Things you survived, but probably shouldn't have

[Excessexpress]

Thank you, I appreciate that. But in retrospect, the better choice would have been to not put the airplane in jeopardy. Using ability to get out of a situation discretion should have never allowed you to enter - is playing against the odds.

Absolute truth.

 

[DLSJR]

This has been an interesting thread since so many of us have escaped close calls that could have ended our lives. It makes me wonder about the outdoorsmen who can’t write these stories due to not surviving their misadventures.

I’ve written here before about being charged by a bull elephant and buffalo cow, so won’t elaborate about those again other than to say we were damned fortunate to stop the bull when we did.

Other than those two incidents I can only recall a few instances where I survived but probably shouldn’t have. Mostly what I recall are putting myself in situations that were really dumb and could have ended tragically if something went wrong but didn’t, so all ended well. Here are a few…

I was hunting Brown Bears on Kodiak in April of ‘85, on Deadman Bay at the very south end of the island. Lynn Castle was the outfitter and guide. We were riding in his Zodiak at low tide and left Deadman Bay, heading out into the ocean and over to Leon Francisco’s area on Spiridon Bay. We were dressed in typical spring bear hunting attire, heavy woolen shirts and pants, jackets, hip boots, nothing that would help us if we went into the water in frigid temps. There were pretty big swells and each time we’d be in a trough I could see exposed reefs on either side of our rubber Zodiac boat. I realized that I didn’t see any life jackets and called out to Lynn to ask where the life jackets were. He said ‘There aren’t any life jackets, the waters so cold that we’ll die of hypothermia if we go down. It’ll be better to just drown’. WTF!?!?! Fortunately we made it just fine but if we’d have had a problem we’d have been totally screwed.

Another was duck hunting on a property I had in California. I was taking out a couple fellows who had never hunted with me before and there was a big storm coming in so we expected it to be a banner day. We had no idea what the storm was developing into… We went to bed in the clubhouse, which was built on stilts as the area is subject to severe flood events. As the storm came in the wind picked up with heavy rain and the house was shaking so bad I feared it might not withstand the storm. The power went out so we slept in, there was no point in going out till it was light outside. When we finally got to the boat dock the storm was absolutely ripping and I remember thinking I’d never been out in such a fierce storm; but we went anyway. My boat was a 12 foot johnboat powered by a 15 horse Johnson 2-stroke, which wasn’t rated for three heavy guys, a black lab and all our gear. We were more than double the weight limit listed. Most of the ride would be through channels cut through tule marsh so it wouldn’t be too bad, but we did have to cross an open area that was several hundred yards long. We didn’t have much freeboard and could barely make progress heading into the fierce wind and sideways rain. When I got to the open area we were greeted with big, rolling swells and I knew I couldn’t turn around as we’d capsize, so I ran as close to shore as I could figuring if we went down the water would be shallow enough that it wouldn’t be over our heads. It was a wild and dangerous ride through the open but once we got back into a narrow tule channel, not so bad.

We made it to my blind and it was raining so hard sideways that we could only see less than 100 yards. A big willow tree on the edge of the pond snapped off about halfway up, something I’d been never seen happen before. I feared for my dogs safety if she went out to retrieve, so I tied her into the blind which was fine with her. The forecast was that the storm would weaken around midday, so I knew we’d be able to get back to the dock if we just wait long enough . It was a brutal day, we hunkered down and rode it out, all ended up rain wet and hypothermic before it was over.

When I sent them home and headed out myself all the power lines were down along the road, with all the poles leaning over badly. The area was without power for days. I later learned that sustained winds had peaked in the low 70’s with gusts to 84 mph. We literally hunted in hurricane force winds. It was one of the dumber things I’ve ever done and we didn’t shoot that many ducks as they couldn’t fly when the winds got really bad. We made it without incident but if anything had gone wrong we’d probably have died out there.

My closest call though was on a solo archery pronghorn hunt in northwest Nevada, in the 1980’s. I had a 3-wheel ATV, before they’d come out with 4-wheelers. It was very remote country (015 for those familiar with Nevada) and there was nobody around where I was hunting. Nobody knew where I was hunting, beside the unit I’d drawn for. I was riding my 3-wheeler scouting and was side-hilling along this two track when I managed to roll the tricycle and got pinned under it. I wasn’t injured very much, but couldn’t roll it off me and lay there in the hot sun of early August for quite a while. I realized nobody was going to come along to help me and started thinking about what my body would look like when I was eventually found. Finally, somehow, I mustered the strength to get out from under that ATV, not too much worse for wear. When I got back to my camp, I loaded that trike back onto the trailer and never rode it again after that. Never. That accident was probably the closest I came to cashing in my chips (other than the elephant) and I got a lot more careful after that.

Many of us are fortunate to be able to write about our experiences. And that’s something to be thankful for this Thanksgiving.

 

[Mr. 16 gauge]

Ruptured appendix that they didn't find for 2 weeks......back when I was 16, I was playing football with a friend when I felt a sharp pain in my abdomen. Didn't last...thought it was just a pulled muscle. Then the nausea/vomiting hit. Went to the ER twice and was told it was gastritis and to let it run it's course. DIdn't get better so went to the doctors office.....twice, and was finally admitted to the hospital, where they did a battery of tests (mostly upper GI and lower GI). Liquid diet, tubes down my nose, IVs, etc. Finally the took me (on a Sunday) for an emergency exploratory laparoscopy. Found I had an abcess from the rupture that had pushed my bowels over. They removed 600 cc of pus and my appendix. Then I had issues with a paralytic illius (paralyzed bowel), so two more weeks in the hospital to try and get things moving.
In the end, I lost 35 pounds that a lanky 16 year old kid couldn't afford to loose.,,,,,I looked like a walking skeleton!
That was back in 1976.......no CT scans, MRIs or any of the "modern" diagnostic tools we have today.

 

[Dirtdart]

What so you had time to take a photo as well?..... ....and fk jumping out of a perfectly good airplane.....stomach churns at just the thought

Keep in mind that once you exit the aircraft you have the rest of your life to come up with a plan.

 

[Rafiki]

Vietnam