"Nurse booted in flange by 8 year-old"
About 20 years ago I got this new bike. So here's me hurtling down a steep, gravelly hill outside my house with adrenaline-fuelled glee written all over my physiognomy, before, oooops, a corner. I slam on the front brakes, fly over the handlebars (still holding on of course) and land on my face. I think I skidded on my face for about 6 feet to the kerb before I stopped. No tears, no screaming but a freakin' shitload of bleeding. Until my mum arrived. Off I go to hospital, halfway there realising that I had ripped the inside of my lip out and looked like a landmine had exploded in my face, and getting suitable upset and throwing a monumental wobbler. The nurse takes me in, calms down mummy and the surgeon arrives. Things start to look ominous when mum holds my shoulders, and the doc starts picking bits of gravel out of my mouth and once she's finished that, starts on the suture. Well, I went fucking berserk as the horrible bint hadn't used an anaesthtic before stitching me up and to say she would have been a shite seamstress would be an undertatement. Berserk I go and in comes the other nurse to restrain my flailing, kicking legs, but not before I fucking HOOFED that nurse one, right in the fanny... My mum just stood there wishing she was dead with embarrassment. So it was my mum who was nearly dead, in a way, not me. And I'm sure that nurse was feeling pretty dead between her legs as well.

Apols for length, no apols for my greatness.
( Normanator Bad case of trapped wind since, Thu 2 Dec 2004, 10:42, Reply)

omg death!
1) i was a lifeguard for a couple summers, and one summer they were putting in a wading pool, some how, while they were doing this, they broke a water main in the park. this meant no running water, and we can't legally open the pool without running water so we had to close the pool while they were woking on it. since there were no gross slimy kids in the pool we decided to go swimming. of course we dicided to do things we're not supposed to, like jumping off the guard stand and doing lots of 45s. well i went up after the guys had already been jumping off, i lost my footing and managed to fall off, almost breaking my leg and missing the edge of the cement by mere inches. my staff thought that i broke something and tried to backboard me. as funny as the memory is, it was quite a scary experience.

2) the night before my 19th birthday i went to a party with a bunch of old friends from h.s. that i hadn't seen since graduation. i probably had two beers all evening, but didn't really feel like drinking, so when i finally got tired of all the drunkards and was ready for bed, i climbed into my car and decided to go home. the drive home was one i've been making for about 4 years and only about 10 mintute to my house, however i was more tired than i thought and managed to fall asleep at the wheel and smash into a giant meatal pole. my air bags didn't deploy and my face smashed into the steering wheel. someone found me on the side of the road and drove me home. when i got home, my roomate let me fall asleep with a concussion. i'm lucky i woke up at all. needless to say, my car was totalled and i spent my birthday in bed going 'ow'...
(rawr!, Thu 2 Dec 2004, 8:56, Reply)

On a school hiking trip...
at the age of 14, ascending some mountain in North Wales and we can see the weather closing in from the Irish Sea.

Fast forward to an hour or so later and we're further up the mountain in the midst of a kick-arse hailstorm. Freezing cold and barely able to see our hands in front of our faces, we push on.

The hail and mist lays off just long enough for me to glimpse a tall dark hooded figure in the near distance. Cue much getting down on my knees and praying, which is the only time i've ever done that sort of thing.

The weather cleared up a few minutes later and we all lived happily ever after...
(squirrelysquirrel, Thu 2 Dec 2004, 5:40, Reply)

not exactly near death but pain.
i was on a tryout list for travel softball. playing 1st base in tryout game. ball went round my glove and into my jaw instead. cue me rolling on floor screaming at the top of my lungs. coach came and told me to shut up. gave me icepak. i left early. cue not being able to talk or eat w/ out pain.
( Killerkitti Like my coffee black, just like my metal, Thu 2 Dec 2004, 1:51, Reply)

Stupid chavs
Living in Essex, I go to school with a fair few number of chavs. One day one of them brought in a flashy silver lighter, and told people he couldn't get it to work. Me liking fire A LOT, I decided to have a go.

Cue his chav mates laughing a lot as I get a small electric shock from the joke lighter. Meh, it was pretty funny I guess, and I did help him do it to other people.

Unfortunately I was out of the room when he gave the lighter to one of the Eastern European students we have. Who has a rare heart defect. Who held the lighter in his left hand.

I rushed into the room on hearing "oh shit oh shit OH SHIT!!!" from the chav, and saw said Eastern European guy lying on the floor not moving.

Luckily there was a teacher knowledgable in First Aid nearby. Paramedics were called, rather pointlessly because he was fine after the teacher saw to him. But he could have died.

His near death experience, however, was nothing compared to how close the chav came to death from shitting himself at the bollocking he received from various staff members, parents, other pupils etc.
( Detrius521, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 22:47, Reply)

Another "not me, but a friend" story...
I drive a classic Mini, and belong to a club of like-minded classic Mini drivers. During the summer months we potter about the country on the weekends visiting various Mini-shows.

On this one occasion, we had packed up our tents and were on our way back home. As we were belting up the dual-carriageway, some of the guys in the front of our little Mini convoy decided to pull over....whilst I and afore-mentioned friend were in the fast lane, trying to overtake an articulated lorry. My friend noticed that everyone else had pulled over and decided to do the daftest thing I have ever seen...which was to pull DIRECTLY in front of the artic so that he could join them. There couldn't have been more than a few inches between his back bumper & the artic's front. Cue lots of beeping horns & panic on my part. So it was near death for him, his passenger & the Mini! I almost crapped myself, carried on past the lorry & friends, and pulled over on the nearest slip road shaking like a leaf! Where I promptly burst into tears!

My friend no longer plays with articulated lorries. Though I think that seeing me in such a state after frightened me more than pulling the stunt that he did!

Should I apologise for length? Probably...!
(Krusty the Klown, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 22:21, Reply)

Another Girlfriend and Electricity Story
(Now Ex-)GF asked me to come 'round to her flat (for what I assumed would be totally different reasons to what I actually encountered) one evening after work, only to find she'd decided to decorate her hall ceiling. And she'd bought a new light fixing to go with the 'new look' - natuarally she assumed I would wire it up.

So I did - and being the safety concious lad I am, triped the main circuit braker to ensure that I didn't get done by some very dodgy looking 1950's wiring.

So I'm standing on a very old steplader, with the wrong size screwdriver (women!) when she decides to have a cup to tea. Right there at that specific point in time. So she (without telling me) goes over to the switch box, and flips the main circuit braker back in.

Needless to say I wasn't on the stepladder when she came back into the hallway - more slumped against the floor unable to bend my arm for atleast an hour.

Stupid cow.
( HSDriver was probably still at work on, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 21:29, Reply)

boozy ciggy whoopsy
About 4 years ago on New Years eve I got a mite plastered (as the rest of the population of Gloucester does to great extent). Upon carefully entering my house and only knocking a few bits over, I decided a final beer and a fag would be a great idea. Then a small amount of beer-blankness covers my mind.
Upon waking at 8am in my conservatory with a blanket on and a slightly concerned mother looking over me, she explained how she had heard me come in at 5ish. When I had not come up at 7, she came down to find a now dead fag butt on my rummy-tum-tum and a 4 inch burn mark in my brand spanking new shirt. How in the name of greek buggery I was not burned to shiteroo is a mystery to me. Suffice to say I now no longer smoke. But I do wank. A lot.
(daverule Poobumwobblebottynobnobsex, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 21:22, Reply)

Electric personality
My father worked as a mechanic at our local bus company. Occasionally he would let me accompany him to work on Sundays (he worked one weekend out four), where I would pretend to drive buses, and check out the girlie magazines in the lunchroom.

I discovered a spark plug conditioning machine in one of the workshops. You’d insert a plug into a hole and press a button. The end of the plug would be sandblasted. Press another button and compressed air would remove all of the crap. Press another button and a mighty spark would bridge the gap, assuring you that it was ready to reuse.

It didn’t take long before I stuck my finger in the hole and pressed button #3.

I woke up on the other side of the room with a small blackened area at the end of my finger.

I repeated the process on all of my subsequent visits, but of course I had to screw up my courage.

In later years I had to content myself with exchanging ungrounded electric guitars with my band mates. I think that’s what killed Keith Relf, isn’t it?
(Just a stub, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 21:18, Reply)

From school
First time: After being told specifically not to, my mate filled a 250 cubic cm measuring cylinder up with hydrogen, got me to put to hold it and then lit the end. The teacher told us afterwards that if it had had any imperfections, it would have lacerated everyone in the room and probably slashed our wrists.

About a month later in Physics: Playing about with the power packs that we're only supposed to use 2 volts on, but they go up to 12, so on guy thinks it'll be fun to make some sparks, so he whacks it up to 12 volts and starts touching a bit of metal across the contacts. Then he spots one that goes up to 20 volts so he gets that one instead, and leaves the metal plate across the contacts, switches it on, then tries to remove the metal plate with the scapel he's holding just as I walk past. He got a shock, which made him throw his arm back very quickly and throw the scalpel over his shoulder. It scraped under my chin and stuck into the wall behind him.
(Oily, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 18:18, Reply)

She's electric
When my girlfriend and I moved into our new house some of the light fittings and switches had been ripped out and the bare wires were left hanging. So she asks, "Do you think these are live?" and before I can say "I don't know but I wouldn't touch them.", she grabs the wires and sticks her tongue on them to test! I scream in horror... she just looks at me like I've gone mad and says "Nah, they're dead! What's with you?" before walking off, leaving me shaking and stuttering and not quite believing the level of idiocy I had just seen.
(bobobrains, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 17:54, Reply)

Well...
... Ive had three.

First, aged six. Choking incident # 1.
I put Miss Scarlett (of Cluedo fame) in my mouth, who in turn insisted on lodging herself in my throat. She obligingly quit trying to finish me off only after my dad had hung me up by the ankles and thumped me on the back for five minutes.

Second, aged seven. Choking incident # 2.
A tasty poisonous berry of some description. In a panic, my aunt (not the brightest spark) gave me some Tizer (?!). When this failed to stop me dying, she decided to take me to the hospital, where they made me yak, then took my temp in a very scary way.

Third, aged 24. Stupidity incident # 1.
Making my tea, lit grill with a cheap disposable lighter. Put lighter on top of grill for a moment, thinking "must move that before the grill gets hot". The next thing I know, there's a huge explosion and sharp pieces of plastic are whizzing past my face at 100-plus miles an hour, leaving a big, bloody groove on my face (well, I say groove, may have just been scratch).

Not bad in 25 years, I'd say. Sorry for length, got carried away by reaffirmation of life.
(littlemissperfect, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 17:49, Reply)

Camping.
This was my worst camping trip ever.
Went camping in lakes with two mates.
Got lost on a mountain and it was going misty so we decided to set up camp.
Everything was fine until i realised i'd forgotten me sleeping bag. I didn't want to let my mates know cos i was a tad embaressed, so i thought sod it. I remember it being the coldest night of my life (even with two pairs of clothes on, jumpers etc.)

Anyway I survived the night and woke up in a miserble mood with back ache and a stiff neck.
As we were descending the mountain, I didn't realise I had left my trainers on (my boots were in my rucksack) and proceeded to slip and slide on the grass - downwards. Fast. I couldn't stop running and hit a rock with my ankle and literally flipped off a short ledge down to the rocks. Mid air I remember thinking 'My mates didn't even try to grab me. Bastards!'. Luckily, the drop wasn't too far (about ten feet!) and I landed on my rucksack on the hard ground. I battered my legs on a rock but miraculously i was unharmed. I then proceeded to sulk all the way tom the bottom of the mountain.
That's not all. Later in the day, we all had a girlie tiff and I decided i'm gonna take MY map and go home. It was about a twelve mile walk back to Windermere and it was absolutely pissing down with rain. About an hour later I decided to climb over a metal fence as it was the most direct route to Windermere. I didn't realise it was an electric fence (i was oblivious to the warning signs due to sulking). After receiving a mild electric shock I just lay on my back in a shitty field in the lakes and rememembered thinking 'what's the point'!

Anyway, I found my way home and i'm alive as far as I know. Sorry for Lengthness.
(Kayozz, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 17:08, Reply)

The Lynx Effect
I was about 14 and me and a couple of friends had gone camping and out of boredom and a little pyromania we decided to chuck some deodorant cans on the fire we had going....

First we tried the Sure for men can it blew up easy, no probs! Then it was the turn of the lynx can. We waited with baited breath for the thing to explode then.....NOTHING!

So me being really pissed off with it not exploding took it off the fire and put it on the floor before shouting "Oi! James gives us that other can of lynx and your lighter" and thus the stupidest thing I have ever done happened. I aimed the can at the base of the other can and sprayed, lighting the spray from the can with the lighter screaming like a fucking banshee "FUCKING BLOW UP YOU TW..." before it did.....in my face.....well just about. I saw my life flash before my eyes (that was probably the flames though) and a lots of ringing in my ears...anyway I can remember then running to the stream near by shouting expletives at the top of my voice before dunking my head in and checking my face and body for injury.

Luckily I got off with a few minor minor burns and singed eyebrows, hair and arm/leg hair. Oh and red marks in one corner of my right eye, for which I was called rocky "cus it looked like tiger stripes and 'eye of the tiger' in’it"

Mum and dad were not impressed.....
(Itsnothiphopitselectroyouprink, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 16:54, Reply)

If only I'd known
Last November me and Mr S drove our Land Rover to Morocco. We drove some very scary mountain tracks, after heavy rain, with a steep camber leaning our top-heavy and fully laden vehicle towards a 500m drop.

That was enough to make me shit myself. But it also turns out we drove 6140 miles with fucked brakes. My husband-mechanic was secretly topping up the fluid every morning, and by the evening it would all be gone.

He told me this last week.

I love him so much.
( Safetyfox, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 15:50, Reply)

close...
about 2 years ago when it was bonfire nite we were all avin a good laf and stuff and we THOUGHT we used all of the fireworks up so we threw em in the bonfire and i stood round the back of it and sudenly a fucking huge rocket comes flying towards me luckily i like leant back and fell on the floor and i could feel the heat for a sec (i was bout 11 :P)
(umbobu, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 15:03, Reply)

When I was almost permanently high
ten years ago we were hangin' out at this guy's place which was on top of a high ribver bank. So we finished another joint and went for a ..erm.. walk. There was a nice winding footpath to the bottom of the slope (it was, say 25 meters/75 feet high) but we decided it'd be better to have furious run straight downwards. So we ran. That was a speed! The slope was really steep..
so i stumbled over some root - and oops - I'm flying! Yeah! I flew for may be 8 meters, but then the gravity won and I fell down. Shite! my head stroke ground some 30 cm from a piece of concrete. I rolled couple of times, and soon stood up just to find out that i haven't broke anything. That was close..
(Restoration Dept., Wed 1 Dec 2004, 14:56, Reply)

Another light bulb......
hungover as hell and going out to buy bulbs to fit in the cooker hoody thingy, my other half threw the old bulbs away. cue standing on tip toes and putting my finger in the bulb socket to see how big the fitting was. Couldn't feel the screw fixing, so mushy brain says "put yer finger in further".

Flew across the kitchen and sat twitching for the rest of the afternoon.
(Lemster the sound of one luma clamping, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 14:51, Reply)

The most scared my best mates ever been.......
When I was about 10, we were playing man hunt in the Grave yard, as you do...and i (being a bright spark) decided to hide in the top of one of the tall yew trees. Fasdt forward 10 minutes and 2 of my mates are climbing up the tree to get me, so I do what any other 10 yr old with no sense of danger would do .... and run around the tree to escape capture, untill stepping on a twig, which broke and sent me falling from the top of the tree. My best mate who was standing at the bottom of the tree looked on in horror as I hit the top of a headstone with the middle of my back, bent double the wrong way and bounced off to land on my knees at the foot of the tree.....needless to say, breathing wasn't easy....still think i should have gone to A&E rather than my grans for tea,biscuits and rest !!
(Stretch, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 14:26, Reply)

Never smoke so much dope . . . .
That you sit on a bed melting one full lighter with another one.

I was facinated to see the plastic of one lighter being melted with the other one, as I was so stageringly stoned, I failed to realise that should it burst I would be engulfed in a huge flaming firebomb of much nastyness.

Luckily the escaping gas blew out the out the other lighter and I collapsed in kneee shaking shock :/

Won't do that again.
(Tetsugaku-San www.thetalldesigner.com, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 13:35, Reply)

mesing wiv lectriserty.
to second our resident and ranting Sparkie I sticked my fingerz into light-bulb holes in dark roums to find out wot tighp of bulb it is meanted to have innit.. I are regularly shokking myself wiv lecktricity.

Hasn't Hurted me in enny way.
( Humpty Dumpty was Pushed Is unaware of having any limits., Wed 1 Dec 2004, 12:50, Reply)

drive by
I had a fight with this kid at school, right. It ended on an odd pause, because neither of us was brave enough to continue fighting, so we both stormed off in a rage, shouting 'come here then if you wanna fight!' and 'no , YOU come HERE!' until we both fucked off.

Anyway, I was really pissed on the way home from school, and crossed the street without looking. A fat man driving a car had to brake hard not to hit me. I ran across the rest of hte road, and he opened his window and said, to the letter: "Bastard. If you do that again I'll FUCKING run you over!".
He had 3 of his kids in the car with him, who were all looking a bit shocked.
(Tonay, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 12:34, Reply)

long time ago my missus....
... was working as an AuPair in London (the way all cute swedish girls seem to do) and was worknig for a particularly cuastic bitch who's parenting skiils could have been bettered only by her suicide.

At 9:00am, a particulary tired little AuPair wakes to hear a screaming-rumbling noise near her head, and gets out of bed to investigate... just as she nears the door, a drill bit of Disturbing length came blasting through the wallpaper right next to her head, stopping rather close to her pretty face...

Apparently the family had packed up and left for the weekend without even informing thier AuPair that they'd be gone...
The "workmen" were in to "fix the house" (re-build everything 18 times as the caustic whore continually changed the specs and designs) and were told that the house was empty and that they should "carry on".

The poor fella nearly died of shock when he reasilsed that his prized 12mm Masonry bit had nearly taken her eye out...

4 inches away from being a very exiting story....
( Humpty Dumpty was Pushed Is unaware of having any limits., Wed 1 Dec 2004, 12:27, Reply)

where's the floor
One drunken evening staggering towards home from the boozer, I was caught short. I spied a dark corner behind a short, maybe 1-1.5 foot high wall. I jogged up, leapt over the wall ... to wake up flat on my back, staring at the night sky from the bottom of a 12 foot hole that was on the other side of said wall. I got up, noting that my head was inches from a nasty looking steel ladder, which I must have skimmed the whole way down.

I relieved myself, climbed up the ladder, and continued home, until I realised that my watch was missing. I had to go back, and grub through muck, leaves, piss etc. to find the damn thing in the dark.

I suppose it wasn't that near death, but if I squint, I can imagine it was close.

I do remember driving through country at high speed once, in my youth, 4 wheels off the ground over a hump back bridge, to see a young mother with a very startled look on her face as I landed on a direct path to her offspring. Near death for her, but I managed to regain some semblance of control and keep going. My mum wondered why her sump was broken the next day, and the car never tracked right again. All I could say was 'dunno'.
(jasp, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 11:21, Reply)

not my near death but an idiot telewest guy's
installing the cable TV he had to drill through a wall. he said i didn't need to turn off the electricity.

twat drilled through the wall and straight through a live wall socket. somehow missing all the instant death wires.
( monstrinho do biscoito teeeshurts = www.nogunarmy.com, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 10:56, Reply)

the amount of times
MY mum has nearly killed me by getting into near misses with cars is shocking. I think God doesn't like me :(
(Roland Deschain, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 10:51, Reply)

I came near death once...
...I wiped myself off on his cloak.
(manky dog, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 10:22, Reply)

Lost a fight to barbed wire once
When I was about 7, I thought it would be a laff to climb a tree, cos Ninjas kick ass. Only prob being, the tree thought otherwise, and the branch I was on snapped. I fell 10 foot and landed on a hidden rusty barbed wire fence, and got barbed wire embedded just above my adam's apple. Cue lots of running home with blood pishing out of my neck screaming.
After laughing about it in hospital, the docs said that another centimetre higher would've punchered a main vein and I would have bled to death. Not too keen on trees now. But ninjas are still sweet.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 9:00, Reply)

Lorries are scary now.....
I was living and working in the UK in 2001. Bought myself a bicycle to cycle to work and back. On my way home one sunny Friday afternoon, I was on my bike on a foot path and wanted to cross the road. There was an arctic lorry on my right hand side and as I started to cross the road, the lorry started to turn left. Towards me. First thing that went through my mind was.... That's IT! I'm DEAD. I tried to get out of the way but it just kept on coming. The left front wheel went over my right leg, bum and part of my back. Somehow I got freed up and ran away only to go sit down on the pavement in complete amazement that I’m still alive. Had to get 2 screws put into my hip. Spent 3 months on crutches nursing a broken pelvis and I still have to undergo a reconstruction operation to attach the muscles in my bum to the right place. Afterwards the doctor said that if the wheel went over me 1 inch further, my liver, testicles and lung would have been crushed, killing me instantly…. Close, so close.
(LaughingJack, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 7:23, Reply)

A couple years ago when on the way home from a bar I fell asleep while a friend was driving. I woke to us flying over a ditch. I couldn't sleep in cars until just recently.

About a week ago when I was headed back to my parents house for break a tractor trailer ran me off the road. We were going about 80 miles per hour and there was one of those metal guard rails coming up while I had one tire on the shoulder and the other in the grass. If I pegged the brakes I'd lose control and roll down a ten foot hill (not too steep but steep enough to scare me). If I kept going at the speed I was going at I was afraid I'd run into the guard rail and I couldn't imagine that being pretty. I somehow managed to not crash and spent the rest of the trip swearing at the truck every time it was near me.

Actually. Cars don't seem to like me much.
(thppp, Wed 1 Dec 2004, 5:44, Reply)