#13

In Bali, backpacking, years ago. Got sucked off a surfboard by a wave waayyyy beyond my (modest at best) ability to catch, after getting caught in a riptide and ending up much further away from the beach than intended. Ended up treading water coughing seawater out of my lungs a very long way from the shore. No idea how long I had to swim for to get to the shore, but it felt like at least 15 minutes. Developed a certain respect for the idea of not doing stupid things in water.

#14

appendix burst

#17

And that’s why 12 year olds shouldn’t drive

#18

fell about 20 foot off a rope swing into a pile of junk metal and bushes. missed the metal somehow, but escaped with a bad concussion (couldn’t remember about 6 month’s worth of events for a few weeks after).

#19

got into an unlicensed cab in Bolivia and the driver promptly pulled out a gun, got blindfolded and taken to an office to get robbed.

Luckily I had absolutely nothing of worth on my person and I was in the habit of leaving my wallet in my hostel and carrying cash only so they took my £20 and called me a son of a bitch when they found out my bag had a sweatshirt, a flask and a pack of nuts in it. They didn’t even bother to re-blindfold me and dump me somewhere, just got a slap and sent on my way.

Key lesson here is be very careful getting cabs in countries where your mere Western-ness marks you out as a walking bag of gold

This wasn’t a near death experience per se but there was definitely a tense 5 minutes where I was considering that I was about to die and it was not, shall we say, relaxing

#21

Yeah i kow right.

Not a near death experience and he didnt follow the rules!

3 Likes
#22

Talk about ‘insult to injury’ :open_mouth:

#23

Got on a cable car last year and my boyfriend freaked out that the doors weren’t shutting so jumped off and I jumped off after him…about 5cm from the cliff edge. The doors shut behind me and grazed my ankle. I still get so freaked out that I could have caught my foot in it and got dragged off the side of the mountain.

Other than that:

  • choked very badly twice (once on a lego brick, once on food)
  • got punched and almost fell in front of a bus on a main road in that process
#24

I remember this :frowning_face:

#25

Not long after that we watched a One Punch documentary and I was like oh shit could have actually died

Amazingly my cornflake incident this morning happened just across the road from the punch incident. I must start taking another route as that road is doomed for me.

3 Likes
#26

Your cable car story reminds me…

Few years ago was getting off a chairlift whilst snowboarding. If you’ve snowboarded you’ll know how such lifts are just not designed for snowboarders at all. I stumbled getting off the lift, which had slowed right down to let people on and off. I fell to my knees leaving the board facing upwards. The chair behind came through and jammed against my board (which was still attached to my legs) I couldn’t move and the lift was moving forward, kind of scraping against my board and wedging against it. The people operating the lift were chatting and not paying attention and I had to scream at them to stop the lift. A few seconds more and my legs would’ve been snapped in two. Probably wouldn’t have died though.

#27

Had a few scrapes which could have resulted in more serious, if not life ending injury but thankfully didn’t (knocked off bike etc). I think my “favourite” ones were

  • I used to take my then girlfriends little brother to the beach when she was at work. He was in a rubber dinghy and I was swimming alongside one afternoon when we were all of a sudden sucked out to sea on a stupidly intense rip tide (there were warnings dotted about, but this sucka seemed to come out of nowhere). We were out there for what seemed like an age, I tried swimming us in, but obviously this didn’t work. Could feel myself getting sucked under, I was clinging onto the dinghy with a sobbing 12 year old in tow). The life guard eventually rescued us, but it was a veeeeeery tense episode.
  • Me and the missus went on our honeymoon to Sorento. Beautiful place. The Hotel we were staying at was only a 45 minute walk from the centre (so said the sat nav), so when we arrived we thought we’d have a go and walk. Turns out this was inaccurate, and we ended up scaling a not insignificant hillside that started out as a pathway, but soon became a sheer drop. I was back against the wall, “Indiana Jones”-ing my way across what was once upon a time possibly a walkway but now a teensy ledge that started crumbling away when I was halfway across. I had to dive across to safety. Had I fell, I would have deffo been a goner
#29

Do hangovers count?

4 Likes
#30

Was lost at sea in an inflatable dingy until my dad swam out to get me

#31
  • When I was about 6, a rusty metal garden slide fell with it’s full weight on me, leaving me with a scar right above my eye that on my adult head is about four inches long. A centimetre lower and it could have been an altogether different outcome
  • Appendix burst when I was about 11. My mum thought I was faking illness because I didn’t like the supply teacher at school so put off doing anything
  • Passenger in a car accident driving back from Stanstead Airport when I was about 30. The car came off the road and slid on a muddy back into an advertising hording, which smashed through the windscreen stopping where my head would have been if I hadn’t leant to the side. That was one of those real everything-feels-like-it’s-happening-in-slow-motion moments, where it was actually seconds.
#32

Come on. This is DiS. Surely some indie try hard has actually died and come back to life ?

2 Likes
#33

Nearly drowned when I was 12. That wasn’t fun.

#34

So how bad did she feel?

#35

I’ve been the golden child who can do no wrong ever since :innocent:

2 Likes
#36

Actually, I was halfway there to being that following her guilt about a slide falling on me a few years earlier. The appendix thing just sealed the deal.