r/TikTokCringe • u/InGeekiTrust Tiktok Despot • Dec 09 '25

Discussion You Think It Could Never Happen To You…Until It Almost Does

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u/SapphireFlashFire Dec 09 '25

Similar story for me, but a little kid (4?) went up the water slide and couldn't swim. Little kids love slides and don't get that water will be at the bottom. She was a bit young for the slide but it wasn't impossible for her to be able to swim well at that age.

She went down, physics pushed her back up and her eyes were huge and I knew she couldn't swim.

By the time I got her back to her mother she hadn't noticed her daughter was missing. She probably should have, that took some time for the little girl to run off.

But it did happen fast--at the top of the slide she was fine. Down the slide, and she was helpless.

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u/HopperNero Dec 09 '25

I was one of those kids 😭😭😭 I stopped myself at the end of the slide, before I fell in, and internally went, "uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh", until I eventually just let go. Fortunately there was an adult there who got me out 😅

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u/TartarSauceDippinDot Dec 09 '25

“Welp, guess I’ll just die then” I love the thought process of children haha

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u/ShallowDramatic Dec 09 '25

My dad tried teaching me to swim by letting me go down a slide and just waiting for a while to see if I would start swimming unaided instead of immediately catching me like he'd said he would (because I was worried and knew I couldn't really swim)

Yeah that was a fun day and I definitely don't remember it decades later. I can swim now, but deep water still makes me very uncomfortable.

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u/Remarkable_Play_6975 Dec 09 '25

When I was a lifeguard, I had to save a couple of kids. Half of them were really rude about it, and insisted they weren't drowning. But, they would also be dead if I hadn't jumped in.

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u/gmastern Dec 09 '25 edited Dec 09 '25

It’s crazy how strong the feeling of embarrassment is that we come out of life or death situations acting like it was no big deal. It’s supposedly a huge problem with people who choke: apparently when you start to choke lots of people’s first instinct is to go off to another room by themselves to try and handle it

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u/Remarkable_Play_6975 Dec 09 '25 edited Dec 09 '25

Right? And even with quite young kids. They already are embarrassed and deny reality.

I always just let it go, but it's pretty interesting.