Have you ever saved a life?

by Crystal 18 Replies latest jw friends

  • DakotaRed
    DakotaRed

    I think most everybody has saved a life and not even realized it. Just a caution to a sttanger about to step off a curb into traffic is saving a life.

    Have I saved lives, though? Yes. I stop at traffic accidents if I see them happen and help out. I've helped pull guys out of burning helicopters, adminstered first aid to my paper boy when he was struck by a truck in front of my house a few years ago and even swam out to retreive a child on an air mattress during a Portugese Man 'O War infestation at the beach once. I performed the heimlich manuever on my exmother-in-law at dinner one night, while the rest of the family sat there and told me I was hurting their Mom, until she coughed up a large piece of steak.

    At times, others have done similar things for me when I was in accidents.

    But, without even realizing it, I honestly believe that we all have saved a life or two in our time.

    Lew W

    Edited by - DakotaRed on 8 November 2002 15:41:56

  • Jesika
    Jesika

    We were at a "gathering" at a sister's house who had a pool. There were alot of people there and lots of stuff going on.

    I was playing with a 4yr old little girl (I was about 11 or 12 at the time). I was teaching her to jump to me in the pool, she couldn't swim. We did that for a while and then she went to go get something to eat. I started swimming in the deep end of the pool and most everyone had gotten out of the pool to eat as well.

    I hear a little voice call my name and it was the 4yr old I had been playing with. Before I could say anything, she jumped to me, I was still in the deep end of the pool---we sank. I saw her with me under the water and her eyes were HUGE!! She was so scared, I grabbed her little legs and pushed her to the top of the water. I was close to the edge of the pool but just out of reach. So, I am trying to get her to the edge so she would get out or hold on to it. I am starting to run out of air and to panic. No one was around or even noticed what happened. I have one hand holding on to her and the other hand is despirately trying to find the side of the pool. This isn't easy to do since she isn't exactly staying still. Her upper body was out of the pool, but I was using all my energy keeping her above water and wasn't strong enough to get my head above water too.

    FINALLY!!! My cousin and a very close friend of the family grabbed the little girl and my hand. I am glad they grabbed a hold of me cause I think I woulda just sank, I had no energy left and we had already begun to sink again.

    I caught my breathe and the girl ran to her mom crying. I explained what had happened (her mom was mad at first), and her face went blank. She told me thank you and hugged her daughter tightly. I then sat down with her mom and we explained to the little girl you can't just jump on someone when they can't touch the bottom of the pool (without going under anyway), and to wait till the person says ok, jump.

    I honestly think if it had been a few moments longer, me and the little girl wouldn't have made it.

    So, I was saved, and I saved one all at the same time.

    Edited by - Jesika on 8 November 2002 18:1:28

  • DanTheMan
    DanTheMan

    About a year and a half ago I was living in an apartment not too far from where I live now. There was an elderly woman who lived across the hall. I think she was an alchoholic. She often would come to my door drunk and would cry a river to me about something or another. I felt bad for her, she was a mixed-up, lonely old broad.

    One time I found her passed out on the stairs leading up to our hall. She was breathing OK, but out cold. I nudged her a few times, but she didn't respond so I called the fire dept and they sent some medics out. They managed to wake her up but she was drunk as a skunk and started saying all kinds of crazy things to them.

    Another time I left my apartment and was heading down the hall, but I noticed the smell of smoke, and it wasn't cigarette smoke. I looked up at the light in the hallway and I saw a halo of smoke around it. It was then that I noticed the sound of a smoke detector coming from my neighbor lady's apartment. I began pounding on the door, but there was no response. I called the fire department. They came and busted down her door. Smoke just rolled out from her apartment. It turned out that it was just a couch cushion that was on fire from a cigarette, but it sure put out a ton of smoke! It stunk like hell too. They got my neighbor out of the apartment (she was drunk and babbling incoherently) and they put the fire out.

    I'm glad I noticed the smoke, or the whole place (including mine) might have gone up.

  • Grunt
    Grunt

    As a parent with children prone to severe croup (the daughter that shuns me now) and asthma, my wife and I had our share of close calls getting the kids to a hospital. For some of the time it meant a drive of thirty miles or so and its a wonder we lived through the ride as I would be doing all the road would allow.

    Over the years I have been fortunate enough to help save three different people, my brother, my neice and an uncle, all from drowning. Two in ponds, my little brother was making clay castles in a pond and slipped into a hole never made a sound except for the splashing and it was lucky I looked. Later my yankee uncle was watching us rednecks slide down a mosscovered spillway into a deep pool at the bottom and he fell in. He'd acted like he could swim, just didn't want too so I was a little slow getting to him, thinking he was just goofing around. Twice I nearly died saving them, the uncle nearly drownded me as I got him to the bank, wound up holding my breath and staying under to do it and I was so exhausted with the neice at Ft. Walton Beach in a rip tide I don't think I could have made it in if the little brother I had saved as a child hadn't jumped in clothes and all and helped me get her in. That made us even! That one I had a lot of time to think on. I couldn't get in with her, and wouldn't come in without her and I could see my family up on the beach going on as though things were normal. Strange. Life is sweet. It feels good to think you helped someone get to live a longer one. My uncle named his kid after me, as a teenager it made me real proud.

    Grunt

  • bigfloppydog
    bigfloppydog

    As a young girl, I was swimming in a pool, I am not much of a water person, and could not swim to well, so I stayed in the shallow end. A little girl was standing on the cement edge of the pool, and all of a sudden she fell in, well I was watching her, and then realized, that she could not swim at all, and no one else noticed her, I was very shy, but knew something was wrong, I just walked towards her, and put my hands under her body, and moved her to the side of the pool, her mother than saw she was crying and came and scooped her up. I almost drowned myself once, so I can well imagine how terrified she was, but I was glad she was okay.

    I will never forget the accident my hubby and I came upon on a very cold December day, someone went through a stop sign, and hit another car. We were on our way to a store, and noticed a car in a field and one in the ditch. There was a young girl who also stopped to help and asked if we had a cell phone, (the only day we did not take it with us.) I ran to one car, my hubby ran to the other, the two people in one car unfortunately had died, and my husband said stay with the others in the other car, there was 3 people. He got in our car raced to a phone and called for help. The young girl was tending to the boy in the front, his head was badly injured. I was in the back trying to keep the young girl from trying to get out, she was in shock and wanted out of the car and was bleeding from her head, there was so much blood, I had a hard time finding the spot where it was coming from. Then there was the driver, a woman who had no blood on her at all, but was trying to get out, cut her door was lodged up against a fence post, she was moving all over the place, (also in shock) but I could not even get to her, and just tried to talk to her and keep her from moving about. Next thing I know someone handed me some kleenex, and a blanket ( it was bitter cold) and it seemed like for ever before the paramedics came. All 3 survived, the boy in the front had a lengthy gash along the top of his head, the young girl in back had hit her head on the window, and banged it pretty bad, and the woman who was driving, who had no visible blood at all was the worst off, broken leg, broken pelvis, and injured her back, it took her a good year to recover, she had to wear a halo around her head and neck. I was just happy everyone was ok, but felt really bad for the elderly couple who did not make it. The elderly gentleman apparently did not see the stop sign, and never stopped.

  • target
    target

    When my son was five I went outside and found him choking on a sucker. I held him upside down and slapped his back and it the sucker flew out.

    I revived my little dog twice with CPR after his little heart stopped.

    Target

  • Outaservice
    Outaservice

    My cousin was dating a Catholic girl and was about to join her church, when I jumped in and started a JW Bible Study with him. Boy, that was a close one!

    Outaservice (Hey, come to think of it, he never thanked me!)

  • LB
    LB

    saved a couple, took a couple

  • Lady Lee
    Lady Lee
    Have you ever saved a life?

    yup a few times mostly connected to work and either people who were intoxicated and out in the cold or people who were suicidal and needed to be talked out of it before they acted - also one who had a plan to go kill all her abusers before she killed herself - had to get the police to go to her place while I kept her on the phone

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