Has anyone here ever almost died?

Numerous times! I am the most accident prone person ever! Here are a few that might pique your interest.

- At two years old, I ran into incoming traffic.
– At three years old, I almost walked off of a cliff.
– At seven, I almost died from my first round of leukemia.
– At eighteen, I was shot in the chest by accident, and barely made it.
– This summer, I was in Ukraine and some asshole poisoned me, so I spent a while in the hospital there. My liver was pretty fucked up.

And I’m sure there are many more to come. My life is crazy. Ha!

The only time I’ve ever come “close” was with a bout of pneumonia that nearly took me out when I was young. I was in the hospital for a long time, it was brutal.
I had an almost identical situation to your bike ride, except the issue was going down a very steep hill toward a very busy road and my friend had given me a bike with no brakes. I don’t ever think of that as near death, for me, but it was scary as hell… and I still give her a hard time about it 20 years later.

When I was 5 or 6, I sank to the bottom of a swimming pool. I remember sitting at the bottom of the pool, realizing I couldn’t swim to get out, and accepted what would come. I became very dizzy, and began to lose consciousness, when I saw a teenager jump in the pool, and pull me out.
I had no sudden review of life (at 5 or 6, how much could there be?), or enlightenment.

My Father had a massive heart attack when he was 42. His heart was stopped for several minutes. Luckily, this took place when he was lying in a hospital emergency room, surrounded by a doctor and several nurses, and the proper equipment.
He was revived, and told my Mother of a vision he had. He said he was in a long hallway, and a door stood at the end. The door opened, and a brilliant light came through.
At this point, the doctors brought him back.
My Father was not a religious man. He was a no-nonsense man who loved Auto Racing and Football. While my Mother had faith, my Father did not. And that changed that day.
My Father lived 11 more years, and he turned into a church going man of faith.

Good Lord, Kate!!

Several times but only once where I had any kind of surreal experience. I was about 7yrs old and nearly drowned in a river. While sinking down, I saw myself in front of me with sand, twigs, leaves and other stuff floating by with the underwater current. I could also see above my body where my stepfather and his friend would dive down to look for me then swim up to the surface, tread water and come back down again. I felt no pain whatsoever, I had no idea I was drowning.

Yes. Several times. I had a few accidents when on my bike. One time [it was winter] I was on a mountain and I decided it takes to damn long to just use the normal path to get down so i just stood on the river [was frozen] and I started to slide. I never thought I had no way to stop and I didn’t knew how long this will last or if I’ll stop in snow or stop near the waterfall in water. Well might seem fun but on a 45 degree free slide with no brake and with constant speed increasing it’s not that fun. I don’t have any problems with speed at all but with no brakes… well it’s a different thing or when you remember the river ends with a waterfall ^^

Anyway every time when I knew I could just go to the other side I didn’t saw no lights, no tunnels no anything. I was just thinking what the people I were with will do if I just die.

I’ve been shot in the head. Fortunately they missed anything important.

seriously you should see the scars

I have been clinically dead 3 times. *heart stopped, stopped breathing.

I’ve almost died of asthma attacks at 3 and 10 years old. The first because it was my first, and we had no medicine for it, the second because the school wouldn’t let me take an inhaler to class, and instead gave me a gallon of water to drink. Can’t say it helped much.
My mother saved me by rushing to the school with my inhaler.

It seems like many of us have had bad luck with bikes. I got hit while riding one at age 12, was sent flying, and landed on my head with no helmet. I broke the smallest bone in my right leg they said, and only had to wear a brace. Mother always said our family had hard skulls.

As far as close calls go, the first one that springs to mind is when I was riding my bike to school at age 16, and saw the traffic light changing, and decided to ride more leisurely, instead of racing to beat it. That relaxed mood was abruptly interrupted when a SUV plowed into the back of a car 10 ft away, sending it forward onto the lawn of a house on my right, almost into the house itself. Needless to say, my lunch that day tasted pretty damn good.

I’m told I almost died from a botched appendix operation, but I was too young (age 12) and sick to notice.

I went into septic shock when I was 17 because of a blood infection that didn’t get caught for several days. Septic shock is the last stage of sepsis in which the blood pressure plummets and organ systems start shutting down…as many as ¾ patients die in this situation. I lived and didn’t lose any organs because I was at a hospital when it happened and I got help right away. But I shudder to think how close I came to deciding not to go to the hospital, a decision that would have killed me.

I can’t tell you what reactions are normal, but I, in contrast to you, have been very affected by my experience. Not that that’s a good thing; sure part of it is an increased appreciation for life, but I also have a lot of latent paranoia I need to let go of.

Arterial bleeding on a couple occasions
Grenade going off next to my head, luckily got away with just permanent hearing loss in my left ear
An overdose you could say (two bottles of Nyquil)
Fever of 106, then puked black gunk, fever dropped to 102 within an hour
Fell down a manhole at age of 4
Swallowed a nail at 18 months i actually ended up shitting it out.
Damn near lobotomized myself with a nail at 3
Attacked by mugger with knife
Nearly drawn and quartered on a merry go round… Don’t ask, I still have no idea how it all happened

I had serious complications after a surgery several years ago that kept me in and out of the hospital for a few months. I had very little nutrition (including water) for about 6 weeks and the entire month of August that year is simply lost time. At some point, people took me seriously when I said I could not eat – they just kept telling me it was in my mind, prescribed anti-anxiety meds that made me vomit, etc.

Toward the end of my last hospital stay, I was hallucinating (though I didn’t tell anyone). I remember there was a group of guys who hung around and tried to keep my spirits up and three women who kept pushing me on – the leader of the pack was Fat Sally. :)

I gave up, was resigned to dying, pretty much welcomed it. My grandparents were in the room and I remember being sad for them.

Then, one night I threw up a huge amount of blood and everything was okay. To this day, I cannot understand why the doctor couldn’t figure out what was wrong. My personal opinion is that he did know, but covered it up because he made a mistake during surgery. My initial surgery took twice as long as it should have.

I have had a few close calls:
– When I was a few months old, I was in a small house fire when my mother and next door neighbour saved me.
– When I was two, my family went gold mining right next to a massive water fall. I decided to crawl off and sit in the waterfall. Just metres away from the 100metre + fall, my brother (5 at the time) yelled out to me and one of my father’s mates noticed and grabbed me.
– I have had plenty more but the rest are just me doing silly things.