Near Misses

What are your near misses in life? In near misses, I mean near misses with death. I had my fair share of near misses in my life.

As a young boy, I was hyper active. Running and jumping around. When I was quite young, could not remember how young though, I was running around my grandma's house. You know those 3 to 4 steps that leads to the door of a HDB flat. I jumped down the steps, missed and fell. My forehead at the left eyebrow level hit the edge of a metal tin placed on the side on the floor. Result: 7-8 stiches and a permanant scarring. My mum said I was almost blinded.

When I was in primary school, I lived in Taman Jurong. One night, I was at a stationary shop located at the 2nd level of some building. After I was done, instead of taking the stairs down, I walked to the side of the building and took a spiral walkway down. (for those handicapped). I still remembered. Less than 5 steps I took, a cold hard red brick fell in front of me and was smashed into pieces. I walked on. What if I walked slightly faster that night?

Secondary school time. Crossing the junction to my school at Clementi. As the green man appears, I am sure it was at least 3 seconds as I took my 1st step out of the road. A bus from the interchange came charging out and made a left turn. If I was in a rush, I would have quickly crossed the road once the green man came on. Oh well.

Stupid incident. I was sleeping one night. In the middle of the night, I had an urge to go to the toilet. I do not know why, I had a hard time dragging myself out of bed. As I walked in the darkness, I do not know why I was so tired. After taking a few steps and was near my bedroom door, I FELL ASLEEP! I remembered I was like KO. Switched off for 1 second and I fell down. My head hit the corner of the cupboard beside my bedroom door. That woke my parents and myself up. I was in pain and groaning, clutching my head. Damn painful I tell you. As my parents switched on the lights, I slowly took off my hand and check if there was any blood. And truly enough, like a scene straight out of the movies, my whole hand was DRENCHED in blood. I even saw a few drops of bloods dripped on the floor. Took me a while to clean up and apply medication. What if I fell and hit somewhere else or serious complication sets in?

Last year, I was driving along Bukit Batok one night. The road was quite deserted. Someone was with me, I do not remember who though. As I cruised through the road, that someone told me watch out as there was an Indian man jay walking across the road in the middle of nowhere. I remember telling that someone to relax, I saw him. In actual fact, I did not even notice cause you know, it was dark and he was an Indian. Period. Luckily he walked across quite quickly. It was only when I drove past that man that I realised what if I had driven faster or he had walked slowly across?

Somewhere last year or this year, I was in a bus home. Near my home already, I woke up from a sleep. Still in a sleepy mode and before I knew it, there was quite an impact hitting the bus 2 seats behind me and on the same side where I was sitting. The person beside me literally got thrown out of her seat. A car had smashed into the bus, another car followed suit. One of the car burst into flames at the front. There was smoke. People was rushing to get off the bus, fearing the flaming car beside it could explode anytime. They keep pushing one another including me. What if one person tripped and get trampled on? What if the flaming car really exploded?

One fine afternoon this year, I was driving home from Bukit Gombak. Just in front of the MRT station. There was some road works in the middle of the road, traffic was a bit slow. Red light at the crossing. People just starting to cross the road. I was slowing down nearing the traffic lights. As I saw a bus in front, and there was no cars at the right lane, I slowly filter to the right lane. I was very slow as I took my time. Out of nowhere, 2 kids cut in front of my car and from my observation, they are actually looking out for traffic before crossing! I had a shock of my life when they decided to cross even though I was moving slowly to the right lane. They dashed across in front of my car and if I had not braked fast enough, I would have hit them. They are trying to cross the road. Just a few more steps ahead, they can cross from the green man at the junction. I do not know why they can't bother to cross safely. If I hit them, who's fault will it be I wonder.

All the near misses for me may be nothing compared to what others have been through. I was thinking what if somehow a near miss becomes a hit? Either way, my life will be affected and I definitely do not want this to happen. There are still so many things in life to discover and enjoy.

A little sharing of the near misses I had. What's yours?