The closest thing to a survival tale I have is when I had to drag myself and my bike 2 miles down the street to an immediate care med center after being hit by a car. All said and done, the damage amounted to a fracture in each arm, a nasty dent in my right shin, some cuts and bruises, and the chain on my bike got knocked out of place.

Aside from that, I feel like I've endured a rigorous survival course every time I navigate through the Wal-Mart parking lot to get to RadioShack.

Once in high school while backpacking in the Weminuche Wilderness (Southwest Colorado) with my brother in June, I slipped on a wet log and fell into a glacial melt stream at dusk while crossing. Essentialy did a face-plant in the water. My brother had stopped to do a spot of fly fishing a ways back and I had gone up ahead to find a spot to camp next to a tiny lake. Anyway, got out of the water and hiked approx half mile to our destination and tried to get a fire lit. Even a little white gas didn't work. By then I was getting pretty cold (it was above timberline with a stiff breeze) and I started to shake pretty bad. About then I decided to save my butt further misery, so I tossed my poncho on the ground and got my down sleeping bag out ond on top of the poncho. Stripped to my birthday suit (clothes tossed over some bushes) and crawled into the bag. Was still there some time later when my brother arrived. He ended up setting up camp and cooking that night. Never did get a fire started, everything was still too damp from the winter snow melting off recently. Took 2-3 hours to warm up.

Not an exciting survival story (unlike Bill's when Hillary came home early one afternoon), but I did act before hypothermia could set in too bad. More of an inconvenience really. Have seen friends get cold and wet when out camping and turn a routine experience into something potentially life threatening.

I'm a working single mom in the city, every day is a tale of urban survival.

When I was a kid, though, a friend and I went for a walk in the snow and, as we were walking alongside a creek, the bank collapsed and we both went through the ice into the stream. He was younger and smaller, so I hefted him out and then belly-crawled across the ice, shoving him along as we went because he was scared and getting shocky.

We had to walk a really long way back to his house, with me prodding him along and him crying and wanting to sit down but it was 28 degrees out and I knew that we couldn't stop or we'd be in trouble, so I bullied him, carried him, and even dragged him back to his house. His mom took him, but was mad that we'd gone by the creek and didn't let me come in to warm up, so I walked the rest of the way home and it was getting more and more painful to walk. By the time I got home, my soaking wet socks had frozen to the insides of my boots, my wet coat was frozen, and I my hands were too numb to get the clothes off anyway, so I just got into the shower with my clothes on and started peeling things off as they thawed.

My mom came home from work while I was in the shower and she freaked out when she found out what had happened but she was proud of me for getting us home safely. I was probably about nine or ten at the time.

Well the closes I've come is getting shot and having to drive myself to the hospital....you know it's true (at least in my case) when you get shot so much adrenaline is pumping you don't really feel it....at least for the first 45 mins or so.