Scariest moment of your life

Had mine last night/today.

Wife playing softball game last night.......she is pitcher.

Routine popfly between mound and third......neither my wife nor third basemen call for it.......collision......wife lands on her tailbone.

Finishes the game, and we get home, and she says she's not feeling well.

This morning, she tells me she has lost feeling below her waist.

She goes to doc's office.

They take her to hospital.

MRI reveals badly bruised tailbone.

Scared as I have been in a long time.

Got her on dope that makes her act as goofy as a Class A Ball Manager.

 

Summer before my sophomore year in college, I go home for the weekend to see my mother.

I'm turning left across a lane of heavy traffic on a state highway in front of the home I grew up in, and a guy driving a dump truck pulling a bulldozer behind it doesn't see my turn signal.

He swerves, misses my car by six inches — MAX — and goes down a steep embankment. Dump truck and bulldozer flip several times, taking out two utility poles and setting the bean field on fire.

He lost his left hand and his left eye.

My mom asked the sheriff's deputy what would've happened if the guy hadn't swerved.

"Your son would be dead, ma'am."

 

I think it would have to be:

I and a bunch of college friends driving to a cottage upstate in two cars.

We're going up a hill that heads into a blind curve. I decided to pass the other car in my parents' Electra 225.

He won't let me. So by the top of the hill, we're going about 110 before I back off...

Seconds after I back off, car comes around the blind curve in the other lane.

Boy, was I dumb.

Getting talked into dropping off a woman in a really bad bar in a really bad part of town -- and thinking that was it for me, but I fortunately walked outside and there was a cop sitting right there -- wasn't a great thrill, either. Cop was laughing, though, like, "Um, son, you need to get into your car and get the hell out of here pronto."

 

I have two.

First, when I was about 9 years old, I attempted to walk across an iced over pond near my house. I walked maybe 30 or so feet before falling through and going under. Luckily, I popped up in the hole and grabbed onto the sides. My brother then walked out most of the way, threw his coat the last five feet and pulled me out.

May 1998 I was driving home from a late night at the junior college newspaper. Driving a two-week-old Ford Ranger, I was driving on a four-lane highway (two each way) when I fell asleep at the wheel, crossed two lanes of traffic and hit a concrete sewer opening going full speed. I broke the bone in my lower right leg and completely totalled my truck. That incident spurred me to get my sleep patterns checked. Weighing close to 400 pounds, I had sleep apnea and had to wear a machine to sleep.

About 18 months later, and spurred on by meeting my now-wife, I began a modified carbohydrate diet and lost more than 150 pounds; I've keep it off until this day.

 

I should have drowned in Indialantic, Fla., March 1993. Swept out by riptide, got tired, basically said my goodbyes. Sudden shift in current and I burst back toward the beach. I can't believe it happened. I should be dead.

Anyway, I made an agreement with the sea that day. We're cool.

 

To me there's a distinction that needs to be made between scariest moment and moment you most dreaded in your life.

Scariest for me? Unquestionably getting robbed at gunpoint when working a summer job at a video store in Akron when I was in college. Dude was whacked out on crack and could have done anything. He took cash out of first drawer and bolted. He was dumb, it was before a cash drop on a Saturday and there were six drawers full of cash, probably well over $1,000, he could have been sailing the basehead seas of glass dick sucking for several days. Believe me, I'm glad he cut and run.

Dreaded moment? At 12, waiting at my aunt's for the call that my terminally ill mother was dead. She had suffered badly for well over a year with cancer and her deterioration was excrutiatingly slow.

I'll also never forget the conversation I had with my dad that morning putting me in charge of determining whether my siblings and I (I'm the oldest) should be there to watch her pass, she had been barely lucid for at least two weeks. I decided I didn't want to see it and I didn't want my sister and brother to witness it either. It's the biggest regret of my life, as she briefly woke to say goodbye before she died. I feel like I robbed my mother, my siblings and myself of that chance.

I was watching Hard Day's Night at the time, and I'll forever associate that movie with the moment.

Then, last Aug. 1, riding 15 miles to the doctor's office after no heartbeat was detected in our baby. I feared the worst and got it. Also a few days later, waiting out the day as my wife waited to have her D&C done. We really didn't know which route to take, as the baby (which actually died of a rare genetic disease) was still intact, instead of a "natural" miscarriage, so it had to be removed. Longest day of either of our lives without question.

Then we repeated it in December. Those days will never be far out of my mind.

 

One time on Lake Shore Drive, where you drive fast or die trying, I had a clear green light.

Then the car in front of me changed lanes to reveal someone stalled at the green light. In my lane.

I managed to brake and swerve at the same time. Started going at a pure 45-degree angle. The fuckers waiting to go to the tourist sites got to see some excitement.

No one injured. "Danger Zone" was playing on the radio, no less.

The car I have now has been off the road with all four tires three times because of fucktards who moved over into my lane without looking. Still no injuries.

 

Every single moment of the 300 + days that my younger brother was in Iraq last year with the Marines.

He found out two days ago that he probably has to go back later this year. I don't look forward to those upcoming moments.

 

so sorry to hear al that, bubbler. my wife and i endured two miscarriagesm the first when we were out of town with no friends or family. but we went on to have three healthy, beautiful boys,

anyway, my scariest moment: when my now 16-year-old was 10, we were going to a carvel after his spring concert. as he ran across the street to go to the place, a kid who had just received his driver's license sped around a ar and hit my son right before my eyes, sending him into the air until he landed about five feet from the impact. incredibly, other than being dazed, eric was fine -- a few bruises, no cuts or breaks. i think my heart started beating again, oh, yesterday. ambulance came, we went to hospital, everything was fine.

 

January 2001. Headed to Oklahoma panhandle for a Saturday prep basketball game. Since a snowstorm was supposed to hit, I went with the radio guy. Well, about three hours before tipoff, the snow started heavy. But right before we left, word was the game was still on. Radio guy's wife calls and they chat for 10-15 minutes. During that time, school AD tries to call us to tell us no game and to head home quickly because storm was supposed to get really bad.

We finally got to game site, and a note taped on the gym door indicates game is postponed.

We start the 100-mile drive home in near white-out conditions. The roads - considering the storm - actually weren't bad for the first 40 miles or so. Then things got really bad. We ended up driving 20 miles an hour for the last 50 miles or so. About 20 miles from home, his car starts to spin out of control. Fishtail, spinning around, etc. You can't see more than 100 feet in front of you. I closed my eyes and waited for a semi to come barrelling into us, or for the car to flip over and for us to be trapped - a la Misery. But incredibly, we ended up in the middle of the road in decent shape. Nobody else was on the road, so everything turned out OK, but for about 10 seconds, it sure was scary.

 

I probably should have drowned a few times while sailing when I was a teenager, but managed to save my ass -- as well as the people I was with.

Realizing how little money sports writers make was a pretty scary moment.

 

The only time I came close to a bad car accident.

I used to drive all night on road trips a lot. One winter morning about 4:30 a.m., I pull off at an interstate exit to reload on cigarettes and caffeine. Hop back in my 1987 Isuzu Trooper and head back for the on ramp. I'm taking a drink of my Mt. Dew and lighting a cigarette and accelerating and steering with my knees, and not paying much attention.

And I hit a patch of black ice at the bottom of the ramp from where a semi had parked the night before. I'd guess a half hour of sunshine would have gotten rid of it, but it was there. I did three consecutive 360's down the middle of the two lanes of interstate before I ended up ass-end the wrong way in the meridian. Every turn I was sure that tall-ass truck was going to tip. But it didn't, and i put it in to 4-wheel, put on my freaking seatbelt and drove away.