Close Calls in my life

I was born severely under weight. My mom had to spend her life savings right after the war, for special formula so I could live.
I was hit by a car when running across a road when I was 5 years old and knocked out. That explains my personality.
I had a scooter as a kid. One day when scooting on the road I fell and hit my chest hard on the end of the handle bar. I could hardly breathe and was gasping for air for about 5 minutes before I could breathe properly again.
I had Rheumatic Fever which resulted in a heart murmur. Because of this I was not allowed to take P.E. in grades 6 and 7. By the time I was 25 the heart murmur had disappeared. PTL.
I took tumbling in Gym in Grade 8. We learned to tumble over a number of people. I decided to try this at home with an old mattress in our yard. I had all my brothers and sisters and some friends beside each other on the mattress and tried to tumble over everyone. I hit my head very hard and heard a crack and had a severe pain in my neck and a severe head ache. Fortunately the pain went away after sitting down.
When I was about 20 my uncle and I decided to climb the Black Tusk in Garibaldi park. The last 60 feet had a vertical chimney of about 30 feet and then a steep slope to the top. I managed to make it but my uncle was no where to be seen. On the way down I took a wrong path and ended up at a nearly vertical section with NO chimney. Fortuntely I was able to climb back up and eventually find the right way back down. My Uncle had given up when his legs starting shaking while climbing the rock chimney. In hindsight this was extremely dangerous since we were NOT roped up.
When heading to church in Duncan, our Rabbit, with Marie and our 3 girls in it, spun out going across the highway, but no other cars were around when this happened.
When camping with our family, our fully loaded tent trailer's back tire wobbled as we were pulling out from a gas station to go onto the highway and someone yelled at us to make us aware of this. There were only 3 strands left on the ONE remaining bolt holding the tire to the rim. I had not wanted to stop at that gas station and to continue down the highway but Marie asked for a short rest stop.
I got a strep infection, the same thing that killed the Muppets creator. The doctor's told me that if I had not checked myself in to the hospital when I did, I may not have made it. I was in the hospital for over a week.
A woman drove around a curve (Tunnel Hill) way too fast on the Malahat and headed straight for the front of my car. I thought for a split second my time was up. She spun just before hitting me and I pulled my wheel sharply to the right. This caused her to miss the front of my car and she hit my car just behind the driver@apost;s seat. My car was a few hundred bucks from being written off. I came away with only a minor nick. After bouncing off me, she hit two other cars and her child was ejected onto the highway. She was known to police and had been drinking.
When driving the Malahat heading south from Gold Stream, a Semi-trailer truck jack-knifed, and his flatbed part just missed my car.
When cycling to work, my head was missed by inches by a ladder sticking out from the right of a pickup truck. The ladder actually passed OVER my head. I was leaning forward with my elbows on the handle bars at the time. Had I not been, I would have been hit in the back of the head and sent flying or worse.
When cycling, I dropped my water bottle on a sharp curve on the Malahat. I stopped to get it (from the middle of the highway) and a car came around the curve swerved and missed me by inches.
Twice my car completely spun out on the Malahat and that when going less than 30 mph. There was ice under the snow. Front wheel drive cars give no warning, they just start spinning. I could have caused or had a bad accident but no other cars were around at that time.
When cycling with my touring bike, on my way home I was missed twice by inches. Once by a camper which drifted just inches in front of my bike and once more by a van which got so close to me the car behind him stopped and asked me if that car had hit me. The driver veered to the left at the last second, causing him to go over the center line and snaking along for about 100 feet.
When cycling in 2003, I was hit by a motorcycle and sent flying. I lost 2 days of work, lost some flesh on my arm, had some bad bruises and got a bad right shoulder which took over one year to heal. The driver took off and I got no compensation for the days of work lost.
In 2008 I was triking a bike route in Vancouver when an apparently, spaced-out woman turned left in front of me even though I had a bright flashing strobe light aimed at car level. The car behind her saw what she was about to do and leaned on his horn but she was oblivious to it. I managed to bang on my brakes and whip my stearing to the right and my trike skidded partially sideways and I ended up parallel to her car and nearly touching it. She looked surprised when she finally saw me. Had I been on my regular bike I would have slammed into the side of her car.
In 2012 I was triking out of a cul-de-sac in Victoria. I was in a hurry to catch the Mill Bay Ferry. On the right of the cul-de-sac the view was quite limited due to a house's landscaping. I started to turn left only to have a Canada Post truck come from the right. I was heading straight for the rear tire and so swerved to the right tipping the trike on it's side and just missing the rear of the truck. The truck driver stopped and asked if I was OK. My right elbow and arm were scratched up a bit but my trikes front tires were totally out of alignment due to a slight bend in the tierods. I learnt the old lesson that haste makes waste.
In 2016-08 as I was cycling down the Malahat on the way home, I noticed a large truck totally blocking the shoulder. I saw a person on the right side of the truck which I assumed was the driver. Since I had no space to get around the truck on the right side, I decided to enter one of the two lanes of the highway to get around the truck. Just before I reached the trucks cab the actual driver opened the door missing my head by about an inch. The bottom of the trucks cabin door was at my head level.
On 2016-09-09 as I was triking down the Malahat at about 60 km/hr when I noticed some black tire pieces on the shoulder that I had to concentrate on so as to not hit the pieces with my trike. As I rounded a curve to the right, I only had a split second to avoid a LARGE 1 ton pickup truck parked against the cement barrior on the right and having his left rear tire into the only lane heading north. This truck was the one which had one of it's four rear tires disintegrate. It was blocking the whole shoulder that I was triking on. I did not have time to check my mirror and had to immediately yank my steering to the left to get around the parked truck or I would have crashed into the back of it. Had there been ANY traffic beside me on the left I would have crashed into it.
Click here for the latest close call in Courtenay BC.

If I do not make it through any future #22 then please SEE D:\Sync\TextFiles\Hal'sFuneral-Instructions.txt on my PC at home.

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