Warning, this makes me sound much more exciting than I am, both are about 15 years ago - and was my life really in danger ? I don’t know but the end results could have been a lot worse and my gratitude is genuine …
1 A climbing accident involving a rock fall, the local coatguard, his brother a doctor who happened to be passing and the crew of an RAF Search & Rescue Wessex helicopter (22 Squadron based at Chivenor) who worked together with a humour and professionalism I kinda took for granted at the time. “Just doing their job” but doing it so well. I sent a donation to a charity of their choice and the lads sent me a “You’ve flown in a Search & Rescue Helicopter” Certificate with the legend “22 Rescue You”
2 Trekkiing in Nepal, monsoon season, following two strapping lads across a ‘stream’ only about four metres wide but … legs were just dragged away from under me … face down, rucksack on back, heading rapidy (if you’ll excuse the pun) towards the river, a raging torrent frequented by white water paddlers, about 10 yards away … an (ex-forces) Australian guy we’d met up with a few days earlier just launched himself in after me. We went another two or three yards before we halting in some shallows - without his added weight I might not have grounded, oh and he somehow managed to make sure I was getting some air too.
We formed a chain to get the rest of the group across and their rucksacks came first.
I fell off a pier in Chicag when I was 3, & my Dad jumped in & save me.
I fell down a flight of stairs when I was 3, landed head first on a nail, & my Mom threw me in the baby buggy, & dashed to the Fire Station, where we got an ambulance to the hospital.
1966 was not a good year for me.
The doc recently told me that when my stomach perferated in June, it was touch and go. I was on the operating table for over 10 hours and he wasn’t sure I was gonna make it. So I guess, yeah, he saved my life.
In May 2003, an air-conditioning repairman interrupted my ex-husband, who was choking me and beating my head against the floor. I have no doubt that my ex intended to finish the job.
It wasn’t my life, but it’s just as important to me…
About 25 (god that makes me feel old) years ago, my father was riding his motorcycle in the Phillipines, with my stepmother. They were riding behind a flatbed that had a length of rope coiled on the back, which was tied to the truck. The rope uncoiled, and got wrapped around my father’s neck, yanking him off the bike and dragging him for some distance. My step-mother was fortunate enough to have only gotten a few scrapes and bumps when the bike fell over, but my father was not so lucky.
What was lucky was the fact that two unidentified men (believed to have been soldiers) came by and performed a tracheotomy on him right there by the side of the road. Their quick thinking and even quicker actions saved his life. Unfortunately, by the time official help had arrived, the soldiers had disappeared, never to be heard from again. They definitely saved my Dad’s life. He was paralyzed for six months, and hospitalized for about 9, I think, but has since made a complete recovery, with only a slightly gruffer voice to show for the ordeal.
I became exhausted trying to swim back to a boat against an outgoing tide. The boat owner’s son came after me and pulled me back to the boat. He had been a competitive swimmer earlier in life and I’m sure I wouldn’t have made it without him. I remember thinking how like a mattress the water felt and how I would just take a little nap and then swim back to the boat. He said I was beginning to slip under when he got to me.
When I was five, I wandered into some marsh mud near a duck pond and sunk in over my head. Thankfully, some random teen walking by noticed me and yanked me out before I drowned/suffocated/whatever. Never did get a chance to thank him before he split.
My parents have saved my ass more times than I can count.
Ah, the dreaded cocoa-covered marshmallow incident. At a Girl Scout picnic one of the games was to stuff your mouth with marshmallows and run some sort of relay race, and these particular mallows had a light coating of cocoa. I tripped as I was running along, gasped, inhaled cocoa powder, gasped more violently and sucked one or more of the vicious things into my airway, completely occluding it.
I managed to stagger to my mother and in her motherly-instinct way she knew my bulging eyes and panicked demeanor were trying to communicate that my world was fading to black. She instantly grabbed me up and body slammed me on to a picnic table and began pounding on me. By sheer determination/physical abuse she got me breathing again but I know that was a Very Close Call.
About seven years ago, I had a kidney stone attack, and my MIL was staying with me, because my hubby had to go to work. MIL kept telling me I should let her take me to the hospital because I had a fever. I kept insisting I’d be fine if she’d let me sleep. Hubby called and made me go to the hospital, and saved my life by doing so. By the time I got to the hospital, my temp was 104.7 and my blood pressure was 80/40. The stone had blocked my urethra and urine was backing up into my bloodstream. The doctor told me if I’d stayed home for two more hours, I’d have been dead, and if the incident had happened ten years before it did, I probably would have died anyway.
I was hit by a truck once. While I’m thankful that a security guard heard the accident, saw me laying in the street and called for an ambulance, I’m really grateful for my parents for saving my leg. When they were told that Doctor Vxxx was on call and would be there shortly, they insisted that the hospital call another doctor. Dr. Vxxx had operated on several people we knew, and they tended to get worse with his treatment, not better.
