Have you ever saved a human life?

[NewLifePending]

I did on Friday. Two in fact.

I’m still a little traumatised by the events but after debriefs, writing a long reflection and my first counselling session tomorrow, I’m starting to see the enormity of what I did in a more positive light.

Who else has saved a life and how did you feel about it at the time and then later on?

I've probably helped save some lives but no way of knowing for sure. I donated breast milk to NICU babies and I like to think I made a difference.

My Grandad saved my mum's life - Mum went on to have 7 kids (I am number 5)

My mum was born 5 weeks prem in 1919, born at home as that was what happened then, she weighed under 3lbs. The doctor just said to keep her comfortable until she died. My grandad was a footballer and was the clubs physio (both part time and unpaid back then). He looked after mum and laid her on the corner of the kitchen table massaging her back whenever she stopped breathing, which apparently happened a few times.

There was some other stuff around feeding which (at the time I heard about it) I didn't understand.

Mum died aged 92 in 2011.

All these stories of choking kids (and adults) are terrifying! I leave my kids to eat sometimes and I do occasionally worry about them choking. I've told my eldest (primary school) if food gets stuck in his throat don't try and shout, wave in someone's face if you can.

Yes but I work as a nurse. Have cut down people trying to hang themselves and once had to put out someone who set fire to themselves. The memories are so awful I can't feel anything but traumatised about it.

Indirectly -

Pulled a wayward toddler away from an oncoming car.

Called an ambulance when I came home from school one day and found DDad collapsed. He was on a lot of medication and hadn’t taken any.

Ran down a mountain and called mountain rescue for a man (unknown) who’d collapsed at top.

[quote imtiredandiwanttogotobed]I haven’t saved someone’s life but my life was saved by a mumsnetter on here 14yrs ago! I was pregnant and thought I had heartburn but got checked out cos a poster said I should and I actually had HELLP syndrome and was very poorly indeed.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/pregnancy/440848-omg-heartburn-from-hell-advice-please[/quote]
Oh my gosh! How is your little girl now, 14 years later!?

Technically yes my son as a toddler.

My DS swallowed a badge that he shouldn't have gotten ahold of;I didn't know he had swallowed it just that he was choking.I remember some vague advice that you were supposed to put a choking tot laying at a slightly downwards angle on the underside of your forearm and use the heel of your outstretched palm between their shoulder blades and hit firmly and repeatedly until the object dislodged;anyway I did that and out it came with some vomit 🤢

Yes.
Performed cpr on a stranger on the street. Also helped locate suicidal people as part of search and rescue team.

I have a few times- I think I’m one of those people where stuff happens around me.

I have saved a baby -approx 18 months from drowning when I was nine and on holiday. Was hanging around the pool waiting for my parents. Little one just wandered past me with no adults, and fell in the deep end. Just sank like a stone, dived in and got them out and wrapped them in. Towel. My mum and dad came out to see me fully dressed soaking wet and with a toddler. The parents came back about half an hour later completely unfazed by their missing baby and what could have happened.

Second one was a couple of years ago in the local pool, an incident was happening and lifeguards were all busy with someone at the other end and telling us to get out. Was gathering my kids up and noticed a boy really struggling, going under. Got him out and the kids, I told the life’s
Guards so they could watch for secondary drowning.

I also saved a child from choking twice, once in s soft play choking on a balloon. Back slaps, Heimlich the works. Ambulance called and little one taken off to hospital.

Another one in a cafe. Choked on a bit of fruit, that was scarier as the mum was screaming and child had gone so blue. Upside down, back slaps, over my knees, just nothing seemed to be working but did eventually.

DD (12) saved a kid in a pool last year from the deep end. I didn’t even see them but she did and swam straight over and got them out ok bless her.

I do a first aid course every few years, snd DD is now too since she also seems to be one of those people!

I have had my life saved a couple of times medically, and also from a
Potentially fatal accident. Anyone who gives blood thank you- you saved me and DD when I was giving birth to her

Yes. I lead the resuscitation of people at work. I don’t find that stressful. I have sometimes some issues with trauma afterwards when we don’t succeed, but not always. It depends on the circumstances.

I’ve only done it once outside of work. That was stressful as didn’t have all the gear and was in an unfamiliar environment.

4, choking every time.

Happens so easily and stealthily

I came upon a car accident - a young man had wrapped his car around a tree. Nobody else was around - it was so quiet and still, and so dark. I found him in the drivers seat, he'd had a cardiac arrest and also had a severe bleed from a chest wound. I rang the ambulance, and then started CPR as best I could with him sitting up. I was also pressing on his wound with a tee shirt balled up , pushing on it with my knee if you can imagine that. He actually revived while I was doing this , and started moaning. The ambulance came and the paramedics took over. Weirdly, an older man then turned up and started talking to him - this was actually the father of the injured boy. I've never known how on earth he knew what had happened , and he was so calm, I can't imagine how that was happening either .

Anyway the boy lived, I rang the hospital and they told me.

I saved a young relative when I was in my teens, he was about 6 or 7. He had chewed a button off of his top which got stuck in his windpipe.
It took a few hard backslaps and his mum barely acknowledged it when I told her afterwards.

I've given blood

My ex husband saved the next-door toddlers life, he was drowning in a back garden spa. The parents and grandparents were actually right there, sitting around talking, and nobody realised that the toddler had gone under the water. Suddenly there was screaming, and my ex heard the commotion. Leaped over the fence and resuscitated the child until the ambulance came. The parents told him later that they did know CPR but they were so shocked, they couldn't do it on their own child.

A good reminder, never leave children unattended near water.

I had the Heimlich manoeuvre performed on me when I was 14, I had a boiled sweet lodged in my throat and my mum leapt into action. My dad's friend had told them about the manoeuvre the week before (30 years ago). I still have a horrible fear of choking now.

Stopped my eldest, then 18mo, choking on a piece of apple peel (by scooping him up, turning him upside down along my arm and administering thorough slaps. Very grateful to the baby first aid course I learned that in). He also got caught in a blind cord at a similar age at someone's house and I managed to untangle him from that. Am hypervigilant about blind cords to this day.

Asked youngest's kindergarten (not UK) to please cut up grapes (or rather to continue cutting them for the 3-6yos, not just the youngest ones). They were sceptical but I brought in articles etc and they changed their policy. Obviously no idea if that actually ever saved someone, but it may well have done, considering how easily choking happens and what a nightmare grapes can be in that regard.

I haven't, but I've been the one saved. When I was 8ish I was swimming in a river and started to drown and go down steam and a group of 3 teenage boys saved me.

A good reminder, never leave children unattended near water.
This, exactly this.

My son, numerous times, as a child. A severe and very brittle asthmatic, he had attacks nearly every night, at around 2-4 a.m. I set up his nebuliser every evening before bed, and he knew to bang on the wall as soon as he woke with an attack. I slept very lightly, and jumped out of bed at the first sound, started the nebuliser and slapped the mask on his face. He was generally almost unconscious at that stage, but the nebuliser brought him round. Night after night, frequently resulting in amulance, siren and flashing lights. Once he had an attack when we were on holiday, in the bush, 25 minutes from the hospital.He was deeply unconscious, blue, and had voided bowels and bladder. I had to send my very young daughter down a dark lane with a torch to guide the ambulance, while I had to keep talking to my DS, telling him that I wasn't going to let him die, and how much I loved him. The wonderful ambos were so professional, and so caring. Another time, he came running home with the dog, perfectly fine, when he had a sudden and vicious attack. Collapsing on his bed, gasping, he was crying, tears squirting from his eyes, muttering "Mummy, don't let me die, don't let me die", as he passed out. Nebuliser, ambulance, hospital, massive doses of prednisone (this was the 90s). I was a solo mother of three, working a 60 hour week...i was permanently exhaused and emotionally drained. But I'm convinced that talking an unconscious child through an attack, and conveying my strength to him by the power of touch, saved his life over and over.

I was in a cafe as a teenager I heard the woman at the next table screaming. I looked over and her baby was turning blue. Put the baby over my knee and slapped its back until food came out. Poor mother was very shaken - said she had done first aid training too, but when it came to her own child she panicked too much to react.

I think so. A few years back, my friend and I were out when we saw a lady trip and fall in the middle of the road. It was pitch black and the streetlights didn’t cover that part of the road. We went out and lifted her back to the pavement just as a bus was heading right for her. I don’t think the driver would've seen her until it was too late. Turned out she broke her hip in the fall, so she would never have been able to get up and walk away if we hadn't lifted her. I think about her a lot.

I think I have, but I don't know how long the bloke would have been beaten... Someone I vaguely knew was having his skull smashed in with a large bike D lock, by an even vaguer acquaintance. It was messy. You could see his skull crunching in. It started from nowhere, attacker was on crack and it was a miscommunication over a woman.

Everyone was just watching in shock. Loads of people there, all in broad daylight, city centre. It was like I was frozen, then I saw/heard his skull go and walked in between them. Grabbed the lock, managed to snap him out of his crack zone (Probably foolishly, but i had dealt with many cracked up twats by then). Held this bloke, who's name I have never known, until the ambulance turned up, while he bled all over me. I was blood soaked from neck to foot.

Then I walked the 5 minutes home, put my entirely white outfit on to soak, got changed and went straight back out. Never mentioned it (after that day) again. Never told my family. First time I've ever really explained it actually! (Not the sort of situation where police were involved.)

I got stopped and asked if I needed help by 5 big men on the 5 minutes back (covered in blood, remember). I was the only person, out of literally hundreds watching, to do anything while it was happening though... I was 16 and tiny at the time. Has always stuck with me, the realisation that you could be beaten to death in public and have no one to help, if you were the wrong sort of victim.

Yes, a kid who'd gone in head first in a hot tub at a county show and his father didn't realise.

I pulled an elderly woman out of a river this summer when her husband didn’t have the strength to pull her out and stop the boat from crushing her. It didn’t really seem like a big thing at the time. Looking back on it though I did a good thing.

No. But did do basic first aid for a motorcyclist sprawled on road who had come off his bike. There were a group of us from a club who were first on the scene. Two of us were ironically doing a first aid course at the time, so we were nominated as the ones to attend to him.
It happened late evening, and even that was enough for me to shake afterwards, need sugary tea and relive it for hours.