Have you ever saved the life of another person?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

In high school there was a carload of us going to the diner after the school musical. The weather was crappy and visibility was low. There is a set of traintracks that cross a very busy road. During my entire childhood I never saw a train cross there. It was active but not a main track. No gates just flashers. As the driver was about to go through the crossing I saw the flashing lights and yelled “Stop!” She slammed on the brakes and stopped right before the train slammed into the car.
I’ve performed CPR dozens of times over my career. Some lived for a short while. No one lived to get out of the hospital. Unlike on TV almost all people who need CPR stay dead.

I can’t even say I saved anyone as a blood donor. I can’t give because of Mad Cows Disease.

42

I was once in a pool with my wife and kids and we were playing “drowning”, thrashing and flailing about and going under and calling out etc. At one point a bit later my son (probably about 10 at the time) was doing the same act. I assumed he was still playing at it but I played along and I jumped in and towed him over to the side of the pool using a grip I remember having once seen a lifeguard demonstrate.

Turned out he wasn’t acting this time.

43

Grrr. I gave blood for many years before the Red Cross changed the rules because of BSE (I’d been in the UK for more than a cumulative six months during the relevant period). And there’s no way to test for it while you’re alive, unfortunately. I keep hearing announcements of blood drives and blood shortages around here and think, “Hey, I’d be happy to donate again, if you’d only let me!”

As a former lifeguard, I strongly discourage you - and everyone else - from playing that game.

44

With Heimlich, or anyone choking, try to ask the patient to relax and slowly inhale and fill the lungs… This is the air that will push the food up. Just getting the lungs filled with air may be enough to get the food out… (as the air pushed !)… But it helps Heimlich maneuver succeed too … if there is not enough air in the lungs, Heimlich fails.
I was with a group in a park and someone came up asking for a mobile phone… to call for help …choking… so they did that, but we went to help.

Experienced hospital physician (1) did Heimlich … didn’t work.
Lady passed out.
Experienced emergency department doctor (2) tried to clear the throat, couldn’t.
Heart stopped.
Doctor 1 started cardiac massage… there’s oxygen in her arteries… so 4 thumps down on her sternum…
Doctor 2 tried mouth to mouth, didn’t get any in… 50kg chinese lady…

So then I tried mouth to mouth … and cleared the ladies sinus .yuck !!!
Doctor 1 repeated CPR , 4 pulses.

So then I (90kg ) pinched the nose and repeated mouth to mouth… I got air in with a big raspberry noise… The throat expanded around the blockage.

Doctor 1 repeated CPR for 4 pulses.

She came to and coughed up the food, just I was about to try mouth to mouth for a 2nd lung full.

45

As a former lifeguard, and the parent of a lifeguard, I agree.

46

Not a heroic rescue, but in our house this counts as my having saved a life.

I’ve been a buckle-up-every-damn-time seatbelt user since I learned to drive in 1966 at age 16.
My first wife was one of those irritating “seatbelts are uncomfortable” people. Over time it became our routine that she would never use a seatbelt unless she was in a car with me. Because I would nag/pester/harass her until she relented and buckled up just to make me shut up about it.
One night ten years into our marriage, we embarked on a long-distance driving vacation. Stopped for dinner, got back in the truck (Toyota 4x4), her turn to drive. As usual I had to “remind” her to use her seat belt, and as usual she did so only after grumbling about it.
Twenty minutes later we were in heavy 8-lane freeway traffic, all vehicles doing about 60-65, when a drunk driver lost control of his car, fishtailed back and forth, and crossed three lanes before T-boning us. At 60+ mph we flipped over, skid down the highway on our roof, flipped again to right-side up but rolling backwards, slammed into the rear tires of a semi, bounced off and eventually rolled to a stop. Our truck was totalled. Every inch of it was wrecked, top to bottom, nose to tail, roof partially caved in, all windows/glass destroyed.

We walked away from it with scratches, bruises, and a head injury (mine) that looked horrible but turned out to be remarkably minor. CHP on the scene told us he couldn’t believe we’d survived.

That was 34 years ago, during which time that first and still current wife has never gotten into a vehicle without using her seatbelt. And I’ve never had to “remind” her to do so.

47

Same thing happened when I did the Heimlich on the man sitting next to me at a baseball game. He was choking on a hotdog and I hadn’t noticed, but several people around him were staring and yelling, “Does anyone know the Heimlich Maneuver? Does anyone know the Heimlich Maneuver?” while sitting there doing nothing. How I managed to get him to cough up that quarter of a hotdog (with bun!) while sitting next to him, I have no idea. It was pure adrenaline. It wasn’t until it was over that I started to shake.

My husband, Spiny Norman, helped save this guy: LAPD detective maimed in New Year’s Day motorcycle crash in Redondo Beach.

48

I doubt I “saved his life” but I caught a small boy who was being pulled out to sea by the rip-tide. He was exhausted and had no fight left in him, it was cold and I don’t know who was watching him. He clung to me like a clingy thing! I walked him up the shore and had to pull him off me. He ran off up the beach and I never saw him again. I can recall the fear in his eyes and the blue ting of his skin. He never said a word.

Amazing how many drowning stories here…

49

You absolutely saved his life. When I was six, a classmate died in a rip-tide in Galveston. It happened so fast no one noticed until it was too late.

Good on you.

50

I used to be a volunteer counselor for a crisis intervention hotline. I probably saved a few lives, though I don’t know how many.

51

Sorry for making this so long…there’s a lot of context I have to get through.

I was Scuba diving at Isla San Andreas, which is part of Columbia, but a Caribbean island.

We were diving from a small boat, about 15’ long, without much room aboard for all the people. On the boat were a couple of young guys from Quebec, and it was their first dive trip.

It was a drift dive, and we surfaced relatively far apart - that is the boat’s complement of 20 or so divers was spread across a long distance. Usually this isn’t a problem because the boat can move relatively fast and pick up people as they surface. However, the wind had really picked up, and we were in 2 meter swells. Thus we all got separated and lost sight of the boat and each other.

My buddy was my wife, and we stuck together and we’d occasionally see other divers across the waves when each set of divers happened to be at wave peaks at the same time.

After about 20 minutes, the boat had worked its way toward us. We were only the 2nd couple picked up. The seas were so rough, the people were getting beat up trying to get on board.

My wife and I made our plan - we’d each take off our belts and hand them up to the boat. Then our BCDs (the vest and tank assembly - the BCD acts as a life jacket on the surface). Sure enough, when the boat pulled up, we were organized and got in quickly without a hitch, unlike the hard time the people before us had.

Now I could be a spotter and help other divers aboard. As we picked them up, a great many of them were seasick from their time riding the waves. I don’t tend to get seasick, and my wife gets so seasick that she was on pills all week. So, the boat driver, she and I were the only well people around.

Which brings us to the kids from Quebec. They’d become separated, and the one concerned in my story was very, very seasick. Puking, all that. When the boat came, he started getting dashed against its side and sucking in a lot of water, which he was also puking up. He panicked and took off his BCD, which is what was keeping him afloat. He then started to sink with the weight of his belt and panicked further. This was near the bow, and I was right above him. As he went under, I grabbed the back of his wetsuit and remembered my French enough to tell him to give me his belt, which he did.

Then kept a grip on him and walked him around the side to place where the divers come aboard.

Did I save his life? I don’t know. Maybe he would’ve snapped out of it and swam back up or remembered to ditch his belt, but he was in quite a state, so who knows. I’m glad I was there and able to assist.

It took about 50 minutes more to pick everyone up, and he puked hard the whole time.

52

I was waiting at a red light, enjoying my avocado Doritos. From behind me, this guy was running like a bat out of hell, clearly planning to run across the street because the light had just turned red and he likely figured he’d make it. I heard him but didn’t move, then as he approached we did that dance where we try to get around each other.

It all happened in a second, but had he kept going he would have been hit by the speeding car coming through the intersection.

I may not have saved his life, but I inadvertently saved him from serious injury.

53

It was a fluke, he just washed into me, but hey, thanks! I feel better somehow, now.

54

I’m not sure if your issue is because of safety or because it causes problems for the lifeguards on duty.

In the situation I described it was a private pool and there were no lifeguards - just us.

55

Certainly, don’t play it with lifeguards around. But, it also teaches kids to play that game, and being kids, may play it in a situation where someone takes it seriously and attempts a rescue. Even in your situation, with no lifeguard to confuse, you didn’t take it seriously because you were used to playing that game. Either way, fake drowning could lead to real drowning.

56

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

57

My stepdad was choking on a piece of meat. He was red faced and it took me a moment to realize he wasn’t moving air. I yelled at my mom “Call 911, he’s choking!” He was bigger and taller than me, I was having a hard time getting leverage to thrust. I think I gave about three thrusts. I was thinking about having him get on the floor so I could control his collapse and decided to try one more thrust. The food shot out and he started coughing. At that time I realized my mom was still yelling in the other room wanting to know what was going on. She had never dialed the phone, so I had been truly on my own.

Two more times, in the last year or so, at work I answered the phone for two different ladies in crisis. Neither phone call presented that way, but my gut just told me in both cases to keep asking questions. One lady was very confused. She originally called to ask when her appointment was. Something told me she was in trouble so I kept talking to her. I grabbed her nurse. The patient was in a diabetic crisis. The nurse kept her on one line, while I got on another and got the paramedics on their way to her.

The other lady was asking about Urgent Care hours. Again, something prompted me to ask her what was going on. She down played it, but she was having intense chest pressure. I asked her to hang up and call 911. She didn’t want to make a fuss. I told her I would lose my job if she didn’t, and I made her promise me she would call. I wanted her to call so they would get her location from the phone. I followed it up by a phone call to 911 myself.

I heard from her a few days later, she was in the hospital, she had had a heart attack, and bypass surgery. She called to thank me for making her call 911.

58

I was on scene a couple minutes after a sailboat capsized and sank (lesson for life: dont fully raise your swing keel when flying a spinnaker downwind!) taking two passengers to the bottom of a lake, about 50 ft down. They stayed in an air pocket and I was able to pull out two very frightened ladies and get them back to the surface… one at a time. Leaving the one down there to take the first up almost became a problem.

Working as a dive instructor I stopped one lady in a runaway descent. I caught her somewhere around 180ft down. She would have hit bottom around 500ft down.

Now working in a 9-1-1 center I’ve given what I think were lifesaving instructions a few times.