What’s the single thing that you saw that scarred you, or left a deep impression on you?
I was in the airport in San Francisco waiting to fly back home when I saw a guy just keel over. He was walking and then he just dropped, maybe fifteen feet from me. I ran over to him and couldn’t think of what to do except yell, “Help!”
Luckily there were two flight attendants walking along and they knew CPR, and shortly there was an airport cop and he summoned the paramedics.
But the shock of seeing someone just…collapse…combined with the deep shame that I was utterly useless has always stayed with me. I learned CPR as a result and have kept a current certification.
I grew up in a happy household, so I guess you could say I had a sheltered upbringing.
I was in my late teens, living on my own for the first time. I’d gone down to the local store to pick up some food. Whilst inside, I could hear some banging outside. Then some shouting.
When I got out, there was a woman, cowering against the fence. I realised the banging had been a man beating on her. I tried to convince her to come back to my flat and that I could get her some help. I almost had her ready to come with me, then she changed her mind. She was high as a kite and low as a depressed person. I’ll never forget her last words: “No, I think I’ll just go back and let him kill me. I’ve had enough.”
I didn’t know what else to do, and everyone around me was pretending like this wasn’t happening. I gave her a ‘life doesn’t have to be like this, there are options. Look for help at the front of the White Pages. Make that call.’ I doubt she ever did.
I used to leave the door to my house unlocked. Mainly because I’m friendly with some of my neighbors and it’s not uncommon for them to stop by for a chat. Sometimes they’ll knock on the door and I’ll just yell at them to come on in.
One day I did that though and these two dudes came in and I didn’t know who they were. As soon as they stepped in the hallway, we just stood there and stared at each other blankly. Finally one of the guys speaks up and says: “Is Joe here?” I told them “I think you have the wrong house”
They apologized and left. Now these two guys seemed nice enough but it made me realize if they weren’t so nice, I would have been completely helpless. I have since kept my door locked.
I wouldn’t say this left me scarred for life, but I once saw the dead body of a person who had fallen from the highest residential floor of our apartment building, lying in a pool of blood. Had nightmares for a week or so.
I was sitting on the couch and heard it. Huge crash. Thought it was some ongoing construction, but it was different. Got up to see. Saw the first traces of black smoke. Saw it get blacker and thicker.
Later that day, I saw the 3 charred bodies removed from a wreck so mangled you couldn’t tell what it was. Just 3 regular guys going to work that day. The idiots that caused it all survived, virtually unharmed.
Nearly as bad was that crash last Sunday in Japan during the Grand Prix. Awful.
I was on my way to lunch in college when someone jumped off the top of the residential hall next to the commons. He was supposedly pre-med, and had gotten a C on a chemistry exam. He landed perhaps thirty meters away from me. He was still moving, sort of, when the ambulance arrived, but not for long.
Back in 1979 Deborah and I were driving back from the Bull And Mouth Pub in Riverside back to the base and the car ahead of us, which had been weaving erratically, suddenly struck a light pole. Deborah pulled our car over and I ran towards the accident. The driver staggered out of the car and fell on me, knocking us both down with her on top of me. She mumbled something about her kids, then she died. I just sat there on the gravel with her in my lap for what seemed like forever until the paramedics came and took her off of me. After assurances that I wasn’t part of the accident they let me go, and Deborah took me back to her place. Nightmares on the couch once I was able to get to sleep.
Not quite three years ago, I lived with my parents and spent much of my time providing support and care for my father, who we suspected had dementia. His behavior was becoming more and more erratic, and he had some paranoid delusions. My mom, brothers, and I all agreed that he shouldn’t drive anymore, so we hid the car keys. At some point, he found them and took off. We called the police, and when he came home to pick up clothes before leaving forever, they advised me to block his car in. I did and also decided to pull as many fuses from the engine compartment as I could. When my father came back out and saw me, he yelled “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?”. Then he grabbed my arm, pulled me around, and tried to punch me. I blocked the punch and broke his grip, my older brother stepped in, and the police arrived shortly thereafter. It was a whole hot mess, but between the police and my mom arriving home, it was sorted out.
I was shaking and silent for hours afterward. In my entire life, my father had never cursed at me, let alone raised his hand to me. For the next several days, I had flashbacks of the moment I saw his fist and the hatred on his face. I still have nightmares occasionally.
No scarring here. But the deepest impression was a clip I saw on TV of a pig in a fully automated slaughter machine. Youtube has a few. I dare you to look at one, if you love bacon.
Everytime I’m in the store and I’m tempted to buy anything containing non-organic meat, I see the look in the eyes of that young pig. And I think:*It’s bad enough that you’re killed for me, but I’ll be damned if I let you live under horrid circumstances just because I’m to cheap to pay a little more for organic meat and too lazy to go to a store that sells organic meat. *
That is pretty common in San Francisco and at the Airport. How much did you lose to the pickpocket accomplice?
For me, I grew up sheltered. I thought cops and prosecutors and judges were honest, as most are. But dealing with them (I don’t do criminal law, but know a lot who do and I know a lot of cops) I am surprised at the depths of corruption short of bribery (I’ve never seen that) and what scum judges can be if they are among the dishonest. I’ve seen intellectually dishonest and politically motivated judges who would make the worst trolls on this board blush with embarrassment, not caring about the lives they ruin.
I guess I have led a sheltered life. Or a lucky one. But the worst thing I’ve witnessed was when I was administering oxygen to my grandfather and he died. I was not traumatized, however. I was 17 and we knew he had had a heart attack that morning. The doctor came to the house (they made house calls in 1954) and set up the oxygen (he always carried it in his car) and we called an ambulance. I was administering the oxygen and, an hour later, he died. An hour after that the ambulance showed up. Too late. No 9-1-1 in those days.
I don’t scar all that easily but the next to the worst thing I ever saw was on a news report, nearly 50 years ago. They showed a man who was sky diving and his parachute failed to open, the man literally tried flapping his arms. I never forgot that poor man trying to fly, in that situation I guess you would try anything. They should never have shown something so graphic on the news.
I never had nightmares about them, but the two deaths-of-strangers that made the greatest impression on me is as follows:
I was riding an Amtrak to Detroit to visit my family when the fully loaded train hit someone on the tracks. It wasn’t an accident, the “victim” was a suicide. He definitely proved the human body is mostly liquid and what it did to the front cars of the train, on the widows, was gross. Also, the train engineer was so hysterical they had to sedate him before removing him from the train.
The second was on my way to the El station in Chicago on a very cold winter morning, on my way to work. I found a man frozen to death on the sidewalk. This being well before the days of cellphones I continued on my way to the train station, where I reported the corpsicle and the station attendant (remember when we had those?) made the call to the authorities.
