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  • At around 10pm one night I realized I’d forgotten to walk the dog and should probably do so before going to bed. As I step out onto the street I notice a woman leaning against a car with a weird look on her face, like a grimace. It’s a big city and I’ve seen lots of weird people around here so I don’t think much of it and start walking away when I hear her whimper. I turn around and ask her if she’s ok and she assures me she’s fine, her “husband is coming”. At this point I notice she’s heavily pregnant and there’s also a toddler in her car, but she insists she’s fine so I start walking away again.

    I get 20 or 30 paces down the street and the woman lets out this blood-curdling howl. I run back to her and ask her what’s going on and she just says “I need to sit down”. I lead her to the steps outside my apartment building where she sits down and I fetch her a glass of water and put the dog back inside. I’ll always regret not inviting her in to my place for what comes next but I’ve been jaded by so many con-artists and burglars trying to get into my building that I didn’t feel like it was an option.

    She starts breathing super heavily and stops responding to me completely. Like I’m not even there. I’m freaking out and her husband is nowhere in sight. I have no idea what to do so I rush into the hotel next door to find a “real adult” (I was early 20s) and come out with a few other 20-somethings that “knew first aid”. We immediately call an ambulance.

    The ambulance guys tell me they’ll be here in 5mins but to go and get towels just in-case she’s about to give birth. I run in and get all my towels. As I come out the woman gets off the step and kneels on all fours in the middle of the sidewalk. I place towels all around her on the floor and she screams in pain. By this point a small crowd has gathered to see what all the fuss is about and some dude tries to convince her to get on her back and starts pulling her around. She fucking screams at him to stop and he backs off. She then drops her leggings down to her knees and screams “CATCH THE BABY” at which point me and one of the guys from the hotel reach down and see a newborn baby dangling in her leggings. Ambulance guys are still on the phone and tell us to wrap the baby in clean towels and, I kid you not, not even 30 seconds later the ambulance and husband both arrive.

    Apparently they had rented a place a few doors down from me for the birth but there was a problem with the keys or something. The husband thanks us and they all go into the ambulance. I’m in shock and the only thing I can think is that I need to clean all this blood and poop off the sidewalk so I clean it all off. The guys from the hotel crack open a bottle of wine and we all just stand around in shock at what just happened.

    So that’s the story of how I delivered a baby on the street outside my apartment. I can’t watch any birth scenes on TV or movies anymore either because of what I think is probably mild PTSD and it makes me feel instantly sick to my stomach and panicked.

    TLDR: delivered a stranger’s baby on the street outside my apartment with zero prior experience

  • My father took up a side gig consulting for the Russian government. They paid him in envelopes of American $100 bills. Then he met a grad student and started an affair with her and then divorced my mom and left the family to move to his apartment in Russia then moved to China to raise his new child and then unsuccessfully attempted to sue my whole family and I for sharing the same last name with him “fraudulently”.

  • Visiting my terminally ill father in hospital after he had a fall. I asked him what that huge bruise on his neck was, if it was from the fall.

    "No, it's the cancer." Was the thing he said, and I'll never forget it. Crazy. Turns out the tumour was cutting off blood flow to his brain and causing him to pass out. He died a month later. Almost a year to that day now.

    Love you, Dad.

  • I'm in the medical field, so there's a lot of shit I've seen at the hospital, but I would say the real craziest thing I ever saw happened when I was in my early 20s. I moved back in with my parents for a time after I had to give up my first apartment. My parents have always had a bit of an unhealthy relationship, they fight like it's their job. My childhood bedroom is always next to the kitchen and front room where they would fight, so I heard a lot of it and sadly just got used to it after so many years, though listening to it constantly as a child formed some core memories in there somewhere.

    When I was there in my 20s I would mostly hang out in the separate garage, it helps me to feel like I still kind of had my own space. I worked graves, and would maintain my schedule on my days off, playing video games through the night. One night my dad came out randomly and was in an absolute state, telling me my mom had said "maybe divorce" and a couple other things. We talked at length and I thought I had helped him calm down. He left and I was up for a few more hours. I passed him sleeping in his truck on my way into the house to go to bed, it was weird but I didn't think much of it at the time. Just figured he needed to sleep it off. I had only been asleep a couple hours, when my mom came running, panic screaming into my room at the top of her lungs. She woke me up shaking and yelling that my dad was going to kill himself right now in the garage, that he had the gun and that he said he was going to shoot himself in the face if she tried to stop him. At that moment I saw him passing my room on his way outside. With only a couple hours of sleep ruining my capacity for reasoning my adrenaline went straight from 0 to full blast. I had discovered the nature of their disagreement the night before talking to my dad, so my mouth just ran away before I could think. I sprinted into the hall and caught him by the shoulder , then immediately started shouting all kinds of heinous shit at them about how they were both being "dumb fucks, stupid fucking idiots, immature as fuck" I don't remember the exact words but you get the gist. These are two very religious people who never would have accepted hearing the slightest profanity out of me in regular circumstances, not even the word "god" or the word "hell" (mormons). So yeah, neither of them said anything they both just stood there crying or stunned and listened to me tell them what big fucking morons they were and how immature they were acting, this went on for at least 15 solid minutes, easily the most cathartic thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life, bar none. At the end they were both just kind of stunned, we had it pretty well resolved and they were both calm and I went back to sleep, a testament to just how tired I was in that moment. The three of us have never talked about it again, I think because it all just got resolved right there somehow. Nothing like it has ever happened with them again according to my sister who still lives with them

  • Got a phone call from my Dad while I was working aboard Queen Mary 2 asking if I was alright. Confused me, because yeah, of course I was. He said something about an earthquake, so I put the news on the TV.

    Turns out there'd been an earthquake which had caused the tsunami in Japan. We were off the coast of Japan. The wave went right under us, and I had no idea.

    Mad.

  • Backstory: I met my first girlfriend when I was around 17. Then I met her family, and during that time, O developed arthritis.

    The pains were really bad, to the point that some days I couldn't even stand up from my bed. One day, her parents called me and asked me if they could "help" me.

    This is where the story starts, they said they were part of a "religious group" and were called Santeros (so they practiced Santeria).

    The thing is, at the time I was so ignorant that I didn't even know what that was and didn't even make the effort to find out for some reason.

    They told me they could take me to a guy that could pray for my health and whatnot. Since I didn't want to sound rude, I agreed and we went to the place.

    The man (priest? Idk) kept insisting he knew I had noghtmares and I was afraid of someone chasing me, to which I kept insisting that that was not the case. Yhe whole experience was weird.

    But then he told my girlfriend's parents that he wanted to see me again because he meeded to "perform" to be able to help me with his prayers.

    For some reason, I didn't even pay attention to this and just said sure.

    A week goes by and I am going, again, to the same place with priest with my gf's parents. The difference is that, this time, there is a giant box in the back of the car.

    I get there and they take me to the second floor of thr place. The floor is completely messed up woth dirt all over the place and weird artifacts, cockroaches, spiders, and a hole on the rooftop.

    They tell me to take my clothes off (except my underwear) and pray to a god (I think it was called Oshun? I don't remember).

    After chanting and praying, they tell me to lay down on the ground looking up. I do so and they proceed to take a small calf out of the box, decapitate and dismember it next to me, and afterwards putting the body in top of me in the form of a cross, all while chanting, singing, dancing, etc.

    After that they told me to bathe in a specific river using oranges as a sponge.

    The whole experience was fucking surreal, after that, I just reject almost everything that has to do with religion.

  • I was carrying some HVAC equipment down some stairs last year when I accidentally slip a little and the equipment cut my wrist wide open and blood started rushing out like crazy and my hand went numb instant. I immediately put pressure on my wrist to stop the bleeding and my brother drove me to the hospital. That ride there was so intense, I genuinely felt like i might bleed to death, or even have to lose my hand. It was so surreal, I kept thinking how horrible my family, friends, and my girlfriend of 5 years would feel if I died. In that moment I realized they're what matters. My job didn't matter, my social media accounts didn't matter, my materialistic items I owned didn't matter. Just the people who I love. After arriving the doctors did a great job at assuring me I'd be fine. I had surgery 2 days later, however, I couldn't move my wrist or hands for a while. Even now, about 14 months later, half my hand still feels mostly numb all the time, it's super sensitive, the scar is massive and hasn't fully healed, and I can't close my pinky finger no matter how hard I try. It definitely sucked a lot, mostly because I was in between jobs because I had was moving, so I couldn't work and my girlfriend had to cover so much expenses and guilt took over me like crazy and I felt so worthless. Then I felt even worse cause it caused me to gain so much weight, I even started feeling suicidal for a bit. I've learned to accept it though and my life is pretty much back to normal. I wasn't able to do so many simple things like wear pants with buttons, tie my shoes, using toilet paper was a struggle, driving was hard, locking my door was almost impossible because I needed my other hand to pull my door to get it to lock. Late last year I got a job in a retail store and have since gotten 2 promotions and making the most money I've ever made in my life. Around that time I also started eating healthier and I'm down 60 pounds! I'm glad I beat the suicidal thoughts and kept going. Life is awesome.

  • We had a big flood where I live about 10 years ago. Massive amounts of water and whole basements of almost all the homes completely went under water for days. I worked for a clean up crew that summer cleaning up alot of the damage. I was 18 and needed a job and thought it would be a good experience. I was just hired as a temp by a restoration company through a hiring agency though and I found out almost everyone I was working with was the same. The people supervising us, some were not much older than me and had no idea how to run this operation. One day we are in the basement of a large commercial building. Young supervisor tells me and 3 other temps to haul out a heavy washing machine that needs to go to the main level. Only way out was a massive wood staircase that went straight up and contained probably 50 steps. This was an industrial washing machine so it weighed probably a couple hundred pounds. We get it onto a dolly and begin hauling it up the stairs. I am at the top pulling the dolly with another guy while the two others are at the bottom pushing. Thing is so heavy we have to pull it in spurts. So "1..2..3.." then we all move it up one step. We get all the way to the top and only have two more steps. Now remember when I said these basements were fully under water? That was also the case here. The staircase had been under water for days and was now very weak. So we pull the machine up to the step before the landing. As we pull it, me and the guy beside me step onto the landing. The machine goes onto the last step and the connection between the staircase and the landing at the top of the stairs breaks. Whole staircase falls and the two guys below fall with it. Luckily when it all hits the ground, the machine rolls away from the guys and they are hurt, but not seriously. Everyone comes rushing over because the sound is deafening, and me and the other guy are still standing at the top of the landing looking down at everyone. Had we not stepped onto the landing at the moment we did, we would have fallen with the stairs and the machine would have rolled ontop of us. Likely killing or permanently injuring us. It's amazing how close I was to likely death. We were pulled aside by the safety guy for the crew. I saw him later reaming out the young guy that was supervising us and told us to take the machine up the stairs. I'm pretty sure he was fired that day and he looked so distraught. In hindsight I don't blame him as he should never have been in that position and it was more a reflection on the bad business practices of the restoration company hiring temps and unqualified supervisors.

  • Saw a 2 person banner plane take off and then instantly crash into a bay while living in florida. Was smoking weed on the beach playing guitar when it happened. I moved closer to confirm it because of the crazy disbelief I felt and ran into a coworker who saw it aswell

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