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?

Another car one. I was driving on a country road, went round a corner too fast and hit some ice. My car spun 180 and ended up in a bush. When the car was spinning I realised there was nothing I could do to stop it. Was very lucky no other cars on the road at the time.

I witnessed someone dying in a totally freak accident in front of my eyes. It took years to get over the shock of it. But time absolutely froze.

@Kissingfrogs25 I was a toddler when I slipped through a rubber ring at my parents friends house swim pool, I remember the bubbles going down and being on the bottom of the pool, my brother came looking for me and noticed me at the bottom of the pool.

I’m so very sorry. Giving you a very tight hand hold xx 💐

The sound muffles and then goes when I faint (it's happened like 4 times in my life, so not regular enough for concern!)

I have 2... the first is getting a phone call telling me my best friend was dying and I needed to say goodbye. She was 21 and had Cystic Fibrosis. I would swear I stopped breathing. Second is actually a happy one... standing at the top of the aisle on my wedding day and seeing a room filled with everyone I love and the man of my dreams at the end of the aisle. It was so overwhelming it literally took my breathe away.

When my then husband stabbed me.
He had threatened many times before but never actually did it, except when he did.
I remember just after looking down and seeing blood and thinking that he's stabbed me in the right upper quadrant of my stomach. I then remember thinking that he's probably got my liver and that means I'm going to bleed a lot and maybe not make it. If I am lucky it will just have nicked some intestines, but there is a lot of blood so it's probably the liver. So I'm going to probably die as he won't call an ambulance.
I don't remember anything after that until I woke up in hospital. Apparently I walked out into the street and was found by a passer by, but everything is very vague in my head.
Obviously I, still here, but I didn't think I would be that night.

I was 12, my dad collapsed on the drive in what we later found out was a minor brain haemorrhage, he had a major one in the hospital hours later just as they were prepping to fix the small bleed. His life support was switched off the following day there was nothing they could do for him. 4 years later I learned had a CT scan, ordered by a junior doctor been performed when he was rushed in years before after collapsing they would have seen the bleed and he would still be here but a senior doctor overruled them probably citing “cost”

@PaisleyP

i am so sorry that you went through that. Schools are supposed to protect 13 year olds.

I hope you are able to look forward xxx

The other time was when my best friends brother in law told me that he had killed himself by jumping off a bridge in front of a train.
That was years ago now, but I have no memories of months after that.
He was 15.

Seeing my 7 month old nephew receive (unsuccessful) CPR.

When I was told my brother had taken his own life at 21. I was making coffee and remember dropping the jar on the floor and time just stopped. I couldn’t hear anything and I felt oddly calm for several minutes.
I had a similar sensation as a passenger in a car accident on an A road when the brakes failed approaching a roundabout. I could just see the children car seats in the stationery car queuing in front. The driver in our car pulled the handbrake and we ended up upside down in a ditch but I just remember time slowing and being happy that the family in front of us weren’t harmed. Luckily we were unscathed bar cuts and bruises.

Turning round, aged 9, to see my Dad collapse on the pavement and my Mum starting CPR. Everything slowed down, the ambulance ride, the doctor telling us he’d died, going in to see him once they’d finished working on him, family coming to the hospital…it was like my head was stuffed with cotton wool. I remember the feeling very well all these years later.

That’s horrendous.
So sorry you had to endure that brutality.
What a wretched thing for those evil people to have done.
Sheesh.

When dd2 was rushed into hospital & spent two nights on oxygen with covid & I was on an entirely different continent.

I teach in an international school. Dc spent Christmas with their df, all good. Their dad's whole side of the family started testing positive after a Boxing Day get together. Unfortunate, but shit happens.

I cancelled plans for the dc to join my parents for New Year (both elderly & vulnerable).

Then I rearranged flights back home to the ME; I flew back for work, & the kids, who were still at their dad's, lurgy rampant within the party bit of the family, could join me as soon as they'd tested negative.

I did not anticipate dd2, 14yo & robustly healthy, losing the ability to actually breathe, being blue lighted to hospital & spending 3 days on oxygen.

Scared the ABSOLUTE stuffing out of me, 4000km away.

Dd2 was tiktoking from her bed from day 2 quite merrily, oxygen mask in place & hooked up to assorted monitors. She was positively chirpy after the initial scare. & recovered fine.

So the moment? When I took a call in the small hours from 4000km away to tell me my daughter couldn't breathe & was being loaded into an ambulance. I'd rather never repeat that!

When my 2nd DD was an unexpected home birth and the paramedic said the cord was round her neck twice.

My next words was "is it dead?"

When my DH was being taken away by the paramedics in a diabetic coma and them hitting his head off the wall and then saying "I've lost the pulse"

Then them calling for back up and them not being able to figure out how to get him out of our house and down to the ambulance (stay on 9th floor) without him going into cardiac arrest.

I never want to relive anything like that again in my life.

when I temporarily died from sepsis following a late miscarriage. I was in ICU with what seemed like dozens of people working around/on me. I could hear alarms pinging all over the place but for some reason I thought I was in a cubicle and the alarms were for someone in the neighbouring cubicle. My heart was broken and I spoke to my husband who was behind me. I just felt so god damm tired and broken and felt myself fade out. I didn’t care if I died. I heard someone panicky saying we’re losing her. They put my house out of the room and resuscitated. I remember everything just slowly fading back in again and I could hear staff saying “her husband is going mad looking in” and a male doctor snapped at them saying “he can’t we need to get her stable first”. It was very much like being at the dentist on gas.

when I was 11 I was panicking as I was late for the school bus parked waiting for me on the other side of the road. I stupidly darted out in front of a car. Everything went in slow motion and I could hear a horn blaring. I’m sure the bus driver (and car driver) nearly took a heart attack but the bus driver never said a word - probably was so shocked. In recent years a local teenager was knocked down and killed in the same situation. It was a wet windy morning. He was
late for bus. He had his coat hood up , he didn’t see and stepped in front of car. His poor mum was standing at their door waving him off. 💔

I was 15 and decided to mow the lawn to help my mother whilst she was at work. The connecting wire came out and fell onto the grass which was slightly wet. I picked it up and that was that. I remember falling over like a skittle, completely stiff. Hitting the ground didn't hurt.

I passed out for I don't know how long. Then came to and tried to let go but the surge happened again. Eventually I managed to throw the plug, get up and run inside.

The pins from the plug had burned through my thumb and finger to the bone.

I put a wet tea towel around it and sat on the stairs for about 2 hours waiting for my mother to come home. No house phone and this was before mobiles. When she returned, I could no longer walk so she took me to the hospital.

The electricity had damaged the ligaments in my leg and I was on crutches for weeks as well as attending the burns unit at the hospital for months.

They don't know how I survived as there was no exit wound for the electricity.

Very scary thinking back to that.

Oh my gosh I had this happen but I thought it was because I was high off the gas and air!!

On holiday, DH & DD were in the sea and suddenly DS wasn’t with DH anymore, DH alerted life guards who cleared the water, we couldn’t see anyone because of the swell of the waves. The life guard indicating he had spotted DS who swam in by himself, he’d been taken by a riptide, his lifeguard training saved his life, as he didn’t panic. It seemed like an eternity and really thought DS had drowned.

My DM, taken far too early, was having an operation with a 98% success rate, being told by the consultant she was brain dead and hadn’t made it through.

My DF shot himself after receiving a terminal diagnosis.

i wish I didn’t have so many of these quiet times.

When my first child was on the way. The midwife attached something so the heart beat could be heard in the room.

Listening to the sound of that heart beat was entrancing… until it stopped. Silence. I stopped breathing, it seemed an age and then it came back again - The midwife hadn’t told us the connection could drop out.

When I was made to go through my sons medical history over and over again because the gp and NHS cooked up so badly it took 2 years to find out my son had a tumour jn his femur the lady said they are checking as this could be a safe guarding issue. Suggesting it was my fault it took so long even though I hounded the gp for a referral and all he needed was a ct scan. When she said safe guarding issue my throat closed up. We have 4 children youngest was 3 months at the time and she waited until I was alone and husband was in the play room with the other kids... I then snapped out of it. Dh walked back in and i pointed out I went to a gp and other private practices who wrote letters suggesting different things. They then shut up.

Then when they found out it was a tumour and failed to tell me it was benign!

I am what people would probably call 'capable in a crisis'. And I am, so long as the crisis doesn't relate to me or mine.

I was raped at the age of 20, and it was like time stood still. He held his hand over my mouth and nose, I thought he was going to suffocate me. I remember just lying there, thinking, 'this is it. I'm going to die'. That event fucked me up a lot, even if I couldn't admit it to myself for years. It had a curious affect on me that it's made me forget a lot of my childhood.

Taking a walk up to the local Boots with my then 3 year old twins and their baby brother. I had baby in a double pram, twins on reins as they were both bolters, and they swapped and changed in the spare seat if they got tired walking.

I was in Boots waiting to pay, and one of the twins just legged it out the shop. I must have dropped his reins or something - don't remember exactly - but I just froze. I just stared as my child ran towards a busy B road with 4 rows of traffic across about 20 feet of pavement. Luckily the lady behind the till was much quicker off the mark than me and ran after him and caught him, but I was just rigid with fear. I bust into tears as she brought him back.

Another one when the baby was older, less than two but walking. One of his brothers let him out the house, I didn't even know until a neighbour brought him back. I almost vomited on the spot. At the time, we lived on the end of a row of terraces, that opened onto a very busy road - in fact, the same one from the earlier story. A bolt for the top of the door was swiftly bought and added. Couldn't believe at only 4 whichever twin it was could not only turn the key in the lock but also remove the safety chain!

I'm sorry for everyone's losses. They do put things into perspective

When my peripheral vision started to dim as my legs were dangling and the ex was squeezing my throat tighter. I couldn't hear the children anymore and the dog was hiding with them in the next room.

I looked straight into his eyes, normally a bright blue, saw they were a cold, hard grey and croaked out three words I didn't realise I was going to say.

'Come on, then'.

His face changed to one of fear, he let me drop from where he'd lifted me full off the ground by my throat and after he slammed the glass door repeatedly against my ribs, sending glass everywhere, he ran away.

Fucking prick.

Waiting to go into emergency surgery on my perforated bowel at 12 midnight - they didn't want to wait until morning as they thought it could be too late by then. I felt weirdly calm going into theatre and thought "Well at least if I die, I won't know anything about it". Thankfully I didn't die and I am thankful every day that I survived.