Tell me your 'near misses' to make me feel better (and make me realise I am not alone)

[OneLieIn]

This is a really difficult subject to talk about, but hopefully YKWIM, those times when something too awful to contemplate could have happened, but it didn't.

DD (7) fell into very deep water yesterday from the pontoon as she wasn't looking where she was walking. She went under, came up, I heard her scream and dragged her out.

I wasn't looking either, I had turned my back for no more than 1 minute.

DD's OK, very shook up as am I- I feel like the worst mother, I should have been watching.

My youngest aged 3 (bolter) once ran to the top of an escalator and tried to ride the "bannister" down. We were three floors up ..there was a sixty foot drop on one side. He rode it beyond the wall when I screamed at him and he fell off -- on the inside. I burst into tears.

lazarou! I used to go to sleep on the back of exh bike on purpose, which is fine, although one night, I must've been in a deeper sleep than usual and awoke to find I was at an extreme angle off to the side! got up pretty quickly!
Thing is, kids get tired all of a sudden don't they, so add to that your excitement of Alton Towers and my Ds's excitement of his first bike ride, et voila! sleepy time!!!

Yesterday I was cooking the tea and dh was supposed to be playing with dd (4) in the garden. He decided to ring his brother, heard shrieks and found dd tangled up in the rotary clothes drier in the garden She had 2 really tight wires round her neck, if she'd done one more twist, I dread to think what would have happened. She said her imaginary friend had done it and that she didn't want to play with her anymore.

I am quite a safety freak, but had never thought of the clothes line thing being dangerous. We're going to get rid of it.

Solo - lol at your neice's unexpected cold shower!

I had alway plonked my dd down in the middle of our bed while I was getting ready in the morning.

One morning I was bent under the bed picking up something I'd dropped when I heard a thud and saw dd lying on the floor on the other side of the bed .. she'd picked the worst possible time to get mobile!

How she managed to fall without hitting her head on the bedside table I still don't know.

She didn't even cry but I felt awful. I thought I was such a bad mother I didn't even tell dp. This is the first time I've admitted it to anyone!

My brother was a bolter. He climbed over the 8ft fence at his nursery and escaped - apparently he got to the corner and couldn't remember which way to turn and was still there weighing up his options when the staff found him. He also darted onto a main road when he saw a coin lying there, and ran across someone's driveway when she was reversing out of it. I was not much older than him at the time (maybe 10) and I can still remember how shaken and sick the driver looked.

My poor mother!

ds1 once fell over the side of our sofa. We had only just moved in and the carpet was really thin, and he must have gone head first becasue the sound was just terrible. He cried for ages.

"Lost" ds when he was 17 months old. My fault. Left the house very early to drive to Leeds - rain pissing dwon. Gorgot to close outsdie sotrm doors. Inside door has pain of glass taekn out so that the cats can get tot he cat flap.

Dh and ds get up. Dh has shower, ds (who has only just learnt to walk) wanders in to bathroom and then goes out again. Dh finishes shower and then can't find ds anywhere. Goes downstairs, no. (We live on the first and seconf floor). Goes upstaris, no. Goes downstairs again - pancing now - and sees that the strom door are open. Looks outside. No ds. Goes back upstairs, really panicing now. Hears our cats piowing - Siamese, so can sound like babies. Thinks maybe it is the otherway around - maybe he is hearing ds. Goes back outside and listens. hears crying from hous next door. Find ds on other side of house next door, crying 'cos he doesn't know where he is.

Judging by his babygro, which wasn't muddy, he had walked down the driveway, turned right along the pavement and then up the next driveway - exactly the same route he did on a daily basis from his childminder, the house on the other side.

God know what a driver going by at 7 am would have though, seeing a wee rugrat out for a walk!

I rang at 7.30 to see how things were........

talking briefly to neighbour in garden a few years ago and suddenly noticed her looking behind me with look of pure horror on her face.
DS2 aged about 8 was hanging out of first floor window holding on by only one hand...

He has SN and was completely oblivious to the danger and laughing like it was the best fun. I had to find a way to persuade him in without frightening hm or he would either let go or just fall.

Left my 6 month old baby fast asleep in the middle of our high bed, The thud as he hit the floor is the worst sound I have ever heard, Needless to say he is absolutely fine, my legs remain black and blue after throwing myself at rather than up the stairs to get to him....

When DS was 14 months he somehow managed to climb up the arm of the sofa and part of the wall behind (there's an old fire place and dado rail) - I came back in to the room to see him fall, bounce off the arm of the sofa, bounce on to the coffee table and crash on the floor. He was silent for ages before he started crying, it was horrid.

Mollysawally, you've just reminded me. My Dd managed to fall between my bedside and my bed twice in a week! ooops!

UPSIDE DOWN!

DH and I took DS with us to a Boot sale when he was 3yo, (he's 9 now).
Ds wanted to go on the roundabout ride, left DH looking at a stall, and took DS to ride, sat him on Thomas, paid lady, and stood watching.

Then I heard people shouting 'push the stop button' noticed they were shouting because a steel cable that was used in towing the ride had got caught and was being taken around with the ride, as it got further round it moved upwards becasue it was getting tight, cable was now at head height of all children on ride, several children had managed to duck it or it had caught them on face etc.

My DS was still sitting in Thomas heading for cable - I ran towards him tried to grab him off ride whilst it was still moving but missed him - ran screaming after him (wet myself in process - no kidding) cable came up to his neck and rolled up his neck and over his face. I really thought it was going to decapitate him.

Some one finally pushed the emergency stop and I just grabbed him and sobbed and sobbed, I collapsed with him in my arms - DH had heard me scream and came running and I was trying to explain what had happened but was on verge of fainting.

Ds Had blood on his neck and was just hysterical.

Officials starting appearing from every where - police and ambulances were called.

My DS and I and several other parents and children were taken to hospital. DS suffered superficial injuries and was fine.

Old lady operating the ride was investigated - turns out she lived in a residential home and comes out to stay with her brother at weekends - who brings her to Boot sale to operate ride whilst he runs another stall!.

He had no insurance and they were kicked off site for good. Health and Safety confiscated the ride as it was faulty.

I have never never been so terrified in my life - I really thought he was going to die. I wouldn't let him on a ride for years, not that he wanted to go on - he would see the rides and start screaming, he finally wanted to go on a ride at 6yo, and I let him provided he went in a vehicle with a roof on!

I felt I shouldn't have let him go on the ride - I should have thought old lady would not cope in an emergency, I felt guilty and upset at what could have happened for a long time.

Oh the escalator one has reminded me... on an escalator in M&S with DS aged about 2, and (quite large) MIL who was up ahead of us. She suddenly lost her footing and keeled over backwards right on top of DS - he fell over but I somehow found the strength to hold her up to protect him, and focused on that as she was flailing around - but it took two hands so I couldn't grab him and was terrified he'd get his foot or hand or hair caught in the mechanism - luckily he didn't and someone stopped the escalator and hauled MIL up. God it was awful. It must have been 20 seconds but it felt like ages.

A girl runnning at full pelt with a bloke chasing her fell into ds1's pushchair on top of him. HE was fine, but my dh shouted at the girl. She was hysterical. The bloke had run off. I was completely calm, even at the point where I thought 'she's going to run into the pushchair'

We were just leaving SIL's house and I was talking to her in the kitchen while the girls waited in the hall. I didn't realise the main front door, with the proper latch, was open, so that all DD1 had to do was open the porch door (standard internal door handle) and they were on the drive. Ran outside to find a lady bringing DT2 up the drive - apparently she had been in the road, fortunately during a lull in the busy school run traffic that whizzes down SIL's road. I still feel sick thinking about it (it was nearly 2 years ago) and it took me ages to tell DH about it. Eventually, DD1 mentioned something about it and I had to come clean.

Then yesterday, in the park at a friend's DS's birthday party, DT1 disappeared. I was running round screaming her name, along with the other parents, suddenly remembered the lake right in front of us and ran towards it, then turned round to see DH with her at the playground. DD1 was really upset that we might have lost her - DH and I were both shaking. Couldn't sleep last night, just kept thinking about it. I'd just been thinking how lovely it was that they were all off playing so nicely and not being clingy! I'll have them chained to me forever now!

I felt awful when my DD fell off our bed at about 2-3 months. It was horrible as she was so small. Luckily, she was fine. I have no idea how she did it as at the time, had never "moved" from where I had put her, and still didnt for a good few weeks. I felt sick and cried my eyes out! I had to get Dh to come and help cause I was in too tmuch of a state! Never told anybody about it as felt too bad. Feel better after reading this thread!

Also, when she was 2 weeks old, i fell face first down the stairs. Luckily, I had left her downstairs, but this was the first time I had used the stairs without her as I had been carying her everywhere. The way my stairs go, it would have been really serious if I had her with me.

My friend's husband was carrying their baby girl upstairs in her moses basket and was holding both the handles in one hand when one of the handles slipped and the moses basket tipped up completely and tipped the baby out down 2 stairs! She was prem and was about 5lb when this happened! He was mortified but she was fine!

My dad jumped of the pier when he was 5!! Went right under, and all he remembers thinking was "wow look at all the salt down here" the sand dunes!

Took 2 fellas to get him out, they got medals for bravery, apparently it was a choppy day, he was fine, didnt bother him a touch! My grandmother on the other hand never let go of him again!

Just had one, Callum was asleep in his chair but I hadn't strapped him in, got up to phone a company, he woke up and flipped himself over, and nearly fell out the chair I managed to catch him

DS2 flipped out of a bouncy castle when he was a toddler and landed on a hard paved surface. I still go cold at the memory - he could have broken his neck.

Oh - just remembered oe: dh playing some form of organised family football/volleyball (can't remember which) on a Neilson holiday. Ds, aged 2, was on his shoulders.

Ds slips off - and dh, somehow manages to swivel round and catch ds by the scruff of the back of his sunsuit, literally an inch from the (hard) ground!

Jaynrea, that was a truly terrifying story, just wanted to acknowlege how bloody awful it must have been for all concerned!

2 Years ago we went to Menorca. Kids were in the pool, and DD1 floated out into the middle of the pool. Ds1 could touch the bottom so I said to him to get his sister back to the edge. What I didn't realise is that the pool dipped in the middle and went very deep. Ds1 went under, came up and then under again. I couldn't see the lifeguard so threw off my flipflops and dived in. I managed to get to him just as he went back under.
Dh and I went mental at the lifeguard (who was sitting by the bar!!) and went to complain at the main desk.