Have you ever been in real danger?

[AppleCori]

Yet another—this one is really creepy

When I was in high school I ran track, so I jogged around the area a lot in my free time.

Well, one day, when I was about 15/16, this weird (adult) man riding a motorcycle started following along side me and trying to talk to me. This happened several times, even after changing my route up. One day he followed me to my house trying to get me to talk to him. I told him to leave me alone, but he wouldn’t. I felt annoyed but not particularly threatened.

I went inside the house. Nobody was home. I looked around, and he was looking in the window, with his face pressed to the glass. I started getting a little scared. I yelled at him to go away. He left the window., but a moment later he walked in the front door! I must have forgotten to lock it, though I didn’t think anyone would actually come in uninvited.

I kept telling him to leave and he kept saying ‘I’m not going to hurt you, I just want to talk’. I kept telling him to leave because my parents would be home an minute. I started thinking about how I could get around him and get away. He got closer and closer, and finally touched me on the shoulder. I panicked and ran out the front door and headed across the street to the nearest house. He ran out the door and took off on his motorcycle, and I never saw him again.

 

[Lil]

OMG that is TERRIFYING!!

LOL! At the time, yes, it really was. Now I look back on it and picture my fat butt sliding down the hill and I find it funny! I guess time heals. The worst part was I was all alone! I couldn't yell for help, there was no one to help me within voice range; no boats on the lake in winter, no people in the condos. I was really alone. But it could have been so much worse. I mean, it's not like I was hanging on a cliff edge, though the car could easily have gone over one heck of a drop and I could well have ended up in the lake...and there actually were a lot of people that slid into the lake itself during that storm. I remember a story of an elderly lady who slid down the hill into the lake. Her husband rigged up some ropes, got to the water and got her out. When they got to the house, he let go of her to open the door and...yep...back into the lake she went. She broke an ankle and the ambulance couldn't get thru so they made her walk out in a splint! Poor lady! A fellow attorney's secretary went over a retaining wall, broke her leg but landed on bank, not in the water. You couldn't buy a pair of golf shoes - they sold out because the cleats were so useful on the ice.

I really do hate ice to this day.

and @AppleCori 's last story was TERRIFYING! OMG!

 

[AppleCori]

Apple...I'm sorry, but I don't like your mom. I'm wondering how you managed to live this long! You've had a bunch of close calls.

She is a nice person, she just has some really bad lapses in judgement. After all, she brought a guy home from prison to live with us.

 

[Lil]

She is a nice person, she just has some really bad lapses in judgement. After all, she brought a guy home from prison to live with us.

Well, I can't throw stones on bad judgment. God knows I've had my own.

 

[RN0441]

I have a major fear of driving into water and not being able to get out of the car and drowning.

Before we moved to the house we are in now I used to have to drive on a road that had water on both sides to work every day and I was always extremely cautious. When it was icy even more so! I think they were just ponds but not sure how deep. Probably like an inch. LOL

We are moving to Alabama soon on the coast and I have to drive over a bridge to work every day and it's over Mobile Bay but it looks like an ocean to be honest! There are two ways to go, both over this body of water. It's beautiful and I do have so much respect for the water. One way is closer to the water as it is a lower option and floods a lot and I swear it looks like your going to drive right into the water. It's cool but I will have to get used to it!

 

[RN0441]

Okay now that reminded me of my scariest story!

I was 21 years old and had just married my ex husband and we moved to Houston due to his job transfer/promotion.

The company I ended up working for had a wonderful group of people, some married, some single mainly around our age and we all hung out together a lot because we had all moved to Houston for jobs during the oil boom and had no family around.

One weekend we all decided to go camping on the river. I cannot remember the name of it anymore but the river had rapids that people tubed down.

I can not swim now and I could not swim then. Husband and I decided to double up on a truck tire and go down a cliff type of thing and float down the river. It was a drop of some sort; maybe a waterfall? I'm sure if I saw it now I'd poop my pants! A lot of people were in the water that day.

Anyway he got in the back of the tube and I sat in front Indian style. It was plenty big enough for us. I put a life jacket on at the last minute. He was a good swimmer and did not.

Well we went over this waterfall and because he was heavier (I guess) it flipped upside down. The next thing I knew I was in the bottom of this waterfall thing and stuck under the water due to the pressure of the falls hitting the water. I just could hear the rapids around me and I did not know what end was up or where he was. It seemed like I was down there for a very long time. I did not know where the tube was. My life literally did flash before me as they say. I thought I was going to drown and accepted it, and an extremely peaceful feeling came over me. I was not thrashing or anything. I'll never forget it as long as I live.

Finally I remembered that I had a life jacket on! I remember reaching up and feeling it. Somehow the water propelled me out of the spot I was stuck in and the next thing I knew I popped up down the river quite a ways. I looked around and saw my husband floating face down and not moving. I doggie paddled over to him and put my arm around his neck and he popped up and he said "OMG you saved my life! I thought I was dead and I gave up".

When we finally saw our friends they said they had been waiting for us to pop up and we were under water for a very long time. To this day he still says that I saved his life. If that is the peace that comes over you when you die then it is really not bad at all.

 

[AppleCori]

Wow, that is scary, RNO.

It’s funny how a thread like this brings up memories that we haven’t thought about in years or that we have blocked out.

That thread on recurring dreams got me remembering an old one I used to have from single digits into my twenties, maybe even thirties.

One of my little sisters (and after I had kids, my own kids) would fall into a pond and I would dive in to try to find the child, but the water was so murky, I just kept searching and searching. Sometimes I would find them, sometimes not. Usually I would wake up, scared but relieved that it was only a dream.

Now I wonder if it wasn’t related to almost going into the lake in the car with my sister....

I really felt extremely guilty about almost possibly getting her hurt or killed.

 

[Pink Elephant]

Wow... these are so good!

 

[susiestar]

The part of OH that I used to live in has a highway that the locals have called the "Alzheimer's freeway" for as long as we lived there when my kids were little (7 years). It took me a while to get used to the name when someone would give directions. After they opened the section near my house, I routinely took it to work because it was the fastest way. Then I took it on an icy day and NEVER again.

When they built it, they banked it like a racetrack, but all they put between the 2 lanes going one way at 70 miles and 2 lanes going the other was an area of grass that was as flat as a pancake. The reason I never took it on an icy day again was because the road curves and wanders all over the county. Cars were just going head on into traffic going the other direction.

I managed to make it to the next exit and I took the surface roads to work. I was late, but I was in one piece. My boss looked at my face and asked, "You tried the Alzheimer's this morning too, didn't you?" That was all he said. I guess my face said it all that day.

Lil's icy day brought that memory back! Yikes!

 

[Lil]

All this talk of bridges and ice reminds me of other car incidents that could have been very bad...but weren't. While I was in law school I lived just outside of town and drove this curvy route into town. There was one area that was a hill. On the left side was a bluff face and on the right side was a drop-off and then a bridge at the bottom over a creek that was a good 30 feet below. I knew it was really slick one morning, but had to get to a final exam, so I gingerly drove over the roads and did fine until I got halfway down that hill and the rear of my car started skidding toward the drop-off and creek. I know you're supposed to steer in the direction of the skid, but there was no shoulder and steering right would just put me over the hill, so I did the only thing I could think of, which was steer left and tap the brakes. It worked like a charm! It was just like you see on TV. The car did a 180 and went off the road on the other side, with the passenger side against the bluff. I was never so happy to run off the road in my life. It was the only safe place to be. I walked to a house that let me use the phone and the professor did let me take the final later. I impressed the tow-truck driver. lol

Jabber and I had a car/ice/bridge incident too. Going to get our son, who'd killed the battery on his vehicle one really cold, icy night. Our GPS told us to go a certain way and there was a bridge with a really super steep hill on the back side of it. We got across the bridge and started up the hill and slid backwards...toward the bridge...no control at all. I just kept saying, "Please hit the bridge. Please hit the bridge." which we did. Scraped the heck out of the car, but that's a small price to pay for not dropping 20 feet into the drink.

Have I mentioned, I hate ice?

 

[AppleCori]

Add some stories of your own, OH!

Nice to see you here!

 

[AppleCori]

When I was about ten, we were driving across the country. It got to be late at night and I fell asleep. At some point during the night, I woke up because I felt the car lurching and swaying in a strange, not normal way. I looked up, and we were going all over the road and headed for the edge. I yelled to my mom (who was driving) and she startled and righted the car. I asked what had happened and she said she was starting to fall asleep.

I asked why we didn’t just stop for a while, and she said she couldn’t, but she couldn’t stay awake, either.

She said I had to stay awake and watch and wake her up if she started falling asleep again. I didn’t want to, but there was really no other choice, so we just drove on. She said to grab the wheel if I needed to, but I don’t think it ever came to that. Every time I felt the car start to go sideways, I would wake her up, and we kept going. I was so glad when dawn came, so I could tell when her eyes started to close. It made watching much easier.

 

[susiestar]

Apple, your stories about your mother make me wonder. That must have been a really difficult night for a little kid.

Lil, Ice can be just awful!! It can also be kinda fun when you are young and stupid. My mom took me to an empty parking lot late one night to teach me how to handle sliding and driving on it. She taught me how to do donuts too. Of course my friends and I would go out and do them during the yearly ice storms! We were teenagers, after all.