Whats the dumbest thing youve done that @#%$ near killed ya

[burntmuch]

Ive done a whole lotta dumb things in my life. This Is one of the funnier ones.

 Bout 10 years agoI bought a HI LIFT jack or Jeep jack. Figured Id try it out, At the time I had a short bed ford with 33 inch mud tires on it. I jacked the truck upThe tires were about 8 inches of the ground . Well I was pretty proud of my newest equipment. Then I figured I better let the truck down. The handle was in the down position. I hit the switch to jack it down. The handle flew up & smacked me right in the jaw. It knocked me off my feet Almost knocked me unconcouis. I couldnt stand up so I crawled into the house
Seeing stars & near blacking out. I debated calling 911. what stopped me from calling was. I knew every emt & paramedic in the county
. So I sat there woozy for about 45 min before I could see the humor in the whole thing. Thats mine  Lets hear some of yours   
                                                                                                                                                                           Jay

[Dee]

I was a police officer for 20 years. And it was not only the dumbest thing I did, but it almost got me killed several times. I am a slow learner. It took 20 years for me to figure out my mistake.

[Hairtrigger]

Lots of alcohol and fast snowmobiles when I was in my early 20's

[30-30man]

Just recently threw some rags soaked in boiled linseed oil in the trash in my office.  3:00AM woke to the sound of the smoke alarms going off.  The only thing that saved me was the alarms and the metal trash can.  I can't say enough..BE CAREFUL OF BOILED LINSEED OIL! It can burn your house down and kill you.

[scout34]

Gave up my cushy Rear-D assignment and volunteered to take a second tour.  There is no feeling like discovering that you are standing on 50lbs of buried HME.

Update:  Volunteer for tour number three.  That nice calm transition team assignment that puts you out of harm's way down in and around all the ministry buildings in downtown Baghdad.

[Mikey]

What?  Ya mean I have to choose between all the dumb things I've ever done - not fair.  I could list them for you and you could choose but that would really leave me open for a thorough trashing.  I'm just thankful I'm still alive and able to both walk around and still laugh about that stuff.  Mikey.

[DDelle338]

  Oh just where do I start!!!!!!!!!!!

[burntmuch]

Long list for me as well. That was just one of the funnier ones

[DDelle338]

How about the time I wanted to make the the little soap-box derby car into a rocket car. Took a used Co2 cartridge, drilled the pierced hole open a bit. Glued it to the car. Then filled it with powder taken from a whole box of 22's that I had pulled the bullets out of with my teeth. Stuck a piece of cannon fuse in her and lit it.  We were just sitting there waiting, when the thought crossed my mind to get back a bit,,,, just in case. There wasn't much left of that little car... splinters and tires.

[myronman3]

women.

booze.   

i gave up booze a while ago.  still playing with women.  some people never learn i guess.

[williamlayton]

TODAY? Well, today is young, I will let you boys know.
Blessings

[PartsMan]

I once drove my new 2wd pickup through flood water over head light deep.

Also countless close calls riding horses taking care of cattle.

[Moss88hunter]

I have been lucky working with horses. I have only had cuts bruises and a broken nose. Last summer I had one rear up and fall to his side while i was on him and he landed on my leg. I also have done some stupid stuff with some 4 wheelers. Wow I have done some stupid stuff. Hindsight is 20 20

Evan

[Sourdough]

Horses, 4-wheelers, snow machines, boats, or planes?  Where do I start.  I guess the one that sticks in my mind the most was the time I overloaded the Cub, with Moose meat.  I flew down a crooked river for twenty miles before I could get enough airspeed to climb above the spruces.

[deltecs]

Hate to admit this, but I fell from a train flat car moving 35 mph inside a rock tunnel.  I walked back with 13 broken bones, 179 stitches later, and who knows how many bruises about 3.5 miles, caught the rail truck going back through the tunnel with a rail gang, got into my van and drove myself the 65 miles to the hospital, all without my eye glasses.  Why my friend, who was on the trip with me, did not drive is beyond both of our reasoning.  I could have waited another 5 minutes to take that leak in daylight, instead of a dark tunnel.

[ncsurveyor]

I ran into a few burning buildings in my life.

exceeded safe and reasonable speeds in a 350 four barrel ambulance

walked the beat for a spell

volunteered to work for my Uncle a few times.

maybe not dumb, but on occasion, not very well thought out.

[burntmuch]

burning buildings arnt dumb, those are fun

[Hofs01]

Ok, I think the dumbest thing I have ever done involved me trying to repair an old boat motor. Let me set the scene, it was a hot July afternoon. I have a 9.9 Sears outboard that I have just rebuilt the carburetor and am ready to start up for the first time in 15 years.  Since it is hot I decide (this time) to place the 55 gallon drum of water outside of my workshop.  After it is all hooked up to the gasoline and pumped up it began leaking fuel into the water. After a rap or two against the float it stopped leaking. Choke applied, I began pulling the rope…….Pull…..Pull……Pull……Curse/Pull……..Pull……..Nothing.
This went on and on until I figured something must be wrong. Some carb adjustments made and the pulling continued with no result. I pulled the plug and checked for fire. Plug was soaking wet…Ah Ha …Its flooded. Like always, I grab my handy hand torch with the Trigger start ignition and burn off the fuel on the end of the plug while also heating up the plug to help start the engine. I screwed it back in and began pulling again…..Nothing. I pulled out the plug again; as suspected it was soaked with fuel. This time after warming up the plug I had an idea. I placed the end of the torch to the plug hole and gave the Trigger start ignition a snap. Well, apparently that’s all it needed. No…No…No not to start the engine. That snap was all the fuel needed to light a fire. And what a fire it was. Apparently the carb had been sending way to much fuel to the engine which was sending it out of the exhaust and floating up to the surface of the water (closer to the fire). I think at the height of the fire flames were shooting up 10 to 12 feet. These flames quickly burned through my fuel lines that added to the fire. I was able to quickly remove the can to avoid another unnecessary fire. It took around 5 to 10 minutes for the fire to burn out. I had the thought of just turning over the can but thought I would burn down the neighborhood with all of the dry grass. Another thought was to use a water hose to put out the fuel fire however the motor as an obstruction and quickly filling the drum also thought about all of the dry grass. When it was finally over the only thing ruined was the motor and my pride!

I can’t help but think “What would have been like if I had not moved the whole operation outside”

[PartsMan]

I did that once with a chainsaw only without the help of a torch.

Pulled the plug out of a flooded saw and pulled the rope a couple times to get the fuel out of the cylinder.
I then decided to see if the plug was firing.
IT WAS!

[ms]

I heated a boiled  egg up then bit into it the egg blew up . Took the skin off my upper lip sounded like m80 went off.

[Hammerspur]

The reference to women n' wine... Been There, Done That!
Not very interested in the 2nd anymore.
Don't now care all that much about the first either, THANK GOD! Fastest way to wreck one's overall health, especially psychologically.

Numerous boy-racer motorcycle mishaps in my youth. How I'm still here is nothing short of miraculous.
Worst one, and nearly killed me but I was t-boned by a car... that really wasn't my doing.

Most hair raising that WAS my fault: Accelerating up a 2-lane backroad "WFO", wearing t-shirt, jeans and sockless w/ boat shoes and fortunately a top line full face helmet on my '84 FJ1100.
Last time I checked speed, had just shifted into 4th, speedo needle was sweeping past 130mph and still accelerating hard.
Hit broken pavement, went into a major tank slapper and the whole world became an unrecognizable blur from the violent shaking.

I believe I'd wrestled it down to around 90mph when I met the pavement... slid so long, I remember thinking "When the Hell am I going to stop?!"

When I did, I walked over to the downed bike, shut it off, doffed my helmet and lit a smoke. Began walking the skid path surveying the scene trying to make sense of it all.

Neighbors hearing the crash came out of their homes and stared at me with expressions of horror... like I was Freddy Kruger or something... must have looked real gory!

Several broken ribs, and of course left several pounds of tissue on the pavement.

[rex6666]

Grew up on a farm/cattle operation and small town (pop. 500)
smal town life was "I can do this better than you, or maybe you are afraid"
2 mi. south of town is a 1mile long highway bridge over the Red River, under this bridge
is a 12" natural gas pipline. The spring rains have the water up to about 3 feet from the pipe
all the way across (1mile) meaning the water is about 20 ft deep flood conditions.
For a two dollar bet i crawled the full length of that pipe and never ever stopped to consider where they would have found me had i fell. This is only the begining, pulled people from burning buildings,
because the F.D was too slow or too far away. Best thing ever happened was putting the
plug in the jug 10 years ago, now i have nothing to prove.

[gypsyman]

Tequila,Yukon Jack, lots of beer, and a 1966 Harley Davidson. Many times.  Old saying goes, God watches out for fools,drunks and little kids. I kept him busy for close to 20 years.  gypsyman

[Sourdough]

Reading about Hammerspur's bike wreck reminded me of what I did when I first left home.  Was stationed in California, just North of San Francisco.  Nineteen and stupid.  One night a buddy and I were going out looking for a good time.  I had been drinking, so I knew not to drive, I let my buddy drive my Austin Healey Bug Eyed Sprite.  Being winter time and running with the top down I was wearing all leather, even gloves.  As we went through the tunnel on US 101 going south toward the Golden Gate, my buddy said he got it up to 100mph.  Even in my drunken condition I knew something was wrong, the car just would not go that fast.  Jess had put it in neutral and was coasting down the mountain, gaining speed.  I started yelling that we were going too fast to make the turn at the bottom, so Jess started trying to slow the car.  He could not get it into gear, going too fast.  Jammed on the brakes, but the old drum brakes did not last long at that speed.  When the brakes went, and Jess started screaming I opened the door and got out.  Trouble was we were still doing about 70 or 80.  Seemed like I slid for ever.  I remember looking over and seeing Jess tumbling over and over, just down the road ahead of me.  When I finally stopped, I got up and brushed my self off then fell.  Some guys picked me up and carried me to the guardrail and sat me down.  When they brought Jess over he was a mess.  Clothing ripped, bleeding, missing a shoe, road rash all over his hands, knees, and face.  Chunks of skin missing from various parts of his body.  Poor Jess had been sober, and got the worst of it, later they found he had broken several fingers, and his wrist.  Me being drunk just got some bruises, and was sore for a few days.  As for my car, total loss.  If I had not of gotten out I definitely would not have made it when the car crashed through the guardrail and fell to the rocks below.

[Ron T.]

On my way back to the small country airport where I kept the Citabria 7KCAB (fuel-injected, inverted oil system for inverted flight, smoke system, star-burst paint job) aerobatic airplane I owned and was flying that day, I decided to do "one more roll" just 1,000 AGL (above ground level)  and by doing so, I "broke" my own personal safety rule of never doing aerobatics below 5,000 feet.

I broke another of my "rules" by doing aerobatics when I was tired from just finishing doing some akro for the past half an hour.

And so, too low and tired, I shove her over to gain some speed and, at 140 mph, I pulled the nose up, shove the stick to the left and fed in some right rudder.  As the aircraft went "over", I pushed the stick forward and held right rudder to keep the nose straight ahead.

When the aircraft went inverted, I realized I had forgotten one thing... to push the trim table handle ALL THE WAY FORWARD to help hold up the nose of the aircraft while inverted.

As a result, the Citabria began to "split-S" as the nose dropped down toward the ground at 140 mph.  A "split-S" is actually the back half of a loop, but shouldn't be done too close to the ground at higher speeds because it takes up a lot of airspace to finish the maneuver and pull out flying straight and level at a lower altitude.

I "reached back" for that "reserve strength" to push the stick forward to hold the aircraft's nose "up", but I was too tired and the "reserve strength" just wasn't there !!!  As a result, the nose went further down and I realized I should just "go" with it and pull back on the stick to complete the back half of the half loop.

As I pulled back the stick harder and harder, I began to pull heavy "G's"... 4 G's... 5 Gs... 6 Gs... I began to "gray out"... 6.5 G's... graying out... ground coming up FAST now... too low... gotta pull harder... airspeed going through 200 mph... slapped throttle back to idle... ground coming up, can't see G-meter anymore... graying almost all the way out now... can only see out of the lower corners of my eyes... I can only see "green" almost at ground level... pull harder...  wind SCREAMING now...

I finally pulled out level going in the opposite direction a few feet above the corn tassles in the corn field I was over.... airspeed coming back down through 190 mph... aircraft certified for a maximum of 6 "positive" G's and 164 mph VNe (Velocity never exceed)...

"Welcome to the world of test pilots, stupid"... I thought to myself as the "gray curtain" lifted and I could see  again.

The trees on either side of the corn field I was over were much higher than me... as I skimmed a few feet above the tops of the corn.  Airspeed down to 150 mph... end of the field coming up... tall trees at the end of the field... full throttle... stick back... and I zoomed over the trees... and back up to a safe altitude again.

I got "lucky"... I exceeded both the maximum certified G's and the maximum designed airspeed... and the airplane didn't come apart.

When I got back to my home field, I did a thorough examination of the aircraft... no bent spars, no damage.  I got lucky... 'cause the next week, the FAA put out an AD (a notice of a problem on the aircraft I was flying).  It seems  the bolts that supported the struts which supported the Citabria's wings had broken on a few other Citabrias causing damage to the wing's main spar.

If nothing else, I prove the bolts on my wing struts were just fine... but it was a very stupid way to do it !!!

God looks out for fools and drunks... and I hadn't had anything alcoholic to drink that week.  That was 30 years ago when I was younger and dumber... well... I was younger, anyway.   


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

[wareagleguy]

Getting married count?

[Cheesehead]

Riding crotch rocket motorcycle at 120-140 mph, often, day and night, for great distances, racing friends, on public highways, yikes.

Cheese

[Hammerspur]

Getting married count?

Just once?.... maybe.

TWICE?!! (me), Definitely!

How's it go, fool me once... shame on you. Fool me twice.... 

[burntmuch]

Getting married kills ya real slow