Can you describe a situation in which you only had a split second to react?
It’ll be interesting to see how long the post is, vs the time you had to actually make the decision.
One of my examples would be that I came up on an intersection. I had the right of way. The cross street had a stop sign. However, there was a semi in such a position that the person at the stop sign on the other side couldn’t see the on-coming traffic. I guess they figured if they couldn’t see it, it wasn’t there! So I’m driving past the semi when suddenly, there is another car filling my windshield. The person in the other car didn’t even begin to cross cautiously. They weren’t creeping past the semi….they were suddenly there going through the intersection. At that point I was AT the intersection. In a split second I noticed my position, hit the brakes, and swerved a hard right to take me into the entry of the cross intersection. (It there had been a curb there, it, or me, would have been taken out!) Everything came to a stand still with the nose of my car pointing right at the right side of the other car, about a foot away, and actually partially IN the road that crosses the intersection, but at a slant, because I’d thrown the car to the right. If I hadn’t thrown it, I would have hit them. I threw it because, in that split second, I processed the information that there was that space on the cross street that they were attempting to cross into, and acted accordingly.
Now, it just took a LONG time to ‘splain all of the things that went through my head in that split second, that caused me to make the decision I did. Your turn!
Of course, the person in the other car looked at me like, “What is YOUR problem!” Why do idiots do that???
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13 Answers
Not paying attention and swerving into the other lane (after checking, of course) to avoid hitting the person in front of me.
When my little 7 year-old daughter was in the shallow end of a swimming pool for the very first time, she lost her balance and fell back. Her head went under the water. Fortunately I was in the pool nearby, and I quickly dove under and pushed her back up. She was balling and had swallowed some water, but other than that she was okay.
I was driving down the highway near my school recently (affectionately referred to as “I’llkillya Highway,” a play on the road’s actual name). I was doing 70 or so, which is the speed the slower people typically go on this particular road. I was in the fast lane and someone in a van in front of me slammed on their brakes and turned their left-turn signal on. There wasn’t anywhere for them to turn… just a median. I had to quickly swerve into the slow lane to avoid smashing into them. I looked at them and it was an old man with mouth agape staring into his rearview mirror, all while his left turn signal kept blinking. He switched it off and then kept driving. I have no idea what he was trying to do.
Yes!
Once I was on a remote trail and out of nowhere this Jeep came flying over a little hill and got airborne. It was coming right at me, literally!
I just reacted and jumped to the side of the trail and launched myself over the edge of about an 8 foot cliff. I swear it missed me by about 3 feet, maaaybe!
Words defy the moment!
Another time I was riding my horse bareback with several other horses which spooked when someone shot a gun off in the woods. The other horses bolted and mine followed.
They were galloping out of control down a boulder strewn hill on the edge of a lake and I threw myself off into the rocks knowing the chances of my horse falling were high.
I got pretty hurt too, slammed my shoulder into the ground, hit my head hard, had several bad cuts and scrapes, but…it could have been much worse if my horse went down with me.
I think my bail at the last second instinct without thinking is pretty good. haha
This stupid split second reaction cost me. I was slicing some meat on the chopping board. I then needed to get something from the sink so I put the knife down at the table. It slid off. I forgot it was a knife, bent down and snatched it in mid-air.
Nice catch I thought…until I see the blood gushing out of my hand. Heh.
I guess it was Halloween 2007, I had a hard time taking a wiz for a week prior to that. I thought whatever it was would get better; it didn’t. I went to sleep and about 1am woke up with the most awful pain I ever been in, staggered to the bathroom needing to take a leak bad, did nothing but piss straight blood. Made a choice right then to get to the ER, didn’t stop to try to explain or say anything to anyone. Just got in the car and went. Might have saved my life or at least saved me more grief.
@Hypocrisy_Central Omg. What was the diagnosis? I had that happen to me once, though not so much blood.
@MRSHINYSHOES When I taught my little ‘uns how to swim, after a certain point where they were feeling more confident and unafraid of the water, but were sill totally unable to actually swim..at about the age of two or so, I did something some might find odd, on purpose. Since they weren’t afraid of the water you could see that they were jonesing to go “by themselves.” At that point I’d park them on the steps going into the pool, go sit in a chair about 10 feet away, pretending to talk to someone, but actually watching them like a hawk.….waiting for them to “try it.”
Then they would, and under they’d go, I’d say, ”There she goes!” and calmly walk over to the water, glance down like, “Hellloooo?”, then calmly pull the kid back up. Sure they were crying. But they got over it. But they developed respect for the water under very controlled circumstances. I didn’t want them to test their over-confidence when I wasn’t around.
My son found himself over his head when he was about four…He was tall enough to play in the shallow end, but he somehow wandered toward the deeper end…I glanced up just as he was going down for the third time! Yeah, my heart quickened, but I didn’t panick. I slid in the water and quickly got him out. Poor baby. He said “I cud-ent even say ‘Mommy!” :( Aww.
It took 30 minutes, and some playing around in the shallow hot tub first, before he’d go back in. That ranks as one of the worst Mommy-Moments in my life. “I cud-end even say Mommy!” : ( : ( : ( : ( : ( : ( : ( : ( : ( : ( : ( : ( : ( : ( : (
Well, I knew I had to react as quickly as possible when my little one went under, because there is always the potential of great harm from taking in water, especially for a young child.
My girls clung onto me for dear life for months while we were in the pool——unfortunately, they didn’t inherit their Daddy’s affinity for racing in swimming pools. Lol. :D
@MRSHINYSHOES Omg. What was the diagnosis? A byproduct of not having Universal Healthcare. My bladder was literally shredding itself like deli cheese. I had an infection that I tried best to ignore. I did not want to go running to the doctor for something that wasn’t anything. Plus I did not want to incur a bill for something that was not anything more. I let it go too long, by the time I did get any antibiotics it was too weak to do anything. The bladder was swelling and shredding. The more it did, the more it blocked stuff up, causing more swelling and shredding. Had I had the medical care Obama tried to give us, I would have felt more comfortable going because if it turned out to be nothing, that nothing wasn’t going to cost me an arm and a leg.
@tom_g *_I think it’s important to ask yourself what you would
Back in the late 90’s they had “Obama Care.” If you had a house hold with children, and were under a certain income, the adults were able to get medical from the state. It saved my life, because if I hadn’t had it, I probably would have delayed going in when I did…As it was, I waited it out for two hours, the pain getting worse and worse, so I went in. It turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy that had burst. I KNOW I would have put it off longer if I hadn’t had insurance.
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