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  1. #1
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    Near Death Experiences.

    What's a normal amount to have? I am 35, and have about a dozen, a few were caused by my own recklessness, but not most. Is that normal, or a bit above average? Is the universe trying to kill me, and I am just too stubborn to die? Or is perhaps the universe trying to show me how precious life is.

    This thread is for stories, but also just curious about data points. I'll post some stories in a bit.
    __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ ________________
    "We don't need predator control, we need whiner control. Anyone who complains that "the gummint oughta do sumpin" about the wolves and coyotes should be darted, caged, and released in a more suitable habitat for them, like the middle of Manhattan." - Spats

    "I'm constantly doing things I can't do. Thats how I get to do them." - Pablo Picasso

    Cisco and his wife are fragile idiots who breed morons.

  2. #2
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    Sep 2009
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    N side, Terrace, BC
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    12 seems above average. Likely mags would be higher than the norm, however even in this sample you would score high I'm thinking. Well done!

  3. #3
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    How near to death we talking here?

  4. #4
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    Mar 2005
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    Quote Originally Posted by Woodsy View Post
    How near to death we talking here?
    Yeah.
    I could have died is not quite the same as I ended up in the hospital icu
    . . .

  5. #5
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    Jan 2009
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    What everyone is saying. If you've had 12 real ones you're several standard errors away from the middle of the curve.

    I've had at least 478 oh-shit-I'm-gonna-die moments in the 38 years I've been around doing dumb things.
    In 477 of these cases I ended up more or less fine. One of them was fully legit.
    "Your wife being mad is temporary, but pow turns do not get unmade" - mallwalker the wise

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jun 2020
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    in a freezer in Italy
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    I'd had had a few. It's basically a miracle I'm still alive, apparently the universe wasn't done fucking with me yet. I know Woodsy shouldn't by any reasonable metric be alive either. Yet here we are.

  7. #7
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    Jan 2008
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    I've had 4, but 3 of them were climbing. I'm an unusually wimpy person, so my number is probably low. OTOH there may have been a couple I didn't know about, involving my wife and sharp objects.

    A lot depends on what you call a near death experience--if we're talking about seeing the bright light and reliving your whole life in a split second then 12 seems extremely high. If we're talking about--"if that dishwasher size rock that landed by my left foot, or that washing machine sized rock that landed by my right had been a foot closer I'd be dead, but I'm fine" then 12 isn't TOO bad but it still seems high.

  8. #8
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    Aug 2018
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    beaverhead county
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    I can vividly recall thinking "holy shit, I could have died" a handful of times but cannot remember exactly what preceded those moments so I must not have come that close to death.
    swing your fucking sword.

  9. #9
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    Aug 2018
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    beaverhead county
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    i'd love to hear some stories from others though.
    swing your fucking sword.

  10. #10
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    Dec 2009
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    The Mayonnaisium
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    10,467
    Hard to know how close death I really was but there are two situations I haven't forgotten. One was a tornado and the other was an aborted landing.

  11. #11
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    Sep 2006
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    Just started dating this girl a couple weeks ago, and found this yesterday. Cause for concern?

    Click image for larger version. 

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  12. #12
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    Dec 2010
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    For all the years I spent tying into the sharp end of a climbing rope and doing all the associated exposed third and fourth class approaches and descents, my most vivid near death experience came when I tripped off a ledge at the base of a sport climb and went flying down the steep slabs, running full tilt to stay on my feet, before I went sailing head first toward a huge boulder that was going to SMASH my head like a watermelon...until I threw my hands in front of my face and somehow deflected enough to flip over and land in the bushes, where I stopped. I wrote a story about it for Rock & Ice years ago.

    I remember I was in the middle of taking a bite from my bagel, and the next thing I knew I was over the edge and near death.

  13. #13
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    Mar 2017
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    SLC, Utah
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    when i was in highschool i totaled my truck driving up a dirt road too fast like a dumbass - typical high school shit. i got too close to the shoulder, my rear wheels lost traction, and i rolled the truck down an embankment. the truck landed on a fence with a 5' metal post going all the way through the body of the truck, piercing my seat and sticking out of the seat upholstery 1/2" from my head. if i had been off by an inch i would have been impaled.

    another time, while soloing steep snow above a few thousand feet of exposure, i found myself trapped in seemingly bottomless facets, unable to gain purchase with either crampons or my tools. i needed to make a heady, 30' traverse to get out of the facets and to get back on to solid, bootable snow. that thirty feet was the most difficult and exposed thing i have ever done - it took me probably 15 minutes to work the traverse out, and i had ptsd (genuinely) for a few months after - i would dream that i actually fell to my death on that traverse (a scene i watched play out countless times in my mind's eye), and that i was just imaging the life i could have lived had i not fallen.

    i've had a good number of other close calls, but like others have said, it's impossible to really know how close you were. i'll never know about a drunk driver who almost could have killed me, or a fall i almost could have taken. those two just stick out in my mind as particularly memorable.

  14. #14
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    Sep 2005
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    Wasatch Back: 7000'
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    I was one staying at the Excelsior Hotel in Rome when it was bombed by Iranian terrorist. However, I was sleeping on the seventh floor when the car bomb exploded in the lobby restaurant. I was greeted by Italian army pounding on my doer clad with Uzzis . Another time I was in a van driven off a Cliff by a Palestinian terrorist. People in the van died, but I was lucky enough to merely sustain several broken bones. They are the two biggest and the first one doesn’t even really count.
    Like most other people I have been in situations where I could have died but wasn’t even injured, or just sustained minor injuries.
    “How does it feel to be the greatest guitarist in the world? I don’t know, go ask Rory Gallagher”. — Jimi Hendrix

  15. #15
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    Jan 2009
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    Quote Originally Posted by schindlerpiste View Post
    They are the two biggest and the first one doesn’t even really count.
    I was going to post something but the thread has been won so...
    "Your wife being mad is temporary, but pow turns do not get unmade" - mallwalker the wise

  16. #16
    Join Date
    May 2002
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    I've probably had more near death experiences than I would consider near death. Ya, I coulda died whitewater kayaking a few times but I didn't. Was it close? Maybe? Does doing uncontrolled cartwheels in a huge fucking hole count? I could have died in a small avalanche, but I didn't. I got squeezed against a large tree near the start zone rather than being strained through the forest. Had my car sideways at about 120kph. Spun my car at about the same speed. I never really considered any of them near death experiences. I've fallen off things, bounced off things, been hit by a car on my bike....
    You are what you eat.
    ---------------------------------------------------
    There's no such thing as bad snow, just shitty skiers.

  17. #17
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    Jan 2010
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    Near Death Experiences.

    I’d say my closest were when the chairlift broke off the cable with me in it, and it landed partially on my humerus and broke it along with bruising my entire side and ribs. If it glanced off my head instead, I’m probably dead.

    Second closest was ski racing in college. I was walking to hop in the back seat of a car on the way to a race and a second car pulled up and had an empty seat, so I hoped in. The car I was going to get into got in a collision and the kid sitting in the back seat died.

    3rd through 12th was probably all the stupid shit we did in cars in highschool. It’s a miracle we didn’t die.

  18. #18
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    Mar 2017
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boissal View Post
    I was going to post something but the thread has been won so...
    he had us at "palestinian terrorist"

    Sent from my Pixel 4a (5G) using Tapatalk

  19. #19
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    Jan 2009
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    Quote Originally Posted by tgapp View Post
    he had us at "palestinian terrorist"
    Definitely more compelling that my stories which would start with "here I was leading this 5.10 route / skiing relatively fast on this groomer"...
    "Your wife being mad is temporary, but pow turns do not get unmade" - mallwalker the wise

  20. #20
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    Oct 2006
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    Bellevue
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    Quote Originally Posted by tgapp View Post
    when i was in highschool i totaled my truck driving up a dirt road too fast like a dumbass - typical high school shit. i got too close to the shoulder, my rear wheels lost traction, and i rolled the truck down an embankment. the truck landed on a fence with a 5' metal post going all the way through the body of the truck, piercing my seat and sticking out of the seat upholstery 1/2" from my head. if i had been off by an inch i would have been impaled.
    Friend of mine when I lived in SLC got t boned by someone running a red light. Flipped his car and he took the pole in a chain link fence through his femoral artery. He was lucky to be alive.

  21. #21
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    Hard to top being driven over a cliff by a Palestinian terrorist.

  22. #22
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    Sep 2006
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    Fraggle Rock, CO
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    7,766
    For me, it's the near misses with falling rocks that have probably gotten me closest to the void (if you're willing to exclude the extraordinary death trap that is commuting to and from work in any medium or larger sized city). I was descending pyramid after a successful summit on a beautiful late summer morning when low and behold the mountain goats tried to kill me. They kept meandering above me and my partner, kicking rocks down with their insolent little hooves, undoubtedly assuming that if they killed one of us we'd piss ourselves at the end on the line and they could trot down and claim their salty bounty. On a particularly steep bit I remember one rock, the size of a toaster, hurdling along at terminal velocity, smashing thru the mountainside within a couple feet of my face and thinking that I was more than a little too close for comfort.

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    Brandine: Now Cletus, if I catch you with pig lipstick on your collar one more time you ain't gonna be allowed to sleep in the barn no more!
    Cletus: Duly noted.

  23. #23
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    Jan 2006
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    Alpental
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    Taste death live life
    Move upside and let the man go through...

  24. #24
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    Dec 2010
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    Quote Originally Posted by neufox47 View Post
    3rd through 12th was probably all the stupid shit we did in cars in highschool. It’s a miracle we didn’t die.
    ^^This. And nothing drove that point home more than when I was teaching high school and watching those kids die.

  25. #25
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    Dec 2005
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    STL
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    I sank a boat on my out to the Channel Islands. Floated around in the ocean in December water temps. I should be dead.

    Plus skiing around between El Colorado and La Parva, and hiking what is now Valle Nevado, before there was one. All in avalanche conditions. Plus that time a Mirage 2000 buzzed me at 500 ft up the valley. Should have buried me.


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