When I was seven.....
GiphyWhen I was seven I was playing on the busiest road in town, trucks and buses constantly thundering past, inches from pedestrians. A young mother, deep in conversation with her friend, let go of the pushchair in which her baby was fast asleep. The pushchair rolled into the road, I dashed out and pulled the baby out of the path of huge truck.
The mother, oblivious to the drama that had just taken place, snatched the child from me and without acknowledgement turned away to continue her chin wagging. No one but the truck driver and myself had an inkling of what had taken place. mykylodge
"I'm scared. I messed up."
When I was 16, my younger sister attempted suicide while we were home alone. I was doing spanish homework, she was in her room by herself.
She had been going through a rough time and my whole family knew it. My parents are divorced and my mom treats our mental health very differently than my dad does. My mom knew that our mental health is just as important as physical health, my dad never took us seriously. Just our luck, we were at my dads house the night that everything happened.
I heard her crying in her room from the kitchen, but decided not to intrude for the first few minutes, knowing she liked her alone time. I heard her talking, so I assumed she was on the phone with my mom. Finally, after about 20 minutes of sobbing coming from my sister, I decided to check on her (wish I did sooner). She was laying on her bed crying, didn't even move when I walked inside. All she said was "I'm scared. I messed up." My eyes scanned the room and I saw empty bottles of her medication. They were all empty. I calmly asked her how many she took, she said all of them.
I picked her up and ran her to the bathroom, calling 911 as I got her to throw up the pills. I stayed surprisingly very calm throughout the whole ordeal, up until the ambulance and police finally got there. That was when I started having a full blown panic attack. One of the police officers had to go retrieve my inhaler.
Turns out, she was concealing the side effects of her medication from my family and from her doctors. She was developing schizophrenia and severe depression, solely from her meds. She told us that there were voices in her head telling her to do it, and she was so tired of hearing them (she had insomnia because of the voices). It's been 4 years since, and she's doing much better. She's basically a new person and loves the life she's living. I'm so proud of the progress she has made. upperslide8
Foaming....
I was at a party and a girl overdosed and no one was doing anything helpful. she was foaming at the mouth and choking so I put her in recovery position and she coughed up a lot of stuff that would have blocked her airway completely. goldfishspagetti
Trippy....
Gf (when we were 15) started choking on a chicken wing bone. Didn't know what was up at first, then she stood up and grabbed her neck and looked pale blue. I did the Heimlich maneuver and the bone popped out and she began coughing and gasping for air. After a min or two she settled down and was breathing normally. She was creeped out the rest of the night and was afraid to sleep. She told me just as I started the maneuver everything was starting to go black from the outside of her field of vision, inwards. That was a trippy night. _CattleRustler_
I'm Getting this Kid!
GiphyI was once leaving a restaurant and walking to my car when I heard a child crying and screaming. It sounded terrible and I felt something was off so I started tracking the noise through the parking lot. I eventually found a mini-van, all windows up in the middle of July. Mini-van was turned off with no adults inside. I waited for about a minute, called 911 and told them what was happening, they said they would send someone. I told the dispatcher I didn't think it could wait. I remember being worried about being accused of kidnapping so I told the dispatcher something along the lines of, "I'm breaking into the car to get this child, I'm not taking the child or going anywhere, I'll wait for the police to arrive but I'm getting the kid out of this car."
Got into the vehicle to find a 3 year old strapped into the car seat in the very back. He was screaming bloody murder, all of his clothes were dripping in sweat. Pulled him out of the car and held him until he calmed down and police/firemen arrived. He was a foster child. Dad and Uncle had been drinking inside for over an hour. Temperature on the dashboard read at over 130 degrees Fahrenheit (I don't remember the exact temp).
Kid went to the hospital to get checked out, my wife and I rode with as he had taken to us. He ended up being fine. I called the DCFS case worker afterwards to make sure the kid was removed from that family. Local news came out and interviewed my wife and I and the fire department gave us a citizen service or hero award or something. My work made a big deal about it and played the news segment at one of our meetings. I just remember thanking God the kid was ok. Everyone kept calling us hero's etc. It seemed strange the whole time since we didn't risk our lives or anything, just broke into a car and waited for the cops. In my mind, real heroes make sacrifices or take risks for the benefit/good of others. We were just right place, right time, and did what a reasonable person would do. Doc_Goldberg
Don't Panic.
When I was 10 my 3 year old sister tried running in front of the bus that was supposed to pick us up. I grabbed her by her jacket at the last minute. All I remember after that was everyone panicking. i-feed-on-dead-memes
Off Duty......
Was off duty walking around town and saw a massive issue happening at the river, man with MS had had a seizure and collapsed into the water, was lifeless and drowning.
I wasn't in any kit but have a history of water rescue in my previous job so forget it. I got in after him and yeah, he was about 6ft 5, very heavy, I'm very big myself but this dude started to regain use of his body and lashing out in panic, punching me, dragging me under with him.
Honestly one of the only times I thought I'd screwed up and main the wrong choice of going in after him.
Managed to kick out from him and get behind him so he couldn't hit me, Swam him back to land and yeah he was ok.
On the plus side his mum (his care) brought me some amazing biscuits and cookies into the station the following days and the lad was so appreciative, we are now good friends. OnlyBiceps
Staying Alive...
This guy collapsed in front of Walmart a few years ago and vomited so much blood I thought he'd die of exsanguination. I got my phone out, put 911 on speaker and di chest compressions on the man while the 911 operator sang Staying Alive by The Bee Gees. Staying Alive has the perfect rhythm for chest compressions and is on the NY Presbyterian CPR Spotify playlist. The hospital was only three miles up the road so the rescue squad got there super quick. Because I gave my information to 911 and First responders the man's wife was able to call me a few weeks later and let me know her husband was doing much better.
He'd had a cardiac episode followed by a tension pneumothorax. They airlifted him to Duke Hospital and he was released after quadruple bypass. He died this year, aged 81 of natural causes, according to his obituary. He lived an additional seven and a half years. His wife asked me to pick something so she could say thank you, I didn't want anything. I was just some 17 year old kid who happened to come out of the store at the right time. I can't imagine asking someone for payment for saving their life. Besides, I did small potatoes compared to EMS and hospital staff. carmelacorleon
3000 pounds of hydraulic pressure ......
I was running ground observation during a main landing gear retract operation when our production superintendent not only walked into the coned off area without being cleared to do so, but he walked under the aircraft and started looking at a beacon light near one of the main gear doors.
Because it was so loud, he couldn't hear me scream at him, and because I wasn't keying my microphone, but I was screaming, the guys upstairs thought my microphone died. So they proceeded to cycle the landing gear without verifying that it was clear (they thought it was clear because they though I was yelling to them that it was).
I had to run and shove my pro sup out of the way of a moving door that was under 3000 pounds of hydraulic pressure and would have easily severed an arm or leg. deuteranopia
help the kid.
GiphySaw a single mother try to get her baby carriage with a new born in it off the train while her 1-2 year old toddler was trying to get off herself. Unfortunate the gap between the train and the platform was too big for that little girl's short legs and I instinctively snatched her up and carried her onto the platform while the mom went from momentary amber alert to "oh okay this stranger helped my kid".
It's not particularly dramatic but I'm pretty sure crap could be ended REALLY bad for that little one if I or somebody else hadn't grabbed her. It was a long way down and it would've been hard to get her back up. As far as I know, with how much traffic there was in and out of that train I was the only person who kept an eye on that little girl in that moment and what would have happened if her accident wasn't noticed before the train started back up? It's a thought I never finish and I'm just happy I did what I did because forget that crap. 7hhffe
I live in Asia though.
Laundry and cooking saves money if you can do it yourself. Shina_nyaw
I get my monthly laundry done for what I earn in an hour. Otherwise, I'd spend 6 hours or more doing it myself. If you include the electricity, water, and detergent cost I'd have to pay each month (never mind the machine cost), it is more like half an hour's wage.
I can also buy a noodle soup off a street seller for what I earn in about 5 minutes.
I live in Asia though. buffalodumb
Thanks for reading my TED Talk.
How to do CPR
I'm an EMT and I worked in a very rural area for a couple years, almost every CPR Call (Code) I've run was 10-20+ minutes away, and when we got on scene no one had started CPR. Different sources will tell you different numbers, but after 5-7 minutes without oxygen brain cells will begin to die, and after 10-15 minutes if we get someone back they may have a severe mental deficit, by the 20 minute mark there's almost no chance of getting someone back and if we do they'll most likely be in a vegetative state. The longer someone has been down without CPR, the less of a chance we have to help them.
I rural EMS the 10+ minute travel time to a call is normal, lights and sirens only cut off a few minutes at intersections and traffic lights but you can only go so fast through residential areas and back roads.
In bigger cities it's a bit quicker for response time, but even still my parents house is 10 minutes from the fire station and it still took them about 7 minutes to get there when we called once (dad woke us up choking, he's ok now). So regardless of where you live you still could be waiting.
If you're afraid of hurting someone or doing CPR wrong, bad CPR is better than no CPR, or the way my instructor had put it when I was a student, 'they aren't getting any deader,' so you might as well try anything you can. It's fairly easy to learn and most classes last only a few hours and are fairly cheap and some places even do it for free. And if you don't want to put your mouth on a stranger's, they have key chain CPR masks that cost a few dollars or even 75¢ depending where you look, and with the new AHA standards you can do CPR without any rescue breaths. Learning it could help save a friend, family member, or a complete stranger. It can happen to anyone any age too, we've had babies code, high schoolers, people in their 20s and 30s and so on.
Thanks for reading my TED Talk. DrScienceSpaceCat
Zip-Zap.
GiphyZipper Merge. And ffs, if you are getting on the highway, get up to at least the speed of the traffic. ahfuqT
That's funny, I know you're supposed stop right before you swerve blindly into the next lane.
Then you use your blinker if you have enough fluid. WitchBerderLineCook
Stop Whining....
Telling people what you want instead of complaining about not getting what you wanted. Wrong_Answer_Willie
My ex didn't know that, there's things I forgot about because she told me it was ok and then learned she was mad about it. cizhiresb
To the Water....
Swim, it blows my mind how many grown adults don't know how to swim properly. Pyrazoid
Same here. Couldn't go kayaking on Lake Powell in Arizona because the minute i got in a Kayak, saw the depth of the water and "nope"ed my way back to the shore. bob-lob
Robert A. Heinlein
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
- Robert A. Heinlein Gymnos84
Save the Coin!
GiphyBudget money. u_Uncirculated
Yea and no. It all depends on the individual situation at hand.
I've been in situations where no matter how hard I budgeted my money and lived like a student in poverty, I was still in the red at the end of every month. Au_Uncirculated