I Dodged a Bullet when,........

[Farnsworth]

Drove 5hrs through a blizzard. Had to stop every 30 minutes to chip the ice off my headlights so i could see. I agree with your statement.

Sadly I did something similar my freshman year in college. Drove from Ames to Superior Wisconsin in a blizzard, left around 8 pm. It was worth it though. :yes:.



I did something similiar a few years later, but it was only from Steinbeck to Sterling Apartments, ended with my car buried in a snow drift in between the two places even though it's only like 5 blocks apart.

 

[yler4cy]

When I was a little one, my old man had me riding in the tractor cab with him when he was discing. He stopped by the house to grab something to drink and I crawled into the seat of the tractor and put it in gear. I started to push the propane supply tank for the house with the tractor, but luckily a tree stopped the tractor from pushing the tank to far. My dad said if the supply line from the tank to the house would have broke there more than likely would have been nothing left of all of us as the tank probably would have exploded due to the heat of the tractor motor. He said he came out of the house and there I was in the tractor seat watching the tractor nudging the tank up against the tree.

 

[mj4cy]

Few examples that come to mind (nothing as intense as what's been posted)

1. Was on I-235 and saw a box in the road. Luckily I had enough time to go around it as I didn't know if it was empty or full of stuff. The car behind me missed it and out of my rear-view mirror I see it swerve and slam into the medium pretty hard.

2. Was trimming after I had mowed the yard and a piece of the spool snapped off and hit me directly in the eye. Had to take an 8 hour test the next day literally seeing double. Went to the urgent care that night and the doctor said it just missed my retina and gave me some cream to use and it got better. I was close to going blind in one eye. Needless to say, I wear eye protection now when pretty much doing anything hands on.

 

[Cyclonepride]

I don't really dodge bullets so much as learn to live with the limp.

 

[dmdom]

I worked 3 summers for the Chicago Northwestern RR, while at ISU. One year I got assigned to fill in for brake men in Minne/St Paul. I got called to work the switch yard in Shakopee one night. I was told to go walk track x and couple all the air hoses. The track next to it was pretty empty except for a couple cars on the west end. One the east end they were still kicking cars down the other tracks. I would get between the cars, couple the hoses and then step out between them and walk to the next set. While walking I felt a huge rush of air go past me. Took me a second to realize a 70+ ton railcar had just rolled past, only inches away from me. It was pretty dark on that side of the yard, I didn't see it till after it went by and when weighted down it didn't make a sound until it coupled into the other cars further down the track. I never said anything to the engineer or other brakeman, but I guess by the shade of white I was they probably knew.

 

[CloneinWDSM]

10 years or so ago I was helping re-roof my parents house. The nail gun I was using was a bit older and either the safety mechanism was broken or it didn't have one. I stood up and accidentally squeezed one off and after a brief oh **** I looked down to confirm that my foot was okay as it had gone in about two inches away from my shoe.

I was an idiot in HS roofing my parents house.

Mom was around the ground and I go "mom look" and acted like I was pulling the trigger on the nail gun. Guess I must've pressed a bit to hard and had a nail stuck in my thigh before I knew it.

 

[somecyguy]

I was an idiot in HS roofing my parents house.

Mom was around the ground and I go "mom look" and acted like I was pulling the trigger on the nail gun. Guess I must've pressed a bit to hard and had a nail stuck in my thigh before I knew it.

My brother has an x-ray showing a roof nail through his hand. Right between his thumb and index finger.

 

[KCy]

Missed my last final of my senior year at ISU and squeaked by with a D- to pass the class and graduate on schedule.

 

[AgronAlum]

Missed my last final of my senior year at ISU and squeaked by with a D- to pass the class and graduate on schedule.

KCY checking his grades.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

I have two road-related instances.

Coming home from work several years ago I narrowly missed a ladder in the road. Trying to be a good citizen, I pulled over and went back to pull the ladder out of the way. There wasn't a ton of traffic, but as I got nearer to the spot where the ladder was a guy in a pickup came by and clipped the end of the ladder sending it propeller-like towards me. I jumped a split second before it would have struck me and it came to rest about 15 feet behind me.

On another occasion, I was helping a lady change her tire along the interstate. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but a car came within a foot of me (tires were well over the line) while I was putting the last lug nut on. If I had fallen back a little bit, I would have been a smudge on the shoulder.

My wife was with my both times and basically forbids me to help anyone along the road anymore.

 

[JohnnyFive]

Sadly I did something similar my freshman year in college. Drove from Ames to Superior Wisconsin in a blizzard, left around 8 pm. It was worth it though. :yes:.



I did something similiar a few years later, but it was only from Steinbeck to Sterling Apartments, ended with my car buried in a snow drift in between the two places even though it's only like 5 blocks apart.

Did the same only my car wasn't running, and it was snowing heavily, and she lived five miles from where I was. I threw on like five layers of clothes and ran there. Needed a shower when I got there, obviously. But I got there.

 

[cowgirl836]

When I was a little one, my old man had me riding in the tractor cab with him when he was discing. He stopped by the house to grab something to drink and I crawled into the seat of the tractor and put it in gear. I started to push the propane supply tank for the house with the tractor, but luckily a tree stopped the tractor from pushing the tank to far. My dad said if the supply line from the tank to the house would have broke there more than likely would have been nothing left of all of us as the tank probably would have exploded due to the heat of the tractor motor. He said he came out of the house and there I was in the tractor seat watching the tractor nudging the tank up against the tree.

boy I bet his heart stopped when he walked out.

 

[VeloClone]

I was driving northbound on Duff back in college with both front windows down. I stopped at the light at 13th. There was a guy mowing his lawn beside me. He hit a decent sized rock and sent it flying. It flew in the passenger window right in front of my face and back out the driver's window. The guy mowing and I made eye contact - his eyes were as big as saucers - I kind of smirked, shrugged and drove on.

 

[cowgirl836]

Couple stories:

When I was about 11, we had been having trouble with the furnace in our house. I don't remember exactly what but I was vacuuming one morning next to a heat register and I noticed it smelled funny. I said something to my mom and she came over and smelled it. Then we were out of that house and over to our farm (about 2 miles away) licketity split. Again, don't remember what the deal was but it was definitely leaking gas and had the pilot light gone off, it would have been a bad time. They did get the gas shut off in time, but this was on a Saturday so we had a cold mid-March evening. Someone did come out on Sunday to fix it though, I remember that.


Around that same age, I was roaming around our neighbor's farm thinking I saw our farm cat there. The neighbors hadn't had an active farm in years, but they had started renting out their pasture to another neighbor to put heifers on. My siblings and I walked in that pasture a lot of times and never been bothered by the heifers. This day I was in an old pig barn with outdoor runs that made up part of the border to the pasture. I had climbed this rickety, tilted metal gate to get inside. The heifers come up to the pig panel fence because they are nosy, I ignore them. After a few minutes I notice that one of the heifers is snorting and bellering at me. I finally turn around to see what her deal is. I'll never forget following the zigzag pattern on her face down to the ring in "her" nose.

I remember thinking welp, this is how I'm going to die. The Holstein bull was leaning over this fencing that's not more than 3 feet high and is clearly not thrilled with me being there. I realize I can't go back the way I came because I'd have to briefly be inside the pasture and the time it would take to climb that tilted gate again would probably end poorly. To go out the other side and around the back of the barn, I'd be separated from the bull by one strand of electric wire until I could get to their wooden fence. So, my options weren't great but I bolted for the electric fence route. I didn't stop to look back until I was well behind the barn and I could still hear the bull bellowing. Told my mom about it and she talked to the neighbor - turns out he had no idea the renter was putting a bull in that pasture and he's like oh hell no - he knew that the fencing they had was in no way appropriate for that type of animal so he made them take the bull out.

 

[westlbcyclone]

Going to the ISU-TTU game in 2015, driving to Ames and it started snowing. About 5 minutes north of Ankeny on 35, the car I was following suddenly slammed on his brakes, which means I did too. I was trying not to follow too closely, but apparently I failed. I missed his rear bumper by maybe 2 inches still going 30+ MPH, and ended up in the median stuck in the snow. My buddy and I sat in the car for a couple minutes composing ourselves, and I went to get out to see if anything could be done to get us unstuck and moving again. I had the door open about halfway and at the same time:
1) I heard a very large engine rev really loudly.
2) I saw a Dodge dually pickup in my sideview mirror.

I yanked my door shut, and this truck FLIES past me, close enough I could've touched it. If I hadn't heard/seen it, I'm sure it would have smoked at least my door and probably me along with it. The truck kept on trucking (sorry, not sorry) and made it back up to the left shoulder of northbound traffic. He then just kept on driving down the shoulder passing all these cars crawling down the road because it's snowing.

Needless to say, we didn't make it to the game. Got a ride with a State Trooper to the Subway/Kum and Go on Duff where he dropped the two of us and two college kids off, and then we waited there for the DOT to lift the tow ban to get my car out.

 

[drgnslyr]

Recently, I was pulling up to an intersection on a 2 lane highway, slow to a stop waiting of for oncoming traffic so I could make a left turn. I start getting confused when the oncoming cars, 2 or 3 of them, all slow down and start pulling off to the shoulder. Right as I start looking around to see what is going on, a car goes flying past me from behind. I hadn't checked my mirror before stopping to see what traffic was behind me, and I'm glad the oncoming cars got out of the way for the idiot. Once I got turned, I had to take a minute with some deep breaths to be thankful that I didn't have my rear bumper shoved up my backside.

 

[cyhiphopp]

I can't remember what year it was, but I was driving my family home from an ISU football game. We were on highway 30 in stop and go traffic as usual. Suddenly both lanes start going and it looks like the traffic is clearing up.

I hang back a little, predicting that it would slow down again shortly, while the other lane starts getting faster and faster. All of a sudden a few cars in front of me in the other lane, a big pickup truck screaches to a halt. You can hear it skidding and jolting as the tires try to grab the road. Then the next car just plows right into him at about 40 mph. The next car tries to avoid the two in front of him and swerves into my lane. I saw all of this seemingly in slow motion and drove off onto the shoulder and avoided everything. At the least it would have totalled my car, at worst hurt someone in my family.

That's why I'm fine with my wife saying I drive like a grandpa. I'd rather be a patient driver than have that kind of crap happen to me.

 

[clones26]

One Sunday on the way back to ISU I fell asleep driving up I-35 just north of Ankeny and went into the middle grass, hopped a turnaround driveway and landed sideways sliding to a complete stop still in the middle on 4 wheels in a 12 year old Ford Explorer. . I drove up out of the ditch and went on my way after I caught my nerves and changed my pants. I could have hit a cable barrier or bridge post, I could have not landed the "jump" and rolled the SUV, I could've been driving a car and not off roaded well enough to make it, or I could have crossed into oncoming traffic or went down into a creek between bridges. Somehow none of that happened and I am grateful every time I look at mile marker 104 on the way up to Ames.

 

[IAStubborn]

Going to the ISU-TTU game in 2015, driving to Ames and it started snowing. About 5 minutes north of Ankeny on 35, the car I was following suddenly slammed on his brakes, which means I did too. I was trying not to follow too closely, but apparently I failed. I missed his rear bumper by maybe 2 inches still going 30+ MPH, and ended up in the median stuck in the snow. My buddy and I sat in the car for a couple minutes composing ourselves, and I went to get out to see if anything could be done to get us unstuck and moving again. I had the door open about halfway and at the same time:
1) I heard a very large engine rev really loudly.
2) I saw a Dodge dually pickup in my sideview mirror.

I yanked my door shut, and this truck FLIES past me, close enough I could've touched it. If I hadn't heard/seen it, I'm sure it would have smoked at least my door and probably me along with it. The truck kept on trucking (sorry, not sorry) and made it back up to the left shoulder of northbound traffic. He then just kept on driving down the shoulder passing all these cars crawling down the road because it's snowing.

Needless to say, we didn't make it to the game. Got a ride with a State Trooper to the Subway/Kum and Go on Duff where he dropped the two of us and two college kids off, and then we waited there for the DOT to lift the tow ban to get my car out.

This reminds me of another one. When I was still in college I had a sales type job over the summer that led me to little towns across Iowa. This was pre-GPS of cours and was heading to Wall Lake from Rockwell City I think and I missed a turn so looking at the map decided it would be faster to take a gravel road. At that point I was late so going fast and iwas coming up over a hill and as soon as i emerged over the top the sun was right in my eyes as I was heading due west early evening little did I know the road had a T not much farther past the crest of the hill and by the time I realized it was much too late I barely had a second to break before flying off the 15 foot embankment across the T. I flew through the air 20 feet or so and took out the top portion of a 4 foot livestock fence and landed right in the spot another adjacent fence split two fields. I landed right between two posts and took out the top half of the initial post. My car actually didn't look that bad except for it was smoking like crazy. I called the sheriff office and a tow truck and the sheriff came out and told me who owned the fence... it was the guy who I was now really late to meet and have dinner with (I mean how cray is that). He also told me that I was pretty darn lucky, and that a guy earlier that year all "hopped up on crank and dope" drove off the embankment faster than I had landed on the fence post I clipped and it went up through the car and impaled him. Said the post was sticking out of his stomach and he was still alive jabbering a way but died when the paramedics pulled him off. Anyway he also asked me if my car still ran. I assumed it was screwed up since it was smoking so bad, but he said that was probably just my radiator fluid and oil shooting out on the hot engine. So I fired up my car and drove right out of the field. He didn't give me a ticket just the fence owners number. So I show up at the dinner 50 minutes late and the guy is still there finishing up dinner. I tell him what happened and that I drove through his fence and a little of his bean field pull out my check book and apologizing ask how much I owe him or if he wanted to just send me a bill. He said, "nah don't worry about that post already killed one guy probably ought move it over a few feet anyway. I told him I also took out the wire portion of the other fence and his beans and he replied "how bout you buy the first round of beer". Good guy ended up spending the night in wall lake after the sheriff came down later and had a few beers with us too.

 

[CyKosys]

I got out of Iowa City, the People's Republic of Johnson County.....
four square miles surrounded by reality....the state's money pit.