What's the worst thing you've witnessed? [Content warning added by MNHQ: distressing content]

[Osidge]

Not long ago I was awoken at 3am by loud banging outside. It sounded like someone was banging on my window. I went to look and I saw three men with baseball bats hitting a car in the middle of the road. The car was revving and then I saw another man run out of the opposite house with a huge machete and a big ruckus ensued. I was absolutely terrified as I had visions of people breaking into houses.
I called the police and an armed unit came. There was chaos with people running and shouting. Police with rifles and dogs. Helicopters with beams going for hours.
I was really shaken for weeks. This was in south London so I guess not too surprising but I've never seen anything like it before.
Have you ever witnessed something horrible?

When I worked in mental health, finding a tenant who had died in the bathroom from auto erotic asphyxiation.
As a kid, approaching a junction in the car with my dad. There was a massive, sickening crashing noise and then dad suddenly said "Don't look!" That's the first thing anyone does when they're told that isn't it? I wish I hadn't. There had been a collision, the man in the car directly across the junction was hanging out of the drivers side window and there were rivers of blood streaming down the car door. That's stuck with me all these years. I doubt he survived.
Finding my mum dead and knowing the last thing I'd said to her as I was leaving was "I won't kiss you, because I'm full of cold", as she wasn't feeling well herself. She died of a massive heart attack roughly 5 minutes after I'd left. I know I couldn't have known what was going to happen. But it still sticks with me and I can't help but feel sad about it.

I've just thought of another one, it wasn't me that witnessed it. But I've never heard of something so shocking.
We had a young beat bobby that used to visit the nursing home I worked at in the late 80s. I'll call him Tom. He was a lovely gentle, caring soul. We used to make him a cuppa and sit chatting. I was in my late teens at that time and being morbid and less than thoughtful back then, I asked him what the worst thing he'd had to deal with as a policeman was. His face visibly paled and he said he worked on traffic for a while. They were near the scene when they were called to a lorry crash, where one had run into the back of the other. The rear lorry was carrying very thin, sheet steel. On impact, the steel cut through the straps on the back and shot forward and went straight through the cab, severing the driver in half. Tom said the worst thing was, when they got there, the driver was still alive. He had to be asked, basically, if he would like to be "put out of his misery". He declined and chatted to my friend for a couple of minutes until he passed. I should think Tom ended up with PTSD from that, you could see that it had clearly traumatised him. It was only years later, having suddenly thought about it, that I realised I should never have asked that question. And I still feel awful now. Tom ended up moving, to be a village bobby up in the Yorkshire Dales, with his new wife. I hope he has/had a good life there.

😳😳😳

He did not 'rupture his own throat', his oesophageal varicies burst

A morbid sporners corner, with subsequent pps in a race to the bottom

Yes because it's all flowers and sunshine here, and the police are not required
Do you not watch the news?

Why on earth do you want to know?

Oh piss off 🙄

Ah, resorting to insults, the language of the ignorant.
Well done, lovey. You really upset me

When I was a child on a school trip in a museum we saw a man come running down the stairs bleeding profusely from the head / face - it was all kind of glossed over and I remember the teachers trying to distract us and to this day I've no idea what happened. Not as bad as some of the things on here I admit, but it stuck with me for years and I wondered if he was OK.

@iwiporangi I didn't realise you were there too

I was first on scene when someone fell off a very tall and very famous building they had been trying to climb on New Year’s Eve in London.

i won’t describe it, but remember stopping and looking at the chap and thinking ‘what the bloody hell am I meant to do about this?!?’

needless to say the poor chap did not survive.

@LivingDeadGirlUK

Croydon@ Oh well.........

Thank fuck my Aunt moved away when she did!