re: How many times have you cheated death? Share the story.

Got shot by a 3006 through my left shoulder while blood trailing a deer I'd shot with a bow. Long story short, a guy on the ground about 300 yards away on management land shot at a deer and missed. I caught the stray bullet. What are the odds of that happening.

every day I cheat death by staying alive.

Drugs, heart attack, electricity, violence and doing stupid shite has almost taken me out multiple times.

There are probably times I was close in new Orleans and didn't even know it.

Flipped my dads F150 when I was 16. Did not have a seat belt on and a was thrown through the drivers side window due to the inertia. I remember being in the truck and then being on the pavement on a country road. I dislocated my shoulder and had some road rash and various bumps and bruises. Wrecker pulled the truck of the trees, and I probably would have been killed if I had been wearing my seat belt due to the roof crushing and cab impacting a pine tree.

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How many times have you cheated death?

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Every morning when I wake up.

I've been tempted to troll the Q threads but didn't.....

While I probably cheated death in the military multiple times unaware of most of them 3 times outside of the uniform come to mind.

1. My climbing partner and I had finished a day of climbing in the Linville Gorge/Table rock area of NC and we were climbing out using a pretty easy route. I was second and was climbing with a rather large backpack with most of our gear on it. I was being belayed from above on 1 rope of a twin rope system (very thin ropes that SHOULD only be used in pairs) which is dumb by itself. I was coming up to an overhang and when I started the transition from vertical to slightly overhanging I lost a little concentration and I let the pack get too far behind my center of gravity and it pulled me off. I fell back and did a long pendulum off to the left. This pulled the rope sideways across the shelf above me and cut through the mantle (exterior) and probably halfway through the kern (interior). I was able to swing over and get back on the climb after being lowered about 15 feet. When I got to the top I noticed my partner was not clipped into to anything and was doing a hand belay. His hands and back were bloody from arresting my fall. He apparently didn't think it was possible for me to fall on that easy route, I proved him wrong. Both of us were lazy and complacent that day and it almost cost be a 120' ground fall that would almost certainly would have killed me.

2. I along with the same climbing partner were cleaning a new route for a first accent on Rumbling Bald in NC and when pulling up on a slab it dislodged and the slab and me both fell. I came to rest on a ledge about 12 feet down and the slab (maybe 4'x 6' and 1' thick) hit the ledge about a foot from my head and "exploded" I actually had about a dozen razor-sharp shards of granite stuck in my scalp but escaped dying again.

3. Same climbing partner and I were doing training climbs on Ranier. We would camp at Camp Muir and do two or three summits from there a day for 3 days in prep for the years bigger climbs. On our second descent of the day, we came across four guys from San Diego that were doing a non-guided climb with crappy equipment and were showing signs of AMS so we offered them water, food and told them we were going to short rope them down. I was the last man on the second rope with two of them on my rope walking in front of me. We were traversing just above Ingraham glacier when the first one stumbled and pulled us all three onto the glacier. It was clear they didn't know how to self-arrest and my first attempt pulled out under the momentum and weight of the two climbers. I was finally able to self-arrest and stop the train just as the first guy went over the edge into a late-season probably 200' deep crevasse. It took nearly two hours for my partner to secure me then set up a crevasse haul to get everyone secured. Being a good samaritan coupled with a misstep and late in the year rotten ice damn near killed me.

Most people probably cheat death several times a month without even knowing it. I have probably been closer to death but unaware.

I was 15 with my learner's permit. We lived in SE Alabama at the time, and my grandmother had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage, similar to a stroke. She was in the hospital in Mississippi, and we were staying at her house in SW Alabama and driving the half hour or so back and forth every day. This one day I was driving my Mom's little Nissan 240, and she was in the passenger seat. Somewhere past the state line, I was coming up a hill with a slight curve to it. This was a little 2-lane highway, and at the top of the hill there was an intersection. I saw a big dump truck pull to a stop at his stop sign. Wasn't a 4-way stop. I'm getting close to cresting the hill, and he starts to pull out. I didn't even have time to lay on the horn, but I swerved off to the right, and just cleared his front bumper. Saw the MACK letters across the grill. My mom freaked out. She was reading or something and not watching the road. I was still shaking 20 minutes later when we got to the hospital. Could have driven up under it and killed us both had I not been paying attention.

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While I probably cheated death in the military multiple times unaware of most of them 3 times outside of the uniform come to mind.

1. My climbing partner and I had finished a day of climbing in the Linville Gorge/Table rock area of NC and we were climbing out using a pretty easy route. I was second and was climbing with a rather large backpack with most of our gear on it. I was being belayed from above on 1 rope of a twin rope system (very thin ropes that SHOULD only be used in pairs) which is dumb by itself. I was coming up to an overhang and when I started the transition from vertical to slightly overhanging I lost a little concentration and I let the pack get too far behind my center of gravity and it pulled me off. I fell back and did a long pendulum off to the left. This pulled the rope sideways across the shelf above me and cut through the mantle (exterior) and probably halfway through the kern (interior). I was able to swing over and get back on the climb after being lowered about 15 feet. When I got to the top I noticed my partner was not clipped into to anything and was doing a hand belay. His hands and back were bloody from arresting my fall. He apparently didn't think it was possible for me to fall on that easy route, I proved him wrong. Both of us were lazy and complacent that day and it almost cost be a 120' ground fall that would almost certainly would have killed me.

2. I along with the same climbing partner were cleaning a new route for a first accent on Rumbling Bald in NC and when pulling up on a slab it dislodged and the slab and me both fell. I came to rest on a ledge about 12 feet down and the slab (maybe 4'x 6' and 1' thick) hit the ledge about a foot from my head and "exploded" I actually had about a dozen razor-sharp shards of granite stuck in my scalp but escaped dying again.

3. Same climbing partner and I were doing training climbs on Ranier. We would camp at Camp Muir and do two or three summits from there a day for 3 days in prep for the years bigger climbs. On our second descent of the day, we came across four guys from San Diego that were doing a non-guided climb with crappy equipment and were showing signs of AMS so we offered them water, food and told them we were going to short rope them down. I was the last man on the second rope with two of them on my rope walking in front of me. We were traversing just above Ingraham glacier when the first one stumbled and pulled us all three onto the glacier. It was clear they didn't know how to self-arrest and my first attempt pulled out under the momentum and weight of the two climbers. I was finally able to self-arrest and stop the train just as the first guy went over the edge into a late-season probably 200' deep crevasse. It took nearly two hours for my partner to secure me then set up a crevasse haul to get everyone secured. Being a good samaritan coupled with a misstep and late in the year rotten ice damn near killed me.

Most people probably cheat death several times a month without even knowing it. I have probably been closer to death but unaware.

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Wow. . The highest mountain I ever climbed on foot is the Mississippi River levee in Concordia parish at Shawn Burks hunting place. About 40 feet I guess.