Hi all
Back when I was 15 years old ('73) I was fighting with my younger brother when my hand went through the bathroom window, it cut the artery and blood was squirting all over the walls and ceiling, I shouted dad and and went very faint!, my knees buckles as my life whizzed before me!..
My dad opened the gash and put his thumb inside which probably saved my life..
Second occasion was in '84, I was driving with my wife and two kids to my parents for a visit, I was in a 1966 Humber Hawk which was a big-ish british car (weighed 35CWT or one and three quarter tons)..
I was doing 40mph and a couple of young lads in a Ford Escort doing around 60mph hit us head on at a junction..
The seat belts weren't the inertia type, mine was adjusted very loose, the wife's very tight and the kids didn't have any on in the back..
Upon impact I hit the steering wheel and broke some ribs, the kids were thrown in to the back of the front bench seat bending the whole lot forwards and trapping the wife very tightly, she had to have the seat belt cut away as the buckle was pushing so far in to her belly that it couldn't be opened..
It turned out that the buckle had ruptured her liver, the hospital missed it and she came very close to dieing due to internal bleeding, three weeks in intensive care saved her life (this was at a different hospital)..
A couple of years ago we were pouring 180 tonnes of molten iron in to a sand mould in the foundry that I work at and stepped backwards off the (short) plate that was used for the staging, I fell sideways on to a steel shutter and busted a load of ribs again but bounced in to the pit that the iron was being poured in to, had it come to the top of the mould whilst I was down there I would have burned to death..
As luck would have it my mate at the time was like a big grizzley bear, I'm 16.5 stones and he pulled my out of the pit by the shoulders of my coveralls!!! (strong as an OX!!!)
Cheers, John