[jimjam]

Most of us have had near death experiences. I have had my share and am lucky to be alive. Here is one:

It is a generic Summer day at an ocean beach near East Hampton, Long Island. I cannot swim but like to go into the ocean to refresh myself and bob around. I was off by myself doing exactly that when I noticed that my feet were no longer touching the sand beneath the waves. At first I simply attempted to move toward shore. I was unable to do so. In fact I was moving away from shore. I had stumbled into a rip current. Although I could not swim, I was able to keep my head above the waves by thrashing my arms and legs about. My head then went under. I thrashed my way to the surface and, shortly thereafter, my head went under again. Once again I thrashed my way above the waves. By now I was becoming very weak and the thought went through my head that, "they say that if you go under the third time ...... you don't come up." In the space of a few minutes I went from enjoying a Summer day at the beach to desperately fighting for my life. I looked about and saw that I was alone save for one person about 30 yards off. I yelled to him that I needed help. He swam right over and hooked his arm beneath my jaw and pulled me to shore. He was a strong swimmer. I thanked him and lay gasping on the sand. Today, 50 or so years later, I still clearly see the image of this man walking away from me as he strolled down the beach. I know that my encounter with this man was the shortest and most important relationship of my life. This stranger granted me in excess of 50 years of life.

[Crantag]

I was 3 years old, and at my family's then 5-acre home in rural Oregon, and it was summer.

I stepped into a yellow jacket nest, and was swarmed over my entire body, and stung over a hundred times.

I still remember it. When I describe it, I feel like I can even remember the pain of it. The burning sensation on my skin from the many assaults, coupled with the numbing sting of the venom.

I also still remember the uncomfortable car ride to the hospital, including the trauma of driving over the railroad tracks.

My brother was nearby and pulled me out, and thus saved my life.

[Godstud]

It was Y2K. The world was coming to an end. Midnight was upon me, and I could hear the blood rushing in my head as the end approached... and then missed. The world didn't end after all.

It happened again in 2012.

I guess I have no near misses that were that obvious, but I'm willing to bet I dodged a few in a car or on a motorbike.

[colliric]

When I was 5 years old I jumped in front of my brother. We were playing in golf clubs in the front yard.

Clubs that my dad(who luckily was inside) had previously taken off us.

I can't remember which club it was, but yeah. Hit me directly in the forehead, split my skin open and a large amount of blood started gushing out. We rushed to get dad and he screamed "What have you kids been doing!" At the top of his lungs and called the ambulance immediately.

The paramedics later said I was lucky I didn't pass out in that state and I was lucky the club didn't hit my nose or my eyes. It hit one or two inches high thankfully. They said I could have cracked my skull and died or gone blind.

Was rushed conscious to emergency, put under and had 12 or 14 stitches(12 I think). Three day stay in the hospital was actually pretty fun for me.

Yes I developed a taste for Hospital cooking at a young age. Love Hospital food.

Monash Hospital was Melbourne's brand new huge suburban one in those days.... Now it looks like a poorly designed dump compared to new hospitals.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

You wax nostalgic about really weird things, colliric.

Over ten years ago I was on the verge of shooting myself in the head. I had the gun, I had it loaded, I took a very serious moment to click the safety off, and I had it pressed to my head. I was massively drunk, in a very deep rut of depression, and I wanted to die. I didn't want to experience much pain, I just wanted to end my life quickly. As dramatic as it sounds, as I had the gun barrel pressed to the side of my head, someone knocked at my door. I wasn't wearing any pants, so I threw on a robe and went to the door. It turned out that someone I knew, who wasn't going to be in town for another day, happened to be in town early, and happened to want to come and see me. The gun was on a table in plain view. I explained it away by saying I was concerned about a break in and I wanted to be prepared. My friend stayed over and we talked. I was too confused and disoriented (although I kept myself pretty well composed, all things considered) about the incredible, impossible timing of this person coming over and literally interrupting me moments before blowing my brains all over the wall.

It's something I have never discussed with that person ever again. I'm not sure if they realized how serious the situation was (maybe they thought I was just drunk and being stupid with guns), but we have never discussed that day. For the simple reason of never wanting to bring it up, I've never asked why they were in town that day, a day early. When that person came by that day, I didn't ask because I suppose I felt ashamed of having almost done something so terrible. I was massively drunk, but coherent enough to realize had I asked questions like that, my friend might come out and ask me more questions about the gun. I have kept my mouth shut about it for over ten years, and I suspect we'll never discuss it.

It's one of two events in my life that has changed me, radically, in ways I can't really put into words. For a while I considered a higher power of some sort, or religion. I've since found that I lack that sort of faith and I can't possibly believe in a higher power entity. In any case, the sheer timing, the coincidence of it all, has still left me with a sense of awe with the universe itself. I'm not special: there are many people who have suffered more than I in ways that are unspeakable, but no one coincidentally showed up to save them. And yet, it happened to me. I still suffer from deep bouts of depression (we had a thread not too long ago about depression and other issues), and I think about suicide a lot, but the life lesson I learned in that moment on that day over ten years ago has eliminated my will to act on anything like that again. Essentially, I choose life, even if I'm unhappy, unsatisfied, and unfulfilled. Not because I necessarily love life, or because every day is a wonderful gift or something sappy like that, but because I'm alive, today, ten years later, thanks to one person who came back home 24 hours early, and happened to want to randomly visit a friend, namely me.

After an experience like that, I can't possibly throw my life away.

[colliric]

God exists, deal with it lol....

No such thing as coincidence. That person came there by fate....

Lol.

[Suntzu]

Riding my motorcycle, '01 Kawasaki KLR650, to work teaching 5th grade down a Farm to Market road in South Texas. The road is two lane, no paved shoulder, speed limit 70 mph. It is before daylight and I see a car approach. The car got to within 100 feet of me and suddenly a second car pops out from behind the first to pass. I head for the ditch . . . so does the car! I somehow squeeze between the two car unscathed.

[Godstud]

@Bulaba Jones Colliric's right. Thank Odin!

I'm glad you're still here Bulaba.

[jimjam]

why they were in town that day

Why did that man appear in my life at that time and place to save my life and, then, exit my life minutes later? I don't know who he was and will never know but here I am 50 years later still seeing him in my mind's eye.

Here's another one. As a kid I drove motorcycles all over the place. Like most kids .... I was a dumb kid. Never wore a helmet. I, however, was wearing a helmet the day I was in an accident. I flew into the air, landed on my ass and my head snapped backwards and smashed on the pavement. My helmet had a crack in it. That crack would have been my head.

Something is going on here but I don't know what it is.........

My wife suffers from severe depression Bulaba. It is an invisible hell. Hang in there my friend.

[Crantag]

Even in my case, my brother was in the right place at the right time.

I don't know how I ended up in a giant yellow jacket nest.

My brother was a dick when we were kids, but I always had the memory in the back of my head of when he literally saved my ass, despite how young I was.

(But I can also still remember my 3rd birthday party.)

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

My older brother Rick married a woman from El Salvador. She grew up amid the backdrop of civil war and armed militias roaming the countryside. Her family owned some land or something and lived in a guarded community complete with armed guards. One day she and her sister snuck out into the fields to play. They found a corn grinder, and my sister-in-law stuck her arm in it. Her sister turned it on. My sister-in-law was about 6 or 7 at the time. The machine cut her arm off but also cauterized the wound instantly. My sister-in-law carried her own severed arm several miles back to her house. When she got closer to her home, one of the guards saw her in the distance and what she was carrying. He rushed to her aid and took her to the hospital himself. Very shortly thereafter some kind of medical issue happened for him (nothing violent) and he never saw her again as her family ended up losing any contact with him because they left for America as the situation got worse.

My brother lives in Texas, and one day his visiting Salvadoran father-in-law went to the supermarket. He was wearing some kind of necklace that had a family pendant or something that identified him as Salvadoran to anyone else who is Salvadoran. He struck up a conversation with a man who is also from El Salvador. Eventually, the other man recognized him and asked him, by name, if he was named such-and-such. The other man was the guard who found his daughter and rushed her to the hospital. He told him that he has spent the rest of his life thinking, every day, about the young girl he saw covered in blood and carrying her torn-off arm, worrying whether she was alive or dead. Shortly afterward, he had the chance to meet her again. He said he could finally be at peace knowing she survived.

The guard who saved her life had been living 7 miles away from her, in Texas, for years.