Share your most terrifying experience here

And it's amazing how many moose can't read the signs and cross where they are suppossed too.
 
I have several,but getting shot in the chest as a rookie police officer probably tops the list.The "bad guy' was actually what the NYPD calls an EDP (emotionally disturbed person). We got the call for a suicidal EDP,and I tried to talk him out of his apartment.He responded by shooting through the door,and luckily,I was wearing my bullet resistant vest(they're not bullet proof,dispite what hollywood says).Two shots in the chest and it hurt like hell.He then commited suicide,dispite my best efforts.

Steve B

That sucks. At least you are still around to tell the story.

My wife's sister and her husband are both police officers too. We used to live with them back in Seattle. They would both tell us about things they saw on duty. Some were funny, some were really sad. The ones they did tell us were bad enough. It's the ones they try to forget that can really tear you up.

Thanks for sharing.
 
I've had a giant buck actually leap over my truck as I was driving, and it leaped the road for that matter, while running down a hill.
 
I was working on an acute Psychiatric admissions ward in '92 & one of the patients had been allowed to go home on leave. For some reason he returned to the ward with a carving knife. When he was asked by another Staff nurse to be searched on returning, which was standard practice on a ward with alcoholics & drug users, he pulled out the knife & attacked him. I was only a few feet away but he managed to stab Gary in the abdomen before I could react.
Myself & a few other staff managed to prevent any further injuries & pinned the patient to the ground, & the race was then on to save Gary. Fortunately the Mental Health Unit was attached to a General Hospital, so he got the help he needed pretty sharpish. I still got quite a bit of his blood on me though.
The Police came & took the patient off to the regional secure unit & I never saw him again. I also never heard why he did it.
For an incident that happened so quickly it seemed to last a very long time!
It was all a bit shocking, but after being allowed to take 30 minutes out for a cigarette & a cup of tea it was back to work! I took the following day off though!
 
Re: Share you most terrifying experience here

I don't fear death. A painful death OK, but death itself? No. I think it will be a beautiful experience.
When my time is up, it's up.
Everything will be OK.
Unfortunately Larry, I have first hand experience in that department. Surreal = yes. Beautiful = no. Haunts me to this day, especially the look on my son's face as he watches his father slip away. Those paddles ain't fun I can tell ya! :(
 
Man, I've definitely been in some close calls in my time, but nothing tops my body's reaction to the damn great white that got way too close when I was out surfing.

I won't recount the whole tale, but suffice to say, I got a really good look at him, then saw him make a sharp turn and go under me. I was way out in the water, at the last break in a huge under-water drop-off at a deserted beach down a steep bluff. The sheer size of him was abstractly scary, and I could very clearly see his mouth hanging just a bit open, his white belly and dark top, the tail fin that was most definitely oriented the wrong way to be some freakish huge dolphin. He moved with such ease, and it was clear that I was helpless.

I always thought the term "time slowed down" was kind of a figure of speech. Nope. The very moment he went under me, everything was in terrifying super-slow motion and I could feel every beat of my heart against my chest as an individual event; I could tell when it was pumping, and filling. All the sounds of the ocean drowned down to almost nothing as if there were cotton in my ears but I could still make out the sounds around me. It probably took about 3-5 minutes to make it back to shore, but it literally felt like at least 15... 15 minutes of terrifying calm paddling the whole time knowing that if that shark wanted me, he could eat me right then and there, and there was nothing in my power I could do about it.

Yea, I've had some nightmares. No, I didn't stop surfing, although I haven't looked for excuses to go back to that same place, and haven't surfed there since.
 
At least in Vermont, they have the common sense to put "Moose Crossing" signs in low-traffic areas. They put those things anywhere out towards Seattle, including on highways like I-90. We should petition the state to move the signs to a less congested area so the moose have a safer place to cross.

I tell you what, there had been only a handful of moose sightings in the area where I hit the moose in the past five years. Most folks in Cle Elum thought there weren't any (and continued to tell me I must have hit an elk until I waved handfuls of moose bristles at them). We have "animal crossing" signs all over there, but usually it's deer and elk, not moose.

The moose walked out of a creek bed directly in front of our car, at night, in snow, only about 75 feet in front of us doing about 45. I had just enough time to tweak the car to the right to avoid a head-on hit, and she hit on my side of the windshield and went down the side of the car.

One of the biggest causes of death I read about in moose-vehicle collisions is when the injured moose ends up inside the cabin and starts thrashing around violently. I can't think of many scarier ways to die than being pummeled to death by an enraged wounded animal that outweighs you five to one. We were lucky, no doubt.
 
my life flashes before my eyes when somebody aims an elastic band at me...

one thing that was potentially life threatening was a bike crash. came around a corner on a tight gravel mountain pass (ok, I was going a bit faster than I needed to be...) and the dust from my friend combined with the low sun and a scratched visor didn't end well. I realized what was happening and slammed on all the breaks I had and I skidded into a chevron. (you know when you shout 'SHIT!' and then that is followed by many more 'shits' really really close together?) it was just the right hight to get my knee and big toe. I was spun around and blacked out for a few seconds and when I came too, I couldn't feel my legs either for a little while. I had to ride home with a broken toe. it was agony!
And just to make it worse, when I get to the bottom, my friend asked what happened and he just packed out laughing when I told him.

It occurred to me that of I had gone of on the corner before or after that, I would have plunged down into the valley...
 
Very early 80's - took my buddy's Kawasaki 500 2-stroke motorcycle for a quick ride. In no time I was going over 100 mph (160 kph) and was approaching a 35 mph corner faster than I anticipated. It was too late to brake, so I rode it out.

I took the inside of the corner outside the white lane marker line (probably had less than 2 inches of pavement before I'd hit gravel). Into the corner, the bike crossed my lane, crossed the center-line into the oncoming lane, then crossed the outside white line in the oncoming lane. I looked down at the front tire and saw less than 1 inch of pavement before I'd hit the gravel shoulder.

Finally the bike eased back into the oncoming lane, back across the center-line and back into my own lane of traffic. I looked down at the speedometer - 115 mph (185 kph).

I'll never know how the bike stayed on the pavement or why there was no oncoming traffic.

Terrifying? Yes. That's one sequence of my life that I can re-run like a movie in slow motion, though it probably lasted less than 3 seconds.
 
Tear gassed in the late 1970s
Knocked down Mt Athabasca in an avalanche while climbing to the AA Col in the 1990s
I hope nothing big happens this decade; feeling pretty safe here in the Middle East.

GJS
 
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