About 25 years ago when I was still in college I thought it would be cool to get a motorcycle. I rode it around for about a year with no problems until one day I was riding down this mountain road near where I lived and a deer ran out in front of my bike and I swerved to avoid it, I flew off my bike and into a ditch on the side of the road and was knocked out, my bike fell off the other side of the road and down a sheer cliff face. It was not obvious anyone has ever been there or that there was an accident. I laid there for almost a two days until people started looking for me after missing work. When I came to my legs were messed up, I had broken an ankle, elbow and wrist and couldn’t move. I sat there for hours convinced I was going to die. I was pretty upset about it but after a while the anxiety washed away and I just went completely numb. My next memory was waking up in a hospital.
Thank god I was wearing a helmet.
How about you?
I used to work at a new car dealership, I didn’t have a whole lot of experience. I get a new truck in that the customer wants running boards installed on. I get it up on the lift and start working on it. I get one side loosely on and bend down to do something then the back of the truck falls off the lift and the sides land on the lift arms. For some dumb reason my instinct was to try to catch the truck. Fortunately I wasn’t crushed. The problem was that the lift arms did not lock into position, the lift pads were round rubber pads which were pretty smooth and the truck frame had just been undercoated. The lift arms just decided to both slip inwards. They said it wasn’t even the first time something like that had happened with that specific lift.
The damage was pretty bad because that running board that was loosely installed bent up the rocker panel. Both bed sides were damaged.
Drowning when swimming on the river
Scary, was it the undercurrent?
Yes it was near a watergate, didn’t know that it was not fully closed. It was weirdly peaceful and when i woke up I’m already on land
Wow, that’s a crazy experience. Somebody jumped in and saved you?
My uncle save me, the good thing is i always go with my siblings and cousin + my uncle. So someone always on standby. Got nagged by my grandma and banned from swimming there but we go there next day anyway.
Heart stopped beating. I could feel the lack of oxygen despite breathing like mad. Thought “Fuck, tomorrow my mom is going to find me dead in my bed” (I still was a student living close enough to university to commute). Luckily, one of the built-in safety mechanisms kicked in and my heart restarted. Spent some weeks in hospital after that so they could find me a better medication than the one I was using.
Heart stopped beating? That’s a thing? Jesus
That is a thing if the medication you get does not really work out for you. I remember waking up one night a week before that where I started the blood pressure recorder, and it measured a heartbeat of 26 BPM. And that was when I was actually out of the valley and had enough energy to press the button.
If you don’t mind me asking, what are you diagnosed with?
High blood pressure. I initially got beta-blockers, which my heart didn’t like that much.
Presumably OP had some kind of condition, given that they were already on (non-working) meds.
I mean I’ve heard of heart attacks but never just neurologically stopping beating. I’m not a doctor or anything though
Heart attacks are also not no more beating, if you didn’t know that. It’s when the heart muscles don’t get enough blood and the essentially start to suffocate.
If it stops beating for any of a large number of reasons, that’s cardiac arrest, which used to be the definition of death.
man dies, freaks out, and comes back to life
Cardiac arrest is heart stop beating (e.g. damar Hamlin? The Bills dude the other year). This is when you see a flatline.
Heart attack or myocardial infarction means the arteries that keep your heart oxygenated get blocked, cardiac tissue after the blockage of that then starts dying. The heart is still beating (or trying to beat).
Intense, glad you’re still around!
Yes, me too. Not a good experience, I’ll rate it 1/10, not recommendable.
And yes, quite some of your life passes before your eyes in those seconds. It is indeed very intense.
Got SIBO from a liver or gallbladder issue. Went through 1 to 4 bottles a month of antibiotics. 2 for 2 weeks then next 2 weeks 2 different ones. Done that 15 times. Was given 4 to 8 weeks max to live losing 2 to 4 pounds a week at 105 pounds. Still not sure how I beat it. I’m still struggling but doing a bit better. Hospitals are shit, most Dr.s are shit. Health is wealth!
A few, 7yo appendicitis which ruptured in surgery. 15yo Fell from 3 story high scaffolding and landed on my back. 11yo an adult repeatedly slammed my head onto a wooden floor: maybe not a near death but I had thought that that was the end. 18yo big hill at night friends figgered we would ghost it, brakes off keys out of the ignition, find break don’t work and scrabbling to put keys in ignition… I was drunk so I don’t remember much else but we all survived car had a dent on the bumper.
Oh man, I had a few of those. For privacy reasons I won’t disclose any of it but I’ve spent some chunk of my life in hospitals. What I can tell is that none was a life changing experience. I did made some adjustments to avoid such issues in the future but the whole “I almost died, it made me a different person” wasn’t my thing.
You were knocked out for a day?
No, I was knocked out for an unknown amount of time but definitely less than a day and possibly not even that long. The passage of time wasn’t extremely clear. I was awake for most of it but immobile. I was in a lot of pain and the entire event feels like looking back on a really bad dream. I have been told it was a unlikely that I should have survived.
I was around 21-22 years old. My step-dad got a boat and we had a big family picnic at the bay. We went tubing and started with the youngest sibling up to the oldest, me. Each of us got a progressively more intense ride. I knew I was up for a crazy ride, so I sat cross-legged IN the tube. That was a huge mistake and very dangerous, always lay on top of the tube in case what I’m about to tell you ever happens to you.
It was fine for a few minutes, despite the intensity. Suddenly, the way the boat turned combined with the wake and position I was sitting, the actual tube launched out from the cover/rope that attaches to the boat and that wrapped around my neck and luckily, one of my arms. I was pulled behind the boat for a few minutes, slowly blacking out, as I finally came to, floating naked in the bay. Luckily my step-brother noticed the tube was gone and told him to stop the boat. No idea when my bathing suit got ripped off but luckily it was floating nearby. I had a huge rope-burnrash across my chest, under my arm, and around my neck. Pretty sure if it wouldn’t have went under my arm, it would have snapped my neck.
That was well over a decade ago and I haven’t been in the ocean since.
That was really reckless from your stepfather. You must always have someone watching the tube at all times.
Not really, just some high-speed near misses on my motorcycle.
Thrice, all a long time ago:
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Driving back alone from a group camping trip. Got stuck in a freak snowstorm in the mountains, without chains. Stalled and started sliding back towards a really deep ravine. Hit the brakes, but it kept skidding through the sleet. Had the car door open, ready to bail. The car came to a stop, barely inches from the edge.
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Walked out of the shower in a towel. Faced a tweaker with a gun standing in my apartment. Demanded my wallet. Took out the cash. Wasn’t much. He paused, trying to decide what to do next. I really wasn’t sure which way it would go. He left.
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Flight instructor had checked off on doing a solo, then left town. Was nervous, but he had told me to put in the flight hours in his absence. Practicing short take-off/landings and go-arounds. Little single-engine trainer. On the first touch-and-go, I forgot to take off full flaps, which meant maximum drag on the wings. Got barely 1000 ft above ground, then the engine began to sputter. The plane stalled, and started a slow-mo, nose-down spin toward the ground. I remember stopping breathing. Then the brain kicked in. Figured it out. Recovered from the spin way too close to the ground. The most sphincter-clenching, stupidest moment of my life.
I have next to no experience but from the few times I went on those planes I can say the G forces are much more then you expect. It’s not just “oh cool I feel lighter”, it’s " oh god I’m falling to my inevitable death"
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That was a wild read. Glad you’re still around.
. Exit wound
I fell out on fent twice, both times I ended up in the ICU. I experienced the exact same shit I felt from a MeO-DMT trip. And both times a clockwork elf literally put their long weird arm on me and said “it’s not your time yet friend.” Then I felt felt extreme whiplash and despite not being fully conscious I distinctly remember hearing the pulse monitor beeping and knew I wasn’t dead.
Glad you’re alive and hope you got off that shit
Sober from all drugs except weed and nicotine. Literally turned down opiates in the hospital after I got stabbed repeatedly.
I’ve been on a motorcycle for over 25 years now and I’ve had some near misses but nothing serious.
That’s an amazing story and lucky you for making it through. I’ve known of two people in my circle who died from motorcycle accidents and a few more in my community and region who died … it’s also amazing to realize that you don’t need to be riding fast in order to get killed on a motorcycle. One woman in my town was at an intersection, moved across in an awkward way, got hit by a truck and neither were moving fast, she just got hit in a particular way, knocked down, pinned down by the truck, crushed and then died on the way to the hospital.
My near death experience was not as dramatic as yours. I was a dumb teen on a four wheeler on gravel. I did a major jump without knowing it out expecting it, launched about 20 feet in the air, landed front wheels first, launched forward and smashed my face in the gravel. Thankfully the atv went flying in a different direction and didn’t land on me. I also didn’t have a helmet on. I didn’t get knocked out and I was aware the whole time. I was just lucky I was fit strong and landed in a lucky way that didn’t hurt me too much.
I have a cousin who fell off an atv as a passenger, landed the wrong way, hit her head (again no helmet) severely injured, treated in hospital for a day before she died from injuries.
Motorcycles and ATV are dangerous machines
A couple of heart attacks. Only sad when thinking how sad my mom and dog would be if I died. Otherwise, pretty chill. Once the morphine kicked in I didn’t care about anything.
Everyone I have met who rode motorcycles has a story like this. Then they lift up their pant leg or shirt to show you ghastly huge scars.
