Ask Lemmy

This past weekend.

A wildfire started up a few miles from my parents house in the western US. Winds were fairly high and it was well above 95F, so in a day and a half it went from a sprig of smoke to 10,000 acres fuelling its own weather.

I have spent the entire weekend helping them prep their property under some extreme stress. We ripped out every bit of brush and weed from the house perimeter, cut down 6 trees that were too close, ran a tractor with a disk to start building ground fire lines around the base of their hill, and ran as many water sprinklers on the lawn and surrounding terrain and trees as we could to improve their ability to resist ignition. And on top of that have gotten them packed and their livestock and farm equipment all moved to pastures well out of the treeline.
All of this while the sun was completely obscured by smoke, to the point where I had the lights on the tractor. Hell, we could HEAR the fire from their house. It was like a jet engine was running just over the west ridge. You could see tree crowns torching 150+ feet in the air.

I've probably worked like 45+ hours in the last 4 days. I'm so tired dude.

Luckily, whether by sheer happenstance or force of a god unknowing, the wind has held in the right direction and the fire front facing their house has been very mild since Saturday night, and wildfire crews have had a chance to build dozer containment lines there. We're still on a hair trigger but we are cautiously optimistic they're going to make it through without any of their land burning.

Fuck global warming dude

Not really a 'real emergency', but some time ago electricity in all my zone (a radius of 50-60km) went down for several hours, so even cell towers, ISP routing centers, ecc, were out of power. Not a real emergency, but I had 2 small meshtastic devices, and it was awesome to be able to discuss with people in other nearby cities and communicate 'offline'!

I was aimlessly swimming underwater in the deep end of a backyard pool when I saw an infant on the bottom, next to one of the side walls. I grabbed it, rushed it to the surface, and sat it on the edge. Her parents quickly came running. The kid was fine. It seems she instinctively held her breath once submerged and wasn't under very long. The parents weren't watching (they were in lawn chairs 10-20 feet away) and nobody really knows how long she was under. I'm still struck by the parents' neglect. Also that the kid had no buoyancy and sank like a stone.

It's been a long time, but last one was about 20 years ago. Me and my friend Danielle had just finished our open water scuba diving courses together, and went to do our first dive with a group from the dive shop - including one of our instructors who was leading it.

It was a shore dive, we all walk in in our drysuits and I stupidly drop my mask and lose it in the silty water. Danielle starts swimming around looking for it, while most of us are chatting above the surface. We're in about 3' of water at this point on the beach, I'm literally standing up next to her, so danger is the last thing on my mind.

Suddenly someone asks me if Danielle is ok, I turn around just as she stops moving, grab her by the bcd and pull her up. She's blue and not breathing. The instructor is already on his way over, gives her some rescue breaths and she immediately comes back. We pull her to the shore and she's coughing up water, paramedics roll up shortly after and take her to the hospital just in case.

She has gotten air stuck in the boots of her dry suit and was stuck inverted. Instead of doing the recovery roll we were trained, or inflating her bcd, she panicked and as a result somehow lost her mouth piece.

She never dived in cold water again, although we did go to belize several months later to do a bunch of diving. I kept up the cold water diving.

It really made me appreciate how panicking can completely fuck you over, and made me a very safety conscious diver. I always stay close to my buddy and keep a close eye on them.

Did CPR on an overdose until somebody showed up with Narcan. Dude lived.

Last week, as a part of my job, I was interviewing a suspect in order to write a pre-trial report for the courts in which I give my recommendations regarding parole and probation in case the suspect is found guilty. The interview was going great and the suspect was a really nice person. Suddenly, my personal safety alarm - which signals that there is a medical emergency or an ongoing assault - goes off and the display indicates that the incident is taking place just across the hall. I tell the suspect to stay put, I jump out into the hallway (first mistake), hastily pull open the door to the room in question (second mistake) and see that a colleague is having a seemingly normal conversation with a parolee. I look into my colleague's eyes to read their needs and I immediately realize that they want the parolee out of there. I look at the parolee, who's reeking of alcohol, with a kind smile and tell them, "let's take a walk 🤗" and point in the direction in which I want them to go with my left arm. The parolee follows my instructions and I keep talking to them in a calming but firm fashion. While moving towards the exit, I also give them positive affirmation on how not everybody would've been able to follow instructions in such a calm manner in such a stressful situation.

After following up with my colleague who had sounded the alarm, and who had already been taken care of by our on-site counselor, I learned that the parolee had said to my colleague, twice, "I am going to ~~kill~~ [some direct threat of bodily harm] you before this meeting is over".

Edit: I suddenly became unsure of whether they actually used the word "kill", but at the very least, it was about harming my colleague in some way before their meeting concluded.

My 9 year old woke me up before 6 on a weekend saying "Dad, dad, there's an emergency!"

I got up to find the bathroom covered in sand and water and a toilet full of sand and shattered glass after a jar had been dropped in it.

Honestly, I had no idea what was going on, and yet complete certainly that someone was doing things they were not supposed to be doing and that the fact that I had to be awake right now means that this was going to be a bad day.

Don't worry though, there's a happy ending. We sold the child to a gang of poachers and regained all the free time and peace of mind we've been missing out on. And with the profits I plan to buy a Miata.

A woman had a seizure on the sidewalk. I kept her in the recovery position (she was already on her side) and managed to slip a bag under her head because she kept banging it on the ground. Called 911. Figured everything was as good as it could be given situation, she wasn't going to hurt herself any further and help was coming.

Then a cop walked up and tried to pull her onto her back while I was trying to keep her on her side. I yelled to back off, he yelled back, argued with me about whether I witnessed a seizure, I refused to let him touch her, EMTs arrived shortly after.

Fuck cops.

My kid is Non-verbal autistic with epilepsy. One day he had an appointment with his neurologist. We are walking down the apartment stairs, mother in front I'm behind. He goes into a seizure. I catch him and hold his head between my legs so he doesn't hit his head on the cement steps.

Suddenly my phone rings, it's my sister. We are not no-contact but rarely talk so it must be important so I answer. Her first words as I'm holding a child actively seizing between my legs were "hey, so mom broke her neck"...

The only real "emergency" I can think of is when I saw someone get hit by car while trying to run across a three-lane road. Went over the hood. probably a 30MPH hit

The driver sped off. I pulled into the middle (turning) lane, put my hazard lights on, and tried to help the person. They were unconscious at first and then extremely dazed. Some other bystanders tried to get them to "walk it off" but I demanded they stay still and not move their head or neck until paramedics arrived.

Fortunately a nurse saw it from their apartment balcony and rushed out to help. They obviously agreed the person shouldn't move.

Kind of wild looking back that so many people wanted this person who just got laid out by a car to pretend like they were completely okay. So fucking dangerous in that situation.

About 5 years ago or so, was standing waiting for the bus, minding my own business. Next to me was a man in his 40's, and his ~10 year old kid. Suddenly I saw from the corner of my eye that the man just collapsed, like you see in cartoons, straight down on the ground. Kid froze up and just stared at him, and I quickly realized that "Oh fuck, I am the adult in the situation."

Went over to the man, who was conscious, but confused and angry. Luckily I recognized the signs of hypoglycemia, and asked the kid if his dad has diabetes. Kid didn't answer, just stared at him. Snapped my fingers in his face, and he came out of it, and answered "Yes, type 1". Told the kid to run to the nearby store and get a juice box or two, don't bother paying or explaining, we'll deal with it later. I stayed with the dad, tried asking some questions while ringing the emergency number, and he let me check his head. Luckily he didn't hit it, there was no blood at least.

Got the ambulance sorted, and kid ran back with juice boxes, with the store clerk running and screaming in tow. I yelled at the clerk that it's an emergency, man with diabetes collapsed. Clerk didn't care or listen, just screamed at the kid that he stole the juice boxes and tried to grab him. I got up and stepped between them, and raised my voice over hers (fortunately I have a very loud voice if I want to) and she shut up for a few seconds before starting her inane tirade about stealing and how she's gonna phone the cops. I lost my temper and told her to shut the fuck up and either help or fuck off, who the fuck cares about 50 cents worth of juice, man's life was on the line.

After drinking two boxes of juice, the man perked up and was coherent again, and stated that he has type 1 diabetes and forgot to eat. I told him it's fine, ambulance is on the way, do you need more sugar? He said he's fine, and tried to get up but I gently stopped him. During all of this, the clerk was still going on about stealing, and I got pissed, told her I know stores have a budget for this sort of thing, what the fuck is your problem, this man had an emergency, the kid did what I told him and it was the right thing to do. At this point, I remembered the kid.

The kid was standing there, tears in his eyes, staring at his feet. I pat him on the back, told him to not listen to the insane lady, you did good lad, saved your dad's life. Ambulance came at that point, and the man started fussing how he doesn't need an ambulance, he's fine. Told him that it's a good idea to get checked even if you feel fine, see if there's any underlying issues, check your head in case you hit it etc.. Got the paramedics up to speed, they started a glucose and hydration drip.

During the whole ordeal, the clerk never stopped yammering and whining, so one of the paramedics told her to knock it off and jot it up as cost of business, stores have a budget for this exact sort of thing, and it was less than a euro worth of juice that saved a man's life. They thanked me for the quick help, told them it's fine, I have friends with diabetes, not my first rodeo, and I have a first aid certificate, got lucky I was there. Turned to the kid, who was sitting in the ambulance with his dad, still crying silently, in complete shock. I fist bumped him, told it was gonna be okay, you did good. Both the kid and dad thanked me, I told them no need, I just did what anyone else would have. Ambulance left.

Store clerk was still fuming, and tried to start her shit again with me. I took out my wallet, had 2 euro coin there and I threw it on the ground. Told her "there you go, you stupid piece of shit. You have your money, what the fuck are you still doing here" and put on my headphones, ignoring her. She left shortly after, glaring at me. I gave her the finger. She didn't even pick up the 2 euro coin.

My bus came, and I was almost an hour late for work at that point. Boss nagged me when I got there, but calmed down when I explained. Was pissed about the clerk all day.

All of this at 06:30 in the morning. I'm not a morning person. It sucked. At least I could help someone in need.

Moral of the story (if you really want one):

Don't be a fucking dickhead.

Also, if you have the chance, do first aid training. I've had several situations during my life where things could've ended worse if I didn't know how to react. One situation unfortunately where it didn't matter, old boy had a seizure (I think aneurysm or stroke) and was dead before the paramedics got there, me and another dude had been doing CPR for 20 minutes on a dead man, but at least we did our best.

Led a group of engineers in assessing damage to bridges after a hurricane.

Helped pull a man out of the street that was face down drunk yesterday. Was driving past and saw a skinnier feller attempting to pull him up with one arm. Figured one or both of them would get hurt trying to move him so I turned the car around, parked up and helped sit him up on the sidewalk. Guy was piss drunk, about 60 years old and rotund telling me that his wife left him yesterday.

He initially was fighting the help trying to get back into the street but I talked him down and hefted him up to his feet. Had the skinnier guy go into the store and get some water to bring out as it was 90+ degrees. I helped walk him into the shade against a wall outside the liquor store and called an ambulance to pick him up as he couldn't stand on his own. Talked with the guy while I waited for the ambulance to arrive, he kept switching back and forth from thanking me and telling me that he wanted to shoot the guy his wife left him for. Just keep reassuring him that things will get better and today is just a bad day that will soon pass.

Once the emts arrived, filled them in with as much info as I gathered and headed home.

I just had the most traumatic one of my life this last few weeks.

Watched my bipolar brother refuse to admit he was manic for months as it got worse and worse. Dozens of friends and family trying to help, but him burning every bridge on the way down.

Somehow got his ass arrested for some violent crime, that nobody will even explain to me, and damn near killed in the process. I got to stand by helplessly as the police and the hospital give me no access, and allow him to continue to self sabatoge even his mental health legal defense, and put himself in more risk in county jail instead of the psych ward.

Promising career, ALMOST had student loan forgiveness from medical school, woulda had it in October, in big big trouble now!

It has sucked real bad so far, and we haven’t even hit trial yet.

Earthquake. My brother was sleeping next to me, so got him in between our beds, which I went above him in a four leg stand. Told him "I might not make it if the building crumbles, but you will". Realistically, we're in a high floor apartment so that chance is really slim, but back then I didn't really have much of a choice.

The building we had thankfully didn't collapse and we are still alive. Though a noticable amount of buildings around us did.

I was camping at an event. I had recently finished recharging a large lipo battery (3S 9000mah). The battery went from normal to nuclear in a second or 2.

Thankfully I had it clear of flammables and in a lipo bag. Even so, it started 3 grass fires in the time it took to get it out of the marquee and wet enough to extinguish it. The event volunteers were there within 40 seconds, with fire extinguishers. Thankfully we already had it under control by then.

Lesson learnt, always use a fire resistant container to charge in e.g. an ammo can or a cooking pot. Also assume it can turn into a fireball with absolutely no warning, and plan accordingly.

Morning about a year ago, I was still in bed. My mom started screaming in shock and surprise, and yelled for me to come quick. This kind of reaction isn't too uncommon from her for relatively mundane things (like a cockroach) so I wasn't in that much of a hurry.

As I slowly got up and exited my room, suddenly I was breathing smoke. Apparently, she left a pot with oil in it on the stovetop which had turned on somehow. The pot had a lid on, but large amounts of smoke were escaping around it.

If I remember correctly, I rushed to open the window closest to the stovetop and made sure the stove was turned off and the pot was away from new heat, and then the smoke was overwhelming me so I ran back to the other side of the apartment to catch some breath. I was also going to bring over a fan to push out the smoke as much as possible, to make it tolerable to be in the room and deal with the emergency.

While I was away doing that, my dad had come down the stairs and into the kitchen and, in his infinite wisdom*, opened the pot lid to see what was going on underneath it. Then I hear him yell "fire!" and he goes out to grab the fire extinguisher. By opening the lid, he allowed oxygen to get inside and thus fuel the fire.

I quickly rushed back to the kitchen and saw the fire in the pot. My dad was already back with the extinguisher (it was just outside our apartment door). But he couldn't figure out how to use it. I grabbed it, aimed it at the flaming pot, and extinguished the fire.

Fire is out, emergency over.

I got a little bit of splashback from the flaming oil which gave me a small burn on my finger (which healed just fine, I don't even remember which finger it was and there's no scar), and the extinguisher made a giant mess that needed to be cleaned all over the area, but overall I'd say damage was close to minimal. Close to minimal.

My first plan, when I saw the pot with the lid on, was to keep it starving for oxygen and prepare a "bath" of cold water to place the whole pot into to cool it until it stops smoking. If my dad hadn't opened the lid, I think that plan would have worked, and would have saved us the cleanup and the burn on my finger (though I might have gotten burned another way, who knows).

After I saw that he had opened the lid, my instinct was still to put the lid back on and go back to plan A, which would have been tricky since the lid itself is obviously too hot to touch bare-handed and the fire in the pot makes it hard to get close. But still, I think it was doable.

But when seconds later he was already back with the extinguisher, I knew it was not the best solution, but I also knew that it would work, and that trying to convince him that it wasn't the best idea would take way too long. In that moment, just accepting the sub-optimal extinguisher plan was the best choice. Oh well, it did work.

* I'm not actually that mad, In an emergency situation it's hard to blame someone for not thinking things through, and doing an instinctive thing. Still, I expected more of him, he's a smart man with over 60 years of life experience and you'd think he knew not to let fire get oxygen.

My dad posted a single word in the family group chat.

HELP

He didn't respond to frantic replies. I was in the car, on the road in two minutes.

He couldn't print a PDF.

The Heimlich. I'd never thought I'd ever use it. But just a few weeks ago, we got some dürüms (kebab in a flatbread wrap) and at one point I hear her going strangely silent and wheezing. I lifted her up and gave her the maneuver. She spat out a large thing of unchewed salad, for which I chewed her out for a bit.

Ffs, can't imagine if she'd died in my living room...

Hurricane Michael. I was in Georgia at the time and most hurricanes dissipate and turn into big storms by the time it hits us. Nope. This was a CAT5 when it hit the coast and maintained to a CAT3-CAT2 by the time it hit us. I loved alone at the time, had prepped my Danger Room (inner most closet).

While waiting I had taken a brand new unopened bottle of Bibb & Tucker bourbon into the room with me because I'd joked if I die in hurricane I'm not gonna do it sober. It got really hot and muggy in there and the weather didn't sound so bad so eventually I get out to try and look outside. I spent the next maybe hour walking from a rear window to a front window but it was late evening and you could only see when lightning flashed. It honestly didn't seem as bad as Id thought, and when checking the radar the worst had passed us. So I checked outside with my headlamp and flashlight to see it had uprooted a tree in my front yard which had fallen onto my front porch. No real damage but it's wild I never heard the damn thing fall. Nor did I hear the neighbor's tree fall and destroy the carport in the back of the house. It took almost a year and a half for insurance to admit there was roof damage.

There wasn't much I could do for my house since the trees were too big on their own. I tidied up what I could, grabbed my chainsaw, met up with a neighbor buddy and we went around the neighborhood doing whatever we could. Of course there were douches who wouldn't lift a finger in their own yard but were expecting us to cut shit at their demand.

The whole area was without power for about a week. A couple days later we went to a friend's house who was having a freezer party with the whole point of grilling food that would have otherwise gone bad. I brought my bottle of B&T to share because I thought i'd drank less than 1/4 of it while waiting out the hurricane. I went to pour my first cup and...nope. I barely had enough left for 1 glass for myself. No idea how I drank that much in 1 night with my legs still able to function and not puking my guts out the next morning

The last real "emergency" emergency I was involved in, was on the phone to someone who was talking to a guy on the edge of the bridge.

Friend of mine was out delivering parcels and stopped because of a crowd on the bridge. They were worried because everyone was watching and waiting for the police, no one was talking to the guy who was looking down at the water.

They called me to ask what to do or say when they approached them.

That friend of mine is now a therapist themselves and a damn good one too.

The last few times I've been in an emergency situation, I've been the emergency. I've talked about most of them fairly extensively on Lemmy, but the last time I was close to being in one where I wasn't the focus is as follows:

I have a kid, then I think four, maybe early five. At the time this happened I was either working from my home office or studying, something that required most of my attention and, preferably, no distractions. The kid was with their mother, so I knew they were being watched. I heard the kid call out once or twice, perhaps a bit plaintively on reflection, but didn't respond because I was confident they were being supervised.

The third time, I thought it odd that their supervisor hadn't responded and stepped out to say "what do you need?" They said "I need help." They always like to ask for help even when they don't need it, they just want us to do the work, and I was up a flight of stairs with - at the time - mobility issues, so I didn't respond with urgency. I did come down to help, but slowly and complaining in my brain the whole time.

The kid has always liked to climb but also had concerns about getting down once they got up. It turns out that, in this case, the mother had stepped away to use the restroom and the kid had climbed onto a table in the kitchen. They then pulled a random stepladder to the table and tried to climb down it backwards, but managed to get their neck stuck under the handle and didn't have the upper body strength to get themself out of the situation.

They're fine now, but I hate that memory.

Shed on fire, last week.

A fire had taken hold in a large shed.

I ran 2 hoses and sprayed the roof down, and put out a cupboard with paints and cans.

Brought it under control and extinguished.

I'm a volunteer firefighter.

Last one was when I was the victim. Driving down a 4 lane highway in an SUV with my wife in moderate traffic when we heard tires screeching about 1/2 a second before being hit in the rear corner. We ended up spinning 360 degrees across 3 lanes of the highway in a matter of a couple seconds. How we weren’t hit by any other cars I have no idea. It was the scariest few seconds of my life.

The other driver was ultimately arrested for DUI.

Probably when my roommate tried to kill himself a few months ago.
My sister tried to hold his wound shut and led him outside.
I held the door shut to keep him from getting back to the knife, called the ambulance, and cleaned up all the blood the next day.

Still feels kinda surreal.

Currently helping someone go through the legal process post-car-crash. Just providing some advice for how to navigate it.

Being in the hospital near death is a fun time.

Specifically with a kidney stone causing a UTI that went near septic. Yay me. Also the look on the urgent care guy's face was priceless.

Saved Christmas. My father received a present and set it next to a candle. Nobody noticed it was on fire. I yelled fire and everyone stared at me with stupid faces. A ran across the room and picked up the flaming bag and ran to the kitchen sink. My brother, a cop, was impressed.

A couple years ago I was moving my dad cross country back to the city where our family lives because my stepmom was separating from him after a couple years of his heavy alcoholism. When I got there he had been drinking again so I had to call my uncle to fly over last minute so he could drive the uhaul and I could drive my dad’s car with him in it.

Just past Louisville on the way to Indianapolis he said he was feeling funny and seeing light. I was a little concerned and I don’t remember what I said, I just remember him saying “okay, I trust you.” A minute later he looked at the corner of the car, said “oh my water,” while reaching for a cup that wasn’t there, and his seizure started. I don’t remember exactly why I didn’t immediately pull over to the shoulder, instead I sped up to get ahead of my uncle and take the next exit. My dad was already secured in place by his seatbelt, but it seemed like he choking on something, so I had to bang his chest with my fist a couple times while yelling “breathe dammit!” That worked, but he wasn’t conscious.

I pulled over, got in a travel center parking lot right next to the exit, felt lucky because I saw the uhaul pulling in behind me, and ran around to get at him. He started to come to and I dredged up my one first aid class from high school to check his memory/mental state. He could answer my general questions about the current year, president, etc. but then he looked around and asked why his dog and my uncle were there as they got out of the now parked uhaul. It appeared that his memory of the past couple days was messed up. I called my stepmom and she said that sort of thing had happened before.

I guess he hadn’t gone to a hospital after his withdrawal seizures in the past so we decided to continue to Indianapolis, monitor him, and go to a hospital there if something more happened. I was very disconcerted by his lack of memory for the last couple days, but like half an hour later he referred to something recent and after asking his recollection had returned at least to some degree.

There weren’t any other health issues beyond him feeling like shit, so we were able to make it the rest of the way home the next day after crashing at a hotel.