Ever save anyone's life? On the farm or off? What happened?

I was up at my brother-in-laws ranch and he started choking on a piece of meat, silently, without looking at him you would"ve never known anything was wrong. Well, I had read about the Heinlich deal, not trained, but went behind him, grasped my fists right below his sternum and jerked up. The meat shot out of his mouth and he started breathing right away. I"m just glad I was there and with God"s help, was able to make a difference.

I knew a few guys that saved their own lives by getting married - but that's a whole 'nother story.

Something very similar happened to me when I was about 6 years old. I was eating corn flakes for breakfast with grandma and I choked. Grandma panicked and grabbed me around the middle and was going to try and carry me out to grandpa who was outside. In the process, it dislodged the corn flake! A few years later when I was about 11 or 12, grandpa choked on his lunch at the same table I was sitting at about 5 years before. I had seen the heimlich (sp?) before in videos at school, so I gave it a try. I remember picking grandpa up off the floor 2 times, and on the third attempt it dislodged. Needless to say, when I bought the farm from grandma, that dining room became our laundry room. Wasn't going to have any more of that choking business in that room!

US Army gas stove blew up in a PVT's face so to speak. He was flaming head to foot. Myself and 2 other NCO's tackled him and put him out. No serious injuries to anyone. The young soldier had been wearing wet weather gear and it protected. He was only on fire for about 1 minute. He did have 1st degree burns on his face and hands.

Rick

yes i have. one of the driving factors in the mindset of the vol ems/firefighters,the one thing that we as volunteers value is a simple thank you for our assistance in time of need. i personally recomend that everyone learn how to do hiemlick manuver an take some sort of basic first aid course.there cpr courses that are very inexpemsive an can save a great number of lives,an can increase tha chance of servial until ems can get on scene.i have been involved in fire an ems for 30+ yrs.

Was driving down a back country road in the rain one morning and found a baby girl in the middle of the road.

She was wearing only an infant T-shirt and was soaked from the rain.

Stopped and got her in my truck, dried her off as best I could with an old towel, and wrapped the towel around her.

Drove a couple of miles down the road to a fellow"s house and asked him if he knew who the baby belonged to.

He hung his head and said yes.

He got in my truck and held the baby girl while we drove back up the road about 3 miles.

It was around 10am when we walked up on the front porch and knocked on the door.

A woman answered the door who was drinking beer.

First thing she said was "Where did you find her, out in the road?"

Fellow gave the baby girl to her and then she shut the door.

We stood there looking at each other in disbelief.

When I got back to Jefferson, Tx went to the courthouse and told my story to child protective services.

Don"t know what happened after that and never asked.

That baby girl, if she survived her childhood, should be about 30 years old by now.

Still want to cry every time I think about it.

Wow! Good that you happened to be there, James.

A similar thing happened to my wife years ago.
She was on 259 north of Longview when she saw a toddler at the edge of the highway. She pulled over and grabbed the child and took her up to a house nearby that was having a garage sale.
The mother was the one having the garage sale, and unlike your case, the mother was scared and shocked that the child had slipped away so fast, and was totally thankful that the child had been stopped in time.

Not me but I was with my mother when she did save a mans life, I must have been 6 or 7. We were driving home late a night in the fall when we came upon a car on fire in the ditch. It was a deep ditch just up the banks off the Racoon River, the car and the grass were both on fire when she pulled over to see. There was a drunk still in the car, it was still running and he was trying to drive out of the ditch but getting nowhere. Mom finally convinced him that he wasn"t getting unstuck and the car was going to blow. By the time they climbed back out of the ditch the car was fully engulfed in flames.

No one ever saves anyone's life they just prolong it awhile.

1987 in Jan. we had lots of snow. Was working at Burlington Ind. Brookneal Va. in maintenance. This plant used steam and heated with steam. One gas boiler and 3 coal boilers that were installed in 1948. Boiler house is 5 stories high, coal fed in from the top by conveyors. No guard rail around the edge of the roof. Flat top roof with about a 2 ft. high edge.

Coal conveyor plugged up with frozen chunks of coal. About 16 deg. that night. Was 3 of us up there and used pry bars, shovels and big pipe wrench to get these plugs broken up and get the screw conveyor started again. One of my friends picked up the pipe wrench and got it on the shaft of the screw close to a hanger bearing. Slid a piece of pipe over the handle. He was standing between the conveyor and the edge of the roof, about 4 ft. between the two. I was standing in front of him with the pry bar facing him. Pipe wrench slipped off and he was headed to falling off the roof.I grabbed the shoulder of his coat and held with all I could. Both legs up to his knees went over the edge and I stopped him from the fall. Thought I was going over too till his body hit the roof.

We both had to go sit down for a little while to shake that feeling away. OSHA a few years later made the company put a guard fence around the edge of the roof. It was needed.

When I was about 5 years old I was ridin the fender of my mother's D-14 tricycle tractor, pullin a mounted 5' AC Bush hog. Unbeknownst to mom, there was a couple hay bales piled up in a stack of 2, the hay was first cutting, and had been rained on, the guy who farmed the area had stacked them, but never got around to moving them, as they were worthless. High side rear tire rode over the bales, mom thought we was goin over, so she pushed me off the high side, and bailed right after. Mistake she made was chasin the tractor down, and tryin to knock the stick (hand clutch) back to neutral. Wheel caught her jacket, and pulled her into the tire, thank god, not all the way. tractor tire ran over her shoulder, and ribs, how she avoided the blades, I don't know. I pulled her away, the tractor ended up at a 45 degree angle, stalled out in a culvert hole. I ran 1/2 mile to the tenant house, no one was home, ran another 3/4 mile to closest neighbor, and he called the FD, and Ambulance. Mom ended up with a broken collarbone, and maybe a couple cracked ribs. Did I save her life, I don't know. She says I did, that is good enough for me.

As teenagers we would go swimming at a spring fed pool under a bridge. One Sunday afternoon a family of a mom, dad, and three daughters were there. One of the girls, a good swimmer, panicked and went under a couple times. I swam over and grabbed her arm and together with my brother we pulled her out. We didn't think too much about and and went back swimming. A couple months later I met her walking down the street with two of her friends. She said "You're the guy who saved my life!"

Don't know how it would have turned out, if I hadn't been there, but next door neighbor's wife called and said her husband was drunk, and had just been stomped and beat up in front of their home, had staggered in the house, grabbed his pistol, and jumped in his car, and was going to find the 3 guys and kill them.I took off looking for jim, and finally got behind his car just as he pulled into a closed resturant parkinglot, where 3 guys were standing around by a chevy elcamino. One guy by the Chevy was holding a 20 ga shotgun, and while I was getting out of my truck, Jim rolled down his window and pointed the pistol at the shotgun holder, and started telling him what he was going to do.Like a darned fool, I ran between the two and realizing my predicament, I started to give them both He77, very loudly, and promised to kick both of their azzes. if thyey didn't put the guns down. To my suprise it worked. Would I do it again? HE77 NO. A man can get hurt that way!

Visiting family around Assategue island national seashore last summer and saw a 4 year old struggling in the surf. Saw him go under for what appeared to be the last time. Pulled him from the waves just happened to be at the right place a the right time. Water was murky that day thinking if he had gone under and stayed under he would have been impossible to find.
Saved my own backside several times at work. Had a guy try to stab me and been shot at. Guess what I do?

Not me but a co-worker saved his father in law. They were 45 min away from hospital when the man had a heart attack. My co-worker kept up the CPR for the 15 min before the ambulance or police got there and relieved him. Found out later he broke 5 or 6 of his father in laws ribs, still gets a raking over that lol.

Neighbor in his 80's fell in his garage on night and for some reason I needed a crescent wrench that I had in a tractor tool box that was parked along the fence about a hundred yards from his garage and when I went to get it it I could her him yelling for help. He had need there for two hours and it was supposed to get down in the forty later that night. Well I went to investigate and found him helped him up or more or less carried him into his house and called his family. He was weak but I hate to think what might have happened if I had not walked over to that tractor or had not heard him. He passed away this last fall .

About 1970 or 71, after work in the summer, would run to National Forest site called "Slidin' Rock" to lifeguard. Water NEVER got warm. City folks thought it was a big hoot to slide down the face of a big rock and hit the pool at the bottom. Too many times, they hit that COLD water and freeze up. Have to drag them out to shallow water. Couple of times had to get them breathing again.

Back in May of 2001 we got 9 in of rain on a Sun. afternoon-the creek was over the blacktop in front of our house. The downstairs phone would not work so I went upstairs to see if that phone would work-looked out the window a saw a car in the ditch by the bridge-all you could see was the top 1 foot of the car. I ran downstairs and out to the blacktop. I could only get about 100 ft from the car so I got my JD tractor out and hooked it to my gooseneck flatbed trailer-just as I was going down the lane to the blacktop luck would have it, my son and neighbor were coming from the other way in the neighbors 1 ton flatbed truck-they jumped on the back of the trailer and I backed down into the ditch against the car. We chained the car to the trailer so it would not float away and pulled the 2 people throuh the window onto the trailer. They were 2 large elderly people-they saw the water over the road but thought they could drive through it-the car was washed off the road-they were sitting there with the lights still on and the wipers still going! Everybody was glad I saw them for the water was still rising. My wife asked what she should do to help-when I seen my son and the neighbor I said GRAB THE VIDEO CAMERA-she taped it and it made all the the tv stations in ne Iowa. Our local post master sent the infor. to the Iowa Governor and the next Aug. we got the Governors life saving award on stage at the Iowa State Fair! Everything turned out ok except while we were saving the 2 people the water backed up into our basement and floated our freezer which in turn tipped over and spilled everything into the water! O WELL

I'll take all the prolonging I can get!!!! bill

Saved my brothers life, according to the doc.

He and a friend got into a bottle of hooch they stole from a parent's liquor cabinet. Drank the whole fifth between the 2 of them. Around 13-14 yo and not much weight to handle that much alc. When I found him he was almost passed out. Called Dad right away (although at 16 my first thought was to cover it up so my brother did not get in trouble.) Glad I didn't.

Dad worked 40 mi away and must have sped 80 mph the whole way home. Got him to the hospital and pumped him out. Had to stay the night and had a pretty good hangover the next day.

I had pretty much forgotten about this since it was 30 years ago. Asked my brother to do some engine work for me and he said sure! When I was thanking him for the repair (had to pull the engine to replace timing chains - not a small job) he said, "No - thank you for saving my life!" Blew me away.

John

Been trained for many years in first aid and CPR. Really tough for even the professionals to do CPR without breaking some ribs. Not too much of a problem when you consider the alternative.

Yup, saved several over the years and lost quite a few too. Any police officer or Fire/EMS worker could tell the same stories I could. Pretty tame stuff, nothing like TV.