When did your world go quiet?

[PalominoOrGreyOrChestnutOrBay]

inspired by a tiktok trend recently, just thought it might be an interesting thread. I’m a regular poster not a journalist or anything like that (MNHQ can verify!).

When did your world go quiet? Basically, what was a time you got a fright and time seemed to stop or go quiet?

mine was I was on my horse and he decided to rear up, over concrete ground, and I felt him wobble back. As soon as I felt that first tilt backwards everything sort of went quiet and it was like an out of body experience (not a good one!). I couldn’t hear anyone around. I just remember the last thing I thought was along the lines of this is it im about to die and it was like everything was in slow motion. Luckily it was all ok but that split second was easily the scariest moment of my life and my world completely stopped.

So, when did your world go quiet?

Several times a car crash,
miscarrying at home when I did not know I was pregnant, the pain was worse than childbirth,
When I got a phone call from the hospital to say my child had been hit by a car on their way to school, they were 12 and went to school on their own and for some reason I just had an uneasy feeling that morning so even though time stood still when I got the phone call I was not suprised
.Then there was the time a friend came round to tell me that a mutual friend had died very suddenly from undiagnosed cancer

Another very traumatic event was when I was seriously sexually assaulted by a stranger on my way home from work, time just froze, I knew I was being followed and tried to shake him off but to no avail, everything just went into slow motion, I thought I was going to be raped, it was horrific. He got a lot of jail time but the consequences for my mental health have been very challenging

All of these events had such a surreal quality, a moment in time where for a few seconds everything stood still and I thought I would wake from a terrible dream, it's amazing what we can survive and cope with.

A

That is awful, I am so very sorry. 💐

In labour with ds he got stuck, finally gave birth and he was grey and didn't cry, for that moment in time life just stopped, like i was watching a terrible TV programme, then he cried and I was back in the room

On a plane with my mum and they said they had to make an emergency landing in another country as the door hadnt closed properly. It was world going still, it was bucket of ice water down neck and back.

Finding the body of someone who had taken their own life.I could see from a distance and the whole thing was like a surreal slow motion dream until the police arrived and things got busy.

I have thought of another one. It wasn’t so serious in the end but could have been. I was in an online meeting and heard this roaring sound from the patio. Went outside, and somehow the pipe from the gas tank attached to the grill had come away and ignited, so I pretty much had a flamethrower running. Everything went slow and eerie calm. I moved the wooden garden furniture out of reach and called the emergency number. Then I realised that I could probably just turn off the gas with a damp cloth on my hand in case the metal was hot, it was outside and there was no danger of explosion. So I did that and then called the emergency number back to say all was okay. It felt like ages but was probably just minutes. The worst thing was fumbling the digits on my phone, felt like I had boxing gloves on.

I have no words... I am so very sorry

When I was 17 and was told that my father had died. I was at work waitressing and a security guard came to get me and take me to where my mum and brother had come to pick me up. He said, "Your dad's been in an accident" and I immediately asked, "Is he dead?" The security guard hugged me. I remember that moment so clearly and everything stopped absolutely still.

This is such an amazing thread OP 👍 for me I was driving in wet weather ( know it will sound weird ) I suddenly heard a voice saying " Don't panic!" About 20 seconds later I hit a level of water and started to aqua plane but everything just slowed down as if to give me the time I needed to react . Thinking back it was scary but at the time it didn't feel like that it was the most calm I've ever felt .

When a consultant told me that my 5 year old son had a mass in his back and he had referred us to the leading children’s oncologist at UCLH. I’ve never been the same since that day. no words could ever describe the feeling.

early hours of September 6th 2021 when my 3 month old daughter was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis.

I have a few…

When our tyre blew whilst driving at 70mph on the M4. The car ricocheted from crash barrier to crash barrier. The car spun really slowly in my mind. I have no idea how we didn’t hit another car. I got stretched into an ambulance and blue lighted to hospital. Thankfully both walked out of the hospital a couple of hours later. Car wrecked, but we were absolutely fine.

As a teen I got back to our house in time for dinner. There was an ambulance and police car outside. I walked slowly upstairs. Time was still and I don’t remember any sound at all. No one said anything. At the top of the stairs was my parents’ open bedroom door. I saw my mum seemingly asleep, but actually dead in bed. She was 44. Her heart had stopped whilst she was sleeping. I don’t know where my dad and little sister were when I got home, but they’d found her first 💔

I’ve been with 2 different friends when they’ve lost (couldn’t find) their young kids. The first time, we were in a museum and couldn’t find a 3 year old and the second time, we were in a big National Trust garden and couldn’t find a 4 year old. There was a 10-15 min period each time where my blood ran cold. Eventually both little ones were found. Time stopped and I still remember the chill I felt both times.

We were on holiday in Lanzarote and I was 12 weeks pregnant, had a tiny bit of browny spotting and nipped to the hospital expecting that I'd be told to take it easy. I was still sick and my boobs hurt so wasn't expecting the worst.
On my own because Covidy times meant I couldn't have anyone accompanying me, I just remember the sonographer sigh and it was like the world just stopped. I couldn't do anything to stop the tears falling and then she explained that the baby had passed.
The absolute worst experience of my life. I needed 2 lots of intervention because my body wouldn't let go, contractions knowing it was for nothing.
Sorry, that was a lot but yeah, felt like the whole world had just stopped.

@Yesyouarebu That is absolutely horrendous. I'm so sorry, I can't imagine coping with that.

When I was raped. And again when I was in court in relation to the same.

When the chatty happy obgyn stopped speaking whilst doing my first scan.

It was quiet for a while and I remember I tear slid down my face before he even said anything.

I had to wait for a week to rescan, but I knew my dates and my heart was empty. DH took the view “we’ll try again, it’s not meant to be this time”. I don’t know how I didn’t kick him in the balls 😔

Then when I went into hospital for the procedure under GA a nurse said “oh yes, you’re here for the abortion”. I’m not a violent person, but could have thrown something at her too. Twat.

I was sad for a long while after.

OMG just want to send hugs to you !

When I found DC1 (he was about 2 years old/just turning 2) on the floor: one minute, he was playing with his toys (in my line of sight) whilst I was fixing his supper; the next minute he was unresponsive, blue and frothing/twitching. I checked him over, phoned 999, unlocked front door, stripped him down and started rescue breaths (had phone on loud speaker so I could tell them exactly what I was doing, as I knew it would be recorded/time stamped). Turned out to be febrile convulsions, but he then got them regularly and with pretty much any temperature spike up til about 6 or 7 years old. I'm an HCP and I was terrified that they might have thought it was a non-accidental injury (it was at the time all the awful news of Baby P was breaking).

When DC1 went missing at my brother's wedding (their reception was at a farm, I was terrified he'd wandered off - it was dark at this point). He was found asleep under a table!

When DC2 wandered off in the mall when I was in a shop. She was 6 but again, I was terrified. Thank God, a very kind lady brought her back after a minute or two but I was about to ask the shop to call security.

Mine was sort of after the fact.
several months after my son was born I was looking through photos of the day he was born and found the “first family pic” that I had thought had been taken just after he was born (after I was stitched up but not long after he was born) and spotted the time on it was about 6 hours later. My husband told me he’d never really said anything so as not to really worry me but I’d been passed out due to blood loss and the doctors and nurses were rushing about getting blood etc and he’d been left there worried holding a newborn. I realised how close to dead I’d been and it really stopped me in my tracks. Not long after that I made him get the snip!!

When I discovered that my partner at the time was actually already married.
Heartbroken wasn’t the word. He was a Dr, I was a nurse and his wife was in Egypt.
The life we’d built together was a lie and I was basically used to fill his time whilst his wife finished up her studies in Egypt and then was coming over. To make matters worse I was only 20 and he was 36. To this day I’ve never quite got over it .

Sitting with DM as the doctor told her she had cancer.

The second time someone ran into the back of my car in 3 months (I'd had it back for 4 weeks).

In labour with dd and the foetal heart monitor flatlined.

When I witnesses a motorcyclist go under a bus.

Bless your beautiful child x

Mine's very trivial but I remember the sensation. When DD was only a few weeks and still sleeping in our bedroom, she usually woke us up in the morning with quiet little noises and then one morning she wasn't awake when I woke up and didn't react at all when I said her name and the floor seemed to tip beneath me for a moment, but then I touched her and she moved.

When I took my poorly 7 year old to A&E because he’d been ill for 13 days and was just getting worse. Every time my kids got sick for more than 7 days I’d always worry that it might be leukaemia (and here I was again) … but things moved pretty fast that day because he was really quite poorly.

The silent moment came when the play specialist came to the cubicle all smiley with a Where’s Wally book to sit with my son while the registrar invited me into the ‘quiet room’ - slipping his bleep to his colleague as he did so and accompanied by a senior nurse, delivered the news Id feared all along; that this time I was right.

I was an A&E doctor at the time and these were all my colleagues

That night we were moved urgently under blue lights and sirens to a specialist children's cancer centre. He rang the bell last month - 3.5 years later. All good so far.

I will never forget the children we met on our journey many of whom never got to ring the bell.

Me too 💐💐