What Is the Worst/scariest Thing That Has Happened to Your Child?

My daughter was hit by a car last year. She was crossing the road on her scooter (right behind an adult) when a minivan tagged her. She was barely hit, just a bruised knee, but I almost had a heart attack.

There's a page in my 2nd daughter's baby book that says, "Illnesses and Mishaps." The first few entries say things like, "had the sniffles" or "had a fever :(." Then, it changes to, "split her lip," "split her scalp," "broke her arm" and the like. I was terrified that she'd end up scarred and crippled - she had no fear of anything, and was a little daredevil. Don't worry - she's a lovely, healthy adult today! :)

she's testing bounderies. around her and also her own physical space. I would just child proof as much as you can. cover all corners or move things out of the center of the room. close off doors to rooms you can't physically be in with her close off the staircases if you have them. it would be nice if we could bubble wrap them to keep them safe.

My most very very worst was with my first son when he was 3 weeks old. We were in a car accident. He was rushed to the hospital and then airlifted to our trauma hospital in the city. He was on life support for 4-5 weeks (where he died two times but they brought him back!), and then another 2 weeks in recovery. He had 6 broken ribs, a lacerated spleen and liver, both of his lungs were punctured and collapsed, a bruised heart, a broken clavical, a broken humurous, and blood and liquid in his brain. They told me my precious son was going to die. They told me he was going to be a vegetable. Little did they know that God had a special plan for my little one. He is now 11 years old. He is doing fantastic in his class. He plays premier soccer on one of the top teams in the state for his age group. He is a great big brother. He is one of the most amazing kids that I know. I am blessed and honored to be his mother.
For my second son? He was choking on a piece of candy when he was about 4 years old. He was squeeking and looking at me with tears streaming down his face. He couldn't breathe! It was so scary. I took that child, turned him around, and gave him the heimlech! That candy shot right out of him. My poor son gave me a huge smile and hug and said, "MOM! You saved my LIFE!"
My daughter? She is only 3. So I am sure we will have scary things happen. But when she was about 1 1/2 we were at the grocery store and my husband was holding her hand as we walked around. She tripped and fell. My husband held tight to her hand so she wouldn't fall. Well, that resulted in her kind of "twisting" in the wind and her elbow popped out. She screamed. Took the poor baby to the hospital and they popped her elbow back in. Apparently that's pretty common? OH! And I had to take her to the hospital in the middle of the night a couple of months ago when she had croup. It was so scary how hard she was trying to breathe! I took a video, sent it to my SIL who is a nurse practitioner, and she texted back to get her to the ER quickly.
I think every gray hair I have is here for a reason with these three yahoos.
L.

My daughter is 7 and just before Christmas she stepped out of the shower and her feet went out from under her. She busted her head and arm on the shower door tracks. Blood was everywhere because the back of her head was gashed open. Required 4 staples. Luckily, she's all healed up and no further issues. Scary for all involved.

My son is 22 and the worst injury to date was his concussion when he rolled his Blazer when he was 17. He's all healed but it was a horrible accident...very scary.

My daughter did only "interesting" things when she was little. Once it was getting her tongue vacuumed forcefully into a tiny bottle (playing in the bath). I had to cover her head with a towel, lay her tongue/the bottle on the counter, and whack it with pinking shears to break the vacuum.

Another time she stuck her finger through a hole drilled in a metal brace under a restaurant table. We got it out with large amounts of butter, ice, and prayer.

But she didn't really scare me until a few weeks ago, when she got a pulmonary embolism following shoulder surgery. She was in grave condition and massive pain for awhile, but is recovering well now. (She's 43, and still counting!)

Sometimes kids are developing physical skills faster than their brains can sort out, and clumsiness ensues for awhile. If a child is unusually accident-prone, it could be a personality type. I have a sister who is always in a state of mental uproar, and she's had more accidents than I can count on all my fingers and toes. I think a calming, meditative practice would probably help her a lot, but she just can't sit still long enough.

My 14-year-old son is accident prone, but the worst was multiple concussions from hockey two years ago that turned into a six month recovery period including weeks of specialized physical therapy. (He no longer plays hockey.) I am very relieved he has made a full recovery, but a friend's mom used to joke that he should live in a big plastic ball--similar to the balls used to exercise hamsters.

How old is she? That would be really scary!
My kiddos have not been too accident-prone so we have been lucky. The worst we have had is when my daughter was 3 she was running around the living room, tripped and fell against the coffee table and her tooth went through her face. Then one time she touched the fireplace glass to see if it was hot and got a second degree burn.
My poor friend was moving a crockpot of hot food this week and her baby got underfoot and it spilled on him and caused second degree burns all over :(.
Scary stuff like this happens a lot with kids; they just do not understand consequences yet and yes, they are testing limits. Do you best to child-proof the house and supervise, but understand that accidents happen. It might make you feel better to take a first aid course as well, just to be prepared; that would be a good idea for anyone.

Toss up between chewing on tacks at 18 mo. and waiting for the xray to show she didn't eat one, and when she turned one way and I the other at a big event and she got very scared that she was lost. (She was missing for about 2 minutes, but wisely remembered to stay where she was and wait for me.)

My (at the time 5yo) son jumped into a pool and, even though it was only 3.5 feet deep, his head didn't come over the surface. We were all right there, but it was vacation, and my husband and I were in the process of slathering everyone with sunblock, and getting clothes off, and towels handed out. He was only in there for about 5-8 seconds, but as I looked over and saw his head under, time slowed down and I felt paralyzed with panic. I was 7 months pregnant at the time, and was holding the 2 year old. My husband COMPLETELY froze, and it was my 12 year old that ended up jumping in to get him. Very scary.

heart surgery for my younger when he was a little under 2 years old.
rushing same child to the ER after his brother accidentally hit him hard in the forehead with a baseball bat.
same kid- TWO terrifying flights to the ER in the SAME DAY for asthmatic episodes.
my older boy's thrice-broken wrist and perpetual klutziness pale in comparison to what my younger put us through.
:/ khairete
S.

This is the age where a LOT of kids drown in the toilet or a mop bucket or a sink.

They are top heavy to the max. Their head is so heavy and their neck muscles just have not grown enough strength to hold it up well. If they are looking into a toilet bowl, a mop bucket, etc...they can easily lose their balance and topple over into it and NOT be able to pull themselves out. Please make sure all buckets are put up and all bathroom doors have door knob protectors on them so she can't wander in there and drown.

My oldest went in for her first of five knee surgeries when she was in the 4th grade for an injury that happened at school when she was in the 2nd grade. Her surgery time was a delayed and when they gave her the cocktail prior to her anesthesia this had caused her to vomit during surgery, filling her lungs with fluid...and she turned blue on the table. Thankfully the drs and staff acted as quickly as they did and I truly know how at that moment Sami was their own child. When we walked in, my husband nor myself will ever forget the silence in the room and both the surgeon and anesthesiologist had tears in their eyes as they hugged us.

There have been several other scary moments with our oldest, she had a blood vessel burst a week after having her tonsils removed, she was just 6 wks old when she had some unknown illness & they had to do a spinal tap, and in 8th grade she suffered a brain trauma while sleigh riding and had that led to a long recovery.

The hardest part about it is that her best friend is a boy she met in the 1st grade & she now wants to do Motor Cross!!!!

When my son was 2 he fell at daycare, had a huge bruise on his cheek for 3 months.

In Jan my son was at my MILs in my BILS room (BIL is 17) and my 5 year old was werstling with one of my BILS friends. Well, the shelf that had the Bowling pin on it was kicked, and it landed on my son.. HUGE knott on his head.

Later that day. he slid/fell (on his behind thankfully) down the stairs ... I could not wait to leave my MILs.

this incident wasn't scary for him but it almost gave me a heart attack.

i lost him at the mall when he was 4. it was the longest few minutes in recorded history and as soon as i turned around and called his name he came toddling up the ramp toward me. during those minutes all i could picture was him in the hands of some evil person and me giving a report to the police, showing them his picture and describing what he was wearing.
he has no memory of it but when i think of it, it's like it happended an hour ago. he's 12 now...

the other thing your post reminds me of is the scene in batman when bruce's father asks him why we fall down...."so we can learn how to get back up." i know this chapter is stressful but you are proving to her that she has you both to rely on for comfort and support and that she can get back up sucessfully, she is a blessed girl.

last thought, i'm all over the place today, the only person's blood that doesn't give me the willies is if my DS is bleeding, anyone else and i get light headed and dizzy. good thing i'm not in the medical field. :-)

On Xmas eve a couple of years ago, one of my daughters was only just a year old and tripped in her babygrow that someone had given her. Stupidly it had grips on the bottom and she wasn't used to walking just yet. She fell head first into our glass TV stand and as she went down she caught her front teeth on the shelf below. It was awful. One of her front teeth is now black and the bruise on her forehead at the time was terrible.
Then 6 months later she ran into the edge of a door and the bruise that came up made her look like Hellboy. Whilst waiting at A&E she played with some toys that was in reception and caught a bug that eventually caused her to have a febrile seizure a few days later.
Her twin is as careful as she is careless, but also fearful as she is fearless.
Kids will be kids and it's just part of growing up I think. Hope your daughter is ok and grows out of it soon xx

I also have an 18 month old, she is my second. One thing that I noticed with both of them is that accidents happen a lot more frequently when they are tired. As soon as my toddler falls I know she's very tired and I whisk her off to bed before she does some real damage.
I just thought I would point that out in case these injuries are happening when she's due for a nap or bed. If she's transitioning from 2 naps to only 1 nap a day, she may be a little more tired than usual.

not sure if it's too early - but if she's having all kinds of bumps and falls she could have vision issues. My nephew had amblyopia - where the messages from one eye aren't getting to the brain. If they discover it when the child is young it's 100% correctable. It wasn't discovered in my nephew until he was around 8-9 so it as fully correctable. But he was having all kinds of falls, trips, bumps, cuts, etc - becuase he didn't have great peripheral vision on that side of his head. Once discovered all those falls, stitches, jumps, suddently made sense.

On the other hand - your child is a toddler. They are ALWAYS on the precipice of disaster. It's such a stressful age for the parents! I don't think we ever showed up for a doctor's visit between the ages of 9 mos - 4 yrs without bruises. I worried that the pediatrician would refer me to CPS. fortunatley she understood toddlers.

The scariest thing? who can remember. Thankfully those traumatic, bloody or head-swelling accidents do come to an end. There's a few years of relative peace and then they get their drivers licence - followed immediately by visiting colleges and filling out financial aid forms.

Strap in - the ride will get bumpy! (and you may need to throw up!)

Sounds like my 16 month old lately. He's fallen more times than I can count in the last four weeks alone. The two worst were the busted inside upper lip were he slammed his face into a concrete floor and his goose egg from slamming into a corner. Both times he misjudged his distances and I could see it was going to end badly without my being able to get to him in time. Like watching a train wreck in action. Sigh. The absolute worst is having to explain all of it to the daycare. I think sometimes they give me the 'yeah, sure, lady' look which does utterly nothing for my self confidence as a mother. My first hardly hurt himself but in the span of 16 months my youngest has given our medical and first aid know how a real run for its money. Then again my parents joke I was a total danger to myself as a child. I went to the ER more times than seems normal so perhaps my youngest comes by it honest. :)

P.S. My husband and I both stay current with basic first aid and CPR which helps.

My son fell while at school when the kids were asked to sit in a parking lot, he fell and hit the back of his head on a guard rail, in turn, he needed to be taken to emergency for stitches.. he jumped off of something and had a hairline fracture in his heel, which took sometime to heal... so to speak..

but worse, he came down with viral Meningitis and spent a week in the hospital.. << that wasn't a phase, but was definitely the worst....

I do think some things are out of our control, this despite teaching kids about safety, unfortunately, you are bound to have an accident or two..

Well this happened last summer. I was definetley more scared than my son was. We were biking on vacation. We were there the day before so he knew the layout. The next day we biked there again. We brought another one of my other kids with us. Along with two other kids from the other family we were vacationing with.
I was sitting on the bench and I was about 5 seconds behind them. One of my friends children along with one of my kids went thru the see thru glass door. I had my back turned. I lost my son. I was calm at first. Then I ran to find my other child and the other friend. They were running around helping me look for them.
It felt like time stayed completely still. I told the lady at the front desk to call the police. She starting dialing. Mid dial my son was found. I started crying. It was horrible. He had no idea I was so worked up. He was at the vending machine..which I didnt know there was one. I held him so tightly I didnt yell just held him.
So thankful I didnt have to tell my husband and our friends I lost the kids. I told them after the fact..and everything worked out.

When my son was in 2nd grade a stone bench in the classroom fell on his hand. He suffered a de-glove amputation of his left index finger from the first knuckle to the fingertip. Worst part was the stupid teacher sent him to the nurse by himself because she didn't want to leave the classroom alone. So here's this 7 yo, in shock, running down the hallway with his hand in the air shooting blood all over. Luckily my friends in the office saw him coming and ran to help (better still, the nurse was absent that day). We had a wonderful plastic surgeon; he was able to repair the finger and it is only noticeable as shorter if you compare it to the other index finger, can't even see the scar anymore.

When my oldest was 3 he almost drown during his first swim class. His swim teacher wasn't paying attention and had the kids holding on to the edge of the pool. (All the parents were supposed to be in a viewing room, behind a glass wall, to watch. I refused and stayed out by the pool). My sons hands slipped from the edge and he went under and to the bottom. I saw it happen and the instructor did not. I went in fully clothed and pulled him out. It was very scary.
My little guy stumbled and fell into the fireplace hearth just after his 3rd bday and split open a huge gash above his left eye. That was a fun trip to the ER.

Last summer, right after my son learned to ride his bicycle, I noticed that he had left his bike in the middle of the driveway. I asked him to go bring it into the garage, but not ride it because he wasn't wearing his helmet. Of course he had to ride it into the garage and fell forward and needed stitches in his chin. Thank god it wasn't worse, since he wasn't wearing his helmet. He was also admitted to the hospital as a toddler when he had really bad Bronchiolitis and almost stopped breathing. The scariest I think was when he was 3 and my youngest was a newborn.... the baby was asleep in her bouncy seat in a different room. I told my then 3 yr. old to go upstairs and get his jammies and come back down. A little while later I decided I better check on the baby. When I went to check, I didn't see her... then realized that the 3 yr. old had "given her his pillow pet". The Pillow Pet was entirely on top of the baby for 15 minutes! It was the scariest moment of my life.... she ended up being fine. But it makes you realized just how quickly accidents can happen. Apparently my son had made a quick detour on his way upstairs to share his toy... trying to be a nice brother. And I was so careful back then, that the older kids were never left alone with the baby... ugh.

My oldest had a febrile seizure at 18 months. He was in the back seat of the car at night when we were driving home. I happened to look back and he was rigid. We pulled into a neighborhood and I jumped out and ran to a house to call an ambulance while his dad pulled him out and brought him in. While we waited for the ambulance, my son was straight as a board and convulsing while his lips and fingernails turned blue. It didn't last too long but seemed like an eternity and I have never ever felt again like I did that night. He stayed in the hospital for 3 days while they tried to get the fever and an infection under control. What's also scary is that it would be normal for him to get fevers of 106 when he got sick. Thank god he outgrew all of this and is healthy with no lasting effects. My younger son choked on some cheese sticks while eating here at home. My other son and my dad were here when it happened. My son could not get the cheese stick out and was literally clawing at his own neck. His eyes started to roll back and my dad grabbed him to do the heimlich and my other son called 911. The food finally came out and my son was just spent and laid on the floor. Luckily, he was ok, and I am so thankful my dad happened to be there at just the right time to help. There were other scary things, too, but these two are the scariest to me.

With my 4 children, I've been through many, many injuries and illnesses. Including stitches on the older two (the oldest had 10 sets total) - broken bones, appendicitis, seizures, and my daughter had a heart attack and heart transplant at 16, then 5 years later had lymphoma. Nothing shakes me up too much. Trust me.