Warning: Long post
Growing up I sometimes wondered if I would make it passed the age of 18. I was a happy kid. I really didn't have any problems despite being from a poor neighbourhood. That was until I got to my early teens. There were gangs in my area. I had nothing to do with them. I had friends in the area too and none of us were in any gang. I wasn't a person who was ever bullied at school or anything either. And I did well in my studies.
Anyway, sometimes these local gangs would attack me if I was on my own. They pushed me off my bike one time and took it. When I tried to protest one of them said that they would stab me if I tried to stop them. So I left it alone.
Sometimes I would be walking back from school with my friends and much older guys would try to rob us of our phones. I always lied and said that I didn't have a phone. But one time they did manage to jack a phone from me. I lost alot of girl's numbers when that happened.
Alright now for the juicy stuff. Actually coming close to death.
I think the first one was when I was at a the local park for a funfair. And the local gang chased after me and my best friend from school who lived very close to me for no reason other than it was fun for them. I should mention that this gang was mixed with black and white guys. I could never understand the mentality behind it. What makes people want to attack others who are minding their own business for no reason? What makes one black person want to harm another? See my parents never taught me about racism or poverty or people not having a father figure etc. I knew nothing back then. Totally innocent and I thought everybody in the world was like I was. But things started making more sense when I started listening to rap and hip hop music and much later I learned about slavery etc.
Anyway I digress. So they chased after us and I got knocked down and they were rushing me. I was being kicked and punched from all directions. I could hear them yelling, "Fuck him up!" I managed to escape and I almost made it home but the fastest one in their gang caught up with me. I was dog tired and couldn't even fight at this point. I asked him to let me go but he wouldn't. One of his gang friends caught up and pulled a knife on me. He put it right up against my neck. "I could kill you right now if I wanted to."
"Why? Why would you ever do that? What have I ever done to you?" Was my reply. Then they laughed and let me go.
After that I got more into video games and wanted to go outside and play less and less. I took part in social activities less but I didn't stop altogether. I just used to try to avoid these people as best I could. And I would still date girls and bring them back to my place and hope to God that I didn't get embarrassed by the gang. Luckily for me that situation never ever happened. Anytime they saw me walking with a girl they left me alone for some reason.
Anyway, I have more near death experiences. One time the guy who I mentioned chased after me and caught me hit my friend on the back of the head with a hammer. We were at a bus stop and neither of us even knew that he was approaching from behind. My friend had to get looked at at the hospital. We took revenge when we got a chance and saw him on his own one day. We beat him up and ran away. Oh I also forgot to mention that we found out one of the reasons why this gang was targeting us was because my very own sister had been dating one of them. Guess which one? Yep, the same one that chased and caught me and who hit my friend with the hammer.
Now there is a side story to this part - my sister was apparently raped by this guy and it went to police and everything. I thought that he had raped her and taken her virginity but it turns out that wasn't the case. To think I was ready to throw my life away for my sister's honour before finding out all of the facts. This is probably one of the reasons why I try to never jump to conclusions and why I prefer to look at things logically with full facts. I don't speak to my sister really since we were about 16 for many reasons. The first being that she got involved with gang members and it almost killed me and my friend.
I also had a fight with one of the white guys in the gang one day. There were about five of them and just me and my friend walking through the area. The white guy started trying to pick a fight with me to look tough in front of his friends. I was sick to death of these guys and always trying to play things safe and being basically almost forced to spend my holidays and free time indoor out of fear. So I snapped on him and started fighting him. He didn't expect it and started trying to fight back. Another one kicked me then my friend backed me up and jumped on him. The other three were luckily cowards and just ran to get back up. I ended up walking away from that fight victorious. My top was ripped up but he had a bleeding nose and busted up lip which apparently needed stitches. We had to lay low for a long time because they wanted retribution for us standing up to them. I would pray to God every night that he would spare me. I was always hearing stories in the news about young black kids being stabbed to death and I didn't know if I would one day be that dead boy on the news. I didn't know who could help my situation. We never told anybody about what was happening to us. I brought a penknife to school one day for protection. It fell out of my pocket in Geography class and I got excluded from school for two weeks. When I explained to my parents and the teachers that it was for protection they didn't understand. They didn't know why a bright boy like myself would be carrying a knife. I never carried a weapon again after that. I just had to try to avoid trouble, talk my way out of trouble, fight or run.
When I was 16 I got hit by a car. I was riding my bike. There was a party one evening and I left the party to quickly get something. I was going down a side street but I didn't know that I was riding the wrong way down a one way street. Got to the junction and tried to race across like an idiot and got hit. I broke my leg and had to do my GCSEs with my leg propped up on a chair. So yeah I could have died then from when the car hit me at about 25 miles per hour. A bystander said that he saw me somersault a few times through the air. I was conscious when I landed and in shock. I was trying to get up and walk but my leg felt like jelly. I rolled up my trouser leg and saw the bone sticking out. One of the wheels on the bike seemed to spin endlessly. And when my sister got to the scene as I was being loaded into the ambulance she was exchanging numbers with some guy! We were so close before she hit puberty then she just became some sort of selfish monster. Maybe I should make a reasons why I don't talk to my sister thread someday.
And I have more near death experiences. When I was 18 and went to Jamaica for a family reunion I was walking to my cousin's house one day on my own. They told me not to go anywhere on my own but my cousin lived 5 minutes away. As I walked down the path nobody was around. Suddenly I felt someone grab the chain from my neck. I turned around and there were 5 or 6 guys. The one who grabbed my chain started reaching into his pants as if he was going to pull out a knife or a gun. he was probably bluffing but I didn't want to risk it. I said, "Look you guys can keep it I'm just trying to get to my cousin's house."
"Who your cousin?"
I told them who my cousin was and then then calmed down but before letting me go they asked me to give them my phone and watch. I told them that the watch wasn't worth anything but they took it anyway (Was actually worth £100). My phone wasn't on me thank God.
When I got to my cousin and told him what happened he had an idea of who may have been behind it. But my family told me they would probably have already sold it at the market. Anyway the rest of my holiday was good. Might make a thread sometime about the girls I met out there.
I've had two different cars catch fire suddenly while driving on the motorway. Both times were pretty scary! The first time was really bad though because I panicked and when I pulled over on the hard shoulder I bailed out and forgot to apply the handbrake so the car rolled right back into the motorway and crossed four lanes before hitting the center divide! All I could do was watch in horror and wave my arms to catch people's attention. It was a miracle that nobody hit it because the smoke was covering everything! If somebody would have hit it I don't know if I would have been sent to jail or what. Anyway the fire brigade arrived promptly and close of the motorway in both directions until the car was removed.
Let me see now I think I have more near death experiences but it was just things like Mountain Biking and almost falling off of the cliff kinda stuff. And I'm not a great swimmer so almost drowned in the deep end in the swimming pool as a kid.
I didn't have any near-death experiences in the RAF. Although I was definitely combat ready and won trophies for my shooting and survival skills in training I never got deployed to a war zone. I didn't want to go to a war zone anyway. I didn't join because I wanted to fight. I joined because I wanted to protect the country. I can't say what I did because it is classified to Secret but I basically didn't have to leave the country.
If I remember any more near death experiences I'll edit this post. So what about you guys? Anything almost kill you? Maybe something made you sick or you had a risky operation? Maybe you were bungee-jumping or doing something silly while intoxicated? Maybe you've been attacked or had a bad accident. Share your stories let's hear it.
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