The Frightening Animal topic has been interesting. Being new here, I might be a pain in the neck but, I'd like to find out alittle more about my new buddies.

What about your deadlest encounter?
Could be animal, insect, elements or people while out hunting.
I've got a lot of scar's from "WOW that was close," some by my stupidity, others by my bad luck. I expect every hunter aquires a few.

I'll post this here because, well danger and Africa just seem to go together.

My closest call is too long to write about for this, at least now. It's an increadable story of survival (I was just along for the ride).

I'll start out with a different one.
I was spring black bear hunting in Alaska and landed my Super Cub on rotten ice. The plane broke through almost immediately. As I bailed out I grabed my pack and got away from the sinking plane. My flying partner turned and headed for town 100 miles away. The temp was in the 70's and the ice was going fast. I couldn't get close to shore without breaking through so I found a thick chunk and just waited. Sunburned on one side and wet and freezing on the other. Soon I couldn't do anything but lay on the ice to spread my weight. I was praying for cold weather to reset the ice so I could possible get off that night. 12 hours after I heard the distant sound of a helicopter. It was my flying partner. As they hovered and I jumped in I yelled "what the f&*k took you so long". his response, "you should try to find a helicoper in that town".
We retreved the Super Cub a couple of days later, but boy that was expensive.

I'm a (relative) youngster, only 24, so I don't have any truly cinema-quality close calls to speak of.

I do live just outside of Flint, Michigan though. Beat that!

I live outside of Detroit and work there. So there!

Geronimo

I once had lunch at "Ribs 'N Bibs" in the Woodlawn neighborhood on the south side of Chicago.

I spent the next two days hooked up to an IV in the ICU of the U of C hospital.

Luckily, I survived and learned my lesson. Never trust an undercooked pig.

Viet Nam, 1967, Krait. Stepped on it.

Fishing for trout in a Pennsylvania stream in the wildreness area walked a mile or moreup a railbed and was going to fish my way back the car... Stepping over a log the rattler was on the other side... Struck and hit my left foot right behind big toe... I pulled back and broke the world speed record for a double action 357 with snake loads... Emptied the gun in about a tenth of a second... Thoughts in my head your dead no one around, shakes, then finally see how bad it looks... Pulled off boot and sock, fangs failed to penetrate fully thru rubber hip boot...
But I could no longer fish when the wind blew the leaves sounded like a rattler's rattle..
But it taught me to always control my forward step...

Mike

Duck hunting - weather related plus stupidity, more than onece I've had a couple really close calls. I've been fortunate emough to save a couple of stuck, freezing doomed hunters. And they call a buddy of mine who was drivng a duck boat Captain Nemo, btw. He made it too.

Africa - two for real elephant charges. One I stopped at 7yds.

JPK

Touché, Geronimo/Geronomo. I'm not sure, but I think the latest stats would give the "win" to St. Louis. That is perhaps the most twisted use of the word "win" in literary history.

458_wanderer
I grew up in Brighton(till 13) and then Hartland just south of you. I came to Alaska in 1982 and never regretted it.
Yes I know what you're talking about with regards to Flint.

probably to many to remember, otherwise it's gotta be talking to mark young about places to go hunting

Opening the tent door in the early hours of the morning to see a Lion sitting at eight paces looking at me.
Getting thrown around in an avalanche while descending a Mount Douglas in New Zealand .

Limpopo Province , Hunting sable with client, got hit by Black Mamba !@@#@$$ my pants and thought I was dead, ripped of pants too discover hit my pants where they were folded not my hunting boots, did not penetrate,

Also no venom released, later talked too herpetolgist, she said Mamba sometimes when surpised gives warning strike if yu do not move after first strike , you might get lucky I did, Client was behind me and kept telling me too keep still as the snake was hip level after strike, very nervous I kept still and he moved off, we raced down hill and ripped my pants off to dicover no hit just holes in pants

Kwan, Hell of a story there, all I can offer up is non hunting - night parachute jump Panama City, Panama, getting shot at by the PDF

Not really deadly (well, not for me) but high on the adrenaline factor:

Story Posted Here Before

The follow up on my first leopard was scary. He was dead when he hit the ground but we did not know it. Wind was blowing like crazy and we did not hear a thud when the cat fell. All I saw was the orange flash of the rifle when I fired and did not see the bullet strike. Could not see the cat because he fell through the roots of the tree down in the sand bank of the river. It was tense walking up to that tree.
Had a rhino charge at smell when I was sitting in a leopard blind. For unkknown reason he stopped a few feet short of the fabric and snorted. When he was coming I could feel his feet vibrating the dirt under my feet. I almost burst from the blind running shitless.
Last time in Africa we tracked down a big bull buff that had tried flattening a patrolman a few hours earlier. My wife shot the bull in the face at about 20 meters stopping his charge.
Most scared I think I ever was I fell off a mountian in Alaska two years ago. Luckily my face, that has never made me a dime, broke my fall and knocked my ass out saving some of the other missery in the fall. By the grace of God I got snagged by a little sapling before taking the next flop which certianly would have been fatal. The guide pulled me to a safe ledge and seeing that my legs were not broken I climbed off the mountian under my own power. Guide wanted to fly me out to a hospital, but I told him no. I cleaned and repaired the cuts to my face and reset my then sideways finger, and superglued the lacerations. I was worried about why my guts hurt so bad but figured if I started leaking blood out of either end I would go to a doctor. After about three days the main pains quit and the swelling started going down so I could see out my left eye real good again. Took several months for my hand to get right though. My wife says I am not allowed to climb mountians in Alaska anymore. I haven't told her I am planning a Grizzly hunt there yet.

Thirty five years living in Miami. Had to draw (but not fire) a handgun twice when I lived there. Beat the other guys to the draw and they withdrew. As most of us already know, two-legged animals are the most dangerous of all the species.

I left.

oct 10th 2007 walked into a grizz @ 12yds with a empty rifle, while elk hunting and recovering from a self inflicted knife wound that nearly cost my life on sept 11th 2007.
no! really i'm not accident prone,
luck changed on oct 13th when i killed the biggest bull of my life(7x7 @ 365)

Rolled a dragster eleven times at speed.

Shot in the back with 22 from a zip gun as a kid (read juvenile delinquent). Luckily they're not very accurate, and hit the hip bone.

Rattler strike which hit 1/2" below the top of the hunting boot. Full venom on the leather.

Fell asleep in a treestand before safety harnesses were "cool" or smart; no broken bones, but unconscious for unknown length of time.

Planning on saving the last five lives for as long as I can.

These story go tho show that the unexpected is always the most dangerous.
Some of these stories are giving me chills!!!

Killed a mountain lion in mid air about 25 years ago with a single shot Sharps buffalo rifle. She crumpled at my feet. Who said lions are fraidy cats?

.........October 1979 aboard US Coast Guard Cutter Confidence ....Several days out of Chiniak Bay on course 180 .en route Honolulu for Ref.Tra. ., Seas to more than 65 ft. winds were in excess of 80 knts with gusts over 110 when the anemometer left its mount and smashed on the flight deck 2 days earlier .....Took a big swell on the beam and laid over 65 deg .......it laid there for a minit or so , came back and over to starboard about 45 d then back to 65 degrees list to the port side ..stayed there again but rose again ...........We came about and ran before it for about 2 days before we could return to our course and continue on the Hawaii .....We had laid on our side 3 degrees beyond the righting ability or the ship .......Twice .....It burst in windows and flooded the galley which was on the main deck ..........Crossing the North Pacific ocean in the fall on a 210 ft ship that draws 10 ft. or less is not wise ..............................................There have been so many others , that have had such good outcomes , all of which I Thank God for , that if I shared them I would be called a liar and told to stop preaching ...........Suffice to say that over a 10 year period I have 4 friends or coworkers who are buried in the Craig, Alaska cemetery . ... And several in other ones ......Being a timber faller in Southeast Alaska ,can get ya killed as quick as crab fishing in the Bering Sea .............And then there have been the brown bears , but I don,t want to talk about that ...

A woman scorned, who knows how to use a gun and owns one. And I live outside St. Louis.


Dutch

Foot stuck in my rope and got drug by my cow horse. My knife flew out of my hand so I couldn't cut the rope. I wasn't wearing my six gun that day or I would have used it. The rope finally burned around the saddle horn and turned me loose. Laid up for a couple of weeks. Never did learn to like that horse.

Food poisoning from escargot, and getting stepped/landed on by a bull in a rodeo

I thought this was about close ones with animals. I had a near miss once while flying a Cessna 180 on a clear Sunday morning west of Jupiter, Florida. A Piper Seneca appeared under my aircraft's nose, climbing. We were level, cruising at the correct altitude, enroute from Indiantown to Titusville to go skydiving. Our rigs were piled on the floor in the luggage compartment. Closure rate was around 280 mph. I saw the bald spot on top of the pilot's head. Went vertical and rolled right. Estimated near miss distance from the Seneca was about six inches. Got on the ground an hour later and all three of us couldn't stop yelling and laughing for about thirty minutes. The other guy was looking down and never saw us.

My most recent:

While looging my mountain last spring I was letting a tree go and did not know the canopy was tangled with a tree behind it. When the one I cut was falling it pulled the one behind me out by the roots. I had no idea the other tree was following. The second tree, a big hemlock, had a few short broken limbs on the trunk.

As they fell the second tree immediately caught my sweatshirt. That's when I knew it was coming. It hooked into the shirt and cut through to my skin, hooked into my skin. I could not get away. Both trees fell and began to pull me down with them.

I was trapped and the trees were far too big to push or move as they fell. I was totally helpless and the trees pulled me straight down backwards forcing me down with my feet nearly under me kind of like folding up a lawn chair.

I determined a long, long time ago I have a guardian angel.

I ended up wedged between the two huge trees and pinned down by the sharp limb that went through my clothing. It cut a gash about six inches long in my back, still got a scar. How the trees didn't squash me is a mystery.

I eventually freed myself. I now plan escape routes before cutting any trees.

About the early fall of 1975-76 out in the backcountry of Cameron County, Pennsylvania hunting early season squirrels with my 22 rifle, I stepped over a 3 foot downed tree with one leg…only to find that I stepped squarely on the body of one of the biggest rattlesnakes I ever saw in my life. As I sat there in my shorts (it was warm weather) straddling the log like riding a horse and my “manly vitals†lying in full target view of the snake (who was now a little pissed and in full coiled strike mode from me disturbing his slumber), I very slowly lifted my foot off his body and tried to avoid any eye contact. The rifle was of course inconveniently leaning against the other side of the log. After what seemed to be hours of waiting in a stare down, he slowly slithered under the log…which now of course meant I had no idea which side he would come out on again! I lifted both feet onto the top of the log and sat for 5 minutes or so before walking down the top of the log a few feet to “safetyâ€..….man I sure miss that rifle…..

Paul

Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were forced to live on nothing but food and water for days---WC Fields

This thread reminds me of the scene in Jaws where Quint, Brody, and Hooper are all comparing scars and trading stories…

Then Quint pulls out the story of the USS Indianapolis and trumps them all…

Given that and the relation of this thread to the frightening animals thread I’d have to say that anything that swims and can eat you is pretty damn scary…

Therefore, I usually stay out of the water in order to avoid any unpleasant encounters...

Lets see, I only have a couple hunting related situations that scared me at the time. Most everything else has been fishing related.

8 or 9 years ago, my buddy had crossed some big black bear tracks while snowmobiling on state land in Michigan, where we lived at the time. We went back the next morning to follow them, half for scouting purposes, half just wondering why there were fresh bear tracks in early febuary. The trail eventually went over a cedar swamp. While crossing the frozen swamp, about a third of the way across I fell thru the ice. Luckily only up to my chest, after I got back on top of the ice we continued on and I fell thru again, this time only up a little past my knees. Didn't make it back to the truck until close to night fall. I was honestly surprised being that cold fot that long didn't have some long term effects.

I've been shot at during deer season in Michigan. A bullet impacted the tree I was sitting against, about 6 inches above my head. Thought it might have been an accident until the second bullet struck the tree. Then I saw the idiot about 600 yards away across an old x-mas tree field, getting ready to shoot again. I flopped out prone and fired a shot and he took off. In that same field, can't remember if it was before or after, we were partridge hunting and my buddy was carrying an old singleshot 12 gauge with no trigger guard, and the hammer cocked. The trigger snagged on something while we were walking side by side and talking. The pattern hit in between my feet. I dug pellets out of the toe of one boot and the heel of the other.

Only thing else that comes to mind is I fell thru a peat bog while bass fishing. I knew it was dangerous at the time, but I was 18 and there were monster largemouths and bluegills in that bog. While walking on the peat I stepped on a weak spot and in I went. Luckily I was close enough to the edge of the peat and was able to swim out to open water, because the only way I could tell wear I fell in at was my rod and reel were laying on top of the peat. The hole I fell thru closed back in after me.

Spearfishing in the Bahamas......8' Black tip wanted a piece of me....only got my fin....perfect semi-circle. Didn't carry a powerhead at the time because they were illegal in the Bahamas.
Rabid fox on my property came for me when I had my pup out for a romp....44 took care of that.

Nothing too spectacular.

Gary
DRSS
NRA Lifer
SCI
DSC

I got hit in the chest with an arrow from my fishing bow when it hit the end of the line. Luckily I did not get impaled.

I got straddle legged on a Rattle Snake while snake hunting. He was shaking his rattle I don’t know who moved the fastest me or the snake.

Got shot while standing next to my truck in the road when my cousin missed a quail while bird hunting. Most of the blast went into my topper one into my left arm. My gun my reloads we haven’t hunted together since.


The scariest was almost being hit by a train out in the country on a dirt road by the lake. It came from behind a hill and I didn’t see it until I was over the tracks. One second earlier my father and I would have been flattened or at least spread across the next few hundred yards of track.

More than I care to remember clearing mines in Bosnia a dozen years ago........

Divorce court with a soon to be ex

prof,,your damn lucky

Me LRP 68-69,,just about nothing scares me any more!!

quote:

Originally posted by Aspen Hill Adventures:
My most recent:

While looging my mountain last spring I was letting a tree go and did not know the canopy was tangled with a tree behind it. When the one I cut was falling it pulled the one behind me out by the roots. I had no idea the other tree was following. The second tree, a big hemlock, had a few short broken limbs on the trunk.

As they fell the second tree immediately caught my sweatshirt. That's when I knew it was coming. It hooked into the shirt and cut through to my skin, hooked into my skin. I could not get away. Both trees fell and began to pull me down with them.

I was trapped and the trees were far too big to push or move as they fell. I was totally helpless and the trees pulled me straight down backwards forcing me down with my feet nearly under me kind of like folding up a lawn chair.

I determined a long, long time ago I have a guardian angel.

I ended up wedged between the two huge trees and pinned down by the sharp limb that went through my clothing. It cut a gash about six inches long in my back, still got a scar. How the trees didn't squash me is a mystery.

I eventually freed myself. I now plan escape routes before cutting any trees.

..................................Now you are trying to really get me shook up .........Be Careful ..........Look Up ... ...Don,t work beyond your brain [meaning , when you get tired enough so your not thinking right] , put the saw down and take a break , or plan on headin in ,.,., Always look up .....a cutter that don,t look up all the time on every tree is a funeral ...........Don,t let your mind wander ................Be Careful ...

I was 12 years old and we were on holiday in the Umfolozi game reserve in KZN. Unlike the Kruger Park you can get out of your car at designated spots and walk to a hide.

On the way back from one such a hide movemnet caught my eye to my right on the ground and there was a black mamba 1 foot away from my feet just off the walkpath. The mamba was raised about 6" from the ground and just looked at me I knew that if I had to make any sudden movements it would strike and what felt like minutes gone past a few secons later the mamba just slithered off into the thick stuff very calmly I estimated him at around 2.5 meters and my parents was wondering why I just stood there for a moment or two when I explained to them and I showed them the spot where te snake vanished to. And when looking closely we could see two mambas they were obviouslly mating.

The thoughts that run trough your head in those miliseconds is scary and that was my closest call with snakes so far. I have been spit by mozambique spitting cobra but that was not half as bad as that mamba staring you down.

Swept down a white-water section of a cold remote northern river, not knowing whats ahead and then climbing a steep and slippery rock wall to get out.Then watching your canoe with gear for a month long trip go down river.

Of the several lives that I have used up (I've been on borrowed time for a while now) this one was probably the stupidest. Many years ago a buddy came over to the house with his new Triumph motorcycle. To give you an idea how long ago this occured it was a 1974 650. We proceeded to kill a six pack or two and eventually I asked if I could take his bike out for a spin since he had borrowed some of my bikes over the years. By now night had fallen and I was enjoying tearing down a local country road doing the ton. I suddenly remembered that there was a 45 degree turn coming up and about this time it could be seen in the Triumph's 2 candlepower headlight. I had no time to brake but simply leaned into the turn and gritted my teeth thinking about the barbwire fences on each side of the road. The tires held and I somehow came out the other side of the turn. My return home was considerably slower.

quote:

Originally posted by Aspen Hill Adventures:
My most recent:

While looging my mountain last spring I was letting a tree go and did not know the canopy was tangled with a tree behind it. When the one I cut was falling it pulled the one behind me out by the roots. I had no idea the other tree was following. The second tree, a big hemlock, had a few short broken limbs on the trunk.

As they fell the second tree immediately caught my sweatshirt. That's when I knew it was coming. It hooked into the shirt and cut through to my skin, hooked into my skin. I could not get away. Both trees fell and began to pull me down with them.

I was trapped and the trees were far too big to push or move as they fell. I was totally helpless and the trees pulled me straight down backwards forcing me down with my feet nearly under me kind of like folding up a lawn chair.

I determined a long, long time ago I have a guardian angel.

I ended up wedged between the two huge trees and pinned down by the sharp limb that went through my clothing. It cut a gash about six inches long in my back, still got a scar. How the trees didn't squash me is a mystery.

I eventually freed myself. I now plan escape routes before cutting any trees.

Ann, you were lucky. My brother was killed many years ago while chainsawing trees on his place, and a few years later, one of our friends got a broken back with resultant paraplegia while logging with his mules when a log rolled on him. Now I'm always a little paranoid when I get the chainsaw out.