Chuck Stone wrote: » Me? Yep, once. I woke up at a friends gaf wheezing heavily (I'm asthmatic) I had no money in my pockets so decided to walk home about 2 miles to where my inhaler was. The wheezing turned into seriously restricted breathing and I was beginning to feel kinda scared. There's a hospital (CUH) on the route home and I thought 'just need to make it to the hospital' but my breathing was becoming more and more difficult. I was about 300 meters from the hospital (on the Wilton Road) when the restriction in breathing became so great that I stopped on that road with the intention of flagging down the next car to help me make it to the hospital as I really thought I wouldn't make it without my windpipes closing completely - the stress on my heart at this stage must have been pretty bloody severe. Unfortunately it was like 6am and the roads were empty. So I'm leaning against a wall 300 meters from the hospital thinking 'I won't make it' my breathing now was so laboured that my vision was starting to get blurry around the edges. My chest felt like it was being crushed under a hundered tons of sand. So there I am struggling to get breath and the world gets all fuzzy and grey because I can't get enough oxygen to my brain... and then I say to myself 'this is it, this is where I die.. 2 mins walk from a fucking hospital' so I kinda collapse against the wall and if feels like I'm trying to breathe through a tiny staw.. the world is now grey and I'm struggling to survive.. Then it happens.. my body gets an immense release of adrennalin trying to fight of it's demise, at this point it's just animal instinct kicking in, my mind is useless. Somehow the breathing becomes less laboured and the greyness lifts and I can physically feel my lungs relax and allow the cool morning air back in. Could - not - believe - it - there I am breathing in through the pipes which had all but closed just seconds before. I begin to recover - no.. I'm feeling more alive than ever - I'm drinking in the beautiful cool morning air like a newborn. I feel the oxygen making it's way back into every cell in my body and it feels oh so good... I'M ALIVE! I pick myself back up and I'm able to breathe without any restriction and I feel just fine and am able to walk home easily. I never go anywhere now without an inhaler in my pocket and I always leave the last few puffs in an inhaler and leave them lying around my car and home etc. TL;DR Thought I was dead from an asthma attack but survived. Anyone else have near death experiences?
Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: » my first panic attack, obviously I didn't know it was a panic attack. felt something in my head go *pop*.. started shivering, trouble breathing, pains in my left arm and chest. for some reason instead of going to a hospital I just said '**** this, i'm going to sleep.. if I wake up, I wake up'
73Cat wrote: » Woke up to a house fire at my sister's a few years back. Remember seeing the flames roaring, and just thinking FUUUUUUK! Adrenaline kicked in, and never went down a flight of stairs, and out a front door so quick in my life. Firemen said if we'd not woken up, we'd have been dead within 10 minutes, as the fire was caused by a neighbours oil tank exploding, setting fire to both houses. The fumes were deadly. On the plus side, though none of the firemen were hot, I got to sit in the back of the fire engine in my PJ's:p
CD. wrote: » last august, was on the M50 early morning, car starts swerving, think wtf?? i asked my sister what she was doing, she told me that she lost control of the car (she was holding the steering wheel straight/trying to right the car, the wheels just weren't responding to it or anythign), it swerved slightly, went straight, slightly, straight then wildly. car spun, saw the barrier coming at me, thought "oh ****, this is gonna hurt" put my hands up to protect my head/closed my eyes. car slammed into barrier, flipped and landed rightside up on the grass strip. if the car was going slower it would have hit into the cars behind us, faster and we would have missed the barrier (hit the very end) and gone straight across the meridian. window smashed in/covered in glass/stones which were also on the dashboard, there was glass in my mouth. my only injuries was a bruise from the seatbelt and a small cut on my leg. my sister had a bit of back pain for a few months and is fine now. had i tried to brace myself, my arm would have been torn to shreds by the glass. was told i could have lost my arm. the weirdest part was the doctors and nurses when they checked on us, went oh...i heard about you guys. scariest part was getting the xray on my spine and heard the words "disc, exploded" and "fluid" told a few minutes later i was fine, did i want to try sitting up? also, those body boards they put you on? hurt like a mother****er. started getting back pain in it, didnt know if it was from the board or the accident (the board) later, going through the car wreck at where the car was taken to, i reached in teh window of the car, my sister opened the back door and the roof fell down, (we had to be cut out) was going to kill her. first she tried to kill me, then tried to sever my goddamned arm. my side of the car was pretty ****ed up, random holes from teh barrier piercing it, giant chunks just missing completely. was shaken up for a few days, worst part was trying to explain to the emergency operator what had happened because i didnt know where we were other than m50 (i'm **** with directions) and she kept asking what we needed. like not if we were hurt or anything, just "what do you need" i'm sorry, i dont have this expeirence often enough to know off hand what we require? i ended up thrusting the phone at my sister because i started shaking/couldnt talk, took a few seconds to calm myself. i think the firemen/police/other people were unnerved by how calm my sister and i were. though my memory of it is slightly fragmented i cannot remember hearing any sound, i know my hearing was off afterward, but during the accident i remember no sound whats so ever. apparently the sound would have been horrific my only thoughts through it all were that it was going to hurt and i wondered why the hell i could feel my hair while we were flipping. pretty pissed off i didnt get any epiphany or anything. i want my flash of insperation/total understanding in return for potentially dying!
deirdre_dub wrote: » I was hillwalking in Connemara National Park maybe 15 years ago with a bunch of friends. We came across this valley. It was narrow (2 or 3 metres?), and the sides of it were quite steep. At the bottom of the valley there was a shallow stream flowing over rock. The stream started at an elevation, then part of the way down it there was a waterfall where this stream lost a lot of elevation (maybe 15 metres), and hence the sides of the valley gained elevation. Then, the stream continued to the end of the valley. We started walking along the side of this valley well above the stream. It was wet, and the grass was long and slippery. Most of my friends were faster than me - I was the penultimate person in the line of people in the group. We came to a fork in the "track" - there was one "track" that went up, and another that continued on the same elevation. Everyone took the "upper" track - I decided to take the other track, so that I could pick up my pace and re-join the group somewhere other than at the back! The person behind me followed me. Then, I came across a tiny gap in the "track". I stepped over it, but next thing I knew, I was in mid-air, looking at the sky. I had slipped, and I was falling. First thing - what is below me?! OK - if we have gone past the waterfall, I'm going to have a short fall, and I should be OK. So I braced myself and waited for the landing. It didn't come. OK - we haven't yet reached the waterfall, and I have a fall of about 15 or so metres ahead of me, and I'm going to hit rock when I land. Time slowed. Even though the fall took about 2 seconds, it felt like 20. The first thing that crossed my mind, I'm sorry to say, was suicide. At the time, I was terribly depressed, and I realised that all I had to do was to crane my neck backwards, and it would snap when I hit the rock, and everyone would think that I had died in a terrible mountaineering accident - no-one would know the truth. So I craned my neck backwards. Then, I realised that I wasn't actually sure I wanted to die. It was actually a pivotal moment in my life - I had a decision to make. Either I take this golden opportunity to kill myself, or I never ever ever again entertain ideas of suicide. This was my golden opportunity - a gift I would never ever again see - and either I take it, or I reject it forever. I uncraned my neck, and I curled up into the foetal position. Then, I realised what I was actually afraid of. It wasn't death that I feared - it was becoming paralysed. But there was nothing I could do - all that I knew was that in the next very few moments, I would either die, or I would find myself waking up in hospital. People ask you if your life flashes before your eyes. Well, mine did, though in a very strange way. A word formed - it is as if it was spoken into the top of my head, and then permeated my consciousness. The word was "lie". I was being told that my life was a lie. Within a year, I had some understanding of what that meant, but it has taken me 20 years to fully appreciate the meaning of that message.SPLASH! I scrambled for the surface - surprisingly, I hadn't lost consciousness. I was wet, and I wasn't in any real pain that I could point to. After gaining my bearings, I realised what had happened. I had landed in the pool of water carved by the stream at the bottom of the waterfall. The depth of the water in this pool (about 1.3 metres) coupled with the pack on my back was enough to break my fall. I scanned my body for damage. My attention was drawn to my left wrist. There were tiny beads of blood on my wrist. I wiped them off. Slowly, they re-formed. It was the only injury I sustained. I still have the scar, and I still look at it from time to time, in memory. The person who was behind me was the only one to see me fall. He ran over the top of the waterfall, and down the other side. He later joked that he saw me "splashing in the pool like a kid on holidays", though I could see in his face that he got a bigger fright than I. Everyone was really really nice to me for the rest of the day. And it was a pivotal 2 seconds of my life in more ways than one.
somefeen wrote: » K Heres a weird one though. When I was about 6 or 7 my Dad took us out to a woods in I think east cork somewhere. Cant remember but it had a big waterfall. It was a pretty big drop. Me and my brother were throwing stuff into the stream to watch it fall down. For some reason or another I just started walking towards the drop with a stick in my hand. I wasnt stupid I knew the danger but i was still just ambling towards it for some reason my own sense of self preservation just wasnt kicking in. i was in a trance or something. Very very weird. I was about one more step away from falling to my death when I heard my Dad shout at me and that seemed to snap me out of it. I'll never understand what the **** was going on but I'm pretty sure if my dad hadnt seen me I'd be dead.
later10 wrote: » I've often talked about similar sensation with friends, I think there is some strange perception of magnetism involved in cases like this. It's a similar feeling when a train passes close to you at high speed, or when you're out cycling and a lorry drives by you on a narrow stretch of road, the motion is almost hypnotic and you get drawn in as though you wish to be sucked in underneath the moving body, which of course you don't really. Has anyone else experienced this??
