do tell

7/21/2009 11:07:26 AM

my sister saved me from drowning when i was like 2 or 3

my flip flop had fallen off my foot and into the pool and i tried to reach for it but fell in...i vaguely remember it all, me just sinking and looking up at the surface (i can't remember how long i was under, though). it was a lot like the album cover of Nirvana's Nevermind, except i wasn't naked.

7/21/2009 11:09:19 AM

Do you have any idea what it feels like to save someone's life ?

7/21/2009 11:14:15 AM

i would bet most of us were saved from some sort of water source when we were little. my dad had to save me when i was 2 or 3 as well

7/21/2009 11:14:35 AM

when i was very little i swam to exhaustion in a pool and the drain pulled me down. the guard jumped in and pulled me out.

about two years ago i was at wrightsville when i was watching this random kid on a boogie board off and on. i noticed he kept going further out and eventually he started yelling for his dad. at first i assumed his dad was on the way and they were boarding together. then he fell off and went under so i swam out found him and brought him to the shore. his parents never even noticed.

7/21/2009 11:24:03 AM

When I was 2 or 3 I was swimming in a swim area on Lake Gaston. All the older kids were climbing up this piling and jumping off. I swam out there, climbed up the piling, and leaped. When I hit the water I panicked for some reason and totally forgot how to swim. I was jumping off the bottom of the lake and barely getting my head out of the water with the first few jumps, but after that I was just thrashing around and drowning. Some guy who happened to be nearby grabbed me by the hair and pulled my head above the water. It was the suck.

I found a toddler in the woods one time and carried it about a mile back to his mom's house instead of just leaving it there, but I don't know that I've saved anybody's life. I mean, they probably would have just found him later if I left him there.

[Edited on July 21, 2009 at 11:36 AM. Reason : s]

7/21/2009 11:35:18 AM

I called 911 when I saw an older man laying face down on the road once. His truck was pulled over to the side with the door standing wide open, and he was laying about 5 feet from it. I pulled over and asked him what was wrong. I'll never forget his words -- "call my wife, i'm going to die." Then he just laid there. Ambulance came and got him conscious again ... still have no clue what was wrong with him.

[Edited on July 21, 2009 at 11:52 AM. Reason : ]

7/21/2009 11:48:43 AM

Its probably a good thing you didnt leave a toddler in the woods that you found

7/21/2009 11:48:49 AM

Quote :

"Do you have any idea what it feels like to save someone's life ?"

SKIN ! cancer...

7/21/2009 11:56:25 AM

me and some friends pulled someone out of the ocean that we thought was drowning and was unconscious/not breathing.

But he was lost...turns out he died of a heart attack, so there wasn't anything we could have done.

7/21/2009 12:07:41 PM

Quote :

"Its probably a good thing you didnt leave a toddler in the woods that you found"

Well, I was totally expecting a hero's welcome. I thought there'd probably be some gifts in it (I was hoping for a jet ski) and at least a little news time. Ended up with nothing. I guess I have a story to tell, but that's about it. So was it really a good thing? I'll let you decide.

7/21/2009 12:35:47 PM

yes


yes

7/21/2009 12:40:32 PM

^^ wow

7/21/2009 12:41:37 PM

"last night a dj saved my life"

was actually said to me once

by a drunk girl in a tank top and rainbows who i'd never seen before and have never seen since

she made me kiss her

it was odd

7/25/2009 10:22:55 AM

one time hiking i walked up on a woman who had slipped off the narrow path and slid down a steep slope and had her ankle wedged in a tree. had she slipped about 10 feet more she would have had a 60' sheer drop onto some rocks. i guess the tree saved her more than i did, but i got her back up on the path and back to her group.

and i've seen a couple close calls at pools, but never a major rescue

7/25/2009 10:48:37 AM

I pulled some dumb tourist family (mom and two kids) out of hurricane surf at hatteras. I paddled my longboard out and told the mom to hold on to the back, put the kids under my left arm and paddled back in. They gave me 100$, but I felt really weird taking it.

7/25/2009 11:07:23 AM

appendectomy, life saved

7/25/2009 11:12:21 AM

um, well, not had anyone saved mine that I can recall but have saved quite a few people either directly or indirectly. People get lost at sea, boats break, ships sink etc. Divers disappear. Some are found some aren't.

Probably the most interesting one is a shrimp boat sank in the middle of the night and when we went to go look for him we found one dude floating in a very large deck cooler. The other guy had a life jacket on and was found by another boat.

7/25/2009 11:18:56 AM

My mom saved me from drowning when I was quite young...3 or 4 i think. I had one of those floats on that goes around the waste and fell headfirst into the water in a pool. because of the tube i couldnt flip rightside up and she jumped in and pulled me out. thanks mom.

I saved my friend from having his chest run over once in a big fight. he was hit by a car of people fleeing the scene and was right in front of their driver side front wheel. They began to drive forwards but i was able to pull him enough that it was his leg that got run over instead of his chest or abdomen. He tattooed my initials on him so he wouldnt forget.

7/25/2009 5:26:36 PM

Quote :

"i would bet most of us were saved from some sort of water source when we were little"

looks to be pretty accurate so far

7/25/2009 7:53:29 PM

[yes]

7/25/2009 7:55:56 PM

August 28, 1990: I was 12. It was the day before the first day of 7th grade (back when 6th grade was still elementary school). I was at a buddy's house that day. We went to the rec center and swam in the pool. We biked back to his house and ate dinner around 5 pm. My mom was supposed to pick me up at 6 pm, so we decided to go into his yard and mess around with his dirt bike (an 80cc little thing). It was the first time I was at his house, and my mom was going to have a hard time finding it. Having never driven it before, he rode me around on it for a while (in a really little yard). After a while, we got bored and I asked if I could do it myself. I saw my mom's minivan pass the house and figured she would turn around and find us. He let me sit on it and tried to explain how to work the throttle and brake. When I opened the throttle, I caused the bike to jump forward about eight feet, right next to his parent's bedroom. They had one of the hand-crank windows that open out. Well...my arm sliced right into it (vice versa, rather), the bike fell down, and my leg landed on the exhaust pipe. I stood up and my toe, arm and leg were all hurting. I looked down at my right arm and I saw muscle and BLOOD. Then I freaked. I started running down the driveway towards my mom's van (whom I saw pass earlier). Thankfully, the front gate blocked my way. My buddy, Mike, ran inside the house, told his mom to call the hospital, grabbed a handful of towels and came back outside. He put a death-grip on my arm to stop the bleeding (his dad is an EMT, so he knew what to do). His mom called the hospital and came outside. About that time, my mom found the place. She came to the house, and Mike's mom told her, "Adam's had a little accident. He's okay. The ambulance is on the way."

So, I'm still alive. The hospital was only two miles away. I had extensive reconstructive surgery on my right arm to repair the muscles. After the surgery, the doctor told my parents that he could see the radial nerve in my right arm.

Anyone know how thick a nerve is? Well, the glass/metal window came 1/8 of an inch from severing the radial nerve, thus rendering my right arm completely useless. I can still feel extra-sensitivity in my right forearm because of it.

If Mike hadn't known what to do to stop my arm from bleeding, I would have died.

7/25/2009 8:10:22 PM

here is a video i show people for training, its pretty disturbing
http://yonigottesman.com/video/drowning_video/drowning_video.html

this happened this year, this is not a facility we manage:
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5328758/

Last year at another pool there were two near fatalities. the parents were out of town and the babysitter didn't notice the two kids leave the house. they walked down to the pool while it was unstaffed. one kid jumped in but the water was deeper than they were expecting and they struggled, the other kid jumped in to rescue the first but also struggled. a nurse who was walking her dog saw the two kids on the bottom after they had been there for a minute or two and was able to rescue them. they were unresponsive and had already expended their bowels, i'm not sure if they had any permanent damage.

7/25/2009 8:47:58 PM

One of my professors was lecturing and began to feel ill. She lost all color in her face and started wobbling. I was sitting in the front row, so when she passed out, me and another girl were able to catch her before she hit her head on the desk/floor. I used my first aid/cpr skills - not sure that I saved her life but certainly helped her from not getting badly injured.

Of course it was the worst professor I've ever had. I loathed that bitch and definitely hesitated before getting up while I was contemplating letting her fall. Fuck that woman, she never even thanked us.

7/25/2009 10:08:35 PM

helping someone is its own reward begonias, rarely do those who deserve thanks recieve it. you make your own satisfaction. "He who saves a life saves the entire world"

All of mine are duty related, these are the ones I recall

1. I saved this diabetic teen inmate in the jail one night who was a severe diabetic and having a severe diabetic emergency and coma. I fireman carried him down to the medical floor and we started giving him glucose gel until the paramedics showed up. I dont know if he was on deaths door, but he was losing consciousness.

2. I rolled up on a guy lying in the street in front of the rialto movie theater early one morning. I got out to check on him and saw him lying in a puddle of blood and realized he was severely bleeding out of his head. Not sure whether he fell or was assaulted but his head was split and he was pouring blood out of it. I radioed EMS and grabbed my first aid gear and tried to stop the bleeding until fire n EMS got there. He had lost a lot of blood and had a very rapid heart beat, which is also a sign of sever blood loss. Then two of the worst most unprofessional paramedics rolled up and slowly and unconcerned. They took their time and finally got him loaded up and rolling. I think he survived.

3. Responded to a call because a junkie called and said his junkie friend was ODing on something. Police usually get dispatched to ODs before EMS, to investigate the incident. You could literally cook an egg on his head. He was pretty much unconscious, but me and my partner kept an eye on his pulse and breathing till EMS loaded his ass up and rolled 10-33 to the ER. His buddy never fessed up as to what he was ODing on. I went to the ER and got their shortly after he arrived. The nurse told me he was circling the drain and most likely would not live. Wake critical care transport took him from Wake North to Big Wake. I ironically ran into a guy who knew him a few days later, and he told me that he miraculously survived. I really dont take credit execpt that we got EMS there quick...EMS and the ER staff were the ones who really saved him.

I have helped countless other people who have ODed or taken too many pills in an attempt to kill themselves, but none as bad as that kid.



[Edited on July 25, 2009 at 11:20 PM. Reason : .]

7/25/2009 11:17:26 PM

when i was reeling on the bathroom floor in pain one night my now-ex boyfriend told me to either go to the hospital or stop fucking whining. we went to the hospital. my appendix had ruptured. i guess he saved my life.

7/25/2009 11:32:18 PM

i hate it when people use 'literally' in a non-literal expression

Quote :

"You could literally cook an egg on his head"

An egg begins to cook at 158°F - was this junkie actually roasting at 158 degrees?

7/25/2009 11:34:07 PM

I was surfing on Bird Island (only accessible by boat, or used to be technically) and the boat with my family on it was on the inter coastal side, I went to the Atlantic side with my aunt to surf. I got sucked out on the other side of the jetty and the swells were 8' or more and I kept getting slammed up on the rocks. I was swallowing lots of water and essentially drowning when my aunt grabbed me and threw me and my board onto the rocks where we both got really cut up climbing over.

shit was intense.

I sort of "saved" somebody - in elementary school we were playing dodgeball in the gym and my friend came over to talk to me and I pushed him away and said "spread out!" about 30 seconds later or maybe even less an entire light assembly came crashing down where he was standing ~3 feet from me.

7/25/2009 11:46:22 PM

Quote :

"An egg begins to cook at 158°F - was this junkie actually roasting at 158 degrees?"

dude really, its a figure of speech designed to make the written word slightly more interesting...unless youd prefer plain speak all the time.....get over yourself

7/25/2009 11:48:45 PM

literally

7/26/2009 12:33:36 AM

^ actually no. Why bother saying "literally" if something isnt literal?

You do not need to use that word to add false interest to your statement. There is a difference between literal and figurative meanings.

7/26/2009 12:38:01 AM

When I was 5 or so I jumped in the lake thinking I was at a much shallower section. I started to drown and a lifeguard pulled me out. She save my life.

When I was 7 I ran out ahead of my mother when leaving the drug store. In the parking lot I was knocked to the ground by a sedan, which then ran over my left foot. The back wheel was coming to run over the rest of me, but my mother pulled me out just in time.

7/26/2009 2:32:43 AM

Quote :

"i would bet most of us were saved from some sort of water source when we were little. my dad had to save me when i was 2 or 3 as well"

haha yeah I was thinking the same thing, water is deadly to a little kid, I know I was in real trouble in the deep end once at a birthday party when another little girl pulled me out, who knows what would have happened though

7/26/2009 3:45:37 AM

When I was 3, Dad let me play in the water at the edge of Lake Anna. I fell in a hole and went underwater for what seemed like an eternity. I was staring up at the bright light and a man who saw me go under yanked me out of the water. Dad never got a name when he took me back into one arm and hugged the man. When he turned away toward his friends and looked back to thank the stranger, he was gone. Craziest thing that happened when I was 3. All I remember was the moment I was underwater, staring up to the sun and the sound of being down there.

7/26/2009 7:08:05 AM

Anybody who has siblings, pets, kids, or moronic coworkers probably has saved lives countless times by taking a proactive/preventative approach to stop things from happening before they do. In terms of a reactive approach (i.e. something already happened and you were responding to the situation), within the past month:

Driving down 902 towards 421 in Pittsboro, heading towards Wal-Mart in Siler City to pick up some stuff for the house. Two-lane road, one lane each direction. Saw a pickup fishtail into my lane about 100 ft ahead of me, then swerve back into their lane and go down into a ditch on their side of the road. Pickup was going speed limit (55mph) and with incline of the hill, it flipped several times and ended upside-down. Called 911 and flagged down an ambulance that (thankfully) was passing by on the same road not too much later while talking with the 911 operator. 2 guys wearing seatbelts in the front were OK (cuts from the glass), guy in the back I don't think was wearing a seatbelt and had a broken wrist, as well as some neck and back injuries. Still a bit unreal the way I remember it.

7/26/2009 9:16:35 AM

Quote :

"here is a video i show people for training, its pretty disturbing http://yonigottesman.com/video/drowning_video/drowning_video.html"

what's going on in that video at first? it's really hard to see. were the kids fighting or horsing around? maybe i missed something (no sound). he didn't look like he thrashed around right before he was floating so did he get hurt?

how could the kid have floated for 10 mins face down in a pool that small with the life guard RIGHT THERE? i hope he was charged with something.

[Edited on July 26, 2009 at 10:27 AM. Reason : ]

7/26/2009 10:27:17 AM

my dad and i saved a woman and her baby from her car that had flipped into a canal in front of his shop. water was only a few feet deep but was enough to fill the cabin up since it was upside down.

7/26/2009 10:39:42 AM

No people, but I gave a dog CPR when I worked for a vet when I was in high school.

7/26/2009 10:43:01 AM

Iraq, 4 seperate CASEVACs, all urgent-surgical

Additionally had mine saved. A (malfunctioned) Hellfire missile hit where I had been standing 23 seconds prior. I have the whole event on video. The only reason I wasn't reduced to ashes was because someone called me over to get copenhagen.

Here's the article:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/04/13/iraq.main/index.html

[Edited on July 26, 2009 at 11:43 AM. Reason : I put a picture in my gallery too]

7/26/2009 11:37:40 AM

Quote :

" Quote : "here is a video i show people for training, its pretty disturbing http://yonigottesman.com/video/drowning_video/drowning_video.html" what's going on in that video at first? it's really hard to see. were the kids fighting or horsing around? maybe i missed something (no sound). he didn't look like he thrashed around right before he was floating so did he get hurt? "

he just got tired from the horseplay, the lifeguard was negligent in his duties and was not certified to perform CPR. the DA considered criminal charges but it was hard to make a case so the family filed a civil suit. they won $16.2M against the camp. the jurors also found the 2 pool managers and aquatic directors personally negligent and were found personally liable for additional punitive damages (thogh much smaller).

you can see the lifeguard fidgeting with stuff and stepping off the stand and not scanning the water, its an example of why training is so important and a reminder for staff at pools to take their responsibilities seriously and stay vigilant.

7/26/2009 12:42:28 PM

When I was a kid, I disobeyed mom and left the edge of the pool. Obviously, this was before I could swim

I started to flounder and go under, and she ended up pulling me out by my hair. My mom can't swim

As far as saving lives, not directly. They say blood products are in awfully high demand, and I give a lot of those.

7/27/2009 12:57:54 AM

i've talked three different people out of suicide

7/27/2009 3:11:57 AM

when i was a kid, there was an icy hill with a pond that we would slide out on using shovels as sleds. Well, my little brother took his turn, but he went farther out onto the ice than the rest of us, and the ice broke, and he went under. I jumped in and dragged him out, but I got sick afterwards, and it left me deaf in one ear.

Years later, I had a run of bad luck, and wished that I had never been born. When I was shown what life would have been like without me, my brother was never pulled out of the ice, and he never became the war hero that he was. I learned to look past my troubles, and cherish the good things i have in life.

7/27/2009 7:52:42 AM

^lol

7/27/2009 8:15:52 AM

i ran volunteer rescue for 5 years and while i was never the key to save anyone persons life i was apart of a team that saved many lives.

my father now on the other hand is a great man. he served the community as a volunteer for 35+ years in rescue and he directly saved a man's life that he worked with in downtown Raleigh..

this was in the early early 80's and a man was having a heart attack and someone knew my dad was an EMT and my dad did CPR on the man by himself until the ambulance came. Pops received an award from the Governor for it

7/27/2009 8:56:39 AM

I did the heimlich manuever on my great uncle one time.

He had alzheimer's and had forgotten to swallow one day while we were eating at Red, Hot and Blue. I had to fight him away from his food first because he kept shoveling it into his mouth even though it was just stacking up on the blockage. Fingerswept is mouth and throat and did a standing heimlich maneuver once or twice. He started breathing again and went right back to eating.

Not my idea of a fun outing.

7/27/2009 9:47:59 AM

I feel like my wife saved mine once. It was my first day of work. Long story short, I was running a fevor and just thought I had a cold. I needed to show up for work because I didn't want to call out sick the first day. My wife urged me to stay in bed and call out. She followed me into the shower and watched me. I collapsed in the shower, but she caught me and prevented me from slamming my head into the porcelain. Wife helped stayed with me, slapping me silly, until I was conscious again a while later. I was actually dehydrated, and severely so. She nursed me back to health. Had I given myself a concussion while unconscience, I don't know if I would have come out of it. I thank her for that...


[Edited on July 27, 2009 at 10:24 AM. Reason : .]

7/27/2009 9:58:53 AM

she didn't call the doctor/911??

7/27/2009 10:10:07 AM

Na. She asked if I was okay, and I seriously said something along the lines of, "No, but I don't need to go to the doctor since I'm not hurt. I'm just really thirsty." I drank some water and after a few minutes, I felt much better, and so we just kept having me slowly drink water. I felt so miserable and helpless, naked in the tub, and too weak to move... After about 1/2 hour or so of drinking water, I was able to get back up and make it to bed. She made me pancakes iirc. One of the scariest days in her life.

7/27/2009 10:23:08 AM

Quote :

"appendectomy, life saved"

Me too

7/27/2009 10:47:18 AM