brushes with death.

["couldbecousin"]

  There was a drowning in my old neighborhood, one August night back in the 90s.  Two guys were in a boat
  on a local pond, late at night, presumably without life jackets.  One fell in and drowned.  His friend ran
  up the street in the dark to the Knights of Columbus lodge at the top of the hill to get help.  He must have
  known, even while he was running, that it was already too late.  Half the neighborhood was up there,
  along with ambulances and fire trucks.  I saw the man pulled out.  I didn't have much reaction to that
  part of it, I just kept thinking about the other man, running up that hill alone in the dark. 

[Icequeen]

Lived next to a gorge referred to as the "Grand Canyon of the East" growing up. Every year it claimed a few...either someone decided they'd had enough of life, or were just plain dumb. Was at the overlook riding my bike when I heard the screams of one and his friends,  he climbed over the fence to retrieve a basketball, slipped and fell...I saw the final descent to the bottom and had the gates unlocked for the firemen when they arrived 10 minutes later. Saw him brought up...he was gray...should of died, but he lived. I might have been 10 or 11.

Saw that same shade of gray when a guy got drunk and hit a phone poll down from the house, sheared his car in half. Was one of the first ones there, I ran and got the neighbor who owned an independent ambulance service at the time. Fetched stuff, held IV bags, did what he said and looked away when told to, while he worked on him alone until the other ambulance and life flight responded. He should have died, but he didn't either. I think I was 18 or 19.

[Parts]

At the Ringling museum they had cables run between cement posts acting as sort of a railing along the edge of a sea wall,  my sister and I were sitting on one of the cables when it pulled out of the post and sent her to the ground I went backwards falling about 8 feet into only about a foot of water in the only sandy area along the wall.

 I have had a few at work mostly dealing with heights like this one,  I was up about 30 feet on scaffolding when one side of it pulled away from the wall and fell the part I was on didn't but came close with all the shaking

["couldbecousin"]

  I had croup when I was a baby (around one year old).     I was briefly hospitalized.

[renaeden]

Reminded me.

I had pneumonia when I was a baby and I was briefly hospitalised too.

[WolFish]

for some reason i keep thinking "death with brushes."

i had six inches of concrete and plaster from a beam fall on my legs. The beam was over my head. It happened during a meeting with me, an intern and my boss. There was a loud crack from above us. The two of them looked up and I pushed out from my desk and then looked up. It was too late by then. Still have scars from that.

few years ago i went to the ER with hemoglobin 3.9 and hematocrit 13.1 and immune system shot to hell.  walkie and py convinced me to go and not sleep for another two days in which time probably i would have been beyond help.