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I’ve often thought about whether I’d choose to be deaf or blind if I was faced with that prospect.
And I think I’d have to choose blindness, even though that would obviously be terrible.
But not being able to hear anything? It just sounds so awful to me.
What’s the last thing you remember hearing before you lost your hearing?
AskReddit users shared their stories.
1. Ouch.
“Only my left ear.
The sound of a baseball being driven into my ear when I was 12.”
2. Weird.
“My hearing atrophied in increments due to a genetic impairment but I have the distinct recollection of the moment my lower frequencies register distorted or my brain’s perceptual capacity to assimilate sound and convert it into coherence and allocate linguistics definitions so I could comprehend.
My brother voice abruptly became imperceptible in a manner that was discombobulating; the cadence of his speech distorted, there were fluctuations in sound and clarity until his voice subsided with intermittent reverberations.
I heard “I asked Mum to say sorr-“ with the last syllable obscured as my ear cannel can be inundated with honey.”
3. Military life.
“Jet engine noise.
I am a USAF vet.”
4. An accident.
“I lost my hearing after I fell down a flight of stairs.
The last thing I heard was literally “oh f**k”.”
5. Scary.
“”This kid’s not breathing ”
Before they took me to the ICU and put me on a respirator.
When I came out of a coma about eight days later I was deaf.”
6. Yikes.
“I lost my hearing in my right ear after and accident. I was knocked out for 3 days, coming back in and out of consciousness.
I had amnesia and then developed minor short term memory loss. The last thing I remember thinking is ‘this is gonna hurt’ and I heard my arm break and my head hit a wooden fence, then I don’t remember anything else.
But yeah, the arm snapping isn’t a sound I’d like to hear again.”
7. Bad situation.
“I lost my hearing in the left ear because of my ab**ive ex.
The last thing I heard was him screaming at me while hitting me so hard that my eardrum broke.”
8. Falling.
“Lost my hearing in my left ear during an accident where I fell 12 ft and fractured my skull.
When I regained consciousness, I instantly realized my hearing was gone.. however, the last thing I ever actually heard was a hearing test in the hospital. I had multiple tests done, but this one was different as instead of the usual beeping sound, it was a full sentence where id have to repeat a word.
The sentence would be something like “Say the word: car” and I’d repeat the word.. first they did that to my good ear, passed.. then the injured ear, I heard the rhythm of the sentence but could not make out any word.. it was unlike anything I’d ever heard.. needless to say, I failed that test as my hearing ability in that ear was dying.
The next time we did the test months later I did not hear the rhythm at all..I remember thinking to my self “that last test I took was the last thing I ever heard.””
9. No more silence.
“I would like to say that silence was the last thing I heard, but the tinnitus came on so gradually that I didn’t notice until it was too late.
I will never hear silence ever again.”
10. The shower.
“The shower running.
It’s called sudden sensorineural hearing loss. My doc said there is often no clear reason why it happens.
Could be damage to the inner ear, or issues with the nerve fibers that send info from the ear to the brain.”
11. Jeez!
“I have pretty substantial hearing loss, the last thing I heard was the soundtrack to Gladiator at about 150 DB.
I was repairing a PA system the the owners son, high as a kite, walked in, cranked it and unmuted it while I was trying to diagnose something.
Was an inch or two away from a massive speaker ate about 2/3rds of my hearing.”
12. Not sure…
“I lost 100% of the hearing in my left ear during a rocket attack in Wardak province back in the day.
Couldn’t tell you for the life of me what the last thing I heard out of that ear was.”
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