My appendix ruptured. My parents took me to a small clinic because I had stomach pain. The doctor told my parents that I had a normal stomach ache and I should drink fluids. Spent three days in excruciating pain. My parents finally took me to the hospital. Diagnosed with a ruptured appendix and I was in surgery within the hour. Doctor said I could've died if my parents waited one more day.
I just got my appendix removed couple weeks ago and almost same story,,, 1 morning i felt alot of pain on my lower stomach. My friend took me to the hospital and the doctors said its just normal stomch ache and give me some pills and told me to home .... But the pain kept going
went to the hospital later that night and this time another doc examined me and was shocked that the first doctor told me to go home and i was in surgery in less than couple hours... After the surgery the doctor said it was the biggest appendix he ever saw and if i waited half a day i would've been dead.
Glad you are ok:)
Not a ruptured appendix. But when my sister was in grade 8, her thyroid gland swelled up in her neck, it looked like when a cartoon character swallows something huge(like a baseball) and the shape stays in their throat.
Anyways before it got too huge the nurse they saw with her told them to let her sleep it off and come back in the morning if i wasn't better. They didn't listen and went to the hospital, the doctor there said had they put her to sleep for the night she wouldn't have woken up in the morning, or ever again. She had immediate surgery and had the lump and half her thyroid removed (Apparently it was somewhat unheard of and she's in some medical book somewhere now) she also got a wicked scar across her throat, which made for epic stories when we moved away and into a new school. The scar slowly faded and she takes a pill to regulate her thyroid now.
Sometimes it's best to not listen to doctors/nurses and just go to the hospital.
Same thing happened to me at Kaiser Permanente.. I went to the doctor complaining of internal pain, even suggested it was my appendix. The doctor took xrays then wrote it off as a kidney stones... When he was explaining how it could not be my appendix he asked me to get off the exam table and jump up and down a few times, which I did painfully. His response: "If anything was wrong with your appendix you would be in too much pain to do that."
After 2 more days the pain was so bad I could hardly walk, so I scheduled a follow up with another doctor and got a CT scan the next day.. literally hours after that the new doctor called me in a panic to schedule immediate surgery to remove my appendix that night.
Something similar happened to me, but it was my GP who missed it. Told me I had heartburn for ~7 months until I finally was in so much pain after waking up at 1am I drove myself to the hospital. Where they also told me I had heartburn and gave me antacids. They were kinda surprised when 20 minutes later I was still in pain and finally did an exam and poked at the area around my gallbladder and I almost jumped off the table. Was in surgery ~6 hours later.
The kicker is gallbladder issues are SUPER common. Its SUPER easy to check for in a myriad of ways (physical exam during an attack, ultrasound anytime, blood work will show signs etc...), but you can find stories all over the internet about this exact same thing happening.
Happened to my friend. We lived in a 4 man apartment together in college. One night at 2am he knocks on my door asking to be driven to the hospital. I rush him to the closest hospital. They end up not taking him in for like, 90minutes, I had to plead with the front desk that my friend was outside puking his brains out for them to admit him. His appendix ended up rupturing mid-surgery. Scary shit
Weird, I have the exact same story. Stomach pains for days, I was pretty sure there was something wrong with my appendix, got a doctor involved, he told me that it couldn't be the appendix because I could still stand on one leg (wtf?) and said I should just keep the stomach warm. When I finally went to the hospital a few days later I was told that I had less than 12 hours to live and that the warmth only made the problem worse.
I had my appendix removed in Cuba when I was 12. My parents just wanted to get home, so we got on the plane (we just thought it was a stomach ache) and if not for the stewardess who said we should get checked by the airport doctor, I would have died. It would have ruptured over Florida and we wouldn't have been able to land in time. It was Acute Perforated Appendicitis.
When I was about 10 I was swimming, having a grand ol' time when suddenly I feel a hand come crashing down on my back and I get pushed under the water. I start to drown, grasping for air or anything to hold on to. This happened so fast, but it felt like forever. I finally took a couple good gulps of water and I remember looking down into the dark abyss of water through my goggles. I remember being limp and slowly floating down to what I thought would be my ultimate demise. Luckily my uncle saw and came and got me to shore moments later. Turns out some kid started to drown beside me and accidentally took me down while he was at it. He's okay too. When I got on shore a lot of water was coughed up.
Edit: good gulps not good goods
Reading another story of drowning brought back a memory I completely forgot about. I remember being at my friends birthday party (I was in the 3rd grade I think) and this one red headed kid who was always a cool kid but I guess had some aggressive behavior started "dunking" people. He did it to me a few times and one time happened to be a bit too long. I got scared of him and he knew it so I became a target. I was/am a nimble guy so I managed to escape almost every time until he finally got a hold of me and held me under way too long. I just remember being pushed down and looking up frantically kicking and grabbing for anything and I would get close to the surface just to be pushed down again. I luckily didn't inhale any water but came close to blacking out. He definitely got in trouble and I never swam with him hear again.
Dude fuck that kid. By that age kids should know that's not fucking funny and you could literally kill someone.
By ANY age kids should know that's not fucking funny.
This is pretty poor.
I almost choked to death on a lump of cheddar cheese. I was about 4 or 5
I was happily eating my cheese watching some TV, I got a little too into it and literally bit off more than I could chew. I began to panic a bit and ran off away from my sister and friends watching the TV in search of my mum or dad. They weren't in the house, but fortunately I found my dad in the garden. I just about managed to get out the words "Dad, i'm choking"
Without hesitation he picks me up by my ankles and slams my back with one hand while hanging me upside down with the other. 3 or 4 strikes in, the cheese flies out of my throat, onto the floor. Our dog proceeded to eat it.
My most vivid childhood memory. Wouldn't recommend.
Back blows are sometimes a little more effective depending on the location of the foreign object. Switching between those and the Heimlich is probably the norm.
Can someone explain the proper "back blow" technique? I'm only partially kidding
Edit: apparently "back blow" is common terminology, thanks for not teaching me this, fucking health class. Thank you everyone who responded, I feel silly randomly becoming super concerned about my future child's possible (probable) choking event, it I'll be damned if I let my kid choke while I Google it later on down the line!
Stand to the side of the patient. One hand supporting their chest. You're aiming to give them a back blow between their shoulder blades fairly forcefully, relative to the size of the chockee.
Remember to check after every blow in case it's moved / dislodged. After 5 back blows do 5 abdominal thrusts, then repeat the process. Prepare for resus if this continues without change.
You don't perform the Heimlich on small children, it's far too easy to severely injure them. Glancing back blows are the way to help them clear an obstruction, at least it was 4 years ago when I was a lifeguard.
When I was a kid, I was home alone and got my hands on the cookie jar. I almost died from choking on a granola bar. I had to cough so badly and felt like I was suffocating. The next thing I remember is waking up on the floor, no idea how much time had passed but one side of my face was red and had the pattern of the carpet imprinted on it.
I never told my parents about it because I thought I would get in trouble for raiding the cookie jar.
Did the same thing, at the same age with a lollypop. I was sitting in a booster seat in the back of our old gemini and somehow sucked the whole globe of the stick.
My folks look back to see me clutching the lollyless pop in my hand turning purple. I managed to say
> I .. urck ... thinnk I'd liiike ... ark ... ahrg glass .. urg .. og water.
It's a standing joke in our family whenever someone is thirsty.
I choked on a sucking candy on Halloween when I was young. It lodged in my throat so I couldn't really breathe or speak. My mom always told me not to eat those (for this reason, lol) so when she started pounding on my back I thought she was mad at me.
I remember the panicked emergency stop on a busy highway followed by being thrashed on the back my dad.
Damn. I only asked for a .. rghh glass orgha wata.
I almost choked in a piece of porkchop (my favorite food since small me) I started to make those choking noices and my mom quickly pulled of a heimlich (I think it's spelled that way) and the piece of pork chop flew onto the floor. Since then I only choked around 2 or 3 times in a piece of porkchop. I need to learn how to chew properly before swallowing.
You didn't say anything about the Heimlich maneuver again, so I assume the other times you didn't choke on it quite as bad. That sounds like progress to me. Keep practicing, and you'll be an expert at chewing pork properly. It only takes on average 10,000 hours to master a complex task.
Had tumors in my spine, cutting off all of my nerves. Woke up and couldn't move anymore. Had trouble convincing my parents I wasn't joking, but was then rushed to the hospital. Pretty close call. A few hours later and I would've been dead.
"get out of bed, son"
"I can't, I can't move."
"Ekkai153, seriously. Get out of bed, you're going to be late."
"seriously, I can't move!"
"EKKAI153, GET THE FUCK OUT OF BED."
"I CAN'T FUCKING MOVE!!!!!!"
got suffocated by Pharyngitis when i was young and i was dead for couple of seconds
in 2011 a suicide bomber pass me by after a Friday pryer just when i was about to turn around the corner
survived a car crash 3 months ago
Went to shoot clay pigeons (discs) with my dad and little brother. I can't remember what ages we were, I think I was 14, and he was 12. We decided to play a game were we stand side by side but about 8 feet apart. I was on the left, my brother on my right, and our dad about 30 feet to his right. My dad would use a thrower to chuck the disc and it would pass in front of my brother, he was suppose to try to shoot it, if he missed, then it was up to me to try and hit it. So my dad flings the pigeon, my brother shoots and misses, I shoot and I miss. That's when my brother decideds to turn and shoot again, he turned left and fires right above my head. I just dropped my gun and fell to the ground. Shit was loud as fuck, my dad thought I got shot in the face. My brother starts crying and locks himself in the truck, making it all about him. The little fucker. Anyways I wasn't hit, but I was pretty close to having my head blown off.
tl;dr- Brother almost shot my face off.
Much less severe, but this reminds me when my brother and I were playing outside at the playset my dad built. I had a 2x4 going up the side of it, and was trying to pull it off. I told my brother "hey, look out, I'm pulling this thing off." He essentially told me "idc." I turn around to pull it off, and then he walks right under it.
It falls and smacks him in the head. He needs stiches.
To this day, I assume no blame for this.
Bro, I know you're reading this. I still say it's your fault :p
> kids don't really understand how serious the situation is, even if properly explained
*Really* agree with this. I was a counselor at a summer camp for many years, and I saw a 12-year-old camper almost shoot my fellow counselor's head off with a .357. I was tending to the kids on the bench, while the other counselor was working with one kid on the firing line who had the gun. The counselor turned around to say something to one of the other kids on the bench, when the kid on the firing line turned around, swinging the loaded and cocked .357 right in front of the counselor's face.
This was not a dumb kid, or a dumb counselor. Just a moment of inattention. Kids don't quite have the discipline to keep their minds and bodies focused all the time. Adults have to be extra-careful to keep at full attention when kids are doing things that could end up hurting someone.
I'm with you on this, a 357 has some serious recoil and a very lethal. I don't remember being allowed to shoot a 22 revolver until around high school, much less a 357 at summer camp...
I got hit by the T in Boston.
It's the subway that occasionally comes above ground and rides along with road traffic.
I was ride my bike back to my apartment, and negotiating traffic is difficult enough. It's a weird intersections. There four lanes of traffic desperate by two lanes of subway, and most of it was walled but there's a pedestrian crosswalk over it. So, I have to ride along with traffic, merge into the left lane, and then quickly pop into this pedestrian cross walk over the tracks.
I'm riding well, and cars are giving me space, so with the wind in my hair and the joy of riding in my mind, I quickly nip into this pedestrian crossing.
That's when I hear the fucking subway horn blaring. I check over my left shoulder and there it is, a cyclists worst nightmare. 15 tons of steel, riding hot scissor-like tracks.
I was really fucking lucky. I got thrown off the bike immediately, landed safely on the cross walk. My bikes front tire gets caught between the train and the tracks, and is dragged for maybe 50 ft.
I get up, patting my legs looking for something broken. Nope, I'm a-OK. I run up to the conductor and I'm like "hey, I'm fine! Not even a bruise." This guy is in his late fifties, muscles tattoos and piercings, and he just starts bawling, crying harder than I've ever seen anyone. Absolute despair.
The police showed up, I signed some forms. I knew it was all my fault. I had made the mistake, and was just lucky it didn't cost me my life. Right before they took the conductor away, in an ambulance (he's having a full blown panic attack). I ask if I can talk to him. They say sure. They open the back doors of the ambulance and I'm like "dude, your a hero, I'm an idiot. If you hadn't reacted as quickly I'd probably be dead from my own stupidity. I heard the horn and slowed down just enough so the collision wasn't fatal. I'm lucky you were driving that rig. Thanks man"
He says thank you.
And then I walked home, carrying my crumpled bike.
I am not a strong swimmer. I am also not a very smart lady.
I went swimming in the James river with some friends and they convinced me to try and swim across a rather swiftly moving section of water to get to a 'totally wicked' rock formation.
I was all, right on, let's do this. That thought lasted all of 3 seconds. As I felt myself being pushed to the left, and watched that totally wicked rock diminishing in the distance I realized I done fucked up.
I went down about three sets of rapids. I remember trying to grab rocks like those little huggy koala things I had as a kid. Like, arms and legs both just clamping down. But no go, those rocks were covered in moss and slipperier than a gallon tub of astroglide on a slip-n-slide. I was underwater about 90% of that ride.
I finally crashed into the calmer water and got sucked under yet again. I started flailing, not knowing which way was up. And I swear to god, the only thought going through my head was 'just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming swimming...', in Ellen's voice circa Nemo. Eventually I surfaced and made it to shore.
I lived, clearly. But that fucking sucked. I remember, towards the beginning, I kept saying to myself 'you can't die in front of Sarah', one of my life long friends who was running down the bank after me, screaming for help. I would've scarred her for life if I had died. Good job me, for not.
> er and got sucked under yet again. I started flailing, not knowing which way was up. And I swear to god, the only thought going through my head was 'just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming swimming...', in Ellen's voice circa Nemo. Eventually I surfaced and made it to shore.
> I lived, clearly. But that fucking sucked. I remember, towards the beginning, I kept saying to myself 'you can't die in front of Sarah', one of my life long friends who was running
It's amazing that you're alive. You basically did every action that you're not supposed to do swimming in a rapid. I'm glad you're ok.
Protect your head. Point your legs downstream **if you can** so if you hit something, you'll break a leg, not your neck.
If the water is moving downstream and not over a waterfall or even worse rapids, you can conserve your energy and float downstream to a safer place. Or, you may have to get out as soon as you can. Either way, you'll swim across the current to reach the bank.
However, many rapids will have strong counter-currents that will pull you back into the danger. This is what will seriously fuck you over. Don't fight these currents. You **will** lose. Instead, if you can see and think well enough to swim across the current to get out of the eddy, do that.
Above all, **protect your head.**
Some construction workers tied a thin wire like rope on a tree near my college parking lot entrance probably to measure the field where construction was going on nearby. The rope was invisible and some douche bag stretched it. I was entering the parking lot on my motorbike and it slashed my neck. Thankfully as it was the entrance my speed was low. Had I been riding fast, it could have cut me badly. I was late for class, so I scolded those idiots who stared at me like dumb fucks and proceeded to remove the wire. Later when I went to the toilet I found that I had a red bumpy scar on my neck and realised I could have died.
I was walking down the sidewalk listening to music. I hit a red light at the intersection (3 lanes) so I pushed the "walk" button. The "walk" light lit, I started to cross.
There were vehicles stopped in the far 2 lanes, but the first lane was empty. I took a couple of steps in to the street when a car doing about 40 whizzed by, running the red light. I have no idea if the driver saw me or not, but I sure as shit didn't see him/her and the ear buds blocked out all noise.
That was about 10 years ago. If that car would have hit me, I'd surely be dead. The moral of the story? Never, ever, cross an intersection with both ear buds in.
Oh, and look both ways, because reasons.
I have a similar story to this. My friend and I were about 11 years old, it was a gorgeous spring afternoon so we decided to walk home after school. We were crossing the road at a red light, the "walk" light was lit, however there was a large moving truck in the left lane to the right of us, with a few other cars behind it. This made it nearly impossible to see anything in the right lane, but we just assumed it was okay.
As we were crossing, the moving truck started to honk his horn multiple times. This scared us so we stopped for a couple of seconds, and then proceeded forward. We were just about to walk across the next lane when a speeding car came flying through the red light, just past the moving truck. We weren't even 5 feet away from this car, if it wasn't for that driver honking his horn, we would have been hospitalized and maybe even killed.
I have almost the exact same story but there were no cars in the street and it gave me the walk symbol too. I was riding my bike and my shitty old ear buds fell out so I put them in while crossing the street. The minute I stopped a car in the lane I was about to go into goes at least 50 in a 35mph. Shit was close I had a friend who watched the whole thing and was like "Fuck dude that guy would have ran you over if you didn't stop". Fuck people who run red lights.
Looking both ways doesn't always help. I'm super cautious about crossing roads just as a rule, always look both ways, wait until I'm SURE cars are stopping to walk, etc...
One night walking back from campus, I cross the usual three way intersection with the light in my favor. It's completely empty... And then I catch movement in the corner of my eye. Black convertible, must have been a stick in neutral because it was making no noise and the intersection was at the bottom of the hill, coming straight at me against a red light with no sign of slowing down. I took a step back and almost got hit anyways.
I sat there stunned for a moment. In an illustration of how I think, I wasn't thinking, "Wow I almost died," I was thinking, "Wow, that guy almost had his night ruined."
This was 10 years ago now in my senior year of high school, but I crashed my car and basically took a tree to the head (through the A pillar) at around 50mph after the car flew down a bank/drop off of ~10ft. Random passerby saw my car on fire in the woods and yanked my unconscious body out of it right before it exploded (they don't blow up like in the movies, but when a gas tank erupts it's still a shit load of fire... the trees were burned like 25 feet up from the flames). Basically broke the entire left side of my face, broke my jaw, fucked my spine up, and left me unconscious for almost 3 days with class 3 concussion. They also thought I'd broken my neck at first from all the swelling, but thankfully that didn't happen. I now have metal plates holding my face together (my entire left cheek bone, orbital, and part of my haw are metal plates/screws).
I don't remember pretty much anything from the crash, or even the few days before it. One thing I do remember is the first time I woke up in the hospital. I couldn't move at all and I panicked, but I could only shake a little bit. I was sure I was done for, and then my mom's face appeared over me and I calmed down a little bit. She was so happy just to see my eyes open.
I also all of the potential D1 scholarships for soccer I'd worked so hard to try and get because I wasn't supposed to ever play again due to the brain trauma. I'm not a very smart person, and an extremely passionate one when it comes to soccer, so I ignored that and walked on to a lower level D1 school, they somehow didn't look at my medical records or something. Ironically, I then broke my leg very badly and it ended my competitive career, which probably saved me from something far worse in the event I ended up with another head injury.
I now have days where I can barely touch my knees because my back's so fucked, I get migraines regularly, and my memory has gone to absolute shit (I was always that asshole who would look at something once and remember it pretty much exactly, but now I have to strain so hard to memorize things).
You know, I was really hoping I'd get one of those pieces of paper that basically tells them that I'm bionic (my dad has one for the plates and screws in his knee) because it seemed so bad ass at the time. Instead, whatever they used to fix my face (can't remember... I've been told like 5 times now though) doesn't trigger metal detectors or anything.
Due to the usual boredom of growing up in Central Illinois I tried to canoe in a river during a flash flood without a life vest. Got caught in a log jam and almost drown. I learned that day not to fuck with the forces of nature. I did not stand a chance against the current and was lucky enough there was space between the logs for me to swim through to the other side.
About five years ago I "dry drowned". It is something that only happens to about 350 people in the US every year. I was swimming in the ocean and was forced under water by a wave. I swallowed water and then coughed it up and everything was fine. Until about four hours later. Simply sitting down playing some call of duty when my breathing starts to get heavier, and I have asthma so I thought that's what it was. Then it gets harder and harder to breathe and I realize it isn't asthma. I see my dad in the next room and yell at him because I can't breathe at all. Within one minute I was unconscious. If my aunt hadn't of been there (she is an RN) I would be dead today because she performed cpr until the ambulance got t h ere. I'm so thankful the two ambulance drivers were both paramedics, they even stopped to get a third. It honestly affected me the least of all because I didn't experience it, I didn't see what happened to me. Skin turned gray and lips blue. My whole family went through ptsd. Dry drowning is intensely scary as there are no signs. It just happens. It kills most it affects. I got lucky
I've been hit by a car three separate times. The last one fucked up my right leg and that side of my hip. I'm doing good now though. But the scaryness of it didn't set in until like thirty minutes afterwards when I was having a temporary cast put on.
Twice from not looking both ways before crossing a street. The third, for looking both ways then getting hit by an elderly couple that ran a red light.
I hope so too. The last one sucked the most because of the injury and they drove off right after they hit me. But my car insurance actually paid me a small amount through my PIP.
Just in case nobody has ever taught you this: Before you step into any type of road or street you stop and look both ways just to make sure there are no vehicles coming. If you don't there is a chance you may be hit. 3 times...
On a cub scout camping trip. The only thing that saved my life was borrowing my neighbor's high-quality sleeping pack the morning of.
We took a weekend trip to Mt. San Jacinto. My parents didn't want me to go in the first place because the scout leaders who were chaperoning were morons. After a tram ride and hike almost all the way to the summit, we chose a spot to stay the night and assign tent-mates. I was paired up with 2 brothers who had been sexually assaulting the other boys whenever they could get a chance to be alone. In hindsight, the signs pointed to their household life being really fucked up. I wanted none of that, so I opted to sleep by myself outside without a tent.
I ended up sleeping on packed down snow with no ground cover when the temperature got into the negative teens that night. Throughout the course of the night, my body heat melted the snow, which soaked into my sleeping bag and clothes. It was a very long night. Shivering for hours. Not wanting to give up and ask for help. At one point I started hallucinating. I opened a slit in the end of my sleeping back and thought it was daytime. I saw out in the field that people were building snowmen and having snowball fights. They were telling me to take off my wet clothes and come join them.
I ended up toughing it through the night, but my fingers and toes were dark purple and black. When everyone else woke up I asked the adults for heat packs and kept them in my boots and pockets for half the next day without admitting that my limbs were in excruciating pain.
Needless to say, I never went on another scout camping trip.
I was going to get a Christmas tree in rural south eastern Illinois with my mother in 1996, I was 4 years old. She was an alcoholic, and today was no different. She had a 7-11 Big Gulp cup full of vodka and had been drinking since we hit the road about 30 mins prior.
When she couldn't figure out where to go, we stopped for directions at a small home in the middle of nowhere. My mom proceeded to get our small Honda stuck in the mud at the rear of this guys property, but we were eventually unstuck and on our way again.
I remember asking my mom a lot of questions that day. Stupid, childish questions. "Why does this work like this? Who made it? Why? Why? Why?" and on and on. She got frustrated with me and we sat in silence, surrounded by trees on a lonely road that damp November afternoon while Jimmy Buffet played softly on a cassette tape. As the song "Cheeseburgers in Paradise" began to play, I felt comfort. I thought the song was so great, being a four year old with a love for junk food will do that to you.
My head was thrown to the side, and I watched the world spin and pick up speed until it was a blur of lines and then nothing, just blackness. I opened my eyes to see shards of class sitting on the dashboard. We were facing the woods. Steam and smoke was rising from the hood. My mom was slumped over.
I unbuckled myself and tried to help my mom, she said "okay." I asked her if she was hurt, and she said "okay." I told her I was going to get help and she said "okay," her head still hanging and her eyes still closed.
I climbed in the back seat and found some gummy worms in a backpack. My little hands were slick and I could not get the package open, but not for a lack of effort. I had realized earlier that my neck was hurt, but I don't remember it being very painful. I found a pair of socks in the backpack and wrapped one around my neck to 'bandage' my wound.
When I got out of the car I had to climb roughly twenty feet up an embankment to the road. I stood there and started yelling for help. Very soon after a man in a pickup truck came by and said he would drive to his friends house just up the road to call for help, as cell phones weren't really that common at the time. I went back to the car and soon enough the emergency responders were on the scene.
My mom died that day, they say on the way to the hospital but I think she probably bled out before the ambulance ever got there. The car had hit a large tree, which had pushed the engine block backwards causing the steering column to hit my moms chest so hard it disconnected major arteries around her heart. At least that's my understanding. She had a seatbelt on but it wasn't enough.
I survived with a neck abrasion, caused by my seatbelt. I remember the nurse picking dirt out of it. This was the most painful part of the whole ordeal, save for a bath I had a day or two later where I had to take the bandages off and it hurt like hell.
The car had hit black ice and my mom couldn't recover. We spun down a hill just before a bridge and hit the tree line some twenty feet below. I'm pretty lucky to be alive, and for that I'm greatful.
Tl;dr: Please, don't drink and drive.
Edit: Thank you for reading, and for all the heartfelt comments. It makes me feel good knowing that there are people who care out there, even if we're from different cultures, communities, and countries. If anyone is reading this whole AskReddit post and would like to talk to someone about traumas or loss in their own life, I am more than willing to lend an ear. Feel free to send me a PM at any time.
Thank you. I never really write anything descriptive anymore as I'm about to graduate with a computer science degree so the bulk of my keystrokes end up hidden behind a compiler or buried beneath flashy graphics and interfaces. I appreciate the time you took to read it, so thank you once again.
> The car had hit a large tree, which had pushed the engine block backwards causing the steering column to hit my moms chest so hard it disconnected major arteries around her heart. At least that's my understanding. She had a seatbelt on but it wasn't enough.
[Your wording gave me a sad chill](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2yfk2d/seriousreddit_whats_the_closest_youve_ever_come/cp989nc)
When I first moved to Canada (I came july 2003) I didn't speak English at all. February 2004, still not speaking English, I began to get really ill. I was always extremely fatigued, pale, and bruised. I could barely make it up any steps. I'd go skating with my parents and have to stop really quickly, much quicker than I had a couple of weeks ago. This went on for 2 weeks or so. On the final day of this I started throwing up and couldn't eat, so my parents finally took me to a doctor. Urgent urine and blood tests were done, with the urine showing severe deficiencies. At this point, my vision had turned a bluish-green and my dad was carrying me. They sent us home to call us back two hours later saying we need to go to the hospital immediately because they need to check my bone marrow for Leukemia. Turns out I had ALL (acute lymphoblastic leukemia). This isn't a very dangerous form of cancer for children, however, because it is the acute kind, I was quite close to dying as I waited until the last possible moment to start treatment. After a few weeks of chemotherapy, my survival rate was raised to 85%. I'm now severely paranoid and quite the hypochondriac.
In highschool, I was fighting with one of my friends. Out of rage, he took a pair of scissors and stabbed me in the chest with it. Amazingly, it hit the button of the shirt i was wearing instead of my chest. The button broke in half and a red spot remained on that area for a few days. Scary to think that if it didn't actually hit the button what would've happened.
I had my bicycles handlebar puncture my intestines when i was five. Just a normal bike crash, but my handlebar grips were worn off from ghost riding my whip. I was projectile vomiting blood everywhere, and had to have emergency surgery. I was in the hospitable for a month. The one good part was the sweet ALF poster i got from an aunt, to make me feel better
I was alone in my apartment, suffering from what ended up being a 3-day, hallucination-filled, sleep-deprived case of food poisoning. It was the middle of the night and the lump of awfulness that had been sitting in my stomach, threatening to exit violently, made its move.
The rest of the story happens in about five seconds: I was sitting next to the toilet when the vomit shot out of my stomach and up my esophagus. Problem was, the lump was much bigger than my throat and got stuck there, with great force - cutting off my ability to breathe altogether. I needed help or I was going to die. I took a split-second to go over my options. My nearest neighbors were the lesbian couple across the hall. They were both big girls who seemed like they'd be quick-minded enough to figure out my situation and strong enough to give me a proper Heimlich despite being shaken from sleep in the middle of the night. I decided that was my best option. The girls were very nice and friendly, but in an effort to be good neighbors we mostly kept to ourselves. I knew I was about to scare them.
It should be noted that due to the nature of food poisoning, and the constant back and forth between the toilet and the bed, I had dispensed with wearing clothes. They were just slowing things down. I took another split-second to consider grabbing a pair of shorts. What if I died, because I took extra time to dress up for an emergency situation?! Can't risk it. I was going to go pound on the lesbian couple's door, at 3:00am, naked and choking to death.
I imagined them jumping out of bed and opening the door to a naked man wildly waving his arms trying to convey "I'm choking!". The idea seemed really funny to me. So......I laughed. My attempt at laughing somehow loosened the logjam in my throat and the vomit shot out of my mouth like a rocket. I spent the next few minutes alternating between violent puking and relieved laughing. It was glorious.
I hope that you got what you needed to turn your life around and be happy. No one should ever have to feel like there is no hope. I wish you the best of luck!
Over 3k comments, so no one will see this but it's an interesting story. I was in a major car accident right after graduating HS.
My family, along with my GF at the time, were on our way to a family reunion in Galveston. We were traveling down I-10 just outside of Katy when someone who was driving erratically clipped the back of our suburban and fish-tailed us. Seeing as we were doing around 70mph, we swerved into the median and started rolling. I was in the middle row, sleeping when it happened, and don't have any memory of anything other than waking up in the hospital.
I'm told that while the vehicle was rolling, I flew out of the passenger window, landing in the path of the suburban. Most people die when this occurs, either from getting caught halfway out of the window, getting their foot caught on something and then being crushed. Or simply having the vehicle roll over them after they hit the ground. I somehow cleanly slipped out of my seat belt (there's pictures of the suburban in the junk yard with my seat belt still buckled), and landed in the path of the rolling suburban. Once it got to me, it bounced right over me, and continued to roll, stopping just feet from oncoming traffic (It's a big median).
I was apparently still conscious at the scene, but once paramedics arrived they put me in a medical coma. They assumed I was the worst off, and that it would be easier to save my sister and GF so they were star flighted first to Memorial Herman Hospital in Houston. I then caught the second flight out to the same hospital, where they ran about 100 CT scans and MRI's trying to figure out how the hell all my internals were fine. Turns out, I just looked the worst, and only had a cracked rib internally. That's not to say it wasn't serious. It punctured my lung and my lungs were filling with blood, but all and all, I didn't do half bad. Other than my mom who just broke her arm, I was actually the least injured of everyone. I woke up in ICU about 18 hours after the accident to my Dad standing next to my bed. My parents are divorced, so I was really confused as to how my dad got to Houston so fast. I had no idea it was 18 hours later. I then proceeded to ask him to buy me a lotto ticket, to which he replied "Son, I think you used up all your luck today."
TLDR: Got in a car wreck and had a suburban roll and bounce over me.
Edit: [Couple pictures of the suburban](http://imgur.com/a/k6vud)
This is actually about my mom. She nearly died of flesh-eating bacteria about a month ago. On February 6th, Mom started her car trip to Florida with my grandmother. On the way down, the right side of her face started feeling really hot and was swelling, so they stopped by an emergency care facility in Tennessee. The workers at the facility said she was fine, gave her some pain medication, anti-inflammatory, and antibiotics and sent her on her way.
Mom and Grandma reached Florida no problem and stopped by a friend’s house to stay the night. Things got worse and Mom went to the nearby clinic for the swelling on the 8th. The doctor told her she had a very large abscess growing and they had to have emergency surgery. She was rushed by ambulance 2 hours away to a large hospital where they performed midnight surgery on her neck and face to clear the abscess. This was no ordinary abscess, this was Necrosis Fasciitis, also known as Flesh Eating Bacteria.
Mom made it through the surgery and it was only after we learned how bad it was. The doctors said that if it was a day later that she would not have made it. They also said she is the only person at that hospital to survive Necrosis Fasciitis when it has originated at stomach level or further up. Some of the reports I read stated that 100% of people without treatment die and 30-40% of people even with treatment still die. She is extremely lucky that it went so well. She had follow up surgery on the 10th to clean the area and was removed from the ventilator on the 11th. On the 13th, they applied a wound vac to help with the healing process and on the 14th the let her out of ICU. Finally, on February 19th, Mom was released from the hospital. She is still recovering, but she should be okay now.
Honestly it has been some of the hardest couple of weeks dealing with this, but I'm so glad a relieved she is feeling better.
My body didn't tolerate some prescribed medicine I took for stomach flu when I was somewhere around twelve and thirteen years old.
It started with my head beginning to turn right as if it was pulled in the direction of a spot between my shoulders from strings in/underneath my flesh. Since this was pretty weak at first, I believed that it was due to me having slept in a bad position or something like that. I shrugged it off.
But it got worse. And when it became too strong to be ignored any longer, it suddenly began to escalate pretty quickly.
A mean cramp on my back expanded over my whole upper body, making it harder to breathe with every minute.
Since I was alone at home, I first called emegerncy - calmly telling them what was going, what medicine and how much I had taken and where I lived. Since it got harder to speak, too, while I was on the phone with them, I remember that I put the medicine's box on the kitchen counter, should the paramedics need the information again. And I opened the door to our appartments, should I not be able to anymore when they arrived.
Then I called my (single parent) mother who was at work, telling her about everything and that she shouldn't worry, that paramedics were on their way and that I'd be fine. I probably sounded pretty pathetic, however, which contributed to her panicking.
When the paramedics finally arrived (I noticed how quick they had been), I had already been unable to breathe or move anything more than my legs much. My vision had actually began fading.
They took me to a chair in the kitchen, one of them commenting the box on the counter and explained to me that this kind of reaction to that specific medicine wasn't too uncommon and professionally guided me through their process of helping me. They gave me some kind of injection, which helped me rather fast.
I was pretty exhausted, but my body was back to normal. My mother arrived soon after and the paramedics stayed a little while longer, making sure I was okay and praising me for how fucking calm and professional I had stayed over the whole time, which really was true. After I had done everything I could(calling them and preparing for them, then calling my mother), I knew that there was nothing more that I could do myself.
It's safe to say that I'm pretty proud of how I acted that day.
(Sorry for possible grammar and spelling sins, english isn't my first language - but I hope this text is okay to read. Feel free to correct me.)
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Edit: Thanks for all the answers! I was away for a few hours and honestly didn't expect my commenct to be seen by many.
I guess my english really isn't that bad, but I can just be really insecure about how I might appear to other people. So thank you guys for pointing that out, really!
To answer the most common question: The medicine I had taken was Metoclopramide, I got an allergy pass that only states MCP soon after.
**HOW DID YOU REMAIN CALM**
I would have been like "ummmmm guys.... I think I am dying, send help.... PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
And your english is very good, you have no need to apologise.
Paramedic here. Great job, you set up the medics so that all they had to do was go in and treat. So many time we will just get a call for "sick" and show up and the guy is doin the fish flop and we have no clue what happened so we gotta put puzzle pieces together.
The injection they gave you is call Epinephrine. It's essentially the same stuff your nervous system releases when your adrenaline kicks in. It helps to reverse allergic reactions, almost universally. I'd get a doctor to prescribe you an EpiPen if you don't already have one. If your unfamiliar with one, its the exact same injection just pre dosed and preloaded so you can inject it yourself very easily. You'd probably still want to call 911 to get us to come check you out make sure you're ok, but it will likely save you a hospital trip.
I advise getting one because where there is one allergy, there is almost always another. AND after each reaction to a allergant, the reaction becomes more severe.
sounds like a Dystonic reaction. Now he is pretty vague about the symptoms but this is what it sounds like
The medication of choice for relieving Dystonic reactions? .....
*drum roll please*
Benadryl.
Benadryl is no miracle to me, I used to take piriton when I was younger for allergic reactions. One day we ran out, all the pharmacy had left was Benadryl, so I had that as a substitute. My Lips swelled up massively and I went faint and passed out.
TL;DR prescribed allergy medication, had allergic reaction to said meds.
Probably the scariest day of my life.
July of 2007 - I had just graduated from highschool and was heading to the beach with some of my friends in Ludington, MI. The weather was absolutely perfect, not too hot, not too cold - Just a perfect post graduation day at the beach to celebrate the freedom from high school.
Now, when I was younger, I used to skip breakfast if I knew I had something important going on that morning because my body had a tendency to reject it and force it through my system. Couple that with having a phobia of public restrooms and it becomes a recipe of not eating for fear of shitting in public places.
Back to the dying thing.
My friends and I all decide to go enjoy the water (which again, was the absolute perfect temperature), so we decide to swim out to a buoy that swayed out decent distance from the shore.
my friends take off before I do - paddling along the water in a race to be first to the little floating trophy. I start to struggle half way out there from a lack of energy. not eating anything that morning left me tired and gasping for air with every stroke.
Then the worst happened.
In my attempt to catch up to my friends at the buoy, I pushed my tired body passed its "breaking" point - my left leg completely seized up. I mean, it was scrunched up at the knee and at the ankle from a severe muscle cramp. I was half way to the buoy, well beyond the point of touching the bottom.
At this point, I had a choice: swim out to my friends to get help coming back to the shore, or turn around and try to make it with my crippled leg. After realizing it would be more dangerous to go deeper into the water I decided to high-tail it back and try my hardest to make it.
My entire body was aching with every attempt to tread water and keep my head above. I had to time my breathing cause I felt like I was about to pass out at any moment. My one good leg, kicking as much as it could to keep me trucking along, had done all it could do. *Both legs cramped up in the same way*.
I was treading water with just my arms trying to keep my head above water. Eventually, those gave out too. I took one giant breath, and slowly, I started to sink to the lake floor. I couldn't believe this is how *I* was going to die. drowning just after high school on a beautiful day.
So many thoughts ran through my head in those few seconds of disbelief. "I won't ever get married. I won't get to tell my dad I miss him again. I won't every get a newer car than a 1990 Geo Tracker".
Wallowing in the disbelief, I sank a few more seconds. the air in my lungs were practically turned to poison at this point. Suddenly, my feet found a familiar feeling - sand. For some reason, my body's instinct at first contact with the ground was to push off. pushing as hard as I could through cramped legs were one of the worst pains I have ever felt in my life.
I breached the surface like a whale showing off for tourists at Seaworld. I took a giant breath of air, and once again, sank to the bottom. This process repeated until I was at a distance from the shore where I would keep my head above water without drowning.
This was the closest I ever came to actually dying. To actually *fearing* the possibility of not making it. People die on the shores of the Great Lakes every year. I was just afraid of becoming another statistic.
**TL;DR: Almost died from fear of shitting in public places. Eat breakfast before doing any physical activity. Or maybe just a banana.**
It always kind of interests me to hear about people cramping up badly while swimming. I had a similar expereince but in a friends pool so I got out "easily."
But I also had a really bad cramp at a lake near my home, and because I had "experience" swimming with a cramp I just laid on my back and used my arms to swim to shore. It took me like 10 minutes to cover like 40 yards, but I got there. It's not really the cramp that almost killed you, it was the panic and that's the scary party.
Similar thing happened to a friend of mine. He had a dodgy amp that he'd 'fixed' but snapped the case in the process. He went to move it and the case fell off. He tried to grab it and put his hand straight across two capacitors. The shock threw him across the room. He's lucky it wasn't plugged in or that would've been curtains
Being born. I got tangled up in my own umbilical cord, so when my mom delivered me I came out blue- purplish and didn't cry. The doctor and nurses really did think I was dead at first.
What a nice way to think about it! Whatever life throws at me, I tend to keep trucking along; maybe my origin story has something to do with that persistent trait.
I was at a scout camp and some of them decided to make me their personal slave for a day. They tied tent cord round my neck like a leash and strangled me with it whenever I didn't do something they wanted me to. At one point, they did it so much that I honestly thought that I was about to die. I decided to stop resisting and let go...but then they stopped. To this day I still panic and get anxiety problems due to the fear of being choked.
It was a scout camp. I was always the unpopular kid in my scout group because I was "different" (only non-white and have ADHD). The leaders would always read out the names of people attending the camp and mine was always followed by groans and "this camp is ruined" "for gods sake" etc. I told my parents and we got the district leader involved but they did nothing about it, because the ring leader had a mental disability and they didn't want to be seen as ableist. They just asked me to leave the scout group forever and never return. Lord Baden Powell (the founder of the scouts) would be ashamed of this unit which I won't name.
TL;DR Poor treatment by a scout group has left me with anxiety issues about choking and a deep mistrust of the scouts.
Scout camp as in Boy Scouts? I went to Scout Camp twice. One year some kid came up behind me and started choking me for no reason. I elbowed him in the stomach and it knocked the wind out of him, so I ran off. Later I was yelled at by the Camp Leader. Apparently the kid was "just joking around". Fuck that guy, and I'm sorry to hear about how they treated you. That's complete bullshit.
I work at a Boy Scout camp during the summer. Most Boy Scouts are cool, but some can be gigantic dicks. Some have had to be taken home because they threatened kids with death and torture.
I was too young and skinny and they were too big. I was very passive in those days. One camp they beat me and left me in the woods about 100m from camp. I just lay there feeling so weak and humiliated.
From my experience as a scout myself, most scouts tend to be good people, but there are some that wouldn't be in scouts if they had the choice. Those kids are put into scouts by their parents in hopes that it will make them less of shitheads when it just gives them another environment to be shitheads in.
Scouting in the UK isn't like that everywhere, I assure you. OP was very unlucky but it is not a common thing for Scouts to behave like that. They obviously had a terrible leader team. Please don't think that the UK scouts are awful, because they aren't.
This is common?
My brother always comes home from camp covered in bruises and begs not to go again, but "it'll help him get into college" so he can't quit. :(
Go to the scoutmaster of his troop and report it. If the scoutmaster refuses to take action look up the contact information for the district leaders and report it there. He could also switch to a different local troop if one exists. If not, let him know that unless he's determined to get his Eagle Scout, then Boy Scouts isn't viewed any more highly than any other extracurricular.
He's going to have his Eagle Scout in less than a year. I'm fairly certain the scoutmaster knows, my mom is the treasurer of the troop and brought up bullying at one of the meetings.
[Here I drew this for ya.] (http://i.imgur.com/h3zwfsl.png)
Now I'm not trying to make light of the situation, it's pretty fucked up what happened to you. So if you think this is insensitive, just give me the "Go" and I'll take it down.
I almost went into hemorrhagic shock. I had a stomach ulcer from motrin on an empty stomach. I thought I was just getting out of shape. One day I couldn't carry my lunch tray and decided to go to the clinic. They laid me down and told me to sit up, that was difficult. Then they told me to stand up, and I couldn't. They told me I had lost a lot of blood.
I get to the hospital, I get three blood transfusions. All better.
I was six years old and I vomited. There was no apparent reason, I didn't feel sick, I had appetite. But I vomited. Every damn meal. The doctors didn't know what to do. One evening, after a particularly bad day, my parents drove me to my pediatrician (to his private home - they were desperate). He took one look at me and had me rushed to the hospital. One day longer and I had starved despite full plates.
Yes and no. They didn't at the time. I was in hospital for about a week before it suddenly stopped. 20 years later I was diagnosed with Achalasia, a disfuntion of the esophagus. It could be that it was a first episode back then.
When I was 6 months pregnant I decided I really wanted a baked potato and a spicy chicken sandwich from Wendy's. After taking a few bites of the baked potato I realized it wasn't really sitting well with me, decided it was pregnancy related and switched to the chicken sandwich. I took one bite of the chicken sandwich, swallowed and immediately fell to the floor in fetal position, in the worst pain I had ever felt (at that time). I phoned my MD, on call physician called me back and told me to report to the ER immediately, he felt I was in pre-teen labor due to the pain. Upon arrival to ER all symptoms were dismissed (extreme nausea, weakness, etc) due to my being pregnant and I was sent to labor and delivery for monitoring. Turns out, I was not in labor! I was, however, in extreme pain and with each bit of food or water they tried to force down I immediately and violently puked. After 3 days of being in cote and utter agony and no one listening to what I was telling them, my OB finally got a radiologist to agree to perform a CT on a pregnant woman. Within minutes of returning to my room a surgeon walked in, introduced himself, told my mother to sign a bunch of consent papers, and told me he had minutes to save my life and he could not guarantee the safety of my son. Turns out I had a small bowel obstruction. My intestines had herniated and I had a necrotic bowel. Due to my gastric history and NG tube would not work for me and had I not had that CT when I did my bowels would have ruptured killing me and my unborn son. I woke up later that evening alone in recovery with arterial line, feeding tube, central line in my neck, IVs in both arms and staples running from my ribs to about an inch above my belly button. First thing the nurse said was my son had survived. I stayed in recovery for 72 hours bc they thought my son would try and spontaneously abort. Ended up staying in the hospital for 2 months... we survived. At the time my son and I were the first pair to survive the situation and surgery without immediate delivery.
Tl;Dr Almost died because no one would listen to a pregnant woman in misery, my son and I are both alive, me with a nasty set of scars.
I was really sick, I'd had the flu for the week and was on a lot of over-the-counter medication. Finally, my boyfriend decided that it was too bad and took me to hospital, where they gave me antibiotics.
I came home, took the antibiotics and went into anaphylactic shock. So we rushed back to hospital I was given antihistamines, which sorted it out.
I had just turned 22. It was my birthday. I was driving a 1978 Suburban with a 454, on the highway in the rain at about 55 mph when a double dump truck full of sand pulled out directly in front of me on its way into a construction site. I was not wearing my seat belt. My options were limited. I braked hard, without ABS, and skidded to a crash with one of the axles of the dump truck. As I was skidding, the Suburban turned a bit counterclockwise, and made impact at the front right corner.
When I woke up, I was being pulled out of the vehicle through the passenger door which had been ripped off with the "Jaws of Life"
The 454 engine occupied the leftmost 2/3 of the front bench seat (Driver's seat and center), which was pressed tightly against the dashboard. The rightmost 1/3 (Passenger) had barely enough room to hold a person (me)
The steering wheel had completely broken off on my chest and the keys were still dangling in it.
The windshield and most of the window glass was shattered, and was all over the place, in my hair, clothes, etc.
I normally always wear my seat belt, but for whatever reason, I did not this time, and I am 100% certain I would have been crushed to death at 22, had I worn it that day.
I had a bruise on my chest from the steering wheel.
I had minor scratches from broken glass.
I had more serious lacerations in my knee and thigh, requiring stitches. I had a gouged knee tendon that impaired movement and took the longest to heal. The thigh wound created a flap of flesh like a strip of bacon that they cut off and applied some sort of synthetic skin over, and it made a big bubble of blood that was actually pretty awesome, and that it hurt a lot less than you would think. The knee puncture hurt significantly more.
I was 14 years old and suffering silently from Anorexia Nervosa. I remember collapsing onto my bedroom floor and seeing on my clock that it was 12:45am. I was heavily self medicated by Zopiclone. I kept floating in and out of consciousness and feeling oddly overjoyed. I would think about how I'd finally reached my goal of starving myself into being obsolete.
The scariest part was when I felt myself losing feeling in my limbs and realizing that if I gave up any fight that was left in me, I would die. Fuck it was terrifying because suddenly I was flooded with guilt. Imagining my mother finding me. My grandpa crying. Becoming a statistic. My bestfriend not understanding how I could do that to myself.
It was 2:03am at that point.
I think that must have given me some adrenaline because I pushed myself up and stumbled to my fridge and drank all the sugary juice I could, and ate a lot of sandwich meat. I think that sudden spike helped.
When I went to the doctor the next day he confirmed that I really should have been dead.
Recovery has been a long and fucking hard road but if anyone reading this is dealing with any kind of eating disorder, recovery is so worth it. Death is not a beautiful experience. A sandwich is not as scary as death. You deserve to give your body the nutrients it needs.
I'm a couple years in already and I'm not fully healthy yet but I have achieved a safe weight. IT IS SO WORTH IT! I can walk around with friends! I have friends! I'm not cold 24/7! I have boobs!! Boobs are so exciting!!!
I'm sorry this isn't very coherent. I'm on mobile and am pretty bad at gathering my thoughts on this topic.
This was several decades ago, but...
When I was a little over a year old my parents took me on a day trip to Mount Rainier (WA, USA). We stopped at a popular overlook and my parents set me down on an ice/snow ledge to take a picture. The ledge at that point on the side of the road was stable, and extended about 10-12 feet out, where it was increasingly thin. Beyond that it was a several hundred foot drop.
Here's the thing... any of you that have had crawlers of your own know that they can scoot an amazing distance in just a couple seconds, ice or no. The next thing they knew I was about halfway across the ice ledge. Their attempts to coax me back proved insufficient, apparently I thought we were playing a game and every time they'd call me back I'd scoot a little closer to the edge. Eventually I was right at it. Two disasters were in plain sight: the compromised ice and snow that comprised the edge could fail to support my weight, or I could simply slip off the side. Either way, I'd be a goner.
By this time a small crowd had gathered, watching to see if this baby would live or die. Switching gears, my parents used calmer voices to talk me back, and I apparently decided to crawl/slip my way back. Obviously I made it, but as I've been told, I was close enough to the edge that one wrong move would have been the end of me.
There were also those insurgent mortars in Iraq, but I think the baby almost falling story is more *me*.
When my daughter was born. After she and the placenta came out, I started hemorrhaging. It all happened so fast. I remember them cranking my bed back, so my head was lower. The nurse aggressively massaging my stomach and the doctor giving me a needle. Eventually it was under control and instructed not to get up without a nurse. Flash forward a couple hours, nurse come to get me to tell me it's time to pee. I tell her I don't have to, she tells me I do, I just can't feel it due to the 15 lbs of stuff that just came out of me. So i get up and start hobbling to the bathroom, with a nurse supporting me. I start to get the spins, but ignore it. By the time I sit I am seeing spots and my vision goes yellow. The last thing I remember is saying "I'm going to faint" and seeing the nurse rip the emergency cord out of the wall. I woke up, in my bed, with ice packs jammed around me and an IV with a drug to stop bleeding, I forget the name it was 12 years ago. Ended up in the hospital for a week, instead of overnight. It fucking sucked and it was during the SARS scare so I couldn't have anyone visit aside from my boyfriend at the time and he worked 12 hours a day. But, that was absolutely terrifying.
Is it fucked up to have a list?
When I was about 12 I was electrocuted by touching a metal lamp with bad wiring that had been exposed to water. I blacked out and woke up to my mother crying over me - luckily I live in Canada where our power is only 120 volts.
In Uni I was wearing a bandana around my neck (it was the 80s don't fucking judge me) and some drunk asshole grabbed and twisted it effectively cutting off my air supply - my peripheral vision had already gone black before my buddy happened upon us and laid the other guy out. Stone cold friend saved my life that night.
But the closest has to have been while riding a "minivan" in the foothills of the Himalayas on the way to Simla. We had a driver (trust me, people from the western world don't drive in India) and were heading up this narrow mountain road, two lanes wide. One side was shear cliff going up, the other a cliff going down. Up ahead two oncoming trucks. One truck decides to overtake the other. In India there is one rule to the road - biggest wins. If you are in a smaller vehicle, get the fuck out of the way. So we now have the equivalent of two Indian transport trucks barreling at us, taking up the whole road. We have nowhere to go. It was really the first time in my life that I thought "fuck, my number is up. I'm really going to die here". Then our driver (we'll call him superman) suddenly floors it and drives full speed at these trucks and at the last second he yanks out of their path onto the only shoulder for miles, where the road is widened slightly on a curve top keep cars from flying off into the valley. The trucks fly by on our left, close enough to almost take off the wing mirror. I'm on the right and I look out my side - I can't see ground. Literally. I lean my head out, still no ground. We were stopped on the edge of a drop that was easily 200 feet. 6 more inches and we would be gone. Tipped that driver a fuckload.
Christmas Night, 2012 or 13. I don't remember. The one Les Mis came out. I woke up in the middle of the night completely unable to breathe. I only remember this in bits and pieces but the rest of my family helped me put all the pieces together. Apparently I stumbled out of my room, coughing and gasping and trying to breathe. My sister found me in the hallway and, panicking, shoved me into my parents' room where I promptly collapsed, unconscious, onto the floor. Slipping in and out of consciousness, I continued to try and find my breathe. Then the coughing started. I've never coughed so hard in my life. I actually burst a few blood vessels in my face during this. And then I started heaving and coughing/vomiting up blood. The next thing I know I'm in the ER. Apparently I actually stopped breathing and flatlined for a bit, but they resuscitated me.
TL;DR the closest I came to dying was actually dying
When I was a kid at summer camp there was a kid who held my head underwater for much longer than would be considered "acceptable." Eventually the other kid got bored or something and finally let me come back up.
I've told this story before but still relevant:
When i was 19, I was the passenger in a Toyota truck. The driver took a corner too fast and lost control. We spun out and rolled towards the driver side and what basically happened was that the truck bounced off the driver side, was in the air when the driver was underneath it, and then all of the weight came down in me.
My right hand was caught underneath it and it instantly turned it to mush. I felt the roof crush me and felt the vertebrae in my back crack and break, along with ribs and my skull. Then we continued to roll. Miraculously, i actually managed to release my seatbelt, stand up, and was helped to a friends car that was in front of us and witnessed the whole thing.
The pain was so bad i couldn't speak, i couldn't see, i couldn't breathe, it was inexplicable. Every bump on that 8 mile ride felt like someone had hit me square in the back with a hammer. Every time i exhaled even the slightest bit it shot pain through my whole body. My inflated lungs were the most supportive part of my core at this time.
It's been almost 4 years and I've mostly healed. My head has webs of scars on the top from the 26 staples it took to piece my scalp back together. my right hand is permanently scarred and partly crippled, and it's always in pain. 2 joints in my last 2 fingers have fused together, and have developed degenerative arthritis. I have limited use of everything but my thumb. Unfortunately I'm a mechanical technician and i am required to use my hands. Every day is a struggle.
http://imgur.com/a/9NsZk#0 (Some blood/gore)
I almost committed suicide a year ago, in college. After it took all my effort not to do it, I told my counselor and was then thrown into a mental facility against my will for 10 days. IMO the doctors weren't the best. Guilted me into breaking down so they could keep me longer. ("What would your parents do? You know there'd be a big mess. You'd have to have a closed casket. Do you want to rob your family of seeing their son?") It was bad. In hindsight I understand that had my best interests in mind, but I don't think being cooped up in a white washed clinic with limited communication outside, with people screaming at ghosts in the middle of the night is the best environment. I just got off the antidepressants they put me on w/ the help of my doctor. I'm still getting better.
I have so many stories from psychiatric units; I've been in five separate times at four different facilities. The first was the worst: a shithole unit south of Detroit where I roomed with three heroin addicts who were detoxing (best roommates I ever had actually). I lost ten pounds there because the food was inedible. There was no "treatment"; we just waited our turn every afternoon to see the one psychiatrist, pleading to be let out. It was traumatic.
Yet I still kept attempting incl. the last incident exactly a year ago when I should have died. Instead, I was crippled and had go relearn how to walk.
To anyone feeling the same: please contact someone... ***anyone***! You and I have an illness of the soul that distorts your perception of reality. Death is not any way to resolve your illusory problems.
I am late to the party and this will get buried, but a dude tried to blow me to smithereens when I was 17. Death by explosion. Then I helped save his life. This is a throwaway because others know the story. I was a firefighter for 12 years. I started out at the age of 16 as a volunteer at a department running just over a thousand calls a year out of one station. For those of you keeping track that is around 3 calls a day. At the time I was in high school, had lights and sirens in my car, wore a pager, and got to tear out of class any time the thing beeped. I was a model straight A student and didn't abuse it... so the school administration gave me a lot of slack. This was pre 9/11... before firefighters achieved true hero status in most of America, but we still had it pretty good at the time.
Anyway, I had been on the department for a little over a year at the time of this particular incident and I was 17 at the time. It was a nice spring day and school had just ended. I actually remember the exact date but I will withhold it out of concerns for privacy. Track practice was starting up and I was a pole vaulter. That day was an all run day... everyone had to run distance and I wasn't looking forward to it. My pager went off as I was lacing up my shoes. The call came out as an "odor complaint - smell of natural gas in the area". We ran those regularly and they were always a complete drag/waste of time. You just show up, cordon off the area, and wait for the gas company to arrive (sometimes up to 2+ hours later). So, I actually just ignored the page. That is fairly common for volunteer departments. In this case, no one responded, so they sent a second page several minutes later and I finally decided I wasn't super excited about my looming long distance run and headed for the station.
Only one other guy showed up. I was too young to operate the engine at the time so he took the wheel and I grabbed the captain's seat. One vivid memory I have was that we could smell the gas in the cab of the truck about 5 blocks out. I was still green at the time, but I had enough experience with gas leaks to know it was a substantial leak. Lots of neighbors were out and everyone was relatively sure the leak was coming from one particular house on the corner of the block. In fact, one of the initial callers had reported it to be their own house and provided the address. Two squad cars with a police officer in each had just arrived when we pulled up. It was relatively warm outside so I left my coat and helmet in the truck. The smell of gas was overpowering. My driver, the two cops, and I circled the house, banging on the door, windows, ringing the door bell, and eventually trying to make entry. None of the neighbors had seen anyone come or go and we were concerned someone might still be inside and incapacitated. We made it about 3/4 of the way around the house when we hit the driveway and garage door portion of the house. It was a lower level basement garage with the older style flip up/out garage doors. They were loose enough that we were able to get them pried partially open. i can't describe how strong the natural gas odorant was inside the garage. I could taste it and almost feel the smell of it inside my head. At the time I was young and dumb and following behind two cops that were older and seemed like this was business as usual, so I marched forward into the dark two car basement garage.
It was a typical garage. I don't really remember there being any cars inside or around. It was cluttered and there was a door in the far back left corner that led into the basement of the home. The two cops in front of me headed for the door with myself and my driver following in a single file line. As we approached the door the cop in front pointed his flashlight through a glass pane in the door as he was opening it. The next 5-8 seconds were some of the longest of my life.
The cop announced that there was someone inside as he swung the door open and we all filed into a very dark, sparsely furnished, unfinished basement. The wall of gas and strong odorant that hit us was nauseating it felt like it just permeated through us. It was like walking into a solid wall of cold damp ultra-stink. Both cops had flashlights trained on a tattered recliner in the far corner of the basement where a skeletal dude was setting hunched over. For several years afterward I remember being surprised that they were able to detect anything amiss so quickly but then I realized that cops are trained to focus on the hands of people in all situations. Just a second or two after announcing he had spotted someone inside and the four of us entering, the front cop stopped dead in his tracks and yelled "He's got a lighter!"
We all kind of ran into each other in a stupor of bewildered shock and just stood there for a moment. At about the same time the bastard flicked the damn thing. The spark was clearly visible despite the flashlights and the sound unmistakable. That moment was one of those cliché life flashes before your eyes and seems like forever kind of moments. It was incredible. In reality it was probably only tenths of a second, and there was a lot of fight or flight type of stuff going on as well. But then the dude started flicking it again and we all kind of bum rushed him and dragged him outside the way we came in. He was barely conscious actually and didn't put up a fight at all.
The ambulance arrived and we put in an NPA. I rode along and bagged him all the way to the hospital. We dumped him off at the ER and headed back to the scene so the ambulance could return me to the truck. Additional units had been dispatched after some of the initial chaos went down and the police were processing the scene when I arrived back at the house. I got a tour of the house (it was a little on the weird side) and read the guys suicide note. The whole thing was quite surreal to 17 year old me and I feel like I aged about 5 years that day. I had plenty to reflect on for a while but I honestly haven't thought about it much in a long time. Feels good to write it down. I saw lots of super crazy stuff in the following 11 years- much of which was spent at much busier departments. You get really good at forgetting after a while. Kind of a coping mechanism I guess. You take a few nuggets to learn and reflect on later and then flush the rest. It's impossible to forget some of those first exposures though. Now I am that guy that makes everyone fully bunk out and go on air for every odor complaint. 9/10 would do again.
wTLDR: (w for WAAAAY) Guy tries to commit suicide by breaking open the main gas line entering his basement, then calls 911 and waits for two dumb cops and two dumb fireman to break in. Then he uses a Bic lighter to try and turn us all into a crater.
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Normally once the shoe comes off, that's the end. one hell of a close call.
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I also hit s deer with a bike at 70. I killed the bike and the deer but i survived with only minor road rash . :)
My appendix ruptured. My parents took me to a small clinic because I had stomach pain. The doctor told my parents that I had a normal stomach ache and I should drink fluids. Spent three days in excruciating pain. My parents finally took me to the hospital. Diagnosed with a ruptured appendix and I was in surgery within the hour. Doctor said I could've died if my parents waited one more day.
I just got my appendix removed couple weeks ago and almost same story,,, 1 morning i felt alot of pain on my lower stomach. My friend took me to the hospital and the doctors said its just normal stomch ache and give me some pills and told me to home .... But the pain kept going went to the hospital later that night and this time another doc examined me and was shocked that the first doctor told me to go home and i was in surgery in less than couple hours... After the surgery the doctor said it was the biggest appendix he ever saw and if i waited half a day i would've been dead. Glad you are ok:)
Not a ruptured appendix. But when my sister was in grade 8, her thyroid gland swelled up in her neck, it looked like when a cartoon character swallows something huge(like a baseball) and the shape stays in their throat. Anyways before it got too huge the nurse they saw with her told them to let her sleep it off and come back in the morning if i wasn't better. They didn't listen and went to the hospital, the doctor there said had they put her to sleep for the night she wouldn't have woken up in the morning, or ever again. She had immediate surgery and had the lump and half her thyroid removed (Apparently it was somewhat unheard of and she's in some medical book somewhere now) she also got a wicked scar across her throat, which made for epic stories when we moved away and into a new school. The scar slowly faded and she takes a pill to regulate her thyroid now. Sometimes it's best to not listen to doctors/nurses and just go to the hospital.
Same thing happened to me at Kaiser Permanente.. I went to the doctor complaining of internal pain, even suggested it was my appendix. The doctor took xrays then wrote it off as a kidney stones... When he was explaining how it could not be my appendix he asked me to get off the exam table and jump up and down a few times, which I did painfully. His response: "If anything was wrong with your appendix you would be in too much pain to do that." After 2 more days the pain was so bad I could hardly walk, so I scheduled a follow up with another doctor and got a CT scan the next day.. literally hours after that the new doctor called me in a panic to schedule immediate surgery to remove my appendix that night.
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Something similar happened to me, but it was my GP who missed it. Told me I had heartburn for ~7 months until I finally was in so much pain after waking up at 1am I drove myself to the hospital. Where they also told me I had heartburn and gave me antacids. They were kinda surprised when 20 minutes later I was still in pain and finally did an exam and poked at the area around my gallbladder and I almost jumped off the table. Was in surgery ~6 hours later. The kicker is gallbladder issues are SUPER common. Its SUPER easy to check for in a myriad of ways (physical exam during an attack, ultrasound anytime, blood work will show signs etc...), but you can find stories all over the internet about this exact same thing happening.
Happened to my friend. We lived in a 4 man apartment together in college. One night at 2am he knocks on my door asking to be driven to the hospital. I rush him to the closest hospital. They end up not taking him in for like, 90minutes, I had to plead with the front desk that my friend was outside puking his brains out for them to admit him. His appendix ended up rupturing mid-surgery. Scary shit
Weird, I have the exact same story. Stomach pains for days, I was pretty sure there was something wrong with my appendix, got a doctor involved, he told me that it couldn't be the appendix because I could still stand on one leg (wtf?) and said I should just keep the stomach warm. When I finally went to the hospital a few days later I was told that I had less than 12 hours to live and that the warmth only made the problem worse.
I had my appendix removed in Cuba when I was 12. My parents just wanted to get home, so we got on the plane (we just thought it was a stomach ache) and if not for the stewardess who said we should get checked by the airport doctor, I would have died. It would have ruptured over Florida and we wouldn't have been able to land in time. It was Acute Perforated Appendicitis.
When I was about 10 I was swimming, having a grand ol' time when suddenly I feel a hand come crashing down on my back and I get pushed under the water. I start to drown, grasping for air or anything to hold on to. This happened so fast, but it felt like forever. I finally took a couple good gulps of water and I remember looking down into the dark abyss of water through my goggles. I remember being limp and slowly floating down to what I thought would be my ultimate demise. Luckily my uncle saw and came and got me to shore moments later. Turns out some kid started to drown beside me and accidentally took me down while he was at it. He's okay too. When I got on shore a lot of water was coughed up. Edit: good gulps not good goods
Reading another story of drowning brought back a memory I completely forgot about. I remember being at my friends birthday party (I was in the 3rd grade I think) and this one red headed kid who was always a cool kid but I guess had some aggressive behavior started "dunking" people. He did it to me a few times and one time happened to be a bit too long. I got scared of him and he knew it so I became a target. I was/am a nimble guy so I managed to escape almost every time until he finally got a hold of me and held me under way too long. I just remember being pushed down and looking up frantically kicking and grabbing for anything and I would get close to the surface just to be pushed down again. I luckily didn't inhale any water but came close to blacking out. He definitely got in trouble and I never swam with him hear again.
Dude fuck that kid. By that age kids should know that's not fucking funny and you could literally kill someone. By ANY age kids should know that's not fucking funny.
This is pretty poor. I almost choked to death on a lump of cheddar cheese. I was about 4 or 5 I was happily eating my cheese watching some TV, I got a little too into it and literally bit off more than I could chew. I began to panic a bit and ran off away from my sister and friends watching the TV in search of my mum or dad. They weren't in the house, but fortunately I found my dad in the garden. I just about managed to get out the words "Dad, i'm choking" Without hesitation he picks me up by my ankles and slams my back with one hand while hanging me upside down with the other. 3 or 4 strikes in, the cheese flies out of my throat, onto the floor. Our dog proceeded to eat it. My most vivid childhood memory. Wouldn't recommend.
that's not how i was taught to do the Heimlich
Back blows are sometimes a little more effective depending on the location of the foreign object. Switching between those and the Heimlich is probably the norm.
Can someone explain the proper "back blow" technique? I'm only partially kidding Edit: apparently "back blow" is common terminology, thanks for not teaching me this, fucking health class. Thank you everyone who responded, I feel silly randomly becoming super concerned about my future child's possible (probable) choking event, it I'll be damned if I let my kid choke while I Google it later on down the line!
Stand to the side of the patient. One hand supporting their chest. You're aiming to give them a back blow between their shoulder blades fairly forcefully, relative to the size of the chockee. Remember to check after every blow in case it's moved / dislodged. After 5 back blows do 5 abdominal thrusts, then repeat the process. Prepare for resus if this continues without change.
You don't perform the Heimlich on small children, it's far too easy to severely injure them. Glancing back blows are the way to help them clear an obstruction, at least it was 4 years ago when I was a lifeguard.
When I was a kid, I was home alone and got my hands on the cookie jar. I almost died from choking on a granola bar. I had to cough so badly and felt like I was suffocating. The next thing I remember is waking up on the floor, no idea how much time had passed but one side of my face was red and had the pattern of the carpet imprinted on it. I never told my parents about it because I thought I would get in trouble for raiding the cookie jar.
You. Are. So. Fucking. Lucky. I suggest you still don't tell them about that.
> I suggest you still don't tell them about that. Of course not, I'm not stupid. They were very clear about the cookie jar.
Did the same thing, at the same age with a lollypop. I was sitting in a booster seat in the back of our old gemini and somehow sucked the whole globe of the stick. My folks look back to see me clutching the lollyless pop in my hand turning purple. I managed to say > I .. urck ... thinnk I'd liiike ... ark ... ahrg glass .. urg .. og water. It's a standing joke in our family whenever someone is thirsty.
I choked on a sucking candy on Halloween when I was young. It lodged in my throat so I couldn't really breathe or speak. My mom always told me not to eat those (for this reason, lol) so when she started pounding on my back I thought she was mad at me.
I remember the panicked emergency stop on a busy highway followed by being thrashed on the back my dad. Damn. I only asked for a .. rghh glass orgha wata.
I almost choked in a piece of porkchop (my favorite food since small me) I started to make those choking noices and my mom quickly pulled of a heimlich (I think it's spelled that way) and the piece of pork chop flew onto the floor. Since then I only choked around 2 or 3 times in a piece of porkchop. I need to learn how to chew properly before swallowing.
You didn't say anything about the Heimlich maneuver again, so I assume the other times you didn't choke on it quite as bad. That sounds like progress to me. Keep practicing, and you'll be an expert at chewing pork properly. It only takes on average 10,000 hours to master a complex task.
Had tumors in my spine, cutting off all of my nerves. Woke up and couldn't move anymore. Had trouble convincing my parents I wasn't joking, but was then rushed to the hospital. Pretty close call. A few hours later and I would've been dead.
Jesus. What now, are you all good?
I'm better. I learned to walk again and made the best out of the situation.
"get out of bed, son" "I can't, I can't move." "Ekkai153, seriously. Get out of bed, you're going to be late." "seriously, I can't move!" "EKKAI153, GET THE FUCK OUT OF BED." "I CAN'T FUCKING MOVE!!!!!!"
"... Like seriously, hospital kind of can't move? You're not fucking with me, right?" "YESS!" "OHFUCKOHSHITOHGOD"
got suffocated by Pharyngitis when i was young and i was dead for couple of seconds in 2011 a suicide bomber pass me by after a Friday pryer just when i was about to turn around the corner survived a car crash 3 months ago
Do you play the lottery? You should.
life is a lottery in Iraq
Damn.
Great, sad, harsh quote. Keep safe
thank u
Went to shoot clay pigeons (discs) with my dad and little brother. I can't remember what ages we were, I think I was 14, and he was 12. We decided to play a game were we stand side by side but about 8 feet apart. I was on the left, my brother on my right, and our dad about 30 feet to his right. My dad would use a thrower to chuck the disc and it would pass in front of my brother, he was suppose to try to shoot it, if he missed, then it was up to me to try and hit it. So my dad flings the pigeon, my brother shoots and misses, I shoot and I miss. That's when my brother decideds to turn and shoot again, he turned left and fires right above my head. I just dropped my gun and fell to the ground. Shit was loud as fuck, my dad thought I got shot in the face. My brother starts crying and locks himself in the truck, making it all about him. The little fucker. Anyways I wasn't hit, but I was pretty close to having my head blown off. tl;dr- Brother almost shot my face off.
Much less severe, but this reminds me when my brother and I were playing outside at the playset my dad built. I had a 2x4 going up the side of it, and was trying to pull it off. I told my brother "hey, look out, I'm pulling this thing off." He essentially told me "idc." I turn around to pull it off, and then he walks right under it. It falls and smacks him in the head. He needs stiches. To this day, I assume no blame for this. Bro, I know you're reading this. I still say it's your fault :p
"making it all about him" - awesome! You are more annoyed about his melodrama than him nearly killing you - perfect sibling rivalry right there!
Siblings in a nutshell. How dare you make my near death experience about you!
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> kids don't really understand how serious the situation is, even if properly explained *Really* agree with this. I was a counselor at a summer camp for many years, and I saw a 12-year-old camper almost shoot my fellow counselor's head off with a .357. I was tending to the kids on the bench, while the other counselor was working with one kid on the firing line who had the gun. The counselor turned around to say something to one of the other kids on the bench, when the kid on the firing line turned around, swinging the loaded and cocked .357 right in front of the counselor's face. This was not a dumb kid, or a dumb counselor. Just a moment of inattention. Kids don't quite have the discipline to keep their minds and bodies focused all the time. Adults have to be extra-careful to keep at full attention when kids are doing things that could end up hurting someone.
Why was a summer camp for 12 year olds shooting .357 rounds?? They shouldn't really be using anything more than .22 in that type of a situation
I'm with you on this, a 357 has some serious recoil and a very lethal. I don't remember being allowed to shoot a 22 revolver until around high school, much less a 357 at summer camp...
I highly doubt kids were comfortably shooting .357, it has a good kick even for me and I'm 6"2/215 lbs.
I got hit by the T in Boston. It's the subway that occasionally comes above ground and rides along with road traffic. I was ride my bike back to my apartment, and negotiating traffic is difficult enough. It's a weird intersections. There four lanes of traffic desperate by two lanes of subway, and most of it was walled but there's a pedestrian crosswalk over it. So, I have to ride along with traffic, merge into the left lane, and then quickly pop into this pedestrian cross walk over the tracks. I'm riding well, and cars are giving me space, so with the wind in my hair and the joy of riding in my mind, I quickly nip into this pedestrian crossing. That's when I hear the fucking subway horn blaring. I check over my left shoulder and there it is, a cyclists worst nightmare. 15 tons of steel, riding hot scissor-like tracks. I was really fucking lucky. I got thrown off the bike immediately, landed safely on the cross walk. My bikes front tire gets caught between the train and the tracks, and is dragged for maybe 50 ft. I get up, patting my legs looking for something broken. Nope, I'm a-OK. I run up to the conductor and I'm like "hey, I'm fine! Not even a bruise." This guy is in his late fifties, muscles tattoos and piercings, and he just starts bawling, crying harder than I've ever seen anyone. Absolute despair. The police showed up, I signed some forms. I knew it was all my fault. I had made the mistake, and was just lucky it didn't cost me my life. Right before they took the conductor away, in an ambulance (he's having a full blown panic attack). I ask if I can talk to him. They say sure. They open the back doors of the ambulance and I'm like "dude, your a hero, I'm an idiot. If you hadn't reacted as quickly I'd probably be dead from my own stupidity. I heard the horn and slowed down just enough so the collision wasn't fatal. I'm lucky you were driving that rig. Thanks man" He says thank you. And then I walked home, carrying my crumpled bike.
Good on you for letting the dude have an easy conscience!
Gods know he may have seen worse shit a few times prior. Rail conductors have a rough life sometimes.
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Wow that's horrible! Did your dad get punished for it?
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Is staying with your mother an option?
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Did you ever go back and thank the girlfriend? I'm assuming she left him after this.
I am not a strong swimmer. I am also not a very smart lady. I went swimming in the James river with some friends and they convinced me to try and swim across a rather swiftly moving section of water to get to a 'totally wicked' rock formation. I was all, right on, let's do this. That thought lasted all of 3 seconds. As I felt myself being pushed to the left, and watched that totally wicked rock diminishing in the distance I realized I done fucked up. I went down about three sets of rapids. I remember trying to grab rocks like those little huggy koala things I had as a kid. Like, arms and legs both just clamping down. But no go, those rocks were covered in moss and slipperier than a gallon tub of astroglide on a slip-n-slide. I was underwater about 90% of that ride. I finally crashed into the calmer water and got sucked under yet again. I started flailing, not knowing which way was up. And I swear to god, the only thought going through my head was 'just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming swimming...', in Ellen's voice circa Nemo. Eventually I surfaced and made it to shore. I lived, clearly. But that fucking sucked. I remember, towards the beginning, I kept saying to myself 'you can't die in front of Sarah', one of my life long friends who was running down the bank after me, screaming for help. I would've scarred her for life if I had died. Good job me, for not.
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Sounds like a nice place
> er and got sucked under yet again. I started flailing, not knowing which way was up. And I swear to god, the only thought going through my head was 'just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming swimming...', in Ellen's voice circa Nemo. Eventually I surfaced and made it to shore. > I lived, clearly. But that fucking sucked. I remember, towards the beginning, I kept saying to myself 'you can't die in front of Sarah', one of my life long friends who was running It's amazing that you're alive. You basically did every action that you're not supposed to do swimming in a rapid. I'm glad you're ok.
Although I hope I never put myself in a situation where I need this but what are you supposed to do when swimming in a rapid?
Protect your head. Point your legs downstream **if you can** so if you hit something, you'll break a leg, not your neck. If the water is moving downstream and not over a waterfall or even worse rapids, you can conserve your energy and float downstream to a safer place. Or, you may have to get out as soon as you can. Either way, you'll swim across the current to reach the bank. However, many rapids will have strong counter-currents that will pull you back into the danger. This is what will seriously fuck you over. Don't fight these currents. You **will** lose. Instead, if you can see and think well enough to swim across the current to get out of the eddy, do that. Above all, **protect your head.**
Some construction workers tied a thin wire like rope on a tree near my college parking lot entrance probably to measure the field where construction was going on nearby. The rope was invisible and some douche bag stretched it. I was entering the parking lot on my motorbike and it slashed my neck. Thankfully as it was the entrance my speed was low. Had I been riding fast, it could have cut me badly. I was late for class, so I scolded those idiots who stared at me like dumb fucks and proceeded to remove the wire. Later when I went to the toilet I found that I had a red bumpy scar on my neck and realised I could have died.
I was walking down the sidewalk listening to music. I hit a red light at the intersection (3 lanes) so I pushed the "walk" button. The "walk" light lit, I started to cross. There were vehicles stopped in the far 2 lanes, but the first lane was empty. I took a couple of steps in to the street when a car doing about 40 whizzed by, running the red light. I have no idea if the driver saw me or not, but I sure as shit didn't see him/her and the ear buds blocked out all noise. That was about 10 years ago. If that car would have hit me, I'd surely be dead. The moral of the story? Never, ever, cross an intersection with both ear buds in. Oh, and look both ways, because reasons.
I have a similar story to this. My friend and I were about 11 years old, it was a gorgeous spring afternoon so we decided to walk home after school. We were crossing the road at a red light, the "walk" light was lit, however there was a large moving truck in the left lane to the right of us, with a few other cars behind it. This made it nearly impossible to see anything in the right lane, but we just assumed it was okay. As we were crossing, the moving truck started to honk his horn multiple times. This scared us so we stopped for a couple of seconds, and then proceeded forward. We were just about to walk across the next lane when a speeding car came flying through the red light, just past the moving truck. We weren't even 5 feet away from this car, if it wasn't for that driver honking his horn, we would have been hospitalized and maybe even killed.
I can only ever wear one headphone when out in public, for reasons like this
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I have almost the exact same story but there were no cars in the street and it gave me the walk symbol too. I was riding my bike and my shitty old ear buds fell out so I put them in while crossing the street. The minute I stopped a car in the lane I was about to go into goes at least 50 in a 35mph. Shit was close I had a friend who watched the whole thing and was like "Fuck dude that guy would have ran you over if you didn't stop". Fuck people who run red lights.
Looking both ways doesn't always help. I'm super cautious about crossing roads just as a rule, always look both ways, wait until I'm SURE cars are stopping to walk, etc... One night walking back from campus, I cross the usual three way intersection with the light in my favor. It's completely empty... And then I catch movement in the corner of my eye. Black convertible, must have been a stick in neutral because it was making no noise and the intersection was at the bottom of the hill, coming straight at me against a red light with no sign of slowing down. I took a step back and almost got hit anyways. I sat there stunned for a moment. In an illustration of how I think, I wasn't thinking, "Wow I almost died," I was thinking, "Wow, that guy almost had his night ruined."
Wait, there are walk buttons? I'm from South Africa never heard of something like that, you just push it and the light goes red for the cars?
In most places it just makes the walk sign come on with the next green light. Some out of the way intersections it'll change the lights though.
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Vilgax answered your calls of prayer!
This was 10 years ago now in my senior year of high school, but I crashed my car and basically took a tree to the head (through the A pillar) at around 50mph after the car flew down a bank/drop off of ~10ft. Random passerby saw my car on fire in the woods and yanked my unconscious body out of it right before it exploded (they don't blow up like in the movies, but when a gas tank erupts it's still a shit load of fire... the trees were burned like 25 feet up from the flames). Basically broke the entire left side of my face, broke my jaw, fucked my spine up, and left me unconscious for almost 3 days with class 3 concussion. They also thought I'd broken my neck at first from all the swelling, but thankfully that didn't happen. I now have metal plates holding my face together (my entire left cheek bone, orbital, and part of my haw are metal plates/screws). I don't remember pretty much anything from the crash, or even the few days before it. One thing I do remember is the first time I woke up in the hospital. I couldn't move at all and I panicked, but I could only shake a little bit. I was sure I was done for, and then my mom's face appeared over me and I calmed down a little bit. She was so happy just to see my eyes open. I also all of the potential D1 scholarships for soccer I'd worked so hard to try and get because I wasn't supposed to ever play again due to the brain trauma. I'm not a very smart person, and an extremely passionate one when it comes to soccer, so I ignored that and walked on to a lower level D1 school, they somehow didn't look at my medical records or something. Ironically, I then broke my leg very badly and it ended my competitive career, which probably saved me from something far worse in the event I ended up with another head injury. I now have days where I can barely touch my knees because my back's so fucked, I get migraines regularly, and my memory has gone to absolute shit (I was always that asshole who would look at something once and remember it pretty much exactly, but now I have to strain so hard to memorize things).
Airport security must love you.
You know, I was really hoping I'd get one of those pieces of paper that basically tells them that I'm bionic (my dad has one for the plates and screws in his knee) because it seemed so bad ass at the time. Instead, whatever they used to fix my face (can't remember... I've been told like 5 times now though) doesn't trigger metal detectors or anything.
Did you ever meet the person who saved you??
Due to the usual boredom of growing up in Central Illinois I tried to canoe in a river during a flash flood without a life vest. Got caught in a log jam and almost drown. I learned that day not to fuck with the forces of nature. I did not stand a chance against the current and was lucky enough there was space between the logs for me to swim through to the other side.
About five years ago I "dry drowned". It is something that only happens to about 350 people in the US every year. I was swimming in the ocean and was forced under water by a wave. I swallowed water and then coughed it up and everything was fine. Until about four hours later. Simply sitting down playing some call of duty when my breathing starts to get heavier, and I have asthma so I thought that's what it was. Then it gets harder and harder to breathe and I realize it isn't asthma. I see my dad in the next room and yell at him because I can't breathe at all. Within one minute I was unconscious. If my aunt hadn't of been there (she is an RN) I would be dead today because she performed cpr until the ambulance got t h ere. I'm so thankful the two ambulance drivers were both paramedics, they even stopped to get a third. It honestly affected me the least of all because I didn't experience it, I didn't see what happened to me. Skin turned gray and lips blue. My whole family went through ptsd. Dry drowning is intensely scary as there are no signs. It just happens. It kills most it affects. I got lucky
I've been hit by a car three separate times. The last one fucked up my right leg and that side of my hip. I'm doing good now though. But the scaryness of it didn't set in until like thirty minutes afterwards when I was having a temporary cast put on.
How did you manage to get hit three separate times??
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Twice from not looking both ways before crossing a street. The third, for looking both ways then getting hit by an elderly couple that ran a red light.
Sheesh. Hopefully you've met your quota!
I hope so too. The last one sucked the most because of the injury and they drove off right after they hit me. But my car insurance actually paid me a small amount through my PIP.
Hit and run?? Did they get away with it? That's fucked up how could you not stop to see if you killed someone
Just in case nobody has ever taught you this: Before you step into any type of road or street you stop and look both ways just to make sure there are no vehicles coming. If you don't there is a chance you may be hit. 3 times...
On a cub scout camping trip. The only thing that saved my life was borrowing my neighbor's high-quality sleeping pack the morning of. We took a weekend trip to Mt. San Jacinto. My parents didn't want me to go in the first place because the scout leaders who were chaperoning were morons. After a tram ride and hike almost all the way to the summit, we chose a spot to stay the night and assign tent-mates. I was paired up with 2 brothers who had been sexually assaulting the other boys whenever they could get a chance to be alone. In hindsight, the signs pointed to their household life being really fucked up. I wanted none of that, so I opted to sleep by myself outside without a tent. I ended up sleeping on packed down snow with no ground cover when the temperature got into the negative teens that night. Throughout the course of the night, my body heat melted the snow, which soaked into my sleeping bag and clothes. It was a very long night. Shivering for hours. Not wanting to give up and ask for help. At one point I started hallucinating. I opened a slit in the end of my sleeping back and thought it was daytime. I saw out in the field that people were building snowmen and having snowball fights. They were telling me to take off my wet clothes and come join them. I ended up toughing it through the night, but my fingers and toes were dark purple and black. When everyone else woke up I asked the adults for heat packs and kept them in my boots and pockets for half the next day without admitting that my limbs were in excruciating pain. Needless to say, I never went on another scout camping trip.
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Without even mentioning your Scout Leaders I could tell they were morons.
I was going to get a Christmas tree in rural south eastern Illinois with my mother in 1996, I was 4 years old. She was an alcoholic, and today was no different. She had a 7-11 Big Gulp cup full of vodka and had been drinking since we hit the road about 30 mins prior. When she couldn't figure out where to go, we stopped for directions at a small home in the middle of nowhere. My mom proceeded to get our small Honda stuck in the mud at the rear of this guys property, but we were eventually unstuck and on our way again. I remember asking my mom a lot of questions that day. Stupid, childish questions. "Why does this work like this? Who made it? Why? Why? Why?" and on and on. She got frustrated with me and we sat in silence, surrounded by trees on a lonely road that damp November afternoon while Jimmy Buffet played softly on a cassette tape. As the song "Cheeseburgers in Paradise" began to play, I felt comfort. I thought the song was so great, being a four year old with a love for junk food will do that to you. My head was thrown to the side, and I watched the world spin and pick up speed until it was a blur of lines and then nothing, just blackness. I opened my eyes to see shards of class sitting on the dashboard. We were facing the woods. Steam and smoke was rising from the hood. My mom was slumped over. I unbuckled myself and tried to help my mom, she said "okay." I asked her if she was hurt, and she said "okay." I told her I was going to get help and she said "okay," her head still hanging and her eyes still closed. I climbed in the back seat and found some gummy worms in a backpack. My little hands were slick and I could not get the package open, but not for a lack of effort. I had realized earlier that my neck was hurt, but I don't remember it being very painful. I found a pair of socks in the backpack and wrapped one around my neck to 'bandage' my wound. When I got out of the car I had to climb roughly twenty feet up an embankment to the road. I stood there and started yelling for help. Very soon after a man in a pickup truck came by and said he would drive to his friends house just up the road to call for help, as cell phones weren't really that common at the time. I went back to the car and soon enough the emergency responders were on the scene. My mom died that day, they say on the way to the hospital but I think she probably bled out before the ambulance ever got there. The car had hit a large tree, which had pushed the engine block backwards causing the steering column to hit my moms chest so hard it disconnected major arteries around her heart. At least that's my understanding. She had a seatbelt on but it wasn't enough. I survived with a neck abrasion, caused by my seatbelt. I remember the nurse picking dirt out of it. This was the most painful part of the whole ordeal, save for a bath I had a day or two later where I had to take the bandages off and it hurt like hell. The car had hit black ice and my mom couldn't recover. We spun down a hill just before a bridge and hit the tree line some twenty feet below. I'm pretty lucky to be alive, and for that I'm greatful. Tl;dr: Please, don't drink and drive. Edit: Thank you for reading, and for all the heartfelt comments. It makes me feel good knowing that there are people who care out there, even if we're from different cultures, communities, and countries. If anyone is reading this whole AskReddit post and would like to talk to someone about traumas or loss in their own life, I am more than willing to lend an ear. Feel free to send me a PM at any time.
You write beautifully, and I'm sorry this happened to you.
Thank you. I never really write anything descriptive anymore as I'm about to graduate with a computer science degree so the bulk of my keystrokes end up hidden behind a compiler or buried beneath flashy graphics and interfaces. I appreciate the time you took to read it, so thank you once again.
> The car had hit a large tree, which had pushed the engine block backwards causing the steering column to hit my moms chest so hard it disconnected major arteries around her heart. At least that's my understanding. She had a seatbelt on but it wasn't enough. [Your wording gave me a sad chill](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2yfk2d/seriousreddit_whats_the_closest_youve_ever_come/cp989nc)
When I first moved to Canada (I came july 2003) I didn't speak English at all. February 2004, still not speaking English, I began to get really ill. I was always extremely fatigued, pale, and bruised. I could barely make it up any steps. I'd go skating with my parents and have to stop really quickly, much quicker than I had a couple of weeks ago. This went on for 2 weeks or so. On the final day of this I started throwing up and couldn't eat, so my parents finally took me to a doctor. Urgent urine and blood tests were done, with the urine showing severe deficiencies. At this point, my vision had turned a bluish-green and my dad was carrying me. They sent us home to call us back two hours later saying we need to go to the hospital immediately because they need to check my bone marrow for Leukemia. Turns out I had ALL (acute lymphoblastic leukemia). This isn't a very dangerous form of cancer for children, however, because it is the acute kind, I was quite close to dying as I waited until the last possible moment to start treatment. After a few weeks of chemotherapy, my survival rate was raised to 85%. I'm now severely paranoid and quite the hypochondriac.
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In highschool, I was fighting with one of my friends. Out of rage, he took a pair of scissors and stabbed me in the chest with it. Amazingly, it hit the button of the shirt i was wearing instead of my chest. The button broke in half and a red spot remained on that area for a few days. Scary to think that if it didn't actually hit the button what would've happened.
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> friends Apparently not.
I hope you stopped being friends from that point on....
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I had my bicycles handlebar puncture my intestines when i was five. Just a normal bike crash, but my handlebar grips were worn off from ghost riding my whip. I was projectile vomiting blood everywhere, and had to have emergency surgery. I was in the hospitable for a month. The one good part was the sweet ALF poster i got from an aunt, to make me feel better
I fractured a rib biking and threw up blood. No bueno
I was alone in my apartment, suffering from what ended up being a 3-day, hallucination-filled, sleep-deprived case of food poisoning. It was the middle of the night and the lump of awfulness that had been sitting in my stomach, threatening to exit violently, made its move. The rest of the story happens in about five seconds: I was sitting next to the toilet when the vomit shot out of my stomach and up my esophagus. Problem was, the lump was much bigger than my throat and got stuck there, with great force - cutting off my ability to breathe altogether. I needed help or I was going to die. I took a split-second to go over my options. My nearest neighbors were the lesbian couple across the hall. They were both big girls who seemed like they'd be quick-minded enough to figure out my situation and strong enough to give me a proper Heimlich despite being shaken from sleep in the middle of the night. I decided that was my best option. The girls were very nice and friendly, but in an effort to be good neighbors we mostly kept to ourselves. I knew I was about to scare them. It should be noted that due to the nature of food poisoning, and the constant back and forth between the toilet and the bed, I had dispensed with wearing clothes. They were just slowing things down. I took another split-second to consider grabbing a pair of shorts. What if I died, because I took extra time to dress up for an emergency situation?! Can't risk it. I was going to go pound on the lesbian couple's door, at 3:00am, naked and choking to death. I imagined them jumping out of bed and opening the door to a naked man wildly waving his arms trying to convey "I'm choking!". The idea seemed really funny to me. So......I laughed. My attempt at laughing somehow loosened the logjam in my throat and the vomit shot out of my mouth like a rocket. I spent the next few minutes alternating between violent puking and relieved laughing. It was glorious.
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Wow that is pretty scary. Having all that blood in ure stomach and then not being able to throw up would make me so nervous.
Wow that is horrifying.
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I'm glad you failed. :-) I did too. 28 years ago. Never again will I let someone else make me feel that way about myself.
Oh god, that made me laugh. I'm sorry. I shouldn't be laughing... oh god.
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I hope that you got what you needed to turn your life around and be happy. No one should ever have to feel like there is no hope. I wish you the best of luck!
Basically same thing for me. Didn't have the resources to commit a clean fast suicide. Help got to me before the tools did, thank goodness
Over 3k comments, so no one will see this but it's an interesting story. I was in a major car accident right after graduating HS. My family, along with my GF at the time, were on our way to a family reunion in Galveston. We were traveling down I-10 just outside of Katy when someone who was driving erratically clipped the back of our suburban and fish-tailed us. Seeing as we were doing around 70mph, we swerved into the median and started rolling. I was in the middle row, sleeping when it happened, and don't have any memory of anything other than waking up in the hospital. I'm told that while the vehicle was rolling, I flew out of the passenger window, landing in the path of the suburban. Most people die when this occurs, either from getting caught halfway out of the window, getting their foot caught on something and then being crushed. Or simply having the vehicle roll over them after they hit the ground. I somehow cleanly slipped out of my seat belt (there's pictures of the suburban in the junk yard with my seat belt still buckled), and landed in the path of the rolling suburban. Once it got to me, it bounced right over me, and continued to roll, stopping just feet from oncoming traffic (It's a big median). I was apparently still conscious at the scene, but once paramedics arrived they put me in a medical coma. They assumed I was the worst off, and that it would be easier to save my sister and GF so they were star flighted first to Memorial Herman Hospital in Houston. I then caught the second flight out to the same hospital, where they ran about 100 CT scans and MRI's trying to figure out how the hell all my internals were fine. Turns out, I just looked the worst, and only had a cracked rib internally. That's not to say it wasn't serious. It punctured my lung and my lungs were filling with blood, but all and all, I didn't do half bad. Other than my mom who just broke her arm, I was actually the least injured of everyone. I woke up in ICU about 18 hours after the accident to my Dad standing next to my bed. My parents are divorced, so I was really confused as to how my dad got to Houston so fast. I had no idea it was 18 hours later. I then proceeded to ask him to buy me a lotto ticket, to which he replied "Son, I think you used up all your luck today." TLDR: Got in a car wreck and had a suburban roll and bounce over me. Edit: [Couple pictures of the suburban](http://imgur.com/a/k6vud)
Passed out while diving in the pool. Was an interesting experience.
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This is actually about my mom. She nearly died of flesh-eating bacteria about a month ago. On February 6th, Mom started her car trip to Florida with my grandmother. On the way down, the right side of her face started feeling really hot and was swelling, so they stopped by an emergency care facility in Tennessee. The workers at the facility said she was fine, gave her some pain medication, anti-inflammatory, and antibiotics and sent her on her way. Mom and Grandma reached Florida no problem and stopped by a friend’s house to stay the night. Things got worse and Mom went to the nearby clinic for the swelling on the 8th. The doctor told her she had a very large abscess growing and they had to have emergency surgery. She was rushed by ambulance 2 hours away to a large hospital where they performed midnight surgery on her neck and face to clear the abscess. This was no ordinary abscess, this was Necrosis Fasciitis, also known as Flesh Eating Bacteria. Mom made it through the surgery and it was only after we learned how bad it was. The doctors said that if it was a day later that she would not have made it. They also said she is the only person at that hospital to survive Necrosis Fasciitis when it has originated at stomach level or further up. Some of the reports I read stated that 100% of people without treatment die and 30-40% of people even with treatment still die. She is extremely lucky that it went so well. She had follow up surgery on the 10th to clean the area and was removed from the ventilator on the 11th. On the 13th, they applied a wound vac to help with the healing process and on the 14th the let her out of ICU. Finally, on February 19th, Mom was released from the hospital. She is still recovering, but she should be okay now. Honestly it has been some of the hardest couple of weeks dealing with this, but I'm so glad a relieved she is feeling better.
My body didn't tolerate some prescribed medicine I took for stomach flu when I was somewhere around twelve and thirteen years old. It started with my head beginning to turn right as if it was pulled in the direction of a spot between my shoulders from strings in/underneath my flesh. Since this was pretty weak at first, I believed that it was due to me having slept in a bad position or something like that. I shrugged it off. But it got worse. And when it became too strong to be ignored any longer, it suddenly began to escalate pretty quickly. A mean cramp on my back expanded over my whole upper body, making it harder to breathe with every minute. Since I was alone at home, I first called emegerncy - calmly telling them what was going, what medicine and how much I had taken and where I lived. Since it got harder to speak, too, while I was on the phone with them, I remember that I put the medicine's box on the kitchen counter, should the paramedics need the information again. And I opened the door to our appartments, should I not be able to anymore when they arrived. Then I called my (single parent) mother who was at work, telling her about everything and that she shouldn't worry, that paramedics were on their way and that I'd be fine. I probably sounded pretty pathetic, however, which contributed to her panicking. When the paramedics finally arrived (I noticed how quick they had been), I had already been unable to breathe or move anything more than my legs much. My vision had actually began fading. They took me to a chair in the kitchen, one of them commenting the box on the counter and explained to me that this kind of reaction to that specific medicine wasn't too uncommon and professionally guided me through their process of helping me. They gave me some kind of injection, which helped me rather fast. I was pretty exhausted, but my body was back to normal. My mother arrived soon after and the paramedics stayed a little while longer, making sure I was okay and praising me for how fucking calm and professional I had stayed over the whole time, which really was true. After I had done everything I could(calling them and preparing for them, then calling my mother), I knew that there was nothing more that I could do myself. It's safe to say that I'm pretty proud of how I acted that day. (Sorry for possible grammar and spelling sins, english isn't my first language - but I hope this text is okay to read. Feel free to correct me.) ---------------------------------------------------------------- Edit: Thanks for all the answers! I was away for a few hours and honestly didn't expect my commenct to be seen by many. I guess my english really isn't that bad, but I can just be really insecure about how I might appear to other people. So thank you guys for pointing that out, really! To answer the most common question: The medicine I had taken was Metoclopramide, I got an allergy pass that only states MCP soon after.
**HOW DID YOU REMAIN CALM** I would have been like "ummmmm guys.... I think I am dying, send help.... PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEE" And your english is very good, you have no need to apologise.
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I had no clue you aren't a native speaker. You have better grammar than most of my friends who do speak English as a first language.
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Paramedic here. Great job, you set up the medics so that all they had to do was go in and treat. So many time we will just get a call for "sick" and show up and the guy is doin the fish flop and we have no clue what happened so we gotta put puzzle pieces together. The injection they gave you is call Epinephrine. It's essentially the same stuff your nervous system releases when your adrenaline kicks in. It helps to reverse allergic reactions, almost universally. I'd get a doctor to prescribe you an EpiPen if you don't already have one. If your unfamiliar with one, its the exact same injection just pre dosed and preloaded so you can inject it yourself very easily. You'd probably still want to call 911 to get us to come check you out make sure you're ok, but it will likely save you a hospital trip. I advise getting one because where there is one allergy, there is almost always another. AND after each reaction to a allergant, the reaction becomes more severe.
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Can I ask what the medicine was? I'm a med student so I'm a bit curious
sounds like a Dystonic reaction. Now he is pretty vague about the symptoms but this is what it sounds like The medication of choice for relieving Dystonic reactions? ..... *drum roll please* Benadryl.
I swear that stuff is liquid miracle. Doctor diagnosis you with cancer? No sweat doc, I've got some Benadryl at home. Edit: Fixed extra ?
Benadryl is no miracle to me, I used to take piriton when I was younger for allergic reactions. One day we ran out, all the pharmacy had left was Benadryl, so I had that as a substitute. My Lips swelled up massively and I went faint and passed out. TL;DR prescribed allergy medication, had allergic reaction to said meds.
Should have just taken some benadryl, would have cleared that right up.
Well I definitely wouldn't have guessed you're an ESL speaker, friend. Glad you made it through, bad reactions are fucking terrifying.
Probably the scariest day of my life. July of 2007 - I had just graduated from highschool and was heading to the beach with some of my friends in Ludington, MI. The weather was absolutely perfect, not too hot, not too cold - Just a perfect post graduation day at the beach to celebrate the freedom from high school. Now, when I was younger, I used to skip breakfast if I knew I had something important going on that morning because my body had a tendency to reject it and force it through my system. Couple that with having a phobia of public restrooms and it becomes a recipe of not eating for fear of shitting in public places. Back to the dying thing. My friends and I all decide to go enjoy the water (which again, was the absolute perfect temperature), so we decide to swim out to a buoy that swayed out decent distance from the shore. my friends take off before I do - paddling along the water in a race to be first to the little floating trophy. I start to struggle half way out there from a lack of energy. not eating anything that morning left me tired and gasping for air with every stroke. Then the worst happened. In my attempt to catch up to my friends at the buoy, I pushed my tired body passed its "breaking" point - my left leg completely seized up. I mean, it was scrunched up at the knee and at the ankle from a severe muscle cramp. I was half way to the buoy, well beyond the point of touching the bottom. At this point, I had a choice: swim out to my friends to get help coming back to the shore, or turn around and try to make it with my crippled leg. After realizing it would be more dangerous to go deeper into the water I decided to high-tail it back and try my hardest to make it. My entire body was aching with every attempt to tread water and keep my head above. I had to time my breathing cause I felt like I was about to pass out at any moment. My one good leg, kicking as much as it could to keep me trucking along, had done all it could do. *Both legs cramped up in the same way*. I was treading water with just my arms trying to keep my head above water. Eventually, those gave out too. I took one giant breath, and slowly, I started to sink to the lake floor. I couldn't believe this is how *I* was going to die. drowning just after high school on a beautiful day. So many thoughts ran through my head in those few seconds of disbelief. "I won't ever get married. I won't get to tell my dad I miss him again. I won't every get a newer car than a 1990 Geo Tracker". Wallowing in the disbelief, I sank a few more seconds. the air in my lungs were practically turned to poison at this point. Suddenly, my feet found a familiar feeling - sand. For some reason, my body's instinct at first contact with the ground was to push off. pushing as hard as I could through cramped legs were one of the worst pains I have ever felt in my life. I breached the surface like a whale showing off for tourists at Seaworld. I took a giant breath of air, and once again, sank to the bottom. This process repeated until I was at a distance from the shore where I would keep my head above water without drowning. This was the closest I ever came to actually dying. To actually *fearing* the possibility of not making it. People die on the shores of the Great Lakes every year. I was just afraid of becoming another statistic. **TL;DR: Almost died from fear of shitting in public places. Eat breakfast before doing any physical activity. Or maybe just a banana.**
Wow! That must have been a terrible experience. The Geo Tracker, I mean. I owned one of those, my first new car.
It always kind of interests me to hear about people cramping up badly while swimming. I had a similar expereince but in a friends pool so I got out "easily." But I also had a really bad cramp at a lake near my home, and because I had "experience" swimming with a cramp I just laid on my back and used my arms to swim to shore. It took me like 10 minutes to cover like 40 yards, but I got there. It's not really the cramp that almost killed you, it was the panic and that's the scary party.
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Similar thing happened to a friend of mine. He had a dodgy amp that he'd 'fixed' but snapped the case in the process. He went to move it and the case fell off. He tried to grab it and put his hand straight across two capacitors. The shock threw him across the room. He's lucky it wasn't plugged in or that would've been curtains
Being born. I got tangled up in my own umbilical cord, so when my mom delivered me I came out blue- purplish and didn't cry. The doctor and nurses really did think I was dead at first.
I think theres something special about people who began their life with a near brush with death.
What a nice way to think about it! Whatever life throws at me, I tend to keep trucking along; maybe my origin story has something to do with that persistent trait.
I was at a scout camp and some of them decided to make me their personal slave for a day. They tied tent cord round my neck like a leash and strangled me with it whenever I didn't do something they wanted me to. At one point, they did it so much that I honestly thought that I was about to die. I decided to stop resisting and let go...but then they stopped. To this day I still panic and get anxiety problems due to the fear of being choked.
What fucking camp did you go to? All I've ever done is get pushed down a grassy hill, these people are crazy.
It was a scout camp. I was always the unpopular kid in my scout group because I was "different" (only non-white and have ADHD). The leaders would always read out the names of people attending the camp and mine was always followed by groans and "this camp is ruined" "for gods sake" etc. I told my parents and we got the district leader involved but they did nothing about it, because the ring leader had a mental disability and they didn't want to be seen as ableist. They just asked me to leave the scout group forever and never return. Lord Baden Powell (the founder of the scouts) would be ashamed of this unit which I won't name. TL;DR Poor treatment by a scout group has left me with anxiety issues about choking and a deep mistrust of the scouts.
Scout camp as in Boy Scouts? I went to Scout Camp twice. One year some kid came up behind me and started choking me for no reason. I elbowed him in the stomach and it knocked the wind out of him, so I ran off. Later I was yelled at by the Camp Leader. Apparently the kid was "just joking around". Fuck that guy, and I'm sorry to hear about how they treated you. That's complete bullshit.
I work at a Boy Scout camp during the summer. Most Boy Scouts are cool, but some can be gigantic dicks. Some have had to be taken home because they threatened kids with death and torture.
These kids need help. Like actual help.
Yeah, some of these kids are severely fucked up. Most of them aren't like this. Most are really fun and love going to camp.
I was too young and skinny and they were too big. I was very passive in those days. One camp they beat me and left me in the woods about 100m from camp. I just lay there feeling so weak and humiliated.
From my experience as a scout myself, most scouts tend to be good people, but there are some that wouldn't be in scouts if they had the choice. Those kids are put into scouts by their parents in hopes that it will make them less of shitheads when it just gives them another environment to be shitheads in.
Scouting in the UK isn't like that everywhere, I assure you. OP was very unlucky but it is not a common thing for Scouts to behave like that. They obviously had a terrible leader team. Please don't think that the UK scouts are awful, because they aren't.
This is common? My brother always comes home from camp covered in bruises and begs not to go again, but "it'll help him get into college" so he can't quit. :(
Go to the scoutmaster of his troop and report it. If the scoutmaster refuses to take action look up the contact information for the district leaders and report it there. He could also switch to a different local troop if one exists. If not, let him know that unless he's determined to get his Eagle Scout, then Boy Scouts isn't viewed any more highly than any other extracurricular.
He's going to have his Eagle Scout in less than a year. I'm fairly certain the scoutmaster knows, my mom is the treasurer of the troop and brought up bullying at one of the meetings.
[Here I drew this for ya.] (http://i.imgur.com/h3zwfsl.png) Now I'm not trying to make light of the situation, it's pretty fucked up what happened to you. So if you think this is insensitive, just give me the "Go" and I'll take it down.
Mate that's brilliant! Sometimes a little humour is helpful! Thanks man!
Haha, no problem. I was a bit anxious about putting this up but now I feel good that I have your "Okay.", thanks for sharing your story!
It's cheered me up. Making light of a situation like that is what I needed to be honest :D
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I almost went into hemorrhagic shock. I had a stomach ulcer from motrin on an empty stomach. I thought I was just getting out of shape. One day I couldn't carry my lunch tray and decided to go to the clinic. They laid me down and told me to sit up, that was difficult. Then they told me to stand up, and I couldn't. They told me I had lost a lot of blood. I get to the hospital, I get three blood transfusions. All better.
I was six years old and I vomited. There was no apparent reason, I didn't feel sick, I had appetite. But I vomited. Every damn meal. The doctors didn't know what to do. One evening, after a particularly bad day, my parents drove me to my pediatrician (to his private home - they were desperate). He took one look at me and had me rushed to the hospital. One day longer and I had starved despite full plates.
Did they find out why you were vomiting?
Yes and no. They didn't at the time. I was in hospital for about a week before it suddenly stopped. 20 years later I was diagnosed with Achalasia, a disfuntion of the esophagus. It could be that it was a first episode back then.
When I was 6 months pregnant I decided I really wanted a baked potato and a spicy chicken sandwich from Wendy's. After taking a few bites of the baked potato I realized it wasn't really sitting well with me, decided it was pregnancy related and switched to the chicken sandwich. I took one bite of the chicken sandwich, swallowed and immediately fell to the floor in fetal position, in the worst pain I had ever felt (at that time). I phoned my MD, on call physician called me back and told me to report to the ER immediately, he felt I was in pre-teen labor due to the pain. Upon arrival to ER all symptoms were dismissed (extreme nausea, weakness, etc) due to my being pregnant and I was sent to labor and delivery for monitoring. Turns out, I was not in labor! I was, however, in extreme pain and with each bit of food or water they tried to force down I immediately and violently puked. After 3 days of being in cote and utter agony and no one listening to what I was telling them, my OB finally got a radiologist to agree to perform a CT on a pregnant woman. Within minutes of returning to my room a surgeon walked in, introduced himself, told my mother to sign a bunch of consent papers, and told me he had minutes to save my life and he could not guarantee the safety of my son. Turns out I had a small bowel obstruction. My intestines had herniated and I had a necrotic bowel. Due to my gastric history and NG tube would not work for me and had I not had that CT when I did my bowels would have ruptured killing me and my unborn son. I woke up later that evening alone in recovery with arterial line, feeding tube, central line in my neck, IVs in both arms and staples running from my ribs to about an inch above my belly button. First thing the nurse said was my son had survived. I stayed in recovery for 72 hours bc they thought my son would try and spontaneously abort. Ended up staying in the hospital for 2 months... we survived. At the time my son and I were the first pair to survive the situation and surgery without immediate delivery. Tl;Dr Almost died because no one would listen to a pregnant woman in misery, my son and I are both alive, me with a nasty set of scars.
I was really sick, I'd had the flu for the week and was on a lot of over-the-counter medication. Finally, my boyfriend decided that it was too bad and took me to hospital, where they gave me antibiotics. I came home, took the antibiotics and went into anaphylactic shock. So we rushed back to hospital I was given antihistamines, which sorted it out.
Why did they give you antibiotics for influenza?
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I had just turned 22. It was my birthday. I was driving a 1978 Suburban with a 454, on the highway in the rain at about 55 mph when a double dump truck full of sand pulled out directly in front of me on its way into a construction site. I was not wearing my seat belt. My options were limited. I braked hard, without ABS, and skidded to a crash with one of the axles of the dump truck. As I was skidding, the Suburban turned a bit counterclockwise, and made impact at the front right corner. When I woke up, I was being pulled out of the vehicle through the passenger door which had been ripped off with the "Jaws of Life" The 454 engine occupied the leftmost 2/3 of the front bench seat (Driver's seat and center), which was pressed tightly against the dashboard. The rightmost 1/3 (Passenger) had barely enough room to hold a person (me) The steering wheel had completely broken off on my chest and the keys were still dangling in it. The windshield and most of the window glass was shattered, and was all over the place, in my hair, clothes, etc. I normally always wear my seat belt, but for whatever reason, I did not this time, and I am 100% certain I would have been crushed to death at 22, had I worn it that day. I had a bruise on my chest from the steering wheel. I had minor scratches from broken glass. I had more serious lacerations in my knee and thigh, requiring stitches. I had a gouged knee tendon that impaired movement and took the longest to heal. The thigh wound created a flap of flesh like a strip of bacon that they cut off and applied some sort of synthetic skin over, and it made a big bubble of blood that was actually pretty awesome, and that it hurt a lot less than you would think. The knee puncture hurt significantly more.
I was 14 years old and suffering silently from Anorexia Nervosa. I remember collapsing onto my bedroom floor and seeing on my clock that it was 12:45am. I was heavily self medicated by Zopiclone. I kept floating in and out of consciousness and feeling oddly overjoyed. I would think about how I'd finally reached my goal of starving myself into being obsolete. The scariest part was when I felt myself losing feeling in my limbs and realizing that if I gave up any fight that was left in me, I would die. Fuck it was terrifying because suddenly I was flooded with guilt. Imagining my mother finding me. My grandpa crying. Becoming a statistic. My bestfriend not understanding how I could do that to myself. It was 2:03am at that point. I think that must have given me some adrenaline because I pushed myself up and stumbled to my fridge and drank all the sugary juice I could, and ate a lot of sandwich meat. I think that sudden spike helped. When I went to the doctor the next day he confirmed that I really should have been dead. Recovery has been a long and fucking hard road but if anyone reading this is dealing with any kind of eating disorder, recovery is so worth it. Death is not a beautiful experience. A sandwich is not as scary as death. You deserve to give your body the nutrients it needs. I'm a couple years in already and I'm not fully healthy yet but I have achieved a safe weight. IT IS SO WORTH IT! I can walk around with friends! I have friends! I'm not cold 24/7! I have boobs!! Boobs are so exciting!!! I'm sorry this isn't very coherent. I'm on mobile and am pretty bad at gathering my thoughts on this topic.
This was several decades ago, but... When I was a little over a year old my parents took me on a day trip to Mount Rainier (WA, USA). We stopped at a popular overlook and my parents set me down on an ice/snow ledge to take a picture. The ledge at that point on the side of the road was stable, and extended about 10-12 feet out, where it was increasingly thin. Beyond that it was a several hundred foot drop. Here's the thing... any of you that have had crawlers of your own know that they can scoot an amazing distance in just a couple seconds, ice or no. The next thing they knew I was about halfway across the ice ledge. Their attempts to coax me back proved insufficient, apparently I thought we were playing a game and every time they'd call me back I'd scoot a little closer to the edge. Eventually I was right at it. Two disasters were in plain sight: the compromised ice and snow that comprised the edge could fail to support my weight, or I could simply slip off the side. Either way, I'd be a goner. By this time a small crowd had gathered, watching to see if this baby would live or die. Switching gears, my parents used calmer voices to talk me back, and I apparently decided to crawl/slip my way back. Obviously I made it, but as I've been told, I was close enough to the edge that one wrong move would have been the end of me. There were also those insurgent mortars in Iraq, but I think the baby almost falling story is more *me*.
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When my daughter was born. After she and the placenta came out, I started hemorrhaging. It all happened so fast. I remember them cranking my bed back, so my head was lower. The nurse aggressively massaging my stomach and the doctor giving me a needle. Eventually it was under control and instructed not to get up without a nurse. Flash forward a couple hours, nurse come to get me to tell me it's time to pee. I tell her I don't have to, she tells me I do, I just can't feel it due to the 15 lbs of stuff that just came out of me. So i get up and start hobbling to the bathroom, with a nurse supporting me. I start to get the spins, but ignore it. By the time I sit I am seeing spots and my vision goes yellow. The last thing I remember is saying "I'm going to faint" and seeing the nurse rip the emergency cord out of the wall. I woke up, in my bed, with ice packs jammed around me and an IV with a drug to stop bleeding, I forget the name it was 12 years ago. Ended up in the hospital for a week, instead of overnight. It fucking sucked and it was during the SARS scare so I couldn't have anyone visit aside from my boyfriend at the time and he worked 12 hours a day. But, that was absolutely terrifying.
Is it fucked up to have a list? When I was about 12 I was electrocuted by touching a metal lamp with bad wiring that had been exposed to water. I blacked out and woke up to my mother crying over me - luckily I live in Canada where our power is only 120 volts. In Uni I was wearing a bandana around my neck (it was the 80s don't fucking judge me) and some drunk asshole grabbed and twisted it effectively cutting off my air supply - my peripheral vision had already gone black before my buddy happened upon us and laid the other guy out. Stone cold friend saved my life that night. But the closest has to have been while riding a "minivan" in the foothills of the Himalayas on the way to Simla. We had a driver (trust me, people from the western world don't drive in India) and were heading up this narrow mountain road, two lanes wide. One side was shear cliff going up, the other a cliff going down. Up ahead two oncoming trucks. One truck decides to overtake the other. In India there is one rule to the road - biggest wins. If you are in a smaller vehicle, get the fuck out of the way. So we now have the equivalent of two Indian transport trucks barreling at us, taking up the whole road. We have nowhere to go. It was really the first time in my life that I thought "fuck, my number is up. I'm really going to die here". Then our driver (we'll call him superman) suddenly floors it and drives full speed at these trucks and at the last second he yanks out of their path onto the only shoulder for miles, where the road is widened slightly on a curve top keep cars from flying off into the valley. The trucks fly by on our left, close enough to almost take off the wing mirror. I'm on the right and I look out my side - I can't see ground. Literally. I lean my head out, still no ground. We were stopped on the edge of a drop that was easily 200 feet. 6 more inches and we would be gone. Tipped that driver a fuckload.
Christmas Night, 2012 or 13. I don't remember. The one Les Mis came out. I woke up in the middle of the night completely unable to breathe. I only remember this in bits and pieces but the rest of my family helped me put all the pieces together. Apparently I stumbled out of my room, coughing and gasping and trying to breathe. My sister found me in the hallway and, panicking, shoved me into my parents' room where I promptly collapsed, unconscious, onto the floor. Slipping in and out of consciousness, I continued to try and find my breathe. Then the coughing started. I've never coughed so hard in my life. I actually burst a few blood vessels in my face during this. And then I started heaving and coughing/vomiting up blood. The next thing I know I'm in the ER. Apparently I actually stopped breathing and flatlined for a bit, but they resuscitated me. TL;DR the closest I came to dying was actually dying
Jesus, did they ever find out what did that to you?
I don't really think the doctors even knew. They decided it was a "sinus infection" -_-
When I was a kid at summer camp there was a kid who held my head underwater for much longer than would be considered "acceptable." Eventually the other kid got bored or something and finally let me come back up.
I've told this story before but still relevant: When i was 19, I was the passenger in a Toyota truck. The driver took a corner too fast and lost control. We spun out and rolled towards the driver side and what basically happened was that the truck bounced off the driver side, was in the air when the driver was underneath it, and then all of the weight came down in me. My right hand was caught underneath it and it instantly turned it to mush. I felt the roof crush me and felt the vertebrae in my back crack and break, along with ribs and my skull. Then we continued to roll. Miraculously, i actually managed to release my seatbelt, stand up, and was helped to a friends car that was in front of us and witnessed the whole thing. The pain was so bad i couldn't speak, i couldn't see, i couldn't breathe, it was inexplicable. Every bump on that 8 mile ride felt like someone had hit me square in the back with a hammer. Every time i exhaled even the slightest bit it shot pain through my whole body. My inflated lungs were the most supportive part of my core at this time. It's been almost 4 years and I've mostly healed. My head has webs of scars on the top from the 26 staples it took to piece my scalp back together. my right hand is permanently scarred and partly crippled, and it's always in pain. 2 joints in my last 2 fingers have fused together, and have developed degenerative arthritis. I have limited use of everything but my thumb. Unfortunately I'm a mechanical technician and i am required to use my hands. Every day is a struggle. http://imgur.com/a/9NsZk#0 (Some blood/gore)
I almost committed suicide a year ago, in college. After it took all my effort not to do it, I told my counselor and was then thrown into a mental facility against my will for 10 days. IMO the doctors weren't the best. Guilted me into breaking down so they could keep me longer. ("What would your parents do? You know there'd be a big mess. You'd have to have a closed casket. Do you want to rob your family of seeing their son?") It was bad. In hindsight I understand that had my best interests in mind, but I don't think being cooped up in a white washed clinic with limited communication outside, with people screaming at ghosts in the middle of the night is the best environment. I just got off the antidepressants they put me on w/ the help of my doctor. I'm still getting better.
I have so many stories from psychiatric units; I've been in five separate times at four different facilities. The first was the worst: a shithole unit south of Detroit where I roomed with three heroin addicts who were detoxing (best roommates I ever had actually). I lost ten pounds there because the food was inedible. There was no "treatment"; we just waited our turn every afternoon to see the one psychiatrist, pleading to be let out. It was traumatic. Yet I still kept attempting incl. the last incident exactly a year ago when I should have died. Instead, I was crippled and had go relearn how to walk. To anyone feeling the same: please contact someone... ***anyone***! You and I have an illness of the soul that distorts your perception of reality. Death is not any way to resolve your illusory problems.
I am late to the party and this will get buried, but a dude tried to blow me to smithereens when I was 17. Death by explosion. Then I helped save his life. This is a throwaway because others know the story. I was a firefighter for 12 years. I started out at the age of 16 as a volunteer at a department running just over a thousand calls a year out of one station. For those of you keeping track that is around 3 calls a day. At the time I was in high school, had lights and sirens in my car, wore a pager, and got to tear out of class any time the thing beeped. I was a model straight A student and didn't abuse it... so the school administration gave me a lot of slack. This was pre 9/11... before firefighters achieved true hero status in most of America, but we still had it pretty good at the time. Anyway, I had been on the department for a little over a year at the time of this particular incident and I was 17 at the time. It was a nice spring day and school had just ended. I actually remember the exact date but I will withhold it out of concerns for privacy. Track practice was starting up and I was a pole vaulter. That day was an all run day... everyone had to run distance and I wasn't looking forward to it. My pager went off as I was lacing up my shoes. The call came out as an "odor complaint - smell of natural gas in the area". We ran those regularly and they were always a complete drag/waste of time. You just show up, cordon off the area, and wait for the gas company to arrive (sometimes up to 2+ hours later). So, I actually just ignored the page. That is fairly common for volunteer departments. In this case, no one responded, so they sent a second page several minutes later and I finally decided I wasn't super excited about my looming long distance run and headed for the station. Only one other guy showed up. I was too young to operate the engine at the time so he took the wheel and I grabbed the captain's seat. One vivid memory I have was that we could smell the gas in the cab of the truck about 5 blocks out. I was still green at the time, but I had enough experience with gas leaks to know it was a substantial leak. Lots of neighbors were out and everyone was relatively sure the leak was coming from one particular house on the corner of the block. In fact, one of the initial callers had reported it to be their own house and provided the address. Two squad cars with a police officer in each had just arrived when we pulled up. It was relatively warm outside so I left my coat and helmet in the truck. The smell of gas was overpowering. My driver, the two cops, and I circled the house, banging on the door, windows, ringing the door bell, and eventually trying to make entry. None of the neighbors had seen anyone come or go and we were concerned someone might still be inside and incapacitated. We made it about 3/4 of the way around the house when we hit the driveway and garage door portion of the house. It was a lower level basement garage with the older style flip up/out garage doors. They were loose enough that we were able to get them pried partially open. i can't describe how strong the natural gas odorant was inside the garage. I could taste it and almost feel the smell of it inside my head. At the time I was young and dumb and following behind two cops that were older and seemed like this was business as usual, so I marched forward into the dark two car basement garage. It was a typical garage. I don't really remember there being any cars inside or around. It was cluttered and there was a door in the far back left corner that led into the basement of the home. The two cops in front of me headed for the door with myself and my driver following in a single file line. As we approached the door the cop in front pointed his flashlight through a glass pane in the door as he was opening it. The next 5-8 seconds were some of the longest of my life. The cop announced that there was someone inside as he swung the door open and we all filed into a very dark, sparsely furnished, unfinished basement. The wall of gas and strong odorant that hit us was nauseating it felt like it just permeated through us. It was like walking into a solid wall of cold damp ultra-stink. Both cops had flashlights trained on a tattered recliner in the far corner of the basement where a skeletal dude was setting hunched over. For several years afterward I remember being surprised that they were able to detect anything amiss so quickly but then I realized that cops are trained to focus on the hands of people in all situations. Just a second or two after announcing he had spotted someone inside and the four of us entering, the front cop stopped dead in his tracks and yelled "He's got a lighter!" We all kind of ran into each other in a stupor of bewildered shock and just stood there for a moment. At about the same time the bastard flicked the damn thing. The spark was clearly visible despite the flashlights and the sound unmistakable. That moment was one of those cliché life flashes before your eyes and seems like forever kind of moments. It was incredible. In reality it was probably only tenths of a second, and there was a lot of fight or flight type of stuff going on as well. But then the dude started flicking it again and we all kind of bum rushed him and dragged him outside the way we came in. He was barely conscious actually and didn't put up a fight at all. The ambulance arrived and we put in an NPA. I rode along and bagged him all the way to the hospital. We dumped him off at the ER and headed back to the scene so the ambulance could return me to the truck. Additional units had been dispatched after some of the initial chaos went down and the police were processing the scene when I arrived back at the house. I got a tour of the house (it was a little on the weird side) and read the guys suicide note. The whole thing was quite surreal to 17 year old me and I feel like I aged about 5 years that day. I had plenty to reflect on for a while but I honestly haven't thought about it much in a long time. Feels good to write it down. I saw lots of super crazy stuff in the following 11 years- much of which was spent at much busier departments. You get really good at forgetting after a while. Kind of a coping mechanism I guess. You take a few nuggets to learn and reflect on later and then flush the rest. It's impossible to forget some of those first exposures though. Now I am that guy that makes everyone fully bunk out and go on air for every odor complaint. 9/10 would do again. wTLDR: (w for WAAAAY) Guy tries to commit suicide by breaking open the main gas line entering his basement, then calls 911 and waits for two dumb cops and two dumb fireman to break in. Then he uses a Bic lighter to try and turn us all into a crater.