When I was in first grade, I would walk home with my friend and stay over at her house until my mom got home. We walked through the neighborhood where traffic was low. One day, when we got to her street, I was in front, glanced both ways, then took a step onto the street. I swear my foot was in mid-air when she grabbed me and pulled me back. A drunk driver (in the middle of the day no less) had suddenly come barreling down the street and crashed into a light pole nearly right in front of us. If I would've taken that step, I would've been right in its path.

I don't know if this one counts but......

Back when I was 13 or 14 my best girl friend asked if I could go babysitting with her 3 doors down from where she lived.  When I got home from school, I asked my mom if I could, but she said no because we were going up to see my grandparents over the weekend.  So the next day at school, I told my friend I wouldn't be able to go with her.  Turns out her mom said she couldn't sit for the people either because they were going away too.

While we were at my grandparents, we were watching the nightly news and they were reporting on a murder in Saginaw.  Come to find out it was at the house we were going to be babysitting at.  They had got another sitter, and after they left, someone stabbed the sitter to death.  The police said the killer had somehow gotten into the home undetected while the people were still there and hid in a closet until he knew they were gone, then he attacked the sitter.  No one knew anything was wrong until the people came home and found the girl. 

I don't know if they ever caught the person who did it or not.  I remember it was big news here at the time, but the last I know, they hadn't caught him.  They didn't have a description of the guy because the only witness was less than a year old.  I know the police intensely questioned the homeowners, thinking they had something to do with it, but they were later cleared as suspects. 

Anyway, when this hit the news, I realized it could have been me and my friend that were killed.  That was the last time I ever considered babysitting for anyone again. 

There were two times in my life where I felt as if I must have a purpose on this earth, or I would not have had the good fortune I had. One of these times happened when I was 17. I got in a car with some friends, climbed into the back seat to have them drive me to another friend's house. For some reason I put my seatbelt on - and that's something that, back then, I NEVER did. I just felt like I needed to, without really knowing why.

My friend was driving down a country highway and, for reasons I don't know, lost control of the car on a steep downhill slope. The car landed in a farm field and tore into three pieces. My friends were pretty banged up and cut from impact on a brush line. Fortunately, they weren't too badly hurt and only stayed in the hospital for several days.

From the force of the accident, I was torn out of the seatbelt and flung about 50 feet from the half segment of the car I was in. I hit some brush and ended up with some scratches and about 3 dozen hairline fractures in my ribs and lower vertebrae. But, if I hadn't worn my seatbelt, I would have hit a line of full-size oaks at high speed, the officers told us. My shoe  came off my foot and flew another 50 feet, hitting a branch with such force that it was impaled on the branch. My parents were really chilled by the sight of that, and the car splayed out in 3 pieces in the field.

To this day, I don't remember any of it, not even when the car went out of control. I'm still pretty anxious about being on dark country roads though. Most of all, I felt sure that there must be a reason for me to have survived that, a purpose for me to still be here today.

boy I'm boring. I can't think of anything truly. The only thing that comes to mind ended up being nothing. When I was about 8 I flew down south to visit my sister who had moved away. She was doing the toursity thing with me and I remember we went to some sort of Santa Land? When we were done I told her that I didn't feel well. I don't remember if I threw up or not but I had a fever skyrocket. It got so bad that she was really worried that I had rocky Mountain Fever and she ended up calling my mom as she took me to emergency. I remember how upset she was which had me upset and then it was just a normal sickness.

-- Edited by Woo Hoo at 08:06, 2008-10-21

no it was in North Carolina I think

Wow, after Ghost and G-Gal my bathtub story sounds pretty sad.

I do think it's odd how you seem to do little things like buckle up before an accident. That happened to me two years ago before I hit that deer going to Illinois.

I NEVER, EVER wear a seatbelt, but for some reason that night I specifically thought to myself when I got in the car "I should really wear my seatbelt, I never wear it"

Less than half an hour later I hit that deer head on at full speed. I have to think if I hadn't had my seatbelt on I would have at the very least hit the windshield with my head.

I think the closest I ever came to death was on the road. It was a Friday night, I had just worked a 12 hour day and was on my way "home" to my parents from where I was working which was about a four hour drive.

It was probably about 11:00pm and I was still about an hour from home and exceeding the suggested speed limit. I came up behind a car as we were going up a hill. As we crested the hill, I saw an oncoming car way in the distance and waited to pass. I kept waiting for the oncoming car and it didn't come. I assumed it had turned off the highway.

What I didn't realize was that there was a "bump" in the downhill side that the car was behind. I was right beside, and passing the car I had been following when the oncoming car popped up over that little bump. In my sleepy state, once I realized what was going on, there was no way I had time to get on around the car I was passing so I hit the brakes, let the car I was passing go by me, and got back in my own lane just as we met the oncoming car. It was REALLY close. I would guess we were less than 50 feet apart when I was out of their lane.



It wasn't close to death, but I almost broke my back when I was 8 years old. It was my first year in 4-H and I was showing my market steer. I was turning my steer around to get him lined up better when the steer beside me kicked me square in the back. These are 1,000 lb steers that at the time were as tall I was.

I remember leading mine out to turn him around and the next thing I remember is laying in the sand with people standing over me. My dad was working the gate about 150 feet away and he said he heard a "crack" which made him turn to look to see what it was. He said when he looked, I was face down in the sand . . . then I got up . . . stood for just a second and then collapsed again. The ambulance took me to the hospital and they did a BUNCH of x-rays of my back but nothing was broken.

I had a perfect red (later bruised) imprint of the steer's hoof in the middle of my back. The doctors thought that I was lucky in that I was just the right distance away that the hoof hit me perfectly flat which spread the stress out over a larger portion of my back. If I had been about a foot further away, the point of the hoof would have been what hit me and focused the pressure on a small point which probably would have broken it . . . and likely left me paralyzed from there down.

After my surgery in February they released me and sent me home. I woke up 2 nights later unable to breathe. I had several blood clots break free in my legs and stop my heart and some ended up in my lungs. If you could call it lucky, my heart stopped while I was in the ER so I got zapped back to life. That was a close call.

Wow Mema, that's unreal!  Was your father a little mentally unstable?  I only ask because I've never heard of anyone doing this to their own child, even if they were trying to teach a lesson or prove a point.


JR, if you ever come to MI, you better be wearing a seatbelt once you cross the state line.  We have a seatbelt law; it's been in effect for many years now.  I'm not sure what the fine is anymore...at one time it was $75 dollars per violation but it may have increased during the past year or two.  And if you have passengers who are also not wearing one, you get fined for each one and the unbelted passengers also get fined.  As a side note, the fine the driver receives is even higher if the passengers are under the age of 16.  Just something for you guys to be aware of in case you ever drive through MI. 

We have seatbelt laws too. But you can't be pulled over for not wearing one. If you are pulled over for some other infraction and are not wearing one, that is when they get you.

I really learned to put mine on in college. My dad was taking me back to school one time and was falling asleep while driving. That'll do it for you. It was later determined that he suffered from sleep apnea (sp?). That is why he would fall asleep sitting in front of the computer, at the kitchen table, etc. He wasn't getting the rest at night.

Ghost... Donald had a lot of issues, both mental and physical. He was an alcoholic, and at the time was probably suffering PTSD, clinical depression, paranoia, and likely was an untreated diabetic. His diabetes was diagnosed several years later and after he started on the insulin his mental state did improve somewhat. He didn't really involve him self with parenting for the most part, but when he did it was usually some sort of weird and by most standards abusive object lesson. On the up side, I did learn to be tough and to this day I'm very hard to intimidate.


JR... Kansas and Missouri both have seatbelt laws as well. Ours are kind of lame though. The fine is only like $10 or $20, and you can't be pulled over just for failing to wear a seat belt. The violation is just a bonus if you get pulled over for something else. I believe the only exception is in the case of unrestrained children... what you actually get pulled over for is child endangerment, so the seat belt fine is still the least of your worries.

WOW! I can't imagine what your mom must have been going through right then. Horrifying doesn't even touch describing that scene. You must be here for a reason. Glad that you are.