What's the closest you've been to death?

a reply to: bazzerd

What a bastard. I hope they threw the book at him.

a reply to: harvestdog

Ya, dont touch the stove. It burns.

How many times I heard that and did that as a kid.

Somewhere along the line I figured it out lol.

i stubbed my toe once.
friggin close one

a reply to: Mugly

WOW, with a mood that is murderous, I'm suprised you haven't had any close calls. Either you don't let your mood affect you or you are really good at what you do.

a reply to: harvestdog
Almost drowned when I was a kid.
I slid down an angled deep end of a swimming pool before I could swim,and saw the surface getting darker and further away.
I remember going into the darkness,and seeing weird lighted beings around me,pulling at me,taking me down down down.
In fact at that point I was unconscious and hallucinating/dreaming/entering the void.

I got pulled out by a girl who saw me at the bottom of the pool,had the whole chest pump thing,and came back coughing and puking.

I will never forget that experience-its as clear as if it happened yesterday.
It was 35 years ago.

Yep,I still hate deep,dark water.

a reply to: harvestdog

honestly i have never been close to death.
ive felt enough pain that i hoped for death on multiple occasions though.

There was a guy that used to hang out with my friend, brother, and I. You know those people who have no common sense and can't keep out of trouble? That's him. Anyway, we were at my friend's and decide to go down the block to the 7/11 for some munchies and slurpies. While we're on the way, this red sports car with blacked out windows comes creeping by real slow. My friend, brother, and I know something is up. Not the other guy. Dumb ass starts cussing out the driver and flipping him off. We're trying like mad to make him stop. I don't know about my friend or brother but I had chills going up and down my spine. Well, the car turns the corner and we continue on. Then we here POP POP POP. Oh, shoot! We reach the 7/11, get our stuff, and leave. We wanted to stay until we were sure that car was long gone but the clerk is giving us the stink eye. We were on the way back to my friend's and look down the street the car had turned down earlier. Cops cars are everywhere. Cops are all around and there are bodies on the ground. Turns out the red car guys did a drive by. I hate to think what would have happened if they'd gotten pissed enough at the dumb ass.

a reply to: harvestdog

When I was 15, I was kidnapped, raped, and nearly murdered. The man -- he was 37 years old -- gagged me with my bra and tried to hang me from a tree with an extension cord.

When i was 42 I had my last child by c-section and stopped breathing every time I fell asleep for the 2 days following. I spent that time in the ICU. Every time I dozed off someone would come in to wake me up. It was exhausting and miserable.

tough to tell...neither of my stories are particularly "super close" to death

During basic training we went to Warrior Week. That's where the Air Force pretends to be a soldier for a week

Could potentially be a bit gross? warning I guess

The morning we left I had already had a cough for two days. I was told it's very normal to catch something at basic even with the crappy PCN shot. Anywho...I got in the field and got my rifle. It was San Antonio....and hot as hell. The temp while we were there was about 98-13 depending on the day. The first day we did a march and I was extremely dizzy and coughing up colors. Day two, three....the same. On day four we did the day long exercise. On day two, three and four we ate nothing but MRE's. I couldn't eat at all I was so ill. If you are wondering I had a heavy case of pneumonia. I was so nauseous and dizzy I couldn't think of eating. But when I tried, the smell of the crap food and heater pack made me vomit. The only thing I could stomach was sugar. So I traded my MRE with for everyone's Skittles mini packs. I ate about 4 a day and drank a small amount of water. I was stupid...extremely stupid. So anyway...day 5....We did the low crawl....hot sand, crawling for what seemed like a year and a half. My crawl partner said I kept falling asleep about every 7-10 feet. He kept waking me so we wouldn't get rolled back to the start of the crawl. Apparently at this point my fever was so bad that at one point I started flailing because I thought a scorpion was on my face. We finished it. I walked hanging on two trainees' shoulders to my main TI. I remember saying "Sir, I think I need to go to the hospital" and then I fell. I had a febrile seizure and was taken by ambulance to Willford Hall Hospital...I woke up a while later with two large bore lines in me and loaded with slow-drip fluids and barely-cool wet packs all over my chest, armpits, forehead. When I was put on the rig my initial temperature was 105 internal. I was hospitalized two days....so that was mine...I got into a ton of trouble for not reporting it earlier. I was also told by calculating that I was eating about 200 - 250 calories per day

My other was when I was a tornado chaser on my second hunt ever and the tornado started dipping over my roof and made it pretty far down....but honestly I wasn't in that much danger....it returned up and then dropped again...but by that time it was a solid half a mile from me and moving away

here is something to think about.

how many times have all of us been moments away from death and not known it?
the guy that was going to shoot up the store we are in but backed out.
turn left and the car crashes...turn right and everything is fine.

a reply to: harvestdog

I was robbed a gun point just few weeks ago. The perp was caught just a few hours later.

I've been knocked out with a baseball bat. I don't remember it at all, but I've been told that it happened.

I out ran a tornado in my truck. One buddy in the passenger seat yelled go faster, while the buddy in the back yelled pull over. That was pretty intense.

My mom dropped me on my head. I had a sewing machine fall on my head. I overdosed on dope and drink. I overdosed on ice. I overdosed on rispiridone. I overdosed on anti depressants and anti psychotics. I lost control of a car at 180kmh on a raining road over taking a car, but found my footing. I was attacked with a knife, a pair of scissors and a broken glass bottle. I nearly died twice from a urine infection I still have. I rode my bicycle into a parked car. That's it.

a reply to: Sliver27

Damn dude, that's a lot of NDEs. You are like that Energizer bunny that just keeps going and going and...

Well, Let's See: I've Fallen Off A Cliff, Been Struck By A Car, Been On Fire, Nearly Died From Pancreatitis, 3 Different Hospitalisations For Double Pneumonia, Fallen Headfirst From A Second Story On My Head To A Hardwood Floor, Multiple Times Of Fevers At 105 f To 106f And Countless Injuries, Concussions, Cuts, And Stitches Over The Years. I'm 55 Now. Wonder Whats In Store For The Next 50? LOLZ! Because My Father In Heaven Has Kept Me Alive For A Reason, I Guess. Aren't NDE's Fun? LOL!....

originally posted by: MotherMayEye
a reply to: harvestdog

When I was 15, I was kidnapped, raped, and nearly murdered. The man -- he was 37 years old -- gagged me with my bra and tried to hang me from a tree with an extension cord.

Well,sheeeit-that beats my near drowning experience...
At least you didn't feel the weird light beings dragging you down into the void though.
I still wonder if they were real or a product of my then dying brain.

Guess I will find out one day-Something to look forward to,right?

I once disarmed a drunk and suicidal roommate of a revolver that I owned. He was waiting for me to come home and intended to kill himself when he heard me come in. He had called the girl he liked to tell her "goodbye" and didn't know she had my number and she called me and I decided to go in quietly. For a brief moment, there was a struggle and the barrel of the pistol was point blank in my chest. If I had been a touch slower or had executed the wrong movie, it would have been all over.

I've also been in a number of car accidents as a passenger (I was young and making really bad choices) where on more than a few times there were fatalities, even though every time I walked away with nothing more than a few scratches.

I was beside someone shot in a drive by.

and I've been shot at (and missed) and stabbed a few times (in some fights).

So, 12 or so times over the course of my life that come to the front of my mind at the moment.

Last year I had an inter cranial hemorrhage stroke. I thought I was a gonna. It was the scariest thing ever, I still have no sensation in my left leg below my knee or in my left hand. I was put on suicide watch at my rehab hospital too, but fortunately got over that with the yelp if antidepressants.

I almost drowned when I was about 6 years old, and I still remember it vividly.

I was wading in a pond on our property. A neighbor was on the bank fishing for bluegills, and he was supposed to be watching me.

I waded into a pocket of deep water, and could not swim, and I started sinking down. I saw the water surface and the light going away above me, then I hit bottom and kicked back up. I got a little breath and tried to say 'help' ... but it came out as more like a quiet gasping peeping noise. I got a gulp of water too. Then I started sinking down again. I was sure I was a goner.

But then I landed on a rock on the bottom and kicked off that, back into shallower waters.

I looked over, and the guy fishing on the bank had missed the whole incident.

I felt really lucky to be alive, and was done playing in the water for a while. I never really told anyone about it for years, because I was afraid I would get in trouble -- but that is how kids think!

a reply to: smirkley

Bit like you probably...I'm a bit of an adrenaline junkie too...

Love competing in motorsports, love extreme freediving, love base jumping...all that.

Like you I don't really have a fear of death...more a fear of not living each moment to the fullest (which doesn't mean devoting every waking moment to doing everything under the sun, certainly also means simply appreciating the beauty that is found in every moment regardless of what you're doing, where you are, whom you are with).

Also...doesn't mean that I take risks just for the hell of taking risks.
Oh no. I hugely value life...so any risks I take are certainly calculated ones.
The risk is still there...but you mitigate it...as the *rush* can just as easily turn to *ruin* if you make a mistake or if fate decides.


If anything that's what my many brushes with Death have taught me - that life itself is beyond beautiful...indefinably precious...that each and every one of us are a gift upon this earth and so too this earth is a gift to us.
That's not to deny that sometimes life is crap, that sometimes people do crappy things...but I do not believe any single one of us is without redemption....we just make crappy choices occasionally...


My career for over 2 decades has been devoted to helping others heal.
I work predominately within the mental health sector...mainly as a private consultant now...and the wife and I take in and foster 'at-risk youth'.


...gotta treasure life...for it's a treasure gifted freely and that should be given to others freely...


There's an old saying I love:
"Only the warrior who has tasted the bitterness of death can truly appreciate the sweetness of life"

a reply to: alien

Exactly. Couldnt have said it better myself.