The Scariest Thing That Ever Happened to You...

[Scunner]

I was reminded of this today and I wondered how scary things might have got for you guys too  

The scariest thing that ever happened to me (a man who had a gun shoved in his face in Turkey) was in fact one day a few years ago, we came home from shopping in Perth and as we walked down our street we noted a fire engine near where we were living. As we got closer we realised it was a bit more than that, it was the apartment block we lived in. Your mind starts racing, who could it be...

We quickened our pace quite a bit, and the haunting words of one of the many firemen hit like a sledgehammer - "Are you from number 1?" - Jeez, we were, and I could have thrown up. I was trying to look to see if everything was black inside and how much we might have lost.

Turned out the idiots upstairs from us had a leaking shower, and the water had dripped through and set off the fire alarm in our ceiling. But boy, I wouldn't wish that walk home on anybody.

[tuzlachap]

Well, this is a  short , but  could have been a long story.

many years ago (about 1997'ish), My wife and I used to spend at least two, three week holidays in Southern Turkey. Like most folk we hired a jeep and explored the region that we were in.

This particular time we stayed at a place that was run by the now defunct Tapestry Holiday company. This was in the Datca area. Our usual pattern was to drive off with our camping gear and spend a day or two exploring. Not a problem, well, not until this particular time anyway.

We had long become used to the local warnings about "no shooting" (man with gun to his shoulder). So, when we saw a sign with a "man" with his gun held upright (saluting) we thought it was just another warning not to shoot bears or something.

Anyway. we drove past the sign/s into this wood and set up the tent, cooked a meal and after the usual evening stuff, crashed out for the night.

Early next morning I had the urge to pee, as one does. So, I went out of the tent, chose a bush on top of a slope, opened fly, and let fly. Not wishing to be too crude, but I was sort of mid-stream when I looked to where I was directing my flow down the slope. Wish I hadn't!!

I could see below me and slightly to my left there was as a strange face looking at me. OK, it was human, male, but it was sort of greenish. I stopped what I was doing and stared at this visage, then all hell broke loose!!!

Somebody started shouting, well, screaming really and all around me the bushes seemed to come to life. I found myself at the end of a rifle barrel, somebody, an officer I think, held a pistol to my head and I can still remember the feel of the metallic click as he pulled back the hammer. Behind me I heard my wife scream in panic and the it turned to anger, ( one does not cross Mrs TC lightly!!) As it was I had a second half who had and still does, have more command of the Turkish language than I. she spoke to whoever was there and the rifle barrel went from my nose to my, well, nether regions, not sure if I was happy about that either.

Still, an officer came along and with a bit sketchy English said that we were under arrest. " Why?" I asked but was just answered with a shrug and then a string of what seemed to commands as our tent, belongings and jeep were taken away and we were bundled into one of their jeeps and driven away.

Long story short, we were taken to an office complex out in the woods, held and questioned separately for a long time. Eventually we were reunited in a corridor outside of an office where we waited for over two hours. By this time we were convinced it was "Midnight Express" time and we were about to be disappeared. However, a soldier came out of the office and indicated that we should go in.

Holding hands we entered and found a Captain sat behind the desk, he indicated to us to sit in the two chairs provided. he introduced himself ( I do not intend to identify him) and then brought out the items that had been taken from us:

two mobile telephones
two walkie talkies
two still cameras
two video cameras
one Garmin GPS handheld unit

He displayed them and then, in perfect English said. "So, why should I not arrest you as being spies?" Mrs TC and I looked at each other, speechless. I  explained that we were merely tourists travelling through and experiencing the Turkish countryside and that we had thought we were in a safe area. The captain shrugged and said something in Turkish to his aide. He then stood up and explained that he had his officer training in the UK, he knew of us "Brits"  and we would not be surprised that we would have our walkie talkies, and phone  cards taken away, our cameras would have all images removed including memory cards and we would be accompanied out of the highly classified area we had wandered into last night after ignoring warning signs.

needless to say that after being escorted by heavily armed troops to the end of the road which held those now unmistakable "NO ENTRY" signs, we made hell for leather back to our hotel and spent the next week on the beaches..

A lesson hard learned.

TC

[WordBird]

At home one evening with Mr WB and our son, then aged around 14 months.

Mr WB dropped a 50p piece which our boy, quick as you like, managed to grab and put in his mouth....and swallow. Except it lodged in and perfectly blocked his windpipe.

Mr WB screamed at me to dial 999....as our son turned blue I was sobbing down the phone, all I could think was that by the time the ambulance arrived, my baby would be dead.

Somewhere in the depths of his memory he dredged up the Heimlich manoeuvre and the bloody coin eventually shot out. Adam was shocked and upset and crying but mercifully fine.

I enrolled on a first aid course the very next day.

[Scunner]

My God WB that was some read...

It reminded me of a situation which was indeed scary.

The girls were around 18 months old I think, just somewhere between crawling and walking. Mrs Scunner told me to look after them while she took the dog out. What could be easier...

Twins have a built in diversionary understanding. So, as I was looking at one, the other had crawled up the wall, allowing her to reach the bottom of our wine rack, remove the bottom bottle (which in itself isn't a doddle) and drop it, smashing it to pieces on the kitchen floor. So, in absolute panic, I head to child one who is now sitting/crawling through wine and fragments of broken glass. I manage to lift her unscathed from the glassy pool.

Full of relief, cuddling my little girl, I looked across at child two. In all that drama I had failed to notice something. The neck and cork end of the bottle had hit the floor and must have shot across to the other side of the room, because there it was, fully in my baby daughter's mouth, jagged end first.

[puma]

when i see our twins whispering,god help us,they are up to no good.

[Scunner]

Absolutely right Pumes - almost as bad as when you can hear nothing at all...

It means something is going on

[Toky]

My eldest daughter aged 2 years 9 months had just progressed from a toddler bed to the bottom bed of a set of bunk beds. Tucking her in one night, I placed my 5 month old second child  on the top bunk bed to do so. Before I knew it, the baby had rolled over and out the top bunk, right over me and landed on the floor!! I rushed her to the local A&E at the time, and when the said daughter #2 stopped crying, luckily she was fine. I'll never get over seeing her fly over my crouched body and not being able to stop her!

[echogirl1]

18 months ago I drove from my home to the corner of the road, checked both ways carefully and pulled out.  From nowhere a speeding driver appeared.  I jammed my foot on what T thought was the brake, in fact it was the accelerator!!.  I ended up virtually upside down on a steep grassy bank.  The next few minutes will stay with me forever, I had the dog in the back of the car, and I was praying he wouldn't move as the slightest weight movement would have flipped the car over.  What seemed like hours but was probably seconds later, a man who lived over the road came over and talked me down, he lent on the front of the car, while I steered it down the hill.  I managed to get the car home.  The car was towed off to the garage, and I sat shivering and shaking until my son found me, and administered tea and brandy.  I will never forget the feeling of helplessness hanging upside down on the bank.  Needless to say the speeding driver didn't stop!!

[bewva]

Our Eldest son was about 3 and we were in a restaurant in Altinkum. he was given a glass of juice by the waiter, first sip he bit the glass and it smashed into about 20 pieces and blood poored from his mouth. We spent the next 5 minutes one of us consoling him and the other piecing the glass together. Fortunately we had all the pieces.

[SteveJ]

When I was in my early 20's I was staying at a hotel in Newcastle upon Tyne with two friends and had been out for a night on the town. We arrived back at the hotel in the early hours and very drunk. Up in the lift to the second floor and then it dawned on me that I'd left my room key in my room. No problem - my mate is in the adjoining room so I will just climb out of his window and in through mine (it was summer so the windows were left open). I shimmied across a ledge (standing up with my back to the wall), climbed in through my window, bid my friends good night and said I'd see them at breakfast. I got up the next morning, opened the curtains, remembered with a smile what had happened not too many hours before, took at look at the ledge that I had negotiated in a drunken stupour and discovered that not only was it 30 feet above a car park but it was only about five inches wide! I think that was the moment I started to go grey.