Hello and thank you for being a DL contributor. We are changing the login scheme for contributors for simpler login and to better support using multiple devices. Please click here to update your account with a username and password.

Hello. Some features on this site require registration. Please click here to register for free.

Hello and thank you for registering. Please complete the process by verifying your email address. If you can't find the email you can resend it here.

Hello. Some features on this site require a subscription. Please click here to get full access and no ads for $1.99 or less per month.

Have you ever been close to death?

I was thinking how I managed to cheat death 3 times in my life. The first was when I had a near heart attack with a 99.9% blockage in my left anterior descending artery ( the widow maker). Weird thing is, I often went for treadmill stress tests and nothing showed up. For 5 months, I had occasional chest pain but chalked it up to high blood pressure and disbelief I passed those stress tests with flying colors. My partner finally rushed me to the ER on a day I was setting off to take a long flight to Alaska. I ended up getting a heart stent but the docs couldn't get the guide wire through on the first two attempts. The open heart surg team was called in to get me ready. The third time was charm and the doctor got it through. Now I am am doing great. The second time, I had developed a bleeding ulcer from years of using Extra Strength aspirin for sinus headaches. WIth the blood thinner, I was bleeding to death where I could no longer stand up without passing out. If my partner wasn't here, I would have died on the living room floor. The third was when I nearly drowned in Hawaii, snorkeling. The riptide pulled me out so far, I couldn't swim back. One of my flippers fell off and wasn't wearing a life jacket. I called for help and two women, swam out to pull me in while the men watched from the shore. They finally came out to bring me in when I was closer to the beach. Don't know why I am still here but God ain't done with me yet.

by Anonymousreply 29July 24, 2019 12:15 PM

Oh yes, after I hit my sister with a golf club and she died. I was only about three inches from her.

Thank God I had pineapple to snap me out of it.

by Anonymousreply 1July 18, 2019 4:43 AM

Yes, I've been in 2 serious car accidents, and 5 years ago I was hospitalized for a year due to complications from a surgery. I developed a major infection and peritonitis and had to have 3 more surgeries.

by Anonymousreply 2July 18, 2019 4:47 AM

I'm more interested in how each brush of death felt or was acknowledged. Were you fading out? Were departed loved ones beckoning you at the end of a tunnel? Did you hear someone declare you dead? (My stepfather did when EMTs treated him at a car accident scene.)

by Anonymousreply 3July 18, 2019 4:52 AM

went into hospital 8 yrs ago with PC P pneumonia and cd4 count of 25. Dr. "Doom" said I was a dead man walking. Hadn't seen a case this bad since the 80's!

by Anonymousreply 4July 18, 2019 4:58 AM

I was almost killed by a drunk driver 30 years ago. The driver rear ended me at a high speed. I blacked out momentarily as my car was spinning out. When I blacked out I saw a large white board with writing on it that said "I am going to die". I quickly snapped out of it as my car hit the center divider. I had a severe concussion because I broke the rear view mirror with my head, but I didn't have any broken bones. That was the closest I've come to dying.

by Anonymousreply 5July 18, 2019 5:14 AM

How old are you Op? I mean holy fuckery

by Anonymousreply 6July 18, 2019 5:25 AM

I will respond once I've had a day or so. But it ws strange.

by Anonymousreply 7July 18, 2019 5:44 AM

OP, I take it your stuff spoken for?

by Anonymousreply 8July 18, 2019 5:48 AM

Bump

by Anonymousreply 9July 18, 2019 10:40 PM

I was almost gassed to death. I worked in a refinery one summer while in college, and was assigned (along with another college kid) to open and clean an h2s scrubber. We had been told the scrubber was offline and depressurized. We were seconds from breaking the seal when a guy ran out of the shop and told us to run away, the scrubber was on line. We both would have been killed instantly. My father was a powerful Vice President with the company, and when I told him that night (by phone) what had happen, he fired the plant manager and the foreman the next day and had me transferred to an office job at corporate .

by Anonymousreply 10July 18, 2019 11:05 PM

Was in a car wreck back in 1986. Nice head wound - they stitched me up no concussion, nothing. I am a pretty tough customer - the night of the accident I went on the air.

by Anonymousreply 11July 18, 2019 11:17 PM

Was on a plane that lost an engine shortly after takeoff and had to return to the airport and make an emergency landing. It’s not a good feeling to see all the firefighting equipment racing onto the runway, knowing it’s for you. I remember it being very quiet all the way back.

by Anonymousreply 12July 18, 2019 11:41 PM

Earlier this year, I fell and broke my shoulder (my humerus, where it attaches to my shoulder). I couldn't lift myself up to call for help. I eventually managed to get up on my feet........but fell again, and broke the humerus again. This time, it was a spiral break, which is much worse. I was stuck on the floor, on my back, for four days. I wet myself and shit myself (of course). People kept calling me, but I couldn't even crawl to a phone. My boss finally tracked my sister down, and she called my brother, who broke into my house (I don't get it, since he has a key), and he called an ambulance. They had to concentrate on stabilizing my vital signs, since I hadn't been able to take any of my prescriptions, and my blood pressure was through the roof, and my kidneys were beginning to fail. And I was completely delirious. I've always been terrified of Alzheimer's disease, since it runs in my family, and its what killed my Dad. But, when I was delirious, I was busy helping pick out Meghan and Harry's baby's name (before he was even born). I was very deep into some bizarre dream, and imagined I had some hateful person living with me and poking rods into my (broken) arm to torture me, since I didn't know that my own body could hurt so badly. The nurses in the ER were making fun of my fantasy world, since I really believed what I told them (my brother had to explain to them what had actually happened, since I was in my dream world).

They told my brother that I would have died if I had been stuck on the floor for another day. He finally got to spend time and get to know my ex-BF, and even my sister called and we had a nice talk.

by Anonymousreply 13July 19, 2019 2:24 AM

R13, you sound like an attention whore

by Anonymousreply 14July 19, 2019 8:03 PM

Back in 1996 I got into a confrontation with some loudmouth jerk in a parking lot. It got to the point that we were about to start throwing punches, when a cop car shows up and broke us up.

The next day the police are at my door and I figured the other guy was going to press charges. Turns out he was the leader of a biker gang who was trying to infiltrate our city.

The cops were there to warn me that an undercover cop had heard this guy order a couple of club members to track me down and beat me to death as a warning to people. They told me to lay low until they could get enough evidence in a drug sting to put him away.

by Anonymousreply 15July 19, 2019 9:41 PM

Holy shit, r15. I would have been out of town.

by Anonymousreply 16July 21, 2019 2:38 AM

That’s intense r13 and r15

by Anonymousreply 17July 23, 2019 5:05 PM

I feel you, R13. I will be 69 next month and have been retired since 2013. I do not have a walk out basement, so a few years ago I trained myself NEVER to go down there without a cell phone IN MY HAND - even if it's just to get laundry out of the dryer or whatever. I used to have a land line down there, but no more. I make sure that phone is never more than a few inches away from my hand.

Also, no ladders or step stools for me any more ever. Changing light bulbs, cleaning gutters, etc, falls under my "pay someone to do it" clause. I'm glad you didn't break your hip. Everybody snickers at those "I've fallen and I can't get up" ads, but falls are the #1 cause of death in older adults. Thank God for your boss! He saved your life.

by Anonymousreply 18July 23, 2019 5:28 PM

Nothing yet, but I live alone and don't see anyone for the most part. I don't speak to the only relative I have within 500 miles. If I die, my body won't be found until someone smells it and calls the police.

by Anonymousreply 19July 23, 2019 5:46 PM

Last year I had a heart attack in the ER. I went into respiratory failure, and the last thing I remembered was yelling 'I can't breathe' and 'I'm dying'. Then I was saved by the intervention of a great cardiologist. The next thing I remember was the next day in the ICU, and I was on some powerful drugs. Almost my entire family showed up to visit me because they were all in town for the funeral of my step-aunt, and they all thought I was on the verge of death.

by Anonymousreply 20July 23, 2019 5:47 PM

Yes, but I knew from the start that it would be nothing compared to the rest of DataLounge.

I almost drowned as a kid, once, then I almost died from pneumonia as an adult.

by Anonymousreply 21July 23, 2019 9:40 PM

I saw Madonna perform in the Boston area about 2008, and I though I might have been dead and in hell.

by Anonymousreply 22July 24, 2019 2:09 AM

Like r18 said, r13 should have had a phone. I have an elderly uncle who doesn't have internet and has a flip phone and lives alone. I've been researching what to get him and here are some options for those of you in a similar situation: -Get an iPhone and train Siri to recognize your voice so even when it is far away you can say "hey, Siri, call 911 on speakerphone."

-Get an Apple Watch. They have a feature that will recognize if you have fallen on the floor and it will automatically dial the phone numbers of people you program/designate to inform them you probably need help.

-Life Alert

-911 Help Now doesn't require a monthly program and is available at Walmart and was just on HSN.

by Anonymousreply 23July 24, 2019 2:31 AM

"Have you ever been close to death?"

I was once seated at a charity event between Anna Wintour and Karl Lagerfeld.

What do you think?

by Anonymousreply 24July 24, 2019 2:36 AM

Yes, once from a horrific car accident when I drove head on into a bridge. The passenger, my best friend, was not so lucky. He had two open heart surgeries but was never the same and the damage eventually cost him his life. The second was an unintentional drug overdose. Fortunately a friend found me in time and called 911.

by Anonymousreply 25July 24, 2019 2:48 AM

When I was sixteen, I was run over while crossing the street on my way to see The Exorcist. The driver was a priest. I had lost consciousness briefly and thought I had died.

by Anonymousreply 26July 24, 2019 2:53 AM

I almost died of old age reading that post, OP.

The "return" key used twice can be your friend.

by Anonymousreply 27July 24, 2019 2:56 AM

I almost suffocated from rimming a guy the other night.

by Anonymousreply 28July 24, 2019 3:15 AM

What with all this carrying cell phones for elderly? That "I've fallen and can't get up" thing is far better.

by Anonymousreply 29July 24, 2019 12:15 PM
Loading
Need more help? Click Here.

Yes indeed, we too use "cookies." Take a look at our privacy/terms or if you just want to see the damn site without all this bureaucratic nonsense, click ACCEPT. Otherwise, you'll just have to find some other site for your pointless bitchery needs.

×

Become a contributor - post when you want with no ads!