Ever had one of those moments...

life is just a series of near death experiences, punctuated by an actual death experience.

I decided to ski Tuckerman Ravine after a record breaking snowfall season left appreciable snow at the end of June. Traversing the north snowfield a small branch sticking up caught my uphill ski and caused me to slide toward a 100'+ drop off. My foot caught in a scrub tree and left me hanging over said cliff. After getting untangled and pulled back up by my companions, I had to scale down that cliff hand over hand as I thought I had a broken leg. It's a miracle I'm still around to tell that story.

Almost got crushed by a riding mower while trying to do a J-turn.

Learned the hard way why wrists aren't supposed to bend backwards.

Other stupid stuff that I can't remember.

No near-death experiences (other than the mower)

Dr. Hess wrote: bgkast, and everyone else, exploding radiator hoses were one of my best sellers when I ran the burn unit. You wanna be careful around that stuff.

Boiling coolant will screw up your day for sure. Had that happen a few times around me; the worst was a fellow who had a coolant bypass hose explode in his face. He was a rather handsome black guy and was the body shop manager, the boiling coolant nearly took his ear off and after all was said and done (reconstructive surgery, etc) the right side of his face, neck and etc was mottled pink and white, he lost a lot of the hair on that side as well. I seem to recall he had blood poisoning issues too, I know he was out of work for at least six months.

My closest NDE: I was riding an enduro in Wakefield SC and heard someone coming up behind me in a tight woods section, obviously going a fair amount faster. Due to the way enduros are scored it's of no use to block and can lead to lowered scores so I scooted over to the left side of the trail to allow passing room.

WHAM!

I saw stars, was laying on the ground, my helmet didn't fit right and I couldn't see out of my right eye. I could still hear the XR600 chuffing away, laying on its side. I got up, staggered around in a circle and tried to turn my helmet, it wouldn't move. As I was feeling around, I came across something sticking out of the left side of my helmet. Whaaa?

It took me a few moments to realize this was a sizeable (1" diameter) tree limb sticking out of the eyeport of my helmet. When I moved to the left to let the other rider by, the limb hit me exactly where the skin and helmet liner came together, approximately 1" from my left eye socket. It had bitten a chunk out of the goggle foam, embedded itself in the Styrofoam liner of the helmet and then broke off with about 10" sticking out. It had twisted the helmet to the left, the helmet liner was blocking my vision on the right side.

I yanked the stick out, then took the helmet off. I had a reddish stripe on my temple where the bark had scraped, it wasn't even bleeding. It took me a moment to realize just how close I had come to getting that stick through my left eye which almost certainly would have killed me.

I've had some other close calls, such as nearly going off a rocky road outside of Silverton Colorado (the drop would have been probably 150 feet) but none as close as that stick.

So very many close calls.

Radiator cap blew out the towel I had over it and jetted boiling coolant at my right arm, chest and head (glasses saved my eyes) which caused me to jump back and nearly get creamed by a Buick passing at about 80 on I-64.

Motorcycle accident a couple of years ago.

Basic training night infiltration, I felt a tug on my field jacket and scooted backwards quickly over the starting point wall. Turns out the live fire M-60 was shooting a bit low, it should have been putting rounds about 6-8 feet over our heads. Instead a round went through my clothing.

Scuba diving at 130' when my dive buddies regulator malfunctioned and he had to buddy breath off mine as we acended back to the surface (more his close call, but still....)

Heavy equipment, mountain bikes, roller blades, and more have all caused puckerings at some time or another. It's life.

In reply to Curmudgeon: Amazing you didn't break your neck!

In reply to KyAllroad:

Between that incident and a high speed 'auger' (that's where the protagonist goes over the bars and does a faceplant in the dirt, since the helmet's full of dirt it looks like he augered a post hole with his face) when I told the doc I can't turn my head as far left as I can right, then he told me I have arthritis in my neck I wasn't even faintly surprised.

But your 'M60 aimed low' story has to be the closest call I've heard of!

Ft Sill in 89 had more than close calls. They actually dropped a 155 shell on a platoon of basic trainees lined up for chow in the field. Sister battalion to mine so we all donated blood. 3 KIA and something like 40 wounded. I got off lucky.