the scariest experience of your life

[Lonely in BC]

Getting "Maytagged" on a rafting trip.

I was on a float trip on the Red Deer river N.W. of Calgary AB. We were "surfing" an eddy when a sudden burst of water came over and quickly filled the raft I was in. I was situated in the front of the raft with another guy who wasn't lacking in the strength department either. We had braced our paddles against the rock in front of us and started pushing. The people behind us were furiously back paddling. Just as I thought we were going to break free my counterpart suddenly disappeared (the water swept him out of the raft). I kept trying to push but the next thing I knew was I was being "Maytagged"- the current of the water had pulled me out of the raft as well and I was tumbling underneath the raft. As I was spinning I would see a brief moment of orange (the underside of the raft), a moment of dark (bottom of the river) a glimpse of light (surface of the water) then back to orange. It seemed like forever but it really was only 20-30 seconds. I remember two thoughts- 1). "I'm gonna die" and 2). "Hang on to the paddle or Ryan won't let me back in the raft". Luckily I didn't die and I managed to hang on to the paddle (the only one out of eight people swept out of the boat).

Scared the hell out of me but damn, what a rush!

 

[LoneKiller]

Getting paint thinner in my eyes when I was younger.

 

[Lost Drifter]

When I worked for a PMC I was posted in Iraq which for the most part was quite safe. We had to wear vests and carry arms but that was more precaution than necessity as we were camped on the outskirts. Then one night our camp came under attack, most of us were sleeping save for a few watchmen and I was awoken to sounds of gunfire and the occasional small explosion as everyone scrambled for cover and defence. It was a wild panic. On the way to the armoury I was going to take cover behind a jeep which, due to a stray mortar, exploded within meters of my face. I was knocked back and remember the intense flash of heat on my face. Looking around I could see men shouting, bursts of gunfire, small fires which had broken out and even men sobbing. They never show that in the movies but it happens a lot.

Oddly enough I wasn’t that scared. I got back on my feet, made it to the armoury and got into defence. I felt a strange sense of peace, like if I was going to die then so be it, but while the whole encounter felt like hours it was over in minuets. The attackers pulled back and we were left to secure and clean-up. Probably the most intense moment of my life but I’m not sure if it was the scariest.

 

[Jilted John]

That would scare the s**t out of me Drifter!

 

[Fitz]

That would scare the s**t out of me Drifter!

This
I would've shat myself.

 

[kinzeUK]

EDIT: Sorry this is a long post. I tried to keep it short but it was kind of impossible. Plus I can type a lot of **** out at any given time and I'm used to doing so.

You've all clearly had/seen some hair-raising stuff alright, especially Lost Drifter's account. You sound incredibly brave to me, I can pretty much tell my reaction would have been the exact opposite of your's.

As for my scariest experience? It's still arguably when I suffered psychosis for weeks and weeks at a time when I was living back in Essex on my own. I had a large dependency for using base speed, which on top of already suffering depression and generally depressing personal circumstances, made things a lot worse. The weekend before my birthday which was on the following Monday, I was in my flat which was on the 5th floor of my building facing out towards where we had neighbours opposite, cowering in fear at my window because of having heard someone I used to know but haven't seen for years, shouting out death threats at my window. Whenever I would try and peer out and look down, I would see a glimpse or two of said person from behind pacing back and forth and up and down the road and around the face of my building towards the car park on my left. The kids who lived opposite seemed to be in on it too and a few other people I don't know from across the way. I'd been hearing voices and similar threats being shouted out for weeks prior to this but they had now grown in intensity (fuelled by my situation both with drug use and depression not that I was really aware of this at the time). Fast forward to Sunday night and I had been in a state of EXTREME panic and anxiety as I had not slept except for bare minutes at a time sometime Saturday but would 'micro sleep'. I remember it all very clearly sans one or two details, but I could hear this person I knew and what now seemed like half the entire road of my neighbours all screaming for my blood. There was one voice who I thought must be my friend's g/f or something that kept telling him to be reasonable and to leave me alone (I'm pretty sure that she was really the part of my brain trying to be reasonable and make sense of what was going on). I remember it was nearly dark and just running to my window lifting it up and screaming out for them to leave me the **** alone and that I would call the police if they didn't stop harassing me. I remember looking out and across at the house right opposite with a window that to me looked like it had someone peering behind a net curtain (that part was probably real I honestly couldn't tell you though) and as soon as I put my head back inside, I'd hear a torrent of frightening abuse, clear as a bell being directed back at me from the window opposite. The most ****** up thing about all of this carry on is that to this day, I STILL have no idea what I ACTUALLY saw or heard throughout my experiences ; what was real, if anything? And what blatantly wasn't? I guess I'll never truly know.

So this all carried on for hours and I would constantly hear without any let up these death threats which become more and more obscene, even racist and that they were going to smash my door in and gut me and hang me out my window by the morning. I knew I had to try and escape but (in my mind) my neighbours upstairs were monitoring my every move and would shout out the window that I was trying to make a run for it. This carried on throughout Sunday night to around 7am the next morning), just the same thing; me barely trying to make a sound and move around my flat to try and get some things together so I could make a run for it at some point, to the people upstairs shouting out, to hearing even more threats back at me and so on and so forth. Then I remember nodding off for maybe 20 mins or so and then hearing this mad scrambling about upstairs and I could hear my friend and several people all saying they had better get me now before I made a run for it. I heard them all running across my ceiling to their door and that is to get to the topic of this post, when I truly knew what sheer abject terror feels like (even now just typing it is a little difficult as it's something that obviously replays a lot in my mind). So I leapt up and ran to my phone in the hallway and tried to dial 999 which took me several attempts and I dropped the phone twice. I was looking through the fish eye view in my front door and I could see and hear (so I thought) a group of people trying to bust open one of my neighbours doors through the glass of the double doors that separated me and my next door neighbour from the other ones on the other side where the lift was.

I remember crying my eyes out and screaming for the operator to put me through to the police and then trying to tell them what was happening and where I lived. My voice was so cracked and hoarse (especially as I used to chain smoke a lot more) I remember I could barely string a word together and it felt like my mind had literally broken in two. I think I ran into my bathroom and just curled up in a fetal position or something just a complete ******* mess. The next thing I remember was hearing my door being knocked on loudly and hearing a male voice saying he was the police. I got up and went to the door and looked through the eye to see there were 3 policemen so I let them in. I told them what happened and they said that they hadn't seen anyone outside my flat or in the building and that they had heard no disturbance from any neighbours. They were very sympathetic and I can't imagine how I must have looked all completely freaked out, hadn't shaved or barely washed for days, eyes completely out of my skull, jaw all over the place all the while babbling and pathetically pleading with them not to keep looking out my window or to ask me questions as I 'knew' my would be assailants were all upstairs listening to every word. They asked me if I had anywhere to go for the time being and that's when I said I am coming up here to my parents where I am now. I grabbed what I could and they escorted me outside where I could still hear these people, still threatening to kill me, police escorts or not, and that they would kill me first chance they could get if I ever went anywhere near my flat.

I got dropped off at Southend Victoria train station and basically spent the next 6 hours travelling from Essex to Shropshire, constantly hearing these people looking for me and me constantly looking over my shoulder. I do remember getting stared at from people opposite me which is not surprising. At one point when I got to Liverpool St which is the main station to go to London and beyond (besides London Fenchurch Station), I was basically a complete wreck trying to carry 3 increasingly heavy bags with all my stuff threatening to fly everywhere as one was splitting. The last terrifying part and also the most absurd, was when after micro sleeping in McDonalds and vaguely remembering that I had rung my dad to tell him I was coming to theirs and that I needed picking up from Wolverhampton, I was standing in the underground waiting for a tube when I heard clear as day on the announcing tannoy, these same psychotic bastards telling me that I wasn't going anywhere and that I was gonna die right there and then. Needless to say, I think I laughed or something like it out of just the sheer lunacy of it all.

Sorry for the long post there, that's pretty much an abridged version in some respects and I realise it may have gone slightly off topic but in summation, to this date that whole weekend was and is the single most terrifying thing that I've personally ever experienced. And I've suffered some SCARY sleep paralysis **** before which I thought was the scariest thing ever at those times (which it was).

 

[Jilted John]

That's drugs for ya!

 

[kinzeUK]

That's drugs for ya!

It was for the most part. But as I said, I had a lot of pre-exisiting stuff going on and doing a lot of base speed proved to be the main catalyst for what happened. I had taken speed for years on and off, I used to smoke pot but quit back in 08 (this incident was in sept 2010). I used to take ecstacy too, couldn't tell you how much I did but it was in the hundreds (maybe about 700 over 10 years). I was always somebody who could handle my drugs. The same as I can handle vodka whereas most people hate it and swear it ***** them up proper. Luckily, I've never been a real drinker, just socially. I preferred soft drugs that was my choice for most weekends. Do what you can handle and know your limits that's what I always say. Everything in moderation.

I will never be that person that says they regret doing drugs because I don't. I have had far too many brilliant and life changing experiences and met the most brilliant people and had the best times doing it. But I AM the person that seriously regrets doing speed excessively at the end when that would have been a bad idea even if things had been going swimmingly in my personal life.

 

[Peaches]

many years ago, it was the second flight of my life, and there was this heavy fog so the plane couldn't land anywhere, and at some point word went by that fuel was scarce and what was going to happen next?, and this psycho priest stood up and started organizing prayers. After something like 4 hours! of extra flying we landed. That was pretty scary.

But I think it was surpassed by something that happened a few years ago, I had a neurological illness (now almost fixed) that would make me almost paralyzed for weeks, and then by resting I would get better and have a couple of days of activity before going back as before. I went to the hospital for a couple of days to make some tests about something completely unrelated, and I made the mistake of mentioning this neurological problem to the doctor. He called a psychiatrist, who wanted to know more about that, and as they were all acting very weird because they never heard about my problem (which was actually quite tangible and recognizable), I said that maybe I should just go and get those tests done in another hospital. The psychiatrist turned very aggressive and said that I was free to go whenever I wanted, so I just got dressed and packed.
Then, as I was going, two male nurses joined her (the psychiatrist) to "show me the way" (I was quite upset after talking with the psychiatrist, so I didn't see it coming) so they brought me to another room where SIX PERSONS of different sexes jumped on me like I was some kind of dangerous criminal, (I am a very sweet-looking and polite gal at the time around 32 years old and 120lb) and held me while someone was giving me a shot of some kind of sedative in the bum.
After that they brought me to another room and tied me up hand and feet with leather ties, too tight so they produced these huge bruises that I later had photographed to eventually sue those people, and they wouldn't let me go to the toilet for half a day.
After that, I was officially interned in the mental hospital, without any kind of reason whatsoever, and put in this ward with really violent women, pyromaniacs, violent dementia, a great party.
Through my cell phone I alerted my mother who lived 500 miles away and run to the rescue but to no avail. For the first two days I was given shots of tranquilizers and was mostly unconscious, and after that I was given pills that I managed not to swallow and hide until I could threw them away, and I had to speak daily for one hour with this complete screw-up of a psychiatrist who decided, as he never heard of my neurological problem, that I must have had very severe manic depression that would make me be in bed for weeks and then up and running (so to speak) for some periods, refused to check my illness up on the internet, and didn't pay attention to the fact that my mood was fine.
The scariest thing of all was that that ward was run by this doctor who was very famous in the country where this happened, he wrote many books and was on TV once a week, and he was like the Hitler of psychiatrists, he reintroduced electroshock therapy after it had been outlawed for twenty years and also reintroduced the (ab)use of Ritalin for children, and he was famously very ruthless in "treating" patients - he even looked like an SS, a real force of evil, once he felt my pulse and made a bruise (!). Now, I have to confess that I have seen the film "One flew over the cookoo's nest" once too many times, but honestly I have never been so scared in my life. I tried to keep my mouth as shut as possible, as I would see that anyone who talked back or just asked for informations would be punished with extra sedation, and I was completely terrified that they would send me to have electroshock therapy (apologies to all those who actually did it, for me it has always been the scariest thing in the world, especially when performed for no reason and against one's will). Once they sent me to have the famous tests I went to the hospital for in the first place done, and we stepped in front of some really scary rooms with tables and ties that I imagined could be the electroshock rooms and I almost fainted. The ******* doctor (the assistant) did mention electroshock a couple of times, assuring me that with the right therapy I will heal completely from my paralysis and they will try all therapies until I was cured (!). Finally, my mother was going there everyday to speak with those doctors, she brought a couple of lawyers, and after TEN days (which I spent playing video games on the cell phone, writing my memoirs and trying to get rid of all the pills that I was not swallowing) they let me go, with many excuses as they finally checked on the internet, and: ooops! your illness really does exist, sorry about that. But they still insisted that I must have a bit of manic depression, so I should come get checked regularly. You can imagine how when I go back to that city I make sure not to walk near the hospital area.