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The Scariest Moment Of Your Life (Fortean Or Not)

Blimey @FunkyTT! How awful! Glad you weren't even more badly hurt and hope those scarey days are behind you!
 
Stormkhan said:
To me, dealing with fear isn't a conscious decision.
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This reminds me of my friends husband who was confronted by a knife weilding man who demanded he hand over his wallet while hurrying through Manchester one late night. He was on his way to catch a train and was pushed for time and all he could think was 'bloody hell I haven't got time for all this nonsense I'll miss my train' so he just said 'no' and pushed past him! Blokey was so astonished at his brusque dismissal that he just looked at him in astonishment and didn't even try to come after him!

It wasn't until later he realised that he'd had a close shave and could only think that the thief had just never encountered someone who showed no fear and so his script was disrupted.

The other thing to note was that if my friends husband had been thinking straighter and not been so absorbed in his rush for the train he would have handed over the cash to save his skin as he wasn't exactly short of a bob or two!!

I've always thought that scrambling over roofscapes looks like fun but I've never been brave/foolish enough to try it. So good for you @Stormkhan and I'm glad your clear calm thinking saved you!
 
Stormkhan said:
If I have had a scary moment, it's been on reflection and way after the fact.
It might just be me but incidents have occurred, I've dealt with them, experienced the outcome, or just shrugged it off.
I can't ever feel scared, as such, apart from one incident ...
For reasons that are long and drawn out piffle, I used to climb the walls and roofs of my school. An urban climber, if you will, before parkour or exploration was a thing.
One cold and frosty night, I lost my grip on a roof peak and slowly slid down the clay tiles towards a three-story drop. I didn't scrabble - habit because I knew I wasn't meant to be there? - but glanced down for finger-holds etc. Nothing. Luckily, it was a slow process and I had a minute to think ... I came to the edge, and jammed my toes of both feet into the rain gutter! No probs!
Taking deep breaths, I looked around, assessed a way to get to a gable and edged my way back, to retrace my upward route and back into my room. It was then that I realised how close to plunging to my death.
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I went through a phase of this, but mine was walking over bridge parapets/walls. Old stone arch bridges in the countryside that is.
 
One of my scariest moments

I was driving in the mountains of Fukushima prefecture in Japan with a Japanese friend who'd come from Osaka for a visit.

I wanted to explore a single track mountain road that I'd discovered earlier in my travels so we set off on a day out, for adventure and frolics, after eating a relaxant that people often put in brownies or hand rolled cigarettes.

We found the road and up we went, cautiously because I'm not stupid. It was April but the night before we'd had a bit of snow. The first small pile of snow we came across I drove through no problem. We were having fun! Then we came to the second.

I drove purposely forward but instead of going through the pile of snow (and compacted ice) the left front of the car was lifted up. We were stuck.

I soon worked out that we could get out of the predicament by reversing hard (and kind of rocking the car forward a bit first) but we were very close to the edge and the force needed to get free could very well mean the car would fall over the side before I had time to break. The 'sobering up' quickened.

I told my friend to get out (no point in both of us going over) made another assessment of how much room I had to manoeuvre (not much) focussed hard, prayed and got the car free. As we slowly reversed back down the track my friend said, in English, "That is the first time in my life that I think I will die"

Below is a photo of where the incident took place. You can see the dark, slushy right tyre mark and the left one in the pile of snow but the relatively precipitous fall on the right, unfortunately, isn't really visible.


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