First and second hand
Second hand: my colleague was late for the midnight shift and arrived pale, sweaty and some what shaken. On the way there, she had caught site of some formless, oddly shaped thing crawling over the train tracks and went to investigate.

It was a man that had been run over by the train and cut in half at the pelvis. The pressure of the wheels had crimped the wound shut just enough to keep his blood pressure high enough to stay concious. He was trying to crawl for help, not realizing how bad off he was. This was well before cell phones, so she stayed with him out in the pitch-black countryside until he died. She never said what they talked about.

First hand: I got a call one of my kids had fallen at day camp and I needed to take her to "see the doctor". When I arrived, her arm was wrapped elbow to shoulder in white gauze and they explained what happened. Yeah,she fell all right--walking on top of a stone wall next to a chainlink fence, she tripped and caught herself by grabbing the top of the fence between her arm and her body. Unluckily, the top of the fence had not been safety-capped but left with the pointy, sharply cut links exposed.

I unwound the gauze and almost fainted. Her arm was torn open like a tiger had got her. I could see the glistening bone, the muscles were chopped up and hanging out of the wound. Her skin was bluish and hanging down in shreds halfway to her waist. Little yellow globs of fat fell out into my lap and blood was streaming down her armpit and soaking into her little sundress.

I lost count of stitches after 100. Her scar is not too bad-it's a silver jagged line about a foot long in total. She can't feel anything on the bottom side of her upper arm, though.

I was so moved and proud of her bravery. She never made a peep even when they were sewing her up for an hour. She was only 11.
(TDub Nunc id vides, nunc ne vides on, Thu 28 Jun 2007, 6:26, Reply)