Dangerous or Life Threatening Situations

Were you a miner or Chinese launderer during the CP railway expansion? Some of their accounts sound like yours.

Wow, you've had some life experiences no one I know would have ever nightmares about, much less lived.

I'm very intrigued by you in this thread.

Another hitching episode. I left a cafe in a small town, walking to get out a ways to thumb another ride. I didn't see this big German Shepherd in front of a mobile home, the last building before the open road. The dog came at me, furiously barking. I put my traveling bag between us and he nipped a hole in it. He kept me pinned to that sidewalk while he raged at me for a long time. I was certain he was working himself up for the attack. What can I do? I asked myself. Obviously there was no escape. I gave the dog an evil stare. That just excited him more. Finally the owner came out of the mobile home and led the dog away. I had stood perfectly still throughout the ordeal, not even changing my impassive expression the whole time, other than than the ugly look at him that once. Two older men sitting in chairs nearby had watched the entire episode. As I began walking as though nothing had happened I heard one tell the other, "I wouldn't give him a ride."

Due to lack of interest I will wrap up my stories now.

My brother Sam was at odds with the cops in a little town we had to pass through to get to San Antonio. I don't know how it started, but every time the local officer saw his car he pulled him over and harrassed him. Coming home one day with just one headlight, Sam took the long way around to avoid getting stopped. It was nighttime, immediately after a helluva storm. As we approached the bridge it was so dark out there he wisely stopped to check it out. We both walked up to it but it was so dark we couldn't see a thing. A bolt of lightning lit up the whole landscape, showing us that if either of us had taken a single step more we would have fallen to the rocks twenty feet below, for the bridge was totally gone.

Thanks, Ed. Not sure why no one seems to be contributing to the thread. Maybe everyone just has lived very safe lives.

Oh, well. I enjoyed it.

In fact there is another time on the sidewalk in Osaka, Japan. I didn't like to hang around the bars and nightclubs particularly. I often walked just to be doing something. I was a lonely guy. I made the mistake of saying hello to a woman and seeing her react in fear. I immediately went on my way and took a taxi back to the base. A friend of mine told me he watched the incident on the sidewalk. He described a group of men that were following me. I got in the cab just before they were to grab me. I would have suffered severe pain if not death, I guarontee.

I've been trying to work up the courage to talk about some of the things I've experienced, so don't let my reticence discourage you. I enjoy your stories Ed, please don't stop.

We were assembling rows of bins in a warehouse. I'm guessing the units were eight or ten feet in height. We spent a couple of weeks putting them together. The man in charge should have double-checked that everyone was tightening the bolts, not just snugging them up. I was standing atop the bins when the whole works were about half stocked and the whole works gave way and crashed to the floor. We were lucky no one got hurt. I rode it down and walked away. We were all temps and didn't have to answer to anybody. I have no idea what happened to the man we worked for. I hope he didn't get fired.

When I was very young...toddler age, I was in the car with my dad. I was in the back seat and at that time kids were not in car seats...we also did not have child safety locks. I guess I was playing with the car door and it swung open. We were on a road just off the highway so it was a pretty fast speed.

Any way out I went ..fortunately it was winter and I had a thick pink snowsuit on with a pink hat. It helped cushion my fall and made me very visible to car behind us. The driver behind saw my fall and stopped avoiding me being hit while my dad unknowingly kept driving. Not sure how far he drove before he realized the car door was open and I was missing. Amazingly I was not hurt.

I still have that hat.

That was a scary one

There are some things that happened in my early twenties that I have never told anyone about - out of shame. Like being locked up for things I did while drunk. Like pointing a loaded gun at a stranger’s head.
I spent two months in jail in Fayetteville, NC when it was known to the locals as “Fayette-Nam”, because there was so much violent crime it was supposedly like a little Vietnam. So there were some bad dudes in that jail. Guys who were used to being there.

I was in a ‘bullpen’. Not individual cells, but a big open bay with a couple dozen bunk beds. You couldn’t avoid interacting. I didn’t get beat up (or other things), but I came close. I spoke up when the meanest, most feared guy in there had pushed past me in a line.

He said “I’m gonna stuff your punkass through those bars.” Trying to sound tough I said “I’ll put you six feet under.” Everyone was waiting for him to flatten me. He just scoffed and said “This motherf***er is crazy!” And he left me standing there. I never knew why he didn’t mangle me.

A man once told me, "You are not that big but you can hit hard. Big guys would be afraid to fight you because of the possible embarrassment of a smaller guy beating them."

Now that's scary!

Well I certainly do not remember this - this is obviously a recall from my parents and my mom kept that pink hat feeling in part that helped save me so I still have it today.

I can only imagine how my dad felt when he did she the door wide open and his daughter gone.

For me I can vouch for why parents say do not play with the car door! There is actually a good reason for it.

Jeezus, man.

Once when I was overseas, my unit had returned from a hilltop firebase and was enjoying some down time at the Headquarters and Service Battery. We got to drink cold beer and play ping pong — it seemed like a f***ing spa! Well, one night some kid (we were all kids) freaks out. He's got a .45 and he's alternately crying and threatening people, walking around the room and confronting guys individually. When he got to me and stuck that thing in my face — the end of the barrel looked as big as a sewer pipe — I did wonder if I were going home in a body bag. The whole episode didn't last longer than five minutes and, luckily, he never pulled the trigger, on me or anyone else. I still remember seeing his name on his fatigue shirt – "Boerrell".

Opps should be

"I can only imagine how my dad felt when he saw the door wide open and his daughter gone...."

I pulled a goldman

Goldman always says fixed when he corrects himself.

Fixed

That’s it.