How have you saved someone else’s life?

29 comments

1. Back in the day did plenty of emergency medical calls. Made sure few people made it to see another day. But i never considered saving anybodies life, I only prolonged it.

2. Yes. Saved a kid (maybe 4 years old) that was about to get hit by a car. I know by the force at which I hit the hood and windshield that this kid would be dead.

3. Bot/Support main here. I save lives all the time.

4. Bone marrow donor. 5+ gallon blood donor.

5. Saved my little brother from drowning in a pool once, no one else noticed and I jumped in and got him out. Saved a baby from a large dog almost landing directly on it, the dog was jumping over something and didn’t see the baby. If animals count I’ve probably saved a couple dozen

6. My own. Am I a hero? I really can’t say, but, yes.

7. I saved a man years ago who was unconscious and not responding. There are ways to force people to breathe while waiting for the fire department to arrive. Once they arrived and did their work, they told me had I not done what they’d said to on the phone, hee be dead.

   I also saved my brother, he was a baby at the time and somehow nobody paid attention to his stroller. It rolled and rolled down to a bed of rocks and water, I held on to the stroller for my life, and ended up being able stop it somehow. I don’t remember this, but I hear stories, I was not going to let my baby brother die that way.

8. When I was 12 my two friends and I had built a fort back in the swamp by the creek even though we weren’t supposed to be back there. We were also building a boat. My 10yo sister used to try and follow me back there and I’d always tell her no and leave her behind. One day she decided she wasn’t going to listen to me and tried to follow us in secret. She got stuck in some deep mud up to her chest and couldn’t get out.

   My friends and I were walking back and we heard her yelling and found her. One of my friends ran off because he thought we were gonna get in trouble. Me and the other friend tried to get her out with a branch and that didn’t work. Then I ran back to our fort and grabbed rope we were using for the boat and we used that to drag her out.

9. I gave the heimlich to a coworker who was choking on a peice of pot roast about 20 years ago. He thanked me and we never spoke about it again even though we worked together for about a year. I can’t even remember his name, I hope he is doing well.

10. I’m still trying to save my own tbh

11. Not directly but my roommate/friend was the only one who cared about me and saw my suffer when i was deep in depression. He talk about me and even celebrate my birthday. I gonna be grateful forever. He dont even know how much this mean to me. Im a boy so it wasnt like that. Hes just kind AF

12. My own brother, he almost got washed away in a canal, still an ungrateful asshole

13. I talked a girl out of suicide on discord 3 years ago due to body dysmorphia and shitty household. She was ok a year later, never heard from her since but she was living with her sister away from her abusive parents so that’s a plus.

14. I’ve saved two.

    One was with an AED and one was suicide prevention.

15. I was a crime journalist earlier in my career, and one way to make contacts as a crime journalist is to make friends with local cops.

    One good way to do that is to ask to go on patrol ride-alongs.

    So I did that with the police marine patrol once, and went out on their patrol boat. I ended up helping to rescue a lady on a personal floatation device who got swept out away from the shore and couldn’t get back.

    I mean, she would’ve gotten rescued even if I wasn’t there, but it was still an interesting experience to be involved. It’s literally an “all hands on deck” situation. If you’re on the marine patrol boat, and something like that happens, then yeah, you’re involved. You’re helping. The lead officer was barking orders at me just as much as he was barking orders at his own guys. Sitting back and observing was clearly not an option.

16. In middle school me and my friend stepped of the bus. He tried to cross the street without looking. I pulled him back. Car speeded by … wooooosh

17. I chose not to run over a tweaker while driving to work last night, does that count?

18. i can’t say he would have died, but i saved my brother from falling down a very steep, long, rocky hill, borderline cliff. we were hiking, he slipped, and i was able to grab his backpack before he went over.

19. Talked someone back from considering suicide once. I didn’t know at the time, found out later he was thinking of it.

20. Girl overdosed in front of me and a friend. We started getting suspicious when she started popping Xanax like crazy. Called emergency services and they pumped her stomach. Her family thanked us and convinced us to go back and see her. She cursed us out screaming she wanted to die. Came out later that her step father had been forcing himself on her. We were all pretty much kids, but I’ll never forget her rage at us for saving her life. Never heard from her again. I still wonder about her from time to time now I’m in my 40s. I hope she found some peace.

21. I work Code Blues at the hospital so I do it on any given day. It’s desensitizing, we stay calm, do CPR, maintain an airway, a series of steps and IV injections to keep the heart going. We can actually keep people alive on a ventilator and life supporting drugs for a long time after they’re brain dead.

22. Pulled a woman who hit her head out of the water and gave her mouth to mouth

23. I work in the trades. I’ve found several gas leaks and appliances, various dangerous electrical situations. Prevented a few house fires by finding burnt out wiring.

24. Saved my brother from choking to death and my son and niece from drowning

25. I was a crisis worker that took their job a little too seriously. I met many people in dire straights and i think a number of the connections i made really carried people through.

26. I don’t know that I’ve saved anyone but I hope I have.

    I have Major Depressive Disorder (among other things). Early onset. Severe symptoms. Even depressive psychosis at my lowest point. That’s how I landed in the hospital in my 20s. There is where I had my first encounter with the guys who somehow, against the odds, had made it into their 40s and 50s still alive and not in jail or drooling in the “secure ward” after rounds of ECT and heavy duty meds.

    I had no idea how they did it. The unholy grind of it all. Fighting every single day for an inch of ground only to lose it again and have to start over. They saved me by being open and honest with their struggle and showing me how to just keep going by sheer stubbornness and willpower when nothing else worked.

    And that’s what I do now that I’m one of those guys. I’ve done really well. I haven’t had to be hospitalized again. I’ve taken my meds and gone to therapy for decades. I finally got the point in my 40s when things really started to work. I discovered happiness a couple years after that. At 45, I was more or less asymptomatic. I did it. I beat this thing… for now.

    In the few years since, when faced with someone younger in the same boat I was… I try to give them a word of encouragement along the lines of, “I know exactly what you’re going through. I finally beat it and the other side is *absolutely* worth it. Don’t miss it.”

27. I think it’s pretty likely I saved my highschool ex’s life. She was extremely unstable. Had pretty much every problem under the sun.

    She had attempted suicide a couple times before meeting me, she cut regularly, suffered from stints of anorexia and bulimia, had powerfully strong depression and obviously really bad suicidal ideation. Undiagnosed (at the time) BPD.

    There were so, so many times where it felt like I was the only thing holding her back from ending it all.

    Being in a relationship with her was like sharing a room with a black hole. You just got sucked up and warped and you stopped seeing the light in the world.

    I came into that relationship as basically a human golden retriever with very few personal problems and I left it with a shitload more life/relationship experience than somebody my age had any business having.

    The bittersweet part? When she finally started improving she dropped me like a rock. I was simultaneously overjoyed that she was doing better, and an emotional wreck at having been abandoned by the person who at that time I thought was the love of my life.

    Of course it’s been 10 years since then, I’m well past being “over” her, and I’m now dating the most incredible woman who makes every day bright and joyful. I’m absurdly lucky to have her, and to say I’m thankful is an understatement.

28. When we were 12, a friend and I were practicing hockey on a frozen pond. He chased a puck onto some thin ice and fell through. Using a technique I’d just learned in Boy Scouts, I spreadeagled on the ice to distribute my weight and stuck out my stick so he could grab it. I scrambled backwards but the ice in front of him kept crumbling. Finally we reached some solid ice and I pulled him out.

29. My sister’s. she choked on a chicken bone and turned blue in a second because she could not breathe and fell to the floor. I swiftly went and performed the heimlich maneuver while my parents were panicking. Got the bone out on third try.