it lives to tell the tale...

[JB88]

duck survives being shot, stuck in freezer


man falls 17 stories...survives.

ever had a brush with death?

i nearly drown once but was rescued and pulled ashore by a freind.

[cpxxx]

After years of riding motorcycles, driving cars too fast, flying aeroplanes too low and other adventures. I can safely say the closest I ever came to death was the time I was standing near a forklift truck which was lifting a pallet of of 'slimmers chocolate chip cookies' onto a high rack. The pallet split and I dived out of the way, just in time. I was clipped by a couple of boxes and slightly hurt. But when I looked back there was a pile cookie boxes five foot high exactly where I was standing.

Death by chocolate:lol

[storch]

my mother in law visited last night, does that count?

[JB88]

mine has been here for a few days so far...yep.  definitely.

[storch]

you poor soul, you have my sympathy

[JB88]

[Mustaine]

had a fever of 106.2 and another 105.9 in the hospital from what I was told after. don't remember a ton, but they had me on a mattress of freon to "cool me off" and I hated it.

[lasersailor184]

I got stuck out in a lightning storm on a sailboat.  The lightning was hitting the water all around us (as opposed to our mast).

Of course I didn't know about farraday's cages at that time, so it was very exciting for me.

[Mustaine]

Originally posted by lasersailor184
Of course I didn't know about farraday's cages at that time, so it was very exciting for me.

didn't know what they were, so wikied them..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage


what does that have to do with the lightening on the boat?

[Maverick]

If he is inside the boat and lightning strikes it the boat acts as  a faraday cage by allowing the electical charge to travel around the outside of the boat to reach ground (the water). Now if he was outside on the boat there is a good chance he would have a part of the charge routed through him. In which case he likely wouldn't be posting here.

[Mustaine]

Originally posted by Maverick
If he is inside the boat and lightning strikes it the boat acts as  a faraday cage by allowing the electical charge to travel around the outside of the boat to reach ground (the water). Now if he was outside on the boat there is a good chance he would have a part of the charge routed through him. In which case he likely wouldn't be posting here.

I know wikipedia is not an authoritative source... but according to this part, it doesn't sound like that is true:

Cars and airplanes are often mistakenly thought to be examples of Faraday cages because the charge from a lightning strike remains on the outside of the metal surface. However, in the case of metal cars and airplanes, this is due to something called Skin Effect, and neither are Faraday Cages. A good common sense test to tell if something is a Faraday cage is the question "can I make a cell phone call from X location?". You can in fact make a call from an airplane, and EM energies pass in and out of the body of the plane easily. It's important to note that a lightning strike on a plane or car can be dangerous because the charge can travel into the plane or car via wiring and mechanical parts and destroy or disrupt key functions.

like I said though I am quoting an "unreliable" source.

[Gunthr]

i was working at the bottom of a 60 foot deep concast.  it was during a huge expansion program at McClouth Steel on the Detroit River.  there was a cement mixer 60 feet above me pouring concrete into a big funnel attached to a long thick plastic "sock".  my job was at the bottom end of this sock - directing the flow of concrete into rebar that had been paint yellow.  i had to try to steer the concrete wherever i saw yellow.

the sock broke up at the top.  60 foot of concrete filled sock fell down all around me and i got clipped on the shoulder and it knocked me down.  my legs went into the rebar up to my crotch.  i started getting covered up by concrete coming down from above. it was killing me, really beating me to death because of big stones in the concrete mix. i got covered up except for my head and one arm before somebody noticed. my hard hat was really dented in, and i was bruised and sore for a week. never got my work boots and my wallet is still buried there under McClouth Steel Mill.

[lasersailor184]

I did have to make a call from the boat with my cell phone, but I got an extremely weak signal.

Anyway, if a boat gets struck by lightning, it's in trouble anyway.  But from what I understand, the occupants wouldn't be in so much danger (provided they weren't hugging the shrouds).

[sluggish]

Originally posted by Gunthr
i was working at the bottom of a 60 foot deep concast.  it was during a huge expansion program at McClouth Steel on the Detroit River.  there was a cement mixer 60 feet above me pouring concrete into a big funnel attached to a long thick plastic "sock".  my job was at the bottom end of this sock - directing the flow of concrete into rebar that had been paint yellow.  i had to try to steer the concrete wherever i saw yellow.

the sock broke up at the top.  60 foot of concrete filled sock fell down all around me and i got clipped on the shoulder and it knocked me down.  my legs went into the rebar up to my crotch.  i started getting covered up by concrete coming down from above. it was killing me, really beating me to death because of big stones in the concrete mix. i got covered up except for my head and one arm before somebody noticed. my hard hat was really dented in, and i was bruised and sore for a week. never got my work boots and my wallet is still buried there under McClouth Steel Mill.

You always hear about how bodies of workers get buried in foundations of buildings and bridges (Hoover dam and Mackinaw Bridge come to mind) and you just described how easily it can happen.  You are definately lucky.  I certainly wouldn't want to be known as the guy who's buried in the foundation of McClouth Steel...

[DiabloTX]

I had a run in with a drunk titty dancer once.  

I don't think I'd be here if I hadn't put some steering input at the last second.