Funny you should mention this.  We were bowling travel league at a REALLY crappy house last Sunday (Holday Lanes in Denton, Texas).  This place had no overhead scorers and no intercom system to call ball returns or dead woods.  In our first game we have a deadwood in the right gutter.  Well, the bowler who caused the deadwood goes to the front counter to let them know.  Most all houses use a runner of some sort (usually a high school kid) to run down the lane and fetch the dead woods.  Well, our next bowler gets up and throws his ball.  As the ball gets to the pins, the machine shuts down and legs drop.  The guy just missed getting hit.  We see this happen twice more on other lanes, so our team captain says something to the guy behind the counter.  We then get a nice annoucement "Guests of Holiday Lanes.  We have men in the back waiting on your calls that may get to them sooner than you are used to.  Please wait for the call to be taken care of before throwing another ball.  Thank you".

After our first 3 game set on lanes 9-10, we move to 1-2 for our next set.  The leadoff bowler on the team we are bowling against gets up on lane 1 in the middle of our first game.  As he is starting his approach, a mechanic walks out of the back door and stands there.  After the balls hits, he walks across the lanes down to lane 4.  He gets a dead wood out of there.  While he is down there, the bowler on lane 1 throws his second shot at a 9 pin.  This mechanic just walks back across the lanes while his ball is headed down there.  He steps DIRECTLY in front of the ball and moves right as the ball passes.  It must have missed him by less than 6 inches.  We were all hoping it would have hit the dumb b@stard.

Anyway, I have never seen one hit a lane guy, but this was the closest.
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-Corey
What, like the back of a Volkswagen?
Proud FCC!