Real life incidents you wish you knew the endings to...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

A few years back when I was working University Security, they hosted a Judo Tournament. Now we had zero involvement, so our magnificient bosses didn’t even think it necessary to tell us there would be a couple of hundred non-students in the building. :rolleyes:

Well, we get a call about an injury and that they’ve called for an Ambulance. So we go into action, with one officer out on the main road to flag them down and direct them to me by the door, where I then escort them as rapidly as possible through the building to the injured man.

He’s down and he’s clearly very very hurt. Several medical people from the audience are attending him. I’ve got three or four of them and I think 5 EMT guys on the scene, plus a lot of concerned bystanders. Unfortunately, the mother of the guy’s girlfriend is making a royal pest of herself and will NOT stay out of the way. Finally they get him up on the gurney and are ready to leave, but mommy won’t get the fuck out of the way. They look at me, obviously very upset and irritated with her, and say “we need to leave NOW”. I look at mommy and say “Then we’re leaving. MOVE” and physically manouver her (ok, I intimidated her out of the way) and barrel forward through the crowd like Andre the Giant in that scene in The Princess Bride. "Everybody MOVE!"

To this day I wonder about the extent of his back injuries and if he ever walked again. It looked very bad and the EMTs were clearly worried about him.
About a year earlier, I was working armored and sitting in my truck waiting for my partner. This punk/douchebag looking guy is walking down the street talking into his cellphone. He has this smug look on his face and my first thought was “What a silly looking douchebag!”. In that instant, in reaction to something said to him on his phone, his face turned into the most heart rending vision of pain and sorrow. It really struck home the humanity of random people I see on the street and their own stories. To this day I kinda wonder just what was said to him to completely rip out his heart and destroy him like that.

22

I was in a restaurant some years ago. While I was thee, a young lady came in wearing a nightie of some sort. You could see right thru it, and nothing was left to the imagination. She went to the salad bar and started making salads to go. One after another. Probably 3 or 4. (Needless to say, at this time, I also needed to get some more salad, and I took my time making sure I had everything I wanted.)

She goes to the register with her several salads, then picks up 3 or 4 pizzas, pays and leaves. I think somewhere, there was some serious partying going on.

23

40+ years ago, in Klamath Falls, Oregon, I saw a guy with an axe chasing another guy down the street. I ran a red light just to get away from them. I never saw a word in the newspaper and I’ve often wondered WTF.

24

Well pfft, that was just Tuesday in Klamath Falls, man! :rolleyes:

:wink:

25

I saw a few Saturday nights there, back when the Air Force Base was still operational. I don’t know that I’ve lived in a place where violence was more routine; not even West Dallas matched Klamath Falls.

26

Two things leap to mind.
Years ago, I was waiting at a red light to turn left from a side street to a main street. Across from me was a guy on a motor cycle, he turned right and nailed that sucker. The light turned green I turned and when I got three blocks up at the next major cross street, there is a Toyota Corolla with the motorcycle on its side underneath the rear bumper.
I stop and look into the intersection for the rider, he isn’t there. WTF?
I start backtracking and about 100 yards before the intersection he pops up between two cars.
I get him to the side and start talking to him. At first he seems OK, I ask him his name, he responds. I ask him where he lives and he replies that he doesn’t live anywhere. :eek: A bystander had a phone, so I told them to call 911.
EMTs arrived, and took a quick look at him and asked the policeman where they could land a helicopter for a medievac. This struck me as strange as the regional trauma center is only about a mile away.
I would love to know just what caused him to go down, what it was the EMT saw, and if he ever recovered.

The other time was on a 2 day MS ride, we were in the Am of the first day, a large of riders went down at speed. Most were OK, but this one lady was hurt. EMT were called, but as were halfway between Newport Beach and Laguna, it took about 20 minutes for the response. So for about 15 minutes it was just her an I.
By the time the police and EMTs got there, she was starting to go a bit out of it. She asked where her bike was, I pointed to it, and she told me that was not her bike. I reported these symptoms to the EMT and when there was nothing left for me to do, I left.
I often wonder how she turned out.

27

Thanks. This thread needed a good joke.

28

A couple of years ago I was on a round-Britain cruise. An older man had a serious stroke first night out and was taken off the ship by helicopter at 1.00am. I still sometimes wonder if he made it.

29

2:00 a.m. on a Saturday night in Junction City, Kansas, (a fairly rough town outside an Army base) about 30 years ago. I’m sitting in my car at a stoplight. A guy runs out of a nearby bar. Following him is another guy wearing a floor length, white gown and cheap wig. The guy wearing the gown and wig is carrying a cast-iron sink. A crowd pours out of the bar to watch.

The guy being chased stops at the corner, right by my car. The guy wearing the gown and carrying the sink throws the sink, hitting the other guy and laying him out on the sidewalk.

I said screw the red light and punched the accelerator and leaving as quickly as possible. I still wonder what it was all about.

30

Emergency room…Las Vegas…about 1982. Paramedics and doctors were trying to figure out the best way to examine a little boy, maybe two years old, who’s lower limbs had been dunked in boiling water. The little boy was not crying. Always wondered what happened to him. Made my son’s grand mal seizure seem almost insignificant.

31

I lived in a place that backed onto an alley that backed onto a particularly raucous gay bar:

This particular night we were treated to a chorus of “Happy Birthday” - ok, so it’s Larry’s birthday we learn. Shouts of “something special for ya” and “get the ladder”. Larry’s chirps of excitement quickly turned to dismay and anguish, and soon his was the only voice: “Oh no, oh Barry, oh man” and “you bastards, put back the ladder”. A good while later we hear “thanks man”.

Larry is sobbing now, and we hear a car starting, screeching, braking, then screams “my legs, my legs”. Shortly after there’s the ambulance and the police and Larry’s voice again: “It was an accident, tell them it was an accident”.

Well, I had to go over to the bar the next day to get the full story. It was Larry’s birthday and the something special was that he and his boyfriend Barry were going to go up on the roof and fuck. No sooner than Larry was up the ladder, it was taken away and Barry gets into a threesome with two other friends on the ground, Larry can only peer down helplessly from the roof. Eventually the bartender closes up to leave and puts the ladder back, Larry gets down, gets into his car and attempts to run Barry over - Barry was attempting a reconciliation at this point. :smack: The bartender told me they were always pulling this shit on each other. :eek:

Did Larry and Barry kiss and make up? Were his legs really broken? WTF?

32

There was a woman I slightly knew (call her A), our kids were in a preschool class together and we exchanged pleasantries while dropping them off. One day she looked totally freaked out, so I asked her what was wrong, and this story tumbled out:

Her husband is a pastor, and he got a middle-of-the-night phone call from a person who had attended his church a few times. The man said his wife was in labor, and they had no one to take care of their 4 children, so could the pastor take them in for just one or two days? They agreed, and the man and his wife dropped off the kids and went off to have their baby. While in the hospital, it came out that the woman was strung out on heroine, so her baby was put in foster care and A was asked if they could continue caring for the 4 children while there was an investigation as to the fitness of the parents. A and her husband had 4 children of their own, so this meant 8 kids in their small 3 bedroom house, but they assumed it was very temporary and so they agreed.

The CPS investigation turned up the fact that the father had been sexually molesting all of the 4 children, so he was thrown in jail. The mother was found an accessory, so she went to jail too. Meanwhile CPS said that if A didn’t want to continue caring for the children, she could hand them to the foster care system, but they would certainly be separated. She couldn’t bare that thought, so they agreed to continue caring for all of them.

I helped her buy several sets of bunk beds, sheets, and blankets, but these kids needed so much more. They were all pretty good kids, but deeply scarred from the abuse and neglect they had suffered for so many years. They needed therapy, help with their school, and other social services. A now had 8 children under the age of 8, and they were surviving on just her husband’s small salary as a pastor.

The kids finally were declared eligible for adoption. When the school year ended, she and her husband were doing a lot of soul searching to decide if they would adopt all 4 children. They felt a moral obligation to these kids, who had lived with them a year by now, and they knew they were the only people these kids trusted and loved. On the other hand, 8 small children, 4 of whom had serious emotional scars, is an awful lot.

We lost touch after that and I never found out what happened to them.

33

About eight years ago the house three doors down from me was occupied by a family. We seldom saw them outside. We seldom saw them.

My neighbor hears a knock on her door one day. It is the woman from the house down the street. She is from somewhere in the Middle East. Her husband’s business has failed and he took a plane back home (where his family is apparently wealthy) and left a note saying he was divorcing her. He left her with nothing - no money, a house about to go into foreclosure, and a two year old. She wasn’t an American citizen. The toddler was. What should she do? Her parents were unlikely to help - since she would soon be a divorced (and shamed) woman - and if she went “home” she wouldn’t retain custody of her child.

My neighbor reached social services and we didn’t hear anything more. Her house was foreclosed on after a few months and she disappeared.

Did she stay in the country? Manage to get asylum? Keep her son? Or was she forced to return home to a family who didn’t want her and loose her son?

34

I’ve got one of those Dangerosa: A Nigerian woman, very well dressed with a five year old and a bunch of suitcases. She approaches me in the street and explains she’s just got off the plane and she’s run away from her husband. She has money! She keeps saying that. I have friends, I have money.

Anyway I brought her into the shop where my friend was working … it was the first time I’d ever been in that area and I was meeting a mate for lunch. We checked the phone book and indeed there was a women’s shelter / legal aid place close by. We walked her over with her suitcases and went for lunch.

35

Right after I certified paralegal in CT I volunteered with a lawyer buddy at a womans shelter helping the various women with paperwork of all sorts. i sometimes wonder what happened to the ones we worked with.

Back when I was more active locally in the SCA, I sheltered a woman at the farm until she could get into a regular shelter - I wasn’t working at the time so I was home all the time so she felt safe here. I wonder what happened to her as she left the local group to get out of the area. I understand that she essentially changed her name and vanished to get out of her situation.

36

Dude, you totally dropped the ball on this one… a much better response would have been something like, “Yeah, but this was a Wednesday, which was what made it so weird.” :smiley:

37

Years ago, when I lived in St. Louis, I was picking my toddler son up from daycare. I was stopped at a red light and looked into the car on my left and saw a small boy, maybe three years old, no seat belt or car seat and looking kind of grungy in the front passenger seat. He and I locked eyes for a minute and his eyes were so sad for such a small boy. I memorized the plate number in case a missing child alert was announced, but I think he was just a sad little boy being neglected. I always wonder what I could have done and what happened to that little boy.

38

A couple of years ago, when I worked in a little zoo, we used to have regular visits from a charity group that took deprived kids from central Leeds on a week’s holiday in the countryside. They were generally nice kids, and we got to know the guy who ran it quite well, he used to come and chat, and took several groups every summer.
One year, he told us this was the last time he was doing it- he’d gone to take the kids back from the previous trip, and one little boy’s mother hadn’t showed up at the meeting point.
Okay, some of these kids had a pretty flaky parents (most of the kids had never left the city before, which frankly takes some effort not to do in Leeds) so after all the others had gone, he went to drop the kid home- knocked on the door, and some random guy answered. No, the mother wasn’t there. No, he had no idea where she was- he’d just taken on the flat two days ago, and had never heard of her… Guy wound up having to take the kid, crying his eyes out, home for the night while they tried to find out what the hell was going on.
I know the police did eventually track her down, and the kid did wind up going back to live with her, but I really wonder how that worked out for the poor boy. :frowning:

Also wonder what happened to the random guy who walked into the shop I worked in, and declared himself to be an illegal immigrant who’d managed to get into the UK, but had nowhere to live, hadn’t eaten for two days, and really had no idea what he should do. Seemed like a nice enough bloke, hope he found someone who could help.

39

Gay marriage gone terribly wrong? :confused: (just kidding, don’t jump on me!)

I wonder what the deal was with the mother of one of my daughter’s friends. When the girls were young, they played together, several times a week, had sleepovers, we took them to the park. The girl and her heavily pregnant mother lived with the mother’s boyfriend, and eventually she had a baby boy. One day, the girl came skipping into our house, all alight, saying, “me and my mom are going to go live in Fayetteville (a town about an hour away) and my mom is getting married and I’m going to be a bridesmaid…” Bye bye, we said, sad to see her go. A few months later, read the wedding announcement in the paper, and saw the mother had married a completely different guy than the one she’d been living with! Not only that, but the old boyfriend over in the next block had custody of the baby! We knew this because the little girl came over a couple of times, saying she was visiting her baby brother at the old boyfriend’s house… The mother gave birth, gave him the baby boy, and she and her daughter moved to Fayetteville where she married somebody else.

:confused: