As a parent, it is your job to protect your kids. Whether it be something big or small, you have to keep them safe and as unaffected as possible. It can be hard though, when facing extreme situations like a burglar or potential car accident, to make sure they don't end up being psychologically damaged by it. The people in the following stories found themselves in terrifying situations but managed to save the day without their children having a clue that their little lives were seconds away from danger.
Thanks Mother Nature
“I used to love camping. This was many years ago when my three kids were about 3, 5, and 7 years old – when the smallest cell phones were the brick-sized Motorola flip phones. I had never been to the Rainy Lake or BWCA area of Minnesota, and this one summer I decided to take the family up. The weather forecast called for rain on the Friday/Saturday portion of the weekend, but nothing too concerning. Camping gear, fishing gear, boat, wife, kids, and I end up on an island on Rainy Lake on an overcast Friday afternoon. There was no rain and we had an entire island to ourselves two miles away from the boat launch – it was shaping up to be a fabulous weekend.
The island we camped on is roughly about 100’x100′ square, in the shape of a crescent moon, with a small sandy strip of beach on its bay to the northeast. That’s where we docked the boat. The rest of the island itself is just very tall but very thin pines growing on top of rocks. I had a 10×10 shelter on top of a flat rocky area and a 6-man tent set up on a sandbox that had been built as a designated tent pad on the island. We had woken the kids up early on Friday for the long drive from the Twin Cities to the lake, so they were tired by dark. They wolfed down dinner and went to bed without a fuss. The wife and I turned in shortly thereafter, as I was expecting to be up before dawn to fish.
Now I will tell you all that weather changes on a dime in the midwest. A summer day may be hot, humid, and completely devoid of wind one minute, and be a raging severe thunderstorm the next. I wish I could tell you that was not the case with us on this night. While the Friday involved did not have heat, it sure did have humidity. Once the sun went down, the weather went to bad on us. I mean bad.
I had just fallen asleep when the thunder woke me. At first, it was distant rumblings that crept closer. Okay, so we were going to get rained on. Whatever. It appeared calm outside other than the rumbling, so a pouring here or there and it’d be over quick. Wrong. All of a sudden, the winds went from calm to I’m-gonna-mess-you-up straight-line winds from the west. I could hear the pines swaying and hitting each other – and then snapping – in the wind. Remember, the tent was staked down to a sandbox, not earth, not dirt – sand. I could feel the tent rods bend under the wind. ‘Oh no! that wind may snap those poles!’ I thought. So I crept out of my sleeping bag and leaned up against the side of the tent that was, by now, with the aid of the lightning, visibly bent inwards. I was leaning against the wind, literally, trying to a) prevent the poles from breaking, and b) prevent the wind from picking up the tent and flipping it over. Or so I hoped. Did I mention there was enough light from the lightning to see in the dark of the tent? Well, now the lightning was right on top of us. My wife, who used to be a heavy sleeper, woke up to see me standing up against the tent. One look at her told me all I needed to know about her concerns. I knew she was genuinely scared because I was genuinely concerned for our safety at this point, and she had seen the look on my face.
The only words my wife and I exchanged were my instructions on what to do if the tent broke/flipped under the wind: ‘Under the tent is the tarp. If the tent flips, we grab our kids and the tarp. There is an outcropping of rocks just slightly uphill from the tent – we wrap ourselves and the kids under the tarp under the rocks, ok?’
Unfortunately, the wind was not the end of it – oh no, this was not going to be one of those quick dry thunderstorms that depleted the energy from the atmosphere real quick and passed. No, this was a storm being pushed by devils hundreds of miles behind it, somewhere out west, in the dark. The rains hit then – it came without warning, like a sudden freight train on top of the tent. I could not distinguish between the thunder and the rain – heck, I couldn’t tell if I was hearing anything or if I was deaf. The lightning was so constant it was like having a lamp on inside the tent. I could see bucketloads of water just dripping along the outside of the tent; heck, I could feel the waterfall of rain against the side of the tent I had my back against.
It ran through my mind while standing against the wind and rain that our boat was gone or filled to the brim with water. It ran through my mind that we had no cell service, and no one would be looking for us for a few days. It ran through my mind, as the storm continued to intensify, that we would probably get blown away and drown. And in the worst of this – the light, the sound – my kids slept like angels dreaming on fluffy clouds in heaven.
The storm lasted into the wee hours of the night, never letting off on its fury. I stood against the wind and rain until I was too exhausted, then figured that well, if the tent hadn’t bent or broke by now, it wouldn’t. I crawled back into my tent and went to sleep. We woke up to a grey overcast morning with a slight breeze, calm waters, and a slight drizzle. The 10×10 was a mangled mess of frame and fabric, but our tent – the $100 variety you get from Target – stood like Old Glory after a night-long shellacking. My boat was right where we had left it, not a single fishing pole out of place. We packed up the equipment hurriedly into the boat and motored back to the launch, my kids no wiser to the world, instead just asking several times, ‘Daddy, what lake are we going to next?’
My wife has not camped with me since that event.”
Not The Best Pen Pal
“During the late ’80s, our teenage daughter loved reading teen magazines. One of the magazines sponsored a pen pal club. My daughter signed up. She sent her picture, name, and address in. The magazine ran her picture and information on two separate occasions. Soon, she received letters from all over the nation and across the world. She tried keeping up with all her pen pals. She even met one of them in person when she visited our city.
One day creepy postcards began arriving in our mailbox. The words written on the postcards raised red flags within us. My husband and I decided that we’d keep the postcards from our daughter. They were disconcerting and caused us to fear for her safety. We had an offer to move to a new city for a job that would advance my husbands career. We decided to accept the offer and move. My husband had our mail forwarded to his new office address. The disturbing postcards and letters kept arriving. Each was more threatening than the last. The postcards and letters never had a return address. But they had postmarks from a city about 2000 miles away.
We couldn’t go to the police. We didn’t want our daughter to be afraid of this man who was writing these awful things to her. One day the postcards and letters stopped coming. Our minds were finally at ease. Our daughter never knew of the things this disturbed individual wrote to her. We took the fear and anxiety upon ourselves. It was our job, as her parents, to protect her. When it was over, we breathed a sigh of relief.
I’ve often wondered if he ever showed up at our old address looking for my daughter. I’ve googled our previous residence, and the new owners of the house have added many protective features to the house. They have bars on the windows and signs in the front yard warning that the home has alarms.”
Nowhere To Turn
“My friend was married to a psychotic guy that did illegal substances on top of his mental conditions that just fueled his psychosis. He was convinced that his wife and I were having a lesbian relationship and I was breaking up his family. This was far from the truth. We were best friends for 16 years and I had a boyfriend. This took place in the ’90’s before cell phones and caller ID. I would be at home alone with my four-year-old and he would call me stating that he was going to destroy me for coming between him and his wife.
I tried reasoning with him along with everyone else. He would drive by my house and call my boyfriend at his job. My son would answer the phone and he would be telling him that he is sorry and that he is a good boy, but he has to kill his mommy. This would cause distress and nightmares for my son. He would call my other family members as well. I stopped being friends with his wife and changed my number which he was able to get. He already murdered a guy and got off for that. He has a history of violence.
I would get so scared when I was home alone. I could not have my son play outside. I was worried that he would do a drive by. I had to stay away from windows or be cautious where I went. I went to the police and they just laughed and kept asking me if I was having affair with him and I said no. He thinks his wife and I are lesbians. Due to financial reasons, I could not just get up and move. I would have to invent games for my son when all this harassment was taking place. We would play out back or just stay in the back bedroom. I had to instruct my son not to answer the phone. Luckily, my son does not remember any of this other than he missed playing with their kids.”
Not So Tough Now Are You?
“We live on a farm and had a cow very appropriately named Mean Cow.
My then-two-year-old was helping me finish chores, far away from Mean Cow, when I turned around and saw a 1,700 lb cow with an attitude problem about five feet away from my toddler who was playing with his toy truck and had slipped through the fence.
I very calmly told him that he needed to come back right away. I guess I was too calm because he turned around and swatted Mean Cow on the nose. She walked off like she had no idea what had just happened, my kid turned around to play with his truck and I dragged him through the fence crying.”
Be Careful Who You Date
“A lifelong friend of mine since kindergarten was dealing with hard times. He was an addict at the time. I let him sleep in my garage and use our bathroom/shower, etc. One Saturday night he, my wife, and I are chilling in the garage. Our 4 and 6-year-olds are asleep in their beds. We’re having a blast listening to music like the old days. He’s telling me how he hasn’t touched any illegal substances for a week or so and he’s been talking to this cashier at the gas station down the road he likes. It’s a good night. We’re all kind of hungry so I and my wife leave to get food. I ask him to keep an ear out for the kids, we’ll be gone 15 minutes.
We get home and every window is smashed out of the front of the house. The front door is trashed, it won’t even open. My wife and I run around back and come in. He’s on the kitchen floor covered in blood with the landline phone in his hand. My wife runs to the kid’s room. He’s pretty much delusional and cops are pulling in the driveway. He gets hauled off in an ambulance. The cops and detectives are snapping pics of the living room/kitchen/front of the house. Apparently, the gas station chick my buddy had been seeing is married and her gang banger husband just got out of jail and came to mess him up. The whole time, my kids never woke up. My wife sat in their room and rubbed their backs while the cops went through the house. They never knew about it until we told them years later.”
Are We About To Have A Wizard Of Oz Situation?
“I live on the East coast. A few years ago, there was a derecho (high-speed straight-line winds) that came through our area. I’ve lived in the East my entire life and never heard of anything like this. At the time, the kids were 5 and 7.
I woke up in the middle of the night to hear our roof-rattling and the wind just howling outside. The electricity was out. So, outside, nothing but pure darkness and wind that sounded like it was about to pick up the house. I woke up my wife, and we listened for a little while before we decided to go downstairs.
I told the kids we were going to have a ‘fun slumber party’ downstairs. They didn’t think about why I was getting them up at one or two in the morning to have a slumber party, but I got out their sleeping bags and lit some candles.
After about twenty minutes, they had drifted off again, and the wind seemed to be getting even worse. A few trees audibly split in half in our neighborhood.
So, I got the kids up again and we were going to have a fun slumber party in the basement. They went downstairs, got into the sleeping bags, and drifted off again, while I stared out the half-window wondering if there was a tornado or something out there.
Eventually, around 4 or 5 am, our slumber party was canceled, and they went back upstairs to sleep. Neither of them remembered any of it, although numerous trees had been destroyed, and more than a few houses had lost portions of their roofs.”
Unexpected Visitor
“We were living in southern CA, just over the border, for a few years while my husband was on active duty in the Navy. He was away a lot. At the time we had a 4-year-old son and our daughter was just a few months old. This particular morning, I got up with our son and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. We had a sliding glass door in the kitchen that led out to the backyard. I noticed our gate was open. That was odd. When I opened the blinds at the glass door, there was a guy bent down trying to move the door open!
I froze. Our son was in the living room totally unaware of what was happening. Our daughter was still sleeping. I formulated this plan to have my son go out the front door over to our neighbor’s house (they were a nice older couple with dogs he liked), then I would go get my daughter and hide upstairs with my phone if I needed to. The guy stopped what he was doing, saw the look on my face, and started pleading with me to let him use my phone and not call the cops. I backed away from the door, motioned that I’d be right back, and kept backing up into the living room. I got the phone and called 911. By that time he had left. When I spoke with the operator, she said the police were already on their way because he had gone into other people’s yards to try the same thing. Five minutes later I heard him and the cops yelling at each other on the next road over in our complex. He was arrested. My kids never had any idea what was going on.”
Ignorance Is Bliss
“We live in tornado alley, so sometimes it’s ‘Random Board Games in the Closet Night!! Grab the dogs, the bottled water, and a couple blankets! Board games are so fun!’
Another time, I could hear shots up and down the street behind us. We don’t live in a dangerous area, but everyone has a dangerous neighbor, I guess. We had a fun evening of ‘Slumber party on the living room floor and crawl like a baby! Haha! Mommy’s so funny!’
And when my husband’s been deployed, we kept the kids pretty oblivious to any danger he was in while overseas. Sometimes when communication was sparse, daddy was camping and didn’t have a cell reception… it definitely wasn’t that a mortar took out some essential piece of equipment, or that he had to leave the wire for a few days.
I had a major pulmonary embolism in March (large blood clot in my lung) and very nearly died. The kids were so oblivious during my stay in the ICU that they told my sister they didn’t load their dishes into the dishwasher because ‘mom will just do it when she gets back from the doctor.’
Not my proudest parenting moment, but I was glad they weren’t freaking out and didn’t realize how close they were to being motherless.”
Sorry For Going The Speed Limit
“Some crazy moron in a blue truck got mad that I was going 25 on a winding narrow curvy road with a speed limit of 25 (and in some spots even less). He tailgated me a while and I couldn’t pull over anywhere to let him pass.
Finally, when he could pass he decided not to. He stayed behind me, started honking, and getting right up on my bumper. I could hear him yelling from inside my car.
My 4 and 2-year-old were in the back seat freaking out so I told them it was mommy’s coworker who was excited to see us and just saying hello… as I was reaching for my weapon in case stuff got out of hand. This guy had a plastic protector thing over his license plate and it was yellowed and scratched so I couldn’t even tell what state he was from, much less read the license.
I finally got into a populated area and pulled into a Dairy Queen with people all around and he kept going. I was shaking and furious. I called the police who were pretty disinterested, to be honest. If my kids had not been there I think I would have done some things differently but who knows. Hopefully, it will never come up again.”
That Could Have Gone A Lot Worse
“When my daughter was five years old, she ran into our glass door. I quickly checked her over and she seemed fine just a little shocked by the noise it made and the glass going everywhere. Then I noticed a large pool of blood forming on the floor and when I turned her around saw that she had a large, deep hole in the back of her arm. Without changing my demeanor at all, I quickly put my hand on the wound and applied pressure and calmly asked my partner to grab a towel and signaled him to go into the next room and call an ambulance.
I then told my daughter that something really exciting was about to happen, an ambulance was coming and she was going to get to ride in it and if she was really lucky they might put the siren on. We sat on the porch and sang songs and hugged her with the towel putting pressure on her arm. As soon as the paramedics arrived they realized that she didn’t know what had happened yet and played along, ‘playing doctor’ bandaging her arm and didn’t let on at all that anything was wrong. I’m so grateful the mind is able to protect you from feeling pain from severe injuries.”
Everything Is FINE Just Keep Playing…
“During the birth of our middle son, my wife’s uterus started to rupture. The placenta was in an awkward position and caused a tear during labor. She was rushed into surgery for an emergency C-section. I was pretty convinced that she was going to die and didn’t know what to do. I ended up calling her parents after an internal debate with myself. They came up and brought my oldest son with them. They were babysitting for us and had to bring him along. My oldest was only 1.5 at the time and had no clue what was going on. I took him into the little play area and we played around for what felt like hours for me, but he was just having a grand ole time playing with the random toys. He was completely unaware that his mom and little brother were in a life-threatening situation and I couldn’t help but think about how I was going to explain it to him.
My wife did end up losing a lot of blood and needed a blood transfusion, but she made a complete recovery. My son spent a little bit of time in the NICU but was good to go after a few days.”
Socks Save Lives
“My son is only 10 weeks old so obviously, he’s got no clue what’s going on 24/7. But the scariest situation I’ve had so far was a few weeks ago.
We were finally transitioning him to his crib. We had just laid him down to sleep and he kept fussing. So 30 minutes of fussing, he suddenly goes silent. Awesome, right? The kid finally fell asleep. While he sleeps, he wears an owlet sock which monitors his pulse and oxygen levels. All of a sudden, the base station starts alarming. I run over and grab him and he’s not responding at all. I’m yelling at him and trying to stimulate him and nothing. Not even a flicker of his eyelids. I start unswaddling him, yelling his name and finally after about 30 seconds of not responding, he opens his eyes and looks at me like I’m crazy.
I checked my phone and turns out his heart rate had dropped below 60 beats per minute. If we hadn’t had that sock, I’m pretty sure my kid would be dead. Definitely the scariest 30 seconds of my life.”
No, Batman! No!
“We took our 3-year-old daughter who is obsessed with Batman to Movie World and got her a Batman mask and cape. She stayed in character the whole time. Anyway, that night back in the apartment we were staying in, we were serving dinner and my little girl went to the toilet. The next thing I know she was dragging a chair over to the balcony window in the bedroom – we were on the 55th floor.
She was going to fly like Batman with her cape on. Luckily I could see her reflection through the kitchen window. I ran and grabbed her and yelled at her. I shouldn’t have but it probably scared her in the right way. I’m not a big crier but Jesus, I balled my eyes out. She was too young to understand but if the balcony wasn’t fully enclosed and the window wasn’t so difficult to open she’d have just jumped straight out expecting to fly just like Batman through all the big buildings.
My stomach still turns just writing it out.”
No More Night Driving
“We were driving out to the east coast. It was a rainy, dark night on a rural Pennsylvania freeway. The highway was divided by a steep hill and dense woods. We were in the left lane and up ahead, I saw headlights coming toward us. It took a few seconds to register that someone was driving the wrong way on the highway and they were in our lane. I quickly got over to the far right lane-there wasn’t time to stop. They safely passed me in the left lane, but my heart was beating so fast I thought I was having a panic attack. I pulled over and called 911, giving the best description I could. Fortunately, there was an officer nearby, and I found out later that they caught him and that he didn’t hit anyone. My kid slept through the whole thing, but it took a while for me to calm down. I found a hotel shortly after and gave up on the night driving for the rest of the trip.”
Run Kids!
“I was at a rest stop with my two daughters. My son and their dad were in a separate vehicle a few miles behind me so I was letting the girls stretch and run around while we waited for the boys to catch up. I noticed a guy watching us, he got closer and his hand was down the front of his jeans. I started freaking out but didn’t want to alarm the girls. I thought quickly and looked up at the restroom and said loudly, ‘Oh there’s daddy! He’s finally done. Let’s go!’ I even waved at the restroom building and said, ‘I’m over here, babe!’ My lie worked! The creep did a 180 and as soon as he was out of my vicinity I ran with the girls to my car and cried until I got to the next exit. I carry pepper spray now!”
(Points edited for clarity)