Near death experiences on the job

[edible_hat]

Anyone else had near death experiences at work?


I've had:

-I happened to call in sick on the night the store was robbed. The guy who covered my shift got hit in the face with a hockey stick.

-two drunken customers fighting in the store, one turned and looked like he was about to start on me but then the cops turned up.

-In the store room a 10kg bag of flour fell from a high shelf and landed right where I'd been standing half a minute before.

-I'd decided to vary the order in which I did my usual between-customers jobs, leaving emptying the rubbish on the forecourt for last. An out of control car hit one of the rubbish bins right when I'd have been doing it if I'd followed the usual order. (I like to think I'd have seen that one coming and got out the way)

[Aethian]

A lady once shoved the door to the service desk when I was standing at our cash window causing a bunch of carts to ram into another and push one real close to me. Manager told me to not move and got up on the counter to get in and push the cart back. A little more force or if I had backed up I would have had a sharp screw driver set right in my back.

[smileyeagle1021]

I've before had someone try to run over me with their car when I worked in parking enforcement (actually twice, the one that actually came close, ie their mirror actually clipped me, I walked off the job). Also had several close cars in car rental returns with people not paying attention almost hitting me. Oh and not a near death experience, but going back to when I worked parking enforcement, I was across the street from the Main Library when the bomb went off.

[Evil Queen]

See my robbery post. I very calmly had a heart attack afterwards (not literly, but it sure felt like it!)

[LibraryLady]

Not actually at work but on the walk home.

We'd had a few days of quite heavy rain. The day in question was dry but very windy. I had just passed a large tree when I heard a crash and leaves brushing the back of my ankles. I large limb had fallen off right after I'd passed by. The doorman of an nearby apartment building saw the whole thing.

[powerboy]

When working at Walmart

Almost being run over, because they thought I scratched their car. Well it was my fault, because I was the cart guy. You know how we all run over and scratch the cars with the carts.

[Mr Yuck]

We had a very agitated patient in our ER who was able to wrestle a gun away from the one officer guarding him. With the aid of me, the cop and another nurse we were able to keep him and the hand holding the gun pinned until more police arrived.
Saturday night in the ER

[Finance Gopher]

...we were able to keep him and the hand holding the gun pinned until more police arrived.

If only someone had suggested some Haldol sleepy time.

Not my own incident, but a friend working as a freelance computer tech was driving to a client's house when a woman t-boned him going through an intersection. It completely ripped the front end of his car off. The only upshot is that now he has a picture of the hole his fist made in clean through the dash board. It's like a cartoon--you can see each knuckle and there's this little bump on top from his watch.

[Department stores *sigh*]

From my Zellers days

I was in the stockroom lifting a box filled with large metalic objects used in making shelves. The box was about 200-300 lbs. I slipped on something on the ground and it started to fall towards my face. Adrenaline kicked in and I somehow managed to bend my body forward from an almost Matrix position (when they dodged bullets) and lifted it onto the shelf. Had to sit down and fill an accident report fior that one since I overstrained most of the muscles in my upper body.

On a side note. DONT watch Final Destination movies when you work in a stockroom. NOT fun. =P

[Lingering Grin]

I haven't, but my dad has...


He's an accident investigator for a local police department. He pulls up to an accident scene at a four-way stop-light. They had to shut down the entire intersection, as there was a concrete pole laying in the middle of the road. There is already another cruiser parked in the middle of the intersection.

He pulls up next to the first cruiser, turns on his lights... now picture this, two cars, parked across an intersection with all sorts of red, blue, orange and white flashing lights... kinda hard to miss.

My dad gets out of his car, leaving his driver side door open, walks about 15 feet to talk to another office when he suddenly hears...

*SSSSSSSSSSCCCCCRRRRREEEEEEAAAAAAAAACCCCCHHHHHHH* *BOOOOOOOM*


He turns around and sees that some dumbass has basically just destroyed his patrol car by slamming into it at 50 mph.

[calulu]

My near death experiences all involve the Clinic of Crazy I worked at for a few years. While working there I developed life threatening allergies to cleaners and aerosols used there. I spent about ten times puking in the bushes and lying on the ground gasping for breath before being bodily hauled to the ER across the parking lot.

The head doctor was convinced I was somehow 'faking' because I was crazy.

Several years and many specialists later I have an actual diagnosis for a rare disorder.

[Gerrinson]

First
Well, the closest at work was the F5 tornado that went by and put a tractor trailer through the corner of the building. I was standing next to the one plate glass window that somehow managed to not shatter.

The tornado was only 300 feet away (horizontally) but it was still about 100 feet up in the air. It stripped the side of the mountain bare of trees after it touched down just past our parking lot.

Second
On my way home during a blizzard I slid on black ice and bumped the pickup truck in front of me. He hit the snowbank and stopped, I spun out around him and down the hill (only about 500ft) before hitting the snowbank and stopping. I got out to check on the other driver and fell over. I had to crawl to the back of my car because the ice was so bad. I used the bumper to get back to my feet just as a cop pulled up. He tried to stop between our vehicles and slid on the ice, too. His car slid to a stop a few inches from my legs where I was trying to get out of the way, but had slipped on the ice again. Our faces pretty much matched:

[CorDarei]

@ work,

i had no less than 3 power supplies shoot sparks at me when i plugged them into the power strip. (was testing computers to see if they were working, and had the cases opened)

@ home,
robbed at gunpoint and kidnapped to drive this fucker to ATM's to try and pull cash for him.

[Difdi]

Well, there was the time I shut off the main breaker on a 480V electrical circuit prior to working on equipment attached to it, fixed the equipment and was about to go turn the power back on when I noticed the lit ready indicator on the equipment I had just repaired. Seems I'd turned off the wrong breaker, then unwittingly worked on live wires...

[unclejampuff]

I had gotten to work earlier than I expected. Usually I have a smoke in the front of the building, but since I was off-clock, I could hang out on the benches out back. I hear a screech, a bang, more screeching, a thud, and a crash. Turned out a guy had lost control of his car, skid along the enbankment, glanced off a tree, skid some more, took out one of those "Walk/Don't Walk" posts, then careened into a bus. If I had been standing where I normally do, I'd have been hit by the car and plowed into the bus. I managed to hold off freaking out until I called the cops and made sure the driver was okay... but I ended up being about 20 minutes late for my shift because I was crying in the back.