What was the most dangerous thing you ever did in your life?

I can’t imagine myself doing such stuff but I have heard story from my mom that her uncle had jumped from 1st floor as a bet with his friends and broke his leg.

I went into my friends house when I was 10 and put on Mike Tysons Super Punch Out while a biker thug was watching tv. He put a bowie knife to my neck and I didn’t react I called his bluff and apologized and put his show back on. Told no one.

I think as a kid, the stupidest thing I did was to climb a tree and jump off into grapevines, hoping they would hold us. They did, thankfully. As a teen/young man, I guess it would have been purposely walking up to a mama moose with her baby beyond her to get some pictures. I got about 10 feet from her before she decided enough was enough and left. I wasn’t threatening her or her baby, but she could easily have stomped me into jelly.

When I was a kid I made a raft with a sail which suddenly caught an offshore wind on an outgoing tide. It was incredible how quickly I was blown into deeper water. I managed to swim back to dry land but it was close.

I think it was 1996, The Olympic Torch was being carried through my town, and was being carried on an obscure blocked-off street I happened to have gotten misdirected to. I knew my way out of there.

The guy running with the torch was drenched in sweat and panting with exhaustion as were the runners behind him. A little ways down was a bus. The torch bearer, with the torch, passed so close to my open car window that I could see the bugs and gnats on him.

Well, I didn’t steal the torch in its cross-country trek. But I almost did. I would have probably gotten some unfairly long jail time, but I’d have my hour of international fame.

Hmm. I have done lots of dangerous things, but my opinion is still the same. Stunts are only stupid when tried by people who just don’t have the juju to pull them off.
* Jumped from car to pickup bed doing speed limit down dual lanes. Cinch, but stupid might be when someone challenged me, saying that was easy, hard would be jumping back into the car through the back window. I nailed it, but landed only halfway across the seat (on the laps of a couple of stunned, stoned guys), my legs still between car and truck. The guys grabbed my beltloops and yanked. Wheeee!

* When I was nine, fought a water moccasin with a stick. Guess I won.

* Faced down several bullies in my life, some outweighed me by as much as double.

* Age seven, taught myself to walk across the top of my swingset, no safety net.

* Told my dad to go to hell. Hey, if you saw him back then, and me back then, you would get it.

Well, bunches of stunts in my life. Thought I would be a stunt artist one day.
Shoulda

I have to think!....Wait. I was young. I had just met this guy at a disco tech, and stupidly agreed to hang out with him after it was closed. Came that close to getting raped.
There has to be something else. Driving way too fast, always.

I’ve always been a fairly cautious person. Even during my wilder days of late high school/early college, I was more reserved than many of my friends were and I’ve never been a daredevil. My friends could attest to the fact that I’m incredibly stubborn if I don’t want to do something, no one can make me.

I occasionally found myself in some dangerous situations (very close to what could’ve been a fatal accident on the freeway), but they were not usually my own doing (my friend was driving, not me). Most of the stupid things I’ve done were not big stunts then, but poor decisions, such as getting in the car with a driver who was drunk and on cocaine (and being lucky that nothing horrible happened). I did some drugs in college and nothing came of it, but knowing some people who got into serious addictions, I was playing with fire.

I supposed maybe going snow skiing for the first time in my life when I was 2 months pregnant.

Climbed up on the roof of a 2-story house and almost slid off.

The day of 8th grade graduation, I jumped off a roof while goofing around. I thought I would be okay because I was jumping onto a hill and the elevation drop would be minimal. But I landed on a piece of wood and sprained my ankle.

I did some other stuff that in retrospect were a little crazy, but at the time were not at all unusual or crazy. I used to ski down some pretty steep chutes.

The stupidest, riskiest, most inexcusable thing I ever did was drive drunk.

I second the drunk driving comment. >_<.

Attempted to surf—even though I didn’t know how to swim.

My three older siblings took me out and reassured me it was fine. Just hang on to your board, they said.

I was excited to stand up for a split second. But in hindsight, I should be more excited that I didn’t drown.

Allowing myself to be invited to guys’ room and have sex, these are people that I only texted in phone and chatted briefly in real life. Having sex once without using protection. Climbing and hanging on the windowless rails on the fourth floor with view of street so far below (my aunt screamed as if I was about to jump off the building) when I was a child. Thankfully all of these things happened in the past. It’s not wrong being adventurous but I have learned my lessons.

So much…ending up in a boss thugs house-a few times, wheelies on ninjas with no helmet, cliff jumping at lake, night speedboating with a drunk driver, etc…

It sort of depends on how you think about it. Sometimes we don’t notice danger if it turns out nothing happened, but it was. Or we think something was dangerous, but really the odds of serious problems were low.

Mostly things driving a car, probably. Especially driving when so tired that combined with the length and trance-like nature of driving, I was starting to pass out without realizing it. I’ve also lost traction a few times and had to avoid crashing by intuitive reactions in the moment. And a few times where I didn’t see someone in a blind spot. Or driving in icy conditions and/or on mountain roads etc.

Climbed a huge tree beside our row house with my four year old sister .
We managed to sit on the peak of the roof until neighbors told our parents.
Raging father climbed up the tree with difficulty and while he lied saying that he would not hurt us he pulled my sister onto a large branch.
Next he came for me and I moved farther away from him to the other side of the peaked roof.
Ex boxer father swore and cursed blue murder to get me to come to him.
I told him that he lied as he hurt my twin sister. He tried to get onto the roof almost fell three stories then thought better of it and tried to talk me down.
I told him that I could walk right to the edge of the roof to( the eves) to wave a mother looking up worried. I walked in my hard shoes almost to the end when I slipped , but caught myself and landed on my bum..OK. I saw my though father almost faint and his face went white.
He told me that I was upsetting my mother and to come down and he won’t grab me and I had told him that If he lied then i would never love him ever again. He kept his word and went down the tree with my sister and let me come down on my own.
In the house him and mother took a swift drink…lol Kids don’t know fear..it is taught.

Oh! I can’t leave out the time I was three, and daddy left me on a running tractor alone. I knew how he put it in gear, and I wanted to prove I could be just as good a farmer as any darned old boys.
Bbbbbrap apapapap! Headed down the gravel drive, and no idea where to go.

About 20 years ago – I had rented a car and was driving from one part of LA to another part of ALA. Twilight, summer night.

Google told me the route – which I later learned (when I got to the people I was visiting) was right through the infamous South Central area. The heart of drug gangs, street crime, and so on. I blithely drove through – it definitely looked sketchy – like parts of Chicago, NY, Cleveland, and south Boston – but traffic moved and I wasn’t bothered.

Like I said, when I got to my destination, my hosts told me how dangerous the route was and to never do it again.

I slept in a tent in Compton, for four nights, when I travelled with a carnival. One of those nights there was a shooting a block away.

Two things I can think of:

Continuing medication I was very allergic to, because I was desperate.

Going to not so safe parts of DC alone to go dancing when I was a teen.

I fought the law and the law won.

I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot the deputy.
I should have done him too.

I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name.

Drove my motorcycle from Monterey to SanFrancisco during a cold winter rain storm. I made OK but when I tried to put my leg on the ground to get off my bike my frozen leg couldn’t support me. The bike and I just fell over onto the pavement. I was OK but the turn signal light and mirror broke off.

Got married too young.

Climbing & then jumping off rooves, my local schools mostly.

Oh lord. Neighbor had a mini bike. Neighborhood kids took turns riding around and around in this field beside his house….throwing sharpened sticks (the kind used in construction) at other kids hiding in the weeds! Yeah, just ride along on the mini bike with one hand, throwing spears at children with the other!

@Inspired_2write “Kids don’t know fear..it is taught” Well. Not exactly. It’s an instinct. Babies are instinctively afraid of heights, for example. However, a parent can teach a child to FEAR them (the parent) and that is really sad. No child should be afraid of the parent. That is just sad.

Oh, that reminds me. We had a play “war” with exploding bottle-rockets and 20-packs of firecrackers in the basement of our house. Mainly that was risking burning the house down, but the laundry wasn’t entirely flammable.

One neighbor whose house we snuck around the outside of at night claims he considered coming out guns blazing. Not sure how actually likely that was, though.

@Dutchess_III
https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/how-do-babies-learn-to-be-wary-of-heights.html
Once a baby has a fall it learns to fear. In this link it says through experiences of falling or near falls etc and it states nine months as a learning curve.
My son was three years old and jumped in the 12 foot end of the pool going to the bottom then slowly floating to the surface where his father scooped him up. My son was not afraid, but laughing at sooo much fun???

I almost drowned, twice! Once in a pool, when I accidentally swam to the deep end before I learned to get air while in the water. The second time when I went snorkeling in Maui. Water spilled into my snorkel so I popped up, but that caused to end of the snorkel to submerge into the water to I sucked in water. I tell you, dihydrogen monoxide is the most dangerous chemical on Earth!

I put the lime in the coconut, and shook em all up!

Probably in general just riding motorcycles too fast.

I’ve been trying to think of what was the “most” dangerous thing I’ve ever done.

I’m not religious, but it’s a miracle that I’m alive.

I have done over 130 mph(the speedometer only went to 130…) on a motorcycle, like a million times, often after drinking, many times in the rain, of course with no helmet, or motorcycle license… I drove a motorcycle, for over 20 years, with no license. Yeah. Dumbass…

I was a LEO for many years. I’ve had a gun aimed at me 4 times, been shot at once, had countless knives pulled on me, and have rolled around on the ground with the finest folks around, and fought or restrained hundreds of people. I’ve been kicked, punched, head butted, kicked in the balls, spit on, stabbed with beer bottles, and anything else you can think of…

I’ve had my house catch on fire.

I’ve almost drowned, a few times.

I’ve been in a few really bad vehicular accidents.

I’ve endured dozens of hurricanes. My house was flooded three times in the past two years. I lost, pretty much everything. I was homeless, for 6 months. Now I have a new place, with it’s own problems.

Lookingback, I still have one incident that seemed like the worst.

Apologies to older jellies who have already heard this.
I went out one summer day, to do a 14 mile trek down the Edisto River. I had not gone this route before, so I didn’t know where I was, or much about where I had to get out.
It was a beautiful morning. I paddled for hours, in a heavenly environment. Sometimes, the river was so narrow, I had to push through overhanging tree limbs, and battle ducks, to keep going.
I started my trip about 8 AM.

4 PM or so, the sky grew dark. Lightning flashed.

Approximately 4:30 PM, I had anamazing storm to deal with. It came fast. I literally paddled up onto the nearest shore, and jumped out of my kayak, and got flat.
The lighting was impressive. The rain was coming down in sheets, and with a lot of wind. But the lightning was CRAZY…

I laid flat, on the banks of the river, and the swamp was flooding, and pouring all over me, as I laid there. Lots of insects, and other creatures were washing over me, as the swamp drained over me.

I stayed there for about 2 hours. The storm just gave me, everything it had. It started getting dark, at about 6 PM. Keep in mind that I didn’t really know where I was, or where I needed to get out of the river. I also still had to travel about 6 miles through a swamp… I was stupid enough, not to take my cellphone, or any lighting, or food….

I tried using my compass, and dragging my kayak, for about a mile. It was terrifying, asthe lightning was crazy. At one point, I turned around, and realized that my paddle must have fallen out somewhere. So… I backtracked, and found it almost where I started walking.

Having no real understanding of where I was, I decided to tempt fate, and get back into the water. It was my only sure way, to find where to get out.

I happened upon multiple houses, that were abandoned, and nobody was home.

I spent hours laying flat, to wait out the lightning, off and on. It was AMAZING.

When I was in my boat, the lightning was literally striking allaround me. I have NO clue, why I wasn’t electrocuted, multiple times. There were strikes, all around me, for several hours… I saw bolts hitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME!....

I have NO idea, why I am not dead…........