2006, Army special operations training - live grenade was thrown and went off about ten feet from me. Luckily I was in a bit of a fox hole already and hit the deck in a hurry, and I had hearing protection on at the time as well. Hearing still isn't the best, but it's acceptable. Person responsible for that grenade was dishonorably discharged.
2007, I was in an amateur mixed martial arts league, kind of a scozzy underground SOCOM thing that we enjoyed in our spare time. Not unlike "Fight Club" but with trained killers, though honorable ones. I was 19 and had made it to the championship bout against a frog man - a lifer Navy SEAL who had just retired out of the SEAL teams. He was still working as a government contractor in the middle east at times for one of those Blackwater-esque mercenary companies. He had studied Jack Dempsey, Champ Thomas, etc extensively. I outweighed him by nearly a hundred pounds - he still hit me hard enough where most of my left eyebrow today is one giant scar, and I lost consciousness for a good while. He was an exceptionally technical and proficient fighter in all respects, and made of iron. Heard he was hit by a mortar round not too long ago, but is alive and still working for the government - just not as pretty looking.
2010, I was climbing a mountain in the White Mountain National Forest in Maine with some friends. We used to do this every year, often in Montana, usually nothing severe enough to require any form of ropes, etc. Make the climb and then do a little casual camping for a week. This year someone picked a bloody terrible mountain. We always stayed in pairs for safety. A two hour long climb turned into a ten hour long ordeal. Two twisted ankles, rattlesnakes, given wormy parasite infected water (was told this after drinking it, and then handed a bottle of Jack Daniels to help kill the worms), resulting dehydration, while carrying about 80 pounds of gear per person. Incredibly steep angle of ascent with gigantic boulders, loose rocky terrain, streams to cross. Making it to the top felt like I had somehow escaped the grim reaper. Later the next day, drinking several bottles of Scotch and nearly literally falling off the mountain...
2012, blacksmithing - some kind of impurity in the coal I suspect caused a huge flare up to the fire, which was being force fed plenty of extra oxygen by a hand cranked billows system. I was briefly on fire. No real injury - just scorched eyebrows and beard. The railroad spike steel I was smithing into a tomahawk literally was burnt up from the temperature - practically nothing left.
I pretty much keep it mellow these days.
