1. Walked in on an armed robbery in Hamilton in the late 80's. I had no idea what was going on when I walked in the door. Dude runs right over at me and points a loaded gun right at my head (yes, it was a real gun, I know this because a month later the cops shot him dead and he had stolen the gun from his friends father who was a cop and collected guns). Yells and screams at me to lay on the floor (which I do). He then ran out.
2. Working as an iron worker way back when putting up metal roof deck on steel joists. 30 feet up, I'm laying Q deck sheets and walking on loose sheets I had laid out to give me access. Just as I'm stepping between loose sheets the guy I was working with kicked the sheet i was intending to step on to to move it and I missed the sheet with my stride. I fall, but my forward momentum carries me into a steel joist and I grab that. Hanging draped over the joist about 30 feet in the air. I managed to swing my foot up and hook the joist and pull myself up. The guy I was working with went white, my heart was pounding, but I was ok. Falling from that height would not have been good. Back then, we never wore harnesses. We didn't even have hard hats.
3. Driving on QEW about 10 years ago, trucker falls asleep. His truck hits the right concrete barrier wall and then he goes careening all across the highway right into the left concrete barrier wall. Truck's fuel tank tears open and diesel ignites. I was right beside him when he started to drift to the right and I just stood on the brake. The entire axle of his trailer rips right off. I literally saw it fly out of the flames and come shooting right at me. All I could do was close my eyes. I was completely aware of the situation, I knew what seeing that flying axle (complete with tires) meant and I thought I was going to be killed. (Just a flying wheel from a truck has killed many people. Imagine an entire axle.) But instead of hitting my car, it It bounced on the road in front of me and flew right over my car. The lady behind me was ok as it came to a rest before it hit her car. I got out of my car, the entire eastbound QEW had come to a hault and this guy walks over to me and looks at me and he says how lucky I was, and that he would move my car for me out of the way for the emergency vehicles. The lady behind me says that they were at Casino Niagara and didn't win a thing and then she say, "but I just got lucky now".
My car was blackened, but not a scratch on me.
But the thing that I remember the most is how everything unfolded and how I understood the consequences of what was happening and the implications to me. There was no confusion, there was just me processing the events one after the other and what it meant.
