Tales of Extraordinary Luck

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Tales of Extraordinary Luck

Postby chillin » Fri Feb 29, 2008 9:02 am

I grew up hunting with my dad, I still don't see a problem with it when it's done responsibly, but it's not for me anymore. Anyway, when I was a teenager I brought my younger brother out to kill groundhogs on some farmer's land. We just drove out of the city for a hour or so then stopped when we were in the country enough and asked this guy if we could go shoot his groundhogs.

So my brother and end up prowling around this guy's land with a semi-automatic .22 rifle that had about 15 shots. After a couple of hours or whatever and no groundhogs my brother asks if he can shoot something for fun. I say sure... blast that tree over there. So my brother points in the general direction of the tree and fires the whole clip as fast as he can then we hear this guy yelling WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!!?!!

We both kind of shit our pants and figure the best idea would be to head back to the car like nothing happened. As we casually make our way back, the guy who yelled tracked us down. We play dumb. The guy shows us the where inside of his arm has a graze mark on the bicep that looked a bit like a rope burn. The old guy angrily explains how he was shot at in the war but this is different. We should always make sure we're shooting towards the ground so stuff like this doesn't happen! We could have hit his cows!

We apologize profusely and the guy just lets us go. I was freaked and got rid of my guns shortly after. The inside of his arm... pretty darn close to hitting a critical area, think about the timing involved. That's gotta be one of my top 10 luckiest days, a bit like winning the lottery. Anyone else got a true story about weird luck?
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Postby Joe Hillshoist » Fri Feb 29, 2008 8:51 pm

Once I was driving down the road near here, and I just happened to look up.

At that exact moment the top half of a tree started falling just up the road. As I looked up I saw it start to topple. I was going pretty fast, too fast to stop before we went under the tree. So I drove to the other side of the road, on the dirt, I think the passenger wheel was about 10 cms onto tthe road, (on the wrong side) the rest of the car was skirting the roadside ditch.

The tree fell and skimmed the passenger door with its tip, anywhere else on the road and we'd have been squashed. It was just lucky that I looked up at the tree at that instant.

Another time a storm hit while we were driving home, and blew a branch off a tree. The branch was about 20 feet long and 15 cm at the base. It swirled in the air and slammed into the car on the passenger side, where I was sitting. It hit right where the windscreen meets the bonnet. It shattered the front windscreen, but didn't go through, rolled over the car and smashed the back window. If it had been 10 cm closer it would have gone through the windscreen and disemboweled me.

And about 5 or 6 months ago at work someone dropped a tree limb on me about 30 or 40 feet long and 20 cm at the base, at least. I had my back to the guy cutting, and was feeding tree limbs and other rubbish into a chipper. The limb caught me fully on the back of the neck/head at the top of the spine. Luckily it was just some bruising.
The guy who dropped the tree limb thought he'd killed me at first.
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Postby Penguin » Sun Mar 02, 2008 9:05 pm

I was riding my bicycle. I had stopped at a bike crossing at red light. The light turned green, I looked right - one van approaching, seeming to slow down to stop at the red, I start to cross the 3 lane road, and then I realize that the van is NOT going to stop but is running the red, I reflexively hit both brakes hard, and I have the vivid image of the van hitting me square in the side, thinking this is it im dead.

The van hits - and to my utter astonishment im still standing, the van passes my face by mere centimeters, hitting my front wheel - and the forks attachment gives way and the wheel turns 90 degrees while the bar stays straight. My heart beats at 200 and my feet are jelly. The van stops and the driver comes out, an old man pretty well frightened. He had been trying to look at the traffic light above the road - where the sun was also shining, and hadnt seen me or the red light...

I walked home, knees wobbly for the rest of the day.
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Postby freemason9 » Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:51 pm

Joe Hillshoist wrote:Once I was driving down the road near here, and I just happened to look up.

At that exact moment the top half of a tree started falling just up the road. As I looked up I saw it start to topple. I was going pretty fast, too fast to stop before we went under the tree. So I drove to the other side of the road, on the dirt, I think the passenger wheel was about 10 cms onto tthe road, (on the wrong side) the rest of the car was skirting the roadside ditch.

The tree fell and skimmed the passenger door with its tip, anywhere else on the road and we'd have been squashed. It was just lucky that I looked up at the tree at that instant.

Another time a storm hit while we were driving home, and blew a branch off a tree. The branch was about 20 feet long and 15 cm at the base. It swirled in the air and slammed into the car on the passenger side, where I was sitting. It hit right where the windscreen meets the bonnet. It shattered the front windscreen, but didn't go through, rolled over the car and smashed the back window. If it had been 10 cm closer it would have gone through the windscreen and disemboweled me.

And about 5 or 6 months ago at work someone dropped a tree limb on me about 30 or 40 feet long and 20 cm at the base, at least. I had my back to the guy cutting, and was feeding tree limbs and other rubbish into a chipper. The limb caught me fully on the back of the neck/head at the top of the spine. Luckily it was just some bruising.
The guy who dropped the tree limb thought he'd killed me at first.


Perhaps you should mind the trees for a while.
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Postby Joe Hillshoist » Tue Mar 04, 2008 1:47 am

I used to plant trees for a living, I have probably planted over half a million, maybe more, and I worked in a plantation nursery for a few years where we would pot up 50 to 100 thousand seedling a day.

I figure they don't really want to hurt me, and do their best to avoid me when they realise who it is they are about to smash.

I'm pretty tough too, that limb my workmate dropped on me didn't even knock me over.
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