Near Death Experiences, Close Calls and Crazy Shite

[Neil039]

I'll edit my post later with photos.

I posted this on RFU a few years ago...so sorry for those who know it.

Short background: I have been an active guy my entire life. No smoking, very limited drinking(like a few beers a year) and relatively healthy (outside of my appendix rupturing at 18 and a staph infection I got near my eye 6 months later from that surgery).

I currently have my Godan (4th Degree) in Kenpo and have trained in Krav Maga, Judo, Jui Jitsu, and law enforcement/military training. 31 years now ( I still have a healthy fear of everyone). Many years of contact sports so the rest makes absolutely no sense.

At the ripe age of 34 I was hired by the State as a Parole Officer. During the start of my 8th year (mind you I dealt with the worst of the worst with plenty of full on brawls arresting people.)

I hurt my knee. Not at work but chasing my friends son down a flight of stairs playing tag! My knee swelled up and I was put on light duty at work. My Ortho Doctor said lets wait it out. The swelling came and went so I thought it was just the loose cartilage. I had over 300 hours of PTO so I took a bunch of time off.

During my time off one day I was at home and I felt a pop inside my chest. My stomach immediately distended. It keeled my over. It as like getting hit with a baseball bat. During the next four days I stayed home with flu like systems: fever, sweats, vomiting, aches everywhere and the inability to sleep.

On the fourth day my ex wife (no love loss) came over to pick up our son for her weekend. She started to freak out. She left, but returned about 20 minutes later in tears with Gatorade and food. She started to plead with me to go to the hospital. So I promised I'd go in the morning.

In the morning I went to an Emergi-care. The doctor there told me I was dehydrated and charged me $500.00 for 3 IV's and nausea medication. They sent me home and told me to go to bed.

I got home took the medication twice over 30 minutes. Nothing, felt worse. Thankfully, I grabbed my keys and went to the nearest ER.

The security guard freaked out when he seen me and began buzzing the nurses station. Three nurses ran over to me and escorted me back to an intake room. A doctor came in immediately. He looked like Barack Obama, and even sounded like him. He started to ask me questions while the nurses hooked up an IV and started a morphine drip. I told him how the past 4 days had gone and how my stomach popped. They brought in a mobile full body scanner and had me on it within 10 minutes of walking in the door.

When the scan finished he said, "Neil you have 2 blood clots stuck 1/2" from your heart, you're about to die. We are prepping you for immediate surgery". I asked to call my family (that's entirely funny but different story).

From here on out I don't remember much from that day.

As I woke up, my brother was sitting next to me crying( stoic guy). He was holding my hand and said, "Glad you're here with us bud". I asked what day it was, he told me it was Saturday. I told him I had some crazy dreams and it was one hell of a day. He squeezed my hand and said you've been in the hospital for a week in a coma. I started to gain my senses a bit and realized I had tubes everywhere and I was strapped to the bed. I had a 14" incision from my chest past my naval. I had a wound vac on and could see all the gauze inside me (WIERD). He said the doctor will be here in a minute. I asked what had happened, he asked me to talk with the doctor.

The IUC doctor came in my room and told me the two blood clots stuck in my portal vein restricted blood flow in my lower body for 6 days. I had 4 surgeries to try and save my organs from dying. Plus, I may have to have a few more surgeries before they know the extent of the damage. I was on heparin and other blood thinners to regain blood flow. The surgeries were done to massage my organs and basically squeeze blood through them. I was beyond confused on how this happened.

The Doctors told my family 20-30 days in ICU, then surgical rehab for 14-21 days and off to a rehab hospital for 90-120 days to adjust to my new life. This was prior to my discussion with them.

The surgical Doctors came in later that day; 2 guys and lady saved my life over the course of a week. They spoke with me about the reality of being a feeding tube, dialysis and living in an assisted living facility for the remainder of my life.

Over the next 10 days in ICU I started to recover. I started walking on day 4 (11th day after my admittance). My blood counts started to settle and my energy started to pick up. So they moved me to the rehab section of the hospital. After a few days the lead surgeon and therapy (PT &OT) came to do another eval on my progress. Besides being humbled by the therapy staff, they recommended I go home when I was able and had support there.

Needless to say I went home on day 31. I had to go back into the hospital twice since then. Once for a blood clot in my jugular (should have died). The other for blood pressure issues (kept dropping) that they never figured out.

I have tons of stories from my surgeries and the months-years following them. My life will never be what I had. I lost all my possessions over the next two years. 1.7 million in medical debt. I sold my house, vehicle and everything but my son (not sure the the market was for a pre teen).

I am alive and have started anew. My midlife crisis was forced on my by bad genetics and a rare blood type. I can not lift weights anymore or my neck swells. I teach self defense still but rarely spar due to the risk of getting another clot. Thankfully, I do push ups and work out with bands. I'll never have a flat stomach again, but it's got a great arrow pointing down in the middle for the ladies.

Sorry this is long, my other post was 4 posts worth. When I type it out, I feel a level of gratitude that I can not explain. My beliefs are that I was needed here to be a father and pain in ass for my friends.

Thank you for reading my blip in your life.

 

[norcalramfan]

This comes under the close call category.
My girlfriend and I were on my motorcycle, a 1975 Yamaha 650 twin, and we were getting on the old Oak Street on ramp in S.F.
This was in about '78 or '79 before the ramp collapsed in the '89 earthquake. This path lead to the Highway 101 split, going south to Daly City or north into downtown or Highway 80 and the Bay Bridge. It had a big left hand turn after the merge leading to the split.
We were headed to the Mabuhay Gardens, a Punk Rock venue in those days. She was wearing my helmet so I was not wearing one.
So, I hit the throttle to merge, it was not an exceptionally quick bike but it had enough torque to make it fun and in no time we were merged and in the center lane (three lanes with railings on either side with a drop on to city streets below). Then all the cars in all 3 lanes start hitting their brakes in emergency fashion. So I had to hit mine hard. My bike had a drum in the rear and a disk in front so my tail was trying to catch up with my nose. I had to let up on the brakes at least twice and I managed to get in a downshift or two plus dodge panicked drivers all around. By the time we had navigated through most of the mess we were into the big left hand turn portion of the trip and I saw the reason for the panic, a car was stalled sideways in the two lanes on the right leaving only the left hand lane clear. We cleared the stalled car by about a foot with another car on my left travelling with us about 3 feet away.
I stopped for a moment to take stock of the situation, Steph was still with me, she had ridden like a champ leaning with me the whole way. My heart was trying to beat its way out my chest the adrenaline rush was so great. She said "You're a good driver Jeff". I don't remember my reply, just getting under way again and continuing on to the show.

 

[Raptorman]

Growing up in Missouri means growing up about as far from the ocean as possible. I knew the words "rip-tide" but had no idea what that really meant or at the least didn't appreciate the threat enough.

In the fall of 2004, 4 different hurricanes made landfall across Florida in a six week span. The theater I worked at in Branson closed suddenly and so that same day I joined a company from KC doing commercial disaster relief and remediation. I packed up my bag, kissed my girls and left for Florida with my best friend, Josh. They promised $20 an hour to run labor crews. We could work 60 hours a week and I could send the money home to my wife and daughter so I jumped on it.
The company was spread all over the state at first and Josh and I were sent to a blownout Hilton on Destin Beach. Our job was to remove anything damaged by water or wind and to dry out the rooms. For the 1st 10 days we would look out the windows to the beautiful beaches below but we never had any time off to get in.
Eventually one morning we had time and we went out and jumped in the water without even thinking about it. The water came up to my chest and as the waves got bigger and swept us off our feet, Josh and I lost sight of each other. I noticed after that last big wave that I couldn't touch the bottom anymore, so I went down to touch and before I did the pressure got bad. Somehow the sand beneath was 20 or 30 feet below. I was in pretty decent shape and I started swimming to shore. I could see Josh walking on the beach looking for me, but he never saw me. I tried yelling to him but the roar of the waves just swallowed my sounds. I could barely hear myself.
I put my head down and really started pumping my legs and arms. I gave it my absolute all. After a bit I stop and see I am even farther from shore. Worse, I see Josh's back as he walked towards the hotel. He had no idea and thought I must have went back in. Now there was no one else around to see me and I was totally alone.
I put my head down and started swimming like my life depended on it, because it did. I exerted myself in a way that can only be described as that of a husband and father desperate to see his wife and little girl again. I pumped man, I gave it my all and then dug deep, found more and gave that too.
No use. I was now between 80 and a 100 yards from safety and only going backwards. I grew up on lakes but I had no clue about how to save myself in this situation.
My effort was now depleting the oxygen in my body, my heart rate must have been out of control and I was losing my buoyancy.
This was it. I had fucked up and now will die alone, a thousand miles from home. I could literally see my girls faces and I could see them at my funeral, then the cliche but totally real thing happened where I could see my life story play out before my eyes. This was my fate. This was always my fate. I hated that I was dying for such a stupid reason. What a stupid way to go. I was summoning all of my courage and decided I didn't want to die panicking. I was accepting my fate. I was no longer swimming towards the beach, I was just barely able to do enough to get my nose and mouth above water for occasional breaths. The panic had subsided with my acceptance and because of that, in my final moment of prayer, something in the sky caught my eye. 2 things actually. They were 2 P-51 Mustangs. My dream aircraft. I had never seen one in the air, let alone two. They were just taking a joy ride above the coast, playing like big winged dirt bikes in sky.
For a split second, my mind went away from my impending death. The thought in my head was "Oh cool, P-51's!!"
Somehow, by the grace of God, this unlikely distraction changed everything. I had no more panic, just calm and something inside me said "let go and float" and like those team building exercises where you lean back until you fall in someone's arms, I let go and just leaned back and.. I floated. Barely enough for my nose to breathe without snorting too much water, but I was floating.
I no longer cared where the beach was or which direction I was floating. My leg muscles had reached that point of muscle failure and pain where, if you can push through it, you can break through the normal boundaries and become a machine capable of inhuman feats of endurance. My body was perfectly still except for my legs which just kept going enough to keep me moving.
Eventually I washed up nearly a mile down the beach.
Once I was out of the water I started coughing and puking up the seawater I had ingested. By the time I had made it back to the Hilton, I was borderline delirious from the exhaustion and adrenaline crash.

The next day my legs were DEAD. I had played football and some soccer, I used to lead my JROTC class in PT (physical training) and had experienced brutal marches at Fort Leonard Wood - nothing, not two a days or PT ever even compared with how sore my legs were for the next week.

Ever since this experience, P-51's have been my version of guardian angels.
I have planned on getting a tattoo of one on my arm.... if I ever need a miracle or just some calming perspective, I could look at it and gain some extra perseverance.

View attachment 41543

One week later, on my 24th birthday, Josh and I drove a van with a trailer full of gas from Destin to Vero Beach and straight through hurricane Jean.
It was the scariest, longest, most white knuckled drive of my life... but thats another story...

Okay. Since no one else brought it up. How to get out of a rip current. You swim parallel to the beach first before trying to get back in. I was caught in one once coming in from a shore dive. My wife and I spent almost 40 minutes moving along the beach and swimming in. If it wasn't for my Dive gear, I wouldn't have made it.


BTW, the Mustang that sells rides is "Crazy Horse". FWIW, At the Oshkosh Air show several years ago they had 3 B-17's and a B-24 flying in formation being escorted by 8 Mustangs on either side of the. 2 sets of 4 Mustangs. I'll check to see if I have a picture somewhere.

 

[badnews]

Okay. Since no one else brought it up. How to get out of a rip current. You swim parallel to the beach first before trying to get back in. I was caught in one once coming in from a shore dive. My wife and I spent almost 40 minutes moving along the beach and swimming in. If it wasn't for my Dive gear, I wouldn't have made it.


BTW, the Mustang that sells rides is "Crazy Horse". FWIW, At the Oshkosh Air show several years ago they had 3 B-17's and a B-24 flying in formation being escorted by 8 Mustangs on either side of the. 2 sets of 4 Mustangs. I'll check to see if I have a picture somewhere.

Thanks for mentioning that. I did learn the way to respond to a riptide and should have added that info.
That flight would be so cool to see in the air with that escort..

 

[RamFan503]

I had a 65 VW Bug. It was referred to as a 64 1/2 because it had some things from the 64 like the rear window and some other aspects from the 65.

Anyway.... I was heading home one evening and as I was heading up the hill on Hwy 41, I came upon what I assumed was a drunk driver - more on that asshole later. I passed him and crested the hill and was heading down the other side when a deer jumped up out of the ravine and stopped right in the middle of my lane. I was doing about 65 and smacked right into it. My buddy, just a week before, had his jaw shattered when he hit a deer in his bug and the hoof came through the windshield. So, in a last second thought, I punched it. My little bug had the 1500 in it and was fairly torquey for a light vehicle. Well, it worked.... sorta. I kept the deer from coming through the windshield (maybe) but it took out my steering. The steering wheel just spun in my hands.

Well... being that I couldn't steer and was heading toward the embankment, I tucked my arms into my body and held onto the bottom of the steering wheel and ducked my head as my bug headed into the embankment and then proceeded to barrel roll 5 times, then hit a ditch, fly into the air, and land on its roof. I had nothing but an AM radio in my bug so I always carried a boom box in the back seat. So while I am barrel rolling and all my windows are shattering and my doors are opening and slamming shut until one of them flew off, my boom box was flying around whacking me in the head. When I finally hit the ditch, and my car flipped up and landed on its roof leaving me spinning around upside down in the middle of the highway.

As my car stopped spinning, I heard the engine still humming along so I reached up and shut it. It was then that I heard a car coming down the highway. I thought at least I didn't have to wait long before someone would get help. The roof of my bug was holding me into the seat along with the lap belt. I unbuckled the belt and rolled out of the doorless opening just as the asshole I passed earlier, swerved onto the dirt shoulder slid around and continued down the highway. Here I am lying on my back in the road with my car next to me upside down and this dirt bag doesn't even stop.

I got up and went over and sat on a guardrail just kind of gathering my thoughts when about 10, 20, 30.... hell, I don't know.... minutes later, a car came up and stopped. It was a reporter from the Atascadero News. He was apparently listening to his scanner and headed out. As he approached the car, he took a few pictures and then looked at me and asked, "Did I miss the guy? Did they already take him away?" I guess only guys crash on this highway. Anyway, I looked up and said, "Nope. I'm still here" He looked shocked and said, "You were in that thing?" I get why he couldn't believe it. Here I was sitting on a guardrail (maybe should have been a clue), looking at my VW with two fenders torn off, missing a wheel, no windows, no driver side door, sitting on its roof in the middle of the highway. While I pretty much looked unscathed.

After a few minutes, a couple more cars showed up and then an ambulance, followed by a cop car from Atascadero and then one from Morro Bay. The first car had a couple guys in it and they offered to help me get the car off the road. So we rolled my bug back over onto its 3 wheels and while I lifted up on the wheel-less corner, they pushed and steered it off onto the shoulder.

I declined the ambulance and as I was talking to the cops, a tow truck showed up and pulled my little bug up onto its flatbed and left. I was on my way to Morro Bay but apparently, because my car hit the deer closer to Atascadero, the Morro Bay cop said he had to let the Atascadero cop give me a ride. Well... of course, the Atascadero cop could only take me back the other direction. Mind you, I was almost exactly half way between the two cities and not actually in either one. But the Morro Bay cop insisted that he couldn't be the one to give me a ride even though I actually lived in his city. The Atascadero cop chuckled a bit when I told the MB cop that he was being completely asinine.

Anyway.... The A-town cop gave me a ride to my parents' driveway (locked gate, 1/4 mile long so he couldn't take me up). I walked up the driveway and into the house as my parents were eating dinner. They looked up at me and asked what I was doing there. They thought I was joking when I told them the story. It actually took me several times reassuring them that it was true. If you looked at me, you couldn't see anything more than what looked like a scratch above my eye.

Going back to my conversation with the Atascadero News guy, I told him to make sure, above all, to put in the story that my seatbelt saved my life. Nope. He wrote that I swerved to miss a deer while traveling East (I was heading West), and nothing about the seatbelt. The fucking deer was still in the road dead and I actually walked over and cut its tail off while he was still standing there. I walked back to him and told him that I was going to make a key chain out of it and that I was at least going to get THAT out of this whole thing. I really couldn't believe the details in the news story when I read it.

The next day, my soon to be bride and I went to the wrecking yard to pay the towing bill and see what to do with the bug. She immediately broke down crying as soon as she saw my car. You could barely even tell it was a VW bug. It was missing a door, a wheel, almost all the glass, and the roof on the passenger side was caved in to the point where it had bent a V in the back of the low-back passenger seat. The driver side was caved in to rest on the back of that seat. It truly was miraculous that I lived through it let alone only got a small cut and some bruises.

I still have the news story and picture of the bug in a box somewhere. Never did find my boom box though. Kinda bummed about that.... sigh.

 

[cvramsfan]

I had a 65 VW Bug. It was referred to as a 64 1/2 because it had some things from the 64 like the rear window and some other aspects from the 65.

Anyway.... I was heading home one evening and as I was heading up the hill on Hwy 41, I came upon what I assumed was a drunk driver - more on that asshole later. I passed him and crested the hill and was heading down the other side when a deer jumped up out of the ravine and stopped right in the middle of my lane. I was doing about 65 and smacked right into it. My buddy, just a week before, had his jaw shattered when he hit a deer in his bug and the hoof came through the windshield. So, in a last second thought, I punched it. My little bug had the 1500 in it and was fairly torquey for a light vehicle. Well, it worked.... sorta. I kept the deer from coming through the windshield (maybe) but it took out my steering. The steering wheel just spun in my hands.

Well... being that I couldn't steer and was heading toward the embankment, I tucked my arms into my body and held onto the bottom of the steering wheel and ducked my head as my bug headed into the embankment and then proceeded to barrel roll 5 times, then hit a ditch, fly into the air, and land on its roof. I had nothing but an AM radio in my bug so I always carried a boom box in the back seat. So while I am barrel rolling and all my windows are shattering and my doors are opening and slamming shut until one of them flew off, my boom box was flying around whacking me in the head. When I finally hit the ditch, and my car flipped up and landed on its roof leaving me spinning around upside down in the middle of the highway.

As my car stopped spinning, I heard the engine still humming along so I reached up and shut it. It was then that I heard a car coming down the highway. I thought at least I didn't have to wait long before someone would get help. The roof of my bug was holding me into the seat along with the lap belt. I unbuckled the belt and rolled out of the doorless opening just as the asshole I passed earlier, swerved onto the dirt shoulder slid around and continued down the highway. Here I am lying on my back in the road with my car next to me upside down and this dirt bag doesn't even stop.

I got up and went over and sat on a guardrail just kind of gathering my thoughts when about 10, 20, 30.... hell, I don't know.... minutes later, a car came up and stopped. It was a reporter from the Atascadero News. He was apparently listening to his scanner and headed out. As he approached the car, he took a few pictures and then looked at me and asked, "Did I miss the guy? Did they already take him away?" I guess only guys crash on this highway. Anyway, I looked up and said, "Nope. I'm still here" He looked shocked and said, "You were in that thing?" I get why he couldn't believe it. Here I was sitting on a guardrail (maybe should have been a clue), looking at my VW with two fenders torn off, missing a wheel, no windows, no driver side door, sitting on its roof in the middle of the highway. While I pretty much looked unscathed.

After a few minutes, a couple more cars showed up and then an ambulance, followed by a cop car from Atascadero and then one from Morro Bay. The first car had a couple guys in it and they offered to help me get the car off the road. So we rolled my bug back over onto its 3 wheels and while I lifted up on the wheel-less corner, they pushed and steered it off onto the shoulder.

I declined the ambulance and as I was talking to the cops, a tow truck showed up and pulled my little bug up onto its flatbed and left. I was on my way to Morro Bay but apparently, because my car hit the deer closer to Atascadero, the Morro Bay cop said he had to let the Atascadero cop give me a ride. Well... of course, the Atascadero cop could only take me back the other direction. Mind you, I was almost exactly half way between the two cities and not actually in either one. But the Morro Bay cop insisted that he couldn't be the one to give me a ride even though I actually lived in his city. The Atascadero cop chuckled a bit when I told the MB cop that he was being completely asinine.

Anyway.... The A-town cop gave me a ride to my parents' driveway (locked gate, 1/4 mile long so he couldn't take me up). I walked up the driveway and into the house as my parents were eating dinner. They looked up at me and asked what I was doing there. They thought I was joking when I told them the story. It actually took me several times reassuring them that it was true. If you looked at me, you couldn't see anything more than what looked like a scratch above my eye.

Going back to my conversation with the Atascadero News guy, I told him to make sure, above all, to put in the story that my seatbelt saved my life. Nope. He wrote that I swerved to miss a deer while traveling East (I was heading West), and nothing about the seatbelt. The fucking deer was still in the road dead and I actually walked over and cut its tail off while he was still standing there. I walked back to him and told him that I was going to make a key chain out of it and that I was at least going to get THAT out of this whole thing. I really couldn't believe the details in the news story when I read it.

The next day, my soon to be bride and I went to the wrecking yard to pay the towing bill and see what to do with the bug. She immediately broke down crying as soon as she saw my car. You could barely even tell it was a VW bug. It was missing a door, a wheel, almost all the glass, and the roof on the passenger side was caved in to the point where it had bent a V in the back of the low-back passenger seat. The driver side was caved in to rest on the back of that seat. It truly was miraculous that I lived through it let alone only got a small cut and some bruises.

I still have the news story and picture of the bug in a box somewhere. Never did find my boom box though. Kinda bummed about that.... sigh.

I will now forever think of you when I travel this road.

 

[VegasRam]

Sorry, I didn't mean for another long-winded post.

But you're so good at it!

 

[badnews]

But you're so good at it!

Brevity hasn't been my thing lately I guess. I don't mean to go on like that.

 

[Loyal]

I had a 65 VW Bug. It was referred to as a 64 1/2 because it had some things from the 64 like the rear window and some other aspects from the 65.

Anyway.... I was heading home one evening and as I was heading up the hill on Hwy 41, I came upon what I assumed was a drunk driver - more on that asshole later. I passed him and crested the hill and was heading down the other side when a deer jumped up out of the ravine and stopped right in the middle of my lane. I was doing about 65 and smacked right into it. My buddy, just a week before, had his jaw shattered when he hit a deer in his bug and the hoof came through the windshield. So, in a last second thought, I punched it. My little bug had the 1500 in it and was fairly torquey for a light vehicle. Well, it worked.... sorta. I kept the deer from coming through the windshield (maybe) but it took out my steering. The steering wheel just spun in my hands.

Well... being that I couldn't steer and was heading toward the embankment, I tucked my arms into my body and held onto the bottom of the steering wheel and ducked my head as my bug headed into the embankment and then proceeded to barrel roll 5 times, then hit a ditch, fly into the air, and land on its roof. I had nothing but an AM radio in my bug so I always carried a boom box in the back seat. So while I am barrel rolling and all my windows are shattering and my doors are opening and slamming shut until one of them flew off, my boom box was flying around whacking me in the head. When I finally hit the ditch, and my car flipped up and landed on its roof leaving me spinning around upside down in the middle of the highway.

As my car stopped spinning, I heard the engine still humming along so I reached up and shut it. It was then that I heard a car coming down the highway. I thought at least I didn't have to wait long before someone would get help. The roof of my bug was holding me into the seat along with the lap belt. I unbuckled the belt and rolled out of the doorless opening just as the asshole I passed earlier, swerved onto the dirt shoulder slid around and continued down the highway. Here I am lying on my back in the road with my car next to me upside down and this dirt bag doesn't even stop.

I got up and went over and sat on a guardrail just kind of gathering my thoughts when about 10, 20, 30.... hell, I don't know.... minutes later, a car came up and stopped. It was a reporter from the Atascadero News. He was apparently listening to his scanner and headed out. As he approached the car, he took a few pictures and then looked at me and asked, "Did I miss the guy? Did they already take him away?" I guess only guys crash on this highway. Anyway, I looked up and said, "Nope. I'm still here" He looked shocked and said, "You were in that thing?" I get why he couldn't believe it. Here I was sitting on a guardrail (maybe should have been a clue), looking at my VW with two fenders torn off, missing a wheel, no windows, no driver side door, sitting on its roof in the middle of the highway. While I pretty much looked unscathed.

After a few minutes, a couple more cars showed up and then an ambulance, followed by a cop car from Atascadero and then one from Morro Bay. The first car had a couple guys in it and they offered to help me get the car off the road. So we rolled my bug back over onto its 3 wheels and while I lifted up on the wheel-less corner, they pushed and steered it off onto the shoulder.

I declined the ambulance and as I was talking to the cops, a tow truck showed up and pulled my little bug up onto its flatbed and left. I was on my way to Morro Bay but apparently, because my car hit the deer closer to Atascadero, the Morro Bay cop said he had to let the Atascadero cop give me a ride. Well... of course, the Atascadero cop could only take me back the other direction. Mind you, I was almost exactly half way between the two cities and not actually in either one. But the Morro Bay cop insisted that he couldn't be the one to give me a ride even though I actually lived in his city. The Atascadero cop chuckled a bit when I told the MB cop that he was being completely asinine.

Anyway.... The A-town cop gave me a ride to my parents' driveway (locked gate, 1/4 mile long so he couldn't take me up). I walked up the driveway and into the house as my parents were eating dinner. They looked up at me and asked what I was doing there. They thought I was joking when I told them the story. It actually took me several times reassuring them that it was true. If you looked at me, you couldn't see anything more than what looked like a scratch above my eye.

Going back to my conversation with the Atascadero News guy, I told him to make sure, above all, to put in the story that my seatbelt saved my life. Nope. He wrote that I swerved to miss a deer while traveling East (I was heading West), and nothing about the seatbelt. The fucking deer was still in the road dead and I actually walked over and cut its tail off while he was still standing there. I walked back to him and told him that I was going to make a key chain out of it and that I was at least going to get THAT out of this whole thing. I really couldn't believe the details in the news story when I read it.

The next day, my soon to be bride and I went to the wrecking yard to pay the towing bill and see what to do with the bug. She immediately broke down crying as soon as she saw my car. You could barely even tell it was a VW bug. It was missing a door, a wheel, almost all the glass, and the roof on the passenger side was caved in to the point where it had bent a V in the back of the low-back passenger seat. The driver side was caved in to rest on the back of that seat. It truly was miraculous that I lived through it let alone only got a small cut and some bruises.

I still have the news story and picture of the bug in a box somewhere. Never did find my boom box though. Kinda bummed about that.... sigh.

That's near Niner country...*someone check his Rams fan card!

 

[Loyal]

Brevity hasn't been my thing lately I guess. I don't mean to go on like that.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EheLN-MDzrA

 

[RamFan503]

I will now forever think of you when I travel this road.

You live down there?

 

[cvramsfan]

You live down there?

Fresno area but Morro Bay is a favorite place of ours. Travelled this road many times. We mostly take 46 when crossing over now.

 

[CGI_Ram]

Growing up in Missouri means growing up about as far from the ocean as possible. I knew the words "rip-tide" but had no idea what that really meant or at the least didn't appreciate the threat enough.

In the fall of 2004, 4 different hurricanes made landfall across Florida in a six week span. The theater I worked at in Branson closed suddenly and so that same day I joined a company from KC doing commercial disaster relief and remediation. I packed up my bag, kissed my girls and left for Florida with my best friend, Josh. They promised $20 an hour to run labor crews. We could work 60 hours a week and I could send the money home to my wife and daughter so I jumped on it.
The company was spread all over the state at first and Josh and I were sent to a blownout Hilton on Destin Beach. Our job was to remove anything damaged by water or wind and to dry out the rooms. For the 1st 10 days we would look out the windows to the beautiful beaches below but we never had any time off to get in.
Eventually one morning we had time and we went out and jumped in the water without even thinking about it. The water came up to my chest and as the waves got bigger and swept us off our feet, Josh and I lost sight of each other. I noticed after that last big wave that I couldn't touch the bottom anymore, so I went down to touch and before I did the pressure got bad. Somehow the sand beneath was 20 or 30 feet below. I was in pretty decent shape and I started swimming to shore. I could see Josh walking on the beach looking for me, but he never saw me. I tried yelling to him but the roar of the waves just swallowed my sounds. I could barely hear myself.
I put my head down and really started pumping my legs and arms. I gave it my absolute all. After a bit I stop and see I am even farther from shore. Worse, I see Josh's back as he walked towards the hotel. He had no idea and thought I must have went back in. Now there was no one else around to see me and I was totally alone.
I put my head down and started swimming like my life depended on it, because it did. I exerted myself in a way that can only be described as that of a husband and father desperate to see his wife and little girl again. I pumped man, I gave it my all and then dug deep, found more and gave that too.
No use. I was now between 80 and a 100 yards from safety and only going backwards. I grew up on lakes but I had no clue about how to save myself in this situation.
My effort was now depleting the oxygen in my body, my heart rate must have been out of control and I was losing my buoyancy.
This was it. I had fucked up and now will die alone, a thousand miles from home. I could literally see my girls faces and I could see them at my funeral, then the cliche but totally real thing happened where I could see my life story play out before my eyes. This was my fate. This was always my fate. I hated that I was dying for such a stupid reason. What a stupid way to go. I was summoning all of my courage and decided I didn't want to die panicking. I was accepting my fate. I was no longer swimming towards the beach, I was just barely able to do enough to get my nose and mouth above water for occasional breaths. The panic had subsided with my acceptance and because of that, in my final moment of prayer, something in the sky caught my eye. 2 things actually. They were 2 P-51 Mustangs. My dream aircraft. I had never seen one in the air, let alone two. They were just taking a joy ride above the coast, playing like big winged dirt bikes in sky.
For a split second, my mind went away from my impending death. The thought in my head was "Oh cool, P-51's!!"
Somehow, by the grace of God, this unlikely distraction changed everything. I had no more panic, just calm and something inside me said "let go and float" and like those team building exercises where you lean back until you fall in someone's arms, I let go and just leaned back and.. I floated. Barely enough for my nose to breathe without snorting too much water, but I was floating.
I no longer cared where the beach was or which direction I was floating. My leg muscles had reached that point of muscle failure and pain where, if you can push through it, you can break through the normal boundaries and become a machine capable of inhuman feats of endurance. My body was perfectly still except for my legs which just kept going enough to keep me moving.
Eventually I washed up nearly a mile down the beach.
Once I was out of the water I started coughing and puking up the seawater I had ingested. By the time I had made it back to the Hilton, I was borderline delirious from the exhaustion and adrenaline crash.

The next day my legs were DEAD. I had played football and some soccer, I used to lead my JROTC class in PT (physical training) and had experienced brutal marches at Fort Leonard Wood - nothing, not two a days or PT ever even compared with how sore my legs were for the next week.

Ever since this experience, P-51's have been my version of guardian angels.
I have planned on getting a tattoo of one on my arm.... if I ever need a miracle or just some calming perspective, I could look at it and gain some extra perseverance.

View attachment 41543

One week later, on my 24th birthday, Josh and I drove a van with a trailer full of gas from Destin to Vero Beach and straight through hurricane Jean.
It was the scariest, longest, most white knuckled drive of my life... but thats another story...

My pockets of time has been weird this week, so I put off reading this thread until today. Still need to read others...

This made my heart race just reading it. Holy geez.

Those P51’s... yeah... was that chance? Maybe. Perfectly timed though. Makes you think.

 

[IBruce80]

Mine's not really exciting, but certainly had a lucky escape.

Long story short, my dad was a dental technician all of his working life, except for national service in the RAF.
I also did an apprenticeship with him.

One very windy day, I removed some sealed dentures from the boiler (the cooking/setting process) to place outside to cool in their cases.
I used to put them outside the lab, just open the back door and place them on the ground in the iron cases.
This day, I was just about to place them outside.
My dad called me back to take care of something else and about 10 seconds later a dozen or more roof tiles smashed onto the ground at the very spot outside the door.

We didnt think much of it at the time, but over tea after work that evening it sunk in.
If dad hadn't have called me back...who knows...

 

[badnews]

Those P51’s... yeah... was that chance? Maybe. Perfectly timed though. Makes you think.

Yes it does... I'm not a deeply religious person, a bit of a skeptic and wired to make sense out of things through science, cause and effect, probability, etc.
- but -
I have seen P-51's flying above me exactly 1 time in my life...
...and I have had my "life flash before my eyes" exactly once as well and both occurred at the same time. That's some astronomical shit.

I have read up a little on Life Review Experiences or LRE's and they are an interesting and widely reported phenomenon during near death experiences. Some say it's just the result of losing oxygen to certain areas of the brain, others suggest that it's the brains way of protecting the mind from panic.... others believe it's something from God.

All I know is that before that day, I thought the whole "life flashing before..." thing was just a figure of speech or a common trope in movies, not a real thing that is exactly what it sounds like.
If those planes don't fly over at that very momemt, I really don't think I would have made it.

 

[snackdaddy]

For some reason I feel like I mentioned this in another thread. But since this is a thread for it I'll tell my story.

In the late 70's I worked repairing shoes in Las Vegas. Yes, I was a cobbler in my early 20's. The boss had two shops. I ran one by myself. The bigger shop the boss, his wife and son ran. The boss and his wife took a vacation in Mexico. He calls us up and says he bought a big load of leather goods dirt cheap. Belts, wallets, hats, purses, etc. He wants us to bring his old pickup with a huge camper on it to take the stuff back to Vegas.

We left Vegas at night. The fuel gauge on that old truck was broken so we had to look how many miles to know when to fill it up. Well, that thing only got about 7 or 8 miles to a gallon with a small tank. On the first tank load a couple miles from the small desert town of Baker on Interstate 15 we run out of gas. We figured we'd coast as far as we can go so we won't have to walk so far. It was around midnight.

As we coasted to about 5 miles per hour, the left front wheel broke clean off the studs. The whole tired rolled off down a hill in the dark. We never found it. The boss's son was so pissed at our back luck he was complaining the whole walk to town. Complaining how could we let it run out of gas. The tire. Just griping. I told him "I know its late and we're tired, but we should really be thankful. If we didn't run out of gas when we did that tire woulda broke off going 65 mph. What do you think woulda happen with this top heavy camper at that speed? No seat belts in that old camper. We would rolled several times".

I've always thought I had a guardian angel looking over me. Sometimes I think I still have one. I've done some stupid shit when I was young. And I'm still here in my mid 60's and pretty healthy.

 

[snackdaddy]

That's near Niner country...*someone check his Rams fan card!

I'm two hours from their stadium. You know, this one.

 

[RamFan503]

That's near Niner country...*someone check his Rams fan card!

Right smack in between LA and SF. I like to think it is "nearer" to Rams country.

 

[snackdaddy]

There was a another incident when I was a teenager that makes me think I have a guardian angel. I spent the summer in Twin Falls Idaho with some relatives when I was 17. I got a summer job with a construction company building a new fish hatchery. They hired a bunch of teens for the summer to save money I guess. Had a few experienced foremen teaching us.

One of the cement trucks was known to have bad brakes. One day I was behind it while it was backing up. I was guiding the trowel pouring cement into a wall. Another kid was directing him when to stop. I was backed up to the end with 2x4's enforced behind me leading to a lower tiered pond about 4 feet below. The truck bumper was up against my chest. I had no where to go. I tried to yell but it was squeezing so much nothing came out. Next thing I know I'm down on the lower tier looking up at the truck cracking the 2 by 4's with the bumper. It literally broke one in half. The driver jumped out and said "Damn these brakes!"

To this day I have no idea how I got out of that. One moment I'm being squeezed so hard I can't yell. A second later I'm out of that and on the ground with no memory of how it happened. I don't remember trying to slide down or anything. I was stuck. All I remember was trying to yell in a panic and nothing coming out. I had no bruises or injury of any kind. Another reason why I think I have some sort of guardian angel.

 

[badnews]

There was a another incident when I was a teenager that makes me think I have a guardian angel. I spent the summer in Twin Falls Idaho with some relatives when I was 17. I got a summer job with a construction company building a new fish hatchery. They hired a bunch of teens for the summer to save money I guess. Had a few experienced foremen teaching us.

One of the cement trucks was known to have bad brakes. One day I was behind it while it was backing up. I was guiding the trowel pouring cement into a wall. Another kid was directing him when to stop. I was backed up to the end with 2x4's enforced behind me leading to a lower tiered pond about 4 feet below. The truck bumper was up against my chest. I had no where to go. I tried to yell but it was squeezing so much nothing came out. Next thing I know I'm down on the lower tier looking up at the truck cracking the 2 by 4's with the bumper. It literally broke one in half. The driver jumped out and said "Damn these brakes!"

To this day I have no idea how I got out of that. One moment I'm being squeezed so hard I can't yell. A second later I'm out of that and on the ground with no memory of how it happened. I don't remember trying to slide down or anything. I was stuck. All I remember was trying to yell in a panic and nothing coming out. I had no bruises or injury of any kind. Another reason why I think I have some sort of guardian angel.

Damn Snack, that's crazy. Survival instincts are powerful and sometimes capable of unexplainable things.