Back when I was a welder, I was trying to cut something with an angle grinder in an awkward position.

I guess my brain was turned off that day because I decided to grind with the sparks going directly away from me.

So of course, the disc binded, and sent the angle grinder directly at my face.

Thank god I was wearing a face shield, at least. In about 0.1 seconds, my face shield was cut entirely in half.

The fun didn’t stop there, though, because I had the trigger lock on (again, genius). So it was still spinning at full force after it jumped out of my hands.

Also, I was on a ladder, so here I am, trying to throw the grinder away from my with my arms, on top of a ladder, all the while the cutting disc is going absolutely out of control essentially in full contact with my face, neck, chest, and arms.

Finally I manage to push it off of me, it falls to the floor and the disc breaks. I finally get off the ladder and unplug the grinder.

At this point, I can see that my face shield is cut clean down the middle. I’m thinking 1000% I’m gonna be needing an urgent hospital visit. I take off the face shield, and carefully touch my face… No blood… I take out my phone and use it as a mirror, not a scratch… I meticulously check the rest of my body… nothing.

Turns out, after all that, the only damage was to the disc and the face shield.

I can’t even explain how I felt after that. I spent the rest of the day in an almost out-of-body experience, and was shaken for a few weeks at least. I beat myself up a lot for being so stupid, and I literally couldn’t believe how lucky I was. I still can’t believe it.

I was deployed to Iraq in 2007, at Kirkuk Regional Air Base. I served in the US Air Force and my job was essentially an IT technician, so I was maintaining our base’s computer servers.

Our base was half Air Force (Airmen) and half Army (Soldiers). About 90% of our ticket queue came from the Army side, because they didn’t respect equipment or security practices as much as we did, so they were always breaking our things.

One day, I got a ticket from a small Army supply depot. Someone’s computer wasn’t powering on. So I hopped in our truck and drove over to the Army side of base. The supply depot was literally a shack, maybe about 20x15 ft. I went inside and was greeted by 3 soldiers.

While troubleshooting the broken computer, I tipped it and sand poured out the back. This was common, as we had a lot of sand in Iraq. It collected like super-aggressive dust everywhere and we had to clean our offices at least weekly to keep it at bay. Soldiers rarely cleaned their offices, so there was always a layer of sand on everything. I told them I was going to grab a can of compressed air from my truck, so I could blow out all the sand and then see if there was anything else broken within the computer.

The shack was next to a larger building that had a parking lot in front of it. I had parked in the lot and was rummaging around in the bed of the truck for a can of compressed air…

…The next thing I know, I’m lying on my back on the pavement, staring at the blue sky. I’m thinking how beautiful and peaceful the sky looks, but I feel like something’s off. I’m trying to remember why I’m lying there, staring at the sky.

I tried to get up, but my whole body ached, like I had spent an entire day in the gym, beating up every muscle group. It was a struggle, but I eventually managed to sit up. My hearing suddenly came back to me and I heard a commotion going on in the direction of the shack. I struggled to stand up, using the tailgate of my truck, and I walked around the corner of the larger building to see what’s going on.

There was a small crater in the ground, next to the shack. One wall and its section of roof was almost completely blown off. A mortar had landed, just outside the shack. A bunch of people were scrambling around the wreckage.

I did a spot-check of myself and despite being full-body sore, I didn’t have any holes anywhere. No blood, I could move all my limbs and digits. Somehow, I seemed okay. I must have been hit by the shock wave from the impact while around the corner from the shack. Which was lucky, as this particular mortar seemed to have scattered little molten balls of metal everywhere when it exploded.

Emergency crews arrived and they started excavating the ruins of the shack. Two of the soldiers had died instantly; the third was rushed to the hospital with limbs barely attached. He died a few hours later on the operating table. If I had been responsible and brought all my tools inside; if I didn’t have to go back to my truck to grab supplies for the job, I would’ve been in that shack with those guys. That was the closest I ever came to dying.

Since I didn’t appear to be injured, I just went back to work. No sense in me being in the way of everyone else. But little did I know that I had suffered a mild concussion. I was kind of dazed for about a week, just staring blankly at my computer screen. I eventually snapped out of it and continued on with my life. Never went to the hospital about it because it never occured to me while I was dazed, and when I snapped out of it, I felt like I was all better anyway and there was no reason to be examined. I was young and dumb.

At the time of the incident, you could only earn a Purple Heart medal by being injured while in direct combat with OpFor (opposing forces; a.k.a the enemy). So I didn’t qualify, as they had just launched a random mortar at our base and I was unlucky enough to be in its vicinity when it blew up. I was a victim of circumstance, not in an actual battle.

A few years later, they expanded the award to cover any injury sustained indirectly from OpFor’s actions. Also, they included mental injuries. Used to be, only physical damage counted, but PTSD was starting to become more commonly recognized, so mental injuries became a qualifier for the Purple Heart. So I qualified for it, but when I applied, I realized I had no evidence of my injuries from OpFor specifically, because I never went to the hospital afterward. I went to get checked out, but the hospital said I had no residual trace of mental damage that they could see. Brain scans looked fine. So I never earned the Purple Heart, even though I technically qualified for it.

Some kid got angry and sat on my head underwater. He was several years older and much bigger (I was 7 he was maybe 11 or 12). He was mad because I confronted him about stealing my toys (little miniature transformers not expensive but theft is theft. He had been accusedof theft by others but my Mom thought he was just being bullied, he had a cleft lip, and I should try to be his friend). Both our families went to the lake for the weekend and he was playing with one in the water and for some reason either didn’t think I’d see him playing with it or wanted me to be mad. I said I was going to tell on him and he grabbed me and shoved my face into the sand in two foot deep water and sat on my head.

Luckily there was a bystander who stopped it, but that fucker was totally prepared to murder me over some plastic. I later found out he had done similarly violent stuff to other kids after I stopped being around him.

My parents sent me to Jesus camp when I was in high school. This particular camp was one where kids would go on week long excursions. I didn’t jive with the jesus stuff, but a week of camping and swimming in lakes was great.

This particular year I did a week of biking and climbing. We practiced at the rock wall and got our bearings and we were signed off by some climbing instructor. We then went on the road. Six days later, we arrived at the rock face we were to climb. We started at the top, dropped our gear, then half of us hiked down and our belays hung out on top to help us back up.

I did my climb. It was uneventful but fun. Then it was my turn to belay.

We did everything with just climbing ropes and carabiners. No additional equipment. We were to tie off onto a tree or boulder on the summit and make a particular kind of loop around ourselves that wouldn’t allow it to constrict and hurt us if we were hauling the person below up the face. Nbd I get it all set up and we move on.

Well, my climbing buddy was picked randomly and it was the fat girl with homesickness. She finally stopped moaning and decided to give it a shot. I was happy for her and got ready. She hiked down and got herself ready.

“On belay!” I check my stuff, see it’s good “Belay on!”

She starts climbing. But she couldn’t get past the first major rock and she decided to quit. Oh well.

Then I turned around and found my support rope wasn’t tied around the tree and I would’ve been yanked off of a 60 foot rock face the first time she slipped.

got a meningitis once. My mother is a doctor, so when I told her that my cheek felt weird, she had me do all sorts of weird movements with my face, then discovered that half of it was starting to get paralyzed and told the whole family (we were sitting in an italian restaurant) “The boy’s got a facial paralysis. Let’s all eat up so we can go to the hospital”. Since we did not really wait until the symptoms got any worse (what most people probably would have done since no normal person would have spotted the paralysis that early), I was “only” disabled with several neurological issues for about a month. Had I been to the hospital later… well… chances wouldn’t have been great.