I shouldn't actually be alive now... :)

[Bill Ryan]

The moderators last night found themselves exchanging some personal stories about all-too-close brushes with death that were really quite hard to believe. We were amazed to learn that several of us had had these experiences.

I've had one or two, myself. Let me start the ball rolling with this one. But it doesn't compare with the incredible escapes of some others.

Please do share your stories of your very own Nine Lives.

~~~

I was once nearly swept over a 100 ft waterfall in Norway in a swollen glacier-melt river after I'd fallen out of my kayak.

I'd never intended to kayak over the waterfall! I planned to get out long before that. But the river was going so fast that after I capsized and had to bale out of my boat, I was being swept towards the thing at 20 mph. Maybe more.

Even though I had a lifejacket, I was being violently sucked under the water every few seconds. The water was icy, it was becoming hard to breathe, and it was almost impossible to swim.

When I saw the river bend coming, I realized my only chance was to try to swim sideways as hard as I could towards the outer curve of the bend, and just hope I might be able to grab something on the bank.

That worked: I somehow managed to grab some small tufts of grass... and they just held.

~~~

Who's going next?

[etheric underground]

Fell head first off a three storey flying fox. Should’ve been killed....
Ended up with massive head trauma, 2 broken arms, broken jaw, ripped off bottom
Lip ( put my teeth through it)
Also nearly drowned surfing a notorious surf location in NZ.
Wiped out... hit the ocean floor, leg rope broke...
and I battled to hold my breath to get to the surface, only to be smashed again.
On the 3rd impact, I started to think it’s my time.. I was out of breath
And seeing stars.... I gave in to the idea I was going to die...
I surfaced just in time to find the most lake like surroundings...
Was surreal.

[Praxis]

Mine is little more low key than Bill's:

I was a junior in high school.

Decided to go to the rec center to get some swimming in as my mother was already going.

Get in. Start the first 50m. Do a flip underwater and start the return 50m.

Start to notice that something doesnt feel right. I cant breathe. Like water in the lungs cant breathe.

I think that since it has been a long time maybe my freestyle breathing is not what it used to be so I stop and start treading water.

It is getting worse. I still cant breathe. It feels like there is water in my lungs and I am drowning. IMPOSSIBLE. My head is out of the water and I am definitely not taking in.

Still feel like I am drowning. I struggle to get to the side of the pool(with no life guard on duty) for what seems like eternity.

When I get to the side, I put my hands on the rim of the pool and start to cough. Like a scene from the exorcist, a bright red stream of blood starts flowing from my mouth. I keep coughing up a steady stream of blood for several minutes. I finally get my self out of the pool and over the a drinking fountain where I continue to stream blood for a bit longer.

It finally stops. I go and tell my mom who starts freaking out and we head to the doctor.

Turns out I had a congenital cyst in the wall lining of my lung and it got infected. The pressure from being underwater caused a rupture and was bleeding internally into my lung. So I nearly drown in a pool from the inside.

Needless to say, I didnt swim for a while . . .

[mojo]

The Sow Grizzly just feet outside the tent and didnt know she was there. When unzipping the tent opening and exiting out, both the Grizz and myself jumped vertically.That was the closest encounter to a bear.... That bear could easily have taken me as the next meal in Denali that day....

[greybeard]

Hemorrhaged after simple tonsil adenoid operation followed by double pneumonia age8.
Diagnosed burst spleen in sledging accident--you only have three days to live with that seemingy--on the third day in coma I was rushed into hospital--exploratory operation found cause and life saved. age 11.

Age 15 dinghy racing from Findhorn to Cromarty--a gale blew up out of nowhere -- The Moray Firth very calm till then.
The rescue boat was busy rescuing others and did nor realize we had capsized upside down waves crashing over us hanging on to the upturned boat--the rescue boat itself in danger ran for home leaving us.
I prayed for help--sometime later a fishery protection boat crewman spotted us and turned back rescuing us.
The boat/ship had actually passed us an was about half a mile away when the crew spotted us.
It was a miracle we were seen and rescue.

Im my late twenties I was well into alcoholism with delirium tremors and seriously contemplating suicide -- a concerned friend got me into hospital just in time--spent 9 month in psychiatric unit there.
AA saved my life never drank alcohol since

Aged 45 burst an ulcer and came too in hospital.

Age 55 I went to a seminar in Kavolum India put on by Ramesh Balsekar.
Went for a swin in the calm water of the Indian ocean---waves came out of knowhere and I hitthe bottom in about twenty foot of water that happened three time--fortunately I was used to being underwater and did not panic. Life guards saw my plight and came out and got me ashore.
Seemingly that was nothing new to that area --some one fishing of a rock the night before had been dragged into the water by a large wave and drowned.

AA sytarted the piritual quest and I am fortunate to be alive--I give thanks every night for being sober which I dont take for granted--I am forever a recovering alcoholic--the illness is not curable.
I am one of several generations.
Its possibly hereditary
Chris

[Bluegreen]

One time I went to a lake cabin with friends and went swimming. I went by myself toward the middle of the lake as a storm moved in. Being young and stupid I just thought it looked cool until I heard my friends yelling and realized it wasn't such a good place to be. I had nearly reached the pier when lightning hit the lake.

Next thing is being surrounded by my freaking out friends flat on my back and shaking uncontrollably. It was so strange. I knew I was going to be OK and wanted to say so but I couldn't speak or stop shaking. Just had to wait it out.

I learned a couple things that day

[Deux Corbeaux]

One evening, while on a winter holiday, my partner and I thought it would be fun to go tobogganing in the evening on a floodlit track.
In the middle of the track was a path, crossing a steep icy ski piste, leading to a cosy little bar where we drank some 'obstler schnapps'....

Before we continued our track down, we sat for a while on the toboggan before crossing the piste to the proper toboggan track....... when it began to slide, nose down and impossible to stop.

Putting our heels firmly on the icy snow didn't help the toboggan to slow down, as it was too heavy. It just resulted in an icy shower on our faces and eyes. We were almost blinded and could only see some tiny lights of the restaurant deep down at the end of the descent.
We had to keep tight to the sledge and to each other. I was sitting in the front and saw through my tears the tiny lights down the track and a dark blue sky above and thought, while bumping on the icy snow hills and flowing through the air,......well, there we go, this will be the end, life was beautiful......

I thank my partner for strongly putting his weight on his left feet all the time, thus slowly turning the sleigh to the edge of the piste.
Then suddenly we were flying up in the air, off piste, into the pine trees..... tumbling down, my partner on top of me..... After a while we found out we were "OK", the toboggan nowhere to be seen.

A serviceman, who made his last round inspecting the piste, found us and scolded us for having been on a ski slope with a toboggan.... And he was right.
He found the sleigh for us, which he took down. We managed to get down as well...., oh well, the adrenaline did it for us.

Back in our hotel room, after picking out the needles, we got a hysterical laughing fit for at least half an hour.

Two almost middle aged people went tobogganing .....

Add: .... saved by the pine tree familie.

[Eva2]

About six years ago I was in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. This particular area was always having these dry electrical storms and lightening would be continually streaking across the skies. Late afternoon one day, I happened to be standing on a second floor balcony of the place I was staying at watching the lightening bolts streak across the skies during one of these storms. I was holding onto a metal railing and all of a sudden I had a strong gut feeling that I needed to let go of the railing. A mere few seconds later a huge lightening bolt shot into the ground less than 20 feet from where I was standing and I remember being enveloped in all this blinding light. I heard a great commotion behind me as one of the guests in another room saw me from his balcony door and started yelling and running towards me. He thought I'd been struck and was actually surprised to see me alive and standing. That was a really close one. I often think of this event and wonder if that could have been one of my chosen options for exiting this reality .

[Orobo]

My girlfriend an I were looking for trout in a shallow river in France. We climbed up on a railway bridge some 10 meters (30ft) high and wanted to see if there was some action down in the water.
The machinist of a fast approaching train on our side just discovered us when he was already on the bridge and blew the horn. We were lying on our bellies over the low stone sidewall with our legs on the track.
We jumped up and in flash I decided that jumping in front of the train was better than being run over or jump into the 30cm (1 foot) deep water. Both were missed the train by a hair.

[42]

Scuba Diving....Trapped inside a shipwreck at 80 feet in almost zero visibility, my tank became snagged and pulled off. thanks to a very experienced dive buddy, what could have been fatal became a really good dinner party story.

[Rosemarie]

Soooo I have just turned 19 and I am in flying school. I have already solo and have to make hours for my pilots license. One day Returning to Guayaquil I start my approach to land and the motor just stops. What the f*^+%k. I tried to start the motor and it just “cough” and “cough”( hope that is the word. ) The north part of the landing strip is near water , the south has constructions. At that time there was not that road around the north part, just a jungle of vegetation. Thanks God I am in the north side so i start to glide on top of the water first , then the top of trees I can touch and I made it just to very very beginning of the landing strip. And the little cessna 150 just touches the strip and stops there. I have never trembled so much in my life. I did not saw myself dying but it could have been so much worst. It looks like some waste ( don’t know correct word) got into the carburetor and made the motor stop. That would not happen now . Something about pistons, injections and filters. I did not want to fly again. My father made me go in the air the next day.

My second brush with death ...., i am in the north shore of Hawaii with my kids and a friend. Never been to that beach. Enter the sea , walk a couple steps and there is a huge drop. And at the same moments a couple of waves start to hit one after another. I thought I was going to drowned. Every time I came up for air another wave came. My Friend who was a local came to help, calmed me down and helped me get to shore.
Over the years I have heard of lots of people drowning there. Not surprised

Edit ; Strat , thank you for the explanation about what could have happened to the plane. I got an explanation from the mechanics of the Aereo Club next day , being 19 I just wanted it not happening again , (besides talking a foreign language; mechanics ) more than 40 years have passed since then. Jaja

[Intranuclear]

I have had so many "should have been dead situations, it's hard to even recall them all.

As a two year old, I nearly died from rheumatic fever which also affected my heart. I underwent 8 years of therapy.

As an 8 year old, I lived about 200 meters from a particle accelerator in Armenia which at the time was the 4th largest in the world. Next to it was a tall lightning tower to protect it. One day, it was stormy and I was on the balcony being amazed how the tower was attracting the lightning from the sky. As one of the bolts hit, I actually saw a thin arc jump from the tower and come towards me. Next thing I remember was me opening my eyes lying flat on my back on the balcony's concrete floor and my chest hurting and burning. When I finally got up and looked in the mirror, I saw a tiny black burn exactly where my heart was (well still is I guess).

Another event as a child, I was chewing on raw parsley or cilantro and not having ground it well, I swallowed. I was all alone in the living room at the time. Part of the parsley went down my throat and the other part blocked my throat. I could not breathe or utter sounds or cough. As I was blacking out, I felt my mothers fingers all the way down my throat pulling out the partially chewed material and I could breathe. How on earth she knew and appeared at the last moment, I still have no idea. I never asked her how the hell she knew. Since that event, I am extremely sensitive to other people chocking and paid it forward several times, including having saved a toddler who was playing with a bottle of talcum powder while he was on his back. Somehow, either the top was loose or the baby squeezed hard, all I could see was the baby's whole face covered by a little hill of powder. The baby could not even cry as his mouth, nose and eyes were under powder. I immediately jumped on the baby, turned him around and poured out all the powder and cleared the powder out of his nose. While this was happening, I looked back at his parents who were sitting nearby and watching me completely frozen. They did not react until finally the baby was even able to cry. All I could think of was my mother at that moment and me being able to pay her back a little for my life. The parents of the baby were looking at me later like I was an angel heaven sent.

Another event as a child while I was playing with old pliers with unprotected handles, I decided that it would be a great idea to touch an exposed electric socket (different country, different configuration) with the tips of the pliers. It was only a 220V socket (not US). My father was eating breakfast behind me. While I was frozen with the wonderful current overriding all my nerves, I felt a sharp kick from behind. My father had kicked me (not touching me) and lo and behold, I was saved. Again, how he knew what to do I have no idea. It happened so fast.
And this was not the last time.

Growing up, when we had no hot water, in order to take a bath, we used a heating coil that one put in the water to heat the water in the tub. I decided that it would be a great idea to get into the tub while the coil was busy heating the water. As I first put in one leg into the water, a powerful current froze my body. While I was shaking, somehow I ended up falling back which broke the current flow. No one had warned me about NOT getting into water while it was being heated.

As an older adult living in Sherman Oaks (near LA,California), I was using a land line telephone talking to someone. Meanwhile there was a good rainstorm and I could hear thunder which was getting closer to the apartment. All of a sudden, I felt unbelievable pain coursing through my body. I had never at that time heard that using a telephone could get one killed. I had never experienced pain at such a level. Perhaps a close analogy would be being torn apart, pouring salt at the nerve endings then being torn apart again. The only thought I could muster as my hand holding the telephone was stuck to my ear was that I desperately wanted to die. Talk about Hell. This went on for seemingly like an eternity, which it obviously was not. By that time I had been electrocuted many times, but had never experienced that kind of mental pain.

When I was working in Seattle at a video gaming company, the company decided to take all of us to a white water rafting. While having great fun going over the raging waters our raft got stuck on some rocks. I decided to be a hero and jumped into the water and tried to free the raft. Wow, what a bad idea that was. The bottom of my feet felt like they were being pulled by many horses. Even though I was wearing a life jacket and was holding on to the string of rope that went around the craft (serving as handles) I could not prevent being sucked into the water. I was down for quite some time and one of my hands had already gotten away from the rope handle as I could not hold on to it. Maybe because of that, my body tilted from vertical to more horizontal which lessened the pull and with the remaining arm still desperately holding the rope, somehow I managed to pull my body up and actually proceeded to free the raft and get back into it. My friends in the raft thanked me and stated how stupid I was for doing what I did. I acted like it was nothing, however, I was shaking with fear at having nearly drowned and have since realized how stupid it is to go white water rafting without serious training.

There were so many other events, including being stuck inside a hollow rock while doing a night scuba dive all alone. I had never had issues with claustrophobia and actually enjoyed being inside confined and very tight places. When I was stuck in the narrowing tunnel which was under a large rock (maybe 4 or 5 meters in diameter) I actually did not panic. I unfastened my buoyancy jacket that held my tank and regulator and left it near the end of the small tunnel and while holding my breath, push myself out of the rock, swam around and pulled my gear out from the other end, put it back on and continued having a great time. I had not realized the effect that event would have had on me. Many years later, while I was having an MRI and my head and part of my body went inside the tube and my fat chest and arms were touching the inside of the tube, I freaked out completely. I pressed the emergency button in my hand and terminated the MRI session. I had never had such a panic attack, but I think I am recovering from that too.

I'll stop now and let others have a go. I'm not sure but I may have gone past 9 lives.

[Denise/Dizi]

After reading the posts of others, I suppose I too, have faced death and lived to have another day..

I tend to engage in very unusual activities for a woman. So some of these activities may surprise you ... .As such, I have found myself in some sketchy situations. Some of those include:

Wrecking my motorcycle, and being fortunate enough to walk away from it. (Just 5 years ago).. I had some serious damage, but I walked away.

Being in a vehicle accident as the passenger, where the end result was months of rehabilitation to gain back the 3 inches on my leg that I lost, when I broke my pelvic bone. I was fortunate it didn't sever an artery.

Finding myself hurling nose first towards the ground, when the private plane I was in, ran out of gas... I REALLY thought that was my day..

And the worst one, because it was a deliberate action on the part of another.. Attempted Murder, or an attempt to cause me some serious bodily injury..(This still breaks my heart, so I will elaborate)..

When I was 17, I was nearly killed by a young man who was jealous that I wouldn't date him.. I already had a boyfriend, I wasn't just being a snob... but he didn't care.. He offered to "Work on my car for me" .

I felt that this was one way to keep our friendship going without him being so upset, so I allowed him access to my vehicle. That was a big mistake.. He loosened the nuts that held my steering wheel on, hoping I would die in a vehicle accident. I noticed that this was done, after I nearly went off of a 1,000 foot river ravine when I was turning my wheel, and it came apart from the dash in my hands! Fortunately I had already turned the wheel for the turn, and I was able to pull the E Brake, and hit the breaks, after downshifting the car into first gear, hoping to stall the car.

I later learned he did try to harm others before he finally took his own life. So I avoided/survived a murder attempt. Or at least an attempt to cause me serious bodily injury.

I think that life event changed me.. It changed how I see others actions, it made me hyper critical of others that cause innocent people harm.. And I spend a great deal of my life quietly watching others now, just to make sure that no one every deliberately harms another in my presence if I can help it. As no one warned me that my life was at risk by even knowing this person. It profoundly affected me.

Things in this life can humble you quickly. And life is very fragile.

[Constance]

Back in the early 80's, I had been visiting a dear friend (who has now passed) who used to live in far North Queensland, Australia. She, myself and a Canadian friend were driving back one late hot sultry afternoon to her home. I was the front passenger in the car whilst our Canadian friend drove and my girlfriend sat in the back. We had hired a little mini moke for the occasion

Attachment 40891

(This is what a our vehicle looked like for all those who haven't seen one before)

and as we wove our way down the long winding highway, I became very drowsy and nodded off to sleep. However, our young Canadian friend who was driving, had also fallen asleep at the wheel. We drifted to the wrong side of the road and I woke up just before we hit the first car.

Before we knew it, we had then careered straight into a second and then a third car but amazingly, instead of spinning out, or coming to a halt, the mini moke continued on in a straight trajectory towards the other side of the road. We came to a grinding halt on the side of the road. In the next second that passed, a huge truck roared by.

My girlfriend who had been in the back seat of the moke began to start screaming hysterically but miraculously, we were all unscathed!

Nothing surprises me more than how we react to certain situations. I don't know whether I was in shock or whether I hadn't time to process anything but I remember calmly clambering out of the moke and then striding over to the other cars to see how the people were, and then rounding them all up so that they could take care of each other. In those days, we didn't have cell phones so I then ran to the nearest farmhouse to call the police.

When the police finally arrived, they stared at us, each other and at all the vehicles in disbelief. Not one of the twelve people in the three cars had been injured. It was a busy highway and at the time, due to the treacherous conditions of the road, it had rightly earned the nickname of "Death Highway".

The police officers who had inspected our little mini moke were surprised to see that the engine had dropped out of the vehicle's chassis and onto the ground. This was the only explanation they could give us for how they thought we could have survived not just one impact, but three impacts.

[Strat]

Posted by Rosemarie (here)
It looks like some waste ( don’t know correct word) got into the carburetor and made the motor stop. That would not happen now . Something about pistons, injections and filters

There's a tongue-in-cheek explanation for this, 'boogered up.' Sounds more like a clogged filter than something reaching the carb, unless it was recently maintained and someone did a shoddy job (or you lost 'spark' which would prevent the engine from restarting, if it was solely carb you may be able to punch the gas and get it going again, sorta like how carb vehicles run fine but stall at stoplights). This is partly why single engine planes sketch me out, if it stalls you're screwed. Another thing that sketches me out about planes is they are often maintained like cars, however with cars it's annoying to do the work whereas with planes it's absolutely mandatory and you need a higher standard. Meaning a filter on a plane should be replaced sooner than it would be on a car. If your filter clogs on your car you pull over and call a tow truck. If it clogs on a plane you pray to god you live. Complacency kills.

Yes, there are injectors which are much better, but they still rely on the same filters. Much of the other tech is the exact same. I would bend over backwards to be an airplane mechanic but that'll never happen due to health.

More on topic, I've had my brushes with death but frankly they are very dark experiences and I don't wanna be a 'buzz kill' so to speak.

[Bill Ryan]

Another one.

Way back in my 20s, I was scrambling up easy rocks by the side of a waterfall in South Wales. Simple stuff, in a steep V-shaped river gorge. No rope: it wasn't needed.

The very final move was to pull myself over the top with an excellent handhold on a huge boulder that was solidly wedged at the very edge.

As I pulled on to it, the entire thing came loose and then I was falling through the air holding on to this 5 ton giant rock that was bigger than I was.

I pushed it aside — and then landed on steeply sloping, rocky ground 40 feet below. I walked away without a bruise. That's kind of impossible.

[DeDukshyn]

Man I have a lot of these ... At one point I almost began think I was some sort of god or had special protection.

I'll give an early one here now ...

I was about 17, at my friends house and we were jumping on his trampoline together - it was a large one maybe 15' - 18' across (round) and pretty capable. So I wanted to see how high I could get with my buddy double bouncing me each time I landed (we both were fairly seasoned on a trampoline, I had one as well). I was probably able to get my feet a good 9-10 feet off the trampoline - we were both in pretty decent shape.

So after about maybe the fourth or fifth iteration in this double bounce I suddenly found myself heading off center. I wasn't 100% sure if I could recover in the next bounce without trying to stop, but I decided I would. I underestimated how far to the max this trampoline was being stressed, not that it broke, but the tension that pulled me back toward the center of the trampoline, as I landed off center, was waaay stronger than I had anticipated (due to the trampoline springs pretty much reaching their max tension), and as I said, I also was adding my own extra intentional effort in the same direction to get centered again.

This caused me to flay way off to the other side, and at an extremely high height. Now, on the other side of the trampoline was about a four foot drop to flat and grassed area -- that is where I was going. Unfortunately, when I had landed the previous jump on the trampoline, I rather did (maybe reflex) partly, but just a small partly, try to absorb a little of the impact - but it absorbed into my upper body (arms I guess), not my legs, and so my legs went shooting up and I could clearly see I was going to land on my head on the area that was 4 feet below the bottom of the trampoline. The trampoline was four feet high, and I was probably 8 feet in the air above that (so at least 16 ft above the ground where I was about to land). My friend shrieked at the top of his lungs like a little girl - it was awful!

I hear stories about people getting "paralyzed" with fear or just panicking or acting stupid or whatever, but when I get into a potentially life threatening situation I get a focus that I don't experience at any other time. Time slows down.

I wasn't quite fully inverted as I came down, I was on a slight angle and my head and right shoulder were going to take the brunt of the landing. But somehow, I just became a ninja and simply "one arm dive rolled" it out. Not a scratch. Not a bruise, nothing. I just rolled out and jumped up like I was doing a parallel bar dismount and said "Tadaaah!!"

BTW, my friends face ... shoulda seen it. Jaw was on the ground.

[AutumnW]

When I was 12 or 13 years old I came home one cold winter evening and unable to turn the iced up door handle, knocked on the door. I could see my father sitting not ten feet from the door, ignoring my knock. I kept knocking and he kept ignoring me. Freezing, I knocked harder, now yelling, "please let me in!!! I'm freezing!"

Finally he gets off his chair opens the door and starts stomping around like a bull moose, yelling that I forced him to get up and that I could have opened the door if I wanted to. I told him he was mistaken, to which he replied, "*#%+!! to you!"

I replied in kind, "#%+!! to you, too!" You never want to agitate a bull moose... like never. I realized my mistake as soon as it slipped out of my mouth. I ran as fast as I could with crazy Dad, nostrils flaring, in hot pursuit. The bathroom was handy so I ducked in there, and locked the door.

Unable to unlock the door, he began hurling his body against it to break it down. This was pretty scary. He'd never quite lost it like that before. Eventually, after 5 or 6 good body slams he gave up and went back downstairs to finish watching his hockey game. After about an hour I slowly came out of the bathroom.

He looked kind of scared when he told me that it was a good thing I made it to the bathroom as if I hadn't he may have killed me. And he meant it. So unnerving for a child.

Anyway...I wish I had nearly lost my life climbing Everest instead! More sporting!

[seehas]

very interesting thread everyone, i think i got something to share

i was still member of a paragliding school in switzerland and we did some group flying directly in front of a big north face in the swiss mountains, we had amazing thermals that day and i was wearing a radio to talk and listen to the coach that was flying with us there, the coach told us to use the thermals directly under that big cloud to gain altitude to pass the mountain and land in the valley behind that mountain, i was the last one to pass and i did use the thermals 2 or 3 times to often and was sucked into that big cloud, inside the cloud i was beeing sucked higher and higher, i could feel it after minutes my arms and legs had ice-crystals all over it and it was getting scary cold, i started to fly a spiral inside the cloud to lose altitude and i spiraled so long i got quite sick and even i could still feel i was going higher - i used my radio to contact the others and asked for help, the radio still did work and my coach told me to pull certain lines to reduce the sice of the glider and continue spiral - since i didnt know where i was flying "no sight at all" either i was faceing a stone wall in a few seconds or im going away from the mountain - after minutes that felt like hours the cloud started to clear and i could see the blue sky ...wow i was lucky that day


the other thing didnt went out that good for me, i was flying alone that day i got some not so easy winds and should have been on the ground since iam not that skilled, it happened when i was aproaching the landing area some gutsy winds with wrong break input made my wing fullstall in like 20meters, i fall down in a big field and a tourist found me and called a helicopter, (the moment i saw my wing collapsed i knew i was going to die for sure and all i was thinking was - "u stupid idiot, is that how its going to end?" one vertebrae got completly crushed and i got some titan in my back now but i survived it, that day i had my first flight in my new harness, i dont know if the harness safed my life but it safed me from beeing paralized 100% - _"the foam inside is much thicker" i couldnt feel my legs that well after the accident 2 operations made the feeling come back ... lucky lucky again


now nearly 10 years later i still get some adrenaline when i think about the cloud story

[happyuk]

In 1990 I was working on a building site in South Wales. A colleague removed a tall aluminium ladder from his van without watching what he was doing and hit some power cables overhead. I didn't realise what had happened until I heard loud cracking sounds coming from above, followed by a lot of sparks and smoke and the remains of the power cable landing close to me. The next bit I remember is standing in the doorway of a nearby house. I remember hardly anything of running between the van and the building while dodging the power cables that were burning and falling around me. A colleague said he had never seen me move so fast! I then spent the next few minutes watching the cables spark and clash together as they progressed along the rest of the cables all the way down the end of the street and beyond. The financial cost must have been immense. I still dread to think what might have happened had one of those high voltage cables landed on me