.
I've pulled a couple of people out of the water, once in the ocean and two guys who dumped their canoe in a pretty harsh bit of river, and seems they would have drowned if I hadn't.
Twice I spotted houses that had just caught fire and I helped get people out of those, saved a cat in one, and helped fight the fire until the fire department came. Probably saved most of the house.
Three times I've been in cities hit by hurricanes. If you've ever been through something like that, you work 25 hours a day for about six weeks, then sleep for a month. After that, it's tough to remember exactly what you did, but you know it made some difference.
I've been at several auto accidents where we had to perform first aid on seriously injured people. Don't know if it saved their lives or not, but might have. One guy wrecked a motorcycle in front of me & I know I did several things to keep his injuries under control, probably saved his life (HINT: don't try to move or walk after flying into a car at 50 or 60 mph; wait for the paramedics to tell you you're OK. Or not.).
Probably have talked 30 or 40 drunk people out of driving their car; God knows how many lives that saved.
Carried a damn fool friend out of a graveyard and drove him to the emergency room after he pulled a gravestone over on himself. I mean, like a ten foot high, two ton chunk of marble. Don't try to climb old grave stones; it can end badly.
There's a few more incidents like that over the past 30 years.
I was a university teacher for six years, about 500 students per semester with about a half dozen being special needs (blind, autistic, paraplegic, ADD, etc.). I like to think I was good, I took it very seriously. And, there were a lot students that I helped with Life Issues, like recovering from rape or dealing with divorce. Seems you can't go two weeks without something like that coming up, in addition to developing and teaching a curriculum.
The thing is, if you keep yourself in halfway good shape (physically and mentally), learn some basic first aid, I also certified in HAZMAT, Open Water SCUBA and Advanced Open Water Lifesaving ... well, and generally lead a fairly active life like working construction and doing a bit of caving and mountain climbing, etc. ...
During the course of your life, you'll be right there at the moment when it keeps someone else alive. Probably more than once. And, someone will be there to pull you out from in front of a train once or twice, too. Don't think I'm here to type this up because I'm so skilled & smart as to keep myself alive. If there were a Just God in this Universe, I'd have never lived past about 21 or 23.
Pretty cool how that pays itself forward. There's a good few people who have been pretty important to me, also.
