I live a fairly exciting life. Part of that includes an above average number of near-death experiences. They range from walking away from a high speed accident with a tractor-trailer, to finding myself two feet from a wild leopard in South Africa. Maybe the secret of walking away from these experiences is that I never thought of them as being near-death experiences. I just did what I thought I had to do, while other people who witnessed these things later told me that I was lucky to be alive.

Recently I went SCUBA diving in some fairly rough surf in Curacao. The waves were running about 10 feet, with some larger swells. When a diver is underwater, waves aren’t much of a problem, given that you are generally at least 30 feet down. To exit the water, though, I had to go into a small, protected cove along the rocks of a breakwater where the water was shallower near the entrance to the cove. As I entered the cove, a large swell sucked me up and I found myself on a small rock ledge, about three feet above the normal water line. Ten foot waves pounded the rocks, and me.

The first thing I instinctively did was grab onto a large rock and hug it tight. After all, the waves weren’t the problem; it was being thrown into the rocks that could hurt me. The edges of the rocks were very jagged, and I could feel one tear into the side of my thumb. I obviously didn’t want to cause more damage to my thumb, but being at the mercy of the waves throwing me against the rocks was even worse.

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