Close Calls

[terpkristin]

Just saw some news about a helicopter wreck on I-70 in Maryland on Thursday night where all 4 people aboard the helicopter were killed. The crash is believed to have been caused by some terrible weather that was in the area. 4 in Md. chopper crash had been at charity event - Yahoo! News

I was driving to my parents' house (in Columbia, MD) with my sister on Thursday evening. We were driving along I-70 on our way there from West Lafayette, IN, and were caught in that storm. By our calculations, we were only slightly east of the accident site when it happened. It was a wicked storm, we were in it and driving ~35 mph (max) for a good stretch of road.

It dawned on me that I've had some relatively close calls in my life, was wondering if anybody else has..

My others:
The F3 tornado that hit College Park, MD hit on my birthday in 2001, as I was driving from my place in Adelphi/Hyattsville to a boyfriend's house in Laurel. The College Park Tornado of September 24, 2001
I was on 193 when it hit (yes, I ignored all the tornado warnings), and was probably within about 500 feet of where 2 girls were killed by the tornado when their car was lifted. Of course, until it was all over, I hadn't even realized I'd been in a tornado.

Getting administered a drug I have a known allergy to by an anesthesiologist in 2004. It was all over my paperwork that the drug caused problems for me, but the doc thought I didn't know what I was talking about and gave it to me. Thankfully (?) I don't recall much of it, but my parents do, as they were there as I wasn't waking up.

Anybody else with close calls? I never hear about "close call" stories except for people on the news (to recall Jeff Foxworthy, "I was almost killed or even worse!").

/tk

[Karlifornia]

Not sure if this qualifies, but, when I was five years old, my mom and I were flying United to Ohio to visit my dad's parents. The flight ahead of us was supposed to land at O'Hare, where we were supposed to catch a connecting flight to Dayton. Instead, it crashed in Sioux City, Iowa, and our plane circled overhead for some reason. We eventually landed at O'Hare, but had missed our connecting flight. We were stuck at O'Hare for like 8 hours, and finally got two standby seats on what turned out to be a very turbulent puddle-jump to Dayton. My mom, who is an awful passenger in any vehicle, screamed a few times during the worst of it. I was embarrassed. As we got off the plane, a little girl about my age pointed at my mom and said "There's the lady that screamed"

None of this would have happened had Sully been flying United 232.

[Bad-example]

One time I went out around midnight to go get some fast food or something. Right when I stepped into the street a lowrider was going by. They saw me and stopped as I was trying to unlock my car door. There were four figures in the car, and the passenger-side door popped open just as I tried quickly to get inside.

That was when their engine died. I heard a whispered voice and that car door closed as they tried to restart their piece of shit. I got in my car and drove away, but to this day I believe a knife and at least a mugging, probably a stabbing, was very likely if that engine hadn't died.

[kcchief19]

Amazingly quite a few. If I were a cat I figure I'm down to 3 or 4 lives. My house has been hit by a tornado (just lost the roof, but homes within a 1/4 mile were destroyed) had my house hit by lightning (twice) been struck myself by lightning (long story but not a big deal), had my car spin out and was nearly impaled by a hay baler. I know there are others but those are the biggies.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Let's see, saw a tornado lift less than a hundred yards before hitting my great-grandparents house head on when I was a little kid, watched a tornado jump over our house as a teenager, but the one that feels the closest was a fast food run around midnight back when I lived in Atlanta. Nothing unusual about it, went to Krystal, got a sack to go, went home. Next morning I get up & read how two armed robbers came in to that same Krystal and the night manager gave them everything they asked for but as they started to leave they turned around & shot him twice in the head killing him ... all of that about 20 minutes after I left the restaurant.

[Honolulu_Blue]

I've had two.

I was driving back to school in Ann Arbor from home. It's only about 45 minutes. It was snowing, I was on the highway and the van in front of me hit its breaks, I hit mine and begun to spin around. There was a semi truck, trailer and all, to my right. My car spun in that direction and then spun back to the left towards the median. Luckily, instead of driving right into and under the truck, my tires caught then and I ended up driving into the median, which at that point, was a wide, flat plain of grass and snow. I ended up driving in the same direction I was headed and calmly pulled back onto the highway as if nothing had happened.

Later that year, I was driving back from a job interview in Illinois. It was snowing, I hit my brakes, spun to the left, went into a ditch, back out of the ditch into on-coming traffic, across the highway and into the far ditch. I missed two semis that were coming in the opposite direction by about 200 yards. It would have been a head-on collision.

Needless to say, I hate driving in snow and am overly cautious whenever I do.

[FrogMan]

my wife grew up about 2.5 hours from where I grew and the road to get there is more of a country road than a highway, i.e. limited passing, you encounter, speed limit of 55mph, etc. It's the only road that link Alma and Quebec City so many trucks do go through it.

Once, as we were getting back from a trip to see her parents, we got squeezed betwen to incoming vehicles, a car and a tractor/trailer combo. The idiot in the car tried to pass many trucks in a row and got caught without a place to get back in his lane and decided to go to our right (his left). My wife was driving while I was sitting on the back seat of her tiny Geo Metro hatchback. She took the wise decision to keep the wheel straight and not do a thing. We passed in between the incoming car and truck. That was freaky.

FM

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I've had two.

I was driving back to school in Ann Arbor from home. It's only about 45 minutes. It was snowing, I was on the highway and the van in front of me hit its breaks, I hit mine and begun to spin around. There was a semi truck, trailer and all, to my right. My car spun in that direction and then spun back to the left towards the median. Luckily, instead of driving right into and under the truck, my tires caught then and I ended up driving into the median, which at that point, was a wide, flat plain of grass and snow. I ended up driving in the same direction I was headed and calmly pulled back onto the highway as if nothing had happened.

Later that year, I was driving back from a job interview in Illinois. It was snowing, I hit my brakes, spun to the left, went into a ditch, back out of the ditch into on-coming traffic, across the highway and into the far ditch. I missed two semis that were coming in the opposite direction by about 200 yards. It would have been a head-on collision.

Needless to say, I hate driving in snow and am overly cautious whenever I do.

Didn't you have at least one bullet in your car also?

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by stevew

Didn't you have at least one bullet in your car also?

Dude! I totally forgot to add that one. I did. That was insanely random. The wife and I were driving back home from Home Depot in Washington, DC. We were living there at the time. It was pretty late, a little after 9:00 pm. It was raining out as well. We had gone to look at gas grills.

We were on our way back to our apartment and my wife was driving. Not sure why, because she never drives. We were driving under an overpass (I think it was for the Metro), we hear a loud sound like we had driven over a hole or over something and I felt an impact on my right shin, the one closest to the door. I mentioned something about being at shot at, but we forgot about it until the next morning. We went out and sure enough there was a bullet hole just in front of the passenger side door. The bullet had gone through the exterior of the car, hit the frame and bounced to the ground. A few inches back and it would have gone through the door and into my leg.

I still have no clue where the shot came from or why we were hit.

[Julio Riddols]

My closest call was when I was in kindergarden.. My mom was driving me home and I had just asked if I could stay with grandma and grandpa for the weekend. Mom had said no. A few minutes later, we spin out going around an icy curve and smack into a tree, on my moms side. I only bumped my head on her arm, but her head hit the tree at about 30 miles an hour and she was out cold. Eventually, a neighbor pulled up who was driving down the road and went to call for help.. I ended up getting to stay with grandma and grandpa for a week.. Which was sweet because mom was okay aside from some screws that may have been knocked loose.. When I look back, I wonder how traumatized I was by that. You just don't see your mom laying unconscious next to you for 10 minutes bleeding from the head while Phil Collins blasts from the car stereo that he "can feel it coming in the air tonight" every day..

What a trippy memory.

Other than that, I have been charmed I would say. If I say much more I will probably jinx myself.

[Chief Rum]

Originally Posted by Julio Riddols

My closest call was when I was in kindergarden.. My mom was driving me home and I had just asked if I could stay with grandma and grandpa for the weekend. Mom had said no. A few minutes later, we spin out going around an icy curve and smack into a tree, on my moms side. I only bumped my head on her arm, but her head hit the tree at about 30 miles an hour and she was out cold. Eventually, a neighbor pulled up who was driving down the road and went to call for help.. I ended up getting to stay with grandma and grandpa for a week.. Which was sweet because mom was okay aside from some screws that may have been knocked loose.. When I look back, I wonder how traumatized I was by that. You just don't see your mom laying unconscious next to you for 10 minutes bleeding from the head while Phil Collins blasts from the car stereo that he "can feel it coming in the air tonight" every day..

What a trippy memory.

Other than that, I have been charmed I would say. If I say much more I will probably jinx myself.

Your mom's head hit the tree?!? Like, through the window? Or was the window open? What sort of weird driving mishap accidentry is that, anyway?

[Chief Rum]

I have probably had too many to count, and some others that I have probably blocked out.

Two I do remember: When I was a kid (maybe 8), we had just moved to a new house, and my parents were getting some renovations done, and that included some wall re-tiling/panelling in the kitchen. There was nothing really covering a light switch in there, and me, being stupid on top of young, decided to play around with it. Sure enough, my finger hit a live wire point, and I had a second of 120 volts go through me. I guess the connection was very small, because the act of hitting it musta thrown my finger off of it. But that micro-second was brutal.

The second, I was 17 and went to go pick my little bro from his friend's place, driving my Dad's new '87 Mustang. Picked my bro up and ready to turn into my neighborhood off of a busy major street via an unprotected left. Big ass white van doing the same move right across from me, so I couldn't see oncoming traffic. I thought it was clear, though, what I could see of it. Bad move. Turned left, saw maybe a micro second (bout as long as my finger hitting that live wire, I guess) of a grill, and then, "BLAM" all hell broke loose. Mercedes doing about 60, T-boned us, right around near where the front panel meets the passenger side door. Car musta flew sideways 30 feet. Both my bro and I had our seatbelts on. I was (surprisingly) completely unhurt (kinda like how a drunk driver always seems to be perfectly okay after killing families ). My brother was out cold, but he turned out to be okay. Just a little concussion, and a scratch near his left eye. The Mercedes...man, new respect for that make, the engine compartment was, well, gone, but it took all the energy. The interior was intact and barely impacted. After pulling my brother out (stupid to move him, but, hell, I was 17 and shitting my pants), I ran to check on her, and she was just sitting there, in shock. I asked if she was okay, and I think I got a blank stare. But she was okay, too, no injuries. I think later at the hospital her husband wanted to kill me. My Dad being there stopped that, since he wanted to kill me himself for getting his Mustang obliterated.

[ColtCrazy]

I've had some different ones.

During middle school, I was playing basketball with some friends on an old goal. A piece of the goal (I assume dirt or rust) fell out as I was going up for a rebound and went right into my eye. I had contacts, and almost instantly my eye was swollen shut. My parents take me to the eye doctor and the dilate my eyes. I have a seriously bad reaction to this. I remember being in the chair and then I'm out. The next thing I remember is a hazy scene of me on the floor, and I kid you not, the words "his vitals are low" coming from a paramedic. I end up getting taken out on a stretcher (really wish I was awake to see the other patients reaction to that) and spend the next couple of days in the high school recovering.

Since I've been teaching, I've been in the hospital 2 more times because I caught every bug in the building. Only once did it lead to an extended stay (5 days) because my heart got a funky rhythm to it. That really scared me when they started talking about that.

On other events, we've had several "day after" events in our family. Of my 3 summers in England, all 3 summers we had something happen within a day of us being in the same place. The London subway attacks, I was there the day before. Also the massive airport plan they caught was supposed to happen the day I was to fly out (never have seen so much security as that day) and the attack at Glasgow, I was there the day before.

The only other one I can remember is my dad and I were going to Colts training camp years ago. It had rained that morning, so the road was just a little wet. Dad looked up and said that a TransAm was going too fast and that he "bet it'll hydroplane". Sure enough it did, and slammed right into the back of the car next to us. Nasty accident to witness.

[Julio Riddols]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

Your mom's head hit the tree?!? Like, through the window? Or was the window open? What sort of weird driving mishap accidentry is that, anyway?

The window was closed, but the tree hit right at the drivers side where her head was. As for the odd circumstances, it was my mom driving, so keep that in mind. I still contest to this day that she went around that icy corner doing at least 35-40 mph. She thinks she was driving much slower, but.. I just remember spinning and not knowing for a split second wtf was going on. I think we basically did about a 180 or 540 before her side collided with the tree on the far side of the road.

[Julio Riddols]

We've benefited from some fortuitous saving throws as a group it seems.

In other news I just realized I have been misspelling benefited for a long time.

[TheOhioStateUniversity]

I can say that Ive been relatively blessed in this regard. Three memories come to mind that may qualify. My parents were divorced so every other weekend I would visit my father and his side of the family. Well my father had an affinity for the night life so the majority of the weekend was spent at my grandmother's house, who lived in an "inner city" area of Cleveland. I was in 4th grade or so and I was playing Monopoly on the porch with my uncle (long story, only 3 or 4 years older than me) and his friends. Out of nowhere a beat up oldsmobile drives down the street slowly and shots are fired at a house across the street. I remember wondering if they would return but I wasn't scared for some reason and we continued the game!

The second event occurred in high school before I obtained my license. While riding the bus home we made a stop in front of someone's home where a ragtag crew was in the process of cutting down a tree. From the moment I witnessed the sight something told me this wasn't going to end well. The operation reeked of incompetence and they were using a small rope to attempt to influence the landing spot. As the tree was severed, it proceeded to fall toward our bus, only to be stopped by the power lines. The power lines snapped and a live wire entered the bus. Once again I was eerily calm and collected and remained in my seat while my friends screamed and ran to the front of the bus. The live wire entered the bus through the window right across the isle from my seat. Weird stuff.

Ok, last story. When I was younger my father used to take me to get haircuts near the aforementioned grandmother's house. I absolutely hated this barbershop because it was in East Cleveland and I was scared of the area and sheltered from living with my mother in "middle class" Cleveland Heights. As I was sitting in the barber's chair shots were fired outside of the barbershop and all of the children were frantically ushered into a closet. Eventually, I find out that someone was killed around the corner from the barbershop in a drug related incident. Needless to say; I forced my father to find a new barbershop closer to where I grew up.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by Julio Riddols

We've benefited from some fortuitous saving throws as a group it seems.

In other news I just realized I have been misspelling benefited for a long time.

Hope you didn't write it wrong on the board, or some people might look down on you...