What Has Been The Most Terrifying Moment In your life on the Peoria.com Forums - Page 3

Hearing the fire department tell me to get out of the house this past June 2nd when the house next door to ours was on fire. I had just been woken up (and I don't do well when first woken up) and my mom and my daughter were still upstairs asleep. At that point I did not know if it was our house that was on fire or what. I had just glimpsed the fire out of the side of my eye on the way down the stairs and knew that if it was our house that was on fire it was only a couple feet from where my daughter was asleep. At the same time I didn't want to scare her when I woke her up to get out of the house. All this happened in matter of maybe 60 seconds.

@froggy:

If I recall, I was trying to lure you into flying with me at the time and I didn't think relating this incident to you would help. It actually happened near your old stomping grounds, down around San Elizario. I've since given up on getting you to fly, so it's moot now.

Working in a restaurant when a robber jumps over counter, runs toward you, handgun almost pointing in your face. It happened Wednesday, Nov. 21, 1979, at the Pekin Burger King..night before Thanksgiving.

I was closing that night along with 2 other employees and manager. I was sweeping dining room floor, guy comes in, asks where restrooms where. I pointed them out, went back into kitchen. 5 minutes later, same guy, with a nylon mask on and brandishing a bluesteel pistol (believe me, those images have never left me), ordered everyone on the floor. Made manager open safe, then had us stay in cooler for 10 minutes. He took car keys of coworker, said he'd leave car couple blocks away. He did indicate he wouldn't hurt anyone, just wanted money. I almost felt like trying to trip him while he walked over us back and forth. But I didn't want his gun going off accidently. We came out of cooler, called police. Fortunately, he was caught about a month later trying to rob another restaurant in Pekin. Turns out he was a former cop himself. His name was Donald Reynolds.

I realize I'm not only one on PDC that's had this situation happen to them. But I was only 19 at the time.

* This message has been revised.

@DennisinPeoria:

I would have faked a heart attack and stabbed him in the eye.

I'm going to start of with a terrifying good story. Back when I was in culinary school (which sat on a bluff overlooking the Hudson River) my room mate and I had a chance to take a ride in a WW1 style plane! We asked the pilot if he could fly us over the Culinary Institute so we could take some pictures. He agreed. We were several hundred feet in the air at the edge of the Hudson, when the pilot threw the plane up and out over the Hudson and then sharply banked the other way. At this point we were definitely more heads towards the water than our butts, but what glorious shots we could take after the living shiit was scared out of us and our lunch back in our stomachs.

The bad. The day my mom called and said my father, who was 80 at the time, was in a horrific car accident, she had no details, but was heading to the hospital. If you saw the car (and I have pictures) you wonder if anyone lived, yet he opened the door, got out and walked away. They MADE him go to the hospital as he complained that his leg hurt.

At the beginning of my senior yr of college, the day my family (siblings, dad, & her parents) decided to stop my mom's meds/ventilator (life support?) and watching her panting and taking her last breaths, nearly suffocating and watching her heart rate and blood pressure go down w/in hours of them stopping it (I don't think they were supposed to leave the screen on). And then, just seeing her lifeless body after she took her last breath, swollen, bruised, poked and prodded..

They had said it could be days and it was hours. It'd been weeks since she spoke since they put her in a medically induced coma (also terrifying...one time, bc they didn't give her enough meds, she came out of it and had no idea what was going on...her worse fear!)

I couldn't believe we all had to decide w/ my dad. Despite my mom's ongoing health problems (in and out of hospital 1/2 my life...and here and there before I was born and when I was young), my dad and her never discussed it, though we never knew she'd really die. Actually, my brother was 1.5 hrs away....and I think we'd already decided before he arrived but of course didn't tell him that...

The moment, about 6 montha ago, that I was told my dad has colon cancer. It was the first time we had a serious health problem in my immediate family and I had no idea how to react. I lost it, crying hysterically, in front of Abby and scaring her.

He is doing well now, after chemo/radiation, and is having another surgery next week, which will hopefully be the end of his treatment.

@leslie110:

I know your journey through this well as my dad had colon cancer. I wish your dad a very positive outcome and know he has a loving family that surrounds him.

Thank you msgem!

The second most terrifying time was when my brother Michael (16 at the time) was waiting for a heart transplant he had a cardiac "event" in which his heart muscle died. They had to put him on the Jarvic 7 Artificial Heart but they weren't sure it would work since they are only made for adults. Me, my mom, and my other brother, Mat, were at home in Springfield while he and my grandma were at Loyola Hospital in Chicago.

It was the middle of the night and my grandma called and told us that they were putting him on the Jarvic 7 and to get up there as fast as possible as the doctors only gave him a very small chance of this actually working. Poor Grandma had the job of calling all the relatives and telling them if they wanted to say good-bye they needed to get there asap. We were actually the closest. My dad and his family were in Southern IL and my Aunt and Uncle were over by St Louis. We made it to the hospital in a little just under 2 hours then sat in the surgical waiting room for another 4-5 hours before they would let us see him.

Luckily the Jarvic 7 worked just fine for him. He was on it for 10 days before they found him a actual heart and performed the actual transplant. His life after the transplant was no picnic. He has a small stroke during the actual transplant so mentally he was at a 14/15 year old level the rest of his life. However, I would not have traded the extra time we got with him for anything (and believe me there were plenty of times I wanted to kill him myself!) We got to have him in our lives for another 17 years after the transplant but I think we all aged 20 years the night the placed him on the artificial heart.