This is an awesome thread. I can't believe how many of you guys have brushed off dances with death like that. Congratulations are in order for all you survivors of horrible misfortune and wacky misadventures. I'm gonna put a bunch of stories in a giant post (nothing TOO crazy though), so I'm just gonna label them:
Falling Asleep at the Wheel:
On three separate occasions, years apart, I have fallen asleep in a car while a friend was driving (different friend each time), only to wake up to them falling asleep and crashing. Once it was my friend just dozing at the wheel in a bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go situation, and he barely tapped the car in front of us. It was just kinda funny. No damage on either car.
Once it was my friend falling asleep at the wheel going 45 or so, and he veered to the side, barely missed a tree, and crashed us into the front of our own high school. He woke up when he hit the curb, and then broke his foot slamming on the brakes while we slid on the grass into a brick wall. Guy sitting shotgun didn't have his seatbelt on and lost all his teeth when his face smashed into the dashboard. I was laying down asleep in the back with no seatbelt, and could have easily flown through the windshield and died. I woke up to the sound of the screeching brakes, and looked up just to see the brick wall we were crashing into, right before impact. Luckily, I just bounced up and down a million times like a pinball, so the damage was spread all around my body. I had no major injuries, but my whole body was covered in really small bruises. I had intense flashbacks for a month or two afterwards. I'd be in the middle of a conversation with somebody, and then BAM I'd see a brick wall flying towards me, and then I'd flash right back to the conversation and realize I'd just stared into space for a few seconds without responding to them.
Once it was my friend falling asleep going 70 on the freeway. We were in the carpool lane on the left, and luckily he veered to the left. We scraped the wall for a second at 70 mph, and he woke up really fast and was so scared he drove us the rest of the way home like he'd seen a ghost. I was in the back left seat, sleeping with my head leaning against the car door, so it was pretty much the loudest sound I'd ever heard. The freeway was turning left at that point, so if he'd veered to the right, we would've crossed the whole freeway, and if we didn't hit a car we would've hit the wall at a 90 degree angle and possibly flown off the freeway (and maybe even exploded in mid-air).
The lesson: Now I don't believe in ghosts or anything, but if I did, this would freak me out. My grandfather died falling asleep at the wheel before I was born, so I never got to meet him. There's a chance this is his way of trying to get to know me from beyond the grave. Either that or driving with me as a passenger is bad luck. So if you ever get tired driving, definitely pull over and take a nap. What's the hurry? If it's a real hurry you'd be excited and awake for it. You may lose an hour of two of time, but you might gain the rest of your life.
Being Held at Gunpoint by the Cops:
This story also includes waking up to something crazy. I was asleep at a friend's house, and the poolman accidentally set off the house alarm in the garage. He called the security and told them it was a mistake, and they said they have to send over a cop anyway. He was really scared of the cops for some reason, so he woke us up and said "hey sorry I set off the alarm, the cops are coming by, I gotta go, see ya!" and he took off. Then my friend and I went into the front of the house to wait for the cops. But they were already there, sneaking in the garage! They busted in the back door with their guns already out, screaming at everybody. They thought we broke into the house, and made my friend prove he lived there. Not exactly an "almost died" situation or anything, but I did have a cop screaming and pointing a gun right at my face for a few minutes. If I shit my pants he might've freaked out and ended my life!
The lesson: Never trust a poolman.
Car Spinning Out in the Rain:
I was driving my car in the rain and I spun out in the middle of an intersection. That time I got really lucky because traffic in all 4 directions stopped to stare in awe as I got control of the vehicle back and stopped it from crashing into anything. Then I was just in the opposite corner facing the wrong way, and everybody waited for me to back up into the center of the intersection, and I drove off like nothing had happened.
The lesson: Be careful driving in the rain, especially right after it starts raining. Learn how to regain control of a spinning car. It looks really cool.
Monkey Fight:
Once I went to Costa Rica for a couple days to visit my sister. There were wacky monkeys everywhere, and they'd steal your food and run off. I saw some other monkeys, and they were super cute so I followed them through a forest for a little bit to take some pictures. Turned out they were running back to the mama monkey with her baby, so they could protect her, and they thought I was coming to eat their baby. So they were just kinda hopping around, and suddenly they were in a giant group screaming at me like they were about to fight for their family and their territory. (I found out later that they're allergic to humans, AND really diseased, so if one of them bit me there's a chance we could have both died.) That time I had a giant stick I was using as a hiking stick, so I shook it at the monkey and yelled at it to scare it off. The monkeys screamed a bit more, and then we slowly backed away from each other, staring each other down the whole time... My sister was behind me taking pictures the whole time because we didn't know how dangerous it was. I was a pretty stupid tourist.
The lesson: Never follow a monkey you don't know. Carry a giant stick around when traveling. (Pro tip: If you ever find yourself hiking on Mount Fuji, they have a nice giant stick for sale, with bells on it to scare bears away.)
The Undertow:
And once when I was 13 or 14, I almost got sucked out by the undertow at the beach. It took me about an hour and a half to swim back to shore. It was pretty scary. The whole time I was swimming as hard as I could and scared of running out of energy and just drowning, or getting eaten by a shark or octopus or who knows what. After that my entire body was really sore and I could barely move. Fearing for your life really makes for a great workout though!
The lesson: Don't swim hundreds of feet away from the beach you stupid kids!
