Ever been nearly killed while running?

1. april 2002, hit head on by a cyclist in central park. i think we both just appeared out of no where, swerved the same direction, i flew back more than a few feet and cracked my skull on the road. was left with a nice shiner on my right eye (where my face met his helmet) and 6 stitches in the back of my head. had my then-boyfriend not been there i would have lost consciousness. and, i still remember my test word, "sunshine!"

2. just a few months ago i was running through some trails that i hadn't been on for years. there was a group of cows and on the way out i checked to make sure they all had udders. on my way back i saw one beast that i hadn't seen on the way out . . . no udder. the beast snorted and charged. missed nailing me in the back by about an inch . . . i've never run so fast in my life. even after growing up around cows i'm a little leary of them now. -- kk

Who knows the details about Doug Padilla? Wasn't he almost killed running.

Not while running, but I almost got killed in an auto accident once driving back from a race. Head-on collision in a poorly-lighted construction zone that required 20 days in the hospital and caused some permanent damage to my left ankle. I shouldn't have gone to that race.

My friend totaled his car on the way to the state relays. Going throuh an intersectiom a car slammed into the driver side engine, a few more feet and my friend could have been killed, he shows up at the race with a swollen eye and cut on his face determined to still win (we were the favorites) I run lead-off and trip over a fallen runner that tripped over a stray highjump bar! we finished 3rd, one crazy day. Of course ive been hit or nearly hit by my share of cars, and while not near death, a car threw a full water bottle at me going 60 that left an imprint of a water bottle on my stomach for a week, i geuss if it had hit me in the head or face i might have died, my nose would have been pretty messed up i know that. I also almost stepped right on a snake, my right foot was coming down on it when i noticed and somehow managed to avoid it, not sure if it was poisonous or not but it sure scared the shit out of my friend especially when i wanted to go back and look at it.

Had to steeple the hood of some overly impatient, unintelligent tool's benz once...he hit his horn...I gave him the finger...The guy saw me running, crosswalk and all...

trackhead wrote:

He was making a right turn, looking only left, I was passing front of him coming from his right.

Ah, yes. The archetypal boy-meets-car situation for those of us who run facing traffic. I've become so attuned to the fact that no one looks right when turning right that I'm in no danger of being pasted by a car under such circumstances. If there's a stop sign involved and the car is clearly just going to run it, driver's head twisted far to the left as her two-ton guided missile veers right, I'll stand just out of what's soon to become harm's way, legs planted shoulder width apart, with both middle fingers extended and a placid expression. This is the first thing the woman (and it usually is one) sees when she finally decides she's actually going to fix her eyes in the direction her car's moving.

I've had a few of these people slam their brakes on in surprise and more than a few scream at me, often with the windows shut so I can't hear them anyway; I love the mortified and pissed expressions on their faces in either case. What I'd really like to do is either lob a brick through their windshields or leap up onto the hood and crab-walk across it (facing forward, like an overgrown hood ornament or gargoyle) while laying a turd on the windshield, preferable with my ass so close to the glass that an effect similar to that seen when Cheez Whiz is held directly against the cracker is produced. But I don't have the balls or the lack of inhibition to pull such stunts. Yet.

You can tell you're running with someone who's either new to the sport or new to the planet when he or she expects such a motorist to actually look right before turning right.

Twice...

I was running down the sidewalk coming up on a driveway of a business when a UPS truck pulls across the sidewalk to the end of the driveway before the street. I'm see this and start checking on coming traffic to make sure no one makes a right turn into the driveway because I can't see through the stupid truck. I pass behind the truck and smack into a mini van. I had an instant to react and threw myself up onto the hood busting the windsheild with my elbow and falling back on my ass. The woman driver was hysterical, she thought she'd killed me. The idiot UPS driver was the cause because he didn't stay behind the sidewalk to wait for traffic to clear. A couple of trips to the chiro fixed me up and I actually raced four days later.

18 months later I'm waiting at a traffic light at a busy intersection. I had actually hit the walk button and the light turns green and I proceed across the four lane street... about 10 feet out I look over my right shoulder to make sure no one is making a left turn into and I look up to see the idiot in the right lane making a turn right into me. Again I had an instant to jump up to avoid going under the wheels and put a huge dent in the hood. It was a friggin 14 year old on a learner's permit out with his dead. I broke my ribs but still ran the two miles home. I didn't realize I had broken the ribs until a mile into the run back. The insurance company was dick. It's 18 months later and my right knee still isn't right. They could have settled but refused. They will eventually regret that decision.

to the anonymous poster, is that John Wayne Gacy story TRUE????

I always do the go-behind maneuver, and I once had one back into me, not going very fast though. It would be exceptionally odd for someone who is stopped so start driving backwards fast enough to do much harm. This one just bumped me lightly, and I bumped the car much less lightly in return.

Ears2Yoo wrote:

Never, never, never pass in front of a car that is pulling out of a driveway, parking lot or from another street. Even though you are on the side walk, RUN BEHIND the car because the likelihood of he or she backing up into you is far less than them not seeing you and hitting the gas in an attempt to pull out into traffic with you right in front of it.

Those just suck. I walk to work, and cross a main road where a 6 lane road intersects a 4 lane road. There's a walk button; but raging futhermuckers going right on red sometimes leave me standing there through 5 minutes of walk signals.

[quote]Crackhead wrote:

18 months later I'm waiting at a traffic light at a busy intersection. I had actually hit the walk button and the light turns green and I proceed across the four lane street... about 10 feet out I look over my right shoulder to make sure no one is making a left turn into and I look up to see the idiot in the right lane making a turn right into me.

when coming up on an intersection, motorists often look left and not right or vice versa. It's best to run behind the car instead of front of it. Whatever you do, make sure you get the driver's attention to your presence.

Was clipped in the back of the head by a pickup about 10 years ago. Knocked me flat on my face, I needed stitches on both my forehead and in the back of my head.

The guy just kept going, but fortunately there was some traffic and a stoplight and a kind citizen pulled his car in front, forcing the guy to stop.

5 minutes later a cop and an ambulance show up. I am taken to the ER for 43 stitches (actually plastic surgery so there wouldn't be a big scar on my face), and had to stay the night to be monitored because I also had a concussion. The guy who hit me was arrested on the spot, fortunately there were 2 witnesses.

The guy who hit me didn't have a history of any trouble, I think he simply panicked when it happened. I did press charges, and he got in serious trouble. He ended up pleading guilty and avoided jail time, but paid serious fines (on top of my medical bills), lost his license (I think for 6 months), and subsequently lost his job (worked for the city, needed a license to do the work).

After the fines and legal fees, I would guess that it cost him about 18 months pay. If he would have stopped and helped me, he could have avoided most of that.

I probably could have avoided it too. I always ran facing traffic, but this was near the end of my run. I was coming down a hill and was going to make a hard right turn. Instead of staying on the left side of the road, I crossed over when there was a break in traffic (about 1/4 mile before my turn). He hit me about 30 seconds later.

Since then, I always hug the left shoulder on that road, then just stop and wait when I have to cross.

topper wrote:

to the anonymous poster, is that John Wayne Gacy story TRUE????

yes

I was running in the Baltimore Marathon a few weekends back. I'm young but I was in the relay so I was in 6th or 7th place overall and it was pretty strung out, I was in no man's land. Anyway, I was running, and this intersection had cars just going right through it. I started yelling for them to stop traffic. I got to the intersection and damned if I want to slow down or stop in the middle of a 10 mile race, so I kept going, but this truck just keeps on going through. I basically had to stop and wait. I had been yelling at the cops the whole time to stop the traffic (and there were a pretty fair amount of cops).

Anyway, when the truck almost hit me, I was pretty enraged since I was in the middle of a race, tired as hell, so I told the cops to do their f***ing job. Looking back it was probably an honest mistake and I just said that out of the heat of the moment, but the best part was when a cop, after almost letting me get killed, told me to "shut the hell up."

trackhead wrote:

I got hit by a car about 6 months back. He was making a right turn, looking only left, I was passing front of him coming from his right. He hit the gas, and I bounced off of his hood and landed on my feet unscathed. He was more wrecked about than I was. He was jittery as hell.

A closer encounter with mortal danger came about 2 months ago in Daley Ranch (which is on fire right now). It was dusk and I was leaving the park and I just happened to look down as my foot was going to land on a rattlesnake. I leaped into the air triple jump style and hurdled over him. I paid close attention to the ground from there on.

We had one were the whole team was running on the left sidewalk as some lady was looking left to make a right turn and just stepped on it. Hit about 3 of us, not too bad though. Then a similar thing happened at one of the main intersections, a guy coming the opposite way was making a right turn on Green and we were again on the left sidewalk (which is supposedly were you are supposed to run, but definetly causes accidents like this to happen) and the guy slows down as he approaches the turn and so a teammate and I continue to cross and the guy just blasts through the turn. It was pretty cool though, my teammate was aware enough that he was able to voluntarily jump on the hood and slam his elbow into the dudes New Durango. The worst though was when we were running hill sprints in some neighborhood and some kid in his souped up civic opens his door going 20 mph just to hit us. Little shit!

As for rattlesnakes, first practice of this year me and the same kid from the durango were running and all of a sudden I hear a rattle and scream at the kid to run faster because theres a snake right by him. He panics and stops right next to the f***in thing, coiled and ready to strike. It took him a couple seconds to notice but he took off before he got bit. Pretty freaky though.

Was finishing up an evening eight mile run the summer between high school and college, and was about a mile from home. Out of the shadows, a man leaped out from behind a tree in the parkway, in front of Nelson's Funeral Home and across the street from an elementary school, and tackled me. Before I could do anything, the guy had me in a leg scissors, with his crotch almost smothering my face.

"You want to party with me? Come to my house, smoke a joint?" the heavy-set man panted.

Being a skinny little f***, I squirmed out from under him, pushed his fat ass backwards, and stuck my kneecap directly under the guy's throat.

"What the hell you tackling me for?"

I was more scared than anything, and took off like a frightened squirrel. Five minutes later I was home, but too embarrassed to tell my parents what had happened.

Turned out later, the man who tackled me was John Wayne Gacy. This incident happened about three miles from the infamous house where 28 murdered teenaged boys were found buried in the crawl space underneath Gacy's house on Sunnyside Avenue off of Canfield.

The fact that I may have been his only targeted victim to get away has always creeped me out.

Good thread here

yes, good thread that hasn't been replied to in over 4 years.

your message is apropos. i almost got hit in exactly that circumstance (dark, car making a right turn down a road) tonight during my second 2 mile interval. cussed them out and they moved on quickly. but you're right. you have to run behind them. and i wouldn't have been doing intervals the street had the golf course been lit and everyone with their dogs off leash.