What's the scariest thing that's ever happened to you? (NON WOO)

[FlyHighLittleBee]

Enjoying the woo thread so much but I've finished it now so thought I would reenact another of my favourites.

So what's the scariest, non-woo situation you've even been in?

After I died, in my living room, the paramedics revived me with a defibrillator and I said "kids" They brought my four youngest (PFB was out) into the room and said "say goodbye to Mummy" I had about 3 seconds with each one to say every thing I might ever need to say, and no idea if I would ever come home as they loaded me into the ambulance.
Luckily I made it Thank You paramedics and hospital staff! I will never take saying "I love you" or "I am so proud of you" for granted again...

On holiday abroad as a child. There'd been break ins to the apartment and people had gotten beaten up, I dint recall police around. Years later dad said it was an inside job as they had keys, one of the people in the apartments who'd it happened to told him so. I remember him pushing a table, chairs etc against the door and sleeping Sith a stick next to the bed. I also remember a truly terrifying 10 minutes when they tried and tried to get into our apartment before giving up. Was so scary as a 7yo, as an adult I think why didn't the hotel do something

I lived in Mexico for a year, went to a nearby city witha friend (who had some distant family living there) to celebrate the city fiesta. We'd booked lodgings and on arrival were shown to our room which had two doors - one onto corridor and one onto patio with empty swimming pool. Went to fiesta, had great time. Arrived back and realised we couldn't lock doors from inside, hotel guy was then outside corridor door knocking and calling, we put rucksacks against door. He then said he was looking forward to raping us and then a shirt game of block the door ensued with us changing rucksacks from corridor door to patio door as he ran round the block. Eventually we knew his pace and timed it so we got rucksacks onto backs and ran out of lodgings and into the town centre about 10 mins away where we got to a cafe and rang friends relatives.

Prior to that when I was about 12-15 I had a stalker who would wait outside my home to watch me get ready for school, follow me to school.. He'd leave cards and tapes for me, usually 1940s music and polish poems and him talking about how we were destined to be together and die together..

Aggravated burglary a few years ago, that moment when men in balaclavas crashed into my living room having kicked the front door in isn't something I'll forget in a hurry.

I had a stalker for a while in my early 20s, when I lived alone. I never saw him but he knew where I lived and after a while he somehow got my home phone number. He used to call my phone every night the second the last light in my house was switched off, so he was obviously watching me. I had to change my number in the end. It didn't go on for very long in the scheme of things but I felt like I lived in a perpetual state of fear while it was happening and months after it stopped, not knowing if he was watching me at any given moment.

The office where I worked was firebombed. Luckily no one was hurt but it was chaotic and terrifying - smoke and broken glass everywhere, a couple of people on the verge of panic, no one knowing if further attacks were imminent. The mess afterwards from putting out the comparatively small fire it started was unbelievable - we ended up having to rent alternative office space for months until it was cleaned up and fit for us again. (It was scary enough for us...I've no idea what the poor woman who had been about ten minutes into an interview for a job with us thought about it all!)

Driving through South Yorkshire with my husband, when the mist dropped so quickly and thickly that I couldn't see anything. I was terrified...it was like driving through treacle. At one point I didn't know if I was on the road or the pavement and yet was even more terrified of stopping in case someone didn't see me and drove full-throttle into the back of me.

I had a cardiac arrest Kate. I was clinically dead for several minutes, and found out afterwards that it is only something like a 35% survival rate even with prompt medical care and a defibrillator, so I am VERY lucky to still be here.

Being mugged, ex boyfriend trying to strangle me, realising that what the ex had done wasn't the worst thing that was going to happen with him.
Ds with cancer.

stopping my dog attacking my 14 month Ds and then trying to stop the bleeding whilst phoning 999.
It was nearly 2years ago and I still have nightmares.
Ds is scarred but alive and well.
dog destroyed that night

Everyone is so very strong.

PomBear if you don't mind me asking, what was the cause of your cardiac arrest?

Mine was probably getting lost on my first solo walking trip in the mountains. I had made lots of daft mistakes, including forgetting my phone and not having a map case so that my massive OS map got all crumpled and damp in the wind and rain and I couldn't read it properly. I took a wrong path off the top of a mountain, thought I was returning back the way I'd came, and stupidly ended up scrambling quite a bit of the way down an actual graded climbing route before being forced to admit to myself I had no idea where I was, and would have to try to retrace my steps for two hours before I had any chance of finding my way back to my car. I was deep in low cloud, could barely see a thing and was literally gibbering with terror.

Going in to labour at 28 weeks and having no idea if my daughter could or would survive. I felt completely lost and terrified. They wouldn't let me see her for the first few hours and I didn't know if she was alive. She had to be transferred to another hospital and I had to stay where I was as there were no beds for me. My husband was with her and kept relaying information about brain bleeds and ventilators. I was terrified.

And then at 2 weeks old, still weighing less than a kilogram she got an infection and I felt certain we were going to lose her as she was just too small to fight it.

Me and my brother were home alone one night. I was about 10 he would have been about 13. We were watching TV and hasn't realised it had got dark so the curtains were still open. For some reason I glanced towards the window. I must have heard a noise. There was a man stood right up against the window staring in. We had a long front garden so he wasn't just passing he would have had to have made the effort to be there. I screamed, the man didn't move a muscle. My brother ran to the window and was hammering on it right where the guys face was and screaming at him and he still didn't move. We ran upstairs into Dad's office and called the police who were round very quickly the man was still there but when he heard them pull up he ran off across the fields and they didn't catch him.

While working as a nurse in a prison unit seeing my student nurse had gone to the wrong place during a lock down and was now locked in an area with a vry dangerous prisoner who was armed with a shiv. Having to leave my locked area and go and get her and talk the guy into letting us both go to a safe area.

Seeing my colleague being repeatedly stabbed and having to decide whether the leave my locked area to go and help or not.

Trying to put out patient who had set fire to themselves.

All related to my ds. Losing him at a festival when he was just two - with my sister and friends and were taking it in turns to keep an eye on the kids. A one point none of us were.

Watching him struggle for breath as he choked on sweet at 3yo and not having a clue how to help, but knowing there was no time even if i called an ambulance. Had a vision of me running out into the street and calling for help, coming back to him and finding him dead. Luckily my dsis was there - she grasped his feet, flipped him upside down and whacked his back and out popped the sweet. Choking is something that terrifies me even now he's older. If he's eating an apple and starts coughing I relive that moment all over again.

He also turned blue at a year old (it was tonsillitis) and fell down the stairs at 18 months after I was momentarily distracted at the top, having opened the stair gate. That child has given me more worry than I ever thought possible. Even just a few weeks ago we spent hours at casualty after he split his eye open on an obstacle course.

I promise I'm not actually a negligent mother, even though I sound like one!

Some of these are so heartbreaking, you are all so strong. Thank you so much for sharing

My one is probably when I was spiked at 15 at a party. The police found me the following afternoon in a (rough) flat doorway, still completely out of it thinking it was the night before. Anything could have happened to me. I know it was the scariest moment of my mums life too.

That or when I was in Africa on a boat safari near the shore and the elephants started getting ready to charge. Our boat wouldn't go. The safari leaders didn't know we could speak a little of the language and started saying 'we're going to die' a few minutes after, a little croc snapped up right next to our boat. That night, our lodgings got hit by lightening

Watching my DS in the sea in New Jersey and realising he was going further and further out. Started shouting, life guards in the water and fortunately he was rescued. He'd been caught in a rip tide. One of the lifeguards told us it was fortunate they were there as a boy had drowned in the next town the week before, after also being caught in a rip tide.

Two earthquakes - one in San Francisco and one in LA.

Lying on the ground in the woods realising that the man on top of me (well boy really - he was about 19 ... I was 14) wasn't going to stop even though I kept begging him to. I froze with fear. I hate it if the topic of loosing your virginity ever crops up in conversation.

The crashing realisation that the tube that I jumped on - and then jumped off whilst the doors were closing to grab a last minute drink (was hungover) - had been blown up seconds after it left the platform (7/7).

A campsite in Zimbabwe whilst on safari - lying frozen still in a tent whilst the what turned out to be the security guard with a loaded gun entered the tent and rummaged around trying to find things to steal, my BF at the time had gone to the loo and he saw his opportunity. He didn't find anything before realising I was there (trying to be inconspicuous) and leaving. Others weren't so lucky and a couple of girls had their full backpacks nicked.

Mine pale in comparison to some of yours though - I'm so sorry for those of you who have lost loved ones

Oh yes, same safari - white water rafting on the Zambezi (terrifying in itself) but we were told we could get in the water and "ride" one of the calmer rapids, so I and one other did - and it was great fun until we went round a bend in the river to find crocodiles in the water!

Being strangled by my father in front of a mirror so I could see exactly how purple my face was going. Was about 13 and felt strangely lucid/calm, felt my head fill with a buzzing numbness and my arms went limp and dropped away as if life was literally draining out of me. I thought I would die and was surprised that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Watching my sister die suddenly in front of me (brain bleed).

Waking up in the night to comfort DS(1) who had croup and had started crying and then struggling to breathe. I'll never forget hearing the horrible squeaking, sucking sound of air with his frightened eyes staring at me. Felt completely helpless. Oxygen, steroids, and a short hospital stay sorted him out, and I'm forever grateful for the NHS and how quickly they responded that night.

Why on earth was your father strangling you?

Seeing my brother lying in a massive pool of blood from his head after he had fallen on his face during a seizure and waiting for the ambulance to arrive which felt like forever. The blood was almost black and coagulated like paint when we cleaned it up.

Also when he passed away during a seizure, getting that phone call from my mum and driving to their house to be with them was the longest most terrifying 10 minutes of my life.