When I was 6, I was in a boating accident.
My family and I were waterskiing and camping off this little island on the lake. We did it all the time, since my uncle had a speedboat.
My mom was about to take her turn, and I was sitting in the boat behind my uncles seat, facing the back to watch her ski. When my uncle tried to start the boat, it faltered. Made a rut-rut-rut noise but wouldn’t start. After try three or four, I smelled something awful, and pinched my nose. The last thing I remember is my mom asking me if I smelled something bad, and I nodded.
The engine exploded into a ball of fire and engulfed me.
The next thing I know, I’m under water and bobbing to the surface (wear your life-vests, kids). My mom is screaming and my cousin is swimming to me and drags me to shore. My uncle (just outside the blast radius) had reached into the fire to grab me and thrown me into the water.
I was… calm. I felt nothing. We had to hail a passing boat to take us off the island to get to a hospital. I remember my mom asking me if I hurt, and shaking my head.
If i looked at my arms and legs and saw what I looked like at that point, I can’t remember at all, but I was covered in third-degree burns. I was in the hospital for a while, and then was in a wheelchair for a bit while my legs were wrapped. I had to have water therapy for my burns. I do remember the oblong, black boils that developed over my burns in the months that followed. For a long period of time, I couldn’t be in the sun, and had to wear a bonnet when I went to school.
My skin healed beautifully though. I’ve only got one long-lasting scar from it on my shoulder. The doctor said that my uncle throwing me into the cold lake water is what most-likely saved my skin from being permanently damaged. I’m sure being 6 years old helped immensely, too.
Having worked on ze ambulance when I was younger, here are a few favorites:
The guy who lit his wheelchair on fire and rode it across his house to unlock the front door.
The navy boxer who came up swinging after being cardioverted.
The two teen brothers that tried stabbing each other to death over how to divide up some puppies.
The woman who stabbed her boyfriend 15 times (including one in the scrotum) for refusing to take her to the movies the night before.
The woman being arrested who offered us all the money in her purse (probably close to $30) to “wreck the ambulance so she could escape in the confusion.”
The last one got me good lmao, I’m so curious, what’s her story?
She was under arrest with medical problems, so the cruiser followed us to the hospital. She was quite chatty and at the end of the trip said “I haven’t had sex in toooo long,” and then looked at my partner. You could see all three brain cells put it together and she smiled at him and said “heyyyyy.”
We did not wreck the ambulance and she went to jail from the hospital.
When my mother was pregnant with me, it was said that I had an opposite gender twin, but then comes my birth and such a twin is nowhere to be found.
I had the opposite: they didn’t know my bro was coming until I was already here and - look! - it’s another one!
You likely absorbed them. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanishing_twin
That used to be a theory, but it was looked into and it doesn’t seem to be what happened (also didn’t know that doesn’t just happen to identical twins).
Sounds like something a neonatal cannibal would say ;)
I don’t know if it’s the kind of story shared on that show, but I once had to be wheeled into an ER with hypothermia on a warm day (dry, properly clothed, etc).
How? Why?
Central dysautonomia. Basically, my autonomic nervous system can’t regulate my body temperature (among other things) all the time.
What triggers it being unable to? Like it decides to just not work sometimes, or is it like a battery percentage?
Physical stress seems to do it the most. For example, if I get sick or injured (such as have surgery), everything starts to go haywire.
Often it’s more random seeming but with less extreme impacts.
But also, as you said, it can be like a battery percentage. Like, I get more and more and more worn down over a handful of hours or days or weeks, and then that causes a bunch of other symptoms. I’ve learned to pace myself to avoid that.
