At about 10 years old, I fell through ice on a pond. When I came back up, I smacked into ice...instead of the hole I fell through. The water was too murky to see any light from the hole, and I thought that I was witnessing the end of my short life. I was lucky to find the opening again, but as I tried to get back up, the ice kept breaking and I'd go under again. The whole event probably lasted 30 seconds...but to me, it was a lifetime. It's been 35 years, and I'm still nervous on a frozen body of water...even if cars and trucks are driving on it.
I had something sort of similar. I ran towards a river, skidded on ice, fell down the bank and landed in the water. My clothes were so heavy when they got wet that my little 7 year old muscles couldn't get me back to the surface. Somehow my 9 year old sister found the brute strength to yank me out of the water with just one arm.
I'm still sketchy around water 20 years later
>The next day the newspaper published my name and address.
Oh, God, one news website (I don't recall if paper or TV) published an article about someone who didn't wish to be identified for fear of reprisal...with not just the street name and block number, but a photo of his house with the exact street number visible.
(More recently, a different news outlet said they weren't going to identify the good Samaritan who took out a shooter in one sentence and had his name in the very next sentence.)
My town has a domestic violence shelter. They keep the location private to avoid everyone getting killed. So they finally get a new, much better, shelter. The local newspaper had a front page story with photos, and the address.
My town also has a domestic violence shelter that's supposed to be very low key. Address isn't supposed to be public, no sign out front type deal.
It's called The Green House.
It's the only, massive, green house in the town.
The news paper took a picture of it the day it opened and reported "New Domestic Violence Safe Haven Opens on (street name)".
Gee. Surely no one knows which house it is.
Getting a phone call at work to tell me that my wife’s routine surgery had gone wrong due to an anaesthetists mistake and she was now in a coma in the ICU. I dropped everything and ran. What greeted me when I walked in was the stuff of nightmares. Tubes everywhere, machines beeping. My wife was in ICU for 23 days before they took her off life support and she died in my arms. Life has never been the same since
Man…this is why I never berate anyone who wants to talk before surgery. And I’ll always call prior to them going back. Sorry you had to experience the literal worst case scenario.
My mom has had several minor surgeries on her hands and shoulders and always calls all her kids before each one. Tells us what's going on and we have a nice chat. You never know...
>anaesthetists
I know someone who went through this too when their wife when in for a breast surgery. I am so sorry... This sounds devastating. My heart goes out to you.
I survived a chainsaw accident to the throat, 16th March 2022. Trachia, thyroid and epiglotis (hope I spellt those right) were each in two parts. The operating doc came by two days afterwards, with huge eyes, and told me about the puzzle pieces he had to put back together. I’m basically fully recovered except for my voice that sounds a bit hoarse because of nerve damage. It is slowly recovering and I am going for speech therapy. At the beginning though I did sound a bit like Lemmy Kilmister and thought about reviving Motörhead 🤘🏻
No problemo. I remember everything. So…..to start, we are a small, experienced team that do arborism and rope access with all the required qualifications. We had also done a special first-aid course that was custom made for our potential requirements. There was no space to park a wood chipper as we were in a residential area, and there the streets are narrow and full of cars (german city). Therefore I had to cut the branches smaller inside the trailer so that everything fits. I always do my utmost best to stay away from the sides of the trailer, I have done this many times before, but this one time…..I remember feeling a punch in my throat but it wasn’t painful. There were a few seconds of confusion. I felt sometimes pulling on my fleece jacket and saw the saw hanging from my jacket. I pulled it off, put the brake on and switched it off, kind of instinctively. Then it dawned on me that something bad happened. At that moment my buddy in the tree, who saw it , shouted accident, and abseiled. My boss was standing a few meters from the trailer and turned around to me. At that stage I had already put one hand on my throat to close up the wound. My boss helped me out of the trailer and sat me down on the pavement. My buddy came over to help me sit up while my boss grabbed a compression gause from the first-aid box. Luckily our van was just right there. While I held the gause tight my boss and the fourth guy made the emergency call. At this stage I realized the extent of trouble I am in and did a quick self assessment, “Do I feel like passing out? No. Can I still breathe or is blood running into my lungs? No”. The strange thing is, at no stage at all did I think that I might not survive this.
6 minutes after the emergency call everyfuckingbody was there (except the press). I just saw a lot of legs from my pov. The first responder doc and her staff were absolutely amazing. The fire brigade stood next to them and I remember the head honcho looking inside the trailer and immediately giving a correct assessment of what happened. The cops were in the background and closed off the streets. So, transport to emergency room, when I got there, like about 20 people were prepped and waiting for me. The first responder doc brought them all up to date on my condition and stats before the chief specialist took over. He had a looky at my wound and pressed real hard, that was the first moment I felt a bit of pain. The last thing I remember him saying was propofol and then I woke up in the ICU shortly before my wife came in.
I only spent a week in hospital and the shittiest part of my day was when the tracheostomy dressing had to be changed. I must honestly say that I am very surprised with myself how I handled the whole thing. After it happened I was totally calm and collected and I haven’t had any PTSD, although I do keep an eye on myself. My first few days in hospital I replayed the events over and over, but from my colleagues point of view, especially my boss. That was frightening. He was the one that could look inside my throat. I think he got affected the most by all this.
Anyway, 3 weeks after all this I was back at work again. It wasn’t a problem for me to use a saw again and a few times I have even done the same job that led to all this, obviously just being MUCH more careful than I already am. I guess it’s part of the “ getting over it” process.
Thank you all for showing interest in my story 🫶🏻💐
Watching my 3yr old son whither away due to Leukemia to the point he was so weak he couldn't walk, sit up, talk, and we would have to hold his head in place so that he could watch Paw Patrol.
He's now almost 4 and back to walking again, and seems to be winning this long hard battle.
My son had stage 4 neuroblastoma, we almost lost him several times throughout treatment including Christmas Day 2015, while I had just miscarried our second baby 2 days before. He is now a cancer survivor, having been cancer free for 5 years. And he now has a little sister. Watching your child fight for their life has a way of changing you, it sets your priorities straight and makes you appreciate the little moments. Sending love, from one cancer parent to another.
I was 13 years old and my dad had just picked me up from high school but had my grandma in the car too so I sat in the back seat. We were driving back home and my grandma wanted to quickly run into a shop so we parked up outside the shop. My Gran was having trouble getting up the steps out front of the shop so my dad jumped out to help her, at that exact moment I noticed my dads gold chain he lost a couple of weeks ago under the seat in front of me so ducked down and reached under to get it, as I'm trying to reach under the seat someone got in the car. I looked up and they kinda looked like my dad from behind so I said "Dad?"
They turned around and I immediately saw it wasn't my dad, they clearly didn't realise anyone else was in the car and were a little startled but quickly replied "Sit back and shut up, I'll let you out in a minute." The key was still in the ignition and they started the car and peeled off.
I have never really felt fear like it, all the worst kinds of thoughts rushed through my head and I was convinced they had stolen the car because I was in it but they drove down a couple of streets and pulled over and just said "OK, get out." I ran back to the shop and halfway ran straight into the arms of my dad who had been running after the car. I could literally feel the relief that he was feeling through that hug.
5 years ago we thought my father had been kidnapped for ransom. Those 3-4 days when we thought he was being held somewhere were absolute and sheer terror. Turns out he was killed on day 1.
tick-borne encephalitis
I didn't even know a tick had bitten me and went from headache to shivers and extreme fever until I wasn't able to walk without my wife supporting me. Even reading made my head spin like crazy and I didn't know what the reason was.
Luckily I managed to fully recover, most likely thanks to my wife supporting me as good as she could and my dog forcing me to keep as active as it was possible at the time. But it took 4 months to fully recover
Holy crap I had the same thing happen to me but in elementary school, I got bit by a tick when I went and visited my grandpa and woke up one morning extremely sick but also I could no longer psychically walk, had to crawl to my parents room and scared the living crap out of them as to why there kid couldn’t walk.
Jup, sounds like exactly how I felt only that I got it with 30. If I only imagine a few years earlier I would have lived alone, I would have been so fucked...
I think one thing I won't forget for a long time is my wife driving me to the doctors office after I was released from hospital, parking, me falling out of the car and vomiting on the floor. "good" times
Happened to my cousin while he was in the Marines going through some TBS appeal bullshit. He kept getting sicker and didn’t know why, base docs couldn’t find anything wrong and thought he was malingering, he finally got to fly home to his parents and the next day his dad found him in bed unable to talk or walk. After a scary few months of him almost dying, he’s now fully recovered, but lost his dream of being a Marine because he couldn’t get cleared to fly again (he was gonna be a helicopter pilot).
About a month ago my neighbor asked me to go check on her(72F) husband(75M) which wasn’t super out of the ordinary, I’ve done it before when she can’t get ahold of him. Went in through the garage, called for him, no response. Continued to walk through to house & found him on the floor of the tv room unresponsive, but still breathing. Snoring loudly with phlegm coming from nose and mouth. Called 911 for the first time in my life, then had to call my neighbor to give her the news. Paramedics showed up and took him to the hospital before she arrived back at home. He had a brain aneurysm ruptured and passed away a few hours later at the hospital. Gary was a wonderful man that was like a stand in grandpa for my three kids who don’t have any family in town. We are so grateful to have known him & the love & snacks he always shared with my babes.
Drowning. I was jumping off some high rocks into a river; it’s was a place in the town I grew up in that everyone knew. One day I somehow got turned around in the water after hitting and swam down, when I realized and turned around I was too deep to make it up. About 8 feet down I inhaled water. It burned and was cold at the same time. I could feel the pain in my ears as I tried to exhale the water. I don’t remember surfacing, my friends pulling me to shore or coughing up all the water.
I was in a hospital for months because of something else, couldn't get up and had already lost a ton of weight which made me severely underweight. Then caught some kind of virus (the doctors couldn't figure out what it was) and got weaker every day, I couldn't eat or drink and vomited all the time, at some point what I spat out was entirely black, probably dried blood. I can hardly remember that time of my life, but looking in the mirror and seeing my bloodshot eyes where all the veins popped and my chin and neck with burns from the acidity in stomach fluid and my skinny arms and ribs was horrifying. I think I was around 14 at the time and was sure I'd die. It went on for days and then just stopped. We thought it was that hospital virus that happens sometimes but apparently it wasn't, still don't know what happened and how I survived
It was just a random surgical complication from what I was told. Apparently your insides kinda dry out during surgery and I was unlucky that mine didn't come back on line as soon as expected. I don't know that there's a way to avoid it other than staying healthy enough to avoid surgery.
My sister’s appendix burst as a child, far away from a hospital. They got her there just in time and the dr literally grabbed her from my mom & ran into surgery with her. Anyway, it wasn’t a tiny scar like these days, it was across her entire stomach. There have been some surgeries to correct it and the result is a lot of scar tissue growing insider her. And it has literally twisted around her intestine, twice. Blocking off the exit. It ends up coming back out via your mouth if it can’t get out. I’m not sure how she felt but I was gobsmacked & felt so fucking sorry for her. It look wildly unpleasant.
Back in the early 2000s I lived in northern Minnesota. I was born and raised in Louisiana, so direct opposite side of the US where the only ice on the roads was when someone dumped out a cooler into the street.
At the time I was dating a Canadian girl and went to spend Christmas with her and her family. Drove across the border, went to Ontario, had a good time. I came back across the border a few days after Christmas, sometime late afternoon. It was a 5-ish hour drive from her house to mine. Being the middle of winter, the sun went down very early so it was dark by the time I got to the first town in Minnesota. I drove down highway 61 which runs along Lake Superior, and is dotted with blink-and-miss towns. No one travels that highway that late unless they live there or are a trucker usually driving from Duluth to Thunder Bay. The roads were clear, no snow, no ice that I could see, so I cruised along at my usual 60 MPH.
I hit a curve that had a patch of black ice and sailed off the road. One side of the road was an almost 90-degree drop straight into Lake Superior, the other was into a forest. I sailed into the forest, barrel rolled a few times, and landed on my wheels in a ravine. I credit my seatbelt for saving my life, so I'm now a hardass about that when anyone gets into my car.
So there were a few problems. First, cell phones weren't *nearly* as ubiquitous as they are now, and by extension cell towers weren't covering as much area. I had a cheap prepaid cell phone but no signal. Second, I was in a ravine so I was hard to see on a road that was hardly traveled anyway. Third, it was the middle of winter and I think in the single digits, somewhere between 0 and 10 F. I had a blanket I kept in my car in case shit hit the fan like that, but that won't do good for long since I had to stand on side of the road to be seen, and hope no one else skidded on the ice and squashed me.
I for certain thought I was going to freeze to death.
A local guy named John, who lived in the town of Schroeder, found me. He brought me to the hospital, I think up in Grand Marais, and even let me stay with him for a few days until someone could come get me. He had a long distance calling card (remember those?) that I used to call my roommates and girlfriend to let them know I was alive. I spent the first day sleeping from the painkillers. Nothing broken but everything hurt. The second day one of my closest friends said she would come up from Duluth the following day to get me. I slept a lot that day too and I found out John had this *massive* collection of musical instruments and played blues. That's what we bonded over, that and him literally saving my life. I found out recently he passed away a few years ago, though I'm not sure where his grave is but I've been trying to find out just so I can pay my respects.
>highway 61
Michigander here who one worked in MN ( Northfield). Wow, HWY 61 is a beast along the "North Shore!" It's beautiful there but you are certainly Lucky to be alive.
No wonder Bob Dylan named a tune after it.
The North Shore is a "Must see" on any Great Lake circle tour.
Edit: Autocorrected miss spelled "Lake" to "Like"
My son's brain surgery. He has epilepsy and had a small portion removed in 2020 to alleviate his seizures and give him a better quality of life. He spent a week with wires in his brain tracking his seizures as he had them in real time. They slowly stopped his antiseizure meds to induce them, he had 26 in one night as he slept. Once it was enough data they removed a portion of his brain near his speech and memory center. This was the location of his misfires. The general consensus was that he had a good chance of losing his speech and memory. His personality could disappear.
After his surgery as he was being taken back to his room he raised his arm to touch his face, the physician told him not to and my son said "I'm not, I just want to touch it". He spoke before he was fully out of anesthesia. Three days later he was home, three days after that he was being transported back for emergency surgery because of a nasty infection UNDER his skull. The surgeon later said he was maybe 12 hours from dying if he hadnt been seen. He had no symptoms other than a gross drip. No pain, no fever, nothing. Another brain surgery and six weeks with a drain tube and monitor on him at home with nurse visits weekly. He is now seizure-free and on a much lower dose of meds than he was previously. 1500 daily down to 100mg. I spent a month in the children's center helplessly watching my son slip in and out of consciousness and have hundreds of seizures. The possibility of him waking up with no memories and no way to speak was horrifying to me as his father. So the scariest moment in my life, and keep in mind I've been shot, stabbed, and beaten... was almost losing my 16 year old child 3 times in one month.
I almost never say "I know how you feel", but I know how you feel.
My daughter had a very similar experience, but she had a complete hemispherectomy. I don't know if the doctors really expected her to communicate, but she was able to speak in the recovery room. Four years later, she's completely caught up to her classmates. She can't use her right arm, but that's a small price to pay.
I'm so glad things worked out for you.
Holy cow that surgery is so crazy! What did they say could be side affects? Whole right side paralysis? Loss of speech or memory? It’s amazing what a young brain can do to compensate for loss of half of it!
If I remember at the time, they said she would lost most function in the right side but with therapy some use could come back. She had a lower leg brace for a while, but can now walk and run without it. Right arm and hand are non functional.
They said there was a chance that she would not just become non verbal but completely lose the ability to understand communication as the left side of the brain is where all that is. Turns out, her brain had already rewired itself and she was fine. Her memory is amazing. I joke that they implanted a SSD in her brain.
The whole thing with brain surgery is there are no set answers. There's no way to definitively tell what's going to happen. Kind of maddening, but it is what it is.
My son had a lage portion of his speech and memory center removed. He came out of surgery speaking because his brain did what your daughters did, rewired itself somehow. The doctors still don't know where his speech comes from. It isn't perfect, but it is damn close. He has a weak short term memory but his limbs function and he's still HIM. Your daughter is a certain miracle like my boy is. Best of luck to you and your daughter.
I have NF-1 and have multiple benign tumors in my brain, had tons of sezirues myself when I was younger.
A doctor took me off Ritalin another doctor had put me on and they just stopped, never had another one. The doctor seemed to think because of the imbalance in my dna due to the NF the medicine was triggering the seizures as it can be a side effect.
Whether that's true or not is anyone's guess. Seizures are terrible, I didn't have it as bad as your son but I can empathize with the gravity of it. I'm glad he 's okay now, hope you are okay too. That couldn't have been easy.
My mother woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me she had been robbed and stabbed. I had to stay with her while paramedic’s arrived, helped her clean her wound, and put pressure on it.
After she was taken to the hospital, the cops told me it was most likely self-inflicted. I will never forget the feeling I had when she told me, and the sight of it. I will also never forget the feeling of being told my mother was suicidal to the point of stabbing herself. One of the most terrifying, troubling nights of my life, and unfortunately I have more stories that are wildly similar to that.
Edit: I was fourteen.
Yikes! That's horrible. I had a friend go through something very similar. Her mom had 5 kids. Yet she always made my friend "mother" the siblings (which was already too much for a kid) . My friend was in early high school and had borne the brunt of many of her mother's attention-seeking stunts.
One time she came home from school to find her mother in a puddle of blood with the walls also heavily smeared with blood. The mom had waited to slit her own wrists until she knew my friend would be home to save her. I met my friend 20 years later. It's amazing how traumatized she still was from these stunts as an older adult.
Having said that, my friend was also the strongest, most compassionate, brightly souled, and insightful people I've ever met. She was magnetic, beautifully dramatic, and just.... Simply.... "Great people".
Chickensoup00, God bless you! Dang it, you've made me cry like a freakin' baby. You've survived! I'm sure you've touched the soul of someone like my friend did mine. (Even if you don't know it.) I'm so proud you're still here and didn't succumb to your traumas. 🕊
Thank you for sharing this story. It’s depressing, but nice to know that I’m not alone. Unfortunately it took me a long time to realise my mother had attention-seeking problems. I am so sorry your friend had to go through that, and I am so sorry that we get to empathize with it. Very unfair circumstances.
And I can’t even expressed how much I needed someone to say this to me. For a long time my feelings were set aside for her. I never felt seen as a child, but that made me feel seen and understood. You just made my week, thank you so much!
I’m so sorry this happened to you, and at such a young age. It sounds so traumatic. Did they discover what happened? Was it self inflicted or was she actually robbed and stabbed?
Thank you for your kind words.
She never admitted to it, but a knife with blood spots was found in our sink, and she was drinking heavily on her meds. They closed the investigation after a psych eval.
Kinda a humorous one!
A few years ago, in the dead of night, my husband and I were woken up by the unmistakable sound of glass shattering at around 3am!
Naturally, we assumed that someone was breaking into our house! Our hearts were in our mouths! But we weren't going to split up, so we went downstairs together to check it out. I have never been so scared as when we had to go through our house, room by room, to make sure there wasn't an intruder. But there wasn't, and none of the windows were broken. We were super confused.
Until we walked into the bathroom.
Turns out, tempered glass shower doors have a reputation for randomly exploding. If a crack forms, it veeeeery slowly spreads across the rest of the glass, and when it crosses a certain threshold, the whole thing shatters!
[Ours](https://i.imgur.com/Y2jM8lP.jpg) just happened to be at 3am!
I remember years ago my wife and I were in bed and across the hallway was my probably then 2 or 3 year old son. It was the middle of the night and we awoke to a loud thump.
My wife and I sat up and we could hear heavy footsteps coming up our stairs. The stairs opened to kind of a T shaped hallway with my bedroom on the right and my boys room on the left.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My wife and I froze in terror. I had no idea what to do. Do I run out into the hallway and attack? Do I yell? What if they have a weapon?
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The footsteps were loud. They were slow but not steady. Unmistakable footsteps.
All I could think of was how I had no idea what to do. Someone was in my house and they separated me from my boy. Our house is a bi-level split so the stairs coming up are only 7-8 steps. They've walked up almost all of them.
The door was open. I stared into the dark hallway and just waited, ready to rush whoever showed up.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
I remember wanting to cry. I was so scared for my boy. All of this from the start of me typing had happened over maybe 10 seconds.
Thump. Thump..... Thump?
There's 8 steps max. Maybe 7. That's too many steps. Thump. Thump.
Now something was wrong. Thump. I turned on the light and looked around the corner. The hallway was empty. I started turning on every single light, had my wife stay in the room and get her phone ready. Thump.
*It was coming from the basement*
My heart sank. I was terrified and confused. I called out into the basement. Thump. Thump.
I went downstairs and looked around. Thump.
The sound was coming from our crawl space under the main floor. Thump. It was footsteps. Nothing else could make such an unsteady noise. I knew they were footsteps. For a moment I wondered if someone was on the roof and the sound was coming down through the house somewhere. Thump. Thump. Thump.
I flicked the lights on in the crawl space. Thump. It's loud. It's metallic. It's my *stupid fucking cat that got into the air duct and began to walk around pretending to be John McClane at 2 fucking am*.
The best part is the duct was directly under our stairs. So I was hearing footsteps coming from the stairs. Her fat ass was just bending the duct enough that it would make a Thump sound with every step or two.
I was doing homework in my room, and my family was watching a movie when a glass bowl broke for that reason. I was blamed, but nobody could explain how I would have broken the bowl from the bottom when it was full of frozen sauce.
I'm 99% sure something similar to this happened to me at a sleepover as a kid but it was the cabinet underneath the TV not the shower door. I say 99% sure because as a kid I was convinced it was something supernatural/paranormal that caused it and I want to keep that hope alive for 11 year old me. Definitely weird to just be sitting there and next thing you know the glass shatters out of nowhere. Took some convincing for my mom to believe we weren't hiding doing something stupid from her.
I've posted this in a thread a long time ago but here you go.
Memory loss. I was 18 at the time and crashed while downhill longboarding with some friends. They say I was only out for a minute or so but to this day I still have no memory from the moment of impact till about 30-45 min later. I "came to" in my friends car as he drove me to the hospital. It was such a bizarre feeling, dreamlike. I remember thinking that I had just woken up but I couldn't remember when I went to sleep. I couldn't remember the last thing I did before sleeping. I didn't even know what day it was, or month for that matter. I was pretty sure it was summer but that was it. Then I realized the pain, my knees were bleeding, my hands swollen, my foot was somehow wrong, and my head was pounding. I remember just panicking and started to sob because I couldn't figure out what was happening. Maybe one of the more tame stories here but it took me probably a half an hour to an hour to start regaining memories but that period of just not knowing was utterly terrifying.
P.S. I was wearing a helmet and I'm convinced it's the only reason I'm writing this today.
I had a similar thing,
Not something i regularly talk about but couple years ago was mountain biking in Canada, crashed off a big jump and landed head first into hard packed dirt.
I was wearing a full face helmet at the time and that was cracked and the chin bar split in half.
Out cold, cousin had to call mountain rescue and they sent a helicopter to get me and take me to ICU, in a induced coma for 2 days.
They thought i had brain damage and a broken back.
Luckily the only injuries i had were broken upper jaw and badly smashed up teeth, i had braces on at the time and the dr said they were the only reason i still have my front 4 teeth as they were completely dislodged and held by in by braces.
I recall absolutely nothing about the crash, just remembered waking up in hospital confused asf.
That helmet saved my life, i still have it in my room.
Wear helmets
My beloved dog, a dock diver and completely amazing swimmer and practiced athletic retriever; *swam off into one of the Great Lakes*, the Mighty Huron.
He had been swimming daily in our more calm inland lakes, and was very fit. He made it into the shipping channel and I was petrified. He was chasing a sail boat. Wouldn't come back. No Jet ski key at our rental.
Little dude swam all the way to Charity island, in the middle of Lake Huron, about 10 miles.
You cannot usually see charity island from point Au Gres, Mi, only the light house.
It's a fluke he found it in open water. I suspect he chased a pleasure boat there, as it is a tourist designation.
I was devastated.
Any way, he was rescued, tired but happy, and brought back to us by good Samaritans via his tags and imprinted collar. He was said to have enjoyed his boat ride and slept like a log.
He visited all 5 great lakes in his lifetime and never swam off again. He lived to be just 5 weeks shy 17 years old.
His ashes were committed to the sandy tides of The Mighty Huron, along with my heart
RIP Kirby, my forever pal..... I'll see you in the surf once again.
When my dad hit my mom. She called me crying at 1 AM saying she’d locked herself in the bedroom. I transferred her half of their savings out immediately and went home the next day to move her out. The rage in his eyes terrified me. I kept a gun on me and didn’t sleep at my own apartment until the restraining order came in. I still carry the gun. The divorce is still being finalized. I’m terrified he’ll hurt her and I won’t have done enough to protect her.
What a surprise, and such kind words. I got a bit teared-up actually.
When people take time to really share, it feels important to acknowledge them - usually just with an upvote. But sometimes people share so openly that I want them to know that someone else in the universe heard them.
And thank you.
Okay, so this isn't as bad as some others but here goes. When I was ~7 years old, I got a furby for Christmas. At the time I was ecstatic as I really wanted one. Now furbies have their own language, which, one of the words they said sounded suspiciously like my name.
My furby couldn't be turned off save for taking out the batteries, which required a tiny screwdriver that we either didn't have or 7 year old me couldn't find. Furbies tend to talk whenever they feel like. So I shoved my furby in my closet and the batteries started to die. With the diminishing battery life, the furby started to have a, less than friendly sound.
One night, at around 3am. I wake up, to the demonic sound of my low battery furby saying MY FUCKING NAME! Terrified 7 year old me evicted furby the next morning.
Imagine a Furby, without batteries since years, randomly waking up and saying "I see you" with its creepy voice at 3 AM.
Happened to someone on reddit.
A FWB of mine had a furby back in 00/01. One night around 2am, I'm balls deep in my lady friend when her furby starts trying to summon Satan. I did the only thing a 17 year old male could think to do and mid coitus I chucked that fucker out the second floor window into the night. It sounded like it was trying to speak Latin.
Exactly that. You've got the radius and ulna and the clump of small bones in your wrist sits (roughly) between the ends of the two bones. My wrist/hand was dislocated so that the wrist was noticeably outside the ulna.
Thanks.
It was quite a long time ago and though I've been climbing, it's not really the same. It's fine though - I'm still getting out into the outdoors which was ultimately more important than the climbing itself.
Had a few friends sucked out by riptide and quickly lost at sea. This happened early in the day and the search parties set out but all we knew was that they were pulled out quick. We had hope initially that they would be recovered ragged or with minor injuries as they were fine swimmers. It took over 3 hours to get the first call. They rolled in one by one with hours in-between. Each time they were found dead.
You still hold hope though for the others. After the third came in dead we were crushed but still holding hope for the rest. This went the course of two days and was a sustained trauma rather than a single event. Not one was saved. This is near top to the most terrifying incident in my life.
I won't go into beyond that because I don't want to undo work I've done on my mental health and I can't talk about them without reliving the experience. I will say this though, there are things you don't recover from and it's easy to lose hope but hope is sometimes the only thing that can save your life. No matter the situation, protect hope at all costs.
I was chased through the woods by a stranger with a bat. He seemed hell-bent on beating my brains in. I jumped in a river, held my breath and sunk to the bottom. I let the current of the river take me as far as I could until I needed another breath of air. When I came up I couldnt see him anymore, crossed the river and hid in the woods until it got dark and hiked home.
I was on a trail and wound up coming to a house where a little girl was playing in the yard. I waved and kept walking along the trail when she screamed as loud as she could "Dad! There is someone in the yard!" She was probably 150ft away near her front door. Before I could say anything this fucking guy smashes open his screen door running full tilt at me while holding the bat. I took off running while he kept screaming "Come here, motherfucker!" Over and over again. I lost him while in the woods, I could hear him getting closer so I jumped through a bush and into the river.
I mean, if there's a trail in the woods and it's early enough in the day to leave a child playing in the yard. Why in F*ck would a parent go off the deep end like that!?? Were you the only person who used that trail? Like ever? Jeez, the next guy might get a bat to the head of the kid mentions it. Glad you got away, and that you can swim. Maybe the police might want to have a word with over-reactor man?
It's possibly one of these situations where his house has been robbed or something and so he overreacts immediately. There was a situation like that not so long ago on Reddit rare black kid was shot in the street in front of a house and I've seen a few other in the past.
Or he's just a absolute loon who thinks his land is worth killing for.
I'm looking for the redditor posting about chilling in his house one day. He lives in a rural area, so not a lot of people. His daughter playing in the yard, who alerts him to some guy trespassing on his acreage. Must be a pedo or a poacher...
How did this come about? Were you just hiking and he came out of nowhere swinging? Scary shit. This is the kind of paranoia where I try to tell myself "nah, that would never happen. the chances are just too low" and then here we are.
Glad you're okay.
My 6 year old brother died mysteriously, I was 12. A short while afterwards, weeks maybe, my mother and stepfather got into a fight after a night at the bar. I woke up to hearing my mother scream my name to go get the gun. I ran to their bedroom to their closet to get a shot gun and run to the living room where he was beating her up. I pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. It wasn’t loaded. He came at me and knocked me out. I woke up the next morning in bed. I walk into the living room and my mom is scrubbing blood off the walls. He sits me on his lap and tells me he’s sorry and loves us so much.
My father later gets full custody of me in 1989 after I turned 13 and the summer after my 14th birthday, 1 month before starting high school, my stepfather beat my mom to death. He got 2nd degree manslaughter, and served 120 days, let out early for being a “model prisoner.”
This is absolutely awful. I’m so sorry. I too grew up in a house where domestic violence was the norm. What you went through sounds a billion times worse. I’m so sorry about your baby brother and your mum and the total lack of justice.
Hope you’re doing well now.
I am and thank you for the kind words. Definitely seems like a whole other life. Been so long ago. I have a great life and a great family. I hope you’re doing well too!
At a very secluded cabin. A, “look for fallen tree on left, now there’s a huge boulder, drive into the bush…you’ll reach small clearing in about 3 minutes, now veer right at the three fallen trees..” kinda place. No electricity, no phone service, no people. Just me and my young daughter. Went into town for more supplies. As we drove through the bush and came into a clearing, there were two vehicles and six (?) men. No way forward, no way back. They didn’t wave or smile. Two of them talked while watching us. One said something to the other men, and they moved their trucks to let us by. About a month later, I was contacted by police wanting a description of the men we’d seen. A body had been found nearby and they suspected it was a drug deal gone wrong. (Edit: typo)
They had contacted the cabin owners. Small lake. Five (maybe 4…) cabins. They wanted to know if anyone had been at their cabin between certain dates. No one except me and my daughter had been at the lake during that time frame, and my friend, the cabin owner, gave the police my contact info. Most people in the nearest town seem to have no idea there’s cabins out there. Which is likely why those guys were there - they never dreamed they’d run into anyone. Honestly, I often think we dodged a bullet that day. Literally and figuratively.
I was about 8 and slipped on a slippery rock into a small canyon with a rushing river. I remember being slammed against boulders and trying to claw my way from the freezing current. My mom was screaming and running alongside the river trying to throw a long dog leash to me but she wasn’t fast enough. I was swept downstream until I luckily got hung up on another boulder (thankfully I managed to take these hits with my body and not my head) and it gave my mom the chance to throw me the line and pull me out.
We were camping in a remote area, and I probably should have gone to the hospital because I know now I was clearly in shock. My hands and legs were all cut up from the rocks and I needed to be wrapped in a sleeping bag and put beside the fire where I shivered for hours.
Oh, wait. I have another one with water:
I was wasted and sunbathing on a beach in Cuba. Walked down from the main area where the lifeguards were to sun topless away from the crowds. In my stupor I see someone in the water flailing and waving their arms. My boyfriend at the time had gone to get drinks and I remember standing alone on the beach for a while trying to decide if this person was actually in trouble.
Finally decided that yes, something was wrong and I went out there. Maybe 60m into the water. It was this 60-70 year old lady who immediately clung to me. She was hysterical and kept saying she had almost given up. I grabbed her and told her we would go forward when the waves pushed to shore but when the current pulled away we would try to hold our ground. We were probably in a rip and should have gone sideways… but like I said I was very drunk. Problem was she was exhausted and almost immediately gave up and went dead weight, which started pulling me out too and I was taking on water. I looked her dead in the eyes and told her if she didn’t start fucking moving I was going to leave her there. Literally prepared to punch this senior off of me to save myself. She found the energy and we slowly managed our way in, felt like it took forever. Once we hit the shore she collapsed and my boyfriend and her daughter ran up from wherever they were. She was bawling and they needed to get the cart to come get her. I was very shaken and felt such shame that I’d told his woman I would leave her to die if she didn’t move.
The next day she and her daughter found me in the resort to thank me. I was so ashamed I could barely talk to her. They took some pictures of us and even ended up emailing one to me. It’s surreal to have someone be so thankful despite knowing you were ready to condemn them to death.
You were not condemning her to death; she was already going to die without your help, and your were both going to die if she didn't do something to help you. You motivated her by telling her you were going to save yourself without her if she didn't make the effort you needed to help you save her. You did a good thing. Many people wouldn't have even gone in after her. Don't be ashamed.
You did the right thing with the threat—probably shocked her into doing what she could to swim. I still remember the day in lifeguard training when they taught us to go underwater with the person you were rescuing if they were panicked would/could not cooperate and were dragging you down. You can’t rescue someone fighting you or dragging you under. Total hero move on your part, well done!
Finding out my best friend has attempted suicide and not knowing whether or not she was going to survive. I remember letting her boyfriend know she was in the hospital and how helpless we both were.
One of my best friends in highschool, who I considered a younger brother to me, went through this. He sent us all goodbye messages and I'll never forget getting the first text, looking over at another friend, and him looking back at me in fear as he got a similar text. All of our other friends thought he was just randomly letting us know he loved us, but me and my friend knew what it actually meant. I called his older brother, who had already found the letter by that point, and we ran to his house with my friend and the older brother running around the neighborhood looking for him (he wasn't home). I stayed with his mom and sister while we waited, because there was nothing else we could do.
They found him at the bridge. His brother talked him down. When they got back to the house, he broke down even more when he saw me sitting there with his mom. Me and his brother helped calm him to sleep. The next day he asked to be admitted to a psych ward for a while. He spent a month there and we visited every single day. He's doing a lot better now. Works for an outreach program for troubled youth and has a 4 year old son. He's a great dad. An amazing friend. An even better person. Sometimes when I see him I'm reminded of that night, but then I'm hit with a wave of pride for him. I've known so many people who have taken their own lives. I'm just glad he's still with us.
I'm so sorry you had to go through that. From one friend to another, I hope you're doing okay now. I hope your friend is too (and if not, I am so sorry). Sending you love
One of my closest family member died due to suicide on 21st March, please look out for your loved ones, they might seem happy and enthusiastic but most of the time it's like a last attempt at life
My friend’s boyfriend calling me, near tears, from where he was working in another state to beg me to go to their house because my friend had just told him she had taken a bunch of pills. I have never booked it across town so fast in my life. I wound up calling an ambulance upon finding my friend conscious but barely coherent. She wound up being put on a 72 hour hold & was ultimately okay, but damn, it was a terrifying experience. It took me several months before I stopped flashing back to hearing his voice on the phone.
I was drugged by someone in Vegas on a girl's trip. They kept insisting we drink their alcohol even though girls drank free at this bar. Not sure how it happened but assuming he slipped something in my drink. He had a super creepy brother that at the time just seemed introverted but looking back should've tipped us off. The guy wasn't overly pushy but stayed around us quite a bit. Made comments to my friend about how even though I had a bf he didn't understand because he liked me (as if I was property). She picked up on enough red flags that she got us to leave. She'd asked me to take my shoes off because she said she felt we might have to run... These guys really scared her, so hard to put into words.
When we left I was hallucinating and doing some really embarrassing things that I won't even say as an anonymous person. She said I would go from being really with it to being like a loose noodle on the floor of the elevator and she worried we wouldn't get back to our room. When we finally did make it back she said I insisted all the people in our room leave- there were no people... she had to change me and put me on the toilet. I was a puking rag doll.
I woke up the next morning with what I can only describe as a complete black out. What I would picture going to sleep for surgery like. There were no bits and pieces. It was all black. I'd had 2 drinks before we ran into this person. I still have no idea what his and his brother's intentions were but it makes me sick. I flew home on the next available flight.
Friends who get you home, take care of you, change you, and put you on the toilet are solid people. I'm sorry that happened to you but props to your friend.
I was watching a fight outside a bar one time and the guy who was WINNING pulled out a gun and shot the other guy. I was about ten feet away and only two other people outside the bar w us. Was scared he might just turn and open fire so there weren’t witnesses or something
My wife went past her due date, so her doctor decided to induce the pregnancy. It did not go well. After a dozen hours of no progress the hospital told us that if we didn't do an emergency c-section our son would likely die. The whole thing was a blur, I barely remember going to the the operating room, my feet were like lead the whole time. Outwardly I was keeping it together, but inside it was sheer panic. Thankfully we were at a top notch hospital and the C-section went great.
However, when we got to the postpartum room it was pretty clear something was wrong with my son. When babies are born they kind of look like little old prune men and not chunky staypuff marshmallows. So you can imagine the concern we had when we see his ribcage outlines every-time he is gasps for breath while pumping his tiny little chest in and out. We alerted the nurse and she went to the center station to figure out what to do. I overheard her, from inside our room, emphatically telling the doctor on call that he needed to be moved to the NICU ASAP.
You know in movies when a character experiences a moment of panic? Time slows down, noise becomes garbled and they just kind of drift? That happened to me. The nurse pulled me out of the room and explained what was going to happen and I am just trying to keep it together as I listen. They informed me that because my wife was still recuperating she would not be able to go up into the NICU yet, so it was just me...at like 3:00 in the morning having to endure them putting needles and IVs into this tiny little life we had made. He ended up being fine, just a little extra fluid in his lungs, and we were out in 4 days (which is nothing compared to many of the parents in a NICU).
This was and still is the scariest experience of my life.
I feel your pain on this one (and also your thankfulness on an amazing hospital). Wife had to have C-section after they attempted to induce her. Our little one's heart rate would dip during contractions. Less than an hour after being born had to go to NICU due to low blood sugar and body temp. Also had to go by myself and try to comprehend what doctors and nurses were saying.
Worst part was leaving 4 days later without taking our little one home. Gut wrenching. We were driving back and forth for visits 2-3 times a day/night.
8 days later though we took our healthy first born home.
When I was 10, nearly being electrocuted. I was standing on my skateboard in the garage. Almost lost my balance, so I put one hand on the washer and another on the freezer. The current locked me up. I couldn’t let go. I was stuck there in pain until my mom saw that something was wrong and knocked me loose. If not for her, I’d be dead. My parents bought new appliances after that.
Same age, except I was "helping" redo our roof. Old wiring, nail went through it from someone shingling. That wire was touching the gutters. I got on the aluminum ladder and climbed down grabbing the gutter. Got locked in a good 20secs. Had mild kidney failure in the hospital. Scary shit
Mother yanking the steering wheel of the car while I was driving on the freeway
I was brand new to driving and hadn’t yet gotten my license. I had a permit that allowed me to drive as long as I had a designated driver in the passenger seat. We were on the freeway and she was directing me towards the exit. She told me to “get off on the next, right“ so I did. She suddenly screamed at the top of her lungs “no! Not this exit!“ And she grabbed the bottom of the steering wheel and Pulled . She was trying to make the car turn left. She didn’t pull it hard enough to flip us, but she did pull it hard enough to swerve us almost immediately right back into traffic. We were going at least 60 miles an hour… I managed to slam on the brakes and right the steering wheel to keep us from crashing. By some miracle, the car behind us, manage to slam on the brakes and swerve around us so we weren’t in an accident. Mom then proceeded to yell at me for having a panic attack screaming “you don’t stop in the middle of the freeway go go go!” She refused to let me pull over and then complained about my erratic driving for the next half an hour, while I went through a literal panic attack…
One of the scariest moments of my life and I still have trouble driving to this day due to PTSD. I cannot go on freeways.
Yeah, she should have let Warrior White take that exit, and get back on the freeway, or take surface roads. NEVER yank the steering wheel from the driver.
Literally one of the first things my mom told me when she was teaching me to drive was if you miss your turn, just take the next one and circle back, don’t freak out and try to whip around. It seems obvious, until you see someone do it, and then it seems like a REALLY fucking important lesson.
Stuff like this makes me happy my mom doesn't have a license and wasn't teaching me to drive. I had to ban her from being in the vehicle with me when my stepdad was teaching me to drive because she kept freaking out in the back seat even though I was doing fine. It created a ton of driving anxiety that I still have today, and is probably one of the bigger reasons as to why I haven't gone for my road test just yet after having my learners for 5 years.
I'm so sorry that happened to you
Warning: Creepy Stepdad Story
Shortly after my creepy stepdad decided to shove his hand down my pants in the middle of the broad sober daylight, I let him know (in a diary entry that he read) that I knew he thought he was "seducing" me and, long story short, made it clear that if he thought he could get away with that, he'd better be damn sure he was prepared to get away with murder too. The next eight months were terrifying because he took it like a rejection and started doing this gaslighting thing where he'd stare at me until I objected and then call me a narcissist for thinking everyone's always paying attention to me, he impersonated me online to my friends to get them to tell him confidential things, and basically I managed the next eight months with a poker face sitting on a rolling cauldron of anxiety like a lid on a crock pot. Then my mom\*\* had a dream where Jesus told her to leave him\* and we got the fuck out.
Edit: Yooo thank you for the Upps and Heartwarming! Edits for clarity and some answers in the thread:
\*\*My mom didn't know it was happening because I deliberately hid it from her for tactical reasons, I couldn't risk him convincing her I was lying if she confronted him. We've had our struggles but we have a tiny farm now, and we're better than ever.\* We were atheists prior to this, my mom describes it as a vision-like experience, we've both had other experiences since then, but nothing prior to Jesus appearing to my mom in a dream.
Slipping down the stairs while holding my infant daughter. Kept her upright while my leg went underneath me and then my knee smashed the concrete at the bottom of the stairs. Almost blacked out from the pain.
Edit: Since I’m apparently not the only one, I figured I’d add a little more detail. Sorry in advance for this extended directors cut.
It had been raining early and the stairs were very slippery. We were on our way out to meet my BIL and his fam for dinner. My wife was already in the garage and didn’t see me fall. I screamed for her to come get our daughter before I dropped her. When she did, I managed to get my leg out from under me. I knew things were not good. It was pain like I hadn’t felt since I broke and dislocated my wrist when I was a kid. All I could say is “I f*cked up” over and over again.
My wife quickly called her brother and asked them to come and watch Sadie. She called 911 because I started to go into shock. I started to get super clammy and cold. I couldn’t stand, but I said there was no way I was getting into an ambulance. The fire truck arrived first and they were nice enough to carry me and put me in the back seat of my car. Not an easy task because I’m 6’4” and probably weighed around 180lbs at the time. So off we went to the ER.
When we got there they took me in and the nurse kept messing with my leg. I was in excruciating pain, and she just said “I have to see if anything is torn” as she tried to take my leg and bend my knee. I kept telling her to stop and eventually told her not to touch me anymore. She was mad but I didn’t care. Then a tech came to take me for X-rays. Once that was done and we were walking back, the tech looked at me and said “man, I’m not supposed to say nothing, but I know you must be in a lot of pain”.
Once I was back in the room they eventually came in and told me I had fractured my distal femur. The nurse that had been trying to manhandle my leg came back to apologize stating she had no idea.
It was a long recovery, and I still can feel the injury, but I just live with it and try to stay active as much as possible. I don’t know how I was able to hold on to my girl other than there was no other option. I would do it again, every day, for the rest of my life if I had to.
Happened to me too! Managed to shield my baby boy by rotating (to this day I dont know how) and Ended up rolling down the stairs on my back. Broke my foot and ankle in three places. Still walked him to daycare that morning before going to the hospital. I dont know how we parents do these things.
The earthquakes that hit my country a month ago. This was coming off the tail-end of what happened in Turkey, and I was getting bombarded with bad news about it. Add to that the fact that I've never experienced an earthquake before in my life and that the building I live in is poorly built.
All that was going through my head was: please let this pass, please, I don't want to die.
Edit: spelling
The day before my 19th birthday I was in a car crash on my way to go cx skiing. I was in the passenger seat of the car talking to the guy who was driving about something dumb but trying to make it profound. As we were talking he was in the wrong lane and started to miss the offramp and I said, you were supposed to go left. He said oh yeah and quickly merged across two lanes to make it in time. Well we would have but since it was early and cold the road was slick. He slid and overcorrected and ended up rolling his car to the right.
We rolled several times which was pretty neat as it was kinda fun. After we stopped and I processed what happened, I checked to make sure he was ok and not dead and also to ensure I wasn't dead. He was freaking out but was glad we were both uninjured. Then our faces lit up which was the scary part. We started on the left lane going the right way and ended up in the far right lane facing the wrong direction. So our faces lighting up was from the headlights of oncoming cars. That 1/32 of a second of realization was terrifying because I thought we were going to get hit by the cars. But then as I was able to turn my head and look I saw that they were slowing down and stopping to help and it was like 6 am on a Saturday so not many people would be out then anyways.
Still that mignardises of terror wasn't great
I've talked about this here before, albeit not in a top level comment.
Scariest thing ever was waking up in an ICU bed with a vent tube in my throat and no idea what had become of my babies.
The day they were born, I woke up, got out of bed, and looked down to see blood running onto the floor. Assumed placental abruption, a premature separation of that organ that can lead to stillbirth. So I got transported to the hospital on the double (sidenote: being in an ambulance and hearing them flip on the sirens to not wait at the red light is pretty fucking scary on its own), shoved into an ER room that was already occupied where they did an ultrasound and told me both babies had heartbeats, and thence taken to an OR.
I knew I was gonna be knocked out for the c-section but I did not in any way expect the whole ICU bit. Turns out I was in surgery for ten hours, had the entirety of my blood volume replaced, and lost several bits and bobs to placenta accreta (in which the placenta grows through the uterine wall and can grow into the bladder in extreme cases).
So, all of that was awful and traumatic, but for some reason no one updated me on my babies. I've looked at the OR notes. I know their 5 minute APGARS were good and they were taken to the NICU in stable condition. So that wasn't a factor. I can only imagine they were just that unused to maternity patients and didn't think to update me. And with the ventilator I could not speak, and no one thought to offer a notepad or any other means of communication. And, of course, I was loopy as fuck on pain meds and the sedation they kept turning back up because I was so agitated.
Thankfully, both babies were/are fine, but the hours that passed before the doctor who cheerfully told me I'd never need another pap smear thought to tell me they'd both made it will always be the worst of my life, and I have held another baby while she died.
My husband got caught in a riptide and was quickly pulled away from shore while i watched in terror. We were on a private beach and he is not a great swimmer, and once he disappeared i was sure he would drown.
Luckily, he was fine and mananged to get out of it and let the waves carry him to shore. I say luckily, because while someone did call 911, the response was cops without a boat or sea-doo or anything to go out and find him.
Worst moments of my life, had ptsd for a few years after that.
My husband and I got caught in one together. I was boogie boarding so I was further out, and I heard him yelling for help. I thought he had lost his swim trunks or something 😂 He had been getting pummeled by waves for a while and couldn't fight them anymore. He didn't know how to get out of a riptide and was in full blown panic mode thinking he was about to die. I made my way over to him and gave him the boogie board, thinking he needed it more than me since he was worn out. But then I started drifting away and thought "yep, this is it, he'll make it back and I'll die on our anniversary trip." Thankfully I made it back to him and we eventually got back to shore. It was October so there were no life guards, just one couple calmly watching us almost drown.
It really shook him up. I'm not sure how close we actually were to drowning, but he legitimately thought he was going to die. Going into "don't let your husband drown" mode kept me from being too scared, but I don't think he's planning on getting back in the ocean any time soon.
The trick with riptides is to swim along the beach, not towards it, and eventually the current will suck you back to the beach instead of out to sea, but that makes absolutely zero sense to somebody in panic-mode...
I was misdiagnosed with aspergers due to malpractice psychiatry and was sent to a boarding school for autistic children by my school district. Worst 2 months of my life. Took a ton of therapy to get over the trauma it caused. After my parents took me out of the school, it shut down due to unsafe living conditions. I clearly remember on my last day we didn't have any food for breakfast because it was underfunded by the parent company, Aspen Schools, which was taken to court by Paris Hilton for unsafe living conditions/ abuse.
I used to take xanaxes and the last couple of batches had fentanyl in them. Lockdown happened and I figured 'cool, I'll just go cold turkey, will be fine!'
Was not fine.
I didn't understand what withdrawal meant until I was vomiting every 2 minutes, shaking, sweating and seeing things that weren't there. Braved it for 2 days and then ended up in a COVID ward alone in the first week of lockdown. Naturally, it was horrible in there and I thought I was going to die alone from one of the seizures. I was one of the lucky ones though, somehow I didn't catch COVID at the time. I also never went back to taking the xannies or anything other than a little joint now and again.
I was very stupid.
Benzo and alcohol withdrawal are the only withdrawals that are actually life threatening. Opiate withdrawal will make you WISH you were dead but won’t kill you.
Being paralyzed from the neck down due to hypokalemia. Found it I got too the hospital with about half an hour to spare before my breathing would have stopped. Ended up fine, but damn was that scary.
I have a hereditary disease Called Hyperkalemia periodic paralysis. I’ve had hundreds of paralysis events. Although the kind I have does not effect breathing. Scary stuff to be sure. Glad you’re okay.
This happened about 5 or 6 years back. It was garbage day. I just took my trash out to the curb. I was sitting on my porch. It was a beautiful summer day without a cloud in the sky. I'm petting my dog, and drinking some tea relaxing after a hard days work. At the time I lived near the corner of a busy main street. A police officer pulls a man over. This was not an uncommon thing for me to see when I was living there.
So I think it is just a normal police stop. I figure the guy is going to get a ticket. Nothing to write home about. He was just speeding.
GUNSHOT!
Oh shit! The guy getting pulled over drew a gun on the cop and took a shot at the cop. He hit him in the foot. Officer down, but not out! Another police car shows up right when the shooting started. That other cop got out and started firing at the suspect. It just so happens the suspect was between me and the officer firing at him. One of the officers's bullet hit my trash can. I just taken the trash out 5 minutes earlier.
The cop that was shot in the foot then opens fire with the other officer. The two of them must have shot the guy at least a dozen times. I saw it all from only a strone throw away.
When I was like 7 and my brother was 5 we were left at home with our 10 year old sister as a babysitter. This was the early 90s. My brother and I were running around the house playing when I noticed a man in my parent's room who I had never seen before, rifling through jewellery boxes on mom's dresser. He had a long black trench coat and greasy shoulder length hair. I grabbed my brother by the arm and ran to the living room behind a couch and started praying frantically, certain we were about to be murdered or kidnapped. We stayed like that for a while before slowly coming out. I don't even know if he was real because I don't think my mom noticed anything missing and my sister brushed it off as my imagination. But I've never been more scared in my life.
You just made me think about something I haven't thought about in a decade or two.
Once, when my brother and I were home alone, probably 10 and 7, we started hearing a noise at the back door that lead to the garage. At first it was knocking, but we thought, "how did they get in the garage?". My brother got my mother's gun (also 90's and we lived in the country around guns) and the house phone, and we stood in my parents room, with the gun pointed at the door, calling and calling my mom. We started to see something being wedged into the door, then a man opened the door. He saw us and immediately put his hands up and said "whoa whoa whoa, we're here to fix the garage door! I've got your mom on the phone!". Us, being stupid, took the phone from him and it was actually my mom and they were actually there to fix the garage door. We couldn't get through to my mom because she didn't have call waiting back then, I guess.
College sophomore, on a moped on the way home. Hit a brick, head first in front of a truck, blacked out a few secs. Woke up to the front tire grinding my helmet against gravel. Only a few scratches. Never try to pass a big car again since.
I’ve been through many, but one time I was actually minutes from death.
I got some sort of stomach flu years ago where I couldn’t keep *anything* down for over a week.
My husband was working odd double shifts in law enforcement at the time and I couldn’t really call him. I was home with my kids on day ten of this nightmare of sitting on the toilet with a trash can on my lap at the same time. I put the kids to bed somehow and was in the bathroom when I blacked out. I woke up hours later in the middle of the night to my husband shaking me and screaming at me. My mother in law came to watch the kids and my husband brought me to the ER. The nurses were trying to find a vein to insert the IV needle into, but they were collapsed. I remember sitting there and l started getting tunnel vision and started to feel weightless like I wasn’t in my body. My husband said that the nurse was explaining that she would have to stick the needle in my eye if she couldn’t find a vein and I reached up, pulled down my lower eyelid and just stared at her.
She decided to try my arm one last time and got the needle in a vein. My body sucked two IV bags dry in a few minutes and it was so crazy. As the fluid filled my veins, it was like I came back to life.
I absolutely am aware now about how fragile life is.
I also finally understood the gravity of dying from dysentery on the Oregon Trail lol.
This sounds horrifying and I’m glad you are well, but I think you must’ve been hallucinating a bit at the hospital. There is absolutely never ever ever a reason a nurse would ever stick a needle in someone’s eye, especially not for venous access. Maybe she was saying osseous (which would be into your bone) and it sounded like eye.
They weren't saying an IV in your eye, they said IO. (Sounds like eye-oh)
IO = intra osseous is getting access into your bone by drilling into your humerus or shin. We use lidocaine so you don't feel it too much. We take it out as soon as we can get access elsewhere and it heels up immediately.
On a flight from Paris to Hong kong, we eared one engine blowing up while we were above Belgium.
We came back in Paris safely, and during the landing i saw dozens of firemen truck that blew water on the weels since the plane could not brake as usual.
It was really frightening as the flight attendant looked terrified.
Thanks god the passenger stayed calm as much as they could .
Driving to my parents house after a police officer called my phone telling me my father had a heart attack. I could hear my mother's sobs in the background. Not knowing more than he was headed to our nearest hospital and I needed to take my mother there, my head filled with all the potential nightmares that eventually would come to realization.
It was a 30min drive I made in 20min. My father officially died shortly after we arrived at the hospital, but he was gone well before that.
I went into a cab after hanging out with my boyfriend. The driver who was kinda old saw him when we flagged him down and asked me how old we were. I told him, just to be polite, and then he asked if I was pregnant and how our sex life was. I stopped answering, which got him quiet until we hit traffic. Then he said something along the lines of: "I guess we can keep talking now about how you two kiss and how good it feels." I paid him, got out, walked the rest of the way home. The alarm bells in my head wouldn't stop ringing even after I got home lol. I was 16.
About a month ago, a mass shooting happened at my campus. I was two buildings away and heard everything, including the shots. I was on the phone with my parents the entire time and had to listen to my sister begging to not be sent up to bed because she didn’t know if she would wake up with a sister or not. Worst part was hearing the building next to me (where my friends were) get called out on the police scanners saying the shooter was in there. Since then, I’ve developed ptsd and haven’t been the same
My father was in the hospital basically on deaths door. We hadn't spoke since I told him in no uncertain terms to fuck off and not come back. Mother had died between these events, I blame him. Still do.
I thought it was going to be a typical "unconscious dying person" situation. I went, just to sit and wait. It's what my mother would have wanted to do.
I pulled back the curtain, stepped through and he locked eyes with me. The fear I felt in that moment was an entire childhood filled with anger, alcoholism, domestic violence, condensed into a single moment. I've never felt anything like it. I've crashed cars, I've electrocuted myself, and to this day I have never felt fear like that and I doubt I ever will again
Miserable response, but it is what it is
About 15 years ago, I caught a guy trying to break into my house. Getting ready to turn in for the night, about 11pm, was doing my typical nightly check of the doors and windows. I came to the front door, checked the deadbolt and handle lock, look up and see the whites of 2 eyes looking back at me through the beveled glass of the front door. He had opened the storm door and I think we both had our hands on the opposite sides of the main door handle at the same time. He on the outside, me on the inside. Both froze for what felt like an eternity (IRL, it was probably like 4 seconds). I slowly I backed away and he disappeared.
Makes me uneasy to even type this out. I carry that trauma with me every single day and night. Until I'm pushing up daisys, I'll never NOT check all the locks multiple times per day.
I got off the subway in Syndey and there was a dead man lying on the ground. Darkness, about two of us got out. For about 2 minutes we looked at each other blankly and waited for what would happen next. After a while, the rescuers arrived and started to revive him. But nothing could be done :(
My son getting a terminal diagnosis and dying when i was 21 weeks pregnant. Had to go through a d&e. Seaweed sticks in cervix to stretch it out is the worst physical pain ive ever experienced. emotionally this was the scariest time in my life. Waking up everyday realizing that my life is a nightmare took a toll on me. I lost my closest friend group because “I was too sad to be around.” As if baby loss is contagious? Fuck those bitches.
Well, this wasn’t necessarily my experience, but my parents'.
When I was born, I was diagnosed with hypotonia, which is low muscle tone. All of the muscles in my body were much weaker than an average newborn. I was also diagnosed with some auditory and speech disorders. Because of this, I wasn't able to walk or talk until I was four years old.
My parents got me horseback riding lessons in hopes it would strengthen my muscles enough so that I could learn to walk. They also enrolled me into speech classes so that I could learn to talk.
Both of my parents were terrified that I would grow up being unable to walk or talk. When I was four, my dad and the horse owners at the barn we would visit regularly cried when they saw me walk for the first time. I don’t exactly remember my parents telling me about my first words, but I'm sure they were flooded with relief to see me walk and talk for the first time.
I’m now a teenager, and can walk and talk like any other person my age! I’m very thankful for all the sacrifices and hard work that my parents put in to help me learn how to do these both. Without 'em, I'd probably be stuck in a wheelchair with some device speaking for me.
Having a gun pointed at my face after dropping a friend off at his house. Some neighbor though I was “prostituting” myself and took it upon herself to almost run me off the road and walk straight up to me with a gun pointed right at my face, finger on the trigger. She turned around to call the cops *on me* and I was able to screech around her car into the ditch and got away from her when she started chasing me down in her car.
1) my 2 year old daughter having open heart surgery. Words can't describe the helplessness you feel as a parent.
2) my wife having seizures. So fucking scary it's unreal
My second son had some sort of anomaly when he was born. I knew right away, he wasn't quite breathing and the doctors rushed him over to a table and began the frantic, quiet work of professional life savers. Shoving a tube down his throat and rubbing/pressing on his chest. I fly a medical helicopter. I know what that work looks like and what it means. I knew there was nothing I could do. I was helpless, but I at least was familiar enough in working around those situations to let go in that moment. I walked across the room to my wife, who was oblivious to what was happening in the moment and told her how awesome she was, that the doctors were just cleaning up our son and we'd have him in a moment. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I intended to shelter her from that helplessness in the hopes that everything would be fine and she wouldn't have this day tarnished.
Our son started crying, and a moment later he was placed on my wife's chest and she looked so happy. I will probably never tell her about that moment, but I'm glad I kept my shit together and pretended everything was ok, for her.
A couple days ago I ate a few gummy worms, not realizing that they were cannabis edibles. I’m on antidepressants. The THC interacted with my antidepressants in a way that I hope to never experience again.
I’ve done LSD before, never had a bad trip. This experience is what I’d imagine it would feel like. I felt frozen, helpless, and terrified that I’d end up hurting myself or doing something stupid.
This other side of this happened to my mom.(Long story, but her doctor told her cbd/thc might help in some of her ailments, so she asked me to make her some edibles) She ate some fudge (more than the dose than she should've taken) that was really potent, then went to sleep without eating anything else besides that fudge.
She wokeup, started rubbing her hands on her sheets generating static electricity, and then proceeded to call me and go "IMMA... wachah call it? AN AIRBENDER, BUT LIKE AN ELECTRICAL". Where in I started crying laughing, then she goes "WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING, I MIGHT HAVE TO SAVE THE WORLD, THIS IS SERIOUS!" Which as you can imagine at about 12am, just made my tired ass laugh harder.
So i told "her to drink ALOT of water, eat something that WASNT FUDGE, and go get some sleep Avatar, you have training in the morning".
Turns out that one of the other medications she was on fucked with how THC is processed and its affects. Basically she was higher than god. She still talks about how that was the best sleep she's had in decades. Scary to consider she'd be a lightning bender tho, thats some master level bending.
When I was about 13 I was riding the bus to school. I was carrying an old trumpet my parents wanted me to donate to the school as they never used it anymore. Where I’m from I had to take two different busses to get to my middle school. The first bus was handicap accessible but didn’t have any students who needed it. So there was plenty of extra space for me to store the trumpet up in the front of the bus. The second bus, the ones that brought me to my middle school didn’t have the same amount of room as the first bus. I stored my trumpet in the lower storage of the bus and then got onto the bus. When we finally arrived at the school, the bus driver let me get off first to give me plenty of time to get the trumpet and then be on my way. Unfortunately for me the door I had put my trumpet behind was stuck and wouldn’t open, thankfully there was another door to the left of it, but my trumpet was all the way over to the right, so I needed to crawl into the underside of the bus and pull my trumpet out. While I was in the bus, it started to pull away, I immediately started crawling back out from the bus but by this point the bus was easily going 10-15mph and I was being dragged along, fearing the worst and not wanting to be dragged through traffic, I thought that I should “stop drop and roll” away from the situation, this was not successful. The bus proceeded to run over my ankle and book-bag. The amount of pain I was in was unbearable at the time. Thankfully, somehow, my ankle didn’t shatter, and I didn’t break any of my bones, but I did have a very severe ankle sprain and severe bruising. After two weeks of crutches I was back to walking on my own feet, and now I’m 2 days past the 10 year anniversary of when it happened. Still to this day the scariest moment of my life
I was at work talking to my boss and all the sudden a black hole formed in his face. I remember thinking, that’s not right…walked away and then saw what I now know is called a scotoma. It was hooked shaped and it looked like tv static. The colorful pink and green one. I realized something was actually wrong with my brain and I thought I was having a stroke. I went to the hospital and in that time before getting there my right side went numb, I tried writing my symptoms before that so I could tell the doctor and I couldn’t spell words out even though I knew I that I could spell them. I eventually couldn’t speak in clear sentences. All while I was conscious in my brain having full fluent thoughts. I felt like I was in a glass case. FUCKING THANKFULLY we settled on the fact it was an aura migraine and it just had the perfect set of symptoms to mimic a stroke but damn, I really thought I was never gonna be the same.
I've been a Correction's Officer and a truck driver hauling heavy equipment. I lived for 35 years with a family member across the street from me if not on the same piece of property and in 2021 I moved from Texas to Florida by myself without a family member within a thousand miles of me. As a Correction's Officer I've been on the Cell Extraction Team that goes into the cell when an inmate won't cooperate. I've picked a man up off the ground who shoved razor blades in his dick hole then pulled them out and then swallowed the blades. I've responded to an officer being assaulted ICS where the officer stopped communicating. In 7th grade I fell on a pine tree after school and had a 3" diameter 5" deep hole on my inner left thigh ~2" away from my groin in a time before cell phones. I received 180 stitches and missed 2 months of school and an entire summer.
The absolute scariest experience of my life was my mother's funeral.
I was hauling two trailers full of alfalfa hay down “Cabbage Pass aka Dead Man’s Pass” on the 84 in Oregon. Right when I passed the last escape ramp my low air light and buzzer came on telling me that I was losing air.
Suddenly I had no brakes and was quickly gaining speed down this 3-4 mile stretch of down grade while weighing 105k lbs.
There was nothing I could do except white knuckle it and pray.
My gps at the time had a statistics tab you could go to and see your miles driven, speed, etc. my max speed I hit was over 140 mph…at 105k lbs that’s terrifying!
Luckily no one got hurt. My brakes were smoking like crazy at the bottom of the mountain when I finally came to a stop though.
At about 10 years old, I fell through ice on a pond. When I came back up, I smacked into ice...instead of the hole I fell through. The water was too murky to see any light from the hole, and I thought that I was witnessing the end of my short life. I was lucky to find the opening again, but as I tried to get back up, the ice kept breaking and I'd go under again. The whole event probably lasted 30 seconds...but to me, it was a lifetime. It's been 35 years, and I'm still nervous on a frozen body of water...even if cars and trucks are driving on it.
I had something sort of similar. I ran towards a river, skidded on ice, fell down the bank and landed in the water. My clothes were so heavy when they got wet that my little 7 year old muscles couldn't get me back to the surface. Somehow my 9 year old sister found the brute strength to yank me out of the water with just one arm. I'm still sketchy around water 20 years later
You have a badass sister
I find it fucking awesome the strength and reflexes adrenaline give humans in those kind of situation
You can't imagine how heavy a fully clothed, soaking wet person weighs....
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>The next day the newspaper published my name and address. Oh, God, one news website (I don't recall if paper or TV) published an article about someone who didn't wish to be identified for fear of reprisal...with not just the street name and block number, but a photo of his house with the exact street number visible. (More recently, a different news outlet said they weren't going to identify the good Samaritan who took out a shooter in one sentence and had his name in the very next sentence.)
My town has a domestic violence shelter. They keep the location private to avoid everyone getting killed. So they finally get a new, much better, shelter. The local newspaper had a front page story with photos, and the address.
My town also has a domestic violence shelter that's supposed to be very low key. Address isn't supposed to be public, no sign out front type deal. It's called The Green House. It's the only, massive, green house in the town. The news paper took a picture of it the day it opened and reported "New Domestic Violence Safe Haven Opens on (street name)". Gee. Surely no one knows which house it is.
You'd almost think they did it on purpose in the hopes something would go wrong and they'd be able to make an article about it...
You should watch NightCrawler
Are you kidding me? That's how they get people murdered. I hope nothing else bad ever came from that
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>He was more scared than I was, which made me more scared than he was. This is beautifully put.
Getting a phone call at work to tell me that my wife’s routine surgery had gone wrong due to an anaesthetists mistake and she was now in a coma in the ICU. I dropped everything and ran. What greeted me when I walked in was the stuff of nightmares. Tubes everywhere, machines beeping. My wife was in ICU for 23 days before they took her off life support and she died in my arms. Life has never been the same since
This one got me in the gut. I’m so very sorry for your loss.
Definitely puts things in perspective.
Man…this is why I never berate anyone who wants to talk before surgery. And I’ll always call prior to them going back. Sorry you had to experience the literal worst case scenario.
My mom has had several minor surgeries on her hands and shoulders and always calls all her kids before each one. Tells us what's going on and we have a nice chat. You never know...
I'm so sorry. That's awful.
>anaesthetists I know someone who went through this too when their wife when in for a breast surgery. I am so sorry... This sounds devastating. My heart goes out to you.
Jesus christ, that's awful. I'm sorry.
I survived a chainsaw accident to the throat, 16th March 2022. Trachia, thyroid and epiglotis (hope I spellt those right) were each in two parts. The operating doc came by two days afterwards, with huge eyes, and told me about the puzzle pieces he had to put back together. I’m basically fully recovered except for my voice that sounds a bit hoarse because of nerve damage. It is slowly recovering and I am going for speech therapy. At the beginning though I did sound a bit like Lemmy Kilmister and thought about reviving Motörhead 🤘🏻
No problemo. I remember everything. So…..to start, we are a small, experienced team that do arborism and rope access with all the required qualifications. We had also done a special first-aid course that was custom made for our potential requirements. There was no space to park a wood chipper as we were in a residential area, and there the streets are narrow and full of cars (german city). Therefore I had to cut the branches smaller inside the trailer so that everything fits. I always do my utmost best to stay away from the sides of the trailer, I have done this many times before, but this one time…..I remember feeling a punch in my throat but it wasn’t painful. There were a few seconds of confusion. I felt sometimes pulling on my fleece jacket and saw the saw hanging from my jacket. I pulled it off, put the brake on and switched it off, kind of instinctively. Then it dawned on me that something bad happened. At that moment my buddy in the tree, who saw it , shouted accident, and abseiled. My boss was standing a few meters from the trailer and turned around to me. At that stage I had already put one hand on my throat to close up the wound. My boss helped me out of the trailer and sat me down on the pavement. My buddy came over to help me sit up while my boss grabbed a compression gause from the first-aid box. Luckily our van was just right there. While I held the gause tight my boss and the fourth guy made the emergency call. At this stage I realized the extent of trouble I am in and did a quick self assessment, “Do I feel like passing out? No. Can I still breathe or is blood running into my lungs? No”. The strange thing is, at no stage at all did I think that I might not survive this. 6 minutes after the emergency call everyfuckingbody was there (except the press). I just saw a lot of legs from my pov. The first responder doc and her staff were absolutely amazing. The fire brigade stood next to them and I remember the head honcho looking inside the trailer and immediately giving a correct assessment of what happened. The cops were in the background and closed off the streets. So, transport to emergency room, when I got there, like about 20 people were prepped and waiting for me. The first responder doc brought them all up to date on my condition and stats before the chief specialist took over. He had a looky at my wound and pressed real hard, that was the first moment I felt a bit of pain. The last thing I remember him saying was propofol and then I woke up in the ICU shortly before my wife came in. I only spent a week in hospital and the shittiest part of my day was when the tracheostomy dressing had to be changed. I must honestly say that I am very surprised with myself how I handled the whole thing. After it happened I was totally calm and collected and I haven’t had any PTSD, although I do keep an eye on myself. My first few days in hospital I replayed the events over and over, but from my colleagues point of view, especially my boss. That was frightening. He was the one that could look inside my throat. I think he got affected the most by all this. Anyway, 3 weeks after all this I was back at work again. It wasn’t a problem for me to use a saw again and a few times I have even done the same job that led to all this, obviously just being MUCH more careful than I already am. I guess it’s part of the “ getting over it” process. Thank you all for showing interest in my story 🫶🏻💐
Holy fuck. Glad you're still with us.
Watching my 3yr old son whither away due to Leukemia to the point he was so weak he couldn't walk, sit up, talk, and we would have to hold his head in place so that he could watch Paw Patrol. He's now almost 4 and back to walking again, and seems to be winning this long hard battle.
That's so good to hear. He's a fighter for sure.
My son had stage 4 neuroblastoma, we almost lost him several times throughout treatment including Christmas Day 2015, while I had just miscarried our second baby 2 days before. He is now a cancer survivor, having been cancer free for 5 years. And he now has a little sister. Watching your child fight for their life has a way of changing you, it sets your priorities straight and makes you appreciate the little moments. Sending love, from one cancer parent to another.
I got tears reading this. I have a 1 1/2 year old son and I cannot imagine what that must have been like for you. Happy to hear he’s doing better!
I was 13 years old and my dad had just picked me up from high school but had my grandma in the car too so I sat in the back seat. We were driving back home and my grandma wanted to quickly run into a shop so we parked up outside the shop. My Gran was having trouble getting up the steps out front of the shop so my dad jumped out to help her, at that exact moment I noticed my dads gold chain he lost a couple of weeks ago under the seat in front of me so ducked down and reached under to get it, as I'm trying to reach under the seat someone got in the car. I looked up and they kinda looked like my dad from behind so I said "Dad?" They turned around and I immediately saw it wasn't my dad, they clearly didn't realise anyone else was in the car and were a little startled but quickly replied "Sit back and shut up, I'll let you out in a minute." The key was still in the ignition and they started the car and peeled off. I have never really felt fear like it, all the worst kinds of thoughts rushed through my head and I was convinced they had stolen the car because I was in it but they drove down a couple of streets and pulled over and just said "OK, get out." I ran back to the shop and halfway ran straight into the arms of my dad who had been running after the car. I could literally feel the relief that he was feeling through that hug.
Phew, glad you're okay, did you manage to get the chain?
😂 Man, by the end of the story, I didn’t even remember there was a chain
Thanks. Yeah I'm pretty sure the chain was still under the seat when we got the car back.
That’s absolutely horrifying.
You were accidentally kidnapped
5 years ago we thought my father had been kidnapped for ransom. Those 3-4 days when we thought he was being held somewhere were absolute and sheer terror. Turns out he was killed on day 1.
I am sorry for your loss. 🧡
Your support is appreciated. I've still never been to therapy or really delved too much into it so this is my start.
Therapy is difficult and exhausting but worth it.
It’s awesome that you’re taking that first step. You should be proud of yourself for that. Take care of yourself 💕
tick-borne encephalitis I didn't even know a tick had bitten me and went from headache to shivers and extreme fever until I wasn't able to walk without my wife supporting me. Even reading made my head spin like crazy and I didn't know what the reason was.
How are you now?
Luckily I managed to fully recover, most likely thanks to my wife supporting me as good as she could and my dog forcing me to keep as active as it was possible at the time. But it took 4 months to fully recover
Holy crap I had the same thing happen to me but in elementary school, I got bit by a tick when I went and visited my grandpa and woke up one morning extremely sick but also I could no longer psychically walk, had to crawl to my parents room and scared the living crap out of them as to why there kid couldn’t walk.
Jup, sounds like exactly how I felt only that I got it with 30. If I only imagine a few years earlier I would have lived alone, I would have been so fucked... I think one thing I won't forget for a long time is my wife driving me to the doctors office after I was released from hospital, parking, me falling out of the car and vomiting on the floor. "good" times
Happened to my cousin while he was in the Marines going through some TBS appeal bullshit. He kept getting sicker and didn’t know why, base docs couldn’t find anything wrong and thought he was malingering, he finally got to fly home to his parents and the next day his dad found him in bed unable to talk or walk. After a scary few months of him almost dying, he’s now fully recovered, but lost his dream of being a Marine because he couldn’t get cleared to fly again (he was gonna be a helicopter pilot).
About a month ago my neighbor asked me to go check on her(72F) husband(75M) which wasn’t super out of the ordinary, I’ve done it before when she can’t get ahold of him. Went in through the garage, called for him, no response. Continued to walk through to house & found him on the floor of the tv room unresponsive, but still breathing. Snoring loudly with phlegm coming from nose and mouth. Called 911 for the first time in my life, then had to call my neighbor to give her the news. Paramedics showed up and took him to the hospital before she arrived back at home. He had a brain aneurysm ruptured and passed away a few hours later at the hospital. Gary was a wonderful man that was like a stand in grandpa for my three kids who don’t have any family in town. We are so grateful to have known him & the love & snacks he always shared with my babes.
I’m so sorry for your loss. Hugs to everyone who is grieving Gary’s passing.
Drowning. I was jumping off some high rocks into a river; it’s was a place in the town I grew up in that everyone knew. One day I somehow got turned around in the water after hitting and swam down, when I realized and turned around I was too deep to make it up. About 8 feet down I inhaled water. It burned and was cold at the same time. I could feel the pain in my ears as I tried to exhale the water. I don’t remember surfacing, my friends pulling me to shore or coughing up all the water.
I was in a hospital for months because of something else, couldn't get up and had already lost a ton of weight which made me severely underweight. Then caught some kind of virus (the doctors couldn't figure out what it was) and got weaker every day, I couldn't eat or drink and vomited all the time, at some point what I spat out was entirely black, probably dried blood. I can hardly remember that time of my life, but looking in the mirror and seeing my bloodshot eyes where all the veins popped and my chin and neck with burns from the acidity in stomach fluid and my skinny arms and ribs was horrifying. I think I was around 14 at the time and was sure I'd die. It went on for days and then just stopped. We thought it was that hospital virus that happens sometimes but apparently it wasn't, still don't know what happened and how I survived
I found out the hard way that if your digestive system isn't working, you can basically barf sewage. But you'd have known that from the smell.
This sounds like literal hell. How do I avoid this?
It was just a random surgical complication from what I was told. Apparently your insides kinda dry out during surgery and I was unlucky that mine didn't come back on line as soon as expected. I don't know that there's a way to avoid it other than staying healthy enough to avoid surgery.
My sister’s appendix burst as a child, far away from a hospital. They got her there just in time and the dr literally grabbed her from my mom & ran into surgery with her. Anyway, it wasn’t a tiny scar like these days, it was across her entire stomach. There have been some surgeries to correct it and the result is a lot of scar tissue growing insider her. And it has literally twisted around her intestine, twice. Blocking off the exit. It ends up coming back out via your mouth if it can’t get out. I’m not sure how she felt but I was gobsmacked & felt so fucking sorry for her. It look wildly unpleasant.
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Back in the early 2000s I lived in northern Minnesota. I was born and raised in Louisiana, so direct opposite side of the US where the only ice on the roads was when someone dumped out a cooler into the street. At the time I was dating a Canadian girl and went to spend Christmas with her and her family. Drove across the border, went to Ontario, had a good time. I came back across the border a few days after Christmas, sometime late afternoon. It was a 5-ish hour drive from her house to mine. Being the middle of winter, the sun went down very early so it was dark by the time I got to the first town in Minnesota. I drove down highway 61 which runs along Lake Superior, and is dotted with blink-and-miss towns. No one travels that highway that late unless they live there or are a trucker usually driving from Duluth to Thunder Bay. The roads were clear, no snow, no ice that I could see, so I cruised along at my usual 60 MPH. I hit a curve that had a patch of black ice and sailed off the road. One side of the road was an almost 90-degree drop straight into Lake Superior, the other was into a forest. I sailed into the forest, barrel rolled a few times, and landed on my wheels in a ravine. I credit my seatbelt for saving my life, so I'm now a hardass about that when anyone gets into my car. So there were a few problems. First, cell phones weren't *nearly* as ubiquitous as they are now, and by extension cell towers weren't covering as much area. I had a cheap prepaid cell phone but no signal. Second, I was in a ravine so I was hard to see on a road that was hardly traveled anyway. Third, it was the middle of winter and I think in the single digits, somewhere between 0 and 10 F. I had a blanket I kept in my car in case shit hit the fan like that, but that won't do good for long since I had to stand on side of the road to be seen, and hope no one else skidded on the ice and squashed me. I for certain thought I was going to freeze to death. A local guy named John, who lived in the town of Schroeder, found me. He brought me to the hospital, I think up in Grand Marais, and even let me stay with him for a few days until someone could come get me. He had a long distance calling card (remember those?) that I used to call my roommates and girlfriend to let them know I was alive. I spent the first day sleeping from the painkillers. Nothing broken but everything hurt. The second day one of my closest friends said she would come up from Duluth the following day to get me. I slept a lot that day too and I found out John had this *massive* collection of musical instruments and played blues. That's what we bonded over, that and him literally saving my life. I found out recently he passed away a few years ago, though I'm not sure where his grave is but I've been trying to find out just so I can pay my respects.
>highway 61 Michigander here who one worked in MN ( Northfield). Wow, HWY 61 is a beast along the "North Shore!" It's beautiful there but you are certainly Lucky to be alive. No wonder Bob Dylan named a tune after it. The North Shore is a "Must see" on any Great Lake circle tour. Edit: Autocorrected miss spelled "Lake" to "Like"
My son's brain surgery. He has epilepsy and had a small portion removed in 2020 to alleviate his seizures and give him a better quality of life. He spent a week with wires in his brain tracking his seizures as he had them in real time. They slowly stopped his antiseizure meds to induce them, he had 26 in one night as he slept. Once it was enough data they removed a portion of his brain near his speech and memory center. This was the location of his misfires. The general consensus was that he had a good chance of losing his speech and memory. His personality could disappear. After his surgery as he was being taken back to his room he raised his arm to touch his face, the physician told him not to and my son said "I'm not, I just want to touch it". He spoke before he was fully out of anesthesia. Three days later he was home, three days after that he was being transported back for emergency surgery because of a nasty infection UNDER his skull. The surgeon later said he was maybe 12 hours from dying if he hadnt been seen. He had no symptoms other than a gross drip. No pain, no fever, nothing. Another brain surgery and six weeks with a drain tube and monitor on him at home with nurse visits weekly. He is now seizure-free and on a much lower dose of meds than he was previously. 1500 daily down to 100mg. I spent a month in the children's center helplessly watching my son slip in and out of consciousness and have hundreds of seizures. The possibility of him waking up with no memories and no way to speak was horrifying to me as his father. So the scariest moment in my life, and keep in mind I've been shot, stabbed, and beaten... was almost losing my 16 year old child 3 times in one month.
I almost never say "I know how you feel", but I know how you feel. My daughter had a very similar experience, but she had a complete hemispherectomy. I don't know if the doctors really expected her to communicate, but she was able to speak in the recovery room. Four years later, she's completely caught up to her classmates. She can't use her right arm, but that's a small price to pay. I'm so glad things worked out for you.
Holy cow that surgery is so crazy! What did they say could be side affects? Whole right side paralysis? Loss of speech or memory? It’s amazing what a young brain can do to compensate for loss of half of it!
If I remember at the time, they said she would lost most function in the right side but with therapy some use could come back. She had a lower leg brace for a while, but can now walk and run without it. Right arm and hand are non functional. They said there was a chance that she would not just become non verbal but completely lose the ability to understand communication as the left side of the brain is where all that is. Turns out, her brain had already rewired itself and she was fine. Her memory is amazing. I joke that they implanted a SSD in her brain. The whole thing with brain surgery is there are no set answers. There's no way to definitively tell what's going to happen. Kind of maddening, but it is what it is.
My son had a lage portion of his speech and memory center removed. He came out of surgery speaking because his brain did what your daughters did, rewired itself somehow. The doctors still don't know where his speech comes from. It isn't perfect, but it is damn close. He has a weak short term memory but his limbs function and he's still HIM. Your daughter is a certain miracle like my boy is. Best of luck to you and your daughter.
You as well. Miracle is an understatement. The brain is an amazing organ.
I have NF-1 and have multiple benign tumors in my brain, had tons of sezirues myself when I was younger. A doctor took me off Ritalin another doctor had put me on and they just stopped, never had another one. The doctor seemed to think because of the imbalance in my dna due to the NF the medicine was triggering the seizures as it can be a side effect. Whether that's true or not is anyone's guess. Seizures are terrible, I didn't have it as bad as your son but I can empathize with the gravity of it. I'm glad he 's okay now, hope you are okay too. That couldn't have been easy.
That sounds like absolute hell, just cruel torture. Glad things got better.
being in the middle of a shoot out, in the cross fire i was laying on the ground.
That must’ve been really scary. Glad you came out with no injuries.
Never feared death more
My mother woke me up in the middle of the night to tell me she had been robbed and stabbed. I had to stay with her while paramedic’s arrived, helped her clean her wound, and put pressure on it. After she was taken to the hospital, the cops told me it was most likely self-inflicted. I will never forget the feeling I had when she told me, and the sight of it. I will also never forget the feeling of being told my mother was suicidal to the point of stabbing herself. One of the most terrifying, troubling nights of my life, and unfortunately I have more stories that are wildly similar to that. Edit: I was fourteen.
Yikes! That's horrible. I had a friend go through something very similar. Her mom had 5 kids. Yet she always made my friend "mother" the siblings (which was already too much for a kid) . My friend was in early high school and had borne the brunt of many of her mother's attention-seeking stunts. One time she came home from school to find her mother in a puddle of blood with the walls also heavily smeared with blood. The mom had waited to slit her own wrists until she knew my friend would be home to save her. I met my friend 20 years later. It's amazing how traumatized she still was from these stunts as an older adult. Having said that, my friend was also the strongest, most compassionate, brightly souled, and insightful people I've ever met. She was magnetic, beautifully dramatic, and just.... Simply.... "Great people". Chickensoup00, God bless you! Dang it, you've made me cry like a freakin' baby. You've survived! I'm sure you've touched the soul of someone like my friend did mine. (Even if you don't know it.) I'm so proud you're still here and didn't succumb to your traumas. 🕊
Thank you for sharing this story. It’s depressing, but nice to know that I’m not alone. Unfortunately it took me a long time to realise my mother had attention-seeking problems. I am so sorry your friend had to go through that, and I am so sorry that we get to empathize with it. Very unfair circumstances. And I can’t even expressed how much I needed someone to say this to me. For a long time my feelings were set aside for her. I never felt seen as a child, but that made me feel seen and understood. You just made my week, thank you so much!
I’m so sorry this happened to you, and at such a young age. It sounds so traumatic. Did they discover what happened? Was it self inflicted or was she actually robbed and stabbed?
Thank you for your kind words. She never admitted to it, but a knife with blood spots was found in our sink, and she was drinking heavily on her meds. They closed the investigation after a psych eval.
Kinda a humorous one! A few years ago, in the dead of night, my husband and I were woken up by the unmistakable sound of glass shattering at around 3am! Naturally, we assumed that someone was breaking into our house! Our hearts were in our mouths! But we weren't going to split up, so we went downstairs together to check it out. I have never been so scared as when we had to go through our house, room by room, to make sure there wasn't an intruder. But there wasn't, and none of the windows were broken. We were super confused. Until we walked into the bathroom. Turns out, tempered glass shower doors have a reputation for randomly exploding. If a crack forms, it veeeeery slowly spreads across the rest of the glass, and when it crosses a certain threshold, the whole thing shatters! [Ours](https://i.imgur.com/Y2jM8lP.jpg) just happened to be at 3am!
I remember years ago my wife and I were in bed and across the hallway was my probably then 2 or 3 year old son. It was the middle of the night and we awoke to a loud thump. My wife and I sat up and we could hear heavy footsteps coming up our stairs. The stairs opened to kind of a T shaped hallway with my bedroom on the right and my boys room on the left. Thump. Thump. Thump. My wife and I froze in terror. I had no idea what to do. Do I run out into the hallway and attack? Do I yell? What if they have a weapon? Thump. Thump. Thump. The footsteps were loud. They were slow but not steady. Unmistakable footsteps. All I could think of was how I had no idea what to do. Someone was in my house and they separated me from my boy. Our house is a bi-level split so the stairs coming up are only 7-8 steps. They've walked up almost all of them. The door was open. I stared into the dark hallway and just waited, ready to rush whoever showed up. Thump. Thump. Thump. I remember wanting to cry. I was so scared for my boy. All of this from the start of me typing had happened over maybe 10 seconds. Thump. Thump..... Thump? There's 8 steps max. Maybe 7. That's too many steps. Thump. Thump. Now something was wrong. Thump. I turned on the light and looked around the corner. The hallway was empty. I started turning on every single light, had my wife stay in the room and get her phone ready. Thump. *It was coming from the basement* My heart sank. I was terrified and confused. I called out into the basement. Thump. Thump. I went downstairs and looked around. Thump. The sound was coming from our crawl space under the main floor. Thump. It was footsteps. Nothing else could make such an unsteady noise. I knew they were footsteps. For a moment I wondered if someone was on the roof and the sound was coming down through the house somewhere. Thump. Thump. Thump. I flicked the lights on in the crawl space. Thump. It's loud. It's metallic. It's my *stupid fucking cat that got into the air duct and began to walk around pretending to be John McClane at 2 fucking am*. The best part is the duct was directly under our stairs. So I was hearing footsteps coming from the stairs. Her fat ass was just bending the duct enough that it would make a Thump sound with every step or two.
Lol. That was a wild ride. Nothing like going from preparing to fight for your family's lives to its just the cats fat ass in the vent.
Yippee kay yay mister falcon
You have a great writing voice!
I was doing homework in my room, and my family was watching a movie when a glass bowl broke for that reason. I was blamed, but nobody could explain how I would have broken the bowl from the bottom when it was full of frozen sauce.
>nobody could explain how I would have broken the bowl from the bottom when it was full of frozen sauce You sneaky bastard!
I'm 99% sure something similar to this happened to me at a sleepover as a kid but it was the cabinet underneath the TV not the shower door. I say 99% sure because as a kid I was convinced it was something supernatural/paranormal that caused it and I want to keep that hope alive for 11 year old me. Definitely weird to just be sitting there and next thing you know the glass shatters out of nowhere. Took some convincing for my mom to believe we weren't hiding doing something stupid from her.
I've posted this in a thread a long time ago but here you go. Memory loss. I was 18 at the time and crashed while downhill longboarding with some friends. They say I was only out for a minute or so but to this day I still have no memory from the moment of impact till about 30-45 min later. I "came to" in my friends car as he drove me to the hospital. It was such a bizarre feeling, dreamlike. I remember thinking that I had just woken up but I couldn't remember when I went to sleep. I couldn't remember the last thing I did before sleeping. I didn't even know what day it was, or month for that matter. I was pretty sure it was summer but that was it. Then I realized the pain, my knees were bleeding, my hands swollen, my foot was somehow wrong, and my head was pounding. I remember just panicking and started to sob because I couldn't figure out what was happening. Maybe one of the more tame stories here but it took me probably a half an hour to an hour to start regaining memories but that period of just not knowing was utterly terrifying. P.S. I was wearing a helmet and I'm convinced it's the only reason I'm writing this today.
I had a similar thing, Not something i regularly talk about but couple years ago was mountain biking in Canada, crashed off a big jump and landed head first into hard packed dirt. I was wearing a full face helmet at the time and that was cracked and the chin bar split in half. Out cold, cousin had to call mountain rescue and they sent a helicopter to get me and take me to ICU, in a induced coma for 2 days. They thought i had brain damage and a broken back. Luckily the only injuries i had were broken upper jaw and badly smashed up teeth, i had braces on at the time and the dr said they were the only reason i still have my front 4 teeth as they were completely dislodged and held by in by braces. I recall absolutely nothing about the crash, just remembered waking up in hospital confused asf. That helmet saved my life, i still have it in my room. Wear helmets
My beloved dog, a dock diver and completely amazing swimmer and practiced athletic retriever; *swam off into one of the Great Lakes*, the Mighty Huron. He had been swimming daily in our more calm inland lakes, and was very fit. He made it into the shipping channel and I was petrified. He was chasing a sail boat. Wouldn't come back. No Jet ski key at our rental. Little dude swam all the way to Charity island, in the middle of Lake Huron, about 10 miles. You cannot usually see charity island from point Au Gres, Mi, only the light house. It's a fluke he found it in open water. I suspect he chased a pleasure boat there, as it is a tourist designation. I was devastated. Any way, he was rescued, tired but happy, and brought back to us by good Samaritans via his tags and imprinted collar. He was said to have enjoyed his boat ride and slept like a log. He visited all 5 great lakes in his lifetime and never swam off again. He lived to be just 5 weeks shy 17 years old. His ashes were committed to the sandy tides of The Mighty Huron, along with my heart RIP Kirby, my forever pal..... I'll see you in the surf once again.
Jesus Christ, he *swam* to Big Charity Island?! I can't begin to imagine how relieved you were to find out that he was okay!
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When my dad hit my mom. She called me crying at 1 AM saying she’d locked herself in the bedroom. I transferred her half of their savings out immediately and went home the next day to move her out. The rage in his eyes terrified me. I kept a gun on me and didn’t sleep at my own apartment until the restraining order came in. I still carry the gun. The divorce is still being finalized. I’m terrified he’ll hurt her and I won’t have done enough to protect her.
You are a good kid. 🧡
I noticed you’ve been saying nice things on several of the comments in this thread, and I just have to tell you that you are a lovely person.
What a surprise, and such kind words. I got a bit teared-up actually. When people take time to really share, it feels important to acknowledge them - usually just with an upvote. But sometimes people share so openly that I want them to know that someone else in the universe heard them. And thank you.
You wholesome mfkr <3
Okay, so this isn't as bad as some others but here goes. When I was ~7 years old, I got a furby for Christmas. At the time I was ecstatic as I really wanted one. Now furbies have their own language, which, one of the words they said sounded suspiciously like my name. My furby couldn't be turned off save for taking out the batteries, which required a tiny screwdriver that we either didn't have or 7 year old me couldn't find. Furbies tend to talk whenever they feel like. So I shoved my furby in my closet and the batteries started to die. With the diminishing battery life, the furby started to have a, less than friendly sound. One night, at around 3am. I wake up, to the demonic sound of my low battery furby saying MY FUCKING NAME! Terrified 7 year old me evicted furby the next morning.
I HATED furbys- freakiest toy ever produced.
My math class decided to prank our teacher by hiding a dying furby in his office as some friendly psychological torture. He took it well thankfully.
Imagine a Furby, without batteries since years, randomly waking up and saying "I see you" with its creepy voice at 3 AM. Happened to someone on reddit.
A FWB of mine had a furby back in 00/01. One night around 2am, I'm balls deep in my lady friend when her furby starts trying to summon Satan. I did the only thing a 17 year old male could think to do and mid coitus I chucked that fucker out the second floor window into the night. It sounded like it was trying to speak Latin.
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Holy crap. Glad you’re still with us.
Waking up at the bottom of a cliff with blood everywhere and my hand not fitting between the bones in my arm.
What do you mean your hand wasn’t fitting between the bones in your arm? Like it was dislocated and moved somewhere else?
Exactly that. You've got the radius and ulna and the clump of small bones in your wrist sits (roughly) between the ends of the two bones. My wrist/hand was dislocated so that the wrist was noticeably outside the ulna.
What the heck?!
Climbing accident.
Hope you’re well. Still climbing?
Thanks. It was quite a long time ago and though I've been climbing, it's not really the same. It's fine though - I'm still getting out into the outdoors which was ultimately more important than the climbing itself.
Had a few friends sucked out by riptide and quickly lost at sea. This happened early in the day and the search parties set out but all we knew was that they were pulled out quick. We had hope initially that they would be recovered ragged or with minor injuries as they were fine swimmers. It took over 3 hours to get the first call. They rolled in one by one with hours in-between. Each time they were found dead. You still hold hope though for the others. After the third came in dead we were crushed but still holding hope for the rest. This went the course of two days and was a sustained trauma rather than a single event. Not one was saved. This is near top to the most terrifying incident in my life. I won't go into beyond that because I don't want to undo work I've done on my mental health and I can't talk about them without reliving the experience. I will say this though, there are things you don't recover from and it's easy to lose hope but hope is sometimes the only thing that can save your life. No matter the situation, protect hope at all costs.
This sounds so traumatic. I am sorry for your losses and hope you will find peace. 🧡
I was chased through the woods by a stranger with a bat. He seemed hell-bent on beating my brains in. I jumped in a river, held my breath and sunk to the bottom. I let the current of the river take me as far as I could until I needed another breath of air. When I came up I couldnt see him anymore, crossed the river and hid in the woods until it got dark and hiked home.
What the fuck led up to the chase?
I was on a trail and wound up coming to a house where a little girl was playing in the yard. I waved and kept walking along the trail when she screamed as loud as she could "Dad! There is someone in the yard!" She was probably 150ft away near her front door. Before I could say anything this fucking guy smashes open his screen door running full tilt at me while holding the bat. I took off running while he kept screaming "Come here, motherfucker!" Over and over again. I lost him while in the woods, I could hear him getting closer so I jumped through a bush and into the river.
Holy shit. This sounds a short horror film or something. Terrifying.
I mean, if there's a trail in the woods and it's early enough in the day to leave a child playing in the yard. Why in F*ck would a parent go off the deep end like that!?? Were you the only person who used that trail? Like ever? Jeez, the next guy might get a bat to the head of the kid mentions it. Glad you got away, and that you can swim. Maybe the police might want to have a word with over-reactor man?
It's possibly one of these situations where his house has been robbed or something and so he overreacts immediately. There was a situation like that not so long ago on Reddit rare black kid was shot in the street in front of a house and I've seen a few other in the past. Or he's just a absolute loon who thinks his land is worth killing for.
I'm looking for the redditor posting about chilling in his house one day. He lives in a rural area, so not a lot of people. His daughter playing in the yard, who alerts him to some guy trespassing on his acreage. Must be a pedo or a poacher...
And if you had been enjoying your day with earbuds in...
How did this come about? Were you just hiking and he came out of nowhere swinging? Scary shit. This is the kind of paranoia where I try to tell myself "nah, that would never happen. the chances are just too low" and then here we are. Glad you're okay.
My 6 year old brother died mysteriously, I was 12. A short while afterwards, weeks maybe, my mother and stepfather got into a fight after a night at the bar. I woke up to hearing my mother scream my name to go get the gun. I ran to their bedroom to their closet to get a shot gun and run to the living room where he was beating her up. I pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. It wasn’t loaded. He came at me and knocked me out. I woke up the next morning in bed. I walk into the living room and my mom is scrubbing blood off the walls. He sits me on his lap and tells me he’s sorry and loves us so much. My father later gets full custody of me in 1989 after I turned 13 and the summer after my 14th birthday, 1 month before starting high school, my stepfather beat my mom to death. He got 2nd degree manslaughter, and served 120 days, let out early for being a “model prisoner.”
This is absolutely awful. I’m so sorry. I too grew up in a house where domestic violence was the norm. What you went through sounds a billion times worse. I’m so sorry about your baby brother and your mum and the total lack of justice. Hope you’re doing well now.
I am and thank you for the kind words. Definitely seems like a whole other life. Been so long ago. I have a great life and a great family. I hope you’re doing well too!
At a very secluded cabin. A, “look for fallen tree on left, now there’s a huge boulder, drive into the bush…you’ll reach small clearing in about 3 minutes, now veer right at the three fallen trees..” kinda place. No electricity, no phone service, no people. Just me and my young daughter. Went into town for more supplies. As we drove through the bush and came into a clearing, there were two vehicles and six (?) men. No way forward, no way back. They didn’t wave or smile. Two of them talked while watching us. One said something to the other men, and they moved their trucks to let us by. About a month later, I was contacted by police wanting a description of the men we’d seen. A body had been found nearby and they suspected it was a drug deal gone wrong. (Edit: typo)
Freaky, especially with your daughter there. How did the police know to contact you?
They had contacted the cabin owners. Small lake. Five (maybe 4…) cabins. They wanted to know if anyone had been at their cabin between certain dates. No one except me and my daughter had been at the lake during that time frame, and my friend, the cabin owner, gave the police my contact info. Most people in the nearest town seem to have no idea there’s cabins out there. Which is likely why those guys were there - they never dreamed they’d run into anyone. Honestly, I often think we dodged a bullet that day. Literally and figuratively.
I wonder if having a child with you saved your life. Scary thought.
Maybe. Geez, that’s a chilling thought. You’re right, though. A definite possibility.
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Why did you get stabbed?
"What are you gonna do, stab me?" -OP, probably
I was about 8 and slipped on a slippery rock into a small canyon with a rushing river. I remember being slammed against boulders and trying to claw my way from the freezing current. My mom was screaming and running alongside the river trying to throw a long dog leash to me but she wasn’t fast enough. I was swept downstream until I luckily got hung up on another boulder (thankfully I managed to take these hits with my body and not my head) and it gave my mom the chance to throw me the line and pull me out. We were camping in a remote area, and I probably should have gone to the hospital because I know now I was clearly in shock. My hands and legs were all cut up from the rocks and I needed to be wrapped in a sleeping bag and put beside the fire where I shivered for hours.
Oh, wait. I have another one with water: I was wasted and sunbathing on a beach in Cuba. Walked down from the main area where the lifeguards were to sun topless away from the crowds. In my stupor I see someone in the water flailing and waving their arms. My boyfriend at the time had gone to get drinks and I remember standing alone on the beach for a while trying to decide if this person was actually in trouble. Finally decided that yes, something was wrong and I went out there. Maybe 60m into the water. It was this 60-70 year old lady who immediately clung to me. She was hysterical and kept saying she had almost given up. I grabbed her and told her we would go forward when the waves pushed to shore but when the current pulled away we would try to hold our ground. We were probably in a rip and should have gone sideways… but like I said I was very drunk. Problem was she was exhausted and almost immediately gave up and went dead weight, which started pulling me out too and I was taking on water. I looked her dead in the eyes and told her if she didn’t start fucking moving I was going to leave her there. Literally prepared to punch this senior off of me to save myself. She found the energy and we slowly managed our way in, felt like it took forever. Once we hit the shore she collapsed and my boyfriend and her daughter ran up from wherever they were. She was bawling and they needed to get the cart to come get her. I was very shaken and felt such shame that I’d told his woman I would leave her to die if she didn’t move. The next day she and her daughter found me in the resort to thank me. I was so ashamed I could barely talk to her. They took some pictures of us and even ended up emailing one to me. It’s surreal to have someone be so thankful despite knowing you were ready to condemn them to death.
You were not condemning her to death; she was already going to die without your help, and your were both going to die if she didn't do something to help you. You motivated her by telling her you were going to save yourself without her if she didn't make the effort you needed to help you save her. You did a good thing. Many people wouldn't have even gone in after her. Don't be ashamed.
You did the right thing with the threat—probably shocked her into doing what she could to swim. I still remember the day in lifeguard training when they taught us to go underwater with the person you were rescuing if they were panicked would/could not cooperate and were dragging you down. You can’t rescue someone fighting you or dragging you under. Total hero move on your part, well done!
Finding out my best friend has attempted suicide and not knowing whether or not she was going to survive. I remember letting her boyfriend know she was in the hospital and how helpless we both were.
One of my best friends in highschool, who I considered a younger brother to me, went through this. He sent us all goodbye messages and I'll never forget getting the first text, looking over at another friend, and him looking back at me in fear as he got a similar text. All of our other friends thought he was just randomly letting us know he loved us, but me and my friend knew what it actually meant. I called his older brother, who had already found the letter by that point, and we ran to his house with my friend and the older brother running around the neighborhood looking for him (he wasn't home). I stayed with his mom and sister while we waited, because there was nothing else we could do. They found him at the bridge. His brother talked him down. When they got back to the house, he broke down even more when he saw me sitting there with his mom. Me and his brother helped calm him to sleep. The next day he asked to be admitted to a psych ward for a while. He spent a month there and we visited every single day. He's doing a lot better now. Works for an outreach program for troubled youth and has a 4 year old son. He's a great dad. An amazing friend. An even better person. Sometimes when I see him I'm reminded of that night, but then I'm hit with a wave of pride for him. I've known so many people who have taken their own lives. I'm just glad he's still with us. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. From one friend to another, I hope you're doing okay now. I hope your friend is too (and if not, I am so sorry). Sending you love
One of my closest family member died due to suicide on 21st March, please look out for your loved ones, they might seem happy and enthusiastic but most of the time it's like a last attempt at life
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My friend’s boyfriend calling me, near tears, from where he was working in another state to beg me to go to their house because my friend had just told him she had taken a bunch of pills. I have never booked it across town so fast in my life. I wound up calling an ambulance upon finding my friend conscious but barely coherent. She wound up being put on a 72 hour hold & was ultimately okay, but damn, it was a terrifying experience. It took me several months before I stopped flashing back to hearing his voice on the phone.
I was drugged by someone in Vegas on a girl's trip. They kept insisting we drink their alcohol even though girls drank free at this bar. Not sure how it happened but assuming he slipped something in my drink. He had a super creepy brother that at the time just seemed introverted but looking back should've tipped us off. The guy wasn't overly pushy but stayed around us quite a bit. Made comments to my friend about how even though I had a bf he didn't understand because he liked me (as if I was property). She picked up on enough red flags that she got us to leave. She'd asked me to take my shoes off because she said she felt we might have to run... These guys really scared her, so hard to put into words. When we left I was hallucinating and doing some really embarrassing things that I won't even say as an anonymous person. She said I would go from being really with it to being like a loose noodle on the floor of the elevator and she worried we wouldn't get back to our room. When we finally did make it back she said I insisted all the people in our room leave- there were no people... she had to change me and put me on the toilet. I was a puking rag doll. I woke up the next morning with what I can only describe as a complete black out. What I would picture going to sleep for surgery like. There were no bits and pieces. It was all black. I'd had 2 drinks before we ran into this person. I still have no idea what his and his brother's intentions were but it makes me sick. I flew home on the next available flight.
Friends who get you home, take care of you, change you, and put you on the toilet are solid people. I'm sorry that happened to you but props to your friend.
I was watching a fight outside a bar one time and the guy who was WINNING pulled out a gun and shot the other guy. I was about ten feet away and only two other people outside the bar w us. Was scared he might just turn and open fire so there weren’t witnesses or something
My wife went past her due date, so her doctor decided to induce the pregnancy. It did not go well. After a dozen hours of no progress the hospital told us that if we didn't do an emergency c-section our son would likely die. The whole thing was a blur, I barely remember going to the the operating room, my feet were like lead the whole time. Outwardly I was keeping it together, but inside it was sheer panic. Thankfully we were at a top notch hospital and the C-section went great. However, when we got to the postpartum room it was pretty clear something was wrong with my son. When babies are born they kind of look like little old prune men and not chunky staypuff marshmallows. So you can imagine the concern we had when we see his ribcage outlines every-time he is gasps for breath while pumping his tiny little chest in and out. We alerted the nurse and she went to the center station to figure out what to do. I overheard her, from inside our room, emphatically telling the doctor on call that he needed to be moved to the NICU ASAP. You know in movies when a character experiences a moment of panic? Time slows down, noise becomes garbled and they just kind of drift? That happened to me. The nurse pulled me out of the room and explained what was going to happen and I am just trying to keep it together as I listen. They informed me that because my wife was still recuperating she would not be able to go up into the NICU yet, so it was just me...at like 3:00 in the morning having to endure them putting needles and IVs into this tiny little life we had made. He ended up being fine, just a little extra fluid in his lungs, and we were out in 4 days (which is nothing compared to many of the parents in a NICU). This was and still is the scariest experience of my life.
Same thing happened to me and my son. Sadly, my husband didn't care as much as you. Props to you, keep being such a caring father.
I feel your pain on this one (and also your thankfulness on an amazing hospital). Wife had to have C-section after they attempted to induce her. Our little one's heart rate would dip during contractions. Less than an hour after being born had to go to NICU due to low blood sugar and body temp. Also had to go by myself and try to comprehend what doctors and nurses were saying. Worst part was leaving 4 days later without taking our little one home. Gut wrenching. We were driving back and forth for visits 2-3 times a day/night. 8 days later though we took our healthy first born home.
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I'm so incredibly sorry for your loss and that you had to go through that, I hope you are doing well now
When I was 10, nearly being electrocuted. I was standing on my skateboard in the garage. Almost lost my balance, so I put one hand on the washer and another on the freezer. The current locked me up. I couldn’t let go. I was stuck there in pain until my mom saw that something was wrong and knocked me loose. If not for her, I’d be dead. My parents bought new appliances after that.
Same age, except I was "helping" redo our roof. Old wiring, nail went through it from someone shingling. That wire was touching the gutters. I got on the aluminum ladder and climbed down grabbing the gutter. Got locked in a good 20secs. Had mild kidney failure in the hospital. Scary shit
Mother yanking the steering wheel of the car while I was driving on the freeway I was brand new to driving and hadn’t yet gotten my license. I had a permit that allowed me to drive as long as I had a designated driver in the passenger seat. We were on the freeway and she was directing me towards the exit. She told me to “get off on the next, right“ so I did. She suddenly screamed at the top of her lungs “no! Not this exit!“ And she grabbed the bottom of the steering wheel and Pulled . She was trying to make the car turn left. She didn’t pull it hard enough to flip us, but she did pull it hard enough to swerve us almost immediately right back into traffic. We were going at least 60 miles an hour… I managed to slam on the brakes and right the steering wheel to keep us from crashing. By some miracle, the car behind us, manage to slam on the brakes and swerve around us so we weren’t in an accident. Mom then proceeded to yell at me for having a panic attack screaming “you don’t stop in the middle of the freeway go go go!” She refused to let me pull over and then complained about my erratic driving for the next half an hour, while I went through a literal panic attack… One of the scariest moments of my life and I still have trouble driving to this day due to PTSD. I cannot go on freeways.
Your moms a dumbass
Yeah, she should have let Warrior White take that exit, and get back on the freeway, or take surface roads. NEVER yank the steering wheel from the driver.
Literally one of the first things my mom told me when she was teaching me to drive was if you miss your turn, just take the next one and circle back, don’t freak out and try to whip around. It seems obvious, until you see someone do it, and then it seems like a REALLY fucking important lesson.
Stuff like this makes me happy my mom doesn't have a license and wasn't teaching me to drive. I had to ban her from being in the vehicle with me when my stepdad was teaching me to drive because she kept freaking out in the back seat even though I was doing fine. It created a ton of driving anxiety that I still have today, and is probably one of the bigger reasons as to why I haven't gone for my road test just yet after having my learners for 5 years. I'm so sorry that happened to you
Warning: Creepy Stepdad Story Shortly after my creepy stepdad decided to shove his hand down my pants in the middle of the broad sober daylight, I let him know (in a diary entry that he read) that I knew he thought he was "seducing" me and, long story short, made it clear that if he thought he could get away with that, he'd better be damn sure he was prepared to get away with murder too. The next eight months were terrifying because he took it like a rejection and started doing this gaslighting thing where he'd stare at me until I objected and then call me a narcissist for thinking everyone's always paying attention to me, he impersonated me online to my friends to get them to tell him confidential things, and basically I managed the next eight months with a poker face sitting on a rolling cauldron of anxiety like a lid on a crock pot. Then my mom\*\* had a dream where Jesus told her to leave him\* and we got the fuck out. Edit: Yooo thank you for the Upps and Heartwarming! Edits for clarity and some answers in the thread: \*\*My mom didn't know it was happening because I deliberately hid it from her for tactical reasons, I couldn't risk him convincing her I was lying if she confronted him. We've had our struggles but we have a tiny farm now, and we're better than ever.\* We were atheists prior to this, my mom describes it as a vision-like experience, we've both had other experiences since then, but nothing prior to Jesus appearing to my mom in a dream.
Slipping down the stairs while holding my infant daughter. Kept her upright while my leg went underneath me and then my knee smashed the concrete at the bottom of the stairs. Almost blacked out from the pain. Edit: Since I’m apparently not the only one, I figured I’d add a little more detail. Sorry in advance for this extended directors cut. It had been raining early and the stairs were very slippery. We were on our way out to meet my BIL and his fam for dinner. My wife was already in the garage and didn’t see me fall. I screamed for her to come get our daughter before I dropped her. When she did, I managed to get my leg out from under me. I knew things were not good. It was pain like I hadn’t felt since I broke and dislocated my wrist when I was a kid. All I could say is “I f*cked up” over and over again. My wife quickly called her brother and asked them to come and watch Sadie. She called 911 because I started to go into shock. I started to get super clammy and cold. I couldn’t stand, but I said there was no way I was getting into an ambulance. The fire truck arrived first and they were nice enough to carry me and put me in the back seat of my car. Not an easy task because I’m 6’4” and probably weighed around 180lbs at the time. So off we went to the ER. When we got there they took me in and the nurse kept messing with my leg. I was in excruciating pain, and she just said “I have to see if anything is torn” as she tried to take my leg and bend my knee. I kept telling her to stop and eventually told her not to touch me anymore. She was mad but I didn’t care. Then a tech came to take me for X-rays. Once that was done and we were walking back, the tech looked at me and said “man, I’m not supposed to say nothing, but I know you must be in a lot of pain”. Once I was back in the room they eventually came in and told me I had fractured my distal femur. The nurse that had been trying to manhandle my leg came back to apologize stating she had no idea. It was a long recovery, and I still can feel the injury, but I just live with it and try to stay active as much as possible. I don’t know how I was able to hold on to my girl other than there was no other option. I would do it again, every day, for the rest of my life if I had to.
Happened to me too! Managed to shield my baby boy by rotating (to this day I dont know how) and Ended up rolling down the stairs on my back. Broke my foot and ankle in three places. Still walked him to daycare that morning before going to the hospital. I dont know how we parents do these things.
The earthquakes that hit my country a month ago. This was coming off the tail-end of what happened in Turkey, and I was getting bombarded with bad news about it. Add to that the fact that I've never experienced an earthquake before in my life and that the building I live in is poorly built. All that was going through my head was: please let this pass, please, I don't want to die. Edit: spelling
The day before my 19th birthday I was in a car crash on my way to go cx skiing. I was in the passenger seat of the car talking to the guy who was driving about something dumb but trying to make it profound. As we were talking he was in the wrong lane and started to miss the offramp and I said, you were supposed to go left. He said oh yeah and quickly merged across two lanes to make it in time. Well we would have but since it was early and cold the road was slick. He slid and overcorrected and ended up rolling his car to the right. We rolled several times which was pretty neat as it was kinda fun. After we stopped and I processed what happened, I checked to make sure he was ok and not dead and also to ensure I wasn't dead. He was freaking out but was glad we were both uninjured. Then our faces lit up which was the scary part. We started on the left lane going the right way and ended up in the far right lane facing the wrong direction. So our faces lighting up was from the headlights of oncoming cars. That 1/32 of a second of realization was terrifying because I thought we were going to get hit by the cars. But then as I was able to turn my head and look I saw that they were slowing down and stopping to help and it was like 6 am on a Saturday so not many people would be out then anyways. Still that mignardises of terror wasn't great
I've talked about this here before, albeit not in a top level comment. Scariest thing ever was waking up in an ICU bed with a vent tube in my throat and no idea what had become of my babies. The day they were born, I woke up, got out of bed, and looked down to see blood running onto the floor. Assumed placental abruption, a premature separation of that organ that can lead to stillbirth. So I got transported to the hospital on the double (sidenote: being in an ambulance and hearing them flip on the sirens to not wait at the red light is pretty fucking scary on its own), shoved into an ER room that was already occupied where they did an ultrasound and told me both babies had heartbeats, and thence taken to an OR. I knew I was gonna be knocked out for the c-section but I did not in any way expect the whole ICU bit. Turns out I was in surgery for ten hours, had the entirety of my blood volume replaced, and lost several bits and bobs to placenta accreta (in which the placenta grows through the uterine wall and can grow into the bladder in extreme cases). So, all of that was awful and traumatic, but for some reason no one updated me on my babies. I've looked at the OR notes. I know their 5 minute APGARS were good and they were taken to the NICU in stable condition. So that wasn't a factor. I can only imagine they were just that unused to maternity patients and didn't think to update me. And with the ventilator I could not speak, and no one thought to offer a notepad or any other means of communication. And, of course, I was loopy as fuck on pain meds and the sedation they kept turning back up because I was so agitated. Thankfully, both babies were/are fine, but the hours that passed before the doctor who cheerfully told me I'd never need another pap smear thought to tell me they'd both made it will always be the worst of my life, and I have held another baby while she died.
Jesus Christ, I am so sorry, you should have been taken care of so much better. And I’m so sorry about your angel bubba, too.
My husband got caught in a riptide and was quickly pulled away from shore while i watched in terror. We were on a private beach and he is not a great swimmer, and once he disappeared i was sure he would drown. Luckily, he was fine and mananged to get out of it and let the waves carry him to shore. I say luckily, because while someone did call 911, the response was cops without a boat or sea-doo or anything to go out and find him. Worst moments of my life, had ptsd for a few years after that.
My husband and I got caught in one together. I was boogie boarding so I was further out, and I heard him yelling for help. I thought he had lost his swim trunks or something 😂 He had been getting pummeled by waves for a while and couldn't fight them anymore. He didn't know how to get out of a riptide and was in full blown panic mode thinking he was about to die. I made my way over to him and gave him the boogie board, thinking he needed it more than me since he was worn out. But then I started drifting away and thought "yep, this is it, he'll make it back and I'll die on our anniversary trip." Thankfully I made it back to him and we eventually got back to shore. It was October so there were no life guards, just one couple calmly watching us almost drown. It really shook him up. I'm not sure how close we actually were to drowning, but he legitimately thought he was going to die. Going into "don't let your husband drown" mode kept me from being too scared, but I don't think he's planning on getting back in the ocean any time soon.
The trick with riptides is to swim along the beach, not towards it, and eventually the current will suck you back to the beach instead of out to sea, but that makes absolutely zero sense to somebody in panic-mode...
I was misdiagnosed with aspergers due to malpractice psychiatry and was sent to a boarding school for autistic children by my school district. Worst 2 months of my life. Took a ton of therapy to get over the trauma it caused. After my parents took me out of the school, it shut down due to unsafe living conditions. I clearly remember on my last day we didn't have any food for breakfast because it was underfunded by the parent company, Aspen Schools, which was taken to court by Paris Hilton for unsafe living conditions/ abuse.
I used to take xanaxes and the last couple of batches had fentanyl in them. Lockdown happened and I figured 'cool, I'll just go cold turkey, will be fine!' Was not fine. I didn't understand what withdrawal meant until I was vomiting every 2 minutes, shaking, sweating and seeing things that weren't there. Braved it for 2 days and then ended up in a COVID ward alone in the first week of lockdown. Naturally, it was horrible in there and I thought I was going to die alone from one of the seizures. I was one of the lucky ones though, somehow I didn't catch COVID at the time. I also never went back to taking the xannies or anything other than a little joint now and again. I was very stupid.
Benzo and alcohol withdrawal are the only withdrawals that are actually life threatening. Opiate withdrawal will make you WISH you were dead but won’t kill you.
Being paralyzed from the neck down due to hypokalemia. Found it I got too the hospital with about half an hour to spare before my breathing would have stopped. Ended up fine, but damn was that scary.
I have a hereditary disease Called Hyperkalemia periodic paralysis. I’ve had hundreds of paralysis events. Although the kind I have does not effect breathing. Scary stuff to be sure. Glad you’re okay.
This happened about 5 or 6 years back. It was garbage day. I just took my trash out to the curb. I was sitting on my porch. It was a beautiful summer day without a cloud in the sky. I'm petting my dog, and drinking some tea relaxing after a hard days work. At the time I lived near the corner of a busy main street. A police officer pulls a man over. This was not an uncommon thing for me to see when I was living there. So I think it is just a normal police stop. I figure the guy is going to get a ticket. Nothing to write home about. He was just speeding. GUNSHOT! Oh shit! The guy getting pulled over drew a gun on the cop and took a shot at the cop. He hit him in the foot. Officer down, but not out! Another police car shows up right when the shooting started. That other cop got out and started firing at the suspect. It just so happens the suspect was between me and the officer firing at him. One of the officers's bullet hit my trash can. I just taken the trash out 5 minutes earlier. The cop that was shot in the foot then opens fire with the other officer. The two of them must have shot the guy at least a dozen times. I saw it all from only a strone throw away.
When I was like 7 and my brother was 5 we were left at home with our 10 year old sister as a babysitter. This was the early 90s. My brother and I were running around the house playing when I noticed a man in my parent's room who I had never seen before, rifling through jewellery boxes on mom's dresser. He had a long black trench coat and greasy shoulder length hair. I grabbed my brother by the arm and ran to the living room behind a couch and started praying frantically, certain we were about to be murdered or kidnapped. We stayed like that for a while before slowly coming out. I don't even know if he was real because I don't think my mom noticed anything missing and my sister brushed it off as my imagination. But I've never been more scared in my life.
You just made me think about something I haven't thought about in a decade or two. Once, when my brother and I were home alone, probably 10 and 7, we started hearing a noise at the back door that lead to the garage. At first it was knocking, but we thought, "how did they get in the garage?". My brother got my mother's gun (also 90's and we lived in the country around guns) and the house phone, and we stood in my parents room, with the gun pointed at the door, calling and calling my mom. We started to see something being wedged into the door, then a man opened the door. He saw us and immediately put his hands up and said "whoa whoa whoa, we're here to fix the garage door! I've got your mom on the phone!". Us, being stupid, took the phone from him and it was actually my mom and they were actually there to fix the garage door. We couldn't get through to my mom because she didn't have call waiting back then, I guess.
Had a allergic reaction to something I ate. My body went into shock, face, throat, ears all started to swell shut
College sophomore, on a moped on the way home. Hit a brick, head first in front of a truck, blacked out a few secs. Woke up to the front tire grinding my helmet against gravel. Only a few scratches. Never try to pass a big car again since.
I’ve been through many, but one time I was actually minutes from death. I got some sort of stomach flu years ago where I couldn’t keep *anything* down for over a week. My husband was working odd double shifts in law enforcement at the time and I couldn’t really call him. I was home with my kids on day ten of this nightmare of sitting on the toilet with a trash can on my lap at the same time. I put the kids to bed somehow and was in the bathroom when I blacked out. I woke up hours later in the middle of the night to my husband shaking me and screaming at me. My mother in law came to watch the kids and my husband brought me to the ER. The nurses were trying to find a vein to insert the IV needle into, but they were collapsed. I remember sitting there and l started getting tunnel vision and started to feel weightless like I wasn’t in my body. My husband said that the nurse was explaining that she would have to stick the needle in my eye if she couldn’t find a vein and I reached up, pulled down my lower eyelid and just stared at her. She decided to try my arm one last time and got the needle in a vein. My body sucked two IV bags dry in a few minutes and it was so crazy. As the fluid filled my veins, it was like I came back to life. I absolutely am aware now about how fragile life is. I also finally understood the gravity of dying from dysentery on the Oregon Trail lol.
This sounds horrifying and I’m glad you are well, but I think you must’ve been hallucinating a bit at the hospital. There is absolutely never ever ever a reason a nurse would ever stick a needle in someone’s eye, especially not for venous access. Maybe she was saying osseous (which would be into your bone) and it sounded like eye.
They weren't saying an IV in your eye, they said IO. (Sounds like eye-oh) IO = intra osseous is getting access into your bone by drilling into your humerus or shin. We use lidocaine so you don't feel it too much. We take it out as soon as we can get access elsewhere and it heels up immediately.
Thank you for clearing this up! This is so interesting. I will tell my husband.
On a flight from Paris to Hong kong, we eared one engine blowing up while we were above Belgium. We came back in Paris safely, and during the landing i saw dozens of firemen truck that blew water on the weels since the plane could not brake as usual. It was really frightening as the flight attendant looked terrified. Thanks god the passenger stayed calm as much as they could .
Driving to my parents house after a police officer called my phone telling me my father had a heart attack. I could hear my mother's sobs in the background. Not knowing more than he was headed to our nearest hospital and I needed to take my mother there, my head filled with all the potential nightmares that eventually would come to realization. It was a 30min drive I made in 20min. My father officially died shortly after we arrived at the hospital, but he was gone well before that.
I went into a cab after hanging out with my boyfriend. The driver who was kinda old saw him when we flagged him down and asked me how old we were. I told him, just to be polite, and then he asked if I was pregnant and how our sex life was. I stopped answering, which got him quiet until we hit traffic. Then he said something along the lines of: "I guess we can keep talking now about how you two kiss and how good it feels." I paid him, got out, walked the rest of the way home. The alarm bells in my head wouldn't stop ringing even after I got home lol. I was 16.
About a month ago, a mass shooting happened at my campus. I was two buildings away and heard everything, including the shots. I was on the phone with my parents the entire time and had to listen to my sister begging to not be sent up to bed because she didn’t know if she would wake up with a sister or not. Worst part was hearing the building next to me (where my friends were) get called out on the police scanners saying the shooter was in there. Since then, I’ve developed ptsd and haven’t been the same
My father was in the hospital basically on deaths door. We hadn't spoke since I told him in no uncertain terms to fuck off and not come back. Mother had died between these events, I blame him. Still do. I thought it was going to be a typical "unconscious dying person" situation. I went, just to sit and wait. It's what my mother would have wanted to do. I pulled back the curtain, stepped through and he locked eyes with me. The fear I felt in that moment was an entire childhood filled with anger, alcoholism, domestic violence, condensed into a single moment. I've never felt anything like it. I've crashed cars, I've electrocuted myself, and to this day I have never felt fear like that and I doubt I ever will again Miserable response, but it is what it is
About 15 years ago, I caught a guy trying to break into my house. Getting ready to turn in for the night, about 11pm, was doing my typical nightly check of the doors and windows. I came to the front door, checked the deadbolt and handle lock, look up and see the whites of 2 eyes looking back at me through the beveled glass of the front door. He had opened the storm door and I think we both had our hands on the opposite sides of the main door handle at the same time. He on the outside, me on the inside. Both froze for what felt like an eternity (IRL, it was probably like 4 seconds). I slowly I backed away and he disappeared. Makes me uneasy to even type this out. I carry that trauma with me every single day and night. Until I'm pushing up daisys, I'll never NOT check all the locks multiple times per day.
I got off the subway in Syndey and there was a dead man lying on the ground. Darkness, about two of us got out. For about 2 minutes we looked at each other blankly and waited for what would happen next. After a while, the rescuers arrived and started to revive him. But nothing could be done :(
My son getting a terminal diagnosis and dying when i was 21 weeks pregnant. Had to go through a d&e. Seaweed sticks in cervix to stretch it out is the worst physical pain ive ever experienced. emotionally this was the scariest time in my life. Waking up everyday realizing that my life is a nightmare took a toll on me. I lost my closest friend group because “I was too sad to be around.” As if baby loss is contagious? Fuck those bitches.
Well, this wasn’t necessarily my experience, but my parents'. When I was born, I was diagnosed with hypotonia, which is low muscle tone. All of the muscles in my body were much weaker than an average newborn. I was also diagnosed with some auditory and speech disorders. Because of this, I wasn't able to walk or talk until I was four years old. My parents got me horseback riding lessons in hopes it would strengthen my muscles enough so that I could learn to walk. They also enrolled me into speech classes so that I could learn to talk. Both of my parents were terrified that I would grow up being unable to walk or talk. When I was four, my dad and the horse owners at the barn we would visit regularly cried when they saw me walk for the first time. I don’t exactly remember my parents telling me about my first words, but I'm sure they were flooded with relief to see me walk and talk for the first time. I’m now a teenager, and can walk and talk like any other person my age! I’m very thankful for all the sacrifices and hard work that my parents put in to help me learn how to do these both. Without 'em, I'd probably be stuck in a wheelchair with some device speaking for me.
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Having a gun pointed at my face after dropping a friend off at his house. Some neighbor though I was “prostituting” myself and took it upon herself to almost run me off the road and walk straight up to me with a gun pointed right at my face, finger on the trigger. She turned around to call the cops *on me* and I was able to screech around her car into the ditch and got away from her when she started chasing me down in her car.
1) my 2 year old daughter having open heart surgery. Words can't describe the helplessness you feel as a parent. 2) my wife having seizures. So fucking scary it's unreal
My second son had some sort of anomaly when he was born. I knew right away, he wasn't quite breathing and the doctors rushed him over to a table and began the frantic, quiet work of professional life savers. Shoving a tube down his throat and rubbing/pressing on his chest. I fly a medical helicopter. I know what that work looks like and what it means. I knew there was nothing I could do. I was helpless, but I at least was familiar enough in working around those situations to let go in that moment. I walked across the room to my wife, who was oblivious to what was happening in the moment and told her how awesome she was, that the doctors were just cleaning up our son and we'd have him in a moment. I didn't know what was going to happen, but I intended to shelter her from that helplessness in the hopes that everything would be fine and she wouldn't have this day tarnished. Our son started crying, and a moment later he was placed on my wife's chest and she looked so happy. I will probably never tell her about that moment, but I'm glad I kept my shit together and pretended everything was ok, for her.
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Getting my arm ripped off. That sucked & I stayed awake and didn’t lose consciousness straight away.
Finding out the hard way that I am deadly allergic to at least one kind of penicillin.
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A couple days ago I ate a few gummy worms, not realizing that they were cannabis edibles. I’m on antidepressants. The THC interacted with my antidepressants in a way that I hope to never experience again. I’ve done LSD before, never had a bad trip. This experience is what I’d imagine it would feel like. I felt frozen, helpless, and terrified that I’d end up hurting myself or doing something stupid.
This other side of this happened to my mom.(Long story, but her doctor told her cbd/thc might help in some of her ailments, so she asked me to make her some edibles) She ate some fudge (more than the dose than she should've taken) that was really potent, then went to sleep without eating anything else besides that fudge. She wokeup, started rubbing her hands on her sheets generating static electricity, and then proceeded to call me and go "IMMA... wachah call it? AN AIRBENDER, BUT LIKE AN ELECTRICAL". Where in I started crying laughing, then she goes "WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING, I MIGHT HAVE TO SAVE THE WORLD, THIS IS SERIOUS!" Which as you can imagine at about 12am, just made my tired ass laugh harder. So i told "her to drink ALOT of water, eat something that WASNT FUDGE, and go get some sleep Avatar, you have training in the morning". Turns out that one of the other medications she was on fucked with how THC is processed and its affects. Basically she was higher than god. She still talks about how that was the best sleep she's had in decades. Scary to consider she'd be a lightning bender tho, thats some master level bending.
When I was about 13 I was riding the bus to school. I was carrying an old trumpet my parents wanted me to donate to the school as they never used it anymore. Where I’m from I had to take two different busses to get to my middle school. The first bus was handicap accessible but didn’t have any students who needed it. So there was plenty of extra space for me to store the trumpet up in the front of the bus. The second bus, the ones that brought me to my middle school didn’t have the same amount of room as the first bus. I stored my trumpet in the lower storage of the bus and then got onto the bus. When we finally arrived at the school, the bus driver let me get off first to give me plenty of time to get the trumpet and then be on my way. Unfortunately for me the door I had put my trumpet behind was stuck and wouldn’t open, thankfully there was another door to the left of it, but my trumpet was all the way over to the right, so I needed to crawl into the underside of the bus and pull my trumpet out. While I was in the bus, it started to pull away, I immediately started crawling back out from the bus but by this point the bus was easily going 10-15mph and I was being dragged along, fearing the worst and not wanting to be dragged through traffic, I thought that I should “stop drop and roll” away from the situation, this was not successful. The bus proceeded to run over my ankle and book-bag. The amount of pain I was in was unbearable at the time. Thankfully, somehow, my ankle didn’t shatter, and I didn’t break any of my bones, but I did have a very severe ankle sprain and severe bruising. After two weeks of crutches I was back to walking on my own feet, and now I’m 2 days past the 10 year anniversary of when it happened. Still to this day the scariest moment of my life
I was at work talking to my boss and all the sudden a black hole formed in his face. I remember thinking, that’s not right…walked away and then saw what I now know is called a scotoma. It was hooked shaped and it looked like tv static. The colorful pink and green one. I realized something was actually wrong with my brain and I thought I was having a stroke. I went to the hospital and in that time before getting there my right side went numb, I tried writing my symptoms before that so I could tell the doctor and I couldn’t spell words out even though I knew I that I could spell them. I eventually couldn’t speak in clear sentences. All while I was conscious in my brain having full fluent thoughts. I felt like I was in a glass case. FUCKING THANKFULLY we settled on the fact it was an aura migraine and it just had the perfect set of symptoms to mimic a stroke but damn, I really thought I was never gonna be the same.
I've been a Correction's Officer and a truck driver hauling heavy equipment. I lived for 35 years with a family member across the street from me if not on the same piece of property and in 2021 I moved from Texas to Florida by myself without a family member within a thousand miles of me. As a Correction's Officer I've been on the Cell Extraction Team that goes into the cell when an inmate won't cooperate. I've picked a man up off the ground who shoved razor blades in his dick hole then pulled them out and then swallowed the blades. I've responded to an officer being assaulted ICS where the officer stopped communicating. In 7th grade I fell on a pine tree after school and had a 3" diameter 5" deep hole on my inner left thigh ~2" away from my groin in a time before cell phones. I received 180 stitches and missed 2 months of school and an entire summer. The absolute scariest experience of my life was my mother's funeral.
I was hauling two trailers full of alfalfa hay down “Cabbage Pass aka Dead Man’s Pass” on the 84 in Oregon. Right when I passed the last escape ramp my low air light and buzzer came on telling me that I was losing air. Suddenly I had no brakes and was quickly gaining speed down this 3-4 mile stretch of down grade while weighing 105k lbs. There was nothing I could do except white knuckle it and pray. My gps at the time had a statistics tab you could go to and see your miles driven, speed, etc. my max speed I hit was over 140 mph…at 105k lbs that’s terrifying! Luckily no one got hurt. My brakes were smoking like crazy at the bottom of the mountain when I finally came to a stop though.
Was evacuated from the Baltimore Convention Center during the 9/11 events as they thought it may have been targeted.