Being young and exploring an abandoned farm area quite late at night, entering a hut with a friend, the door jammed as we entered and we got stuck in small box like room with caged windows for a few hours till someone heard us.
At around 10pm one night I realized I’d forgotten to walk the dog and should probably do so before going to bed. As I step out onto the street I notice a woman leaning against a car with a weird look on her face, like a grimace. It’s a big city and I’ve seen lots of weird people around here so I don’t think much of it and start walking away when I hear her whimper. I turn around and ask her if she’s ok and she assures me she’s fine, her “husband is coming”. At this point I notice she’s heavily pregnant and there’s also a toddler in her car, but she insists she’s fine so I start walking away again.
I get 20 or 30 paces down the street and the woman lets out this blood-curdling howl. I run back to her and ask her what’s going on and she just says “I need to sit down”. I lead her to the steps outside my apartment building where she sits down and I fetch her a glass of water and put the dog back inside. I’ll always regret not inviting her in to my place for what comes next but I’ve been jaded by so many con-artists and burglars trying to get into my building that I didn’t feel like it was an option.
She starts breathing super heavily and stops responding to me completely. Like I’m not even there. I’m freaking out and her husband is nowhere in sight. I have no idea what to do so I rush into the hotel next door to find a “real adult” (I was early 20s) and come out with a few other 20-somethings that “knew first aid”. We immediately call an ambulance.
The ambulance guys tell me they’ll be here in 5mins but to go and get towels just in-case she’s about to give birth. I run in and get all my towels. As I come out the woman gets off the step and kneels on all fours in the middle of the sidewalk. I place towels all around her on the floor and she screams in pain. By this point a small crowd has gathered to see what all the fuss is about and some dude tries to convince her to get on her back and starts pulling her around. She fucking screams at him to stop and he backs off. She then drops her leggings down to her knees and screams “CATCH THE BABY” at which point me and one of the guys from the hotel reach down and see a newborn baby dangling in her leggings. Ambulance guys are still on the phone and tell us to wrap the baby in clean towels and, I kid you not, not even 30 seconds later the ambulance and husband both arrive.
Apparently they had rented a place a few doors down from me for the birth but there was a problem with the keys or something. The husband thanks us and they all go into the ambulance. I’m in shock and the only thing I can think is that I need to clean all this blood and poop off the sidewalk so I clean it all off. The guys from the hotel crack open a bottle of wine and we all just stand around in shock at what just happened.
So that’s the story of how I delivered a baby on the street outside my apartment. I can’t watch any birth scenes on TV or movies anymore either because of what I think is probably mild PTSD and it makes me feel instantly sick to my stomach and panicked.
TLDR: delivered a stranger’s baby on the street outside my apartment with zero prior experience
I think it’s totally understandable to be freaked out by that, it must have been totally surreal. Its not so much that you reacted badly to childbirth, you reacted that way because it was completely unexpected, and you were on your guard a bit because it was night time and strangers, and because something quite huge and momentous (for them I mean) and potentially incredibly tragic if something had gone wrong, was happening right on your doorstep, out of the blue. I think you can give yourself a break over that one. And a pat on the back.
Just think, there’s a kid out there that’ll tell people about the story of how they were born, and how glad their parents were that random strangers came to their aid and helped bring them into the world.
My father took up a side gig consulting for the Russian government. They paid him in envelopes of American $100 bills. Then he met a grad student and started an affair with her and then divorced my mom and left the family to move to his apartment in Russia then moved to China to raise his new child and then unsuccessfully attempted to sue my whole family and I for sharing the same last name with him “fraudulently”.
I was turned the wrong way as a baby and the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck, choking me to death. Doctors had to perform an emergency c-section. In doing so they cut my face with the scalpel in two spots. Almost didn’t make it but have these cool scars.
EDIT: where were these experts during my birth? As the commenters pointed out, I wasn’t choking, but dying nonetheless.
You cannot choke when you are still connected with umbilical cord. You don’t have to breathe. EDIT: Ignore this comment, I was wrong. In my defense I have to say that this is what my biology teacher teached us, that babies cannot choke with their umbilical cord. But she is also antivax, so I shouldn’t have believed her.
Apparently this is common. It’s not a good thing and obviously an emergency as they wanted it not wrapped around my neck. Regardless I was not going to make it.
Visiting my terminally ill father in hospital after he had a fall. I asked him what that huge bruise on his neck was, if it was from the fall.
"No, it's the cancer." Was the thing he said, and I'll never forget it. Crazy. Turns out the tumour was cutting off blood flow to his brain and causing him to pass out. He died a month later. Almost a year to that day now.
Got a phone call from my Dad while I was working aboard Queen Mary 2 asking if I was alright. Confused me, because yeah, of course I was. He said something about an earthquake, so I put the news on the TV.
Turns out there’d been an earthquake which had caused the tsunami in Japan. We were off the coast of Japan. The wave went right under us, and I had no idea.
Got fucked up and lifted a rugby post out of the ground. The whole thing fell down passing about an inch from my head. As with most of the danger in my teenage years it was self inflicted lol
A. Riding a freight train from Midwest to California. 3 day trip, very crazy.
B. Taking a motorcycle trip to a small tribal village in Thailand, smoking bong rips with a Buddhist monk, slaughtering a pig and eating it raw, drinking homemade rice hootch until blacking out. Hiking around drunkenly accidentally ending up in Burma, running away from the Burmese military. Them chasing me until I got back to the village.
C. Getting bitten by a unknown spider in Nicaragua, swollen, blistering boil, feverish, infection. Taking a bus to san salvador, then quezaltenango Guatemala, doctor cutting a blister open and pushing out the puss, excruciating pain. Then after days of it not healing, going to a local hotspring, dunking my arm in steaming hot lithium water, and basically watching the infection fall out in one massive puss ball leaving a gaping hole in my arm.
Your adventures seems to be growing in adventure and danger. I would take a break and have a staycation somewhere.
I didn’t even know hot lithium water was a thing. I’m guessing there are some benefits, but I wonder what happened to make the puss ball fall off your arm.
I’m old now, I don’t even drink beer anymore. I don’t go somewhere unless I already know someone there. My adventure days are behind me, hopefully. Thanks tho.
Sort of hard to say. I grew up an illegal immigrant in a big city. When I was 6 or so my parents would bring me with them when they went out to clean offices at night.
I pulled a fire alarm at like 1am without knowing what it was and my parents hid me in the trunk of the car. Told me to be quiet. They didn’t speak English and were afraid the cops could take me away.
I got hit with the belt a few times. When I was around 12 I tried to fight my dad during a belting and got my ass beat.
Also when I was around 12 I was in a car accident on the highway in an SUV that flipped 4 times. Everyone went to the hospital except for me, I was perfectly fine.
I was in Vegas with my brother for his 21st once and he had spent all his money. We were in the airport on the way back and there are slot machines there. He asked me to borrow some money to play some slots- he said if he’d win he would share with me.
On the last $2 bet he hit a jackpot and we each got $600
One time I was playing pool at the bar in my early 20s and hopped a ball to make the game winning shot on the 8 ball - won $50. It was beautiful. I rode that high for a week.
Speaking of high, I also overdosed on heroin (fentanyl, really) and was revived with Narcan in an ambulance once. That was a very confusing experience. Coming to slowly with many lights and people in uniforms around you.
I’ve been robbed before, with 2 guys grabbing me by each arm while a 3rd goes through my pockets. While they talked shit I just stayed quiet.
I’ve gotten in bar fights and have been kicked out of bars. I stood up for a friend at a house party at around 18 and got my ass beat because of it. He was too scared to do anything. Around that same time period I had a short couple months long fling with a woman in her 40s. I felt like a badass at 18 but nowadays I look back and it was weird.
I’ve done intramuscular ketamine injections with exactly the right dosage to be under anesthetic - aka khole. I’ve done a lot of drugs - nothing in my life has ever come close. I’ve also done two cycles of steroids. I’ve never had so much sex as during those cycles. During this time period I caught chlamydia & gono.
Also I made like $5,000 on Dogecoin and like $3,000 on Bepro. (Easily lost more than that overall with coins)
Those are some arguably crazy things that have happened to me. I’m not sure if my life is tame compared to the average. I guess it all depends on perspective. I know people who have seen much more craziness out of life.
Got blackout drunk and woke up in a different city in a random hospital in Spain when I was 15. Loads of crazy details to that one
Police got called to house party we were having after we got into a fight while tooled up. Left everyone in the house and turned all the lights off whilst us three ran out the back door. I went back and somehow convinced the police to leave. Loads of crazy details there.
Got blamed for rioting in a newspaper which was bullshit and a total lie.
Fell off a house and shattered my left foot
Throat ruptured after surgery and nearly died alone in my bathroom
Dm me and I’ll find the article. Was during the riots that started in London and got down to Chatham after that kid got killed by the police. We literally just lit a campfire in the park like we usually would and they said it was rioters lol.
I also still have my hospital discharge sheet from Orihuela too haha. I walked 12km in the wrong direction towards Murcia airport.
It’s always a compliment when people think I embellish my stories. Best part is I still hang out with people involved in some of them so when my gf would hear their sides of shit she’d be amazed how it always backed up what I told her cos she couldn’t believe some of it.
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