Close Calls and other Terrifying moments

[Susan]

Originally I the topic of this message was about things that scared us, halloween. Those stories are still welcome - such as sleeping in a graveyard...something that truly scared you to death.

But Peter really had a great story that made me think of a topic I often discuss with friends. Stupid things we've done. The one that is usually followed up with comments by others like: "What the hell were you thinking?"

Anyone got a story?

[peter johnson]

Okay, good topic:
I've been scared a lot by this and that over the years, but there was one moment of absolute helpless, unexpected terror that I always use as an example of said:
While I was living in India in the late '70's, I happened to travel to the town of Pune, sort of in the central North-West area of the country.  Pune had been a major military town for the British when they occupied portions of India for 300 years.  One result of the military presence was the digging of vast cisterns to catch rainwater, as Pune is in the middle of a very arid/desert region.
These enormous cisterns do their job very well and hold water to this day.
Anyway, I was out late one night at a local bar/hangout that bordered one of these cistern fields, and as we sat around drinking our Kingfisher beers, we watched the local native children walking out along the old support beams for the buckets above the cisterns -- think of a silo, but stuck in the ground, rather than rising into the sky -- and jumping off and climbing back out, wet and naked.  
Well, I got it into my head that this seemed like a fun thing to do, so I stripped off my clothes -- this is India in the '70's, people --, and walked out along a beam to join the children at play.
I jumped off.
What I thought were the same kids climbing out after a swift splash must simply have been kids that looked like each other, as the splash was no way in hell swift in coming.  I found myself enveloped by total darkness and approaching the speed of free-fall.  It seemed to go on forever.
I had jumped down an elevator shaft, or worse.  An involuntary scream left my body, and still I was accelerating -- I saw nothing/felt nothing but the air roaring past me.  It was as if being consumed by the Pit itself.  There I was:  Naked, helpless, falling in total black with no sane thought in my head.  
I finally did hit water, of course, and managed to climb up the rusty iron rungs pounded into the ancient limestone, but really!  I figured out later that the depth of the cistern had to exceed 50 ft.of air before striking water.
Hitherto, my "high-dive" experience had been confined to the 14ft. boards at public pools.
I can look back in my life at encounters with bullies, poisonous animals, gun-weilding tribesmen,
first-night performance jitters, asking girls out, facing my mother's wrath, etc. etc. etc ., but this single memory of falling naked in total blackness remains my greatest fear-memory.
peter AAAHH!/denny SCREEE!!!

[dean]

Peter.  That has left me near speechless.

The thought of you falling naked down a giant shaft and having that single fact etched in your mind the whole way is not only crazy in that 'I would have been freaked out if it was me' kind of way, but also mind-bendingly hilarious.

Helpless terror is both funny and dangerous.

[Texdar]

When I was about 10 years old my parents took me, my brother and my friend who was also spending the night to the drive in to watch The Exorcist.  Sufficed to say, I sat on the floorboard in the back seat through most of the movie.  My friend did the same.  We did however see the bed shaking scene and were thoroughly creeped out.

When we got home, we both slept on the pull out couch in the living room.  Next morning I woke up before my friend and my brother (being evil that he is) crawled under the bed and started shaking it up and down.  My friend woke up screaming and fell off the bed.  Pretty traumatic for him but funny as hell for us.

[Susan]

OMG..lol. I bet I know what 5 words were going through your head.
"What the hell was I thinking?"

Those are moments when you realize you might not make it out alive and your death will become one of those legendary stories that people love to discuss followed by comments like "wow, i hope that never happens to me"

In away your description of the fall is funny. It sounds like you have a pretty vivid memory of what it's probably like to be born..lol




- Roundtrip plane Ticket to India: $100

- Buying your friends a round of Kingfisher beer: $5

- Stripping bare ass and leaping down a 50 foot shaft straight into the ground screaming like a banshee as you tumble into the black abyss........Priceless

[Susan]

Here's my feats of stupidity

In June I adopted a kitten. I decided last month to get her spayed before she went into heat so I made an appointment, took the entire day off work and drove her to the vet early that morning. Since I had the whole day off I decided to clean house. I went home, vaccumed the floors, put my clothes and dishes away, and worked tirelessly on the bathroom. I keep the catbox in a laundry room and changed the litter. To freshen the room I reached on the shelf above in the dark for the portpourri apple jack spray. It's the oil you spray on potpourri, this one had spices so it kept the room smelling nice. I held it toward the bowl and sprayed.

Unfortunately the stream went in the wrong direction. There was a split second "oh sh*t" moment when I saw it coming toward my eyes. And yeah, it went directly into my right eye and sprayed into my left..basically my entire upper face ended up getting it.  Immediate, and I mean immediately searing pain. My eyes clamped shut, I screamed and stumbled backward..the pain was roaring and I realized in that moment that I had blinded myself forever all for the sake of a fresh smelling room.

I kept screaming and made it to the sink, turning on the water and trying to splash my eyes. But my eyes wouldn't open, i had to pry them with my fingers and all I saw was blackness and white sparkles. The pain never left. It was constant and felt like someone poured hot acid onto my face...because not only my eyes but all of my skin around my forehead and cheeks were burning. I splashed for what seemed like an eternity, letting out gutteral moans...where I finally filled the sink with water and dunked my entire head in trying to scrub my face and open my eyes. I was blind and knew I wouldn't be able to drive myself to the doctor nor locate the telephone. The neighbors were all at work...I was home alone on a friday morning.

It took about 15 minutes for the searing hot pain to subside and my vision to return. My face was still on fire and my eyes and all around them were swollen and red.

When I went to the vet and picked up the cat from her surgery, the doctor said she might be out of it for the night. He cocked his eyebrow when he got a look at me, I looked like I had been through hell and back. I was relieved that I could lay down and relax since the cat would be drugged and in pain too...we could bond in our misery.  When we got home the cat ran around chasing a paperball, obvivious to the fact that she had just underwent a complete hysterectomy just hours prior. As I lay there with my face throbbing and eyes dry and tender..i looked at the precious kitty who danced around so playfully, free of pain,  and tearing at my drapes as I lay helplessly and thought to myself "that b#tch"

 I  thought i was going to be blind, that i wouldn't lose my vision to something more tragic like a car accident, disease or assault. But to a bottle of apple scented spray.

My lesson learned boys and girls?  Never stand in a dark room and spray anything with chemicals.

[Ash]

When I was about 12 or 13, my friend & I were sitting at the kitchen table eating pizza and talking.
We heard soft taps on the back door.
I went to the door which had a window in it, pulled back the curtain on it and looked out.
Nothing.
I sat back down and a couple of minutes later we heard more taps.
This second time, I opened the door and stepped outside and looked left & right.
Nothing.
I sat back down again.

More taps...
I went back to the door a third time and when I pulled open the curtain my grandma appeared out of nowhere screaming "YAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" with her hands up like claws.

I remember screaming and then I fainted.
That was the only time in my life I've ever fainted.

I woke up about five minutes later to my family and friend laughing their asses off!

[Susan]

It makes me think of "The Tingler" - wondering how many people have really been scared to death.

I can tell you one thing, if i was ever put into a coffin or small dark confined space with a tarantula like in "the serpent and the rainbow", my obituary would say I met my sudden demise due to a heart attack.

Scream for your lives!

[ulthar]

Close Call:

We were helping some friends move to another state a few years ago, and I was towing the trailer with my truck.  Little did we know that in loading the thing, we got the balance wrong and there was a negative tongue weight.  Keep in mind this was in the NC Mountains.

My wife and I (we were not yet married at the time) were going down a large hill and the trailer started swerving side to side.  In that situation, at least with a normally loaded trailer, the proper course of action is to speed up a bit to try to outdrive the trailer.  So, I speeded up.

There was a moron in a Cadillac in the lane next to me trying to pass, and he remained totally oblivious to what was going on.  I guess he thought I was just trying to keep him from passing, but the upshot is that through the whole episode, he stayed right next to us.

At one point, the trailer was swinging from about 90 degrees to the left of the truck, through an arc all the way around to the right side.  Each time it hit it's maximum swing, there was an audible "clunk" and the truck would shimmy.  I kept trying to outdrive the trailer, but it just would not come under control.  I was trying to stay near the center of the road to give the trailer room to swing to the right, but had little room due to the guy in the Caddy.

This went on for the better part of a mile.  At the bottom of this hill was a reasonable sharp right hander (no biggie if going the 55 mph speed limit, but we were now at 70-75 mph with an out of control trailer).  Becky was holding on and gritting her teeth as I faught to keep the truck on the road and NOT hitting the guy right next to me in the lane.  I realize things were going from bad to worse as we neared the curve, so I told her (rather calmly as it turns out) "We are not going to make it."

Anyway, we DID somehow make it around that curve and the uphill grade afterward allowed us the opportunity to let gravity help settle the trailer AND slow us down.  We eased off the road into a parking lot, took a breather and went to see what was up.

As I loosened the coupler, the trailer stood straight up (pivoted back), with the chains taught.  Wow.  I could not pull the tongue down.  Anyway, the really freaky part was that there was less than one turn left of the nut holding the ball on the hitch.  All the twisting back and forth of the trailer had served to loosen the nut, and it was THAT CLOSE to being gone.

I called the guy whose stuff it was to come help me reload the trailer.  After reloading, it tracked just fine and we never had any problems with it again.  Incidentally, when he and his wife saw the mile of scuff marks on the highway, they could not believe we stayed not only on the road, but in our own lane!!

I attributed our 'success' to a couple of nearly random factors: (1) the truck is a 4x4, so it is just that much heavier than a 2wd truck. (2) the truck has an automatic tranny, so again it is just that little bit heavier and (3) I had just gotten new tires about a week before.  I figure we were just that close to the edge of losing the whole shooting match that if you remove any one of those three, we probably would not have saved it.

To this day, my wife make comments about how what I said was NOT the right thing to say.  My position is that I was trying to be honest and for her to get ready to crash.

[The Burgomaster]

When I was a kid, I'd wait until my parents went out shopping or something, and then I'd light a candle and spray Lysol at it.  It caused a really neat flame and a sound that went "foosh!"  Now I think back to how stupid that was and how lucky I was that I didn't burn down the house.  What an idiot.

[trekgeezer]

It's 1983 and my wife and I had been in Arkansas visting our parents with our son (only about 6 months old at the time) and were traveling back to Louisiana.

We had just come through a tiny town called Waldo and had just made a curve onto a long straight stretch of two lanehighway when I see a car coming straight at us. I made for the shoulder, but the guy came right ove with me like he was purposely trying to hit me. The shoulder was at the top of pretty high bank, but I had  no choice so I had to drive down the bank to keep the guy from hitting me.

The wife and I were totally stunned and when I stopped the baby was startled awake too.  As soon as we got out of his  way, the guy went back on the road into the right lane . A guy on Harley that was following us stopped and looked at us and then back in the direction the guy that ran us off the road had gone, then he took off after the guy.

Once I calmed down I got out and walked to the nearest house and called the local Barney Fife. When I described the car, the cop said he thought he knew who it was and where he could probably find him.  I have always assumed this was the local town drunk that ran us off the road.

Being brand new parents, this really scared the crap out of us. We were also in a brand new car.

We never knew what happened with the guy, but I've always hoped that the Harley guy caught up to him and gave him a good beat down. Drunk drivers are something the law still shows way too much tolerance for in the country.

[Susan]

Ulthar - wasn't there a lucy and desi movie about a long trailer? Yeesh. Your wife was right through, if she had her seatbelt on that's all she could have realistically done to prepare for the crash. the hero of the movie never looks at the girl and says "We aren't gonna make it"! We're gonna make it...even if aren't gonna make it, your gonna make it. At least you didn't say "everythings under control"

Burgo - i seem to remember doing stuff like that as a kid. It reminds me of how we used to spray aqua net hairspray on the soles of our shoes or on a strip of our jeans and light it...and it would go out. Except one time my friend sprayed her seamline on the inside and outside of her jeans and lit it. She rubbed the flames down and they reappeared.  Somehow in moments like that..."stop drop and roll" never come to mind. It's mere screaming, arm flailing and panic.

[dean]

I've done plenty of stupid stuff, that doens't really need repeating [like Susan and burgo, it mostly invovles fire]

But as for close calls and terrifying moments, the one that really sticks in my mind is walking in on a robber when i was about 16/17.  I got off school early, and back then I rode my bike to and from school, and I always parked the bike out the back.  

So after parking my bike, I notice our sliding back door is off.  The curtains are closed [it's a big windowed back room] so I walk in, and notice cushions from the couches all over the place, the tv and dvd player is missing and my first thought is 'Not again.'  This was in fact the third time we were robbed in 18 or so months.

I walk briefly around, and then notice that the front hallway has some bags in the doorway.  I turn around, and notice a noise.  Turning back to the hallway I see a man looking out our front door.  He obviously heard me and thought it was someone coming home [not thinking that I've come in the back].  I freak, move off to the side and just stand there, out of sight.  Then remembering that my dad walked in on the last robber and he just ran away, I hope to scare him and make him do the same.  I gather myself, take a breath and enter the hallway yelling at the guy to 'get the f**k out of my house'.  He grabs a couple of bags and makes for the door.  I give chase, still shouting.  

He blocks the front wire door with me on the other side.  We push on either side of the door, me shouting get the f**k out of here, him shouting "I've got a knife''.  this keeps up for a minute or two, whilst I grab a big wooden door stop and try to hit him [I've got my arm through the door trying to get at him so he can drop the bags.]

Eventually I give up, go for the phone nearby and he bolts for it.  Since he still has a couple of bags I give chase to his car which is parked a house or two up the street, to which he reaches in the car, grabs what looks to be a knife, makes a move at me and I back right off, but still shouting at him.  He gets in the car, drives off and I try and smash the window as he leaves with the big wooden door stop still in my hand. All the while the cars driving past didn't stop at all.  

As he leaves I etch the number plate and make of car in my head, gather my wits and then call the police.  

My heart has never raced so much since that moment, and I still kick myself thinking not only how bad it could have turned out, but at the fact that if I thought a bit hard about it, I could have grabbed something a bit more substantial than a solid wood door stopper, such as my brother's baseball bat that was in the room near the hallway [and which I could have got without him seeing me right at the start.]

Anyways, he ended up getting caught and sent to prison.  Funnily enough in his garage they found some things stolen from a friend of ours who were also robbed a bit before we were.  A while later the police gave me a follow up call when he was released from prison just to let me know.

Anyways, that's probably the craziest moment I've had so far.

[ulthar]

dean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I still kick myself thinking not only
> how bad it could have turned out,

But, Dean, we all have to fight back against asocial behavior.  You did the right thing.  We cannot not do our part because of the risk; if everyone thought the risk too great, civilization would be doomed.

[Andrew]

Initiative and surprise are often two of your best weapons in a fight.  You caught the guy off his guard by charging at him.  If you were already armed before stepping out and had come out swinging, you might have seriously injured him before he had any chance to make up his mind about what to do.  As it was, you kept him off balance and unable to solve the problem at hand (disengaging and running away) by continuing to shout and press him.

Indeed, you were fortunate that he did not have the knife on his person.  He was lucky you did not come out swinging with a baseball bat or hammer.

Katie and I have a fair reaction plan to an intruder in the house.  We also try to be prepared for things to go wrong or to run into trouble.  

Right after moving the family down to here, but while I was still based in NY, I had to catch a train from Baltimore back to NY.  My train was leaving at about 9:30 pm from the Aberdeen train station.  I can tell anyone that you do not want to be at the Aberdeen station at night.  I arrived and had to cross over a walkway to get to the platform.  There were four men hanging out on the walkway.  As I approached they did that little shuffling that sets off warning bells in your head.  I was already wary, but that got the blood and adrenalin going.  My intent was to try to incapacitate as many of them as possible the moment I was either stopped or threatened.  Immediately reacting was my best bet (honestly, my best bet was to back down and not cross the walkway).  The bad thing: four of them meant my chances were way low if they were determined.

Funny enough, a police car pulled up and the officer got out to see what was going on.