When were you last really scared?We'd been watching the Shining. We were staying in an old church building. In hindsight, taking the shortcut home after midnight, in the mist, through the old graveyard was a bad idea.
I'm not sure what started it, but suddenly all the hairs on my neck had gone up and I was crapping myself. It was almost as bad as when, after a few cups of coffee too many and buzzing on caffeine, I got freaked out by my own reflection in the toilets.
When were you last really scared?
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chthonic, Thu 22 Feb 2007, 15:43)
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Don't Look DownLast time I was genuinely scared was in the spring of 2005. I was on the night crew working a month-long shutdown at an oil refinery. We had one unit left to test for the night, a bank of cooling fans sitting way up on a platform some 200 to 250 feet high. A strong line of thunderstorms were due to hit around 7am. Now, it was only around 2:30, so we had lots of time to do the job, but we were concerned about the wind - it had begun to really pick up, steady around 50 km/h, gusts to around 90.
Instead of hauling all 200 lbs. of gear up with us to find out that it's too windy, we decided to head up to the location and check to see how sheltered the east face was from the wind. So we begin our ascent. The path up is comprised of 6 sets of open (save for the top 5 or so feet, which is caged)ladders that zig-zag their way around the tower. I was lead, and once I got within 7 feet of the top level - WHOOSH!! - a 100 km/h gust hit me square in the body. The Nomex parka I was wearing, while keeping me quite warm, acted like a parafoil - my entire body was lifted into an almost horizontal position. Had I not had a death-grip on the rungs I surely would have become swept away to fall to my messy death. As soon as I was back firmly on the ladder, the guys decided we should go back down and relax in our trailer until it was time to go back to the hotel. I happily agreed.
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Hosehead, Thu 22 Feb 2007, 20:38,
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