What's the Most Dangerous Thing You Ever Did?

The summer after high school graduation, I worked in Atlantic City to help with college expenses. A hurricane passed just a few miles out to sea, and Atlantic City was flooded for about a block from the boardwalk. The storm was terrible, and work was cancelled. The stores couldn't open.

Later, when the storm stopped, my friend and I walked down to the beach. We were just going to sit and watch the ocean. The waves looked just a bit higher than usual, but nothing out of the ordinary. There was no lifeguard, but I had my suit on and went into the water. My friend refused, and tried to talk me out of it. But.... I was having a great time- jumping up with the breakers when Helen started pointing frantically! I turned around and saw a wave larger than a house heading right for me! I struggled to get to it and get picked up by it, but it broke many feet over my head and I got washed onto the shore and got half buried in the sand. The wave broke over me for so long I thought I was going to drown. It just wouldn't stop! When it finally went back out, my face and knees were reddened and sore, but I was glad to be alive! Helen asked, in an "I told you so voice," 'Have you had enough?' I didn't answer; I just stumbled back to my feet and walked home, feeling very lucky! I have never seen a wave like that except on the opening credits to Hawaii 50, the old TV show. It was monstrous.

What's the dumbest thing you've done?

Well, this isn't dangerous, but really stupid (looking back on it). It's definately one of those stories I'll never tell my kids, but will tell the grandkids one day.

In college, a friend was dating a Marine who was part of the Presidential Honor guard, and who had also been a guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. One evening, Teri and I met her boyfriend and a friend of his at a bar in Georgetown. Somehow, Teri talked them into sneaking us on base and into their male-only barracks at 2 in the morning . Teri was rather tipsy, and was giggling as they snuck us down the hallway. I kept on saying "We'd better get out of here", but she just wanted to hang out. Luckily, we weren't caught, and I refused to go near a military base with her after that.

Actually, Christy, I think it was dangerous. Alcohol and men sometimes lead to something worse than a big wave! I think you were lucky those marines were good guys.

Actually, you are right Jeanie. This was one of the events that made me really look at this friendship, and decide I didn't want to be a part of it. And yes, we were lucky the Marines were gentlemen.

Driving my '64 Impala, at 110 mph, drunk as a skunk. This was almost 25 years ago, when I was 10 feet tall and bulletproof.

The dumbest things I ever did really involved drinking. I'm surprised my college friend and I never got alcohol poisoning, but the worst we had was a hangover.

The most stupid night we had was when I came back to school from Christmas Break one year. She lived off campus with her hubby so at least there was no where to go, and she lived out on a farm so we couldn't get into trouble. We started off with our own pint bottles. Mine was Rumplemintz (100 proof!), hers was Jagermeister. We finished those off, but we weren't ready to stop drinking so we looked around for what else was in her house. We decided on Bubblegum Schnapps and finished up about 1/2 of the quart bottle that was left. Next was a FULL quart of Pear Schnapps - it was really gross but we were drunk, it was cold and we drank it fast. But wait, there's more! There were only 2 bottles left in the house at this point - her husband's Yukon Jack which I brought for him, and a bottle of Triple Sec. We knew her hubby would kill us if we drank his whiskey, so we figured ALL alcohol is good cold! Right? So we put the Triple Sec in the freezer (actually while we were drinking the pear schnapps), and actually drank almost a full bottle of Triple Sec straight! I'm really surprised neither of us died that night. The amount of alcohol we consumed was unbelievable!

I think that one qualifies as both stupid and dangerous!

We were a bunch of dumb kids, weren't we? Of course we thought nothing could hurt us! We're all lucky we grew up.

Well mine isnt dangerous....just stupid....had too much to drink one night and my skirt fell off.

Heidi,
Your post has literally make me sick! I think I'm going to puke! I have no stomach for sweet alcohol like that, at least not straight from the bottle, and the WHOLE bottle at that!!! What a night! :tounge2:

Involving alcohol - walking home for miles alone in the middle of the night too many times to mention, I was young, invincible and used to just laugh at the kerb-crawlers.

Heidi, I can't believe that you are still alive to tell the tale.

We are a bit stupid when we plan holidays - we have been to Kashmir, India, and hiked up to a glacier - where we camped was the place where tourists kept on being kidnapped from. Doh! We stayed in the a tiny hamlet in the Hindu Kush in Pakistan - only recently I realised we were about 5 miles from Afghanistan. Double Doh! Also in Pakistan we spent 5 days in Kerachi, the place with the highest murder rate in the world, and huge amount of kidnapping of Westerners. Triple Doh! All the places above were in the "Do not go there" warnings from the Foreign Office, but did we check before we went? Course not.

Wow! Those are some really good ones! I'm glad you all are still around!!! I can't think of anything right off hand, though I know I've done alot of dumb things in my life. :laughing: The one dangerous thing that comes to mind is when I was late for work one day and that was when I lived 25 miles away from my job and I drove down the highway as fast as I could possibly go, there was little traffic on this highway and it was very early (still dark)...my speedometer only went to 100 and it was buried! That was so very dangerous, if a deer had run out in front of me or a tire blew, I would be one dead duck.

Between my junior and senior year of college, I worked at a summer camp in New Jersey. It was about a 15 minute drive from a very small town (Blairstown, where they filmed the original Friday the 13th).

Not all of the counselors had cars, so we would routinely pile 8 - 10 people into a Suzuki Samurai and go to the only bar in town. Have any of you noticed how small a Samurai really is? I saw one a few years ago, and thought OMG, how did we do that?! It really only sits 4 people comfortable, and safely.

The only other time I feared for my life was when I went to West Virginia University one weekend for a football game. My friends and I (Penn State students) made the mistake of sitting in the WVU section with the people we were staying with. The other students started making rude comments to those of us wearing blue and white, so we moved to the Penn State section. We won the game, and the national championship that year, so I felt a little better. Those WVU fans are tough.

bike riding in the streets of NYC, like a maniac and with no helmet,
in my younger days. There is a large park in the middle of Manhattan,
Central Park, which is closed to car traffic on Saturdays and Sundays so folks can bike/run/skate on the roads there. To me, that was incredibly boring because it just wasnt the same as playing tag with a city bus while trying to avoid potholes, and even worse, metal plates left on streets where they were doing road work.
One weekend, when my college roommate was up visiting, I took her out riding for a few hours, and who despite her interest in all things outdoorsy, such as caving, repelling and scuba diving, later told me that it was one of the most frightening things she had ever done lol. I probably had at least 6 incidents/misses where I could easily have gotten badly hurt.

Finally, I took a bad spill during an altercation with a taxi cab,
knocked out a front tooth and cut my face up nicely. That got me off
of the one inch wheeled racing bike and onto a mountain bike with nice wide tires, and curtailed my boldness quite a bit.

Not long after college, I went to a Grateful Dead concert with my
then boyfriend, and one of his friends from highschool, at a venue that we had to drive to. The friend drove a Triumph GT, which is a car abt the size of my bathtub, and since I was the smallest person,
I sat in the 6 inch wide backseat.Now, my bf's friend was a world class deadhead and generally took acid when attending their concerts. He drove on the way back tripping. (I know that I wasnt high but I dont drive..dont recall the state the bf was in.)
I was living in Baltimore at the time, where the main street, Charles Street, has a circular monument to George Washington in the middle of the road at one point. Cars go either left or right to drive around the thing. The guy driving didnt turn as fast as he should have, and the right car wheels rode up onto the side of the monument. Thankfully, the car didnt tip over and the driver somehow got control of the car and we got home okay.

When I was in college, I was extremely home sick. I decided one night to go out and have a little fun. None of my roomates had a car, so we had to walk everywhere! There is absolutely nothing around campus, so I decided to walk to OSU. It is several miles away from where my dorm room is located. I walked alone down High St. all through down town. I had one guy try to pick me up because he thought I was a prostitute. I told him off and continued on my way! After an hour or so I finally got to the bar I wanted to go to called Crazy Mama's. I was only 19 but I sweet talked the bar tender into letting me get a couple of drinks! He didn't even charge me for them! All night long I sat at the bar and drank. Finally he asked me how I was going to get home. I told him I was going to walk. He offered to take me home. I had to wait untill 5 am. for him to get off of work. Luckly, he took me home and not to some back alley to do horrible things to me!

Well, this seems to be a very wet thread! Here's another close call with water. I was thirteen and had just learned to swim. My girl friend, who was a good swimmer, asked if I could swim to a mound of rocks and sandy soil halfway across a very small lake. There were lots of people there, but no life guards. It was a state park. I knew I could swim that far, so off we went.

Joann got there before me, and sat helpless on the mound when I got hit by some teens in a navy surplus rubber boat. The lake had deep holes, so I have no idea how deep the water was, but I couldn't hit bottom, and just couldn't get started swimming again. I couldn't even float. I didn't panic. I just couldn't get my feet up. My friend reached for my hand, but couldn't reach me and I went under. I kept my arm high, and counted. I went down once, twice, and the third time I believed would be the last. (Old wive's tale? I still don't know.) Just then I felt someone grab my hand. One of the older boys sitting on the mound came and rescued me. We sat on the mound for a while, until I got the courage to swim back. The boy who pulled me out smiled and asked if I could make it back. To this day, although I'm a much better swimmer, I like to know I can touch bottom!

During my somewhat misspent youth, I ran with a pretty rough crowd. Some guys that I had met before came in town looking for someone that had stolen a motorcycle from one of their club members, and someone told them that I knew the guy. I knew him to speak to, but not where he lived, and he was not at his regular hangout, or he would have been right there. They did not believe me, and took me down to the river, by some railroad tracks, trying to scare me in to telling them what they wanted to know. I was scared to death, but I really did not know what they wanted to know or I would have told them. They were deciding what to do with me, and while they weren't paying attention, I hit the railroad tracks running, full speed, in high heeled boots. I got out to the road, and flagged down a guy that I knew that just happened by. He took me home, and I called a friend from these guys town, told him what happened, and he said he would take care of it, not to worry about them any more. My friends took me back to the spot by the river the next day, and showed me my route. I had run, in the dark, over a railroad trestle 50 feet above some huge river rocks. One slip, and I would have been dead. I saw those guys later, and they told me that they had not intended to hurt me, just scare me, and had certainly not expected me to run. I ended up being friend with one of them for years.

Here is my most dangerous (and stupid) thing I've done.

I think I was about 18-19 y.o. and was DJ'ing at my sister's friends 21st b-day with my then best friend, Mark. Of course, lots of drinking and hoopla. It got busted up (of course) so we were going to meet up at a bar. I'm pretty much toasted at this point and as I open my car door, a police officer asks to look inside my backpack. (Nevermind that I was probably drooling and slurring my speech at this point.) Doesn't even ask if I've been drinking or not. We end up running a few red lights and passing about 3 cop cars en route to this bar. After we realize we have to be 21 to go inside, we go home. I thank God nothing happened to us that night. Needless to say, I don't drive like that anymore!

Keith

It was white water rafting. It was with a guide, but as I am not a good swimmer it sure got the ol' heart a pumping. Suprisingly, I was the only one who did not fall out of the boat. I think I was the onmly one who listened to the guide's instructions. One of my friends fell out and was caught under the water for close to 2 minutes!

Well, let's see...

I went down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on a mule in Spring, so it was real icey at the top on the trails. That was scary. I have a picture of my foot with nothing but air underneath it.

My first year in college I studied "Liberation Theology," which was started by Jesuits in Central America. I was very active in pro-El Salvadoran people's rights and other related things, and worked with an organization in NYC. But I chose to live in Spanish Harlem. And as if that weren't dangerous enough, I frequently rode home on the subways at 3:00 - 4:00 in the morning. My apartment was constantly broken into.

Swimming in Costa Rica (where I was for almost a year for college) I too did the stupid beach big wave after a storm thing. I didn't have a wave problem - I got caught by a riptide. I'd never heard about curling up into a ball, but that's what I did, I guess instinctively. ? But I popped right up - after my heart was pounding about a billion miles a minute. I was caught for probably only a minute at most - but WOW was that a scary thing.

I didn't do this on purpose, but after my year in Costa Rica I spent a year in India for college. Apart from travelling around Pakistan and India on my own at 20, which was probably stupid and dangerous enough, I was in Bhopal the day before the accident. Many of you are probably too young to remember - but there was a HUGE chemical leak by Union Carbide in Bhopal, India, where hundreds died and thousands were injured. Funny thing is - I was supposed to be there the day of the accident. There was a screw up with my train tickets, and if I hadn't made a total scene about travelling when I'd intended to and didn't accept the screw up, I would have been there the day of the accident.