Average Person Cheats Death 5 Times

[Sam Gunn (since nobody got Admiral Naismith)]

I stole this from another forum,I thought it was interesting and it sure stirred up some stories. Of course I thought since we ride that most of our stories would revolve around biking.





I thought this was a fun and interesting article. The study was small, I would like to see what the results are if a larger population was sampled. But it is a tribute to some of the survival mechanisms in humans. With all the death and destruction we see on the news, it is easy to think that we are ill-destined. But the fact is, that we are surivors much more then we give ourselves credit for.

The average Brit will narrowly dodge death five times during their lifetime, a new mortality report has revealed.
Common close encounters include being involved in a potentially fatal car crash - something that will happen to 40 percent of us - and surviving a high voltage electric shock (32%).

Other escapes include almost getting struck by lightning (36%) or living through a serious natural disaster including high impact earthquakes or raging floods (29%).

The study of over 1,000 people also found 23 percent of people think they owe their lives to others normally because they have been pulled back from stepping out in front of a bus



So are you aware of any situations that you may have "cheated" death?


I know I've had at least 4 close calls while riding. The last one would have hurt real bad if it wasn't for my anti lock brakes. It would have been a head on collision. I was passing and someone turned directly into my path. My luck, experience, anti-lock brakes and the fact that they saw me and took evasive action saved my bacon.

[davann]

I can think of twice. The more interesting one was when I jumped into a river to help two kids that strayed to far out and could not get back. I swam out, grabbed the girl and told the boy to swim at an angle towards the shore with the current. I am not the strongest swimmer and along with the power of the current I knew I was not going to make it to the shore. The boy was having major issues also. So, lucky for us a couple of fishermen came along in their boat and scooped up the kids. Bastards nearly forgot about me. I was going under when they finally decided to come back and grab me.

Funny thing, at the time I was a raging racist and the two kids were oreos. When I caught back up with them on land I gave them a major ass chewing while throwing around some rather nasty slurs. The cop taking the report was laughing his ass off later. I turned what could have been major hero material, something I could look back on with pride, into a racist scene.

[anarchir]

I was in a really bad car accident once. The driver almost died, and I was in the passenger seat so I was not without injury.

I was on a train when it derailed once. But that wasnt near death since it was one of those miniature ones in city parks though 

[One two three]

Funny thing, at the time I was a raging racist and the two kids were oreos. When I caught back up with them on land I gave them a major ass chewing while throwing around some rather nasty slurs. The cop taking the report was laughing his ass off later. I turned what could have been major hero material, something I could look back on with pride, into a racist scene.

So did you help the kids?  It is hard to tell if you helped the kids or made life harder on the fisherman from your story.  I guess you helped the kids, otherwise you would have felt too bad about how your hurt the situation to hell at the kids.

[davann]

Funny thing, at the time I was a raging racist and the two kids were oreos. When I caught back up with them on land I gave them a major ass chewing while throwing around some rather nasty slurs. The cop taking the report was laughing his ass off later. I turned what could have been major hero material, something I could look back on with pride, into a racist scene.

So did you help the kids?  It is hard to tell if you helped the kids or made life harder on the fisherman from your story.  I guess you helped the kids, otherwise you would have felt too bad about how your hurt the situation to hell at the kids.

Yes, I saved them from a watery grave. But screwed it up after. Or maybe not, I bet they never swam that far out ever again after the ass chewing. Although, the real prospect of death was more a movtivation I bet. Who knows.

[ciscokid1024]

This is an interesting topic. I tried to think of some times when I may have cheated death and wrote a description below. Sorry if it is too long but maybe you will find some of it entertaining.

Almost hit by lightning – when I was 12 my dad sent me out in a storm to clear the drainage ditch down by the end of the driveway. He came out 10 minutes later and told me to get in the house because the lightning was too close. As we were walking back to the house we both felt all of the hair on our bodies stand up. We tried to run but the lightning hit a tree about 15 feet from us. The concussion knocked us down. We were totally unharmed but scared shitless. The tree went down.

Don’t know if this counts: I walked outside once when my brothers were throwing rocks for distance and walked right under a golf-ball sized rock that hit the top of my head and knocked me out.

When I was 18 I crashed and totaled a car that went spinning into a guard rail right by a bridge. The guard rail held and I wasn’t really hurt much, but looking down where I could have gone was scary.

Got hit by a careless lady when I was riding my bicycle (no helmet on) and she merged into a road and didn’t see me. I ended up on her hood, rolled off and she sped away crushing my bike. Not hurt, but I guess I could have been run over.

I got jumped by 5 guys when I was waiting for a bus. They beat me up pretty good, but a cop saw them kicking me on the ground and they all got arrested. Two of them were brothers who golden gloves boxers and car thieves and they ended up going to jail for a while. If the cop didn't happen by who knows what would have happened.

I was swimming in a creek at camp when a camp counselor pulled me out of the water and told all of the other kids to get out of the water. There was a poisonous water moccasin snake swimming behind me about 5 feet away.

I was out with some friends biking and we found a little pond and started jumping in. The water was about 8 feet deep. One of my friends did not realize how deep it was and jumped in but he couldn’t swim. I was laughing and swam to him and he grabbed me and pushed me under. He was clamped on my so strong I couldn’t get him off. I thought I was going to drown, but he pushed me to the bottom and I was able to use my legs and jump up and push him off and haul him to shore. I asked a life guard about it later and he said that happens a lot and they train life guards to approach the person from the rear and clamp on them so the life guard doesn’t get pushed under.
Years later I was swimming with some adults and a friend of mine got tired in the middle of the lake we were at. I swam out to him and told him to lie still; every time I got near him though he would try to grab me. I was scared because this was a guy I lifted weights with and I knew he was stronger than me. I dove down deep and swam up behind him and put him in a head lock. He kept thrashing and trying to grab me. I told him to quit it or I would let him drown and he finally relaxed and I could swim him to shore. I think if it wasn’t for the first experience years before I would have drowned that day.

[davann]

[quote author=ciscokid1024 link=topic=33618.msg598180#msg598180

he grabbed me and pushed me under. He was clamped on my so strong I couldn’t get him off. I thought I was going to drown, I asked a life guard about it later and he said that happens a lot and they train life guards to approach the person from the rear and clamp on them so the life guard doesn’t get pushed under.

[/quote]

Yep, same thing happened in my situation but the girl was little. The boy tried to grab on too but I swam away a little. That was a very weird feeling, but there was no way for me to grab both and swim.

[Sam Gunn (since nobody got Admiral Naismith)]

That's happened to me a few time as well, but I used to be a life guard and was always prepared for it.  I'd hook them under the arms with the float buoy and all would be cool after that.  A couple times though I had to do rescues without the aid of a buoy or pole  and those were dangerous.

[Turd Ferguson]

cheated death on one of these............



It was 1985 and I was driving it with my friend on the back. Neither one of us had a license or permit yet, and we were going 50mph and some old crusty dude was going the opposite way on a two lane road going 70mph and he veered into our lane and hit us head on (thats a combined speed of 120 mph in a head on crash)........ no helmets, just shorts and sandals on. We both flew over the top of his car and landed on the street with only a few cuts from where my legs hit the handlebars on the way over the car and a silver dollar sized chunk of hair scraped off the top of my head where i hit the street. Anyway, the cops came before  we even knew what was going on and the sherrifs deputy said "i aint kiddin' you should both be DEAD" as he looked in the back of the squad car at us.  The whole bike was completely FUCKED...... you coudnt even tell it was a Honda Passport by looking at it afther the crash. It just looked like squished metal with some bent rubber pieces sticking out of the wreckage.

Thats my cheating death story.

[libertylover]

I have cheated death 8 times so far so I must be cat woman then.

[The ghost of a ghost of a ghost]

Is this thread a sister thread for "do you ride motorcycles?"

[Ecolitan]

<--- 2 to go

[alaric89]

Is this thread a sister thread for "do you ride motorcycles?"

If I counted every close call on snowmobiles or Dirt/enduro bikes, my list of NDEs would be in the hundreds. Not including those things, maybe two. If cheating death is part of the fun of doing it, it shouldn't count on a near death experience list.

[MotorBoatingSOB]

Just to hate on an otherwise fine thread, it isn't really "cheating" death to win an 80/20 (or 4) against it.