QUESTION:

What's the most dangerous situation you've encountered and how did you respond?

I was eighteen and staying at the bottom of Falls Creek, one of our biggest snow resorts here. Me and three guys were sharing a tent pitched in the snow alongside a stream. (Idiots...)

We decided to drive up to the summit for some skiing (or, spending time on an increasingly  wetter and colder arse in my case). One of the guys owned an old Holden sedan, more rust than metal. We made it up the mountain okay and had a great day. Late afternoon, we began the descent. I was on the right passenger side at the back, behind the driver. (Remember we live in opposite land here, driving on the left.)

Suddenly, I felt him tense in his seat- and, then, push back on it over and over (unbeknownst to me, he was pumping down on the break pedal- and it was not responding.)

"The brakes aren't working!"

Pandemonium. Three teenage guys in full panic mode, running through non-existent, else untenable options- in overlapping, screaming voices. The road was steep, narrow; a deep ditch on the mountain side and sheer, and I mean sheer drop on the other, since we were almost completely above the treeline. Mountain roads also involve turns- often what we here call 'hairpin bends'? One of them was two hundred metres away the blurred sign said...

I was curiously calm. I didn't speak. My life didn't flash before me and I was certain, I mean deadly certain we would survive. To this day, I still think about that pure certainty I felt. There's no explanation for it.

Suddenly, an Army truck overtook us- they'd obviously gauged our predicament. Soldiers in the back (and those familiar with my Memoir, you know I hold a fond place in my heart for them) lifted the tarp and made motions for us to brace. There were no seat-belts those days- least not on 'old bombs'.

We braced. The truck driver gently pressed on his brakes till we made contact, then with great caution, tried to slow our runaway car. In the end, we ended up in the ditch, sideways. That was a hell of a better outcome than falling off the other side. We endured some bumps and bruises and one suspect broken nose. But we made it out alive.

That's the closest I've come to real, life-threatening danger.

How have you guys fared in the danger stakes?