Cheating Death
I know I haven't updated this thing in forever, sorry.
I'll get some decent drame up here soon, until then, enjoy this little tidbit of my past.
I've had three near death experiences, two of them only a day apart.
I was maybe 14 or 15 and our family was vacationing at Ocean City, NJ.
I had been swimming all day long, for at least 6 or 7 hours, boogie boarding and such. AS the lifeguards were about to leave for the day, a VERY strong riptide started to darg me and 3 other kids out and over towards one of those dangerous storm drain pipes that stick out over few hundered yards or so. We were all very exhausted, and were quickly loosing control of even staying afloat. Luckily some older teens and the lifeguards had caught sight of us, and when we were only a minute or two from serious injury or death, I felt a strong hand grasp mine, and pull my into shore. The teen that had helped me was not a life guard, and I tried unsuccesfully to find him and thank him.
The very next day we went to an amusment park that had one of the "Matterhorn" rides, with the cars that go in a circle that seat 2 or 3 people.
My little sister who could not have been more than 5 or 6 at the time was sitting next to me.
As the ride spun up to speed the wooden seat underneath us gave way with first a crack, and then fell all the way through (there was no bracing under it. I quickly grabbed my sister and braced my feet on the footrest, and pushed my back against the headrest, watching the steel frame whir just a foot underneath us. I screamed and yelles frantically to get the attention of the ride operator or one of the crowd for about 3 minutes until they realized something was wrong.
My third near death experience happened in the summer of 2003. I was a volunteer firefighter for only about 3 months, and we were doing training excercises on a 5 story vacant warehouse.
We had laid ladders up the three roof levels to the top, come down in the bucket of our tower, and then we were bringing a hose line up too.
As I made my way up to the last 16 foot ladder there was no one coming up behind me yet to "foot" the base of the ladder so it would be more stable. The little roof I was on was hard tin, at a slight angle and no more than 10 feet wide, and maybe 20 feet long, with a 70 foot drop to the parking lot below on the one side.
The more experinced officer on the roof above told me to "go ahead and climb up, you'll be fine" so, not knowing any better I started to climb up, and when i was 90% of the way up, the ladder began to slide backwards like a sled on the roof, I lost my balance when it tipped, but stopped moving.
I found myself hanging for a split second by one gloved hand on the underside of a rung, but lost my grip and fell about 13 feet to the roof below.
They had to then mount a high angle rescure to get me off the roof.
I fractured the end of my tiba and had to have major surgury and a lot of rehab on both ankles, I couldn't move without a wheelchair for 3 months.
I suppose I was lucky though, had the ladder slipped with the slope of the roof instead of straight back, I would have easily fallen to my death.
I'll get some decent drame up here soon, until then, enjoy this little tidbit of my past.
I've had three near death experiences, two of them only a day apart.
I was maybe 14 or 15 and our family was vacationing at Ocean City, NJ.
I had been swimming all day long, for at least 6 or 7 hours, boogie boarding and such. AS the lifeguards were about to leave for the day, a VERY strong riptide started to darg me and 3 other kids out and over towards one of those dangerous storm drain pipes that stick out over few hundered yards or so. We were all very exhausted, and were quickly loosing control of even staying afloat. Luckily some older teens and the lifeguards had caught sight of us, and when we were only a minute or two from serious injury or death, I felt a strong hand grasp mine, and pull my into shore. The teen that had helped me was not a life guard, and I tried unsuccesfully to find him and thank him.
The very next day we went to an amusment park that had one of the "Matterhorn" rides, with the cars that go in a circle that seat 2 or 3 people.
My little sister who could not have been more than 5 or 6 at the time was sitting next to me.
As the ride spun up to speed the wooden seat underneath us gave way with first a crack, and then fell all the way through (there was no bracing under it. I quickly grabbed my sister and braced my feet on the footrest, and pushed my back against the headrest, watching the steel frame whir just a foot underneath us. I screamed and yelles frantically to get the attention of the ride operator or one of the crowd for about 3 minutes until they realized something was wrong.
My third near death experience happened in the summer of 2003. I was a volunteer firefighter for only about 3 months, and we were doing training excercises on a 5 story vacant warehouse.
We had laid ladders up the three roof levels to the top, come down in the bucket of our tower, and then we were bringing a hose line up too.
As I made my way up to the last 16 foot ladder there was no one coming up behind me yet to "foot" the base of the ladder so it would be more stable. The little roof I was on was hard tin, at a slight angle and no more than 10 feet wide, and maybe 20 feet long, with a 70 foot drop to the parking lot below on the one side.
The more experinced officer on the roof above told me to "go ahead and climb up, you'll be fine" so, not knowing any better I started to climb up, and when i was 90% of the way up, the ladder began to slide backwards like a sled on the roof, I lost my balance when it tipped, but stopped moving.
I found myself hanging for a split second by one gloved hand on the underside of a rung, but lost my grip and fell about 13 feet to the roof below.
They had to then mount a high angle rescure to get me off the roof.
I fractured the end of my tiba and had to have major surgury and a lot of rehab on both ankles, I couldn't move without a wheelchair for 3 months.
I suppose I was lucky though, had the ladder slipped with the slope of the roof instead of straight back, I would have easily fallen to my death.