[Music] it was halloween my mom and dad had gone to an adult halloween party at their friend's house and left me a 14 year old male and my sister home alone to hand out candy to the neighborhood kids we lived on a small farm surrounded by other small farms and halloweens were pretty mellow my sister was 12 and had finally gotten To the age where she thought trick-or-treating and dressing up was embarrassing and i just like staying home and playing video games with my friends so i didn't usually go out on halloween the only issue
that night was my parents had forgotten to get candy so they told us to hand out whatever fruit or pretzels we had in the kitchen and that was so embarrassing for me having to give kids something they Didn't want on the one night of the year that they were supposed to be getting candy i wasn't too worried about it given that not many kids lived in our area so we figured that we wouldn't have to answer the door much at all we handed out the first batch of apples to disappointed kids and by 11 pm
we assumed that we were done for the night then came a knock the door it was late and i didn't really want to Answer the door again but i figured it was just little kids and i didn't want to be rude and ignore them when they could see that the lights were on inside i got to the door and pulled it open and was shocked to see four very tall guys standing there all in mass holding their pillowcases open seemingly expecting candy sorry guys uh we don't have any candy we've been handing out apples to
the kids all night Might have some pretzels if you want some the tallest one in front just tilted his head at me almost like he was confused by what i was saying but none of them actually spoke i didn't really know what else to do so i started to close the door when i went to shut it all the way one of the guys put his shoe between the door and the door frame to prevent me from closing it I opened the door again to ask him what his problem was but instead iana's friends just
pushed their way inside i yelled for my sister to run and hide before being shoved to the ground one of the intruders pulled out a bat out from under his robe and in a low deep voice said we didn't come for any candy i managed to get onto my hands and knees before being kicked in the stomach Knocking me to the ground once again i tried screaming but the thing about living on a farm with more land between you and your neighbors than the average neighborhood is no one is going to hear you scream when
you need help but i kept screaming anyways it's halloween you really think anyone's going to think twice about a kid screaming and this made the rest of them laugh Behind their mass look i don't know what you want but i i i can give you money if you just leave please i you don't need to hurt anyone i expected a response but he just laughed at my shaky voice in a baby talk voice one of the guys said oh look the little baby scared Where's daddy to save you when you need him i felt a
stinging at my side as the guy with the bat swung it directly into my ribs i was trying to listen to the voices to figure out how old they were and from what they could tell they seemed young enough to be teenagers there was a lot of thoughts going through my mind in that moment i mean they definitely weren't mature at all And i crawled to the corner of the room in pain as they spoke to each other about what rooms they would go in and what they were going to take one of the guys
took me outside while the others looked around the house for whatever it was they wanted i saw my sister on the roof hiding outside her window from the man that i could see had just entered her room the guy that took me outside had me by the collar of my shirt and was leading Me toward the barn he opened the door to the pig pen and pushed me inside threatening me with the bat he made me roll around in the mud and fill me as he forced me to oink i was terrified exhausted confused embarrassed
and felt completely humiliated at what i was being forced to do the guy was laughing the whole time too they told me to get up and Let me out of the barn and back inside the house to show the rest of his friends what he'd done to me and they only just joined in the torment they made me drink the toilet water each trash from the trash can and other things i can't even speak of as they pulled me around the whole time i was just hoping they wouldn't find my sister the strange thing is
they hadn't even mentioned her once They took me to my room and began taking turns throwing punches i had no idea what i had done to deserve this horrible beating and torture that i was being put through i was just going through torture in my mind and i had no idea i almost blacked out many times ten minutes into the beating i heard one of them asked me where my sister was they told me that they wanted to have some fun with her and that they'd stop Hurting me if i told them and this was
the moment i decided to stop talking completely they could hurt me all they wanted i was not letting them near my sister they asked me again spitting my face each time i refused to talk but there was nothing they could do to me that would get me to give her up eventually they tied me to a chair in the kitchen and just exited the house after thoroughly trashing the place And i must have blacked out at some point because when i woke up i was in the hospital attached to just a bunch of machines my
mom was crying when she noticed me awake and took her time to tell me exactly what happened it turns out the girl i had just broken up with the week before asked her brother to scare me as revenge for hurting her i guess he and his friends were just Insane for taking it to the extent that they did i guess they just got caught up in it as disgusting as that sounds thankfully they were all arrested but only the brother was actually sentenced to some jail time he received five years for aggravated assault and home
invasion charges the other guys got probation as a plea deal for ratting him out i'm still in a lot of pain since this Happened less than a year ago but i guess there's one thing i tell kids answering the door for halloween when their parents aren't home always check your peephole first [Music] i'm a cow farmer in the midwest it's not the best work but it is work and with how hard it is to find a job with decent pay these days i've learned to appreciate it the job entails cleaning up after the Cows checking
their hooves milking and helping them give birth when necessary it's a pretty messy job when you look at it from the outside but i gotten pretty used to it i don't even smell the stink anymore like i did when i first started it used to be almost unbearable but now really nothing the farm was my father's before me and his father's before him the story i'm about to tell you is my dad's He told him to me back when i first started the job as almost uh what not to do when tending to the animals
and working on the farm he's long past now god rest his soul but this story has haunted me for years so i figured i'd let other people hear it and judge it for themselves this is back in the 60s when dad was in his early twenties he worked on the farm with his father bill at the time he hated it he hated The stench that would only get worse when the heat came in the summer and picking up after the cows was the worst see the cows stayed in this huge barn it was actually more
like a big warehouse where they're fed and kept throughout the night they got to graze during the day and throughout the night the cows would defecate and their feces dropped to the concrete floor beneath them Then in the morning when the cows would go out to graze my dad would take a really long hose and spray the droppings to the end of the building down a shaft that leads to a big tank below the barn the tank would fill with the droppings and once a week we had a guy that would come by and empty
the tank and dispose of the waste it was really nasty work but my dad did it nonetheless well my grandfather decided that was Just too much work to do on the farm with just himself and my dad so they decided to hire another farmhand they didn't get anyone interested in the job for the first few weeks until they met a man at a local feed store named fred he was in his late 20s and eager to work he hadn't had a job in years and was desperate for pay since his wife was pregnant with her
first child my grandfather hired him right there in That feed store and by the next day fred was on the farm working harder than anyone my dad had ever seen work he was determined and super ambitious he was constantly running around the farm fixing stuff that needed fixing and trying to learn absolutely everything it was that they did he loved the job and told everyone how he just wanted to be good at what he was being paid to do he believed in good honest work and that People should earn the money they're working for my
dad admitted he loved having fred around not just because he worked hard but also because he was gullible and pretty easily manipulated i guess my dad had certain tasks given to him by my grandpa throughout the day and each time he was told to do something he just passed that task along to fred he didn't mind because he didn't know and my dad didn't care because it meant Less of the work that he hated about four months went by with fred doing most of the work around the farm and my dad even started to find
it a little funny that he really would do whatever he was told without question he was happy to do it one hot summer morning the cows had just gone out to graze and my grandpa told my dad to spray the droppings down the shaft at the end of the barn like he usually did My dad then passed the job along to fred as he sat along the side of the barn to have a smoke when fred was done he came outside to tell my dad that he had an idea that he thought would highly benefit
the farm he told my dad that if he emptied the tank below the barn themselves they'd be able to use the cow feces as manure in the fields it would fertilize the plants and make them grow bigger and faster My dad told me that at first he thought the idea was stupid but then he figured it would be funny to see if fred actually tried and emptied that feces tank so he agreed he didn't tell my grandpa because he knew he never would have approved and he just wanted to see how this would play out
he showed fred where to go to the release valve and empty the tank into the big barrels He told him to be very careful and to not turn the valve too fast otherwise the line would get clogged and they'd have to call someone to fix it my dad then left fred alone to do what he had planned and decided to take a walk around the barn to check the gates and make sure everything was in order what my dad didn't know at the time was that fred would end up turning the valve too fast and
the line would end up getting Clogged fred would then open the tank from above and reach a pole into the sludge to try and dislodge whatever was blocking the line my dad heard screaming coming from inside the barn and he rushed over to see what was wrong he made his way down into the tank and was horrified by what he found fred had fallen into the huge 5000 gallon tank that hadn't been emptied for A week and was now drowning in the thick feces desperately reaching out for help by the time my dad got to
the top of the ladder and looked into the tank all he could see was fred's hand poking out of the brown goo he grabbed onto it and tried pulling him out but he had no leverage at all on the top of that tank he managed to pull fred up long enough for him to tell my dad that he was just trying to fix it himself since he knew That they'd have to pay someone for his mistake he felt bad my dad reassured him everything would be okay to just hold on and that's when his grip
failed and fred plunged back under the thick excrement once again this time no part of fred's body was able to be grabbed onto to possibly rescue him my dad had no idea what to do so he ran Across the farm as fast as he could to get my grandpa who immediately called the police by the time they made it back to the tank fred's hand had disappeared under the sludge and there was nothing my dad and grandpa could do but wait the police showed up with firemen they didn't know much of what to do either
they ended up reaching a metal pole down Into the tank with a sort of loop on the end and when they pulled fred out it was very clear that he had passed my dad was horrified and felt like it was his fault he knew it was a bad idea but thought it would be funny he could have stopped fred but his own arrogance let him do it fred's wife became a widow and she never remarried she named their son after him and Eventually moved out of town my dad made a point to work as hard
as fred did every day for the rest of his life in honor of the man whose death he felt he was responsible for my dad passed away in 2018 and the last thing he said to me was to never take advantage of someone's hard work [Music] it was march 28 2000 My husband robin and i had just moved to fort worth texas from seattle washington my husband had just gotten a job offer that he was really excited about in his words he just couldn't pass it up he's an architect and the firm he wanted to
work at was down there and i couldn't say no he was so happy and i was so happy for him we had four children a 13 year old boy named josh a 10 year old girl named Jamie a seven-year-old april and our youngest a three-year-old girl named paula our kids were super excited they had heard of cowboys on tv and they kept telling all their friends that they were moving onto a farm with a bunch of animals and that they were going to be farmers it was really cute when we first got to our house
on the farm everything was very peaceful we moved in early march and got mostly Settled about two weeks later we didn't have any animals in the farm since we were still in the process of getting into a routine with the kids their school was about a 15-minute drive from our house and we weren't comfortable at the time sending them on the bus march 28th started out regular just like every other tuesday we'd spent in the house thus far we got the kids ready for school and Headed out the door my husband went to work and
i came back with paula she was like a mini me in every way followed me everywhere i adored her and i like to think she adored me on his way back from work my husband picked up the kids from school they got ice cream on the way home and were pretty riled up from the sugar rush when they came inside i had them do their homework and as soon as they were Finished we sat down to watch some tv it was in the evening hours of the day when all the chaos started sirens began blaring
all around us we lived in seattle all our lives so we'd never really experienced anything like that before my husband immediately recognized it as a tornado warning and he told us all to get into the bathroom and close the door our house had no basement or shelter so we had to make do with what we had I never even considered tornadoes could be in our future when we'd planned to move all six of us huddled into the bathroom we laid on top of one another to try and hold each other down just in case my
husband was on top shielding us with his body the house started to shake and our daughters started to cry and scream paula was grabbing on to me as tight as she could joss was trying to act brave But i knew that he was terrified the look in his eyes as he stared back at me said it all the sounds of windows breaking and debris flying had become louder and louder as the minutes passed i was praying for my children's lives for all our lives this was not our time to die i thought all i could
think about as the ground shook underneath us was how they still had so much of the lives left to live I wanted to see them grow graduate high school in college fall in love get married have a family of their own someday i was terrified of the thought of that possibility not happening after being in the bathroom for 10 minutes we felt the house shake like nothing we'd felt before the roof was torn off in seconds and now all of us were screaming and terrified my husband held on to us with all his Strength as
each gust of wind threatened to pull us up and the god knows what and take us who knows where at this point i was terrified crying and holding on to whatever piece of clothing or body part i could grab on to keep our kids safe underneath us and away from the danger that was looming above screaming like a highway suddenly i felt paula begin slipping out of my hold i had started to scream her name to try And get my husband's attention but when i looked over he wasn't there i grabbed on the paula and
managed to put her back underneath me not before she hit her head pretty hard against the wall from the wind pushing her she went completely silent and was no longer crying i knew something was wrong but i just had to focus on the situation at hand and get her help when the time came I was worried about my husband i hadn't even noticed that he'd been taken away by the storm i prayed and prayed that he would be okay as i put the full weight of my body on my children's to keep them weighed down
and out of harm's way after what felt like eternity the storm rolled on and the wind finally slowed down and everything became silent we all got up out of her positions and i Picked up paula she had been completely limp and i noticed blood trailing down the side of her head and tears rolled down my face as i assumed the worst at this point i was thinking that i lost my husband and one of our children we walked out of the bathroom and into the rubble that was once our home i found my husband lying
in the front yard obviously thrown there by the wind I could see him gasping for air as i rushed over to him i held his head in my hands and i told him how much i loved him and the first thing he asked between gas was if the kids were okay i told him paula had gotten hurt and i could see the worry in his eyes thank god we did get help soon after from the disaster relief team we had no way of calling anyone and our Cars have been thrown by the wind so all
we could do is wait until they showed up and found us we were all taken to the hospital and myself josh jamie and april had minor cuts and bruises but i'm so so grateful to say that both my husband and paula survived paula had extensive brain damage and still to this day requires around-the-clock care which is incredibly sad for the circumstances but I'm just thankful to god that she's still with us my husband broke multiple bones throughout his body but he did recover fully within about a year we're just so thankful that they both survived
the whole incident was just so terrifying that we decided moving back to seattle was our best option our families were there and my husband got another job offer that he said was Just as good our lives were forever changed that day and we hope we never have to experience anything as terrifying as that ever again [Music] all right i'll just start from the very beginning i was around 12 years old when this happened i'm 33 now but thinking about what happened that night still gives me goosebumps For context i think i should mention that i
grew up on a very large farm in the middle of nowhere in southern idaho it wasn't in the mountains like you might be thinking it was just grass and hills for miles my mom and dad were both raised in big cities so when they got married they figured they'd give their kids more of a farm life to grow up in and i always loved it we had goats chickens ducks turkeys you Name it we had it the only thing i didn't have was much more freedom from my parents my dad was a goat farmer and
his job was working on the farm he sold goat milk made cheese and of course sold the meat my mom was just a stay-at-home mother so she was also around all the time which basically meant i had no alone time and no privacy when i was little i didn't mind much i loved having my parents around i Helped my dad with the farm work and taking care of all the animals and i was always in the kitchen baking and cooking with my mom but by the time i reached middle school i was ready to grow
up and i guess do what every kid does when they hit puberty just kind of pull away from your parents i guess it was hard and my parents hated it i think that's because my brother was so much older than me and had already left The house by that point i was their little baby girl and they weren't quite ready for the teenager rebellious phase to hit yet every weekend we would go out to dinner as a family we would meet up with my brother and his girlfriend and it was actually really fun this night
though i just wanted to stay home my mom insisted that i go with him and when i refused she offered to stay with me so i wouldn't be alone I begged and begged her to just let me stay there alone and finally after what felt like forever she agreed my dad wasn't happy about it but she told him everything would be fine if i needed anything i could just call they were only going to be around a 45 minute drive to the city and i was ecstatic i felt like for the first time in my
life i was free That night my mom and dad gave me a hug and a kiss and said their goodbyes they gave me the rundown that all parents give when leaving their kids home alone for the first time such as cell phone numbers the restaurant they'd be at calling 9-1-1 for an emergency etc etc it went in one ear and out the other i was just looking forward to staying up late and watching shows i wasn't supposed to watch you know normal kid Stuff i should also mention that we had a german shepherd named ghost
at the time he was an all-white german shepherd and i always thought he looked more like a wolf my parents got him when i was just a baby and we grew up together he was like my shadow i'm sure having him around also gave my parents some peace of mind when leaving me that night My mom and dad finally left at around 7pm and i was excited i heard my parents pull out of the driveway and i was on the couch in seconds ghosts joined me and we watched some tv for a while about an
hour went by and nothing of significance happened i watched some stupid tv shows on mtv that my parents didn't normally allow and ate some candy that i'd saved up from easter a couple of weeks before An important thing to mention is we didn't have any curtains on any of our windows we lived in the middle of nowhere and we weren't really worried about anyone seeing in plus my mom loved the morning sun shining in through the windows without her having to go around the whole house opening them after it had been around an hour and
a half since my parents left my mom called To tell me that they wouldn't be home when they had originally said because my brother and his girlfriend also wanted to see a movie with him that night she told me she'd come home to be with me if being home alone longer made me uncomfortable but honestly i was super happy that i'd be getting a few extra hours of alone time so i told her i'd be fine and to go enjoy the movie during one of the show's commercial Breaks i rushed into the kitchen to get
a bowl of ice cream i heard ghost starting to bark in the living room but figured that he just saw one of the many bats that were flying around that time of night so i thought nothing of it only this time he would not stop barking it got so annoying that i remember yelling at him to stop but he just wouldn't let up i walked into the living room and Couldn't help but scream when i saw what ghost was barking at there was a man standing there right outside the window he was wearing a white
rubber halloween mask that had a huge painted smile on the front i couldn't see his eyes but oh my god he was insanely creepy i froze in pure terror and looked at this man as he stared back at me i felt tears rolling down my cheeks and I guess my fighter flight kicked in because before i knew it i was screaming at ghosts to follow me and running upstairs to my parents bedroom when i got to the top of the stairs i just couldn't help myself i looked back i had to know if he was
still there he was only this time his hand was raised and he waved slowly at me his head tilted upward so i was still in his view I got into the bedroom and locked the door behind me at this point i was bawling i totally regretted staying alone and all i wanted was my mom and dad i rushed over to the nightstand and picked up the landline to call my dad but there was no dial tone i wasn't too worried about it considering my father had given me a cell phone to use in emergencies but
the only problem was That it was in my room across the hall and i didn't want a chance going back to where this masked man could see me i had no other option though i was not just going to wait around for my parents to come back hours later with this man just feet from me outside the house i mustered up every bit of courage i had unlock the bedroom door and i ran as fast as i could and in the 10 seconds it took me to get to my room I noticed the man wasn't
outside the window anymore the window was open and he was now standing at the bottom of the stairs i involuntarily screamed almost as loud as i could and heard his footsteps begin to run up the stairs after me ghost began lunging toward the man barking which made him hesitate for a moment And this was long enough for me and ghost to get into my room and lock the door behind me i grabbed the phone out of my drawer and dialed 9-1-1 desperate for someone to get here as soon as possible the man outside my door
began trying the handle i watched it jiggle as he tried to get into my room the whole time never actually speaking a single word and i think that's what terrified me Even more the operator answered and barely understood me through my hysteria but she got the gist and told me that an officer was already in the area and would be there in only five minutes she told me to stay on the line until he showed up and something in me thought that i should loudly say okay so an officer will be here in five minutes
he'll be here in five minutes Right the second i spoke those words all the jiggling and noises stopped the handle stopped moving and for all i knew it completely left the house but god my heart was racing i knew i wasn't leaving that room until i was sure an officer was there to help me and just like the operator said an officer was at my house within that Period of time i saw the lights outside when he pulled up and i did hear sirens i heard them enter the house and run up the stairs yelling
for the man to get down to put his hands behind his back this was just confirmation to me that the man hadn't left and i was so glad that i hadn't tried to exit my room when i thought that he'd had they arrested him and one of them took him away while the other waited with me I guess they had called my parents who were rushing home they ended up finding multiple slain goats on the property they had very clearly been killed with stab wounds scattered across their bodies when the police found him he was
still standing outside my door just staring at it blood on his body they never even looked at them when they came in The man never did say why he did this he actually never spoke at all after this period of time we did find out that he was sentenced to 10 years in prison to our relief my mom and dad thought of selling the farm and buying another one after that traumatic event and potentially going to a state across the country where they thought he would never find us if he did eventually get out whatever
his motivations may have Been but the masked man ended up taking his own life in prison before that could ever happen and to any child out there who wants freedom from their parents when they're still too young just remember in your scariest moments they are the people you wish that were there the most [Music] i'm a fairly cautious individual i always told myself that i'd never be like other people who get themselves caught in dangerous situations but that's exactly what happened i'm a 28 year old woman and i currently live with my husband sam and
our three-year-old daughter elena my husband and i both grew up in the area and when we got married we decided a nice house on a lot of land would be Perfect for us we'd never been the city living type and we wanted our daughter to have a lot of space to play over the five years that we lived here we purchased a lot of farm animals off craigslist we started with chickens and then pigs and then eventually goats just over a year ago i suggested to my husband that it would be fun to get a
cow We could milk her and she wouldn't have to have her calf taken away like most dairy cows so we felt that we were doing a good thing after about six months with her we realized that she was just way too much work to take care of for her and her calf and we wanted them to go to a home that had the time to take proper care of them i was really sad about letting her go but i also knew it was the right thing To do i suggested to my husband that we list
her on craigslist and he agreed that it was a good idea so i enlisted her immediately we knew she would sell fast given that she milked well and came with her calf with only a few hours of listing them we got around 10 emails we weeded out the scams and one person stood out to us they said that they had a 50-acre farm In other dairy cows so they had experience they also said that they could pick her up as soon as possible for the exact price that we were asking we were so happy that
they were going to go to such a good home the only problem was my husband was going out of town for work the next week he told me multiple times that he was not comfortable with a stranger coming to the farm when he wasn't going to be There but i was a little too trusting and was positive it would be fine the people in our area were good people and i hadn't heard of anything bad coming from animal purchases in the area the people who were coming told me that they were a husband and wife
named john and betty in the moment i did make a little joke to myself that their names were so boring that they almost sounded fake but the thought passed and it didn't Cross my mind again i gave them our address and told them that they could come to pick up the cows the next day at around 4 pm that night my husband gave my daughter and me a kiss and left for his work trip my husband was very serious when it came to him leaving us alone we had set times that we would call each
other and if i missed a call he would alert the police it may seem dramatic to Some people but it was our routine and if it gave him more peace of mind when he left then i was more than okay with it the night came and went without incident i woke up early at around 6am to let out all the animals to feed and give them water they were also excited to be out for the day since it rained the day before and they had been cooped up inside elena always went out with me in
the Morning and it was so cute seeing her interacting with all the animals i let the cows out for what i thought would be the last time i rubbed their backs and essentially said my goodbyes at around 1pm i made elena and myself something to eat and got her dressed in different clothes for the rest of the night we then sat on the sofa and waited for four o'clock to come when the cows would be picked up Throughout the day i'd done my routine calls with my husband to tell him how we were doing and
if i'm being completely honest i totally regretted letting strangers come to the house without him being there i started to have this really horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that i just couldn't shake john and betty called to tell me that they were only five minutes out so i went out on the porch to greet them as They pulled up i just put elena down for her nap so i was completely alone out there the first thing i noticed when they pulled up was the mess that they were both wearing i immediately began
running back up the steps to my house before hearing one of them yell no no no you get back here now you get a very thick southern accent that was almost hard to understand i felt something hard being pressed to My back and i immediately knew it had to be a gun i asked them with a shaky voice what do they want but i didn't have any cash and they quickly told me to shut up and if i wanted to live i'd do exactly as they said the woman betty had a very raspy voice almost
like she'd smoked for 40 plus years i could tell she was also from the south when she said that you're gonna go Inside and get every piece of jewelry you own put it in the bag and give it straight to me while john here gets whatever he wants and you won't put up a fight the first thing i thought of was my daughter i couldn't let them find elena i didn't know what these people were capable of i told her i'd comply but i already knew i wouldn't i really couldn't and i had to keep
my daughter safe I went inside my house betty closed behind me as i walked toward the bedroom my husband kept a shotgun under the bed and i knew if i could just get to it i might be able to save my daughter's life and possibly my own too i keep my jewelry box under the bed i need to get under there to grab it okay my voice was calm at that point because i was so worried that she was going to suspect something was up Whatever just give me what i asked for she said and
i could feel her spit landing on my face while she talked she was missing most of her teeth so i wasn't surprised disgusted but not surprised i got on my hands and knees on the floor and peered under the bed and there it was only inches away I knew i would have to be fast if i was going to get out of this without getting myself and my daughter killed in one swift motion i pulled out the gun and boom without thinking or aiming i fired a shot the force of the blow made this betty
fly across the room her chest completely demolished by the blast and the smell of gunpowder lingered in The room mixed with the scent of her blood splattered across the walls and on the floor as it oozed out of the large hole that i just put in her chest she was gone within seconds it was a double barrel so i knew whenever john would come running in i'd only have one chance to take him too my adrenaline was pumping i didn't even think of the person that had just died in my bedroom and all i could
think of was keeping my daughter Safe if i died in the process so be it john did come in the room yelling for betty but he took one look and before i could get a shot off he was running down the stairs and out the door screaming jesus christ while his voice cracked seemingly out of sadness i ran to get elena and carried her with me to the front porch where we sat the police showed up 30 minutes later saying my husband had called and said Something was wrong at the house i hadn't called him
at our scheduled time so he knew something was up and i could barely talk i swear that i had gone into shock i saw it there with my daughter while the officers searched the house and found the body upstairs and it turns out of course those names were fake they were never able to identify the man but the woman was someone that the Officers knew well around the area she'd been arrested multiple times on drug related charges that day was the worst most traumatizing day of my life but it taught me a very valuable lesson
never assume strangers are worthy of your trust and never underestimate a mother's love for a child [Music] i'm a 17 year old guy with a pretty Interesting life if i do say so myself my mom left when i was very young and my sister and i had been raised by just our dad ever since we live in a pretty large farm in the rocky mountains and life for the most part is very peaceful i have some friends who live nearby by our standards and i would regularly make the three mile walk to their houses to
hang out with them so when i asked my dad that night if i Could go he didn't even think twice when saying yes i had made plans with my friend jimmy to sleep over and i was pretty excited plus the walk is gorgeous in the afternoon sun i was 14 at the time so when i packed my backpack it was only snacks monster energy drinks and some pajamas i gave my dad a hug and kissed my little sister on the forehead before heading out The first part of the walk was just through the fields i
remember stopping every so often to take pictures with my disposable camera of the newly developing crops my dad and i had just planted a couple of weeks prior i regretted wearing only shorts and a tank top as the sun beat down on my very pale skin i could see myself turning red as the minutes passed And at the end of our property was a small creek and some barbed wire fencing passing through it we had it in place to try to deter the wolves and mountain lions in the area as we were sick of losing
so many of our animals to them it's technically illegal to set up wolf traps because it's considered inhumane but my dad was just so angry that he just did it anyways and that brings us to the worst night of my life I passed through the barbed wire fence and through the creek i made it about 40 or so feet into the forest before i heard a loud crunch and felt pressure on my ankle i remember not understanding what the sound could have been and looking around for a possible source i started to feel a burning
sensation on my leg and when i looked down i saw one of the very large wolf traps clenched around and through my leg The spikes were completely embedded into my skin and the blood was oozing out from between the wounds i began to scream from the pain hoping someone would hear me and help me out of this but i was in the middle of the forest with no one to help me for at least a mile i felt myself getting lightheaded from the shock and blood loss and i couldn't allow myself to pass out This
was a situation where i knew i would need all the time i could get before bleeding out i knew the only thing out of this would be someone finding me but that would also mean waiting my dad didn't let me have a cell phone so calling someone was out of the question which meant my only hope was jimmy noticing that i didn't show up and calling my dad i took off my tank top and tied it Around my leg to try and stop the bleeding at that point i could no longer feel my toes i
couldn't feel my foot at all i tried prying open the trap but as a very skinny teenage boy that was just not going to happen i sat there for about an hour trying to figure out a way out of this and the only thing i could think of was that i could either wait for someone to notice i was missing Or i could muster up the courage and strength i had left in me and begin to crawl back toward my house thankfully my dad's laziness was actually a good thing for once as he'd not bolted
the trap down it had started getting dark at that point so i reached into my backpack and grabbed the pajama shirt i had packed and put it on i knew moving at night was not an option i needed to see where i was going if i Was going to be dragging this heavy trap attached to my leg as i crawled i found a fairly large tree nearby and an agonizing pain crawled over to it i propped myself up against it and couldn't prevent my eyes from shutting out of pure exhaustion i woke up to the
sound of snapping branches nearby i looked around but it was pitch black and i could see nothing i took out my disposable camera and took Pictures with the flash pointing it in every direction to see what was out there i shook in terror when i saw two glowing eyes staring back at me in the distance and some distant howling it was so loud i would have bet my life that those wolves were standing right next to me and the night went on for what felt like days i managed to stay awake until the Morning light
started to peek through the trees and i was relieved there were no longer any animals surrounding me in my very vulnerable state i had lost all movement to my lower half of my leg but the pain was still there in full force i slung my backpack onto my back and took a deep breath before getting onto my hands and knees and starting to crawl back The weight of the trap dragging behind me as it pulled on my leg was almost unbearable it felt like something was trying to saw my leg off with a rusty butter
knife every inch i moved felt like absolute torture but i had to press on i had finally made it the 40 feet that it was to the creek and then came to another obstacle the creek was shallow enough to walk Through no problem but crawling would be another story as i entered the water it was just deep enough to cover my mouth and my only source of breath was through my nose the water splashed as i crawled and i would panic each time some of it entered my nose thinking i was going to drown before
i made it back onto the farm where my dad could possibly see me that wasn't the case though i made it through the creek and took Deep breaths relieved to have survived that part of the horrible journey i found myself on i started to crawl toward the barbed wire fence and screamed in pain when the trap got caught on a rock basically cutting away at my leg as i unknowingly began pulling it apart at that point it started to feel like it was hopeless i contemplated giving up i felt like it was dying and there
was Going to be no way i'd actually make it home in four hours i'd only made it about 50 feet i lifted my leg from the rock and stared at the fencing in front of me i knew there was no way i could climb over so under was my only option i tried lifting the fencing as i squeezed underneath but there was nothing i could have done to stop the barbs from digging into the skin on my Back the pain on my back was bad but somehow distracted me from the pain in my leg as
bizarre as it sounds it kind of gave me some relief an inch by inch i made my way closer to the house i was at the crops again looking at the plants that i admired only the day before that now made me angry to even look at it was a reminder i was still somewhat Far from home from my salvation i was covered in dirt sweat and blood but the second i could begin to see the frame of my house i was determined to live i began picking with the pace as best i could and
dragged myself by my elbows that were now scraped and bloodied beyond recognition when i finally made it to the steps outside my house my body was completely shot And the last thing i remember was my dad yelling when he found me my foot had to be amputated and i was in the hospital for a few months from the infections that i ended up getting my dad was fine for the traps and was forced to dispose of all the ones around the property my cousin never thought to call my dad that night as he just figured
that i got in trouble or got grounded and he just continued doing what he was doing And he's always felt really really bad about it i don't blame him though and even though the experience was horrible i wouldn't change a thing it showed me what it means to be alive and i couldn't be more grateful for the lessons that i've learned [Music] i'm a 15 year old male but was around Seven years old at the time that this happened so please excuse if something doesn't exactly make much sense it's hard to remember things from when
i was that young and i still do have ptsd from the entire thing before i tell you what happened that day i guess i'll explain how we even found ourselves in that position in the first place my dad was the kind of guy who when he sets his mind on something he had to do It and there was no talking him out of it i know it annoyed my mom but she always supported him on all his ventures you know because of love or whatever so when my dad said he wanted to buy a farm
and grow wheat for a living my mom wasn't completely shocked my dad had saved up a lot of money from his old job as a car salesman and he already had a house picked out for us my mom only told me recently that she Was frustrated that my dad didn't take into consideration how she felt about it but the day after he suggested it to her they listed the old house anyways and it sold relatively quickly and my mom and dad only had a couple of weeks to pack up the home that they lived in
throughout their whole marriage my mom said when we got to the farm it was just a total disaster the house was in shambles with dust everywhere and the land looked like it Had been a place for bmx bikers to ride with tracks and small hills everywhere over the course of a few months my dad managed to level all the fields and partially fix up the house before beginning to run out of the savings that he'd had my mom had no idea at the time that they were broke but figured something was up when all her
expensive jewelry went missing she found out later that he had sold it To pay for the huge tractor he bought my mom started to become unhappy in the marriage and felt like all dad cared about was his dreams and never her feelings she continued to put on a brave face though for me and basically just sucked it up my dad worked all day and night in the fields to prepare for the crops that he planned to eventually grow but there was always seeming to be Something preventing him the soil wasn't nutrient dense enough there wasn't
enough direct sunlight the neighbor's goats kept coming onto our fields there wasn't enough daylight to sow the seeds the tractor needed fixing etc etc eventually my mom gave him an ultimatum start the crops within a week or were moving back into the city where he could get a proper job again she hated being on the farm and she knew that he was a big time procrastinator so She figured he wouldn't do it and we'd be back in the city where life would be good again within about a month but with utter shock and complete disappointment
she was wrong he got straight to work the next day on the tractor tilling the earth to prepare for seating she told me she was hoping he would recognize her desperation to escape that place and finally put her feelings first but she was wrong After three days he began sowing the seeds he was out in the middle of the field that day when his tractor stopped working mom could see it smoking from where she was standing inside the house so she called out to him to ask if everything was okay he yelled from across the
field and assured her that it was all good then she told me to go outside to see if He needed some help i walked outside into the fields towards my dad and asked him if he needed me to do anything he told me he was going to check the tractor for anything that needed fixing and told me that i could sit in it for a while if i wanted to while he did his thing of course i said yes i was a seven-year-old kid what little kid that age wouldn't want to sit in a tractor
My dad helped me climb up and for the next 15 or so minutes i sat there looking at the levers and buttons while my dad walked around the tractor looking for the problem that was causing it to malfunction he told me not to touch anything while i sat there and i kept my promise for the time being but it was just bigger than me i guess i pulled on one of the levers and felt the tractor lurch backward quickly in One swift motion my dad grunted and i heard a thud but i didn't think anything
of it i hopped out of the tractor and looked back and saw half of my dad's body pinned beneath the tractor tire he was still aware and talking and told me to get mom i ran as fast as i could back to the house and burst in the door now at seven years old i had no knowledge of how to contain my emotions At a time of emergency i had tears running down my face and the best way my mom could describe how i sounded was a crying mumbling mess i was trying so hard to
tell her what happened but the words just wouldn't come out so instead of talking i just started to point outside toward the tractor she seemed to understand it was something urgent having to do with dad when she quickly ran to the door toward The field poor mom was struggling to get over to him the ground was heavily broken up from the tractor and she kept failing in her attempt to get to him by the time she finally got there i saw her drop to her knees i made my way over to them as fast as
i could my dad was telling her everything was going to be okay while she cried leaning Over him she kept saying how she couldn't live without him and she needed him to survive he had begun to not make much sense in his words but i could tell even at that age that he was trying to say that he loved her my mom determined to save his life and not thinking logically got in the tractor and managed to drive it off of him This obviously only made it worse his lower body was a mangled mess and
he was losing blood fast from what i could see his legs were almost completely flattened and bones were sticking out of his flesh my mom told me to look away but to tell my dad that i loved him i had no idea what to do i couldn't speak and no matter how hard i tried i couldn't look away that day my dad took his last breath and Soon after my mom rushed inside to call the police when the paramedics got there they told my mom that there was nothing anyone could have done to save him
my mom has tried telling me ever since that that his death wasn't my fault and that i was just a child but for years and all i've gone through and all the therapy that i pushed myself through i know in my heart that I killed my dad that day hey friends thanks for listening click that notification bell to be alerted of all future narrations i release new videos every monday wednesday and friday at 7 p.m eastern standard time if you got a story be sure to submit them to my subreddit r let's read official and
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