From John Stepp:

Re: Why we feel “slow motion” during crisis (Dec. 11): I think this has only happened to me a few times; in every case it has seemed to have saved me from injury. In each case the first thing I see is that everything has turned red; a very mono chromic red. Then things seem to flicker a bit and I realize that I have a lot of time to figure out how to avoid the danger (getting run down by a VW micro-bus, getting beat to death by a mugger, etc.) I have always thought that it might be related to the berserker rage (well, a much nicer version) because when this sort of thing happens I stop feeling pain.

There is an Internet personality that (supposedly) can call this state up at will (and I don’t doubt it) but giving out his name would be invading his privacy.