Scariest thing you've ever experienced

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When watching a horror with my teenage son this evening, DS asked what the scariest thing I'd ever witnessed was and I simply couldn't think what my answer would be. I'm intrigued to know what other people's answers would be, I find it so intriguing

I have a few. 2nd childbirth, when ds started to arrive quickly but then got stuck or something, he was born normally but not breathing. Never been so glad to hear a child cry. I then started haemorrhaging and was still doing so until 10 hours later, when it stopped suddenly. I needed 6 transfusions.
When ds fell down the stairs as a just-started toddler. When I lost dd, thankfully some neighbours had found her. When I got attacked by a man on a station, a different man on a dark street, a different man in an alley. Every time I got followed as a teen. When my dad chucked things through the back window (more than once) and when he attacked the dog - I didn't see it, but the dog was nearly killed and I was terrified it would be one of us kids next. People complain I'm a nervous person; they can bugger off, I've got reasons.

@YouBoggleMyMind, @crimsonclover

When I was 6 months pregnant, i was at work in a bookies and a new customer (short male with a Bob marley type hat) started coming in every day. I noticed he was only coming to me at the counter even with another member of staff on with me. He kept talking to me about my bump and said random things like I need to call my baby wendy after his mum. Told him my husband and I would be choosing the name together. Then another day, he offered to buy me things for the baby. I declined. He said he was barren and wanted a baby so bad. I made an excuse to go out the back area. He left. I asked the staff member with me if he came in on my days off. They said he looks in the door and walks past if he doesn't see me. He was obsessed with my bump. The next day, he came back in and came straight up to my counter and said that I will call the baby wendy. I told him to go away and not come back. He started kicking off and crying after saying he was sorry. He didnt want to cause stress to the baby. I went out the back and called my husband and one of the lads at the branch up the street. They were there within minutes and got the guy out the shop. My husband locked the front door and I put the magnetic lock on. It was 5.30pm. The shop was due to shut at 6pm. My husband stayed in the shop with me and the other member of staff. We called security to let them know what had happened. At 5.50pm, the member of staff noticed the man pacing backwards and forwards along the front door. We turned off the lights and made it look like we had left out the back. He started kicking the front door, shouting that he knows I am in there and he has a knife and he will be taking the baby from me. I was hyperventilating in the back room. My husband phoned the police and they came after what felt like forever. I thought I was going to go into labour. The man was arrested and taken into the cell overnight and fined £60 for being drunk and disorderly but they found no knife. I left work for good that night.

A few months later, after having had the baby and staying away from the area, I had to go to the post office in that area. The usual one I used was shut. I had my baby in the pram and my mum came with me to the area. When I joined the queue, my mum left me to go to the supermarket next door. As the queue snaked, I saw that guy in the queue. There was 3 people between us. I did everything possible to hide my face from him, ducking down under the hood of the pram, turning my back, putting my hand up in front of my face. I tried calling my mum to get her to come back but she wouldn't answer her phone. I was trying to work out whether I should stay put or leave and go out into the street. Would he see me? Would he snatch my baby? The queue was getting shorter and he was called to the till right in front of me so I was right behind him. I turned my body so he couldn't see my face and ducked down again into the pram. He turned towards me and then left. I was so frightened. Then my mum came back and hadn't noticed the missed calls. I made her take my baby in the pram and I ran ahead to the car and locked myself in and called my husband. My mum eventually caught up with me and I quickly put my baby in the car and left the area. I didnt go back to the area for 2 years. That was the most terrifying thing to happen to me. The man was crazy. I never want to see him ever again.

I mentioned my DD earlier in the thread but these are when I was scared for myself.

My first hemiplegic migraine. Symptoms are exactly like a major stroke, pain was horrifying. I was only in my early 20s & thought I was dying.

Having a massive PPH after a long labour & my DH leaning over me to press the emergency button as everything went black. Woke up with my legs up & a doctor fishing about inside me for the missed bits of placenta. I discovered the next morning it had indeed been a massive PPH as there were still blood stains all over the floor which the nurses hadn't been able to mop up without disturbing me.

And out on a walk with friends as a young teenager, & suddenly being chased by a herd of cows. We laughed at the time, but it was a big field & we were probably in terrible danger. We all had to jump a dry stone wall, a couple only just made it with help of the others. Looking back it was a spectacularly stupid thing to do.

Being trapped in a taxi in Bangkok, and driven 60 miles out of town unable to communicate with the driver and not knowing where he was taking us

I can't believe all of the things I am reading, my heart breaks for all of you

The social worker telling me I was going to lose my children after I had a nervous breakdown - to my abusers (one convicted)

It took me two years of dogged determination as they continuously dodged responsibility but I got a full apology and compensation off the bastards for utterly (purposefully) fucking up

Oh and the morning after I had abuser number 2 arrested and the subsequent 18 month long battle in family court (I had my breakdown months later)

@LaLaLandIsNoFun

Attempted murder, he hit me three times in the head with a crowbar.

When I was living abroad in a shared flat as a student and the guy that lived upstairs parked himself outside the front door of our flat one night and started whispering (very creepy) at us through the door, saying things like “who influences you?” and “who’s your dealer?”

Doesn’t sound scary written down but it was at the time. We called the police because he wouldn’t go away, but they were pretty dismissive of the whole thing.

A mortar attack.

I ran faster than linford christie.
Although running to my sleeping bag, in a tent, probably wasn't the best choice. In retrospect perhaps the blast defences would have been a better destination.

DD2 in hospital with pneumonia, doctor comes in to say “she is very ill, she needs an intensive care bed but she won’t survive the journey, let’s see how the night goes” I counted every breath and didn’t sleep for 70+ hours, I still get flashbacks and it was 6 years ago

Walking down a road in the dark, I was jumped on from behind. He put his arm round my neck and started humping me. I was wearing a long coat fortunately. I managed to grab his arm and pulled him off. He didn’t run but stood with his back to the road (passing traffic) so they didn’t see his tackle hanging out. I opened my mouth to scream but not a sound came out and I was rooted to the spot. Eventually I managed to shout ‘police, police’ and he took off like a rocket. I was early 20s at the time and in a foreign country.

Severe memory loss in my 20's. It started slowly, eg forgetting how to turn on the computer and how to use the photocopier at work.

Then it progressed. Within a year I couldn't remember my way home from the corner shop (and was having to use Google maps). I started forgetting words and it eventually got so bad that I lost the ability to speak at all. When asked questions, the only way I could respond was by nodding or shaking my head.

I had to leave my job and thought I had dementia. Then I remembered a round rash I'd had a year beforehand. Turned out I'd been bitten by a tick and had Lyme disease.

The fact that the NHS don't know how to treat the illness once it gets to that stage was probably the scariest part of all, though!

Suffering a blow out at 70mph on a motorway. Managed to get stopped safely but then spent a terrifying three hours at the side of the motorway waiting on the RAC.

Also having a camping kettle explode open as I stood next to it and having scalding water hit my face. We were in a remote area and took ambulance 45 minutes to get to us.

Finding a dead body

Some of these are horrific.

My young DC disclosing serious abuse by their biological father.
Social services didn't want to know.
Police didn't want to know.
Solicitor said I had to allow contact and a family court would order it.

You never think you'll find yourself in such a position, but you assume the law would be on your side if you were. Big eye opener. Everyone turned their back. I was completely alone in trying to keep my child safe against a system that values the rights of abusers over the safety of children.

to all of you who have been through such horrific things.

Mine aren't anywhere near as bad, but we're scary at the time.

It was in the evening, and I was a teen living at home. My dad was visiting his parents and it was just me and my mum downstairs watching tv, my siblings were all in bed. We heard a very faint tap on the back door, but I think we thought it was the wind or on the tv so ignored it. We then heard it on the front door. Went to see who was there, and could see a figure of a person, presume a man, with a trilby type hat on. He then started to go between the front and the back door, knocking louder and louder and it really scared us. My mum phoned my dad who got home as quickly as he could and drove around the area to see if he could see anyone but he couldn't. She asked the neighbours and they didn't know anything and none of her family knew anything either. It was really scary.

The next time was with my then bf now dh. We were driving through Moss Side in Manchester when someone in a black bmw with blacked out windows, drove through the red lights to our right, we had just started to pull away on the green lights and nearly collided. Dh swerved one way, as did they, and then the another way, as did they, several times, it was like they were trying to hit us. As we drove past, he did gesture to them (with hindsight not the smartest move). Anyway, we were stopped at the next lights which were red, there were loads of cars in front of us, when we suddenly realised the driver of the car was now running up the road behind us, and was punching our car, screaming at us to open the door and get out. I just screamed to dh to get us out of here, and somehow all the traffic in from of us had gone and he just floored it. We got away, but it really did scare us both. Afterwards we thought what if he'd had a gun or other weapon in his car!

The last one was realising I hadn't really felt my baby move as much for a day. We to have an ultrasound to check and it took three times for them to find her heartbeat. It felt like an eternity. She was born 2 days later, despite attempts to stop labour, at 31 weeks. She'll be 21 this year.

Waking up to my dad shaking me and turning round to see him covered in blood, we had been a serious car accident and it was like I had just woken up from a nights sleep, I couldn’t remember what had happened but it slowly came back, remembering driving along and then nothing. That was scary.

Having very serious pneumonia in my 20s, I collapsed at home but came round, my mum came home from work and phoned the hospital who said to take me up, I remember going up in the car, sitting waiting to see the dr and him saying I had pneumonia and would need to be admitted but after that I don’t remember much. I can remember the nurse in assessment saying how worried she was because my eyes kept rolling and I remember once I got to the HDU asking the dr if I was going to die because it honestly felt like it. It was scary having the dr saying that he couldn’t understand how I had gotten it and it could be clots in my lung. Was also scared to ask to get up for the toilet as well because every time I was upright I felt like I couldn’t breath and was just going to stop breathing altogether.

Not as bad as PPs but a tyre blow out on the motorway. No loud bang but it sounded like rocks going around a washing machine. Managed to pull over and when I looked, it was totally shredded.

I was driving to my parents along an A road and heard sirens behind me. Went to pull over but looked in my rear view mirror and saw a car coming out of a side road behind me on 2 wheels as it avoided an undercover police car positioned to tbone it.
It then was going around 100 mile an hour, I was doing 50 and in a split second I managed to assess that a lorry was coming the other way so the car wouldn't be able to go around me.
Clutch down, brake, turned to the sharp left and ended up in a hidden pull in with the bonnet in a series of bushes and cm from a farm gate. Car and police sped past me.
I had 11 month old ds in the back and I was so scared we were going to be hit and him killed. I was so greatful he was in a rear facing car seat to absorb the harsh breaking.
From start to finish the whole thing was less than 7 seconds I would say. The only reason my instincts knew there was a turning was because we've driven that road for my whole life.
I called the local police station the following day because I was scared I had dramatised it in my head but they confirmed they had pursued someone along that road and the severity of the crime meant it was more unsafe to let him go than to continue a high speed chase along a major A road. I've never been so scared in all my life and it still makes me shiver now.

@Bettina500 - I’m so sorry.

Going into a 3 bed house for work, the guy wants to show me damage to a back garden wall, only way to the wall is through the house. I walk through and there are 2 late teenage boys, maybe 19 or so, both in dressing gowns, this was about 4pm in the afternoon. The older guy was about 50 and looked really knarley. The living room walls were covered in those big machete type knives. I know it was a trend back in the 70's or whenever to hang a machete on your wall but there was at least ten of them. The young lads had a strange look in their eyes, like spacey but threatening. Honestly I got a shiver up my spine and felt genuine fear. I went into survival mode trying to look normal but looking for exits, I was about 30 at the time, I just kept thinking I hope I make it out of here alive.

I did but internally was panicking for the few minutes when I looked at the wall, chatted to the bloke then went through the house again and put into the street. shudder