Have you ever had to use emergency equipment?

Had to use CPR training once.

Fire extinguisher many times car fires, five times. Had three replaced by insurance companies or car owners.

I’ve got a memory that sticks with me from when I was a skinny, crew-cut, tow-headed and barefoot kid in short pants all summer long, with not a care in the world except “back-to-school” shopping. (When I was about seven or eight years old, I think.) This story isn’t about me, though.

We lived near some neighbors on the lake who were always getting into scrapes of one kind or another. One time they had an old wooden rowboat with an outboard motor, and as they were fueling the hot motor near shore one day it caught fire. Not a huge fire, and no lives were in apparent danger, but they were not managing to put it out by throwing water on it. In fact, it was starting to float the fuel that was also in the boat and threatening thereby to “float” the fire onto the boat and threaten a lot more.

My mom – who impressed the hell out of me on that day – came down to the shore, sized up the situation instantly and called out to the boaters (and the others on shore who had come to offer up advice or just gawk), “Throw sand on it!” They did; it worked quickly to extinguish the fire, and boat, motor and onlookers were all saved. I never forgave her. I wanted them all to burn.

Fire extinguishers a couple times. Thank goodness nothing more than that.

Once I had to administer an injection of Glucagon to counter insulin shock.

If you want to look at a telephone as emergency equipment, I’ve had to call 911 a few times, all in the last two or three years.

Thank God no. I did make a splint from my socks when I broke my arm as a teenager.

I once had to administer CPR to a young man who thought it cool to jump off the diving board despite not knowing how to swim…irony is I pulled the same stupid move when I was 6 years old and if not for that life guard I would not be here today.

That said, the closest I came to the use of emergency equipment was on 9/11 when our plane was forced to land due to terrorist activities and upon arrival at the gate we were ushered by the Indiana National Guard to “GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE PLANE…NOW!!! and we literally ran for our lives up the jetway to get the fuck out of the plane as the soldiers with loaded M16 rifles demanded of us. I cannot describe the sense of relief I felt as we emerged unscathed into the bowels of the airport terminal and left that chaos behind.

They had to use the jaws o’ life to pry open my wallet, when it was my turn to pick up the check. ;-)

I was on a flight in a small plane to Cornwall. We stopped at one airport and took off to get to the next one, my stop (it was like a bus service). Once we took off again apparently there was smoke coming from the flight deck. We were told that we would land in the airport but we would have to make an emergency exit. The plane was so small though that the staircase was inbuilt so we didn’t get to use the inflatable slide and the ladies didn’t have to remove their high heels.

Sorry, that turned into story about an emergency without using equipment. There were loads of fire engines and we landed in the furthest corner of the tiny airport. Fun times!

I called 911 for myself, at 6 a.m., a year ago for bleeding ulcers and spent 3 days in the hospital. Then I suddenly was sent home.
My husband leaped from our car on a hill, leaving it in neutral, and I followed. Why? He had to give a real estate agent some keys and it was like , “now or never!” Meanwhile, as he stood there chatting, our car was rapidly rolling downhill towards the street with traffic coming in both directions . Confidently and calmly, he said, Äster, you’d better get in the car and put on the brakes.’ So I summoned up the nerve, jumped in and stopped it. He thought it was nothing.

@Stinley , that’s why I put it in social! I wanted stories. I just looked at the emergency ladder in my upstairs closet and was wondering if anyone ever really used those things.
When I was a little girl (way to little) my dad made a rope ladder and made sure I would know how to use it if I needed to. It wasn’t safe at all and I would have fell on concrete had I fallen.