MSU Red Cedar Message Board

Man, plane crashes freak me the hell out. I don't have a fear of flying and have flown many times, but whenever hearing about them, there's always a few moments where i do have a bit of a fear. I know they are extremely rare, but it's just freaky that there's pretty much no way you're getting out of one of those alive.

Not quite as intense as the other stories in here, but right after I graduated high school I was driving up to the school to use the weight room because the athletic director still let alumni use it. I grew up in a rural area and there are farms all over the place. So I'm driving down the road with my windows down, and I see a tractor coming towards me. The driver must not have noticed my car, because he turned at me. I remember thinking wow he is gonna be pissed when he realizes that I'm here and next thing I know my mirror is flying in my driver side window. The first thing I notice is there is hydraulic fluid all over the road. Turns out when he hit my car the hydraulic line blew and the wheel stopped turning, otherwise it would have ripped right through my car. This wasn't just a small tractor it was a Case 91 series and anyone who knows about farms and tractors knows how big that is. I was really lucky. The driver of the tractor was real shook up and I was upset first that I couldn't find my phone to call my dad. It wasn't until a few hours later that I realized how bad that could have been. Seriously three hours later I started to freak out a little bit thinking about what could have happened.

A few car crashes, but the only one story worth telling is ...

Went down to Detroit to play paintball with some friends while in school. Paintball place was on the 5th floor of a parking garage. Drove down with one other friend and met everyone else there, but we got there stoned and late. Missed the tour of the facility, but convinced the guy at the front desk to give us our paint guns and let us get out there in time for the first match to start.

We're just walking around trying to get our bearings. Bell goes off, 3 guys from the opposite team stand up and say 'Holy crap, there's two of them already'. We split up and I go running like crazy down a hallway. See a door and a window next to it, figure I'll duck into whatever little room there is there and make my courageous last stand. Only I'm so geeked up on adrenaline and weed that I make the split second decision to jump through the window instead of just running through the door, and it turns out that the window was in fact a window to the outside world rather than a window into the room with the door next to it.

Landed on the top of a 4 story building next to the parking garage in a jumbled mess of broken concrete and glass. A few scratches and a sprained ankle.

Didn't change me much right away (still young and stupid then), but with age and perspective I certainly think about it now and then. I figure if God (or whoever, for those of other faiths) wanted to take me out I gave him one hell of a chance, so I guess I'm still around for a reason. And I'm pretty sure whatever that reason is goes way beyond making money, buying more shit, etc. Sounds corny, but I believe I'm supposed to do stuff in my job and in my personal life to make the world a better place. Don't always do so, but most days I do try.

Yeah that DUI stuff, hilarious bro!

you know the rule....+1 anyway....

canoing the Sturgeon River with my parents when I was 8, the canoe flipped and I got caught by the current. I was holding on to the trunk of a fallen tree and if I had gone under I would have been a goner as the branches would have prevented me from coming up. My mom was pinned by the canoe on one side of the river and my dad was on the other side caught on some branches. Some fisherman saw us, freed my dad and they were able to get out to grab me just before I went under. I was seconds from certain death.

The closest story I've ever heard is an old roommate. He was booked on a flight to visit his grandmother in Columbia. Two days before he suffered a hand injury playing basketball that required immediate surgery so he missed the flight.....which crashed into a mountain side.

I was waiting at a railroad crossing for a freight train to pass a few years ago. There was a flashing signal but no barrier across the road in front of me. After the freight passed the crossing, it appeared clear in front to proceed across the tracks but the blinking lights were still flashing. I had the urge to go ahead and I started to go, but at the last second hesitated.........just then.a speeding passenger train going in the other direction, which had been blocked from my view by the last cars of the freight, zoomed through the crossing. If I hadn't waited that last second to drive over the tracks, it would have been The End. Split second decisions can mean life or death when driving.

Story 1
When I was a kid we spent many days with the family at Grand Haven Beach. I was about 6 and my big sister was 8, well the waves and undertow were too strong that day so there was a red flag warning out for no swimming and the pier had been closed, well, nothing is more of a bummer than to be 6 and 8 at the beach and not be able to go into the water. We told my mother we were going to the concession stands, but instead we snuck off to the pier and snuck out on it. At the end of the pier the waves were washing over it, this looked fun, we found a ladder about 50 feet from the lighthouse at the end and took turns holding onto the side of the pier by the ladder as the waves would crash over our heads and try to wash us away. A few times each of lost our grip, but were able to get back to the ladder. The last time I was washed about 20 feet from the pier and held underwater until I inhaled some, I barely made it back and my sister had to drag me back onto the pier with the help from wave. Scraped my side and knees up pretty good in the process. Told my mom that I had fallen on the cement by the pavilion. Stupidest thing I've ever done, later in the day they took the red flag down and a little boy drowned, we watched as people made human chains to search for him and eventually as they pulled his lifeless body from Lake Michigan. He had drowned just off shore, not nearly as dangerous as being out on the pier. Every year full grown men get swept off that pier and drown, we were 6 and 8.

Story 2
Was driving south on 131 in GR in rush hour, it was windy that day and there was construction near 36th St. This was just after high school and I was driving a beat up Ford Tempo, well the contruction sign in front of me blew over and skimmed of the car in front of me, I had a good enough view that I was able to swerve and miss it, but not without totally fishtaling and losing contol. I end up spinning out through 3 lanes of traffic and came to rest on the other side of the highway. The woman driving the car in back of me wasn't so lucky, the sign cut right through her windshield and into her head, she looked dead to me when the paramedics arrived, but I later found out she survived, but suffered brain damage. I still have no idea how I reacted quickly enough to miss the sign. If I had been a split second slow or had been changing the channel on the radio it would have been me that got hit.

My dad, fellow Spartan was a new patrol officer in the early 80's when he was dispatched to a B+E in progress. He went around the back while his partner stayed in front. Guy comes out of the back door just as my dad was walking up to it. Guy is carrying a shot. Dad fires once, hits him in the chest, guy goes down.

Later determined that the guy tried to fire the shotgun he was carrying, although it was loaded, he had forgotten to rack the shell into the chamber. Measurements were done, that gun goes off, my dad's head comes off ): I would have been 2 at the time, my brother was newly born.

I don't think of it often, but when I do, it's a bit of a mindfuck.

My grandfather also took a bullet from a german sniper in the head. Entered the helmet in the forehead area, and instead of penetrating the head, travelled across the top of the helmet. Knocked him down and out, but no permanent damage. 1" lower and I'm not here.

forgot about this thread. I drove my motorcycle into SF on Saturday, spent the day there. It was dark, about 11pm when I headed back across the bay. There's a car behind me that's a little too close for comfort. To give you some perspective, cars tailgating you on a motorcycle is a pretty dangerous thing since the biker can't see directly behind them. So I pull in the clutch and slow down as gradually as possible headed up to the light as I'm on this exit ramp - it's three damn lanes so logic would tell us that the car driver would just go around if I was going too slow for his tastes.

I hear their engine getting slightly louder and turn my head to the left to my blind spot to see them trying to clip my back tire (car's front right corner going for the left side of my rear tire - would've put me on the road directly in front of their vehicle going 40 mph). Somewhere in a 3 second period I swerved so hard my knee touched the asphalt, then screeched to a stop going sideways, like a fucking action movie. I sit there shaking for what felt like a minute, then get up to the light. Female driver of the car and her friend are looking at me, laughing like hell. Took everything I had not to pull a Chris Brown at that moment.

I have a relatively quiet bike. If my pipes were any louder from a different model bike or using an after-market exhaust, I don't know if I'd be alive today since I wouldn't have heard the lunatic bitch coming.

I got home from work last night, and pulled into the garage. I hear a gurgling sound from the little room off to the side that my boiler and washer and dryer are in. I go check on it, and there is a metal pipe sticking up out of the cement that is rusty, and has been broken a long time. There is a noise coming from the pipe, and it smells like sewer gas. I figured the boiler with a lit pilot light is three feet away, if it was natural gas coming out, that thing would have blown sky high. I go to bed, and DTE comes today to check it out. It turns out a maintenance man turned on what he thought was a water line yesterday at 10 a.m. It was a gas line that had been broken a long time ago that noone capped off. The gas line had been on for 12 hours when I went to bed, and was on another 12 hours before it got shut off. I sleep just above the gas line that was leaking. I could have got blowed up real good.

Yeah, not one of my proudest moments.