What life changing things did you manage to avoid?

Me and a mate and his girlfriend were living in Dublin in 1974.

If it wasn’t for the fact that we’d decided to quit our jobs and go hitching around Ireland, we’d have been in the right area, when walking to work, to get blown up when Dublin was bombed on 17 May of that year by the UVF…

This was the usual train I got into London from Reading in the late 1990s.

Overslept.

Hmmm, I went out with a medic for many years while she was at Uni. She shared a house with a pretty little thing called Louise that a good mate of mine ended up going out with. I once got a distraught call from my ex asking to come and give her some support as Louise had just been rushed to A&E after OD’ing on pills. My mate is now happily married with kids (to a Moira).

My close escape came while exploring a cave system high in the Austrian Alps. We were a party of 5 or 6 and were not far from exiting the cave via an alternative entrance to one we went in via. Exit meant crawling over a rock bridge that spanned a vertical 40 metre deep shaft. Unfortunately the bridge was still covered in a think layer of ice making it impassable without extra rope and bolts (that we didn’t have). We noted there was a narrow 4 inch ledge around the edge of the shaft that we could use but it involved an awkward climb at the end of the ledge around the back of a 20 foot by 1 foot wide column of ice. The first members of the party successfully negotiated the ledge and I was bringing up the rear. The chap in front of me had just gone round the back of the ice column when it decided enough was enough and collapsed in front of my eyes. I can still see those tonnes of ice sliding past inches from my face as I am stood on that ledge. How it never knocked me off I will never know. A large fragment did hit one of the lads already across and almost broke his leg. Guess it just wasn’t my time that day.

My OH is called Louise. I didn’t avoid a life-changing thing though, I married her two years ago.

No kids, so there’s that I suppose. And I didn’t marry my crazy ex (who isn’t called Louise).

Had dinner in the Windows On The World restaurant at the top of the World Trade Centre on the evening of 10 September 2001. Totally gobsmacked by the view and decided to return 1st thing the following morning. After dinner we went to the ‘Best Bar in the World’ across the lobby, had a few too many cocktails and slept in the following morning. Best hangover ever.

Oh, I know one. Not as impressive as some of the tales on here though.

Climbing a tree as a nipper, the branch I was standing on broke and gouged a great lump of flesh out of my leg as I fell. An inch or two to the left and it would’ve been a life-changing event, it’d have turned me into a little girl instead.

Louise( Dundee version) mad and angry.
Not taking a lift home from a pissed mate when I was 18, both he and the passenger died when they hit a tree.
Falling asleep through exhaustion on the bench outside Derry Lodge at 5pm on a January Tuesday…2010; huge amounts of snow and bitterly cold. Woken by an old lad who just wandered the hills and was walking to Corrour,took me into Bob Scotts and got hot liquids into me.

Only really know one Louise, she worked with my team for a while, then had to have a hip operation. Lovely girl, ex air cabin staff on Emirates and Etiad Airlines, very poised and graceful with a strong Bristolian accent.
Not got a bad thing to say about her, a really sweet person.
Just for balance, like.
And not really had any near-misses, either, and reading others posts here, I’m definitely getting a ‘there but for the grace of the Angels’ vibe.

Penny dropped a few years later.

Was it a really impropriate moment? Mid coatus? Did you ever speak to her again?

This needs answers…

As a teenager I was walking along with headphones blasting staring at my feet and for some reason decided to look up saw a car flying towards me grabbed the random kid stood next to me and yanked him back, the car went flying up the kerb and through the wall in front of us, handbrake wasn’t on and it had flown out of someone’s drive and down the hill… Still no Idea how I did it

Not me (and never *known* s Louise):

Friend overslept and just missed the tube. It was exploded as part of the 7/7 attacks.

My FIL caught United Airlines Flight 175 from Logan airport to NYC on 10th September 2001. The next day the same flight hit the WTC. On 9/11 they had finished their meetings near the WTC and were heading away when the planes struck.

Downshep – Its a small world! I was also in “The Greatest Bar in the World’ the day before 9/11!!

On the day itself, we left our hotel near Grand Central, heading for the Statue of Liberty. As we passed the WTC station, people started getting on, talking about a plane flying into it. We decided to go back to our hotel & investigate. Got on a Northbound train, which went 1 stop, and halted, lights went out. We were there for 3-4 hrs. Investigation shows we were 100yds away from the WTC site, and were stuck there whilst it fell down above our heads. No effect on us, but when we finally pulled into a station and were all kicked off, we came out into a dust cloud and tens of thousands of people running North.

Not had a Louise though – must try harder!

Tiffany, now she could have taken my life down a completely different path had circumstances been different.

If only you were alone now

Not me but my grandfather in 1914.
He was allocated sentry duty at Hartlepool docks, then a major coal port, but swapped watch with another soldier so that he could see his then girlfriend.
The man he swapped with was the first soldier killed on British soil by enemy action in WW1, when the German fleet shelled the port. There’s a monument there to my Grandad’s mate.

A hurricane, in January 1990. The roof of a barn just up the road from me started to come away over the winter. On the Thursday afternoon, I was walking home from school with a friend, when he suddenly dropped to the floor and lay flat, without a word.

Fractions of a second later, I realized that something was in my peripheral vision and I had only enough time to drop my head level with my shoulders when I was brushed by a large lump of corrugated steel and timber. I barely got a scrape, but had I been a moment later in dropping my head, I’d have been decapitated.

Oh and the girl was called Lucy, not Louise. I count my blessings.

Sailing race, 1am, febuary, 1998, blowing a gale somewhere in the middle of the north sea. I came up top, went forward to check the rigging and as I clipped on up front I was hit by a freak wave that took me overboard. Helmsman and other crew didnt see but i managed to get back on board.
Thank you survival suits. Never been so cold before or since.

I had just returned from a year off travelling and was looking for a job. I took a proper professional job in Edinburgh. the week after I accepted I got offered a place on a greenpeace ship. I agonised long and hard over which way to go and eventually decided to stay with the proper job. that greenpeace ship was arrested off Murmansk and all the crew spent time in Russian jails. That would certainly have been life changing.

Something seems to happen after I’ve been somewhere. 😯
I spent a few nights on the ‘Jungle juice’ at the Sari Club.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/philippines/1410747/Sari-Club-bad-bad-place.-Bad-with-God.html
The plane got hi-jacked few weeks after I got back from a trip to Nepal
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Airlines_Flight_814
Ko Phi Phi my favourite place in the Indian Ocean got hammered in the Boxing Day Tsunami..

Many years ago I turned down the offer of a double date with Kelly brook, to be fair the offer was from someone who was dating her friend and not from her herself.

I have to say chip that would still bother me. Unless she’s a idiot.

Like Cougar, I am lucky to still have my reproductive organs. I was putting a small storage heater into a skip, its foot ripped a patch out of my cords 4″ to the left of my best friend as it swung over from me into the skip.

Be careful!

Missed the Herald Free Enterprise Out of Zeebrugge due to getting there late

My aunty worked on the Herald of Free enterprise but avoided getting to work that day by getting knocked off her motorbike and run over by an articulated truck.

My narrow escape – in the early 1970s when I was just a toddler my dad had to choose between job offers in Kampala, Uganda and Prescot, Merseyside. We weren’t amongst the artists and intellectuals rounded up and ‘disappeared’ in Prescot.

Accidentally married a male “louise”….

Fortunately my cousin is a divorce lawyer!

My ex’s middle name was Louise. Belatedly this three has explained a lot to me.

A few medical ones here;

Diagnosed with a pretty bad strain of Meningitis at 6 weeks old. Parents warned to expect a likely outcome of deafness or learning difficulties. I avoided both and flourished in comparison to some of the other kids on the ward.

Diagnosed with Hodgkins Disease aged 10. Parents insistence of a second opinion got it caught early, so just needed a few weeks radiotherapy and avoided Chemo (or worse).

Probably related to the above have Cavernomas in my spine and brain. If they pop I’ll have a stroke or ‘worse’ but managed to avoid that so far.

And a bike one;

Riding home from the midweek 10, a clubmate stopped to pick up a cap he’d flung during his race. He told us to push on and he’d catch us up, despite us offering to stop. Sadly he ended up hit by a car, and the one clubmate who did stop lost his life.

Never met a bad Louise.

I remember being moved by @stoners’ tale when this thread first appeared. It still does.

Sat in the back seat of a car of a friend of a friend leaving the front passager seat for my friend, for the trip home.

They both (my friends and his friend the driver) went for a pee so I decided I’d best go too, when I went to get back in, my friend was in the back do I jumped in the front.

10 minutes later, massive crash, went off the road and hit a tree. I was the only one to survive.

Can’t help thinking, that pee saved me. 27 years ago.

(ETA this just been bumped on the bike forum)

Driving about midnight down the N20 dual carriageway somewhere in France with the family, didn’t even see the lunatic in the other lane going the wrong way, towards us, at a combined 120mph+

Luckily the driver overtaking us did spot just in time and hit the brakes and dived in behind us.

I didn’t dodge a Louise though. Silver wedding Anniversary in a couple of years.

As a 19 year old sales rep on an induction course at a Nestle training school ( I was employed by Findus) with other young newbies we had decided to go to a nightclub in Colchester ( the Foundations were playing live ) .

Fast forward a few early morning hours and one of the other lads was driving my car back ( company car mk1 escort one week old )  ..on a country road on a blind corner a car was coming towards us on our side of the road ..avoiding action was taken whereby my driver ( can’t remember his name ) went off our side of the road up an embankment ( think huge berm ) ..the car eventually rolling over back on to the road ..on the wrong side facing the way we had come …re-profiled to look like a wedge of cheese with the front end completely mangled .

We both got out of the back window with nothing more than cuts & bruises..having ended up on the back seat of the car .

If seat belts had been compulsory back then we would both be dead ..a real lucky escape and I owe my life to my fellow colleague for his quick actions ..you would think that I would be able to remember his name ..but all I can remember is that he said that he drove Formula Ford  as a hobby..and after that induction course our paths never crossed again ..

So far?

Death..

Mostly in incidents caused by my own stupid, adventurous “what’s the worst that could happen?” attitude….

Think skiing, climbing, swimming, canoeing, biking style “Wow, that was close Si….’

Another louise.  From outside Edinburgh.  Bad girl, too much booze, wedding, debt, anorexia/bulimia,  pink convertible ka, debt collectors and divorce.

Dodged a bullet. (no literally dodged a bullet) some dick of a flight lieutenant forgot his cock, hook, look.

The Chinook crash 6th Nov 1986, we were due on the next flight, 2 survived 45 died, when the gearbox failed.

A baseball bat to head, when my girl friends (my single girl friend) husband turned up ! The baseball bat, deflected off my arm on to my head and on the kitchen cupboard and snapped with the force of the impact. Some how I got out in one piece and managed to get to A&E. Nasty cuts to my head & arm, requiring lots of stitches, plus bruising and swelling to my face, arm, ribs and nether regions, plus very bad concussion and shock. I honestly had no idea.

Another if it’s allowed ..again death defying..not that I remember anything about it .

At 10 weeks old after having an operation ( pyloric stenosis)..my parents were told that I would probably have died within 3 days if they hadn’t operated when they did .

Think the exorcist film where she is vomiting violently and you are close to what things were like.

My brother had the same operation 3 years later shortly after he was born ..quite common apparently in boys..

The scar is still visible to this day nearly 61 years on ..

Was dead for a couple of minutes apparently? So I am still alive but didn’t avoid death?

Frightened my GP more than me and the missus was not overly impressed.

How did the relationship go after that, pb2?

Aged about 7 or 8, I Jumped out of our apple tree when my dad’s brother* said he would catch me.  He didn’t and as I landed a foot long bamboo stake grazed the side of my head, only just missing my eye socket.

*I won’t dignify him with the title uncle, that would potentially give people the wrong idea.  I wouldn’t want anyone to think I valued that useless, hypocritical and incompetent bag of flesh.

I had a tree surgery ‘near miss’.

Rather than climbing higher up the tree (because I was a bit hung over) I decided I’d top out the pine tree at about 30′ beneath the top, at about 60′ off the ground. On my spikes, wire strop around, enough breeze to warrant a pull rope hastily chucked up through the canopy. Felling cut in at the back and as the stem started to topple the hinge sheared and the butt slid back towards my lap (potential spine-breaker for those of you that don’t know). I let go of the 020T chainsaw and somehow just shoved the whole thing up, off and away from me, like a massive shoddy caber toss. I don’t know where the strength came from, but the entire situation completely shat me up. I got ‘The Fear’ after that. Within a year I’d sold my 10 year established TS business, and opted for a quieter life of green woodwork tuition and hedge laying.

Edit – Just realised it’s the Louise thread resurfaced again. LOL. My Louise was called Carolyn.

Is Britain full of psychotic women or do cyclists tend to attract them?

I don’t do late, or taking days off work. Used to do shift work back in the day, up at 5 every other week One morning, for no reason I could ever figure out why, woke up at 7:30. Bugger.

Id noticed an ache in one of my bollocks the week earlier and dismissed it. But with waking up late thought I needed and excuse for not going in, so tried to get an appointment at the GP (always a difficult thing mind). Turns out the person who had rang before me had cancelled and if I could get there in 10 minute I could have there appointment.

Doctor “couldn’t see anything wrong”, but would refer me to a consultant. Drove home, phone rang, consultant secretary said they had a appointment cancelled that afternoon if I could make it. By 4 o’clock that evening I’d been diagnosed with testicular cancer and was straight in for surgery. Turns out we had got it very early. That was 28 years ago.

Often think what would have happened if that alarm had gone off. Pretty sure I’d have left it for ages.

Few years later (on a late shift), the story came up and one of the lads said funny enough one of his was aching the day  before. Went home saw doctor next morning, same thing.

I’ve never  visited the Louise thread ..do they have to be mad women ?

My first girlfriend at 16 was a Louise..nice girl but just way too quiet .we didn’t last too long ..

Booked the wrong train to kingsX was fuming with myself as I walked into Darlington for the next train thinking I would miss the start of the meeting.

Didn’t get to London that day (Heck train crash).

Flight out of Jomson in the Himalayas, same plane, everything, crashed killing everyone the year after I took it.

Helicopter flight through the Grand Canyon that crashed, and yes, killed everyone recently.  Done that.

Managed to avoid the earthquake in Kathmandu as well.

Can’t say any of them were close calls, and more coincidence that anything, but it does give one a twang of morality, especially when travelling with family…