Near Death Experiences

By popular demand (and in no particular order).

1. The Meningitis Scare. When I was very young (maybe two or three), I apparently had an uncontrollable high fever during a time when childhood meningitis was rampant, and was taken to the hospital by my parents who were sure that I was a victim. After several days of concern, the fever broke. False alarm.

2. The Sepsis Scare. When I was in basic training at Ft. Ord, California, in 1968, the most feared event was being "recycled", which meant that you had to start the entire eight week horror show again (you could not discount the possibility that you would be recycled continually, and spend the rest of your life in basic training, even if you lived to be 96; I am sure it has happened more than once).

One day in week 6, I think, I woke up and noticed that I had an incipient boil on my right forearm. I did not know where it came from and I looked on it as a mere aggravation, not as anything serious. I certainly did not want it to hinder activity, for reasons you now understand. One of the activities that I did not want it to hinder was low-crawling [maybe there was another name], where basically you lie down on your stomach, keeping as low to the ground as possible, moving yourself forward by resting on your forarms, in front of your head, and pulling. Sometimes, there was barbed wire on top of you and (we were told, and did not know whether to believe it) live ammunition, so it paid to stay down. Because it was Ft. Ord, the base on which you were crawling was primarily sand with an occasional pebble for variety. In other words, I was low crawling by putting my weight on the boil in the sand an pulling myself forward. Not an obvious recipe for cure.

After a few days, it was getting worse, and I decided that I really should have someone look at it. I know that you won't believe this, but in order to go on "sick call", you had to do the following: First, you had to wake up before anyone else, which meant about 5:30 or so. Then, because the assumption was that you might not come back and you might be recycled, you needed, no matter how ill you were, to pretend you were checking out. This means that, before 6:30 breakfast, you needed to pack up all of your things, strip all the bedclothes off you bed, and take them somewhere [don't remember where], and check in your rifle in a rifle room somewhere. Even after that, however, you could not have breakfast, because when everyone else was having breakfast, you were waiting in the barracks to be picked up by this open pickup truck to drive to sick call. In other words, you did not want to make a practice of this.

When I got to sick call, at the Ft. Ord infirmary (a ramshackle one storey wooden structure, with see-through (to the ground) slatted floors, which looked like a 19th century yellow fever hospital in Panama, I was ushered into a doctor's office, who looked at my arm, told me I should have come days before, had it washed and told me he was going to lance the boil, and let me go back to the barracks and rest the remainder of the day, and avoid low crawling for several more. I don't remember the procedure itself, although I recall it was not very pleasant, went back in a truck, checked out my rifle, unpacked by things, put my bedding back together, and so forth. I felt pretty good that evening.

The next morning, when I woke up, however, I was half-dead. I couldn't keep my eyes open, I was very feverish, and I was dizzy. I was also mad, because I knew I had to go back to the infirmary and (a) you know what that meant I had to do in that condition before sick call, and (b) if I had a fever and had to stay away a few days, I was going to be recycled.

When I got back to the infirmary and my friendly doctor, he told me that the boil had become infected and that I had to check into the infirmary. I said I couldn't do that, because it meant I was going to get recylced. He said it was recyle or death. A tough choice, to be sure. I told him that he had infected me when he lanced the boil, and this was all his fault, that until I met him, I was fine. I just had a boil. He should have told me to rest a few days, put some sort of salve on it, and all would be fine. Now, he was destroying my military career and my life.

He told me that I needed to get megatons of penicillin immediately, but that he would do be a favor because he was a doctor and I was a lawyer, and he felt sorry for me (I think he was afraid of a courtmartial malpractice action by my estate), so he would keep me out of the ward (which was filled with people with infectious diseases) and give me a private room.

I was in that private room for four excruciating days. It was small; it was absolutely silent. I had no visitors. I had no radio or television. I had no reading material (although for most of it I probably would not have been able to concentrate on reading). I had no visitors, except for the people who gave me shots in the rear, and the people who brought me food. It was like solitary confinement under torture (with no longer the threat, but the assurance, of being recycled). Whether my parents had any idea where I was or what my condition was, I still do not know. I had so much penicillin shot into me, that I could not move. Walking was the most painful process imaginable, I was so sore. This continued for almost a week.

After four days, a middle-aged nurse came into the room with an officious air and said, accusingly, "what are you doing in this room?" "Huh", I said, "I almost died of sepsis and I have been tortured and made an invalid and now I am getting better. Why do you ask?" "Because", she said, "you cannot be in this room unless you are a colonel, and you are barely a private in basic training, and about to be recyled at that!" Or something like that.

Before I knew it, I was in a ward with people with hepatitis, meningitis, viral infections, pneumonia, mental illness, post-Vietnam syndrome. You name it; it was represented. To me, it was heaven. I would take the chance of infectious disease any day over solitary confinement, I decided.

And, the ward had a television set. Use of the set was very democratic. There would always be a vote on what to watch. During thee days in this ward, I never was on the winning side of any vote.

At any rate, I was finally dismissed. The doctor told me I could have died. I was recycled, and that turned out not to be too bad, and life went on.

3. The Airplane Scare. The year was 1972, and I had just quit my job at HUD and, before starting my new career as a real lawyer (so I thought) at Frosh, Lane and Edson, I decided to take a month and go to Spain and Portugal.

I left on a TWA constellation from JFK to Madrid. I settled comfortably in my seat, and we took off, at about 7 or 8 p.m., or some such time. The steward started his announcements, telling us about the wonderful flight ahead, the food and drink service, the in-flight movies, the duty-free shopping, everything you can think of.

At the end of his talk, he told us to relax and await the soon-to-come beverage service, and then - as I remember it, without a pause - he said: "but first, we have to dump out our fuel over the ocean and return to New York because we just lost one of our engines, which is on fire".

My first reaction cannot be published on a family-friendly blog. My second was that going down on an airplane over the Atlantic just because you decided to go to Spain for a vacation was really a waste. My third was that there was nothing I could do about it, so I might as well sit back, tighten every muscle in my body, and cringe. And that it was I (and I think everyone else) did.

We circled the ocean, we got regular reports of how much fuel was being dumped, we were eventually told that we had just enough fuel to get us back to JFK, we retraced our steps, the airport runways had been cleared, foam had been spread all around, there were fire engines, and ambulances and police cars, and who knows what else. We landed without incident. Just a normal smooth landing. We left the plane normally (no chutes) and were bussed to the terminal. Our baggage was fine. We lost 6 hours or so. And I got to Madrid at about noon instead of 6 a.m.

4. The Runaway Horse Scare. I was about 12 years old and spending eight weeks of my summer at Wiggins Ozark Camp. It was a Sunday between sessions, and Parents Day. I knew my parents were planning on coming down (I didn't know why they wanted to; I was fine and had no real need to see them.)

I was on a morning horseback ride with a counselor and several other campers, and rather than venturing out into the farms and lakes of the countryside, as was the norm, we were sticking close to the camp and just riding around. We were near the entrance road, by the swimming pool, when I saw my parents car drive in.

I asked if I could just ride over the meet them, and was told sure, just bring the horse back to the barn when you are ready. I was a pretty decent rider, and this seemed pretty easy, and I was happy I was permitted to do that, and I knew my parents would be impressed.

I was riding Misty, a 2-year old being ridden this year for the first time. I remembered him as a colt the year before. He was a nicely mannered horse, a light tan with a dark mane and tail. I walked him to the car, and spent a few minutes talking to my parents. All was well.

Then, all hell broke loose.

It started, when Misty turned his head and realized he was now the only horse in the neighborhood. Where did they go?, he must have said. Did they abandon me? Help!! I gotta find them!

And, before I knew it, Misty reared, turned his head, and then his body, and started, at full gallop, to make a bee-line to the barn, which was probably a mile or two away. There was absolutely no way I could stop or control him. It was all fear and adrenilin. He had probably never been in that position before, the only remaining horse in the world.

I just relaxed and, as they way, went along for the ride. It was clear where he was going, and it was clear he and I both knew the way. And it was clear that he would stop and revert to his old self when he got there. A little embarrassing, to be sure, in front of my parents and all, but no real problem. (And maybe my parents would think that I had arranged it to show them how I rode a galloping horse; why did they have to know this was an out of control situation?).

But I had forgotten about the tree with a low hanging branch. The trail through the camp (walking trail, horse trail, whatever, but a trail cut through the grass) went fairly straight by the pool, up the hill, along the lake, by the boys cabins, through the gate, across the field, to the barn. Nothing broke the trail, ........ except for the tree with the low hanging branch. Here, the trail cut an arc to the right, returning on the other side of the tree to its straight path.

Misty was on the trail; I assumed he was following the trail. Luckily, when we neared the tree, I was looking forward (at times, I was looking side to side, or even behind me; I was having a good time), and I realized that he was not going to follow the arc in the trail (too sophisticated at his speed, I am sure), but run right under the low hanging branch (by low hanging, I mean it was probably an inch above the top of his head!). I ducked down (with about one nanosecond to spare) and felt the leaves brush across the back of my head as we cleared the tree.

No question that, had I not done that, I would have had a broken neck and never been on that plane to Madrid. And, the realization as to where he was heading, and the ducking itself, happened in a split second. And needed to.

5. The Automobile Scare. So, during my first year at law school, my roommate and I were driving (his car; last time I drove with him) from New Haven to Poughkeepsie on a dark winter night, the day after a very large snow storm. It was a two lane road, we were talking, he was driving sort of fast, we were going down a fairly steep hill, and there was a stop sign at the bottom of the hill that he didn't see.

He saw the stop sign too late, decided to brake rather than run through it, could not brake in time. We ran through the intersection of a major four lane road which did not have a stop sign (luckily, there were no cars coming, but obviously there could have been), skidded and spun around maybe 500 times, very slowly, winding up stopped in a high snowbank on the side of the road.

Car was fine, and we were fine. But we were chastened to know what could have happenned.

6. The Pedestrian Scare. Pedestrian in more ways than one. It was a typical day. I was walking down Connecticut Avenue. I think it was 2003. I was heading southeast, and crossing 18th street, where it comes into Connecticut Avenue at Fuddruckers.

18th Street is one way heading north, there is a stop sign, and I had a long 60 second or so walk sign, so I crossed 18th, to continue my way down on Connecticut. (If you cannot picture this intersection, Mapquest could help.)

An SUV was heading south on Connecticut (I didn't see it, since it did not involve me), and decided, rather than staying on Connecticut, to head south on 18th street (which was one-way, heading north)

It decided to do this without stopping at approximately 40-50 miles an hour, as I was walking across 18th street. Whether he saw me, I do not know, but by the time I saw him, he was passing me at full speed within, I would get 5 inches of me. As they say, I felt the breeze.

This is in some ways the most frightening of all, just because it was so pedestrian..