A kind of poll: describe the scariest thing that has ever happened to you besides bereavement.?

11 years ago, when I was 34 weeks pregnant, I started to hemorrhage badly. As I was a high risk patient I knew what was going on, the placenta had abrupted (torn away) from the uterine wall and the baby's oxygen supply was being cut off and I was bleeding to death.

I rang my husband who was an interstate truck driver at the time so I didn't even know if he was in town or not. Lucky for me he had just done a delivery in the next suburb and was home in 5 mins, before the ambulance arrived. I was so scared I was going to lose my baby, when they rushed me into the operating theater, I saw my husbands frightened look, he thought he was going to lose both of us. As the anesthetist put me under I thought to my self that I might not wake up from this.

When I did wake up, I thought my baby had died, they told me he was ok, that he was in the special care nursery and as I was in intensive care I couldn't see him. It wasn't until they brought him to me that I realised we had both survived.

Hey I saw the Exorcist when I was 13, it totally freaked me out. Scariest by far though was when the trans-atlantic flight we were on had a bomb threat. We had to land in Dublin and to the emergency exit procedures off the plane. I was 15 at the time. At that time the IRA was either bombing or threatening to bomb just about everything in sight. It was the same year they bombed the White Tower in the Tower of London, which also scared me since we had planned to go to the city and visit the Tower on that day but changed our plans last minute.

The 70's could be scary times in the UK.

Being in the epicenter of the last really big California Quake, hearing all the crashing gas explosions all over, fires, 3 story building collapsing into 2 floors, people dieing all around me, saying good bye to my family telling them I loved then before I was about to die, being tossed around like a rubber ball by all the up and down shaking, becoming homeless due to the quake all in a matter of seconds.

CNN parking and broadcasting from my sons high school for weeks on end...new definition to live TV!!!!! The only news around as there was no power for weeks.

Obviously I survived and left the state along with many others in the time following it all.

1. I was in the back of a taxi on the Garden State Parkway, that spun out in the snow. When if finally stopped spinning, we were facing on coming traffic. I was also pregnant at the time.

2. Crossing one of those swinging bridges made of rope and wooden planks, somewhere in Canada, then realizing there was no other way back across the river.

3. Space Mountain, Disneyland, age 12. I realize this one is pathetic, but I was terrified. I recently conquered it with my teen age sons, and it wasn't quite as bad as I remembered, but I'm done with it.

seeing the potential confrontations and disasters my own personality could cause was a scary thing, but it was made even scarier in the way it turned into a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy when people began to do research into my personality type and judged me accordingly.

People have so little respect for free-will and self-determination...

edit; being shot in the soft part of my leg underneath the kneecap by a BB gun when i was completely focused on something else was pretty scary too, though i didn't show it.

That and stepping in front of an oncoming bus and realizing it with just enough time to jump backwards, and being held underwater and taking a big gulp of the stuff, and suchlike were all quite scary experiences.

When panic attacks first started I really thought I'd lost my mind. Feeling completely terrified over and over and over is not something I'd wish on my worst enemy. They are so completely sucky because the harder you try to make them stop the worse they get. Not easy for me to deal with at all. And I dealt with them for years. And people that have never had one don't understand how terrifying they are so you can't too many people to understand. Nice.

Edit - Really, The Exorcist scared you guys to death didn't it?! The Shining scared me when I saw it in the theater and also Rosemary's Baby when I saw it for the first time about 10 years ago.

Hydroplaning a 360 in my car on a slick road with traffic on-coming--left my legs weak for a minute after I pulled out of it.

I also was nearly creamed by a semi-truck on a 2-lane mining country road at ~60mph while attempting to pass 3 cars at once. I was able to pull back in between cars 1 and 2 within ~5 seconds of the truck's arrival. I can't say I felt scared necessarily, but in the beginning when I knew I was going to have trouble I kinda just stared at the truck's perspective drawing nearer and figured I was going to die for maybe 10 seconds--breaking did not occur to me as I was kinda calmly resigned to fate, then I rebelled against it and sped up and forced my way in. I'm sure the other drivers in the caravan had fun too, and I don't pass more than 1 car at a time anymore, if that.

I also hit an air pocket on a commercial flight that threw everyone up about 2 feet from their seats--got the heart pounding.

There was another flight over the Sandia mountains on a twin turbo prop that felt like it was having severe engine power trouble, loud and shuttering--compulsively chewed several pieces of bubble gum to calm myself on that one.

When I was a kid, I crashed my bike into an oncoming car. That was scary. I flew off the bike, over the car and landed on my feet at the other side. And there was I, thinking I was about to die.

I picked my bike up, and collapsed as my legs to jelly.

Another time, I was crossing a road. I'd seen a truck coming up the road behind me, but he wasn't indicating left to the road where I was.

I crossed over, half in my own world. I saw a light in the corner of my eye, and turned around. I froze solid in fear - all I could see was the number plate of the truck getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

I was frozen for what seemed like minutes, and just as it got incredibly close to me I seemed to jolt out of my fear and literally leapt across the road to safety.

Realizing I couldn't find my passport 2 minutes before boarding began in a German airport. I was 17 years old, all by myself; clueless as CRAP!

I hyperventilated and cried for about a minute, I tore through all of the luggage I had with me, and then I ended up finding it sitting on the counter in the bathroom. I never felt that stupid before in all my life. How nobody stole it or picked it up is a true miracle.

Not knowing what's wrong with my parachute while in the air heading towards a bunch of trees. (parachute was inverted)

Getting shot at and hearing the bullets go pass my head. Over 20 years ago and I can still remember that distinct sound.

At the age of 14 being pushed in 12 feet of water at a public pool and not knowing how to swim. Went straight to the botton and back up to grab the wall. Fear slowly went away after this.