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“I’ve Spent 2 Years Wearing A Mask To Protect The People Around Me”: And 40 Other Life-Saving Stories By Bored Panda Community Members
Sometimes saving a life requires providing direct assistance to prevent a disaster, while other times, it can be more delicate, such as being there for someone in need or asking a stranger how their day was. In both cases, saving someone's life is a heroic deed, and the best part is that our bodies are willing to assist those who desperately need our help without us consciously deciding to.
I have asked our community if they have ever saved someone's life, and the responses provided by our community members are priceless, brave, and chilling at times. We can learn a lot from these stories, yet the main lesson is allowing your body to act fast when stressful situations occur.
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Yes. My own. I hated myself for a long time but I got over it and in the end I didn't want to kill myself anymore.
I've given blood 85 times now. Going for 100!
Me, too! The blood bank here has started telling donors where their blood was used. I love that!
Yes, my son's. I was driving down our highway in our local city. He started to make this terrible sound. Turned around and saw he was choking on something - I tried to pat his chest while driving! We were stopped at a red light, so I turned on my flashers and jumped out of the truck, got him out of his car seat and started to do the Heimlich on him. All the cars started to go and thankfully a lady behind me stopped traffic for me and called an ambulance. I thought I was going to hurt my son with how hard I was hitting his back. I started to do the scoop method and that got him to throw up, it was a quarter in his throat!!!! The longest and scariest few mins of my entire life. The paramedics got there, checked him out and he was fine! No scratches in his throat (I thought I had hurt him). Learning the Heimlich in CPR saved my son's life.
I've spent 2 years wearing a mask to protect the people around me, so yes I've saved quite a few!
In the UK most SCUBA instructors are unpaid volunteers and I’m one of them.
A few years ago I was assigned 2 students for a session doing the £10/$12 “Try Dive” thing (“Discover SCUBA” for the USA/PADI folk) in the local indoor pool. One of them wasn’t keen, the other was just a natural diver. The good diver wanted to come back the next week and do it again, 1:1, to have more time diving before committing to paying for club membership.
They didn’t turn up.
I asked to see their paperwork, got their phone number, and sent a message along the lines of “Hey, I missed you at the pool tonight! You did really well last week, best try-diver ever. Want to try again for next week?” and got a barrage of apologies and thanks back.
So I called them. We had a chat and a laugh about the antics of the other instructors, I told them about the other people they’d seen at the pool, places we dive, things we see, and agreed to try again the next week. Probably an hour on the phone before they said they were cold and needed to drive home.
A few weeks later they told me that they got my text message while walking across a bridge, and when I called, they were sat on the edge of the bridge ready to jump because nobody cared and they hated their life. Apparently I didn’t just save their life, I gave them a whole new one.
They ended up making a lot of good friends in the diving community, and they are doing ok now, back with family and a new career and still loving diving.
Twice... Once pulled an old guy out of an overturned van that then set itself on fire, and did CPR on my infant son to restart his heart and breathing after a seizure.
... zero stars. Do not recommend.
I foster cats and kittens that our group pulls from hi-kill shelters and help them find homes. So yeah, furry little someones.
According to my wife, I have saved her life at least twice now. The first time was when she was stuck living out of a hallway in rural Texas, and I helped her move up to Oregon to live with me. The second was when she came out as transgender, and I was supportive and her best ally. She returned the favor and saved mine when she reciprocated my feelings and helped me remember that I am also transgender.
Just the plain, ordinary being there for a friend when he's suicidal. But the great part about that is literally any of you can do the same to save a life.
When I was eight, I impersonated an adult on a poodle forum and ended up giving someone a piece of advice that saved their poodle's life.
Yes, my mum's, she had a bad mental breakdown and locked herself in the bathroom with a bunch of pills (I still wonder where I found the strength to do this considering I’m disabled) but I shoulder barged that door, broke the lock and got to her before she could take the pills. That helped her to realize she was wanted and she’s doing great now.
Yes. But let me explain something first. I am not a proud person, but a constantly logically thinking person as to why things happen, so losing my son to SIDS f****d me up hard core.
That being said... I saved a woman in a bathroom overdosed in Washington state, USA. She was passed out with a needle stuck in her arm. She was damn near cold. I administered her Narcan via nasal spray twice and started CPR. I stayed on her till help arrived and they used an AED to restart her heart. I worked on this woman for 50 minutes and was taken over at the hospital we went to by a trauma nurse. They brought her back. She is now one of my closest friends.
I was a K9 handler for Search and Rescue for 10 years. So... Yes I have.
Thank you and all the amazing dogs that risk their lives for those who need it!
I once saved a girl from drowning in a very crowded public wave pool. She thanked me a lot saying she just ran out of energy to keep her on the surface. Nobody noticed except me.
http://spotthedrowningchild.com/ if readers want to learn how to be a hero in exactly this situation.
My brother saved my life three times. He kept me from falling out of the landrover on the Pan American Highway over a thousand-foot drop when I was a baby. He called someone else to save me when I was drowning in a lake in Canada. I was around five years old. He pulled me from a fast-moving pond/creek in the wintertime when I was around 10 years old. He continues to give me support and love as we are in our fifth decade.
you were a very danger-attracting child. I'm glad you're brother was around to save you though lol
I saved a baby who was unattended outside in a wheel walker at the top of a hill. I was walking the dog coming up the hill when this little baby was plummeting down the street! I ran out and caught her just as a car came around the bend. It would have been devastating. Then the dog started barking and the baby started crying as I was pushing her up the hill and keeping the dog at distance. Her dad was washing the car, saw me, came out and took her. I was like she was in the street picking up speed down the hill, you should watch her, she was almost in a accident. I guess he was in shock because he took her without any preamble. It was very surreal, I hope they kept a better eye on her.
I once was driving at night and found a baby in diapers, barely walking, in the street in front of a house. I stopped and was about to get out, but thankfully their dad came out and got them first.
I was at a party with my family at a friend's house when I was a teenager. They had a pool and there were a bunch of people standing around talking and eating. I was sitting a good 20 feet from the pool and saw my 2-year-old niece standing by the deep end with a group of adults. A few seconds later I looked up and didn’t see her, but the people who were standing near her were still just standing around. I glanced around and still couldn’t find her, so I ran over to the pool, jumped in and pulled her up from the bottom. Luckily she was fine and boy did the adults get an earful from me.
The adults deserved that, not noticing your niece on the bottom of the pool
Probably not the dramatic way you're expecting...but I saved a nice guy's life by marrying him. He worked at warehouses, doing hard work of loading & unloading trucks, these stingy employers offered part time work and no health benefits, it was taking months for his state health insurance application to process. Meantime, he's Type 1 diabetic, diagnosed age 12, rationing his food and insulin (that his mom bought in Mexico twice a year, she's not Mexican, but travelled there specifically for his meds because it's affordable there), rare doctor visits, getting A1C labs was a special annual treat.
So I started dating him, then I married him. I work in healthcare with good health insurance.
Now, he has regular doctor visits, lab work, all the insulin he needs, a glucose monitor, and an insulin pump. It took several years to get him used to new habits, like not rationing food or insulin, or that he can schedule to see a nutritionist to help plan a Type 1 diet, or that if he goes so hypogylcemic he's unconscious (it happens) I have a glucagon emergency injection ready for him and a trip to the E.D. if he needs it.
American Health System. Killing people, one at a time. Why should your health system be connected to your job?? Private monthly insurance with reasonable copays is $1500/month. He's never ever even made that much a month. He's unskilled labor, and there are jobs he can not actually do because he gets hypoglycemic so quickly. His glucose monitor starts beeping for urgent low blood sugar drops when he does chores, goes for walks, does manual labor at work. He's a perfectly good guy though.
It never fails to both shock and amaze me how disgusting useless American healthcare is! Type 1 diabetes isn't a "lifestyle" illness; no-one should have to pay for life-saving medication and medical care. It's a disgrace, especially because the USA is one of the richest countries in the world. My daughter has type 1 diabetes, and she has free medical care and medication for the rest of her life (born in the Netherlands, living in Republic of Ireland), she would have died if we'd lived in the USA....
Well, not anyone else, but someone saved me!
I don't remember much of it because I was really small, but I was in a swimming pool and my parents weren't paying attention to me. I wasn't a very good swimmer at the time and was having trouble keeping my head above water until I started to sink. I can't even describe the feeling of horror and fear that I felt when I realized I couldn't swim to the surface. When I started taking in water all of a sudden I had a feeling of peace come over me. A boy, about fourteen, maybe fifteen grabbed me and pulled me to shallow water. I got out of the water and looked around, but never found him. You can believe whatever you want, but I'm pretty sure he was my guardian angel. I can still feel him sometimes.
I was 14. My sister and I were in a public swimming pool. As we were playing I noticed a dark shadow at the bottom of the pool. It was a little boy. I dived, brought him back to the side and then the lifeguards took him and called an ambulance. They resuscitated him. He survived with no physical damage. Thank goodness.
I always wanted to write to the producer of Baywatch or to David Hasselhoff. I knew what to do because of this show.
I read someone's blood tests and was pretty sure that the diagnosis they had was wrong.
Insisted that they see a certain specialist, they referred them to another doctor who confirmed my suspicion.
They are now on medication for something totally different than the original diagnosis but they would have soon died if I hadn't noticed.
I saved a husband and wife. Their motorcycle went off the side of a ravine in the middle of nowhere, southern CO. He came out of it with minor injuries. But I still had to drag him back up the side of the ravine because he was knocked out. She on the other hand had the motorcycle pinning her against a tree at the bottom of the ravine. I got the bike off of her and stopped the bleeding from her head. She had to be air lifted out. They both made it.
I saved my mom's life. She was choking on food, and I successfully performed the Heimlich Maneuver on her.
My dad did the same thing to my grandfather a few years ago. He's not a very emotional guy but he gets pretty upset thinking that nobody but him helped my grandfather in such a crowded restaurant.
My husband (before I met him) came to the aid of a man who had been stabbed while travelling on a bus. Sitting a few seats ahead of my husband and the would-be victim was the attacker, who was being bothersome to other passengers. As the bus approached its scheduled stop, the attacker walked towards his target and stabbed him in the neck. My husband immediately grabbed the attacker's hand and forcibly removed the knife. He kept the struggling attacker in a headlock and walked him to the front of the bus while others helped care for the victim until the ambulance and police arrived. I’m so proud of him, he received a Medal of Bravery years later.
My wife owns a gym and helped a man lose over 300lbs as his personal trainer. She also taught him how to cook instead of buying fast food. He was so heavy when he started that he had to be weighed on a grain elevator scale. Now, he regularly runs 10km races. That man was going to die. Amazing turnaround!
So many don’t think of this as saving someone’s life. The cool thing is, she not only “saved” his life, she showed him “how” to live.
I saved at least 2 of my friends' lives before by being there for them. I don't think they realise they are doing the same for me.
Yes - but I had help. I was with a bunch of friends in a (relatively shallow) pool, and noticed some motion out of the corner of my eye. My friend's 6-year-old was frantically trying to get another friend's 4-year-old above water. I shouted something incoherent and launched myself over to where the kids were and heaved the little girl out of the water on to the pool deck. All ended well - she's now a normal, healthy, annoying teenager.
Drowning isn't always this easy to recognize. If you want to be a hero like OP, go to http://spotthedrowningchild.com/ to learn what it really looks like IRL.
Years ago, my friend called me at work. She wasn't making much sense, kept saying things like, I want you to have a good life, etc. I knew she kept a 2-liter bottle of rum at all times, and I heard sounds like liquid being poured, and drinking and swallowing sounds. I was afraid she was taking pills of some kind and washing them down with rum.
I kept her on the phone until I was sure I was hearing right, then hung up and called a friend of ours who was a psychologist. Thank God he picked up the phone. He raced to her home and called 911. At the ED they pumped her stomach, and she was fine.
I talked to her and she wouldn't promise not to try it again. The doc wanted to release her to me, but I knew I couldn't handle her. I said no, she told me she would try it again. So they kept her for a few days and got her on the proper meds.
She was so mad at me, but so what? She was alive.
"She was so mad at me, but so what? She was alive." If you know that someone is in danger, save them. Please. They need *you* to do it because who knows if anyone else will get them the help they need. Tell someone that can help (teacher, police, parent, spouse etc.) Your relationship can always be fixed, them getting hurt (or possibly dying) can't always be.
I saved my sons’ life by using the Heimlich maneuver when he was 6 months old & starting on solid foods. I learned infant child cpr exactly 1 week before this happened, I was home alone with him. He was turning blue already. Maybe paramedics would have gotten there in time but I immediately tried what I just learned, and it worked. He is 14 years old now. I’m not even sure that he knows this come to think of it.
They wouldn’t have got there in time. Your actions were the only way he could have been saved. You gave him life…..twice.
When I was a junior in college I was a bartender at a Mexican restaurant in the "downtown" of the small college town. It was the most popular spot for Monday night football, thirsty Thursdays and trashy hangover brunches. Bartending and serving can give you a sixth sense for sketchy behavior, and that place attracted it all. During everyone's favorite post-church lunch shift (tithing isn't tipping folks...), this wirey dude with manic eyes sat at the bar. He was probably my same age, or possibly younger, but age'd from hard living. He ordered off-menu, one of the best things we made, huevos rancheros and then proceeded to slide the food around his plate for an hour while watching the door. Everytime someone came in from outside he'd slide off his stool like he was going to bolt, but then he'd just sit back down and look at his food. After dropping some drinks off at a table I walk behind the bar and the dude was gone. His food was still there, and I figured he stiffed me for the food and a couple drinks, but I decided to leave his plate in case he came back. From the bar you could see the hallway with the bathroom, and I watched a little girl in a Sunday dress go back there twice, and both times the door was locked, but I hadn't seen anyone come or go in between, so I did my bartender duty and grabbed the bathroom key. I knocked and no one answered, so I unlocked the door and peaked inside.
The dude with manic eyes was laying face down on the floor, as though he'd fallen off the toilet, but his pants were up. I rolled him on his side and his face was the most terrible purple color I'd ever seen, his eyes fully open and completely bloodshot, tongue swollen and hanging out of his mouth. If it wasn't obvious, there was also a needle in his arm. I called out for help, grabbed some rubber gloves from under the sink, and swept my fingers in the dudes mouth and out popped the syringe cap. I checked for a pulse, but my untrained fingers couldn't find one, so I started CPR. Do you know what no one ever taught me in CPR class? How long it takes for an ambulance to arrive while doing CPR, and that you can't stop until they get there... People don't wake up after 10 pumps, spit out some water and thank you for saving their life. I have no idea how long it actually took, probably 10 minutes, but my arms were on fire and I was a sweaty mess (props to all you first responders who do it every day!) when they showed up.
EMS arrived, took over, loaded him up and zipped him over to the hospital. The manager tried to make a big deal about it and get me interviewed, but when no news outlets cared, he quickly forgot, and people their need margaritas, so I did too.
A few months later, it was mother's day weekend and graduation week. I was bartending and covering the indoor patio, "the greenhouse" and I sat a big family, all dressed up to celebrate their twins graduating from undergrad. I took the female twin's order and then turned to her brother, who ordered huevos rancheros, and I recognized the dude from the bathroom floor, though much healthier than the last time I saw him. He didn't recognize me at all, and as I walked back to the bar I realized that I'd just assumed he'd died. The thought of his sister sitting there alone, trying to celebrate her graduation a few months after her brother died made me tear up while I was putting their order in. I know that the actual healthcare workers had to do a lot more to save him after they took him away (this was pre-narcan), but I've always been grateful that I was able to be there for a stranger like that. I still think about him and wonder what he did with his life. I hope he and his sister are still close.
If he looked that healthy, then you didn't just save him by checking on him and doing CPR that day. By getting him to the hospital, it sounds like you also get him hooked up with rehab and other support services.
Without patting myself on my back too much, yes! I have spoken about this on BP before, but I have a Google Hangouts group for teens with mental health issues. And if not their lives, I've definitely saved a few people's sanity. And, I suppose, I've saved my own. Depression is NOT fun XD.
I'm so glad you do this, Raven. I believe mental health issues in teens tend to be overlooked or brushed aside a little too often. Good job, you!
I was at a pool and saw a little girl walking along the steps, about chest deep in water for her. She accidentally stepped off the step and went under. I was a few steps away and moved as I saw it happen. Pulled her up and set her on the top step. There were other adults around, including a parent, I was just closest.
Yes, when I was ten years old, me and my father were once kayaking the Eagle River, and my dad lost his paddle and boat turned over, so I pulled him out onto a sand bar and we waited about a hour until a lovely young couple (and their dog Sprocket) came and we got onto their raft and boated to the next camping site. The ultimate Alaska adventure.
My father died of colon cancer so when my job asked me to promote free screening tests for colon cancer I took it seriously. One customer told me he didn’t need the test and I talked him into it. He came back later to thank me as he did have colon cancer and caught it early.
I saved my husband from drowning before we were married. He’s not the best swimmer to begin with so when he got caught in a rip tide, he started flailing and freaking out. Fortunately, I’m a good swimmer and was able to get him out before he drowned.
A heroic act, but people reading this need to be aware of some things about saving a drowning victim. Once the drowning reflex kicks in, the victim can pull you under water with them-- throw them a flotation device if it's available, and of course don't be a hero if a trained lifeguard is present. Drowning doesn't look like in the movies-- practice spotting it on spotthedrowningchild.com . If you do what OP did, and there's no lifeguard, no flotation device, know that you are risking your life to save the one you love. Worth it? Perhaps. But know the risk.
I limit my carbon footprint by walking instead of driving, recycle and use cloth bags instead of plastic, wear a mask or two, educate my grandchildren, donate to local charities, help neighbors in need, landscape with drought-tolerant native plants, avoid pesticides and fungicides, love my wife and protect her, and generally stay out of harms way. So... yes. But I will never know their names, if that's what you wanted.
For my job I do CPR courses twice yearly. Neighbour was choking on pizza and blue, ran over and started to do what I’d been trained for, and the woman on 000 told me I was doing it all wrong. Firemen showed up 2 minutes later, made sure the guy was safe, and told me I was right, the operator was wrong.
Neighbour's 2 yr old was playing in their car parked in the drive, and shifted it out of park. It started rolling down the drive so he scrambled to get out, but tripped and was dragged while holding on to the door sill with one hand. I was washing our car next door, heard him cry and ran to grab him as he lost his grip. The front wheel was about to roll over him when I tossed him across the lawn.
Who let's their child play in their car unobserved?! I know, people even leave their children in locked cars, but where were the parents?! My twins are 2, and you can't even trust them to not run in front of a car if their grandpa is standing across the road!
I didn’t even know I did until late but I saved my gf from killing herself by starting to date her
Maybe. Was a CIT (Counselor in Training) at a day camp for several weeks with a group of 4-5 year olds. Was in the outdoor swimming pool. At one point two of the small girls were in water that was deeper than they were--but easily shallow for me. I realized this and grabbed both back to shallow water. Keep in mind, I am not a great swimmer myself, was not a lifeguard, and not the strongest person. I think one of them got too far out and grabbed onto the second one for dear life, dragging her out with her. Both were fine, but one was clearly very scared afterwards.
Since my late teens (I'm 34 now) I have reversed overdoses in people at least 15 times. I received Narcan training and have brought several people back from the brink of death, either through CPR or a combination of that and Narcan. Most of those people have since gotten sober and are working hard today to overcome their addictions. Please folks, if you know anyone struggling with opioids, take the time to receive training and a free prescription of Narcan; it truly does save lives.
Thanks so much for the education. I only recently heard the term "Narcan," and now you're telling me a regular joe like me can get it and learn to use it. It never would have occurred to me this sort of thing is available. I don't know anyone with an opioid addiction right now, but if I ever do, I'll know how to proceed.
Went white water rafting with my adult daughter and teenage granddaughter in Colorado. It was late in the season and we hit a boulder that nearly threw my daughter into the water. You'd think an inflatable raft would have some "give," but those things are hard as heck and when you hit a big rock it's a serious collision.
We managed to pull her back in, but a moment later she got thrown in, and then me. Even though we were on opposite sides of the raft we somehow ended up together in the water.
Her life jacket had been improperly adjusted and it was actually rising above her shoulders and pushing her head under water, which also prevented her from swimming. I grabbed her life jacket with one arm and started swimming with the other arm toward the opposite shore--there were sheer boulders on the side we were on, so that was not an option.
Even though the water was low, the force of it shot us downstream. My legs got raked across rocks and I could tell one knee got banged up badly. Another raft had pulled into shore and that's what I kept swimming toward. The guide in that boat stuck out a paddle and I grabbed it just as I was about to give out from exhaustion. I could not have made it much further. We dragged ourselves out of the water and were directed to a road where the tour bus would pick us up.
If nothing goes wrong, white water rafting is a lot of fun. You'll want to do it again immediately. But if you go in the water, you need to understand that you're swimming for your life. The force of that mass of moving water is like being pushed by a wall. There are no life guards and the guides aren't jumping in to save you because that would just mean more people in the water. You have to swim to shore or another raft.
Experienced guides with helmets and vests have themselves drowned after falling out. If you go, take it seriously. It is not an amusement ride.
There are a lot of heartwarming stories on here, but I think more upvotes need to go to this exciting story about white water rafting.
A few years back my mom (former hospice nurse and special needs caregiver) walked into a restaurant for a girl's day. We were greeted by multiple waitresses calling 911 and one hysterical woman, my mom jumped into nurse mode and ran to a nearby table where an elderly woman was having a seizure. It turns out she had gone septic after doctors botched a recent surgery. My mother very calmly began to resuscitate the woman, who had at that point stopped breathing while I dragged her daughter, who was trying to throw herself at her mother, to a nearby table. She promptly fainted and hit her head, once me and a very nice gentleman got her into the booth I sat with her until the EMTs arrived, got the elderly woman, who had been successfully revived, onto a stretcher and proceeded to take care of the daughter. After that we just ate lunch like nothing has ever happened.
I didn't know that would be the response to "going septic"--I'm so glad your mom was there and I hope she got the care she needed.
I was an RN when I found a patient in a diabetic coma. After I revived her found out the LPN who had given her insulin was actually a nurses aide. No qualifications for giving medication at all!
WTF!!!???? How does she even get near the stuff to draw it up? Did the place she worked (I hope past tense) allow them to do that because they’re so short staffed? Tried to actually kill the person that way? More info if possible.
Provided first aid after an car accident once, ran 2 kilometres through a pitch black night to a veterinary with my sister's cat (she got crushed by her scratching tree; no serious injuries) and I don't know if I saved my friend's life, but I think protecting her a few times from getting harrased and beaten up sure helped her a lot.
My husband legit saved my life. We were at a surf camp out in Java deep in the jungle. I had contracted amoebic dysentery... I was violently ill and there were no medical services on the tiny beach we were at. He found a kid with a satellite phone (this was in 2005) and chartered a helicopter to fly use back to Bali to the medical clinic there. All the wonderful locals helped carry me to the helicopter because I was so weak, I couldn't walk. There was an ambulance waiting for me at the airport, and I needed 8 bags of IV fluids. The doctor told him had it not been for his actions, I would've died. As soon as I was stabilized, he burst into tears, he had been completely terrified that I was going to die.
You should keep in touch with someone in that town. If a local gets very ill or injured, arrange and fund medical care for them.
Former ICU nurse here...a few yeses, a lot of almosts...
I once helped a coworker who was choking while having lunch. He was much larger than I was ( I am 1.83 m/ 6ft) but I managed to relieve him after about thirty seconds. Probably the scariest ones in my life.
Another time I pulled I guy back when he was attempting to cross the road while a speeding bus was coming straight into him.
Multiple times. First I can remember in college my roommate would only wear black clothes. We were down at the bus station one night (open air station but poorly lit) and we were about to cross the street. She was ahead of me and I noticed a huge bus turning on the red light. Neither of them noticed the other (she had headphones in). I ran and grabbed the hood, which was only thing I could reach, and yanked her back while trying to run. Her shoe fell off and was completely mangled by the truck tire. She freaked out when she realized what happened, but bus driver still never noticed anything because he just kept driving.
Next time still in college: I signed up for bone marrow registry after a blood drive. I'm mixed race, so those are harder to match for recipients because you need the same mix to be the donor. I get a letter that says I was a preliminary match. After almost a year of me going for various tests and appointments and more bloodwork after classes (without a car, so multiple bus rides), they said we were a perfect match. So I had surgery over Christmas break between semesters. You go in face up but they then intubate you and knock you out and all that, and then roll you onto your stomach for the extraction from your lower back (upper pelvis). During that process they dislocated my shoulder and tore tendons in the area. I ended up having to take the semester off because of it and still have pain and weakness in my left arm15 years later. The recipient was "cured" of his cancer they would tell me on follow up interviews (they interviewed me every 6 months for about ten years). I'm a little bummed because you're able to communicate through the donor program (not directly) and this person never once even sent a message that said thanks for saving my life. I'd still do it but it just upset me that they never cared about everything the anonymous donor goes through.
Another time, someone went into anaphylaxis at a restaurant. They didn't carry epi pens, but since I always do for my food allergies, I ended up using 4 of them on him plus a ton of chewable Benadryl before the ambulance arrived. I was the only one in there who had any Epi-pens, so without them he wouldn't have survived in the time it took to have emergency services show up.
Twice I've saved people with sepsis. It doesn't seem as well known in USA like in countries like in UK. Both people had UTIs and luckily I was visiting both (these were years apart) when I noticed they started getting rapidly rising fevers, despite being on Tylenol. We're talking going up an entire degree in 15 minutes. Lucky I JUST read a news article out of UK that mentioned the sepsis and symptoms for the first person. They were both really combative - probably because of the fevers- but I had to fight to get them in the car to drive them to hospital. First person was before covid so I got to go back with her. Then her vitals went haywire (bp dropped to very low numbers and heart rate shot up to compensate) and they kicked me out of the room to deal with bringing her back. She ended up in ICU for two weeks afterwards. The second one he was caught early enough he only spent 2 days in the hospital (although this one was during covid, so I couldn't go in, but he would text me the test results when they'd tell him).
I suffer from depression myself and there have been times I've been quite suicidal. Things certainly didn't help when I became disabled and can only do a fraction of what I could before and lost most of my friends. Once an ambulance/police was called for me by a friend who was concerned. She saved my life. But the ambulance guy said we don't know our purpose in life - maybe mine was to save those people because who knows what they would go on to do. I know he was trying to help, but when I think about it, it just makes me sadder because it makes me think I'm not worth much as a human (which is how I've felt since becoming disabled), but that these other people have worth.
Of course today have worth! Do not for a f*****g SECOND think you don't! You are amazing; you saved two lives! The so-called friends you lost, you are better off without xxxxx
I once saved a kid who had some how climbed out of the top floor window on to the ledge about 20ft up , i climbed up the drain pipe and grabbed him and helped his mum drag him back in the window , no idea how he got out as it was a right mess on getting him back through , the gap was tiny
Toddlers have the ability to teleport themselves. Unfortunately, it's one of the first skills they drive out of you when you start school.
Yeah, more or less, I think. I was in an Irish bar one Sunday afternoon watching the band and generally having a low-key good time. Then, out of nowhere, I saw this absolute mountain of a man punch a much smaller guy in the face which knocked him down.
Being young and fit (I remember those days fondly), I darted over, only to see that the victim was struggling to get up as the behemoth went in with his feet, literally kicking this him down the stairs. He stopped a couple of steps from the bottom and again tried to get up. This infuriated the big man and he goes in again trying to stamp on the other guy's head. He got a couple of good stomps in before I managed to put myself between them so he couldn't attack again. He struggled for a while (felt like years!) and then seemed to realise that it was over and went on his way.
I didn't think much of it and I think anyone would do the same thing if they were in that situation.
A couple of ladies had seen it all go down and they congratulated me for 'saving this guy's life'. They said they were certain that they were about to witness a murder. The lad himself also thanked me and echoed the same sentiment. We went back to the band and he bought me a good few beers whilst explaining that his assailant had wrongly thought that he had slept with his wife and wanted revenge. He seemed like a bit of a Jack-The-Lad type so I'm not sure if I was convinced but either way, attacking someone like that is never the right option.
Actually... yeah. I was in my twenties in the late '70s and a couple of Mormon missionaries came to the door. I sent them on their way but they returned a few seconds later and started banging on the door. When I answered they said "Hey! the guy next door's trying to kill himself!!"
I ran out the back door and sure enough, there's my neighbor Joe hanging from a tree, not even swinging back and forth. I yelled "Godd*amnit, Joe" and hollered for my wife to grab the lopping shears before vaulting over the chainlink fence and grabbing his thighs to support some of his weight while my wife climbed up on the chair he'd used and cut through the rope with the shears.
He was really pissed off when he came to. I called the cops to come get him some help and there were some tense SWAT-like moments that afternoon (I'd told the cops the guy kept guns in the house), but at least the guy survived for whatever that was worth to him.
oh wow--that--man. Words fail me--thank you for helping him that day.
Its the other way around, someone saved my life. When i was in kindergarten, i went to a grandmas friends house to swim. I accidentally went too far and i didnt have floaties on, so i almost drowned. luckily, there was someone out there, and they saved me right as i was going down. I forget who that was and i wonder if they are doing ok.
Yes, not human, but hummingbird, when I was little, (like 10) I found a bird on the ground, (I don't remmeber the exact type but I think it was a hummingbird) it was exhaused or something because it wasn't flying at all. It was cold outside, and as I was worried for the little guy's health, so I got a box, filled it with some cloth and cotton balls so the hummingbird could stay warm scooped up the hummingbird. I left some seed in the box (idk how much that actually helped assuming my memory is correct and it was a hummingbird, Idk if they actually eat seed) I left the box half open and outside, so the hummingbird could fly out once he was ready. The next morning the hummingbird was gone, likely having recovered and flown out. For those of you curious on why I didn't bring him inside, we had a pet African Grey and were worried he might hurt the smaller one.
The kind of bird really isn’t that important here. What is important that you, a 10 year old, did everything you could think of for that little bird. The real point here is you saved a dear little bird’s life.
Once when I worked in a group home for the developmentally disabled one of my clients jumped into the pool after telling me they could swim and went right under. I jumped in with all of my clothes and he was so big he almost held me underwater but I was able to push up from the bottom till he could grab onto the side and pulled himself up thank God! Also at a different group home I heard one of our girls coughing over the monitor. Nobody else thought anything of it but when I checked on her she was choking on her own vomit. She was blind and deaf and didn't speak much but she was so grateful when I helped her she just said thank you thank you thank you over and over again. I helped someone else from drowning after this but my experiences at the group home for the ones that meant the most to me. It made my job worthwhile and I came home feeling good about myself for once.
My grandmother, an eccentric artist like myself, used to end up in hospital about once a year due to asthma. Once, however, instead of being put into the ward for respiratory ailments, she wound up in the geriatric ward, with five hallucinating women and....no treatment whatsoever. Staff was just expecting her to die. I came to visit in the middle of one of her attacks; she was in full panic mode and I raced to the nurses' station, where one of the two staffers just stared at the ceiling and said, ''Yeah, respiratory distress is hard to watch''. I raced back to the ward and told the most obscene joke I could think of. Grandma gasped, and then resumed breathing normally. She was so thrilled by the joke that she immediately phoned my father to relate it to him. Both my parents chewed me out.
I was speaking to an elderly friend on the phone one night, and she began not making sense. She then hung up and didn't answer when I called back. I drove to her security condo complex, but the guard wouldn't let me in. I called the police to do a welfare check, and she was on the floor when we got into her house. She refused medical treatment, but I kept trying to convince her to go to the hospital. I finally left, and she apparently had second thoughts, so she called another friend to to take her to the hospital. She had a brain bleed from when she fell. If I had done nothing after our phone call, she would have died overnight on the floor.
Thank you for your persistence!! I have an opposite to that story. Mom had a casual acquaintance who wasn't feeling well. She wanted to go to her Dr but this was around when covid started and her Dr office wasn't open. So mom would call up nightly. Then suddenly couldn't reach her friend. After a week, tried going over to her house but there was no answer and neighbors didn't answer either. She did this multiple times at different times of day. Once she ran into the post man (they didn't get deliveries on the house - it was a big metal box that held mail for about 20 houses), and the post man said he noticed she hasn't picked up the mail in 2 weeks. Finally mom found a neighbor going into the house and he said he noticed the kitchen light was on 24/7, but he never went over to check on his 80 year old neighbor. At this point I called the cops for her to do a wellness check. They waited for fire truck to break in and unfortunately mom's friend was dead on the kitchen floor.
not a person, but a humming bird :D
My sister was actually sledding down our front yard into the road yesterday as a snowplow was coming down our icy road faster than she could walk in her snowgear. I used the little balance I had to skate across the road and pick her up. Snowplow kept going as if he didn’t almost scoop up a little kid.
Father, mother, and I took a lawn tractor w/an attached trailer into the woods to dig plants for landscaping. On the way back out father was driving w/mother & myself between tractor/trailer standing on hitch and trailer tongue going up a slope. The tractor failed and began to roll backwards. I managed to jump free, reach out and grab mother to pull her to safety just as the tractor began to roll over going down hill. We watched as father barely managed to get out of the way. Could have lost both parents that day; luckily, aside from a wrecked tractor, the only damage was a large bruise where mother had grabbed onto my wrist.
I have two stories, I don’t know if the second counts:
At a summer camp, there was a kid who started hyperventilating due to getting his neck caught on a wire a few nights before. We were at the beach for a field trip, and I saw him on the ground. I rushed over to him. He was pointing to his backpack. I opened the first pocket, which had his paper bag. I gave it to him while my other friends went to get the councilors. Minutes later, an ambulance came and took him away. He was perfectly fine afterwards, fortunately.
The second one, I was at a friends place with my bro. The door of the garage we were in was opened, so we hit the button to close it. Our friends cat decided to sit RIGHT UNDER THE DAMN DOOR. The button to STOP the door from closing didn’t work. I had to rush over and shove the cat outside to prevent it getting crushed. After the door closed, we opened it again to let the cat in, and this time made sure it wouldn’t pull a stunt like that again
I unintentionally saved me and my family's life by having to use the bathroom. We were on a road trip and we stopped at a gas station because I had to go really bad. We then heard about a landslide that had occurred 2 minutes later. If we hadn't stopped we possibly would have been killed.
Summer 2001, my two sisters were visiting our father in Guam from Alaska. A typhoon hit and killed the power, destroyed water lines, and generally made life miserable in 100 F weather.
I was trying to sleep on the cool tiles in the living room one night, since there was no power in the apartment complex. Around 4am heard a loud bang and angry voices in the stairwell outside, then another bang a minute later. I look through the peephole and see a man crawling down the stairs headfirst, and he comes to our door and bangs on it saying "Help, I'm shot!"
I run to my Dad, but he went to just boyfriends without telling us. I woke my sisters and put one of them on the phone with the police, and the other hidden in the closet. Then, I opened the door and kept the man with gunshot wound in his chest awake and talking until the police arrived.
We did an interview with the News station, but still had no electricity to see it. Visited the man in the hospital. He survived, but the bullet hit his lung, liver, stomach, and impeded itself in his spine paralyzing him.
I found out later, the shooter was a crazy ex-military who had left a note under the door of the guy who was moving in across his hallway. The note was about a water hose I had left out in the shared courtyard. The new guy had just gotten home and decided to confront the military guy because he didn't own a hose. Military guy shot him and then committed suicide.
Stairwell smelled like blood for months.
Oh my goodness. I'm so sorry you saw all of that, lovely that you saved him.
Aged about 14, I was going on a historic steam excursion. They were vintage carriages, so there was a bit of a gap between the platform and carridge. As we boarded, there was a little kid of about 4 years old in front of me. They slipped and started to fall down the gap. This station had 3rd rail electrification. Somehow, I grabbed the back of their coat and held them until some other passengers could help me pull them back up. To this day, I have never reacted so fast to anything else again.
Several times - Probably the most dramatic one was when I pulled someone out of the white water at the top of a waterfall. In order to do it, I had to deliberately climb into the water and wedge myself between two rocks. He was clinging onto the other side, but losing the fight, and because of the noise I had to forcefully scream at him to release one arm and reach out to me. He was understandably terrified, but eventually did it. I grabbed his arm and pulled him with all my adrenaline powered strength, literally over my head to safety. Then I had to muster the strength to pull myself out.
My sisters and I saved a drowning man in the ocean when I was about 24. We were in Florida and there was a sandbar about 75 yards out that people were walking on. We were just hanging out enjoying the water when we heard a woman yell for help and saw her husband sort of bobbing up and down in the ocean. He had fallen off the sandbar into deeper water and couldn’t swim. He was sinking and then pushing himself off the bottom to come up for air but not able to get back to the sandbar. We swam over, grabbed him and draped his arms over each of our shoulders and swam him all the way to the shoreline. He was elderly and exhausted and thankfully the beach patrol was rolling up on their quad bikes just as we pulled him to land. They took over and we just sort of faded into the back and went about our vacation. When I look back at it, it’s surreal to think we literally saved a man from drowning in the ocean. My sisters and I aren’t amazing swimmers or anything, but we had the benefit of youth and teamwork and we sure did save that old guy.
This sounds very unbelievable but still. Yeah I saved my ups life possibly when I was two. We were playing and stuff and my dad was at work in a city an hours drive from my house but my mum has low blood pressure so she stood up really fast and she fell over smashed her head against a cabinet and dislocated her knee. So two year old me wanders in and tries to get her to play with me again but when I realise somethings wrong I get worried and remember that she had told me off for playing with the phone and nearly dialling 999 and told me it’s only for emergency’s so I got the phone dialled the number and said “mummy’s sleeping and she won’t wake up.” The police traced the call knocked down the door and my mum was taken to hospital. I got this info from my mum, my dad and News articles from when we get told to look up our own names at school because I was two so I don’t remember any of it. I have the vaguest vaguest memory of my mum lying on the floor and me shaking her but that’s literally it. So two year old me had some common sense.
Yep. My own. More than twenty years ago. Swallowed nearly 100 very strong (now banned) prescription pain killers.
Called ambulance, Mum grabbed phone and hung it up because she didn’t believe me. Ambulance service called back. Thank god they did. Several days spent in hospital.
In the years that followed…
Ligatures. Undid before I blacked out. More than once.
Didn’t throw myself off a bridge. Got talked down by a stranger at 3am.
Didn’t crash my car deliberately a thousand times. Too worried about causing an accident that would hurt others.
Didn’t jump in the river.
Didn’t go over the top with cutting.
Saved my own life more times than I can recall. Not sure why.
These days, I keep my s**t together and haven’t felt that way for several years. But I never take my mental health for granted.
And I hope I might save someone else’s life if they read this and realise they are stronger than they realise and can get better. Just don’t be afraid or too proud to admit you need help and access it. X
I stopped my next door neighbour from being run over by a bus. She sustained a broken arm, but if I had not grabbed her and pulled her back onto the pavement, she would have gone under the wheels. We were both youngsters.
yes - lifeguard - people that could not swim would walk through 4' deep water and step off in a stump hole & panic. sometimes on Monday we would have to go link arms and find the one that tried it when we weren't working, drown in a hole 3' in diameter. pulled a kid off the bottom of a pool when i was first starting out.
forgot at least one more - little girl at a hotel was swimming with parents - she came down and decided to run non-stop into the pool again, alone. Went in and got her out - ruined some nice stuff that was in my pockets that day.
Yes, and more than once. I'm not a doctor.
The first time was I was babysitting a friend's elderly mother while she went to Paris on business. We were having dinner the evening the friend left when her mom suddenly got this far-away look in her eyes, clutched her chest, and fell over onto the floor. She was tuning blue, eyes open, unresponsive and not breathing. I started CPR on her and it was like making out with the Snuffleupagus...she was a pretty large woman. She spasmed, she coughed up a huge mucus bubble. In my mouth. Stopped breathing again, and meanwhile all this time I'm performing CPR too. Another mucus bubble and by then I'd had enough and I just shook her and yelled in her face that if she didn't start breathing she was going to die. You know what? She started breathing and I kept her going until the paramedics arrived.
The next time it wasn't successful. A lovely neighbor died in my arms. We miss her.
Another time I was in Hollywood for a meeting. When it was over a colleague and I descended to street level right on Hollywood Blvd. at the intersection of Vine. There was a city bus idling waiting for the light to change when this 50ish man with longer unkempt greasy hair wearing what once was a nice suit laid down on the street and put his head right in front of the 2 rear wheels. If the bus moved his head would have been smashed like a melon. My colleague, she was frozen in disbelief. I ran to the bus and started banging on the door of the bus screaming that somebody was trying to kill himself. In that instant I saw the color drain from the driver's face and he opened the doors and got out. I went to the guy on r street and yelled "What are you doing?" I can still see my colleague's face, three black circles for her eyes and mouth, and other people gathering around. The guy just got up, brushed himself off and walked up Hollywood Blvd like nothing ever happened. I followed for a few blocks and he wouldn't talk to me. I looked for police but there were none and then he turned a corner and was gone.
I not once but twice saves my forever guys life. the first time was when he wasn't feeling well, so we were going to go to the local walk in center, but he seemed to be getting worse on the way, so instead I told the taxi to go to the hospital instead, he had appendicitis and they were just about to blow and would have done if we hadn't gone to the hospital that very second.
The second time was when we were going to the local co-op and were looking around the veg part, when we came back out he was acting drunk and slurring his words he's the type of guy to just brush it off, but I put my foot down and got him to the doctors we were passing, which then rushed him to the hospital. he was in anaphylactic shock and would have died if we didn't him there. so lucky.
probably should have mentioned the anaphylactic shock was down to him been bitten by some type of veg spider
I personally haven't saved someone's life, but my twin has saved my life. I was young, like 6 or 7 at the time when it happened. I was in our local swimming pool and I think I had a seizure or something, but it made me end up banging my head on the side of the pool so hard that I temporarily lost consciousness. My twin saw what happened and swam over to me and grabbed my body from around the waist to keep my head from falling underwater as the lifeguard came over to me. Impressive what my twin did seeing as I am and always was that it bigger and heavy than she was. She is stronger than she looks. Anyway the lifeguard with the help of some other adults managed to get me our of the pool and into the lifeguard station. Luckily I was mainly unharmed and I managed to get away with it with only a nasty headache and a nosebleed to show for it.
And now even though I sometimes get annoyed with my twin, I always remember that if she didn't exist I would most likely be dead.
The story that comes out of it, no matter how much you hate your sibling/family member/friend or anyone for that matter don't be mean, or at least try not to, because one day they could be the person that saves your life, they did it my case.
I kind of got vaccinated and have my booster, so....me +a bunch of other people.
Yes. The first few were Red Cross blood donations. The second was when I had to have my daughter tested for a possible allergy to iodine before she could undergo an IVP. (to examine the kidneys) which uses dye in the contrast medium to make the area being examined better visualized. It turned out that she indeed was allergic and the IVP was cancelled. Had I not had her tested First she could have died as a result of the allergy.
Be careful with iodized salt. There are a few foods that overlap as well so look up the full list to be careful with if you have an iodine allergy. As for testing, it can be done. The Dr prescribes Prednisone for a few days before and a high dose as well as Benadryl for the day of. A lot of places are switching to iodine free contrast solutions because of allergy issues. For any surgery prep, instead of using iodine, there are other disinfectants that can be used. Fortunately it's a manageable allergy.
Yes&no. 5ft. Figured out student was choking, had to get taller preggo teacher to do heimlich.
Yes, as a police dispatcher. Call came in from a guy suffering from a systemic infection after surgery. He just wanted his meds in the bathroom, but could not get out of bed due to weakness. I told him I would send someone to help. He was clearly borderline delirious, insisting on no ambulance no lights and siren, no big deal, just needs his meds. I made sure we had access to the house (no locked gates or doors) and our first responders would not encounter some giant killer dog. I sent paramedics and an ambulance, lying to him the entire time. After his hospital stay and release, he wrote to the department thanking me for saving his life.
2nd life saved - friends boyfriend could not urinate, told her to take him to the ER STAT, docs said he probably would not have lasted another day. Massive bladder infection that started causing delirium.
Saved half a dozen dogs from certain death. No better feeling than helping out others, my first aid, CPR and CERT training has come in handy.
I saved a dogs life. I was a receptionist at a vet clinic. An older lady brought in an older dog she found hoping we could look for the owner and care for the dog. Clinic said no, only choice was to take the dog home or pay to have it euthanized. Coworker and I didn’t agree to that. I took “Bear” home and found his very happy & thankful owners. He was sent home with meds to treat his skin condition as well, we split the treatment costs (coworker & I, she was backup if my hubby or dogs couldn’t get along with him) also with specific instructions to call me if they ever needed/wanted to rehome him. No questions would be asked.
No, but my brother has saved mine, and he's five years younger than me! Mostly just a coincidence but still a cool story.
Our house was right next to an untended forest, and we had a swingset right in front of it. A lot of the trees were dead or dying. We were sitting on the swings and my brother made me mad. Something petty, but I stormed off into the house. About a minute later I heard screaming. I went outside and saw a giant tree branch big enough to crush someone's entire spine right in the swing where I was sitting. I could've died.
Don´t know if it counts, but when I was a kid we visited a small waterpark in a different country. I was in a queue for a ride and my friend was waiting for me at the bottom. I was about to go when a toddler cut her way through the queue. It was really weird because this could have been max. a 2 yr. fully dressed and was there without a parent. All the kids just stared at her as she sat and went on the ride. At the end of it, she fell into the water face down. Nobody did anything we just kept staring, nobody even went on the ride. I don´t know maybe we waited for the toddler to start swimming or what, we were just kids. She stayed like that for a few moments, then her pacifier rose up to the surface and I thought well it doesn't look like she´s about to swim does it. I was afraid of going on the ride because we could potentially hurt her coming off of it, so I shouted at my friend who was waiting for me to pick her up. She did and the baby was fine. Crying and all but alive. We tried talking to the other kids to find out if maybe somebody was a sibling of hers, but we didn't know the language well. Soon enough, her mother came looking for her and all ended up well. I don't think she realized what went on this easily could have turned ugly.
Yes, it’s not that interesting. I am following someone online they followed back, yada yada, until recently they said they were going to commit suicide. I wrote to them and told them not to do it, I said that I cared for them (In a friend way) and they are alive and well. I think I saved them and I check up on them from time to time. I don’t know this person personally, they are just a person online I follow, I don’t know their personal lives at all. So yeah, I did save a person.
I was taking someone's blood pressure and realized they were having a stroke.
Been there! Was at the end of my shift and patient asked if I could take his breakfast order before I left. Right in the middle of the order, he suddenly developed a slur, expressive aphasia, and left arm weakness. Fortunately for him, I'm a neuro nurse who had been floated to that floor for the shift 😉
Do animal lives count? I rescued a cat that was stuck in a car engine. After the vet cured him I adopted him. His name is Houdini and he is currently purring in my lap. Human lives? Not sure if a life, but serious injury. Years ago I shielded someone from being smashed in the face with a bottle at a bar fight. (Somebody had thrown it, we were not involved).
I've been a Paramedic for over 25 years, and have saved many lives. There is no better feeling than learning of a patient being successfully discharged from hospital after being seriously ill or injured, or clinically dead.
Sadly, I have been to a lot of cardiac arrests where I haven't been successful, because bystanders have refused to perform CPR, even when the 999 call handler will give CPR instructions over the phone. Excuses have ranged from "I didn't want to hurt them" to "it's hard work" and all variations in between.
Oh dear. It's hard work? Yes, it is physically demanding and I am no spring chicken, but I would do my best. Surely that's better than nothing?
I lived in an old house that had been renovated to be apartments. We all shared one main entry off the front porch. I noticed the porch area was smoky when I got home one night and when I got on the porch it was obvious that something was on fire in tone of the ground floor apartments. This was before cell phones so I wen to the payphone at the restaurant next door and called 911. The fire department showed up, and kicked in the door. Turns out the tenant had put a pizza in the oven while stoned and fallen asleep. He inhaled so much smoke while asleep, that he wouldn't have woken up without an intervention. The firemen left what was left of the pizza on the steps to the porch, it was solid black. If you've ever seen "Time Bandits" it looked exactly like the concentrated piece of evil the kid finds.
I've had to heimlich my smaller dog twice... apparently you should never say "drop it" to a dog who has a giant toad in it's mouth... instantly attempted to swallow 🙄
And, I'm a Registered Nurse in a hospital... life-saving kind of comes with the job.
My mum saved a ladies life when she was sitting in front of us on the bus (she’s a nurse) so yeah this lady was having a stroke or a heart attack and her friend was calling for someone to call an ambulance and for the bus driver to stop the bus and the driver was asking if anyone was a nurse and my mum was like yeah I am then the lady woke up sort of and tried to like stand up say she was fine and my mum was just like. No you are having a stroke then she made her sit down till the paramedics got there. She’s probably saved a lot more lives as well she’s a nurse training to be an ANP (advanced nurse practitioner)
I came home one day and the neighbor kids told me there was a dead man in my backyard. I went to look and found my neighbor on the ground with no pulse and he wasn't breathing. (he had been mowing the lawn) Another neighbor and I started CPR and we were able to get a pulse and keep it until the paramedics came. He had had a heart attack. He came back from the hospital a few days later just as grumpy as ever.
My parrot got a stroke mid-air and I heard him call in pain, but stop so quickly. I caught him, before he landed on the ground, but yeah. Now he can't fly or talk, only walk around his cage. Feel bad for him.
As RN for many years seemed to be a daily thing. I took care of a boy who had coughed out trach
I did an assist! A lady in her 60s collapsed in the grocery store, not breathing, no pulse. I just heard her adult daughter yelling for help when I called 911 and ran over to see what happened and if I could help. Right as I got around the corner, I saw a man moving her onto her back and beging chest compressions. Our local emergency number takes a while to get an answer, and then they have to transfer you, and then they start ask questions about the victim before getting your location to send an ambulance. It was, I firmly believe as an otherwise agnostic, that it was a miracle from God. The man doing chest compressions was a cardiologist, who had just left the store and had to come back in for milk he forgot. What are the chances?! He brought the lady back, and let me tell you chest compressions need to be way harder than they teach in CPR class. The paramedics arrived just after and took her to the hospital for monitoring and testing.
Not me but my family - I was there
We were snorkeling and spear-fishing for lobster in the Bahamas when I was about 5-6. My grandpa, who had previously lived in the Bahamas and would volunteer as an emergency boat repairman/first responder, habitually had the vhf radio turned to the emergency channel. We were just getting back on the boat, as it was getting late, and sharks tend to be more active near dusk and dawn, when we heard a distress call on the radio. A man had been bitten by a shark while spear fishing a few minutes away from us, and his daughter had called on the radio. We were closer than any of the first responders. My mother is a doctor, and my grandma was a nurse. My grandpa, who was familiar with these situations and knew the area like the back of his palm, told us to hold on and sped towards the scene. Had we not been so quick to act, not have had the medical experience on board, or not heard the call for help, the guy would likely not have made it. My mom and grandma did everything to stop the bleeding, while also retaining some blood flow to the rest of the dude’s leg, which ended up saving it from amputation. My dad and grandpa explained what they would do and tried to keep the people on the other boat calm. My younger sister and I were scared af, and were sitting near our grandpa and the dog. My dad, who was also familiar with the area hopped into the water and onto the other guy’s boat and followed us back to the dock, where we were met with the EMTs. We found out later that my grandpa happened to actually know the dude, my grandpa had bought paint from him before. He has survived a ton of crazy accidents before, the stories are crazy. I found an article on what happened, though they didn’t go into many specifics, and my family is the one mentioned. That whole experience really taught me how powerful nature is.
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/florida-man-shark-attack-latest-brush-death-article-1.1419112
This is a very long story but here goes: It was a month ago(in my high school) when I saved my friend from what could have been seriously nasty injuries in a fight. So during lunch there’s these group of boys playing basketball(they’re on the team) and then one of them starts yelling and getting super aggressive. My other friend got pissed and he’s f***ing scary when he is mad and then my friend tries to help him calm down in a normal tone of a voice and by this time I don’t know how to judge what is going on but then I see that it backfires and escalates and he starts chasing him. Now my friend who I saved is super athletic but he’s 5’4 and 145-150 lbs and the guy chasing him 6’0 and 190 lbs and I’m 6’2 and 230 lbs at the time (217 lbs currently) and then my protective instincts deploy and I block him allowing my friend to run and then I took a huge hit and the b*stard shoves me into a table and I hit the back of my head hard and I suddenly started hallucinating and then nearly blacking out and losing consciousness but I get up and then he tries to choke me but I deliver a brutal roundhouse kick and hurt his left hip and use my foot manage to shove him 50 ft away from me but then I get aggressive(my instincts are that when someone tries to hurt or choke me) and go back for a second kick which I missed. Man I ended up in trouble but only a mild compared to the attacker because he threw a f*cking temper tantrum and he got suspended for a whole day(he is a Senior. My school is for autistic kids and I’m one of them myself) in school suspension for the rest of the day, however I felt it was worth it at the same time because if he had gotten to my friend, he would have had potentially fatal and life threatening injuries.
TL;DR: I saved a cat out of a tree when I was 12.
So one summer day in 2019, one of our rescues got loose (We have a little 'shelter' where we take in stray animals, clean them up, and find families to adopt them), and she was saved from an abusive home so she never went outside. She ran up a tree because of our neighbor's dog, and we couldn't get her down. Me being the only one who could climb trees, I decided to go rescue her. I climbed up the tree and got up onto the branch she was sitting on. I picked her up and put her into a tote bag we had (she loved being carried around in the tote bag for some reason), and carried her down the tree. She was perfectly fine, but since then she's been extremely attached to me (yes we still have her, no it's not because no one wanted her. We adopted her a year later!)
Once when I was a medical student working in an emergency room, there was this young, pregnant lady with upper abdominal pain. We referred her to the Ob/Gyn-department. They sent her back and said, that the source of her pain has nothing to do with the pregnancy and was rather some intestinal issue. I was really interested in Ob/Gyn and knew instantly, that she probably had what is called HELLP-Syndrome. A life threatening pregnancy related disease that typically presents with upper abdominal pain. The doctor was like "I AM THE DOCTOR. Gyn/Ob sent her back, you are just a student, so go out of my way!" So I went out of her way- just took the ladys urine sample before and opened the wikipedia page about HELLP Syndrome at the doctors computer. She was soon after transferred to the Obstetric department in a nearby bigger hospital. Guess, I saved mothers and babys life. They would probably have sent her home with some Pantoprazole.
I was a teen, and a good swimmer. I was swimming in the lake and this boy who had a thing for me decided I needed “rescuing” because I was swimming so far out. So he tried to swim out to me, only to falter and go under. So I swam back to try to help. In his panic he grabbed me and pushed me under. I managed to push off the bottom of the lake and shove him towards shore between struggling to the surface for breaths. Eventually we got to a depth where he could stand but I couldn’t and he was still panicking and shoving me under, not realizing he was out of danger. Each time I got to the surface I yelled “stand!”. He finally stopped panicking and I was able to guide him to shore. We did not start dating.
I spent 8 years working two shifts a week with an ambulance service. There were good times and bad. Saving lives and watching people die was practically a hobby. Anytime I think that Ive pissed my life away, I look at a small gift someone gave me that simply says; “thank you for saving my life”
My girlfriend's father fell over in the shower, I gave him CPR until the ambulance arrived, he was already dead. My friend entered a drinking contest, fell down I gave him CPR until the ambulance arrived, he died half way to the hospital. My neighbor had a piece of apple stuck in her windpipe so gave her the Hynick maneuver saving her life. After that she became distant and stopped being a friend, don't know why.
My husband married me secretly before our scheduled wedding so I would have his health insurance. I was a self-employed lawyer at the time and could not afford to purchase health insurance. This was before whatever the government sponsors now for affordable health insurance.
Walked out of a bar late one night (a single 21-year-old female at the time), to discover a man repeatedly slamming a woman's head onto the curb of the sidewalk. I walked to my car, removed the only weapon-like object I had, which was a two-piece pool cue in a case that my Mom had recently gifted me. Then I ran at him screaming like a banshee, swinging it around like a crazy person. I knew he was bigger and stronger, so my plan (if I even really had one) was to make him terrified of the psycho woman coming at him. It worked. He ran away, and I got her up and back into the bar.
I found out the assailant was her boyfriend. I tried to convince her to come spend a night or two at my house. She went home to him instead.
I was 16 or so and a lifeguard at a local swimming pool. Pool management wanted to attract new members so they advertised a day of free admission. Lots of new people showed up and some parents left their kids at the pool alone. The new kids - when you’re a lifeguard you know all the regular kids because you spend most of your time yelling at them to WALK - were super excited to be at the pool but I could tell that some weren’t strong swimmers.
When it was my turn on the lifeguard chair by the deep end (12 ft) a couple of the new guest kids lined up to jump off the diving boards. Sure enough a kid (8 or 10 yrs) jumps in and starts panicking because he can’t keep his head above water - doing what they teach you in lifeguard training to recognize as ‘active drowning’.
As soon as that realization hit my brain I just reacted, grabbed my rescue tube off the back of the chair jumped in and pulled the kid to the side if the pool. My friend (also a LG there) saw it happen and helped the kid get out. He was freaked but otherwise ok. Parents no where to be seen.
Not 10 minutes later another kid - younger maybe 6 - jumps off the board into the deep end and starts drowning. I was on the side of the pool at that time and my friend was on the LG chair, we both jumped in and pulled him out. This kid was also ok. That was a day I won’t forget!
Leaving my local grocery store one day I realized I had checked out on the opposite side of where I had parked. I chose to cross the store inside and then exit through the other doors. As I was approaching those doors I saw a family of 5 at a checkout, with all the chaos that involves. Then I saw their youngest, a boy of 2 or 3 walk out the doors in front of me. His parents did not see him go.
So, I am behind him. In front of him is a very busy two-way traffic situation. He is also much shorter than all of the cars parked in the handicapped spots directly in front of the store.
I was terrified for him. I also wasn't sure if I should I should just run and grab him, for fear I would be mistaken as a kidnapper.
So I started talking to him. Asking him questions. Asking about his mom, his dad, his sisters. He was an explorer, I could tell. He really wanted to keep going. And I am trying to stop him with no help with only my words.
After a few stressful minutes, his family exits the store. They see us both, walk past me, pick him up, and leave. They never acknowledged me.
Yup. So I was about 12-ish and in a handball team. (if you don't know the sport, please google it up). The game was played with a ball, the same size as a bowling ball and the density of a basketball.
My whole team was practising in the school field, and we were throwing around balls for fun because we were bored. I'm standing here talking to a friend, and out of the corner of my eye, I see someone throwing a ball directly at the person behind me. out of instinct, I held my hand out and caught it. Long story short, my coach had thrown the ball at her because 'he wanted to see her reflexes'.
I'm not in that school anymore, but I found out that coach got fired :D
A bit long story,but it's worth it, so you can see, everything happens for a reason. I was working in a hostel for 4 years, we had different activities to offer to guests and I would try most of them. One was a Thai massage place,where they give you thai blue tea at the end. It was new to me,so I looked it up what it is good for (clitoria ternatea- great antioxidant,good for epileptic people,etc) my aunt has epilepsy, though she didn't have a strong phase for long,but sometimes feels like,tried it and helped her. Fast forward 2 years,in the middle of the pandemic,2020, a guest arrives,who also is in the city for dental work. We chat and tells me not to be scared,but he has cluster headache(also called suicide headache, look it up,terrible). It started 5 years ago,and there is no cure,his wife left,his 16 year old daughter and his mother all fear for his life,cause it's unbearable, and some medication that eases him,he can not take,because of the dentist,so he will have phases. I said oookay...started looking up this disease,we chat some more and somehow he says that there are trials with epilepsy medicine against cluster headache. LIGHTS ON in my head, I tell him there is this tea,I actually ordered myself some off the internet and it worked for my epileptic aunt,so I gave him some to try. He left back to his home country and one day I get a call at work,it's him, he told me he only had 2 minor phases in 2months and started crying, saying I saved his life,cause he was already thinking how to end it. (I must admit,seeing someone having a headache where he literally hits his head,his eye is about to pop out,and is mouning loud is scary enough, I can't even imagine how devastating it is for them to have this 7-8 times a day!). Since then he started his business with this tea and since he was of course part of online communities with this disease, he could help others further on. I must admit, I cried when he told me and sometimes even when I remember this,out of sheer joy and also because I am still stunned of this minor(but thus now for hundreds of people) butterfly effect that I was part of.
If this helps for anyone, when buying it online,to check the reviews of the seller,but must admit the one with mid-range price,directly from Thailand are the best, the flower itself can be easily recognized does not resemble other ones, also the packaging doesn't have too much label. Ypu can also buy seeds and grow it yourself.
During the time I was a trip leader in Northern Minnesota. A fast moving storm once rolled in and lightning struck a tree outside of our cabin. It jumped from the tree to the top of our roof electrocuting one camper through the arm on the front stoop, another camper inside who was touching the screen on the window, and a third who was outside trying to close the window due to rain coming in. Initially I didn't know what happened initially because my ears started ringing nonstop, but through the noise I started to hear my campers fearful screams. The one who was inside the cabin had passed out after the strike, but as I was making sure he was ok I saw the one outside who was trying to close the window, laying motionless on his back with his eyes and mouth wide open as the rain continued to pour. I ran for the door to go outside and ran into the camper that was on the stoop, he was holding his arm screaming he had been struck. I told him to go inside and continued around back.
While running that short distance to the back of the cabin everything seemed to slow down. My mind was starting to process what was going on and it realized that this was an emergency, but that no one outside of our cabin knew yet. So I started to yell for help.
Finally reaching that third camper, the training that we went through every year kicked in. Check pulse, check breathing. Neither. Readying myself for CPR his body convulsed a little and another trip leader who came to my aid suggested I check his pulse again. His pulse was back but he was still not breathing. His face was starting to become ghostly white. I gave him a couple of rescue breathes and he came to. He was taken to the hospital and made a full recovery. This happened before our canoe trip had even started. The other campers and I eventually braved our newly formed fears of lightning and went out trail.
I'd highly recommend that everyone get CPR certified.
I worked as a cashier in a pharmacy store, saw someone acting "not right", they were having difficulties expressing what was wrong, I left the register right then, walked them over to the little clinic we had in the back of the store, and knocked on the door until the RN inside came out, I was interrupting a patient visit, but the RN took one look at the man and rushed over to him, I then ran to the pharmacy and called the pharmacist over, the RN and he spoke for a moment, then the pharmacist went back into the pharmacy and pulled out an EpiPen from it's box and the RN gave the man a shot.
There's rules that will allow pharmacy workers to give out life saving things like EpiPens and inhalers before going through the paperwork and insurance if it means saving a life, luckily this guy did have a prescription and it was covered by his insurance, no idea if the ambulance ride from our store to the ER was covered.
Sometimes people think they can make it to the pharmacy in time, he lived right down the street.
I had worked as a pharmtech before, so I knew we'd be able to help him, I doubt the other cashiers would have known to act
Yes. I knew a guy who was a real estate developer in FW Texas. He also had an organized theft ring & was on parole when a scam at Walmart got him & 2 others arrested. 2 weeks later I was riding with him & could hear both sides of his call where he was setting up a murder of an accomplice so he wouldn't go back to prison.i called a detective I knew who showed up at motel & heard women as they were trying to kill her. Cop busted in & saved her but she was near death & beaten badly. I later had to testify & he was found guilt for murder for hire plot.
I've talked to lots of suicidal people, I used to be everyone's therapist. I don't talk to any of them much anymore, but they're still around, and while I have no idea whether it's because of me at all, I like to think I helped, even just a little bit
Your an awesome person for that. Know that you deserve everything for that, even if it was a small thing.
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I once saved a catholic priests life with a press release. I wasn't even in the same country as him. In the early 2000's there were thousands of Government sanctioned extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. This included indigenous peoples, journalists, human rights activists, unionists, and catholic priests. The then president of the Philippines Maria Arroyo came to my country, Aotearoa New Zealand, for a religious interfaith dialouge. A small group of filipino activists and their Kiwi supporters asked if I could help with some media support.I did a google search looking for priests who had dissapeared. I found one who had just dissapeared. The priest was out with his wife when men in military gear and van, but with military signs removed, grabbed him and took him away. This has happened before, with the priests never resurfacing, presumed executed. I wrote a press release pointing out the contradiction of the president coming for an interfaith dialouge while a priest had just been dissapeared. We made sure it got to our Prime Minister, who had a history of international human rights work. I got word the press release got to where it needed to be and shortly after we were told that the priest was "found" in a prison, alive. I later went to visit him in prison, and he now lives happily in Australia. That is the power of advocacy journalism.
I love this one!! Journalism changes things so quickly and so well
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Drove past a secluded house on fire at 3:30 am, called the fire department and sat outside honking SOS until the people inside woke up and got out. They and their dog got out 5 minutes before the fire trucks arrived.
I've talked to lots of suicidal people, I used to be everyone's therapist. I don't talk to any of them much anymore, but they're still around, and while I have no idea whether it's because of me at all, I like to think I helped, even just a little bit
Your an awesome person for that. Know that you deserve everything for that, even if it was a small thing.
Load More Replies... I once saved a catholic priests life with a press release. I wasn't even in the same country as him. In the early 2000's there were thousands of Government sanctioned extrajudicial killings in the Philippines. This included indigenous peoples, journalists, human rights activists, unionists, and catholic priests. The then president of the Philippines Maria Arroyo came to my country, Aotearoa New Zealand, for a religious interfaith dialouge. A small group of filipino activists and their Kiwi supporters asked if I could help with some media support.I did a google search looking for priests who had dissapeared. I found one who had just dissapeared. The priest was out with his wife when men in military gear and van, but with military signs removed, grabbed him and took him away. This has happened before, with the priests never resurfacing, presumed executed. I wrote a press release pointing out the contradiction of the president coming for an interfaith dialouge while a priest had just been dissapeared. We made sure it got to our Prime Minister, who had a history of international human rights work. I got word the press release got to where it needed to be and shortly after we were told that the priest was "found" in a prison, alive. I later went to visit him in prison, and he now lives happily in Australia. That is the power of advocacy journalism.
I love this one!! Journalism changes things so quickly and so well
Load More Replies... Drove past a secluded house on fire at 3:30 am, called the fire department and sat outside honking SOS until the people inside woke up and got out. They and their dog got out 5 minutes before the fire trucks arrived.
