c4countdown

Having been nearly killed by a car knocking me off my bike last Wednesday I worked out I've had at least 7 potential life ending situations.
One heart attack , 2 heart surgeries (one operation carried out twice)
3 bike accidents (only one my fault)
1 car crash (also not my fault)

So I'm 62 and running out of lives but I'm no longer gonna ride my bike on major unlit roads after 6pm.

Marc Meakin wrote: ↑Tue Jun 10, 2025 6:46 pm Having been nearly killed by a car knocking me off my bike last Wednesday I worked out I've had at least 7 potential life ending situations.
One heart attack , 2 heart surgeries (one operation carried out twice)
3 bike accidents (only one my fault)
1 car crash (also not my fault)

So I'm 62 and running out of lives but I'm no longer gonna ride my bike on major unlit roads after 6pm.

Sorry to hear/see your injuries! Hope you're recovering!

Yeah was a genuine lucky escape
I'm putting my energy on litigation as the driver admitted liability (couldn't really deny it).
I have a lovely shiner and I'm literally black and blue all over.
Bike has made a better recovery than me

Some scary stuff there Marc. I can't think of too many obvious things for me. There's always the odd thing where I think "This could have happened" but nothing immediately springs to mind that I really dodged a bullet there.

A set of metal football goalposts once fell on me. Hit me in the back, knocked me over and hit the ground just above my head.

Rolled a car. That was scary.

My car was parked on the road and I was unlocking the boot. There was a stream of traffic on the other side of the road. I heard a screech of brakes behind me. I didn't even look, I just leapt on to the pavement, with sufficient impetus that I bent the key in the lock. As I landed a car knocked my car twenty yards down the road. The driver cracked his skull on his steering wheel.

At least one. I was walking somewhere with a family member in heavy rain and because of the weather and the traffic we were delayed by around 15 seconds in crossing a wide dual carriageway. Suddenly there was a noise like thunder booming and an enormous tree fell across the entire width of the road and both pavements, crushing a car and trapping the driver's legs. I was the second person to respond at the scene but we could very easily have been 15 seconds further up the road and in the path of the tree falling. Luckily the man in the car got away with minor injuries and the continued use of both legs after being freed by the fire brigade.

I cycled down the steep hill from uni after a night of pool (and more pertinently drinks) in the SU bar. It was a rainy night, with a little mud on the road, and I distinctly remember speeding away from a car at a junction to begin my descent. Took the first turn far too late, felt the back wheel skidding, and shut my eyes. Strava has me going from 59kmh to 0 in a flash. My bike's handlebars turned inside out in the impact, and I left a big dent in a lamppost. Somehow, I escaped with no broken bones, and just one permanent gash in my leg where one of my quadriceps detached!

The first time I fainted at school, I didn't realise that the odd feeling I was having signified that I imminently would so I didn't alert anyone or try and get in to a safer position. I went straight back on to a solid floor from standing and went in to having a fit, and when brought round was unable to recall things such as what lesson I'd had previously. Within a few hours I was functioning fine and had no lasting damage - I was told I was very lucky because the impact of such a fall could easily have been significantly worse.

Walking to school along a quiet, empty road apart from one parked car, another car came along and drove straight into the back of this solitary parked car, and knocked it across the footway and through the fence surrounding the adjacent cow field, all about ten metres in front of me.