"I might be about to die" moments, huh?
In no particular order:
-Hiking and realizing I had just walked between a mother bear and her cubs.
-Jumping out of a cherry picker when my chainsaw disturbed a hornet nest I didn't know was there.
-Getting tangled in the anchor line while capsizing my little fishing boat like a drunken idiot.
-The hillbilly that pointed a shotgun at me when I went looking for a phone to call a tow truck in the middle of nowhere (he actually turned out to be a nice guy once I convinced him I was just a dude with a broken car, but I never did find out who he thought I was at first).
-The shark that bumped my mask with it's snout while snorkeling.
-Hearing a tornado tear the house next door to shreds (fortunately, no one was living there at the time).
-The night I was going way too fast around the turns on the bike and catapulted over the guard rail.
-The time I was swearing like a sailor when my mother walked around the corner (I was 6).
Thinking back on it, "I might be about to die" were not the words that went through my mind on any of those occasions.If you were a cat, you'd be on your last life!
Funny thing- of all the close calls I had (those mentioned upthread and others), the time I got scared most thoroughly was when I was in almost no danger at all.
I have a deep fear of heights that is somewhat under control. I don't feel it when climbing or flying, generally. (It is part of why I had those night-terrors after the wreck, though.)
But when I was in Rome as a teen, I went up into the dome of St. Peters. I didn't know I was going up into the dome, I was just following my chaperone. Otherwise, I'd have stayed on the ground floor.
When I made my exit from the stairwell into the dome, the panic was nearly immediate. I tried to turn around, but it was a 1-way path. To get down, I had to go across. And going across meant using a walkway 3 planks wide (with 1/2" gaps between them so i could easily see the floor below) with plexiglass guardrail...so I could easily see the floor below.
I got a light push from the usher, and I vaguely remember nudging someone along the way, but my next truly conscious memory is me sitting against the base of a column on the floor of the basilica, gasping for air and trembling.