Couple of my own.
Between freshman and sophomore year in hs. Middle of the night, pitch dark and we stopped on a bridge in tn to help a guy that had wrecked. He was drunk. We were trying to get the driver's door open. I either hopped over or was climbing over and slipped over the guardrail. My brother looked over his shoulder for me. I wasn't there. Yelled and yelled for me and I finally came to over 50 feet down on the bank of the Harpeth river. Was in and out through the extraction and at the hospital. Pretty beat up. Lots of broken bones. My cath bag was pure blood. Liver completely stopped functioning. After about a week they were about to do an exploratory and my liver function finally started back a little at a time. Still feel the effects of all that.
In college we decided to go rafting over Memorial Day weekend. Runoff was really high. Got hung up on a rock after the worst of the rapids. Momentary relaxation when we realized we beat the worst of it. Raft flipped under the upriver pressure of the water flow. Threw and a friend to the middle of the river with the raft.
Raft was inverted and I was on the bow hanging onto the little loop where the bow rope hooks through with 1 finger. River speeds up with me on the downstream side of the raft going backwards. I figure, "here we go", I am about to get bashed on rocks as the river floor is coming up. Lower my legs to try and gauge where the river bottom was to give me a little warning before getting smashed. One leg wouldn't go down. The bow rope was wrapped around my ankle tight. I do the quick mental calculations and realize if I let loose with the 1 finger I am holding on to, this raft and I will be found at a diversion dam a few miles downsteam deader than the proverbial mackerel. Try not to panic. Try a bunch to reach down and free the rope. No bueno. Finally pull a folder out of a sheath I had. Just got it out and my constant kicking against the rope finally got the rope to come off. Thought about that one a lot over the next decade.
