Whew, that was close...

You should have said, 'Hi, I'm Johnny Knoxville. Welcome to Jackass.'

 

This one isn't nearly as good as fishwrapper's story and I don't really remember either of these because I was too young.

Once as a very young boy I went with my family to Sea World. I am told I leaned in way to close to the sea lions and my mother snatched me out of harms way as one of them lunged for me. Still not sure how they set it up that a little kid could get that close. The dumb fuckers.

At about the same age, I'm in the back seat with my older brother. I used to like to play with the lock and the door handle. So, of course, I manage to open the door while we're going 55 MPH. The seatbelt saves me from falling out and my brother grabs me.

Makes me very happy that our cars have that switch that won't allow a door to be opened from the inside, because I swear my 3-year-old can't go 10 minutes in the car without trying to get her damn door open.

 

outofplace, I'm right there with you.

Frontier Village in San Jose CA. A Western type amusement park. They have a trout pond where you can keep what you catch. It is 1968. I am 5 and I have already caught my fish. I have to wait for other family members to catch theirs. My mother tells me not to play near the edge. of course, I do. And I fall in.

I have no idea how close I came to drowning. I do know my father went in after me. Both he and my mother were pissed. It became family lore when my mother took me to the gift shop, bought me a new shirt and told me "we are GOING on the roller coaster and I don't care if you get cold. You are not going to ruin it for the rest of us." She hissed it at me.

And years later it was still a family saying in the right situation.

 

When we were little, my brother (younger by four years) panicked while on my back in the deep end of a neighbor's pool. It's the only time I thought I was drowning.

 

Oh wow.

On a serious note, outofplace's story reminds me of a similar story. Except I wasn't so lucky.

I was seven or eight and riding in my grandfather's early 1960s-model van (this was the late 70s). The doors were finicky to say the least. Apparently I was leaning against the door while sleeping and somehow managed to open it -- without wearing a seatbelt. I landed face-first in the middle of the road.

Luckily, grandpa was only driving about 30 mph or so and there was no traffic. Nevertheless I was in pretty bad shape. They rushed me to the ER, and I wound up spending a week in intensive care with head and facial injuries (insert jokes here). Amazingly, though, I suffered no permanent injuries and was back to normal pretty much a few weeks after the accident.

I look at some of the pics my parents took of me while I was in the hospital and am amazed. I looked like I went 15 rounds with Mike Tyson back in 1987.

 

Ouch. Glad you didn't do any permanent damage.

Funny thing is my wife once did exactly the same thing as you when she was little, except she only got a few scrapes and bruises.

Yes, we are VERY careful about our little one in the car. We know she's got the wiring to do stupid shit.

 

Fishwrappers is pretty good.
I did donuts on I-94 near battle Creek in college in an ice storm...

I dated a buddy's sister once... Once.
That was kinda like death when we broke up

 

Wow, she's awfully lucky as well. That is NOT a great way to exit a car, I'm here to say.

And yeah, those child locks were a great invention. I'm glad to hear you're keeping them in use for your little one.

 

Heading back to school from a long ass daytrip to Buffalo (for the Bruins-Sabres playoff game), it's gotta be about 4-5am, get off the main road (33/50 @ 682 for the OU types) heading down 682 toward Richland, I started to doze only to have Bambi decide to play chicken with me. Luckily I just missed it.

Another time a group of us went to Huntington, just heading back into Athens, coming down East State and someone made a deer comment as we were passing a deer crossing sign. I made a comment like "Bring the fucker on." Thing bounced away as I jammed on the brake.

 

I'm not sure what this wins, but it's gotta win something.

 

Dumbass. Even my no-car-to-drive ass knew the deer hung out there. Cursed creatures!

 

I was looking past it.