What's the scariest thing you've done?

Edit, I hope you've got used to retirement now and enjoy some of it!
F77, that sounds absolutely terrifying; thank goodness you weren't alone. I can just visualise it and it makes me shudder?

Driving on a motorway in Germany with 4 kids and a sleeping husband in the car. I suddenly noticed I couldn`t ungrip my hands from the steering wheel and couldn`t remember which side of the road was the `slow` lane . I have never been so terrified . Hubby woke up and directed me , we managed to pull over and he prized my hands off the wheel , my mouth was so dry I couldn`t speak and apparently I was white as a sheet . Needless to say I never driven abroad again and still get panicky remembering it .

Wot. My retirement came very quickly and very unexpectedly at 60. Scared the hell out of me at the time.

I went to Outward Bound with the kids at school a few yea r s ago. I went down a very high, very long zipwire. ( nothing like that in the 50s when I was little.)

Wow, I had to climb a very, very tall tree up a ladder.Then stood on a platform with all the kids cheering and encouraging me......can't let kids down . The instructor couldn't push me , I had to choose to step off myself. HORRIBLE. Like being on a gibbet.

When I plucked up the courage it was so exhilarating and fast. (My TA a man ,quite a bit younger , chickened out.) Could never do it ever again.

grannyactivist riptides are the scariest things. You were lucky there was someone present who knew how to escape it by swimming parallel to the shore:
m.wikihow.com/Survive-a-Riptide

I almost drowned off a beach in Thailand when I got caught by a rip-tide at sunset!! I truly thought my time was up and I was scared out of my wits. (I was saved by the Wonderful Man and a heroic Frenchman who managed to negotiate the rip-tide by swimming for ages, side-on to the beach, with me in tow.)

Other scares all include heights: abseiling, going up in a hot air balloon, climbing a mountain in Norway where the path was narrowed to a foot width due a boulder having fallen onto it and the drop below was terrifying. Another time we took a cable car in the Alps when the top of the mountain was shrouded in mist and we were told to return to the bottom as the car was closing due to it being unsafe! In Slovakia I was permanently scared to death walking in the High Tatra mountains - there were shrines everywhere to visitors who had died. Eventually I refused to go up a mountain ever again and I haven't done so for about six years.

But the scariest time in my life - the sort of scared that keeps you awake at night - was when my newest granddaughter was born at 27 weeks and for months afterwards her hold on life was so tenuous that I was scared I would never get to meet her. Last year I travelled to New Zealand to do just that and it will always be one of the high points in my life.

Galloping a racehorse across moorland. It was very fast!

But, Greyduster, anything involving heights is easy peasy and not at all scary if you like heights, as I do. I enjoy a bit of showing off dancing across the walk of faith in a very tall building. But I'd scream my head off like a complete ninny if a cockroach ran at me, and I once spent 3 hours on a staircase with the front room door shut waiting for rescue when the cat brought a live mouse in

Crikey I too seem to have led a very tame life compared to most of you and haven't done anything adventurous in my 62 years although I've travelled transatlantic several times on my own for work which 15 years ago I'd never have believed I could do. Probably the most frightening time was being told I had a form of macular degeneration due to short sight and needed laser eye surgery to stop a raised blood vessel bleeding - my MIL had just lost her sight to age related MD so I was absolutely terrified I was going blind. Luckily I had an amazing consultant who did the procedure the next day and only have a small blind spot below the macular in one eye. I had to have an MRI a couple of years ago and kept my eyes shut the entire time in case I panicked - the noise in the machine was awful and drowned out the music in the headphones!

Gosh, annemac, there are people on this thread that have done things I would run a mile from - including your cable at ride - and they mostly involve heights, which I am terrified of.

W hat a brave lot you all are. I think Greyduster's Malaysian army story is the scariest. I've had the MRI scan which was scary as I hate enclosed spaces and I cough when lying down flat, so trying to breathe and not cough was hard. I was scared when years ago I had a cable car ride which I think was going up to top of Mt Tiede in Tenerife. Every time it hit a junction the car bumped and swayed and everyone screamed. I didn't think I was getting out of it alive.

A few years ago I went on the Pirate Swing at an adventure playground. It was AWFUL ! I was too embarrassed to put my hand up for it to stop, especially as my DH and a friend were thoroughly enjoying it. I seriously felt as though I was going to die, the sensation was so horrible. Imagine my relief when someone else had had enough and the ride was stopped. PHEW!

Dare I say perhaps he was jealous? Or is that me being cynical? My partner can't bear to praise me, but I take that with a pinch of salt.

Also, aged 54, through default, as in because of my job, I did a Post Grad Certificate. I was terrified that I'd fail. It was done mainly by distance learning, only 3 X 1 week sessions at Uni, while working full time. Almost brought me to my knees. On the day that I handed in the final paper, after a day's work and being up half the night to complete it, I had such a headache that I had to lie in the car in the Uni car park before I drove the 45 miles home. I was very pleased with myself when the results arrived, though. DH was so fed up of me doing all the work, that he was very 'underwhelmed' by my achievement. That hurt!

Currently trying to sell house and negotiate buying a new-build. At our age, DH and I are suffering from such anxiety! Scariest thing I've ever done!

I've had a few scary moments.....

Haemorraghing after a hysterectomy, waking up in a hospital corridor with my husband beside me in cap and gown, (I was awaiting further supplies of blood before more surgery as I had run through the stock of my own blood group), and thinking (due to morphine) "Please tell me they haven't found another baby in there....!"

Going on a jet ski on a cruise holiday in a shark infested inlet, the motor cutting out, the rest of the group (including DH!) disappearing over the horizon, and having to wait like a sitting duck until they came back 40 minutes later and rescued me.

Driving through a pineapple plantation having taken a wrong road in Malaysia and emerging at the other side to find ourselves on a Malaysian Army firing range surrounded by soldiers with guns who couldn't speak English! (No sat nav in those days!). Fortunately one of their officers could! It all ended well, and we were "escorted off the premises" and sent off in the right direction, but at the time, a stiff scotch would have gone down well!

Nearly being struck by lightning while hop-picking in Kent. DH (to be) and I had nipped to the local shop and were running back to the farm in a storm when it struck about six foot in front of us. I was carrying a pint of milk and didn't drop it.

I've done balloon rides, zip rides, bridge climbs, walks of faith in some of the world's highest buildings, cartwheeled on the Grand Canyon Skywalk - none of it scary, as I love heights. I've held snakes - not scared of them. But I daren't pick up any little scuttling thing bigger than a money spider.

Driving new car for first time, with extremely new first GS in the back.

Canopy walk in South Africa, which involves going on a zip-wire at tree-top level from platform to platform. Almost chickened out, but the encouragement of others spurred me on, and I became quite blasé by the last zip.

Had a balloon ride for my 60th and wasn't nervous, but all credit to DH who came with me, but was pretty scared as he doesn't like heights.

Being in a plane landing in the pitch dark on a runway with no lights in China. Terrifying!!!

There were 3 things on my bucket list for a long time. I have done 2 out of the 3. 1. a balloon ride, which I loved
2. to fly in a glider, again which I loved
3. to absail down a cliff face - unfortunately I didn't get the opportunity and now I'm too unfit. Still 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

Thank you wot. Very comforting words.

Hitchhiking in Italy with a girl friend when I was 18, foolish in retrospect, but I didn't think so at the time. Also a couple of years later getting on a train at Waterloo Saturday lunch time and negotiating my way across Europe on my own, ferry and train to meet my boyfriend in Rome not arriving till Sunday afternoon and slightly apprehensive that he wouldn't be at the train terminal to meet me, wondering what I'd do if he wasn't. Thankfully he was. We spent the next month travelling around Italy, France and Switzerland.

Three things come to mind

My first and last hot air balloon ride at 50 when a draft of air took us up a mountain where we crashed and had to be rescued by a hunky ranger. That improved the day.

Winning a competition for a flight in a WW2 Spitfire trainer. I must have gone to the toilet 10 times before take off. We strafed a container ship, looped the loop and did a victory roll. I was very glad to land again but it was an amazing experience!

Finally zip wiring across a deep valley for half a mile. I think everyone heard me screaming but it was a good way to celebrate my 60th.

Feel the fear girls!

I should add that much of this driving was on my own. Eek!