[tommytwotone]

Probably the time my parachute failed to open and had to deploy the emergency  

Always fancied learning how to freefall, so I buggered off to the Czech Republic for my 30th birthday as a wee treat to myself.

Took an AFF (Accelerated Free Fall) course and passed easy enough. Not quite the mad rush I was expecting but more a suspension of disbelief. like, is this shit really happening? Lets face it, I arrived on a Saturday evening, did my first accompanied jump on Sunday evening and by Monday afternoon was jumping solo from 13,500ft with a 'chute I packed myself. Hmmmm  

Left there feeling really comfortable with the whole thing and soon visited my local DZ at Errol upon returning home. Lovely exiting these tiny wee Cessnas at 13,500ft above your own country, look theres ma hoose etc  

Anyway, my 49th and final jump was a bit of an episode. Last out the plane with a more experienced friend Ally and did some relative flying practice until about 5,000ft on the altimeter then track away from each other and open. I saw his 'chute open at 3,000ft but I waited until 2,000ft for a bit more fun. Mistake. The 'chute didn't open properly and formed a kind of semi-streamer. When this had happened before I just kicked and span in a circle until things untangled themselves, but on this occassion it wasn't doing any good and I couldn't get the steering/brake handles untangled from the cords attached to the main canopy. No choice. At 1,500ft I cut away and deployed the emergency 'chute.

Now it takes a couple of seconds for the reserve to open (despite being fired out by exposives!) but god-damn were those not the two longest seconds of my life as I thought the reserve had failed as well. The re-acceleration and feeling of utter despair will never be forgotten. By the time I was under control the altimeter said 750ft and I aimed for the DZ whilst watching the panic on the ground below.

Strangely, I never made it the 50th jump....(if I had that would have meant I could have started night jumps with glo-sticks stuck to my suit)  

ps - great thread btw

As bad as that sounds...this fella had a rough ride fo' sho'

[slackline]

I didn't think I was going to die (thought I might be hurt though), but have just rolled my car four or so times after spinning on the road down from Dennis Knoll car park back towards Plantation 

Fortunate enough to walk away, but as the car spun I thought, shit, hope I don't.............and then I started rolling.  Gripped the steering wheel rather tight and braced, shit this is interesting I wonder when it will stop?  It did, the right way up I realised after a few seconds, so I jumped out (just, door fooked) and flagged friends who were following down, who were all very helpful and have got me home.  Derbyshire police notified and attended, explained what had happened, they had a look and went on their way.  Got to sort out recovery and insurance tomorrow but its likely a write-off (left side roof all compressed, rear windows smashed, front wind screen big cracks, wheels not looking to be in the right place)

Oh, The Blurter is a nice route isn't it?  Plus I get an inadvertent day of work tomorrow to sort the shit out

[underground]

The Blurter's a cracker - fortunately unlucky for me in that I only had to climb it in Dr. Martens boots.

Glad you're OK though Slackers, sounds like you had a shit evening 

[philo]

twice I've been in a situation where you are saying fuuuuuuck, the first I was young and stupid and as I was waiting to check the bread in the toaster it got a bit stuck so I put the knife in to flick it out... one electric shock later and I didn't do that again!

The second was an actual climbing situation,
we arived from font to magic woods at 11pm and Watson gets a message with info on severe bad weather the next day, so we decide to have a night session, we have lanterns etc, what can go wrong?
We were walking in the new path and it had been raining so it was slippy and muddy. You could hear the water of the river rushing and overflowing below, as we were walking over one section I slipped off the path and landed one foot on a rock, with one hand scrambling on the path and another on a thin root, my head at path level with my pad balanced on the edge, it was dark soaking and I really think if I had went over then I had no chance of stopping for a good few miles, so scarey but prob just an over reaction, thankfully I was helped back up and all was well.

(it did rain the next day, for a good 4 days and probably more but we did one back to font)

[Fiend]

Glad you're okay Slackers. Now how the flaming nutsac did you manage to flip your car on that bit of road on a dry evening?!?!

[Jaspersharpe]

Probably got to be, Me, Fatboyslimfast, my Astra, 120mph past the pub below frogget the checkers? 70 round the bottom corner, realising the stream had flooded across the road and frozen....

Aha! We always called it Chimes Bend cos Gresham smashed fuck out of his 205 there rushing to The Tor to try to get decent conditions (on Chimes).

[Adam Lincoln]

Really struggling to remember any but one that sticks out is a surf trip to Feurteventura back in the day. I had just learnt to surf, could turn ok and stuff but was not great at duckdiving the mini mal i was on.

Stupidly i decided to try and paddle out at the bubble which is a pretty heavy and pretty shallow breaking wave on the north coast. You can paddle out through a channel so not that hard to get out. My experienced mates thought it would be character building to be out in such a wave at an early stage. It was a heavy 5/6 ft. All was fine until i got caught out by a sneaker set, and not being able to duck dive, i took the full brunt of the wave landing on my head, slamming me on to the nasty sharp reef below. I had a gash on my head, a gash on my leg and somehow i had my rash vest ripped to tatters. I don't remember much about it as i was knocked out but i remember coming round dazed, coughing up my lungs in a shallow bit of water near the shore. The bubble doesn't break very far out luckily. Board was no where to be seen. Though my shitty little leash was still attached to my leg. Just a few feet shorter. I short journey into town, a few stitches later and i was not feeling to bad.

Still have the big reef mark on my leg to the day, it got slightly infected, as these things do. Board was found washed up in a cove a little way down the beach.

[slackline]

Glad you're okay Slackers. Now how the flaming nutsac did you manage to flip your car on that bit of road on a dry evening?!?!

Cheers, there was a damp streak across the road last night, but I'd consciously slowed down coming down the hill because of the corner and I new its often damp on the road.  Guess it wasn't enough as the tail slid out and when the front wheels went off onto the verge they dug in, but momentum did its thing.

Recovered and awaiting official insurance bods to declare it a write-off. 

Time to cut the grass and have a relaxing day pottering around supping beer.

[underground]

Cheers, there was a damp streak across the road last night,

I bet there was a damp streak across your pants an' all 

[Monolith]

My own stupid fault but I fell through a floor today. I wouldn't have died but I shit it when the noggin spun and  I miraculously missed the 3 50mm galvanised nails sticking out in my path. Landed on my adams apple in between the joists then fell to the floor. This fuckin thread has jinxed us!

[GCW]

This fuckin thread has jinxed us!

Don't be ridiculous, there's no such thing as a ji............

[fatdoc]

if all that have posted on here are now jinxed then I'm truly f8cked....

going DH mtb on sunday 

nice knowin ya awl....

[fatkid2000]

if all that have posted on here are now jinxed then I'm truly f8cked....

going DH mtb on sunday 

nice knowin ya awl....

Aren't your MTB rides always near death experiences?

Just been reminded of a close shave, by an old Uni housemate who walked in on a load of us half a sleep in the lounge early one evening - shitty old student house. Faulty boiler and a load of us had a touch of carbon monoxide poisoning - luckily he didn't think we were all pissed.

[slackline]

Cheers, there was a damp streak across the road last night,

I bet there was a damp streak across your pants an' all 

 

After viewing the scene in daylight when the car was recovered yesterday I realise I may have been using some artistic license in saying I rolled four times, probably only a couple based on the distance from where the tyres first stuck in the grass, the car ended up and speed of travel.  It still sucks though.

[fatdoc]

I'll let you off 2 rolls in the circumstances mate!

[Hoseyb]

Being an optamist, I rarely consider myself to have been close to 'carking'
However, there has been several harold lloyd moments (mostly self induced) that have got the pulse racing somewhat.

Floating out of the old wooden rollercoaster in Rhyl as a child as it dipped, only to be caught by my waist by my Dad.

Climbing a tree that had been partially blown over in the '87 storms, and finding myself at its apex, freeing the top branches to allow it to continue falling the last 30' to the ground.

Chudleigh; having topped out on Combined ops, going over to the chain belay on the ledge above Combat to abseil off. I niavely wasn't attached to anything as I pulled up the rope to put through the belay device, only to have a 'friend' choose that moment to swing on the rope. I catapulted over the edge only to swing back onto the ledge, and rapidly weld myself to the chain..

My First E3 was an obscure slate route, called see you bruce, with its crux (then) 10m above an old 8mm bolt, this I wobbled and skated up without much death. It was only several years later while rebolting this route that I realised that the bolt was hand removeable..

There was the time I cratered from 15' onto slate boulders on the rainbow walls as well..

[tommytwotone]

I think, like a lot of other climbers, I'm a terrible swimmer. I don't know what the problem is, I can swim but I seem to expend a lot of effort to go anywhere.

Anyway, this weakness led to me nearly drowning on a beach in Lanzarote, in full view of my family. I'd been messing about in the breakers on a boogie board with my sister's fella when I decided to get on the board and try to go a bit further out and catch a wave.

Bad idea - after about 30 seconds I was being dragged out by a riptide. I realised this and ditched the board, only to find out that despite only being chest-deep in water my legs were being pulled out from underneath me. I got dragged further and further out, all the while with decent-sized waves crashing over my head until a local chap swam over and dragged me out of the tide to safety.

[moose]

I think, like a lot of other climbers, I'm a terrible swimmer. I don't know what the problem is, I can swim but I seem to expend a lot of effort to go anywhere.

At least you know you're a terrible swimmer!  I remember hearing that a friend of mine planned to climb a sea-stack with an aquatic approach.   Unfortunately, my friend couldn't swim but felt that he might have gained the ability with age.  I told his brother, who seemed to share this mysterious belief, that the opposite was more likely.  That you got less buoyant as an adult, that for me effortless floating had become a struggle to stay afloat.  I still remember the expression on his face my words sank in and he mumbled something about telling his stack-bound brother his latest hydrodynamic discovery.

[SA Chris]

This fuckin thread has jinxed us!

Oddly, this was the first thing I thought yesterday, when confronted by some cunt in a red hothatch overtaking on a blind bend on the road up past the Lecht yesterday morning. If I hadn't braked hard we would have had a new hood ornament on the van. He was close enough to see the whites of his eyes (I think he really shat), and could probably hear me telling him what he can do to his mum.

[clm]

i thought i didnt have any but i now remember toppling backwards off a tree branch as a kid to snag another branch behind the knees lower down.  Would definately have been a head first crater otherwise.

There has also been an avalanche moment but retrospectively they were shallow and slushy and not at all life threatening but at the time try convincing me of that... contoured a slope off piste at the end of the season when everyhting was hot and soft.  everything was sliding and i think i nearly wept as i hustled from bush to bush and then into the trees.  It all still carried on slipping when i was in the woods!!  5 mins of terror.

[Jaspersharpe]

This is all going a bit too Final Destination for my liking........

[andy_e]

I went slightly sideways on the motorway last night due to standing water... everything was probably under control and I probably wasn't in any danger, but that's not what the brown streak in my pants was saying.

[mrjonathanr]

This thread has amused/disturbed/reminded me of something, a long time ago, about the day after (I think) Ben M did Maginot Line (when was that?)
Coming back from Chateauvert JD thought he knew the French country roads well enough to go into a blind S bend at 60 and accelerate because you could sort of slingshot round it... Of course it wasn't That bend, it was further down the road,  - the little scamp! Oh how we chortled! Doing 60+ mph blind on the left-hand side of the road - it was just like being in Blighty again! No more pain rustique and roulade for us - well no more anything had there been another vehicle coming the other way. He nearly lost it with all the power -wiggles too. Credit it to him, he didn't.

[Will Hunt]

Whenever I have spoken to someone who has been in a car with JD then they always spontaneously come out with a story about it. One has told me that he thinks if he hadn't been a world class climber he would certainly have been a world class driver due to the insane amount of control he able to hold while at high speeds.

[Falling Down]

Sometimes it's hard to know whether you've come close.. but there are a couple of times surfing I've had which might qualify.

The most recent was last year in Barbados. I'd spent the previous two months going swimming regularly doing intervals in the pool and pushing lots of weights so was feeling in reasonable shape. Paddled out on the second day on my own at Parlours which breaks a fair way offshore  with a reasonably chunky 6ft swell running. It's a funny break at that size as the average waves tend to break OK on the reef but the bigger sneaker sets have a tendency to ledge up. I'd paddled for a bigger one, perhaps 12ft on the face maybe bigger as it was starting to pitch, as I got to my feet it just sucked out under me and I went over the falls in the lip and was rag rolled then felt my leash tighten and go 'dink' then was hit really hard on the reef knocking the wind out of me and ripping my rash vest off and my shorts open.  I got to the surface OK and started the swim in but the state of the tide and size of swell meant I was stuck in a circular rip that just kept on dragging me into the takeoff zone. If I'd had my board it would've been fine but that'd gone along with one of my contact lenses. I tried to swim in to no avail and then sideways but was just getting dragged into the takeoff zone so could only try and body surf into the whitewater. Trouble was the waves were just sucking out so I kept going over the falls (bear in mind these weren't trivial) and deep again.  I swam out back and decided to paddle up to the point but the tide was pushing me back and swimming down to Soup Bowls wasn't option so I tried again. After three more goes when I was getting progressively more tired and a bit spooked so decided to try body surfing again and it felt like the 'last time'. Luckily this one didn't pitch quite so bad and I ragdolled in the whitewater into the inside and then started to swim to shore. After about 20 minutes I'd got to the inner reef and then 50 yards from shore got sucked out in a rip again and I thought I was curtains but I managed to get out sideways back to where I'd been about 20 minutes earlier and tried again. This time I got to the rocks and dragged myself up the beach where another guy had recovered my board and had been watching me throughout.  Sat on the beach for a while to recover and then walked over to Nic who'd been reading her book oblivious.  "Did you have a nice time" she said... "Yeah it was alright" was the best response.

With hindsight, if I hadn't put all those hours in the pool it would have been really serious.