Fight or Flight - Which One Are You

[Sand Dancin Donkey Walker]

I was last night on my last of 4, 12Hr night shifts. At about 04:00 I was needing to concentrate on a problem that was happening to the process, so I decided to put some music on (Nickelback – All The Right Reasons). Turned the volume up and enjoyed the sounds while I checked my adjustments to the process on the monitors. All was good with the world.
Unknown to me, a wagon driver (we fill H2 and CO2 trailers as a by product) had come into the control room with a problem he had, I hadn’t noticed him and he stood behind my seat and put his hand on my shoulder. Well f**k me did I jump, totally out of my chair (music far too loud to notice if I screamed or not – probably did though) and I nearly punched the guy, I had my arm pulled back and fist clenched ready to let fly – Flight or Fight syndrome, I must be a fight.
I have never in my life had such a fright, it took at least 30 minutes for my heart to stop racing. The driver had to sit down as he was pissing himself laughing so much.
I’ll certainly never forget that one, any one else had a massive fright and survived the consequences. It’s funny now but wasn’t at the time.

Andy - SDDW

[anthonyTD]

I was last night on my last of 4, 12Hr night shifts. At about 04:00 I was needing to concentrate on a problem that was happening to the process, so I decided to put some music on (Nickelback – All The Right Reasons). Turned the volume up and enjoyed the sounds while I checked my adjustments to the process on the monitors. All was good with the world.
Unknown to me, a wagon driver (we fill H2 and CO2 trailers as a by product) had come into the control room with a problem he had, I hadn’t noticed him and he stood behind my seat and put his hand on my shoulder. Well f**k me did I jump, totally out of my chair (music far too loud to notice if I screened or not – probably did though) and I nearly punched the guy, I had my arm pulled back and fist clenched ready to let fly – Flight or Fight syndrome, I must be a fight.
I have never in my life had such a fright, it took at least 30 minutes for my heart to stop racing. The drive had to sit down as he was pissing himself laughing so much.
I’ll certainly never forget that one, any one else had a massive fright and survived the consequences. It’s funny now but wasn’t at the time.

Andy - SDDW



hi andy,
one of the worst frights i had was when i was looking at a problem on a car for a friend [many years ago now] it was an RS turbo, and it was doing around five miles to the gallon at the time, so obvioulsy something was drastically wrong somewhere, anyway, i reversed it into my garage and just as it was half way in i heard a small pop noise, and the car stopped, anyway i realised it was out of petrol and proceded to put some in from a petrol can i had handy, re-started the car, heard another pop, got out to look and found the back of the driverside in flames, by the time i had got to that side and put out the flames with my bare hands, the fire had crept along the floor and gone up under the other side! at the time my motorcycle was at the rear of my garage so i had to try and get between that and the back of the car to try and put the flames out, but as i did, my sleeve got caught on the handle bars of the bike and it fell on me trapping me between the car and itself! as you can imagine by this time my heart was nearly beating out of my chest, so with all the strength i could muster, i managed to heave the bike off me,and was just in time to put the flames out before it reached the gas tank!
when i got out of there needless to say, i felt like the luckiest man alive!
and still do when i think of what might have happend!
we all learn.. by the way i did find out what the fault was, and needles to say all the missing petrol was in the exhaust, thats what started the fire in the first place!!!:)

[Mike]

I once jumped out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft at 2500ft. :(

It was, err, 'memorable!'

[Sand Dancin Donkey Walker]

Did you jump or were you pushed out. Did you get the optional parachute. :)

Andy - SDDW

[anthonyTD]

I once jumped out of a perfectly serviceable aircraft at 2500ft. :(

It was, err, 'memorable!'
rather you than me mate!:):):)

[Mike]

It's quite a funny story.

As Marco would say; I'll comment on this later. :lolsign:

[Mike]

Well..... I was 17 or 18 years old so so it's 1980 or 81 and I'd always thought 'I'd love to do a parachute jump', when one day someone said; "we're doing a parachute jump for charity, are you interested?". So I said "yes". Which, with hindsight, was what I now like to think of as 'a bad idea'!

The deal was, we had to join a parachute club and do all the training as if we were taking it up as a full time hobby and building up to eventually doing 'free fall', and then on completion of said training we'd all do the charity jump. I was 'up for it'.

The designated weekend duly arrived and we all turned up at Sunderland parachute club where we would spend Saturday doing all the training and on the Sunday 'get out' of the aircraft. So there we all were in a hangar taking running jumps off wooden boxes onto rubber mats practising our landings, and laying face down in a sort of flying squirrel position with ares and legs sort of bent slightly backward (as if we were in free fall) shouting "one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, check canopy". At which point you looked up and back to check that your imaginary parachute was properly opened. And sitting in stationary planes practising how to throw yourself out sideways, and then adopting a standing 'flying squirrel' position and repeating the "one thousand, etc." lark. All quite amusing and embarrassing in equal measures.
After that little lot we were all given out log cards where we would be judged on our 'exit' and 'position' on every jump. Once we had ten consecutive 'good exit/good position' we would be allowed to make a free fall (yeah!..as if!). We were told that everyone gets 'poor exit/poor position' on at least heir first half a dozen or so jumps. I was determined not to get this in MY log!

Come the Sunday it was too windy for us newbies to jump so it was postponed until the following weekend. Which duly came.

So!... There I was 'ready'!.... I should mention something about 'ready'.
It basically means I was sitting on one arse cheek with legs dangling out of an aircraft at 2500ft, left hand grasping the floor in front of me, right hand grasping the door frame behind me, nothing but fresh air below. With my mind set on not getting poor exit/poor position in MY log!
Everyone who had gone before me had more or less just dropped out like a sack of sh*t with the jump master shaking his head and marking their log accordingly.
Then.... a hand slaps me on the shoulder and the word 'GO' is bellowed in my ear. In the most 'determined' way I positively THREW myself sideways from the plane and yelled "ONE THOUSAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!" And then the world ended. For four seconds or so.

Once the 'chute was open it was actually pretty cool, but the 'getting out' bit was sheer terror. To this day I hate flying (I loved it before) and get vertigo on anything higher than a shoe box.

Once back on the ground we had to present out log books for marking by the jump master (bloke in charge who yelled "GO"). He said to me; "once you've jumped you can't f*cking swim back in you know!" Bastard.

I still have MY log book. Clearly written within it, for my one and only parachute jump, are the immortal words: 'Exit not bad/Position flat and kicking". :doh:

Job Done!