Keep an eye out for bikers, plaese. Most of us are willing to squeeze int the tightest spaces between traffic with complete disregard for safety or others and don't care about getting killed until it's possible.
i wouldn't agree with this at all... but when i see those guys doing wheelie's on the freeway, it not only scares the shit out of me, but i secretly wish they'd spill out right in front of one of those tanker trucks. (just the freeway wheelie guys). same goes for cellphone drivers, that are too busy text messaging to check before they merge.
R*ss, My quote was to state that while I'm not doubting you are trying to abide by traffic rules, dudes on crotch rockets (not motorcycles, but crotch rockets) often are weaving in and out of traffic ALL THE TIME where I'm from (NY state). It is human nature to only be concerned/appreciate how dangerous something is only when it is occurring to you. Am I wrong?
not that you were speaking to me or anything, but you just generalized a million people into an egg carton. that's all.
R*ss, My quote was to state that while I'm not doubting you are trying to abide by traffic rules, dudes on crotch rockets (not motorcycles, but crotch rockets) often are weaving in and out of traffic ALL THE TIME where I'm from (NY state). It is human nature to only be concerned/appreciate how dangerous something is only when it is occurring to you. Am I wrong?
Crotch rockets are still motorcycles and not all dudes on crotch rockets drive like assholes. Several do, but I still don't think that they constitute the majority of riders (even just among riders of crotch rockets).*
And while I don't necessarily agree with your last sentence--in the sense that I don't think most riders see lane-splitting as something inherently lethal--I see where you're coming from.
And to clarify: In my story above, I was NOT lane-splitting. I was in the left lane, which I had pretty much to myself. It's my fault for not better anticipating that someone would get impatient and try to cut into my lane.
Thanks for taking the time to explain/respond.
*Caveat: Any time you see a *group* of sportbikes riding together, you can almost guarantee that at least one of them will try something stupid.
But back to the "I almost died" stories. Not that it's a contest, but Flomotion's plane crash is definitely in the lead (although Knewjak's riding mower story was crazy!). Where's Cosmo?
Thank you for seeing I was trying to clarify. All I was trying to get at as a car driver it has been my experience that when you see dudes on a crotch rocket, slow down and stand clear cuz there are good odds they could do crazy shit if traffic gets backed up. My overgeneralization was hopefully rectified. Peace T.N.
drunk and biking around town on the way to Sugar's (strip club in austin)
drunk already, me and a friend of mine were kicked off a bus for rhyming, in front of a beer store we decide to get a 32oz each on the way and continue to bike another two miles to said strip club, were goin thru a mall parkin lot and are at a steady space and im lookin at the sky and takin down this 32 of dos equis and boom i hit a parking median, fly off my bike and try to move the glass away from my mouth before i am face first in the concrete bottle in hand i land first and then on top of the glass which proceeds to insert itself in my neck
get up laughing and amazed at what just happened i start to feel a wet liquid run down my chest and then realize i FUCKED UP, take my shirt off and walk two miles back to the house with my friend walking both bikes (meanwhile three cop cars pass by very closely and do not stop) have to use his shirt to apply pressure on the neck due to mine becoming completely soaked and then realize my thumb is cut and blood squirting out with the heart beat
get back to the house thinkin im gonna just hop in the shower and clean up a bit and watch tv, roommates take one look at me and break it down (deep laceration on the neck, ear is half hanging off, thumb just pumping out blood, various scars on the face)
they take me to the er
needless to say , i dont bike with alcohol simultaneously anymore
drunk and biking around town on the way to Sugar's (strip club in austin)
drunk already, me and a friend of mine were kicked off a bus for rhyming, in front of a beer store we decide to get a 32oz each on the way and continue to bike another two miles to said strip club, were goin thru a mall parkin lot and are at a steady space and im lookin at the sky and takin down this 32 of dos equis and boom i hit a parking median, fly off my bike and try to move the glass away from my mouth before i am face first in the concrete bottle in hand i land first and then on top of the glass which proceeds to insert itself in my neck
get up laughing and amazed at what just happened i start to feel a wet liquid run down my chest and then realize i FUCKED UP, take my shirt off and walk two miles back to the house with my friend walking both bikes (meanwhile three cop cars pass by very closely and do not stop) have to use his shirt to apply pressure on the neck due to mine becoming completely soaked and then realize my thumb is cut and blood squirting out with the heart beat
get back to the house thinkin im gonna just hop in the shower and clean up a bit and watch tv, roommates take one look at me and break it down (deep laceration on the neck, ear is half hanging off, thumb just pumping out blood, various scars on the face)
they take me to the er
needless to say , i dont bike with alcohol simultaneously anymore
Then last year I was held up at gunpoint, but for some reason I was calm and wasnt in total fear for my life, but it did cross my mind.
Funny how that works huh? My girl and I were robbed at gunpoint in her apartment in the middle of the night back in June. And in retrospect it was fuckin scary as shit, but while it was happening I had this eerie calm feeling like "here it is."
Once when I was in hawaii, I had just landed that evening and went out with my friend and his girlfriend drinking.
6am rolled around, we headed to a spot called Cromwells or Cramwells or something like that, Brian might know it. Already drunk as fuck, and just then we crack open a bottle of either gin or vodka, one of the clear ones. A couple swigs off that and then we were off running on these craggy-ass rocks that run along a cliffside (at least that's how I remember it). Start running back a half hour later after some swimming when the waves start to pick up. I'm the last one back, and maybe thirty feet before the end I start to get real dizzy, the rocks are all slippery and sharp, and the waves when the come in are covering the rocks. I make it through the first two, then a third one comes and takes my feet out. I did some type of drunk Irish flip, and landed straight down on my forehead and snap my neck back. My friend thought I broke my neck.
I wound up with 7 stitches in my forehead and coral burn scars on my wrist, and a slight concussion. In the hospital I tried to tip the nurse to "make it nice", referring to my stitches. I don't know if she knew what I meant.
The other time I fell 18 feet off of a telephone pole after getting attacked by bees, and landed on the roof of an old Buick. Then my ladder landed on top of me. If the car wasn't there I would have landed on my side in the street, and the fall would have been 23 feet. I wasn't as scared as the Hawaiian fall, but I really thought I was SCREWED as I was falling. As soon as I landed I wiggled my toes and fingers and knew my spine was fine, then replayed everything that happened in my head so I knew I didn't have a concussion. Then I tried to drag myself off the car but couldn't, I got as far as the hood with the ladder still stuck on me when the person came running out of their house telling me not to move since an ambulance was coming. So I laid there. Wound up with a twisted back, no big deal.
About ten years ago I had a very close near death experience. I am a very experienced bushwalker and I have spent a lot of time in the wilderness but this time I got into some trouble. I had planned a week long trek by myself in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. I logged in at the national park office and gave them details of my 150km round trip route. I was feeling really good on the first day, I had been on a few solo treks before and there is something empowering about the solitude and connection you get to nature and yourself. On my second day my route took me down a dry river bed and I came to a dry waterfall which was about 15m high. I could see a route down but I would need to do it without my pack which I lowered down with some thin cord I had But I had to drop it 5m. I started climbing down and about 10m from the bottom I lost my grip and fell. As soon as I started falling I remembered think "I'm fucked" and I blacked out. I woke up a few hours later and had a huge wound on the back on my head and blood all over me. I had injured my ankle and knee as well. I woke up bewildered and didn't know whether I was dead or alive. I found my pack and found a flat rock that was just long and wide enough for me to sleep on. I ended up spending 3 days there. During that time I drifted in and out of consciousness and was visited by aboriginal spirits and saw lost of very strange visions. I had enough water for about 3 days and was using the pure alcohol from my stove to clean my huge head wound (It fucking hurts pouring that shit on an open wound.) After 3 days I had ran out of water and Metho and Maggots started crawling on my head wound. That afternoon I tried to sleep but couldn't because the maggots were crawling I my head. I started to realize if I didn't get walking would die. I got angry and got up and squeezed a boot on my swollen ankle and just started walking. I was in absolute agony. Every step was pain. I would collapse on the ground every half hour and just cry and hold onto a rock and felt it was giving me energy. After time it began to be less painful as my bodies natural brain chemical kicked in. It took me nearly 11hrs to walk 20km to get to help. When I got to the camp ground it was empty as it was 4am and I couldn't find anyone. I was convinced I was dead and in some limbo world. I went into the toilet block and got a drink and stared at myself in the mirror and I was covered in blood and when I looked at my eyes I was like a thousand miles away. I saw what I though were some people a hundred meters away but when I got closer I realized they were mops leaning against a wall. I eventually found a phone box and rang an ambulance which came an hour later. It was a pretty amazing feeling to see people after 4 day s and confirm the fact that I was alive
About ten years ago I had a very close near death experience. I am a very experienced bushwalker and I have spent a lot of time in the wilderness but this time I got into some trouble. I had planned a week long trek by myself in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. I logged in at the national park office and gave them details of my 150km round trip route. I was feeling really good on the first day, I had been on a few solo treks before and there is something empowering about the solitude and connection you get to nature and yourself. On my second day my route took me down a dry river bed and I came to a dry waterfall which was about 15m high. I could see a route down but I would need to do it without my pack which I lowered down with some thin cord I had But I had to drop it 5m. I started climbing down and about 10m from the bottom I lost my grip and fell. As soon as I started falling I remembered think "I'm fucked" and I blacked out. I woke up a few hours later and had a huge wound on the back on my head and blood all over me. I had injured my ankle and knee as well. I woke up bewildered and didn't know whether I was dead or alive. I found my pack and found a flat rock that was just long and wide enough for me to sleep on. I ended up spending 3 days there. During that time I drifted in and out of consciousness and was visited by aboriginal spirits and saw lost of very strange visions. I had enough water for about 3 days and was using the pure alcohol from my stove to clean my huge head wound (It fucking hurts pouring that shit on an open wound.) After 3 days I had ran out of water and Metho and Maggots started crawling on my head wound. That afternoon I tried to sleep but couldn't because the maggots were crawling I my head. I started to realize if I didn't get walking would die. I got angry and got up and squeezed a boot on my swollen ankle and just started walking. I was in absolute agony. Every step was pain. I would collapse on the ground every half hour and just cry and hold onto a rock and felt it was giving me energy. After time it began to be less painful as my bodies natural brain chemical kicked in. It took me nearly 11hrs to walk 20km to get to help. When I got to the camp ground it was empty as it was 4am and I couldn't find anyone. I was convinced I was dead and in some limbo world. I went into the toilet block and got a drink and stared at myself in the mirror and I was covered in blood and when I looked at my eyes I was like a thousand miles away. I saw what I though were some people a hundred meters away but when I got closer I realized they were mops leaning against a wall. I eventually found a phone box and rang an ambulance which came an hour later. It was a pretty amazing feeling to see people after 4 day s and confirm the fact that I was alive
That's incredible. Really. I think I might have to tell my story tonight.
DAMN! I am on Oahu, and Cromwells is no joke. I don't even believe you guys made it out, let alone drunk. I saw someone drown there who was in shape and perfectly sober. I guess it depends on the conditions.
My story is fairly boring. My boyfriend at the time was a terrible driver and we were in a rush to go to a movie in town. We had stopped at an ATM to get some cash before the show, and that meant two things, 1) that we were going to take a road we usually don't take and 2) that i forgot to put my seat belt back on. Long story short, we make a left turn at a light, except he doesn't see a car coming across the intersection at 65 mph. It t-bones us, slamming head on. It all happens very quickly, and the first thing I remember is a bright light, and a glass bomb (the windshield) blasting in all directions. Then i black out. Someone drags me through the window and my face is covered in blood. Next thing I know I'm sitting on the curb waiting for the ambulance,dazed. The first thing I did was feel to see if I still had teeth, thankfully everything was where it was supposed to be. Said boyfriend, was still trapped, with his arm pinned under the steering wheel....screaming. The other driver was on meth and fled the scene. During the split second when I saw the other car coming, I was sure it was the end.
The end.
Twice.
Once when I was in hawaii, I had just landed that evening and went out with my friend and his girlfriend drinking.
6am rolled around, we headed to a spot called Cromwells or Cramwells or something like that, Brian might know it. Already drunk as fuck, and just then we crack open a bottle of either gin or vodka, one of the clear ones. A couple swigs off that and then we were off running on these craggy-ass rocks that run along a cliffside (at least that's how I remember it). Start running back a half hour later after some swimming when the waves start to pick up. I'm the last one back, and maybe thirty feet before the end I start to get real dizzy, the rocks are all slippery and sharp, and the waves when the come in are covering the rocks. I make it through the first two, then a third one comes and takes my feet out. I did some type of drunk Irish flip, and landed straight down on my forehead and snap my neck back. My friend thought I broke my neck.
I wound up with 7 stitches in my forehead and coral burn scars on my wrist, and a slight concussion. In the hospital I tried to tip the nurse to "make it nice", referring to my stitches. I don't know if she knew what I meant.
About ten years ago I had a very close near death experience. I am a very experienced bushwalker and I have spent a lot of time in the wilderness but this time I got into some trouble. I had planned a week long trek by myself in the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. I logged in at the national park office and gave them details of my 150km round trip route. I was feeling really good on the first day, I had been on a few solo treks before and there is something empowering about the solitude and connection you get to nature and yourself. On my second day my route took me down a dry river bed and I came to a dry waterfall which was about 15m high. I could see a route down but I would need to do it without my pack which I lowered down with some thin cord I had But I had to drop it 5m. I started climbing down and about 10m from the bottom I lost my grip and fell. As soon as I started falling I remembered think "I'm fucked" and I blacked out. I woke up a few hours later and had a huge wound on the back on my head and blood all over me. I had injured my ankle and knee as well. I woke up bewildered and didn't know whether I was dead or alive. I found my pack and found a flat rock that was just long and wide enough for me to sleep on. I ended up spending 3 days there. During that time I drifted in and out of consciousness and was visited by aboriginal spirits and saw lost of very strange visions. I had enough water for about 3 days and was using the pure alcohol from my stove to clean my huge head wound (It fucking hurts pouring that shit on an open wound.) After 3 days I had ran out of water and Metho and Maggots started crawling on my head wound. That afternoon I tried to sleep but couldn't because the maggots were crawling I my head. I started to realize if I didn't get walking would die. I got angry and got up and squeezed a boot on my swollen ankle and just started walking. I was in absolute agony. Every step was pain. I would collapse on the ground every half hour and just cry and hold onto a rock and felt it was giving me energy. After time it began to be less painful as my bodies natural brain chemical kicked in. It took me nearly 11hrs to walk 20km to get to help. When I got to the camp ground it was empty as it was 4am and I couldn't find anyone. I was convinced I was dead and in some limbo world. I went into the toilet block and got a drink and stared at myself in the mirror and I was covered in blood and when I looked at my eyes I was like a thousand miles away. I saw what I though were some people a hundred meters away but when I got closer I realized they were mops leaning against a wall. I eventually found a phone box and rang an ambulance which came an hour later. It was a pretty amazing feeling to see people after 4 day s and confirm the fact that I was alive
Dude! That's an incredible story. I've always wondered what it would be like if something like that happened to me when I was in the woods solo. I can only begin to imagine how epic that really must have been. At least with climbing fuck-ups you don't have to worry about too much since the chances are you'll be dead.
On April 1st 1998 a friend and I were hanging out in a park right across from the apartment building that I lived in. I had been spinning earlier on that evening but it was a slow night so the management let me go early. My friend picked me up in his black BMW, I put my records in teh trunk and we drove to the park to smoke some blunts and talk about some tracks we had just laid a few nights before. After about an hour or so we walked back to where teh car was parked on the street, and my friend opened his door and I walked into the street to open my door. Before I could step into the car we heard a squealing noise coming from the street behind us and I turned around. I saw a car was speeding down the street with its headlights off, and the squealing noise was the sound of the tire rubbing up against the curb of the street. My friend said "Watch out Cos, they're wilding" and before I could answer, the car drove up onto the sidewalk on the opposite site of the street, and then sharply took a left turn almost 90 degrees and sped up - coming directly towards me. The one thing that I could do was to somehow jump out of the way of this speeding car and so I leapt to my right, and as I did I felt the speeding car collide with my body. It was the strangest sensation, an overwhelming feeling of tumbling, and heat, and the sound of glass breaking and metal crunching. Everything at this time was black because I had closed my eyes, but I never blacked out or lost consciousness. It was at this time that I said to myself "I really don't want to die but I think I might be dying right now." Then there was this stillness, and I opened my eyes and I was lying in the street, and I knew that i was somehow inbetween these two cars. My sweatpants had been knocked down between my ankles but I could barely move to pull them up. I felt for my dick, and it was there, and then I tried to feel anything else but I just couldn't. I heard someone wailing at the top of their lungs, moaning, and I realized it was my friend. I was on my back and I saw that there was a car to the right of me, and that it was almost on top of me. I couldn't move my head but I saw out of the corner of my eye that my right leg was sticking out off of my body in a position that just wasn't right. I couldn't feel anything below my waist. I put my hands on my head and felt that there was an expanding pool of blood forming beneath my head. I began to worry.
The wailing and the moaning got louder, and right then my friend stepped unscathed from the other side of the car. He was shocked to see what he saw, and he said to me "Holy shit. You're ALIVE!" and I responded back to him "Yeah man but I'm real fucked up. You got to go get some help." He ran off to find someone and returned with a cop. The cop knelt down next to me and started talking to me in a calming manner, telling me that help was on the way. I asked her, told her "I look pretty bad don't I?" She told me that the rescue team would be there momentarily. When they finally arrived, they got to work immediately to free me from the wreckage. My right leg was broken in 2 places and was sticking off of the proper angle at about 45 degrees. My skull had been cracked open and was bleeding profusely. However my left leg was the worst. All the time I was lying there I knew/felt it had been sticking up in the air for some reason. My left leg was actually crushed between the two smashed cars. My leg had been hyperextended at the knee to the point where a giant wound had opened up behind my kneecap. My leg then went up into the air where it met the point of collison. At that place, my leg had been crushed so that from about an inch above the ball of my inner ankle to about 3 quarters of the way up my calf on the outer side was completely crushed and was hanging off of my leg. Miraculously, the thing that has holding my lower leg onto my body was the arteries and the calf muscles.
So one of the EMS workers placed a blanket over me and kept me calm, although I was actually pretty calm throught the entire event, so much to the point where I was trying to crack jokes and make light of the situation. I'm sure I was in deep shock at this time, especially because I never lost consciousness throughout it all, but still the shock definitely help me through it. There started to be a little pain from down below my waist and that made me cheerful immediately, and I started trying to move my left toes. I couldn't, but it was almost as though I could feel that I couldn't, and that somehow I could feel the inability in my toe, and I took that as good news and told the EMS guy. It was around this time when I heard them dealing with the woman who hit me. She was stone drunk and had passed out in the collision, but upon them waking her and when she saw/became aware of me, all I heard was her shrieking "Oh my god I've killed him." Finally they got me free and I guess placed all the broken parts of my body together on the stretcher, neck brace, the whole 9. I told my friend to make sure that he got my records out of the trunk. I somehow reached around my neck and unclasped the gold chain my grandfather had given me, and also grabbed my wallet, money, pager and watch and gave it to my friend for safe keeping. I then told him to call my girl and my mom. They then took me into the ambulance and started off to the hospital. While I was in the bus, they EMS guys were injecting me full of stuff and doing tests and asking me questions, all teh while speaking in a coded medical language. I knew I wasn't doing well, and it was at this time I started feeling very cold and very sleepy. I almost feel into a panic, but never that son. Ice Cold, so I just told the fellas and asked them to make sure I was going to be okay.
They wheeled me into the ER and the doctors started going though the process of putting me back together. I knew they were dealing with some serious shit. One f the attendants asked me all my info and everything so that the papers were in order. Then, the doctor in charge came over to me and started talking to me in a very calm and soothing voice, explaining to me that I had suffered a severe injury to my lower extremities, and that they were going to do all that they could to help me. I asked the doctor is they had to amputate my leg, and before he could answer I told him "Doc, I want you to save my leg, but if you have to amputate it in order to save my life then do it." He told me very matter of fact that they will do everything they could to save my leg, and that they would be working on me for a little while in the ER and then were going to be taking me upstairs for emergency surgery. It was at this point I started feeling a little safe in their care, and then when one of them put the catheter in me, I passed out.
They had me in the operating room for hours and did what they did, and many hours later I kind of came too in post-op. I was hazy and full of drugs and I didn't really understand what I was doing there. I wanted to see my brother and sisters. I started crying. There was a nurse who was there asking me questions like "What year is it" and "What's your name" and things along those lines. I answered the best that I could but then suddenly I started feeling very very sleepy. I closed my eyes and then, somewhere off in the distance I started hearing alarms and people shouting about something being wrong...
... I had slipped into a coma. I had suffered fat embolism syndrome, which is a rare complication to long bone fractures. In laypersons terms, it goes like this. My tibia-fibula bone as completely shattered, puverized into thousands of pieces. The bone marrow, which is a fatty substance, was broken up into millions of microscopic particles that entered my bloodstream at the point of injury. The fat globuals then traveled through my bloodsteam and settled in my brain, and maybe my lungs but I forget. Anyway, it causes the body to go into arrest, something like a stroke. There's a 20% mortality rate to it I think, but the fact of the matter is once a patient has suffer
ed FES there's nothing that they can do. It was basically up to me to work my way out of it, if I was going to at all. So that was a really trying time for my family and friends. Here I was, comatose, on life support, no drugs or painkillers, with no signs of whether or not I was going to ever regain consciousness, and even if I did, what I would be like when I did.
The coma itself is almost another story. I mean it is. I can't really describe it. It's crazy. I don't want to sit here telling you this story and have it sound overblown or melodramatic, but there's no other way for me to describe it than how I do. And honestly I cannot really even begin to describe it in so many words, because it's almost as though it wasn't me, or I wasn't there. I knew I wasn't where I was supposed to be. I knew that I was somewhere else. I was like lost somewhere. I wasn't even me, and I knew that I was here and somewhere else at the same time. I don't know if that makes any sense at all but honestly it has been years since I have even thought about this. However, wherever it was that I was, I knew that I had to make a choice. Please don't get this fucked up. I didn't see any sort of light. Or at least I cannot remember whether or not I saw any sort of light. I did know one thing, and that was that I was far away, I was further away from where I had to "be" than I had ever been before, and I knew that I had to make a choice to get back to either one place or the other. Really I'm not fucking with you. I then went through a period in my mind where I was traveling. You see, I had been in London the week before the accident, and so then in my mind I was in London, and I had to get back. And then I was in New York, traveling back, and then I was in the Poconos, and then I was down the Jersey Shore, trying to get back. Then, I was in North Philly, and I was coming back, and then I woke up and my big sister was there and I saw her, and it was almost 2 weeks later after the accident.
To make a long story short, I eventually recovered as much as was possible After like 10+ operations where they reconstructed my left leg, as well as all sorts of other shit, and several months in teh hospital, and then in rehab hospital for a while, and then being bedridden for months, being in a wheelchair, doing outpatient therapy and all of that, I eventually taught myself how to walk again. My whole life changed that night you know. There's a thing where people talk about significant events in their lives, sometimes dealing with trauma, and then you look at the events as being a marker where you judge everything as being "before" and "after." Well I'm still pretty fucked up in my legs, although I wear it very well. Most people look at me and don't realize that. I'm a crippled dude. I deal with an unbelievable amount of pain every day. It takes a lot for me to get by without feeling tired or beat up. When I'm older I'll probably be in much worse shape. Hopefully I'll be strong enough to walk. I've already got arthritic knees. It's a drag, but honestly it's just one of those things. You know, I got a pretty fucking good life, ao at the end of the day I can't really be mad at any of this shit happening, because if it didn't then I probably wouldn't be here. I might be somewhere else, but I like it here.
Oh yeah, so anyway I didn't have health insurance and the hospital bill is STUPID (but that was taken care of) but I was out of work for about a year. But Philly DJs got together and threw this huge party for me and everybody donated they loot and all that shit so I got some loot that I could eat off of for a while. Here's the flyer for the party.
I heard it was pretty decent. Wish I could have gone.
Dude! That's an incredible story. I've always wondered what it would be like if something like that happened to me when I was in the woods solo. I can only begin to imagine how epic that really must have been. At least with climbing fuck-ups you don't have to worry about too much since the chances are you'll be dead.
The funny thing is in many ways it has been a very positive experience for me as it made me realise the strength that lies within . I could never have imagined that i would have been able to endure something like that. Since that day also things in my life (I still have my ups and downs) have been a little easier for me to deal with as after the initiation in the wilderness i continue to feel that strength in my soul.
AlienIverson That is a full on story It is a bit of a cliche but "??f it doesn't kill ya it makes you stronger'". The hospital bill is bullshit and the fucking health system in the US is wrong. All I had to pay after a week in hospital was $400 for my ambulance ride and that was 400kms
Alien, that story has blown me away man - thanks for putting yourself through it again and sharing it. I'm a grown man sitting in work and I feel like crying reading that - keep on keeping on dude!
I (luckily) don't really have any experiences to add to this thread, but just wanted to say that these are some fascinating stories, thanks for sharing them.
On April 1st 1998 a friend and I were hanging out in a park right across from the apartment building that I lived in. I had been spinning earlier on that evening but it was a slow night so the management let me go early. My friend picked me up in his black BMW, I put my records in teh trunk and we drove to the park to smoke some blunts and talk about some tracks we had just laid a few nights before. After about an hour or so we walked back to where teh car was parked on the street, and my friend opened his door and I walked into the street to open my door. Before I could step into the car we heard a squealing noise coming from the street behind us and I turned around. I saw a car was speeding down the street with its headlights off, and the squealing noise was the sound of the tire rubbing up against the curb of the street. My friend said "Watch out Cos, they're wilding" and before I could answer, the car drove up onto the sidewalk on the opposite site of the street, and then sharply took a left turn almost 90 degrees and sped up - coming directly towards me. The one thing that I could do was to somehow jump out of the way of this speeding car and so I leapt to my right, and as I did I felt the speeding car collide with my body. It was the strangest sensation, an overwhelming feeling of tumbling, and heat, and the sound of glass breaking and metal crunching. Everything at this time was black because I had closed my eyes, but I never blacked out or lost consciousness. It was at this time that I said to myself "I really don't want to die but I think I might be dying right now." Then there was this stillness, and I opened my eyes and I was lying in the street, and I knew that i was somehow inbetween these two cars. My sweatpants had been knocked down between my ankles but I could barely move to pull them up. I felt for my dick, and it was there, and then I tried to feel anything else but I just couldn't. I heard someone wailing at the top of their lungs, moaning, and I realized it was my friend. I was on my back and I saw that there was a car to the right of me, and that it was almost on top of me. I couldn't move my head but I saw out of the corner of my eye that my right leg was sticking out off of my body in a position that just wasn't right. I couldn't feel anything below my waist. I put my hands on my head and felt that there was an expanding pool of blood forming beneath my head. I began to worry.
The wailing and the moaning got louder, and right then my friend stepped unscathed from the other side of the car. He was shocked to see what he saw, and he said to me "Holy shit. You're ALIVE!" and I responded back to him "Yeah man but I'm real fucked up. You got to go get some help." He ran off to find someone and returned with a cop. The cop knelt down next to me and started talking to me in a calming manner, telling me that help was on the way. I asked her, told her "I look pretty bad don't I?" She told me that the rescue team would be there momentarily. When they finally arrived, they got to work immediately to free me from the wreckage. My right leg was broken in 2 places and was sticking off of the proper angle at about 45 degrees. My skull had been cracked open and was bleeding profusely. However my left leg was the worst. All the time I was lying there I knew/felt it had been sticking up in the air for some reason. My left leg was actually crushed between the two smashed cars. My leg had been hyperextended at the knee to the point where a giant wound had opened up behind my kneecap. My leg then went up into the air where it met the point of collison. At that place, my leg had been crushed so that from about an inch above the ball of my inner ankle to about 3 quarters of the way up my calf on the outer side was completely crushed and was hanging off of my leg. Miraculously, the thing that has holding my lower leg onto my body was the arteries and the calf muscles.
So one of the EMS workers placed a blanket over me and kept me calm, although I was actually pretty calm throught the entire event, so much to the point where I was trying to crack jokes and make light of the situation. I'm sure I was in deep shock at this time, especially because I never lost consciousness throughout it all, but still the shock definitely help me through it. There started to be a little pain from down below my waist and that made me cheerful immediately, and I started trying to move my left toes. I couldn't, but it was almost as though I could feel that I couldn't, and that somehow I could feel the inability in my toe, and I took that as good news and told the EMS guy. It was around this time when I heard them dealing with the woman who hit me. She was stone drunk and had passed out in the collision, but upon them waking her and when she saw/became aware of me, all I heard was her shrieking "Oh my god I've killed him." Finally they got me free and I guess placed all the broken parts of my body together on the stretcher, neck brace, the whole 9. I told my friend to make sure that he got my records out of the trunk. I somehow reached around my neck and unclasped the gold chain my grandfather had given me, and also grabbed my wallet, money, pager and watch and gave it to my friend for safe keeping. I then told him to call my girl and my mom. They then took me into the ambulance and started off to the hospital. While I was in the bus, they EMS guys were injecting me full of stuff and doing tests and asking me questions, all teh while speaking in a coded medical language. I knew I wasn't doing well, and it was at this time I started feeling very cold and very sleepy. I almost feel into a panic, but never that son. Ice Cold, so I just told the fellas and asked them to make sure I was going to be okay.
They wheeled me into the ER and the doctors started going though the process of putting me back together. I knew they were dealing with some serious shit. One f the attendants asked me all my info and everything so that the papers were in order. Then, the doctor in charge came over to me and started talking to me in a very calm and soothing voice, explaining to me that I had suffered a severe injury to my lower extremities, and that they were going to do all that they could to help me. I asked the doctor is they had to amputate my leg, and before he could answer I told him "Doc, I want you to save my leg, but if you have to amputate it in order to save my life then do it." He told me very matter of fact that they will do everything they could to save my leg, and that they would be working on me for a little while in the ER and then were going to be taking me upstairs for emergency surgery. It was at this point I started feeling a little safe in their care, and then when one of them put the catheter in me, I passed out.
They had me in the operating room for hours and did what they did, and many hours later I kind of came too in post-op. I was hazy and full of drugs and I didn't really understand what I was doing there. I wanted to see my brother and sisters. I started crying. There was a nurse who was there asking me questions like "What year is it" and "What's your name" and things along those lines. I answered the best that I could but then suddenly I started feeling very very sleepy. I closed my eyes and then, somewhere off in the distance I started hearing alarms and people shouting about something being wrong...
... I had slipped into a coma. I had suffered fat embolism syndrome, which is a rare complication to long bone fractures. In laypersons terms, it goes like this. My tibia-fibula bone as completely shattered, puverized into thousands of pieces. The bone marrow, which is a fatty substance, was broken up into millions of microscopic particles that entered my bloodstream at the point of injury. The fat globuals then traveled through my bloodsteam and settled in my brain, and maybe my lungs but I forget. Anyway, it causes the body to go into arrest, something like a stroke. There's a 20% mortality rate to it I think, but the fact of the matter is once a patien
t has suffered FES there's nothing that they can do. It was basically up to me to work my way out of it, if I was going to at all. So that was a really trying time for my family and friends. Here I was, comatose, on life support, no drugs or painkillers, with no signs of whether or not I was going to ever regain consciousness, and even if I did, what I would be like when I did.
The coma itself is almost another story. I mean it is. I can't really describe it. It's crazy. I don't want to sit here telling you this story and have it sound overblown or melodramatic, but there's no other way for me to describe it than how I do. And honestly I cannot really even begin to describe it in so many words, because it's almost as though it wasn't me, or I wasn't there. I knew I wasn't where I was supposed to be. I knew that I was somewhere else. I was like lost somewhere. I wasn't even me, and I knew that I was here and somewhere else at the same time. I don't know if that makes any sense at all but honestly it has been years since I have even thought about this. However, wherever it was that I was, I knew that I had to make a choice. Please don't get this fucked up. I didn't see any sort of light. Or at least I cannot remember whether or not I saw any sort of light. I did know one thing, and that was that I was far away, I was further away from where I had to "be" than I had ever been before, and I knew that I had to make a choice to get back to either one place or the other. Really I'm not fucking with you. I then went through a period in my mind where I was traveling. You see, I had been in London the week before the accident, and so then in my mind I was in London, and I had to get back. And then I was in New York, traveling back, and then I was in the Poconos, and then I was down the Jersey Shore, trying to get back. Then, I was in North Philly, and I was coming back, and then I woke up and my big sister was there and I saw her, and it was almost 2 weeks later after the accident.
To make a long story short, I eventually recovered as much as was possible After like 10+ operations where they reconstructed my left leg, as well as all sorts of other shit, and several months in teh hospital, and then in rehab hospital for a while, and then being bedridden for months, being in a wheelchair, doing outpatient therapy and all of that, I eventually taught myself how to walk again. My whole life changed that night you know. There's a thing where people talk about significant events in their lives, sometimes dealing with trauma, and then you look at the events as being a marker where you judge everything as being "before" and "after." Well I'm still pretty fucked up in my legs, although I wear it very well. Most people look at me and don't realize that. I'm a crippled dude. I deal with an unbelievable amount of pain every day. It takes a lot for me to get by without feeling tired or beat up. When I'm older I'll probably be in much worse shape. Hopefully I'll be strong enough to walk. I've already got arthritic knees. It's a drag, but honestly it's just one of those things. You know, I got a pretty fucking good life, ao at the end of the day I can't really be mad at any of this shit happening, because if it didn't then I probably wouldn't be here. I might be somewhere else, but I like it here.
Oh yeah, so anyway I didn't have health insurance and the hospital bill is STUPID (but that was taken care of) but I was out of work for about a year. But Philly DJs got together and threw this huge party for me and everybody donated they loot and all that shit so I got some loot that I could eat off of for a while. Here's the flyer for the party.
I heard it was pretty decent. Wish I could have gone.
Damn...that is the heaviest thing I've ever read on this board. Thanks for sharing (and surviving).
Comments
I'm kookoo for co-co-sign....
Crotch rockets are still motorcycles and not all dudes on crotch rockets drive like assholes. Several do, but I still don't think that they constitute the majority of riders (even just among riders of crotch rockets).*
And while I don't necessarily agree with your last sentence--in the sense that I don't think most riders see lane-splitting as something inherently lethal--I see where you're coming from.
And to clarify: In my story above, I was NOT lane-splitting. I was in the left lane, which I had pretty much to myself. It's my fault for not better anticipating that someone would get impatient and try to cut into my lane.
Thanks for taking the time to explain/respond.
*Caveat: Any time you see a *group* of sportbikes riding together, you can almost guarantee that at least one of them will try something stupid.
But back to the "I almost died" stories. Not that it's a contest, but Flomotion's plane crash is definitely in the lead (although Knewjak's riding mower story was crazy!). Where's Cosmo?
Peace
T.N.
drunk and biking around town on the way to Sugar's (strip club in austin)
drunk already, me and a friend of mine were kicked off a bus for rhyming,
in front of a beer store we decide to get a 32oz each on the way and continue to bike another two miles to said strip club, were goin thru a mall parkin lot and are at a steady space and im lookin at the sky and takin down this 32 of dos equis and boom i hit a parking median, fly off my bike and try to move the glass away from my mouth before i am face first in the concrete
bottle in hand i land first and then on top of the glass which proceeds to insert itself in my neck
get up laughing and amazed at what just happened i start to feel a wet liquid run down my chest and then realize i FUCKED UP, take my shirt off and walk two miles back to the house with my friend walking both bikes (meanwhile three cop cars pass by very closely and do not stop) have to use his shirt to apply pressure on the neck due to mine becoming completely soaked and then realize my thumb is cut and blood squirting out with the heart beat
get back to the house thinkin im gonna just hop in the shower and clean up a bit and watch tv, roommates take one look at me and break it down (deep laceration on the neck, ear is half hanging off, thumb just pumping out blood, various scars on the face)
they take me to the er
needless to say , i dont bike with alcohol simultaneously anymore
dude reading that almost made me puke.
Will Oldham, right? (The quote, not the convicted murderer)
Funny how that works huh? My girl and I were robbed at gunpoint in her apartment in the middle of the night back in June. And in retrospect it was fuckin scary as shit, but while it was happening I had this eerie calm feeling like "here it is."
Once when I was in hawaii, I had just landed that evening and went out with my friend and his girlfriend drinking.
6am rolled around, we headed to a spot called Cromwells or Cramwells or something like that, Brian might know it. Already drunk as fuck, and just then we crack open a bottle of either gin or vodka, one of the clear ones. A couple swigs off that and then we were off running on these craggy-ass rocks that run along a cliffside (at least that's how I remember it). Start running back a half hour later after some swimming when the waves start to pick up. I'm the last one back, and maybe thirty feet before the end I start to get real dizzy, the rocks are all slippery and sharp, and the waves when the come in are covering the rocks. I make it through the first two, then a third one comes and takes my feet out. I did some type of drunk Irish flip, and landed straight down on my forehead and snap my neck back. My friend thought I broke my neck.
I wound up with 7 stitches in my forehead and coral burn scars on my wrist, and a slight concussion. In the hospital I tried to tip the nurse to "make it nice", referring to my stitches. I don't know if she knew what I meant.
The other time I fell 18 feet off of a telephone pole after getting attacked by bees, and landed on the roof of an old Buick. Then my ladder landed on top of me. If the car wasn't there I would have landed on my side in the street, and the fall would have been 23 feet. I wasn't as scared as the Hawaiian fall, but I really thought I was SCREWED as I was falling. As soon as I landed I wiggled my toes and fingers and knew my spine was fine, then replayed everything that happened in my head so I knew I didn't have a concussion. Then I tried to drag myself off the car but couldn't, I got as far as the hood with the ladder still stuck on me when the person came running out of their house telling me not to move since an ambulance was coming. So I laid there. Wound up with a twisted back, no big deal.
On my second day my route took me down a dry river bed and I came to a dry waterfall which was about 15m high. I could see a route down but I would need to do it without my pack which I lowered down with some thin cord I had But I had to drop it 5m. I started climbing down and about 10m from the bottom I lost my grip and fell. As soon as I started falling I remembered think "I'm fucked" and I blacked out. I woke up a few hours later and had a huge wound on the back on my head and blood all over me. I had injured my ankle and knee as well.
I woke up bewildered and didn't know whether I was dead or alive. I found my pack and found a flat rock that was just long and wide enough for me to sleep on. I ended up spending 3 days there. During that time I drifted in and out of consciousness and was visited by aboriginal spirits and saw lost of very strange visions. I had enough water for about 3 days and was using the pure alcohol from my stove to clean my huge head wound (It fucking hurts pouring that shit on an open wound.)
After 3 days I had ran out of water and Metho and Maggots started crawling on my head wound. That afternoon I tried to sleep but couldn't because the maggots were crawling I my head. I started to realize if I didn't get walking would die. I got angry and got up and squeezed a boot on my swollen ankle and just started walking. I was in absolute agony. Every step was pain. I would collapse on the ground every half hour and just cry and hold onto a rock and felt it was giving me energy. After time it began to be less painful as my bodies natural brain chemical kicked in. It took me nearly 11hrs to walk 20km to get to help. When I got to the camp ground it was empty as it was 4am and I couldn't find anyone. I was convinced I was dead and in some limbo world. I went into the toilet block and got a drink and stared at myself in the mirror and I was covered in blood and when I looked at my eyes I was like a thousand miles away.
I saw what I though were some people a hundred meters away but when I got closer I realized they were mops leaning against a wall. I eventually found a phone box and rang an ambulance which came an hour later. It was a pretty amazing feeling to see people after 4 day s and confirm the fact that I was alive
That's incredible. Really. I think I might have to tell my story tonight.
My story is fairly boring. My boyfriend at the time was a terrible driver and we were in a rush to go to a movie in town. We had stopped at an ATM to get some cash before the show, and that meant two things, 1) that we were going to take a road we usually don't take and 2) that i forgot to put my seat belt back on. Long story short, we make a left turn at a light, except he doesn't see a car coming across the intersection at 65 mph. It t-bones us, slamming head on. It all happens very quickly, and the first thing I remember is a bright light, and a glass bomb (the windshield) blasting in all directions. Then i black out. Someone drags me through the window and my face is covered in blood. Next thing I know I'm sitting on the curb waiting for the ambulance,dazed. The first thing I did was feel to see if I still had teeth, thankfully everything was where it was supposed to be. Said boyfriend, was still trapped, with his arm pinned under the steering wheel....screaming. The other driver was on meth and fled the scene. During the split second when I saw the other car coming, I was sure it was the end.
The end.
The wailing and the moaning got louder, and right then my friend stepped unscathed from the other side of the car. He was shocked to see what he saw, and he said to me "Holy shit. You're ALIVE!" and I responded back to him "Yeah man but I'm real fucked up. You got to go get some help." He ran off to find someone and returned with a cop. The cop knelt down next to me and started talking to me in a calming manner, telling me that help was on the way. I asked her, told her "I look pretty bad don't I?" She told me that the rescue team would be there momentarily. When they finally arrived, they got to work immediately to free me from the wreckage. My right leg was broken in 2 places and was sticking off of the proper angle at about 45 degrees. My skull had been cracked open and was bleeding profusely. However my left leg was the worst. All the time I was lying there I knew/felt it had been sticking up in the air for some reason. My left leg was actually crushed between the two smashed cars. My leg had been hyperextended at the knee to the point where a giant wound had opened up behind my kneecap. My leg then went up into the air where it met the point of collison. At that place, my leg had been crushed so that from about an inch above the ball of my inner ankle to about 3 quarters of the way up my calf on the outer side was completely crushed and was hanging off of my leg. Miraculously, the thing that has holding my lower leg onto my body was the arteries and the calf muscles.
So one of the EMS workers placed a blanket over me and kept me calm, although I was actually pretty calm throught the entire event, so much to the point where I was trying to crack jokes and make light of the situation. I'm sure I was in deep shock at this time, especially because I never lost consciousness throughout it all, but still the shock definitely help me through it. There started to be a little pain from down below my waist and that made me cheerful immediately, and I started trying to move my left toes. I couldn't, but it was almost as though I could feel that I couldn't, and that somehow I could feel the inability in my toe, and I took that as good news and told the EMS guy. It was around this time when I heard them dealing with the woman who hit me. She was stone drunk and had passed out in the collision, but upon them waking her and when she saw/became aware of me, all I heard was her shrieking "Oh my god I've killed him." Finally they got me free and I guess placed all the broken parts of my body together on the stretcher, neck brace, the whole 9. I told my friend to make sure that he got my records out of the trunk. I somehow reached around my neck and unclasped the gold chain my grandfather had given me, and also grabbed my wallet, money, pager and watch and gave it to my friend for safe keeping. I then told him to call my girl and my mom. They then took me into the ambulance and started off to the hospital. While I was in the bus, they EMS guys were injecting me full of stuff and doing tests and asking me questions, all teh while speaking in a coded medical language. I knew I wasn't doing well, and it was at this time I started feeling very cold and very sleepy. I almost feel into a panic, but never that son. Ice Cold, so I just told the fellas and asked them to make sure I was going to be okay.
They wheeled me into the ER and the doctors started going though the process of putting me back together. I knew they were dealing with some serious shit. One f the attendants asked me all my info and everything so that the papers were in order. Then, the doctor in charge came over to me and started talking to me in a very calm and soothing voice, explaining to me that I had suffered a severe injury to my lower extremities, and that they were going to do all that they could to help me. I asked the doctor is they had to amputate my leg, and before he could answer I told him "Doc, I want you to save my leg, but if you have to amputate it in order to save my life then do it." He told me very matter of fact that they will do everything they could to save my leg, and that they would be working on me for a little while in the ER and then were going to be taking me upstairs for emergency surgery. It was at this point I started feeling a little safe in their care, and then when one of them put the catheter in me, I passed out.
They had me in the operating room for hours and did what they did, and many hours later I kind of came too in post-op. I was hazy and full of drugs and I didn't really understand what I was doing there. I wanted to see my brother and sisters. I started crying. There was a nurse who was there asking me questions like "What year is it" and "What's your name" and things along those lines. I answered the best that I could but then suddenly I started feeling very very sleepy. I closed my eyes and then, somewhere off in the distance I started hearing alarms and people shouting about something being wrong...
... I had slipped into a coma. I had suffered fat embolism syndrome, which is a rare complication to long bone fractures. In laypersons terms, it goes like this. My tibia-fibula bone as completely shattered, puverized into thousands of pieces. The bone marrow, which is a fatty substance, was broken up into millions of microscopic particles that entered my bloodstream at the point of injury. The fat globuals then traveled through my bloodsteam and settled in my brain, and maybe my lungs but I forget. Anyway, it causes the body to go into arrest, something like a stroke. There's a 20% mortality rate to it I think, but the fact of the matter is once a patient has suffer ed FES there's nothing that they can do. It was basically up to me to work my way out of it, if I was going to at all. So that was a really trying time for my family and friends. Here I was, comatose, on life support, no drugs or painkillers, with no signs of whether or not I was going to ever regain consciousness, and even if I did, what I would be like when I did.
The coma itself is almost another story. I mean it is. I can't really describe it. It's crazy. I don't want to sit here telling you this story and have it sound overblown or melodramatic, but there's no other way for me to describe it than how I do. And honestly I cannot really even begin to describe it in so many words, because it's almost as though it wasn't me, or I wasn't there. I knew I wasn't where I was supposed to be. I knew that I was somewhere else. I was like lost somewhere. I wasn't even me, and I knew that I was here and somewhere else at the same time. I don't know if that makes any sense at all but honestly it has been years since I have even thought about this. However, wherever it was that I was, I knew that I had to make a choice. Please don't get this fucked up. I didn't see any sort of light. Or at least I cannot remember whether or not I saw any sort of light. I did know one thing, and that was that I was far away, I was further away from where I had to "be" than I had ever been before, and I knew that I had to make a choice to get back to either one place or the other. Really I'm not fucking with you. I then went through a period in my mind where I was traveling. You see, I had been in London the week before the accident, and so then in my mind I was in London, and I had to get back. And then I was in New York, traveling back, and then I was in the Poconos, and then I was down the Jersey Shore, trying to get back. Then, I was in North Philly, and I was coming back, and then I woke up and my big sister was there and I saw her, and it was almost 2 weeks later after the accident.
To make a long story short, I eventually recovered as much as was possible After like 10+ operations where they reconstructed my left leg, as well as all sorts of other shit, and several months in teh hospital, and then in rehab hospital for a while, and then being bedridden for months, being in a wheelchair, doing outpatient therapy and all of that, I eventually taught myself how to walk again. My whole life changed that night you know. There's a thing where people talk about significant events in their lives, sometimes dealing with trauma, and then you look at the events as being a marker where you judge everything as being "before" and "after." Well I'm still pretty fucked up in my legs, although I wear it very well. Most people look at me and don't realize that. I'm a crippled dude. I deal with an unbelievable amount of pain every day. It takes a lot for me to get by without feeling tired or beat up. When I'm older I'll probably be in much worse shape. Hopefully I'll be strong enough to walk. I've already got arthritic knees. It's a drag, but honestly it's just one of those things. You know, I got a pretty fucking good life, ao at the end of the day I can't really be mad at any of this shit happening, because if it didn't then I probably wouldn't be here. I might be somewhere else, but I like it here.
Oh yeah, so anyway I didn't have health insurance and the hospital bill is STUPID (but that was taken care of) but I was out of work for about a year. But Philly DJs got together and threw this huge party for me and everybody donated they loot and all that shit so I got some loot that I could eat off of for a while. Here's the flyer for the party.
I heard it was pretty decent. Wish I could have gone.
The funny thing is in many ways it has been a very positive experience for me as it made me realise the strength that lies within . I could never have imagined that i would have been able to endure something like that. Since that day also things in my life (I still have my ups and downs) have been a little easier for me to deal with as after the initiation in the wilderness i continue to feel that strength in my soul.
I've heard this story a couple of times, and the shit still gives me chills.
LOOK AT YOU NOW MOTHERFUCKER.
dude.
The hospital bill is bullshit and the fucking health system in the US is wrong. All I had to pay after a week in hospital was $400 for my ambulance ride and that was 400kms
Damn...that is the heaviest thing I've ever read on this board. Thanks for sharing (and surviving).
and also:
ADDICT!