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Original poster

What's the most dangerous thing you have survived?

365 replies

AbsentmindedWoman · 01/11/2018 15:34

Curious about all kinds of narrow squeaks, really. I find it fascinating because they can be dramatic or terrifying like a car accident or being held up at knifepoint, or something that happens in the blink of an eye and death/ serious damage is averted thanks to sheer good luck! I seem to have had a fair few of the latter experiences (falls off horses, best friend pulling me out of the way of a bus by a hair's breadth, etc) but no big event.

I love how tough human beings are and what we can survive. What's the maddest and baddest thing you have survived?

OP posts:
Mitzimaybe · 01/11/2018 16:59

This guardian angel crap really annoys me. If other people died - were their guardian angels just doing a crap job, or what? You were just randomly lucky. There are no guardian angels.

KatsutheClockworkOctopus · 01/11/2018 16:59

Near miss once during plane landing.

Sepsis and haemorrhage while having DS.

Lepetitpiggy · 01/11/2018 16:59

I had pneumonia and whooping cough at the age of six weeks and was christened before my parents were told to leave and they'd let me know when I died (it was the 1960s!) Also had many many experimental surgeries from the age of 3, the first one being so dangerous and untested that there was a 96% chance of death. Someone once told me I must be here for a reason - no idea what through!!

TheSpooktacular · 01/11/2018 17:00

Haemorrhaged with both births.

MamaLovesMango · 01/11/2018 17:02

A major terrorist attack

Juells · 01/11/2018 17:04

Ohmigod I'm getting PTSD just reading some of these 😲

Idontbelieveinthemoon
earlier this year when a car smashed into my car as I changed a tyre down a country lane.

On the rare occasions that I've had a puncture I've just driven on the flat tyre until I got to a garage. The cost of replacing tyre etc. is a lot less than the hassle of changing it at the side of the road. You just weave a bit and have to drive slowly.

I was once knocked down by a bus, but didn't know it. I was standing on the pavement with a crowd of onlookers as the bus-driver knelt at the front of the bus yelling "Where is she, where's she gone?". I gradually noticed people staring at me and realised my tights were all torn and my leg grazed. Obviously being hit by a bus is the best way to go, you don't even know it's happened.

notangelinajolie · 01/11/2018 17:09

NHS saved me for sure. I wouldn't have survived childbirth. And if that hadn't killed me the DVT and PE 4 weeks late would surely have done the trick.

Did a very stupid/dangerous thing on holiday once - me and DH were persuaded by a couple who were staying in our 5* luxury hotel to venture out and try the local nightlife. We were in one of the most dangerous places on earth. We were both totally terrified and stayed in the nightclub we'd gone to for all of 3 minutes. And then the taxi ride home - which I don't think was actually really a taxi was even worse. The driver had 2 guns on the dashboard - we didn't see them till we were driving down the road. It was a car journey I will never forget but to be honest it really was our only option to get back to the hotel as we were miles from anywhere.

Talcott2007 · 01/11/2018 17:11

I've had a couple of close calls.

I nearly downed when I was about 5 after another child accidentally knocked me into a swimming pool on holiday - I have no memory of this though...

Then being rescued from a house fire by when I was 12 - I remember waking up middle of the night and knowing the darkness in my room had a 'wrongness' to it. Too black. Too heavy. Knowing that I should get out of bed but not being able to move. Then there was the sensation of being pushed/forced back to 'sleep' despite knowing I should be doing something. Next is a half memory of being in my front garden with the fireman who got me out handing me over to the paramedics then waking up in hospital.

Developing severe acute pancreatitis when I was in my early 20's resulting in a couple of weeks in ICU after my organs started to shut down.

Had quite a dramatic postpartum haemorage following the birth of DD - think the elevator scene in the Shining

Then this year I've had sepsis...

I'm very very lucky

Pinkywoo · 01/11/2018 17:12

I was leaving the flat for uni and stopped to stroke next doors cat, just before I walked under it the wind caught the massive single glazed window a few floors up and huge shards of glass embedded themselves in the grass. If I hadn't said hello to the cat I'd have been ripped to shreds.

notangelinajolie · 01/11/2018 17:14

Oh yes, I forgot the Manchester bomb in 1996. A whole city evacuated - I have never been so scared or ran so fast in my whole life. A miracle that nobody lost their lives.

mimibunz · 01/11/2018 17:15

Double pneumonia with e. Coil in my blood.

TheSageofOnions · 01/11/2018 17:16

My SIL's driving.

ginandtonicformeplease · 01/11/2018 17:17

Encephalitis. Doctors didn't expect me to make a full recovery. Several years of my life wiped from my memory, but epilepsy is the only physical reminder of it.

The NHS is fantastic.

ladybee28 · 01/11/2018 17:17

I was once knocked down by a bus, but didn't know it. I was standing on the pavement with a crowd of onlookers as the bus-driver knelt at the front of the bus yelling "Where is she, where's she gone?". I gradually noticed people staring at me and realised my tights were all torn and my leg grazed. Obviously being hit by a bus is the best way to go, you don't even know it's happened.

Wait... what happened? Where HAD you gone?! (am I having a really daft moment here?)

theboxofdelights · 01/11/2018 17:19

Yes I forgot the Bishopsgate bomb April 1993, Saturday, I was in my office on Bevis Marks, terrifying.

FearOfFrogs · 01/11/2018 17:21

Altitude sickness necessitating descending nearly a thousand meters in the dark on really dangerous paths in the freezing cold while vomiting and hallucinating was pretty hairy.
Multiple falls from horses and motorbikes.
Being caught up in civil unrest in Africa
Malaria
Being chased by a 1000kg bull
I have dodged a fair few bullets looking at that list

catsandogs · 01/11/2018 17:21

Severe allergic reaction to penicillin. My throat swelled up and I passed out.

Nutkins24 · 01/11/2018 17:22

Sepsis mid labour. Other than that I’ve led a very quiet non dangerous life.

Letsgetreadytorumba · 01/11/2018 17:26

Stage 3c Cancer, 2 x stem cell transplants, kliebsella pneumonia with no immune system, haemothorax, 2 x Pulmonary emboli.

Letsgetreadytorumba · 01/11/2018 17:27

Oh and viral menhingitis and swine flu, how could I forget?!

BeeMyBaby · 01/11/2018 17:28

Not actually that life threatening but attempted suicide at 13 by taking a few packs of ibuprofen and paracetamol. Was quite content to go at that point however I had no idea that they work on different receptors so to have killed myself I'd have had to have taken either paracetamol or ibuprofen but as I mixed them I just spent about 12 hours making bright yellow sick.
When I was 15 I took a couple of packets of pro plus which I guess could have given me a heart attack, instead of being super energised as I expected I just lay as still as possible for hours in a club unable to move.

AdoraBell · 01/11/2018 17:29

Born a month after DM’s waters broke, dehydrated, dangerously low temperature and covered in my own waste.

8.9 earthquake that went in for nearly nine minutes.

Avoided hitting a cement mixer that went sideways after a fuckwit driver cut him up on the motorway. Car behind also avoided hitting me. Same day I avoided another fuckwit driver who appeared sideways on having used the motorway off ramp to join said motorway.

KarlDilkington · 01/11/2018 17:31

Served in the IDF for two years.

explodingkitten · 01/11/2018 17:31

Several medical stuff but it wasn't as scary as the emergency plane landing where the plane didn't work properly and had a fuel leak at the same time. None of the meters worked. The plane reaked of fuel. Just one spark when landing and we would have been a ball of fire. I was kind of okay with crashing (I had about ten minutes to get used to the idea, took a while to get down) but the thought of burning to death terrified me.

Not that you have a choice or can go anywhere anyway.

ButtMuncher · 01/11/2018 17:32

This one is a bit weird but really scary. My friends parents owned a farm and we used to go hay bale hopping regularly in the summer. Usually they stack them so there isn't far you could fall into one (if you were rubbish like me) before you'd hit the next bale. Hard to describe really. We were merrily hopping and for some reason I missjumped and landed right down the middle of a gap - fine I thought, I won't go far. Except whoever had arranged the bale had stacked them on top of one another with no break. I fell about 6ft right down to the bottom - I was about 8 at the time, and I was stuck - couldn't breathe, couldn't get out, was suffocating.

One of the older kids saw it from across the field and ran over and kicked the bale down, but I was starting to pass out. really scary.

Other time was when a cupboard fell on top of me and was cm alway from my head. I was 2 and my mum nipped out for a second - I'd managed to crawl into a compartment and as it wasn't fixed to the wall and wasn't very full my weight on the bottom pulled it toward me and nearly crushed me.