Scariest moment of your life

When I was 15, I caught on fire. Diesel gas fire. Burned over 20 percent of my body thanks to a faulty repair job on a tractor I was driving. You really don't notice you're on fire at first, because the nerve endings are the first to go and the endorphins kick in. It's surreal to look down and think "Shit, I'm on fire."

When I was 23 or 24, I had a guy pull a knife on me. I was bartending and kicking him out. He pulls out a pretty good sized hunting knife and makes a slashing move. I managed to avoid it, stepped forward and punched the guy dead in the nose. I wound up on top of him, choking him until two off-duty cops drinking at the bar pulled me off the guy. They thought I'd killed him and were about to start doing CPR on him until he started breathing on his own.

About 10 years ago, I had a black bear start to climb up a tree stand I was sitting in during a deer hunt. I threw my binoculars down, hit it in the face and it ran off. I was damned nervous walking the 200 yards back to my ATV.

 

It was labour day weekend in 1999 and my parents and I had packed all of my belongings for my first year away at school in my dad's Grand Am.  As we were driving the sideroad to the highway, clouds seemed to fall from the sky out of nowhere - like we'd never seen before, this was some weird, weird weather.

Anyway, it was really dark fog by the time we hit the highway.  Some people pulled right off the road, but we drove on starting in Windsor.  The fog lifted, the sky was clear for a couple kilometres and out of nowhere, it dropped again in front of us.

All we saw was tail lights and all we heard was horns and a lot of smashing.  We saw the car in front of us and had one of those moments where your life flashes in front of you.  I'll remember a box of computer CDs crashed in front of me and closing my eyes.  Somehow, my dad calmly put the car in reverse and steered us onto the shoulder.  I'll never know quite how he was able to do it.

The car right behind us was rammed from behind by a transport.  Luckily, it didn't impact the people in it.  We discovered the car two in front of us was chopped right in half by another semi and the girl was actually decapitated on scene.  We didn't know that at the time, but it was a horror seeing eight ambulances whiz by her mangled car.

What we didn't know until later was that across Highway 401 about a kilometre up the road in the opposite direction, at least 40 cars were in a chain reaction pileup, which included two fuel tankers set on fire.  Eventually, I think 8-11 people died there.

I was about to embark on a career in journalism and I knew it was the story of stories that year  - not to mention a chance to shoot incredible photos - (and it was the biggest news story in Southern Ontario that year), and I had experience both with first aid and grief counselling, but I couldn't bear to leave my own car.  It was that frightening.

Otherwise,  some minor accidents and the fire I described near my house in another thread last week were somewhat scary situations. The morning of 9/11 definitely was tough though, it was almost surreal, especially being in a national capital at the time.

 

I actually did have a bit of a panic attack at the altar. My wife helped me through it -- with(out) a hitch, as it were ...

 

probably second scariest incident of my life: october 2000, reffing a midget major game, dropping the puck for a faceoff at the blue line. drop the puck, look three times each way while skating backwards toward the boards, third time i look left: BAMN! slapshot in the grill, right under my right eye. i immediately hit the ice and see nothing but black. the most intense pain i've ever experienced. thought i was blind in my right eye because i couldn't open it for over an hour. blood all over the ice and had to get my uniform dry cleaned because of the mess. tried to stand up 45 minutes afterward and would faint as soon as i stood up straight. had to get a bunch of friends to take me to the hospital from the rink.

afterward, when i return to my dorm, because of the black and yellow eye i have, i'm greeted with "jesus, what the fuck happened to you?" me: "had an accident while reffing." no big deal.

i also took a thrown aluminum bat off the dome while umping a baseball game a few weeks ago. that sucked big time.

 

Coming back from covering a prep football game back in college. Stopped at an intersection, and a dude rolls up, looks over at me and pulls out a sawed-off. I hauled ass through the stoplight, of course.

Had a drive-by happen outside my apt.

Contemplated killing someone for, let's just say, hurting my best friend. Had a loaded .45 in my hand, but a voice in my head said there's much bigger plans ahead for me.

 

Sirs, Madames,

A night in a Mexican jail.

Watching my father drowning when I was 12 -- I swam out to him but a lifeguard beat me to it.

Couple of standard near-misses driving. (Actually thought I had died in one spin-out, only to realize that I was buried in a snowbank in the dead of night.) Couple of bad flights.

Heart infection -- believe me the paddles are pretty freakin' scary.

Thinking I lost sight in an eye when I got hit by a baseball bat accidentally and my face caved in.

YHS, etc

 

Mr. Friend O'

Quite the resume there.

But no mention of your trip to Ottawa with the immortal Chuck_Tatum?

 

Mr Huggy,

Re: Tatum ... I don't try to pretend that the others didn't happen.

YHS, etc

 

A few, actually:

* Tops is probably the night of May 25, 1983. I was living on the streets of San Bernardino and was getting ready to cross the street to the carport I had been sleeping in.
It had two solid walls and one half wall, with the entrance surrounded by bushes on a side street. Extrememly secluded for being on a busy street (Waterman Avenue, about halfway between Baseline and Highland.
It was about 1 a.m., and I was getting ready to call it a day. I had been walking up and down Highland for hours, wasting time between sodas at places like Winchell's and Bob's Big Boy, and I was tired.
As I was closing in on the carport, a large black man approached me and asked if I was gay.

* Another time, when I was 16, me and two friends were standing on my porch chilling. We saw a car slowly drive up the side street and cut the lights. It turned the corner, and gunfire erupted from the windows, aimed at the house two doors down.
After the car took off down my street, my neighbor cut through my lawn, stopped 6 feet from me, and fired back with a handgun.

* Another time, my best friend and I were hanging out in downtown Riverside, playing at the Boys & Girls Club. Mind you, my family was the only white family on the Eastside, and I was the only whitey to even go to this Boys & Girls Club.
My friend and I got into an argument, and he took off for home, ahead of me. Which left me to walk home alone.
Three black men stopped me about six blocks from home and surrounded me. One asked what I was doing in that part of town. Thinking quickly (and shaking in my shoes), I told him I was headed over to Shawn Green's house (not THAT Shawn Green), and if he knew him. One guy said, "Yeah, I know him." And they left me alone.
Shawn lived across the street from me. I didn't have the guts to tell them I lived there.

 

Nothing nearly as scary as some of the life-threatening stories here.

6th grade, local youth soccer league: Went up for a header, but some freckled redhead (who ended up being one of my best friends in high school) undercut me and I landed on my head. Mom was naturally hysterical ... I didn't notice as I was too busy watching the pink elephants dance.

Summer before senior year, baseball travel team: Bad night of sleep before a 9 a.m. game, one which I'm starting on the mound. Got through the first inning OK - second inning started with a comebacker to the man area. Reflexes were too slow, but thankfully no permanent damage.

Later that summer: Driving solo to a game in Ord. Highway construction (quelle shock!) necessitates a detour onto a narrow, gravel road. A large, black pickup driving down the middle of the road necessitates my swerving off the road and ending up at a 45 degree angle in the ditch.

 

A long time ago, my dad was the caretaker at this hotel in Colorado for the winter. I used to ride my Big Wheels through the halls. These twins kept materializing in front of me outside Room 227.

Eventually it snowed and took down the phone lines. Then things got really weird. Fortunately I was able to use my telepathic powers to summon Scatman Carrothers from Miami.

 

Oh no! Not room 227!