I can relate to your submissive friend. I think it is presumptious for those in here to assume she has selfdestructive tendencies and needs help. That may be true.. and you know her, and can probably decide if you think that is true. But without knowing her, just the fact that a scene went wrong does not mean she is the problem.
The most important thing is careful selection of who such a sub plays with. I have almost never safeworded. I have had one occasion where i was seriously hurt, althouth i did not require hospitalazation as your sub did.. and another time, while I was owned by a former master, we were not even playing but he gave me an order and told me to shutup when i asked questions, and only caught himself at the last minute as i went to comply with an order that would have hospitalized me.
Limits are, to say the least, not my strong suit. These are some of the limits that do work for me, within my slaves mindset.
I must be, and feel, listened to and heard. This is important, becuase, having the personality of a slave, i am not likely to push and insist on being heard. If someone i am subbed out to, or someone i have accepted as Master, tells me to shut up and take it, i do. So it is important that i play with someone who is capable of working to hear me.
I feel that my Master owns all of me, and that includes my thoughts and feelings. So communicating with my Master is how I give him access to that part of his property. Not to do so is to deny him his property.
In general, on the rare ( like, 3 or 4 in my lifetime) occasions i have safeworded, it has been for this reason: I am willing to safeword in order to breifly stop a scene in order to tell my Dom something I am not sure he knows. The one time i got seriously hurt I safeworded becuase I did not think that my Top knew that his whip was wrapping around me and hitting me in the kidney. Unfortunatly, He was impatent with the fact that i was crying and that made communication harder, and told me to shut up and take it. He was horrified later when he saw that he had been hitting my kidneys, but if he had taken the time to let me calm down and to listen to me when i safeworded, that would not be a problem.
In both the above cases ( only one did i safeword. the other, we were not in scene, my master at the time gave me an everyday order which i clearly saw was conterindicated by serious medical concerns, but when i tried to question him he told me to shut up, he wouldn't do anything to hurt me) , we are not in either case talking about men who were bad men, bad tops or maybe not even nescarrily bad Doms. But they were never meant to owns slaves.
Your friend is probably a slave, in her personality makeup, in her mindset, and in her heart. That is just a guess, of course, i do not know her.
another limit which worked well for me before finding my lifetime owner, is, 'no marks that are going to last longer than the person inflicting them'. This limit i was able to internallize becuase, as a slave, i felt i was meant to be someonelses property. I did not know who he was yet, but i could see this limit as a matter of preserving his property for him till he was there to claim it.
Again, the most important thing is great care taken in who she plays with. I would suggest that you might offer to mentor her, and to approve her playmates. As her mentor, you should set limits for those who you do allow her to play with. You might even consider insisting on being in the room the first time she plays with someone, so you can safeword for her, if nescarry. My Lord does like us to play with other couples, but he never allows me to play with a Dom without him there, unless it is someone we have played with enough times for him to completely trust him, becuase he knows he can not trust me to safeword.
Thank you for caring enough about a slave to post this thought, and I wish her the best in her search. If she would like another slavehearted woman to talk to, she or you are always welcome to email me at tsatske@earthlink.net.

GdRsDiamond