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?

As an ICU nurse on numerous occasions. Cardiac arrests as well as getting that spidery sense that a patient just wasn't right despite on paper looking fine.
As a student nurse I once found a man in cardiac arrest sat in his car. Called the resus team out and managed to get rosc. Sadly he died a few days later in ICU.

Ex partner once jumped into a lake to save a woman attempting to drown herself. Managed to get her back to shore whilst someone ran to a phone box to ring 999. Not sure what happened afterwards but ex dp sure smelt afterwards as the lake was pretty dirty !

A little boy at the bottom of the pool at Centreparcs. It was a few years ago and it still upsets me when I think about it. His mum was sitting at the side of the pool with her coffee and her mobile phone and her 5 year old was lying unconscious at the bottom of the deep end.

@Herja

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.

That's astonishing. You did a heroic thing there. Not enough people react in situations like this.

Professionally yes - I still feel amazed , when it happens, that all that training works. It is the cancers diagnosed, the suicide averted that I feel so grateful I can help.
I have choked in a restaurant and my husband saved me with the Heimlech manoeuvre.

I have too - a colleague of mine. It was overwhelming at the time and for a while afterwards.

Maybe is the answer - I used to volunteer for St John Ambulance and have done lots of first aid at events in the past. I have done CPR three times, one did not survive the other two survived to discharge from hospital. Other things like heavy bleeding, diabetic emergencies that kind of thing. But I was always part of a team effort, it wasn’t ever just me doing things, from crew mates to backup from the ambulance service I can’t ever say ‘if it wasn’t for me they would have died’. Still, I hope I was at least useful.

I’ve donated blood 26 times as well so hopefully some of that went towards saving someone.

I can’t stress the importance of people learning first aid though! It can make such a huge huge difference to the chance of people surviving… it should be taught at school IMHO

Working in a nursery I got a marble from a 2 year olds throat. I did it without thinking, reached in and got it with my finger. I know that was the wrong way and everyone told me how I could have made it much worse but I was on my own with about ten toddlers and panicked. It came out and he vomited into my hand.

At a night time beach party. Everyone was drinking by the massive bonfire. I wandered off to have a bit of time by myself and saw a very drunk man stumbling about in the waves. Then he fell over, face down and didn't move. I dragged him out (bloody difficult- deadweight and waves knocking us) and then another passerby helped until he threw up whilst I went to find his friends. His friends took him home and he survived (I saw him most days through work).

No one had noticed him missing from the party and no one heard my calls for help.

Like others I've hauled kids out of water when they were struggling. One little girl had been knocked off her feet by a wave and was on her way to being washed out to sea in a really dangerous spot with no lifeguards. The parents were fussing over their dog and had taken their eyes off her. I still feel a clutch of fear when I think of it 12 years later.

On a coastal path in dusk I shouted at a runner who was haring his way down a path that led directly off the cliff edge due to coastal erosion. He stopped just in time and went white and collapsed a bit in shock at what could have been.

Yes, someone was having a diabetic fit, I woke up in the middle of the night and they were choking on their own vomit and convulsing, then turned blue and stopped moving by the time I got to them (had to wrestle with mosquito nets). I don't quite remember what happened but I tried an approximatif the recovery position which unblocked their airways. They were very funny with me after.

Don't know if this counts, but I might of played a part in saving someone.

DS school could be accessed by a little lane into the back field, that was used by a few people. One more after dropping him off, I came back down the lane and could hear a terrible howling/ crying sound.

Leading up to the lane were some sheltered housing bungalows. It turns out an elderly lady had gone to put her bins outside side the back door the night before and fell, she's been on the ground all night in just a little nightdress, and dressing gown. The poor woman was perished, it was winter and had been raining.

One of the parents jumped over the wall to open the gate, while I called an ambulance. She had been there for over 12 hours and had broken her hip.

Maybe? I’m not sure if it counts.

Working in a nursery, stopped a 20month old from choking on a biscuit. I didn’t realise how quickly a child can go a truly alarming colour. It was all very dramatic and scary at the time, though it was over very quickly as the backslapping technique did the job.

At the end of the day I relayed it to his dad and he seemed totally chill about it! He just shrugged and said “OK, as long as he’s fine now”. It was so bizarre considering how terrifying it was in the moment.

@Herja well done! I had a similar but less dramatic experience when I was a student. Waiting in a taxi rank queue with 100s of others. Three men started beating up one other. He was on the ground and the three were kicking him. No one moved until I walked forward yelling. Then loads of people moved out and circled the guy being attacked.

Crowds are strange things. There's research and training into "bystander intervention" to help people help others.

I brought 2 kids back into shore who were out in a dinghy - quite a fair way out and no way of getting back and neither could swim. I was 9.

@FragrantVagrant she is absolutely fine typical teenager!

I've pulled someone down from an overpass and was first on scene at a stabbing, where I staunched the wound. The paramedics later said if I hadn't controlled the bleeding the person would have died. This was all work related though, I've not saved someone's life outside of work.

I was worried about my DS (a practising alcoholic at the time) and went round unannounced. I found her collapsed on the floor and unable to move. I called 999 and in the ambulance she had a fit and stopped breathing. fortunately the paramedics were able to save her. Had I not gone round to see if she was ok, she would have died.

@AnneElliott

I brought 2 kids back into shore who were out in a dinghy - quite a fair way out and no way of getting back and neither could swim. I was 9.

I’d be so proud if my 9 year old had the maturity of thought and physical skill to do this.

Inadvertently saved MiLs life by phoning ambulance when she was looking v ropey - we lived in a different trust area & they picked up something the other trust had misdiagnosed.

I’ve done a few first aid courses in my time, never kept them up to date but it’s reassuring how quickly it comes back to you in an emergency, recovery positions, keep limbs elevated when bleeding etc have all come to me v quickly when needed

Many years ago i saved my friends baby's life, he had stopped breathing. Pure instinct took over. He now has a young family of his own, his Mum sent me flowers when each of her Grandchildren were born as a thank you.

I recognised the symptoms of a brain tumour and told a colleague to take her child to a doctor that day. The child survived but the illness impacted the rest of her life and her family's lives. I had no choice, though. I knew, so I had to tell.

@AnneElliott

I brought 2 kids back into shore who were out in a dinghy - quite a fair way out and no way of getting back and neither could swim. I was 9.

Thank you.

And thank you to the Spanish or other teenage girls who helped me to safety when the tide was floating me, in my rubber ring, out to sea. I was so scared. That would have been around 1964, so I was six. And yes, unsupervised in the Mediterranean.

A couple of times, I think.

Once as a child, my younger sister stepped out on to a busy road with cars going at about 40-50mph. I grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back just as a car sped past. It was chilling, as it passed about an inch from her, all her hair blew up in her face and the impact of the wind it produced gave her a sort of windburn on her face. Dread to think what would’ve happened.

Another time I was taking my DS home from nursery in his buggy and cut down an alleyway. A young woman was walking in font of me. Suddenly a guy on a bike cycled past us and grabbed her bag. I saw her fall to the ground, thought she’d been punched and went to help her. Turns out the bastard had stabbed her in the back. I called an ambulance and waited with her some 20 minutes until they arrived. It was terrifying as she was losing consciousness and bleeding very heavily. Not a single soul passed us while we waited, so I’m pretty sure she would’ve died had I not by chance been behind her. Still gives me a lurching feeling when I think about it and was the reason I moved out of that area of east London. Happened in broad daylight.

I saved my mum, I came home from school I think I was about 14 at the time and she had tried to hang herself with her dressing gown rope, still haunts me to this day and I often have nightmares about what could have been
I saved my brother from choking when he was about 17 months old, he was eating mash in his high chair and his face started going blue and he was just staring wide eyed it felt like forever until I managed to get it out, my poor mum ran outside screaming trying to ring the ambulance, bloody horrific!