After the Ambulance Pulls AwayA True Story of Attempting to Save a Life
three years ago
i walked outside of my rather typical
looking office building
on an unusually warm january morning
i look over my shoulder and across the
parking lot is a man
lying on his back with two construction
workers
standing above him one of the
construction workers kind of
leaned down and pushed the man on the
chest and then
gave up i can’t tell you exactly what
happened next but i remember
running to them screaming something
about cpr in 9-1-1
and one of them saying i think he might
still be breathing
i had taken cpr classes in the past but
never did any of that information come
in handy until
that morning bent down and grabbed him
by the wrist
to see if i could find a pulse and
couldn’t
i laid my head on his chest to see if i
could hear him breathing
but couldn’t because my own heart was
beating so fast that was the only sound
i could hear
his eyes were open but rolled towards
the back of his head
i put my hand to his mouth to see if i
could feel breath and couldn’t
and then i placed the palm of my hand on
his sternum
and the other one on top of it and
together i began to push
push so hard that i thought i was going
to break his ribs
as you are supposed to do pushing so
hard on the
chest of a man whose name i didn’t even
know
push push push wait how many of these do
i do before i deliver the two rescue
breasts
push push push is it 30 it is 30 but
how many have i done thus far push push
yeah and i’m supposed to do it like
really fast like to that bg song staying
alive
ha ha staying alive staying alive this
is insane
push push push it’s time to stop and
deliver the two rescue breaths
i put one hand on his forehead and the
other on his chin and i
i tilted his head back so that the
airway would be sure to be open
i opened his mouth to see if i could see
any obstruction in his throat but
couldn’t
then i leaned down i put my lips to his
and i blew
do you ever have those moments where you
touch something and your mind is
instantly transported back
to a memory from long ago
when i put my lips to his his mustache
tickled my face and i was
instantly transported back to when i was
a kid
of five or six years old and we used to
kiss my dad good night before he went to
bed and
his mustache would tickle my face
my dad had passed away about
10 months prior to this due to a massive
stroke
it was my siblings and i that made the
decision
to terminate his life support it’s a
very difficult decision
to end someone’s life
but now here was this man this man who
was about my dad’s age and who
kind of looked like my dad and his
life was in my hands i had a
second chance to maybe save a life
instead of end one and i wasn’t going to
let him
a man whose name i didn’t even know
die
one thing they don’t teach you in cpr
class
is that when you involuntarily force air
into someone’s lungs
the body’s natural reaction is to fight
and it coughs and it spits back in your
face even though
the body is unconscious
and then you have to go back in a second
time to deliver a second rescue breath
and as you do you have to watch the
chest rise
to ensure that air is getting to the
lungs
there’s more coughing and spitting in my
face and it’s back to reality it’s time
to push again
hand over hand right over the breastbone
where the ribs come together
push damn it push push keep count this
time
push push please breathe again please
wake up
push push please dad please wake up dad
is that sirens in the background please
be siren’s dad
wake up please dad push
push do not stop pushing with cycles of
rescue breath
until help arrives
the ambulance came screeching into the
parking lot
and the paramedics jumped out and they
did their chest compressions and they
shocked him twice
with the defibrillator
and they couldn’t get his heart
restarted
they loaded the man into the back of the
ambulance with the two construction
workers and off they sped
and then all of a sudden i was alone
in that parking lot as if nothing
ever happened
i fell to the ground in tears
and i couldn’t stand up i cried for this
stranger
and i cried all over again for my dad
later that day
i went to the closest er
to find out if the man whose name
i didn’t even know had lived or died
it was the same hospital
the same er room that they took my dad
to
during his stroke and in that same
little nurse’s window i was now asking
about the life
of a different man
the nurse asked for his name
i i said i did not know
she said well are you his family
no i’m not
i’m sorry if you’re not his family
there’s nothing i can tell you
please i said
i did cpr on him in the parking lot and
i just want to know if he lived or died
i’m sorry she said i can’t tell you
anything
and then she turned to the nurse next to
her and rather loudly said hey
that cardiac from earlier they took him
to surgery right
we need to call his family
and that was all i knew
i was tore up inside
and i began to obsess about the
survivability of cpr
according to several studies and
information from the american heart
association
40 to 45 percent of persons who receive
out of hospital cpr where a bystander
is the one performing the cpr survive
long enough to get to the hospital
of those 40 only 20
will live to be discharged
of the 20 that live to be discharged 15
to 18 of them will suffer moderate to
severe brain damage from lack of oxygen
and have their lives their mobility
their functionality
negatively impacted
only two to five will ever return
to normal lives
there’s a lot they teach you in cpr
class
about saving lives
there’s a lot they don’t they don’t
teach you what to do
after the ambulance pulls away they
don’t teach you
how to be brave and act like a hero and
not
regret your actions
the few people i told about this told me
i was brave and i was
a hero but i didn’t feel like
any of those things
based on this guy’s very slim chances of
survival
i felt like a failure
and i didn’t even know if he was alive
or dead
if he was alive based on my obsessive
research
he might have had brain damage that
would require a ton of costly medical
care
and what if his family couldn’t live
with that additional burden in his lives
if he did make a full recovery
what if that hospital stay was so
expensive that it drove him to
bankruptcy
if he were alive did he wish
he were dead
there’s a lot they teach you in cpr
class about how to save lives
but how to live with yourself after
trying to save a life
isn’t one of them three months
after that incident without ever
learning
what happened to the man whose name i
didn’t know
i walked back into that rather typical
looking office building
and there he stood upright and alive
he asked if i was ryan
because it turned out i was a stranger
to him too
i said yes and he grabbed me and he put
me in this big bear hug
and he thanked me
he told me that he had learned that i
was the one that had performed cpr on
him
and without that cpr he wouldn’t be
standing here today
it turned out he had a massive blockage
in his heart
and the surgeons were able to quickly
remove it in time
that his heart just started right back
up
he was one of those lucky two to five
percent
the return to a normal life and was
already back to work as a carpenter
if it were you lying on that ground
suffering from cardiac arrest and
knowing what you know
now would you want a stranger to perform
cpr on you
and could you be that stranger
for someone else
the man and i hugged and he thanked me
one more time and i
i finally got to learn his name
thank you