"To preface, I was 21, weighed all of 95 lbs and looked like I lived to party.
I was at a bbq of a wealthy family member of my friend in San Francisco. I knew nobody except my friend.
The host let his dogs have the rib bones. One of them started gagging in distress. While everyone sat staring at the choking animal I jumped up, grabbed the dog, shoved my arm down its throat and retrieved the bone. I threw it onto the patio and looked at the host with fire. “Do not give your dog bones!” I screamed.
Not a single person responded, not even a thank you, but I saved a dogs life that day. Yeah me."
"“STOP THE CAR, IM GOING TO VOMIT”
I used this twice. Once with a friend who was driving super SUPER high and I had no clue (she actually crashed her car 2 days later) and once with a guy who wasn’t taking no for an answer. He stopped and I booked it.
If you’re freaked and need to get out of a car, and if the person is not listening and stopping, say you’re going to be sick."
"Drowning. I saved my son from drowning in a pool. He had swallowed so much water that he couldn’t breathe. I put him on his back, rolled him to his side and hit him on the back. He ended up throwing up numerous times. His first words to me were, Thanks for saving me Dad. I still get choked up, 15 years later."
"A bar in the bottom of a sliding glass door track to prevent it from opening.
When I split from my ex, I moved with an infant into a ground floor apartment with a sliding glass door. My dad asked my brother in law to cut a piece of wood to put into the bottom of the interior door track to prevent it from opening. Sure enough when he showed up to k**l me, that piece of wood saved my life. It kept him out and bought me time.
Also, plenty of people heard him taking a crow bar to my front door and no one else called for help. My neighbor saw him and recognized him but didn’t want to get in the business. When someone is trying to k**l me, please get in my business. I am much older and wiser now and I will error on the side of my safety and yours."
"“Everybody in, nobody out!” River safety is no joke.
My friend’s dog jumped into a river and started to get swept away due to the increased current from flooding. My friend jumped into the river to rescue her dog. I started to jump in after her, heard this safety phrase in the back of my head, grabbed a branch and swung myself back onto land (there was a decent drop into the river). I ended up having to run down the shoreline a bit to catch up to them, and then hoisted both my friend and her dog out of the water. None of us would have been able to make it out had I have also jumped in."
"My best friend was held up at gunpoint. The dude pointed and told her to go to a more secluded area. She remembered a police officer once telling her "Never go to a second location." She refused and she's here today and I'm forever thankful."
"Not my life, but DON’T MOVE ANYONE WITH A POTENTIAL SPINAL INJURY. I recently drove up to a very fresh, very bad motorcycle accident (bike vs. pickup truck). The injured guy’s friends were about to try to TAKE HIS HELMET OFF. I ran up like a crazy person and yelled to not touch him, then kept his head and neck immobilized until the EMTs showed up. He was conscious but not oriented and kept asking his friends to move him, which was quite obviously not in his best interest. ."
"Woke up around 1am and went to use the bathroom. Started sweating profusely from what felt like every pore in my body. Then started feeling like I had to throw up. Individually, they were concerning. Together, they were not good.
Woke my wife up and said “I need to go to the ER…like right now”. Got there, told them what was going on and sent straight into a room. Wife was let in a few minutes later and we were told I was in the midst of a heart attack.
Asked my cardiologist a few days later what would’ve happened if I had just tried to sleep it off and see how I felt in the morning. He said “you wouldn’t have woke up”.
Don’t ignore the signs, folks. "
"“Always let someone know where you’re going.”
Many hikers, travelers, or solo drivers were rescued because someone knew their route and raised the alarm when they didn’t return."
"Not quite life saving, but it sure felt like it at the time:
I didn’t realize I had heat exhaustion and got on a roller coaster. When my vision started going gray at the edges I remembered the Mythbusters Blue Angels episode where they talk about the full-body-muscle-clench thing they have pilots do to counteract the G forces pulling blood away from your brain. I did those clenches for the rest of the ride and managed to avoid passing out, got off the ride and toddled off to a sheltered area to drink some water and cool off.
Lessons about my heat tolerance were learned that day, but the pre-existing lesson about Hook Maneuvers meant I got to learn them while conscious and in private instead of from an impatient EMT after they revived me."
"Self-heimlich. I choked on food while driving in a busy street, didn't breathe for over a minute because it was standstill traffic and I was in the middle lane. Ended up cutting people off at the slightest sight of room, put my car in the ditch and 8th grade home ec came to mind as I heimliched myself on the spoiler of my car. C*****d a rip, spit the food out and cried for 10 mins because my vision started to go black. ."
"When traveling, leave all your real jewelry at home. Get cheap costume fake jewelry to wear. Fake Rolex, fake rings, etc. When you get mugged, they think they made a good score, and run off. They’ll find out later that instead of $5000 worth of diamonds, they got $5 worth of garbage. This paid off when we were robbed in Jamaica. ."
"Someone else’s life: I’m glad those Heimlich maneuver posters are everywhere. I was having lunch on a Monday in a neighborhood that’s mostly residential, so it was just me and one other person at another table. He choked on a piece of carrot and I successfully did the Heimlich on him. I have zero other emergency preparedness skills but I’m glad I had that one that day!"
""Truck water and food"
Always carry sealed drinking water in the vehicle.
Keep some no-heat-ready-to-eat food stuff in your vehicle.
I got stranded in cornfield Iowa during a snowstorm and had to wait it out for four days until I get get dug out.
Lost myself in Idaho and got my rig STUCK really good way out in the back country for a week.
Beef Jerky and a five gallon jug of potable water got me through."
""Rettungsgasse"
In case of a traffic jam on the German Autobahn the cars in the left lane go as far to the left as possible. The cars in all the lanes to the right of the very left lane go as far to the right as possible. (It doesn't matter if it's 2 or 6 lanes). That creates a passageway for Police, Firetrucks and Ambulances so they can get to potential accidents. My mum and I got into an accident that flipped and squashed the car. First responders were able to get my mum out, but I was stuck and bleeding heavily becausemy broken femur broke throughthe skin.. Only because of everyone creating a proper emergency lane, the firefighters and the ambulance were with me fast enough to get me out and stop the bleeding. If thst hadn't been the case, I might have lost the leg or died."
"Electrical fire smells like fish. Caught it before a fire even started."
"I once saw a post on Reddit about someone who had a weird red line going up their arm. Everyone told them to go to the ER, that it was an infection leading up to their heart. A couple of years later, my husband cut his elbow. Two days later, he started with a fever and when I looked at his arm, I saw the line and made him go right away (we were on vacation and he wanted to wait until we got home). 3 days in the hospital and a surgery later he was ok, but the nurse told us he could've lost his arm or died if he brushed it off like he tried to. So thank you to that reddit poster!"
"Used to work in the fire service. Maybe not a glamorous tip, but a lot of people were saved by bystanders knowing basic first aid and CPR. In a rural place, we're were arriving to a scene 30+ minutes after the stopped breathing. 30 minutes without new oxygen or circulation makes massive difference in survival odds. And for traumatic injuries, making an attempt to manage blood loss is always better than nothing."
"If you're under water, struggling and disoriented, blow bubbles to know which way to swim.
I inhaled water coming out of a big water slide that dropped me from height into water. The water from the slide pouring down directly on me was creating a current, I was stuck and don't know which way was up. I'm a fairly strong swimmer but panicked. I blew some bubbles and was able to work out which way to swim, just about dragged myself out of the pool on time, and coughed my guts up whilst the lifeguard carried on staring into space in the other direction
Edit: I think the original advice I was thinking of was to spit when buried in an avalanche to know which way is down."
• Don't insult other visitors. Offensive comments will be deleted without warning.
• Comments are accepted in English only.
• No swearing words in comments, otherwise such comments will be censored.
• Your nickname and avatar are randomly selected. If you don't post comments for 7 days, they both are reset.
• To choose another avatar, click the ‘Random avatar’ link.
Poultry bones are prone to splinter and can cause serious punctures. Cooked bones of any kind are also brittle and can cause problems.
Raw bones are safer for your dog.