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I was almost shot one day walking home in NYC. This was back in the 1990s. My family and I were walking home and a guy opens fire on this other guy who was roughly 10 feet away from us. Miraculously nobody was hit (not even the target).
Another time, I was riding in a car with a friend of my parents. We were driving back to NYC from Philly after helping her daughter set up her new home. My parents' friend (the driver) nearly ran headfirst into the exit median on the freeway because she wasn't paying attention while going at a fast speed. My life flashed before my eyes to a greater extent here than with the gunfire incident, perhaps because I was older in the car incident.
Can't really say that either incident changed me in a profound way. I guess I can say that they made me appreciate life more, but I don't know if that's true (I already have a healthy appreciation for life).
Like volosong, mine was a combat situation. I was later told of being only a couple minutes away from death. It does cause moments of anxiety when I allow myself to think deeply about it. Otherwise, growing up in the military and remembering the calls of my father being MIA or wounded, kinda becomes nothing but a bad hair day after awhile. I'm sort of numb to my survival and get more of the funk when thinking of those with me who did not survive.
Yes, I was nearly choked to death by the husband that I was divorcing. I truly thought that I was going to die. My 4 year old was in the room, and my last thought was to see him in the room. I remember getting him in my line of sight, yes horrible for a 4 year old to see this. Luckily, the soon to be ex-husband came to what senses he had, and let me go. Did that change me? Oh, you bet it did. It was slightly over 40 years ago, and I remember vividly. He was angry that he had gotten divorce papers. His anger continued for a few other incidents. Sadly this is back when a "domestic" incident was considered not that big of a deal. It was a 5 year marriage, and there were not any signs that he might be this way. You never know what a person is capable of, especially a sociopath!
How did it change me? That would be impossible to describe to anyone that has not gone through something like that. I do find that with others that have suffered that threat, that we have a "bond", an understanding of what that does to a person.
Life meant something different after that day. It took on more meaning, and I appreciated every day after that just a little more. Life goes on.
When I was a kid, I almost drowned, and almost got hit by a car, plus had a serious appendicitis.
Then I spent a career in the military, supposedly in the “rear with the gear”. Only warfare isn’t like it used to be, as rockets, mortars, suicide bombers, green on blue attacks were all very real problems for people other than grunts.
Basically, what I’m trying to say here is that sometimes, it’s better to be lucky than good.
Several times, but the most impactful was from a combat situation in Vietnam. It gave me a much greater appreciation for life...so much so that I now hop over ant trails on the sidewalk to make sure that I won't step on any ants.
It's interesting, I do the same thing with ants and other insects.
One time, during the fall of Communism in 1989, I was in a small crowd of people screaming like lunatics against the communist regime. At night so it was dark, December, so really cold. Suddenly, the repressive forces (desperate not to give up the power) started shooting at us. (I was with my brother there). It was very unexpected, terribly loud and it seemed to last forever. My brother pushed me under a car and we both waited there until it was silence again. And then we run all the way home on back streets.
Maybe this doesn’t count, but one time I was driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a truck tire somehow broke loose and was bouncing down the highway. It was headed straight toward me, but by the time I fully processed what was going on, it had bounced directly over my car and then continued on its merry way.
I can’t necessarily say that I would have died if it had hit my car, but I probably would have been seriously injured at the very least. Perhaps that’s why it didn’t really change me. Every once in a while I just think, “Huh, what if that truck tire had actually hit my car instead of flying right over it?” I did get a profound sense of deja vu when I heard of someone dying that exact way several years after the fact.
Sad part is it is all luck and you think it would be a life changing event. Except no it didn't. When I was a child, my parents were so poor they thought I was going to starve to death due to hunger. Years later it turns out that it would be my mother who got the short end of the stick and died from malaria. Being poor sucks. Being born in a third world country, is even worse.
At the age of six, my brother and I were playing tag, I ran across the street without looking. A car going about 45 mph hit me, a paramedic later visited me and said that I was about 15 ft away from the car when they got there.
In college, (I was a passenger) my friend did not listen to my warnings about driving too fast, he drove like a lunatic and crashed his car on a bridge, at the moment he lost control, I looked down and it was at 115 mph. Luckily that bridge was a one way bridge or we would have died in a head-on collision from another car.
Two years ago, I suffered a stroke, and I was pretty sure I did because I was extremely confused. I couldn't even type ABCD in alphabetical order, but I decided I didn't want to know so I stayed home. 3 days later I finally decided to show up at a hospital...The doctor said I suffered a stroke.
And this is not even counting the many other serious situation that I ended up in like 4th grade, my neighbor got extremely drunk and came out of his apartment with a gun and threaten to shoot my friend and I. Took out his gun pointed at us and pulled the trigger. Luckily, he forgot to load the gun. Or the time my college friend and I found ourselves being approach by gang members threating to kill us because they didn't recognize us. And that was not the first nor the last time we have been approach by gang members. Other people I knew weren't as lucky. They got killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"If so, how did that change you?"
i started posting on city-data.
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