What's the most dangerous situation you've ever been in?

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Was it very life-threatening, or was there only a risk of being injured?

In my life, I believe I've been in about three life-threatening situations.

When I was eight years old, in late 1999 or early 2000, my cousin and I were at our other cousin's house. We were playing on the storage shed in his backyard, while our other cousin was actually inside the shed. For some reason or other, he started poking a sharp stick-like thing through the roof of the shed, while my cousin and I were still on the roof. When I saw it poke through right in front of me, I started crying, and my cousin came out thinking he had gotten me. I was very close to getting impaled and seriously injured.

During the winter of 2001, when I was ten years old, I had gotten the flu or something and so I was constantly throwing up. I woke up from a nap one day and, according to my mom, I was very pale and non-responsive. I was rushed to the emergency room because I had gotten dehydrated and I had a fluid sack or something strapped to my arm.

Finally, when I was 12, I was trying to start up my dad's truck. I had my foot stepped down completely on the gas pedal, and the truck moved forward. Luckily, my mom's car was right in front of the truck, so it only bumped the back of my mom's car. Had my mom's car not been positioned in front of the truck, it would have driven full-speed ahead until I crashed into something.

How about you?

I almost choked to death on a hard candy when I was 9.

I was the cashier at a restaurant that was robbed. I had to give the guy the money with a big gun stuck in my face.

i almost drowned swimming at an unpatrolled beach. it was a uni trip, suddenly there was no sand under my feet. i got dunked over and over, i got salt water in my mouth. i had a killer headache and i was SO tired

somehow kept swimming agaist the rip and got back in again safely

i was too busy fighting to be scared

another time we evacuated horses ahead fo a bushfire. we were pretty safe but had time to think about the danger. never been so hot in my life, the heat was indescribeable

i had a near miss on my 18th birthday with an airborne sheet of tin, if i had gotten out of the car a second later it would have sliced me in half and if i lived i would have been left bleeding on my own 17kms from town (the dog saved me, she saw the tin and got scared, jumped on my lap before i opened the door - and she was a BIG dog)

got run off the road by someone once

walked into an electric fence at forehead height when i was a toddler (explains lots )

so many near misses falling off my horses.

Well I'm not sure if it was the most dangerous but it had the potential to be. Me and my mom moved out of the house and lived somewhere rural for a while; the only way to the house was a one way uphill dirt road. Well one night we were getting back from the store and a car that we have never seen before followed us up to our house. It just parked there under a big shady tree. I was eager to get inside the house because I was really tired, and I didn't think much of the car. My mom told me not to get off the car and normally I wouldn't have listened, but this time I did. The car still stayed there under the tree and no one got out of it; their lights were off and it seemed like they were hiding.

My mom didn't feel comfortable with that so we were going to drive back to our main house where my dad and brother lived. The car started to follow us back down and my mom sped up and the car somehow managed to squeeze around in front of us. A man came out of the car and walked towards us with a mask on and his hands in the air and I could see other men in the car. That guy ended up nearly getting ran over by my mom trying to protect us...and she lost control of the car and we crashed into the rocks and dirt (wasn't deep, just very bumpy with big tall rocks). Good thing that guy jumped out of the way and ran back into his car with the rest of the guys. They sped off and we were shaken up. We called the cops but the cops never found those guys. I still wonder what they wanted, and I still get a little worried when cars are behind me and I'm alone in the night.

Other dangerous situations that I have been in were brought on by myself so I don't see the point in mentioning them.

Electrocution when I about 9 or 10. I jury rigged a way to plug an electric motor into a wall outlet. Didn't work out too well. I have a hard time remembering things before that.

Gallstone stone attack about... 4 years ago now I think. Went to the ER. Worst pain in my life and it went on for nearly 7 hours.

I've encountered black bears on my own while hiking before, cubs too. Although they'll only get dangerous if you startle them or provoke them.

Had plenty of close calls in the car before. The two-lane road I usually take to work is notorious for drivers not staying on their side of the road.

Really only once where I was in true danger when too young to really recal. And once more recently where I definitely felt in danger but really wasnt.

When I was 5 or 6 me and my sister were in the family van parked at a gas station while my mom went in for cigerattes. I flipped the car into neutral while playing around and it coasted backwards into traffic. I guess it was like a surreal stunt from a movie cause the van weaved through 4 lanes of traffic going both ways without getting hit and coasted to a stop in a big parking lot across the street.


And the other time was last summer. I was a foremen for a commercial construction company on site in southern illinois (from chicago). My team was mostly hispanic and we were working outdoors along a big the side of a big retail store. A guy drove up in a truck and started making small talk. Figured he was just taking interest in construction, he then ends the conversation with "and also, we don't like mexicans taking work around here, you can expect some friendly KKK here soon" and then drove off. I felt speechless and probably looked like a dumb founded idiot for a minute. I talked to a guy from that area who was in charge of the construction and he said 'oh ya, they are still very big around here' I called it an early day and we all went back to the hotel. I later kind of realized the guy who made the threat was probably just some idiot wanna-be, if those kind of people had any interest in causing problems they'd surely not announce it ahead of time.

My old panel van got stuck in a snowdrift late in the day during a bad storm in '81 (well prior to cell phones being common), and there was no place close enough for me to walk for warmth or any kind of help. I was there for a couple of hours with only a little gas still in my tank, and I had even begun writing a "Goodbye" note to leave behind for my wife and daughters ... but then I saw a couple of wildly-bouncing lights I thought were probably on some snowmobiles coming my way in the dark, but that turned out to be three drunken teenagers in a 4WD pickup truck out playing in the snow and I easily could have kissed them all (but I am sure they would not have let me) when they stopped and let me squeeze in with them and then gave me a ride to town.

Nothing too serious, really. One time I was on a small boat that caught fire (a water skiing boat, though there were no skiers). The motor had a mis-plumbed oil line which was leaking smoking-hot oil under the floor. When I told the guy driving I saw steam (I thought) coming out between gaps of the floorboards, he stopped and lifted the floor panel up, which let the smoke come into contact with enough fresh air to cause it to burst into flames. I had about 10 inches of floor available, with water on one side and fire on the other. Somehow I manage not to fall out. Luckily, the guy I was with was very cool-headed and extinguished the fire in about 5 seconds.

And there was one time when I accidentally touched a fully-charged 600V capacitor that was the size of a mayonnaise jar. It knocked me backwards, and I was really sore afterwards, but luckily I had my left hand behind me (like I was told -- glad I paid attention to that), so I didn't get any electrical current across my heart.

Almost spun out and veered into oncoming traffic on a slick Tahoe road between I-80 and Norden
A few close calls on my snowboard
working on my parent's Prius - if I'm working near the transaxle, there's 500V AC flowing through that part!
and a few more...

Not many, really. I was choked when I was 3, but I have no memory of it.

Maybe early last year (maybe two years ago, I'm not sure; I'm not good with time), I was driving home in one of the worst storms we've had in ages. There were down trees or power lines blocking all of my routes home except for one. I ended up stuck behind a car for about thirty seconds while it picked up another passenger before heading up the road; at first, I was annoyed, but as we were going up the road, a huge tree fell across it, taking out even more powerlines (which were sparking). Had that car not stopped before, I probably would have been under the tree.

And one that is less dangerous but more stupid, when we first built our barn, I thought I saw lights on one night. There had been a robbery at our neighbors' house, but by the time the police got there, they were all ready gone (and as far as I know, they were never caught), so for some reason, I decided that I should go out. Only my mother and I were home, and I'm the more formidable of the two, so I told her and after a bit of conversation, I went out to go see what was happening. I was about halfway there (so about an acre and a half), walking through the darkness, watching these windows that were clearly lit and shouldn't be, when I abruptly felt a tap on my shoulder. I was all ready on edge, so I jumped, turned around, and almost hit my mother, who had come up behind me but didn't want to make any noise. She brought a knife for me, and if I hit her, I would have hit the knife. As it turned out, the lights weren't on anyway; the windows reflect in such a way that they look like they are until you're essentially inside, and that's what we were seeing.

injury moments.......was training for spring bicycle racing season when i was run over by a drunk driver. many serious injuries. dead twice.............years later, after recovering enough to be able to walk and get back on a bike, i was in a multi-rollover car crash (trust me, no good deed ever goes unpunished), broken neck + other injuries, only dead once this time.

scary moments......having to stay with my grandmother and being afraid of what she would do to me....she had hebephrenic schizophrenia and was very strong...................being shot at in an attack on our makeshift airbase in s.e. asia. wow-that was fun. watching while louie the wonder dog had a stroke.

most recent disappointing moment........almost being kicked off w.p. for trashing humans who thought animal cruelty was fun/god given right/not a big deal.

I fell off a slide and it knocked me out for a while.
I fell on black ice and almost hit my head but hit my back really hard. Mom watched as I fell and she was frightened that I did serious damage.
Dad and I were in traffic along the interstate and some guy hit us from behind. The air bags didn't deploy but I was shaken somewhat.
This could have been a dangerous situation for me and my parents. We left LA a day before an earthquake hit.
I was in front of Canadian Embassy in DC protesting against the annual baby seal hunt. There were 100 of us protesting against this brutal hunt, holding signs and yelling. I was afraid that maybe the Canadian embassy employees would say something or do something.

This isn't so much a dangerous situation for me, but maybe in some way. Dad was in the Gulf War and I was still very young during that time. He could have died in the war.

in 2004 there were a few terrorist attacks, I was at 15 meters of a bomb when it blew up

Every second of every day feels like it.

Yay for constant impending doom.

I was almost trampled by a bison when hiking in Yellowstone once...had to run off the trail and behind a tree, and the bison just ran past.
He wasn't really going for us...he was just running down the trail and we were in his way.

Another time I was almost crushed by a rock slide...it was sort of my fault, though. i was playing life-sized Jenga and lost.