Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The closest you've ever been to death?

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First time was when I learned what an artillery sheaf is by being on the receiving end of it in south Lebanon. Second time was a few months later when I was flying in a 747 from TLV to NYC and there was a detonation in an outboard engine. We were about an hour west of continental Europe when the frag detonated and took out both engines on that side. It was very loud, then very quiet, and the pilot was quick to re-route back to Shiphol airport. That part of the flight was very much a puckerfest, but I got a free night in a five start hotel in Amsterdam as we waited for ElAl to figure out what happened and get a fresh plane to us.

Spent almost a month in the hospital with a mrsa infection in my colon. Two surgeries and a foot of colon later, I lived. They literally gut me like a deer, got to chopping, and sewed me back together. Lost 45lbs...

Hotel room in Mexico City. Someone in the hallway “accidentally” shot a pistol through my door.

December 16, 1991

I was headed home from work after a 12 hour shift, looking forward to being off the next two days.
Headed down a two lane, no shoulder paved road.
I was meeting a vehicle (black dark, I could only see headlights) when I saw the approaching vehicle's right headlight dip and both headlights enter my lane. The vehicle disappeared and I thought, "That was close! They almost hit me"!
That's when the headlights reappeared and smacked my left headlight at about a 45° angle.
EVERYTHING went dark.
I remember the "WHUMP!" of the collision and coming to, sitting in the dark, unable to breathe.
"OMG! My chest is crushed, I can't breathe. I'm going to die!"
I settled back in the seat and relaxed, knowing I was dead!
That's when reflexes kicked in and I began breathing again!
Then I couldn't get out of my truck.
Cars began to arrive and three people finally pulled me out of what was left of my little Dodge Dakota pickup.

A couple of days later, I had a crushed heel, three broken bones in the other foot and one hip broken and dislocated.
The other driver was DOI.

The only skid marks on the scene was where my pickup had been shoved backward 5 feet (from 55 mph).
The centerline of the lane I was traveling in to the centerline of my vehicle at rest was 20 feet - with no marks between! Truck was literally airborne!

The left front tire was under the drivers seat.
The engine was in three pieces.
The transmission (std) was under the bed.
The only thing not dented or bent was the tailgate.
My work briefcase was in the seat beside me. When my wife went to the wrecking yard to get my personal effects, the briefcase was in the bed.
My wife went to the wrecking yard and was searching for the truck. She finally found a guy cutting up a car and asked him if he knew where it was.
"Is that your little blue car over there?"
"Yes." she said.
"You're parked right beside it."
That's when she broke down, realizing what I had been through.

Now, I may not have been THAT close to death.....and there may be other instances I'm not aware of, but that one was close enough!

15 years and 250,000 miles on motorcycles, many close calls. Eight years and maybe 14,000 miles on a bicycle on the road, ditto.

2003 (?) Right after New Years, returning home to Texas with my Ex and two blue heelers in a Saturn station wagon, detoured through W. Virginia, hit Morgantown just after dark, headed south on the superslab towards Charleston. Clear, cold, no snow in forecast.

Snow started wiith a gain in elevation, at first light but then driving into a blizzard, popcorn-sized flakes, zero visibility, no lane markers visible, roadside reflector posts of the shoulder quickly pasted over, driving by guesswork, but if you stop you could get hit from behind.

Rolling along maybe 30, a set of barely visible trucks lights above us to the right. I was either far over on the left shoulder or driving on the median.

I inched right, truck behind let us in, I follow the barely visible truck tailights.

Everyone got off at the very next exit, Flatrock WVa. Spent the night in the car in a big truck stop parking lot. Woke up in a cave, 4” of snow on the car, 9F.

I made this climb in July of 1981. It was the closest that I have come to dying while climbing.

In 1986, Mike Levine disappeared while on a Climb of Ellingwood Point. The circumstances of Mike’s last climb and my climb were so similar that I wrote this article, which was published in the Trail & Timberline magazine of the Colorado Mountain Club, in March of 1987.

Mistakes Made & Lessons Learned

On a long weekend in July 1981, three other climbers and I decided to climb Maroon Peak via its’ west ridge. On Saturday we backpacked up Snowmass Creek and camped at Snowmass Lake. On Sunday, after climbing Snowmass Mountain, we wandered up the South Fork of Snowmass Creek, crossed the ridge to Fravert Basin and camped at 12,400’, near the base of Maroon Peak’s west face.

At first light on Monday, we headed for a gully that leads to the lowest point on the west ridge close to the peak. We scrambled up the tallus and scree to the top of the ridge, which is a series of steps. Each step contains a vertical wall, a small flat top and a sloping section leading to the next step. We traversed around the first vertical wall on a ledge to the bottom of a chimney that leads to the ridge top. I climbed the chimney and waited for the others. They decided to turn back. Then I made my first critical error. I decided to go on alone.

I continued up the ridge, traversing vertical walls via ledges and climbing chimneys to regain the ridge top. Near the top, the ridge narrows to a flat catwalk with vertical walls dropping off several hundred feet on each side. After negotiating the maximum exposure, I continued to pick my way to the summit.

I reached the top by 9:00 AM and signed in on the summit log. After spending a few minutes exploring and a few more minutes just looking around, I began my descent down the south ridge standard route.

About five hundred feet below the summit there is a small saddle with a scree-covered gully leading steeply down to the west. There I made my second mistake. I decided that the gully would be a nice scree run to the bottom even though I couldn’t see all the way down. I began my descent into the unknown by hopping and plowing through the loose scree, like a man walking down an escalator.

The gully was getting steeper and the vertical walls getting higher. The scree was moving faster until the bottom dropped out. I lost my footing and went sliding down the gully. I began clawing with hands and feet for something firm as I moved down the gully on an avalanche of liquid marbles. I felt something cold and hard under the rocks, clawed with everything that I had, and came to a halt. I listened as pebbles went crashing over a waterfall. I heard a tink-tinkle echoing up from below as water trickling from the ice hit the rocks.

I was about a foot from the edge, on hard smooth ice that had not yet melted in the shadows. My fingernails were clawed into the hard snow and the blood trail that they had left there was irrelevant. Every time I tried to move a finger for a better hold, my boots began to slip. I looked over the edge and all I could see was darkness. My knees began to shake and I was sweating. That black hole at the bottom of the waterfall was the jaws of death. I knew that if I went over the edge, I was a goner. My heart was pumping like an engine.

I surveyed the ice for some irregularity to hold onto. The only thing I could see was a rock about the size of a golf ball that had half melted its’ way into the ice; it was just out of my reach. I started to stretch for it and my boots let go. I grabbed the rock as I was sliding down and it came out of the hole. I grabbed for the hole and I stopped. I listened as it crashed and broke on the rocks below.

That hole was my first solid hold since coming to a halt. I moved my left hand to it and could only get two fingers in. But that was enough. I kicked holes into the hard snow with boots. I pulled a folding Buck knife out of my belt holster and stabbed it into the ice. I cut holes in the ice for my hands and began working my way to the side.

Once there I began climbing the vertical wall. Without protection, I knew that if I fell, I would hit the ice and slide over the edge of the waterfall. I made it to the top of the wall, climbed over the rim and stopped to rest. I was fully aware of what I had just escaped and my body was racing with adrenalin. I sat there for a long time and vowed that I would never again make the same mistakes that I had made that day.

Mike Levine left his team to climb alone. He made the top of Ellingwood Point and signed in on the register. He then tried to descend a steep colouir on the east face. His body was discovered at the bottom of that colouir. Mike Levine and I may have made the same mistakes. I was lucky and I live to tell the story. Mike’s luck ran out, so I’m telling his story. We should all be able to learn from our mistakes and profit from the experience of others.

Rodeo bull kicked over my head in the arena when I was judging and things went south very quickly. Took my hat off, had just a faint red line where his hoof scratched from the middle of my forehead to the top of my bald head. I got 100# of burger for free when the contractor put him down later that year.

Almost hit by a train, was riding with someone not paying attention.

Happened 4 times.

Long time ago when the car i was riding in almost went off a high bridge.

Funny how it balanced like it did,all i would have had to do is open the door and fall out.

Appendix ruptured and almost done in by the infection,in 2 days.

Last was ulcer rupture that the same type of thing with infection.

After the last time i am not afraid of it,i just won't jump out in front of a speeding truck.

The Docs say that because my threshold of pain is so high it is a bad thing.

They know when i go to see them i am not just taking up time.

One day like a dumbass I was sightseeing in Hawaii in a T-28 and i flew up a blind canyon on the Big Island. Uh oh! Oh 💩!

It was too narrow to turn around and didn’t have enough time to accelerate and do an Immelmann so I went to max RPM and MAP and went to max climb angle airspeed (110 kts IIRC). I aimed for the lowest part of the end watching it stay in the same spot of the windscreen meaning it’s gonna be really close!

I think I even lifted my butt off the seat cushion to get a little more clearance. 😳 I cleared the trees by maybe a wingspan. That was the end of my “flat hatting” days forever.

There were a few night landings with a pitching deck off the Aleutians and in the North Atlantic that had my knees shaking as I cleared the landing area and taxiied up toward the bow for the respot.

But number one was probably landing an F-4 with jammed controls at MCAS Iwakuni, Japan. It was off the USS Midway west of Japan, south of Korea with pretty crummy weather. They launched me, my wingman and one other “lucky guy”. 😊 Then they canceled the rest of the launch. Thanks a lot!

While waiting for my wingman to join up in the clear, overhead at 30,000’, one of the nose gear tires blew up and jammed the controls. The stick was jammed but it would unpredictably pitch up and down, mostly UP. After a controllability check it seemed like 190 kts or so gave me the beat chance of getting it on the ground in one piece. We diverted to Iwakuni and did a GCA to get under the weather.

Iwakuni’s runway had the perfect set up for this problem. They had arresting gear at the approach and departure ends of the runway but also mid-field arresting gear. We had the worst control excursion yet on short final and while I was fighting the stick with both hands I was halfway expecting the RIO to eject us. It broke loose and settled down long enough to land. We hit the deck pretty hard. We were way too fast for the approach end arresting gear so I put the drag chute out and put the hook down after we had passed the short field gear. We rolled into the midfield gear and it stopped

Up to the point where we stopped, I didn’t really have time to think about consequences, just the problem at hand. After the tug on the hook and we came to a stop, that was when the adrenaline rush really hit. The old knees were shaking like crazy. After we shut down and I climbed down, I could barely stand up. When I was able I looked up in the wheel well and it looked like a grenade had gone off.

After the Crash Crew took us to Base Ops, the station CO, a Marine Bird Colonel came over to us and he said “that was a pretty spectacular show on short final!” I said, “Skipper, if you only knew what was going on in the cockpit, you would have been seeking shelter!” 😁

Let's just says yes , and leave it at that ...

I did lots of stupid things that had the chance to end me, but I believe that the closest I legitimately came to dying was from severe sleep apnea. When tested, my blood oxygen level as as low as 59% and I had pretty bad anxiety and claustrophobia.

Two to three times year while on the road. I drive over 50,000 miles a year for work, which creates a lot of hazards on the road. A few of these instances are pretty memorable. Been pretty lucky overall.

In a coma for 3 weeks and had out of body experience. Heard people talking and crying about me and praying for me and then found out later when I came back that stuff had actually happened. Also had some one watching over me during that time and found out it was someone who had died a while back. It’s a long and involved experience and I just gave you all the cliff notes but that’s what happened and trust me it’s a bit life changing.

Holy cow -- some amazing experiences and very close calls

Two for me

Sheep hunting -- got a ram and loaded the dressed out parts on the back of the quad to come down from the trail head. Buddy was walking down behind. We at been in for 4 days and I was dead tired. All I remember was coming up to this little drop into a creek and thinking I should get off the quad. I did not get off and tried to ride it down the drop. Quad flipped on top of me with me in the creek. Only my nose, one eye and part of mouth was clear of the water. The quad handle bars had my legs pinned in a way that I did not have leverage to push it off. My buddy was about 5 minutes behind and when he got there and pulled the quad off me he was stone white and I was cold and shaking. Could have easily been much worse

I have a heart condition that is treated with meds that reduce my heart rate. One day I had a reaction and my heart rate dropped into the low 30's. I did not say anything to my wife and she noticed me doing the dizzy dance so into the hospital. The adverse reaction put me in the cardiac ward for a number of hours and I got to see a couple of folks that were in much worse shape. I was also taken into a private room by a cardiac nurse and who read the riot act to me on not coming in sooner. I do now know that when my heart rate drops below 37 I cannot do math.

Almost of typhoid in Mexico. Had it bad for two weeks and only last four days on IV antibiotics saved me. Enlarged spleen and liver IIRC. I felt so bad lying in the hospital knowing I was going to die and wondering if they would have to embalm me or just cremate me to send me home.

Close shave while I was driving 4wd on a sealed road in Tanzania at 50mph. All of a sudden a mob of giraffe with some Zebras thrown in came out of the bush. How the hell something nearly 20’ tall could suddenly appear like that has got me beat. I still don’t know why we didn’t hit any. Stood on the brake and as we came to a stop grabbed my camera and took some photos. We looked in the bush, no lions or anything chasing them. Later reading John ‘Pondoro’ Taylor he mentions Giraffe liked to play last across the road like chickens!

Been shot at without effect.😀

When deployed overseas I was standing next to a metal building during a patrol. Then the sound of what sounded like a ball-peen hammer moderately hitting the building puzzled me. It sounded like it was coming from inside. Turns out, someone was shooting at me from a long ways. Never actually heard the shots. Just the bullets hitting the building. They weren’t that far off. Glad they didn’t have better optics.

Aren't we all one day closer every day?

Too many to count for me. I've been shot at a few times, blown up ( car bomb),been in a couple car wrecks, had a heart attack, had creatures great and small try to do me in a few times-and almost succeeded twice, and a half dozen infections that would have gotten me if it weren't for modern antibiotics. Lots of other stupid schitt when I was young. And just last year I survived the dreaded Covid 19! It was the best sleep Ive gotten in 40 years....