Heart Stopping Moments

I was working as a labourer during one summer and was helping out a roofer, I was carrying a roll of lead up a ladder when it came away from the wall whilst I was at the top. I could feel myself going backwards and I knew the landing was not going to be pretty. I tried to ready myself for it however I somehow managed to throw myself forwards and get onto the roof. That moment will always be with me...
 
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This morning putting through a large FX currency swap.

The swap was us (the company) selling to the bank 20m GBP with the bank swapping it for the equivilant amount in EUR @ spot (for a period of 1 week).

The reason for doing this (and why it matters that its correct) is we are overdrawn in EUR but have a GBP surplus (for various reasons).


Anyway I picked up the confirmation on the fax only to read:

We (The bank) buys EUR, sells GBP - in other words the wrong way round. Given its 20m GBP we are dealing with here it was a pretty heart stopping moment (essentially doubling the problem rather than curing it). :eek:

Once I had calmed down I realised they had faxed us the far leg confirmation before the near leg. :rolleyes:
 
oweneades said:
This morning putting through a large FX currency swap.

The swap was us (the company) selling to the bank 20m GBP with the bank swapping it for the equivilant amount in EUR @ spot (for a period of 1 week).

The reason for doing this (and why it matters that its correct) is we are overdrawn in EUR but have a GBP surplus (for various reasons).


Anyway I picked up the confirmation on the fax only to read:

We (The bank) buys EUR, sells GBP - in other words the wrong way round. Given its 20m GBP we are dealing with here it was a pretty heart stopping moment (essentially doubling the problem rather than curing it). :eek:

Once I had calmed down I realised they had faxed us the far leg confirmation before the near leg. :rolleyes:
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I know what you mean. That gets me every time I got to the Post Office for some currency conversion.
 
Most recent I guess (apart from the daily crazy drivers in Merseyside) would have been in October 2007.

Me, a mate and his two kids driving from Johannesburg to Potchefstroom in a horrific thunderstorm. We were driving on what can only be described as South African version of a B road. There was no defined edge to the road only cracked tarmac and then rocks and dirt. We were following a petrol tanker in pouring rain and the tanker braked hard (no brake lights) and promptly started to jacknife. Everything just went into slow motion and we all watched in horror as the rear wheels edged into the dirt at the side of the road, expecting the trailer to overturn.

As quickly as it had come about, it ended with the driver accelerating, literally at the point of no return and managed to pull the truck straight again.

Cue long exhale and a quick thank you to the Almighty.
 
Entering a bend on my RD350LC (some years ago) and hitting a bump causing my bike to have a wild tank slapper. Traveling at 70mph I only managed to regain control as I was about to climb the verge on the opposite side of the road. If anything had been coming the other way...

At the beginning of every track day session waiting to go out on the first lap.

Emergency c-section for the birth of my son.

When my company gave a power point presentation which would ultimately show who was being made redundant, fortunately my name was not on it... nice
 
Was a passenger with my mate driving from London back home after a night out with some mates and we had a crash on the M25 - One of the most scariest moments in my life. No one was badly hurt fortunatly, I just had some moderate whiplash.

Also the crash I had on my bike was pretty scary - I landed in the middle of the road and I immediately rolled off the road and onto the pathway! I think I layed there for about 5 minutes before pulling myself together to find about ten people around staring at me :p
 
While we're on the topic of heart stopping moments in cars, i've just remembered one...

back in college we drove from stroud to wotton-under-edge (a few miles drive along country winding roads) driving down this very straight country road in a little banger of a fiesta doing about 80mph (he drove like a bit of a nutter) the rest of us could see the car that was just stopped in the road, but he seemed oblivious to it, kept on going and at the very last moment we just here him go "oh ****" our hearts stop and we all brace ourselves as the car skids and wobbles about with the breaks slammed on, the back end swinging in and out.....we stopped about a meter from the back of that car

Never been so **** scared in a car
 
driving to portsmouth one time to visit my gf at the time was rainging ever so slightly, but enough to coat the roads, making them nice and slick, doing about 40 through some village, another car infront of me, came up to some traffic lights and they slammed their brakes on, I did the same, but I was just coming over the metal drainage covers and had no grip whatsoever, cue me skidding like nothing before, car shuddering and I stopped very abruptly thinking I'd hit this car infront, turns out I'd just made it onot the tarmac and had grip again, confirmed by the fact the car infront didn't empty out it's passangers to question me on my stopping abilities :D lucky miss and lesson well and truly learnt, though I think that car is trying to kill me =s
 
on a wet slippery day coming down a hill towards an S bend, on the 2nd part of the corner the backk end of the car overtook the front and from memory went round about 4 times.

It seemed to happen in slow motion and all i remember seeing was the huge drop at the side of the road, lucky there was a low wall i didn't see and i bounced off of that.

That was a heart stopper, as the drop was into some pretty dense woods and it would have been the driver side that went in.

Was very lucky - new taillight, pulled the bumps out and a new black bumper strip and some bodywork work (scratchs and resparay) and the car looks like new!
 
Not long after I had passed my test I was driving to work through the back lanes as the main roads were backed up. Almost there I decided to overtake a car on a bend as it wasn't going fast enough for me. Little did I know that there was a coach coming the other way, thankfully everyone bar me hit their brakes so I managed to just squeeze in the rapidly shrinking gap. Very, very close to soiling myself. Got to work and sat in the car park for 10 minutes to calm down.
 
When my daughter was about 2 she was bouncing on our bed and fell off and hit a mirror. The mirror broke in half and came tumbling down. If I had not been , or the mirror would have cut her arms off or worse.

I still feel sick about that now.
 
Passing a Mercedes Sprinter and realising there soon won't be enough room on the road for both of us.
Que driving over the pot-holed verge at 50 in heavy rain inches from the other vehicle..
 
howiepoohs said:
When my daughter was about 2 she was bouncing on our bed and fell off and hit a mirror. The mirror broke in half and came tumbling down. If I had not been , or the mirror would have cut her arms off or worse.

I still feel sick about that now.
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Had the mirror not broken? I can't make sense of what you wrote there.
 
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