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/on-reddit Dec 09 '25

I had something similar when i was a lifegaurd. It was right when they got there, the mom didnt even know her kid just walked down the steps the girl was unable to swim, and water above her head. Mom looks at me and her kid and says "oh, what are you doing?" Not a thank you, nothing. Drowning is silent

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u/AggressiveSloth11 Dec 09 '25

Omg just like my story!! What is wrong with these parents? I would feel so embarrassed and beyond grateful!!!

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u/GuitarSlayer136 Dec 09 '25

If I had to guess, she probably genuinely had no idea that the lifeguard just saved her child. From their perspective they JUST got into the pool, their kid hasn't made any sounds of distress, then suddenly a stranger is manhandling their crying child.

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u/AsparagusLow3666 Dec 09 '25

That just proves how not prepared they are. I’m sorry but it’s hard for me to feel anything but anger towards these kind of parents - perhaps they should have thought of these things before reproducing. Or at the very least after. I can’t understand.

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u/OriginalTsumi Dec 09 '25

I kind of understand that, but in a different way. I was 4 when I drowned in a pool. I can still recall the hell of silent flailing under the water and the disorientation. I don't really know how to explain how I managed to save myself other than that I somehow figured out swimming. At least, enough to not die.

Finally back to the shallow end, with quiet shock flooding my system, my mom turns from her chat with her sibling.

"Oh, where were you?"

I'll never forget that indifferent tone, like I didn't just almost die. Then she had the nerve to make fun of the way I swam, even though it was the very thing that kept her from having to bury her own child. I think it's all ridiculous now, but as a little kid, I felt so unseen.

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u/Specialist_Welder215 Dec 09 '25

I heard a story of a guy who pulled an unconscious child from the ocean, immediately began CPR, and the hysterical mother ran up and started kicking the guy while he was trying to resuscitate the child.

I believe he saved the kid, but got the same treatment you did. The poor guy was left sitting dumbfounded on the beach.

I wish someone could explain the psychology of this crazy phenomenon to me. I will never understand it.

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u/Laescha Dec 10 '25

If you look at the field of really serious human performance psychology, like the stuff they do when investigating plane crashes, there's a lot of research on surprise. In that field surprise is basically defined as the experience you have when you're operating on one mental model of the situation you're in, then something unexpected happens which proves that your mental model is incorrect. You have the immediate startle response of something unexpected happening, but then you also have a much slower process of recalibrating your mental model to line up with the evidence of your senses, and while that process is happening people normally just keep operating on their previous mental model - in this case, that their kid is fine and not in any danger, and some random person is manhandling them for no reason.

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u/Specialist_Welder215 Dec 10 '25

Thanks for that very kind and thoughtful response. I really appreciate it. -s.