Has anyone ever been rescued?

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

I know this is super weird and probably, one of those things that is not at all nice IRL.

But. I have never been in a position where I have had to be rescued. Partially because I am boring, sensible, and generally the one in charge - but also, sheer dumb luck.

I am really curious to know what it feels like though. Emergency services, mountain rescue, random man in the street....

Have you ever been rescued and what was it like?

@MaggieBsBoat so sorry this happened to you. There are no words. What an amazingly strong woman you are, that you made it through this. And what a wonderful man this young PC was. Sometimes the universe puts just the right people in front of us at the shittiest of times. 💐for you.

As a teenager I was canoeing with an organised group when the canoe I was in capsized and overturned. I knew exactly what to do and was rescued by one of the leaders and taken to a sandbank.

Meanwhile others in the group had canoed to a sandbank as intended but someone saw them and thought they were stuck and rang the coastguard who landed a helicopter and decided that I needed to be checked over so flew me to the airbase. They flew with the door open which was the most terrifying part of the exercise as I was and still am terrified of heights.

i have been in canoes twice since then and have fallen out both times so my Dh has banned me from canoeing!

Yep. Car crash which resulted in me being trapped by the drivers door which was bent into my leg. So my car got chopped to pieces until I could be scooped out
Air ambulance, firefighters and paramedics rescued me! All absolutely AMAZING people.
Forever grateful to them and all the lovely bystanders that looked after my 1 + 8yr old and stayed by me until firefighters arrived

I was being sexually assaulted in a carpark and a random man walked past and saw it happening and called the police, meaning the attacker ran off. I don't know who he is but I'm very grateful to him.

In Northern Ireland with the Security Forces in the late 80s. When leaving camp to go shopping etc you had to "book out" , by the main gate was an office where you had to give your details inc where you were going and when you would be returning, You could not be late but you could phone and extend the time. I phoned to say i would be about 2 hours late. I was happily shopping in Belfast when i realised there were 2 men right behind me, one told me i was late and to follow his directions to a side street, i was bundled into a car and given a right bollocking. The lad that i had called had written down that i would be 2 minutes late ! I got another bollocking by the Sgt and told never to change my time again.

I've been rescued by the fire service twice when they stopped a flood from caving in my roof/ceiling.

I've been rescued by paramedics and also by these street warden type guys who wheeled me back to my house when I broke my hip and shoulder just outside in the street. The local pub I think summoned them.

But nothing really dramatic like an enormous fire or being stuck up a mountain or at sea.

Was this in a cathedral in a place beginning with D in about 2001?

Oh fuck it, I’ll share another one, which was a rescue of a different kind. I had the worst PND you can imagine and DS wasn’t an easy baby. This is when I discovered MN. I was in a very dark place and had some stupid ideas in my head. I started a thread and poured my heart out. There was this one MNer who told me to phone the health visitors there and then and demand support. She stayed on the thread with me, she messaged me several times. I called the health visitors, got a lovely and very experienced lady. She helped me establish that DS needed lactose free milk and within less than a week, I had a happy baby. All these years later, I still think that this lady saved my life online.

From a cruise boat that was sinking when I was on a school trip. By Greek fishermen. It pops up in the newspapers every now and again. Was obviously an awful experience but long enough ago that just feels like a story I tell.

DH and I got stuck in the lift in a multistorey car park. The engineers finally came and cranked the lift down by hand and then we had to climb out of a small gap at the bottom of the doors.

We were in there 3 hours and were on our way to our wedding anniversary lunch.0

Hard knot pass in the lake District.

What happened?

Not me but my DM, who had seizures and had to get to hospital within a certain time limit for treatment. She lived quite remotely and was once picked up (not sure that quite counts as being rescued but I’m pretending it does) by an air ambulance. She subsequently had her photo taken with the crew that attended her.

I was rescued off an island after a boat capsized. It was so comforting to see the lifeboat. The crew were incredibly kind. It is something you don't expect to happen on any given day and I do remember thinking I had botched things up more dramatically than usual.

Excluding broken down cars, I had to be rescued by the boat on Lake Windermere when I wind surfed all the way to the other side. I didn't know how to turn and wasn't about to try (cos I was having so much fun) cos I knew I'd fall off!

Two years ago, training for a long charity bike ride I completely ran out of any sort of energy. I am a runner and can run and run, and also know how my body works, but am a bit of a noob on the bike. I was a good 10 miles from home. Called a nice friend who scooped me and my bike up.

My initial instinct was to say no, but after a brief pause it’s god way too many times 😬

Minding my own business chatting in a night club (17/18yo) a guy I knew grabbed me, I was all for going mad at him till he swung me around using a protective arm then I realised a fight broke out behind me and he stopped a bottle flying into my head.

Similar situation in a pub, sat chatting away, some guy had been brewing after an argument earlier with another guy, my friend and I just sat down on empty seats, friend knew most of the others around ( bit of a rough crowd) next thing I know one guy flew over me and glassed the guy I was sat next to, punches were flying, my friend managed to yank me out from under them. She thought it was hilarious I didn’t let go of my drink.

Two Ozzy firefighters in Fiji helped me back to shore after I got in trouble scuba diving, I had zero scuba experience or swimming skills. I ended up with really bad cuts and scars from scraping my legs along the coral.

Stupidly hitchhiked around the South Island in New Zealand, it was getting late and I was stranded, a car with 3 teenage boys stoped. I knew it was stupid but I was getting desperate as I needed to be 69 miles away. They changed their plans and drove me all the way to where I needed to be and stayed with me till I was ok, all for a top up of their petrol. We had a great time, not that I’m advocating doing something stupid like hitchhiking.

More recent staff at a go ape would not let one of my DCs on without an adult even though we double checked height restrictions before booking. DH has vertigo so I had to do it, but I have health issues. Anyway I had a medical episode shortly after I started. Staff had to rescue me. Funnily enough dc just took off and had no issues with the course.

Fairly certain there are more I’ve blocked out 😬

No, fortunately! That one is a lot taller, but although the staircase dimensions are very similar.

Me and my friend used to go swimming at the weekend in a nearby town, we were probably about 10 years old. One week we got on the wrong bus home and ended up in a tiny village that neither of us had ever been to before. Luckily there was a phone box, friend called her dad (they had a house phone, we didn’t) he went to get my dad (we had a car, they didn’t). Felt like hours before my dad got to us and brought us home. Ah the joys of a GenX childhood!

Once got our car stuck in snow late at night on Dartmoor we called FiL but while waiting for him the police came along looking for someone else who was also stuck and called them. They pulled us out before continuing on to find their original caller. That's the closest I have come to a rescue.

Yes from a car accident. Police, ambulance, fire service, air ambulance.

I was fine 😂

That is lovely! Do you remember her MN name?

Holiday in France, I and my older sisters (9, 11, 13, 15) had gone for a walk along the beach. Climbed up the rocks to go to the next bay and got stuck climbing down. [I'm not entirely certain of the details here] The tide was coming in so Sis1 was unable to carry on down to the bottom but couldn't manage to get back up. Sis2 went down to see if she could help but got stuck a few feet further up. Sis3 went down to see if she could help... you get the picture. I crouched at the top and helpfully suggested that as I could see the sand at the bottom it would probably be okay for Sis1 to jump down. They all vetoed this idea ("but how do you know it's deep?" has been a family phrase for almost 5 decades).

Anyway, Sis3 was definitely panicking when Random French Bloke appeared next to me and hauled them back up to the top one by one. The way the rocks were placed meant that we could get to the sand on the side we'd come from no problem, and we spent a few interesting minutes attempting to reassure him through the language barrier that our campsite was just back there and we might look like silly little girls but we did actually know where we were...

(Sis1, who had just done her French O-level, allowed Sis2 to do all the gestures and drawing in the sand. This was entirely in keeping with their personalities.)

Not me but my DS. He had only passed his driving test 6 weeks when our car suddenly went into limp home mode - whilst he was driving in the outside lane of a dual carriageway at National speed limit. A lorry driver spotted what was happening and slowed right down to give DS the space to move the car across two lanes and off on the grass verge. The actions of that lorry driver averted an accident I am sure.

The car went into limp home mode because the timing belt on the Citroën failed at 47,000 miles instead of 60,000 miles. Car had a full service history but Citroën refused to cover the damage because ONE of the service receipts (and we had every single one) didn't have the grade of oil. Absolute fuckers. I sent them a copy of the invoice for my shiny new Kia when I bought it and explained that the car they refused to cover was my fifth - and last- Citroën.

Apart from that, there was the time a couple of weeks ago when I was dancing on a night out with colleagues and rather unwisely went a bit too close to the floor. Random bloke helped me up, the only words exchanged being a brief thanks.

(I'm a lot older now than that day on the French beach)

I was in Manchester one evening and a group of dodgy men started moving nearer to me. I was thinking about what to do and a man and a lady saw me and the man said Hiya just walk with us and we can get you away just pretend you know us .It worked like a dream. They both said They looked like they were going to cause trouble. They were on the way to the bus stops like I was. They made sure the men were nowhere near me and they took me to my bus stop and made sure I was feeling safer.