When Life decides to pull a prank on you

This topic is to talk about all the times you were nearly snuffed out from existence. I remember Uber mentioning he has a lot of these stories, so I figured he and I could rattle on back and forth like two ancient war vets.

Of course, everyone else is welcome too.

The last time this happened, I was in my friend's car and he was driving me back home down the highway. However, he wasn't paying quite as much attention as he should have been, and forgot that the highway exits on the BQE (Brooklyn-Queens Expressway) were the kind that corkscrew around, rather then the ones that go straight down off the highway. He also has a habit of hitting the exits at above the speed limit, and then gradually slowing down as he goes down the ramp.

So all of a sudden, I hear the loud SCREEEEEEEECHing of rubber against asphalt, and look up to see our car sliding towards the concrete wall at 70 miles per hour. Now would also be a good time to mention that his car is a convertible, and a VERY shitty one at that.

My exact thoughts at that moment were "Well... Fine. Fuck you too, life."

However, as it happens, the traction control in his car is completely broken. For those who don't know, traction control is what makes sure your wheels continue to spin at the same speed while making strong turns. Due to this feature, most cars would have continued sliding straight into the wall in dramatic fashion. However, since it was not working in his car, as soon as he jammed the steering wheel to the right, the left wheel (the outside wheel) was allowed to turn considerably faster then the right wheel (the inside wheel), causing the car to rotate around its front end as we continued sliding down the exit. Finally we came to an abrupt stop at the bottom, and my friend looked at me with a disturbing smile on his face, and said, "Yea, you didn't know I could do that, did you?!"

No, I certainly didn't Alex.

New Years Eve in Melbourne about 1997 or so. About 2am.

Uberman is appropriately drunk. We were at a party at a friend's house. One of my friends was starting to get a bit depressed/drunk so I took him for a walk. There were some train tracks behind the house so we sat down on them and had a talk because the trains stop at midnight. At some point we ended up laying on the tracks to look at the stars. My friend passed out and I almost did.

As I noticed myself starting to fall asleep I figured we'd better wander back. So I staggered to my feet and got my very drunk friend up. This was not a fast process. As we walked off, a train appeared from around the bend a couple of hundred yards away and rumbled through. As it was New Year's Eve, they were running trains all night.

If I'd slept or passed out, I'm pretty sure my friend and I would have been splattered across the tracks. Worse, it would have looked like some kind of weird suicide pact.

Mortal Wombat is 5, riding his bike with training wheels. MW stupidly attempts a hands-and-legs-free he saw his older brother doing earlier. MW loses control of bike, bike chain jams and hangs off back wheel's axle. Bike speeds towards pool and both bike and MW fall in. MW almost drowns.


Mortal Wombat is in grade 2, walking to school. MW approaches a children's crossing. The view of both ways the road runs is conveniently obscured by tall pines. MW steps onto the road like he normally does. A silver Holden sedan going much higher than the mandatory 40km/h swerves and narrowly misses MW.

When I was four, my dad had an orange pickup truck. We were driving down the highway, and the car started having engine trouble. That is, the engine was turning off by its self while going 60 mph. So after this happened a couple times, my dad pulled off along the exit and pulled into a side street.

He got out, and went to go find a public phone (this was back when cell phones were the size of your head and gave you cancer) so he could call his brother to pick us up. Normally, my dad would leave me in the car seat and keep an eye on me while he handled his business, like when he got cigarettes at the 7/11.

This one time though, for some reason, he decided to take me with him. So he opened the car door, unstrapped me, took me out of the car, took a few steps back and... the car promptly exploded, engulfed in a giant fire that spread from the front to the back in a matter of seconds, consuming the entire thing.

Jesus, why'd it happen ?

We never found out. The engine trouble was the first for that occasion (it wasn't an issue until that day) and I imagine it's hard for a mechanic to do an "autopsy" with a charred-up junkyard car.

Hmmm ... sounds like foul play.

*puffs on pipe*

Watson, the game is afoot !

I didn't experience it personally, but a mortar shell came down and exploded in the living room, car and around the whole block. Good times.

A mortar once landed right in front of my dad. It was a dud.

Another time, an explosive DID go off, shot shrapnel right at my dad... and between his legs-- slicing the neck of the guy on the ground behind him.

funchpox is your dad a secret agent

Another time, my dad was sitting in the top of a tree with his sniper, surveying from his outpost and whatnot, when all of a sudden, he saw a split-second flash of light from inside the trees on the other side of the border. He continued staring at the spot, and a bit later, the light flashed again. He picked up his sniper, let off a shot towards the flash of light, and... a body dropped out of the tree (enemy sniper).

The sun was glinting off the guy's watch or something, and my dad could have easily been HIS notch.

Your dad kicks ass.

https://rwep.forummotion.com/everything-else-f2/my-dad-is-more-awesome-then-your-dad-t217.htm#1783

Anyways, one time I was in a boat and almost went over a WATERFALL!!!! From the side, it looked like a harmless eddy, and we were actually considering whether or not we should "eddy out". We eventually decided to just keep going... and as we passed it in full view, realized that had we started pulling off the river, we'd have been sent over the waterfall that we thought was just an eddy.

Before we had time to recover from the shock of that, we were sent down the almost-but-not-quite waterfall, somehow managing to barely skirt the sides as opposed to going down the center and being swallowed whole!

PHOTO PROOF:


Note that the water in front of the giant doom hole is rolling backwards, pulling you in



Similar effect here. Also note that with the path we took, you have to just barely avoid blowing your boat into pieces against the sharp rocks that the current slams you into against on the river-left bank, without staying too far away and falling into the hole (I looked down into the gaping maw of that monstrous water formation and I can not think of another moment in my entire life where I was face-to-face with my death in such a literal manner.

It was looking up at me and going "ASAWWRRRRRGRGGHHHH HGRREBRLKRLRBBLB I WANT TO EAAAAT YOOOOUUUUUUUU"

I'm fucking confused

I ALMOST DIED CUZ OF WATER

Oh I didn't see the post before the images saying you almost dying a watery death. I thought you were posting pictures with diagrams showing where the guy your dad shot fell. :\

lol haha sorry about that