When were you most scared?


For the whole of the Easter Weekend I have been either sleeping or working, and the night shifts have been busy ones.
The Prof has been pleasantly sanguine about the ruination of his one of all-too-few holidays, a fact that I put down to chocolate and some downtime with the children.
Mrs Trellis dropped off a couple of Easter bunnies too, which was nice of her, she asked if the Flower Show had indeed been cancelled this year as per village gossip.
I assured her that it had not, and promptly conscripted her in the boiled fruit cake class.

Over the weekend one of my patients likened his admission to intensive care to one of the "most frightening experiences of his life". The " most" as it turned out, was a time when he was attacked by a lioness in Africa, a story that unfortunately we were unable to catch up with throughout the shift.

But it got me thinking.....what WAS the most frightening experience I have ever suffered? 
HUMMMMM.....

Well, my answer must, thankfully,  be very few indeed, !
Anything to do with heights really freak me out,so the time I found myself alone on the observation deck of the Seattle's Space needle in a rainstorm would figure high on this list.
The time I was attacked by a Russian terrier ( the leader and most aggressive member of a pack of nine housedogs) still brings shivers to my soul when I think about it, as does the time I was first attacked my a psychiatric patient whilst on duty.
But these are just minor scare times compared with a man facing down a lioness in the African bush!

So tell me!
What was your most frightening experience EVER.
I'd be interested to know.

139 comments:

  1. Finding the corpse of a houseguest in my front room...

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  2. I remember a film with Mia Farrow where she played a blind girl in a strange house. Of course there was an intruder, and the rest scared the shit out of me.

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    1. I remember an Audrey Hepburn movie of the same vein

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    2. Blind Terror (Farrow) and Wait Until Dark (Hepburn)

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  3. Similar experiences, I cannot even watch anything shot from a high distance without feeling as if I am about the get sick. Hospital experience: we were supposed to just "ring the bell if your patient even as much as moves the chair" would have been enough to make me stop any visions of continuing my insane career right there and then, except that I was at the desk when the patient made a b line towards my desk and by the time I managed to kick not to push that worthless bell his hands were around my neck already, and I could barely reached the ring with my right leg. Finally two watchers opened the door and got him while I was sure this was my time to go and the following week I transferred to what was then called the pediatric seizure clinic. Funny how taken airplanes my whole life has never given me even a tiny effect as those that watching a movie of someone going across those hanging bridges a million miles from safe ground make me shiver to this day.

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  4. When I was 5 or 6 Our Kindergarten teacher picked us all up and took us home in her station wagon (1950's). she made a delivery of one of the kids and left us all in the car (no seat belts in those days) The car slipped out of gear and the car rolled down a hill and across a highway, stopped by a guard rail missing a plunge into a lake. I can still see our teacher running behind the car screaming and reaching out to us. I ended up on the dash board unhurt and staring at the sky and clouds wondering what happened! No one hurt- a miracle!

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  5. Funnily enough . . . . . . . . . . We were on safari and out on a night time excursion - me, husband and bush ranger in an open topped car. We came across a pride of lions eating their kill. One lioness peeled off and with blood dripping all over her face was about to pounce. The bush ranger told us to crouch down and a gun slid past my face. The moment passed without incident and the bush ranger calmly told us that that particular lioness had killed a tourist the week before. There was no time to feel scared!!!!

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    1. Trust going gently readers to have a lion story

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  6. Anonymous1:46 pm

    Being physically attacked at work. It was about 35 years ago. He grabbed hold of my neck. Later at the supervisor's office, I cried. That was the worst part, showing such vulnerability at work. I should have made a big deal about it at work, but the next day we were off to New Zealand on holidays.

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  7. It's been decades and I still can't even really talk about it but it involved one of my children and an accident.

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    1. That helpless feeling is the worst in the world

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  8. I was a passenger in a car in Florida being driven by my husband who was unfamiliar with the roads. We got caught up in torrential rain and we couldn't see a thing out of the windows. The car seemed to be sailing down the street(although it wasn't!)It was so terrifying to have to keep on moving forward not seeing where we were heading!!!

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  9. Some dental experiences. Quite a few animal rights-related 'incidents'; especially when I thought I might end up in prison at one point!

    But, by far the scariest, was being a full-time carer for Dad. No job; no income; no friends; no partner; no home to call my own anymore etc. Plus no idea about Alzheimers, or being a carer/nurse. I had to learn fast, and take everything that was thrown at me.

    No-one else in the family could/would do it (and paid carers certainly didn't fill the gaps). My father's 'fate' now rested with me. How bloody frightening is that? No wonder I went 'nuts' after it ended, ten years later.

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    1. A different but just as valid sense of fear me thinks

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  10. In '86 watching the 757 carrying my 11 year old daughter take off from Seattle, blow an engine at about 100 ft, settle in the air, turn and land again. I swear the only thing that kept it in the air was me, watching and saying 'stay up, stay up'.
    Nothing from two tours in Vietnam matches.
    Cheers,
    Mike

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    1. I suspect your wartime stuff is well and truly buried

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  11. A flight to Madeira. The landing was aborted four times and then the pilot told us we were running out of fuel. I'm a nervous passenger at the best of times.

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    1. Especially if there were two nuns on board

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  12. Waking up in hospital after my car accident. I relive it at least twice a month.

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  13. Avidly reading 'The Amityville Horror' and coming to the realization that it was 3 a.m., the house was dark, family asleep, and I saw my own reflection in the window. Sounds tame enough, doesn't it?

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  14. The day the nurse who was doing an ultrasound on my pelvic area was taking rather a long time about it and then finally she said to me, 'Unfortunately there appears to be rather a large mass next to one of your ovaries. Ladies your age shouldn't have masses on their ovaries' then she called the doctor in to explain things to me. Luckily, it wasn't ON my ovary, which would have been very,very bad news but next to it. They subsequently removed all my female plumbing and the rest is history!

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  15. Twenty-two years old and cornered in the bathroom by my knife-bearing estranged husband. No blood was shed and, oddly enough, the experience gave me strength to move on, knowing I was doing the right thing.

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    1. Ahhh, Wilma, bless your heart.. that makes me want to cry :(
      I was in a similar place with someone .. same age, he was 20 years older ... with the help of strangers I escaped;.
      I am so glad you did too.

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  16. My brother, sister and I were caught up on a burning school bus and my parents would have lost three children in one go if it hadn't been for the bus driver's swift action.
    Greetings Maria x

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    1. Love the way you always finish even the most serious of blog replies with happy " greetings!"

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    2. Trelawnyd is being attacked by aliens.

      Greetings YP x

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    3. Because... "all is well that ends well" xxx

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  17. I'm sure there probably are a few John but the one that sticks out in my mind at the moment , the one that caused my heart to lurch and my breath to catch and can STILL do that when i think of it is when my daughter was oh ... 6 or 7 years old and we had just come in from the field after collecting up square bales of hay.. The kids all help out ... they walk ahead and make sure the bale is turned the right way etc.. maybe drag a few of them together... anyway then they get to ride on top of the pile of hay back to the barn.. Well as my daughter is climbing down off the hay trailer i see out of the corner of my eye her lose her footing and start to tumble headfirst off the hay trailer...And i'am too far away to do anything about it... Thankfully her Uncle was right there and noticed what was happening and managed to grab her arm and jerk her upright at the last possible second... just the thought of what the outcome could have been can make me feel weak in the knees....Hugs! deb

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    1. That parental feeling " cold water" when something goes wrong eh?

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  18. November 9, 2016.

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    1. It might still get worse.

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    2. In deed ...korean dictators not withstanding

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    3. Susan, omg ! How could I forget that! You are right ... much scarier than my previous post. A run-away car is one thing, a run -away out of control President is worse!!

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    4. I may add that I have been living in terror ever since, and will do for four years. goD help us.

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  19. When I slipped from some rocks into the Pacific Ocean. My head was clouted against a rock and I was swept out to sea as blood filled my eyes and saltwater filled my mouth. I thought I was a goner but the current carried me round the headland and I was able to crawl to safety now feeling as weak as a kitten.

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    1. Another of my greatest fears....i nearly drowned as a ten year old but the fear of that experience only came to me retrospectively

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  20. Waiting for an ambulance to arrive, knowing it was too late.

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  21. In the U.S. when you go into any medical situation they ask you to rate your pain on a scale of 1-10. It is such an arbitrary measurement. If the worst pain ever felt was sneezing, stubbing a toe would definitely be a 10. To a woman in labor stubbing a toe doesn't even make it on to the scale. Worst fear seems about the same thing. If someone lives in a bubble wrapped box then being chased by a dragon fly can be traumatic. I suppose being caught up on the Space Needle during a storm could be frightening even if you have no problem with heights. I sat in a room and had a doctor tell me that I had cancer and that he was sure that it had already metastasized. But the scariest moment was when my daughter and I walked out of a restaurant and two large rottweilers jumped up in the back of a pick up truck set to attack.

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    1. I dont know which one to pick most

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    2. I Love your comparisons ! dragonflies and rottweilers and childbirth pain ..
      What a scary situation you were in though !

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  22. Never been attacked by a lion but I admit I was more than a little concerned when a crazy Rottweiler blocked my path and repeatedly body checked me, presumably trying to knock me off balance so he could eat my face as they are apt to do, when I was out running and there was no-one else, no owner of the beast, in sight. Eventually a pair of drunks arrived on the scene and took the brute away.

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    1. Yes the russian terrier did the same to me.. But he bit me too

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  23. My mom had a stroke and when I walked in she looked normal. Until she opened her mouth to speak. She thought I was her mother and she was in the hospital having a baby and demanding to know where her baby was. I had just had Thanksgiving dinner with her two days ago and she was fine. For someone's mind to go like that was just the most frightening thing I ever had to deal with. It was like she was in a different universe. I didn't know how I would cope with it.

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  24. My encounter with a black bear while cycling in the Yukon... It stopped, I stopped and I slowly went for my bear spray. Suddenly it stood up on its hind legs and gave me a good stare. I remembered a discussion with an a quilting friend, who told me just to yell at them and they would likely run off, so I started to yell. After a very long few seconds it bounded off the road, into the bush. I gave it a minute, and continued on...shaking in my boots.
    Barb

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  25. A couple of things from my teenage years on the farm.

    Missing a turn on an all-terrain-vehicle (going too fast to make the corner) and choosing between blackberry brambles or a tree. I choose the tree.

    The 200 pound cover of a machine slamming closed just seconds after my mother moved her head out from under it. (I was standing five feet away feeding a machine.)

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  26. I loved in Japan many, many years ago. One evening while walking from my car to the apartment, I stepped into a space of extreme evil. I was completely paralyzed with fear.

    My husband was holding my hand and pulled me toward him. As soon as I stepped out of whatever space that was, I was fine, almost embarrassed except for the tears, sweat and shaking legs.

    I'll never be able to really explain it, but something really, really bad had happened in that 9 square feet and the energy of it was still there.

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  27. Since you asked...junior year in college, driving home in the rain for Thanksgiving weekend with 3 friends in my 1974 Nova (this was in the early 90s,so it was an old car even then).

    Partway home I handed driving duty to my roommate, who had plenty of experience with big old sedans. First time she changed lanes she overcorrected and sent us into a spin. I saw headlights in every direction as we did a 360, and I just knew we were going to die; I could only sit there waiting for the inevitable impact.

    But we ended up in the median, engine stalled, headlights still on. I got into the driver's seat, cranked her back up, and that beautiful car drove steadily out of the mud and back onto pavement.

    When we stopped at the next gas station there were grass stems jammed beneath the plastic rub stripes. I had Dad look it over when we got home, but didn't tell Mom for at least 15 years!

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    1. I have never been in a majoy car accident but i susoect everything moves in slow motion

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    2. It does John... inside the car.... but outside it goes a million miles an hour!

      Jo in Auckland, NZ

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  28. On a walk aged 12 with a friend, being confronted by a man with a shotgun who said "Run or I'll shoot you". I've never run so fast in my life. We never told anyone and I still wonder who he was. SueF

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    1. See, i am never dissapointed when i ask for examples

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  29. Escaping my physically, emotionally, psychologically abusive ex. He'd stayed home from his cop job, trying to work himself up into killing me because I said I was done. I played it off that week, like I wasn't going to leave, that we could start over. He sorta believed it enough to leave me alone for about five minutes while he went two blocks to pick up his uniform at the cleaners. As soon as I heard his car leave the driveway, I quickly threw my six-month old twin babies into my car and took off with the clothes we had on our backs before he could return.

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    1. I think thats the most frightening entry...how brave were you? Did he try to find you?

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    2. It was a 10 year odyssey. I knew that returning and not finding me, he’d guess which relative I was headed to and would catch up with me on the freeway. He’d done that before, tried to run me off the freeway, then knocked me about when he caught up and got me out of the car. When I escaped this time, I was smart and drove around aimlessly in the opposite direction until I figured he'd given up trying to find me, hid my car when I finally arrived so he’d not know which relative’s house I’d escaped to, and spent the next 10 years being careful not to have anything in my name or the correct address on my driver’s license because, he being a cop, he had access to records, could and would find me. I filed for divorce. He called my attorney, threatened to kill him if he took the case. Things were different back then so, being a cop, he got away with that threat. For my safety at the courthouse however, since there’d been a shooting along those lines at the courthouse a month or so before so, it was arranged so I didn’t have to appear in person. Ten years later, I was having lunch with coworkers when a man passed in front and looked over at me quizzically. It was he. I started to hyperventilate and, when I told my coworkers why, they got me out of there. I should have known, being a cop, he’d follow us because shortly thereafter I received a call --- at work, from his best friend. The message was, “You’re getting older, he’s getting older, you two should get back together”. By then I was a much stronger person, and dating much younger men, so I said, “What do I want with that old man. I don’t date anyone over 30.” But I said if he wanted a relationship with his children, that could be arranged and it was through his mom.

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    3. Good God alive. Sometimes you think you are the only one going through that crap. I finally got it through my thick skull that he just might go ahead and kill me when I came home from a rugby match in town with my youngest and his friends (he would have been about 10 at the time). Now ex had drunk 16 beers (I knew because I had dumped the empties that morning) and was half way through a bottle of whiskey which he suddenly couldn't find. So obviously (to him) I had taken it. Then he comes back into the bedroom with a now broken bottle of whiskey, pinned me to the bed and held it to my throat and said "I'll do it you know and I'll do the time for it". I called the cops on him (again) but to be honest I have never felt so vulnerable because I had my kids to protect. I can only thank God the day he ran off with his tramp and I could get my divorce. And he's now back living in the States (I'm in France) so life really does get better doesn't it. Anna

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  30. On the beach, late in the afternoon, my 5=year-old son disappeared in a blink of an eye. We had been rock-pooling, but now the tide was coming in fast and I was worried that he might have trapped a foot in the rocks and would be drowned. I ran back and forth, screaming his name; two elderly people went back into the sea to see if they could find him (so I worried about them as well) but there was no little boy. The lifeguards had left but their truck was in the cafe car park at the top of the beach, so I ran up there. Just as I was leaving the beach, there was a family with two little boys playing with buckets and spades . . . and one of the boys was my son! I could have murdered him!!!!

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    1. Being a lost child is frightening too.....i remember getting lost once..........awful!

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  31. Second most frighting day. (The first was a botched delivery of my Baby Nicole. I still see visions of this to this day 35 years later.)
    I was in High School working the concession stand at a Drive-In Theater in Tucson. I was cleaning up after we closed and friends of one of the other worker came in. I was cleaning and really not paying attention and all of a sudden hands came around my neck and someone was strangling me. It hurt so bad almost blanked out and when he (big big big) let go this 17 year old small kid turned around a yelled what the hell you stupid ..... To this day I have throat problems.

    cheers, parsnip

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  32. June of 2015, I was visiting my brother on the family farm in North Dakota. We were trying to get a sick cow from the barn into a chute so we could check her out and give her a shot, but she charged me, threw me against the barn wall and started digging into my left side. I ended up with 5 broken ribs and a punctured lung. She would have killed me, but my Dad was there to whip her and distract her enough to get me out of the barn. Still recovering from the pain of the ribs and muscle/nerve damage. I definitely though it was the end and thought "This is what it is like to die". I slept in a recliner for 5 weeks before I could lie down properly in bed to sleep.

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    1. My God ... I am glad you survived .. these stories are harrowing .. and I am just so glad you all survived !

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  33. "Someone" or "something" sat on my bed. I wasn't dozing nor drunk. It was the most terrifying thing and I felt as if my hair was fully standing up, ran out of the house. Never felt like that before or since.

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  34. When certain female bloggers (more than one, before anyone gets ideas above their importance) threatened to visit me in Bath.

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    1. Tom, did they say in Bath or in your bath ?

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    2. Now thats fucking scary as hell

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    3. Speaking about baths, I was 'scared' that John would post a selfie of his wrinkly testicles.

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    4. Anonymous7:00 am

      Is that all it takes? You scare easily, Tom.

      Anyway it wasn't a "threat". It was a promise.

      U

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    5. Don't kid yourself Ursula. I was not talking about you - or anyone you 'know'. I thought I had made that clear before one of you massive egos construed it as themselves.

      As usual, you do not understand humour when you see it. That is why you are completely unscary.

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    6. Anonymous9:25 am

      Oh, Tom, if only you knew what a fool you are making of yourself (and that's before taking your advanced years into account - though one might take your age as mitigating circumstance). Thanks for the laugh. Your humoUr is outstanding.

      "Massive Ego"? Sure. I have a massive ego. But, unlike you, at least I fit in my boots. Yours [boots, that is] appear a few sizes too big. Makes for difficult walking.

      U

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  35. March 2015 - I had pneumonia and couldn't breathe; spouse called for an ambulance; I spent the weekend in hospital. DAMN SCARY!

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    1. Anonymous8:03 pm

      I had a similar experience a few years ago. One of my teenage sons was home from school with a bad cough that lasted a few days and there were a couple of times when he seemed to be gasping after a coughing fit but it wasn't very bad. A few days later I started coughing myself. I woke in the wee hours of the morning and went to the bathroom to cough without waking my wife. At the end of the coughing fit my airway closed completely and I couldn't take a breath however hard I tried. After half a minute the air started coming in slowly so I had to make a lot of hacking gasps. My wife and sun both turned up in the bathroom, I was terrified but it passed and I was Ok.

      I went to the doctor the next morning (in hindsight the emergency room right away would have been better). It turned out to be whooping cough (pertussis). I didn't realise that the whooping cough vaccine is not 100% effective and it becomes less effective with time. I got an antibiotic and a vaccine booster and have been fine but the whole episode was terrifying. There has been a recent upswing in whooping cough due to parents refusing vaccination for their children. In adults in particular it is a pretty nasty thing!

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    2. ann marie, when I was a teenager, I had pneumonia 2 years in a row .. I thought I would die. That is the worst feeling, trying to pull air into those lungs ... I am glad you lived :)

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    3. Respiratory problems in the young and middle age always hits home much harder than in the elderly....they compensate

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    4. Oh Ann Marie that is scary. I have been in you place and it is awful.
      I am so happy you are still here.

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    5. awwwwwwwwww shucks (blushes), thanks guys!

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  36. Currently every bloody day, going through every bloody lock.
    But apart from that, being in hospital, I had placenta previa, the placenta had ruptured and was hemorrhaging, mine and my baby's life were in danger and there wasn't a doctor available to perform a c section

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  37. I agree with you about heights.
    If I need to go above the third floor
    anywhere, for any reason, I really
    feel like I'm going to die.
    Can't look out the window.
    I walk near an inside wall until
    I can get back down to ground level.
    Having said that...........
    Pretty much every thing frightens me
    these days.

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  38. I think my brain is miswired. In a situation that should frighten me, for example being suddenly confronted by a stranger, I get mad instead of afraid and feel like Clint Eastwood (make my day). This is probably not wise, it just happens. Not afraid of animals, I just stay away from the ones that are dangerous. I also stay away from high places.

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  39. When my 15 year old son was unable to wake up, and I realized he was in a low blood sugar state with type 1 diabetes. I tried to use the insulin pen on him and he fought me like a madman kicking me, and yet had no eye contact or ability to speak. His EMT said his blood sugar reading was 29.

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  40. When the doctor said, "Yep...looks like you're pregnant."

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  41. Walking down Chicago Miracle Mile when a jumper lands on the car hood in front of me. It was a hot day and I was freezing cold.

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  42. Without doubt my most frightening time was when Tom had his heart attack. We didn't have a telephone then and I had to run around the corner to the phone box, I remember that my jaw would not stop jogging up and down with nerves. All was well in the end but it's something that I cannot forget.
    Briony
    x

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    1. That terrible anxiety and fear that no one is going fast enough, they have to hurry ! is so awful ..I called an ambulance and they said they were on their way, but they also stayed on the phone with me ... just as I said, when will they be here, they pulled up .. dreadful memory :(

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    2. I have had good experiences when I have called ambulances - and still tears prick at my eyes and I start to hyperventilate anytime I see or hear them. My heart goes out to you both.

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  43. In 1979 I was working in a retail pharmacy. I buzzed in a customer who promptly pulled a handgun & pointed it directly at my head, demanding drugs from the vault. He had me kneel on the floor and held the gun to the back of my head for the duration of the robbery. He got away with the drugs, I got away with my life. Of everything else I've encountered (car wrecks, death of loved ones, etc) nothing compares.

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  44. After reading the last two comments ( et al) i realize judt how Lucky i am !

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  45. I was flying for the first time in the 1970s on a commercial, propEller type plane. On that day it had a large group of army members from a local base. During the flight, the plane took a drastic, steep dive and the whole group of the soldiers screamed bloody murder. If they were that afraid, I felt for sure we were doomed. Alas, we survived and I suspect we had an embarrassed group on board.

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    1. Flying stresses me more now the older i get!

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  46. My first mental health crisis/breakdown. I never knew that much fear could exist. Death seemed a very easy option compared to the pure terror I experienced. To exist for 40 odd years and your world to suddenly collapse for reasons you cannot explain or understand is unbearable.
    Thanks to drugs, the NHS and a great family, I came out of the other end. I would not wish that on any one. It was hell. x

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    1. The fear of people with mental illness sometimes camouflages the fear felt by the patient .....good point well made x

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  47. When, on a very dark night, I saw a man thrown out of a car on a country road. My husband wouldn't stop. Perhaps that intensified the fear.

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  48. Personally? Turning my head to breathe while swimming across a river and discovering a red-bellied black snake effortlessly keeping pace with me.
    And waiting for my partner to come out of surgery after his bowel ruptured.

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    1. a red bellied black snake ? my head would explode before it could even touch me ... :(

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  49. Being in a car accident and turning and seeing my husband's head and face covered in blood. He did not wake up for a month. Everyday was a nightmare.

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  50. It was the morning I got the phone call from a coworker in the emergency room telling me my best friend had just died. He had committed suicide. I remember the fear of it being true, the dread of me not being able to fix it, the fear of life never being the same ever again.

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  51. Watching the WTC Towers fall and seeing the smoke billowing here over the ocean from the city.

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  52. I was caught in a bad current when i was 11 or 12 and floating out into the gulf, thankfully some fishermen on the dock saw me and sort of reeled me in. Never told my parents.

    A few years ago i saw a young child get hit by a car. Flew through the air, bounced off the car and landed mid road. It was horrific and took place in slow motion.

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  53. I am going to have nightmares from reading these tonight ~

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  54. I was caught in a bad current when i was 11 or 12 and floating out into the gulf, thankfully some fishermen on the dock saw me and sort of reeled me in. Never told my parents.

    A few years ago i saw a young child get hit by a car. Flew through the air, bounced off the car and landed mid road. It was horrific and took place in slow motion.

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  55. I feel a bit selfish with my story, as it's not nearly as upsetting as many here. A couple of years ago, I had to take a respiratory test, the one where you take huge breaths in and then blow them out fast, all in a tube connected to a machine to measure air flow. I got so far in the test that all the deep breathing disrupted the balance of gases in my bloodstream and I spent an hour in the ER hooked up to a heart monitor while things got sorted out. The doctor said it's surprising how important that balance of gases is. All I could think of was that the cats needed feeding and there was no one at home to do it! (my husband was out of town until late, and my mother can't manage our stairs)

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  56. 1971, Belfast N. Ireland. Being held at gunpoint by members of the IRA. One of the girls with a gun was shaking so bad I thought she would shoot me whether she wanted to or not. I really thought I was going to die and I was only 20 years old!

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  57. I have had a lot of terrifying moments, mostly related to my kids but this one happened when I was about 17.
    I was out at night, driving my mums car and I felt that I was being followed. I was scared enough to keep driving past our house and drove aimlessly for a few blocks. I felt that the person following me had stopped and went home. I pulled onto the driveway and got out of the car and a man stepped out from behind a tree in our front yard. I absolutely froze.
    Turned out, my cousin was driving with a friend and asked him to follow me, intending to meet me at home but of course i didnt know the car or what was happening. When i drove past our house, my cousin just jumped out and waited for me (behind a tree)

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  58. Mine is pretty mild in comparison with experiences others have had, but still sends shivers down my spine. My only child was perhaps ten months, and just starting to walk (very early - the 'no fear, no brain' age) when he disappeared while we were in the garden. I went straight to the garden shed, and there he was, alight with self-satisfaction, bouncing at the top of a ladder... and below him were the upturned tines of the large gardening fork. I swear I aged ten years in that moment.
    By comparison, as a ten year old, driving my drunk father 60 miles in the middle of the night was just caused mild anxiety!

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  59. Losing control of my car doing 70mph on the M6 on a busy Friday afternoon. I was veering from one lane to another, the car spun and I braced myself to hit the central reservation. Luckily there had been heavy rain, there was a grassy area at the side of the barrier and it was boggy. The car slowed to a halt before I hit anything. There I sat with cars roaring past me, and the bastard in the truck who had cut me up and caused it went on his merry way. The motorway was shut while me and the car were rescued by the police. I then had to complete my journey but broke down completely when I got home.

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  60. When I was 24 I resigned my job in Geneva to spend six months back-packing round Australia. We camped or stayed in Youth Hostels (being two young girls). Our bus got in to Mackay on the east coast very early, just as the sun was coming up. I decided to just sit out and wait for the Youth Hostel to open but my friend decided to go for a walk in the cane fields. About 20 minutes later she came back ashen-faced. All she said was "I don't like it here let's go". And I said "I know what you mean, this place gives me the willys". She had been walking and a voice kept saying "hallo, who are you, hallo who are you", but she couldn't see anyone. And I heard voices too but again couldn't see anyone. I guess it could have been a minah(sp?) bird but it spooked us so bad that we made a dash for the road and for the one and only hitched lift of our trip. The driver then started telling us he was the skipper of a boat and the were looking for young (female) cabin crew if we were interested. Yeah right. So we ended up at a caravan site in the most humid part of the world. Yuck. We rented a caravan for a few nights but walking to the showers at night we ended up walking all over cane toads - squelch, squelch, squelch. One actually landed on my friend's head in the shower and I found one in the toilet. Those buggers are big. I have never been so relieved to "get out of town" I can tell you. Anna

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  61. When my youngest who was about 5 years old suddenly was not in sight at all on the busy Harlech beach. I was there with my best friend and also my 12 year old. We shouted, my eldest stayed on the towel while Sharon and I walked swiftly along the water's edge calling her. We walked up and down methodically looking for her. Inside I was screaming, but as an ITU nurse I kept very calm. We went back to Kate, and suddenly Jen was there asking when lunch was. She had been in the dunes with some other children. It only takes a second for them not o be in sight. I cried afterwards.

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  62. A flight coming home from the UK...severe storm and we were caught in the middle due to traffic above and below us. Tilting sharply from side to side with lunch dishes flying in the air.

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  63. For me it's a toss up between being pulled into deep water by the undertow in the Pacific Ocean (at age 17), and living through a night of terror before escaping my insane and dangerous ex-husband. I still have nightmares.

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  64. Loved reading these. A friend & I aged around 12 or thirteen used to scare ourselves watching Roald Dahl's Tales of the In expected.. it sounds tame now but my friend lived in part ofan old manor house which was haunted, her parents would be next door having drinks but obviously next door was through very thick walls. We used to scare ourselves stupid in those days.

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  65. Watching, with 3 of my 4 kids, as their once wonderful father raged on top of the roof of a building. We stood aside the police and swat team, weapons out and aimed, as screamed and cried, blaming me for everything. If I never see another gun again it will be too soon.

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    1. I am astounded that so many bloggers here have had abusive relationships and violent ex partners!

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    2. In all honesty John, he was never abusive. He had reached his rock bottom when he realized we found out about the double life he was leading. I still cannot believe that I was married to a junkie without knowing it. That I, a successful business woman, upper middle income, kids in college, nice house and church, was unaware that my partner was shooting shit into his arms multiple times a day. How could anyone have missed that?

      Truly, he was a gentle spirit with self treated mental illness but, nevertheless, it was a scary day.

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  66. About 25 years ago I climbed up hundreds of steps to go outside of the dome on St Peters basilica in Rome, heights had never really bothered me before but when I stepped outside and looked out I just froze..there was a party of schoolchildren up there as well all running around and I was glued to the back wall I couldn't move or speak, I then had the indignity of two 8 or 9 year old little boys trying to peel me off the wall and hold my hands and lead me back to the stairs I think at one stage I was trying to crawl rather than walk....oh the shame

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    1. Debbie...i am so glad its not just me

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  67. My very most frightening and scariest moment is unspeakable. But it's long over and I know that nothing will ever be that bad so I am very grateful for that. Life gets better and better.

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  68. Scary moments for me are nothing like starring down a bear or lion . . .
    Mine are more like
    seeing a mouse . . .
    the movie "The Birds" freaked me out when I was a young one.
    I still detest scary movies . . .
    like a killer inside a house, owners unaware.
    I do remember being quite terrified this past winter, driving on the freeway, dreadful weather and seeing a car come up behind me very fast, no control on the ice and sliding off into the medium. Yikes!
    Just thought of a big scary one! Inside Newgrange, in Ireland, inside the long tunnel going to the center, many people, single file, one way in, no way out, until we started to depart. Felt claustrophobic . . . like oh my . . . "I can't do this" . . . thought I was going to lose it.
    OMG . . . awful.
    On the other hand, seeing Newgrange from the outside was more than phenomenal.

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