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“Entirely Unintentionally”: 23 Incredible Stories Of Folks Saving Someone’s Life
#1
I can’t say I definitely saved this girl’s life, but her mum said my actions could have potentially saved her life in the future.
Eleven or twelve years ago I taught a girl in Year 3 (7-8 years old), whom I’ll call Georgie. She was a lovely girl, and her mum would describe her as a bit ditzy, and a bit of an airhead. After a couple of weeks being Georgie’s teacher, I noticed she’d have times of spacing out and being oblivious to events around her. This reminded me of a boy I’d taught a few years before who’d suffered petit mal epileptic seizures, which is characterised by a period of absence and blanking out, rather than jerking and thrashing.
I spoke to Georgie’s mum and asked her to take her to the doctors. She insisted she was just an airhead daydreamer, and it was nothing. I pleaded with her and eventually got her to agree to take Georgie. A few weeks later the mum turns up at my classroom door in tears and with a bunch of flowers for me. Georgie had had tests and scans and been diagnosed with epilepsy. Her mum was full of guilt and what ifs, and said I’ve possibly saved her from a terrible fate, as what if she’d had one of her absence seizures in the swimming pool one day.
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#2
Worked at a bank call centre. Elderly customer rang through asking to make a large transfer but sounded very flustered. Felt something felt off so rang police to go around for a welfare check. Turns out she was at gunpoint being forced to send all her money to this guy. Police contacted the bank to arrange call recordings to be sent the day after.
Everyone said I saved her life, but I doubt he would have shot her.
#3
I had an instinct my sleeping newborn baby ‘wasn’t quite right’ and insisted on waking him up and taking him immediately to hospital. 20 mins after arrival he went in to full cardiac arrest - turns out he was born with undiagnosed congenital heart disease. The doctors saved him from there, but without that maternal instinct he would never have woken up from his nap at home.
#4
Not sure if this counts, but the amount of times I had to physically grab a tourist in London that's about to walk into the traffic as they were looking the opposite way, is in dual digits.
#5
Entirely unintentionally, but my answer is "very probably".
At Remembrance Day service with my Scout group (I'm the group leader) and other local Scouts. It's a cold morning obvs, and we're all standing to attention throughout the whole service, which lasts for an hour.
One of the girls from another troop is standing directly in front of me. She suddenly wobbles ever so slightly and then faints, collapsing back into me. Lucky for her, I'm very fat, so she fell into my stomach like it was essentially a great big cushion, and slid harmlessly to the ground.
If I hadn't been there, she would've fallen back and cracked her skull open on the edge of the granite step immediately behind me.
So yeah, I think my *presence* saved her life, but it wasn't through anything I actually DID, just that my enormous stomach cushioned the impact more than a granite step would.
#6
My housemate was spaced-out, barely talking, awful headache, in bed all day, not even needing to get out to go to the toilet. Insisted he was fine, just needed to rest and be left alone. I got more and more worried, but the more I pressed him, the more he outright insisted that nothing was wrong and that if I called an ambulance I'd just make him more ill because it would interrupt the rest he needed. I eventually called an ambulance against his will after his speech got more incomprehensible...
He had severe sepsis. After a week in hospital he did fine, but I was horrified for a long time to think what would have happened had I respected his wishes.
#7
Right I’m going to tell a story that’s utterly surreal to me and no-one I’ve told seems to share the same bewilderment by it…
I was in the Peak District. A man in a 3 piece tweed suit and pocket watch ran past, said hello, and kept on going. Not the usual gear people wear in the Peaks but there you go.
Nearer the end of the day, after enjoying a completely empty hike with no-one else around, we got a bit lost up one of the hills so were along a ridge line still quite high up as the sun started to go down. On this ridge line there’s a bit of a boggy patch that you’re encouraged to avoid. As we redirected around it, we heard someone shouting.
In the distance, where the boggy patch is, someone was waist deep in the bog waving at us. We made our way over and it was the guy from earlier, in the suit. He couldn’t get out.
I had to carefully make my way into it, almost getting stuck myself. But I managed to get a decent footing and pull him out. He smiled, brushed off the excess mud, checked his pocket watch and ran off.
This was a late Autumn day so when that sun went down, it would’ve been freezing. And he would’ve been stuck up there in wet ground overnight, alone.
To this day, I believe I saved that man’s life. Whoever, or whatever, that man was.
#8
I answer 999 ambulance calls. I took a call I. January, during the call, the patient stopped breathing. I gave instructions over the phone on how to give CPR and also upgraded the ambulance response. The patient lived and was discharged from the hospital.
#9
My wife and I used to be carers, as in, we had two people with special needs living at our house. One morning, Christmas Eve as it happened, one of them came down for his breakfast. Now, he wasn't normally clumsy, but seemed a little off that morning. As he sat down, something clicked in my mind, and I asked him to raise both his arms. He couldn't hold his left arm up for more than a second.
Hmm, is he having a stroke?
So I called 999 and explained what was happening while my wife went out to wait for the ambulance. Ambulance came very quickly, like about 5 minutes. They stuck him on oxygen and confirmed it looked like a stroke.
Turned out it was indeed a stroke, but due to the system working as it should, he made a full recovery.
The funny thing was, when I was on the phone, I was calm, explained everything clearly and concisely, all of that. Don't panic, Capt. Mainwaring. But once we got to the hospital and the pressure was off, I called his sister to break the news and completely broke down. I could barely speak.
#10
Only indirectly.
Used to manage a charity shop, had some volunteers with various levels of special needs both physical and mental.
One guy, big lad - about 6'5 and probably 35+st, was a great worker at basic tasks. He knew what to do once you showed him and would just chunter away at them until it was complete.
Dropped off by his dad one day, but didn't look happy. Asked him what was up, complained he wasn't feeling well, pushed a little for more specifics, complained his arm and chest were sore. Called his dad back out of the car and got him to take him to A&E.
Blood clot from the lung had broken loose.
#11
Multiple times but one sticks out for me
I work in ICU and a patient arrived on the unit awake but promptly arrested. I started CPR, we got them back but they were incredibly unstable. They were ventilated and sedated, on multiple cardiac medications and electrolytes. A week later I was back on shift and I stopped by their bed-space and it had a different person in it. Assumed they didn’t make it but spotted them in high dependency. They were sitting there happily having a cup of tea. They remembered me from just before they arrested when I apparently made them feel safe when they were scared. They thanked me for saving their life. Tears all round. Once of the proudest moments of my life.
#12
Pulled a kid out of a river who was drowning. Think I was only about 15 at the time.
Saved my mums and grans lives (yay trauma.)
And then I've worked in jobs where I absolutely helped saved someone's life (care, domestic violence service, nhs).
#13
I did rescue breaths/CPR on a kid who stopped breathing. She was incredibly pale and I can still remember the flush as her face turned bright pink when she started breathing. Luckily I'd done a first aid course the week before or I'd have had no idea what to do.
There were plenty of first aiders in the building so someone would have saved her. But I do feel proud that it was me.
#14
Out surfing with school mates so the sea is quite rough. We're all strong swimmers and have our boards, but we still keep an eye on each other. The tide is pretty high at that point and with the big waves, a person could walk out reasonably far and then suddenly struggle to stand when a series of waves hits.
We spotted some young lads, similar age to us, messing around near the breakpoints where the seafloor drops quite sharply and we noticed that their shouts were turning into panic. When it became apparent they were struggling to stay above water, we swam over with our boards and told them to hold on. We got them back to the beach and checked they were OK.
Lots of local kids could barely swim even though we lived right by the sea and they just treated it as a big splash pool. Too many people have no respect for the sea and how dangerous open water swimming can be. Even strong swimmers can be swept out or become disoriented. Be smart and be safe.
#15
Yes! It was a really hot day in summer last year and I was on the bus to Leeds. Bus driver was just sat for ages at these lights and I’m thinking eh what, why’s the bus not moving.
I had my earphones in and I was falling asleep, wanted to go home. I looked over the seats and saw this poor woman on the floor, unconscious. I took my earphones off and I could hear the driver on the phone to 999. He didn’t know where we were as it was a Wakefield bus, he was from Wakefield.
I took the phone, told the woman where we were, and then she told me to do chest compressions etc. so I did. She then started coughing and I rolled her over onto her side, and by that time the ambulance was there. I went into a panic because it was a bit much but I just did what I had to do and I was there to make sure she was alive.
I was so proud of myself man. I hope she’s okay.
#16
Saved a mate from drowning in Thailand once , nearly drowned myself doing it so would leave it to the lifeguards in the future.
#17
I was at a train station, and station staff saved a little girl's life. They called for help and as a nurse I ran over. I emailed the station singing their praises, but the reply was pretty dismissive and didn't seem to realise that the station staff had genuinely administered LIFE SAVING first aid. I think in their reply they refered to it as 'potentially life saving actions' which I felt really downplayed what the station staff did that day.
(It was a toddler choking who had gone a bit grey/blue. Station staff administered back slaps and she regained colour. But I honestly thought I was going to have to do CPR on the child initially).
#18
When I was 17 me and my mate (18) went to Asda to get a carry out. Once the drink had been bought we walked round the back of the shop to have a sneaky drink before heading to wherever we were going, when we noticed something in the bushes.
There was a guy about 10 years older than us, lying in the bushes, starting to go blue in the face. We dragged him onto the grass and got him into a recovery position, then I sprinted back round to the shop to get a first aider and someone to call the ambulance. While I was away my mate found the guys [final] notes addressed to his family. He’d been diagnosed with cancer and tried to OD.
Ambulance took him away and the Asda manager promised us a reward.
Then when it came to light that I shouldn’t have been buying bevvy in the shop as I was underage, they reneged on the reward. So now I shop at Aldi.
#19
20+ years ago at about midnight on a Saturday night, we were just getting ready to go to bed and started hearing the fire alarm from next door - a terraced house. We’d heard the neighbour come home, so I went to knock with no reply.
Called the fire brigade out - they broke down the door to investigate and found him fast out on the settee and the kitchen on fire!
He’d come in after a skinfull and decided to cook a stew. Sat down and passed out. If we hadn’t called the fire brigade, it’s was likely he’d have died and the fire would have spread into the surrounding houses.
#20
Not saved a life, but spotted something that would have caused problems.
I saw a mole on the back of my mums leg that didn’t look right - multicoloured and had an uneven edge to it. So I pointed it out and told her she should have it looked at by a doctor. Doctor checked it and agreed that it was changing into something concerning so she was booked in to have it removed. She ended up having a sizeable chunk taken out of her leg, histology came back that it was a melanoma which is a type of skin cancer.
So yeah, my mum was lucky that it was caught really early and hadn’t spread so after minor surgery she was OK.
#21
Yes, my mum. She collapsed down the stairs a few months back and I had to CPR her until the ambulances came. I lived alone with her so it was a solo operation while I had the phone on speaker. Longest 10 minutes of my life.
#22
We were working on a canal when we heard a splash, followed by frantic splashing.
We went to investigate and a bloke had fallen in the lock. The water was down so there was no way to climb out. It was also freezing. We opened the gates and let him out then dragged him out of the water.
Maybe he could have held on to the gates until someone else came, but it was freezing and he was panicking to the point where he was barely keeping his head above water.
Funnily enough, I had a project a few years later and part of it was cutting ladders into the side of existing locks so that you could get out if you fell in.
#23
Yes, but the thrill wears off a bit when you know it’s another 85+ year old who just about survived CPR and will spend the last months of their life fighting intubation.
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