Do you have a That was Close moment?

[Daleksatemyshed]

Local news had a gas explosion in a house, terrifying footage of part of the house going up like a rocket, several people were hurt and the house is a complete wreck. Some years ago my DM (who was elderly with Dementia) turned on a couple of burners on the cooker but didn't light them, I arrived pre work to drop something off to a house reeking of gas!
I got the house aired out and had a Gas fitter cut off the supply.
Watching the news brought home how close my DM was to disaster and probably serious injury. I still feel guilty I didn't sort this before hand.
Anyone else care to sooth my guilt?

@JesusInTheCabbageVan

When DS was about 5, he nearly hanged himself in a soft play centre. It was a strip of loose fabric at the top of a bouncy castle slide, and it somehow got looped around his neck. He had a big rope burn but was fine, thankfully.

Funnily enough I was thinking about it just the other day and asked him if he remembered it, but he didn't.

Something similar happened to my old NDN's daughter when she was little. She had a tall slide in the back garden and the little girl tried to go down while wearing a scarf, the end of which got caught between the metal frame and the plastic slide. She was stuck halfway down with the scarf choking her.

Thankfully the slide faced the house and her mum saw her from the kitchen window, so was able to run out and get her down.

[quote elfycat]@FightingTheFoo

Out of control Chinese rocket : www.theguardian.com/science/2021/may/06/chinese-rocket-falling-crash-to-earth-saturday-china-space-station-long-march-5b-us-space-command[/quote]
Yes but that's not what @Zarinea was talking about when she said a rocket narrowly missed her in Tel Aviv. She was talking about a Palestinian rocket fired from Gaza.

oh, OK.

Rockets mean space rockets to me today after DH woke me up to watch the vertical rocket landing thing from last night (I wanted to snooze for another half hour). I know about the other type too, but my head's in science/ space rocket mode.

Moved to a new area a few months ago and we're taking a drive to local park. Sat nav on and it took us up a dead end. We turned and it sorted itself out, drove up the correct country road and a man standing in middle of road waving to say that a huge tree had just fallen down (2minutes prior) in the wind right onto the road. If sat nav hadn't got it wrong and diverted us for 2 minutes we could've had a very near miss with a big tree!

When I was a baby I was crying in my cot in the middle of the night. Mum came to get me out. Less than 30 seconds after she'd picked me up, the ceiling above my cot completely collapsed sending plaster, debris and god knows what else into my cot-which would have been on top of me if I hadn't woken up.

@Millano

That is absolutely appalling. I hope the guy was sacked. What a fucking stupid thing to have done!

I live near Shoreham.

A few years ago I dropped DH and DD off at the train station to go and watch Brighton play footy.

Went home, cracked open a Pimms in the garden and nodded off...waking up to the news of the Shoreham air crash.

I immediately called DD's Godfather to check he was okay as I knew he'd be driving to the match on the A27. It transpired he'd picked up DH and DD en route and the three of them had been on that section of the road about 3 minutes before the plane came down.

It was a very long time before I managed to drive that way again.

Driving past a bus that was at a stop and had to slam on my brakes when a kid of about 11/12 ran out from in front of the bus right in front of me.

A few things. I have told this before.

Mum was in the baby clinic with my little brother tethered in his pushchair. I don't know what happened but she was talking to another mum there who asked where he was. Mum turned her head to an empty pushchair. He was around the corner at the beginning of the Rochester Way -a very busy motorway and was running down it! A chap up a ladder ran across the multi lines of traffic to get the little monkey!

One Christmas, my other better behaved brother was driving me back to mum's after I had had Christmas tea with his family. It was a dark Christmas night. Suddenly we both realised something up ahead was looking at us with its two eyes! A horse had got out of a field! Luckily my brother is a great driver and stopped in time. If it had been my aunt driving (she was a terrible driver), that horse would have been pate!.

The only other thing (very mild to everyone else's stuff). I was in Kefalonia with a friend. All night long it sounded like someone was banging on the railings. I was too tired to get up and give them hell. The next morning, enjoying breakfast on the balcony, the whole thing shook. "It's only an earthquake" said my friend. I had never experienced on before. It was a little one thank god!

After having a motor bike for a few years ds decided on a car.. Passed his test and bought himself a car.
Few weeks in he had a crash on a dark night coming home from work..
He walked away unscathed.. Dr's were amazed.

When I was about 13 I was on the bus to school, we were driving through some woods on a NL road. A white van came hurtling around the corner and the bus swerved. The two left wheels went down into a ditch and we stopped with a bump. We all took a breath and started laughing, then there's was this awful creaking like something out of Titanic as the bus slowly started to fall over. Kids were shrieking and it was a real 'Oh fuck' moment.

Then at 45 degrees, we just stopped falling. A single tree was holding us up. The driver got us off sharpish (was quite a jump down!) and later when the fire service hoisted the bus back up, the tree fell over

Someone threw a lit rocket firework in my window which landed next to me
Brain went "lit. Not gone off. Get out" so I grabbed the cat and ran and slammed the living room door (fire door) and still had my hand on the handle as it exploded. Must have been maybe 10 seconds

Several years ago there was a very serious plane crash at an air show, many people died. We had driven along the road it crashed onto less than an hour earlier.

@Madlymumming

Several years ago there was a very serious plane crash at an air show, many people died. We had driven along the road it crashed onto less than an hour earlier.

Shoreham? As LasagneQueen mentioned above?

Grabbed my 3 year dd by the wrist as she was fell down the gap between platform and a train setting off. Her legs were actually below the platform and I was just gripping her with everything I had.

Only sunk in about 3 hours after the fact when I finally got home with her

My DD was hit by a car a couple of years ago. She suffered a cauliflower eye and had to have surgery. She hit the wing mirror and bounced off.

However.. if the car has been a split second slower then she would have been under the front of the car and run over by the wheel. I can't even begin to imagine the damage that would have done to her tiny body, still scares me to this day .

Cauliflower ear! Not eye

My son was premature. He was a bit behind in developmental milestones. At 8 months he still wasn’t turning over by himself.....until the day I put him to sleep on our living floor. He was fast asleep on a quilt. I decided it would be a good time to take a bath. I must have fallen asleep too. I was woken by a voice screaming in my ear “ GET THE BABY”.

I flew out of the tub and ran into the living room. My son was face down on the blanket..not moving and blue. I somehow managed to call for emergency help as well as starting cpr...

How grateful I am the hospital insisted all parents of preemies take a cpr course before releasing the baby home.

I am also grateful to whomever or whatever woke me up in time to save my sweet son.

Odd one: I was driving dc home from school, and coming to a t-junction with traffic lights. Normally I’d have pulled right up to the lights, but I slowed and stopped about 10m back from the junction. Even as I was doing it it made no sense.
Then a van came speeding round the corner, chasing the amber, overshot the turn and barely managed to pull past me.
If I’d been in a normal position at that junction I’d be dead.

One time on holiday, we had a bbq on the beach. I was always very strict with the dc, drawing a line in the sand, and instructing them not to cross it, and they were always very good too. I was turning sausages and out of the corner of my eye, I saw dd come running towards me and trip, her face on a collision course with the bbq, and my arm shot out and pushed her back so hard that she landed on her bum. I’m not strong. I’m terrible at sports. But in that split second, my arm just shot out and did what was necessary.

When my now-adult DS was little, I was emptying the dishwasher and he came hurtling into the kitchen just as I was taking a huge, sharp chef’s knife out of the cutlery rack.

He ran almost full-pelt onto the sharp end. I put my hand out and stopped in the absolute nick of time. He was literally my arm’s length away with the point of the knife about one centimetre away from his solar plexus.

I still feel sick when I think about it, fifteen years later.

@sueelleker it was yes.

Not me, a fellow biker I know, he was riding through country lanes, rode the same lanes every day to and from work, one day he went round a blind corner and there was a lorry parked in the middle of the road. He had no time to stop. All he could do was move his head to his left a bit. He hit the lorry hard with his right shoulder.
Hard enough that the shoulder itself was fine, but the shock wave tore apart the bone at the back of the shoulder. If he hadn't moved his head, he'd have hit it, broken his neck and died instantly.

Mine are all fairly mundane, and mostly driving related. Came round a corner, there was a transit overtaking a car on a blind corner, on double white lines. Swerved round him. Tried not to think what would have happened if I'd have been going a little quicker!
And (TW) I was in an abusive relationship, my boyfriend strangled me one afternoon, I could see the world starting to fade out to black like a vignette at the end of an old movie and something in my brain told me "If you don't so something, you are going to die". I somehow managed to kick him in the stomach and cause him to stumble back and I ran out of his house. To this day I've no idea how I managed to do it. Glad I did!

@Roodicus21

Moved to a new area a few months ago and we're taking a drive to local park. Sat nav on and it took us up a dead end. We turned and it sorted itself out, drove up the correct country road and a man standing in middle of road waving to say that a huge tree had just fallen down (2minutes prior) in the wind right onto the road. If sat nav hadn't got it wrong and diverted us for 2 minutes we could've had a very near miss with a big tree!

I drove passed a large tree seconds before it crashed down into the road. I could see it crash down in my rear view mirror. Was one of those thank fuck I was driving slightly faster than I should've been moments

Thanks to all of you for sharing some very close calls. It's interesting how many people didn't really think, they just acted purely on instinct and that was what saved them especially when it was their children at risk.

Was with friend in her car when it skidded on ice going down the slip road onto the motorway, shot across 3 lanes of traffic somehow missing all the cars, and came to rest on the central reservation.

I have twice been at a pedestrian crossing and had a bad feeling when the green man came on. The first time, without even looking up I managed to throw out an arm on instinct and stop the stranger next to me just as he was stepping out, as a car sped through the red light.

The second time, the man waiting for the lights to change in front of me had headphones on and didn’t hear a police car coming up to the junction. I caught him by the hood is his sweatshirt and pulled him back hard enough that he just glanced off the side of it as it sped past. He broke his hand but was otherwise ok.