Near Death Experiences.

[eeyore]

Came to after surgery to hear someone saying, "okay, she's breathing again".

Skiers left on Dave's run at Mammoth, hit ice, went into a flat spin and tumbled through The Rock Garden. I was not wearing a helmet. I skied my own ass out of there, two broken ribs and my face was kinda scraped up - oddly enough had an abrasion between my lips and nose. I bought a new helmet.

[leroy jenkins]

Driving north on 191 just about a mile north of Gallatin Gateway, 2 lanes 55 miles an hour, people drive it like morons.

Car driving south signals a left turn as I am maybe 100 yards or less away, too close for him to make the turn in front of me.

Car behind him fails to stop and swerves around him and passes to the left and into my lane.

We are maybe 3 car lengths apart both moving fast, close enough to see him saying oh shit. I swerve farther right and somehow we manage to fit 3 vehicles across 2 lanes.

I count something similar as one of mine as well, except instead of turn signals etc... it was a fucking idiot trying to pass despite clearly not having enough room and doing probably about 100 oddly enough also on highway 191 but this one just south of moab. Just committed to that not doable pass, the car he was passing had no idea I don't think, I had to pull onto the shoulder at 75 and we all saw another day. No idea what that guy was fucking thinking.

[MakersTeleMark]

One of many, but this one took me down the tunnel.

1994. It was spring break in college, everyone goes to Florida, I forget which town, somewhere on the beach, Daytona?

Every college kid does "spring break", like it's right of passage.

Well, I'm poor as shit, have no family to go to/from, in northern western mass, and devised a plan to fully enjoy this "spring break" experience.

On the way out of bum fuck, caught a ride to a rural town wearing a small moutainsmith packed with an xgk, some fuel, and a nalgene to a very rural freight train crew change point, and I headed south.

Wanted to make it from upper mass down to Florida, experience "spring break", and make it back for class.

Thousands of stories later, on my way back was stuck under an underpass waiting for that e-ticket freight to get me up up up. So I split with the vet guys in the "camp" and hiked a few ten miles north after scoring some dumpster donuts and bringing them back and thanking them for their companionship. My name at the time was "Father John".

Freak snowstorm, every train went left to Pittsburgh at that MF junction. I swung myself on each one, only to have to tuck and roll when it took that MF left. Every GD time. I spent an entire day crushing my soul and body like a pendulum on each run and bail.

I sat there covered up waiting for that one one that would go north then up to new england eventually. Took me three days, but not really.

The snow came in, I was huddled in my crazy creek, completely knackered, broke, and freezing. I sat and sat. After 2 days I eventually ran after trains that weren't even there, came back to my seat, and just let the snow pile up on me. I started tripping really hard. I had done acid a bunch before, but never tripped that hard.

Could not stop shaking violently for hours and hours and hours, until I just closed my eyes. This is on the tracks in philly. Not a particularly great place, but it was right at the junction, and I ran out of water and dinty moore 2 days before. I was freezing, literally.

I went down into to a deep deep place, where my body stopped shaking, my eyes saw trails of fake lights, deeper and deeper. And I finally passed. I was laughing so so hard, I passed out.

Who knows when, but I remember vividly being shaken so hard, like a rag doll. Completely coated in snow, buried over.

A man with no plates was walking his dog and found me, a snowy lump, sitting covered up by the side of the tracks. He just kept shaking me. He finally lifted me to my feet and started to drag me over his shoulder up and down the tracks with my feet dead, just dragging a dead man. I finally came to after a couple laps and asked him where I was, and who was he, and wtf was going on. He held my hand for a mile to a 7-11 and bought me a cup of coffee.

I returned to my seat, and the next train was not going left to Pitt, and I jumped on it with all I had, rammed myself into the back corner of that empty boxcar facing upwind so I wouldn't pass out, jammed a railroad spike in the sliding door track, and woke up in the middle of a complete clusterfuck of miles of track in the very dead center of Newark, so happy I was just alive.

I continued on, and made it back in time, and my lips and body were so fried I couldn't even tell my roommates what I did over spring break. I still have so many vivid memories from that trip. It was over the edge. I was dead. It was fucked up.

[MakersTeleMark]

Lone Pine Peak. Off route way way climber's right of the north ridge on the face. Not roped up, 20 pitches easily up,, it just goes and goes, dark, a pair of LS makau's, the entire block I was traversing across exploded under at least 3000' with just the smell of pure friction sparks and dust while I hang there begging for my buddy to throw me a rope like cliffhanger. Literraly, feet just flying, me hanging on a block by my fingertips over the death.

I did end up unintentional bivy 2 nights on that face/not face. A bighorn sheep saved my life on day 3. I still have a photograph framed that I took from bivy night 1, not even knowing that was far from the end. To have your entire body cut out of you explosively in an instant over thousands and thousands of feet of exposure is something that even 6 feet reminds me of. I should have been fucking dead in the middle of nowhere. I will post the photo.

I made it back and ended up booking a night in a no tell in lone pine, ordered a pizza, got some jamo and a playboy from the gas station, and my buddy passed the fuck out, and I just sat on that mattress thinking that that that's it, that is death, over and over again.

I ended up repeating that route in something like 12 hours a few years later to get it off my chest because it left so many existential scars.





It's the big one in the middle. It is big and long. Don't go right. Trust me.

It's funny that I saw another photo in the background that I just took. That was the E. Ridge of Whitney. That went like cake. Snagged a permit in the morning, hiked up and set up camp, solo'd the ridge route or something on Russel, then bagged the e ridge and jogged down the mountaineers route on whit and had a fosters and slept in a civic. Wow. What a time warp.

Maybe that's the thing. You want it to time warp, because if you think of it too hard, you are dead.

I'll pull a few at least more from difference scenes out for this thread if it still has traction. I'm really enjoying these stories. They continue to exist, whether we like them, or we survive. Props mags.



Step into the freezer, death don't hurt very long.

Listen and learn noobs.

[riser4]

Not as established as you thought, I guess. Those Bronx based Christmas Tree elves don't fuck around, yo.

No shit.

[SumJongGuy]

I had an out of body death experience while detoxing from alcohol (heart attack?).. Full on out of body experience, saw my parents finding my body, say them calling people crying telling them about my demise... I was home alone at the time. Parents were traveling.

Next morning, first thing my best friend, who lived 200 miles away called me and said he dreamed I died. Said it was so real that he had to call and check on me. He had no idea I wasn't doing well at the time but he described pretty close my death experience, what happened, my parents calling him.. him packing up to drive down for my funeral.. Then I told him what happened that night. Freaking freaky shit.

[chicken feathers]

Working seasonally for the forest circus for a few summers in beetle killed lodgepole. Pretty f'd situation with down timber throughout the forest. More than once trees fell right were I had just been, or was about to go. Even rattled a few military vets on crews I worked with.

A few summers I had a job felling dwarf mistletoe infested trees that were left in clear cuts. We'd just wander through old timber sales with big saws dropping lodgepole pine all day. I got complacent and hardly gave myself an exit path from a tree one day AND half ass looked at how the tree would lay. I put my back cut in, and the tree began to fall - there was another down tree perpendicular to the lay of the tree I just cut. The tree I dropped was gonna hit that, sending the butt of the tree into the sky. I dove out of the way and threw my arm up for extra protection. I still remember how the tree brushed my shirt sleeve. I turned my saw off and just sat on the side of the road for a while after that. Glad I didn't rip my face off for the sake of my coworker buddy and my wife.

A few other ski accidents and an early memory of almost getting really messed up on a old merry go round as a kid.

[TBS]

^^^ Fuck, that’s triggering
Guy I knew in Humboldt County was a foot on the wrong side of you when the OG Redwood he was felling jumped off the stump. Flattened his hard hat and crushed his skull. He was like 25. His felling partner never went back to work in the woods again.

Sorry

[whyturn]

Spent the night outside at revelstoke. When they found me my body temp was 83. Pretty crazy experience


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[tgapp]

Spent the night outside at revelstoke. When they found me my body temp was 83. Pretty crazy experience


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This story ^^^ is unbelievable, and TGR deserves the whole thing, my god.

Stoked you're still here with us )




Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

[schindlerpiste]

Just a f/u to my story. My wife and I were on our honeymoon. At the time, we were heavily into SCUBA. I have always been a fan of Jacques Cousteau. Ever since watching him on TV I wanted to visit Egypt and dive the Straits of Tiran and Ras Mohammad. After spending a week diving most of the renowned sites in and around Sharm-el-Sheikh, we decided to take a day off and visit St. Catherine's Closter (the home of the famed "Burning Bush" and where Moses came down the mountain with the 10 Commandments). We had a great time. We rode camels, took in some history and everything seemed chill. St. Catherine's was about 300 km from our hotel in Sharm. Our group gathered on the Mercedes Sprinter-type van and were on our way home when all shit hit the fan. The terrain is rough. Desert mountains with cliffs. About 40 mins into the ride, the driver, who we all thought was a local Egyptian, started chanting in either Farsi, or some Arabic lingo and then took a sharp left turn off of a 100m steep cliff/hill. The van turned over in the air and struck sand with its butt end. The people in the back row of seats perished, as did the driver who was thrown from the vehicle. I was in the second row from the back and suffered 5-6 broken ribs and a simple tibia fx. My wife sustained a concussion and many cuts and bruises. We were stuck in the desert for a couple of hours,
We climbed up the cliff (very steep hill) and sat down on the side of the road. Finally, a bus saw us and stopped. Two days earlier, I was diving with a few guys from the UN MFO Peacekeepers. I asked the bus driver to contact the American Embassy and the Peacekeepers, which he did. My wife and I were taken by the bus back to St. Catherine's, where we were deposited in a M*A*S*H type medical tent. There was no latrine, and the cots were stained with dried blood. My wife was sutured (20 or so) without the aid of lidocaine, or any other medication. While there, the MFO peacekeepers showed up with a helicopter. We were examined and encouraged to accept a flight to Israel for additional treatment. We declined. The worst part at the M*A*S*H unit, other than no bathroom and bloodstained cots, was at sundown when the locals started chanting prayers that were blaring out of a loudspeaker. We remained there for about 4 hr.s until a Land Rover from the hotel picked us up and drove us to Dahab, where there was a "real" hospital. We arrived there about mid-night. The building was dark and there was one doctor on duty. He was wearing a turban and a smock. I refused treatment. The driver of the Land Rover was obliged to stay with the remaining injured people who were in worse shape, and my wife and I were dropped off at a local taxi hub. This consisted of 4-5 camels, two vehicles and 10-15 men dressed in local garb. Now, it was about 1:30am and I was in a hurry to return to Sharm-el Sheikh and an afternoon flight back to Munich. To be honest, I thought that both my wife and I were at risk of carnage, but were were both in really bad shape. There was a lot going on. We had no passports, hardly any money, a long ride and had to travel through two barb-wired military controls where the guards had machine guns. We returned to the hotel at about 3:30Am, and were greeted by the hotel doctor who gave me a few 10mil. valium. We went to bed for a few hrs. and then were driven to the airport. The airline comped us with 1st class tickets. It was not a direct flight, but the authorities allowed us to remain on the plane while it refueled. That evening, we were picked up by my in-laws and taken to a nice clean hospital in Fulda.
My wife is traumatized still, and hates driving on mountain roads including roads like SR210.

[Name Redacted]

Buried in an avalanche ~30 mins. Passed out, ran out of O2. Rescuers found me and I hiked out under my own power w/ a broken arm and ribs.

[schindlerpiste]

Whoa!

[gaijin]

Early April of 2009 we got a big wet storm roll through. One last powder day of the year.

I knew the snowpack was wary so I was staying on low angle stuff. But I kept getting more and more careless. Eventually worked my way onto steeper and steeper terrain until you know what happened.

One turn in and I saw the entire forest floor crack. "Avalanches aren't supposed to happen in the forest." I call it the Meat Grinder now. I only thought of my pregnant wife at home not knowing what happened.

I've been in a few mild slides but this one was real. I was blind and out of control. I tried to just keep my skis below me, my tips up, and my hands out front. I bounced off a few trees before the terrain flattened enough to stop the slide. I was buried to my neck. My hands were just below the surface, and able to dig me out. My skis were as deep and as concreted in as you imagine they were.

I dug out, sat there on my skis, sparked a bowl and said: "Fuck skiing."

I've skied that line a few times since then but I'm always terrified of that area now. Seeing the forest floor crack was traumatizing.

I used to throw bombs on patrol at Kirkwood. Have my Level III avi cert. Consider myself quite avi-savvy. but I'm still an idiot skier. "Just one more line."

[XXX-er]

I had 2 close calls in one week

I swam out of my kayak just above a grade 6 feature and I hit moose at highway speed so i was rattled and obsessing

my buddy the copier salesman said " well if yer dad hadn't come prematurely all those years ago you would have missed that moose completely "

and i quit obsessing

[gaijin]

Rolled my '72 K5 Blazer (removable fiberglass top) down a hill in 1997. Then I rebuilt it.

Then in 2002 on a January morning I was driving to Kirkwood. I worked resort marketing and ski school sales so I and my roommate (also ski school) had to be at the resort at 8am, and usually arrived before other mountain staff.

I put it in 2WD as the road was icy, not snowy. Climbing Carson Pass is a right-hand curve. Accelerating up the hill, my rear end slipped out. My right front wheel caught the snowbank, then my left front, then we flipped and slid upside down for about 100ft.

The fiberglass top ripped off the truck, except where my buddy and I were surfing on it, upside down. The truck was completely flattened to the doors. I felt & heard the gravel/pavement sliding by my head on the other side of the fiberglass. It was peaceful. I accepted that I was going to die and it was peaceful.

Then everything stopped and it was pitch black. My head was up my buddy's ass, his head was at his feet in the passenger seat. My wrist was stuck between the steering wheel and the road. My shoulder dislocated. My collar bone broken. I yelled to my bro: "Are you okay?!" He replied: "I can't breathe."

Considering how I had just accepted losing my head a moment prior, my first thought was that he couldn't breathe because he was in half and simply didn't know it yet. But it was just his seatbelt. We were fine.

Some dude with a crowbar pried my tailgate open and we slid out between the front seats, along the pavement (and glass, and transmission oil, and fiberglass shavings) to the tailgate and stood up. Our jackets were all cut up.

Some girl kept poking me trying to find injuries while we waited for authorities to arrive. When the two ambulances did arrive, the paramedics started laughing because the wreckage was so gnarly but there we both were, standing and obviously not severely injured. Anyway, they put each of us in our own ambulance for an exam. No sirens, as there was no emergency. The cop directed traffic by.

Then resort staff drove by while we were both in the ambulances. Pretty much all resort staff knew my truck. I was also the poster boy on the brochure for the resort, so they knew me. And my buddy was more famous than myself. (I'm building this story up on purpose.)

The police officer couldn't drive us to the resort, because that was in a different county. So he drove us back to the intersection so we could hitchhike to the resort. We didn't want to go home. That didn't make sense. Riding chairs and smoking a joint made sense.

The guy in the pickup who picked us up knew something was wrong. No gear, ripped jackets, hitchhiking in the middle of nowhere. He drove us back by the scene and it was disgusting. A snowplow had pushed all the debris aside, and my truck had been towed by now, but the path of transmission oil & glass on the road looked like roadkill. It was silence from all three of us.

When we got to the resort, it was like 10:00 and all the parking lots were full. So we parked far and walked across the village. No staff bumping chairs. No parking staff directing the public. Weird.

We then got to the ski school office, opened the doors and saw the office lobby full of staff, all crying. Billy ran up and gave me a hug, sobbing: "We thought you both were dead!"

We walked into our own memorial service.

My buddy didn't really talk to me much after that. Can't blame him. I don't take it personally. But I think a kind of animosity develops when you almost kill someone.

A year later after climbing Machu Picchu, in a bar in Aguas Calientes, I walk in and hear a song playing. It was muffled by the sound of 50 partiers having a good time. I screamed at everyone in the bar to shut up so I could hear the music. They did. They all stopped talking and stared at me. I asked the bar tender what was playing. "All that we perceive, by Thievery corporation." I broke down in tears: "That's the song that was playing when I accepted my own death and then thought I had killed my best friend!"

I never even realized there was music playing during the wreck until I heard it a year later.

Every time I hear those horns, I get goosebumps. And needless to say, those lyrics have a pretty profound effect on me now. Should probably go to therapy for that. Oh well, TGR helps.




And at risk of full exposure- The Long Version:

[skaredshtles]

Rolled my '72 K5 Blazer (removable fiberglass top) down a hill in 1997. Then I rebuilt it.

Then in 2002 on a January morning I was driving to Kirkwood. I worked resort marketing and ski school sales so I and my roommate (also ski school) had to be at the resort at 8am, and usually arrived before other mountain staff.

I put it in 2WD as the road was icy, not snowy. Climbing Carson Pass is a right-hand curve. Accelerating up the hill, my rear end slipped out. My right front wheel caught the snowbank, then my left front, then we flipped and slid upside down for about 100ft.

The fiberglass top ripped off the truck, except where my buddy and I were surfing on it, upside down. The truck was completely flattened to the doors. I felt & heard the gravel/pavement sliding by my head on the other side of the fiberglass. It was peaceful. I accepted that I was going to die and it was peaceful.

Then everything stopped and it was pitch black. My head was up my buddy's ass, his head was at his feet in the passenger seat. My wrist was stuck between the steering wheel and the road. My shoulder dislocated. My collar bone broken. I yelled to my bro: "Are you okay?!" He replied: "I can't breathe."

Considering how I had just accepted losing my head a moment prior, my first thought was that he couldn't breathe because he was in half and simply didn't know it yet. But it was just his seatbelt. We were fine.

Some dude with a crowbar pried my tailgate open and we slid out between the front seats, along the pavement (and glass, and transmission oil, and fiberglass shavings) to the tailgate and stood up. Our jackets were all cut up.

Some girl kept poking me trying to find injuries while we waited for authorities to arrive. When the two ambulances did arrive, the paramedics started laughing because the wreckage was so gnarly but there we both were, standing and obviously not severely injured. Anyway, they put each of us in our own ambulance for an exam. No sirens, as there was no emergency. The cop directed traffic by.

Then resort staff drove by while we were both in the ambulances. Pretty much all resort staff knew my truck. I was also the poster boy on the brochure for the resort, so they knew me. And my buddy was more famous than myself. (I'm building this story up on purpose.)

The police officer couldn't drive us to the resort, because that was in a different county. So he drove us back to the intersection so we could hitchhike to the resort. We didn't want to go home. That didn't make sense. Riding chairs and smoking a joint made sense.

The guy in the pickup who picked us up knew something was wrong. No gear, ripped jackets, hitchhiking in the middle of nowhere. He drove us back by the scene and it was disgusting. A snowplow had pushed all the debris aside, and my truck had been towed by now, but the path of transmission oil & glass on the road looked like roadkill. It was silence from all three of us.

When we got to the resort, it was like 10:00 and all the parking lots were full. So we parked far and walked across the village. No staff bumping chairs. No parking staff directing the public. Weird.

We then got to the ski school office, opened the doors and saw the office lobby full of staff, all crying. Billy ran up and gave me a hug, sobbing: "We thought you both were dead!"

We walked into our own memorial service.

My buddy didn't really talk to me much after that. Can't blame him. I don't take it personally. But I think a kind of animosity develops when you almost kill someone.

A year later after climbing Machu Picchu, in a bar in Aguas Calientes, I walk in and hear a song playing. It was muffled by the sound of 50 partiers having a good time. I screamed at everyone in the bar to shut up so I could hear the music. They did. They all stopped talking and stared at me. I asked the bar tender what was playing. "All that we perceive, by Thievery corporation." I broke down in tears: "That's the song that was playing when I accepted my own death and then thought I had killed my best friend!"

I never even realized there was music playing during the wreck until I heard it a year later.

Every time I hear those horns, I get goosebumps. Should probably go to therapy for that. Oh well, TGR helps.

This is brilliance.

[Mofro261]

Damn gaijin.

I almost used the inferior kettle bells that one time.

[schindlerpiste]

" I felt & heard the gravel/pavement sliding by my head on the other side of the fiberglass. It was peaceful. I accepted that I was going to die and it was peaceful. "

Ain't this the truth!?! In my case, as the Sprinter was flying thru the air, then striking the hard ground and rolling, I felt to me that everything was happening in a foggy and almost peaceful slow motion. I was not wearing a seatbelt, and I remember tumbling and being jostled about the interior of the vehicle. It seemed like this lasted minutes, when it probably took no more than 10-15 seconds. I recall the seeing and hearing the glass windows breaking all around and then and what seemed like a 12" spike of glass missing my wife by centimeters.
This happened in 1989. It is peculiar that I remember the accident in such great detail.

[SumJongGuy]

Should rename this thread... "Rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated!"

[zion zig zag]

" I felt & heard the gravel/pavement sliding by my head on the other side of the fiberglass. It was peaceful. I accepted that I was going to die and it was peaceful. "

Ain't this the truth!?! In my case, as the Sprinter was flying thru the air, then striking the hard ground and rolling, I felt to me that everything was happening in a foggy and almost peaceful slow motion. I was not wearing a seatbelt, and I remember tumbling and being jostled about the interior of the vehicle. It seemed like this lasted minutes, when it probably took no more than 10-15 seconds. I recall the seeing and hearing the glass windows breaking all around and then and what seemed like a 12" spike of glass missing my wife by centimeters.
This happened in 1989. It is peculiar that I remember the accident in such great detail.

Your story is pretty damn wild.

[schindlerpiste]

In an attempt to soften an otherwise morbid thread, I will tell you a short, but true, tangent segment regarding the accident.
I was the only American in the Sprinter. The group consisted of two middle easterners (the driver and his front seat companion, who was not present on the outbound journey), 8 or 9 German's and me. It was a long trip to Catherine's (~300km), so people engaged in conversation. There was this one German man, I'd say in his late 30s, who was accompanied by a woman, who initially, we thought was his wife. He appeared to be wealthy and pretty important (at least within his circles). We got to talking and it came out that the woman he was traveling with was not his wife, but his paramour. He told his wife that he was traveling to Munich on a business trip, when in fact, he was in Egypt. Presumably, his wife had no idea. I can't remember whether the man died in the accident, but he was certainly either mortally, or severely injured. I can only recall that he had a head wound, was unconscious and was transported by helicopter to Israel. ...Dead or alive his life certainly changed when he returned to his wife in Germany.

[Trackhead]

I had an out of body death experience while detoxing from alcohol (heart attack?).. .

Unlikely. Common for people withdrawing from alcohol to hallucinate on days 2-5 or so after abstaining. I'm talking about people who drink heavy, like every day, hardcore. I've spent endless days in ICU taking care of alcohol withdrawal patients. See it all the time.

[liv2ski]

Came close to drowning a few times, seriously at least twice. Big day, you paddle out, somehow you make it outside and then ask Gawd why the fuck he let you make it out. Thank Gawd those guys were there to drag me out, as I was done.

[gaijin]

Drowning is terrifying. Its power is similar to avalanches. Avalanches are free feeling... loose, out of control. Waves are crushing. The lockdown comes early. But both are powerless. Fleeting. Just waiting to die.

The longest I've held an exhaled breath is 3:30. And that was intentional, with training. I don't know how long I could go not breathing in a situation where I wasn't given the opportunity to prepare.

I dislocated my shoulder in the surf once. I couldn't swim. I couldn't manage. But, I wasn't locked down. I just had to struggle the surface beating back to shore. Getting locked down is terrifying to me. Just as terrifying as the ground disappearing when on snow. I guess it's that loss of control.