Near death/Holy shit experiences....let me hear yours!

[CrashBandit]

I was posted up in the woods next to tracks in the middle of nowhere Alabama at a siding waiting for a rideable westbound to stop.
I'd been waiting all day and it was just about to get dark so I didn't feel the need to hide anymore. I'm folding up my tarp and was about to move to a more comfortable spot to wait.. when an old pickup truck comes flying up the dirt road along other side of tracks and parks directly across from me like 20 feet away.
Thinking it's a farmer I crouch down to hide and wait.

Guy gets out, turns on police scanner (!?) and starts moving stuff around in bed of truck.
All woods on my side of tracks and all soybean fields on other side. He can see anyone approaching a mile away, plus the scanner... I take a quick peek and he has a shotgun propped up against tailgate.
Pretty quickly it becomes obvious he's not a farmer, he's cooking dope!
Weird chemical smells, tinking glass, bizare rambling to himself confirm it.

Terrifying. We all know how paranoid meth-heads can be, especially if they're doing a cook. I was positive that if I coughed or did anything to give away my presence that he would probably start shooting. I had to wait quiet as a church mouse for hours before he finally left.

 

[CrashBandit]

Then there's the time I almost bled to death bc I had to jump off a train that was heading for the notoriously hot Bowden yard in Jacksonville..

The day before I'd gotten caught in the yard riding up from Miami. I'd been caught by bulls a couple times before, but always just verbally warned to leave after ID cleared as non-fugitive. This time they took my pic & the bull informed me that "I know it's like the wild west everywhere else and nobody cares, but here in Florida we take riding trains illegally very seriously, It's actually a felony here... you can get 11-29. I'm going to let you go with a warning, but you will go into a database as having been warned. If you're ever caught on railroad property again anywhere in Florida you WILL serve 11-29"
When I asked why it was a felony he said "it's a safety issue, we don't want anyone getting hurt". I non-argumentatively pointed out that it's my life/body to risk, and Florida allows riding a motorcycle without a helmet ... so how is this any different? Not having an answer and feeling like I was making him look stupid / being a smartass, he got pissed and threw in a ticket too:

Shit :/ Shoulda kept my mouth shut lol


Anyways. Being arrogant and seeing as how I was so close to state line, I foolishly tried to catch north again thinking I'd be out of Florida quickly and noone would know.

Wrong. Train hits a switch and is headed straight back into Bowden yard. Fuck!

I waited as long as possible hoping train would slow down or stop before entering the yard, but a quarter mile away I realize it's not going to. I clock it going around 25 mph with gps. It's going waayyy to fast to bail safely, but it's either that or 11-29 + felony on my record.

I chose to bail. I threw my gear. Then I jumped. Knowing "hitting ground running" like a slow on the fly bail would be a faceplant, I opted to "tuck and roll"
Honestly it wasn't as bad as I was expecting... I would've been just fine if not for one thing: My leg was punctured about an inch deep by one of those rusty metal strips you see sticking up from between gravel, and I also got skinned badly right next to it probably from same metal.

So... I'm bleeding really bad, cant walk at all (I think I have a broken leg but luckily it turns out later not to be)
I rip off my shirt and make a
tourniquet as best I can, then a crawl on my back using elbows and good leg until I finally reach my gear down by treeline. Luckily I happened to have my flashlight in my pocket or I never who would've found it in the dark.

Without even removing first tourniquet, I clean/dress wound quickly, then use a bungee-cord-with-hooks thingy I had in bag to make a good tourniquet and elevate leg by propping it up on my bag.

As Im laying there growing increasingly light headed and thinking I'm probably going to die and how 11-29 doesn't sound so bad now... I fish out my phone to call rescue, but pass out from blood loss before I can make the call.

If I hadn't found gear, or not had the flashlight on me or the bungee cord in my bag, I would've died for sure.

This is the scar a year and a half later:

(Puncture wound on left, skin removed on right)
I almost lost my leg from infection, and couldn't walk for like 2 months. Luckily I got housed up with a nice couple that wife was a nurse who had tons of wound care stuff from work. I needed two different antibiotics to fight off infection.

I highly recommend no one ever ever attempt to jump from a train going that fast. It's not worth almost dying / loosing leg just to avoid jail.

 

[AlwaysLost]

waiting at the Linwood yard outside of salisbury/spencer north carolina....3 days of just chillin and reading and enjoying the countryside.....only a few IM trains per day were rolling thru.....was at the wrong spot tryin to get 'em stopped for a crew change (ccg i had was out of date they had built a new lil building farther south of me where crews get on) so i'm kinda frustrated watching trains roll by me at decent speed for 3 days...wasn't sure where exactly they were doin the CC at.....almost out of water and food....train comes rollin thru and i say "FUCK IT i gotta get out of here"....ran next to it, grabbed the ladder wrung lost my grip and was instantly spun around in a 360 and end up on the ground inches from the rails...ugh....could have died real easily...scared the shit outta me...no more catchin on the fly for me....unless it's maybe slow walking speed...........................(and if anyone finds themselves there......wait under the hwy 85 overpass that crosses the trax by the river for northbounds.......farther north for southbounds)

hahaha ALSO.....i seen this stuff growing there that i thought was wild garlic... when you pulled it up there was a little garlic clove at the root....tasted like garlic....so i'm munchin on that here and there...garlic is GOOD for you right?.....well the next day i wake up and my whole face is swelled up...like puffy as SHIT......freaked me the fuck out......

Got be careful with wild garlic. Death Camus looks just like it and often grows among it. I've heard that if it smells like garlic you are good to go but don't take my word for it.