Stress-Induced Feats of Strength

TheNewNovelistTheNewNovelist
in General

Hello All,

I was following an interesting story thread about tremendous feats of strength, enabled by life-threatening incidents. The well-known incidents have been anecdotal stories of people lifting cars off of trapped victims.

Does anyone have any personal examples they'd be willing to share?

Thanks

Comments

  • [Deleted User]WriterGF (deleted user)

    Just the pilot for the Hulk TV series way back when.

  • BearBear

    @WriterGF beat me to it.

  • ShaneSchruteShaneSchrute

    My mother was driving with my little brother in the front seat without a seatbelt (it was the 70s.) she was turning left to get into a parking lot. The car’s front seat was a long bench seat (again, it was the 70s.) the passenger door some how unlatched and swung wide open. I watched her reach out, without looking and grabbed my brother’s far shoulder; stopping him from falling out. Might not have been super strength but it was amazing reflexes.

  • IronicMaidenIronicMaiden

    I don't think I have any super-strength stories, but I have at least one involving time slowing down if you'd like.

  • interalia626interalia626

    @IronLemon Now that I'd love to hear

  • IronicMaidenIronicMaiden

    @interalia626 I'll relay it as I remember it best I can.

    I was driving on the highway at night, doing about 75. I was keeping an eye on a car in my rearview mirror. I had managed to pass it despite it having trouble staying in its lane. Then, suddenly, right in front of me was a - I slammed on my brakes and swerved to the left - deer. As I was passing the deer, it occurred to me that where there's one deer there's often another. I glanced in the median, and sure enough, there was another deer. So I adjusted course back a little closer to the deer in the road in case the other deer decided to make a leap for it. And then we were past the deer, and the car was going 45.

    Subjective time: about 3 seconds.
    Actual time: I assume about 0.5 seconds.

    And then I shook for a while from the adrenaline overload.

  • MonkeyNeedsAHugMonkeyNeedsAHug
    edited November 2024

    @IronLemon @interalia626
    Experienced a similar phenomenon during the summer in my early days as a driver. I was driving an older car, with manual crank windows, and I had not bothered to open the passenger side window. While traveling through a blind intersection, I was suddenly t-boned from the passenger side.

    As the shattered glass from the passenger side window seemed to float by my face… I felt that I could have counted the individual pieces of glass. I did not attempt to count them, because I was distracted by their beauty as they sparkled in the sunlight. As the last piece passed by my face and out the open window on my side of the car, time seemed to return instantaneously to its usual speed.

    Processing the information at such an extraordinarily fast rate gave me the sense that time slowed down. The evolutionary advantages of these momentary “superpowers” seem obvious. (Those who recall watching Keanu Reeves dodge bullets in The Matrix will understand.)

    There’s good reason to believe that fast visual processing is a skill that can be developed in some contexts. Reports of professional athletes and video gamers seem to support this belief. I also speculate (having done zero research to support my hunch) that people with ADhD are more likely to experience this phenomenon. (Perhaps our hyper-focus in the moment enables us to better benefit from and/or recall it.)

  • CuddleDuncanCuddleDuncan Mod
    edited November 2024

    YES! I have a good one. I would have died without the superhuman strength thing.

    30 years ago. I was at the Valley of the Moon outside La Paz in Bolivia. (Well worth a visit if you're in the area, but no need for a special trip.) The place was deserted - and indeed desert - and there was nobody closer than the village half a mile away. It's an area of severe badlands, all cliffs and inaccessible ravines. I had become a little lost, and was walking along the top of a narrow and dangerous ridge when the rock gave way under my foot and off I went.

    As I tumbled I knew that this was the end of me. If the drop didn't kill me then I was going to wish it had, and died in agony a day or two later. Nobody was coming to look for me, and anyway I would be unfindable. But ... there was a bush. Obviously, it couldn't possibly hold my weight - there was no way it had any roots worth the name - but there was nothing else to do so I grabbed a branch on the way past.

    Somehow, and I have no idea how, the branch held and held solid. I had a firm grip with my left (weaker) hand and I swung gently back and forth across the cliff face, like Indiana Jones. I hung there for a bit, scrabbling for a foothold on the rock, and eventually got myself secure. The rock was very crumbly, and mostly broke away at a touch. I therefore kept a firm hold of my branch and tried to climb up. I knew it was a vain effort - I've never been fit or strong and there was no way my gripping hand and arm could hold on for long. Doubt I've ever managed more than 10 seconds hanging from a bar and that was with both hands. Here we were at a minute or more and still going strong. How long could I last? Well, as it turned out, as long as necessary.

    Anyway, the crumbling rock gave way repeatedly under my feet and remaining hand, and there were a couple more episodes of swinging. In and of itself, the swinging was quite nice. It was a case of five steps up and four drops down, but that's still progress and after an unknown length of time I made it back to the top. My left hand still in a death grip, or rather a life grip. My arm had held me for .... it must have been at least ten or fifteen minutes in total, with many sudden drops. Maybe it was two hours, I don't know and on the day I wasn't able to work it out. In fact, even though I was safe, I couldn't let go. In the end I had to prise my fingers off the branch one by one, using the free right hand. Then made my way to proper safety without further incident.

    My hand and arm had the superhuman strength thing in spades. They would have held my weight all night if they'd had to. Quite extraordinary.

    I just looked the place up on Google maps. It's developed a lot - houses, walkways, balustrades ... in my day there was just danger and stupidity. Kinda pretty though.

    As regular readers may know, I have stage 4 cancer. Having had a near death experience (in fact I've had several) makes the existential aspect of that much easier to deal with.

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