re: Have you ever saved anyone from certain death?

Yeah, once as a child. I was maybe 12 or 13 and I was swimming at my grandparents house. Someone was supposed to be watching us but for some reason they weren’t. Well, at some point I looked towards the steps of the pool and noticed my 2 year old cousin just kinda sitting at the bottom under the water. Pulled her out and she’s crying of course, so I had to explain to my uncle what happened and that he needs to watch his kid cuz she almost died.

Yup.

River kayaking/canoeing out of state a few years ago, and the gf (and her kids) got wedged up into a bunch of fallen timber on a 90 degree dogleg where the current was pretty nasty.

She's freaking TF out, and in complete panic mode. They 100% would have died that day. frick, I was outwardly calm, but had my own doubts if we'd all survive it. Long story short, I got the kids to safety, and then finally her.

Hindsight is a mfkr. If I knew what that sociopath would end up doing a few months later, I'd have let that bitch drown.

Guy in the office, I was talking to him and I noticed he struggling like catching his breath. I asked him if he was in pain, he said he had been hurting between his shoulder blades all morning.

I called 911, got him on the floor, got him breathing from our first aid oxygen and gave him aspirin to chew. He was still conscious when EMS arrived, but by the time he was in the ambulance he was in cardiac arrest. They air vac'ed him to hospital, he had surgery that afternoon. He was back at his desk in a couple of weeks.

Doc said if I had waited 5 minutes he would not have made it.

I saved myself by leaving my wife

I pulled an LSU student out of the path of a bus.

We were both walking to class, entering a crosswalk. I looked both ways and noticed a bus hauling arse and likely not yielding to us. Kid had his headphones on with his head down

I grabbed him by his book sack and yanked his arse backward just before he took his first step in the crosswalk. He looked up and saw the bus blow right through where he would have been standing.

Me and two buddies and one of their sons were kayak fishing in the salt marsh south of Winnie. Wind was terrible and we were exhausted paddling against it. We decided to call it quits and turned back for the dock. Had to cross the Diversion canal against the wind and time it between barges. About halfway across I see Todd flip out of the corner of my eye. He was wearing waders, exhausted, and not in good shape. His waders dragged him down and the wind had the waves beating the crap out of the overturned kayak. My other buddy Holt and I raced over and grabbed him just as he was going under for the third time.

I’ll never forget the look on his face, sheer terror. We couldn’t pull him up, he was too heavy, too tired, and there was a barge coming so we had to act fast. Holt held on to him enough to keep his head above water, I lashed the boats together and paddled us to shore. By the time we got clear of the oncoming barge and him the shallows all three of us were completely gassed.

We lay in the mud panting, saying nothing, for what seemed like a long time.

We dragged the boats the rest of the way to the dock, loaded up, and started driving home. Finally I think it all hit us how close we came to losing him.

The really dumb part was that Todd had brought a PFD but Holt had forgotten his and his son’s so Todd had insisted that Hunter wear his. I said “guys, I’m never putting my boat in the water with y’all again unless everyone is wearing a life vest. I refuse to have to tell one of your wives and their kids that dad is gone.

We all agreed.

I also saved one of my golden retrievers from choking on a racquet ball. By the time I got it unstuck her tongue was purple and she was close to gone.

Not sure if this counts but I stopped a drunk guy from driving. Dude was wasted. Stumbling and everyone at the party knew he was trashed. I wasn’t close to him. He stumbles out of house party to his truck. I asked if he wanted to get a taxi/Uber. Said nope and pulled out his keys. After back and forth with him that it wasn’t a good idea (by now others had gathered due to his yelling) I took his keys and threw them in the field by the party house. He was pissed. Found the keys the next day.

I saved my 18-month niece when she fell out of a shopping cart head first in the Home Depot parking lot. I caught her before she landed. Years later she was choking, and I saved her again.

When she was 20, she was very troubled, and her Mom asked if she could come to live with me in DFW. I declined.

A month later she was killed by a hit-and-run driver.

I still feel that if I said yes the last time, she would still be alive today.

Three for sure.
In 1990’s a tug sank in the Mississippi River, one was in the tug when it went down. The tug was lifted months later, his body recovered.
One guy was beached on a bulbous bow of a ship docked. Another’s body was floating face down. A third guy, was on the rudder of a ship, these three were within 40 yards of each other. I took a life ring, casting it out to the guy on the rudder, getting it as close as I could. He was in shock just yelling out. I finally decided to hit him with the life ring, the water was cold and with him in shock, my only option. It hit him, I said a few choice words, he grabbed it, I pulled him to the dock. Got him up. I had a small boat going around to the outside of the dock, they got the guy on the bow of the ship. The body floating, it was recovered around an hour later, right above the I-10 bridge.

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My first reaction to the OP was that Adele was a terrible song choice