In my early years of teaching middle school, when I was young and stupid, I did. Even in middle school the boys were bigger than me. I got slammed into the locker once, and had a big lock bruise on my back. Another time 2 girls started fighting, I had my knee in one's back and had her on the floor. She started yelling " Bitc%, and I yelled " What??!!!" She said " oh not you, Ms. S !" It was kinda funny afterwards.

The district began to say "IF" you wanted to stop fights it was the teacher's decision, however your medical expenses would not be covered by the district.

Now days in my high school, if a fight starts, all the kids gather around and video it and cheer. It is awful, and the SRA can hardly break thru the kids to stop the fight. Heathens! Thankfully, it is just freshmen, older kids are over it.

DId I say I worked at an urban school?

Only between dogs.

Yes. I poured these guys' beer over their heads when they were fighting in a bar. I got angry with them for ruining my nice evening and lost my usually calm demeanor. It stopped them cold, and wet in their tracks.

Wow Yaya, you not only vastly improved the lives of two children, but you may have even saved their lives! That's amazing.

Only dogs and donkeys.

ladypat1... made the mistake of stepping between 2 8th grade girls. one was teeny and one bigger than me. they were both thrashing around classroom, each with serious grip on the other's HAIR. OH and classmates were cheering. i got seriously whacked on left thumb. got sent to local ER where I sat and sat and sat! finally gave up and left... slightly swollen, B&B thumb that occasionally "clicks". and what happened to the girls that were fighting? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!

was heading into county services building and witnessed a guy (in the least) verbally abusing a girl. she was sitting on a step, cringing and flinching as he was screaming at her. instant assumption... this was not the first time this happened and chances of getting physical were high. i did NOT walk over, but right inside building was police officer (security). he went out. sadly have a feeling whatever he did probably just delayed physical abuse??

Not that I can recall.

But, at a somewhat advanced age ... I've been getting pretty forgetful.

ole joyfuelled

Wow Yaya, that’s an amazing story and I love the ending.

My first husband was extremely abusive and I left him within a year of marrying him. Shortly afterwards while I was riding on a bus, I witnessed a man beating a very young woman in the back. I say young but I was only 19 myself; anyways, all that caged up anger I had felt towards my ex took over and without even thinking, I blindly went after him with so much rage, he didn’t know what hit him. When he was finally able to recind from me, I took the girl to the front of the bus to talk to her. I told her that if she wanted to leave and needed a safe place to stay, she could stay at my house, but the decision had to be hers and final and he couldn’t know where she was. She chose to go back with him, which didn’t surprise me. 38 years later, if I saw a fight now, I’d definitely call the police but depending on the situation I suspect I would probably intervene as well.

anoriginal OH yea, those girl fights go for the hair and clothes. Sounds like permanent damage to your thumb, not good.

Not really. I have, on more occasions than I care to count, taken an animal out of an abuse situation. Once,a group of children(future inmates) were trying to get a tied up pit bull to kill a tiny little white dog. (It didn't, both dogs were friendly) They started throwing rocks at the pit and choking the little one.I walked over there,took the pit bull off the rope, picked up the little dog and walked off. The little delinquent waste of Medicaid who brought the little dog started spewing obscenities at me. I told it that if it wanted the dog back,have your mother come get it so I can tell her how you where treating it. She came and got the dog,not caring at all that her kid was a depraved sicko. People like that just pop out kids for the paycheck. When the owner of the pit came home,I took her back over there and told him what happened. He was very angry, but it didn't stop him from tying her right back up in the same spot.

The next week they were doing the same thing. The neighbors who owned the pit were not home,or else I know they would have called the cops. I called them. Our neighbors at the time were retired from child protective services. I talked to them and they called and had all of her children taken away. When they came to talk to her, all 8 of her brats were home alone with no food or running water. Last I heard they were still not back with her. My boss' daughter is a sheriffs deputy,she made sure the dog was taken away. She knew that address well. The brats were known to cause trouble. And mom was known not to care.

I kind if wish I had just called the cops the first time,rather than have her show up at my house. I had to bleach the porch to get her stench off of it.

When I was in my thirties, I was living in San Francisco. I was walking down Mission Street with my friend when a kid came running past with two other kids in pursuit. They caught up to the first kid and started beating the crap out of him. There were a lot of people on the street but no one was doing anything. My friend and I immediately ran up and grabbed the two thugs and ran them off. We asked the boy if he was ok and he said he was. The adrenaline was really flowing. We said afterwards that we might have gotten hurt if they had any weapons but neither of us could stand by and let it happen. Neither of us has kids so there was no motherly instinct, just pure incense that something like that could happen without someone stopping to help. I'm not strong enough to stop something like that now so I guess I would have to call the police. But I would probably start yelling like crazy to break something up.

A school guard in my town did this last week. And the instigator of the fight then turned on the guard. He was able to call the police and they had a lot of trouble restraining the angry young person. Of course, all the other students were busily videoing the entire situation on their smart phones. Now the school guard is on a paid LOA and is facing possible dismissal from his job, and the minority parents in the school are insisting that all guards be removed from the public schools in the entire district.

These days, it's better to just walk away...

Last one I remember was around 15 or so years ago. I was in a restaurant one night. Bar rush crowd. Two small groups started fighting across tables. Started throwing food and it escalated to punches and an all out brawl. Then they went after the employees, knocking one to the ground. That's when I jumped up and waded in to assist. Pulled one gal off and held her in a wrist lock. Told her I didn't want to hurt her but I wasn't letting her go until she settled down.

What disturbed me most was the reaction of patrons much younger and bigger than me. Most just sat there and almost everyone had phones even though camera phones were not the norm yet. They could have easily dialed 911 but didn't. Sickened me. Even the person with me didn't call. When I asked her why, she said she figured somebody else would. Lost a lot of respect for her that day.

If evenly matched people are fighting it's not my fight to stop. But if people are attacking innocents and underdogs I will step in. Even the near 67 year old lady me. :-)

I was driving by a group of kids that had started pushing another boy. I think they were 4th-5th graders that had been just dropped off by the bus. I honked my horn and rolled down my window and and yelled at them. They stopped and walked on. I knew a parent so I talked to her later. Physical confrontation really isn't my thing.

Not a physical fight, but a verbal one. We had gone out to eat with a couple who were friends of ours. They got into a heated argument. I reached across the table putting my arms between them and said "You have both ruined a perfectly wonderful dinner. Enough is enough. We are leaving and so are you!" That stopped them. We went outside. She cried. I don't know if their argument continued when they got home or not.

To the people who broke up fights between kids, isn’t it sad they don’t respect or even fear adults enough to stop fighting. I’m 1970 I wasn’t afraid of being beaten up by kids. Not now though as everyone pointed out.

Now the people that broke up adult fights. Omg. That takes some cojones. I laugh while reading, but those are some sad situations. I’m glad each of you had the cojones to stop it and risk your life.

Does anyone ever watch that show with John Quiones, What would you do? Sometimes the scenarios they present and the reaction of the people that get involved are pretty interesting.

As a stupid kid about age 12, I tried to break up a fight between two guys definitely older than me (in their mid-teens). Fortunately, the worst that came of it was that one of the guys picked me up, put me on a stone fence, and spat all over me. No idea why I tried to intervene.

sometimes fights are just fights... unnecessary violence. but all to often now, i think a big part of it is getting that ME!ME!ME! attention time? truly sad.