Close Calls

[Scrooge McDuck]

Well, one dangerous moment was when I was sitting in our solar powered speedboat. The minutes before this all happened, I successfully made it through the classification trial course. While slowly drifting around, I heard a kind of muted bang. For some reason I knew it had to be a problem with the Li-Ion battery pack. Felt a quick heat-wave moving from my back to the front (escaping the 'hole' in the fuselage where I was in).
Getting out of the 'cockpit' usually took some time, but this time I bailed out into the water as quick as possible.
The moment I was in the water, I saw a big flame coming out of the cockpit where I sat just moments before.. You could hear the Li-Ion cell strings blow one by one. The minutes after, the whole thing exploded and burned up...


Another occurrence from which I learned a lot:
One day we where flying sailplanes from an airfield on top of a hill. This is great for many reasons, and also impressive at take off. After being launched by the winch, I noticed a very nice cumulus cloud. Good cumulus clouds almost always have good thermal below them, that's why they are interesting for gliders. So flew straight at this cloud.
About half-way I started thinking that it took longer to reach it, than I expected. I made a turn to look at the field behind me, and got a bit 'shocked'.. the airfield seemed to be very far away...
Started gliding back, once I reached the landing circuit, I noticed I never had enough altitude left to fly a full circuit. I knew that on the final leg (downwind the mountain), there was a kind of 'invisible' rotor in the air, a big turbulence that would pull your plane down then up.
So... I wasn't anywhere near the required normal circuit altitude, much lower, so I decided to land half-way the airfield, skipping the final leg. This is a normal procedure, but one of my first times doing this solo. In a glider you only have one chance to land (like the space shuttle ) - no go-arounds - so planning ahead is important. Landed safely, but learned one important thing: Always keep an eye your airfield, until you have enough altitude for greater distances.

regards,
mcduck

 

[Kveldulf]

And I fell on my back and my chest several time and were unable to breathe for some seconds.

I've had that happen to me before too. I fell out of a tree on my stomach once.

Do you refer to it as "getting the wind knocked out of you" too, or is that a US thing?

 

[Zatnikitelman]

I have several every morning, it's called Atlanta rush hour traffic!

 

[T.Neo]

Do you refer to it as "getting the wind knocked out of you" too, or is that a US thing?

No, I think we refer to it here in SA as well.

It isn't a pleasant feeling.

 

[SlyCoopersButt]

I have several every morning, it's called Atlanta rush hour traffic!

Been there! Me and my dad always compare things risk-wise to it. Like how flying is so much safer!

It's hard to say what my biggest risks ever were except I know I had a lot of close calls with the long ones you know as snakes in an infested area I once lived. And they weren't the typical sort. Glad I don't live there anymore. From the sound of it, Everyone here is lucky to be alive or in one peice! Lets all be astronauts, We'll live longer!

 

[Suzy]

Got knocked off my bicycle twice (so far!) - only ended up with bruises, though! Also was in a car accident when I was 5 or 6 - wasn't wearing a seat belt, but I just hung onto the back seat tightly (a car ran into us from behind).

 

[Dickie]

When I was in 6th Form I was cycling home and took on a BMW...he won (albeit I maintain a moral victory based on the fact his wing-mirror was more expensive than my bike pedal).

Um, and there's been a few times when out windsurfing on pretty dodgy conditions when I did wonder if I might make it back to the beach!

However, the closest I have ever come to death was accidentally suggesting to a girl from Stoke that she should lose weight.

 

[Scarecrow]

I've never been shot at, or had my life threatened by the deliberate actions of someone else (thankfully). I have had a few relatively minor scares though.

My Dad and I were driving on the highway, towing a trailer, in a very heavy rainstorm, when the car in front of us spun out. It drifted over to the left, caromed off the Jersey barrier, then back over to the right, and stopped in the breakdown lane. It missed us, but we pulled over a couple hundred yards beyond and made our first 911 call ever. Nobody was hurt, thankfully.

The other two times I can think of were both while I on my high school's sailing team. The first time was in late March or early April, in Vineyard Sound, to the south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. It was a windy day, the water was COLD, my drysuit was leaky (it was really more of a spray suit at this point), and my crew and I capsized our 420 (it didn't turtle though). We managed to right it, but my leaky drysuit had filled with cold water, and the combination of the weight and the significant decrease in strength that comes with being really really cold prevented me from getting back in. for some reason my crew couldn't get in either, though I don't think her drysuit leaked. Anyway, if it weren't for the committe boat picking us up, we would have been in very serious trouble.

Later that same season, we had a race on a windy, rainy, shifty day. We were sailing a modified triangle course, with the start and finish in the middle, and on the leg from the jibe mark to the downwind mark, we jibed accidently, the boom came across, and I got a good whack in the head. Being the skipper, I had the tip of the boom too, so it was moving fast. It knocked my hat off (miraculously, it was recovered by chance, by another boat on our team), raised a lump, and I had a headache for a couple of days after. Fortunately I retained consiousness the whole time, but if I had been knocked out, I could have fallen overboard and drowned.

Other than that though, nothing too bad. No falling pianos, no stray bullets.