That time you'd accepted you were dead...

Calvin27

Eats Squid
Bought a bike on the joint credit card 24hrs after I said I wouldn't.
My workplace has widespread abuse of the bicycle purchase scheme (post tax). Basically people use it to avoid their partners finding out. They had to cap the price about a year ago as it was getting really out of hand. On guy topped it at $8k lol.

For me, it's every time I see a snake in my path.
 

wavike

Likes Dirt
Ah yes, we the lucky ones that live to tell...
First one, first car a '64 VDub wagon. Front steering got a wobble up after hitting corrugations, into a sharp corner. Woke up a few seconds / maybe minutes later with me lying on the side of the road, car up a bit on it's wheels with roof caved in facing the opposite direction. Couple of abrasions on me - that's all.
2 on a Honda moto. Out in the country, big roo jumps across in front of me. Tail slaps me on the leg - just missed me. Second riding the Honda up Bundaberg way, riding with a group, front bikes overtake a truck on a back road, I follow and he starts to turn right into a side road - luckily he slowed and I got pass.
Had a very close call on a roundabout recently on the roadie.
And the weirdest - there used to be an old English double decker bus on the Gold Coast, tourist thing. I was riding a pushie up the coast road towards Broadbeach, the bus goes pass and about 20 meters on the BIG GLASS double centre side doors fall off onto the road, I recon about 3 seconds earlier and I would have been a stain on the road/doors!
 

Tubbsy

Packin' a small bird
Staff member
And the weirdest - there used to be an old English double decker bus on the Gold Coast, tourist thing. I was riding a pushie up the coast road towards Broadbeach, the bus goes pass and about 20 meters on the BIG GLASS double centre side doors fall off onto the road, I recon about 3 seconds earlier and I would have been a stain on the road/doors!
Reminds me of a similar story: mate and I are riding from Gympie out towards Tin Can Bay (or somewhere around there anyway) along the main road out of town. I was about ten metres ahead of him when I hear the biggest fucking bang, turn to see him and his bike catapulted through the air into the ditch next to me.

A garbage truck had almost drawn level behind us, when the mechanical arm that hoists the wheelie bins up came crashing down with a bin attached literally just behind my mate which then flicked him off his bike, like swatting a fly. If it'd happened a second or two later it would have crushed him from above.

My mate had a pretty badly grazed elbow but was otherwise fine. We sat in the gutter smoking cigarettes with the garbage truck driver waiting for his boss and an ambulance, and spent the time consoling him for the job he was about to lose...
 

rone

Eats Squid
Very true. I spent 3 months in Thailand back in 2013, the amount of head went this way, torso went that way scooter deaths was astounding.
I read this as you bragging about the amount of head you got in Thailand.
 

Minlak

custom titis
Growing up I didn't really have the self protection gene and only thought about things after the fact not before or during. looking back it's a miracle I am not severely injured or dead but I never felt at the time this is it. The only time that happened was on Stradbroke Island. I was 16 and had gone with some work mates for the long weekend. Were were swimming on the patrolled part of the beach and I got taken out in a rip. I remembered don't panic and don't fight it and raised my arm up waving for help from the life savers. I soon realised the last time I looked the life savers were busy chatting up the local talent and not really paying attention. I got taken out to where the waves were really breaking hard and started to get "Washing Machined". On my 7th or 8th time under the water I can still remember getting all calm and thinking "so this is how it ends" and resigned myself to dying in the surf. next thing I remember is feeling the sea bed sand and being able to stand. I had come back in maybe 150m further down the beach. As I stood up and started to wade back in to shore the lifeguard finally shows up and hands me a float. I say feebly "Oh wow thanks that would have been handy 10 minutes ago" and head in off the beach.

Poor lifeguard missed his chance to be a hero I sure hope he got the chick he was tuning hard though.
 

Haakon

Keeps on digging
Calder Freeway circa mid 90s, my 1969 Rover 2000 doing about 115 down a long hill. Car pulls out on front of me from a service road and there is that deep foreboding "oh shit..." moment.

Then the Volvo with a trailer pulls out behind it and I am sure its all over... Stood it up on its nose - brand new Pirellis on the front locked instantly and the rear stood right up. Thankfully the inboard disc/De Dion rear end combo didn't lock up and therefore didn't come around on me!!!!

Let the brakes off before impact and had got the speed down to about 70 by then I reckon, so with recently reacquired steering I got it on the grass, bit of opposite lock action as I cleared the trailer and back onto the tarmac.

Continued on our way - asked my now very quiet friend to please roll me a cigarette and we contemplated mortality for a bit.

Flat spotted the Pirellis too dammit...
 

johnny

I'll tells ya!
Staff member
Parachute malfunction
Stuck on a rock face for two hours with only finger tips and toes having purchase, still unsure how I got off
Pile driving rig I was labouring on slipped and feel into the hole as I was leaning in, whackign me on the head and almost pulling me into a 20m hole
Hit by a car square on doing 70km (walked when the little man was red, corner of Chuurch Street and Great Western in Parra)
Held under water as a little kid by another kid who didn't understand drowning
Had firearms pointed at me twice, once by an Indonesian soldier and once by a dude in red undies with holes in them
Hung out of a train door without checking and missed an oncoming train by millimeters (more so a thing for the girl who was looking at me at the time)

The one that stuck in my mind the most was a rugby scrum. I was tight head prop, the second rowers lifted me off the ground, my back arched and the opposing front rowers forced my chin into my chest. I was so crushed I couldn't draw air to scream, felt my vertibrae starting to separate in my neck and had the thought "So this is how I'm going to die. I don't get to say goodbye to anyone". The scrum dropped, I stood up and back/neck went back into place. I never went into another scrum with my back bent again. I can defintely see how people die playing that game.
 

link1896

Mr Greenfield
Parachute malfunction
Stuck on a rock face for two hours with only finger tips and toes having purchase, still unsure how I got off
Pile driving rig I was labouring on slipped and feel into the hole as I was leaning in, whackign me on the head and almost pulling me into a 20m hole
Hit by a car square on doing 70km (walked when the little man was red, corner of Chuurch Street and Great Western in Parra)
Held under water as a little kid by another kid who didn't understand drowning
Had firearms pointed at me twice, once by an Indonesian soldier and once by a dude in red undies with holes in them
Hung out of a train door without checking and missed an oncoming train by millimeters (more so a thing for the girl who was looking at me at the time)

The one that stuck in my mind the most was a rugby scrum. I was tight head prop, the second rowers lifted me off the ground, my back arched and the opposing front rowers forced my chin into my chest. I was so crushed I couldn't draw air to scream, felt my vertibrae starting to separate in my neck and had the thought "So this is how I'm going to die. I don't get to say goodbye to anyone". The scrum dropped, I stood up and back/neck went back into place. I never went into another scrum with my back bent again. I can defintely see how people die playing that game.
Wow. You've been blessed with 9 lives.
 

Flow-Rider

Burner
I've had quite a few but the one that will haunt me till the day I die was flying in the air after sliding a moto sideways over a cliff face in a quarry. It was close to a 6 meter drop, I had thought at the time that it would have been my last breath of life and the only recollection I have of that day was looking over the edge and then waking up on the ground feeling quite dizzy and numb with blood all over me.

luckily for me I came out of it pretty unscathed other than a shoulder dislocation, a heap of gravel rash, a busted up face from where I broke a brand new helmet and breaking my left tibia and fibula in the middle. The bike resembled a mess and there wasn't much left on it that was straight after that.
 

Flow-Rider

Burner
Johnny’s scrum story made me squirm more than any other.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I can remember a lot of kids being hurt back in my football days. If one side started pushing early and you weren't prepared then the scrum became loose, all sorts of shite happened.
 

Haakon

Keeps on digging
I've had quite a few but the one that will haunt me till the day I die was flying in the air after sliding a moto sideways over a cliff face in a quarry. .
That reminds me of my mountain biking close call. In Castlemaine in central Victoria, there are stacks of old gold mine diggings - there are also a lot of old water races which make great single track.

One day I was hooning along an unused one out in the back blocks that was pretty clear of branches etc, so I was moving pretty quickly. Up ahead I saw a big mound off to the side and thought "that's a good spot for a breather" and almost went to ride up onto the top of it. For whatever reason I decided I was having too much fun to stop so kept on the water race edge and went past the mound.

It wasn't a mound. It was the edge of a mine shaft... A raised circular bank maybe 5 meters across, with 45 degree angled inwards leading to shaft a meter across - I couldn't hear the rock hit the bottom. I had skimmed the edge, and was less than a foot from riding into it.

No one knew I was out riding, let alone where. Probably would never have found my body.
 

Flow-Rider

Burner
That reminds me of my mountain biking close call. In Castlemaine in central Victoria, there are stacks of old gold mine diggings - there are also a lot of old water races which make great single track.
(snip)
No one knew I was out riding, let alone where. Probably would never have found my body.
I've heard a few bad stories about old shafts while working in outback country towns.
 

Haakon

Keeps on digging
I've heard a few bad stories about old shafts while working in outback country towns.
Yeah, same around home. Last one was a few years back, some guy vanished for a week, eventually found his body down a shaft. He fell through a covered one - back in the day they'd lay trees or sleepers over the hole and cover it and a century or so later when the wood had rotted you could be walking across a perfectly normal section of ground and just fall into the earth...
 
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