OT: One of life's hairy moments...
Fire Angel
Posts: 259
Yeah, really.
So there I was, early Monday evening in my hallway, drilling holes in the wall to put up some more shelves. Nice power drill, sails through the brickwork of the structural walls very nicely. While I was drilling suddenly all the lights went out.
Uh, what?
Yeah, I pulled that drill out of the wall pretty quickly and assumed I had hit a cable. I fetched a torch, switched off the mains and took went to borrow a nieghbour's metal detector. We found no metal in the wall. So after that we followed the paths of all the cables in the wall and traced them and yes, the detector was working and was able to follow the cables, and none of them went anywhere near where I had been drilling. So I opened the fuse-box (yes, and old fashioned fuse box rather than circuit breakers, that will change soon) and the fuse had gone.
Pure coincidence that I was drilling a hole in the wall at the time. Phew! I replaced the fuse and so it all ended well, and the shelves are a useful addition. In a childish gesture I made sure to leave my spirit level on one of them when I had a visitor yesterday...
Anyone else had any nice "oh S*&% moments that turned out OK in the end?
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Like losing the front-end of a motor-bike under braking at around 30mph approaching a roundabout after hitting the last patch of black ice in 30 mile radius? The look on the face of the oncoming van driver was a picture!
I had been over-taking a line of cars approaching the roundabout so was next to the white line, when I lightly touched the front brake. The handlebars went to maximum right lock and the biek started 'falling away' to the left. In no order that I can remember I: took fingers off the brake lever, kicked out left, booted, foot and pulled at the handlebars. And the bike came back upright and back under control. I must have navigated the roundabout in soem fashion but I will be damned if I can recall doing so. In the lay by just past the roundabout I pulle dup and 'had a moment' of musing upon mortality.
had a spooky one. Driving a little fast toward a roundabout and another car doing the same towards the right entry, so I had no choice but to speed around the rounabout or skid. I got through first feeling a little shaken. Anyway, was still in quite a rush, but about 200 meters on the was a hand painted sign at the side of the road, middle of knowhere -it just said "You've been Warned" and i thought it so wierd I actually slowed down. Round the next bend ..tractor pulling out of hedge opening. I've never seen that sign on that road ever again
...not a "close call" story, however one of the places I lived in for years was an old Victorian house that still had "knot & tube" wiring with the "classic" fuse box.
One that springs to mind after reading Simon's post happened when I was riding pillion on my ex's motorbike in windy weather and a big, flattened cardboard box blew up from nowhere and plastered itself over his head and face. It must have been less than thirty seconds before we managed to dislodge it, but the bike was wandering all over the place for what seemed like forever and I'm amazed that he managed to keep control.
Another time was when my daughter used to go on the bus to school every day, always guaranteed the same front seat on the top deck because we live a fair way from the centre of town and so the bus would still be practically empty at that point. One morning she left early, announcing that she was going to walk instead. It was the only day she ever did this, and it turned out to be the same day that the bus ploughed into an out of control truck that was running backwards down a hill. The truck had been carrying a crane on the back which went straight through the front window of the top deck and over the seat where my daughter would normally have been sitting at that time in the morning. The police said afterwards that had anyone been occupying that seat then they would have have been killed.
One more that still leaves my heart in my mouth just thinking about it was walking into a room when my son was a little toddler, just in time to stop him from shoving one of a bunch of my keys into an electrical outlet. We did have the plastic guards you can buy for these outlets, but his brother is only a year older than him and just used to go round pulling them out again. Which reminds me of the time they both managed to pull a TV over when I was through a doorway just yards away making them some toast. It missed them by inches. I've often wondered why we've not evolved to sprout eyes in the backs of our heads the minute we become parents!
...the uncle of a good friend can thank Baseball for saving his life.
Back in 1989 the SF Giants were playing their cross-bay rivals the Oakland Athletics in the World Series. It was the third game of the series which was being played at the old "Stick" (Candlestick Park). He decided to take off from work a couple hours early so he could get home in time to watch the game. Had he not done so he would have been driving home at the normal time on the lower deck Nimitz Freeway when the Loma Prieta quake occurred.
LOL - nothing wrong with being proud of a good bit of DIY.
Glad you weren't drilling into the cables after all
Hearing Voices
I was driving cross-country on I-70 one night, years ago. It was about 0200, I was dog tired, half asleep in a Volvo 1800.
I had passed a slower car miles back, and was still in the left lane. I actually heard a voice in my ear say "change lanes". Oh, okay. Just after I got back in the right lane, something dark flashed past me on my left. I pulled over, backed up the shoulder, and saw a car parked, without lights, in the left lane.
If I hadn't changed lanes, I would have plowed into it at over 90mph. Volvos are safe, but...
I set out flares, and pulled off at the next exit to find a payphone and called the Highway Patrol.
I come from a DIY-type family, so that sounds perfectly fair to me! Whew, that's great that you weren't drilling into the cables!
Everyone's close calls... wow, talk about being lucky! Mine's not quite as scary as everyone else's. Mostly it taught me a lesson about being over-confident.
At the age of fifteen or so, in a fit of independence and with nothing more than the desire to impress my parents, I decided that I could set up a king-size four-poster bed all by myself. It had been my parents' bed at one time and spent most of its time disassembled and stored under the stairs. We had taken it out and put it together as an extra bed when company came so I knew exactly how to set it up. I didn't need anything more than a wrench and a screwdriver for the fittings. I don't remember why I wanted to put it up - maybe we were expecting company again - but I wanted to save my folks the trouble and figured that if I was clever I could get it all up and ready for the mattress while they were in town getting groceries. And wouldn't they be so pleased!
Well, I worked out that the bases of the nine-foot-tall posts were big and square and since they were solid hardwood and heavy, they stood up very well all by themselves! So I hauled everything out, dragged the heavy pieces upstairs, measured cross pieces that made up the bed frame and stood the posts all up at the proper distances from each other. Then I set about carefully balancing the ends of the cross pieces in the slots in the posts so they were ready to be bolted into place. I got one side pinned together as well as the cross piece for the foot of the bed, so the frame was half-finished. Then I turned to pick up another piece of the frame and felt a solid, sharp blow across the top of my head. The post - the only one not held in place by the frame - had toppled over and smacked me over the head. It was very heavy, but it didn't knock me out. I didn't even feel any pain until much later. It just knocked me down and I think I sat stunned on the floor for a very long time, surrounded by the three standing posts and the one fallen one. Once I felt capable of moving again, and for reasons I don't quite understand, my priority was taking everything apart again and laying all the posts all down so we could put the bed together easily when my parents were home. I never even considered pretending I hadn't been setting it up by myself, so I couldn't have been trying to hide my activities. I think maybe I was in some kind of daze and the blow had shocked me into thinking that the whole thing had been a very stupid idea. I knew I was lucky not to have been concussed, had my skull cracked, or worse, and my parents rather agreed with me on that when they got home.
Where where you that the speed limit was 90mph?
Where are you that you drive the speed limit?
Ohio. You don't dare drive more than 8mph over the speed limit. You will get pulled over and ticketed. Ohio has the stickiest state patrol than any other state. Truck driver have boycotted the state several times because of their harsh tactics.
Yeesh.
I was a cop for 8 yrs and know how they work. I dealt with them on many occasions calling for backup.
Now I'm just exceedingly glad I didn't accept a job there. Hindsight, whew.
lol. Is a tough state to drive in. Thank god they don't patrol the city streets. They only have jurisdiction on state routes
Had a family friend years ago that was supposed to fly out on a buisness trip one morning, but woke up feeling terrible and decided to postpone the trip to the next day. The flight she was supposed to have been on was the second plane to hit the WTC that day.
Wow, talking about a close call.
Yeah, it took her several years to get past it and be able to get back on a plane.
Speed limit? We don't need no stinkin' speed limit!
I think it was Pennsylvania, 0200 on a Sunday night/Monday morning.
When the LEOs were safely tucked in bed.
(And this was back in the '70s, I think the highway limit was still 55... Hey, I was young with a hot car!)
I'm a retired truck driver. Everyone hated Ohio, and Ohio hated us.
Indiana was unliked as well, trucks have to stay in the right lane, not even allowed in the left to pass.
Nothing like a line of trucks stuck at 45mph behind a tourist... for mile after agonizing, slow mile.
The Gorge in Tennessee and North Carolina was worse - same rule, much more scenic. Sightseers
would go 35 for mile after mile, admiring the scenery.
But their Highway Patrols were pretty good people, as far as truckers were concerned. Ohio HP were pricks.
the biggest "oh &*$%" moment I can think of is when a stranger came out of absolutely nowhere one evening and snatched my then-3-year-old son away from a car that was about to run him down. I have a VERY vivid memory of exactly what I was feeling at that moment, and it was definitely bigger than a "oh &*$%" going on in my head. LOL. (It was also a very weird thing that has forever stuck in my head because I had taken note of this chap and he was absolutely nowhere near us at the time - it was almost like he sprinted at Usain Bolt speed BEFORE the car was anywhere near my son).
...well before the "so called" gas crisis, on the interstates it was 70 in Wisconsin and 80 in Nebraska.
We had no plastic outlet guards when I was a kid and I distinctly remember, more than once, playing with the keys and sticking them in the electrical outlet. Then trying to stick in another one. I do remember my mom stopping me; I don't know if I got shocked or not but obviously lucky.
Here's an esoteric (and perhaps religious) thought. Does anyone believe that surviving "close calls" has anything to do with the balance between the good and bad deeds they've done in their life?
I've done some pretty bad ones, but about a year ago I saved a drowning girl at the beach, and thought that perhaps that earned me some brownie points to mitigate some of the bad thing I've done in life, if anyone is actually keeping a tally.
And I survived being stabbed shortly after, so maybe.... something... karma?...or just good luck?
I would have never made it this far.
There was a sign outside my church the day I was supposed to give a talk,
The sign asked "Are there angels among us?"
I threw away my planned speech and ad-libbed for half an hour:
"We are the angels among us."
The pastor was pissed at my tearing down, so to speak, his sign. But my point
was that there is very little that an angel can do for us that we cannot do for
each other.
there was the time I wiped out the pool chlorinator with a rag I found in the shed, poured in the chlorine and set it floating in the pool
next thing there was an almighty bang and it flew right over the house onto the street
I learnt brake fluid and chlorine do not get on well
(brother had used that rag bleeding his brakes)
I was motorcycling from Buffalo back to home in Washington DC. I'd been following the clear areas in a giant pinwheel of storms that had been sitting and rotating slowly over most of the northeast US for days. I planned my trip so that as the pinwheel rotated I'd be staying in the clear area all the way to DC.
It almost worked. I got as far as northern Maryland only about 40 miles from home when the pinwheel rotated the storms over me. 
It just downpoured, in buckets. 
I got completely soaked in seconds. And when on motorcycle, once your underwear is wet, there's not reason to stop, so I kept going. The storm kept getting worse and worse and I had to pee worse and worse. Finally I couldn't hold it anymore and pulled off the Interstate and ducked under the overpass, got off my bike and did my duty not caring about the cars whizzing (pun intended) behind me. I as I was finishing my duty the wind picked up and got downright fierce. It howled and blew sideways blowing rain all the way to me in the center under the 6-lane overpass going south. The wind subsided after a few minutes and I got on my bike and finished the ride home in the downpour. When I got home I peeled off my sopping leathers, turned on the TV just in time to hear about the tornados that had hit areas in northern Maryland right where I'd been safely tucked under the overpass at the moment. Cool! 
LeathefGryphon, yeah, that would be hairy indeed. Mine is somewhat different; I was driving to work one November day in a snowstorm and hit a patch of ice. I don't think it would have seemed so scary if there hadn't been a lot of traffic on the road and I hadn't come to a stop in the ditch less than twenty feet from a couple of kids waiting for the school bus. Didn't hit anything, amazingly enough, though I ended up with a dent in the truck and a portion of the lower air dam snapped off.
Mom loves to tell this story...
I must have been about 5 years old or so and was playing out in the back yard while Mom was doing dishes. At one point I came into the the house holding something in my hand. I approached Mom and said "Look what I found". I opened my hand to reveal a large black widow just sitting on the palm of my hand! From what Mom says, she shrieked and slapped it out of my hand before killing it.
Ive always been cool with spiders since then.