When I was 16, I woke up in the middle of the night hearing something funny. I opened my bedroom door, and all I could see was smoke so thick it was like a solid curtain at the door.

I went out my bedroom window and to the front of the house where it was in fire. I realized my dad wasn’t with me, so I went back in, woke him up, and got him out.

We put the fire out ourselves with a garden hose with a super high pressure nozzle. The door ended up only burning two rooms. When we went back inside the next day, I thought at first that the house was absolutely covered in spider webs dyed with soot. Nope, it was the smoke forming chains of carbon. Everything above a certain height ( about a foot from the ceiling)in the house was melted and destroyed from the smoke even though only two rooms burned.

The insurance people took everything that wasn’t destroyed and treated it with ozone to remove the unbearable stench. Including my hidden porn (I’m old enough this was physical paper) and tried to rat me out to my dad. He didn’t care though and told them to treat it and put it back where they found it.

I discouraged someone from getting back into League of Legends

In my early teens I used to swim at the neighbours as they had a huge rope swing into the creek.

One day as I was leaving at sunset. I saw their young kid (8-9?) fuck up a swing and hit the rocks on his way in. Crunch, splash, nothing.

I stood there next to his parents as the ripples faded and the kid didn’t reappear. I waited for them to do something but they laughed and drank more wine. So I ran back down to the creek, dived in and swam down into the large deep dark waterhole. Took me a few tries but I found him about 12 feet down under a rock overhang.

Hauled him up, dragged him up onto the shore, started chest compressions as he wasn’t conscious or breathing and he ejected a whole bunch of water, shuddered and started coughing and trying to breathe.

At this point his parents had wandered down with their wine glasses in hand to tell him “you’re alright” while the kid cried. So I got up and left.

That was pretty much the end of my faith in humanity.

On two separate occasions I shot a rattlesnake that was about to strike someone I was dove hunting with.

First time I was about 15 hunting with my dad and I noticed he was about to step on a silent rattlesnake. I yelled snake run! And shot it as it was striking and he had just got out of range.

15 years later, hunting with a friend and the same thing happened, though he started running in a circle around it for some reason until I had to yell again to run AWAY from it!

On my 20th birthday, went to a fancy Japanese food show place. As I was walking in with my partner, I noticed that this lady that was leaving was pausing every few steps to breathe, and she had a 3/4 year old with her. She was larger, and people were giving her a very wide berth; no one checked to see she was okay. She gets to her vehicle and stops at the hood to put her hand on it, which struck me as odd: if she needed to breathe she’s all of 2 steps from a seat, why would she stop now? I’d just gotten to the entrance, so I turned around and headed back for her to see if she was okay. Started asking questions, she was treating her niece who she was meeting for the first time today to a fun meal. I noticed she was too out of breath and it was getting worse, so after some inquiry found that she had had shellfish for the first time in a while. In the mean time, I had my partner to entertain the child and called an ambulance. Found out they were about to drive home, a 20 min trip, was afraid of calling Drs, but I convinced her to stay. We were able to get the childs parents contacted (this was the first time I experienced a child not knowing their address or parents phone number so that was stressing) and waited for the ambulance to arrive. When they did they were able to give her a breathing tube and some allergen shot. EMTs told me she had less than a few minutes before her throat would’ve fully closed at this rate, and if I hadn’t’ve stopped and called when I did she wouldn’t’ve gotten home.

Once the nieces parents arrived, we headed home, restaurant was too much for me. Got a confirmation that she was okay and released a few hours later. Both the best and most stressful birthday day I’ve ever had.

When I was 12 my grandpa took me hunting in the remote Idaho backcountry. To get there you had to ride a horse for four or five days or could land at a ranger’s strip, and that was still a long flight. We met two brothers and a buddy of theirs on their way out of camp early the first morning, decided we’d take a different trail. Maybe ten minutes later we hear a shot, and then screaming. My grandpa rushed over and we found that one brother had not made sure of his target and blown a hole in his brother’s leg. The wounded man was already in shock and the other two were beyond panic.

My grandpa told them to step away, sent the friend back to camp to radio for help. He had me help him cut the guy’s pant leg off, then instructed me on how to elevate and hold the tourniquet while he inspected the wound. It was bad but had missed the artery, but I’d also never seen a man with his leg blown open or that much human blood before. My grandpa (WW2 vet) was cool a cucumber and that helped me stay calm. Got him bandaged as best we could and grandpa decided we should move him, get back to the strip, and that he’d fly him to the nearest town with a hospital and landing strip. I crammed in the back and held the tourniquet. We ended up only flying for about half an hour before landing at a different ranger’s strip because LifeFlight came up to take over.

A couple of weeks later the brothers came to my grandpa’s house to say thank you and that the victim was on his way to recovering. So not a solo life save, but a joint effort. Taught me how to remain calm and functional in traumatic situations. I’ve been in a few others over the years and while I don’t know if the people who lived did so specifically because of my actions, I think my presence helped.

My distant aunt and uncle got murdered in a horrible robbery. They had a daughter…my cousin. We hanged out as kids but lost touch until this event. A couple of weeks after the funeral I decided to call her to see how she was holding up. We chatted for a long time and she thanked me for checking on her. Months later she told me she was a few seconds away from suicide when I called called her that time… And our random conversation changed her approach to life.

My son used to eat too fast without chewing properly.
He’d just swallow lumps of food sometimes, even though we’d actively work on slowing down.

He was a solid mass of a kid from his down syndrome, (he has the physique of a silverback)

He went wide eyed at dinner one night and wasn’t breathing, I had to get him out of the chair and spun around for a heimlich maneuver. Because he was choking he was going all limp, and I’d just finished cancer treatment so I was fatigued and weak AF, so it took everything I had to lift him and do the heimlich. He coughed out the food on the first or second try. Thankfully, because I was done after that exertion.

My 18 month old son was having respiratory and stomach symptoms that seemed worse than a standard cold to me, but his doctors said not to worry, all kids have a bad cold sometimes. Even after apples came out exactly as they went in, points and all, and the top of his head had become sunken.

I insisted on taking him to hospital despite being told I was overreacting, and they admitted him immediately without even asking our name. His blood was thick like pudding, and it took a while before they could even do tests, because they couldn’t take blood.

It was rotavirus, and he was in intensive care for 2 weeks.
It was one of the few times I’d decided I wasn’t listening to people telling me to be quiet, and I’m so glad I did. That was like 30 years ago.

I noticed that a girl at a party had alcohol poisoning and got her to the hospital

I was a bike courier for years. One day I went into a building and someone was telling security that there was homeless guy passed out to the escalator. I went up the escalator and there were a bunch of business types standing around this guy (they were in the phone to 911). He was struggling to breathe and when I rolled him into recovery position he coughed up his tongue. So yeah, that was nice. I don’t know for sure, if he would have died.

As little kids my sister and i were playing by a river on a bank that was three feet above the water line. I fell in.

I pulled her in when she reached out to help me out.

She jumped on my back and i pulled every root and weed off the bank trying to find a hand hold to pull us out. This one root held…. I used that to pull us out of the river.

Well the other day I was eating a sandwich and texting/posting while driving. I noticed my car was beginning to drift into the oncoming lane as I mistakenly did both at the same time. Noticing my vehicle on a steady sloping angle towards their only maneuvering space on the small mountain road, other drivers seemed alarmed and unsure what action to take. Fortunately, I am very fast at eating and posting, so I was able to return my attention to the road and one hand to the wheel, slouching for good measure. Saving the other drivers’ lives. ❤️‍🩹 There is a brutal lesson in th

My brother and I were going down a water slide. He was 3 or 4, I was about 7. He came out of the slide and landed upside down in his floaty. I flipped him back over. Simple in the moment, terrifying if I think about it for too long.

Not particularly dramatic and I don’t know if I’ve ever actually saved a life but living in Seattle I’d make care packs for homeless people. They’d have high density snacks but also things like emergency blankets, wool socks, a variety of things. Between that and buying meals for people who looked like they had two feet in the grave maybe I’ve saved somebody, I’ll never know. I’ve called the ambulance for people a couple times but similarly it’s hard to tell if they were saved once taken away