unfortunately, I have two.

in 1967 I was 12 years old at summer camp in Hendersonville North Carolina sitting on a horse. There wa a mid air collision between a passenger jet and a private plane directly above the camp. Big exposion, plane parts and bodies falling all around me. Horse took off, I fell off. Very lucky nothing hit me and I not hurt from the fall.

The second was Sept. 11. I was in Ny on business, arrived at an office in a building at Water and Broad streets. The first plane had hit the World Trade Tower a couple of minutes before - probably while I was coming up in the elevator - and people were standing at the window in a conference room watching flame and smoke from the tower. As we watched the United flight came into view from the left, not all that much higher than we were, banked left and we watched it go straight into the tower. What I remember most is my total incomprehension of what I had just seen.

snoris, I don’t know where she dated Speck. I would assume Chicago because I know my coworker grew up on the north side and his mother was either a surgeon or anesthesiologist, somewhere in Chicago.

The timing would have been tight because Speck moved to Texas as a kid, and he didn’t return to Illinois until early March of ‘66. He lived in Monmouth Il., returning to Chicago April 19. April 30 he took a job on a ship, had an appendectomy a week or so later, went back to working on the ship and didn’t get back to Chicago until June 15. Less than a month later he committed the murders. Seems like he didn’t have a lot of time to chase girls but who knows.

My father sold our house to a man who eventually became Jim Jones’ second-in-command. The folks in that small Wisconsin town still refer to our old home as “the Jonestown House.”

It was my favorite house growing up.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mttaylor1066,

1966, Riding in a car beneath a railroad overpass and about an hour later a derailment resulted in at least one boxcar falling to the roadway below.

Nothing direct for me, but a few from people around me...

My great grandfather drove a fuel truck as NAS Lakehurst in 1937 where the Hindenburg disaster happened. Apparently there was no NTSB back then and was was able to just look through the wreckage. He grabbed a piece of the aircraft skin and a frying pan, and brought them home. Unfortunately they were both left in an attic of a house they lived at in DC a few years later.

I had a college professor tell us when he graduated high school he was driving home from a party. He saw a kid, Jeff, that he knew walking along the road. He stopped, picked him up, and drove him home. "Jeff" turned out to be Jeffrey Dahmer, who committed his first murder 3 weeks after high school graduation.

And like the OP, I too work with a guy who survived Stephen Paddock shooting into a crowd from the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas.

I lost a very good friend in the Scottown Ohio fireworks disaster. A local who suffered a traumatic brain injury previously was encouraged to throw a lit cigarette in the middle of a large fireworks tent. Several people perished including my friend. His twin sister made it out. We were about to start our freshman year that fall.

Back around 1980, a kid that lived down the street that also happened to be our paperboy murdered a little girl that lived 6 doors down from us. He lured her to a wooded area at the end of our street and brutally killed her with a knife. It took the cops about an hour to figure out what went down and take the kid into custody. His family packed up and was gone before dawn the next day. The kid always seemed to be half a bubble off center. So much so that my wife, who happens to be a very good judge of people, always refused to answer the door when the kid came to collect for the paper each week. She knew he wasn't right.

not sure if these qualify

wife's Boss's husband was a vice cop, a few teen lesbians lured a young girl out and down a forest road not far from our house, and brutally murdered her,

bad enough that the cop, who was SF in VN, and a great guy, said he was done, and retired, said he was tired of people,

they were caught and prosecuted,



another, my Mother was living with a guy, fantastic dude, funny etc, however he had a son from a previous marriage,

he is currently serving a life sentence, never payrolled, for beating a guy to death ,
he was high as a kite, some dude owed him money, and he beat him to death, and tried to hide the body (while high himself) and got caught,

made the local papers, 30 or more years ago,

On a flight from Dallas to Nebraska, when all of a sudden we felt a shock wave then heard a boom. We were right over Oklahoma City when the bomb went off. As we flew over you could see the massive plume of smoke and the pilot came on and said it looks like they have a serious event in OKC.

We didn't find out what it was til we landed in Nebraska.

I haven’t experienced anything close to many of the stories but I have experienced two I would count as significant.

The first was I ended up stuck under an overpass as the last known F5 tornado in Texas hit Jarrell, TX. I drove the entire way from Waco, TX to Cedar Park, TX down IH-35 with that storm cell. I left Waco and was listening to a CD and there were emergency vehicles everywhere. I-35 got shut down, re-opened, I drove more, and after it was shut down again I figured I better turn on the radio. The radio was announcing about the tornados and each time they said the mile marker it was at, I was at it too and the road was shut down. Then when near Jarrell, they said a mile-wide F5 was on the ground and I had just passed the mile marker they announced. I stopped under an overpass and was scared to death because it was raining so hard it was not possible to see where the tornado was. My truck was shaking so bad I thought it was going to flip and I called my wife to tell her I loved her if I didn’t see her again. Then it cleared and I made it to Cedar Park where I saw train cars lying on their side a damn good distance from where they had been on the tracks and then the Albertsons where the roof collapsed. Crazy what wind can do.

Second was that I unknowingly caught a serial rapist. He was a trucker who would park his rig near apartment complexes and go find and rape a woman. I was doing armed security patrol at the time in the early 90’s and got calls of a crazy woman running, screaming, and throwing rocks at apartments. Turns out she was being chased by this rapist and was trying to get help. I followed the string of calls and found him with her pinned on the ground in a drainage ditch. He took off when he saw me and I chased him and eventually with the help of backup, we apprehended him to later find out he was a serial rapist.

WOW some story. For future reference DO NOT park under an overpass with tornado approaching.
Seeking shelter under a highway overpass during a tornado is extremely dangerous and not recommended by meteorologists or emergency workers.
Here's why:
1. Wind Tunnel Effect.

^^^ Easy to say sitting in the comfort of your home. From what he described, it was raining so hard, and he didn’t know where the monster was. The only available “protection” was under the overpass. And he’s still with us.

I was not criticizing as you presume. I thought this was common knowledge and might save himself in the future. I guess you did not know this either.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
…I guess you did not know this either.

I give you one more guess.

I violated that rule once.
I drove the family to a baseball game my son was in at a baseball park just over the IL. border in WI. on the way to Milwaukee.
As we pulled into the gravel parking lot at the baseball park I looked out to the distance and the sky. I commented to everyone in the car that it looked like a Tornado was approaching. After about 30 sec. I declared it was a Tornado.
People at the baseball complex noticed it about the same time, all were running for shelter.
I was driving my new Ford Excursion Power Stroke Diesel 7.3, I loved my Excursion and all I could imagine was all the gravel was going to be blown everywhere including my beloved Excursion.
I ordered everybody in the car to sit tight as I drove the frontage road in search for the nearest overpass. I found one and got everybody out of the Excursion and up under the overpass.
The Tornado went directly over the Ball Park but did not scratch my baby.

When push comes to shove sometimes finding shelter takes priority over "what they say"

quote:

When push comes to shove sometimes finding shelter takes priority over "what they say"

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sometimes you are just lucky. The Weather Channel had a video of an overpass disaster where the people were not so lucky. The wind speed is greatly accelerated under an overpass. Personally I prefer science over luck.

^^^^ Ok, I’ll ask you, what would you have done differently, given the exact circumstance that StorminNormin experienced? Weather “science” is never exact, and I’m sure you know that. And that’s not a guess.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
WOW some story. For future reference DO NOT park under an overpass with tornado approaching.
Seeking shelter under a highway overpass during a tornado is extremely dangerous and not recommended by meteorologists or emergency workers.
Here's why:
1. Wind Tunnel Effect.

Yeah I know that now, but back then it was recommended to park under an over pass and as Q said, I couldn’t see more than 10’ in front of me and I didn’t know if it was 1/2 a mile away or coming right at me; I couldn’t see it. My gut said to stay in my truck so I did. Had I gotten out I probably would have been blown out. It was the only choice I had and the decision I made. Plus, back then there was nothing in that area so it wasn’t like I could pull into a Home Depot and run inside.

Hey I was just conveying information,no intent to criticize your actions. It is not common knowledge by the actions I observe.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Hey I was just conveying information,no intent to criticize your actions. It is not common knowledge by the actions I observe.

All good. Crazy some of the stuff we are taught at one point to later find out is totally off base.