Has anyone ever saved your life?

In My Humble Opinion
1

We’ve had a thread about Dopers who’ve saved lives. Conversely, does anyone here have someone else to thank for their life?

Paramedics have saved my life on at least one occasion. My mom claims she saved my life by never telling my dad that I was arrested when I was fifteen. And when I was nineteen, a construction worker saved me from an appearance in Faces of Death.

It was Friday afternoon in Wheaton, IL and I was returning home from my waitressing shift. I’d opened that morning after doing dinner the night before, and I was burnt out. I started across the railroad tracks without looking, and heard a voice yell HEY! A hand came down on my shoulder (not belonging to the shouter) and yanked me backwards before I could reach the track itself. I noticed, for the first time, the lowered safety arms, and felt like the stupidest person on earth. I turned around to the guy who’d grabbed me and chattered profusive thanks. I must have told him where I worked (I can’t really remember), and he came in a few days later and I set him up to a burger and fries.

For the record, the train was still a ways away…but I could have panicked, or tripped, or who knows what.

2

Last night a dj saved my life.

Silly, I know. Actually, last night a huge chunk off the side of a crumbling apartment building fell on top of my parked car. Strange but true. I was having beers and tapas at the time and luckily no one got hurt. Time to buy a bus pass…

3

Yup I’ve got my mom to thank for saving my life. I was about 2 years old (I don’t remember any of this) and me and my brother where playing outside on our swingset/slide combo thingy. Well my brother (who was 4 at the time) asked my dad if he would take the chain of the swings for him. MY father being the idiot he is (for anyone who’s counting it’s been over 6 1/2 months since I’ve seen or heard from him since he ran off with a skeezy crackwhore of a girlfriend of which he was cheating on my wonderful loving mother with…) took it down for him and let him play with the chains. Well my brother not knowing any better looped it around the slide. I tried to slide down under it and my kneck got caught. I was probably caught for a good minute or two (must explain the brain damage hehe) before my brother got my mom and she got me unstuck from it. She said my lips and face were all blue. Scary now that I think about it. Just plain scary.

4

I once took one of my brother’s surfboards out on the sea when the beach was almost deserted. It was too big for me and I fell off a distance from the shore. The current was extremely strong and I was left clinging to the board and drifting further and further away. There was just one other surfer out there - a young teenage boy - and he helped me back in. I can swim really well (I do it so much I fear I’ll end up looking like a Chinese hermaphrodite) but there was no way that I could have saved myself. That’s why I get a little angry at suggestions by water safety people that learning to swim means a person will become completely drown-proof. Anyway, I felt really indebted to the boy and I badly wanted to give him something. I remember that my words came out all wrong - like embarrassing fairytale dialogue. It sounded like I was offering him three pieces of silver and a magic key as a reward. I was still exhausted and shaking so I don’t know what I actually said.

5

Marcie drove me to a hospital after a badly botched, but very serious, suicide attempt.

I’m feeling much better, now.

6

My mom had a little family party for my first birthday. I sneaked off and grabbed a dorito out of the chip bowl. My uncle noticed a few seconds later that I was turning blue, so he bolted over and gave me a baby Heimlich maneuver. I coughed the chip out and was all better, but I was scared of men for a year after.

7

Let’s see, my dad saved me from falling out of a moving car when my door accidently opened up when I was about 8, then there was a time when I was tubing down a river and was about to go over a long drop that I did’nt even know was there, when all these people started shouting from the banks to come in, so I did, and when I saw the drop, I freaked out, it was a bad one.
And I’m sure God has saved my life at least a few times when I used to drive drunk. I’ve had a head on collision, hit a telephone pole, rolled over my truck on the freeway, and hit two parked cars, all four seperate incidents, mind you. I don’t drink and drive anymore. I’m lucky I never hurt or killed anyone or myself, and it’s just not worth it to drive drunk. Your whole life can change just like that.
I’m not a holy roller or anything, but I can only thank God for saving my life and anyone else’s on the streets those nights.

8

When I was 11, I was roller skating in the neighborhood, and I fell. A neighbor walking his dog said he heard my head hit the concrete from 100 yards away or so. He found out where I lived (from a very woozy Pammi…), and ran to find my mom, who came out in her tshirt and underwear. Someone called an ambulanace, and the neighbor guy sat there singing stupid songs to keep me from crying too much. I’m sure I wouldn’t have died from my mild concussion, but it was a lot more bearable with him there.

About 8 months ago, I was going through a lot of shit. There was one night I was ready to just kill myself…that’s how tired of everything I was. I was talking to Sean online, and he asked what was wrong. So I went through my whole list of reasons of what was wrong in my life, and how easier it’d be to die, and everything. I’ll never forget what he told me. “Anyone can kill themselves, but that’s taking the easy way out. If you can find one reason to stay alive, than it’s worth it. Even if it’s something as minor as waiting for spring, so you can smell the frest cut grass after a rainstorm. And if you c.an’t think of anything else worth living for, you always have me.” And then he went through and reminded me about everyone that loved me, and what I had going for me, and all the reasons why I shouldn’t kill myself. By the end, I was crying. I probably would’ve wussed out anyways, but I always think of Sean as saving my life that night.

9

When I was a kid my grand parents had a pool in their back yard, and every now and then we’d have pool parties. I don’t know how old I was, four maybe, and I was floating around in a little rubber boat. I must have decided to start paddling with my hand, because next thing I know I had reached too far over and I fell into the water. I sank like a rock. My grampa dove in and pulled me up, but I think I was under for a while, and I must have been scared. I’m not too fond of water these days. I’ll get wet and cool off, but playing around or diving is not an option.

10

Not mine, but Mr. Scarlett’s. You know that warning on the side of five-gallon buckets with the picture of the baby falling in? Well, that was Mr. S at about age 2; he fell into the mop bucket, and when they found him he wasn’t breathing. His (much) older brother gave him mouth-to-mouth on the way to the hospital and got him breathing again. Thank you, big brother!

11

This one is a bit creative - but to me it couldn’t be more real.

When I was a kid, I was always getting into trouble. to give you an idea of what I am talking about, I was suspended from school every year except third grade and fifth grade.

In any case, when I was in first grade, I was getting into trouble again early on in the year. my teacher told the principle she would basically quit if she had to keep being my teacher. no one wanted to have me in their class, so I was going to be sent to juvenile hall or something - pretty much the place where convict in training go. my kindergarten teacher stepped up to the plate and said she would take over my class and let my current teacher have her class.

If it wasn’t for her, who knows where I would be.

Thank Mrs. Fulling!

12

I once nearly fell off the Niagara Escarpment.

I was there as part of a class trip in grade seven. Some of my classmates had found a spot with a really good view over the cliff, and I tried to take a shortcut from the path I was on over to where they were. But I stumbled, and nearly blundered right past them and over the edge…fortunately one of my classmates instinctively threw out his arm in front of me. But if he had been standing a foot to the left, my next step might have been a couple of hundred feet down…

13

My dad jumped in to my grandfather’s pool to pull me out after I’d convinced myself at the age of five that I knew how to swim without any kind of swimming lessons or safety devices. I’d jumped off of the ladder into the pool (which was only 5 feet, but I WAS 5), and went straight to the bottom. My dad just happened to look up, and could see the tips of about three fingersJUST poking out of the water. Wow. That hurts. I just lost him suddenly this past January, and I couldn’t save him. Even though I tried.

14

…and MammaRasta, being only about 20 years old, was chatting it up with a local teenager who had happened by the back yard. There was one of those little plastic backyard pools there, and I had been swimming in it. Well, MammaRasta gets to talking with said teenager and not paying attention to me. What happened next is hazy… all Mom remembers is standing there screaming like an idiot while the teenager makes a mad dash for the pool and pulls me out.

I probably hadn’t been under but for a few seconds.

15

first time:

I was 2 years old, and it was a sort of family reunion. I was sick, and they gave me one of those Vicks tablets. After a while, I choked. My uncle, who had training as a nurse, saw that, and took out the piece of vicks.

Second time:

Okok, so I learned to swim a wee bit late. There was a pool party, and a group of friends where going throught the pool. They reached the 6’ area, and I went with them. they noticed I was drowning, and took me back to the sides of the pool and out of it.

16

When I was about nine years old, my eldest sister got the great idea that we should all go to our local public pool. It was something she had done quite frequently that summer, and since I had never been to a pool before I thought it would be a good way to spend an afternoon. As we were preparing to leave, a few of the neighborhood children asked if they could join us. My sister said it was fine, as long as they got permission from their parents. They did, and off we went.

We arrived at the pool, I changed into my swim trunks, and began the short journey from the boy’s locker room to the deck. I had NEVER been near a pool before–sure, I had been to the ocean a few times, but never to swim. Being all of nine, I had to wait a little until I built enough confidence to approach the water. Seeing all of that water intimidated me terribly and I returned to the blanket we had spread. An hour or so had passed and I was getting bored–I think I wanted to know where a book I had brought along to read was, but my sister was already in the pool. That meant I had to go the pool’s edge and call out to her.

Things were going fine until this one asshole of a neighbor, around my age, decided that the best way to introduce someone to swimming was by throwing them into the deep end. I remember being lifted, hurled, and then hitting the water like a stone. I knew nothing about how to float, and with my head submerged, and me thrashing to get a sense of up and down, I did the one thing you should never do when covered in water–took a nice deep breath. I proceeded to sink. By the third foot or so, I just remember everything being grey.

A few seconds later, the cousin of the jackass kid that threw me into the pool was pulling me out of it. I guess I was semi-conscious at that point because I do remember things being done to me, but not precisely what. Before long I was spitting water and crying. The kid’s cousin stayed with me for a few minutes, until everyone realized that it was time for us to go. Fifteen years later, I still can’t get anywhere near a pool without turning ghost white and shaking. I dodged death that afternoon and I’ll never forget it.

My neighborhood has changed quite a bit since that day, and my neighbor’s cousin has since moved. I think of her every now and again–the pretty, shy brown haired girl that I had a crush on, the girl that was surely an angel. I owe her a tremendous debt. Catherine, I never got a chance to tell you this a hundred years ago, and I’m sorry I didn’t. Thank you so much for pulling me out of that pool, and back into this life.

17

When I was a teenager, we were in a bar, we were about to leave and we met a fellow my girlfriend knew. We were about to take the subway home, he offered us a ride.

He was driving a Carmen Gia, engine in the rear. We were three, he was driving and I, being much smaller, sat on my friends lap. As we reached the expressway it was quite cramped and uncomfortable, there was much squirming, and, for a brief few moments, I had my head resting on the tiny dash and leaning against the window. It wasn’t comfortable and I squirmed more, I was driving my friend batty. For one split second she squirmed around and actually leaned in front of me as I leaned behind her.

Traffic had come to a standstill ahead, the driver had been drinking, he never even touched the brakes.

They were both unconscious after the crash. At the hospital I told the police officers what had happened.

She suffered severe head injuries, was taken off life support, and died in hospital 3 days later.

In that split second she most surely saved my life.
But it cost her life.

18

Another near-drowning story to add.

I was maybe 12 or 13 years old, visiting the ocean at Westport in Washington State with my father and younger brother. (Divorce, weekend visitation, you know the drill.) We were playing on the beach next to the Westport jetty. (A jetty, for those who don’t know, is a line of piled-up rocks that sticks out into the water and protects a harbor area from big waves. The one at Westport is quite large, and sticks quite far out into the water. It’s a popular fishing spot.)

I noticed a large rock next to the jetty, and saw that as the waves crashed in, the water only went about halfway up the rock, swirling around it but not covering it. I thought it would be cool to get up on that rock and watch the big waves crash around me. These are large breakers, by the way, big surfing-style curls.

You can see this coming, of course.

Anyway, I waited for a wave to recede, then splashed out through the wet sand and clambered quickly up onto the rock. I turned around, yelled “Dad!” and started to wave my arm at him.

WHAM

A freak wave came along that was much larger than the others and was at least a couple of feet higher than the top of the rock I was on. I was washed off and the wind was knocked out of me as I slammed to the sand.

The riptide pulled me back, smashing me into the rock I had just fallen from, and yanked me around it, headed out to sea. I can still remember the feel of the sandy grit against my face as every wave pounded me into the bottom, and I remember bouncing backward off the rocks of the jetty. I could barely catch a breath, and I was being badly battered. And what’s more, I was wearing a big heavy coat, which was immediately waterlogged and made it impossible to tread water or even move.

Time stood still. Every time my head cleared the surface and I snagged another gasping breath, I could see I was going further and further from shore. Eventually I wasn’t hitting the sandy bottom any more; I was just slamming against the big basalt rocks and swirling around in the cold, gritty water.

I remember, after a while, I quit fighting. I quite clearly thought, this is it, I’m dead. The waves are too big to swim, my coat’s too restrictive, and every time I try to get control, I bounce off another rock. Bye bye, world.

Maybe three-quarters of the way out the jetty, I was washed up against the side of it. In that split second, I saw a man leaning off the top rock, yelling, “Grab me!” I just stared at him; I was in some kind of shock.

To my great fortune, he was able to snag my coat. The wave receded out from under me, he held his grip, and I crashed into the rock he was on as the water disappeared. He hauled me in and yelled at me: “Are you breathing?”

“Uh huh,” I said. No need for mouth to mouth.

I lay there a bit, cold and numb, until my father finally arrived. Apparently I had been in the water for five minutes and everyone up and down the beach had gathered round for the developing crisis. We stumbled back down the jetty; I vaguely remember taking a hot shower, as somebody who lived right on the beach volunteered their bathroom. Miraculously, I had no injuries beyond bruises and scrapes.

I never found out the name or any other information about the guy who grabbed me, but he was the last one on the jetty; nobody was out further. If he hadn’t been able to hang on, I was gone.

So, yeah, I’ve had my life saved, in a very real, immediate sense.

<shudder>

19

I owe my life to a doper I have never met.

I had been having a fucked up time, and was seriously considering suicide. I went into #straightdope as something of a last resort.

Someone in there was so, so helpful. They talked to me, and helped me find some websites.

But I have totally forgotten their name. If anyone can help (sorry this is so vague) then I’d be very, very grateful.

20

Dr Michael Glasscock saved me from a nasty death when he removed my Acoustic Neuromas (brain tumors).