GolfHos

... to killing someone?  I mean literally, what is the closest call you've ever had where you were almost responsible for taking a human life?  (Whether by accident, negligence, intentional act, whatever.)

I was at a stop sign, turning right. I was looking left for traffic coming my way.  When it was clear, I started to go when I turned to look to my right and there was a jogger right there.  I nearly ran over her. 

She didn't seem too upset, but I was pretty shaken by it.

the time i was in an auto accident (well, the one that was 'my fault'.. which i debate... but so...)






(back story...   for those that know the highway system in San Antonio)... planning to get on mcermott NW from Hildebrand, the on-ramp has that backleftshoulder view blocking hedge wall.  i slow down, play safe, look back when you can finally see, it's pretty clear but i obviously need to get up to speed as its the highway and there IS someone getting off at the exit the hedge shields,  look up ahead, the person ahead is doing the same, double check back one more time, and it's still clear behind,   pump the gas, turn head back around to front,    and the car ahead has 'broken down' in the middle of merging on.  no time to swerve/judge,  just brake as hard as I can.   slowed down to about 5-10 from 50ish before impacting them.   any less attention and i would have hit them considerably faster.  turns out their car was out of inspection,  and a total POS.  i initiated contact though,  so i was techincally deemed at fault, even though how can you count on the car ahead of you crapping out at all times while being vigilant elsewhere around you....

anyways, so since i hit them, and their car was a POS,  if it had been a higher speed collision, i might* have killed them. who knows.
 >:( >:(

When my middle son poured water all over our brand new TV and it stopped working for the afternoon I was pretty close.

Actually the closest I've been to killing anyone was myself more then once. I received a shock from 220v, and I caused a minor electrical explosion. Both occurred while I was in the Navy. Other then that no.

Actually having a human figure in the rifle sights, finger on the trigger, taking up slack.

 [sm_shock]

ZFfIZSh_chg

Senior in high school driving home with a buddy one night. Wintry mix of snow and sleet had iced up a bridge and 3 cars had piled into each other.

As we approached, some moron was standing in the middle of the road waving his hands above his head signaling us to stop. I had seen the accident and had hit the brakes but there was no stopping due to the ice. 60-65mph sliding right at this guy. He managed to jump out of the way in time and we managed to get stopped 20 feet from the cars.

But the family in the station wagon behind us didn't get stopped in time and plowed into me. Luckily no one was seriously hurt. But that idiot in the road was one slip from being done.

In high school, relatively new driver, in mom's mini-van. I was waiting to make a right-hand turn from a side street to a main road. I looked to my right as I pulled up to the stop, then looked left and waited for traffic to clear. When I had a hole in traffic, I failed to look right again before I turned and just pulled out. At the same time, a kid on a bike, going against traffic on the left-hand side of the road, darted in front of me. The kid and the bike ended up pinned under my front bumper. The kid, aside from some scrapes and bruises, was fine. The bike was pretty jacked up, though.

I was completely freaked out, but I asked the kid to let me drive him home and talk to his mom. He refused but I insisted, so we loaded the bike, and the kid, into the minivan. The weird thing is that the whole time he kept saying "don't call the cops, please don't call the cops." When we got to where he said he lived, and we unloaded the bike, he ran into the backyard, and jumped the fence. No one was at home when I knocked on the door at the house. I considered leaving a note, but the whole thing was just too weird, so I left the bike in the driveway and went home.

That's the closest I've ever come to actually killing anyone. It's not necessarily, however, the closest I've been to wanting to kill somone.

in my alcohol and drug laden youth lets just say very close too many times and leave it at that.

Easy.  The time I took out birdymaker's brother in arms.  I figured I'd killed him for sure.  When he stood up I wasn't sure if I should be delighted he was alright or scared *feces*less he was some sort of blood drinking, flesh eating, undead mother *fudge*er.

I've never come close to killing anyone.  However, I've been close to being on the opposite side a few times while biking.  Considering I take great care to obey traffic laws and then some, never assuming right of way or any such thing, and remember that vehicles can easily take down someone on a bike... :sad3:  Never actually been hit while on my bike, though.

have never stood on the edge of that particular cliff..

Infantry, Vietnam, 1971. 'Nuff said. :sad3:

Do co-workers count?

Does there have to be an actual act of physical violence, or is the thinking about the alledged act sufficient?

 [sm_anon]

Same here.  I've thought about it for a couple of days, and can't come up with anything that meets the thread criteria.

Me too.  Been in a few car accidents that were all more like fender benders with no chance of death for anyone. 

Unless you count the times I stupidly drove when I shouldn't have in high school/college. 

Maybe you're over-thinking it.  I"m not talking about how close you came to acting on a desire to kill someone.

Simply put, what is the closest you've come to a situation where a human life almost ended, and you would have felt responsible had that happened?

No.  I got that part.  (that's why I chewed on it for a couple of days.)  The other side, want to "kill someone", sure, plenty.

I was trying to recount.......never been in an auto accident *knock, knock*  Can't think of anything in my younger days, Military, or Haight-Ashbury days that was significant enough to be lethal.   [sm_scratch]

I guess the closest I can come is the fact that I scanned someone who was later reported to have a pacemaker.   Still no resolution, as the pt. told me "no", but had some documentation otherwise.  I suppose, in theory, if he did, I could have killed him that day.

Don't pace me bro.

Fall of 1982, my best friend and I had just been released from boot camp, obligatory party ensued. For some reason we partied at the old Auburn bowling alley, I think it was because we knew someone who would serve us alcohol. I always had the hots for my buddies sister, back then she was gorgeous, dark hair, dark eyes, 5 foot 8 with just enough mixture of Filipino and Caucasian to drive any man mad.

We sat there for a few hours (maybe 2?) getting pleasantly numb, the whole time we were there her boyfriend, a tiny puke of a man with a very untreated case of lil' mans disease, kept calling her names, and I mean every name in the book. As I remember most of the people would just say "STFU Steve". We decided to go back to their apartment (Steve & Lori's), had some more booze (good call huh) and he kept at it...*fudge* you bitch...did you tell 'em about your smelly *vagina*...

...BOOM, I'm off the couch and I slammed that mother*fudge*er so hard against the wall his eyes rolled and he made a beautiful sound, a cross between losing your breath and whimpering, I'll never forget it.

And then I brought him to the floor, now I've got my full body weight on him and both my hands around his throat, and I'm whispering sweetly and gently into his ear "I've got your life now Steve, it's mine, it belongs to me, and if you ever say anything to Lori or hurt Lori I'm going to come back and finish this".

I looked up at my two buddies the brother, and our other buddy Steve (clearly we have too many Steve's in Auburn), and Steve just says "Don't do it, it ain't worth it". Before I let him go I looked up at Lori and said "Why don't you come with me, I'll take care of you".

The sad ending to the story is, they stayed together, got hooked on meth, lost there kids, she lost her family because she stole so much from them.

ALSO
Since I'm cleaning out the closet, Beirut, Lebanon 1983. Self defense. It's the only way I sleep at nights, telling myself it was self defense.

OK, then I guess I have something like that, but not exactly.  In fact, completely opposite.

I've survived near death experiences twice, and each time I've saved my own life just at the last millisecond.  In one instance, I saved my life by saving the life of another.

These were what I call "Discovery Channel" type high drama wilderness experiences.

How would I have felt if these incidents would have otherwise left me dead?

Well, I imagine that, other than feeling dead and lifeless, I would guess to have felt pity for a world without the dynamic CEO of the leading concern in the copulation sector.

1985, in high school.  Driving (without a license) a couple of buddies who were too tipsey to drive.  Coming to an intersection I have the right-of-way.  Intersection to my right has a stop sign.  I see the guy coming from my right w/out his lights on going about 70 in a 25.  I slammed on brakes.  He doesn't even stop.   He jumps a curb and hits a house.  He jumps out of the car and tries to run away.  Caught by one of the guys in the car I was driving.  He was probably 17 years old and drunk out of his mind. 

Now that I think about it, we probably would have been killed and not him.

There's also this guy on another forum who I would...

Nevermind!! [sm_devil]

I killed a pig once... no, wait, that was Michael Caine..... On second thoughts, he never killed a bloody pig...

 [sm_anon]

Seamus, you story really touched me.
Just think, if she said yes, her whole life would have changed.

I thought I did once, and was very shaken until I learned otherwise.

what makes you think it would be her life that changed? just curious.  :)

Well instead of staying with that dead*feces* boyfriend, she would of, went off with Seamus who would have treated right, who knows they could of ended up married  or anything..
If she had the brains/confidence to leave that *8==>*head, her whole world might of changed...

Thanks Jules, and BM makes a valid point. I think my buddy and I have talked about the incident only once since then, and it was maybe 3 or so years ago at his/their mother's wake (Lori showed up wasted), he said something like "she should have said yes to you that night".

It's funny the different roads we take in our lives, and if she would have said yes that night then my path would have changed also, and if that means not having this wonderful wife and these awesome kids, well then I'm sorry for her but I'm glad that she took a left instead of a right.

yeah seamus that was pretty much my point. a different choice by one person changes everything for all parties involved. who knows where it would have ended up.  :)

I was just saying, that for once in her life something good came along, who knows what would have happened if she said "yes".

Have you ever seen the movie "Sliding Doors".  excellent movie.

and have you seen "The Butterfly Effect"
?
 [sm_devil]

You would have been very proud me Aske, I just wiki'ed The Butterfly Effect. ;D

Very interesting, I'm sure we have all thought once in our life, If I had done this, instead of that............

Sliding Doors was good.  The Butterfly Effect sucked balls.

Werd.

the movie sucked but the director's cut ending* rules

Movie *feces* aside, my closest call is a weird one.

It was ~1980, and I was a nerd in high school.  So nerdy, in fact, that I also was in a historical reenactment group based out of the Fort Pitt Museum in Pittsburgh PA (right at the tip of the triangle!).  The Royal American Regiment, 60th of Foot.  Uniforms (tailor-made!), tricorner hats, weapons, groupies -- we had it all, man.

Anyway, I was a corporal in the artillery, meaning I led a group on our cannon ("Bertha", of course -- we're nerds, but we're unoriginal).  We were doing some exhibition at Point State Park (see picture, below; the weird square thing is the outline of the old Fort Duquesne; the weird pointy thing at the top of the trees on the right side is one corner of Fort Pitt, now housing the museum) and my cannon was to the starting gun for the boat races of the "Gotta Regatta" that the city held every summer.  We were stationed at the very tip of The Point for that purpose.

(http://www.lewis-clark.org/media/NewImages/Importing/AERIALBOOK/wark_003-Pittsburgh.jpg)

The cannon and its carriage together are large and heavy, even more so than PaunchyBald.  It had a 3" bore and was pretty potent when fired (again, oddly like PB) -- despite two guys standing on its tail, it still came back about a foot from the explosion when fired.  Four guys make up the crew working the cannon: one to clean the bore ("worm"), one to sop the bore ("sponge") to quench embers that might ignite the black powder subsequently fed down said bore, one to load it, a powder monkey to assist the loader, and one to fire.  I was that last guy.  The "worm" and "sponge" stand forward of the wheels, one on either side.  At least, they're supposed to.

We finished our exhibition portion, and then we loaded the cannon.  There was a good-sized powder charge (2) inside, tamped down nicely, the "touch hole" (3) (oh, you guys are going to have a field day with these phrases!) was filled with powder, and there was a nice mound of black powder on top of the cannon.  That's the part I lit to fire the thing.  We were just hanging out, waiting for the signal to fire it to start the main race.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Cannon_diagram.svg/197px-Cannon_diagram.svg.png)

I noticed some stray black powder on one of the carriage rails.  So I absent-mindedly touched it with the slow-burning I use to fire the cannon, intending to flash it off.  Well, I hadn't noticed the stray powder was ALL OVER the carriage and the storage boxes flanking the cannon.  Big flash, hiss, and smoke as basically everything surrounding the cannon ignited, burned briefly, and went out.  Flame came extremely close to the powder mound over the touch hole, which would of course have fired the cannon.

I looked up, and my friend Bill Vallinson ("sponge" that day) was standing directly in front of the muzzle (where he does not belong).  He was as pale as a ghost, as he thought the cannon was going to fire.  It would have either blown a hole where his chest was, or it would have blown him into two pieces, and tossed him into the Ohio River.  He told me later that I turned just as white when I looked up and saw him.



(I had you at "nerd", right?)

Holy cow Clive.... [sm_shock]

I'm tipping a call was also put in for some clean undewear...

 :holysheep:  Nice story.   [sm_nervous]

Trumps anything I've ever done.  Or would have done to someone.

I've never heard a Nerds with Heavy Artillery story I didn't love.

apparently spuzz was right.

PS -- the "worm" frequently is the guy who loads the cannon.  That's why I said four but listed five. 
That and I can't count.

(And the powder monkey is to be nowhere near the cannon after he delivers the charge to us, as he could blow up if he gets too near any open flame.)

 [sm_shock]

Clive wins for use of cannon, powder monkey, and touch hole in the same story.

Seriously,  [sm_shock]

Teed's story reminded me of an experience similar I had while driving.  A friend and I (me behind the wheel) were driving to his house around 1999 on a weekend around midnight.  We were both completely sober and heading to his house to smoke some pot.  We exit the highway heading north and proceed under the intersection of the crossing East/West turnpike overhead.  The access roads on either side of the turnpike are both two lane one-way roads in their respective East/West directions.  We go to the light to turn left and head west down the access road towards his house.  Just as the light turned green, something caused me to pause before entering the intersection and look left.  At that moment an old pickup truck flies right in front of us with its lights off coming from the left and going the wrong way on the street.  It missed us by about a foot or two and I was a second away from certain death.  He had to be going 70 mph with no lights on Eastbound on a westbound street.  Crazy ass *feces*.  Not sure how I paused to miss him without really seeing him until he passed.

Made me laugh out loud.

8)  just wanted to make sure it had nothing to do with me being stupid this time.  Plus it's the truth.   ;D

Driving along a neighborhood street up the hill towards my home.  It was not night, nor was it daylight.  I was going about 20 mph in the 25 mph zone.  Talking with the wife and holy cow, something was zooming straight down to us.  I jerked the steering wheel to the right and hit the curb.  The 8 yr old kid was laying down on his skateboard on his back and zoomed straight thru the spot I once occupied.  Wife recognized the kid and we turned around to fine him on sidewalk walking back up the hill.  He had stopped at the stop sign at bottom of hill.  He recognized us and accepted our offer for ride to his home.  His mom and dad were home and couldn't believe what we told them.  Haven't seen him on skateboard since then and that has been 7 years.  He is lucky to be alive and is a darn good kid.  When we are working in the yard, he often stops to say hi etc.