NDEs

Rico says he's had more than his fair share:

1959 Rico couldn't swallow an ice cube; he was saved when his father ran hot water down his throat.
1960 Rico's mother fell on top of him, taking both of them down a full flight of stairs at Bill Heydenreich's house in New Jersey.
1963 Rico was locked in an unused freezer in Palo Alto, California when Kim Kitterman sat on the lid. (Rico had thought himself clever to keep it from latching, but didn't count on her weight.)
1964 Rico fell thirty feet out of a tree in Palo Alto, California; spent a week or so in the hospital, then six weeks in a body cast.
1966 Rico caught pneumonia after summer camp.
1967 Rico and his father were in a near-crash of a commercial airliner flying into Kona, Hawai'i.
1968 Rico drove his father's pretty green MG-B way too fast, spinning out (without incident, fortunately) on Route 280 near Palo Alto, California.
1968 Rico nearly drowned on a San Jose dive club rafting trip on the Merced River.
1972 Rico was nearly electrocuted while working on an 880 line at Scripps in La Jolla, California.
1985 Rico developed a major ear infection, due to bad dentistry by Leroy Lucas in Palo Alto, California.
1990 Rico nearly drowned in the surf in Hawai'i.
2006 Rico had a brain bleed from a cavernous angioma, leading to six weeks in the hospital and six weeks in rehab, learning to do everything again.
2008 Rico had another seizure, related to the damage from his angioma, requiring hospitalization for a week.
2012 Rico was hit by a (fortunately) slow-moving car coming back from the grocery store.

One consistent factor in Rico's life is that, if Alexander Fleming hadn't discovered penicillin in 1928, Rico would have surely died any number of times...