Brushes with death - possibly

[Rory's Dad]

Got my first brand new Westy written off by a Ducati coming in the opposite direction. He just flip-flopped out a queue of traffic right in front of me. Just had time to swerve left and he hit the side of the front wheel, removed the wing mirror and most of the back of the car. If he'd been a bit further out or I hadn't swerved he'd have been in my face. He cracked his helmet but didn't stay in hospital overnight.

Agree with Dave ^^^

[Steve (sdh2903)]

[bigals]

My son decided to slide down the banister with no regard to the wooden knerl post at the bottom, I was greeted by the sound of breaking wood and a small boys screams as his dangily bits hit the wood, I don't think I will ever forget that day. Fortunately my son was fine and is intact and the banister is fixed.

As for me well putting a sherpa van on two wheels at 70mph and sliding along the Arnco barrier on the m4 was interesting, that accident was lucky as it stopped me driving like a teenager and I walked away unscathed.

What could of been the end of me was the potential head on with Mr white van man down a narrow county Lane in my westfield luckily it had just been resurfaced so I was driving slower than normal to advoid stones damaging the body work, I made a decision that saved my bacon and went up the bank and hit a tree. As for the van driver I am not sure if he even spotted me as he was Clearly looking at his paperwork or phone as he did not even stop, walked away and suffered some minor titanium upgrades to my arm ,

I truly believe when your times up its up, but there's no need rush into the next life

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Eww, the cringes from the banister story remind me of something that happened to one of my nephews; he was around ten or twelve, up to his second favourite pass time after football, climbing trees. It was a hot summery day, and he was half way up a large old tree, at some family gathering, he was wearing his usual summer gear, football shirt and shorts, (this was the nineties, so not quite the tiny football shorts of the eighties, but not the big baggy shorts that came later.)

The trunk of the tree must have been four foot or so in diameter, so when he lost his footing and slipped, he sort of slid twenty foot down the tree in a big bear hug, arms and legs wrapped round the trunk, clinging on for dear life.

He looked badly scratched and a bit shocked when he got to the bottom, but it took a moment for us all to notice the blood start to run freely down his leg, and the pain to set in. Sort of at the same time we noticed how badly ripped his shorts were.

Turned out what was left of a branch that had broken underneath him, and slid up his shorts leg and attempted to perform the snip. (At which point, realising just what was torn open, there wasn't a man in sight that could look.)

All was ok in the end, no lasting damage, though my nephew did say the stitches were the most painful thing he'd ever had, far worse than the branch doing the damage!

[litcoat]

I've had one or two, riding out of Carlisle minding my own business, car turns right across my lane, snapped the front off my motorbike plus my helmet came off, fractured skull,broke both wrists and a thumb, punctured lung, woke up 3 days later in a Newcastle hospital wondering what the hell was going on with all these machines beeping around me, still can't remember a thing about it. Gained a bit of metalwork in my head and wrists.After recovering back on the road for a fortnight riding down a country lane, rode round a corner, car on my side of the road I went in straight through the rear side window and back out over the roof, broken collar bone and shoulder blade plus I punctured the other lung and a kidney, I remember that one, thought I was going to die,that badly winded I couldn't breathe, those were the days

[Nick Mace]

[Nemesis]

During a midweek blat with the Essex tribe I got to watch Pete Minden throw his Westie violently into a 90 right on what was a fairly hard left, then he disappeared into the dust of a farmers access track.... that made my ticker skip a beat or two..... not sure what the make of car was he was avoiding but the driver didn't look too impressed..... so this is a sort of Pp for Pete Mindens NDE.

 

Nem.............

[Nemesis]

During my Royal Navy days I was a company Medic for 42 Commando, we were on a live fire exercise when one of the DS lost control of a LandRover 90 and shoved it through a barbledee wire fence..... unfortunately there were six of us layed up for an ambush in front of it..... a chunck of fence grabbed my Kevlar helmet and launched me like a ragdoll, lucky not to have broken my neck or detached my head..... I have a lovely scar on the back of my head that covers where my bone dome got cracked, that was like having the worlds most painful whiplash.

 

Nem..........

[Kingster]

Wow some very nasty close ones above

bl**** hell Chris you've had some scrapes!

Those Artic wheels would not have been a nice way to go if you were a few inches closer

Yeah that one was literally a close shave!

[DamperMan]

I was thinking about brushes with death but it's hard to choose. A combined 80 mph almost almost head on with a taxi turning into my lane towards me was fairly serious. Fractured sturnum and the seat belt bruising was mega, as was the lumps on my legs where the peddles came in at me.

Back 10 years ago I bought a DBS ason full resto project. It had been fitted with s far more sensible small block Chevy engine. Key bit of info for the strory was the torque converter was a bit slow and there was no interlock on reverse... I had it in my single garage and loved starting it. That day I sat in it door open one leg out , one foot on the throttle, and fired it up .... suddenly it shot backwards. My foot was pinned on the throttle bang! The door ( with my leg still hanging out) hit on the door wall, and the impact was enough to knock the battery out of tray and the terminal to fall off or it would have kept going... the garage wall supporting the RSJ over the big door was almost ripped out .. an inch further and I'd have had the complete garage roof on me and the car.. maybe not killing me but the car it would have. . It all happened in about 3 seconds... the wife made me sell the car.

[TAFKARM]

Back in my younger days, I used to work for a firework display company. My brush with death happened approx 00:02 January 1st, 2000. 

 

I was part of the crew putting on a £50k display for a large council - normally a display that size would be fired electronically but for reasons I forget, we were firing manually. 

 

When you go and watch a professional display, those aerial bursts are called "shells", they get fired out of a mortar tube with a launch charge then theres a delay fuse which makes the pretty lights.Firing manually in a professional show, you dont light and walk away, you normally get about 0.5 of a second to get your head down while it launches then move to the next point. 

 

I had about a dozen 12 inch diameter shells (so not small!) to set off in reasonably quick sucession, so I had six in a line in front of me, and six behind me, all stakes into the ground with metal line pins to stop them falling over. 

 

Mid way through the show, i fired one of the shells only for the mortar tube to blow to pieces, the shell burst a little low, but no matter and carried on. 

 

When we came to derig, I discovered a line pin embedded through the tube that would have been directly behind me, which when through with such force when it hit the other side it bent into an S shape. 

 

How it went from directly in front of me to directly behind me, without going through me, I'll never know. 

 

Whats even more fortutious, is that when I came to light the row behind me, for some reason I missed and didnt light the one with the pin through it. It would have ripped me clean in half. 

 

I dont do pyro anymore. Looking back, I didnt realise how blase i was back then. 

[Mooch]

Aged 17 riding a Honda CG125, belting down a hill on a minor road ending in a junction with the A404 in Amersham.  Feeble drum brakes faded and I ended up coming to a stop with the front wheel over the white line.  Passing juggernaut clipped the front tyre of the bike and threw the bars out of my hands.  He screeched to a halt, probably thinking he's wiped me out, I calmly straightened the bars and carried on riding to work.  I can still wake up in a cold sweat from that one.

[Kingster]

Going back to my near death experience here's what I ended up getting pulled from

Out of shot is the farmer's plough that I missed by a few feet.