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.

Jaynerea, that must have been awful for you-

When DD was about 3 months she was in the bath with DS 1 & 2 and DH was supervising in the bathroom. I was downstairs grabbing a sandwich as I had a meeting to go to. Then I heard DH shouting DD's name in a really scary way so I knew something was wrong. He had been so busy shouting at DS1 for some minor misdemeanour that he had failed to see DD float off her bath support. She was lieing face down in the water. We had no idea how long for (max 1 minute)
My heart literally stopped. I was still shaking 2 hours later. She was fine. She probably still had the holding breath instinct as she was so little. I nearly divorced DH!!! Until I remembered all the near misses I have had!

ds1 when he was aged 2.5 got smacked in the face by a swing so hard he somersaulted backwards...I was heavily pg and justn't couldn't run fast enough to stop it happening. Twas funny though, in the space of 30 seconds, a paediatrician, a dental surgeon and a cranial osteopath had all come forward out of the crowd of parents nearby to check him out!

Fullmoonfiend, you live in nice area.

DD just made a wish of 'I never want to die'in the wishing well they have made from a bucket- I think she knows it was serious.

yes, it is very poncey park

My dh was carrying dd when she was about 4 months old down the stairs when he slipped and fell down the stairs. He had the presence of mind to wrap his arms round her head and just let himself fall using his own body to cushion her - didnt even try to save himself god bless him.

Stepped out of the bathroom to get a towel leaving 14 month old ds in the bath - literally leaned out to pick the towel off the floor turned back in the space of 2 seconds he had gone under the water. I remember his little face all desperate under the water and how the one second it took me to get across the bathroom seemed to last forever. Everything in slow motion, even the water coming off his face as I lifted him out.

Jaynrea your story made me go cold. Had a fairground experience as a child at a theme park in Germany. On a roller coaster, did the ride and came back down, as we went past the exit stage the guy operating the roller coaster flipped off the safty harnesses on the first three carriages by way of a foot pedal on the side of each carriage, unfortunately he did not stop the ride and we proceeded to continue back up the steep hill for another go round - with no farkin harnesses on. We screamed our heads off and luckily he realised. He couldnt bring the ride back down though so ran up the 100s of steps at the side of the huge climb and put our harnesses on and sent us round again. Truly terrifying. My Mum said afterwards that all she could think was how she was going to tell my Dad that his kids were dead without thinking that in fact she would have been dead too as she was on the ride also.

I left the window in dd2's bedroom open to air the room, and forgot to close the stairgate to keep the dds away from it. A while later I went to check on the dds and found dd1 standing on the windowsill next to the open window, in the process of helping dd2 (then 2) to climb up onto the windowsill.

Another time, I was about to reverse out of a parking space in a multi story carpark; I had released the handbrake and did a final check before starting to reverse, when I glimpsed the top of a child's head behind my rear windscreen as she ran behind my car. I could only just see the very top of her head, so if she'd been a couple of cms shorter I would definitely have hit her. I've kept a specially tight hold on my dds in car parks ever since.

Reading this this thread it seems we can all get distracted once in a while. I did a few weeks ago on a visit to the doctors with ds and had to park miles from the surgery and walk so popped him in the pram but forgot to strap him in as it was raining and i was faffing with the rain cover. When i got to the docs i pulled the rain cover back but the weight of it and the pram bag toppled the pram backwards. Ds would have been fine had he been strapped in but he wasnt !! So he slid, tumbled and ended up in a little ball in the hood of the pram poor little thing at only 10weeks old! I panicked though as he banged his head but at least we were at the right place, the doc checked him over and he was absolutely fine, think it was me who was more upset!

just remembered another two incidents with dd too, first was when she was 9 months old dh had given her her morning bottle before work and put her in the bed next to me, he apparently asked if i was awake to which i said yes, but i wasnt she'd laid in the bed next to oblivious me for an hour occupying herself and the only thing that woke me was the sound of her rolling of the bed onto some boxes at the side of the bed thankfully she was unhurt. More recently while i was pregnant dd (3)was sitting on the arm of the sofa having a snack about 3 ft away from me and she leaned a bit to far to reach her drink, me being almost 9 months pregnant couldnt get to her in time to catch her and she ended up upside down between the sofa and the table with her head against a hot radiator, how guilty did i feel

DD has flipped off my bed when she was tiny. The weird thing is - we were BOTH sleeping, but I could "see" it happening in my sleep. I just couldn't grab her quickly enough. She was fine though.

DS was 2, and I had left him in the living room to go up and change dd. The french doors to the garden were open. Next thing I know, a group of Jehovah's witnesses were IN MY LIVING ROOM shouting "HELLLOOOO"
Turns out, ds had decided to go out the gate (which for some reason was not locked {cough dh cough} ) to go see daddy. I still cringe thinking of it.

OK, this is a kind of a different story.. a neighborhood kid (who is 7) gets ALOT of freedom. She was pushing her nephew around in his pushchair(he is 6months or so) and pushed him up a small slope WHICH LED ONTO A ROAD!!
I went berzerk at her. If a car were coming.....

DS2 aged 2 had a friend to visit, also aged 2. DD aged 3 months was sleeping peacefully in her pushchair in the kitchen. Toddlers were nowhere to be seen so I thought I'd just nip outside to empty the bin...had to be done, I'd been putting it off. I returned to the kitchen (within a very few seconds) to find DD screaming and curiously now upside down in her pushchair. Two slightly worried looking toddlers were just leaving the kitchen...My own toddler helpfully said,'T.. dropped the baby.'then,'T..dropped the baby on her head.'
Well, I thought I was possibly the worst mother for not protecting my DD from these boys. However, we and T's parents did laugh about the scene that must have gone on as T picked up DD, dropped her then said something to the effect of 'quick, help me put it back!' to DS2.

All 4 have fallen out of bed (par for the course isn't it) DS1 aged 10 months,crawled straight off the top of my mum's stairs and started cartwheeling down, I manged to catch him by one leg mid bounce.
DS2 aged 21/2 decided to stand uo and launch himself out of the trollet at the supermarket, had a gash on his head glued, aged 3 went into DH's shed, unbeknown to me, DH had lifted a vice which was on the floor waiting to be bolted to his workbench onto the bench -DS pulled it over I heard a bang and went running, but he was totally calm and saying sorreee - And then I noticed to blood coming out of his shoe -He'd crushed his little toe and virtually skinned it - It was the scariest trip to A+E ever, he wasn't crying, he was just shaking and whimpering - He's not got a toenail on that toe now and loves telling people how he did it.
DD1 is a bit of a crash test dummy all around,The latest one is her lugging something upstairs and falling on the last step,straight into the laundry hamper frame, she's like me, could fall over a matchstick.

Really do feel for you OP and others for the near misses, though. Makes me go cold to think of some things which could have been so much worse. However, we are none of us perfect and I often think there must be plenty of guardian angels around.

Ds 5 mo was propped in corner of sofa, turned around to get his fleecy blanket which was on the floor in front of sofa, bloodcurdling scream, ds lying on his back on the floor
Think it was more shocked than hurt, just picked him up and cuddled him and he calmed down. I was shaking though!!

My dh used to work on the waste water site, and knows about drains etc. Out downstairs loo was blocked so he pulled the grid up, and it was full to the top with manky water, prob a drop of about 4/5 feet down and the drain at the bottom, my grandparents were leaving so we all went out to say goodbye and dd (then 3yo) fell straight in it, dh grabbed her but she did end up being emerged in it up to her neck, because it was so overflowed and brown in colour (bleurgh) it didn't look like the top was missing at all.

She could have drowned or could have swallowed the waste water, but luckily she didn't... she (and us!) just got a nasty shock.

It was awful.

Also, my mum lost me when i was 2 in Italy on holiday, i wandered off on the beach, i remember it funnily enough (my first memory prob) some nice man took me into a cafe and gave me smarties lol, the police were involved and of course i was found... but now i think how my mum must have felt.

On the same holiday my brother (then 7) nearly drowned in the sea, taken off by a strong current, my non swimmer dad managed to get him.

Accidents do happen unfortunately.

On a roll now lol, i took my dd and ds to the local park a few weeks back, the park was enclosed and ds (22 mths) was running around chasing the birds (typical fella! lol) i turned for a split second, turned back and he had disapeared, ran around like a mad woman and found him in a ditch (no water thank god!) climbed down and got him, and then i got stuck.

God, i sound terrible don't i?

in the middle of a big party my dd fell backwards into my MIL pond when she was 18 months old. She had followed her cousins out to look at pond which had wooden log edging around it.
As the others went indoors and she turned to follow them, she lost her balance and tried to step backwards but the logs were there. She disappeared underwater with no sound, no scream no splash.

It was purely by chance that I had walked into the lounge at that moment and looked out the french doors. I was across the room, across the garden and in the pond before anyone else realised what had happened. If I had chosen that moment to go to the loo or into another room she would not be here today.

Called ambulance for ds1 when he was 8mths old because he did that special trick of falling off the bed while i was standing over him(the ONE time i didn't change his nappy at floor level) He fell really awkwardly on head/neck.
Called ambulance for ds1 when he was 10mths old because he managed to tip the untippable tripp trap back by pushing his legs against the table. lots of vomitting.
Having spent two hours in ds2's room decided to lie in my own bed for a moment.He pulled the bedside table over on himself,causing an iron lanp base with very square edges to just graze his temple and a pint glass break all over his face.(he was 12mths)
Ds1 decided to go up an escalator by himself(ds2 was in buggy and i've seen too many buggy accidents)so i called him and told him to come back down the stairs(which were next to escalator and in my line of sight) Panicking ds1 misunderstood and tried to come down the up escalator,tripped and fell.
I had to use the emergency stop button.he was 4.5y.

All of the above have happened when i have been right next to them and have blinked (or something!) for a second.

The important thing is that they're OK and the exact same accident wouldn't happen again as they and i have learned something from it.

I crossed a road when i was two with my dolly buggy to go to the shops(so my parenting is obviously genetic) but my mum took a photo of it!!

when I was a toddler a man found me "playing" on the white lines in the middle of the (very busy) street outside my house (my Mum was still in the house frantically searching for me!).

my dh can clearly remember sitting at the bottom of a swimming pool that he fell into and seeing the water part as his neighbour dived into save him.

I also went sleep walking out of my hotel room when I was about 4 - and let myself into a complete strangers room and got into their bed!

I worry for my dd!

walking along the quay last year, ds running just behind. Looked round, he had gone the other side of the (not very effective) railings, waterside, running. Don't know what would have happened if he had tripped and fallen in, there was a very fast current that would have carried him off very quickly.

When DS was 8 weeks old I was carrying him down some steps in his car-seat. I was wearing inappropriate platform sling-backs and I fell, dropped the baby and saw the car-seat roll over and over down the steps.

I screamed so loud that my neighbour jumped off some scaffolding over the fence and into our garden to help me.

Fortunately, the carrying handle was up and baby was totally unharmed. I feel sick as I'm typing this.

Recently Ds1 (3years old) ran across a road, I was preoccupied with trying to hold on to Dd's car seat and lock the car. Ds1 realised what he had done and stood frozen in the middle of the road with a car was coming, the car was fortunately going slowly and Ds1 ran back to me. I felt absolutely terrible and so did he, he kept on saying 'I am so sorry mummy, I am so sorry' for ages.

How lucky we are...

my sister fell in to my grandparents pond, which was huge, about 40/50 ft long, when she was 4ish.

i can remember trying to save her with a long handled pond net whilst dad and an uncle were leaping in and mum was screaming, the awful thing for mum was that i was at the opposite end with the net calling for her to grab it, so my sister was trying to swim to me and away from dad.

Co-sleeping with 5 week old dd I woke up and the quilt that I had tucked so tightly under me had somehow come up and was over her face. I feel sick whenever I think about it but the strange thing is that I, despite being utterly knackered woke up completely wide awake and somehow I know that I woke up within seconds of it happening like I sensed it.