runtime wrote:
May 23rd 1960. The tsunami at Hilo, Hawai'i almost got me. I was, as a idiot 16 year old, where I shouldn't have been.
I have read that the warning on the tsunami was put out and many people ignored it or went to the shore to watch a big wave come in. Can you elaborate on your experience if it is not to painful to recall?
Probably the easiest thing is to give you a link:http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/dmitchell/2009/09/tsunami/I was at the other end of the arc from where most people who went down to watch were caught and died.
sub3over40 wrote:
runtime wrote:May 23rd 1960. The tsunami at Hilo, Hawai'i almost got me. I was, as a idiot 16 year old, where I shouldn't have been.
I have read that the warning on the tsunami was put out and many people ignored it or went to the shore to watch a big wave come in. Can you elaborate on your experience if it is not to painful to recall?
Thank for the link...I visit Hilo in January and spent some time down where the old school was. Such a beautiful place for such a terrible event. Glad you made it.
sub3over 40 --
It took me a minute to process "old school." You're talking about Laupahoehoe and the '46 tsunami, I think, which did take out a school and some of the students and teachers.
Being that you're a runner (I assume) and you've visited Hilo, here's another Hilo one for you:
http://www.thenervousbreakdown.com/dmitchell/2011/08/the-persistence-of-the-green-condom/
If you drove from Hilo town up through the Saddle area, then you most likely drove up Kaumana Drive, which is the place I'm writing about.
a few close calls…
When I was 5, went swimming in a neighbor’s pool for first time without a floatation device. Did ok in shallow end but drifted into deep end, got very tired and couldn’t ‘dog-paddle’ to the side of pool. I was just about to go under when an adult dove in and pulled me out.
At age 11, I was hit by a car while on my bicycle. Car was driven by 15 year old girl on a learner permit with her dad. It was completely my fault; I shot out of a driveway onto a busy street without looking. Was knocked out for a few minutes and had a large gash on my forehead that bled profusely. I still remember vividly the sound of ambulance sirens when I awoke and a policeman putting a blanket over me ‘so that I didn’t go into shock’ and my mom’s screams when she saw me.
On a spearfishing trip in the Gulf of Mexico, I made a dive to 255 feet on air. To make a long story short, I had severe symptoms of the bends after getting off the boat. I was flown to hospital with decompression chamber where I spent the next four days. Was able to fully recover.
Two years ago I had a major sinus infection that migrated to my lungs. I was having asthma like breathing issues and ended up in the ER once because I just couldn't get any air in. A couple weeks after that, oddly enough two years ago this weekend, I started having the issue again. I didn't want to go back to the ER and Monday was a holiday so I stayed up all night on Memorial Day alternating between coughing and gasping for air so I could go to my regular doctor's office which opened at 7 am Tuesday. Several times I nearly passed out coughing and I entertained myself by watching odd TV shows on Netflix.
I made it until morning and they got me in right away, and there was my regular doctor who I rarely see as there's normally a PA doing the routine things. I got quite a scolding since with the pneumonia I had if I had passed out it was lights-out, nobody home. My wife would have come downstairs in the morning and found me dead in the den.
I got goosed with enough drugs to jump-start Napoleon, and I then paid attention to the advise that if the inhaler didn't work, get my a** into the ER.
I was walking through NYC stoned as hell about two weeks ago, I was texting and I walked right out into the intersection where the queensboro bridge enters manhattan, and I heard someone yell behind me, I looked up and there was a car going like 40 MPH strait at me with its horn blaring, I backed up and it just missed me.
Charlie Freak wrote:
Tough to confess, but I did the same as a dumb high school kid who thought I was bulletproof.
Not a true near-death experience since I wasn't injured, but...
Hammered out of my mind and driving my parents' full size van (this was the 80s), I drove through the median of a 4-lane highway just before crossing a bridge. It was actually two bridges, one each for the southbound and northbound lanes. I remember my head hitting the roof of the van as I plowed through the median (also no seat belt). Drove across the bridge on the wrong side of the road. After crossing the bridge, I was somehow able to maneuver through the median back into the correct lane and make it home.
Senior in high school, 30 years ago this month. Driving my sisters monte carlo S-faced with a buddy of mine, looking for a party in our rural town. We blew thru a stop sign and were full blown dukes of hazzard waiting for the impact of one of the cars on the busy highway. I'm not sure if we jumped thru an opening in the cars or jumped completely over them but we landed on the other side of the highway and just kept on going.
Less than two years later my buddy was killed by a drunk driver on spring break.
1. Two years old drank a bottle of green novahistine cough medicine and had to have my stomach pumped out. Dad tells me he could not get a pulse on the way to the hospital.
2. At 17, took the family Plymouth Fury 9-passenger wagon into a phone pole doing about 35. Had been doing 70 MPH seconds earlier, but braked fairly well.
3. Age 19, first 'shroomed and visioned jumping off my 22 story dorm at UMass. Lived 1,000,000 lives, was born as myself again, lived the 19 years over, and came down from the shrooms. Four hours total.
4. At 29, mixed beer, tequila and LSD and was concerned about hurling and passing out, pulling a Jimi Hendrix. Sat under industrial shower in a art warehouse all night and survived.
5. Generally drank like an idiot from age 18 to 40 before sobering up. Collectively, a near death experience.
I guess that's five close calls I can easily summon up. I'm sure there were more, especially involving bad driving. My guardian spirit is strong and helpful, I'm a bit less dumb than I used to be, and I never stopped running.
I took off a semester from good old ACU and was roughnecking near Robert Lee, TX. We were working graveyard shift and I fell asleep driving on the way home. I crossed a lane of traffic, went through a barb wire fence, and missed a telephone pole by about a foot. Scary.
Horst Girth wrote:
1. Two years old drank a bottle of green novahistine cough medicine and had to have my stomach pumped out. Dad tells me he could not get a pulse on the way to the hospital.
2. At 17, took the family Plymouth Fury 9-passenger wagon into a phone pole doing about 35. Had been doing 70 MPH seconds earlier, but braked fairly well.
3. Age 19, first 'shroomed and visioned jumping off my 22 story dorm at UMass. Lived 1,000,000 lives, was born as myself again, lived the 19 years over, and came down from the shrooms. Four hours total.
4. At 29, mixed beer, tequila and LSD and was concerned about hurling and passing out, pulling a Jimi Hendrix. Sat under industrial shower in a art warehouse all night and survived.
5. Generally drank like an idiot from age 18 to 40 before sobering up. Collectively, a near death experience.
I guess that's five close calls I can easily summon up. I'm sure there were more, especially involving bad driving. My guardian spirit is strong and helpful, I'm a bit less dumb than I used to be, and I never stopped running.
You sound like a complete idiot. All of those were completely avoidable if you weren't a complete moron.
Hey afsdfasdfs,
Thanks for your friendly comment.
It's certainly true that I was a wild thing as a young man, but let me tell you:
-I own my house out right
-I'm sober
-I own a successful business
-My wife is smoking hot and we are c-o-n-n-e-c-t-e-d, if you know what I mean.
-I'm a well known artist in my field
-I'm a happy person, I love myself and I respect others.
Not bad for a complete idiot, huh?
Horst Girth wrote:
Hey afsdfasdfs,
Thanks for your friendly comment.
It's certainly true that I was a wild thing as a young man, but let me tell you:
-I own my house out right
-I'm sober
-I own a successful business
-My wife is smoking hot and we are c-o-n-n-e-c-t-e-d, if you know what I mean.
-I'm a well known artist in my field
-I'm a happy person, I love myself and I respect others.
Not bad for a complete idiot, huh?
Nope, you are a complete idiot because you felt the need to brag about how awesome you are the message board.
Also, I don't know what you mean by connected.
I'm makin' friends left and right here. Nice crowd.
Horst Girth wrote:
3. Age 19, first 'shroomed and visioned jumping off my 22 story dorm at UMass. Lived 1,000,000 lives, was born as myself again, lived the 19 years over, and came down from the shrooms. Four hours total.
Exactly how much/what kind did you take...? I took some last weekend and all that happened to me was a mellow relaxed calm and looking at a bonfire.
1. Exploring a construction site with a friend, approx 5th grade. We are in a little ditch when we hear a loud beeping noise. We run away. The ditch behind us explodes when we are ~75m away.
2. On my bike about 1 year ago (12th grade), taking a left turn in front of a car. The driver slamsthe brakes to avoid hitting me.
Yes....I was talking about the school that was wiped out in 1946. I should have been more clear. That whole side of the island is amazing. I'm sure it was even prettier 50 years ago.
About nine years old, at one of the local lakes with my family.
The swimming area was marked off with a bunch of logs whose ends clipped together with metal snaps. There were also a couple of those boundary logs that were floating free in the swimming area--good for playing on.
My two sisters and I went to one of the logs, and as I was climbing up on one end they pushed it a bit from their end, and I felt something dig into my leg. Didn't really hurt, though.
I got back off the log and felt my leg. It felt kind of funny--not smooth, but sort of lumpy in a way. So I walked out of the water, back toward where our blanket was. I was still not sure what was going on but my fingers told me that the leg wasn't right.
Got to the blanket, pulled up the leg of my swim trunks a bit, and saw that the metal clip on that log had gone into my thigh and torn up the fat on it (not that there was much--I was a skinny runner-to-be).
My mom, who was an RN, assessed the situation and figured I'd have to get a tetanus shot and be sewn up. She went to the lifeguard shack to see whether they had any medical stuff--nah, nothing but bandaids. So we went to the car, where she kept a little first aid kit in the glove compartment, and she wrapped an elastic bandage around my thigh. Dad drove us all from the lake to the base hospital. He drove pretty fast, but this was out West where everything was spread out, so it took maybe an hour to get there.
They got me sewn up fine. I may have bled some, but probably not much. It was some years later, and I had more anatomical knowledge, before it hit me that the wound had been about an inch from the femoral artery (and not much farther from the testicles). If the artery had been clipped I most likely would have bled out.
Once i believe, was a block away from the US Embassy Bombing in Kenya in 98 very very close call!!!