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.

That must have been so scary for you!

I think about the Dr who saved DS too. At one point I looked at him and he was grey in the face and looking grim. I was sure DS was going to die then. I sent a thank you card and a tin of fancy biscuits to the A&E staff afterwards; seems so inadequate now.

Wow that is really scary

It was terrifying. DS spent a week in PICU and luckily made an excellent recovery. He's now a strapping young man in his 20s. But I still sometimes have nightmares about that hospital room.

When my Dd1 9 yes old had a seizure and banged her head on a bedside cabinet . She was out cold and the head injury was nasty . I went with her to the hospital and once she was seen by the Drs l was so ill . I couldn't stop being sick and shaking and poohing . It was the shock l know . She is fine thank God not epileptic . Apparently it was from the heat .

When my youngest , now 14 , was 5 , I brought kids to the beach, the beach was packed , literally blanket to blanket, her sister spotted her friend behind us , maybe 3 blankets back with her family, she asked me could she go over to say hi to her , she was 8 at the time , I said yes for 10 mins & I’ll get you then , so I watched her go to them ..
My 5 year old said few mins later , can I go over to R & her friend, I said ok , sure they were just behind us , I didn’t watch her I’m afraid as they were just literally behind us , but looking back now , when my 5 year old went to go to them , she was just the same height as all the adults sitting upright so very easy to still go the wrong way on a busy beach .
Anyway, about 5/ 10 mins passed & I went to get the two of them , I reached the blanket & said to my 8 year old straight away as i couldn’t see her sister , where is F ? She said F isn’t with us mom , I’ll never forget for as long as I live that stomach churning feeling I felt ..
Everything was just hazy , everyone looked the same to me , I couldn’t even remember the colour of her swimsuit , I was frantic , my head was just moving side to side but everything looked blurry to me ..
All other people started to look for her aswel & then about 5 mins later which felt like forever , she was found at life guards station..
I actually couldn’t believe she had been so smart to go there !
There she was when I went up , swinging on a bar with a big smile ☺️ …with two life guards at either side ..
Can’t describe how I felt when I saw her , I cried with relief being honest ..
Always very careful with my children after that experience ..

what was he choking on? How was he eating it?

Nearing the top of an escalator, my 4 year old laid her hands and face down on the step to have a rest. I saw this and had no reaction, I just thought oh she's lying her head down and I did nothing. DH then saw and grabbed her right before we reached the top. It was his scariest moment as a parent because of what might have happened, but it was my scariest moment too because I saw it and inexplicably didn't react.

We had a town house and the living area was on the middle floor. We were always hot on confirming that we had shut the stair gate behind us. We miscommunicated and I thought DH had said it was shut so I put DS down from his highchair. DS aged 11 months decided to throw himself down them. I can still hear the thump thump scream even now 3 years on.

The other time was DD when she had an allergic reaction to peanut. I watched her swell up in front of my eyes and her crying was horrendous. Thankfully it wasn't anaphylaxis and she has since grown out of the allergy. When someone says their child has an allergy I take it as gospel because it was horrifying to watch.

Mine is when my first child, my DS was a newborn. I had been in hospital for a week following his birth as I was really unwell, and it took us a few weeks to catch up on rest (if you even can with a newborn?). Anyway, I had breastfed him, and passed him over to my DH to burp him as I was so tired I just needed to lay back down. I must have drifted off to sleep, facing away from my DH but not sure how long for, and I felt something falling onto my back. I ALMOST brushed it off and went back to sleep, but I am SO glad I checked. It was my newborn baby, face down on our duvet. My DH had fallen asleep with him on his chest and he had rolled off. Thankfully he was OK as it must only have been seconds. But it terrified me so much that after that, I made sure I got up out of the bed to breastfeed and made sure I put him back in his cot before laying down again.

Similar to the terrible event in the op, DD was very close to a very high fall into deep water, aged 2

That and DS gleefully throwing himself into a swimming pool, just as I had taken his floater off, same age, around 2

Awful.

I can guarantee she cried

She followed in a RR car to the hospital, despite a second crew already following.
I know for a fact she went home and cried because working in healthcare I have since been that person providing life or death care. I didn't make it home to cry. I broke down outside of a McDonald's of all places.
I never got a chance to thank her in person, I wish I had and could have shown my son in his usual healthy self.

Giving my 1 year old son a bath in a bath seat that he sat upright in. The bath seat had suckers underneath so that it was stuck down. Except this one time a couple of the suckers at the front came lose and the whole thing tipped backwards with him in it- I got to him before he was submerged but it showed me how kids always need supervising in water, and don’t trust equipment not to fail

Ds1 was a bolter as a toddler. On one occasion my then dh, myself and ds1 went into Tesco cafe for tea and cake. Ds1 got up and started wandering over towards the tills. I followed him, then I thought I’d be smart and go round the cafe to head him off, but then realised I couldn’t and had to double back. Took my eyes off him for 15 secs and he disappeared. I ran back to then dh and told him “help I’ve lost him!” as he wasn’t paying any attention. Thank god there was a nice woman who told me that he’d run out onto the shop floor, he must have ran behind my back when it was turned. Off I ran and eventually caught ds1, who was still running, at the end of the fruit and veg aisle. He thought it was the funniest game ever.

Made our way back to the cafe to where my now ex husband was finishing his tea. Arse. I was pregnant too.

My most terrifying moment was when my son's consultant told us that they had run out of treatment options and there was nothing more they could do.
This was after 5 years of cancer treatment on and off, 3 remission, 3 relapses.
He passed away 3 days later, 2 weeks before his 21st birthday.

Eldest son who went to nursery with ‘a bit of a cold’ and was next seen in resus with sepsis, having had a cardiac arrest, eyes taped down (he’d been fitting a lot) and with a team breathing for him. Now it feels like something you might see on a TV programme, which I know is self preservation as no one should see their kid like that. The scariest thing I’ll ever, ever see.

(He made a full recovery, and I still can’t believe how lucky we were)

A piece of toast at the dinner table. And there was I worrying about cutting grapes!

DS at 4 was scooting ahead of me, usually would stop to let me catch up but didn't on the occasion. He kept going and went into the road. I did a blood curtling scream of stop and his name and luckily pulled himself back. A car went by seconds later. it still plays on my mind to this day.

I've written about this before, DS was a bolter and when he was about 2 he legged it towards the deep end of a swimming pool. I literally caught the back of his t shirt as his foot left the edge, he would have sunk like a rock. I was calculating whether or not I could still dive that deep and get us both up to the surface. There was no lifeguard.
Another time he fell head first off a climbing frame and I caught him by his ankles just before his head hit the ground.

DD choking.

She was one, and I still don’t know what she picked up from the floor. It was the most terrifying experience of my life, as I knew full well that by the time the paramedics got to us, it would probably be too late. Thankfully, I had been in St John Ambulance many years before, and the training all came back to me. I managed to dislodge whatever it was after a few firm back slaps… Actually, it was me quickly lifting her up after the back slaps in a panic to see if she was breathing — which I suspect dislodged it. I couldn’t stop shaking for the rest of the day.

It’s why baby and child first aid classes are so important. While a lot of it is common sense, if you drum things into your brain, in a moment of absolute panic, it does come back to you.

When DC2 pulled a fresh cafetière on herself, the burn had to be cleaned and dressed under GA. I was heavily pregnant, held it together through the incident, the ambulance journey, the transfer to a specialist plastics unit in a second hospital. DH made me leave the room to have a drink and as I stepped out I started sobbing. I downed a glass of water, and stopped crying as I walked back into the treatment room. The outcome was so far outside our control.

DC1 was hospitalised with RSV at 12 weeks, oxygen, antibiotics for a secondary infection and tube fed. That was pretty shit but the burn was worse.

When my 5 years old son swallowed two double a batteries.....i drove like a madwoman to the nearest accident and emergency department. After some tests we came home and waited for nature to take its course. He didn't like me going to the toilet with him and waiting for the clink 😂😂

When I realised the doctors in A&E were so concerned about DD2's heart rate and respiratory rate that they wouldn't leave us unattended – there was someone glued to the bedside, and if they so much as crossed the room to get something from a cabinet, they told me where they were going and to call out if I needed them. And it was imperative not to distress DD2, so my fear had to be entirely contained.

(She made a full recovery, home two days later.)

Seeng 7 medical staff, 6 working on my boy and one literally holding me up, when he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. He was dreadfully ill and I was told he would have been in a coma or dead by the morning if I hadn’t persisted. I thought he had a bug and we were time wasting.

I’ve got two that still make me feel sick to remember, my son is 23 now.
Newborn.. I was single so doing it alone and exhausted. Middle of the night and I fell asleep when feeding him in bed, I don’t know how long it lasted but when I woke he had rolled out of my arms and was between the mattress and bed frame, luckily unharmed but it was so stupid of me. I got up and turned the lights on for night feeds after that.
When he was around 2, I put him at the top of a slide in the park and walked around to catch him at the bottom, we’d done this before. He stood up and shouted Aeroplane and jumped, hit his head and knocked himself out. I still don’t really know why but he stopped breathing and went blue. I was hysterical and just useless. A complete stranger who’d seen the whole thing did CPR until the ambulance arrived and they gave an adrenaline shot. By the time we got to hospital he was telling the doctor that the Nemo fish on the wall were the wrong colour (bloody kids!)
I still feel ashamed of these moments, both were down to poor judgment on my part.