Getting a crouton stuck in my windpipe. Your body can and will try to take over when life is on the line. Fortunately, I could still breathe a little and I had to wait for saliva to dissolve it. A scary 15 mins or so of small breathes.
When I was a small child, I put a piece of Cheerios cereal in each nostril, to “see if I could breath through the tiny holes”. They got stuck, I panicked, then fell asleep. When I woke up, they were gone. I always assumed they dissolved.
Your body can and will try to take over when life is on the line
What do you mean by that? Were you doing involuntary actions?
Oh yeah, lungs were giving it their all to clear and they didn’t care if they did a little damage to succeed. Losing some control over your body is a weird sensation. It’s like someone snatching your game controller away, beating a boss, and then tossing it back into your hands.
Like a long reflex action? Like when you touch a hot stove, you’ll automatically jerk out of the way
- Almost got abducted by pedo but a cop rolled by
- Mom and I got rear ended by a dump truck that left us hospitalized for weeks
- Renal failure due to something wrong with my kidney (I was too young to understand what) but surgeons were able to fix it without removing kidney
- Almost drowned surfing…at least three times
- Hit and run when on my bicycle. That got me a nice new bike, which was nice.
- Near miss with a car while bombing a hill on my Powell Peralta skateboard. It should count as multiple because, in hindsight, bombing a hill that steep, that fast, on that board, with no gear or helmet, was in itself a near death experience every time.
- Near miss with a territorial tiger shark while surfing.
- Near miss with a territorial moray eel while scuba diving
- Wrecked my motorcycle
- Rode off a cliff while back country snowboarding…alone. Please don’t be this stupid. That was very dumb and 100% on me. Always bring a buddy. I should know better.
- Hit a hidden rock while snowboarding that caused me to whip the back of my head into the ground so hard that I almost passed out. When I checked my helmet I saw that my head must have landed on another hidden rock because there was a quarter sized hole where the rock had pierced. It was very likely a fatal hit had I not been wearing a helmet.
- Suffered from chronic and acute insomnia that almost drove me to suicide. Reality gets tilted when you don’t sleep at all.
- Felt not good. Went to the ER and was rushed to surgery. Turns out most of the arteries on my heart were blocked 93+%. One was 99% blocked. Ended up getting four stents but at least I dodged a bypass and a heart attack. Close though. Had I waited, maybe even a day, I would have had a massive heart attack. *Got cancer. Beat cancer. Fuck cancer.
EDIT: Reading someone else’s comment reminded me of a time when I was very young (5?) where we had an aquarium on top of a tall dresser. I opened the bottom drawer and climbed on the lip so that I can could see the fishies. The whole thing toppled over on me. The dresser landed on my lower body and the aquarium landed on me, shattering. I clearly remember my mom screaming in panic, my neighbors lifting the dresser off me, the terrazzo floor cover in bloody water and me yelling at the top of my lungs for someone to save the fish that was dying next to me. It didn’t make it. Oooh boy, there’s trauma there. That memory hit a nerve for some reason.
Wrecked my motorcycle
Absolute classic. Love those death machines.
I just finished working out and noticed I had a flat after like 30 seconds of driving. It was dark and I pulled over on an uneven/unfinished area of road. A passerby helped me out by holding a flashlight, we were chatting as I was working, then all of a sudden my car fell off the jack (the flat had been removed). I was so lucky I didn’t crush my hand. After that I just called AAA to take care of it for me and I’ll never try changing a flat again.
Always put the currently unused tire under the car next to the jack as a backup!
And block the tires
Why has this never occurred to me? Now I feel dumb.
- Took a muscle relaxant I’m allergic against and nearly died on my bathroom floor while unable to call for help, face planted into the ground, sweating and tasting blood, at 3am about 5m away from my deep sleeping girlfriend.
- aqua planing with my motorcycle in a turn
- skidding on ice with my motorcycle
- wrapping my motorcycle around a tree
- getting under a semi truck with my motorcycle
- accidentally taking drugs which cause serotonin syndrome
- drowning in a wave pool because I slipped (clinically dead for about a minute)
- having a cramp at sea 500m from the shore
- hitting a tree on skis at night alone
- taking the wrong drugs, dissociating and waking up from the feeling of cold train tracks vibrating against my cheeks
- falling out of my bed 10cm from metal feet of my desk
Come to think of it, I really need to get a motorcycle again. That was fun.
Damn, how many lives do you have left?
Probably three more than @JoMiran according to his comment 😃
Posted this recently on a similar but different question, may as well include it here because it fits:
Exploring an easy cave with a friend. Nothing tricky at all, just one way through, standing room all the way, about 1m wide, ankle deep water flowing through the whole way (walking against the flow).
As we went, the water very slowly became harder to press forwards against. The change was so gradual we were second-guessing it the entire time until it got really strong. We figured it was better to walk against it than with it - at this point it was rushing against our legs, and the thought of slipping and being swept through, bouncing off of the walls, was not great. It felt much easier to keep our footing facing the flow, and also it seemed like we were much closer to the end than the beginning (the cave had an exit at both ends, it was basically a small fork of a river that cut through a hill).
So we pressed on, until we got to a point that should have been a small scramble up a few bits of rock - except now there was a massive flow of water hitting us at chest level as we tried to climb it. We were both completely unable to push against it and get up. We were also now convinced that the cave was filling up with water so we had to get out - which now meant turning around and doing the whole length again but with the water hitting the back of our legs the whole way.
Oh and the water was freezing, coming off of some snowy mountains. So for about an hour, we held onto the sides of the cave and slowly tried to move steadily through, while by this point I had almost no feeling in my frozen feet to help with keeping my footing. It was like guesswork every step.
By the time we got out, the water had risen by almost a metre I’d say. Not much but the extra force was insane, and the feeling of a cave filling up with water behind you was not easily ignored. Anyway, turns out there was heavy rainfall way up river from us, always check the forecast and think beyond where you are when dealing with rivers and caves!
Hiking mountain, misty/rainy midday. Summit didn’t look like a summit to me, and I’m not an experienced hiker. Had forgotten my hiking boots so was hiking in flat-bottom running shoes.
Arrive at summit, of course, want to walk to edge to enjoy my hard-earned view. Begin walking down incline to my “perceived summit” (mistakes intensify). Realize it sure is a steep path. Total path from arrival to “perceived summit” was ~10 meters. 5 meters from edge I slip, ow, that hurt. Oh, I’m sliding. Time ceases to exist, this all feels like forever. Quickly flatten body such that backpack grabs surface.
Where am I? How far did I slide? 2-3m, panic, I am more than halfway towards the edge in an ever increasing steepness summit. Everything is wet. I launch myself to my feet and rush away from the ledge, processing what just happened. Oh. I see.
Strangers freaked out, friends freaked out, everyone has adrenaline. Sit and consider what occurred, try to calm myself but the panic of existential dread was persistent for the next six hours or so.
Good hike.
First one was right at my birth, as I came out feet first and was apparently almost strangled by the umbilical cord which was around my neck.
When I was about 5, a large wardrobe fell over and missed me by just a couple cm.
Most recent one was a few weeks ago when I was riding my bike. An oncoming BMW cut a corner and, as the road was inside a ravine, couldn’t see me and almost crashed into me.
I nearly drowned when I was 8 years old.
I was at camp and didn’t quite know how to tread water. There was a large pond that they let us play in during our free time and I went under the water for a bit, but when I came up for air, the water was too deep and I couldn’t stand up over the water.
I immediately panicked and just kept jumping to try and stay above the water. It was burning my eyes and right into my lungs. Every time I jumped up over the water, I couldn’t get enough breath to focus and I went back down with more water than air.
I have some very clear memories of those moments. I was very close to the dock and I could see the older lifeguards kind of playing around on the dock as it was getting harder and harder to jump. The clearest memory of all was me literally thinking “Oh my God. I’m 8 years old and I’m going to die.”
I started to get tired and I remember this tall blonde girl reaching out to me and saying “Are you okay?” and just pulling me to the shore.
From that point, things got a little fuzzy. I remember a lot of people standing around me and I remember vomiting up pond water. My mother, after finding out what happened, threatened to sue the camp, and I couldn’t hardly look at the water without three of counselors around me after that.
I think about that moment before the girl saved me a lot. That “Oh my God. I’m going to die” moment. It’s very sobering, and even though it’s been more than 30 years, it’s still been difficult to shake off.
You’ve unlocked a core memory for me. Think I was about 4~5 yo, we were on a family trip to a resort. I was sitting on a noodle bent in a U-shape in the pool and had waded towards the middle, still next to the wall though because I didn’t know how to swim. Although my mom always had me wear the life vest, this one time i didn’t as I thought the noodle was all I needed and also didn’t want to look like a baby in front of my older cousins.
Before I even realized, the noodle shot out from under my butt and I just silently sunk. None of that flailing and splashing that they do on TV happens. I also clearly recall just looking up at the super-close surface, gulping down mouthfuls of water in an attempt to breathe, thinking this was the end. And I think the worst part was feeling the wall with my hands but being unable to grab the ledge because it was too high (I was underwater, my arms were short, etc).
My uncle was sitting literally feets away from me, he said he was watching, it just looked like I was playing- bobbing my head in and out. Then he realized I wasn’t coming up and jumped in to save me. My parents almost quite literally threw me into ymca swim classes as soon as we got back home.
If I ever have kids, swim lessons will be a must.
I forget how old I was, but at some point as a kid I had this really big marble, and as dumb kids sometimes do, I kept sticking it in my mouth for no reason. Eventually I accidentally half-swallowed it and it was big enough to completely block my throat. I couldn’t breathe or make a sound, and I don’t think anyone else was even home at the time anyway. I legit thought I was gonna die, as much as I could process that as a kid, but I somehow managed to cough the marble up after a few seconds. I distinctly remember thinking to myself “okay don’t do that again,” and then absently sticking the marble back in mouth a minute later anyway.
Do you mean times in which I made a lucky mistake that avoided me running into a fatal issue, or times in which I was in a fatal issue that didn’t finish me off?
Yes
Most of them are dog attacks or almost-dog attacks. Nobody seems to know how to keep a dog on a leash. I was attacked by one while strolling and couldn’t escape and another time narrowly avoided another one. Me and dogs don’t seem to get along except for my own.
I was at a lagoon/pool trying to traverse across when something distracted me enough that I fell in the deep area and started drowning because I can’t swim. The person who should’ve helped was distracted and so a family member stepped in at the last minute. Same fate almost happened to me due to some very sinky mud.
I narrowly avoided being crushed under a burning foundation by not being around for a lot longer.
I was at a psych ward for reasons I would rather not mention here, and psych ward visitors have a tendency to do something hostile and end up getting a room faster. There was an uproar that broke out because one of the patients was the son of one of the nurses, and someone else felt jealous that a patient had come in with love and support built-in into the visit, and the jealous person started threatening people, and I guess I avoided that by not really minding I was being threatened, so he (the one threatening everyone) decided to assault me, in the NSFW way.
You should learn to swim eh? Or practice simply floating? Your body does that, no?🍸
I wish :(
It pretty much should…can you clarify why you don’t think thats the case for you if you lay on your back in the water?
I’m not sure, but I can’t say I haven’t tried what other people have to the same effect as them. I am not as immune to gravity I guess.
The fat in your body does tho, regardless of how skinny you are. Think about how people try to “bury” dead bodies in water and how they seem to float up at the worst times lol
I have this hazy, memory from when I was about 8. I was exploring a peat bog, which was fun because everything was soft and squishy and I could just run around. I saw some weird looking bushes, and decided to go check them out. But, as I ran up, it turned out there were growing over this sort of wet hole, where maybe there was a spring or something. I suddenly fell about 8 feet, and was in this mud pit slowly sinking. Luckily, I managed to grab some of those bushes I’d seen, and pull myself out. But it was very hard, because the mud was pulling me down like quicksand. Eventually, I crawled back out on the bog, covered in mud.
Nobody I was with remembers this, and honestly it might not be real. Childhood experiences are super weird.
A few years back I woke up with some minor pain in my pp, assuming it was just a UTI that’d pass on its own I let it go for around a week until it was unbearable, and I ended up leaking blood every time I went to pee. Finally went to the hospital and it turns out I had E. Coli in my weenie. The infection had spread to my bladder, and up into my ureter. Doc said if I’d let it go another day it would have hit my kidneys where it could have become a full blown systemic infection, which likely would have killed me.
If your bits hurt, go to the doctor.
Fiancee and I were hiking into and camping at a state park. We got a little turned around and low on water, so I was a bit out of it and tired. I saw an interesting looking log across the trail and stepped over the smaller end of it. It was around 9:30am, so things were a little cold. I stopped and turned to wait for my fiancee and right as she was about to step on the log I realized it was an enormous 6-ish foot long rattlesnake. I grabbed her arm right before she put her foot down on the bastard and yanked her as hard as I could and backed up a step or two. Somehow the snake hadn’t noticed me yet, but it noticed me wrenching my fiancee away from it and it went into full coil-up-and-rattle mode. Had that thing bitten me I would have been in a bad place because I was already dehydrated. If it had bitten my wife, both of us would have been in a bad place because we were closer to our destination with fresh water than to our car.
waited until it was almost too late to get checked for appendicitis
to be fair the symptoms weren’t very clear cut
My ex-partner had the same experience, she said it felt like period cramps. Her appendix was the size of a grapefruit by the time she had the thing sliced out.
I was hiking in late winter/early spring when I stepped onto a deep pile of wet leaves that gave out. Ended up sliding a good 25 ft downhill, and the only thing that stopped me from falling 100 feet onto the rocks below was a small tree that went dead center between my legs. I sat there for a bit with my feet dangling over the ledge until the pain diminished and continued on.
Still enjoy hiking to this day, just a little more careful on where I step.
Hiking sticks help there.
