Car fires, stitches, cuts, etc. don't bother me unless it's my family or friends that are hurt. I tend to deal with the problem at the moment and have the drama set in later.
Wasn't in car crashes, near misses, flying, or nearly drowning (I was too busy to be scared).
Wasn't when I had a 5,000+ lb. piece of equipment hit me and break a bone. It happened too fast and I was too ticked off.
Wasn't riding shotgun in a whiteout snow storm in the Adirondacks for over an hour (the tinny little noise from the back seat my buddy and I heard for fifteen minutes turned out to be his panicked wife singing show tunes under her breath to keep her nerves under control!). I'd almost do that one again. And it wasn't navigating by a hundreths-of-a-mile odometer in a car rally for half an hour during a whiteout because we couldn't see the end of the hood of the car but knew cars were coming behind us (with the same buddy driving as before -- been there, done that -- really deja vu). I'd do that again, too.
Wasn't standing at the edge of a closed course, high speed rally route and seeing a). a car hit a tree, b). a car hit a truck, or c). a car hit a photographer (different rallies, different spots, different cars, btw). Wasn't even when a Canadian driver on the practice/press stage I was working kept using me as his apex marker on the turn. He knew that I knew that he knew, and kept getting closer and closer, and grinning more and more. He was smiling pretty big after the last run he came within about six inches and I didn't move. Kinda freaked out a safety marshall though. I still do stuff like that when I can. Trust is a beautiful thing.
Wasn't having knives pulled on me or having a loaded shotgun waved around in front of me. Wasn't drawing a bead on the guy breaking into the downstairs apartment where three girls lived. He didn't try for the secluded kitchen window, where there was a purse and a TV. He was on the front of the house, under a light, going for a bedroom window. Don't want to do that again, but I would.
Wasn't saying, "I do." Wasn't signing the mortgage papers. Don't want to do that again either! Once is enough for both.
The second scariest moment was explaining to friends that a buddy (26, maybe 27 years old) of ours had had a major cardiac episode and lying to them by saying he was going to make it. The #1 was when we had been doing CPR on him for twenty minutes and the security guard then asked if he should call for an ambulance. Never been more mad and scared. If I hadn't been so exhausted and working so hard, I would have beat that fool to a pulp. That was over twenty years ago and it still gets me. It's one of several reasons that I don't trust anyone to be able to bail my butt out of a jam.
After that episode, I don't usually get too scared. I've got a few bright lights to keep the dark at bay, and not all of them are flashlights. Still don't like it much when a critter jumps out of nowhere, but I gotta smile when I know that my stepson thinks I've led a boring life. It's all a matter of perspective. Everyone has a few things to forget, but hopefully, more to remember.
- (a different) Craig