I Shouldn't Be Alive!! Your Dances With Death.

[kepp]

Originally Posted by Hog Farmer

Fell off a motorcycle going 70 and slid directly under an oncoming car. Right under and out the back side. Lost all the skin on my back and a dislocated hip. Wasn't wearing a shirt. They say if I'd been wearing a helment I probably would have gotten hung up under the car. Note to self "7 bottles of cheap wine and motorcycles don't mix."

I had a drunk motorcycle accident once. My friend was driving and I was on the back...we were both drunk. We were on back roads only going about 35 though. My friend forgot about a 90 degree turn and went straight into the ditch. We ended up only inches from a barbed wire fence.

[Bwana]

Originally Posted by kepp

I had a drunk motorcycle accident once. My friend was driving and I was on the back...we were both drunk. We were on back roads only going about 35 though. My friend forgot about a 90 degree turn and went straight into the ditch. We ended up only inches from a barbed wire fence.

That reminds me of my first sky diving jump. There is a little town about 15 miles from here where they had a so called sky diving "school." A buddy and I showed up, they gave you the 101 on jumping, pulling the cord and proper landing procedure.

What they didn't consider was the 25 MPH winds that day and what that might do to ones trajectory, particularly after the parachute is deployed.

Now keep in mind, at the "Jed Clampet school of sky diving," they didn't start you out with a tandem jump and or a static line jump, it was jump, pull the cord, if that one doesn't open, try chute two. If one panicked and didn't open the chute, you were going to make the news. I went first from 8000 feet, I hit the proper level and deployed my parachute. What a fantastic view, my God, this is great I'm thinking. But wait, I'm starting to drift away from the landing zone, hard crank on the left chute handle, aww yes, back on track.

All was well until I hit about 200 feet and the cross winds caught me again. As I was drifting sideways, I notice a man eater, AKA a barbwire fence in the sky diving business, directly below. I had to give a last minute hard crank on the right handle to avoiding the thing, landed sideways and ended up bounding several times before I could get the chute to fold up. My buddy drifted about 3 miles away and ended up in a corn field after drifting over several power lines, the Yellowstone River and numerous tall trees. I went right back up and jumped again that day, he has never done it again.