What's the scariest thing you've ever done?

[Cheapjack]

For me, it was when I sparred, not very well, with a Taekwondo green belt, who reckoned he could break my arm with one punch and collapse my larynx.

Everyone I worked with was terrified of him, including one bloke who had of reign of terror over the entire workplace and always seemed to cause trouble when he wasn't in.

He didn't break my arm or collapse my larynx.

I also once had a gang of kids tried to break into my house. They looked at me in total amazement, when I kicked one of them.

 

[Kestra]

Joining my first Trek forum. I was told it was a place of mystery and wonder, but not for the faint of heart. They were right.

 

[think]

I had a gun pointed at my head by a crack addict who was high and asked me if I wanted to die ,,, I said no and he turned the gun 90 degrees and shot out the window basically deafening me in the left ear.--I would of been number 54 in that persons list of kills but I too was scraping the ceiling as being so high.

 

[Cheapjack]

That's scary.

 

[O'Dib]

I nearly parked a canoe into a baby at a beach once. A rather large friend was in front of me as I was rowing, so I didn't see her. He shouted "baby!" at me several times with a stupid grin, and I thought he meant something about an old lady that went by that nickname. "Brake!" would've been more useful. Anyway, some guy saw what was about to happen and ran up to pick up the girl.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

At the age of 11 i climbed down on the outside of the high rise flats via the back stair communal verandas from floor 19 right down to the ground, that we we lived in during the 70s.....if my parents had known i would not be around now.

This is the most brain dead, stupidest most idiotic thing i have ever done thankfully.

 

[Ablative_Oberth]

Outside of military service, the scariest thing I did was cut the high-pressure line on a hydro-press so we could open the ram back up and get the operator's arm out of it.

Full-body welding leathers, goggles, mask, helmet had a piece of aluminum sheet as a crude shield. Cut into the line with a circular saw.... high pressure hot oil EVERYWHERE.

Managed to save the dude's arm though that was the only thing that mattered. Company redesigned the presses after that with a manual unload valve and light-curtain protection.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

I had a gun pointed at my head by a crack addict who was high and asked me if I wanted to die ,,, I said no and he turned the gun 90 degrees and shot out the window basically deafening me in the left ear.--I would of been number 54 in that persons list of kills but I too was scraping the ceiling as being so high.

One time in high school a friend hooked me up with some girl he knew. We met in a park behind her house, and there were these bloods hanging around on the other side of the park. She starts yelling at them like, "Hey, FUCK YOU!" So they come over and get in my face. We managed to settle it by saying that someone else had said it, and they were skeptical, but they walked away and left us alone. I never spoke to that bitch again.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

When I was a kid, probably 4, in Michigan, I almost drowned in a lake. I fell off a drop off point and started sinking to the bottom.
I can still remember seeing all kinds of weird colors and stuff in front of my eyes, kind of a bright yellow with sparkling purple dots. Next thing I knew my mom had run out and grabbed me out of the water.

 

[Kail]

Hitting an ice patch on a crowded freeway and spinning out of control. Thought I was gonna die, but remarkably never hit a thing.

 

[XwarlokX]

Aside from two auto accidents that I wish wouldn't have happened. The scariest thing that has happened to me yet was a couple weeks ago.

My dads dually broke down on the side of Interstate 10 near here, which is basically a giant bridge across 3 or 4 miles of swampland and marshes.

I had to go in and rescue his truck and everyone in it while cars were speeding by at 70-90mph. If any of those drivers had lost focus for just a second...it could have ended very badly for all of us.

 

[TerokNor]

Hmm... *let me think* ...the most scariest thing, that comes to my mind, is some helping gone wrong.
I was a teen, I wanted to help a friend... however in the end, what I had started let to a total computer crash of a major company and its sister companies in my country and abroad. :-/
Of course that was not done by purpose..it was an..accident. Don´t ask....
However, the company manager were fast in finding my adress and he had many laywers who were all ready busy with "my case". He spoke of 13...hmm...though I am not sure, if he told me the truth or if he wanted only to scare me some more...or does one need 13 laywers for one case?
They called my parents...my parents were NOT amused....
The companies had suffered a fall out that went in very high sums of money....and it took them some work to get there systems running again.
I all ready saw myself at court, in prison and having to deal with so much dept, that my grand children would still have to pay it off.
And yes I was REALLY scared! I cried loudly the whole night, I think I was nearly histeric, telling over and over again, that I was sorry, that I didn´t want to go to prison... till even my fathers anger broke and he came in trying to calm me down.

In the end I had to speak to the highest manager, explain everything, tell him how very very veeeeeeery sorry I was, that I would never do something so stupid again and because he was nice and didn´t want to destroy my life, he let me, after some "wise words" go... and called of the laywers.
I was SO reliefed...and I did learn my lesson...


TerokNor

P.S. And that you do not missunderstand it...I actually did nothing too worse...my part was that I wrote the request of my friend in a mesage and send it to a friend online with the words, forward it to your friends. ...One little stone...so to speak...and in the end it was a whole mountain that came crashing down (because someone forwarded the message with some strange computer- order to those companies and that overloaded the computers...well and all the mails coming back to me from everywhere in the world also overloaded my own computer, and the server I was using to go online and I had every TV sender possible calling me). NEVER put the words "Forward it" anywhere online! And teach your children that WORLD WIDE WEB truly is WORLD WIDE, before letting them go onilne.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I was standing about five feet from a tree when it was struck by lighting. A few years later I was three feet from a different tree when it was struck by lighting. The latter singed most of my upper arm nice and good.

 

[RedShirt]

Outside of military service, the scariest thing I did was cut the high-pressure line on a hydro-press so we could open the ram back up and get the operator's arm out of it.

Full-body welding leathers, goggles, mask, helmet had a piece of aluminum sheet as a crude shield. Cut into the line with a circular saw.... high pressure hot oil EVERYWHERE.

Managed to save the dude's arm though that was the only thing that mattered. Company redesigned the presses after that with a manual unload valve and light-curtain protection.

I've been working a long time on large industrial plastic production machines (various press sizes from 200 to 1200 tons) and I thank my lucky stars that I've never been in a situation where I've had to rescue an operator. I am boggled that the system you mentioned had no manual unloading valve... was it very old or made in South America or something? Heck, powering down the machine should have de-energized all electrically operated loading valves so you must've had a hell of a situation to resort to cutting a high pressure line.

One of the scariest things that has ever happened to me was being shot at while riding my back to work a long time ago. I didn't equate the quick popping noise to gunfire until I heard bullets whizzing past me... that is a sound you never forget.

A few years ago I was resetting a tripped circuit breaker on a 240V heating unit for one of the plastic machines I mentioned above when every breaker in that particular system abruptly exploded except for the one I had my fingers on. The flash blinded me and the sound deafened my... I honestly thought I was dead for a few seconds and had a brief existential conversation with myself over whether or not you can wonder if you're dead when you die . I felt hands on me moving me around, sitting me down, but it was a few minutes before my vision came back and much longer for my hearing to return. All the hair was singed off of my right arm and I had minor burns on the back of my hand, other than that I was fine.
I spent the rest of the shift tearing the machine apart; I found & fixed the short that tripped the first breaker (which oddly enough did not trip during the explosion), but neither I nor any of my coworkers could explain how all the other breakers in the circuit (operating on different phases no less) could overload so catastrophically.
I consider myself a man of science, logic and reason... but I like to think that my guardian angel was watching out for me that night (thanks mom!)

 

[sidious618]

Tell my mother her hair looked bad.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Many years ago my then-GF and I had just been to see Mannheim Steamroller, and after spending a while at her house afterward, I left...this was in the middle of December, and the streets were sheer ice. My car did at least two 360's on the way down the street. I thought I was gonna flip the fuck over and die. The fact that it was an old car (an '81 Citation) did not help my mood at the time.

 

[JiNX-01]

Well, at the time I wasn't scared but...

When I was 18, I was riding in a car with my best friend and she was doing 120 mph on back country roads (it had seat belts, but we weren't wearing them).

In restrospect, I consider that to be the scariest thing I ever did.

 

[ares93]

the absolute worst experience must have been when i found out that the car i was test driving had no brakes whatsoever while i was doing 80-90mph. i still cant believe someone cant see the difference between a civilian 1999 volvo s70 (sedan) and a 2007 volvo v70 police cruiser (station wagon) .

 

[Amaris]

Stormchasing.

 

[propita]

Take and, in two weeks, retake the CA Bar exam. Seriously, I am freakin' terrified.