It's rather difficult for me to pick one story, especially considering my best story involves my mother and the many odd things she has hit in a head on collision.
So, I'll tell a story that won't humiliate any member of my family and rather educate the masses.
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Anyway, I am certified by the America Red Cross for adult and child first aide, CPR, and defibrillator use. Three years ago my grandparents and myself took a nice bike ride along the Delaware River. It was getting late and close to turn back time, so my grandfather shouted ahead to my grandmother, she being in the front as she was the slowest rider, that it would soon be time to turn around. She swung her head around screaming "WHAT!" and lost control of her bike. She twisted and turned across the trail several times before she hit a tree stump, flew from the bike, and knocked herself head first, no helmet, into a tree.
My grandmother was unconscious face first on the ground snorting in dirt with every breath. My grandfather, though being a chemical engineer, had absolutely no idea of how to handle the situation at hand. I had recently taken the Red Cross course, and was able to evaluate the situation. My first problem was her breathing, she was snorting in dirt with every breath face first on the ground. Although it is unwise to move anyone whom has just experienced head trauma, failure to move her onto her back may have caused her to either stop breathing or go into something worse due to lack of oxygen and brain trauma, like a stroke. After we flipped her over she naturally exhaled the dirt she had snorted whilst on the ground and slowly began a normal breathing pattern, although she was still out cold. We called 911 and within five minutes the paramedics arrived on the scene.
My grandmother was still out cold for a good ten minutes until she woke up wondering what happened. We told her, although the information would not stick and she would repeat the question. She was transported via helicopter to a nearby PA hospital where she stayed for three weeks under careful observation and care. For the first six months after her injury she was in a state unfit to drive or perform her daily routine. Her memory slowly came back with the aide of a few hormone drugs the doctors proscribed for her, and as of two and a half years ago *six months after* she has seen a full recovery.
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Moral of the story, wear a helmet and know what to do. I highly recommend every here take the American Red Cross or American Heart Association courses in those respected fields, you never know when they can help save someone's life. Just as an example, we were told by the doctors if she had stayed face down breathing in dirt, she would have suffered almost irreversible brain damage from the large lack of oxygen. In addition, moving the head carelessly, as many tend to instinctively do, would have caused her to possibly enter a permanent coma.
If enough stories get thrown in here I'll tell a happier story next time, thought I would start with something unembarrassed.
