Like a little bird trapped in your chest? It could be arrhythmia. Did you ever get it diagnosed? If you’re lucky it’s very fixable with minor surgery. You could have a heart attack if you don’t.
This is why I always toggle the switch before messing with any home wiring. Electrical contractors scare me.
I feel like I must have told this story elsewhere, but anyway here it is again.
Many years ago I lived in a small apartment with fuses. Late one night the fuses blew out. Luckily I had extras from the last time it happened and I was forced to make a Sophie’s Choice between my fridge and my computer. Anyway, I opened up the fusebox but the damn fuse was wedged in there and I couldn’t unscrew it.
I put on my sneakers, got my needle-nose pliers which I must note were covered in rubber on the handles, and went to unscrew the fuse. WHOOMP. I got a shock that literally knocked me across the room. Luckily, it was a very small room.
I told my friend’s dad about this, he’s a master electrician, and he said I was lucky to be alive. Sneakers and the very thin rubber on most pliers aren’t sufficient to block mains electricity. He told me if I was left-handed, I’d be dead-- there are no left-handed electricians.
He (@YakAttack) always Yakattacks the threads. Hence his name.
The closest I ever came was some bracketing mortar fire. I was in my tent sorting/packing my s*** to go home after a year in Kandahar.
Literally, I was helicoptering out of Camp Nathan Smith the next day to head back home when we came under attack. And the mortar/rpg fire that started it was bracketing my tent.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/taliban-fighters-attack-2-us-bases-in-kandahar/2011/10/27/gIQA4TyEMM_story.html?utm_term=.cd19460acc57
I have been in hairy places and situations before, but that was the closest IMO. 10 minutes of that nonsense before I felt good about running for a bunker. I could hear the gravel getting spit up on the canvas of the 10 man “Alaskan” tent by the rounds. It my purest Yossarian moment in life.
EDIT: The article is hilarious. “10 RPG rounds”. More like 100-200. I’m still on Social media with the MAJ Toner in the article so I have to send him that WaPo link and bust his chops about it. He’ll probably tell me the press got it wrong… :)
Just an FYI this is a similar thing to something that runs in my family, my GP isn’t concerned about it, but it does feel odd. Like a pause then a big one to catch up. Maybe it will happen once a day, sometimes weeks without it happening, once about 4-5 in a row that scared the shit out of me, while I was driving, but I pulled over got out and walked around and it went away. My brother has to take medicine for it, I am pretty much fine.
Maybe that is the closest I have been to dying?
I totaled my car in a head on collision on the highway, that was pretty gnarly, though I didn’t have to stay overnight in the hospital or anything, just got pretty scraped up and had broken glass dug out of my shoulder.
That was probably the closest I have been to the great beyond.
I’ve posted my hit by car story here a few times. Surprised it isn’t in this thread.
Link, please.
I was hit by a car while crossing a street in Lower Manhattan. Tried to run after the light changed. Anyway, I ended up in an ambulance to Beekman Downtown. I had a depressed skull fracture and a broken left leg. My right orbit was crushed as well as the right side of my face. I was lying on my back on a gurney when they brought me in. After X-rays and then an MRI I was in a room listening to doctors discuss the reason that it wasn’t possible for them to help me. Basically, I had skull fragments in my brain. They figured I only had a while to live. No shit. While I was awake and listening to them.
It’s not common knowledge but you can’t digest human blood. Not a large amount. But there I was essentially swallowing blood from my sinuses for a few hours. I got sick to my stomach. Eventually I said I’m sorry but I’m going to be sick. They ignored me. So I raised myself off of the gurney and vomited a crapload of blood all over the doctor’s legs.
This seemed to surprise them. This led to more tests and me being put into a new ambulance. This one brought me to Bellveue Hospital. Where a few doctors gave a fuck about my life.
I was rushed to another scan and then surgery. 22 hours to remove the bone from my brain. Also to lift my right eyeball up and put a Teflon plate under it. According to one of the surgeons my heart stopped on the table. They really thought I’d never recover. Or that I’d get a massive infection because the sac that protects the brain was ruptured.
I had a second surgery to fix my face up.
I had a hip to ankle cast that wasn’t set right. So I had another surgery to put a titanium rod in my leg.
The rest is just details. :)
Wow, Rich. Well, time is precious. And every day is a gift.
Yeah, that’s an amazing story. Worst thing that ever happened to me was stubbing my toe. It does get really cold here, though. Winters suck. And the subway is terrible, very uncomfortable. I think that’s comparable.
Also I’m just getting over a cold.
Hurts even more when it’s cold, amirite?
This happens to me and my mother too(so yes, it’s probably hereditary). It was really frequent when I was younger, but it has mostly gone away since I started exercising harder. It’s a really weird feeling.
True dat, my brother. True dat.
This cave. I was standing (notice human in middle) and looking at the creek that erupts a few feet beyond the frame. I moved forward to get a picture. A section of ceiling dislodged due to thermal action–you’ll notice the bad weather–and landed where I had just been less than 3 seconds earlier. The person with me yelled, but I didn’t have enough time to even realize what was being said.
That beautiful shot distracted me from your story.
I think I need to go check up on the photography thread. I see I am many hundreds behind. Usually, what will happen is I see the photography thread, and am going to click it. Then I see how many I have to catch up on, and put it aside until I have more time (like all night or something). It’s kind of like a gaming backlog, only with photographs. Some things should not be rushed, so I wait until I have more time, which is rare these days.
As far as “close to dying” goes, I’ve told my heart attack story here before, I think? It’s lengthy. “Dead” for 3 minutes and all that. It was surreal.
And yeah, I know I couldn’t have actually been dead. But those are the words the ER doc used when he stuck his head in to see how I was doing 10 hours later: “You were dead for three minutes.”
I may have posted the whole story on another forum a few years ago. If anyone is interested, I can copy/paste it over to here. Unless it’s already here somewhere.
Same. It is pretty rare, weird when it happens though, was happening like daily, now more like once a week maybe.
Amen brother.
When they were going to do the rod in my leg, they call it a ‘pin’, they put my leg in a torture device. Then they gave me an epidural. Suddenly I could not feel anything below my lower spine. But I was still awake. Bad deal. They essentially pulled my knee apart. Then they did some cutting. And then they brought out a device that I can only describe as a very long corkscrew.
There was much twisting. Much groaning from the doctors. Eventually I said…
I can feel that. That hurts. Stop.
They decided to give me another epidural, higher on my spine. So I sit up. Another pinch. And more numbness.
They continue. And I feel it. Like a bad toothache in my leg. I start to freak out.
Doc says, I think we have to knock him out.
So they did.
Eventually I wake up in the recovery room. I am thirsty. Way fucking thirsty. They give me ice chips. Ice chips are the most wonderful things in the fucking world.
They bring me to a room. There is a guy in the next bed. Probably trying to sleep. The nurses say, help us move you to the bed and you get a shot.
I say, give me the shot and we’re good.
No son. You move first. The nurse shows me the shot. You move, you get this.
I say, fuck you. Give me tha damn shot.
This goes on for a bit. But now the pain is hot sweat and screaming. I don’t know if any of you know just how much pain can happen before you actually pass out but it’s a lot.
They finally get me to help them move me to the bed. I get the morphine.
Suddenly I want to marry the nurses and have their babies.
The poppy, she is insidious…
Before I had my ablation, I had an episode where my pulse went above 220 bpm for a couple hours and the doctor in the emergency room had to give me an injection to first stop and then reset my heart. It was freaky – like someone had shoved a toilet plunger into my chest and was squishing it – but didn’t really hurt much. I still get an occasional “hiccup” where it feels like my heart skips a beat or two, but it only lasts a moment.
Also, as a kid I flew on Pan Am Flight 104 the day before Flight 103 (the return trip) blew up. We were watching it on the news a lot for a few days. I don’t know if it was literally the same plane though.
I could swear I watched a movie/documentary about the flight in the late 1990s starring Oliver Platt, and in the movie they said the bombing was planned for the previous day (and maybe the other direction), but the bombers had to delay for some reason. The closest I could find was Executive Decision (1996).
As a 20 something I once drove to LA for a weekend set of baseball games, the Angels vs the Red Sox. After the Sunday game I drove home, about a 4 hour drive, after sitting in the sun and having a “few” beers. On the way home, somewhere around Bakersfield on the freeway I fell asleep and woke up just in time to do a couple 360’s and end up in the bushes in the middle of the freeway. The other guys in the car had been sleeping and had no idea what happened. Anyway, after a few seconds to allow my heart to slow down I got back on the road and drove home.