Close calls you may of had.

Anyone feel like sharing stories about narrowly escaping injury or worse.

Ive had a few but would love to here yours.

Mine is somewhat gambling related too. 

Fell asleep at the wheel driving back from AC, swerved through a couple lanes before my wife who also was also dozing off grabbed the wheel and I gained alertness to pay attention. Interestingly enough there are signs up all over the expressway to stay awake, stay alert and that type of thing.

It was mid afternoon too and I actually felt ok to drive but it happened anyway. Whenever we go to AC we always take a moment to reflect on that occurence.

Driving back from Phoenix to LA in my sisters car backed full of her shit after she graduated from ASU. It was pouring rain and she had a run down corolla with no tread on the tires.

I was definitely going a touch too fast in the left lane between Pasadena and the valley, hydroplaned and did 2 full 360’s across 4 lanes. If the car would’ve veered left instead of right I would’ve hit the center divider and rolled it going 75. Biggest adrenaline rush I ever felt. Never even pulled over just ended up at 45 mph on the far right lane. Pure luck no cars were next to me in the other lanes

Ive also ended up in jail in Cabo on a wild night but that’s a whole other story 

Dark waters deviously developing death¡¯s embrace , respiration went away replaced by the necessity of breath the place

just above Africa , just below Sicily , lungs crushed like some asthma , only my bubbles float , the misery

drowning in decay , I¡¯m no flounder making his rounds about the Bay , I¡¯m no coward , no Prince Adam , but ¡° I have the Power ¡° and found a way

Banana fingers father with the mighty grip and the pluck , pushed me above the liquid and in an instant my vision¡¯s fixed fucck !

chasing a ball in the ocean¡¯s cruel waves , made me float , roll over , lose hope and prove fate

is not only in your own hands , but also in the hands of those that love you 

so confused , chucking spew , throwing up seaweed that was fuccking blue

something true

something real

with honestness

No oxygen ,

pontificating on what my father did , switching God¡¯s decision and I got to live , proverb or hot verse , prophet or monster it¡¯s , 

the proximity to being killed that freed

my will to spill what¡¯s real to me¡­¡­

I've had a few but i'll start with this one. In 1999 or 2000 i bought a '79 T-Bird from a friend of my wifes. this was during my crack days. I never registered it or got insurance and used my old plates plus it needed a Brake job and no license

Had to keep pumping the brakes to slow down. So i left work on a break to go a couple miles to another of my wifes friends to pick up money for pills. she worked in an industrial area that had recycling yards and junk yards and junk car yards.

it was one of those misty cold days and i was headed back to work driving a little too fast when all of a sudden in the oncoming traffic lane was this Box Truck that turned left in front of me about 50 yards away so i start pumping the brakes.

The car fishtailed slid the front end under a flat bed tow truck about a foot away from my windshield. The car careened and the back end hit a parked car with a family of 4 in it. My car was totaled

So escaping with my life i get out of the car and the owner of the lot came out and i said, " Call the cops. I have nothing" no license, no reggie. no insurance and switched plates.

The cop shows up and talks to the 4 ppl that were in the car i tail ended and they did'nt want to press charges. Then the cop talked to the owner of the lot and it turns out that the ppl in the car were going to buy the car i hit. The owner asked me if i give him my car he won't press charges.

i said deal. The cop let me sit in his car while he was questioning these ppl. So the cop gets in the car with me and says that i was looking at big fines and license suspension ( which i had no license) plus jail time.

I walked away with 3 summons, no jail and was still alive. I came within a foot of a possible decapitation.

Like I mentioned, Ive got a few, heres one.

My good friend owns this bar. His brother is tending bar. His name Tom is on the back of his shirt. More on that later.

George thee owner and I are playing that old bowling game, with the puck and that saw dust you sprinkle on the lanes.

Guy comes in with a shotgun and says hey Tom, and mutters something.  I figured if this guy knows the bartender by name, is he selling this shotgun or what? I was a kid . I was dumb!

Little did I know he just caught a glimpse  of the back of the bartenders shirt. I made a wise crack jokingly, where by he pointed this 30ot6 at my head.

Didnt rob the customers just the till. Whole thing lasted only seconds and he was gone.

 Funny thing was, when we went for a lineup a week or so later 3 of the people sent with me to ID picked an acquitance of mine who was there on unrelated charges. Had to talk them out of that. Later on an eyewitness saw him load it in an alley before coming in. The guy that did the robbery had very glassy eyes like he could have been on something. Didnt notice that until I caught his attention with my joke. He was never caught.

 Have had a few......but this one always gets me. When I was around 11-12, my buddy & i used to ride bikes down to a beach on Puget Sound. There used to be a small, gravel parking lot at the end of the road, then you crossed RR tracks to get to the beach. The area was called "Picnic Point". Once when we were there, we heard a train coming & just guessed which set of tracks it was on & put a couple pennies on the track. Turns out we guessed wrong. So while this train is rumbling by, we pick up our pennies &, like kids, we start throwing rocks at a freight train.

 I notice outta the corner of my eye that my buddy started walking back towards the beach, so I throw one last rock, turn & take a few steps & a train heading in the opposite direction lays on its horn right there.........never saw it, never heard it until it hit the horn.......right on the tracks we were standing on 10 seconds before hand. An absolute freak deal that a NB & SB train would pass each other right there, right then. These things are going 35-50mph.......we would've been reduced to goo.

 Since that time, a number of people have been killed by trains there. There's now a nice parking lot & pedestrian bridge that crosses over the tracks.....

Some great stories here folks.   My second 1 which is my 1st brush with death is...

I had a great life as a child from 5 years old to 13 til i moved and started smoking weed. Lived in a neighborhood that had like hundreds of kids and we played every sport under the sun year round. was in a neighborhood that didn'nt have much traffic so we played all 4 major sports in the street and we started doing cycling and converted our Sumps to football and baseball fields. Musta been during '76 olympics that we started doing bike races. Our Blocks were rectangular and conected to side streets.

Each team would go in opposite directions and do 1 lap then hand the bike off to the next teammate. so i get on the bike and do my second side road turn and as im making the turn.. this 1974 station wagon was barreling down the road and he didnt even slow down and i hit his back wheel and flipped over front first about 3 times and got up and he kept going.

I got up without a scratch. Back then there were no bike helmets. if there were we didn't know of them.

Escaped serious injury or death for the 1st time

vetdrm:  You have no idea what a can of worms you have opened.  This rabbit hole runs so deep I've no idea where to start.  You guys go ahead and I'll figure out a way to start my chronicles.

In 2018 at the age of 33, I should have died. How so? I was a daily heavy drinker (drank to get extremely drunk but not black out drunk) and that one morning after I took my morning p1ss, I felt "lightning" shoot down my back. This was truly an odd sensation that I had never felt before in my life. I go to work and then my supervisor takes me to the ER due to my persistent heart burn all morning . They do all the standard tests (blood work, x rays) on me and then the radiologist comes into the ER room and says to me:

"You need to have emergency heart surgery right now. We've called the closest heart surgical hospital and they will be AIRLIFTING you to their location.."

After being told that, I was in disbelief. It just couldn't sink in that I was going to get heart surgery at the age of 33. The radiologist then explained the my x ray to me and said that I had a Type B aortic dissection and that with each hour that passes, the probability of me dying increases by 1%..

Had it not been for my supervisor, I would have went home, popped some aspirin and probably would have never woken up. The FIRST cardiothoracic surgeon ended up doing a "temporary" aortic arch graft. Flash forward 6 months later, I recover BUT I also had a mild case of aortic regurgitation (a "leaky" valve) and the first cardiothoracic surgeon told me that I needed a more COMPLEX heart surgery to replace my aortic valve (due to the regurgitation) along with the whole aorta from the aortic valve, all the way down to the descending aorta close to my stomach with some Darcon graft. The first cardiothoracic surgeon said that he could do it but it was well beyond his expertise and that he would gladly recommend me to somebody who specializes in that kind of surgery. The SECOND cardiothoracic surgeon gave me the option of choosing a:

-mechanical valve (made of pyrolytic carbon, makes a distinctive clicking noise EVERY TIME YOUR HEART BEATS, lasts "forever" BUT you have to be on blood thinners for the rest of your life)

-bovine (cow) or porcine (pig) valve. (doesn't make a noise, needs to be replaced in <10 years, patient takes blood thinners for 6 months after surgery, often preferred by younger, active people)

I chose the On-X mechanical valve because I NEVER want to go through heart surgery AGAIN!  I've been "cracked open" TWICE! 

Here is an example of how my 2nd surgery was performed. (They actually stop  your heart for 1-2 hours! ) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SW2CQQ5ANRY&ab_channel=CryoLife

Remember, health is wealth! No amount of money can ever replace your health! It looks like God left me on this Earth to do something... As of today, I'm still trying to figure out what that something is  and I'm thankful for the 2 chances that God has give me. Maybe it's to troll zebra and his craps system.. 

All great stories start off with this opening statement 

Good read 

This one was my 2nd death nail..

I believe in guardian angels and i have one. i was born in March 1965 and my brother was born in May 1966. He never left the hospital as he was born severly under developed. He died 3 months later and i believe that with certain circumstances i put myself in that he's been behind the scenes looking out for me. This next incident is Bone Chilling.....

Was 17 or 18 and i had a friend whos father owned an AC+R Company and he worked for his dad. He used to pick me up and go on calls with him to like delis and bars.

so 1 day he comes to my house and was all excited and says he found a different kind of high. turns out he was charging an ac unit with freon and the hose had a leak and he got a buzz. so we go out to his van and he gave me a hose and turned on the tank and it was a different kind of buzz.

We did this on several occasions until the ultimate happened.

He loved to fix up VW Bugs and had 1 in his dads yard at the shop he was working on and says to me and another friend, " let's go in the bug and roll up the windows and pass the hose around'. we're like, yeah, great,awesome!

So we do it. i'm in the back seat of this 2 door bug and i had the hose and the tank was on. we all pass out with the tank still on.

i passed out with the hose on my neck and all of a sudden ( i coulda been halucinating) i see this kid between the bucket seats looking at me and choking me and saying "WAKE UP! WAKE THE FUCK UP'. I started screaming STOP FUCKING CHOKING ME OVER AND OVER AGAIN. My 2 friends woke up and both said that they were'nt choking me.

I did'nt think about it again until 2005 after i moved to Vegas. My AC+R Friend and I were big Pink Floyd fans and they reunited with Roger at Live Aid 2 so i was out of touch since 1992 when we both got married.

So i knew his old home phone number and figuered i'd call it to see if he still had it. he answered and we got to talking and he brought up that incident and thanked me for saving our lives. Then about 30 min after we hung up the other friend called me and thanked me.

They both said if it wasn't for me they wouldn't have their wives or kids. We;d be dead.

Yes i believe my dead brother is my guardian angel and it was him choking me to wake me up. There is a reason i'm still here and i guess it's to take care of my crazy wife.

He probably was there for the car accident and the bike incident too. Now i feel that one of the orbs i have in my house is my dead brother Gary.

He may be the reason that my wife has bad aim with all the projectiles she throws at me.

I also had a cold sore on my neck for like 2 weeks. it was ugly. scabbed up and was all red. told my parents i was with a wild chick the night before.

@TheGoldenGoose

 I hear ya bud.. but had to do it

Tire shredded on the highway look in rear view saw sparks pulled over.

@Mark_The_Narc

 I've had a couple of those falling asleep at the wheel nights a couple slaps to the face and I'm good.

My friend and I were leaving a bar when we spotted a pimp in a fur coat talking too a few of his girls. My friend is 5'5" and 135 lbs (thought he was 10' tall) and mouthy as hell when drunk. So he starts calling the pimp a pretty boy and is blowing him kisses. I am getting pissed and tell him that guy might have a gun so shut the f**k up before he shoots us. I get his drunk ass in my pick up and we see the pimp jump in a cadilac at which point my friend begins yelling stuff and the pimp begins yelling and pointing at us. I take off and the caddy pulls up next to us and the guy is waving a gun and shouting. I am going as fast as I can heading towards the interstate with this guy in close pursuit and at the last second I take a ramp to I95 and the pimp tries to follow but skids on the ice and slides in to a huge gulley of snow and ice. End of chase. I have a few more stores  but alcohol and bars are usually involved