Things you survived, but probably shouldn't have

[PARA45]

That's called the power of pussy....

That's why I lost track of time.

 

[pilar]

I been hesitant to comment like others. Mine seem minor compared to others.
Younger days, horse spooked went left I went straight over head. Hit some really hard ground. When woke up was in ambulance. Nothing broke but concussion, bruise spine, bruised, shoulder blades.
Rolled 4wheeler in narrow ditch, layed pinned under it for over an hour trying dig my way out, using rifle I had slung on back to support weight of 4 wheeler so I could move. Loading cows in trailer, walked in behind to close center gate. Next I remember laying on gurney in hospital. Concussion, 3 missing teeth, over 100 stiches.
The worst was accident at shop when customer fumbled a bow at full draw and I took an arrow in right cheek under eye. I got lucky on that one!

I too have been reluctant to post, but have stared into the abyss a couple times
#1 insects
Bitten by a black widow spider 3 times on my forehead after she got in my hat
2 weeks in bed after the hospital

Attacked by bees and stung about 200 times trying to save my wife’s dog ( he died anyway)

West Nile virus that turned into encephalitis ( spinal tap and stint to help relieve the pressure)

Tick fever

#2 Humans conflict

Had a group of guys try dragging me off a truck to steal it down on the border

Had a gun fight with a Alzheimer’s patient who didn’t recognize me and took a shot at me and missed ( about 3 feet away) , I hit him with a rubber mallet And ran for my truck while he was on the ground, he turned my truck door into Swiss cheese, before he had to reload and I could grab my shotgun, and disarm him.

Was mugged by a armed robber in San Francisco

Besides multiple car crashes and one bush plane crash on a lake in Alaska
( overloaded and stalled and fell about 30-40 feet into the lake luckily not nose first)
I am happily sitting with my wife and dogs luckily!

 

[meigsbucks]

My experiences pale in comparison to most. When I was in college, I worked at a little neighborhood beverage store. I was putting some pop and beer a a guy’s trunk when a car tuned in off the street and knocked me into the trunk I was loading. Bruised up but no broken bones. The guy who hit me backed up and took off. They never found who hit me.
I later worker for a soft drink company back in the returnable bottle days. One of my first positions was production cleanup. One of the tasks was to dump the broken bottles in an open top cullet trailer. I’d raise the bin up with a forklift. Then climb the mast to release the latch to dump rather bins of glass. One was exceptionally full and when I pulled the lever to release the bin, the forklift rocked forward, then backwards, knocking me off. I fell about 10’, hit the cage over the top of the forklift and then fell to the ground. Walked away with only bruised ribs.
I was deer hunting public land with a friend. We came out of the woods for lunch. We were sitting on the tailgate of the pickup. All of a sudden heard some close shots and then the “buzz” of slugs passing within feet of us. We hit the ground in a heartbeat and were yelling. We never saw the “hunter”.
I was turkey hunting. I heard a guy walking behind me and I whistled to let him know I was there. Then BOOM, into the back of the tree I was leaning against. He yelled F***, realizing what he did. He came running up to se if I was OK. Although he was very apologetic, I laid into him. He said he heard my whistle and noticed part of a decoy (although it was a hen) and shot at that. Fortunately the tree was wide and I was mostly on the other side. No pellets hit me.
I had a girlfriend who wanted to learn to shoot and hunt so she could go with me. We went over gun safety. Taught her to shoot an air rifle. Then a .22. Then center fire. Got her shooting some clay targets with a shotgun. She took the state hunter safety class. As a “warm up” to deer hunting, I took her to a hunting preserve to hunt boar “hogs”. She was carrying my 7mm-08, a rifle she shot well. When the boar ran, she turned and discharged the rifle. The barrel was against my abdomen. She joked about how white I turned. Needless to say, I snatched that rifle from her and never took her hunting or shooting again.
My biggest health scare was in 2014. I started to feel some numbness, first in my fingers and then my feet. I saw my doctor who checked me out and ran some tests, but couldn’t find anything. A few days later, I fell down, like my legs just gave way. I was fine for the rest of the day. The next day at work, it happened again and later in the day again. Like an idiot, I had a couple of my staff help me out to my truck and drove home. I talked my wife out of calling 911. The next morning I couldn’t even stand. Off to the hospital. It took them several hours but they finally diagnosed me with GBS (Guillain Barre’ Syndrome). Not totally life threatening, but it put me in ICU for two weeks that included draining and replacing plasma and then two weeks of therapy just to use a walker and then four months of outpatient therapy. Took me almost two years to mostly recover and has left me with some degenerative nerve damage. The hand tremors certainly don’t help my shooting any.

 

[C.W. Richter]

Racing motorcycles (sometimes at speeds exceeding 200 MPH-LOTS of training beginning at age 6) on and off-road. Only crashed once by my own hand when following a friend/competitor too closely (enduro)...he broke right to clear a milk crate sized rock-i broke my ribs hitting that rock at ~40 MPH.

Hitting not 1 but 4 deer at night via motorcycle-ALWAYS wearing ALL safety gear. 1st @ 65 MPH on a highway (f. brake lever crushed fingers, hitting pavement broke wrists, concussion). 2nd at 35 MPH on a backroad (bike high-sided on top of me and crushed my ankle/foot). 3rd I had PTSD as a result of priors, so i cursed like a sailor and kicked it-bike a lil bashed up and hair jammed in the tire bead. 4th was similar-and that's when my kids told me to give it up after 40 years of riding and 0 lives left!

Tractors-sliding down permafrost or muddy hills @ ~35 MPH (no throttle/braking/engine braking is going to save you when it's just slipping). How the 2wd didn't flip me is a mystery. How the 4wd (in 2wd w/ a 4,000 lb implement pushing it) didn't jackknife and kill me is also a mystery. Same hill separated by 35 yrs. I will NEVER do that again. Tired, end of day, one last little area to cover-all I had to do was put it in 4wd and there would've been no issues. What saved me was lots of F and R weights, including ballasted tires on the 2wd (all mass directed to the ground.) I could've put the big disc down during the one event (and it'd been a great brake,) but I was exhausted (97F July day.)

'Was a competitive swimmer as a kid (great swimming/lifesaving skills-grew up next to a big river.) I was out in that river more than I was on land at times (according to my elders.) Went out in the rapids for some fun after a storm, when the muddy water resided....and I nearly drowned...i remember thinking-i'm a swimmer and i'm going to die right now "swimming!" It was then I learned (Divine intervention AGAIN?) you could swim out of a current by swimming at a 45 degree angle toward land, big landing rocks or a boat!

As a teen, was hunting part of an ancestral farm sold off to Dad's friends as a vaca place. I was (wearing blaze orange) stillhunting into the wind through a high blackberry patch (when the neighbor's father-80s at the time pulled the trigger on me using buckshot-they were from NJ where rifles aren't legal) luckily I just heard ALL the pellets whiz by my face-I did not become a Dick Cheneyesque victim!!! He was retired from hunting that instant. I'll leave it at that. lol now 'Have had a couple guns that went off due to brush and/or safety issues, but the muzzles were always pointing in a safe direction.

This could go on all day....blowouts at 126 MPH drag racing, gas cans blowing up in my face (when there are only drops left-ALL vapor!) Trying a quick-dry solution on a Schwinn re-paint (Dad's lighter-WOOF!) Some very hard lessons learned early on. SMH now.

Too much red meat consumption (and poss. too much acidified-as-preservative) of vino with that meat after work...a rather lg. 10 y/o carcinogenic tumor detected growing inside the lg. intestine. Dr. said this needs to be removed ASAP!!! 2 wks and 5 doctors later, all gone, 100% clear. No chemo/radiation. Just 2 great surgeons with a plan thx to cat scans up-front and an oncologist that did other scans afterward as well as fancy blood/DNA tests to confirm it was all gone. An old chemistry teacher used to say to us "too much of ANYTHING Will Kill you!" and he was essentially correct. I've been exposed to the complete gamut of hazardous chemicals/radiation etc. in my career, but typically at much lower doses than the people who worked with them 40 hrs per week. There were times when I could have ingested some (mainly by swallowing soils/dusts/particles). Lucky! 'Have an 18 mo. follow-up (conveniently scheduled after bear and deer seasons!)

Be VERY safe in everything you do (and especially with your children/grandchildren!) I will not allow them to make those (preventable) kinds of mistakes...Many friends and their children have not been so lucky.