What's the scariest moment of your life?

[Lonelydaisy]

Following on from a thread I read earlier..

What's the most scariest life event you've been through?

Mine would be a stroke at 25 years old.

I have never actually told this to anyone not even my husband. I was on holiday age 14 with my mum and dad in Spain. My dad wasn't well so stayed in the hotel. Every night my mum took me to the same bar. The bar owner used to give me little bits of alcohol to try and my mum was fine with this. Over the week the bar owner started to creep me out, he was English by the way and in his late 50s. One night I said to my mum can we just go home, she was having too much fun and told the bar owner that I was being a spoil sport. He said oh I have an errand to run I will take her home. Mum was happy with this 🙄. I was sort of dreamlike as we walked to his car, thinking this doesn't seem right, but I was too scared to say anything. Our hotel was only five minutes drive away in town but he turned up a side road up a steep hill that took us to a hillside car park, then turned the engine off. I didn't know if he was going to kill me or what, I was frozen. I can't remember him saying anything, just lunging towards me and sticking his tongue down my throat, his hands between my legs, he pushed the seat back and pulled his pants down, tried his absolute best to rape me but he couldn't get an erection. He started to get upset then and I didn't know what he was going to do with me, I don't think I spoke at all, for the whole duration, I couldn't. Then he drove me to the hotel! He said something like, don't be upsetting your mum, but I just fled out the car and up to our room. I told my mum I was not well for the rest of the holiday so that I could stay back with my dad, but the day we left he came to see us onto the coach and put his arms around me, I was nearly sick. I have got photos of this man that my mum took.

walking home at 17 to realise a man had followed me from the bus. 10 minutes down the road I passed a car park and heard him speed up. As I put the phone to my ear to call my mom (2 minutes away from the house) he covered my mouth and tried to drag me to the car park. Luckily I was able to get away and my mom heard my scream.
I was scared to walk alone for a while after that but brushed up on self defence skills.

@RaindropsOnRosie Ah im so sorry.I have no words.

Nothing like what some of you have been through but I got caught up in the IRA bomb in Manchester in the 90s.
They had told the police they had planted the bomb and were it was. The police were moving everyone out of the way. I was with some friends. We had just seen a fire engine go racing down Deansgate when the bomb went off. It knocked two of us to the ground and we simply didn’t know what to do. We were only in our early 20 but one of the guys with us had been at the Hillsborough disaster and this kind of meant he was able to keep a cool head and calm us down.
I got home and called my parents to say I was ok and they didn’t know anything had happened. It hadn’t been on the news yet.

We live on a fairly busy road. My DC aged 11 and 14 left the house to cross the road and get the bus to school. 30 seconds later I heard a screech of tyres and a loud bang. Thankfully the older one had the sense to come back and tell me they were alright and hadn’t been involved in the accident but I collapsed on the doorstep and had to take the day off work. I still get goosebumps thinking about it. My DH was taken desperately ill in Montana which would have been very scary but I was too busy coping with the situation .

As a small child I swallowed a boiled sweet accidentally, it got stuck in my throat and I couldn't breathe. We were on holiday at the time, and a random stranger came up to us, picked me up and dangled me upside down by the ankles and hit me on the back to dislodge it.

Frightening for me as it was, my DM must have been freaking out.

Mine sounds pathetic to what some have been through, I'm so sorry to read of people's awful experiences.

Mine was aged 8 in a swimming lesson when told to jump into the pool. Might sound like nothing, but I'd never done it before and erroneously thought my inflatable arm bands would mean I'd hit the water and then just sort of bob as opposed to going under the water. I was wholly unprepared for going under (hadn't even been told to take a deep breath) and for those few moments I honestly, truly thought I was drowning. I remember trying to look back over my shoulder to see if anyone was coming to save me.

Really poor quality tuition, in hindsight. If I had DC and that happened to them, I'd have been fuming.

A fair few, to do with illness/terminal illnesses/sudden death/major accidents of loved ones.

Doubt anyone’s life is untouched by such things though.

Being on a tube train heading to work one morning & hearing a loud bang. It was all reasonably calm until people started saying "There's a fire" but thankfully no-one really panicked. Then we started seeing people covered in soot, with pale faces & some with cuts come walking silently through our carriage from the front of the train. Turns out I was on one of the trains that was attacked by suicide bombers on 7/7. We had to walk past where the bomb had gone off & it was so surreal & frightening.

I was absolutely calm, weirdly calm, until I heard my Mum's voice on the phone when I called her at work to tell her what had happened. She left work immediately, we met up and managed to get on one of the last buses to leave London. I have only vague memories of the journey home.

PPH after having a extremely fast and intense labour where I was ignored and told I couldn’t possibly be in labour.

I remember lying there hearing the blood pour out of me, the ceiling lights kept going black and I looked over and down at my DPs feet and his shoes abs shins were covered in blood. Jeans and shoes had to be binned.

I truly did believe I was going to die, I could feel my body trying to be still and calm but I knew if I gave in I would die.

Almost drowning, after going down the slide in a swimming pool, aged 9. I could not swim at that point and although it was chest-height water, I can still recall very vividly going up and down in the water until someone grabbed me and yanked me upright.

My awful claustrophobia and deep fear of suffocation is a result of that, I think.

When my daughter was having skull surgery under general anaesthetic at 5 months old.

DS lost his grip at the highest point on a rope swing over a slope (which I had bloody well told him not to go on about thirty seconds beforehand), landed on his back and immediately started screaming that he couldn't feel his legs. Those first few seconds as I ran to him will never leave me. He was fine, just badly winded and shocked, but I had flashbacks for years.

A close second was the day after the Paris bombing a few years back when we were in the middle of a busy little shopping arcade in town and alarms started going off with a recorded message telling everyone to evacuate immediately. My vision literally went red and I grabbed DS and just towed him through the crowd, not running or pushing at all but utterly focused on getting him out. I'd always thought 'red mist' was a figure of speech but apparently it isn't! We got to the exit and then I couldn't find DH, who didn't emerge for what felt like hours.

Waking up to find an intruder in the room I was sleeping in.
On another occasion waking to hear what I thought was an intruder creeping through my house.

I've had a couple of 'near death' moments (one being caught up in an avalanche and the other in a massive road accident - both of which I luckily literally walked away from) and the strangest thing about both was the sense of absolute peace and acceptance I felt at the time - a kind of 'oh well, this is my time' sort of a feeling.

It makes me feel better that perhaps that's what your brain does if/when you're actually about to die.

Oh my word. Some of these experiences are truly terrifying.
I’m lucky that I’ve never feared losing a loved one. But I do remember the fear of being crushed, at a music festival. It was my favourite band and I’d split up from my sister and got as far to the front as I could manage. The song was building up to a chorus and I knew the crowd was getting ready to surge. A girl had fallen down and was on my legs. I couldn’t get up. She wouldn’t get off me. I was pulled to my feet by a stranger at the last moment. I assume the girl was too. I was only about 19 and haven’t been to a music festival since. It just seems too easy now to fall and be at the mercy of thousands of people’s feet.
Trivial really but still makes me feel sick when I imagine myself back in that position.

@Tiredanawfullot that's awful, and should absolutely not be able to happen! That's what the CPS and evidence threshold are for!
It's scary it could happen and I'm sorry you went through it. Maybe one day if you feel strong enough you could pursue legal action of your own.

Mt dp had to break in to his parents house.
He found his dad dead.

Most terrifying experience was my waters breaking with a massive pop and hearing them splash all over the floor in the delivery room, had to happen when DH and the midwife had nipped out for a few minutes so I was totally alone!

I was just about to give birth to our 2nd baby girl who we’d been told 2 weeks before (at 30 weeks) had a lethal abnormality which was unsurviveable and she could die at any moment in the womb, during the birth or would live no longer than a few days after birth. It was so rare ours was only the 7th case recorded over the last 50 years hence it not being picked up despite me having an amniocentesis (shitting myself waiting for the results and the relief afterwards that it was clear) as we discovered she had club feet at 20 weeks. We’d already had discussions with the surgeons about the operation she’d have to have after birth, were worried about her having surgery and being able to walk so very bonded and protective of her only to find out it was worse than we’d ever imagined. I spent those two weeks speaking to doctors all over the world to get 2nd opinions, sure it was a mistake, but they agreed with the prognosis.

I can vividly remember the shock when my waters went with such force, had a lot as polyhydramnious due to her abnormality, and the uncontrollable shaking as I knew then that it was really going to happen, I couldn’t stop it happening and I was terrified of what she’d look like and her dying. In the end she died as soon as the cord was cut. Totally perfect and beautiful with tons of hair. Never been afraid of dying myself since.

A close 2nd would be less than 3 months after losing DD2, being told DD1 then aged 4, had a mass in her stomach which might be a tumour after taking her to and from the GP from a week with stomach pain. We were blue lighted to hospital and I just remember thinking we’re going to lose her too, and her having to be held down to be intubated as she kept pulling the tube out. It turned out she had appendicitis which almost burst. She’s a perfectly healthy and happy 24 year old now but that ambulance ride will never leave me!

My DD being bluelighted to A&E resus from and emergency visit to the GP because she could barely breathe. GP was amazing but didn’t have the medication DD needed to reduce the swelling in her windpipe. Paramedics also didn’t have the medication needed so it was a fraught trip to hospital. DD fully recovered but just the memory of it brings the emotions flooding back.

to everyone in this thread. Some truly horrific experiences

@Wingingthis

Should have added she was completely fine as it was literally 2 seconds!! But just a warning to anyone reading this that it truly is silent! Don’t take your eyes off them 🤍🤍

@eekbumbler @Wingingthis

My dd was in a UK lifeguarded swimming pool aged about 8.
Coincidentally I'd watched a clip about drowning signs days before.
She'd had swimming lessons and was a very good swimmer. And she just went down. No flapping. Just went under and stayed under. The lifeguard was watching and didn't see it as the pool was way too crowded really. I realised what I was seeing and got to her fast and they got her poolside and she was ok but I've always remembered it.

I've had some bad things done to me but my 2 moments are both re my kids - the above / same dd also turning blue aged 8 weeks (bronchiolitis). 2nd one was my ASD ds waking me nearly a year ago saying he'd 'taken some pills because I wanted to die but now I don't'. He had been badly bullied by a 'friend' (who reported him for a false allegation and we had a whole SS investigation too, it was an awful year). He's okay at the moment but I was SO afraid & it's not left me.

Ds choking on a sweet when he was 3. I went into blind panic. Thank god my sister was here. She flipped him upside down by his feet, smacked his back and out it popped. I dread to think what would have happened if she hadn't been there. I'd like to think I'd have done the same, but I honestly don't know if I'd have the presence of mind until it was too late.

DS stopped breathing 40 mins after delivery. He just went completely still in my arms. The midwife grabbed him and rushed out to have him resusced. Thankfully the consultant who delivered him (c-section) happened to be passing in the corridor and came into the recovery room to reassure us minutes later that he'd been resuscitated, but it felt like the longest 5 minutes of my life.

Being asked if we where religious as my premature son who was on 100% oxygen on a vent with sepsis and a bleed on his brain wasn’t responding.

Or being in resus with my ds as he had severe croup and he wasn’t responding to the nebulisers, steroids and Adrenalin I asked what happens next and was told they’ve got picu on the phone I knew they where thinking of ventilating him I shook so violently they asked me not to touch as the hole bed was shaking he made a full recovery thank god.

Some of these stories having given me chills what you don’t realise about other people’s lives.