My stepson saved my life. About 20 of us were in a restaurant for a birthday, and I choked on a piece of meat. I stood up, and couldn’t breathe at all or speak. As I have food allergies, everyone was looking for my epipen-- and I couldn’t communicate with them that NO-- I pointed to my chest as I was choking, and PY (the stepson) grabbed me and performed the Heimlich maneuver. He had to do it a second time, and I managed to catch the piece of meat when it shot out.
We sat down and continued the meal, though I didn’t eat anymore, personally.
I was going to say no, but your OP reminded me. I was once on a roller coaster, and couldn’t get the seat to fasten properly. If my friends hadn’t noticed and yelled at them to stop, I’d still be fiddling with it while we took off. I’m oblivious like that, sometimes.
Absolutely. Right after he tried to kill me. My best friend in my teen years invited me to his parents’ cabin for the July 4th weekend. Upon arrival we through his tiny boat into huge Kenai Lake and set off in waves one would associate with ocean travel. He decides to head up a creek to get out of the rough water.
On the way up the creek, we pass a giant deadfall and continue upstream until we reach a point where the boat with its tiny motor can’t make headway. So my genius friend shuts off the engine to allow the boat to drift back downriver, forgetting about the giant sweep, of course.
As the log looms, he is frantically trying to restart the boat engine. I take out an oar and as we come to the log, try to stop the boat from going under it, succeeding only in swamping it.
Did I mention that we had no life vests and that I couldn’t swim? Well, of course.
My buddy jumps up onto the log, but the current carries me and the boat under it and I’m literally hanging on to the log with my fingertips, desperately trying not to be pulled downstream to drown, and hollering for him to help me. He grabs me by one arm and hauls me up onto the log somehow, where I clung for ten minutes trying to regain some composure. It’s the only time I was thankful for being a scrawny kid, with a football player for a friend.
I’ve told this story before, but after I gave birth to my daughter, my OB couldn’t get me to stop bleeding. As it turns out, my uterus had just given out and wouldn’t shrink back up to its normal size. So, after my doctor did everything he possibly could, including blood transfusions, he finally had to ask my husband to consent to an emergency hysterectomy. My husband stills feel guilty about consenting (what a crappy thing for a husband to have to do, right?) but at least my daugther has her mom!
Also, a year prior to my getting pregnant, the same OB detected the lump on my thyroid, which turned out to be cancer.
Yeah, sort of. I’d had what I knew was an inviable pregnancy, and then thought I’d had a miscarriage (I’ll spare you the details). So one evening about a week later, when I had intense abdominal pain, I seriously thought it was a digestive-type issue. I spent the night dozing through the pain, going to the bathroom frequently, and thinking maybe it was food poisoning.
On the off-chance, though, I contacted my OB/Gyn in the morning, just to be on the safe side. I got an appointment for 10 a.m. I couldn’t even walk normally, the pain was so intense. They did an ultrasound and suddenly I was in an ambulance on the way to the nearest hospital. I phoned my husband as the nurses took off my jewelry and clothes, and then woke up after a 7+ hour surgery. Turns out it was an ectopic pregnancy, and it had ruptured one of my fallopian tubes so that I’d been bleeding internally for hours on end.
The doctors said if I’d waited a couple of hours longer I would have died.
I was a 15-year-old American visiting London for the first time, trying to find an address near my hotel. A Mod-looking guy named Paul saw me looking confused and offered to walk me to the right building.
(You probably see exactly where this is going, don’t you?)
After a couple of blocks I spied the building and eagerly began to dart across the street after glancing to my left to make sure there was no oncoming traffic. Paul grabbed my upper arm and hauled me back to the curb just as a double-decker bus went barreling past. “Careful there,” was all he said. I was so flummoxed by my near-demise that I could barely stammer out a shaky thanks.
Thank you, Paul. To this day I still have a soft spot for Mods.
When I was born I had a birth defect that prevented me from swallowing food properly, so I would say the doctors who operated on me saved my life. I’m still bitching about doctors
I once had a really bad car wreck on a deserted road, miles from anyone except a small farmhouse. I walked a quarter mile on a broken foot to that farmhouse and if the woman who lived there hadn’t opened the door I probably would have bled to death. Turns out I had some huge cuts on my legs, my face was cut up pretty badly and I was covered in blood. I was in shook and it was pitch dark so I didn’t even know I was bleeding. That woman save my life.
I was not eating regularly due to lack of funds. I passed out in a snow bank one very cold day while I was walking home. I do believe the homeless guy who woke me up and offered me some money for something to eat saved my life. I did not take his money but spent the change in my pocket on some cookies and ate them and made it home. He would not leave me until I agreed to get something to eat before trying to walk the rest of the way home.
Mom was losing babies. Then, her Ob noticed she had an “incompetent” cervix, and sutured it shut till the bun was baked. I was even 2 weeks late, and came in at 9 1/4 lbs. Thanks, Docteur Villeneuve.
I was in Mexico with a travel study group with friends. We were at our hotel and I got the bright idea to jump over a small rock wall. Everyone in the group started screaming at me, and I thought maybe what I’m doing is not safe. I already had momentum though so I jumped onto the top (instead of over, which was my original plan) of this low rock wall… to look straight down a 40’ cliff. Oh yea, I needed my brown pants that day!
