Has anybody here "Cheated Death"?

Anybody had a "Close Call" with The Grim Reaper? 

Would like to hear the story. 

I called off my wedding when i was in my early 20s.

 

I've been a scuba diver since age 14 and since then I've certified all the way up to profesional level, including wreck penetration, cave diving, search/rescue/deep diving etc etc.. I've dove a good portion of the world on some pretty intense things that 
I've been fortunate to see. One fairly intense place is an island called Cozumel Mexico. The particulars of the diving are pretty much sheer 2,000 ft drop off walls and currents that will tear off your face mask if you're not highly skilled. I had dove more intense in shipwrecks before so the diving there isn't too challenging for me thanks to years of training......... 

 

.....One sunny day I was boat diving a reef known as Devil's Throat in Cozumel, one that I've dove many times and had developed an over confidence which is a no no in all deep dives. That's 120 ft safe limits. Well this Aqua man can do it no problem diver figured he's cert in deep water beyond that so lets go ahead and push the dive to 270feet.For those that don't know depth in diving, that is intense and requires every move to be 100% perfect. 

I proceed to the 90 foot entrance to the snake dark cave and navigate my through as usual. At the final opening to this cave is a sheer cliff at 130feet. I decide that I'll join my fellow moron dive buddy and descend over the wall and into the 250 300 ft zone. 

Well down we went. two mach idiots= into the abyss. 220 ft his camera implodes, 270 feet I put on the brakes and hover near the wall but the fuking current is so strong it's pulling me down and sideways. Top it off my vision started to become blurred and I could barely read my guages from nitrogyn narcosis......

...There I was, blurry eyed, sinking deeper because of the current and thinking of all options to safely ascend without dying. Meantime my heartrate was about 125, vains popping out of my arms from carbon dioxide overload. Panic and I mean PANIC was ontop of me in a life death keep it together and you may live situation. 

I bagan my ascent, heart pounding, vision almost gone against a sheer wall down current from 270+ feet, all the way just repeating in my mind, steady seady steady....calm yourself, slow down or you're dead.. Get to 200ft, then 150ft, then 100.. Each time I had to stop to avoid the benz while hyperventilating. On the way up to 150 ft a reef shark bagan circling because he could hear my heart beating, no kidding. That fuker knew I was in trouble.

Finally I made it to 50 feet, felt the sun warming the water and realized I had done it, I'm ALIVE and that was supposed to be my day of death. I think the intense fear of and adrenaline to stay alive kept my mind in problem solving mode.

I called some of my best instructors to thank them. 

No way am i supposed to be here. 

 

Great story Ricky.  What happened to your dive buddy?  He made it up also?

He went on to over 300 ft and I was motioning him from above to ascend acend ascend... Guy (which I barely knew), was lit up on Nitrogin and doing all sorts of twirls completely out of it. I tried to get to him but couldn't fight the current so i said fuk him and waived goodbye - was his fault for leaving the wingman.

Before the frickin dive I told this chap DO NOT drop one foot lower than me at anytime, Of course the macho man ignores all of it.

We waited topside on the boat, captain went down to 30 ft to provide a decompression tank and he never surfaced. We waited anoth 20 minutes and he finally surfaced. Immediate situation but he lived.  I gave him a fokin earload when he was lucid. 

What about you goose? 

Good thread. 

They say a cat has nine lives.  I must have used them all up because I should have been dead by now.  Must be an Angel or two on my shoulders.

When I was eight years old, Summer of 1965 when cars were built like tanks, got hit by a car when riding my bicycle.  Was in a legal crosswalk when this car came flying up over a rise in the road.  My right leg was raised at the top of the pedal.  The car's bumper hit my right side just below the pedal or my leg would have been history.

I went flying what seemed like about 20 feet into the air.  Luckily I landed right in the middle of a shrub hedge which braced my fall.  Everybody was on top of me in seconds flat.  They pulled me out of the hedge but wouldn't let me move or get up on my feet.

The Police and Ambulance were on the scene quickly and nobody could believe that I was OK.  A few scratches but amazingly I was fine. They finally let me get up and I walked my bike home.

This is something us degenerates may sympathize with. 

Zoin I mean pulled

Unbelivable goose. Car hit the frame of your bike on just the right stroke of your pedal cycle. Odds of that are in the millions I'd guess. 360 degrees in a circle, you were at the top with 5 degrees on either side. 

Exactly.  And the fact I landed in a hedge to brace the impact.  If I had landed on pavement might have died.  It's easy to think back and laugh about it now but I was sooooo lucky.

The A C Expressway.  LOL.  Can remember back in the day limping home to CT many times driving with only fumes in the gas tank.  Digging under the car seats looking for quarters to get thru the Tolls.

Learned my lesson though.  Now before I ever set foot in any Casino I always gas up and leave a couple $20's in the car.

Almost every weekend when i was late teens early 20's, looking back i think i'm damn lucky to be alive and no criminal record

Grew up in the 70's  a time when  Ludes and window pane were 2 dollars a piece ...  Nuff said.. 

One of those rescue cost me a fortune... ended with me walking from robertdale Alabama to Pensacola Florida. 40 miles in pack boots and a wool jacket .... if I didn’t get there I would of never be here. ... 

When I was in High School myself and three friends took off for a VT ski trip.  I was driving.  We were at Mt Snow in Southern Vermont and the snow conditions were just horrible.  After only two runs down the mountain we decided to skip the slush and drive North to Killington where conditions would be better and we could salvage the day.

No GPS in those days so we were relying on a paper map.  Somehow I got off the main road onto some back road.  Was headed North so I wasn't worried about it, we'd get there eventually.

Road started getting narrower and bumpier.  Lost control of my car and did a 180 ending up on the same side of the road but facing the other way.  I opened up my driver's door and was looking down a 300ft drop down the cliff-side.  No guard rails.  Couldn't even step out of the car that's how close I was to the edge.

All four of us should have been dead. 

Seen the reaper twice in my life; both aviation connected. first time in a Cessna 150 with my brother piloting, we went down in the Mojave, and both of us (by the grace of God, and a whole lotta luck) survived

*Afghanistan

Great experiences guys.  Keep'em coming!

#3 for me...

Summer of 1980.  Had a barbecue / keg party planned with a bunch of friends.  My girlfriend was supposed to pick me up at 12 noon.  12:45 rolls around and still no Sue .  Couldn't get her to answer the phone.  I am now officially fukking ripping pizzed off.  Jump on my brand new 79' Yamaha 650 with only a bandana on my head.  At the time there were no helmet laws in CT but I always wore one anyway.  But for some reason not right now.

I was moving about 50mph headed for Sue's house.  All of a sudden this car coming the other way turns left right in front of me.  Not too many choices.  Hit him head on?  No thanks.  Swerve and hit a building head on?  No thanks. Lay the bike down and take my chances.  Yes.

I lay the bike down and I go flying head over handlebars.  My bandana only head soars inches away from the front of the car.  Really thought that I had bought the farm. My lips were literally kissing the car as I soared past.

I hit the pavement hard.  I mean REALLY hard.  Seventeen stitches in my head and a broken collar bone.  Doctors in the emergency room were digging out dime sized gravel embedded in my skull.  Much better, however, than snapping my neck on a car's front end.

Whew, that was a close one!!!

When I was about 11-12 years old my buddy & I were at a beach in Puget Sound that you had to cross two sets of RR tracks to get to. The beach is on a point (Picnic pt.), so you can't see the tracks very far in either direction.......you can feel a train coming before you ever see it. Anyway, being kids, we "heard" a train coming & put a couple pennies on the tracks.....all of them because you never knew which track the train was on. We stood on the outside tracks watching the train fly by on the inside tracks......chucked a couple rocks at it......then I saw my friend turn & run towards the beach. I chucked another rock & turned to follow him. About 3 seconds later, a train going in the opposite direction flew by on the other tracks we'd been standing on. We never heard it, never saw it til it was there. I would never have known what hit me & there wouldn't have been much left to ID. 
 About 20 years later they built a pedestrian overpass to get to the beach......