Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What the closest you have come to the end.

Had a sow grizzly come within 5 feet of me while I was in sheep camp, only thing I had to defend myself with was an Old Timer pocket knife, rifle was in the tent because of rain. Luckily for me she was more interested in finding my buddies ram than she was in seeing how tasty a human might be.

Double post

Was 3 pounds at birth in 1980...nurse walked into the room one day (was in a couple weeks) with a big syringe full of who knows what for baby Michael. My mom happened to be there and explained I was not baby Michael. Whew.

No handgun ???

I read a leaked top secret report. It was ET, going home.

Perhaps the most harrowing tale in the whole thread!

No, I don't carry a handgun when i'm hunting since I usually have a rifle but I do when bowhunting. She sniffed out the rams cape that my buddy had stashed and that allowed us to get the hell out of dodge but that bear eventually ended up dead.

Farming, and logging as a kid and a young adult.

Lead foot. Not a drag racer. Grit your teeth and see
just how fast you can make the turn, type of dumbphuckery.

Years in long haul, logging trucks, dump trucks, gas tankers.
Yep. Still have seat stuffing in my butt.

Wasn't go in to post, not sure which one was worst.

Probably this one.

Working construction at 17. (They never ask my age ;))
I was working on a faulty parking lot light mounted on a 100 foot tower.
The appliances were mounted on a winch cable, we could
lower them to ground level.

I was hooking up the winch inside the pole. Got my right ring finger
on a wire stripped too long. 270 volts in my finger. Left hand holding onto
the grounded metal pole.

It hurt, bad. Everywhere.
I couldnt get loose.
Knew I was going to die there.
Suddenly, I decided to throw myself off the 4 foot high concrete base.
That ripped me free.
Pulled that wire out of the breaker. It was that stuck to my finger.
Guys were running toward me.
I was standing, holding my right hand in my left, between my knees.

Afraid to look.

They tried to see it, i refused,
finally I left them.

Had a hole burnt in it about 3/8" deep and wide.
Just like looking at the end of a burnt welding rod.

Pulmonary embolism 60% blockage of my right lung, about a week in ICU, 15% of that lung died.
That was 1980 so I guess it isn't gonna kill me, although the MD said it would shorten my life

When 1 I rolled down the hill behind home and crawled onto the street cars tracks. Wearing a tan playsuit. Conductor almost thought it was a grocery sack, then rang bell until mom came out.
Ran out of sand half way around d a curve on loveland pass, did 3 360s, stopped and shook. All that saved me was that little berm the plow leaves on the cliff downhill side. Shook for 10 minutes. Someone did stop, so the body would have been found
Dropped a. 41 revolver climbing a cliff and was looking right down the bore wheb it lit. Transfer bars do work, now it is 5 and a empty no matter

been a couple times offshore i though we might not make it back.

Twice. Once from an allergic reaction to penicillin. The other while hunting. Went to step across a stream that had a good gravel bottom. First foot went it fine. Second foot opened up an abyss with no bottom. Heavy pack, heavy rifle, and all my wet hunting clothes pulling me down to where ever that hole ended up. Hell I assume.

today?

Was 80 miles off Seward Alaska when a storm blew up. Tore the downriggers off the boat, one of them while I had my arm wrapped around it puking. Guidance system went down. Bobbed around like a cork out there in a 42 foot boat called the It'll Do until Popeye came and found us, led us in. Thought we were done for on that trip.

Spent 11 months at MD Anderson. Chemotherapy and Radiation will break you down and keep you alive if you are lucky!

I recall that well Sam. Hauling a kayak IIRC. More than happy you are still with us.

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.

Got Last Rites immediately upon birth. Not expected to survive. Mom was Rh negative and I was Rh positive. Two full blood replacements (not transfusions, replacements) and 56 years later here I am.




P

Other than getting shot at almost every night over the Ho Chi MinhTrail for 40 missions that almost got us, the most recent scare was in June when I was out hiking in the hills as usual, I experienced a Pulmonary Embolism and a DVT not knowing what was happening. The VA told me to get to any hospital emergency room as soon as possible.
Needless to say, I had my wife take me to Billings the next morning to the Emergency Room at the Billings Clinic. After some rushing around, and finding blood clots in my lungs, I realized it was serious. I overheard one of the doctors tell my wife that I was lucky that I came in when I did. Then I was scared.Three days later I was out of the hospital and am now having to take Coumadin daily----probably forever. Tried Eliquis , and it didn't work!
Now of course I am worried about cutting myself.
I have some fears from the flare missions that don't go away. I haven't been in an airplane since 1971. I still see 37's& 57's and one Sam coming at me. Kinda used to it now. :

In order....

1) Death through drunken stupidity... really drunk on African moonshine coming back from a school soccer game, paved road full of potholes. Climbed to the outside of the truck, one foot in the slot on the side where you were supposed to put your foot. Hanging on to a slat above the bed with my left hand I reached out with my right to grab the elephant grass as we passed it. Got to wondering how few fingers I needed to hold on to the wooden slat. Got all the way down to just the middle finger of my left hand hooked over the slat, left foot in the foothold, right foot hanging loose, reaching far out to the elephant grass. Prob'ly 40+mph, enough to kill me.

2) Ninety-plus on a motorcycle, came over a rise in an open area to find a 30mph turn right there. Helmet riding on the sissy bar behind me, leather jacket, jeans. Went off the outside of the turn around 50 or 60, one minute bouncing along the grass, next sliding on the grass next to the bike. Slid right through an open gate between a barbed-wire fence and some trees. Got up unhurt with grass sticking out everywhere, front end of bike bent about 45 degrees of true. I had crushed in the gas tank on both sides with my knees. Not even a scratch or bruise on me. It was actually fun, like getting tackled hard in football.

3) Right after New Years, coming home to Texas southbound through West Virginia at night, then-wife and two dogs in a Saturn SW2 station wagon. No snow forcast it begins to snow, heavily, snow as big as popcorn, looked like styrofoam falling down. Almost whiteout, can't see the lanes, then cant see the sides of the Interstate. Can barely see tailights ahead. Can't stop or else we'll get hit, doing maybe 40. Road gets a bit rough and then I see a semi truck passing above me to my right, I had driven clear off of the road onto the grassy median. Still didn't dare stop. Inched carefully back right and up, a second truck drops back to let us in. Fall in close behind first truck, everyone getting off at next exit (Flatrock WV). Pull into large parking lot at closed-for-the-night gas station.

Afterwards it scared me shidtless, I had my wife and dogs in the car, could hit a culvert and killed/injured all of 'em. Slept in the car under a streetlight, got down to 9 degrees overnight. Woke up in a cave, maybe 8" of snow covering the car, windows and all.