Close escapes

How many have had near accidents? I've come close to being run over by a tractor twice. Had a metal office chair I was welding on explode just missing my head. I'm almost 79.

Had a air drier canister on a truck explode next to me as I was trying to pull the pressure relief as the blow off was frozen. The drier had no where for all the air to go it blew the canister right off and sent the inside flying out like shrapnel got one little cut on my hand that was close call

Got soaked, head to toe, with gasoline working on an Onan power plant on a boat. The fuel pump was bad, pumping gas into the crankcase. The cc vent pointed up inside the flame arrestor. It was off and when gas shot out the vent, it hit the top of the canopy and rained down all over me and the entire back of the boat.

Add to it the power plant was in automatic, no way to stop it other than going inside the cabin, not an option! I finally reached under and started ripping wires until it quit cranking.

Only by the grace of God and His guardian angels that it didn't explode. Everything was sparking, from the loose plug wires to the clicking relays, to the hot wires I pulled loose... No other explanation!

was taking down four sections of scaffolding next to my chimney and the top tie rope slipped and i went down with scaffolding and a X brace impaled the ground about 6 inches from my chest.

Can't count them all and could fill a page or two with stories. Just glad I'm still here.

When I was about 8 years old I was setting on a
88 oliver loaded on the back of my dads truck.
Before he got it chained down it rolled off the truck flipping and landing on it's top.I never got a scratch.

Im told when i was a wee toddler, the milk truck was backing in the driveway. He was bringing something back from the milk plant for my parents, anyway the story goes that i was playing out there and he backed over me with just the differential hitting my head. I guess my Grandmother was freaking out on the porch but didnt get the drivers attention until it was to late. I crawled out from under the truck, much to the drivers relief with just a scratched head.
I dont remember it so i take thier word for it.

yeah when my first wife said she wanted a divorce.
Hard to keep from jumping up in the air and yelling YESSSS!

Came within a hair of going off the flight deck of an aircraft carrier 10 o'clock one night while underway.

Fell 15 feet into an empty overhead bin in the corn crib when I was in fifth grade. Happened on a Saturday and I don't remember a thing after that till the following Tuesday when they were putting a cast on my left arm. I don't remember falling or the ambulance ride. Dad said they cut a hole in the side of the bin and strapped me to a board to get me out of the bin. My sis said I laid in the hospital bed and mumbled so I must not have been completely conked out. The only thing I remember for the next few days after I woke up was a splitting headache. Since then I've had the normal number of close calls every farmer has experienced but that one was the most memorable. Jim

One girlfriend asked me "do these pants make my but look big?"

Came close to getting crushed between the track frame off of a D9G and the main part of the tractor about 5 years ago. The track frame had gotten into a bind, and unknown to any of us, the excavator being used to sit the frame in place had a malfunction in one of the pilot valves and was causing the boom to lift very slowly until it had a lot of tension on the frame. When I crawled between the frame and the machine to give the bottle jack holding the hard bar a few strokes, those few strokes broke the bind and I heard a pop. I went to back stepping and was maybe 5 feet from the end of the frame when it jumped about 5 feet in the air, hit the side of the machine several times >>>>>>where my head had been about 3 seconds earlier<<<<<<<, and then set back down on the ground. We all somewhat laugh about it now due to the look on the excavator operators face, but at the time it scared the crap out of me.

There were others over the years where I could have been hurt, but this was the closest I have ever been to actually being killed.

Too many to list, most involve gravity. It is either a case of me falling or nearly falling from 10+feet or me getting out from underneath something just as the jack,jackstand or hoist fails, slips, or moves. Needless to say I am very grateful to still be around and still in decent health.

I had just got my 1956 farmall 400 running after the motor being stuck for about two years. We had planned on replacing the steering wheel and took the nut off and so when i went to test drive it back into the barn i tried to put it into a lower gear and the steering wheel popped off sennding me flying off the tractor. The tractor was going to the barn in third and almost hit it before we got on it and stopped it.

I was fixing a phone one time for the secretary of a priest in the rectory at a Catholic church, and she was 30ish, great looking, and very, very, very blessed up top and happened to be wearing a low cut top for whatever reason. I was standing at the desk facing her, and she stood up from her chair and bent over and started pointing at her phone and telling me what it was doing. I honestly didn't hear a word she said, and wasn't looking at the phone at all. When she finished, she looked up and asked me if I understood and I muttered, "Oh my goodness, huh?". She went through it all again, looking down and talking and pointing, and again I didn't hear a word that she said or see what she pointed at, but told her that I got it and would fix it. She left the room and I figured it out, but the whole time I was fixing it, I kept kind of ducking and looking up, wondering when a huge bolt of lightning was going to come right through the roof and strike me dead, and it was a bright sunny, summery day. Had I been struck dead, it would have been worth it too. Oh yeah, definately worth it.

Mark

Wife caught me washing parts in the dishwasher.

One that sticks in my mind. Fallowing some fuel trucks up a hill side road at Ft Hood.1200 gallons of gas on board towing a trailer with 600 gallons of diesel. Looked behind me and noticed the truck behind me was gone. The road had given way just after I crossed it.Then the fireball came up. I was shaking for days.

After 20 years in of being on tanks I've had too many to count. The best near miss I ever saw was a field stove that exploded dousing a cook heat to toe with gas. It looked like a movie shot, the guy running flaming head to toe. Myself and 2 other NCO's tackled the guy and put the flames out with bare hands. The soldier has 2nd degree burns on his face and hands. That was the total extent of injuries. He was back on duty 3 days later. That was a really close call for that young guy. Had he run in the other direction it would have been much worse.

Rick

I was having a terrible time with the fuel gauge in a car. I replaced the gauge and vibrator but it still didn't work. I finally dropped the tank and replaced the sender - the old style with the swing arm and float.

It worked for a few days and then went AWOL. I was so mad! I dropped the tank to see if the sender was stuck or something and found it black and melted. I'm talking charred plastic parts. I'm not sure how the whole car didn't blow sky high, but it had a full tank so it may have been submerged and didn't get enough air.

I just put it back in the tank without hooking up the wires and decided to do without a gauge.

Way too many to remember. But I am still here and able to walk

I have to many to count, but reminds me of a story from a buddy. He ran a tree service and did not always get the sharpest workers. One day he and two others were trimming a tree. One worker standing next to him was supposed to tie the rope to the bumper of the truck while the other worker in the tree cut off a limb that was tied to the rope.

Just when the worker cut the limb off, he looked over and saw the other worker holding the rope that was supposed to be tied to the truck.

The next thing he saw was vibram on the soles of the workers shoes as he went airborn. The limb hit the ground right before the worker went through the crotch of the tree.

Well, it is kind of a stretch, but I had one in our own home one time....

We have two dogs, yellow lab (mine) and a Shepard. The shepard is VERY protective of all of us, and they both sleep inside in our living room on their beds at night.

One night, at about 2 am, she started barking really badly, but it was a different bark than like "hey, car coming down the drive way" it was more like, I am about to take you a$$ down!

It woke me up, and shortly after she started growling really badly, I reacted the only way I knew how, I grabbed my 357 and stared tip-toeing down the hall, I rounded the corner and came face to face with another tall figure that had a 44 drawn as well!!!!

In a split second I pulled the hammer and shouted DAD! The figure just froze and said "I am right here, no need to shout..."

Never did figure out what she was flippin' out about, but we are probably lucky that we both didn't pop each other!

I am always a little on edge when home alone out in the woods, but that is just the way it goes! Bryce

My first I remember as a wee little lad was when I noticed that my sisters bobby pin looked like it would fit very nicely into a wall socket. Learned mucho respecto for electricity that day.

Closest brush with death was maybe back in the 1980s the time we were flying through a black night about 80 mph with a one ton dually crew cab service truck with a load of people, fuel, tools and parts, heading back to Oklahoma to resume custom harvesting the next morning after a 4 day break from heavy rains.

We popped over a hill and somebody had a truck on the shoulder of the highway in the oncoming side with his lights blinding us. We knew it was a truck because we could see the clearance lights.

As we gained on him in no time at all he started flashing his lights from dim to bright blinding us. My brother was driving and backed off the throttle a little but we were still moving right along. Just that quick we were already nearly on him and he starts flashing his lights from bright to off. Now when someone flashes their lights from bright to off your blinded worse than ever.

From full bright to completely dark we couldn't see anything but spots in front of our eyes like a camera flash. My brother let up on the throttle a bit again and as we flew past him we then saw on our right the azz end of a John Deere 8820 as he was diving into the road ditch. I can still see in my mind today the fins of the chopper spreader as they somehow cleared the big mirrors on that one ton pickup literally by inches. His unload auger was still going as he peeled away from the truck, dumping wheat on the highway.

So, because of heavy rains, trucks couldn't pull into the fields so they would bring the combines out of the fields and load the trucks on the road. Only this joker thought it was ok to do so after dark. You have to remember back in the 80s, nobody had a grain cart and a John Deere combine only had one rear light and it was on the unload auger, which we couldn't see since his auger was out. There might have been some little red reflectors on that combine but we couldn't see them since the trucker kept blinding us. It all happened within a few seconds time. We didn't have time to figure out what was going on until after it was over.

It happened so fast, we didn't even really slow down, just gave it the throttle and kept rolling through the night. I think somebody said "Jesus!". Somebody else said "Fu--!". And that's all was ever said. After being nearly snuffed out by ramming a one ton up the azz of a JD combine at about 70 mph, there just isn't anything else to say but a silent prayer. But for the grace of God go I.

the local and only 4 way in town seem most everybody around here has got a automatic in their car or truck and when i put it in first gear leave the white line get about the middle of the 4 way going into second and the guy or gal on my right side has pull out and gets close i guess it will only get worst as more and more car and truck are made with automatics

Yep. Anytime I see someone flashing high beams at me, my first instinct is to slow down-especially in a low visibility situation. And if they keep on flashing, I'll crawl along until I can see what all the fuss is about.

I was about 15 when I went up in a Grumman Yankee two-seater for a quick spin around the airport. As we leveled off, A piece about one foot long broke off the propeller. The pilot immediately slammed the throttle in to minimize the vibration. Yes we made it back to the airport. What bothered me the most was when people started to run towards us as we taxied back. We were pretty low, and I guess they knew. The pilot told my mother, of all the flight time he had in his career, that incident was the worst for him. He was a commercial pilot and towed gliders into Normandy during the big one. Flew into a mountain a couple of years later in Columbia. Everyone was lost.(military)

(quoted from post at 17:31:39 07/16/14) Came within a hair of going off the flight deck of an aircraft carrier 10 o'clock one night while underway.

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Goose, I was told by a Coastie that it is underweigh not underway. Is it just because they don't go far enough from shore to need an anchor?

This one still gives me shivers. Was in my teens and we were chopping oats. Needed to adjust the spout on the Harvestore and slipped. My back pocket caught the head of a bolt as my legs were dangling over the edge. Happened so fast I didn"t even have time to soil myself.

I use to work in an underground sand mine that the owner could not get along with MSHA,that guy would do every thing they didn't want him to do! Of course he wasn't the one in the mine working. Almost got hit by slabs of the roof a couple times just working there 13 months. I drove an old deuce and half and it only had a canvas top. In the spring when the frost was coming out was the exciting time, the roads closest to the bluff were raining sand and rock, we called them highway He!!. I didn't under stand what took MSHA so long to shut them down! There were enough accidents, In the time I was there, the cab of a 988 cat was smashed, one guy had his hand smashed, too many to count. The one that did it in was when a kid was milling with a 330 cat and the roof collapsed. Some how it didn't kill him but it totaled the 330. MSHA shut them down and ordered them to bolt and mesh the entire ceiling before they could mine in there again. I don't miss that place!

I painted farm buildings in addition to farming for additional income. I was called to paint a barn on an abandoned farm site. It was too tall for my 32' ladder to reach the mow door top, so I opened the mow door just far enough to crawl up on it so I could paint the very peak. It worked well until I pulled the door back closed. Something unhooked, and the door swung way down in the open position. I had just been on it ten minutes earlier.

bernie, i dont have near accidents, i get in the thick of it. started out when i was little and fell thru an abandoned well. nobody even knew it was there. got hit by lightning, had a jack stand collapse and car fell on me, cracked a bunch of ribs. had a fuel line burst and spray gas on me, got 2nd and 3rd degree burns. spent 2 days in a hyperbaric chamber with decompression sickness. rolled a tractor bush hogging. prolly had close to 100 stitches at various times. fell off a silo, got pinned under a widowmaker tree, cut two fingers off in a feed grinder( doc sewed em back on) then years later dang near cut one of the same fingers off with a skil saw. just to name a few. oh yeah, had a heart attack about a year and a half ago. 100% blockage.

Well, Glenn, I think that makes you the winner!
You must be part cat! LOL

Other than that, not really. Lol

Sounds to me like you're ticked off at the wrong guy. You're mad at the guy in the truck trying to warn you to stop. When you should be mad at your dip$!it of a brother behind the wheel who didn't have the sense to slow down or stop when someone on a rural road in the dark was flashing his lights at him. And the other people in the truck who didn't have the sense to say "SLOW IT DOWN!!!!".

(quoted from post at 22:31:25 07/20/14) Sounds to me like you're ticked off at the wrong guy. You're mad at the guy in the truck trying to warn you to stop. When you should be mad at your dip$!it of a brother behind the wheel who didn't have the sense to slow down or stop when someone on a rural road in the dark was flashing his lights at him. And the other people in the truck who didn't have the sense to say "SLOW IT DOWN!!!!".

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My thoughts exactly.