What's the scariest thing you have ever done.
 

What's the scariest thing you have ever done?

For me. A number of years ago a certain well know gang's car broke down in my old neigbourhod. I parked my car a few blocks away then made my way to the gang car looking left and right for anyone wearing a patch. Next was the scary bit. I spray painted certain words with letters 2 feet high down the sides of the car and other words over the hood, roof and trunk. Then I ran, man did I run. I did a side streets course back to my car and got the hell outa there.

Why?

I got married once...

There are a couple.
Once I was flying when I had about 80 hours. One morning I took off an it looked like I was flying into clouds almost immediately, so I did a 180 like you are supposed to. But what was happening was not clouds coming in, but fog forming all around me. Within minutes I couldn't see the ends of the wings. I was still in the local area and got on the com channel for the little airport. I flew around until they thought they could hear me and talked me closer. I did a pass and I thought I had myself oriented on the strip. It is terrifying when you can't see a horizon and have to depend on the gauges to tell you whether your are going up, down, or sideways and you have to depend on the guys on the ground to tell you if you are lined up with the runway. Went around by pure calculations, timing, and guesswork and hoped I was aligned with the strip. When I finally saw the ground I was way short and finally made it to the strip with the throttle wide open and the stick all the way back.
I went snorkeling off the coast of Costa Rica and they took us out in 4 or 5 boats with 6 people in each one. They were supposed to drop us off over the reef and go anchor in this channel that went through the reef where the anchors wouldn't hurt anything. Our captain pulled up and let us out, but we were in the channel. We were amateurs and had no idea what was happening. All I knew was the bottom didn't look like a reef, it looked like a lawn in a hurricane - long grass being blown hard sideways. It turned out our guy dumped us in the channel and the tide was coming in. When I got tired of looking at the grass I looked up and there was nothing. No boat, no beach, no nothing but open ocean. I spotted another guy from our boat and then another and eventually we all got together and were like WTF are we going to die?? After about an hour of floating there waiting for the first shark hit one of the boats found us and the captain was ripping our asses for swimming away from the boat, but we were washed in by the current we weren't swimming. IN fact the tide was coming in and the current was pushing toward the beach and in another half an hour we would have been able to see the beach, but we didn't know that.

Signed my first student off to solo.

Between the motorcycles, the sport cars, the mountain climbing....hard to pick.

There are some things I did when I was young, stupid and on drugs in Detroit that scare me. I was not scared at the time, but later realized how dangerous it was. I walked into some guys private club in our neighborhood to ask him if we could use the space for a rave party. The owner and his friends were some serious looking guys. Clearly making good money, and it wasn't from their day jobs. The guy didn't get mad, but he just said 'no' and stared at us, and not another word. They could have shot us dead, and not one would have said a word.

I was at a party where there was a argument over a cocaine deal gone wrong. It got very serious, very quick, and women were holding their guys hands away from their guns and pleading with them to not shoot anyone. I wasn't involved, but if the bullets started flying, it would have been mayhem.

LOL, keep 'em coming.

Not the most dangerous thing, but one that could have ended up the wrong way. I was in Tikal, Guatamala in '73 staying at a small hotel for a few days. The manager was a tall, blond, good looking German girl. She & I sort of hit it off and talked quite a lot from the first day I was there. The second evening I was setting in the "setting room" talking to a bunch of other people staying there. One of the guys who worked there ambled in to the kitchen. A few minutes later the "engineer" who maintained the place went in to the kitchen. All of a sudden there were sounds of grunting & scuffling. I got up & went into the kitchen to see what was up. The "engineer" was scuffling with the other guy who had a big kitchen knife tryiing to stab the "engineer" guy. I went in & grabbed the guy's hand with the knife in it, rolled it out of his hand & flipped him over my shoulder onto the floor & held him there. The "engiineer" guy got the lady manager who called the soldiers to take the guy away to their jail (the soldiers were also the cops). The next evening the manager lady said there was a marimba party across the field from the hotel (100 yds. +) & asked me if I wanted to go. I said yes. Guess who was there with all his friends, the guy with the knife from the night before who they had already let out of jail. I kept an eye on him & he & his friends kept their eyes on me & the manager lady. They proceeded to get drunk as skunks and roudy. After a while things looked like they were on the verge of getting out of control & I suggested to the manager lady & the rest of the gringos there, it was time to leave. We had to walk across the field with no lights & kept listening for sounds of anybody following us. There wasn't. They were probably more interested in getting drunker. We made it back to the hotel OK. I was glad those guys were drunk & getting a whole lot drunker.

This exact thing happened to me departing Jackson Hole in a C172 with 120hrs in the logbook.

The next scariest thing happened 5 years later when I took my first night CAT shot.

I think I'll wait and post it in the "What's the stupidest thing you have ever done" thread . ;)

Motorbikes, parachuting, caving, kayaking, ....all have had their moments.

Scariest moment of my life was driving in the country, wife asleep in the front, 2 daughters asleep in the back. A side road was merging with the main road I was on up ahead. I was aware of a car on the side road, but I was ahead of him and would pass the merge well ahead of him. At the last moment (he was behind me, trees between us, etc) I realised this guy had decided to race me to the merge.
I stood on the brakes to let him shoot onto the road ahead of me. Missed by a good 6 or 7 feet.
The scary bit?
If I hadn't been watching the traffic behind me and taken evasive action, he would have T-boned me and wiped out my whole family. His speed would have ensured it was a "non-survivable".

The only thing that still stirs me when I think about it.

A decompression dive in a Boeing 757. From 35,000 feet to 10,000 feet in about two minutes. Strait down. Without warning. Everything that wasn't bolted on and buckled in ended up on the back bulkhead. So terrifying that most of the passengers collectively shat their pants. By the time we pulled out of the dive the stench was unbearable.

Almost pulled the trigger on someone who had to make a decision as to continue his direction or get shot.
My daughter was involved so yes I would have let the hammer fall. Very bad feeling to be looking across the sights, have a human acquired, the hammer back and the safety off......

Scariest thing.........
 

One night I missed the liberty boat back to the ship (Navy) and had to spend the night on the docks in Singapore. Everyone else had already gone back on board so I was by myself. Man was I glad to see the boat the next morning when it made the first run! The only good thing was that I was not listed as AWOL!

1996. We were staying at a resort in the Archipelago Perlas in the Gulf of Panama south of Panama. A mile off the island was a small sandy deserted flowerpot island. I got the brainwave to have a Robinson Caruso fantasy with my wife. I hired a boat to take us over, drop us off & pick us up hours later for $35. You know: wink, wink, nudge, nudge. No one spoke English but I did manage to communicate what I wanted. They dropped us off in a modern 30 ft fishing boat by idling close & we dropped into the water & waded in to the sandy beach.

Things went very well :D . . . until the pickup time.

A storm was rolling in & the waves had grown a bit. A boatman returned in a very narrow 20 ft dugout canoe with an outboard on the back. As he beached it water came washing in. We clambered aboard. There was only one lifejacket & my wife put that on. The boatman pointed at me & at a can in the bottom (next to a dead fish floating around) & shouted "agua" & made bailing motions as he shoved off. The swells were now 6 - 8 ft. I faced aft & bailed like a maniac & my wife held on so hard, chunks of the rotting gunwales came off in her hands. The boatman spoke no English but I could tell that he was seriously tense. The waves looked mountainous & I could see our doom in every one as we rose on the peaks & crashed down in the troughs.

Twenty very, very scary minutes later, we pulled into the lee of a point on the resort island. We survived. As a btw, the resort & the flowerpot island were used in one of the Survivor programs.

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h3.../contadora.jpg

Ian

Discovery of the internet

Jumping out of c-130 and bad door exit timing on the part of jumpmaster resulted in my canopy opening together with another jumper. In the 20-30 seconds we had til we hit the ground, we dropped our weapons and gear and discussed which side to PLF on. The training works. We were banged up but okay. 2 feet of snow on the DZ helped.

I bought my first house in my mid 20's. It was a rundown house in the City, and I am a country boy at heart. It was already a stressful situation for me, but I remember watching my girlfriend at the time marching her belongings up the stairs to move in, and thinking to myself "Oh god, what have I done" .
20 years later, all is well, I am still with her, and the house turned out to be the start of my rental house biz.

I guess I live a very sheltered live. I like it that way.

My scariest thing was hurtling down the back stretch toward the banked curves flat out in 5th gear at nearly 5,000 RPM at Charlotte Super-speedway. The instructor saying whatever you do don't hit the brakes. My brain said you idiot you are going faster than I had ever been in my 911 and there is a major curve ahead. After a few laps it was a blast.

192mph on the freeway in my 911 turbo.

The scariest moment was when I was a low time pilot building hours on a Cessna 150 and I was too cocky for my own good. I was by myself and took off from Cranbrooke Brit. Columbia. The wind was NW gusting up to about 30mph. As soon as I took off the turbulence in the mountains was horrendous. I proceeded down the Crowsnest Pass and could not climb above the mountain tops to get out of the turbulence because there was an overcast layer sitting on top of the mountains. Having climbed to a decent height I found that I had a very strong tailwind from the NW. I was approaching a 90 degree turn to the left and I felt that the strong wind would blow me into the canyon wall. I cranked lots of aileron in to make a steep left turn and I managed to avoid hitting the mountain. In the meantime the turbulence continued and it was so rough I felt sick. I arrived over Lethbridge Alberta and turned north to go to Calgary my destination. My groundspeed was zero as I was pointed north looking down at the Lethbridge airport. The wind speed on the ground was 45-60 mph per hour so the wind where I was must have been 90-100mph as that is about as fast as a C150 flies. If I tried to land at Lethbridge I might wreck the aircraft.

I checked the weather at other places and CutBank , Montana had lighter winds. I advised customs there and landed an hour later. I slept in the hangar that night and returned to Calgary the next morning.

first day i got my first motorcycle. never rode a street bike and bought a harley on long island and had to ride it back to manhattan. the guy at the dealer gave me the keys and said "have fun" and that was it. now what do i do? that first right hand turn out onto Sunrise Highway and all the way back home in the rain was easily the most terrifying thing i have personally done.

dude that and seeing a large shark approaching me are my worst nightmares. ive had bad experiences on planes but not that bad. wow

I hauled a generator set powered by a locomotive engine (minus the generator) from Springville, Utah to Florida (the town escapes me at the moment) back about 4 years ago.
Gross weight of 110,000lbs. 10foot 6 wide over interstate 70 through Colorado. I've only been over this route a few times in the last 30 years but never overweight. Climbing over the Rockies pulling 76,000lbs. behind you is slow going. Transmission and rear-end temp. gauges were almost pegged (250*) when i hit the top.

After letting things cool off for 45 mins. or so i started down the other side keeping it geared down on the steeper sections (25-30 MPH). Once i got a ways past the weigh station the road opens up to 3 lanes and and i figured the worst was behind me so i geared it up a few.
Bad move on my part as it's still rather steep from Golden to Denver.

Needless to say i had to keep hitting the brakes to keep my speed down and after a short while the smoke commenced to roll off the brakes big time. Now i'm committed as there's no way i can stop this thing.
White knuckled and sweating profusely i managed to keep from bursting into flame and made it down to were it leveled off enough for the jake brake (engine brake) to hold my speed without the use of the foot brakes.
I'm just thankful that there wasn't a traffic jam or accident back up before i hit the bottom.

I still wake up in a cold sweat dreaming about what could have happened.

500 ug of LSD-25 kinda spooked me a bit..

pussy

Knocked flat on my ass by a black bear. No fun looking up at him. Thankfully, he was more frightened than I was.

Fought 7 refinery fires.
The kind that burns your face from 50 yards away.
I don't do that anymore.

This begs for more details. A photo would have been perfect but will settle for details instead:D

I was fly fishing a stream up in our North Cascades with a buddy of mine and our two dogs. Just kind of a day hike up the stream, fishing promissing pools as we went. This is great bear habitiat (I've knocked several on their own asses, so to speak, up there) so, out of habit, I had a single action strapped to my hip.

We had arrived at the "trailhead" (there isn't really an official one, we just embark from the town of Newhalem, a Seattle City Light company town supporting one of their dams) before daylight. It was early evening, however, as we were coming down the trail, approaching the town. My buddy suggested it wouldn't be all that great to walk right through town with the gun on my hip, so I put it in my day pack.

Not five minute later, his dog (who had run some distance ahead) came hauling ass back up the trail to us, black bear in hot pursuit. She was clearly looking to us for "help" with her situation, and immediately hid behind my buddy.

Meanwhile, having seen the bear, I had dropped my pack and was on one knee trying to get my gun back out. Damn zipper stuck, as they are wont to do when one is in somewhat of a hurry. The bear stopped, sized up the situation, and came straight at me at full speed, from about two or three yards away. No time to do anything but smile...

Well, as it turned out, he only "came for me" because I was in his way to get the hell outa there. He bowled me over like a 300 pound lineman (which, come to think of it, he was, only smarter) and used me for traction as he charged away up the trail. And yes, he was a "he" - that was confirmed as he went over the top of me.

Thanks for that. That is one of the best bear stories I have ever heard. At least nobody got hurt:)

Lot's of flight stuff, not scary in the sense that I was well trained to do it but the envelope was pushed just a tad. Looking back is was mostly mistakes on my part.

The scariest day of my life was on the Gauley River. I have kayaked most of my life and was also a rafting guide for many years.

I ran mostly western rivers and, when I was stationed in Maryland decided to dip my toe in the Gauley, a river in West Virginia.

The river was up but still very technical with lots of volume. And it was cold. I had the right gear but paddling in cold water and weather was new to me.

I made a few mistakes early in the run and got hurt, shoulder. The river just beat me since I couldn't brace well and my digs were poor and I was well behind the river, so much so that I became afraid.

And this went on and on, no way out without a fight.

This was the first time in my life I really doubted myself, which was scary and I had a right to be afraid.

"a bit"
just a bit.

1973
Blotter acid
The Exorcist

So how many times did you spin yer own head?

^^^^ This^^^^ :D

Got home from work one evening in Jan '74 and heard the community was out looking for a 5 year old boy who had fallen through the ice in the river that runs through the village. I had spent years canoeing on that river, so loaded up the canoe, drove upstream near the site where he was said to have gone in and asked a guy I knew if he wanted to sit in front and handle the lights.

The river was open where we put in and we had a clear lead for a mile. The river was shallow (knee deep or so) with the occasional 'deep hole' and fairly fast, which is why we had open water.

As we came through a quick bend, the current pushed us side ways into the edge of the ice. My biggest fear was the ice would slice open the side of the old cedar/canvas canoe, until the canoe lurched against the ice and my friend threw all his weight to the side away from the ice. We shipped about 50 lbs of water over the gunwale before I got us steady again. The next half mile passed in quiet as I thought about how we almost ended up in the freezing water. As I hauled the canoe out, I asked him why he had shifted his weight do drastically.

His reply? He had never been in a canoe before.
We never found the child's body, but at least we didn't add to the count.

Best
Les

Surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, more chemotherapy, more surgery.

I don't get scared, but I've had some exciting times. one time was my first solo at 9hrs. did a power on stall at about 3500'. went into a spin and things got exciting because I didn't know what to do. finally noticed a label that said opposite rudder for spin recovery or something like that. well, I hit the wrong rudder and tightened the spin. still at full power, duh, I finally got it to stop spinning but was diving straight down untilI finally leveled out about 1500' or less. thought about doing it again because that was EXCITING, but didn't. next one my friend and I left the bar about 5-6am after he talked me into flying with him to florida to pick up a friend before the hurricane bearing down on us hit shore. we were on the runway before 8am and took off in the fog. halfway to Mississippi I look over at my friend and his head was cocked over backwards. he had passed out cold. I had 11-12 hrs by then so I was pretty sure I could have landed... if I had known where we were and could have seen the ground thru the fog. anyway, we made it as far as Gulfport and decided to land and spend the night. now it was so foggy you couldn't send ground often and just a small area between fog and clouds to fly. next morning we decided to fly home since the hurricane was a'coming fast. made it as far as lakefront airport in New Orleans andclanded there to spend the night once we found the runway thru the clouds and fog. spent the night barhopping and drinking and decided to leave early next morning for home. plane taking off before us turned around and made an emergency landing because he couldn't see anything thru the 900' ft ceiling of clouds.. not us! took off blind and found clear sky at 700'. halfway home we didn't know where we were, but going in the right directiion. then my buddy tells me we are flying at 700 and there's a 1200ft tower around here somewhere. where.. he didn't know but we might might find it, start looking. thru a hole in the fog and clouds I noticed a place I recognized. a graveyard no less. then we found a PH helicopter flying home to their base near home and followed them up to there and then the highway home. at the airport 900ft landing pattern altitude we couldn't even see the runway so we had to drop down slowly until we saw something long and black that was either the highway or the runway. finally landed and drove home trying to see the road thru the thick fog