Ok so disclaimer, this isn't ... as derisive or as ... disdianful as something like 'I can't believe I had to explain to a 27 yo that chocolate milk does not come from brown cows' but... here goes:
About a decade ago I went on a movie date with a girl (in an actual theatre, before netflix existed... god maybe it was closer to two decades fuxk)
....30 minutes into the movie, she started going into a diabetic shock.
Before she almost entirely feinted, she told me what was going on, and was freaking out because she could not find her insulin pen in her purse.
She then completely passed out. Totally limp, sliding out of her seat, ragdoll limp.
I started going through the steps of doing a proper fireman carry, but she managed to regain enough consciousness that I could support about 75% of her weight and she and I could sort of stumble out of the theatre into the lobby.
Set her down in the lobby, on the ground, sort of slouched kind of upright against a wall, told a staff member to call 911.
While waiting, I bought the stupidest large sized coke I'd ever purchased, told her to focus on alternating between sipping it, and breathing, while I held her upper body and head so she wouldn't collapse and take her eye out with the straw.
... Within 10 minutes, the ambulance had not yet arrived, but she had moderately regained consciousness and composure.
By the time the ambulance did arrive, we basically all managed to figure out (as she regained more awareness) that she had a backup insulin pen in her car, the EMTs supervised its administration, and after about 45 minutes of observation, they said she was clear to go if I drove her home.
She made that decision with the EMTs, I had stepped back at that point, and I... told her I could drive her to the hospital, but she just wanted to go home, so I drove her home.
... Now, not to make light of her condition in anyway, at all, but...
... a few days later we were chatting and she said that at no point in her life (she'd had early onset diabetes, type 1, been living with it for a while) ...
... at no point had anyone told her or had she realized that a stupidly massive sugary drink does apparently function decently as an emergency, last ditch, make shift sugar boost... when you are in diabetic shock... from a lack of sugar.
I realize you would not want to depend on this method as your main way of handling diabetes (for numerous, numerous reasons), but it baffled me that someone with 10+ years living with diabetes... wouldn't know that?
Like, I know that just gulping down a huge soda potentially could have been too much sugar, but also, the paramedics were on the way, and I wasn't forcing her to drink the whole thing, she got maybe 2/3 of the way through it and had significantly recovered, told me she thought that was enough.
I dunno.
I'd be interested in the opinions of diabetics and people with actual medical knowledge on this.