Have you ever saved someone's life?

[Whoa_Nelly]

Or had your life saved by someone?

Am sure there are DU'ers who save lives because of their profession...and for that you have my complete admiration!

Share your stories!!

I was saved from drowning in a river at age 19...came out of it laughing so happy to be alive :)

[qnr]

1. Well, past tense is more appropriate, but professional is close. n/t

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. saved my brother from drowning

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. What happened?

How did it all come about and how did you save him?

I bet he's eternally grateful to you!

[La Lioness Priyanka]

12. he was too young to remember

he fell into the pond and i held onto him till some adult found us

[Whoa_Nelly]

22. Good sister!

Since you remember it...were you scared? How old were you?

[La Lioness Priyanka]

44. 5-6... i was irritated and did not understand the full consequence

either

[ForrestGump]

4. Have saved several lives and may have had mine saved (I probably would

have survived but was irrefutably in mortal danger). Most of my rescues have occurred underwater. Many were as likely to be non-lethal emergencies as lethal, but a few were such that the other person's chances of survival were low. I've also talked someone down from suicide -- that was the roughest of them all, because it was not dependent upon my physical abilities or my particular skills in a hostile environment.

[Whoa_Nelly]

7. It takes a lot of energy to deal with a suicidal person

You were brave to keep to see it through. 'Course, can't see how it would be a choice to turn one's back on someone threatening suicide.

[ForrestGump]

14. Yeah, no choice at all, really

It took it out of me, too. Feeling so desperate and powerless, and trying so hard to get through to them (they were drugged, from what was on its way to becoming an intentional overdose of pills, and this was via telephone...it took hours, once I talked them down, to make sure that the drugs had begun to metabolize away and that they were starting to think of things other than ending it all).

[xmas74]

9. I've had to take the suicide calls before.

Never fun. When I got a call like that I knew that it was time to take off my shoes and slink down in my chair. You were always drained after those calls both physically and emotionally.
I dispatched for a sheriff's department and it seemed like the suicide calls always came from way out in the country-somewhere it would take a deputy a half hour or longer to get to.

[ForrestGump]

15. Mine was a call -- I would have been feeling less impotent if I was there

in person.

I don't know how you could bear to go through that more than once, even if you don't know the people beforehand. I salute you! :hug:

[xmas74]

16. You feel so useless and worthless just sitting in a room

w/ a headset on, trying to talk a person out of it. I've talked teens, grandparents, professionals, the newly unemployed-I think I've hit all different areas in suicide calls. And I've only had one attempt after talking to me(not really my fault-almost had him talked out of it and talked into getting some help but the officer first on-scene was an eager beaver right out of academy. Thank goodness the subject was a bad shot!)
Dispatching is a hard job and most people(and departments) don't realize how hard it is. The worst calls are about children. I used to take off my headset after those calls, go outside, grab a smoke and cry my eyes out. You feel so worthless. You just wish you were on-scene w/ the officer(or paramedic or firefighter) and could grab the child and hold onto them for dear life. You do just that when you get home from work and see you own child sleeping.
But there are wonderful things about the job. The first time you help deliver a baby over the phone is an incredible rush of adrenaline!

[ForrestGump]

25. I can't imagine that. What an emotional rollercoaster.

It is tough being a police officer, and potentially dangerous, but at least in situations like that you can actually physically do something in intervention if you're a police officer on the ground at the scene. I imagine that you could never get inured enough, no matter how the callouses might grow, to not take some of that with you. :hug:

[yewberry]

5. Yay for the Heimleich Maneuver!

I saved a woman who was choking when I worked in a restaurant.

They tipped 15%.

:/

[Whoa_Nelly]

13. Nephew was joking

way back in '75. Didn't know about the Heimlich...don't even know if it was in common use at the time.

Anyway, he was 5. So, I picked him up by his feet and gave him a quick hard shake with him upside down. The Super-Scoop Frito popped right out!

[xmas74]

6. Former dispatcher.

Done it in different situations.

[Skittles]

8. well, maybe

I'm a life long blood and platelet donor - who knows, I may have made a difference somewhere :)

[Whoa_Nelly]

10. Am sure you did!

Giving blood is a lifesaver for others! :thumbsup:

[xmas74]

11. I'm sure you have.

Good for you! That's the easiest way for anyone to save a life and most of us can do that!

[hickman1937]

17. Other.

One time a fundy friend was struggling with shame of drug addiction. I was at work, very tired, and put my head down for a minute nap. When I woke up I wrote something down about my son(who was about 4) and his struggles with anger against mom,and turning it on himself. Gave it to my friend, and he told me that he finally got it, and could forgive himself. It was me though. I think I was just a vessel.

[Whoa_Nelly]

20. Interesting

Are you psychic?

[hickman1937]

24. It wasn't me. Bad typing and editing left off the the n't.

"It was me though." should have been "It wasn't me though". At the time I had no idea where any of it came from. I was more worried about paying the rent.

[Whoa_Nelly]

28. Yup

Someone "out there" used you while you were distracted! Holy moley!

[hickman1937]

42. Sometimes when you least expect it you're given a gift.

You can't take credit for it, have no idea where it came from, but at the end of a bad day you know that you were used to help someone. That's when I get on my knees and thank God. He usually does this shit when I'm at the low points in my life. Hope mainlined.

[swag]

18. I nudged Robert's head to the side with my shoe

so the vomit could leak out of his mouth and he wouldn't choke on it.

And later I cleaned up the vomit off my floor. And had a good laugh about it all with his boyfriend.

[Ladyhawk]

19. Too many cases of maybe, maybe not.

:shrug: I just don't know, on both counts.

[Whoa_Nelly]

21. Added a poll category

Just for you! :hi:

[Ladyhawk]

33. Thanks. :) n/t

[CaliforniaPeggy]

23. I'm retired from nursing now.......

but back in the day, I did save more than one life via CPR and like that.

One case I remember vividly was in ICU....the patient had just gone into ventricular fibrillation....The crash cart wasn't handy, so I just hit him mid-chest with my fist....

He converted immediately into a normal rhythm....Of course, he didn't stay converted..I had to hit him several more times and then we got the drugs into him....

But he did live, that night at least.....

It felt very good!

It never ceases to amaze me just where hands can go, and what they can do...

[Whoa_Nelly]

26. You are brave to have been a nurse!

Even with all the training and the living the profession daily, sounds like the adrenaline gets rushing all the same!

:thumbsup: for you, CaliforniaPeggy!

[SoCalDem]

27. Saved my youngest son at 8 months

He did a header out of his crib... He was unconscious, purple and not breathing..no pulse. It was the day we moved into our house and we had no phone.. I breathed into his mouth and hit him on his chest with my palm..and he started breathing..Then we raced acorss town to the only hospital I knew of.. we passed it on our way into town that morning....kismet!

[Whoa_Nelly]

29. Being a mom

can bring out all sorts of brave responses!

Thanks for sharing that story....what an intense moment! Am glad your reaction worked.

How old is your son now?

[SoCalDem]

30. Just turned 27

not a baby anymore :)

[Whoa_Nelly]

31. WooHoo!

Mine did, too!

Don't ya love'em as adults? ;)

[threehensandacow]

32. does it count

if it was a group of people? cheesy as it is, AA saved my life. don't know where i'd be right now if those meetings didn't exist. and i'd like to think that because i continue to show up and open up, i've helped to save someone else's life.

[Whoa_Nelly]

35. A life saved is never cheesy

Glad you're here to post and tell! :hi:

Am sure you being you has inspired others :loveya:

[EFerrari]

36. AA counts. Most definitely.

Welcome to DU, threehensandacow.

:hi:

[Bullwinkle925]

34. I firmly believe that I saved my life one evening........

long story -

I was in Wichita visiting my mother who was terminally ill in the hospital. I had booked a room at a motel that was about a block beyond the hospital's parking lot. I had sat up with my mother until about 1:00 AM one evening and decided that I'd better get to my room and try to get a few hours' sleep before returning to sit with her the next morning. She was heavily sedated, so I kissed her goodnight and began the walk to the motel. As I turned out of the hospital parking lot onto the street where th motel was - a group of young men passed me in their car and called out something. Thankfully, the motel was a half-block away and I saw their car do a U-turn to come back to follow me. I was able to run up the outside stairs to the second balcony, sat down on one of the steps next to a brick column and waited breathlessly as the car came into the driveway, slowed down and one of the men got out of the car, took a few steps, and then got back into the car and they drove away. I'm glad that I didn't go directly to my room as they would have been able to see which room I was in. This has been one experience that I've kept to myself until now.

:scared:

[Whoa_Nelly]

37. WOw...am glad you were able to move so fast!

Yes...you definitely saved yourself. When things like that happen, best to go with your gut feeling and response without hesitation. You did the right thing! :hug:

[EFerrari]

38. Hmm. Of all the stories, maybe once I saved my mom's life.

She was really out there on alcohol for some years. One night, I woke up and the house was full of smoke. I followed it to her room, and she was passed out in bed and had dropped a lit cigarette. The whole bed was on fire. I put the fire out and aired out the room.

She was (we were) very, very lucky because she wasn't hurt. But, she had the cR@p scared out of her when she woke up in that bed the next morning. I was 11, my little brother was 3 or so. My poor mom.

Anyway, she's been clean for over thirty years now, 74 and wonderful. Thank God.

[Whoa_Nelly]

41. You did save her life!

And you and your brother's as well!

Wow...thanks for telling this. Am amazed at so many great stories and experiences!

[EFerrari]

43. My niece say, "Life is life! Life is not perfect!"

Lol!

Yes, so many great stories. :)

[GoddessOfGuinness]

39. When my older boy was an infant

I sometimes had to get up in the middle of the night to change his diaper. One night, when I went to wash my hands after changing him, I noticed an eerie glow through the bathroom shade. When I looked out, I saw a huge flame streaking up the side of our neighbor's house.

Mr GoG went to see if our 80-something neighbor was home while I dialled 911. She didn't answer his knock on the door. Luckily, the firehouse is only a few blocks away; and they were on the scene very quickly. It turned out that she was inside asleep, and she suffered from mild smoke inhalation.

I shudder to think what could have happened if my baby hadn't decided to cry when he did. Our house might have caught fire, too!
He may well have saved all our lives that night.

[Whoa_Nelly]

40. Omigosh!

What a story!

[Shell Beau]

45. When I was a toddler, I was getting my stomach pumped

for the second year in a row. I was left alone with the water pumping through me. My dad thought I had been in there too long. He went and got a doc. I was about to drown. I guess they forgot about me. My dad saved me b/c had he not questioned why I was in there for so long alone, I would have drowned.

[lakemonster11]

46. When I was five or six,

I was at a neighbor's house with my little brother. The neighbor's son, who was my brother's age (2 or 3), put a plastic bag over his head and got it caught---he was suffocating. I ran upstairs as quickly as I could and told his dad, who ran back downstairs and ripped the bag off his head. The boy was crying. The dad thanked me and sent us home.

I had almost entirely forgotten about this until last year, when one of my housemates was playing around by putting plastic grocery bags over his head and sucking in, so that they stuck to his face. It suddenly all came back to me---I started shaking and had to sit down.

[Hugin]

47. Yes, several times...

My favorite story isn't about me though... When my Dad was a young boy he was
saved from drowning in a pond by a Collie. (Like Lassie!) Great story.

[evlbstrd]

48. My daughter.

She was away at her fist year in college. She was seeing new doctors, having her medications adjusted and changed constantly. Wellbutrin, in particular, was a very bad experience for her. She called me in the wee hours one night, saying she was in a very dark place and didn't want to live anymore. She just didn't care. I talked with her for a few hours, until she agreed to go to the hospital. They found that she had overdosed on Wellbutrin.
Now she's home with me, going to school, and much more stable.

[kwassa]

49. I was saved from drowning, and saved someone else from drowning

Me: My dad saved me from drowning when I jumped off a boat into water over my head, when I was about six or seven. My panicked older brother rowed the boat AWAY from me. My dad came off the shore, did a running dive off the dock and got me.

I saved a women, a Japanese tourist with no English, from drowning in Hanauma Bay in Oahu. I didn't know what I was doing. She was stuck in a tidal pull between two reefs, and she and her boyfriend were frantically yelling. It took me awhile to realize, due to my lack of Japanese, what the problem was. I dove down to the sandy bottom, about eight feet down, and pushed her toward the reef, as it was pointless to try to swim against the undertow. I almost drowned before I got her on the reef. A lifeguard finally showed up on a surfboard, took her off the reef into shore. I never saw her, her boyfriend, or the life guard again. None of them thanked me, of course. I was just sitting on the reef completely winded with the coral cutting my feet.