Thread: Has anyone had a near death experience?

oh I'm so glad you're both ok!
yeah I had 2 - I was quite active in my youth and not always very sensible. I had a boyfriend at the time who was into everything dangerous, and of course I just had to follow - so he taught me a few things of martial arts, more like self defense using your oponent basically... and also he used to take me paragliding, that's like a parachute that helps you glide, you don't jump from an airplaine but you kind of stay in the air and use the currents to do stay up. So, we went in tandems, both of us on the same glider, and once someone cut off our wind, our sail folded ... and we plumetted... but thankfully he didn't loose his head, he managed to straighten the sail just as we were a few feet from the ground... The very strange thing is even when I was watching the ground come towards me at increasing speed, it didn't even occur to me that that might be the end... even now I talk about it as a near death experience but it was never the feeling I had.
and the second time, was when I was coming back home BY FOOT, ALONE, AT NIGHT, from a nightclub, on a deserted road - talk about asking for it! so of course I noticed someone was following me, and then he asked me for the time, and while I stupidly bent to check my watch, he grabbed me, put something against my neck that felt like a little swiss knife, and started dragging me towards a bus shelter... and strangely, everything my (by then former) boyfriend had taught me came back, I was cool, I knew I would be fine, I just had to get out of it - I talked to the guy, asked him calmly what he wanted, he just said "don't shout", he sounded way more panicked than me... so I did what I was taught, I checked his position, aimed, and then kicked his leg at the same time as I pushed the hand with the knife away with one hand and hit him in the stomach with the other elbow, at the same time I gave a kind of scream that was meant as a "Keeeeaiiii" but really sounded more like a screeching "ooooooooooaaaaa" - nevermind it worked. He jumped away from me, said something like "emmmm .... I wasn't going to hurt you...." hesitated a split second and then started legging it. I was a bit dumbfounded for a few seconds and stayed put wondering what had just happened, then it hit me and I started legging it the oposite way.... I went to the police the next day, but strangely then never believed me and laughed me out of the police station. So if you think about it, my ex saved me twice! ;-)
I have to say, nowadays I don't think I could stay that cool... and I'm not looking to find out either... youth hey...