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Craig Earl
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Joined: 13 July 2019
Location: United Kingdom
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Posted: 15 August 2025 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

When I was eight, I was on a family holiday when my older brother decided to drag me into the deep end of a swimming pool.

I panicked, pulling him under, and then he did the same to me before kicking me away. I sank to the bottom of the pool and blacked out.

I woke up on the side of the pool, having been rescued by a girl who told me off for trying to swim out of my depth. I was completely out of it, dizzy from lack of oxygen for the next few hours before finally recovering.

This remains my closest brush with death (and something that I constantly remind my brother about). 

Anyone else cheated the reaper?
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Brian Miller
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Joined: 28 July 2004
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Posted: 15 August 2025 at 1:22pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

I’ve been struck by lightning
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 15 August 2025 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

I wonder if this counts?

When I was 12/13 my family lived in a planned community called Sherwood Park. Ours was one of the first houses in a new area that was being opened up, so there was constant construction all around us. For a few friends and me these soon-to-be-houses were like giant playgrounds. We climbed all over them, unattended.

On one occasion I was doing my Spider-Man impression (not literally, the character didn’t exist yet) across the highest roof of a new split-level house. So I was two stories up. Plus, the basement was still excavated, so the total drop was about three stories, plus the height of the roof.

I slipped and started sliding down the roof. My first thought was that if I grabbed in an effort to save myself I would certainly hurt my fingers. My second thought was that if I didn’t grab I would certainly suffer a lot worse. So I grabbed.

As it turned out I didn’t hurt my fingers and I clambered back to the hole out of which I had come, and back into the attic. Don’t really know how serious my injuries might have been. Three story fall. Couple of broken legs at the very least.

To emphasize how dangerous these adventures were, tho, a week or so later the younger brother of one of my classmates was playing in the excavation around the concrete wall of a new basement when the dirt collapsed on him and he was crushed to death.

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Matt Hawes
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Posted: 15 August 2025 at 2:07pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

JB: "...I slipped and started sliding down the roof. My first thought was that if I grabbed in an effort to save myself I would certainly hurt my fingers. My second thought was that if I didn’t grab I would certainly suffer a lot worse. So I grabbed...."

It's crazy how fast one's mind can work in such a situation.
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Matt Reed
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Posted: 15 August 2025 at 2:13pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

When I was probably 6 or 7 my family went tubing down a river in Minnesota.  It was fairly uneventful until the end.  The water turned into rapids.  The fast moving water dumped people off of inner tubes.  That wasn’t a big deal for adults, but for a kid that young that activity coupled with the water churning pulled me under.  I remember not being able to breathe and trying to find some way to surface when a hand reached out to pull me up.  It was not my dad, but a stranger.  I don’t remember the face at all considering it was over 50 years ago, but I’ll never forget that hand.  Felt like I cheated death in that moment, so I’m forever grateful to that stranger helping a struggling kid.   
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Doug Centers
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Posted: 15 August 2025 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

About 20 years ago, maybe less, I was sitting at a stop sign when in my periphery I noticed movement. I looked to my left just in time to see a truckless semi tire bouncing towards me at a high speed. Time enough for me to clench the steering wheel and close my eyes. The wheel hit the A-pillar of the car about 2 feet from my head, shoved my car onto the curb as the tire caromed back the way it came and landing about 20 feet away.
Seconds after that the semi that lost the wheel from its trailer came over the hill and parked in the gas station next to where my smashed car was sitting. By then I was looking at the damage when he came over to me practically frantic. He had seen the wheel break loose and roll past him after he had made a sudden stop, he was hoping it didn't kill anyone. It didn't.
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Shaun Barry
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Posted: 15 August 2025 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply


I can actually think of 4 big instances (one time wandering into traffic at 2--too young to remember; one involving a near drowning at 4; another falling out the passenger side of my mother's car, a few years later!); but I'll go with the "latest," for brevity:

Back in 2003, only a week or two before my wedding, I was traveling on the interstate for work, in the fast lane, when someone almost side-swiped me on the right (most likely distracted driving)--in order to avoid being hit, I swerved hard to the left, but lost control on my car in the process (going at least 70mph at that moment).  I instinctively turned into the serves, which more than likely kept me from either flipping into the median, or across the 3-lane highway pavement.  I had to do this about 3 or 4 times, in quick succession, all the while swerving all over the interstate lanes.  However, when my car finally came to a stop, I was facing directly into the oncoming interstate traffic (and a huge diesel truck!).  Thankfully, there was enough time and space for them to slow to a crawl, while I moved my car over to the right, and was able to back a couple hundred yards into a rest stop that I had just passed.

I don't mind saying I had the shakes and was practically in tears for the next 10 minutes.  That was the scariest & closest I ever came in my adult life to thinking, "I'm gonna die."  And too many split-second variables that could have ended badly.  

Got off the next exit and came straight home... took all day to come down from that one!




Edited by Shaun Barry on 15 August 2025 at 4:41pm
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Trevor Smith
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Posted: 15 August 2025 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

Hmm. I had to give this some thought, then had an "oh
yeah, that" moment. For a blink of my life, I worked in
a textile mill, in the knitting department, not as
innocuous as it sounds. Basically, cloth knitted from
umpteen rows of yarn winds down into a big, caged machine
and wraps around a bar until a big roll is finished.
Then you open the cage, unhook the bar with the roll,
take the roll off the bar, put the bar back in place,
close the cage and start all over again. And the holder
of the bar *really* whips around. Well somehow (to this
day, I still don't know how), the machine started up
while I was in it, but the bar was still inside and
jammed in between the cage and and the big whirling
frame, stopping it cold. That would have gone very, VERY
badly (and very messy) for me.
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Robin Taylor
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Posted: 15 August 2025 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

As a child I choked on a candy while the babysitter dealt with the trouble my brother was making. I got it out but sometimes I wonder if this is all what happened right before I died.

In my 20's I swerved to avoid a coyote, lost control and spun down the icy road until I landed sideways in a snow bank, within inches of wrapping my tiny car around a telephone pole. It was pure luck that it didnt go worse.

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