Near Death Experiences.

[ötzi]

How big of a cliff was that again?

[snapt]

2x at 32: Caught carried and partially buried in a slide while cat skiing a decade ago. In HS I had an unusually aggressive strain of Mono that hospitalized me and partially occluded my airway from swelling. I was touch and go for a 24 hour stretch.

[getoutside]

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.

just saw this and was like holy shit!

IAnother 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.

then i saw this!! jfc. glad you survived!!

some crazy stories climbing, skiing, trapped under ice, escaping burning buildings and shitload of poor decision-making behind the wheel as a youth. glad you're all here to tell the stories.

[leroy jenkins]

I thought this was going to be about flatlined seeing the white light type stuff.

I rolled my car down a 50 ft embankment while 18 and driving like a fucking idiot. Walked away without a scratch, which if you could have seen the car is completely inexplicable. Probably should have died.

I mean it could be about either, but I was more thinking the second type. The kinds of things that make you question where the universe is trying to kill you, or trying to make you feel glad to be alive. Like was it bad luck you had that car wreck? Or was it good luck? Who knows the long term mental and emotional consequences of walking away from that unscathed.


Thankfully I really haven't had much of the first type. I mean, I got alcohol poisoning in high school and almost died, but I am not even counting that. Month long backpacking trip at low elevation, return to the mnts with no tolerance and not used to the altitude, but stoked to celebrate and ya no good, but the explanation is obvious.

I more meant those mysterious matter of an inch or two and I would have been dead, or walked away without a scratch from something that should have been brutal sort of things. So many people seem to have stories like that, and some people a handful.

[Woodsy]

How big of a cliff was that again?

Aspen Times said 300, but I think the face was more like 180, I just kept tumbling that far. Homer Simpsoned down the whole thing, so wasnt a straight drop or huge air

[muted]

Aspen Times said 300, but I think the face was more like 180, I just kept tumbling that far. Homer Simpsoned down the whole thing, so wasnt a straight drop or huge air

Article link?

I haven't almost died. Maybe my closest call was I once hugged a tree as a large avie went by me, it created a 15-20' debris pile at the bottom and I think it was leelau who mentioned he saw the slide from the road or maybe as he skied near it the next day? If I had better hearing I would have heard my friends say 'slide' right away and woulda just skied out easy. That might have been in 2006-ish on a highway north of Pemberton.

[Woodsy]

Article link?
.

It was December 1996, so not a real strong digital presence for Aspens 2 dailies.

I used to have a paper copy along with the boeri that I went with me but they went the way of skinny skis. My uncle told me once he read about the rescue as an example of how to get a big victim ( I was 240 then) up and over a cliff from a long way down. i do not remember that part at all.

Next time you are at snowmass just take a left under the rope about 1/3 of the way down Sneakys and have a look yourself. Not trying to spray about size, it was a horrible stupid mistake that almost killed me.

BTW I am only counting near death experiences where a medical doctor said " you almost died" or "if we dont airlift you and operate, you will die" I have done a bunch of reckless things that resulted in close calls

[Dexter Rutecki]

I still think it's funny that I knew of you in Aspen before I ever met you (and I didn't meet you for about ten years after I met you, as you know). And the people in Aspen who knew who you were who also never met you--I felt like you were a kind of Aspen 'urban' legend. Now you're just a legend.

[Caucasian Asian]

I was born in Prince George.

[leroy jenkins]

Aspen Times said 300, but I think the face was more like 180, I just kept tumbling that far. Homer Simpsoned down the whole thing, so wasnt a straight drop or huge air

I thought the term was 'Mcgoverned'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BDDxs3HlAs

[Dexter Rutecki]

I consider McGoverned to be timeless. If the kids aren't using it someone should do something about that.

[BCMtnHound]

I was born in Prince George.

LOL

I spent time in downtown PG during a Jan pollution inversion, and left with a sinus infection that I thought was going to kill me.

[Woodsy]

I thought the term was 'Mcgoverned'?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BDDxs3HlAs

I think that term entered the lexicon after my fall, one of the guys I was with described it as Homer Simpsoning and its the term I use.

it is more going over a cliff, where McGovern is more of a tomahawking fall?

but always welcome a good Mcgoverining video

[ötzi]

Oh man, the second fall...D'OH!

[Dexter Rutecki]

Yes, to McGovern IME refers to massive tomahawking (video makes clear why), although I have also heard it used to refer to random big crashes or just crashing all over the place.

N Bennington VT represent!

[bennymac]

I was born in Prince George.

Shit man. This is the scariest one so far.

[ötzi]

but always welcome a good Mcgoverining video

edit: too late - d'oh!

[The Reverend Floater]

Like most of you, I've had my fair share of stupid "near death" experiences--rolled cars (plural) in high school, dumb skiing and mountain biking, etc. Hell, me and Adolfallerbusch used to do "near death" stuff involving booze and his Ford Courier with almost no brakes on the reg in high school.

That said, around six years ago, I had a blood clot that went undiagnosed by my GP for three months and ended up being a sizeable PE. Given that it was untreated and also its size, I was told by a few specialists after the fact that "I definitely should not have survived." That really rattled my cage and caused some pretty big life changes and definitely sizeable shifts in perspective--some good, some not so pleasant. A day doesn't go by where I don't at least have a fleeting thought about my own death. That's good and bad.

[obi wan kenobi]

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.

With this very little information I must assume that you must life a very interesting life.

[Caucasian Asian]

I have done a lot of things that were dumb and probably should have resulted in my death. Most involved driving drunk. But I got lucky and never got into a serious crash or injured anyone, and I never got caught.

But the closest brush with death was when I was in HS. I was going through immunotherapy for severe seasonal allergies.
After one of my injections I started getting hives. And then I had a tickle in my throat. And then a cough. And then I started having trouble breathing. It was at this point in time I spoke up, and my mother IMMEDIATELY turned the car around and pointed towards the hospital. By the time we hit the ER I couldn't breathe, and everything was getting dark. The admitting nurse started asking my mother all kinds of questions and hands her a clipboard with some paperwork to fill out. Mom looks at me, and walks me straight into the ER and grabs the first doctor she sees and says "MY SON CAN"T BREATHE". Doc takes one look at the color of my face and sits me down on a gurney and starts getting oxygen and epinephrine together. I don't remember much else until I woke up a few hours later.
I didn't realize how serious that was until a few days later.

[Woodsy]

Like most of you, I've had my fair share of stupid "near death" experiences--rolled cars (plural) in high school, dumb skiing and mountain biking, etc. Hell, me and Adolfallerbusch used to do "near death" stuff involving booze and his Ford Courier with almost no brakes on the reg in high school.

That said, around six years ago, I had a blood clot that went undiagnosed by my GP for three months and ended up being a sizeable PE. Given that it was untreated and also its size, I was told by a few specialists after the fact that "I definitely should not have survived." That really rattled my cage and caused some pretty big life changes and definitely sizeable shifts in perspective--some good, some not so pleasant. A day doesn't go by where I don't at least have a fleeting thought about my own death. That's good and bad.

Wow, glad you are still around and life is good in Idaho.

[obi wan kenobi]

About 3-4 times it was very close. This one was stupid and scary:

Went to Greece backpacking all by myself. One day I took a walk by the ocean, far away from the nearest village. It was a rocky shore line. There was a kind of a waterhole in between the rocks and about 10 meters away from to open water. On the surface the waterhole had no connection to the open sea, but the water level was rising with waves.

Out of couriosty a jumped into the waterhole, dived and saw that it was connected to the open sea through a small submergerd and dark tunnel. The waves made the water in the waterhole rise and sink slowly. For reasons unknown to me know I thought it would be fun to dive through that tunnel to the open sea. After same time I got the rhythm of the waves, took a deep breath and dived with the outgoing water into the tunnel. First, all went good. I felt the water flowing with me towards the opening which I could see in some distance.

Then the water slowly stopped flowing around me. Only then I realized what I got myself into. The water came back flowing towards me. I was either diving too slow or the tunnel was to long, anyway the incoming water pressed me at the ceiling of the tunnel. I could not move, turn around or do anything. My mind told me that I had to wait. Still remember that feeling of the rocks, the darkness, the need to breath and the pressing water. Was stuck there for quite a moment and only with the next wave I barely made it out of the tunnel into the open sea.

[old goat]

Starting in 2022 balance billing by ambulances and air ambulances will be against federal law. Already against some state laws.
You will only owe whatever copay your insurance requires--assuming you have insurance.
Kaiser flew me from Reno to Sacramento by fixed wing. I think they charged Kaiser 27,000, I paid zero, although I hurt too bad to be happy about it.

[ötzi]

Score!

[ötzi]

I've had a bunch as has been pretty well-documented here over the years. The biggest one was a ruptured Aneurysm of my Abdominal Aorta, what they call a Triple A or "the widomaker", among other things. Way over 90% death rates from those things, over 95% I believe, but you see different numbers. And I'm fine.

Well, I'm all messed up, but not from that. It's basically a plumbing problem, a hole in a big pipe in your body. Mine got fixed in time, just barely, but in time. Me insisting on an ambulance to the hospital saved my life, my wife wanted to take me to a walk-in clinic. Hmmm.

In a way that whole episode saved my life, because I was busy dying from iron overload from Hemochromotosis (a genetic condition fairly common to the Irish and some others) and I had no idea, I just thought it felt really really shitty to get old. Hemochromotosis is very treatable but you have to know you have it first. If you don't, it's gonna gitcha sooner or later. In recent years the spotlight has come on it a it, but back then you never heard of it and it usually went undiagnosed.