I am apparently useless in an emergency (make that perceived emergency)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I had quite a scare Saturday. Mr. 1341 and I were doing yardwork- he was cleaning the gutters and I was around the side of the house, clearing out the ivy that was threatening to take over. I heard a weird noise that I thought was a cat, then I saw my husband staggering toward me, in obvious pain, clutching the left side of his chest.

 Holy crap, he's having a heart attack, I thought.  And I froze to the spot.  I was thinking about whether I shoudl call 911 or give him an aspirin first, but I Did. Not. Move. 

 I finally shook out of it and grabbed him and asked what was wrong.  

 Turned out he'd been stung by a wasp.  On the nipple  :eek: .  And the sound that I heard was him, as he put it, "screaming like a little girl".
2

Ouch. Owie owie owie! That made me cringe. I’d be screaming like a little girl, too. I hope he’s feeling all better now.

3

That’ll learn him not to do yardwork topless! :eek:

You didn’t freeze, you momentarily paused. Happens all the time when met with an unexpected situation, you’re just human is all.

4

Owwwwwwww!!! :eek: :eek: :eek:

I want to scream like a little girl at the thought of that…

5

AHHHHH! Wasps! I HATE THEM!
Ok, so you froze up this time. Doesn’t mean that you would do it again. Next time you might pee your pants. Or be the big hero and rush into a burning building and save a white tiger that will become your pet and you two will travel around America saving people. Plus the ammount of time you were frozen was probably much shorter than you think it was.

DEATH TO WASPS!

6

I’ve taken a couple of CPR / emergency first aid classes, and they always stress that the first thing you must do in an emergency is to evaluate the situation. You can do more harm than good if you act without taking the time to clearly assess what needs to be done and what can be done safely. I’m impressed that you thought about aspirin, which might have saved hubby’s life if he’d actually been having a heart attack.
As Zebra said, the time you spent frozen was probably not nearly as long as it seemed to you, and you got a free chance to learn something about yourself that makes you better prepared if there’s ever a real emergency.

7

Owwwwwww!

My SO is…um…extremely sensitive in the nipple region. I can’t imagine the screech of pain if a wasp got him there.

8

Ow, ow, owieeeeee!!!

FWIW, you’d have unfrozen in a minute, in plenty of time to call 911 or whatever, if it had been a real heart attack.

And a total “early morning experience”: I moused over the wrong title when I wanted to see what was up with this thread. Instead of your thread, I moused over the one dealing with fruit flies. So my befuddled mind thought “Useless in an emergency… nuke them from orbit… bwah???” :smiley:

9

Nuking the wasps from orbit sounds like a sensible solution to this problem to me…

10

There are plenty of people who would’ve run round screaming in blind panic when they saw what you saw. You were calm. If I were your SO and I was having a heart attack, I would much rather you froze for a few seconds than immediately run around screaming your head off.

11

My husband got bit on the lip by a wasp a little while ago. Turns out we had a burrow of them. Got rid of those little ahem organisms right quick.

In my experience, I am actually really good in an emergency. I get calmer and more effective the more dangerous a situation is. Which is kinda interesting, because I’ve had an anxiety disorder for about 15 years.

12

After I found out what really happened, I burst into tears from sheer relief. Hubby was totally confused- why was I crying when HE’D been nipplestung (BAND NAME!)? I told him I thought he was having a heart attack, and I was just so glad he wasn’t. I was temporarily reassigned from ivy duty to standing under the ladder with a can of Raid. I gotta hand it to him, after a few minutes with an ice pack, he got back up there and finished the gutter!

 Also, he helpfully pointed out that we do have a cordless phone, so I could actually get him an aspirin and call 911 at the same time.
13

you were considering the options presented to you. as soon as you came to a conclusion you would have acted.

i remember being taught to, stop! look at the situation, then act. that is what you did, stopped, looked at the sit., then acted.

even when you are on fire the first thing to do is stop! then drop, roll.

of course i consider wasp attack a perfect time to run about, screaming, and swatting like a mad fool.

14

katie1341 , don’t feel bad about ‘freezing up’. Like someone mentioned above, lots of folks would have run around in a blind panic!

I can sort of relate. My husband was in his semi, after just delivering a load to the local Eli Lilly plant. He was on his way back to the terminal and a bee flew into the semi and stung him on the neck. He is highly allergic and drove right to the ER, which was only about 4 minutes away.

The ER nurse called me, told me of the problem, and I hung up on her, laughing…Sometimes, the guys and gals at the terminal would call and make up stories to mess with us. We did this to each other for years, so I really didn’t think anything of it.

A few minutes later, the phone rang again. It was the ER nurse. She told me not to hang up, that this was important. I hung up, laughing.

The ER doctor called me back, told me the same story and I said to him, “Paul? Is that you? This is a good one, hon! I’ve got things to get done here and can’t be chitchattin’ on the phone!” I was laughing as I hung up. I just figured the guys were really on a bender with the jokes that day!

A little while later, the phone rang again. It was my mom, who works at the hospital. Seems the ER nurse and the ER doctor were quite upset with me, and had her to call me, thinking MAYBE I’d believe my own mother. Mom told me to get to the ER STAT! So, I heeded her advice and got there in 10 minutes flat.

After I got there, they told me that my husband staggered through the ER doors, mumbled something about ‘stung’ and ‘bee’, then collapsed on the floor, passed out and was unable to breathe. They got him fixed and breathing easily again, though. He got to come home that evening. He now carries a bee sting kit with him.

They STILL won’t let me live it down. It’s been 15 years since it happened, too. Gawd, I’m the BAD wife! :dubious:

15

I know what you mean. A while ago my dad passed out - completely unconscious. While I did manage to call 911, I was completely useless otherwise. Despite all my first-aid courses, my lifeguard certification and my CPR certification, I didn’t even think to take his pulse.

COMPLETELY useless. It was really an eye-opener.

16

I’ll second this.

Not to be vain or anything, I generally tend to respond well in emergency situations, possibly because I tend to be over-anxious, and I’m constantly playing “What-If” in my brain. I’ve also taken lots of First Aid and CPR courses over the years. Yes, there is a moment of evaluation before I make a decision of how to react, but it’s mainly the stage at which I take a little time to decide what the best option is for that particular circumstance.

Mr. Kiminy, however, tends to react immediately, and not always with the best choices. A few years ago, for example, our son fell down a flight of stairs. We both heard the thuds and ran to the top of the stairs to see what had happened. Son was lying completely still at the bottom of the stairs. While I was standing at the top of the stairs, evaluating the situation and deciding what to do next, Mr. Kiminy dashed down the stairs, grabbed Son, and yanked him into a sitting position, yelling at him to see if he would respond. Fortunately, there was no physical harm, and Son had just been stunned in the fall. I have to say that I lit into Mr. Kiminy about how stupid it was to yank around a person who could possibly have broken his neck in the fall down the stairs, and that in the future, he really needed to learn to evaluate the situation before reacting.

In other words, a few seconds pause in evaluating options and possible reactions can often be more beneficial than detrimental, so your reaction in this case was not as bad as you might think.

17

That sounds really unprofessional. Life and death emergencies aren’t a joking matter.

  • featherlou, former lab tech and complete non-supporter of practical jokes
18

This topic kinda reminds me of Kipling:

If you can keep your head while all about you
Are losing their and blaming it on you…

…you’re guaranteed to piss people off. :rolleyes:

19

“Nipplestung”
Must…not…laugh…
GAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA!!!

Sorry, I tried to stop it…really…