Why my future driving lessons will be carefull...
Lots of these seem to be about cars this week...

Well, i was a little nipper at my uncles garage, as he was a mechanic, and the task was to get the car from one end to the other. So I sat on my uncles lap (being just able to touch the pedals at this age) and was told to press the accelerator "gently". Not really knowing what i was doing, i instead "floored it" (These are the words used whenever the story comes up in family conversation now). So off this car goes heading towards the wall at the opposite end at high speeds, until my uncle took control again in time to brake hard. Who knows what could have happened to the little unseatbelted nipper on collision..
(Pigmash, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 13:59, Reply)

I was walking along the footpath minding my own business when I heard a crash and a squeal of brakes I turned around to see a car skidding right towards me on the pavement at about 20 mph. I froze and thought 'fuck. The car missed me by about 1ft. The twat in the car did'nt even stop he just gained control of the car and carried on down the street leaving me a shaking wreck for the rest of the day.
( Terry Oblong There's nobody here but us chickens on, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 13:40, Reply)

A line coaches - none are roadworthy
i was sitting on the coach to college the other week, travelling along the motorway, chatting to the driver when we were coming to some traffic lights before a major roundabout when out of nowhere the driver said 'i cant stop' , we were all like 'yeah haha ok' but then i noticed his foot was flat on the brake and we were fast approaching alot of cars so we swerved across 2 lanes and into the grass verge on the side. we all had a good laugh...later.
(Sparkypinkguitar, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 13:03, Reply)

this happened about 4 years ago.
I was walking to the bus stop across the street from my house,running around,being a twat as usual and while standing in the middle of the road,a bus sorta skimmed me.it was a few centimetres in front of my face and if i had been a bit closer to the middle of the road i would have been hit by it!
(That guy with a hat., Sat 27 Nov 2004, 11:55, Reply)

oooo dearie me
i had a near death experience the time my mum found some fags in my bag...they weren't mine, honest!!
(rosie-pie, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 11:43, Reply)

Car Events
I think I was around 11, and the parents had decided on renting a car while we were in Lanzarote. I hated renting cars abroad, because I simply couldn't be arsed to ride around in a car when I could be pratting around in water.
Anyway, because my dad likes to follow random paths, we found ourselves driving towards the edge of a rather sinister looking cliff. My mum instantly started screaming, I shat myself, and dad slammed on the breaks. About half a metre or so from the edge, mum undos her seatbelt and screams, 'I'm not staying in the bloody car, you'll fucking kill us all!'

Truth to be told, I wanted to get out too, when dad began the procedure of turning around on the edge of the cliff.

And another time, probably the same year, when my dad was driving me, my brother and my brother's mate somewhere. Going down one of those country lanes with fences and trees either side, dad manages to avoid another car, only to drive over what he said was 'a clump of grass'. I don't know how fast we were going, but the car managed to turn over until it ended on the side. I had my eyes squeezed shut, thinking, 'Why do I have to die listening to Boyzone?'
Fortunately, I didn't, and we all had to climb out of the sunroof. I also fell of my brother's mate, having been at the side of the car which was in the air and undoing my seatbelt, falling ontop of him.
I got a lift from a kind old lady back home. Only my dad had been hurt, and that was just a cut across the arm from shattered glass.
(MadGirlOfDoom, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 11:42, Reply)

when we were kids
My and my sister had two favorite stupid games : Stuffing as many wine gums as we could in our mouth (i think i could do 20 or so) and the other classic games jumping the last 5/6/7 steps of the staircase. Once i combined both and choked real bad. Its hard to breathe with wine gums down your throat and a broken ankle. I was somehow accepting the idea of choking to death with 20 gums in my mouth. Then, realising what the headlines would be if i died this way, i spat the whole thing. What a waste.
(Bertie, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 11:26, Reply)

Nearly squished...
In May this year I was nearly killed on the A14 Eastbound just by Cambridge services. For those who don't know, the A14 between Huntingdon & Cambridge is one of the most dangerous stretches in the country - 2-lane dual carriageway with lots of side roads & heavy freight traffic to & from Felixstowe.

I was steadily overtaking a Belgian juggernaut in my little Fiesta when he decided to pull out. Left hand drive - I'm in his blind spot. He just caught my back end, swinging me round until I was clamped to his front grill & then he pushed me sideways down the road for 200 yards. Loud screeching of rubber & metal & large lorry bearing down on one side, horribly close tarmac on the other. It all happened in slow motion as these things do & I was strangely calm as we scaped along.

Both my parents had died a month earlier (on the same day!) so I think my attitude was "Yeah, yeah, bring it on. You think you can stress me out any more?? Try being orphaned in a day!"

Amazingly the insurance decided the car wasn't a write-off. The repair bloke said the tyres were worn down to metal & canvas. He couldn't believe that one hadn't blown out. If it had, he said, I'd have rolled & the lorry would have driven over me & I'd almost certainly be dead.

I still have to drive along the same stretch at least once a month & now I develop a nervous twitch when I do... It's not been a good year, all things considered.
( Dunks, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 11:01, Reply)

Emus have lots of guts
This time last year, I had to drive a patient at the hospital where I work, home to Broken Hill for her mum's funeral. This, I thought, would be easier than the normal twelve hour shift. Five hours drive there, an hour in Broken Hill and five hours drive back. On the way home, I was about 180 kilometers out of Broken Hill, approaching a dry creek bed, when 8 emus ran onto the road. Unfortunately, coming the other way was a road train (a very large lorry with 2 or 3 trailers attached). He hit the brakes, jacknifed and then hit the emus in an explosion of blood, guts and feathers. When I saw that both trailers were at 45 degrees to the road but in opposite directions and they were about 250 metres away travelling very fast towards me, I knew I was going to die. I just remember thinking "Is that it?", no great enlightenment or anything spiritual. Just before the moment of impact, he regained control and drove past me with a wave. I sat there for about ten minutes trying to control my heart and bowels. I pulled over at the next roadhouse, explained what had happened and the owner just shrugged it off with "listen mate they are so full of amphetamines they have incredible reaction times".
(peewee13, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 10:35, Reply)

I was 12, a jolly wee stripling
playing cricket in my yard with my neighbour. He hits the ball out of the yard into the road, which is a corner coming down the hill.
I run out into the road, jolly, wee and a bit naive, just as some old farmer brown type comes speeding around the corner and knocks me into the drain at the side of the road. My sid was split open, my kidneys were leaking out, and the bastard old drunk comes out of his car leans over the ditch and offers me 120quid to stay silent about the incident. That, I think, was when my cynicism truly began.
(manicbranic, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 9:58, Reply)

Snowboarding over cliffs
So I was on a chairlift in the French Alps and saw some idiot snowboard up to a huge cliff edge with a 100ft drop onto rocks. "Arretez!" I shouted. He came to a stop and embarrassedly took the safe way down.

Feeling very pleased with myself, I got off the lift, did up my bindings and hurtled down some NASTY off-piste... "YAY!" I thought until I heard from the chairlift: "Arretez!". Yup. Same cliff. Scarier view.

Silly sport. Still doing it though. This week in Heavenly, South Lake Tahoe, California. WITH TREES!

David
( dbond, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 4:49, Reply)

...and my ears paid the next day
I saw Death at a punk club in Portland. Got up to the second row at one point, about 5 feet away from the guitar player's amp.
( luvtub, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 4:12, Reply)

Leeds Festival 2002
Sunday night... "The Night of the Riot". Exploding gas canisters, tents being set on fire, police in riot gear with dogs...

Bugger.
(Jillish, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 3:16, Reply)

Ecstasy and the Crossroads Motel.
I had this pill in a club once and it must have had a high dose of rohypnol or something in it because I can't remember anything until the next morning. I was with this gal at the time though, she's really horrible but I didn't realise that then.

She told me I was like striking up conversation with this taxi driver and she was really scared cause I was in drag and you know how taxi drivers are. So I COULD have died then.

And then when we got home apparently I was writhing about on the bed, TOTALLY out of it and pretty psychotic, moaning about how I'd love to be crucified. I'm sure if she'd complied with my wishes I COULD have died then too.

I'm sure I've come closer to death than that, but at least that anecdote was halfway entertaining and not TOO attention-seeking.

PS. Damn Newbie Tuesdie, I've been reading the newsletter for ages and I finally see something I want to comment on and I missed it. I'm going to tell you now whether you like it or not.

I appeared on the most recent series of Crossroads more than once. I'm so proud. I love that programme.
(Gandylion, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 3:00, Reply)

when my father's sperm fused with my mother's egg
i was but a zygote then, and seconds after being dead.
(Corn Dog, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 1:47, Reply)

Bloody welding gear........
I was helping a mate use an old oil cooled electric welder to stick together a new trailer from scratch.... Lumps of angle iron, a hitch, jockey wheel and 2 stub axles.... plus assorted sheet's of plywood etc....

so...

there we were, cutting and welding blah de blah....

when it started to rain...

PISSED buckets it did..... so.. we took shelter yes?

no.

carried on we did.....

then me mate (who was welding) asked me to hold one of the axle plates in place while he did the spot welds....

Ok... sez me, and for better grip, grabbed hold of the frame of the trailer....

with no gloves on....


and its raining.....



can you guess where the ground wire of the welder was?




as me mate was just about to touch the plate with the welder, I suddenly realised what was about to happen...

me in the middle, acting as a giant fuse.

I dont remember much after that, but me mate said that I actually kicked the trailer that hard as I jumped away, I bent the chassis....

that was the end of me and welding....

:-)
( TBL I posted this on, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 1:46, Reply)

I had a premonition this would be the new Question of the Week

pity that one isn't still open...
(ClockworkDespot, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 1:42, Reply)

when I was born...
Apparently I didn't breathe for several minutes.

Also, the first time I smoked marijuana I had a severe spak attack (actually thought I had come unstuck in time a la Slaughterhouse Five) and called an ambulance, the ambulance drivers told my flatmates "this guy's going in the ground".
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 1:35, Reply)

wires + necks = bad news
my friend's dad, when he was younger, was a passenger in a fast-moving convertible with his friends one night. they were out in the country somewheres where it was particularly dark, speeding like demons, and one of the friends stood up in his seat (one of those "woo!" moments i s'pose), when they passed under a wire of some sort and the friend's head was sliced off.

not a near-death experience in the usual sense, but my friend's dad was sitting .. near.. uh, death. ahem.
(harmless kitty, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 1:13, Reply)

Tree!!
When I was 12, my friend and I were on a hiking trail, when he figures we should take a shortcut. Being the fool I am, I start following him down this extremely steep hill - when I promptly stepped on a fallen beehive, which still had an asstonne of bees in it - so of course I start running as fast as I can down this hill. Now, if you've ever ran down a hill you'll notice that once your legs have enough momentum, you can't exactly stop. As I was nearing him, I outstretched my arms in an attempt to get my friend to catch me or break my fall.

The bastard, he stepped out of the way, and lo and behold there's an overturned tree directly ahead of me - which I hit, sending me head over feet for about 2 meters, shattering my shoulder joint upon impact with the ground. The near death part comes in when I look beside me, and there's the stump of the tree about 5 inches from my head, gnawed into a nice little point. I hate beavers.
( Hosehead, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 1:03, Reply)

Those fucken mushrooms...
When I was younger... I found some magic mushrooms and made a really nice tea out of the stalks. I had this great clean experience all afternoon with very little comedown. Naturally I decided later that night to consume the rest in between two slices of cucumber and a bit of miso spread. Well fuck man, I lost the plot bad... the fucking mosquitoes!!! they were everywhere!! eating me!! .... I couldn't stand it any longer, I had to get out of the broken down kombi, god knows who it belonged to..., I was spinning bad, tried to smoke a cigarette but could not keep it down. With the intense heat from the moon and the mozzis just eating me I had to lay under a sheet in the middle of the lawn and try to keep my head together. I started convulsing, my body was trying to deal with the pioson I had shoved down it's throat. Things were getting serious, I couldn't control the convulsions, my muscles were siezing, before long I couldn't move my hands, arms, legs and my jaw was locked so tight I could only breathe through my nose. I felt these intense waves of something like an electric shock pulse through my body from my feet up to my head. I started thinkin "this is bad. I'm gonna die. SHIT I"M GONNA DIE!!" After what seemed like an eternity of battling with the Grim Reaper itself, I let go and accepted the fact that I was going to die. "OK so I'm going to die..." Then everything stopped. I got up, looked around for a while, and went to bed.
(Astro Turd, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 0:56, Reply)

I shagged a dead corpse once
I'd say that was pretty close to death, its cold stagnent skin clinging to my manually lubricated penis
(lifelikeandposeable, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 0:14, Reply)

Umm...
Ramstein AFB airshow, summer 1988.

Need I say more?

Rather amazed to find it mentioned in a book of "The Fifty Greatest Disasters Of All Time."
(chazz, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 0:13, Reply)

A few marginally interesting ones.
I was fiddling with the AT connection on the case of my old pentium 120, when I noticed the insulation over the connection to the power switch had slipped off. realising that this had the potential, if a stray wire managed to contact it, to fry my computer and wreck the adolescence induced pornographic content on my hard drive, I opted to slip the sleeving back over. Now, sensibly and somewhat fortunately I removed the power lead from the power supply before hand, foolishly I neglected to think that the power supplies of days of old contain fucking huge capacitors with a huge fucking charge stored up ready to give the computer the kick start it needs to power up. rather than turn the switch on and off to let the power drain for that brief second, I go in, bare fingered and grab the sleeving. unfortunately the other sleeve had slipped a tad so therefore I managed to complete the circuit and recieve a cunting huge whack of voltage straight up the arm. Suffice to say it knocked me out cold and left me rather unstable for a few hours. Just as foolishly, I fell backwards and managed to hit my head against my melamine covered chipboard bed, cutting it open. The computer was fine.

The story doesn't end there folks, I wish it did. Having recieved an electric shock of annoyingly painful proportions I opted to go downstairs and take a piss. (Anyone who has recieved a good sharp dose of voltage will know this is a must!) My right arm was still quite weak, and would not support the weight of little old me. therefore, after putting my hand on the banister for support, I realised the arm in it's weakened state was as likely to offer support as drew barrymore is to offer me a blowjob. Unfortunately the obviousness of that particular fact only became apparent when I was already hurtling down the speed at somewhat of an alarming rate. Fortunately I suffered little more than carpet burn from that particular episode, even though I was due to empty a little more than my bladder afterwards.

Life can be a bitch at times.

Additional incident:

A few years back I'd been on somewhat of a bender for no particular reason. On the journey to a taxi rank I passed Nottinghams theatre royal. Anyone who knows the theatre will know that round the back is a ramp to allow access to the concert hall part for people without functioning legs, foolishly in my rather drunk state I forgot the ramp sloped upwards, and decided to gently hope over the wall. Unfortunately the drop to the pavement and wall surrounding a flower bed had escaped my alcohol damanged mind and I fell about 13 feet without any control to the pavement. Fortunately I managed to put my hands out to prevent a potentially fatal head/pavement meeting, and the car I rolled out into the road in front of managed to brake in time. I still managed to break a security barrier and take a piss off of the top storey of the car park later that evening though.
( Muns, Sat 27 Nov 2004, 0:03, Reply)

BayWatch kills 4.
It was 1996 and I was an anklebiter at the time.
Holiday in Florida and we were deciding whether to go to SeaWorld "Today or tomorrow?" We decided today and went. Saw the baywatch show with the whole "Out-of-control boat resulting in driver getting saved by busty babes" thing.
Next day; evening news on TV "Horrific Accident in SeaWorld as 'out of control' boat's steering mechanism locks, sending REALLY-out-of-control boat crashing into audience killing 4"
Roughly where we were sitting...

Also; A week after we left florida they had a tornado come over; lovely stuff.
(Sphelx, Fri 26 Nov 2004, 23:33, Reply)

We're all born to die,
so life really is a near death experience.
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Fri 26 Nov 2004, 23:06, Reply)

Shocking Story


I think I was about 12, and I had just heard about electromagnets in school. I wasn't actually taught how they worked, but I was determined to make one. I got home retired to my room and decided to make an electromagnet. I went down to the furnace room and got two long pieces of thick, heavy-duty, wire. I then went upstairs to the fridge and took a magnet. (you can see where this is going). I thought to myself how easy this would be. I taped, yes taped, one end of each wire to the magnet. Then, without thinking, I jammmed the other ends into a nearby wall socket. As soon as I did this several blue sparks shot out in a fraction of a second before the breaker shut itself down. This could have ended differently-thank God the wires were insulated!
(good_sniper_sent_by_God, Fri 26 Nov 2004, 22:35, Reply)

Not so light sabres
It was the summer of 77 and having just watched star wars light sabres were the toy to have. With the electronics of today not being available we decided some old garden fencing, with nails attached, would suffice as light sabres.
Lets just say that this is a close as a near death experience i would like to get when Dath BigBrother decided to Kill ObiWon LIttleBrother..

I did how ever go on to become more powerful then could ever imagine :)
(The_artist_formally_known_as_alz0r, Fri 26 Nov 2004, 21:59, Reply)

Near Death Experiences
Have had a few close ones, hitting a roundabout, passenger, at 80mph, etc. Best/worst one, though, was coming out of a coma, eventually remembering who the people around me were and getting the details. Seems I'd been drunk for a couple of years, had downed a bottle of whisky with a half bottle of rum, various beers, ciders, hash and speed. I'd been found at the bottom of the stairs in my close. I'd fell about 30ft over the bannisters, hitting a few on the way down. Coma, several fractures of skull, broken jaw, burst eardrum, 2 bloodclots on brain, right calf torn off. Took several more brushes with death to stop me drinking and taking drugs though. What an idiot.
(albinomeatpod, Fri 26 Nov 2004, 20:59, Reply)

Seeing half the answers here...
With there answers of "ooh i was so drunk and nearly ran somone over but i swerved and crashed the car into something and was fine!" Are just like the twats who ran into me in there car whilst they were drunk driving, ooh how i love severe concussions and many bruises (thankfully no broken bones.) Or are just like the one who skidded and missed me who did actually get off without injury... from the crash that is.*

^{*near misses tend to annoy me slightly}
(Voidedge, Fri 26 Nov 2004, 20:49, Reply)