Anything ever stop you dead in your tracks?

[Jediknight760071]

Actually, for me, it happened yesterday. I've been trying to get into several different universities and colleges, splitting it about halfway between California and Illinois (Chicago area mostly). I came home yesterday afternoon and had a message from one of the staff at Benedictine University (just outside Chicago) telling me I had got in, but had also been awarded a scholarship for about 50% of the tuition. It was great news and the relief was incredible knowing I would be going to college and I wouldn't be selling my body to pay for it. That wasn't the biggest part of it though; what stopped me dead was about 2 hours later, I was sitting here perusing through the Toy Fair reports, when I realized that I'd be leaving home and probably wouldn't ever be coming back to California, at least to live. My family will be staying here (sister plans on starting a business in about a year after she gets her degree / parents both have jobs here) but I'm going to be going halfway across the country trying to make it myself. Albeit, I did live in Chicago for a time, but that was more than 10 years ago and I was very young when I moved away. It's an interesting feeling knowing everything is going to change, but I hope it goes smoothly.

Anyway, I stopped and thought about that for a long time last night. Not so dramatic as meeting old friends, or those who resemble them, or seeing the carnage of a motorcycle accident or heroin abuse, but it did make me stop and think for a while.

[P-Siddy]

You don't happen to work for American Councils or IREX, do you?  I'm just curious.  Glad to meet someone else who understands the charm of Siberia.

I did. Several years back. My wife's Russian, too, so I'm over in the RFE quite a bit.

[tonphanan]

Passed an accident on the way to work one night. A girl had been thrown from the car and was lying on the road covered with blood. Many had stopped to help and paramedics were shortly behind me so I continued on to work. A police officer stopped by my work about 2 hours later to get some food for the crew at the scene, he said that she died.

I now pass the roadside memorial set up by the family and friends everyday. The scene of that night still haunts me. I am the father to 2 little girls and to see someones daughter laid out on the road dying really hit me hard.

As for a moment when time stood still..saving my 1 year old from chocking.. she had started to turn blue before I got the object out of her throat..she seven now, but knowing how close I could have been from loosing her or seriuosly injuring her...a fathers nightmare.

[Morgbug]

This doesn't really fit in with Tracy's theme, but it was pretty darn amazing to see.  Rob reminded me of accidents I've seen (and unfortunately I've seen a couple of fatalities too) but an accident that should have been a fatality wasn't. 

We were coming home from a party one night back when I was in college.  Driving down the road (not me, I was the passenger) we were passed by a motorcycle with two guys on it we knew.  No helmets, no jackets, just wearing shirts/shorts and runners.  From a sidestreet a car without headlights pulled out in front of them and they had to be going 60 mph.  The motorcycle slammed into the car broadside. 

One guy flew off the bike to the left and skidded to a halt on the grassy median.  He landed heels first, slid, and dropped on his ass.

The other guy flew off the bike to the left and landed in a bush on the boulevard side of the road. 

They were both scratched and scraped up pretty well, but both were walking around and wanted to kick the crap out of the driver of the car.  We had to restrain them from doing so.  It was so bizarre because when we saw them hit the car and fly in the air we figured they were dead.  Both of them are still kicking today.

[Tracy]

Brent --

I wonder how surviving what could have easily been a fatal accident affected them.  Do you know if they wore helmets after that?  Or if they made any major changes in their lives.  I would think something like that would either make someone more cautious or make them feel invincible.   Just curious, I guess. 

[Rob]

I actually witnessed a fatal event the day I was leaving for Toy Fair... before I left work.

They are putting a new light rail line in that will run out of downtown, past my home, past my work and then into the suburbs.  Construction started back in September.  Two Friday's ago, some sort of concrete deck thing collapsed on two workers, burying them.  This was 30 feet from my desk out the window (the train is literally going to run next to my office).  They dug and dug and pulled one guy out.  He was okay except for his leg looked messed up.  Then they went back to work and dug for 45 minutes, using heavy machinery to lift disturbingly large pieces of concrete out of the hole.  They even had a firefighter down there with a giant circular saw cutting things at one point. 

We were all just standing there waiting for that triumphant moment when they rescued this other guy - but it didn't come.  An hour after the hole thing started they pulled a body out of the hole. 

It was real sad... all the construction workers were just standing there crying...

Here's an article from the next day:

Link

[blimpyboy]

You don't happen to work for American Councils or IREX, do you?  I'm just curious.  Glad to meet someone else who understands the charm of Siberia.

I did. Several years back. My wife's Russian, too, so I'm over in the RFE quite a bit.

See folks, it is a small world.  My most frequent hiking buddy out in Tajikistan was with American Councils.  I knew  alot of IREX guys too.

Regarding the recent post about how almost dying changes someone, there have been more than a few close calls involving either me or a team member on mountain climbs.  I remember one time a few friends and I missed being covered by an avalanche by about 10 minutes, another incident where I slipped and came within feet of a 1000 foot plunge, and more than a few ice axe self-arrests that, if they hadn't been done properly, probably would have been fatal falls.  Most of these all happened within the last two years, when we kept pushing ourselves to do something bigger and better, but I think until someone close to you actually is killed or seriously injured doing something you like to do, only then does it start to hit closer to home. 

[Madcow]

Hmm, good topic. One memorable one for me is ironically also a vehicle accident story. About 5 years ago, I was living up in North Eastern PA with some friends/bandmates. Well one night we practiced til about 3am at my buddy's college in Scranton. To get home we had to take a small divided hwy off the main hwy. It's about 2 lanes in both directions with a concrete median in the middle. I was in my car and my buddies were in another truck about 2 miles ahead of me. No one else was on the road. While crusing along around 4 am I noticed a car speeding on the opposite side of the road going the wrong way. I had to do a double take and thought I was dreaming but there it was. I honked my horn and yelled out the window to warn them but it was no luck. My exit was the second to last on the hwy and it was quickly approaching. I contemplated staying on the road just in case but it was late so I got off my normal exit hoping that the other car would be ok. Well the next afternoon a local news report came on the radio and announced that the same car I saw was in a head-on collision (about 1/2 miles past where I got off) and both people died instantly. I stopped dead in my tracks and my jaw dropped. It's pretty f'd up to realize that I was the last one to see that person alive and if I could've done more that maybe one or both drivers would still be alive today...

[jedipurge]

Wow great topic.  The thing that stopped me dead in my tracks, was when I took my pregnant wife, 5 months along, to the ER when she was having contractions and after waiting about an hour or so until someone else got to the waiting room to watch our other 2 small children, I walk into her room and she tells me that her water had broke.  I just could not believe that it was happening, and after the 2 children we'd already had without any complications I couldn't wrap my head around how why it was happening.  I kept thinking how were they going to fix this, I couldn't think that we would actually lose her.  It wasn't until it was all said and done that they actually wrapped her little body in blankets and the little hats that they give the babies when there born and when I got to hold her that it hit me, that I realized it was all real.  Even the nurse that brought her to us said that she resembled our oldest daughter.  Now you wouldn't think at 5 months a baby is that fully formed but I assure you it is.  I will never ever forget the moment as soon as I walked in the door to her room and she said her water broke.  It still gives me shivers.  That was on Sept. 23 '06 and we go every weekend to her little grave and stay about 1/2 to an hour there.  But it's also a mind trip to see all the other little graves around hers, children that lived a couple of years and parents that actually got to know their children and hold them.

[JesseVader08]

Woah, you left me speechless jedipurge.  I can't even begin to imagine.

[jedipurge]

Woah, you left me speechless jedipurge.  I can't even begin to imagine.

Thanks, one of the harder things was that we didn't know yet what it was and this is how we found out it was another girl.  We named her Sadie.  It's hard to get over, but not nearly as hard as others I've heard since it happened to us.  You know kind of those things that you know happens but until it happens to you.  This lady my wife knows has a grown daughter that had been married for 10 years and the doctors said she'd never be able to have children.  She winds getting a divorce and eventually gets a boyfriend to only get pregnant and lose the child 4 months in.  Another friend of a friend of my wife lost her baby while sitting on the tiolet.  Now THAT is something I can't ever imagine.  So while I think of how hard it's been I know we've had it "easy" compared to others so I'm just grateful that the 2 beautiful little girls I have are healthy and here.  And while I'm a believer in The Almighty I just hope I'll see my little one again someday.  We actually plan on putting that on her tombstone-Till we meet again-but at $16 a letter it'll have to wait.

[jadesfire]

The phone call that my son was found unconscious and as they let me listen to the scanner while he was still in the ambulance (privacy rules and all), hearing "Defibrillator" can bring a parent to their knees quicker than anything else. 

[name]

our house catches such a great breeze and maintains such a comfortable temperature that in the spring and autumn, we just leave the windows open for several months out of the year and save on utilities. 

When we first had moved into the house, my little boy...4 at the time...came upstairs on a saturday morning.  I was still in bed, and he watched as he went to the window nearest my side of the bed, climbed up on a box that was under the window and leaned on teh window screen.  The screen popped out and he went out the second story window up to his hips.

Time both stood still and sped up as i jumped out of bed and grabbed him around the waist and jerked him back.  He looked scared to death and I probably did too....an inch or a second more and he'd have been out the window headfirst.

[Morgbug]

Brent --

I wonder how surviving what could have easily been a fatal accident affected them.  Do you know if they wore helmets after that?  Or if they made any major changes in their lives.  I would think something like that would either make someone more cautious or make them feel invincible.   Just curious, I guess. 

No, not bright enough really.  I haven't talked to them for years and we never really talked about the accident much at all.  They never really expressed any wonderment at it at all.  Go figure.

I can think of something that affected my wife.  Her birthday six years ago.  We get way too many phone calls soliciting for this or that so we turned off the ringer upstairs.  We check for messages in the morning just in case.  Well, it's her birthday and there's a pile of messages.  We figure it's her family getting an early start on wishing her a happy birthday.  Nope, first message is from the neighbour of her parents leaving a message to call right away.  She's phoning in a panic, expecting her mom to be sick (she had really poor mobility due to very severe rheumatoid arthritis).  Phone's busy, phone's busy.  Finally gets through and it turns out her dad had a heart attack and died.  On her ******* birthday   It did drop her to her knees right like a shot. 

I move her birthday around in March now so she never knows when it's coming other than not on her real birthday. 

Unrelated, but just over two years later her mother passed away in hospital with my wife holding her hand.  My mom had passed away in 1999 two weeks after Episode I opened after her third battle with cancer.

You know what sucks about being older?  People start dying more often.  It's a part of life and for the most part in spite of whether it's a good way (?) or bad way to die it still sucks ass

[Tracy]

Jedipurge -- your story stayed with me all night.  I had to get up in the middle of the night and sneak into my little ones' rooms and kiss them goodnight again.  I'm sorry for your loss.