“The Most Painful Thing I’ve Ever Witnessed”: 30 Historical Events Witnessed By These Folks

That poor girl and her mother. Those moments before she found out for sure were probably even worse

I was a senior in high school in a north Jersey suburb, so A LOT of kids in the school had parents working in that part of NYC. Every few minutes, a student would get called down to the office. It was awful, so many kids just sitting like zombies waiting to find out if their parents were alive or not. Many kids went home that day to one less parent.

Was trying not to cry today 😞

Oh, no... Oh, no.. This made me cry.

I was working in ER during the 911 attacks I remember watching the second plane crash and I turned to the ER doctor standing next to me and I asked him "John is this real?!?" He said " god I hope not but I think it is..."we both just had our mouths wide open in disbelief. Still the worst thing I've ever seen

And instead of gratitude, you probably got accused of working for the "deep state" or something along these lines, simply for doing your work.

I still remember seeing the freezer trucks they had to utilize due to the overflow...I hope that those people get the proper therapy/counseling they will need.

Some italian doctors and nurses have been fined a few months ago because they worked many unauthorized extra hours during the pandemic emergency. The fine has been withdrawn after their protest and after the hospitals involved were exposed by the news but the shame remains

Thank You

My father was admitted to the CICU during the second wave. I watched how short staffed and saw all the nurses from every department worked very hard; long exhausting shifts trying to save lives of people under the ventilator. I watched them cry as some patients passed. I value nurses very much. Thank you

It is a stretch to say I "witnessed" it as I didn't have eyes on but I HEARD it 200 miles away and also felt the shock wave shake our house. At first I thought it was heavy / close thunder because who's first thought is, "Welp! I guess a mountain just blew up!" ?

Grew up in Portland, OR. I still have a baby food jar of the ash. It was traumatic, indeed!

My dog was a complete jerk in the obedience ring (course, I was his owner, so I take a lot of the blame). Anyway, he used to run out of the ring to chase things and after a year or so, I finally had this habit trained out of him. So it was a nice morning and we were 5th in the ring which opened up at 8am in an obedience competition. And my dog ran out of the ring again. Brought him back, he took off again. The judge mentioned my dog looked spooked, but since there was nothing I could do, I just took a disqualification and went back home. This was in Pleasanton, CA. I found out on the way to work on Monday morning that the volcano had gone off at the same time my dog was in the ring. I'll always wonder if he sensed that from so far away, because he never ran out of the ring again.

I didn't witness it. I was getting out of my dates car in front of my mom's house when this gray stuff started falling on me. Went in side and mom told me. I lived in Oregon. My friends friends mom was a photographer. Her and her older daughter went to photograph the Mtn. after folks were allowed to go back. It exploded again while they were there. The sisters body was found. Eventually the moms body was found in a surviving tree.

I watched it from the Portland Rose Gardens. Awesomely scary.

The worst part is, there was a decent amount of time where the crew members didn't know anything was wrong.

I was in second grade in Ohio. The whole grade was crammed into a single classroom with a TV on a cart to watch the launch. It went up, it exploded, and we were all ushered back to our rooms without any explanation or support from the teachers. Fortunately my Cub Scout Den Mother explained what happened that afternoon and helped us talk it out.

i watched it live on TV with the rest of the kids in my class. we all were in the lunchroom with the rest of the school.

I used to get up early to watch space shuttle launches (like 4am Australian EST) and watched it blow-up on live tv. Didn't really understand the gravity of the disaster at the time as I was only 13yrs old when it happened. 15yrs later I watched the second plane hit WTC live on telly. At the time I thought I was watching a distasteful disaster film until that point, then the reality of what was happening sunk in...

I was standing outside with my entire school. Six year old me did not need to see teachers crying watching the coverage the rest of the day

Always been one of my biggest fears, that must've been terrifying. My heart goes out to all the families of the 200,000+ dead

A friend was caught in this. She said that while the wave was terrifying, the walk from the hotel was worse, 3 foot deep water filled with garbage and corpses, human and animal.

That tsunami was the last nail in the coffin of my belief in a loving god.

Why does this remind me of Pineapple On Pizza for some reason

I remember seeing this on TV then I was a kid in Colorado and even drawing it afterward. I was so traumatized just seeing it on TV that I was TERRIFIED to move to California that same year and I didn't know I had bridge driving anxiety 30 years later until I clammed up and had anxiety crossing the golden gate. I still will cry if I get stuck on the Bay Bridge. I can't really imagine being on the raised highways and bridges in a massive earthquake even though the images scarred me. Now I'm extremely comfortable with most earthquakes but still picker every time I cross a Bay Area bridge or raised highway 😳

I wasn't there. But I've thought about it looking at pictures of this stretch of freeway. When I was based in Alameda I used to drive that chunk of road. It was weird to think I could have been in the situation this person is describing. The quake happened two months after I got out of the navy but I had not been in Alameda for a while.

My family was driving through the Bay Area in an old motor home as we were relocating from New York to Washington but took a detour for us kids. People started pulling off to the side of the road so we did as well, but we didn't know there was an earthquake because the motor home was such a piece of c**p that we couldn't tell the difference between an earthquake and the general rocking of the vehicle. It was only later that we discovered we'd been in a massive earthquake.

Was standing on a BART platform downtown S.F.

This was in the days when the "internet" was somewhat limited and Usenet was a primary communication channel. An acquaintance working at UC Berkeley wrote (I forget which newsgroup it was in) about how he'd been informed that his stolen BMW had been found -- several months after it was stolen. Which had happened during the World Series game, so there was less traffic than usual. The car was found in one of the collapsed sections. Apparently with the remains of the thief still in place.

Arthur Waite

Arthur Waite

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I was working in downtown Toronto at that time, and one day, taking a walk after lunch, I passed by the City Hall square, and there were a whole lot of people gathering around. I asked someone what's going on and he said "Some guy's running across Canada for some reason, and he's collecting money." I hung around and there were volunteers passing around buckets and baskets to collect cash. I put in three dollars, all I had with me, and went back to work. After I got home that evening, watching the news, I saw myself in the news donating to someone named Fox. Not a big deal, really, until he got farther west, and more newsworthy.

A part of me still wishes he could have completed his marathon.

I often get confused between him and Cliffy, who was the Australian who ran across the country (I didn't know who he was either until a drama in the 2010s)

Orange Juice Simpson.

O J Simpsons car chase

I worked at the Stapleton Airport (Denver before DIA) and we used the white courtesy phone to page him. 🤣

A week before this chase, I overheard a plot to frame him. No one believes me and as a Black Roman I don't care because he beat his women.

I think this is an OJ reference?

No. I mean, yes, people are buying them, but unless it has a certificate of authenticity, it's just a chunk of concrete. I can pick up a chunk of concrete from the ground and say it's from Berlin. So can you. You could probably dupe a tourist into buying it, just like medieval pilgrims bought pieces of the True Cross, but as far as it being an historical artifact, it's not, because its provenance can't be established. That's the problem with looted artifacts sold on the black market (which is what you have).

We visited relatives in West Berlin shortly after. I got some pieces but lost them some time during my childhood.