True SD Story

By Nancy

Found this true story on a self defense forum for sharing success stories - legend

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Hi everyone.

Here's our story.

This incident happened in July 1993. I've noticed that most of the stories posted here involve stranger on stranger types of attacks. In contrast, my story is a typical family violence incident. For that reason, I have love in my heart for everyone involved and there are no bad people here and I'd feel sad if any of them were ever hurt. This is just something that happened one evening and has since been forgotten. There are no lingering resentments and we all get along fine now. Also understand, because I was working when this incident happened, I will be telling this story as it was told to me by my husband, my younger sisters Colette and Lynn, and by the doctors who I spoke to afterwards. My story isn't exactly a self-defense success story in the sense that Jenny's story is. However, we did have a heroine of sorts – my middle sister Colette. Although, for my husband and I, you could say that this was our first lesson in self-defense.

During the summer of 1993 Colette needed a place to stay for several weeks until her new apartment would be ready for her to move into; so my husband and I invited her to stay with us. It was early on a Saturday evening and Colette and my husband were in the living room watching television. My husband had been drinking scotch and water that evening as he sometimes does on the weekends; and his drunkenness only made the situation worse. Suddenly and without warning, my youngest sister Lynn came storming in through the back door without even knocking. She was shouting at the top of her lungs, "WHERE IS THAT LITTLE BITCH!!! I'LL KILL HER!!!

The next thing my husband knew, Lynn was pulling Colette by the hair and was punching and kicking her as hard as she could – right in our own living room! Lynn is much bigger and stronger and Colette never really had a chance. Meanwhile, my husband, who's just a "big teddy bear" to begin with, was in a half-drunken stupor and he just sat there, momentarily frozen, and watching in stunned disbelief as Lynn kept right on punching and kicking with Colette desperately trying to escape……….

The thing that my husband didn't realize, and the thing that brought about this violent incident between two close knit sisters was the fact that Lynn had just found out that Colette had been having a fling with her live-in boyfriend. Understandably, Lynn was pretty mad about it. In fact, she was absolutely livid!

As they struggled, Lynn pushed Colette back into our wooden living room table. They both fell backwards and went crashing down together right on top of the table -- and collapsing all four table legs. At this point my husband finally realized that it was time for him to actually step in and do something to break up the fight. The situation had reached the point where either Colette was really going to get hurt or else our expensive stereo and TV equipment would be ruined.

My husband then went over and lifted Lynn off of Colette, but when he did Lynn kept right on struggling and fighting with him trying to get back at her. My husband had never been in a situation like this before. He'd never had to break up a fight before in his life and he was totally clueless about how to go about restraining someone as strong as Lynn is without hurting her. The more Lynn struggled, the more force my husband needed to use in order to control her. My husband was able to push Lynn out of the living room and into the hallway leading to the bedrooms. He was trying to keep her as far away from Colette as possible. Nevertheless, Lynn did a terrible thing to my husband. As they were struggling in the hallway, she kneed him as hard as she could -- right in the groin.

Lynn told me later that when she kneed him he just screamed and then fell to the floor. She said, "One moment he was standing, the next moment he was just down." My husband would never actually hit any women, but he did tell me later that he wishes that he'dpunched Lynn in the stomach right from the get-go. I can't say that I blame him for feeling that way either. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just glad that I wasn't there to see it happen. The next morning one of my husband's doctors would jokingly refer to this little fiasco as being simply "That kick".

The struggle between Lynn and my husband only lasted a few seconds, but it gave Colette enough time for her to run too the kitchen where she grabbed a steak knife. Colette was totally freaking out by this time and upon seeing the sorry condition that Lynn had put my husband in, she just pointed the knife at Lynn and screamed at her, "GET OUT!!! GET OUT NOW OR I'LL USE IT!!!"………Colette was dead serious and Lynn was well aware of it.

Colette chased Lynn right out of our apartment with the knife in her hand. So it was Colette's quick thinking that actually ended the ruckus. Thank goodness for kitchen utensils!

When Colette was sure that Lynn had left the building she then went back inside to check up on my husband. He was standing up under his own power by this time, but he was still in unbearable pain. In fact he would stay in that condition for the better part of the next two weeks. It was obvious to both of them that he needed medical attention so Colette drove him straight too the ER. Lynn had nearly castrated him!

The strangest thing about this whole incident was the fact that Colette actually escaped with only a few minor scratches and bruises while, on the other hand, my husband needed to be rushed to the hospital with Colette doing the driving. Somehow I don't think that Lynn ever imagined that things would turn out quite like they actually did…..

Colette called me at work from the hospital and told me about everything that had happened. My shift hadn't ended yet, and on a Saturday night it was impossible to get someone to cover for me. By the time I finally arrived at the hospital my husband had already been admitted for testing. When the doctors learned that I was waiting in the lobby one of them came out and told me that they were pretty sure that my husband had a ruptured testicle and that he'd need an immediate operation to have it removed. He also said that they needed to run more tests first just to be sure of their findings. Fortunately though, throughout the night and into the next morning, all of the tests came back negative and the only thing that was actually wrong with my husband was that he just had allot of internal bleeding and swelling in his scrotum. Luckily Lynn had only ruptured several large blood vessels in his groin, but his testicles were never ruptured. And we were also lucky that the swelling in his groin wasn't blocking off his urinary track and preventing him from urinating. The doctors told us that urinary obstruction is a possible complication with these types of injuries and that it requires several days of treatment in a hospital.

Thankfully, the operation was called off. My husband was sent home the following afternoon with an ice pack and a prescription for painkillers and another prescription for a drug to prevent the injury from becoming infected. However, one doctor did say that they couldn't make any promises about my husband's fertility. Right before my husband and I left the hospital, the same doctor told me that he was "very--very lucky".

Internal infection was our biggest worry at this point and it was still a very serious concern. The doctors told us that if an infection ever developed that it could be a very serious complication and that it could even result in my husband needing an operation to have one, or both, of his testicles removed. Thankfully, that never happened. Because my husband works on his feet all day, the doctors advised him to take two weeks off from his job and to stay in bed as much as possible. They also told him that his injury would take six weeks in order to heal completely. I think that this was the only time in his life that my husband has ever actually followed a doctor's advice. That was a very scary time for the both of us……..

Naturally, Lynn's explanation for why she found it necessary to knee my husband in the groin would have actually been comical if it weren't for the fact that it was so scary.

"I don't have balls so I didn't know that this would happen!? I'm sorry!"

As far as she was concerned this was just another technique that she had learned – or should I say, "perfected" – in a self-defense class. However, she really didn't know that there's a big difference between kicking a guy in the shins as opposed to slamming her knee into his groin! Pathetic! Who's teaching these classes anyway? Thank goodness that she at least had enough sense to stay away from his eyes and throat…….

Anyway, my husband's injury healed just as the doctors hoped that it would, so he's okay physically. The only lasting effect from the injury is a cyst that developed on one of his testicles as the injury was healing. That cyst can be quite painful for him in the hot months. Lynn also gave my husband's ego a bruise that took much longer to heal. Months and months after the injury happened; for some reason, he was worried that he might still lose a testicle or something. My husband finally mentioned his concerns to our family physician, but the doctor said that he was fine but he recommended that he get counseling for post traumatic stress syndrome. He never did though. Unfortunately, "That Kick" was a very upsetting thing for my husband to have to go through; and it was totally unnecessary……..

Someone in this club had asked if anyone knew the effects that a kick in the groin can have on a guy. Well, here you have it. I hope that this answers your question?

An ironic sidebar to this terrible incident is that several years later Lynn finally was married to a guy who she only knew for a few months. The marriage didn't last long though. The guy that she married was a bodybuilder and, I think, a steroid junkie also. Anyway, the guy started beating her early in the marriage, and for her own safety, she had to leave. One time I asked her, "Why didn't you use your self-defense on him like you did to my husband?" Just like I suspected, she didn't have an answer for me.

In 1996 I took six months of Kempo Karate in a very reputable school. From the very beginning we were being shown strikes directed at all of the vulnerable arias. However, the thing that nobody stopped to tell us about was the different kinds of injuries that we could cause if we actually used these techniques. In effect, the school was sending trained killers out on the street, and without giving them a full understanding of their capabilities. In fact, most of the self-defense literature that I've read is even more irresponsible! These idiots just skip right over the fact that we live in a society governed by the law of the state -- and not the law of the jungle! In light of my own experiences, I can understand why Lynn might have done the thing that she did to my husband. Nobody bothered to educate her………