Thread: Brush with death

Lucky he didn't shoot you out of hand anyway, I think.


Mick

I don't think it was so much a knuckle brawl with the grim reaper so much as it was Someone was watching your Six.

We don't so much cheat death as to be blessed by the Almighty to live one more day. I have stared down the bore of a loaded .44, sank up to my neck in quicksand. I have hung my backside out over a 300 foot cliff because I was stupid. I missed losing my head by a mere 2 inches when a 70 pound chunk of cast iron pipe fell out of a ceiling over 50 feet up. No, I do not believe I beat the grim reaper or cheated death. I was allowed to live one more day.

Not quite a brush with death myself but this afternoon i witnessed a serious accident and was the 1st on the scene. The guy is still alive just... This was his lucky day.

The arrow on the photo is pointing to me.

Lets see, fence post through the leg twice, owch. Annnnd...almost drowned at eight, that's it.

While I was in boot camp I started getting horrid chest pains, like something squeezing my lungs, they said it was a digestave tract issue and would clear it self up. fast forward, on the plane coming home from boot camp, I double over and cant breath. Ambulance meets the plane at the termnal to get me, at the ER turns out that I have a perferated gastric ulcer (a hole in my stomach) and need emergancey surgury. Dr said had I been an hour later to the ER I would have been dead. Now I got a sweet scar and and intolarance for spicey foods, but I guess its all worth being able to see the sun every day.

In Iraq my vehicle was hit by an IED (I was the turret gunner) surprisingly not even a bruise from it, directly afterward we were under small arms fire where I could hear the dings on the armor around me, they soon stored when my 50 cal starting singing its tune. Again not a mark on me, so OP still has the title in my opinion, but as they said before when its time your ticket will be punched. That day wasn't it for me but it was for that set of underwear, may they rest in peace.

Hmmm, well, nearly choked on food twice, nearly drowned twice, two pretty serious car wrecks, two motorcycle wrecks, a truck fell on my head (I was standing under it, working at a Firestone and the front-end jack failed), a girlfriend's "future ex-husband" violated a restraining order and was determined to shoot me until he found out how prepared I was to legally shoot him. (That was a proverbial "Mexican stand-off".) I've been on submarines that had things go wrong in situations and places that I can't be too specific about, and last but not least, there's no telling how many bullets, rockets and mortars got too close for comfort in Iraq. (That said, there were a number of other people in Iraq who also had brushes with death before they thought better of trying to out-run my M-16, but I doubt they'll be posting here!)

Originally Posted by Sampson

In Iraq my vehicle was hit by an IED (I was the turret gunner) surprisingly not even a bruise from it, directly afterward we were under small arms fire where I could hear the dings on the armor around me, they soon stored when my 50 cal starting singing its tune. Again not a mark on me, so OP still has the title in my opinion, but as they said before when its time your ticket will be punched. That day wasn't it for me but it was for that set of underwear, may they rest in peace.

Sampson,

Thank you for your invaluable service to this country. You also have a great way of putting life into perspective. Again, Thank you.

I've been shot in my legs, back and thru my hand (was waving an "all clear", it wasn't)
Used to work with explosives (military) late 80s - 2000ish not much left to break or tear up on my body now.
Rebuilt with titanium, ceramics, steel, skin replacements and so on...
I won't do a sharpening video showing my hands, to many questions from people.

To all fellow soldiers, take care!