The day we were in our car accident. I still freak out when I think about it. Knowing I was going to hit a car was awful. I remember after we hit and we were spinning and I thought my family is going to have a hard time dealing with the death of my twins, husband and myself. When the car stopped I was scared too turn around to see if the kids were still alive. I was terrified that I couldn't get the doors open to get them out of the car. When I realized H had a major injury I felt helpless. Hearing him scream while his femur was reduced was hell. Calling my family and trying to explain what had happened and they need to get to the hospital ASAP was hard. I've never seen my parents more scared when they thought I was paralyzed as I was strapped to the backboard and neck brace. I still feel guilty that I was driving when it happened. I'll never forgive the other driver for it. Sorry that was rambling. All sorts of moments that day when it felt like my life was over.
I think I repress this stuff. There have been several times when I was nearly seriously injured or even killed, but I really don't remember the fear part.
Off the top of my head I will say the time that I got my hand caught in a large industrial machine and it almost got pulled all the way in (which would, at the very least, have cost me fingers). I still managed to maim myself, because when I reflexively jerked my hand back, two of my fingernails were pulled out. I pick this one because I had time to think about what was happening, unlike some other things that were so fast I didn't realize the danger until it was over.
Definitely when I found out that the ship my H was on had sunk at they weren't sure about the status of those on board. It was many, many hours before I found out that he was alive. Definitely the scariest couple of days of my life. I still get goosebumps thinking about it.
Oh my goodness. What kind of ship was he on (I won't be offended if you don't feel like sharing)?
I had to have an emergency Csection. They put the epidural too high and I could feel my lungs freezing. I tried to talk but I couldn't. I couldn't breathe and nobody was paying attention. I gripped the surgeons arm and the anaesthetist said 'she's just having a panic attack'. Thank god the surgeon actually looked me in the eye, and he screamed for someone to intubate me and that was that. The scariest moment of my life was trying to get someone to look at me. They had to sedate me again when I woke up because my lungs were still a bit frozen and I did have a legit panic attack.
Whoa. We had very similar experiences. Mine's on page two. Ugh. It was horrifying.
Post by mrsukyankee on Dec 12, 2013 3:22:31 GMT -5
I used to do white water kayaking. During the last trip I ever took, I flipped over and got caught in a swirly, so couldn't right myself back up. I tried pulling the spray skirt off so I could get out of my kayak and get to air, but it got stuck on. I was pounding on the top of my boat, hoping that someone would hear over the roaring of the river. Just as I was about to give up, someone got to me and I could grab their boat to turn back up. I tried to go on another trip, had a panic attack and never went back into a kayak again.
It looked like this (except she's about to turn back up):
The other one was during 9-11. I was in Alexandria, VA, and my then bf was working at the Pentagon. Yeah, when I heard that it got hit I wanted to freak out (cause we could hear a lot and eventually could smell the smoke coming from it), but as I was in my first year as a therapist at a school nearby, I had to do crisis management for the girls (some of whom had parents working at the Pentagon and some in NYC). Luckily, he wasn't in the section that was hit, though he did help other people out of harms way.
Every single moment between the instant I felt a pop and reached down to feel my amniotic sac bulging out, to the terror of pushing. But especially the forever-long wait in the ER, knowing my baby was dead or dying inside me. Worst.
Runner up was when I used to walk to work at 4 am. It was a tiny town with zero crime, but I'm a city girl, so I was always on edge. One day a group of very drunk young guys chased me for a couple blocks, caught me, and questioned where I was going and whether they could rob the place. When I told them I was a nurse, they backed off. One of them wanted to keep following/harassing me, but the other guys ran, whooping and hollering, and he followed. It wasn't until they were about a block ahead of me and one of them pulled out a gun and fired it in the air that I realized how close a call it had been.
H & I were messing around in khakis on the Delaware River and I wasn't wearing a life jacket (I KNOW). We got to a part of the river with rapids & I got scared because I was inexperienced & knew I was going to flip. A guy on a jet ski flew past me, his waves combined with the rapids made me flip over. I am an amazing swimmer. I couldn't swim or keep myself afloat in the fast moving river. My legs started to hit rocks and I was choking on water. I tried to hangon to my khaki but it was hard. SOMEHOW I got my lifejacket loose from the bunjee cords on the khaki and I got it on. Once I was floating, I knew I'd be okay but before that point I thought I was going to drown. H did too.
DD#1's birth. I was young and not really informed about how the labor and delivery process would work. I went into the hospital thinking my water was leaking, but found out I had severe pre-eclampsia and had to be induced. I wasn't allowed out of bed from the moment I entered to the ER and I was put on magnesium sulfate. I was so out of it from the medicine, but didn't realize that was why and no one told me.
I ended up having a c-section after pushing for three hours without any progress. When they were prepping me, I could feel them poking my stomach, which wasn't a surprise because the epidural only worked on half of my body. I was given a spinal and DD was delivered. I lost a lot of blood and became very anemic, so that, plus still being on magnesium sulfate for hours after her birth made me feel like shit. I remember laying there in bed, hearing her cry and wanting to hold her, but I couldn't move my body or talk. I felt trapped in my own body and it was the worst feeling.
The most scared I have ever been was when DS was an emergency C-section. The doctors and nurses were running me to the OR, just like on TV. I was scared to death, and even now, 3.5 years later, I'm still very emotional when I think about it.
Post by fangoriagurkel on Dec 12, 2013 11:18:30 GMT -5
I was pulling out of a gas station and my driver's side window about 1/4 of the way down. I was about to make a left and saw 3 young men walking from the bus line towards the store. I decided to reverse a little bit so they could walk in the walkway without having to be in street.
They walked in front of my car and I turned my head left to make sure I could turn and I heard a knocking noise on my right passenger window. I looked and one of the guys was motioning with the butt of his gun for me to roll my window did.
I did and one guy snatched my pocketbook from the passenger seat and the guy with the gun told me to get out of the car. I was so sure in that moment that this was the end (A client of mine had been carjacked a couple years ago and suffered a non-fatal GSW to the face).
I started hysterically crying and sobbing and the guy who had my purse started running off. I kept screaming "no" and was frozen. I knew if I got out that they would shoot me or take me to an abandoned field. I guess I make a terrible victim because the other 2 guys took off then.
Whoa. We had very similar experiences. Mine's on page two. Ugh. It was horrifying.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. My H was also removed immediately, and a nurse actually said to him 'you don't want to see this'. Also his scariest moment, since they just brought him a baby and told him nothing about me. I didn't meet G for almost 4 hours. That's the part that still gets me, that I'm not really over yet. All of those moments were taken from us because of someone's mistake.
Oh my goodness. I'm sorry it happened to YOU. Fortunately, the drugs they gave me lasted only a few minutes (I gather that this is a drug they give to people so that they won't remember being intubated? I could be totally wrong here). I woke up right after they'd swaddled DS.
Post by sparkythelawyer on Dec 12, 2013 14:26:14 GMT -5
When I got to the ER with DH's accident, and they immediately put me in a private conference room with a Chaplain and DH's fire department chief. Then a few minutes later when the State Trooper entered and told me how long he had been under water. Then about an hour (or more? Time is fuzzy) when they got him up to ICU but his blood pressure was so low they couldn't get a line in. Then shortly after that when the doctor was attempting to explain what all was happening and describing the condition they were worried he would get, and that if he did get, he would not last through the night. (Don't look up Disseminated Intravascular Coagulation). I just remember that I refused to let myself ask the doctor what DH's odds of survival were because I knew better than to ask questions I didn't want the answers to.
Post by laceylaplante on Dec 12, 2013 16:46:55 GMT -5
This is a tough call.
Probably when my PPD/PPP was happening after DS1 was born. I was having vivid hallucinations about hurting him in a lot of ways and hurting myself. My labor and birth with him was scary and I was too young and naive to deal.
A close second was following DS2 being cleared to come off of his heart monitor. It had only gone off a few times while he was on it, and the doctors said they were false alarms after checking up, but for almost a whole year I was terrified of SIDS anytime he was out of my sight. He's 2 now and I still hold my breath checking on him if he's sleeping longer than usual.
Post by aprilsails on Dec 12, 2013 16:56:05 GMT -5
I just want to thank you all for sharing your stories. They are often hard to read but it's also good to share. I find myself wanting to 'like' posts as a virtual hug but these aren't the kind of posts that you like, if you know what I mean.
lemon I'm so sorry. I know you lost a son, but I wasn't sure the cause. My heart breaks for you. ((lemon))
Thanks for the kind words. I kind of hate these threads because I always feel like mine is one of the worst most people can imagine, and like I shouldn't ever share it.