Biggirl, they intubated you before you were out? That’s just flat out mean! (I know there are times when they have to, but I STILL think it’s mean.) After my back surgery I woke up with the tube, but they took it out after I woke up and seemed generally okay.
Oh, and signing a consent form for surgery that mentioned the possibility of my death was pretty scary…
A similar thing happened to me, Biggirl
I’ve always been allergic to penicillin and when asked how it affects me, I just say I swell up, turn blue, and die.
Well I’m sedated for surgery. Totally out of it. They intubate me - and then start reading my chart out lout. At the word “Anaphalaxys” (swell blue die) I am awake. WITH A TUBE DOWN MY THROAT! and I can’t breathe because of the tube. I’m immediately trying to pull the tube out. No body is telling me I can’t breathe!! These little nurses are trying to hold me down, but I’m having none of it! Somebody comes in and puts a syringe in the IV hand (the only hand tied down).
Next thing I know, I’m in post-op - trussed up like a turkey. Never doubt the power of a scared woman!!
I would have to say it was during my C-Section. First of all, it was so cold in the OR that I was shivering so much I was convinced I was having a seizure. Then I became terrified and hysterical that I would be able to feel pain during the procedure so they sedated me. THEN I became terrified of how the sedation felt and I was convinced that I was slipping into a coma or death, so they knocked me out. Which was just as well because I was near hysteria over the suspense of whether my baby was okay. Jeez, what a freaking mess I was!
Most scared ever was the moment I was driven to the crash site where my husband was sprawled in the middle of the road after having been hit by a truck on his motorcycle. I was postive he was dead. It was as horrible in that moment (and for years later) as if he really had been. (He was alive)
Prior to that it was the moment I was wheeled into surgery- alone, scared, and wondering if I was going to come out alive and walking.
Prior to that it was when a car I was in was hit by a tractor trailer on the highway. How we EVER got out alive I don’t know, but we did. The moments while the car was spinning and hitting the truck were absolutely unreal scary.
A few months ago, I was home alone when I suddenly started getting dizzy. Not dizzy as in losing my balance or anything, but more like waves of unsteadyness and wooziness. Sometimes it felt like it does when you lose altitude really quickly in a plane. I was completely sober. Sitting down didn’t help, nor did laying down. In fact it made things worse.
I finally went to a neighbors house and got him to take me to the emergency room. I was near tears, thinking that I must have a brain tumor or something equivalently nasty. They checked my blood pressure, gave me an EKG and a CT scan. All the while I was sure I was dying. Everything came back negative. I was eventually diagnosed with viral labarynthitis, a virus of the inner ear. They’re even sure it is a virus, but apparantly it happens in clusters, and I was in the middle of one. Luckily, my doc had seen others recently.
All I can say is pray you never get this. Holy crap, was I scared.
“Mechanical failure” on a flight from SF to Maui. I was, of course, travelling alone. The lady next to me probably still has fingernail marks on her from me gripping her for the 45 minutes it took us to return to SF. The return was horrendous. Dropping altitude like crazy. Dumping fuel. People screaming. They wouldn’t tell us what was wrong. This was long before 9/11. The idea of a bomb never crossed my mind. But we had to land about as far from the terminal (I think we were closer to Oakland at that point)
at SFO as possible, and all the firetrucks were out to meet us.
Amazingly, I got on the plane next day and made my trip. It just took me a night of hotel living (including room service and a porn flick) to recover. And I still love to fly. Maybe just not on that particular airline.
I woke up late on 9/11 and the very first thing I heard on the TV was that “O’Hare airport [only a couple of miles from my place] is closed because of the terrorist attacks.” I became a tiny bit less fearful a few seconds later when I found out that O’Hare itself had not been attacked.
What the next terrorist attack might be.
My first earthquake. It was “only” a 5.3, but I froze and said my prayers.
I’ve had that, too Larry. Not nice. I sat up in bed and fell over.
My algebra final—if I didn’t pass, I wouldn’t be allowed to take chemistry, wouldn’t get into the nursing program, was doomed to a life of working retail for minimun wage forever. I was so scared I forgot to breathe and when Mr. H put that white sheet of paper in front of me, my mind went blank for minutes. I just sat there and stared at the sheet, didn’t turn it over, just sat frozen. I tore my eyes away from the evil paper, looked up at the clock and saw I had 50 minutes to change my life. I got an A.
Cyn RN
This happened the day after Christmas, 1986. I had bought a 66 Charger to use as a race car. The son of the guy I bought the car from picked me up and was going to take me to the car. We were in a 1976 Datsun pickup, one of the cheap tinny trucks popular back then. We were in the right hand land of a 4 lane road that also had a center turn lane. As we approached an intersection, I saw a white Cadillac approaching the intersection from the cross street. It was going way to fast to stop. I hollered at the kid to watch out but it was too late. It was one of those instances when you have about half a second of sheer terror. The Caddy hit the passenger side of the Datsun just behind the cab. The inpact sent the truck spinning across all 4 lanes and we stopped when the truck hit a fire hydrant. The impact knocked the passenger door open but the seat belt kept me in the truck. When the truck hit the fire hydrant I was thrown to the left and hit my head on the steering wheel. The kid driving the truck was not wearing a seat belt. His head broke the back window and he was thrown against me. He was thrown against the door when the truck hit the hydrant.
My injuries included a broken tooth and assorted internal injuries. I spent 3 days in the hospital. The kid suffered a concussion, broke his right leg (it wrapped around the shifter from the impact), broke both arms, and assorted internal injuries including a torn spleen. He spent 3 months in the hospital. The guy driving the Caddy was not injured, his wife had just served divorce papers on him and he was upset.
On the day I left the hospital, the mother of the Caddy driver came to talk to me. To protect her son, she made an offer of paying all medical bills I incurred for 2 years and a one time cash payment of 2 years my salary. When I told her I made about $45,000 that year, she said that sounded fine and wrote out a check for $90,000. When you see your life flash before your eyes like that, I think the Caddy driver got off cheap.
1988, I was working for Eastern Airlines. My co-worker/best friend and traveling companion Dennis and I were bumped off our flight from Quito, Ecuador to Boston. We instead took a flight from Quito to Lima in order to catch the next flight from Lima to Miami to Boston.
After a 10 hour lay-over in Lima which included being mugged, by the way, we finally were on our way home to Boston. After flying for about an hour we hit some really bad weather. Now, I love flying and have never been afraid on an airplane. As a matter of fact I happen to also like a bit of turbulence during a flight.
I remember seeing a flash, like lightning and the plane started dropping like a stone. The flight attendants, white as a sheet, strapped themselves into the jump seats, people were screaming and praying in Spanish, Dennis was frozen and gripping the armrests. This went on for perhaps 2 minutes but, it seemed like an eternity. The plane eventually leveled off. No announcement was ever made from the pilot. I bet there was not a single drop of liquor left on the plane when we landed in Miami. I always wondered what people felt who were in a plane crash. The funny thing is that after about 20 seconds of terror a strange, calm, peaceful feeling came over me. I would hope this is what it really feels like for those who aren’t as fortunate.
When we landed in Miami to catch our connecting flight. I actually kissed the ground.
I was alone in the house at night(husband was working third shift) Thought I heard a noise in the living room, got up to look, and there was an intruder there. I won’t go into detail of the next few minutes, except to say that even when he threatened me with a knife if I made a sound, I still tried to scream. Didn’t help though. I’ve been divorced for many years now, but the thing that keeps me from thinking my ex was a total heel, is that he never blamed me for what happened(I’d left the front door unlocked) and that he was gentle and understanding of the mood swings I had for several weeks after. That was the most scared I have ever been.
There was a fire in my building last May. My dog started barking, I woke up out of a sound sleep at 2am, heard someone pounding on my door, and opened it to see the hallway filled smoke. There was no smoke in my condo yet, and the alarm in the hall wasn’t loud enough to wake me. If it weren’t for the dog, I probably. wouldn’t have gotten out til the firemen go there. When I was standing outside with the dog, I could see flames above the roofline on the opposite side of the building.
I woke up to a fire in my friend’s apartment. The living room and hallway were blazing. The bedroom door was smoldering but was not yet in flames. We were on the third floor and the only way out was through the bedroom window. Three floors down to concrete.
My snapshot memories:
“WAKE UP! THE GODDAMNED HOUSE IS ON FIRE!” Stand up, collapse on the floor because I cannot breathe. Crawl to window, “Open, open, PLEASE OPEN.” Ahhhhh, air. Three of us hanging out that window. Black smoke pouring out above our heads. Look down and see neighbors staring up at us. Hear shouts of , “Don’t jump!” See friend’s roommate down there with his burned hands in the air as if he were pleading with his God. How did he get out? Why he is wearing a brocade kimono? Overwhelming roaring behind us, sirens screaming everywhere.
I don’t recall being afraid until the firefighters started blasting water through the front windows and the steam rolled over our backs. Great big clouds of suffocating steam. Feeling the blisters form on the backs of my legs. That was the point I knew I was going to die.
So I’m planting trees in the British Columbia interior. We’re camped out in the middle of nowhere. I’m just coming back from my morning visit to the small tent with the hole dug beneath it, and a fellow planter starts shouting to me from way across the camp, probably a 100 yards away. I can’t make out anything except that it’s something about ‘behind the truck’. I shrug and continue on my way to the dry tent (10’ x 10’ tent with lines strung to hang wet clothes, and a small wood heater) to get my boots. As I get to the corner of the tent, what should appear from between the other corner of the tent and the truck beside it but a grizzly, humped back and all, precisely 10 feet away (I know this because that’s the size of the tent). Not a huge one, probably just a yearling, about 3 1/2’ tall at the shoulder. It looks towards me, waves a paw at me, and growls.
I do exactly the wrong thing.
In my defense, the thing had caught me unawares, and was way inside my flight or fight radius, but still, I never behaved this way in any other bear encounters. I bolt. About 5 seconds after seeing the bear, I’m 25 yards away and on top of a trailer. I would have left Carl Lewis in the dust. Of course, the bear could have had me in about 4 steps, so it’s fortunate for me it didn’t give chase.
It was at least 10 minutes later before I realized that Val had been yelling that there was a bear behind the truck.
Most scared I’ve ever been and probably the most angry.
It was my 28th birthday and I didn’t have to work. I thought it’d be nice to bring lunch to my SO at work. When I returned home I saw a car backed up to our house and our television sitting beside it. I knew immediately we were in the process of being robbed, and though I didn’t have a cell phone I knew I should get to a phone quickly to call the police.
As I sat in my car looking at the neighbors’s houses to see who looked like they’d be home, I saw a guy walking out of the house carrying part of our stereo. I don’t know how he didn’t see me, my car was a bright red, but he set the stereo in his car and turned around to go back in the house for more. I became so angry, I pulled my car up to his car blocking it in, and then jumped out of my car and ran into the house. I asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing and grabbed my phone and called 911.
It turns out he was our new neighbor! He was trying to calm me down explaining how someone had stolen drugs from the trunk of his car, he thought it must be us, and he was taking our belongings (even our freaking Christmas gifts) as compensation. I was still scared, knew I was stupid for even confronting him, but I was so angry at seeing our things in his car and him just waltzing around. Then his pitiful reasoning. I just started screaming over him to put our stuff back and no I won’t calm down, etc. He ended up carrying all of our stuff back in with me watching (he even plugged the television set back in).
I think he expected me to be grateful and tell the police it was a mistake or something? When the police showed up he took off and his loser g/f picked him up in the road. He was eventually caught and jailed.
Locked in attic/crawl space for 1 hour when 5.
Arrested at gun point, on acid when 17.
Jumped out of plane when 25.
Becoming father when 30.
All about the same fear level.
I’m really not trying to drag up any bad memories, but bear with me here. . .
11 Sep 01, I was in Kuwait. What your 8:AM was, was our 3:PM. We honestly thought SCUDs were inbound. . .
Tripler
I can’t think of anything scarier than losing my Mom, and meeting her in the afterlife before my father met us. . .
I’m a broadcaster in Washington DC, my office is on the 15th floor just north of the District line. It was 9/11. You could see the smoke rising from the Pentagon. In the midst of the chaos at about 10:30, the fire alarm went off, and the recorded announcement came on for us to immediately evacuate. We all made it down those 15 flights in a flash, I can assure you.
The next day, my legs hurt so bad I could barely walk, and all I could think of was all those people who had to walk down almost 100 flights.
It still gives me a bad, bad feeling.
Scariest moment: When I was in the tenth grade my chemistry teacher collapsed in front of our class. He was an acquaintance of my dad’s, so I knew he’d had heart problems in the past; the day it happened, he said he wasn’t feeling well, gave us a quiz, and then sat at the front bench with his head buried in his arms. He literally turned green (and I’d always thought that was just an expression), and out of the corner of my eye I saw him slowly slipping, and then he collapsed onto the floor. Everyone rushed to him but me; I just sat there, pencil in hand, and thought, “There isn’t a single thing I can do right now.” He was ice cold and barely breathing by the time the ambulance got there, but he made it, and retired from teaching when the year was over.
Second scariest: One night when I was in Germany, I was walking home after drinking at a friend’s house. On the way to my house there was a park, with a path leading up to a small church on the top of the hill that wasn’t very well-lit at night. Since it was a shortcut, I took it, and was stopped by a drunk guy about my age who wanted a cigarette. When I told him I didn’t smoke, he started down the path, but then he turned around and yelled “Hey!” and ran back up to me - “Do you have a cigarette?” - “No, sorry, I don’t…” and he grabbed me by the shoulders and started pushing me towards the bushes next to the church. I could NOT get away, and he kept leering at me, “Hast du eine Zig-a-ret-te? Hast du eine Zig-a-ret-te?” All of a sudden I remembered the cigarette machine at the end of my street, and thought “he wants money.” I had about 10 marks in my pocket, so I managed to get them out of my pocket and shove them into his hand, and I started walking away. He yelled “Hey!” at me again, and I began to RUN, faster than I’ve ever run, back to my house, and I unlocked the door in record time and made it in safely, thank goodness.
Third scariest: A few months ago, I was at my boyfriend’s apartment and went to boil some ramen noodles when I accidentally turned the wrong burner on. Unfortunately, my boyfriend had set a Tupperware container onto the burner, which burst into flames in a few seconds. I ran to get a towel to beat out the flames while he ran to get water, I was screaming at him, “DO NOT throw water on that!”, but he did anyway and only made it worse. Finally he remembered that there was a small fire extinguisher hidden under some junk, and he was able to put it out. We would have gotten out safely, but I felt terrible that I’d almost burned the entire building down.