You?

[Richard]

What about you? I can point to at least 10 different events over the course of my life which were serious enough to be life threatening. I mean I should have died. Don't want to bring religion into this but it is only by the grace of God that I am still here.

Let's hear some wild stories. Even if they're not that wild.

 

[Rudy]

Well i am still kind of young and have only had two times when i really thought i was in trouble!
Once was the CO in the plane! and the other was when i fell out of a boat while duck hunting, had waders on and they flooded, can't swim too good with those puppies on.

 

[sierra]

well there was the time the stove blew up and i had to get behind it to turn off the gas with the firebomb inside of it.... i must have turned into RubberBabe to get into that little space.....


Or the time i crossed the street against traffic on Park Avenue in NYC....

 

[T Bone]

1963.... appendix burst (appendicitis had been missed as a "tummy ache"). Almost died. I was 5.

1977 4 close friends die in an auto accident in Fla. Spring break. I was supposed to be in that car, but cancelled a few days before the trip (of course, I've always though it would'a gone different if I'd been there....)

1996 (aprox.) one of my closer calls with an idiot in a car while riding the Sportster. Skill and luck prevailed.

1998 The Sportster again. Just North of Chicago. Rush hour freeway traffic. In the rain (just through the snarls, ready to make some time.....) I accellerate into a lane at 65MPH. A car zips from an on ramp into my lane. Accordian effect occurrs, and he hits the brakes. I hit mine, seeing the speedometer drop through 55, I see I'm still going to hit him. I turn the bars and lean, trying to skate around him. Skate I did. Now, the front wheel is turned, and going perfectly straight on the wet pavment as the bike is beginning to slide out from under me. I know there's a car directly behind me, watching this happen while trying to slow. Must'a been the dirt bike days, but I jammed my left boot down to the wet pavement without thinking. To my AMASEMENT, that act rights the bike, slows me enough and the traffic is now speeding back up. The wet pavement that allowed the tire to slide did the same for the sole of my boot! Happened so fast, my heart rate hadn't even gone up (yet). I got the biggest grin I can recall as I thought "That went WAY better than I thought it was going to"!

There've been plenty of other things. And we won't even go into the chemically induced incidences in days of old.....

Yup. Rather lucky to be alive, I'd say.

 

[wsuffa]

Or the time i crossed the street against traffic on Park Avenue in NYC....

What, you weren't carrying an umbrella? (to whack fenders, of course!)

 

[poadeleted3]

I'm still facing the risk of death or serious injury every day as the result of an innocent comment I made this past weekend. I merely happened to mention to Cathy that I thought Danica Patrick is awfully hot. I said I thought I would fantasize about her, and asked Cathy if she would go "Vroom! Vroom!" like a race car next time we, uh... played uppy-down uppy down. It seems, though, that the thought of Indy car racing makes Cathy angry for some reason. Probably a repressed memory of some sort.

 

[silver-eagle]

I have three that I can think of. When about 19, my friends and I were horsing around with a brass cannon. It had been a gift to on of them from his Dad. He had always related stories about making it go boom. So, I decided since he could do it, so could I. Gunpower, paper, sulfer (for the wick), match. POOF! smoke, fire, but no boom. Second time, POOF, more smoke and fire, STILL no boom. As he grabbed for it, This time, I WAS going to get it right.
Gunpower, paper, sulfer, match... OH OH!
Then there was the day I hit a car broadside at 60...
And there was that time on short final I got caught in a 100 degree wind shift...
Skill, luck, and premonition... Last middle and first.

 

[Ken Ibold]

I anchored our boat about 50 yards offshore of a little island off the coast of St. Pete that was accessible only by boat. Most visitors would just beach their bows, but I didn't feel like doing that with a 20,000-pound boat that had bottom paint on it. At the time we had not yet bought a tender for it.

We put life jackets on the kids, who were 2, 4, and 6. The two older ones were OK swimmers in a swimming pool sense. I am an average swimmer. The plan was for me to swim the two older kids to shore and my wife to swim the little one. I jumped in the water and only then did it strike me what I should have noticed when I was anchoring. The tide was going out and there was a very, very strong current under us and between us and shore. The two kids came down the ladder and were a little scared because this was new to them. I was forced to breast stroke with a kid clinging to each bicep, despite my attempts to get them to make a chain behind me. With the current the way it was, we were swiftly very far from the boat and it occurred to me that we might drift past the end of the island before making it to shore. Plus my arms were getting very tired. I told the kids (again) to hang on to each other's life jackets and then hold on to my neck, to free up my arms. Something must have registered in my voice, because they started crying and clinging ever more tightly. I called to my wife, who is a very strong swimmer, and she handed the little one to grandma and dove in to help. When she got there, she took my 4 year old and we got the 6 year old to start swimming himself. Finally I started swimming toward shore, but I could not see how I was going to make it. All I could think about was how exhausted I was. I abandoned pride and yelled for help toward shore. My oldest kid yelled, too. People looked at us. My son was well on the way toward shore by now. I couldn't keep up. It occurred to me I'd soon go under. The panic started to rise when in some dim corner of my consciousness I heard my wife yell, "Ken, float on your back!" Duh. So I floated for a minute, but dared not float too long for fear of missing the island. I turned over and headed toward shore again. Just as I thought it was over, my foot brushed sand. The water was still too deep to stand in, but it gave me just enough adrenaline to go another few feet. Meanwhile, a vacationing firefighter had started coming out toward me to help. (He later said he thought we were playing when we called for help. My kids know the call "HELP!" is not for games!) I finally got on shore and passed out on the sand. A little while later, some guys in a small boat came and gave us all a ride back to our boat. Two days later we owned a dinghy. In a life with more than a few close calls, thinking about this one still makes the hair on my arms stand up.

 

[sierra]

What, you weren't carrying an umbrella? (to whack fenders, of course!)

left it on the subway....

 

[sierra]

hmmm, well there was a trim stall close (but not close enough) to the ground on landing.... but the gear didn't collapse....

one of my solo x-cs a King Air decided to land downwind while i was on final, same airport. Decided he was bigger so I took my pretty airplane and went to play in someone else's pattern....

as a child a younger child wrapped his arms around my neck in the pool and nearly drowned me....

again as a child, i thought digging out a snowdrift and going to sleep in there (WI, -20C) would be a good idea.... maybe that's why my nose is always pink?

driving through tornados at nite to visit my parents in NC (was wondering why it seemed so windy in IN)... no radio in the truck...

A related thread would be "how many of you are surprised your children have lived to go to College"....

 

[Jeff Oslick]

I was working as a geologist/technician on a large drill rig for a few weeks when I was 19. One day, a few seconds after I walked past the air compressor section (about 3000 psi), we all heard a line snap and implemented the RLH (run like hell) procedure. After we assessed the problem from a distance and got back to the rig, we saw a high pressure airline whipping back and forth out from the deck right where I had just walked past. The deck was right at my neck level. That would have, uh, hurt . Don't tell my mother this story...


Jeff

 

[judypilot]

I'm so safety conscious that, even though I have spent a cumulative total of years in the wilderness, much of that time by myself, the only really life-threatening thing I can think of was one that was completely out of my control. I was on a highway in Nevada that had no shoulder, just a 5-6' drop off, and I was coming around a corner. A semi going the other way obscured my view of the rest of the oncoming traffic (I was on the outside of the curve), and when I came around the curve, another semi was trying to pass the first semi. He managed to cut in with about an inch to spare on my rearview mirror. The whole thing lasted about a second, but I've never had that much adrenaline pumping through my veins. I'd have been hamburger if he'd cut in just a nanosecond later, and that I had nowhere to go was almost irrelevant. I was shaking so hard that I had to pull over at the first opportunity for about 10 minutes, and even then it haunted the entire rest of that very long drive. It still gives me a jolt to think about it.

All the other things are, by comparison, relatively minor. I got hypothermia once, and took about an hour to warm up enough to think. I'd gone beyond the shivering stage and was into the "I could die but I don't really care stage", but I doubt my life was actually in danger, as my field partner would have figured it out eventually (too long to explain how it happened and why he didn't notice right away). The worst that would have happened is that it would have taken longer to get me moving again.

Then there was the time that a ledge I was walking on, about 10 feet above a beach, gave way. I did a complete somersault and landed on my feet, with bended knees. It was completely instinctual.

That's about all I came come up with, which is pretty remarkable given all the hiking, backpacking, climbing, swimming, flying, shooting, horsebackriding, general wilderness stuff activities, etc., etc. that I've done in my medium-length (so far) life. Being safety conscious and planning ahead do pay off.

Judy

 

[inav8r]

Overheard at Joe Williams' house later that same evening, "Why don't you let Danica Patrick make you a meatloaf!"

(Jeff Foxworthy reference there...)

 

[pete177]

Been a few times, motrocycles, explosives, **** like that. One that sticks out is about 15 years ago I was crossing a busy street in NYC, trying to get play tickets from TKTS on Broadway. I just started to step out into the street when something grabbed me by the collar and pulled me back while a city bus went wizzing by my nose at 30mph. I mean inches. I turned around and it was some little old lady. She cursed me out for scaring her Well, it was New York

 

[bbchien]

How to start a Barfight:

"Announce to a roomful of marines that MARINE means:

My
A_s
Rides
In
Navy
Equipment

Be sure the MP on duty is a friend of yours and that (if you are an officer) you were NOT present when your guy makes the announcement.

Don't ask me HOW I know this...

 

[poadeleted3]

How to start a Barfight:

"Announce to a roomful of marines that MARINE means:

My
A_s
Rides
In
Navy
Equipment

Be sure the MP on duty is a friend of yours and that (if you are an officer) you were NOT present when your guy makes the announcement.

Don't ask me HOW I know this...

We used a different method in Guam. It was good for killing two birds with one stone.

Q: Why were the Marines created?
A: So the Navy had someone to dance with.

 

[Frank Browne]

Two events come to mind. 1979 got into a bad argument with the wife then took the big green machine (Kawasaki) on an angry high speed ride. SR13-SR16-AIA back home stopping at every zippy mart with a beer cooler on the way. Put it on the centerline of A1A and stayed at 100+ all the way from St Augustine back to Jax through a coastal fog so thick that visibility couldn't have been more than 25-50 yards. Didn't see another vehicle the whole way.

2002 drove a 24' Searay at almost 3/4 throttle into unlit jetties on the east end of Blount Island on a moonless night. Got smacked in the face by the steering wheel and knocked into the overhead canvas as the boat was launched into the air. Got a shattered left kneecap outta the deal. 3 week old Searay totalled.

 

[EdFred]

Stalked by a 400lb bear when I was 11.

Got a nasty cut on my head that missed severing the temporal artery by 2mm when I was 14 or so.

 

[Let'sgoflying!]

should have died. ...................it is only by the grace of God that I am still here.

The entire adolescence period....1970-1980ish just seemed to be a blur of fires, blood, screaming, vehicle calamity and whatnot. Things have calmed down a lot since then.

 

[Richard]

Well i am still kind of young and have only had two times when i really thought i was in trouble!
Once was the CO in the plane! and the other was when i fell out of a boat while duck hunting, had waders on and they flooded, can't swim too good with those puppies on.

You learned a great lesson there! I'm always astonished when watching the fishing shows and some clown is in the boat wearing hip waders. I'll never wear waders in a boat.

 

[Bonanza]

In 1982 I had a motor accident that nearly killed me. For 3 days they did't know if I would live or die. The compensation from that accident paid for my flying lessons.
Fast forward five years and the engine stopped in my Fuji FA200/180. Scary but a textbook forced landing and I am still here to tell the tale.
Stephen

 

[L10MAN]

Couple of bad asthma attacks when I was younger. Or the time I was on the headset walking a 747 out of the hanger and the idiot tug driver turned the nose gear so that I was just steping out of the way of the nose tire. Or today, avoided a sliding Trans Am at a closing speed of 90+ on a narrow hilly winding back woods road. Some days you're the bug some days you're the windshield.
Ron

 

[Silicon Rallye]

In 1960 when I was in the Army stationed in Europe, I travelled back to New York for my wedding. For our honeymoon, my wife and I toured Europe and then finally headed to my station in Berlin.

While crossing East Germany, we were stopped and held at gunpoint by the East German People's Police (VoPo). I could have sworn that in the 45 minutes looking at the business end of a 9 mm, it seemed that the gun was growing in size to 50 calibre.

After the stalemate (my refusal to exit the autobahn) was nearing an hour, the East Germans relented and we were released.

 

[SkyHog]

You know, I live a really risky life - but I can't think of anything I've ever done that has me looking back, thinking how I almost died.

Closest I have is when my friend and I were like 8, we found his dad's box of .22 rounds, and took them out on the side walk and found out that hitting them with rocks would make them either explode or fire. We both had a few whiz by our heads, but neither of us were struck. We also almost hit a few cars, but luckily, none of them were hit either.

 

[Lawreston]

In Boston once lived Donald Matson, whose world eminence in his field was learned as the student of one Harvey Cushing, the father of said field. In an elite retirement community in North Carolina lives John Shillito, who could have made million$ by joining his family's Shillio's Dept. Stores management. He didn't; joined the practice of Don Matson. Google either name, preceded by neurosurgeon, and one will get a bunch of hits.

A minute portion of their accomplishments was restoring life to a nine year old(1953 and recurring years) whose bicycle did not fare well against a loaded oil tanker truck. Neither did the kid whose skull was fractured in seven places, comatose for two weeks with a burst right ear drum, severed left optic nerve; immobilized from the neck down, who had to learn to again walk and talk. "The kid will never make it,"was the underlying thought as the ambulance screamed to Boston with its state police escort, met at the next two state lines by each's state police representative. The ambulance driver later claimed it was a record time trip to Boston.

That the "kid" has, in 52 succeeding years, enjoyed motorcycles, fast cars, boats, flying airplanes, performing on the theatrical stage, and with near photographic memory, does not spell accomplishments; but tribute to the above men and their teams. Add Dr. Judson Randolph(esteemed authority on Pediatric Trauma) to that team. Matson and Randolph are deceased, but I remember, and clearly.

HR

 

[Richard]

Harley, now there is a happy ending, it is an excellent story. Your writing style and the accomplishments of the surgeons make it so.

 

[gismo]

I think I'm working on my forth life. First one slipped away when I fell in a flooded river and went over a dam where the current was measured at something over 30 ft/sec (22mph). I spent enough time tumbling around under water to consider how my obit was going to read in the paper but eventually surfaced a couple hundred yards downstream where the current lessened. The second time I was attempting to grab a rope hanging from a branch 35 ft above the water while waterskiing. On the first two attempts the boat drive turned away from the shore too far out for me to reach the rope before sinking into the water so on the third try I "whipped" around the turn and came screaming into the rope at something like 40 mph. I grabbed the end of the rope in a death grip and held on until it was ripped from my hands. Observers on the shore said i pulled the rope completely horizontal and then flew about 50 ft further before crashing butt first in shallow water about 10 ft short of a cabin cruiser beached on the shore. My hands felt like somebody pounded them with a sledgehammer and my butt was bruised and sore for a few weeks. Had I gone another 10 ft or if the cruiser was a bit closer I would probably have made a real large bug spat on the side or deck. BTW the two good looking girls sunning on the deck of the cruiser were quite impressed (with my stupidity).

The next and last time I survived on pure luck was driving a rented Mustang down a two lane road in a snowstorm. For reasons I can't even fathom today I decided to pass a slower car where it looked like the road ahead was otherwise clear. About the time I had barely gotten past the car it another car appeared coming the other direction about 50 ft ahead that had been hidden in a dip in the road (I was still in the left lane). I whipped the Mustang back into the right lane but lost control and spun 180 degrees back across the oncoming lane between the car that popped up and another one about two car lengths behind it. I ended up facing the opposite direction I had been going off the wrong side of the road about 5 ft from a rather large tree. There wasn't a scratch on the car save for the ones I made hanging on to the wheel. I suspect the three other drivers didn't think much of my driving skills. That was about 30 years ago and AFaIK I haven't pressed my luck anywhere near as far since.

 

[RogerT]

This is interesting. In spite of a lifetime of doing risky stuff I
can't think of an instance where I thought I would bite the
big one. Maybe I have a guardian angel.

In my younger years:

Guns
Home made bombs
Riding a very fast gokart on the street luring the cops into
a chase then losing them. Seemed like a sporty thing to do.
Putting a Mac engine on an old bicycle and then crashing
when the throttle stuck.

As an adult (well .. chronologically anyway):

Dirt bikes
Many years of dirt speedway kart racing
A couple Harleys
Airplanes
Helicopters

Almost every ache and pain I have at my advanced age is
from the dirt bike and gokart crashes.

After all the other stuff when it finally happens I'll be walking down the side walk and a car will jump the curb and take me out.

 

[fgcason]

The entire adolescence period....1970-1980ish just seemed to be a blur of fires, blood, screaming, vehicle calamity and whatnot.

We must be related.

Voluntarily I don't think IMO that I've done anything seriously risky though. I take reasonable precautions (by my standards) and it all works out ok in the end.

Swimming without lifejackets or supervision. I recall swimming across about a mile of deep water that way. Riding the boat anchor to the bottom and being in dire need of air about 10ft down on the return trip is no fun though.
Experimental downhill races, and I mean experimental vehicles in the extreme. Steering none check, brakes none check, helmets and shouldermapads none check, shove, wheee...bam! Drag the wreckage to the top of the hill again.
Loaded guns around the house, non event. Unsupervised shooting sessions on the farm at ages that would have everyone arrested nowadays.
The working barn on the farm was our playground. Perfectly safe in our opinion and we all survived with nothing more than getting winded real good but leathal to todays kids. I know for a fact that there just had to be kids walking along without a risk in the world that just fell over dead for no observable reason to keep the laws of averages in balance because of what we did in that barn.
Blizzard snow hikes, solo, no one on the earth knowing what I was doing.
Solo backcountry hiking and solo summit climbs and no one on the earth knowing I even went.
Nearby serious dropoffs (cliff edges, pits, edge of buildings, top of high antenna poles) There's LOTS of gravity way down there.
Assorted self taught skills: Technical climbing/rappelling. Sailing. Motorcycle. Power machine tools beyond basic skill sets.


Involuntary very easily could have got me killed stuff off the top of my head:
A few animal incidents in the forest. Momma bear with two cubs about 5 feet away, mountain lion, bulls in the fields, a really big po'd elk in the woods during mating season (I don't think he was getting any either). Overall safeish IMO but could have easily turned very dangerous real quick if I didn't know what to do.
I got beaten quite severly in my old apartment hallway by some yutz for no reason with no warning at all (drugs most likely). Two weeks later while I was moving out he came at me again with a knife screaming bonkers with intent to kill. I almost had to shoot him.
A serious road wreck when some wacko ran a light and broadsided me. He went to the hospital for a month. My old steel jeep sacrificed itself to save me (took a serious hit) and I went flying 2 days later. Anything smaller and I would have been seriously hurt.

Lots and lots of other stuff but those stand out this morning.

To this day, the drive to/from work is the most dangerous thing I've ever done in my entire life. It's just DANGEROUS. There is at least one incident a week that could put me in the hospital if I wasn't so paranoid, conservative with no hesitation to do something that appears quite careless with no regard to the safety of others in order to avoid impact.

PM Edit:
(1) Near collision on downwind (practically close enough to see loose rivets on the other guy)
(2) Oh yea. I forgot to mention, I got hit by lightning while riding my motorcycle once.

 

[SJP]

In 1982 I had a motor accident that nearly killed me. For 3 days they did't know if I would live or die. The compensation from that accident paid for my flying lessons.

Used to drive that road (A33) a lot back in the day.

 

[Flyboy]

Several times I've done things and gone unscathed and thought I could have been killed but one incident showed me the difference between "coulda" and "shoulda".

Driving South on I-77 one night after canoeing the new river I was driving my girlfriends Olds - 98 home with her and 4 other people in the car. Tooling along in the right lane at 55 with maybe a car length and a half infront of me (lots of traffic) a truck came speeding up and wedged into the space leaving maybe a foot and a half. Thinking he was drunk a jerk or both I moved into the left lane and all I saw for a half a second was 2 headlights.


The weird part was waking up and pulling myself of the dash and the steering wheel (none of us were wearing seat belts) gasping for breath. I could tgell some teeth were missing and I couldnt move my right leg. I just sat their thinking this was what it was like to die. Then I caught a breath and it was so good. I could only breath shallow but I could breath. I was convinced my girlfriend sitting in the middle now pasted to the dash was probably dead as was the guy beside her. But she woke up, sat back and started talking. Soon everyone in the car was either talking or maoning, so I knew every one was alive.

We were alll taken to the hospital where the ER crew was exstatic. 6 people in a head on with no head injuries. Just broken bones that would heal.

I had a fractured hip (femer was driven through the back of the hip socket) lost 2 teeth, had to have 200 stitches to reattach my face to my gums (stick your toungue all the way up in front of your teeth, that was pulled off the bone) I heard the doctors saying things like cardio infarction, and severly diminished lung capacity, then something about all my ribs being broken and they were amazed I didnt' have a punctured spleen. Spent 1 week in intensive care, 2 weeks total in traction, had to have my hip put back together and after the surgery I threw a clot and lived throught that too. 1 month total in the hospital and 18 months on the mend.

Final chapter was written this past fall when I had to have the hip replaced.


The other driver was killed and the autopsy showed he had a .28 blood alcohol level.

Besides providence, the thing that saved my life (and the docs told me this) was that at the time I was running about 35 miles a week and was in top physical shape. If I had been a couch potato, I would have died.

That ended my running and now I'm a couch potato.

So I'm one of the ones that SHOULD have died. And sometimes, and don't take this personally or as any kind of a put down, when I hear folks talking about something that was nothing more than an almost close call but they " could have been killed" - I just have to smile and nod.

 

[astanley]

The entire 1990's were spent doing phenominally stupid things. There are sometimes I look back and wonder how I didn't end up splatted, matted, and casked 6 feet under...

Building pipe bombs in the garage and then blowing them up at the gravel heap for fun
Making batches of "napalm" on the stove, cooking gasoline and soap.
Shooting bottle rockets at each other for fun
Hitting a lobster trap after high siding off of my mountain bike, impact on the back of my neck. ER Doc said if it was an inch to the right I would have been a quadraplegic
Working on a lobster boat for 4 summers, can't count all the stupid things I had done (not checking the rope, having the rope spool up on my boot, etc)
Drinking waaaaaaaaaay to heavily after rugby practice
Pushing 150 on my GSX-R a few times

Cheers,

-Andrew

 

[Richard]

Working on a lobster boat for 4 summers, can't count all the stupid things I had done (not checking the rope, having the rope spool up on my boot, etc)

Cheers,

-Andrew

Working on a lobster boat is not in itself a bad thing. Although being on the boat and not having a clue of what you're doing can be a very bad thing. By the way, a rope is a rope until it's put into service. Then it becomes a line, lead, leader, painter, sheet, halyard, or in the case you described, rode or mainline.

Having grown up around various commercial fleets I will always hold much esteem for anyone who ventures out.

 

[Dan Smith]

Without getting into the specifics, I've got to echo Gen. Doolittle's sentiment: "I could never be so lucky again".

Dan

 

[TangoWhiskey]

In 1982 I had a motor accident that nearly killed me. For 3 days they did't know if I would live or die. The compensation from that accident paid for my flying lessons.
Fast forward five years and the engine stopped in my Fuji FA200/180. Scary but a textbook forced landing and I am still here to tell the tale.
Stephen

Did they ever find the driver of the other car they were looking for? Glad you made it okay! Were you raised in England, or just over there working?

 

[Bonanza]

Did they ever find the driver of the other car they were looking for? Glad you made it okay! Were you raised in England, or just over there working?

Yes, the driver came forward and as a result of his testimony the truck driver and his employer got convicted.
I'm English by birth - lived there for my first 40 years, New Zealand by citizenship and I guess now US by residency. Difficult to know where I belong any more.
Stephen.

 

[astanley]

Working on a lobster boat is not in itself a bad thing. Although being on the boat and not having a clue of what you're doing can be a very bad thing. By the way, a rope is a rope until it's put into service. Then it becomes a line, lead, leader, painter, sheet, halyard, or in the case you described, rode or mainline.

Having grown up around various commercial fleets I will always hold much esteem for anyone who ventures out.

Agreed. But very few people know what any of the above is (in Maine, we call it warp. As in "pot warp")

Lobstering was the best job of my life, and I'd go back to commercial fishing in a second. I was sternman aboard F/V Dawn Marie, Islesford, ME, 1993-1997.

Cheers,

-Andrew

 

[ausrere]

Let's here some wild stories. Even if they're not that wild.

More work related incidents than I care to remember. But non-work related would be a plane crash in Ruidoso in 1988 (as a passenger) and being in a jeep that lost a wheel on a VERY narrow trail on a mountain side in Colorado. I was only 14, but I remember watching rocks slide down the ledge to a river down below the trail thinking that all of us almost went over with them. I was terrified. Found out later that my uncle (who owned the jeep) didn't think we need all the lug nuts on that wheel anyway when he had replaced a flat some time before that! Needless to say I've never gotten in a vehicle with him since. This is the same uncle that took me, my sister, and two cousins (his two kids) all flying together in a C150 when I was about 7. I found out many years later that he was a student at the time with only 14 hours time in anything, and had "borrowed" the plane to take us all flying without the instructors or FBO's knowledge. Thank goodness he never went on to get his license.

 

[Henning]

Well i am still kind of young and have only had two times when i really thought i was in trouble!
Once was the CO in the plane! and the other was when i fell out of a boat while duck hunting, had waders on and they flooded, can't swim too good with those puppies on.

They make nice comfy warm floatation jackets.

 

[Henning]

I anchored our boat about 50 yards offshore of a little island off the coast of St. Pete that was accessible only by boat. Most visitors would just beach their bows, but I didn't feel like doing that with a 20,000-pound boat that had bottom paint on it. At the time we had not yet bought a tender for it.

We put life jackets on the kids, who were 2, 4, and 6. The two older ones were OK swimmers in a swimming pool sense. I am an average swimmer. The plan was for me to swim the two older kids to shore and my wife to swim the little one. I jumped in the water and only then did it strike me what I should have noticed when I was anchoring. The tide was going out and there was a very, very strong current under us and between us and shore. The two kids came down the ladder and were a little scared because this was new to them. I was forced to breast stroke with a kid clinging to each bicep, despite my attempts to get them to make a chain behind me. With the current the way it was, we were swiftly very far from the boat and it occurred to me that we might drift past the end of the island before making it to shore. Plus my arms were getting very tired. I told the kids (again) to hang on to each other's life jackets and then hold on to my neck, to free up my arms. Something must have registered in my voice, because they started crying and clinging ever more tightly. I called to my wife, who is a very strong swimmer, and she handed the little one to grandma and dove in to help. When she got there, she took my 4 year old and we got the 6 year old to start swimming himself. Finally I started swimming toward shore, but I could not see how I was going to make it. All I could think about was how exhausted I was. I abandoned pride and yelled for help toward shore. My oldest kid yelled, too. People looked at us. My son was well on the way toward shore by now. I couldn't keep up. It occurred to me I'd soon go under. The panic started to rise when in some dim corner of my consciousness I heard my wife yell, "Ken, float on your back!" Duh. So I floated for a minute, but dared not float too long for fear of missing the island. I turned over and headed toward shore again. Just as I thought it was over, my foot brushed sand. The water was still too deep to stand in, but it gave me just enough adrenaline to go another few feet. Meanwhile, a vacationing firefighter had started coming out toward me to help. (He later said he thought we were playing when we called for help. My kids know the call "HELP!" is not for games!) I finally got on shore and passed out on the sand. A little while later, some guys in a small boat came and gave us all a ride back to our boat. Two days later we owned a dinghy. In a life with more than a few close calls, thinking about this one still makes the hair on my arms stand up.

Mind if I ask why your wife didn't pick up the anchor and come get all of you rather than jumping in? Don't really have to answer me, just cure the reason.