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7. X-Ray
“I almost died on my 17th birthday. I was coughing until I vomited, because no matter how hard I coughed I could still feel something at the back of my throat.
My mother took me to a pulmonologist; I could hardly breathe, and walking up a flight of stairs left me winded and coughing. He listened to my breathing via stethoscope and determined it was nothing but a bad cold.
I was already out the door when I heard my mother ask, ‘Doctor, what if it’s influenza?’
There was a big flu epidemic going around at the time, so the doctor told me to go get an X-ray, ‘just to be safe.’
What that X-ray revealed was a bit more serious than a cold.
Three quarters of my left lung was filled with fluid, as well as half of my right one.
I was instantly admitted to the hospital, and they started me on antibiotics. Still, I kept getting worse, instead of better, until on Wednesday they put me in the ICU. My left lung collapsed that night, and I had to be intubated. I spent four days in a medically induced coma, and I didn’t find out until months later that my doctors thought I wouldn’t live through it.
To this day, there’s no medical explanation for the fact that I pulled through with no lasting damage. So not only is my survival inexplicable, but I think that in the end the something that saved me was the fact that my mother asked that one question and got me an x-ray.”
8. Phantom Help
“I almost got hit by a train.
It happened when I was in the 11th grade. I was on my way home and I had to cross the railway before I reached the area. There was no one around. All of a sudden, my uniform skirt got stuck in between the rails. Slowly I started hearing the sound of the train coming down the line. I kept trying to pull my skirt free, but I was frozen.
I didn’t know what to do. I knew it was late for me to run, it was so close. In the last moment, I heard someone’s voice and it seemed that I had been pushed. I found myself lying on the ground, only several meters from the railway while the train passed – skirt intact.
I thought somebody must have helped me. I was looking around, hoping to find someone. But there was nobody there.
I don’t know what happened to me, but I am really grateful to whatever or whoever saved my life. If that had happened only a few seconds later, I most definitely would have died from the hit.”
9. Into the Ravine!
“I was running with a hiking guide and some friends when I slipped a step, and fell off a ravine. I was rolling and tumbling for I cannot remember how many times. I just felt roots and stones hitting my ribs, my legs, my chest. Then, I blacked out.
I woke up to a voice saying, ‘DON’T MOVE, JUST STAY THERE, WE’RE HERE.’ It was the guide, secured with harnesses descending toward me. That’s when I realized I was hanging from a tree branch that had caught my bag’s hip belt. Below me are huge rough rock formations that could’ve broken me into pieces.
I love trees.”
10. “Thank you, gluttony”
“I owe my life to a gingerbread cookie. No, seriously.
When I was 18-months-old, before fences were a legal requirement around swimming pools – we were visiting some friends who had an inground swimming pool.
My mother looked out the window and saw my woolly hat bobbing up and down in the pool. Then she remembered that I was wearing it.
Everyone raced outside, dad jumped in and lifted me out.
Gingerbread biscuits are apparently as water soluble as granite. Because I had one in my mouth and refused to let it go – which meant that I kept my mouth shut and avoided drowning. Thank you, gluttony.”
11. “I changed that day”
“I tried to kill myself when I was 15. I took an overdose of painkillers. Tylenol with dihydracodeine. Not a small overdose, either – I took more than a hundred. Afterwards, I took a nap, not expecting to wake up. I woke up feeling better than I had in years, and my depression has mostly been gone since then.
I don’t know how or why this happened, and have no memory of the time that I was asleep. Maybe someone came along and found me and pumped my stomach, and then for some reason didn’t stick around afterwards. Maybe the pharmacy accidentally gave my mom placebos instead of real drugs.
All I know is that I changed that day, and whatever the reason, I’m thankful for it.”
12. Full Recovery
“On Wednesday I started feeling a bit ill. By Friday morning I was feeling a bit queasy, but not too bad. Friday afternoon my stomach started hurting, the doctor diagnosed muscle strain and sent me home.
The next morning I knew I had a serious problem. The pain was excruciating – so bad I could barely move.
I woke my wife and said, ‘call an ambulance.’
So I went to the hospital. They put me on some painkillers, and I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was completely horrified to discover what had happened.
Turns out my appendix had burst a week before. During the days after it burst I had driven 1,000 miles, shifted 4–5 tons of furniture, and yet all that time my body was fighting peritonitis so serious the doctor described it as gangrene.
It took the doctor a whole day to bring my fever under control enough to do the operation. When I woke up from surgery, the first words I heard from the surgeon were ‘So you’re awake. But you’re still going to die.’
I wasn’t going to die. I had a family to take care of.
Somehow none of the problems my surgeon predicted occurred. He thought the remaining infection in my stomach (he couldn’t get it all) would cause my body to crash from toxic shock and organ failure, which would likely lead to my death. But my body simply threw off the infection.
I met the surgeon 3 months later, after a 100% recovery – his words were ‘I can’t believe how good you look.’ People who survive this kind of brush with death generally don’t make 100% recoveries, they are often crippled for life, their health permanently ruined.
I am an atheist – but this awful illness and miraculous recovery is the closest I’ve come to believing in a higher power.”
13. “Just a feeling”
“In the early 1990s, I use to drive to Tijuana once a week for business.
Driving in Mexico is a bit different than the States. The locals would tell me that driving laws, such as speed limits and stop signs, are more like suggestions than regulations.
One night, I was driving home along Boulevard Industrial when I stopped at a red light. There was a truck blocking my view to my left.
When the light changed, I started forward, but a strange feeling came over to me and for no good reason I stopped just before the intersection. At that moment, an unseen tractor trailer came barreling through the red light and passed just inches in front of my front bumper.
It took a while to realize how close I came and I never knew why I stopped. Just a feeling I guess.”
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