Your scariest moment as a parent?

[tangerinemagic]

As a parent or otherwise but I will go first.

I had totally forgotten this had happened, until I read a newspaper article this week regarding an 8 year old girl who tragically died falling from a balcony https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd0l473kvkvo.amp

It reminded me of a scenario which was very similar, when DC1 was 2 years old we were on holiday. DH left our hotel apartment with DC1. I needed to finish getting ready, DC1 was on the balcony happily playing with toys and I did a risk assessment, the balcony was a very high glass patrician. I must have left for no longer than 2 min to grab some things from bedroom next to living room (where balcony was) and when I returned he had managed to push a chair on the other side of balcony right up against the glass patrician, and was mid climbing onto it. My heart jumped and it took me weeks to really process it/get over it, that had I have spent 30 seconds longer doing anything he would have been at a height which could have been fatal.

what is your scariest moment as a parent?

As for otherwise not a parent I have another story from my 20s… i also blocked it out undeliberately and remembered it years later and couldn’t believe how different life could have turned out.

AIBU because I cannot find a ‘random’ or ‘general discussion’ topic.

I could not find my son (about 4 at the time) in a very large, busy park (think park run size) which is next to a fairly busy road because he had walked off. One second he was there and the next he had vanished. Fortunately we were with a group of friends so we split up and someone found him quite quickly but I was on the other side of the park still looking for him and I was near hysteria. It took me quite a long time to get over that and I wouldn't let either DC more than a few feet away from me for ages.

A few..
At havens flagship sight in Devon my 2 year old son fell headfirst through a bit at the top of some stairs where there should have a been glass bannister thing but there was a pane of glass missing. Had I not had him on toddler reins ge would have fell from a height of probably a 1st floor straight onto a load of decommissioned fruit machines. I told the staff about our near miss but I don't think anyone did anything.
Also my daughter at age 1 put her head through the blind cord that hung off our blinds that covered our conservatory door then proceeded to try and run away from it, strangling herself. I was only in the next room and heard her coughing and crying, I ran in there and got her out from the cord noose and wrenched the damn cord out the wall

When my DS was born at 28 weeks. I've never felt fear like it, how tiny he was, the noise in the SCBU. At one point it wasn't looking good and I've never cried so much in my life, before or since. Thankfully he pulled through, although he has had illnesses to contend with.

I have never been able to watch any bits of programmes with SCBU in as it makes me feel sick.

Daughter blue lights to hospital after doctors receptionist decided it wasn't meningitis as there was no rash.
There isn't always a rash.

On holiday in Ibiza 12 years ago my dds, then 9 & 4 and their 9 y/o friend said they were going for a little walk around the small hotel resort. Dd1 is extremely sensible so I let them. 20 mins later I went to find them & couldn't see them anywhere. Mum of the other girl was looking too. Around another 10 mins later the mum turned up with all 3 girls who looked upset. The mum had walked past the tiny soft play room & saw their shoes on the floor. She went in the room to find all 3 were locked in the toilet! Bless them, they were really scared but the older 2 sang songs to my dd2 to stop her from being afraid

DS was treated for sepsis when he was 5, from a simple grazed knee that became infected.
Only after he was discharged from hospital and recovering did it sink in that we could have lost him, I remember sobbing in DH arms just saying 'he could have died' over and over when we got home.

I also have flashbacks to the time he broke his leg, I felt sick seeing his little foot just flapping and him screaming and holding on to his shin.
That was distressing but his life wasn't in danger on that occasion or any of his other injury adventures thank goodness, he's had us through the mill!

Another few
My now 6 year old autistic son had no sense of danger..
Aged 2 my daughter left our front door open whole we were getting ready for school, in the half a minute it was open my son got out and I ran outside to find him in the middle of the road with a car honking its horn frantically...
My teenage son left the door open a few weeks later my young son managed to get to the other side of the road (luckily we lived very rurally).
On a boat trip round york as the boat was about to dock but hadn't quite stopped my son now aged 4 went up to the bit where you get off and took the chain thing off that stops you disembarking (as I ran up to him screaming his name and scopping him up before he fell off the boat) my husband sat there and didn't react. I don't let myself think about it as he could have been killed.
Same son running ahead of me on a walk back from the park and I had to run after him and leave my 9 year old daughter lagging behind as she couldn't run as she had a cough. It was in the very rural area we lived in which is literally in the middle of the woods with a big road going through it. Luckily the school by the park was having a disco so some school mums managed to hold onto my son while I ran after him

DS choking on a small piece of food when he was 3. Followed by blue lights to hospital, critical care and a bronchoscope. He recovered and is fine. Years later and I’m still really paranoid about anyone (adult or child) choking.

2 moments stand out.

1st was when one of my daughters was 2 and we lost her in Matalan. Such a panic and everyone was looking when a woman asked if she was wearing pink leggings and said she had gone out the door.
We were on a retail park, no sign of her. She was missing 30 mins by which time they said they would check cctv to see if she had left with anyone. The absolute gut wrenching fear I felt when they said that.
She was found in Pets at home, looking at the rabbits!

Second was when I found one of my sons unconscious after taking an overdose. He was grey and surrounded in vomit. I honestly thought he was dead, it was horrific.

There's two. First one, as a baby dd bit off a bit of rusk and choked on it. She went blue and I had to do the Heimlich manouevre on her. Other time she disappeared when we were in a shop when she was around 2. I was terrified. The staff were fantastic and found her for me, they even sent their security guards running around outside looking for her.

Last year when my 2 year old had croup. She woke up and couldn’t breath, lips started going blue. Ambulance was called and it was the longest 10 minutes of my life!

When my daughter was about 6 months old she was unwell and sleeping in my bed while I was doing stuff in the bedroom. She vomited in her sleep but was on her back so started choking on it ( thank God I was right there to pick her up and turn her on her front)

I did the same to my mum, I was half an hour away from dying when she found me after I took an overdose aged 14

I lost sight of DD in a busy park when she was about 2. I can't even remember why I was distracted but it was for a brief second and she disappeared from where she had been happily playing in the sand.

I spotted her after a few.minutes of frantic searching - She was running full pelt down an alleyway off the park. There was a busy road just metres away. I caught her before she reached the road but that was extremely scary.

Another time DD (again) almost got her hand burned because someone left a blowtorch running at the side of the road. She bent down to see and was reaching for it when I worked out what it was and grabbed her.
Not the UK - Health and safety wasn't a big thing in that country!

Aged 3 DD made herself invisible in a pub whilst we were on a UK holiday. Eventually found her hiding in the ball pit. She'd made some friends and had wandered off. Scared the 💩 out of us.

She had a phase of fainting spells aged 12-13, which were never diagnosed, just put down to puberty weirdness. Well it was scary watching her drop suddenly! Once she hit her head on a door so off to the A&E she went. They did all the tests, head, blood sugar, everything, couldn't find a cause. She's not had one for about five years now. 🤷🏻‍♀️

This is similar to mine. Except his airway was obstructed by fluffy that had collected on the floor after we'd been away for a long weekend and he was 10 months old.
Watching the paramedic shake as she was attending to him traumatised me. The fact she was so scared in that situation. Even now I wonder how she was after, it's been nearly 18 years.

DD (not quite 2) managed to open the garden gate and "follow" DH to work. Except she couldn't keep up...

I had been changing the babies nappy, and thought she was upstairs with MIL who thought she was downstairs with me so it was 10 minutes before we realised. At which point I basically ran out the house, down the street with no shoes etc.

I managed to see her across the golf course, heading for the Mess building (Army camp!) And the same time DH had realised the Unaccompanied child on the golf course was actually his and was running from the opposite direction to scoop her up.

If he hadn't been looking on that direction at that time, or I had been a minute later, it could have been an a lot more distressing afternoon.

DS caught swine flu when he was 2. He had a sky high temperature, the weather was below freezing, it was the week before Christmas, and I'd called 111 to report his temperature (40.2 degrees) and to ask what I should do.

I'd sat up all night, when a GP came to the flat to check on him. He checked his temperature and then went outside to make a phone call, came back and said he'd got him a place in the paediatrics ward at the local hospital.

Then he asked me if I had a car and said "because I don't think we can wait for an ambulance" and just looked at me.

He was making it clear that he thought DS was in danger and a horrible rolling panic came up from my stomach, and having to shove it back down. He helped me carry ds and a bag down to my car, and told me to focus on just getting him there, that the staff were waiting for him.

Ds was discharged on Christmas Eve and finally asked for food on New Years Day. 🙁

When he was 5, DS2 who is autistic scooted ahead of us as we walked to the park. Husband chased, couldn't find him. I called the police, who sent everything in our large town to look- cars, drones, helicopter. He was missing around an hour I think ? He had scooted to another part of the town and was angry that 'we didn't keep up'.

DS1 aged 12, last year. Was off school with general feeling off and really nasty full body hives. We dropped the younger ones off at primary school, he said he didn't feel good and couldn't breathe. He couldn't stand, I rang and ambulance and he was blue lighted with suspected anaphylaxis. Turned out to be a severe chest infection that his body reacted badly too, but it was terrifying.

DD1 (7) thankfully hasn't caused me to get any grey hairs yet apart from general ADHD behaviour !

When my DS was 1yo he developed a lung infection and ended up in hospital. There was DS, DP, a very capable nurse and a junior doctor who I had little faith in, in the room. At the doctor's direction I was holding DS and giving him an inhaler. He started fitting and turning blue. DP decided it was all too stressful and ran out of the room, closely followed by the nurse. That left me holding my son who I thought was going to die in my arms, and a doctor who was pretty much frozen to the spot and so clearly out of her depth it would have been funny if it wasn't so serious.

Four or five hundred years later a consultant came in and took over and got him breathing. The junior doctor disappeared. DP and the nurse came back at some point. Soon after a specialist peads team came in and transferred him to ICU.

I have crashed motorbikes, had surgical procedures where dying on the table was a very real possibility, had suicidal depression: none of those were scarier than when my son was turning blue, I looked at that junior doctor, and I realised she didn't have a fucking clue what to do.

Probably when DS who was 1 at the time kept running on our bed, I did try to discourage but not firmly enough. He fell off catching the bedside table with his face, he must have hit it with hit mouth open because it shoved a front tooth back into his gum to the point I thought it had fallen out at first, there was so much blood!
He was ultimately fine, just has a bit of a wonky tooth now that we hope will correct when his adult teeth come in.

A ruptured appendix when he was five. He was rushed to the children's hospital in Newcastle and straight into surgery then spent three weeks in hospital on horribly strong antibiotics. I can remember him just being limp and so hot.

We'd been to the GP and urgent care in the days before but both missed it. I took him back to a&e at James Cook who figured out what was wrong. Both the GP and urgent care had sent him home with a UTI and then gastritis.

Had a very similar experience when my eldest was 3.
Over a decade later I still worry when I don't 100% know where DCs are.

Older child here, DS 14 was in the sea with DH playing in the waves, in a spilt second he got taken by a riptide, DH says he was there one moment gone the next. DH could not see him, came and alerted lifeguards who cleared the water, eventually he was spotted by lifeguard, DS was swimming around the riptide, (will be forever thankful he went to life guard lessons) he swam in by himself, feeling very embarrassed the water had been cleared for him, it was the longest 5 mins of my life.

Once when my child (toddler/pre-schooler) was at the top of one those bouncy castle slides. And the bouncy castle started to deflated. She got upset and wouldn't move so I had to go get her. I managed to get halfway down the stairs with her in my arms when it was really hard to move on a bouncy castle that was deflating. That was quite scary for me (when I wouldn't have expected it to be).

Other time when we were playing hide and seek in the field near our house. Neither of us could find each other and it wasn't this massive field! But by the time we found each other we were both relieved and both had been a bit panicked!

The other times when she'd hurt herself falling off the trampoline or when she'd got concussion I was never scared or panicked though. I guess I knew she was going to be ok. And she was