So, what did YOU do today?

Ok, so I’m not real sure how to do this, but I got suckered into it by my lovely sister, Erin.

What should I talk about? Well, I guess I’ll just talk about my day or whatever comes to mind. It just so happens that I had an eventful day today.

So, today I was driving home from work and I saw this guy standing by the side of the road. It’s about 100 degrees outside and he had his shirt off. I was feeling a bit sad for him, being outside in the heat and me in my comfortable air-conditioned car. I was thinking that where ever he was going was probably far away (‘cause there’s not much along the road I was on) and he most likely had a good long walk ahead of him. As I drove by him, he seemed to waiver a bit and I saw him just drop to the ground. I turned into a parking lot which was close to him and parked as quickly as possible. I jumped out of the car and ran over to him. He was breathing, but really heavily – as though he had just ran a million miles. He wasn’t answering me or responding to me at all. He started to have convulsions or seizures, kicking his legs and shaking all over. I pulled out my cell phone and started to dial 911, when a truck pulled up and honked its horn. I looked up and the passenger in the truck indicated that they were currently calling 911 as well. A quick side note, Bailey and I took CPR/First Aide class very recently, so I was quickly trying to remember what I needed to do, but not really ready to actually do CPR on anything besides the dummy we practiced on. Just then, the guy, I’m guessing he was around 20, stopped breathing. I rolled him over thinking, “ok, this is it what do I do first? Oh yeah, start compressions” when luckily he started the really heavy breathing again. He also would occasionally thrash around and I would just have to make sure that he didn’t hurt himself any further. No kidding, it was as though he was possessed. I’m guessing he was having heat stroke at his point, but I didn’t have anything to give him. After a minute or two, several other cars pulled over as well – they had seen him drop also. I asked if anyone had any water or liquid and someone had a bottle of water in their car. We poured a bit of it on his back (it was lukewarm water – not shocking cold) and that seemed to help him a lot. Someone else had a t-shirt and we got that wet and put it on his neck and face. During the entire time, he would thrash about very violently. He was amazingly strong for being a very skinny guy and he could kick pretty hard. I was able to pull out his wallet and I handed it to the person who was on the phone with 911. He read off his name to the dispatch person and checked his wallet to see if he was diabetic or if he had any medical cards in his wallet. He didn’t. The water we poured on him and put on his head helped, and he eventually started to respond to his name but just barely. Finally the ambulance arrived and at that point he was able to sit up to get onto the stretcher. All of the people who had helped just stood around in shock as he was loaded into the ambulance. Most of the people started to drive off and I looked at the man who had called 911. I recognized him as being the mayor of a close town. I had recently taken my Girl Scout troop to a town meeting to present some cat toys that the Girl Scouts had made for the animal shelter. I explained who I was and we talked for a minute. I made some comment about how easily it is to get heat stroke and he agreed, but then he mentioned that he had found a razor in the guy’s wallet. So, who knows what caused his problem – heat stroke or drug usage.
As I walked back to my car, another woman who had stopped to help pulled over to wave to me – she had three kids in the car. She said that she hoped that he would be ok. We both talked about how if it was our child we certainly hoped that people would stop and help out the way everyone had done. I felt good about the strangers I had seen working together to help this young man. I got back in my car and drove the short distance home. It was good to be home.