I've never tried a kayak, but always wondered if it was scary to end up upside down. Turns out it's just as terrifying as I expected!

I was working in Alaska, scared three different times worse than ever scared in Vietnam. One of them was flying in a three man jet helicopter, out of the sun an Eagle dropped right into us, blacked out the sun, I could swear I counted the feathers on it's chest. The pilot, ex army, went one way and the Eagle the other, great luck, the pilot just about wet his pants. He said that was as close as he had ever come to dying.

When little Saucy, at 9mo old, stopped breathing and it was my job to get the lodged article out!

Flying alone, started to black out

Body surfing in 8 to 10 foot swells off north beach in Hawaii (north beach is a north facing beach on a peninsula on the Kaneohe Marine Corps base on Oahu). Huge undertow sweeping left to right as you face the ocean. Great rides, but draining. Last run and I drifted down the beach and literally was a mile from shore in seconds in known shark infested water. I thought I was a goner, but I swam, rode the swells, and prayed (lots of promises made). 100 feet from the beach in four foot water and the rescue team waded out grabbed me by the arms and acted like they saved me.

It seems anything to do that concerns our children is a common fear.

I must admit I feel the same way. I've been in a few scary situations myself but nothing scares me more than the thought of something bad happening to my kids.
And the feeling doesn't go away as they get older.

Taking off from a small airstrip in Belize. The plane was heavily loaded and used every single inch of runway. I was keeping my eye on the door handle so when we hit the water I'd know where to reach after the splash.

Here's a video. The first shows our initial landing. To the right you can see a house with a blue/green roof. Compare that to the takeoff where the house will be on the left. Pretty sure we only got into the air because the runway disappeared out from under us.

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Worst for me was my son going in for spinal surgery for a tethered cord release. Supposedly routine, but we were told that very few doctors would even attempt the surgery due to the high risk...

My brother and I were snorkeling along a coral reef on Saipan looking for live sea shells. The seas were relatively calm because the reef was in the channel between Saipan and the island of Tinian and shielded from the big ocean waves. We were about 50 feet off the edge of the reef in about 20 feet of water where some coral pillars rose off the sandy bottom to just a few feet below the surface. We happened to notice a rather large white tip shark meandering back and forth about 70 feet further out, about the limit of our visibility in the slightly murky water. We looked at each other and both pointed in the direction of the reef and nodded our heads, understanding that we each felt a bit uneasy with that big fellow patrolling around out there. After reaching the edge of the reef I was swimming along the top while my brother dived down along the face to check something out that he had seen below. It was then I saw a large shark, probably the same one, flash past my brother. I screamed in my snorkel and took off swimming for the beach. I guess I figured I could only save myself and had no intention of saving my brother. However, in short order, he had overtaken me and was leading the way through the lagoon to shore. He told me later that all he knew is that something big had brushed past his leg and he heard me scream underwater.

Probably when I was mugged at gunpoint by a scared, strung-out kid with a loaded saturday night special pointed at my forehead point-blank.

Also in the top 3 - strong contender for #1 - was when our son was hospitalized with meningitis as a 6mo baby. (He came thru OK).

Here is a quote from a thread I started in 2010.
I can remember this like it was yesterday....
Last weekend I was feeding the monkey boy bacon and scrambled eggs and he started to choke.
It was kind of amazing how all that first aid training is still hanging around. While I didn't have to clear his airway, I was right next to him encouraging him to cough and BREATH! Ya I was wound up after that....

Were this a poll, I think sick/missing child and water incidents would be about 95% of the responses.

Wife and I were on our 16ft Hobie catamaran coming in from the ocean and the wind had dropped so we were being slowly pushed to shore by the tide. Wifey had seen some fins in the water, a long way off, about 10 minutes beforehand - but I had assured her that this was not a shark as they are solitary & 2 fins probably = 2 porpoises.

A big shadow came up under the cat and a huge shark came up between the hulls. It was as long as the Hobie and about as wide as a cow, fookin huge. It was looking at us from so close I could have poked it in the eye. I told the wife to stay still, quite unnecessary as she was frozen. The 2 fins she had seen were the main one and the smaller back fin, which was big.

This giant creature slid gracefully under and around our boat for a minute or two as we tried to outstare it and pretend we weren't scarred. It then lost interest and with a flick of its tail dived away.

Later when we got into shore I told some local fishermen about this shark. They said it was a lazy white pointer that hung around waiting for returning fishing boats that threw their fish guts into the sea as they came into the moorings.

We havent sailed in that area since.

My most scared point was back in my single days. A girl that sounded like she was 5 or 6 called me on the phone and said "DADDY!" I choked out a NOOOOOO! Phew, wrong number. :eek: I was often sowing my wild seeds and praying for a crop failure back then.

The other scary moment was about 2:30 AM someone was pounding on my front door very hard and trying to get in. My doberman was a real sweetie but she was staring at the door and making guttural growling snarling noises that were downright bone chilling. If she had ever looked at me and made those noises I would have wet my pants. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed my big butcher knife. Then the lady friend I had spending the night said something like that it was probably he ex-boyfriend because he stalks her. I let my doberman out the side door of the house and I heard her barking away from the front door so I opened the door and saw a dude driving off.

I presume he had heard the dog inside and decided he did not really want to come in after all. My dog came running in wagging her stumpy tail and was happy the threat was gone.

I went and bought my first spoon the next weekend. Never again will I go to the front door in the middle of the night with just a knife. We have dachshunds now and they are good to alert us, but useless as protection.

When I was a kid and I screwed up badly and had to worry about my father's wraith. Was never excessive and always just. But just the thought was much worse. The anxiety leading up to it.

... have been in a single engine plane crash, few bad wrecks where stayed in hospital for a few weeks, was Airborne, jumped out of planes and birds, but nothing compares to knowing had to face my Pop....

As I got older, the major f-ups wer met with a calm, I got your back response....

When a stranger pointed a gun at me and said he was going to kill me.......

The kid was one...but there was also another time...the younger, stupider, more hairy me...managed to get a Buick GS up to 145mph on the highway one night...with the girlfriend (now wife) in the car. I was driving with one hand (we we're in love, holding hands, and I was stupid) "cruising" at 145 in the right lane, the highway ahead turned a rather hard right (I-84 is curvy). As we approached said corner, a primer grey Mitsubishi Eclipse must have wanted to race and decided to hammer down, cut over three lanes from left...into our lane, not realizing my closing speed.

Brakes were not an option, only avoidance possible was a lane change, in opposing direction of the highway's turn... Ended throwing the car into a full "drift" and managed to regain control after it "drifted" right-left-right-left-straight and we we're still at 105, with one hand.

I've no idea how the tires didn't fold under and roll the car, or why everything went into logical slow motion but I somehow appeared cool as a cucumber tossing the wheel left to right...

I was very scared, mostly for Mrs S's safety. That, will never happen again.

THAT, oughtta get the blood pumpin'...:eek:

I was snorkeling alone off Heron Island on the Great Barrier Reef. Passed over a couple harmless animals (guitar fish, rays) that startled me, then up ahead in the deeper channel, I spotted a Sand Tiger - not a big one - maybe 5-1/2 feel long, moving perpendicular to me and about 12-15 feet ahead. I turned as smoothly as I could and swam steadily back to shore. Heart pounding... because 3 days before, I had cut my toe on a rock and it hadn't fully healed. I hoped I wasn't leaking any blood still...

No more solo snorkeling during that vacation.

Similar situation for me. It was an outdoor Halloween Party in Los Gatos, CA. They shut a couple of blocks down in this particular neighborhood and there were several hundred if not a thousand people on the street all dressed in costumes and it was dark. Unbeknownst to anyone, Grandma walked off with my oldest daughter who was about 4 at the time. 5 minutes of pure panic.