How close have you come?

[Wezil]

To being a Darwin Award nominee?

for those unfamiliar: http://www.darwinawards.com/

Inspired by Pekka's thread about his near fatal cooking incident...

Personally, I was an accident prone and foolish child but have lived much safer as an adult.

As I child I:

- got stuck in a frozen shut automobile in what was obviously very cold weather. I was finally rescued when someone inside the house heard my faint screams. It never occurred to me to honk the horn.
- almost died of hypothermia returning from a downhill sled hill in wet clothes. A walk of 2 miles through the countryside alone.
- fell from second floor to a main floor garage floor when "high" on my first cigarette
- got a little too curious with a sample of mercury left unattended in Grade 6 science class. Everyone seemed rather freaked out for some reason.


Let's hear your tales.

[BlackCat]

As a child I got me a scar on my neck from the tip of a scythe.

[Pekka]

TOo many, just too many. No reason to even list them, would make my longest post ever. Some of them serious as well.

[Wezil]

Yikes!

Who was swinging it?

[BlackCat]

I was five years old and wanted to help daddy cut some grass - when he saw me messing with it, he tore it out of my hands and in that the tip scratched my neck.

[Pekka]

That's when it always happens, isn't it BC? When boys want to be like their fathers.... emulating what they do, especially when working on something... wanting to help and be part of that event.

The source of all childhood injuries .

YOu see, this is why girls don't have so many scars. They don't try to be like their fathers. They try to be like their mothers, so they know how to behave nice, how to say "would you like some more coffee?" and memorize all those secret recepies for chocolate chip cookies. That's not dangerous you see, so that's why girls don't have scars and boys do.

[Wezil]

My first time on a motorcycle was at age 12. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and no instruction. I figured it was just like TV and all I had to do was the wrist action and all would be fine. I didn't think ahead to how I was going to stop. Took off like a rocket and crashed into some bushes.

[Tiamat]

Thought I faked being sick back when they made thermometors with mercury and held it over the coffee pot steam to heat it up.....it shattered. Brilliant

[SpencerH]

Too many to number. Heres one that wasnt illegal,

We used to go drink many many bottles of cheap rotgut then go repelling off a wonderful 150 ft overhang with a single line (didnt have enough rope for double line). If that wasnt stupid enough, the trick was to make it down in as few bounds as possible i.e. leap off away from the cliff then after free falling well below the overhang brake hard and swing in (straining the single rope to the limit) bound off and fall to ground. the alternative was simply to leap off and roll when hitting the ground.

maybe only climbers and para's will really understand just how stupid (but fun) it was

[Asmodean]

Hmm - I was in a car accident once, when the car I was in tipped over and landed upside down.

Don't know if you can call it a close call, though. I didn't even get a scratch.

Asmodean

[Arrian]

I jumped my car off a hump in a road at 60mph in a 25mph zone, got feet of air, landed in the other lane facing a telephone pole and an oncoming car.

Idiocy. Sheer idiocy. Luckily for all concerned, I was able to avoid both telephone pole and oncoming car. Somehow, my car was largely undamaged. They don't make 'em like they used to.

-Arrian

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by SpencerH
Too many to number. Heres one that wasnt illegal,

We used to go drink many many bottles of cheap rotgut then go repelling off a wonderful 150 ft overhang with a single line (didnt have enough rope for double line). If that wasnt stupid enough, the trick was to make it down in as few bounds as possible i.e. leap off away from the cliff then after free falling well below the overhang brake hard and swing in (straining the single rope to the limit) bound off and fall to ground. the alternative was simply to leap off and roll when hitting the ground.

maybe only climbers and para's will really understand just how stupid (but fun) it was

[Shrapnel12]

I have a couple that are not as good as I've read, but I'll share anway.

The first was when I was in high school, I spotted a mother black bear and her two cubs. For those who don't know, I live in Ohio and you just don't see bears in Ohio. It is a very rare event and I knew that no one would belive me if I told them, so I attempted to get as close as I could and take pictures of them. Fortunately the mother never saw me and they all took off.

The second was shortly after graduation, I was stationed in Idaho. We were exploring a cave. Near the end, you had to climb a bit to get out the exit. Almost to the top, I grabbed a hold of a rock and it easily came lose. I did a Wile E. Coyote before scrambling to grab ahold of a more secure handhold. I swear I did actually defy gravity for about half a second, either that or time slowed down to Matrix levels.

[BlackCat]

Well, it seems that manly driving also counts

Once doing 60 on a snowcovered road I pulled the hand breake (parking ?) - next moment I bumped around on a field and on the route back to the road just missed two road trees.

It was in the middle of the night, so it wasn't insanely stupid, just manly stupid

[Arrian]

Manly stupid

Like driving around in the middle of the night with your lights off? While racing a friend doing the same thing?

It's amazing I made it out of highschool.

-Arrian