and it landed parallel to our tent on the guy lines. A perfectly healthy looking tree on the outside was full a white fungus inside and just let loose that very night. I often think about how we both could have been crushed and how long it would have taken to die depending on what part of our bodies it hit. (Insert shiver)

 

So, the ones I'm aware of: At age 4 I stuck a bobby pin into an electrical circuit after watching my sister do it to make sparks...not realizing that inserting both side completed the circuit. I rode that thing until the whole house fuse blew. I've had an 8" artillery shell explode over my head but high enough that the shrapnel just bounced off my helmet and boot. I've been on two helicopters that experienced in-flight engine failures: one was flaring to land on a mountain OP in Macedonia. We went over the edge down into the valley and the pilots were able to restart the engine and land. The second was in an OH-58 and we autorotated into the ground, collapsed the skids...and both I and the pilot walked away. The last was on 9/11 where I was in my office in the Pentagon on 3rd floor, second ring from the outside of the area where the plane hit. I won't go into detail but I cheated death at least twice that day.

What I learned is that we never know when our time will come and that we should never left something unsaid. I make sure that I always give my wife a kiss and tell her I love her whenever we part each other's company and every night before we go to sleep. And, most of all, I try to enjoy every minute I have on this earth.

 

Thank you for your service.

 

I had just gotten my m license and a cheap cruiser at 19, decided I could ride to santa Barbara from Fontana there and back the same night. I had work the next day. I'm a genius, I've been told. On the way back I start getting sleepy, and really cold riding along the coast, then it starts pouring rain. End up putting her down at 70mph trying to get the 57 south from the 210. Tumbled for what seemed forever with traffic zooming past. Finally stopped and stumbled off the highway. Lucky I wasn't hit by a semi or another vehicle and luckily I didn't have any injuries besides road rash, some sore joints, and a bruised ego

 

I was carving up some twisties on the ninja one time and my buddy in front of me was on a Brandi new cbr600rr, my dream bike at the time, and I was just mesmerized by the way it handled, just stuck, tucked and go go go. Well I wanted to see how close I could keep up with him but I also wanted to watch him. One harsh blind right turn I just didn’t commit and went wide into the other lane. For a split second I visioned a 5.7 tundra coming at me the other way, then I looked at the barbed wire fence in front of me and something in me said “No” and forced my head to look back up the street. I corrected and never left the pavement, even though it was close. We must have been doing 70 through there.

Another time I was riding the ninja through downtown Dallas. If you timed the lights right you could zip all the way through downtown without even catching a red. One day, for some reason I wasn’t in a hurry and actually looked left, then right, then left again and on that second left right before I let the clutch out a lifted Nissan Titan blew through the red light and nearly took off my front tire.

I know for a fact we are watched over

 

I had a medical incident once(my fault) where a took too much of a fast acting prescribed medicine that could kill you if you take too much, I can tell you I narrowly escaped from going into a coma with no one to help me or know exactly what was going on if they found me. what I really remember from this incident I when people say you see your life flash before your eyes when you are about to die happened to me, only that my life was flashing before my eyes from the present going in reverse order my life was flashing by I could see all the major lifes incidents like jobs, high school, little league baseball, first girlfriend, etc. going lightning fast in reverse order and I knew if I didn't get up and get help I would hit the last phase of life.birth and be dead.

 

I have more than one (lived pretty wreckless up until my early 20s)

But here is a good one.

I have rode supercross/freestyle ever since I got my first bike at 13yrs old. Started on an RM 125 and loved it. But it wore out after a few years of heavy riding. Could have fixed it, but I used it as an excuse to upgrade to a new Yz250. Me and my riding group around here grew up along side Jake Weimer. He was extremely good at racing (got sponsored in semi pro at around 14) so naturally we all went really hard trying to learn from him, riding on his track. Using his shop to fix our broken shiz when we sent it too hard....
(Jake W is now a Professional Supercross racer, I haven't checked in a while seeing as how we went our separate ways many years ago. But I believe he is riding for monster energy Kawasaki as #5 or at least he was a few yrs back)

Anyway long story short, we watched one of his races on tv which he won... and me and muly buddy kelly got all pumped up from watching him kick ass and hopped on our bikes and hauled ass down the canal bank. (Canal was dry, off season) we were trying our best to out do each other, and I dropped down into the canal while he stayed on the bank. Was looking up at him trying to take the lead when he got an absolutely shocked look on his face and immediately started pointing infront of me. I look ahead just in time to see a pipe going across the canal at neck level... I was doing somewhere upwards of 50mph and had he not pointed Id have certain lost my head.
I ducked over as far as I could and scraped my helmet on the bottom of the pipe as I past under it.. Had to stop and gather myself for a while after that close call. Pretty sure I was shaking for an hour or more.


There are many more similar stories of me behaving like I was invincible on my bikes. And I have had more close calls than I care to admit.
When I wasn't out provoking the farmers to chase me off their property for kicks, I was hauling ass on the track, or flying high off a ramp.
If I had a time machine Id be there right now.

 

In the FAA they call it a "near miss" IRRC I've had a number of close calls. One not too exciting, but I was heading to work and was looking for my keys. I was scrambling around my apartment and for the life of me couldnt find them for a few minutes, Finally found them and I hopped in my truck and headed to base. At one of the intersections I see a car in the ditch and big cloud of dust/smoke, and people running across the road towards the car. I had literally missed the accident by a minute or less...it looked to have been rolled as it lost control or whatever but had I found my keys at the time I was supposed to leave, I probably would have got T-boned...

 

Years ago I was in a situation where I went into respiratory arrest and was "clinically dead" for about 30 minutes.

Now we've all heard the stories about how people in similar situations see themselves being worked on in the ER, then heading down a tunnel towards a bright light, meeting deceased relatives who keep saying "Go back. It's not your time yet. Go back." etc.

I did not experience any of that. No extra-body experience, no tunnel, no light, no nothing. It's like I simply ceased to exist for a half hour. I remember being in my house and the next thing I remember waking up the hospital. Everything in between was blank.

Makes me want to second-guess the whole idea of an afterlife.

 

Narrowly escaped a house fire my sophomore year. I didn't really learn much except I'm a big paranoid about fires so am always on top of fire safety. It was a freak accident and nobody was at fault, my lungs got a little f-ed up from smoke inhalation and I spent a day in the ER for that.
Worst part was is I sleep like the dead and the smoke alarm going off in my bedroom wasn't waking me up. Luckily my Dad was home and able to wake me up, else I'd have probably perished in the blaze. Big bummer was it was like a day or two after Christmas, not the best way to spend the holidays losing your home!