I had a number of them. The first I was in my early teens. I was trying to rescue my spaniel who was trying to retrieve a branch through a hole in the ice on the local creek. When I tried to pull him out the edge ice broke under my feet and I went in. Luckily a friend was with me and managed to get me out.
Number of crazy driving stunts in my late teens. Later in life was involved in two vehicle rollovers. Everybody walked away from both of these.
In my mid to late thirties was on I-75 returning to Ontario from Florida when traffic stopped dead on the highway. Someone slammed into my back end coming down from 70 mph. We were left pinning a car against the left side New Jersey barriers. Then that car burst into flames. Fortunately the line of cars in front of me moved and allowed me to pull away from the burning vehicle. The burning car was laying a heavy pall of black smoke across the road. I got my oldest daughter out and put her up on the median barrier. My wife took our youngest daughter and ran (foolishly we later decided) to the opposite (right hand) side of the road. Because of the heavy smoke no oncoming driver could have seen them crossing the road. Thank goodness no one was coming at that moment.
Currently, while not life threatening, I have been fighting something called temporal arteritis. This is an artery that runs alongside the ear and goes to the brain. The doctor told me that if it had not been detected I could have gone blind. Talk about someone getting your attention with a statement! This was diagnosed in early June and if I am lucky I may get off certain medication around April, 2020.
I hope these are the only stories I will even have to tell.
Jim
