Do you recall the most terrifying moment of your life?

skibum609
Massachusetts
January 2005. Wife and I pick up a brand new Jeep Compass at the Denver airport. 9 miles on the odometer. I then find out that while Crested Butte ski area may be less than 225 miles from Denver as they advertise, its meaningless when you find out its over 250 from the airport. Nevertheless at 9:00 pm we start driving, having been awake for 25 hours. trying to make time we are screaming down I-70 at 85 mph when a sense of foreboding fills me.
I see a huge field to my left and as the snow storm departs the wind is howling. Too late it dawns on me what is happening: the wind has blown 2.5 feet of snow across the highway and while we slowed to 65 before we hit the wall of snow; I felt the steering wheel twist in my hand and suddenly we are sliding sidewise in an SUV at 65 anmdto makew it worse the rear end of the car is actually ahead of the front.
As we slide towards the Jersey barriers I carnk the wheel around and then in a flash, the barriers are gone and we are now slidong down the highway, again with the rear end going first, but this time heading towards the Jersey barriers on the opposite side of the rode. In a flash they are now gone ansd yes, bakc the other way. 6 Times we head towards the barriers and 6 times we miss and we come to a stop unscathed. As I start driving again my Wife looks at me and quietly says: "Don't do thgat again".

8 times in my life I have been in a car which was in an accident going between 55 - 95 mph. I have been stabbed in the side in a fight; I have fallen 30 feet off a cliff skiing; I have been over 150 in a car and 140 mph riding a motorcycle. I have never once in my life, other than that drive in Denver, felt a terrifying fear of dying.

35 comments

Latest

  • nicespice
    5 years ago
    Six years ago, I was driving while extremely tired but was stubborn and trying to slosh through my drive anyways.

    So my reactions were shoddier and I tried to pass a car in front of me, but it decided to also change lanes at the same time I did (no idea why) and I panic jerked the wheel and unintentionally did donuts on the highway. When the car stopped, I was on the shoulder and facing the complete opposite direction of traffic.

    For a short moment while this had happened, I thought I was about to slam into someone or something and die. Thankfully, both the car and I were okay.

    I’ve developed better habits since then on long trips.
  • Muddy
    5 years ago
    Great stories. I don’t have a great one and don’t know if it’s what your looking for Ski but relatively speaking it was going off the diving board into the deep pool as a child. I was fucking terrified. I somehow thought I couldn’t swim in deep water and all of sudden great white sharks would be in the pool with me. I would bolt from the swimming class and hug my mom in tears. Finally did it in tears and it was fucking easy. Good news I became an outstanding swimmer, had to clear that little hurdle and it was all downhill from there.



    Now If I can only clear this women hurdle

    😭MOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!
  • RandomMember
    5 years ago
    One time I had to call a tow truck when one of California rear-wheel cars got stuck on the Denver ice.

    Does that count? I drive like a grandma and I've never been in an accident.
  • RandomMember
    5 years ago
    Current SB lives in Vail and may be taking some trips up the I70 this winter
  • AnonymousJim
    5 years ago
    Once, looking to turn left onto a street, I saw a bus coming from my left. I went to hit the brake, but my foot slipped off, so I drifted right in front of the oncoming bus, bearing down on my driver-side door at 40 mph.

    I panicked and hit the gas pedal, barely escaping the bus and driving at an angle onto the opposite shoulder.

    My life truly flashed before my eyes.
  • twentyfive
    5 years ago
    My most terrifying moment involved a 120 foot boom lift, fully extended sliding down a ramp, off a construction site, near the West Side Drive in upper Manhattan, at 7 AM trying to keep it upright and from sliding off the right of way into the Hudson River, never had an automobile go sideways on me like that, and a piece of machinery weighing over 15 tons sliding on ice, has a mind of its own
  • gSteph
    5 years ago
    Riding a motorcycle once, going through a curve (slightly) fast at 60ish, hit some pavement anomaly, handlebars jerked out of my hands and the bike slides off the road.

    I'm in the riding position with no motorcycle under me. Not fun anymore. Tumbling down the road hoping I'm not going to be paralyzed when I stop sliding.

    At some point (down to 30 mph), I'm on my back, determined to stay there, arched my back a bit to stay sliding on boots, helmet, and but.

    When I stopped, took inventory, got up. One broken bone in left hand (my only non-surgical scar where bone came through). Slight bleeding on right bun, kept my deeply scratched leather wallet (that saved my left bun that fate) for a while. Not fun.
  • Longislandnightmare
    5 years ago
    I used to race motocross.
    My motor seized coming into the face of a big jump. I separated myself from the bike in the air and then it was lights out.
    I woke up in the hospital finding out I had broke both arms and my foot.
    That’s not the scariest part...
    Once I was released I had to figure out how to wipe my own ass hobbling around with a moon boot and two casts that went past the elbow.
    That was scary! Lmao
  • skibum609
    5 years ago
    Random - If you plan ondriving I-70 in the mountanous regions they just put new laws into place as to the type of tires/chains etc required on certain vehicles, as well as tread depth. If you have front wheel drive you probably want to make sure your car complies in the Vail area.
  • RandomMember
    5 years ago
    ^^^ good advice, thanks.
  • Nidan111
    5 years ago
    Not sure which was worse.

    First one was in the hay field putting up hay just after a rain. The damn hay bails were about 120 lb each instead of the regular 80 lb. as the tractor came by, I tossed the hay bail up and the wet ground made me slip under the tractor/ trailer. The driver did not see me go down and proceed to drive all 6 axels/tires over my body, literally one inch below my naughty bits. The event proceeded to fracture my leg. Fucking pissed me off.

    Second. The following year, I was sitting on the back of the hay truck as the drunk bastards driving it was doing 60 miles an hour on a winding road with rocky ditches for shoulders. They proceeded to drive off the road, tossing my ass onto/into the shoulder. I did a perfect front break fall as learned in my martial arts, slid for about 50 yards in the ditch, seeing my body narrowly missing boulders, logs and glass. Before coming to a stop, I counted 3 nails of hay hit me on the head. I saw the truck topple 3/4 the way over, then somehow regain its balance to upright itself. Had it turned over, it would have crushed me. When I finally stopped, I laid there for for seemed like hours. I felt nothing. No pain. Nothing. I thought that I had broken every bone in my body and was paralyzed vs I was dead and couldn’t feel my body because I was dead. I finally snapped out of my shock, stood up, took my glove off to reveal a tiny scratch on my pinky finger. Started laughing hysterically because I was alright!

    The following year, I decided to dig graves instead of put up hay!
  • crazyjoe
    5 years ago
    Hmm hard to choose, If I were a cat and had 9 lives I would probably only have about 3 or less left.

    The one that stands out happened while driving. It may be difficult to paint the picture accurately but I will give it a try...

    Where I used to live there was a curvy and sort of hilly 2 lane road with fairly wide shoulders to get there. I drove thos way every day for about 10 years or so. On one of the curves you were going down hill going into the curve and there was a narrow short bridge in the curve. Even after driving this road for years I never noticed a small dirt roar that went to the left just before the bridge until one day there was a big truck stopped waiting to turn left onto it. There was a tractor trailer coming in the opposite direction. I was driving an older 1 ton truck with a trailer and had some weight on it, but I was not loaded to capacity and my windows down.

    I had not had the truck long and I am figuring out right now the brakes were not as good as they could be ( pre antilock and not the proper brake pads). I was on the brakes hard but I was not going to get stopped in time, especially with the extra weight and the fact that I was going down hill. My tires were screeching and and I would have probably hit the stopped truck at between 40 and 50 mph (concrete truck with a thick steel bumper that would not be going anywhere if I hit it).

    I looked at the oncoming semi truck coming my way and made a split second decision to try the single dumbest driving maneuver ever. I jerked the steering wheel to the left and passed the stopped truck o steady of hitting it. I jerked the wheel to the left again as I cleared the bridge and onto the shoulder. Once the trailer cleared the bridge I gave the steering wheel a hard right to drift it off to the left and I ended up swinging the it to about a 45° angle on my left. Then a mother hard left to keep the trailer from hitting the drivers side of the truck. As I am doing this I looked in my passenger side mirror and I thought for sure the semi was going to hit the trailer. It missed by a few feet. At the same time I am hearing the semi's horn blaring at me.

    I got my vehicle under control and came to a stop safely on the wrong side of the road. I probably sat there at least 5 minutes. When I sort of regained my composure and my heart was not jumping out of my chest I realized I did not have my seatbelt on.

    Surprisingly I still had on clean underwear after all that.
  • Nidan111
    5 years ago
    Lol @crazyjoe ... good thing you just finished destroying an airplane shitter before you got into your truck!
  • CC99
    5 years ago
    Mine would have to be the time I was out driving in the snow and lost control of my car. It spun out on me all the sudden and thankfully I didn't hit anything. But I still had to drive down a dark, narrow road with snow coming down in order to get back home after my car had just spun out.
  • Lone_Wolf
    5 years ago
    Slightly different take. Fucking this crazy woman I didn't really like all that much just to get laid.

    She tells me to cum inside her because she is on her period and can't get pregnant.

    Yep, month later she's late and starts insinuating she is with child and I'm the baby daddy.

    I did not sleep an entire week thinking I would have to be linked this woman for life.

    False alarm. Gave me a new perspective on having sex with someone I don't care for just to get laid.




  • Cashman1234
    5 years ago
    This isn't as exciting as the experiences listed above - but its a bit crazy.

    After college - I was living in a house with 3 other guys. I didn't know the one dude who owned the house, and he seemed very shady. He would rent the spare bedroom to some real lowlife if he needed extra cash.

    He rented it to a guy named Deeno, who seemed a bit off. This guy was a big cocaine user - and a miserable drunk the rest of the time.

    There was a big freezer in the basement, which was never used. It was odd - but Deeno was down in the basement a lot - and we just thought he was snorting or shooting up down there.

    We had no idea what happened - but Deeno and the owner were gone for several days - and there was a horrific odor in the house. After a week the odor was like the smell of death. The stench is coming from the basement - and when we open the door - its horrific.

    We decide to see what's going on - and see what died in the basement. We had no idea what we might find down there. I still remember thinking how fucked up Deeno was - and how awful it stunk going down those steps.

    The smell was from the freezer. There were garbage bags filled with the body of a slaughtered deer in the freezer. The other guys were too high to remember to plug the freezer in. So the meat rotted in the heat.

    It was awful opening the first bag and seeing the rotting carcass - and thinking of what it might be....
  • AnonymousJim
    5 years ago
    @Wolf: I've only done the thing that can obviously produce pregnancy a couple times in my life. I only have one partner with whom I go raw, and my pull-out game is strong. I go covered with anyone else.

    I've finished in there a couple times on with the one partner on intentional special occasions, then have personally accompanied her to go buy Plan B. She doesn't like how it messes with her, and doesn't want to do both control, so we don't do it more often.

    Long story short, that's not something I mess around with. I don't need that scare.
  • gawker
    5 years ago
    I was a college student from 1963 to 1968. I’ve had my share of vehicle incidents (on the rear of a Norton Atlas Scrambler at 60 mph on a curve lost traction in sand - better at removing skin than sandpaper) but the scariest incident was when I was working as a window washer using a 2’x 2’ platform which was dropped out the window with a steel bar on the inside and a pop-up flimsy railing about 2’ high on the exterior 3 sides. I’d climb out the window stand up, turn around and wash the panes of glass in the bottom Sash, slide that up, wash the upper 1/2 of the huge double hung window, then raise it and climb back in. I was working on the 5th floor and the last step, lifting the top sash up to let me in when the sash wouldn’t move. I squatted and lifted with both hands almost like doing a curl, when the downward force actually broke the 1” oak slats and my whole platform dis integrated and I fell about 4’ because my arms were in the bottom of the window,the building was brick and I got my boot toes to find a little purchase and I started yelling and my arms hurt like hell and I was at least able to turn them over one at a time so I had a better grip. I stupidly looked down, hanging there, looking for bushes I might try for when there were two custodians who came to the window. Together they got the stuck sash up and I couldn’t move my arms so they tried pulling me in and finally with each grabbing an armpit they got me up, grabbed my belt and got me in. No broken bones but some muscle and ligament damage.
    Obviously pre-OSHA days. And I did need a change of underwear.
  • prevert
    5 years ago
    Yes I do remember. It involved more muj than I ever want to see again.
  • anthony6613
    5 years ago
    Massive widow maker heart attack at Little Caesar Arena during a Detroit Red Wing game in March. Just had most


    heart tests


    run within 4 months. I should have died. I am still in such bad shape I have not be able to go clubbing since. I hope I make it back.
  • Cashman1234
    5 years ago
    anthony6613 - that must have been awful. I hope you can get back to clubbing too. Sucks when you get hit like that.
  • Jascoi
    5 years ago
    my last wreck.
    akout two years ago in LA while driving a big truck after dark as i started a lane change (after checking the mirror) i got sideswiped by a fast passing honda car on my right (which i did not see because he was driving super fast...) it caused me to swerve uncontrolably across the my side of the freeway. Fortunately I did not roll over or hit anybody else and regained control. and nobody was hurt. (and no clothing was soiled.) and the CHP did not find me at fault. they had downloaded the honda computer speed info and saw the very excessive speed the teen driver was going at the moment of impact. but i lost my part time job because the company said it was 'preventable'. it was time to retire anyway.
  • mjx01
    5 years ago
    I was driving on a two lane highway in central Florida and recognized that there was a car heading in the opposite direction, but in my lane. I had to use every inch of the shoulder, barley missed the concrete barricade on my right and the other car barely missed me on my left still taking almost all of my lane. I was shaking so bad afterwards I had to stop at the first safe place I could find to park.
  • Icey
    5 years ago
    Being in the hospital room when my dad died. Watching them perform CPR and then the silence. When the machines get turned off and you can hear a pin drop. And there he was laying there but he was gone...


  • gSteph
    5 years ago
    Well, that sucks
    Sorry
  • gammanu95
    5 years ago
    Snorkeling in Hawaii. I had separated off from the group while following a big ray. I realized that I was over a section where the water suddenly became very deep. Shark territory. I turned around to swim back to the others. I saw they were all out of the water, but no one was jumping or waving at me. I out my had back down when a huge, perfectly round shadow appeared in the water, exactly like a Great White coming straight for me. I reflexively screamed into my snorkle mask while expecting what I feared would be a painful and gory death. The shadow hovered, motionless, contemplating me as a meal or a threat. A moment later, I saw the struts leading down to the seafloor and the overturned small plane whose wheel had just scared the shit out of me.
  • londonguy
    5 years ago
    I had passed my driving test less than a year when I was involved in an 18 car pile up on a motorway (interstate). I went through the windscreen so hard I smashed it with my head. I have never experienced fear like it.
  • shadowcat
    5 years ago
    When I was about 14 a friend and I were walking home shortly after sunset. A car pulled up to the curb and 5 or 6 guys guys jumped us. I remember 2 of them holding me and then hearing a click as another one of them opened a switch blade. I glanced at the knife and the next thing I knew one of them hit me in the face and I took of running. I thought sure I was going to get stabbed but only wound up with a chipped front tooth that I still have today. My friend escaped without injury.
  • ime
    5 years ago
    Shadow were you in the outsiders?
  • shadowcat
    5 years ago
    ime - If you are referring to some kind of gang, no. Just two Jr. High schoolers walking home in a usually safe neighborhood.
  • ime
    5 years ago
    No it was a movie/book.
  • pistola
    5 years ago
    Yeah it was when Obama got elected.
  • Cashman1234
    5 years ago
    I walked into an AMP in San Jose, and the Mamisan asked if I was a friend of their best customer Lloyd Schoene.
  • gSteph
    5 years ago
    Ooh, Ooh, I know what’s scarier than sliding down the road next to your motorcycle that I described above.

    The summer I was 18, I had no job, no prospects, and folks wanted my pot smoking ass out of the house. My uncle had some grunt work for me, so they put me on a bus to Klamath Falls, couple hundred miles away over the mountains. Busting out walls and partitions in the basement was kinda fun; jackhammering sidewalks, and pick and shoveling though hard dry dirt (to reinforce and waterproof a foundation wall) was not.

    When I was done I went to hitchhike back to Eugene. Got a ride over the pass with this family, but then they stopped for a picnic at a waterfall overlook. I could not get a ride from there; with a 6% grade and curves, and no good pullover, cars couldn’t stop if they wanted to. Around the corner and into the tunnel they flew. Only plan left, I had to jog through the tunnel to get to a better hitchhiking spot. There was a curb and sidewalk next to the 2 lanes. I started running.

    I’m a couple hundred yards in, right in the middle of the tunnel, when this stupid, drunk on his ass (hole) idiot stops his car, opens this window, and yells “Hey, kid, need a ride?” AIR HORN!! FUCK!! NO!! An 18 wheeler, with its mega-tons of momentum comes roaring down the hill thru the tunnel ! Somehow the truck driver swerves into the uphill lane, horn on the whole time, and back into his lane. Mister drinker doesn’t even seem to notice! “Well, hop in” he slurs. Knowing trucks sometimes travel in pairs, I’m like done, slam, go, go, go. My heart is gonna explode, if he doesn’t get this Rambler going…, finally we’re out in the sunshine. And I can’t stop thinking how long the fire would have closed the tunnel if a truck (or even a car) had been climbing up the mountain. That air horn was a bad memory for some time.

    First logging road we come to, I say this is my stop. Let me out of here.

  • jackslash
    5 years ago
    The most terrifying moment of my life occurred yesterday when crossing the street in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). I waited for the light to change and then started walking in the crosswalk with the green walk signal. The oncoming cars did not even slow down. They zipped around me on both sides. When I reached the middle of the road, I thought I was safe. But a horde of motor scooters came around the corner and sped through the crosswalk. When I had almost reached the sidewalk, a motor scooter going the wrong way on the street buzzed past me. I seriously considered finding a hotel on this side of the street so I would not have to cross back.

    The cars and motor scooters in this city obey no laws of God or man.

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