We Almost Lost Her

From: Jaime Fritze (auburn278@aol.com)
Story type: NDE
Location: just outside Martinsburg, West Virginia
Source: Form Submission

This is not my story, but my mother's.

The story takes place at my parent's vacation property, which is located about 10 miles from Martinsburg, West Virginia. On the property there is a 40 foot trailer with an extention built onto it. The trailer has a bedroom, bathroom, dining room, living room (we use it as a den), and kitchen. The extention has a living room that is 30x10 and a bedroom that is 10x10.

It was a warm summer night about 3 years ago. Everyone had gone to bed, but my mother. She sat in the living room for about an hour nervously changing channels. Finally, she went to bed out of sheer exhaustion, but several times during the night she woke up with a feeling of dread. Each time she brushed it off and went back to sleep.

At about 4:30am my Pop woke up and went out into the living room, closing the door to his and my Mom's room. He also closed the sliding glass doors that lead into the dining room. He sat up watching TV for about an hour and then left to go to 7-11 for a cup of coffee. On the way back he stopped at his friend John's place to say hello.

At around 7:00 my cousins woke up. They sleep in the bedroom in the extention. They both thought it odd that my Mom was still sleeping, but they figured that she needed it so they left her alone.

Sometime shortly there after they heard a dull thumping on my Mom's bedroom door. They walked over and opened it and found my Mom on the floor unconcious. Panicking, the oldest, Jesse, ran across the street to get help, but couldn't get anyone to wake up. Just a few minutes after that my Pop got back.

He managed to get wake up my Mom, but she kept passing out. Eventually she was able to tell him that her head felt funny and that she heard her Mother telling her to wake up. My Pop was shocked. My Mom's mother died in 1967 from a massive heart attack.

My Pop went out to his truck and got a carbon monoxide detector because my cousins said they felt kind of sick too. The CO Detector showed that the CO level was dangerously high. My Pop turned off the furnace and opened all the windows.

My Pop bundled my Mom up and rushed her to the nearest hospital. The doctor's told my Pop how close my Mom had come to dying. This really scared us all.

Later that day, when my Mom was feeling better, she told them how she had been sleeping fitfully all night. After my Pop left she fell asleep and didn't wake up again until she heard her mother's voice shouting "Wanda! Wanda! Wake up NOW!" She said that it reminded her of when her Mom would wake her up when she was running late for school. My Mom tried to wake up, but was unable to. Eventually she realized that she was probably suffering from CO Poisoning and forced herself to roll out of the bed. She then crawled inch by inch, occasionally passing out, to the bedroom door. She managed to feebily pound on the door a few times before passing out again. That is when my cousins heard her.

It seems that mothers do watch out for their daughters even in death. I am sure glad that they do.