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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
ever had a near death experiance?
ever had a near death experiance?
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geordiebluesman
263 posts
Mar 13, 2010
2:12 AM
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My daughter just asked me why i am so weired and why i like to do dangerous things and i told her about a motorcycle accident i had in the late seventys when i had the experiance of being totaly certain that i was about to die and how surviving it changed me.
I must admit that i have never conciously thought about this until now but that terrifying moment has shaped my whole life and led me to a level of appreciation of the simple things that your average joe does not seem to have
I have spent my whole adult life trying to have a great time, both with and outside of my family and i think its that, "have a good time" mentality that drew me to the harp and the blues.
Aint it strange that a musical genre so centered on emotional and physical misery can produce such joy in people, and how great to begin to learn how to play that music and start to be able to give joy to other people
I think that is the best thing about learning to play, being able to do something that other folks cant and seeing them light up when you do it!
So to answere my daughters question, i do crazy dangerous thing because it makes me feel alive and thats also the reason i play harp! P.S. Im off to run with the bulls in july with my mate Ian in france, my wife is fretting about it coz i am fifty one with a bad back two duff knees and a pacemaker, but i pointed out to her that Ian is a fat bastard and as long as i can run faster than him i will be OK!
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congaron
665 posts
Mar 13, 2010
5:50 AM
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When I was 19, I worked at Myrtle beach state park during the summer. It was my summer job between college semesters. Two nights a week, I rotated into the front gate security position, keeping people out after midnight. Ironically, the guys from the Air Force base across the street were the main culprits trying to jump the gate after hours and hit the beach. It's ironic because several years later i was also in the Air Force.
Anyway, One night there was a severe thunderstorm. As I walked to the beach barefoot in the rising sun after work...my routine was to sleep on the beach after night shift...I didn't think much of a cable gate left down on the service road I was using. I never broke stride and stepped directly on a 28KV line that was down but not broken. It was the main feed to the campground area and a tree had evidently been hit and fell on the line, pulling the poles toward each other enough to get the line right on the ground over the road.
It was an extreme shock to the system, to say the least and i am fortunate to have survived it. Today, at 52, I have symptoms that worsen similar to a typical electrocution survivor, although I never fell down or lost consciousness as far as i know. I remember it well though and will never forget the sound in my head. One of the side effects is apparently a very high pain tolerance..so i guess that's mostly a good thing. I have, however cut myself at work and not felt it until i saw the blood, so maybe that's not always a good thing.
Near death, probably. slow me down, nah. I went on to to more daring and risky stuff. There was little change in my behaviors as a 19 year-old thrill seeker. I even body surfed with a hurricane off shore 90 miles away to catch the biggest waves ever seen at Myrtle beach....pretty foolish when I look back on it. They were breaking onto the fishing pier south of where I was body surfing. Maybe that was the near death experience.
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waltertore
266 posts
Mar 13, 2010
6:03 AM
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my entire teens through late 20's was a near death experience. I overdosed, and basically tried to kill myself with fighting, crazy driving, guns, and alcohol. It has taught me life is a precious gift and I have a lot of baggage from my childhood to work through. I have been diagnoses with post traumatic stress syndrome. It is a thing I will never be rid of, but I get better at accepting it and healing it. With this syndrome one has to do dangerous things to feel alive- the adrenilin glands are all out of wack basically. They have been triggered to many times and now to feel alive they have to be pumping,and they react to things that would never trigger a normal persons. I don't drink, do drugs, fight, carry guns, drive crazy, anymore. I was given a second chance to do something meaningful. That is what drew me to becoming a special education teacher. My wife has also died 2 times on the operating table and been reivied during our 30 years together. All this has shown us life is a true gift and we were born in a time a place in history to really make a difference. Our american way of life can be channeled to make the world a wonderful place. We have affluence, time to think, and education. That is the key to changing the world and we try to do our little piece of the puzzle. Music is another tool in my box of trying to make the world a better place than what I found it in when I came here. Walter
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Last Edited by on Mar 13, 2010 6:25 AM
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geordiebluesman
264 posts
Mar 13, 2010
1:25 PM
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Hey guys i can relate to both of your replys, I have had several severe electric shocks at work, one of them was of 750v, and that sure makes your eyes water!, on the plus side i recon it added an extra 6 months charge to my pacemaker!
Also this time last year my sister in law went in for a simple hernia operation and the surgeon cut a large lump out of her main artery, she died twice but they got her back with electric shocks and 43 units of blood.
I sat next to my little brother in the intensive care unit as this was all happening and you better believe i knew how precious life was that night
Last Edited by on Mar 13, 2010 1:27 PM
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nacoran
1408 posts
Mar 13, 2010
2:35 PM
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I don't think I was actually as close to death as I thought I was at the time, but I was in the hospital with multiple blood clots in absolute agony in a broken bed that I couldn't get the nurses to switch, with IV's in both arms and no family around. And I could barely move my right arm because I'd just had surgery on it. My left arm wasn't in much better shape.
I'd gone home after the shoulder surgery and fallen trying to get up out of bed. I'd cleaned the apartment real well before the surgery and all there was on the floor was a ten pack of VHS cassettes still shrink wrapped together on the floor, which I hit with my forearm. I was getting up to answer the phone. When I got to it I was so shaken up from the spill I told my friend to call back in ten minutes and if I didn't answer to call 911. I ended up with clots in both arms (from the surgery, the IV for the anesthesia and from the fall.) After that I was diagnosed with a clotting disorder so now I have to deal with blood thinners for the rest of my life. Why can't I have cool near death experiences. Mine make me sound old.
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Nate
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Hobostubs Ashlock
502 posts
Mar 13, 2010
2:46 PM
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about 15 year ago i had my 2nd pro kickboxing fight,i got a suberdera hemotobin,that showed up after,had to have brain surgery and got a steel plate and 25$ for my fight lol,then 8 years ago i was in a car accident,where they life flighted me spent a week in a coma and have 6 pins and a bar in my hip,in between those 2 i got in a fight with my brother and he stabbed me 3 times twice in the back,had to spend a night in ICU but weve gotten over it.OD a couple times,I dont know how much its changed my life but im sure it has,what makes me think deep is all my friends dieing these days.that gets me thinking more about life and death
Last Edited by on Mar 14, 2010 3:15 AM
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Aussiesucker
577 posts
Mar 13, 2010
4:10 PM
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Some of the above experiences sound harrowing and certainly would be life changing.
A different perspective is as you get older then one also re-evaluates their life and gets a different picture of what is really important.
The things that really matter become more apparent. One starts to realise the pursuit of possessions is soul destroying and in the end possessions own you. For me it's the simple things that are really important like family,friends,music and fitness. The harmonica & music as a hobby plays an important part in my life.
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gene
411 posts
Mar 13, 2010
4:34 PM
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When I was young, I flirted with death as many young people do. I was a dare devil, I guess.
But the closest I came to death (besides alcohol poising & stuff) is when some guys beat me and left me for dead. It didn't change my life. Not one little bit. It was just another thing to converse about.
Ya know what changed my life...slowed me down? Havin' kids. The kids turned me into an important person; some one who must not die.
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jonsparrow
2565 posts
Mar 13, 2010
5:42 PM
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iv had a few. ranging from being in a camaro with no seat belt an crashing into a tree at like 60mph. the tree won. an ODing a few times an going to the hospital. been in lots of accedents but that was the worst. but nothing is a scary as ODing. even though you have no idea what happened you still never forget it.
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jonsparrow
2566 posts
Mar 13, 2010
5:45 PM
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"Also this time last year my sister in law went in for a simple hernia operation and the surgeon cut a large lump out of her main artery, she died twice but they got her back with electric shocks and 43 units of blood."
you have no idea how bad i wish i didnt read that.
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Nastyolddog
421 posts
Mar 14, 2010
3:32 AM
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Iv'e had more than one near death experiance
WARNING WARNING WARNING EXPLETIVES WILL BE USED IF YOU ARE OFFENDED PLEASE DO NOT READ NAY FURTHER
Ok Bros im at a party we been hitting the piss and pot or what ever we could jam down our necks realy
hard,
so were fucking screaming of our faces out of control
im wacked of my face,
standing by the back of the house by the door
talking'
the host Big Sall walks out the door with a big plate of steak sandwiches,
i grabs a sandwich mucking around i takes a massive bite go to swallow well fuck me it gets caught in my throat,
i couldn't get it to go down and
i couldn't spit it fucking out,
meen time big sall walks of
im trying to tell my mate but i couldn't say a fucking thing,
thinking fuck I'm going to die from chokeing on a fucking steak Sandwich Fuck,
My Bro's looking at me going whats wrong man
im waveing my arms around and going down fast,
i goes down to my knees im on my hands
ready to black out i was fucking gone,
i hear this chick scream out he's fucking choking dick head grab him quick it was big Sall,
my mates run over and grab me as soon as they stood me up i coughed the fucking killer sandwaich out,
the fucking pricks rolled around laughing there guts out when they saw what it was,man i was in real fucking trouble Bro's..
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Tryharp
312 posts
Mar 14, 2010
4:12 AM
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NOD,
That was funny, when I saw your post, I'm thinking to myself this is gonna be good, bikie war, bike crash, gun fight, ... but no......nearly choked on a sandwich...ROFL...priceless.
Seriously though, the same thing happened to my misses. She lived in a flat above a bank by herself, in a small country town for a while. One night shes eating some chicken, swallows it and same thing, wont go down and wont come up. Shes all by herself, tried to swallow some water but it just flows back out, tries to bang her chest and so forth, but it wont come out.
Nearly out of air she decides to run down the stairway to the street to try to get help, and on the way down the stairs luckily it just dislodges and pops out.
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Tryharp
313 posts
Mar 14, 2010
4:13 AM
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That place had bad carma, in the short time she was there she had clothes stolen off the clothes line, one morning she walked out and there was a skun dead dog laying on the footpath at the front door ( scary stuff for a young girl on her own ).
At this same place, one night in the middle of the night, shes laying in bed, then all this noise of drilling and banging starts to happen below in the bank. Some one was walking on the verandah roof near her window flashing a torch around. It looks like someone is robbing the bank! Anyway she calls the bank manager, and he says there is no maintanence men sheduled there in the middle of the night, and to call the cops. So she calls the cops, and sits tight armed with a kitchen knife. The cops turn up, and the guys were lighting guys, undertaking scheduled maintanence in the middle of the night. That nearly scared the shit out of her, she got out of there soon after.
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nacoran
1415 posts
Mar 14, 2010
11:54 AM
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My dad tells a story about when he was a kid. He was travelling with his family in the car. He was sitting in the front seat, his sister was sitting behind him. She had candy and he asked for some. He leaned his head back and she dropped a piece and it got stuck in his windpipe.
Fortunately, it was a Lifesaver.
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Nate
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jbone
291 posts
Mar 15, 2010
12:29 AM
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aside from a few car wrecks and so forth- playing "dare ya" with "friends" on thin ice and falling through into freezing water up to my chest (had to get myself out and back home, everyone had run off before i got out), and a few other miscellaneous adventures, the one that sticks out for me is when, i the late 70's, i was dating a gal who was split up from her husband, a guy i knew sort of. one evening he invited me out to have a few beers on a hill overlooking the home town. he ended up sticking a .38 in my ribs for about 45 minutes and telling me i was a dead man for messing with his wife! a lot of crazy ranting and raving went on that night. i could see my neighborhood a couple miles away from up there and nobody or nothing to help me but my own wits. he kept making me get him out fresh beers and opening them for him since he had one hand stuck in my ribs with the pistol in it. i was supposed to match him beer for beer and i did for a few but then started dumping mine out every chance i got. i finally convinced him i needed to take a leak real bad (besides, i told him, if he shot me in his car it would be a big mess to clean up later), and he let me get out of the car, at which point i hit the ground and belly crawled about 100 feet to the tree line and ran my butt off straight down the hill through the brambles and brush. i left his ex alone after that. and avoided him like the plague. a couple years later he beat a guy almost to death over the same gal, left the guy permanently disabled, and last i knew was in prison for attempted murder.
this was a long time before i took up harp in a serious way. but experiences like those i think have given me a feel of the real world and shaped my playing style some. i am a balls-out player. i have good manners on stage but when it's my time i totally let it rip.
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geordiebluesman
270 posts
Mar 15, 2010
3:27 AM
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Hey Jaybone, that is a great anecdote, totally the bluesmans tale in every sense!, i have to say i am well impressed by the hardcore level of some of the experiences that have been shared in this thread.
I read Hobostubs bit about being stabbed by his own brother and was shocked until i recalled an incident that i had forgotten from my childhood when during a fight with my brother Neil i just managed to deflect a fully murderous knife blow to my face, he realy meant it and it was a big lethal knife but i got my hand up just in time and instead of getting a knife square between the eyes i got an almost compleatly severed right ear.
Mind you i was a violent little psyco as a kid i once almost killed my big sister by wiring her bedroom door handle to the mains.
I drew up a chair outside her room and then shouted "Roz mam wants to see you right now" and when i saw the door handle start to move i flicked the switch! then with a big bang all the lights went out, the doc said if my sister had been bare foot and not in slippers i would have killed her and i recon that would have made a significant difference to my life journey!
Last Edited by on Mar 15, 2010 3:30 AM
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Miles Dewar
452 posts
Mar 15, 2010
3:31 AM
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Arguing lip pursing vs tongue blocking.
Almost argued myself to death.
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geordiebluesman
271 posts
Mar 15, 2010
3:39 AM
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Good one Miles, te, he.
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the frozen canuck
88 posts
Mar 15, 2010
6:16 AM
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A little over 10yrs ago i impaled my self with a screw driver, 1 mm frm my brain,it ripped the membrain fractured my scuill,broke my nose & lost most of my spinel fluid through my nose.It took almost 6mts to learn how to walk again.Thanh GOD i did not loose my sight.Thanks to good friends
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jbone
292 posts
Mar 15, 2010
6:34 PM
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wow man! most i ever did with a screwdriver was stick one in my hand.
i've been in joints where some drunk was raving about shooting the place up- back in dallas area- because the barkeep would either shut him off or kick him out. one night a drunk like that came at a friend of mine who promptly broke a pool cue across the side of his head. ironic but my friend got the boot along with the drunk! in the parking lot the drunk came at him again and got his butt whupped for his mistake.
we played one joint that was a goat-roper country bar, the manager wanted to bring in a different crowd at least one night a week, and hired us, a blues band, to see if we could get some folks in. during the night we had cowboy wannabees coming up and wanting "george strait G________IT!" and "DO SOME HANK" etc etc. on break i had a guy just get all over me and threaten to get us kicked out- we were unamerican since we didn't know any country. i strayed nice and tried to explain that we were a blues band and no, we couldn't fake it through any country songs. later on, he was a lot drunker and stood in front of me yelling while we were doing our set. which i ignored until he hopped up about 2 feet onto the stage and made to grab the mic stand. i saw it coming and whocked both his shins with it, which put him on the floor real quick, and he rolled off stage to the dance floor. laid there screaming at me while i just finished the song and we went into the next one. i figured i was dead meat by the end of the night, so we just kept playing. i expected that we'd have a crew waiting on us when we loaded out later, but for whatever reason nobody hassled us. never show fear anyway.
another time we were playing an absolute hole out near dfw airport. we'd got there n time but the p.a. guy had forgot the p.a. head and had to drive 1/2 hour each way to get it. meanwhile we had to start the gig and sing through my bullet mic/princeton rig. the owner came by several times and ripped into us for not being ready. but i replied, hey, we're here and we're playing and singing. p.a. head arrived and we did the rest of the gig. which by the way we had to be off the floor by midnight sharp to make room for the trash disco dj and a floor full of dancers. on top of that the guy tried to stiff us on pay but the leader stood up to him and we did get paid most of what we were supposed to. BUT as we began loading gear out we all noticed that we each had at least one flat tire on our cars. we got the message and never went back there. the place was sold and razed to widen the highway thankfully.
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geordiebluesman
274 posts
Mar 16, 2010
1:17 AM
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Hey Jbone, great stories from the road mate, that first tale put me in mind of the bit in The Blues Brother when the band plays a gig at Bobs Country Bunker, i loved the line in that bit when they ask Bobs wife what kind of music they usually have on stage and she replies " Oh we have both kinds Country and Western", i pissed myself over that line the first time i saw the film!
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CaptainBolide
8 posts
Mar 16, 2010
2:22 AM
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how about three near misses in as many weeks.
1st off a cougar follows me back to my cabin from the neighbors place, which was a couple hundred yards walk through the woods with one creek crossing. This time it was midnight or later, as I'd come to the creek and crossed it, and hiked up the far side toward my place.
All the while I could hear something following me on the high side of the terrain as I went. Once it dawned on my that this was not a deer, but a @#$% cougar... nothing else could move that fast over that rough crossing... and there I was with not even a @#$% knife. Meanwhile I'm calling my rottweiler, who wasn't responding... she knew enough to not bark at the cougars and bears. She was hiding under the cabin, the trail to which happened to curve back away from the cat following me.
The next week, I rolled my jeep off the logging road/driveway to my mailbox and the main road about a mile from my door.
Got lucky there, a large bush stopped the roll after the first time over. Otherwise it would have been a rude ride to the base of the mountain.
The next week, the neighbors daughter put a full gas can about 2 inches from the exhaust of the generator that the place was running on. As we were standing only a few yards away, I noticed it and we inspected the plasic gas can... it was just about melted through. I'm fairly sure that fireball would have hurt a bunch and left a mark or two...
I almost forgot about the crazed gold miner that was running around picking fights while trying to quit smoking tobacco... long story short, he didn't like me and wanted to shoot me with my own shotgun out in the woods.
The end of that story... he drove home with a load of stink in the seat of his overalls, and I walked back with my shotgun. He's a asshat but I liked his lady and I just couldn't do that to her. Same guy put a .22 through my neighbors pant leg, while he was wearing them... and picked a fist fight with a one-armed gold miner buddy, and lost.
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geordiebluesman
278 posts
Mar 16, 2010
12:19 PM
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Wow you american guys have got some great tales to tell, I mean you guys live in a place where there are lions wondering about!, not to mention bears.
I saw a programe about bear attacks recently and it shit me right up coz they said that coz bears are so big and fast they dont need to kill their prey quickly to avoid it escaping or injuring them so if a bear gets you it will most likely just sit on you and start eating you alive!
So my advice to you Captain is, If you go down to the woods today---- Take a bloody Bazooka with ya!
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