Most dangerous thing you have done?

[Archie_tect]

When I was 7, I built a raft from two railway sleepers, and me and a friend sailed it about ¼ of a mile down the storm water drain that passes under the disused Airport where I lived at the time....

Did you know in advance where and how the storm drain emerged or did you just wing it....

 

[tadpole]

Did you know in advance where and how the storm drain emerged or did you just wing it....

I think, but cannot really remember, we were planning on coming back if the water got too deep, but found a ladder and climbed it to see where it led, not thinking to secure the raft, and It drifted off, we climbed out of a manhole at the end of the airport storm drain and walked back home. I didn't tell my dad or mum for 20 something years. I was scared that they'd never let me out again. (this was less than a year after my brother was killed by a bus, and mum was still very protective of us)

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I haven't lived a very dangerous life compared to some here. I successfully talked my way out of being attacked by a guy with a broken bottle. That was pretty scary and the two hours I had to pretend to be his new best friend to all his crazy mates afterwards was worse. Certainly scarier than doing free-climbing on sea cliffs and old railway bridges which used to be my way of enjoying myself a long time ago... inadvertantly venturing onto the World Cup Downhill course at Saalbach in Austria when I was 14, and and not being able to do anything except get down and finish it, at was also quite frightening. I still remember the sound of the edges of my skis on what seemed like almost sheer-ice... actually, I think I liked it in retrospect because I used to associate that sound for the longest time with what skiing was all about not your swishy-swishy powder stuff. Oh, and almost chopping my thumb off with a parang (machete) whilst several days by river away from the nearest hospital was pretty stupid.

 

[TonyEnjoyD]

When I was about 19, came out of a nightclub with two mates.
Crossed the River Wear bridge and needed a pee.
My mates were walking ahead when I finished so I climbed over the parapet toward the end, ducked right down and clung onto the side by millimetres.
After I heard my mates looking for me as i chucked away to myself, I eventually jumped up and over.
I then looked back over the parapet expecting to see the grassy bank leading down, I realised that in my drunken state that I was about 30 feet from the end and had hung on with a 80ft drop straight ont a concrete apron!
Oh how I laughed -not.

Very sober very quickly.

 

[ComedyPilot]

Jumped out of aircraft loads, but I got that used to it it felt like catching a bus, so not really dangerous. On jump no. 8 I was doing my first freefall, I didn't arch properly, and flipped onto my back. I pulled the parachute, and only by luck I flipped back onto my belly as the parachute deployed otherwise I'd have been wrapped in the parachute and would have died. Pulling 4th gear wheelies on my Fireblade down a Dutch motorway slip road was a bit different..... Skiing never really got dangerous, more awe inspiring with the views. Paragliding in the Yorkshire Dales was quite extreme, just a bit of parachute cloth to keep me from falling to the rocks hundreds of feet below. Done loads of acrobatics in gliders, such as loops and chandelles, but nothing too extreme. Dodgiest bit was when I got into a large Cu-Nim that was pulling my aircraft up at over 1,500 feet per minute, that was a rough ride to get out of. Answered a call to a domestic, and the scum of a husband met me at the door and swung a claw hammer at me....

 

[MattHB]

Closed environment wreck diving in Egypt and off the British coast.

 

[Trickedem]

Some great stories here. Made me remember some of the scary moments of my life: Pillion ride with a maniac before speed cameras. Hill walks that turned into very scary free climbs. Military parachuting. Arguments with the wrong people. Explosives experiments.
But the stand out moment was taking my 3 oldest boys swimming near Dover in a very rough sea. There was no red flag, but also no green one! It all got a bit hairy, but we all finally got out ok. However I still feel queezy whenever I think about it and what could have happened. They, of course remind me of this at most family gatherings, just to keep the guilt topped up.

 

[gbb]

Mine were all accidental, I'm not the kind to take stupid risks...I can be stupid, but not the endangering kind.
Coulda killed myself with a posting between the legs that ruptured me inside. Just a seconds bad decision how to climb over a fence....two months off work, occasionally sore prostate 30 years later...

And nearly got blown up with 1lb of explosives...I was cable laying on a seismic survey, there was the usual horn blast to tell everyone a detonation was imminent...sadly, I was stood RIGHT on top of the charge, which was 10 ft underground. The ground rose as it detonated, forcing my body upwards faster than my head, compressing my neck. Got away with it, but to think we occasionally used to pull the charge up to the surface to get a big bang and crater...just for fun. Thank The Lord we hadn't done it that time.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Ah, head on over to this thread...

I was RIGHT about his face!!

 

[dr_pink]

I've spent the last 7 and a half years living with totallyfixed. Beat that!

 

[CharlesF]

While on patrol in the Zambezi Valley, four of us were charged by a rhino. It came from behind and the first we knew was the ground trembling. A week later, another patrol in the same area were charged in the same way, this time the horn caught my mate's webbing and he was carried about 100m before falling off.

Also another mate was pulled out of his sleeping bag by a hyena latching on to his head. His screams woke the guard(!) who wildly fired his rifle in the air; Bob was left with a badly lacerated skull

 

[NormanD]

Riding a 500cc motorcycle at up to 70 mph without any brakes ...think they call it speedway

 

[slowmotion]

When I was a schoolboy, some friends and I discovered a recipe for gunpowder in Encyclopedia Britannica. In those days you could buy all the ingredients at the local chemist without any problems. Our initial experiments were quite satisfying but, being young, a rather reckless ambition set in. Our eventual masterpiece consisted of a small gas cylinder about 18 inches long which we filled with our home-brew. The detonator was a small ball of steel wool with a couple of wires attached which went out through the top of the gas cylinder via two small holes. (When shorted into a battery, steel wool catches fire.)
We jumped on our bikes with the bomb sticking out of a saddlebag. Fellow conspirators carried some cable and a motorcycle battery. We set down the device on a hillside overlooking the city, hooked up the detonator and started reeling out the command wire. We had no idea what the bomb might do but guessed that about ten yards might be a safe distance. There happened to be a piece of corrugated iron lying nearby and we used it as further protection. Safely behind it, we completed the circuit onto the battery.

Nothing.

Putting the steel sheet down, we stepped out towards our baby, at which point there was an ear-splitting explosion and the hiss of hot shrapnel wizzing passed our heads. No trace of the bomb remained, just a circle of scorched grass.

We retired from the manufacture of ordnance shortly afterwards

 

[PK99]

Also another mate was pulled out of his sleeping bag by a hyena latching on to his head. His screams woke the guard(!) who wildly fired his rifle in the air; Bob was left with a badly lacerated skull

Off topic, but that reminds me of the 3 legged tame spotted hyena i played with at Wankie (now Hwange) safari lodge

 

[vernon]

Safely behind it, we completed the circuit onto the battery.

Nothing.

Putting the steel sheet down, we stepped out towards our baby, at which point there was an ear-splitting explosion and the hiss of hot shrapnel wizzing passed our heads. No trace of the bomb remained, just a circle of scorched grass.

We retired from the manufacture of ordnance shortly afterwards

That rekindled a memory of an almost identical event of my youth only I stuffed my gunpowder into a bicycle handlebar and buried it in the ground. I remember hammering one end of the bars closed with the mix present in the tubing and now realise that it could have detonated during that manufacturing activity. Anyhow the bang from the handle bars would partially muffled by the earth and the blast was directed vertically leaving a satisfying smoking crater in the ground and lots of startled chickens at the allotment when the explosioneriment took place.

Another close scrape with explosions happened when I stole a chunk of sodium about broad bean size and dropped it down the plug hole in a science lab sink. I'd reckoned on a generous generation of hydrogen and possibly its spontaneous combustion. I hadn't reckoned on the heat generated in a confined space contributing to the almighty bang that blew the trap out of the bottom of the sink and directed a spray of dilute sodium hydroxide vertically to the ceiling. I certainly didn't appreciate having my head rinsed with water by my chemistry teacher under a lab tap.

History repeated itself many years later when, as a science teacher walking past the boys toilets, I heard a loud bang from inside them and on rushing in I saw a small boy looking dazed and mumbling ' I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry' I guessed correctly that he's dropped a chunk of sodium down one of the toilets and got more than he'd bargained for. Unlike me, he didn't get six of the best.