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

Old 7 mile bridge in fla keys on a ‘75 bmw 90/6 in 1977 110-115 mph hit a semi wake who was doing at least 90-95. Slide to rear of bike and caused front end to go into the death wobble.

In 25 years of firefighting:

1.) Fighting a house fire, caught in a flashover, followed
by the ceiling crashing down on top of me. Crawled
out, brushed off the burning embers from my gear,
grabbed a hoseline and went back into the fight.
Nineteen year olds think they're indestructible.

2.) Passed out cold from heat stroke and dragged out
of a burning barn by two members of my team.
We were trying to rescue horses trapped inside.

3.) Blown out of a garage window I was climbing
through when a propane tank inside blew up.

4.) Another ceiling collapse drove me down a staircase
breaking the face shield from my helmet.

And these were all before I was 25.
There have been others ...

I'll bet your arse clenching the seat stopped you coming off

Widowmaker heart attack in 2016

Thanks.......

I was a Firefighter for 12 years in my home town. I had a few close calls, but yours trump mine. I was on roof ventilating it in winter that was covered in black ice, my butt was puckered until I got off that thing. I was once in a two story house fire that had the second story collapse over top of me and a buddy, but luckily ceiling held long enough to get out. Several other potential disasters, like a fire in a wall of a closet full of ammo and shelves of reloading powder, and we didn't realize it until we opened the door! Litterally dodged a bullet on that one! Responding to a car wreck with a fire, with fuel running on the ground around you...Your experience was more dire than mine, though. The average person has no clue what firefighters of all stripes can face on any given day.

Please not that “Bigfoot Raped Me” story again.

Probably '88 or '89. I had a divine intervention situation happen to me. It was deer season. I'd hunted all day out in the cold, got into my truck, heater started warming things up and I got sleepy. At the same time I was coming off a steep mountain on a very twisty one lane paved logging road, near 20% grade in places. It'd been foggy the night before. Areas where the sun hit were dry, areas where it hadn't were still wet. I wasn't thinking real clearly and I came around a corner hauling balls down the hill and hit one of those wet patches. There was a sheer rock bluff going up on my left with a deep wide ditch between the road and bluff. On the right there was a seemingly bottomless canyon .. the "tree trunks" at road/eyeball level were probably 60-80 feet up the side of the tree. I hit the wet patch, the ass end of the truck swung tried to pass the front pointing the nose even harder into the turn / right at the ditch and rock bluff as I slid. I was probably doing about 40 mph on a corner good for 25. Then I slid clear of that wet part, hit dry pavement, the tires grabbed, and the truck launched straight ahead across that ditch into the rock wall.

I felt the tires drop into open space going into the ditch and my view forward was massive jaggy blasted rock face coming right at me 6-8 feet away at over 30 mph. Everything went black.

The next thing I new I was sitting still and it was absolutely pitch black. I figured I'd slammed the wall head on and blacked out. I noticed nothing hurt .. seemed like it should with a wreck like that. I started doing a mental self-check looking for a sense of damaged body parts. None. "Hmmm." Figured well, those driver's ed films where wrecks catch fire and burn people alive .. electricity and gasoline, better turn the ignition off. I reached up to turn the key off and it was already off. "Hmmm." Ok, same thought, headlights, so I reached up to turn those off. Already off. "Hmmm." By then I was having a real serious "what the f**k is going on here" moment.

I noticed out my right window a faint light moving a bit above me through some trees. Seemed odd. I decided well, maybe I should try turning the headlights on .. I didn't seem to be hurt and I didn't smell gas. What I saw didn't make any sense. I was looking into a black void with some tree trunks rising out of it. Instead of a crumpled truck hood and rock wall, I was looking off into the canyon which should have been behind me. That light .. was the vehicle I'd passed a few minutes earlier. I decided I need to move before I got creamed. I fired up the motor and backed up and turned to continue down the hill.

When I saw the pavement I about shiit. I was sitting uphill in that wet patch on the pavement. There were my tracks / slide marks on the dry pavement where I'd launched it across the ditch at the rock wall.

The rest of the way down the mountain I could not look in the passenger seat. There was something there, a tangible presence, a passenger I was not ready to deal with at that point in my life. Why am I not dead, y' know, maybe a marker for me with some flowers on the bottom of that rock wall? How, other than divine intervention, does a truck change directions and location after it is already airborne? And what was the point? What IS the point?

+++

Probably the one that makes my skin crawl the most was .. slower bad judgement. Again, deer hunting. There's a bluff by the river with deer trails going up a sort of crack. Around the side of that bluff from the crack is a section that's about 1/3 rounded and steep up top with oaks, etc, 1/3 vertical dropoff, and the bottom 1/3 loose boulders and talus. I'd hunted up there a few times. I got the bright idea that instead of going over the top and using the regular trail I'd sidehill around above that vertical part on a deer trail.

Well, the deer trail got skinnier and skinnier and I was too dumb to turn back. Eventually I sat down in the trail and hung my feet over the edge, then scootched my way along on my ass thinking it'd start getting wider. It didn't. By the time I realized I really had to go back, it was damn near impossible to go back. I spent probably near 2 hours out there looking down between my knees at certain death. I've found critters at the bottom of that .. deer, bear .. they are ALL f-ed up, most of their bones splintered and the skin sorta ripped from the change of shape when they hit.

Gives me the shuddering visceral heebie jeebies just thinking about it.

Tom

When I was in the USARMY one of my room mates and I were going to a party off base in an apartment complex. It was dark and as I walking across the parking lot, another soldier was walking towards me. He pulled a gun out and pointed at me. Time stood still, and then he lowered the gun and said, "Dang, sorry, I thought you were someone else" I saw him again months later during a battalion run, we just looked at each other and didnt say anything

I don't know what's the closest to death for me.

I can tell you that flirting with cancer can make you THINK you're close.

December 2020 I had a kidney removed do to cancer , not to worry they said , it hasn't spread.

February 2022 I had 1/3 of my left lung removed due to cancer , not to worry they said. It hasn't metastasized & it's not related to the kidney cancer.

In a couple weeks I go back to the neurosurgeon to talk about treatment for a meningioma , that's a kinda , sorta brain tumor. It's benign , it's not going to kill me but something needs to be done about it. It's already wrecked the hearing in my left ear , deaf as a brick in that ear.

Makes me wonder just how many "unrelated" cancers & tumors one person can have before something blows up ?

.......or I run out of body parts. They keep taking parts out but they're not putting any back


Mike

The day I was born. 2 prevoius brothers didn’t make it due to that RH factor stuff and moms giving birth in the late 50's. 1st transfused baby in my small hometown. Been living on rented time since. Enjoy life while you can as it's not a dress rehearsal you only have one shot at it.

Cheers!

The grab bar is the only thing that kept me from sliding off the back. Young and dumb !

So sorry to hear of your trouble neighbor. Do you still have that mod. 28 that I sold you?

No , bad as I hated to it went away

Mike

Fire fighters really need to learn about ammo.

I remember that. You disapeared from the campfire for quite some time so I messaged you to see if all was well and you told me the story
.
As for me I only came failry close to death one time. On December 25, 2008, on 12;56 AM I heard someone knocking on my window. I jumped up and said who's that? I thought , no one there , it's -6F in the middle of the night. Funny though I smell smoke and I hardly had a fire in the fireplace. I get up and saw a little orange through a little bit of chipped out mortar so I knew there was a fire. Yelling to the kids to get out fast. The wife calls 911 and drives for help in her pajamas and slippers with the 2 kids. I was outside and went back inside . You are not supposed to but I did cause ( dont laugh) I had to get my dads gun from under the bed. A rem. 1100. or he would kill me. I didnt bother with anything else but my jacket and boots. As I was leaving I got a good wiff of some nasty smoke and almost fainted in the house. I got outside and was caughing real bad. I called 911 cause many times cell phones dont work but they already got the call. The lady said , no matter what, dont go back in the house. I think she was already suspicious from some hacking . A firefighter stopped by and looked around a few days later cause he worked at the lumber yard down the road and heard of the fire. started to question me a lot. After a while he asked, " how did you get out of here alive"? He had been at plenty of fires and said the chances were low that all 4 got out alive and wanted to know how I knew. I told him the truth. God allowed it but answered our daily prayer, that was to keep us 4 safe from what life hands us and God woke me up by tapping on the window 3 ' from my bed. It was like steel , or a stone tapping, and it was a sharp sound. The fire was 3' from my sons bed. He was likely saved from when I built the house , I put a lot of scrap drywall in the wall separating the fire from his bedroom. I did it just in case there was ever a fire. That is a good fire stop or at least slows it down. The fire was so hot that it went down the hall and into my sons bedroom. It melted the door handle off the door. It also burned a deer horn rack into dust on the far side of the wall. Right between the door handle and the deer rack, was his dresser . It had a bible on it. It was in perfect shape , completely un harmed. It was like a kids bible, called a Fire Bible. About 5' from where the fire started was a live Christmas tree. The window behind the tree got so hot that it turned the glass a silver color. The tree was completely un touched and the presents were in perfect shape. However, I was so mad at God . I remember being so mad that he allowed it, just 12 days after I payed the last house payment. I yelled at him and yelled why did you let this happen. God , for one of the first and only time he ever talked to me , he said " On Christmas day , I sent my son to spare you , and on Christmas day I spared you again". In shock , almost breathing out of control I decided to just accept the answer. Ain't no one ever going to tell me there is no God. He was there protecting us.

Keep at it Mike, stand strong and kick it's ass.

about2.5 years ago i had a stroke in the pons. no bueno. drs. were amazed my heart and lungs were working.

Right this second.

Yep