Do you have one of those stories that was terrible to experience but is actually sort of funny in retrospect?
This is one of those.
It was winter of 2019. I was still living in Florida, which meant the season had little bearing on the weather.
Still, winter mornings were marginally cooler, which was good news for me. I was training for my first (and only) full marathon. Training runs were long and grueling but largely uneventful.
Except this one.
That morning, I was running through a cluster of gated communities on the far side of town. I was about four miles into a sixteen-mile run, and the sun was just coming up.
The air was cool, quiet, and misty. It was early—just after 7:00am—and I'd barely seen anyone out and about. The entire neighborhood seemed asleep, the sound of my shoes scuffing the sidewalk the only noise.
I finished the neighborhood loop, exited the development, and started running along the far side of a nearby lake, the grey haze hovering over the water turning from purple to gold as the sun rose.
That’s when the screaming started.
I’d like to think I’d handle things differently now.
Sitting here on my couch four years later, with a calmer head and a bit more experience under my belt, I’d like to think I would take a more reasonable course of action.
But I don’t really know.
I’m not particularly brave or courageous. But when I think someone’s being harmed, I snap into Protector Mode, and all rational thought flies from my head. I’m left acting on pure instinct.
Which is not always a good thing.
At first, I thought the screaming must be a peacock or a crane. This was Florida, after all. There were plenty of screechy birds around. I mean, have you ever heard the trill of a sandhill crane? It’s terrifying—like something out of Jurassic Park.
Pulling out my headphones, I stopped running and listened. All was quiet. Then it came again—a high, throaty scream wafting across the misty waters from the neighborhood I'd just exited.
This time, I clearly heard words.
"HELP! HELP ME!"
You didn’t have to ask me twice.
I thumbed 911 into my phone and turned, truly running back into the development. The screaming continued at intervals, alternating between high, shrieking wails and continued cries for help.
And then, clear and unmistakably, "HE'S KILLING ME!"
I told dispatch I needed police and attempted to give my location. “Hold on,” I panted, “Let me run to a cross street—someone's screaming—can you hear it?"
Dispatch could not hear it. She likely could only hear me wheezing into the phone as I sprinted around the loop, looking for a street sign.
When I finally reached a cross street, I found the streets were both named the same thing. Ridiculous South Florida city planners!
"Ma'am, are you sure?"
"YES, I'M SURE, I'M STARING RIGHT AT THE SIGNS!"
The dispatch operator wanted me to wait at the gate to the community, but the screams continued, and there was no way I would stand by and listen to this horror continue.
The screams were high—a child's or woman's—and all I could think was that someone was trying to escape a domestic situation in the early morning. I knew the statistics. The thought chilled me to the marrow.
I had no plan. I had not thought that far ahead. But the least I could do was bear witness.
I told the operator I was already halfway back the loop, and I would keep running through the neighborhood to see if I could figure out which house it was.
“Oh,” she said at one point, her tone sharpening. “I hear it now.” She said nothing more, but I felt the shift in the nature of the silence between us. It had become heavy—tense—expectant.
That's when the screaming stopped.
I reached the back of the loop and stood there, panting.
I did not like this.
When the screams picked up again, I realized they were very close. They seemed to be coming from inside or behind one of the houses directly to my left.
I sprinted between houses, yelling, "Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?"
Voices muffled, quieting—then silence.
But I'd figured out where the sounds were coming from. They were coming from the backyard now to my right, the one surrounded by high privacy hedges.
Fueled by a burst of adrenaline, I sprinted toward the hedge and threw myself at the solid wall of shrubbery.
My head and the top half of my torso went bursting through.
Here we go.
I don’t know what I had expected to see, but it wasn’t this.
Two small children splashed in a hot tub.
At the sight of me, half dangling from the hedge, they froze, their little faces bobbing above a cloud of steam, little mouths agape.
"Was that you screaming?" I demanded, eyes darting for danger, my brain struggling to adjust to this new reality.
At this point, they did look terrified—of me.
Oh, no.
I’d done it again.
The children were frozen, their eyes round behind sets of matching swim goggles.
“So that was you screaming,” I confirmed.
“Yes,” the older boy said, meekly. “It was us.”
At this point, a very calm older woman came out onto the back patio. This was their grandmother, who was also named Ruth (because why not), and who—I might add—was super chill about me bursting through her hedges, all sweaty-faced and goggle-eyed.
I’m frankly shocked she didn’t call 911 herself. Perhaps because I assured her I already had them on the line.
She seemed convinced I was just annoyed by the early morning noise. “They’re just playing,” she explained patiently.
“Yes, well,” I said, ignoring the twig poking me in the armpit. “I know that now.”
At that point, I wasn’t sure what to do next.
Step one was to peel myself out of the hedge.
Though this story comes off as ridiculous in the re-telling, and though ultimately there was no real harm done, there are so many ways this could have gone very, very wrong.
As I have already said, I’d like to think I’d handle things differently now.
But in truth, I’m not so sure.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years, it’s that I’m the type who launches herself into the fray before properly engaging critical thinking. The type who sprints toward danger—real or imagined.
In my world, it’s most often imagined.
Sadly, this isn’t the first time I’ve ruined a perfectly good day by imagining myself in a nightmarish scenario.
Remember the time I thought I found a dead body in the woods?