My Near Death Experiences

On Facebook  the day before yesterday I posted the time when I was under 5 years old and got hit by a car.  Brad Martin commented that I am "invincible".   Anna read it and said, "You are a cat." 

She knew of other near death experiences I have experienced through the years:

About 1944.  At Sweet Water Creek near Austell a underwater current caught me and swept under and away.  Daddy and Dick Sullivan jumped and saved me.  Daddy jumped in without taking off his socks.

About 1950.  I climbed to the top of a small tree with the intentions of making  it sway back and forth and then on the final sway reach over to a parallel small tree and latch on to it and transfer my bulk to it.  I have did it before, alone, but this time I had an audience, I was showing off.  The next thing I knew my friends were putting me onto my bed.  The tree top had snapped and down I went, which knocked me out.  They thought I was faking and stripped me butt naked in front of my friends sister, knowing I would jump up when they begin to undress me.  I didn't and they got scared.  My parents were not home.  They did what they thought was right and placed me in my bed.  I don't remember if they put my clothes back on or not.

About 1950.  Manget Creek was overflowing and flowing  very rapidly.  Somehow, I got too close to the water and it swept me away.  I caught a creek side tree leaning and clung on for dear life, which paid off.

About 1952.  A bunch of us were playing in the loft of Eddie N.'s grandparents' barn on Glover Street.  Eddie N. was mentally challenged.  One of my "friends" reminded Eddie N. of the time he and I had a fight and I broke his nose.  He suddenly jumped on me and with very strong hands started choking me.  I could not breath.   Then, in our rolling and scuffling in the barn's loft what we didn't know was the floor of the loft was just un-nailed plywood.  We caused the plywood to be unbalanced on the rafters it was resting on and it tilted and like a dump truck dumped us down onto the ground  floor of the barn.  That interruption saved my life.  I hopped to my feet and sprinted off like a wild rabbit.  Eddie N., by the way, is serving a life sentence for murder that he committed when he grew up.

About 1958 or 1959:  A group of my friends and I went to Salt Peter Cave near Cartersville.  I had been there once or twice before with the Maple Avenue Explorer Troop that  I belonged to a couple years before.  There are two entrances to Salt Peter Cave.  One is a small opening and the other one is a huge opening.  You could almost toss a McMansion into the big entrance.  As you enter, it goes  down at a steep level until a certain point, then it drops off into a cliff.  After we looked around the cave and got tired of it, outside the big entrance, my friend Larry tied a big rope onto a tree.  We took times swinging out into the darkness below us, and swinging back.... or they did, anyway.  When it was my turn, eagerly, I swung out.  I was overweight and the rope started sliding out from my grip.  I tried to hold on for dear life, but I was just too heavy, the rope slipped out from my grip.  I hit the rocky downward slope and rolled but stopped by a boulder on the edge of the cliff.  My hands were bloody and later all blistered up.  I was in extreme pain.  Again, my friends (different ones this time) helped me home, and again my parents were not home, so they helped me to bed.

 1960.  After getting off work at the Big Apple one Friday night several of us went to the Dixie Inn in Woodstock.  They were having a red-snapper and catfish special.  I had the red-snapper.  A fish bone caught in my throat and I couldn't breathe.  I collapsed to the floor hacking for breath.  Somehow my hacking dislodged the bone.  Interesting, I was completely ignored by the waitresses, they almost had to step over me to do their serving.

1975.  At the intersection of Gordon, Floyd Roads, and Bankhead Highway in Mableton, one morning coming from work going under the green light a truck ran the red light from his Bankhead side and t-boned my car.  He hit with a powerful speed and it knocked me to the other side of my Gremlin before caving my side in, which saved my life.  He went through his windshield, which killed him.  He was sick before, they believed he blacked out a moment before he approached the red light.  That was before seat belt laws, which if I had a seatbelt on I would have been crushed however  if he had a seatbelt on his life might have been saved.  An argument for and against seatbelts in the same wreck.  Ironically, on the radio Bob Dylan's "Blood on the Track" was playing.

2002.  I had a heart attack.  I kept telling the medical people at the hospital it was not a heart attack and all the time they were telling me it was a heart attack was they were rushing around trying to inject a "clot buster" in me, whatever that is.

2004 or 2006.  On Christmas Eve I had a stroke.  My face and eyes froze looking sideways.  I was rushed to the hospital.  Again I kept telling them it was not a stroke and again, if I remember correctly they were rushing around  trying to use the "clot buster" again, or maybe I got the two mixed up.

I know there are probably many people that have had even more closer to death experiences and unfortunately, some have not lived to tell about it.

I think now the odds are against me to the point of even being paranoid walking down stairs.