Near Death........Been There Done That!
I dont know if I'm just unlucky or if someone up there has it in for me,

Just how near is NEAR?

I had my first proper "Near Death Experience",

As in "Sorry mate, thats your lot" when I was only 16.

While skin diving at a place called St Abbs,
trying to lever a large lobster from its home in an underwater crevice, upside down, feet up on the roof, pulling hard,(insert your own joke here!)
and .........Shit!
Rockfall !
Me, green as grass to the diving thing ,
Lost my mouthpiece,
Trapped by falling rocks and promptly gulped down what was rather too much North Sea.

(I dont even like lobster!)

Fortunately, A N Other diver
(Dave, to who I am obviouslly still indebted to) Who was near to where it happened, managed to get me free and to the shore and I was quite literally, pumped out and "kiss of lifed", back to life,(no tongues,honest!)

Having actually been Dead...!
Drowned,
Full hit ,
Flatline,
No pulse,
No Heartbeat,
Full on F****ed!
No lights at the end of tunnel or any of that...........!
Just an "Oh Shit" sense of panic and the memory of the metallic taste in my mouth on that one ,

Yes There's More.

Three years and numerous high speed motorbike crashes later...................

I worked out that the sense of slow motion thing was actually your body pumping more and more adrenaline to your brain to help it deal with what can safely be defined as an

EMERGENCY!

I'm not even telling you about the electric shocks!

Too many close calls to even list.

Then of course there was the Hang Gliding incident!
Sennen Cove near Pollpero in Cornwall,
Me ,
Big gang of Biker mates,

Ten minutes verbal instruction
(it was a long time ago)
on how to do this,
that,
and land.
"Who's First?" the geezer say's,

Why was everyone looking at me?

"Sounds easy mate!
I'll have a bit of that".
Shitting it really.

Two hundred feet high Cliff.

Great fun................Nothing like the feeling when you run off a cliff for the first time with a few bits of scaffold pipe and some canvas on your back
(well, looking back, thats what it was really)

superb sensation,
fantastic view,
really,really great!
What was it he said about not banking too tighly on the turns...........?

PLUMMET!

Oh Yes !
"Dont bank too tightly on the turns kids,You know it makes sense!

Broken leg ,three ribs, sprained wrist and, Never,I mean NEVER will you get me up on one of those things again.

Last one......................WELL I HOPE?

Five years ago ,BAD Pain...No.

BAD,BAD Pain,in guts.

I'm so tough!
(read STUPID!,
Pain is gods way of saying "your not well,no really, the more it hurts,like hell ,the more your probably not well).

Ignored the cumulating pain for four days before going to casualty!

Twisted Illium,

(Basically your small intestine tries to make one of those little balloon animals that those crap street entertainers do.)
Rushed straight to theater for an emergency operation .
Massive Scar from groin to midchest where some geezer had both his hands and a meccano set inside me.

Told post surgery that I was VERY,VERY lucky to be alive, He said I was a couple of hours off of Peritonitus and would not have survived .
Massive section of necrotic bike inner tube removed full of nasty's,

Dont even ask me about the old guy on the recovery ward who thought it was still during the war and kept trying to "escape".
I woke up on the second night being pulled out of bed by the various drains, catheters and iv tubes that were attached to the stand that he was climbing up, having crawled around the ward under the beds,

The bit that really got me about that was, I was fully paid up in BUPA and my operation could have bought my Private Surgeon a nice new BMW, if only I'd gone to the slightly further down the road private hospital,
rather than the local casualty..........!
Oh well ,I'll remember next time.

Dont talk to me about Near Death Experiences,
I've shit 'em.
(The Return of The Mack, Thu 25 Nov 2004, 21:43, Reply)