Had the opportunity to fly in a small vintage airplane (not sure what kind). It was awesome but the following day we got information that the next flight crashed and all passengers died.

So, a few years back, probably a bit more than a decade, there was one hell of a conflict on the village I lived, with gangs every corner and tensions rising. The police didn’t do shit and crime was through the roof. One day, one of the gang leaders was murdered and a whole war between the gangs developed. And instead of fucking helping, the government decided to isolate the place, no one in and no one out, fuck the civilians. A week into this war, explosives were used to destroy buildings and spread chaos, both from the gangs and military alike. Me and my family hid wherever we could, but it was never enough to be safe for a long period of time. Three of my family members died during the first week, trying to find food. Then the military decided to make an assault with everything they had and raided the entire place. Me, and everyone else, ran for our lives or hid on any building they could. I hid on a small house, but it was not built using the best of materials, and it collapsed over me due to a bomb detonating nearby. I woke up on a hospital about a month later with a broken leg.

My wife just squeezed a spot on my side. I survived. Barely.

My parents sent me to Jesus camp when I was in high school. This particular camp was one where kids would go on week long excursions. I didn’t jive with the jesus stuff, but a week of camping and swimming in lakes was great.

This particular year I did a week of biking and climbing. We practiced at the rock wall and got our bearings and we were signed off by some climbing instructor. We then went on the road. Six days later, we arrived at the rock face we were to climb. We started at the top, dropped our gear, then half of us hiked down and our belays hung out on top to help us back up.

I did my climb. It was uneventful but fun. Then it was my turn to belay.

We did everything with just climbing ropes and carabiners. No additional equipment. We were to tie off onto a tree or boulder on the summit and make a particular kind of loop around ourselves that wouldn’t allow it to constrict and hurt us if we were hauling the person below up the face. Nbd I get it all set up and we move on.

Well, my climbing buddy was picked randomly and it was the fat girl with homesickness. She finally stopped moaning and decided to give it a shot. I was happy for her and got ready. She hiked down and got herself ready.

“On belay!” I check my stuff, see it’s good “Belay on!”

She starts climbing. But she couldn’t get past the first major rock and she decided to quit. Oh well.

Then I turned around and found my support rope wasn’t tied around the tree and I would’ve been yanked off of a 60 foot rock face the first time she slipped.

I hit a deer while riding my motorcycle. I saw it crossing the road from my left, tried to evade it, heard the bang of my fairing hit it, and next thing I knew I was lying on my back looking up at the sky. I ended up with a shattered collarbone, broken ribs, and some road rash on my left side. I have absolutely no memory of falling or sliding at all (and I’m okay with that).

The most likely explanation for why I survived was that I was only going 30 mph (50 kph). That same day another rider wasn’t so lucky. There was a husband and wife in one of the cars behind me that were both EMTs and I got experienced care right away. Plus, I was wearing boots, gloves, a leather jacket, and a full-face helmet. The road rash was from my jeans wearing through during the slide.

In 2018, I had an infection and I basically couldn’t eat or drink almost anything without throwing up, even a sip od water would make me sick for hours. The antibiotics made it even worse.

I lost over 15kg in 2 weeks, I legit thought I was going to die. It took almost 2 years before I could eat normally again.

As a kid I ate a rowanberry. Believe that must have been it. Otherwise almost a carcrash on highway, when someone pulled over straight to the left lane, where we we’re to make space, when the vehicle entered the highway.

When I was a kid I fell out of a tree, I was easily at least 20 feet up, probably more, but I was lucky enough to hit a bunch of branches and landed on a rotten log. That was probably the closest: If I landed on a rock or something I definitely could’ve died.

I was using a home-made grappling hook made out of laundry line, bent wire hangars, and electrical tape.

Yes, I know, I was not always the wisest.

For me it was while hiking. It got dark but I wanted to find some nice camping spot so just kept walking. At one point the path got really narrow and pitch black on both sides but I never saw anything remotely dangerous in those mountains so I just kept walking. After some time it got a bit more vertical but I still couldn’t see anything dangerous so I just kept traversing it. Then one hold broke off and I fell backwards, landed on a small ledge half a meter lower and just stopped. I decided it’s getting silly so I just found small flat surface and slept there. In the morning I saw were I was and the slope where I almost fell had like 50 meters and was almost vertical. I really don’t know but I think if I didn’t stick the first small fall I wouldn’t be able to stop until the very bottom. 50 m rolling down a rocky hill, alone, in the middle of no where. Yeah, I would probably be dead. So it was couple centimeters really.

Later I learned that this spot is pretty well known: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zGhS3-KVuo

I never got very close to death but my dad did. Four times.

(The first two were before I was born, so I can only tell from what he told us.)

First one was when he was 4. He fell into a big hole in a circus. He lost audition from his right ear in the accidentt. To this day, he still can only hear from his left ear.

Second one was after graduating high school. Excited from his graduation, he crossed a road on the way back home without paying attention and got hit by a car. Thankfully he hasn’t got any long-term sequel from this one. But this served as a lesson, always pay attention when crossing the road.

Third one was during a holiday with all the family 7-8 years ago. He was paragliding when he hit a tree and fell from the height of the tree. Broke an arm and couldn’t use it for months after that. He was supposed to drive us back home at the end of the holiday, instead we got back home by taxi. No long-term sequel for him after either.

Fourth one was at the beginning of 2019. It was late in the evening when his vision from the left eye started getting blurry. He called the emergency service and, as during the call he had struggle finding his words, they sent an ambulance. It turned out he had a stroke. Had he thought he was just getting tired and gone to sleep that night, he might not have seen the next day. The day after we tried talking to him, but he was only responding with gibberish. He eventually mostly recovered, but is still sleepier than before his stroke to this day.

I was going 45 mph on a main road, when an 18 year old trying to show off for his girlfriend, blew threw a stop sign on a residential road and t-boned me going 80 mph. I was one of the luckier victims, with emergency surgery, fractures and breaks everywhere, loss of use of two fingers, and nerve damage in all of my limbs.

The driver’s girlfriend did not survive, and my coworker, who was in the car with me, had every rib shatter and his spine broken. 3 years later, he’s still on oxy (he had to get special approval and prove that it wasn’t addiction).

I don’t remember the crash itself, but I remember a fire and waking up to my coworker covered in blood, screaming and delirious. I remember falling in and out of conciousness while I was moved from room to room to get emergency care for the next 3 days. Most of all, I remember the relief at hearing my coworker’s voice after 4 days, now knowing that he was still alive.

I once while hiking in the desert I fell off a sandstone monolith and landed in a bush that broke my fall. If Id missed the bush I’d have hit rocks and died, ants would have eaten my corpse.

Surgery complications. I had just had an eye socket taken apart and put back together, with plastic clips and metal to hold it together so it could heal properly. I was in the recovery room waking up from the anesthesia when my new internal stitches started to hemorrhage. I had blood pouring down my face, but it was under a heavy layer of surgical dressings. I could feel it, though, so I said that my face hurt. My mom believed me and so did one of the recovery nurses, who had the guts to ignore another nurse, who was wrong, then go straight to the surgeon and say something’s not right. Do you know how you get a surgeon to clean a surgery suite that he just rolled out of successfully? He will even pick up a mop and re sanitize it! Thanks, Tina!

Almost drowned.

I was just a small kid at swimming lessons (so not deep water). It was the end of the lesson for the day and I was heading back to the locker room. I was the last one I guess. I was using one of those oversized beach towels… and I slipped and fell into the water with the damn towel wrapped around me. I wasnt a good swimmer, panicking, unable to tell which way was up. Not a single person noticed I feel in our heard me. If one of the instructors hadn’t walked out of the locker room when he did and noticed me I would have died. My dad was maybe 20 feet from me chatting up some other parent. But because it’s an old pool in a school, it has this wall that basically prevented anyone in the bleachers from seeing most of the pool (except for the diving board on the far side), so I was drowning in the blind side.

To this day (over 2 decades), my mom and step dad love to bully me about how I had a fear of getting water in my face when I was young afterwards. One of many stories they love to tell!

I can swim, but I still prefer not to.

One time, my blood sugar was 26 mg/dl. Can confirm, felt close to death, surprisingly conscious.